City contemplates plans to finance Scribner Place "on its own"; Kochert's "fair share" to join "Coffey Plan" in history's dustbin.

New Albany may build Scribner Place on its own, by Ben Zion Hershberg of the Courier-Journal (short shelf life for C-J links).

Excerpts:

New Albany will make plans to finance Scribner Place on its own if Floyd County government continues to balk at participating in the downtown project, city officials said yesterday …

… “We want to keep it moving,” (Mayor James) Garner said …

… Jeff Gahan, president of the City Council, said he believes a majority of the nine-member panel will support financing for Scribner Place even if the city has to go it alone. But city officials would appreciate any help county government can provide, Gahan said.

Indeed, Councilman Gahan aptly frames the issue.

Appropriately, rebuttal column inches are provided to 1st District Councilman Dan “Wizard of Westside” Coffey, who reprises the immortal Hee-Haw “gloom, despair and agony on us,” lyric, and the 4th District’s “Slippery Larry” Kochert, who repeats that he is inalterably opposed to what he’s clearly for unless the people he detests come forward with a love offering like the ones at Mullah Goebel’s anti-porn church.

Meanwhile, looking beyond the increasingly tiresome grandstanding staged by these "old pro" politicos (have we noted that 2nd District Councilman Bill Schmidt, a member of the Caesar's Foundation Board of Directors, abstained during the July 7 Scribner Place vote? We did?), NA Confidential reiterates its appreciation for the existence of progressive thinkers wherever they happen to live, whether in the city or in the county, and insofar as some of them occupy elected office in Floyd County, we also appreciate their consideration and support when it comes to the Scribner Place project.

Fortunately for the future of this city, consideration and support from our brethren in the county need not be measured by Larry Kochert’s arbitrary “fair share” doctrine, especially his use of it as a bludgeon for the extraction of tribute, not as a tool to further dialogue.

While his stance remains profoundly embarrassing to city residents, Kochert is only one of nine votes on the council.

It is clear that the city of New Albany should immediately proceed on its own to finance the Scribner Place project, because the project is a vital component of downtown economic revitalization, and should in no way be held hostage to the lingering effects of a decades-long city-county conceptual divide, one that our council Gang of Four apparently wishes to see widened, not eliminated.

As CM Coffey once noted, it’s “simple.”

Shall we sacrifice $20 million in assistance from the Caesar’s Foundation for the sake of $135,000 of EDIT funds, a percentage of which is still likely to come from the county? Or do we use what we have, and get on with it?

Mayor Garner and the Scribner Place project’s supporters on the City Council have a mandate to get on with it.

In turn, we must support them as they do so.