Monday night's City Council meeting: “24 eyeballs are better than 4 or 6,” but only if they’re properly cooked

With its most difficult agenda item, the Scribner Place funding mechanism, at rest until July, the City Council’s attention last evening was diverted to more common business matters, such as street repairs, and generally non-contentious, rubber-stamp ordinance amendment approvals.

With an almost palpable sense of relief, the council performed well in this less stressful atmosphere, even managing good-natured laughter when Councilman Larry Kochert reported on the cost to the city of a “stripper” – in this case, a paving machine of some sort and not the sort of job description to arouse the ire of the Mullah Goebel.

The meeting wasn’t always smooth, and it was not without an occasional glitch -- it simply wouldn’t seem right if Councilman Dan Coffey didn’t throw a red-faced tantrum by evening’s end, and this he duly contributed over the unexpected topic of the patio home development at State Street and Kenzig Road -- but all in all, our elected officials toned down the rhetoric and went about their tasks with determination.

At the same time, there can be no doubt that the 2007 election season has started in earnest, with much of what was said and done on Monday capable of being interpreted by means of the hoary “local politics” playbook.

This fact alone might begin to explain the bizarre charm offensive undertaken of late by CM Coffey, who began repositioning himself as a conciliator during the last council meeting, and continued in this mode last evening, going so far as to say aloud, “things have gotten too factionalized … the council and the administration have got to work together.”

Somewhere in space, the pot and the kettle glanced at each other with raised eyebrows.

CM Coffey also was involved, if only during the coda, in the night’s opening salvo of shamelessly scripted drama, this being brought to the stage by muckraking local businesswoman Valla Ann Bolovschak, whose cries of conspiracy and calls for an investigation into financial malfeasance had thrown the previous council meeting into an uproar, and led to an understandably firm public counter-shove on the part of City Hall.

Ms. Bolovshak’s fans, those calling themselves the “little people,” were out in force. They call her “Valla Ann,” and look reverentially to her as nothing less than a crusading savior, dropped providentially into New Albany to defend them against corruption, taxes, the West Nile virus and all-purpose meanies.

Thus beguiled by her telegenic, folksy charms, perhaps her more ardent admirers haven’t taken note of the tightly focused, barely concealed ambition that lies just beneath the patrician’s ermine surface, a quality without which her previous success as a real estate mogul and her current status as thriving bed & breakfast owner would be unlikely.

We admire Valla Ann, too, but prefer to see her imaginative public displays for what they are, not what the “little people,” in their inchoate desperation, imagine them to be, and in the case of the two most recent city council meetings, her messages should be understood as intricately coded political theater – by their very design expressly intended for rejection, then to be revived at such a time as useful to comprise the central themes of a future electoral danse macabre.

Will Valla Ann’s campaign ads be culled from miles of skillfully manipulated videotape that she has purchased, and owns outright?

Valla Ann began her personal evening on the brink by cajoling the council’s president, Jeff Gahan, into providing her with exactly “eleven and a half minutes” (as opposed to the customary five) in which to read a prepared manifesto, which included multitudinous and arcane references to parliamentary procedure, random insinuations of administration corruption, frequent demands that the council ask “pertinent questions,” not “give in to pressure” and “grab that can opener” to investigate, and for good measure, attacks on the local media for misquoting her.

As she was being gaveled away by President Gahan, CM Coffey interjected -- and things got strange.

He, too, had spoken with the estimable Mr. Stroud, eminence grise of Indiana civic accounting principles, and according to that infallible procedural spokesman, city controller Kay Garry had in fact done nothing wrong, and certainly nothing meriting Valla Ann’s insistence on an investigation:

Coffey said, “What she did … there was nothing illegal about it.”

There was a pause, then Valla Ann replied to Coffey, offering that aside from this specific instance of purported graft, “don’t you want to know what’s been happening the last year and a half?”

“Yes,” Coffey responded, after brief consideration. “I do want to know, but we can work it out ourselves, as opposed to a confrontation.”

The other council members either nodded politely at Valla Ann or continued staring at sheets of their doodling paper, and her previously magisterial performance ended ineffectually, with a whimper, not a bang – the transcript now awaiting a future Capra-esque rewrite necessary to render it similar in scope to Jimmy Stewart’s “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” and suitable to appear positively Shakespearean to the downcast ears of the unreconstructed Brambleberry sect.

It was noteworthy, then, that when it came time for Mayor James Garner to speak, he did so with admirable brevity and substantial authority: No access to the city’s books has been restricted, and a review at any time by any one, including the state, is welcomed, but “we have a problem with a witch hunt,” and with groundless accusations of wrongdoing.

Furthermore, the forthcoming Scribner Place funding debate is “not a battleground” at all, as has been described by various quarters. Rather, three options have been offered, one of which has a property tax backup mechanism. It will be the council’s choice to select an option.

Simple as that; see you in July.

Having mercifully opted for silence throughout the evening, the 3rd District Councilman Steve Price finally spoke at the conclusion of Mayor Garner’s comments.

Somewhat disjointedly, CM Price began in his trademark drawling whine, “We didn’t accuse anyone of wrongdoing … everyone should have the right to ask … what about you saying that (councilman) Bill Schmidt is behind it and all …”

Mayor Garner responded to CM Price that as always, the controller would be there to answer any questions, but to reiterate, there’d been no illegal activities like the ones City Hall was accused by some of committing.

Forechecked, CM Price meandered back onto the ice:

“Well, I’ve been accused of things, too, by the rumor mills, and if you want to go there …”

Mayor Garner rhetorically slammed the dazed councilman into the boards, and ended the discussion, with this rejoinder: “I’m not going there.”

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For insightful consideration of the drainage debate that occurred at last evening’s meeting, proceed immediately to Volunteer Hoosier and A Will Rogers Moment.

Also, read Street cave-in exposes problem; New Albany drain fund has lapsed, by Ben Zion Hershberg of the Courier-Journal (limited shelf life for C-J links).

The Tribune ties up the loose ends in Council transfers EDIT funds to help with city operations, by Amany Ali, Tribune City Editor.