All Chris is saying, is give James a chance

It may have taken far more time than necessary, but hitherto unpredicted planetary realignment has produced two unexpected bonuses for New Albany.

The sun is out for the very first time in 2005, and the New Albany Tribune’s managing editor, Chris Morris, has editorialized about something more important than sports.

I’m ecstatically happy about both events, and shortly will adjourn to the great outdoors to enjoy a bicycle ride.

Before that, let’s consider Chris’s viewpoint. He asks: “So you want to be mayor?”, and answers: “You’d better think again.”

Chris begins by expressing surprise at the “pounding” being absorbed by New Albany’s first-term mayor, James Garner, noting that the current mayor’s “every move … has been scrutinized.”

In an effort to understand why, Chris observes that Garner has committed “public relations mistakes,” which include “the ongoing mess with the building commissioner … (incurred) early on … (and a) problem (that) should have probably been dealt with sooner than it was.”

Compounding his first public relations mistake, Garner subsequently “demoted housing inspector Steve Broadus to part-time.” Later, Broadus’s firing from his job of 18 years “caused a huge uproar among some elected officials and others in the community.”

Chris asks: “Was it (the furor) justified? That was up to the mayor to decide. I don’t know enough about the situation to know whether it was or wasn’t. I just know it caused a public relations nightmare.”

But that’s not all. Mayor Garner’s “third problem is with the City Council,” where he has “only a few allies” in spite of the council being 8/9 Democrat, and where disagreements “have become personal.”

Chris Morris’s verdict is in keeping with his genuinely good-natured demeanor and unwillingness to offend:

“There is no way you can judge this mayor, or any public official, in one year.”

Mayor Garner, who has a “good heart,” will grow and become a “better administrator.” He has “the knowledge and he has the hometown roots. He knows how special New Albany is, and can be.”

Furthermore, politicians who are so eager “to jump on him for every little thing” should “look in the mirror and ask themselves if their actions are to make New Albany better, or to make James Garner look bad.”

The City Council needs to understand that “they are working for us, the citizens.”

In short: “Give him a chance.”

NA Confidential is glad that Chris Morris has contributed to the dialogue with respect to New Albany’s widening political impasse.

But one passage bears repeating:

“Was it (the furor) justified? That was up to the mayor to decide. I don’t know enough about the situation to know whether it was or wasn’t. I just know it caused a public relations nightmare.”

NA Confidential pleads with the Tribune’s Chris Morris to see the self-incriminating incongruity in the preceding.

It is one thing for an ordinary citizen to be unaware of the motivations and justifications underlying the actions of public officials who, by Chris’s own admission, work not for themselves, but for the citizen.

Regrettably, it is something else entirely for the managing editor of a newspaper to cite ignorance in such matters, because the very concept of a newspaper in our society is to find out why the situation occurred and to inform the citizens of the motivations and justifications.

In essence, the only job of a newspaper is to know, and for Chris to concede that he doesn’t know is for Chris to concede that the newspaper he manages has not done its job.

Perhaps a City Editor less concerned with being liked and more prepared to ask questions would provide a start.

Beyond that, Chris fairly opines that James Garner has three years remaining for the conversion of second chance opportunities, and to show that he “was a good mayor.”

The central question remains whether New Albany can afford three more years of botched first opportunities, not in the dire sense that the city won’t survive 36 more months of its decades-long torpor, but that the continued forfeiture of promising starting points on account of an administrative learning curve that shows no immediate signs of shortening exponentially impedes progress that we absolutely must make to improve the quality of life in the city.

The best current example of this is the mayor’s pouting, ham-fisted stubbornness on the topic of ordinance enforcement, which if aggressively implemented will provide a tool for existing neighborhood groups to initiate the transformation of New Albany’s housing stock from slumlord haven into potential lure for the type of tax-base-expanding residents we need.

NA Confidential might suggest that the sum of Garner’s “leadership” on the matter of ordinance enforcement would fit comfortably in one corner of a thimble, but there’s little to be gained from unfairly associating the thimble with the dribble.

Ironically, had Chris attended the last City Council meeting, he would have seen members of the public reminding Garner that the mayor works for the citizens, not for himself. Apparently there are members of the community who recognize that there comes a time when seemingly random “public relations mistakes” begin to suggest a pattern, one that goes beyond what Chris correctly identifies as “personal” disputes with city councilmen, to obvious defects of logistical mechanics and conceptual aptitude.

Consequently, NA Confidential challenges Chris and the Tribune to examine relevant premises.

Does the position of mayor exclusively revolve around efficiently administering services like garbage pick-up, or is there a grander element to the job, one that surpasses pandering and instead embraces creativity, vision, and the manner of leadership that elevates, not just maintains?

Aren’t the latter qualities those that preface progress, widen the tax base, increase prosperity, and make life better for all of us?

How many years must we wait for it?

Chris, tell me: How long before we move forward in New Albany? The bus isn't going to drive itself, is it?

Chris Morris’s editorial today is a welcome sign that the Tribune has taken notice.

However, we must reserve judgment until the newspaper displays evidence of sustained involvement and not the shorter attention span for which it so often is prone.