ASK THE BORED: With this amazing new invention, you can stripe your own parking spaces!

This week we'll learn how one of these can help when it comes to DYI projects. First, a refresher course.

New Albany's Board of Public Works and Safety exists because the State of Indiana says so.

IC 36-4-9-5

Board of public works and safety; establishment

Sec. 5. (a) A board of public works and safety is established in

each city.

(b) Notwithstanding subsection (a), the legislative body of a

second class city may by ordinance establish as separate boards:

(1) a board of public works; and

(2) a board of public safety;

to perform the functions of the board of public works and safety.

As added by Acts 1980, P.L.212, SEC.3.

As for what the board is supposed to do, you can visit the American Legal Publishing site, search "Board of Public Works and Safety," and sift through various powers accorded the board over the decades by dint of ordinance.

Exactly how much power does our Board of Public Works and Safety possess?

If Jeff Gahan were to stray from the protection of his Down Low Bunker and comment, no doubt he would assert that the board has just the power it needs. He handpicked it, and he's perfectly content to see his program implemented by non-elected boards, as opposed to elected officials.

According to Dan Coffey, the answer is "too much." At the city council meeting back on June 6, Coffey proposed that our council, as a body made up of elected members, should take back authority ceded to non-elected boards. The Board of Public Works and Safety may be established by state, not city, and it may be appointed by mayor, not council, but the board's powers appear to derive from the legislative body.

I mention all this as prelude to this week's installment of ASK THE BORED, wherein we analyze BOW's accumulated record as arbiter of myriad conditions that impact the lives of citizens, as recorded at 10:00 a.m. meetings each Tuesday morning, when John Q. Public is at work.

Last week, it was revealed that if the city has put as much thought into Breakwater parking as it did the water park, we're in for yet another purely dysfunctional treat.

It would appear that Dr. Sisk decided not to "wait and see."

By the way, are those one-way bricks, or two-way bricks?