UPDATED: Memo to City Council: Sweep aside the mistakes of the past and approve Option #1 of Scribner Place (Phase I) financing.

The New Albany Tribune, our only local newspaper of record, does not publish on Monday. On Tuesday, two days before the most important City Council meeting of the year, the newspaper devoted its front page to a new missing child program, “Seussical” the musical, and whether it is safe to eat Ohio River fish.

Today, belatedly, the Tribune makes an effort to be topical:

City Council to vote on committing $400k to Scribner Place, by Amany Ali, Tribune City Editor.

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Steadily, and with at least some of the uncertainty eased -- perhaps even inexorably – New Albany’s Scribner Place project seems to be emerging from its navigation of the largest expanse of treacherous by-ways native to the local political process.

Along the way, and irrespective of the final financial details necessary to lift it from the architect’s drawing board to bricks and mortar reality, the conceptual nature of the project itself has garnered an impressive array of endorsements throughout the extended community.

Newspapers, politicians, business associations, neighborhood associations, men and women on the street – all have joined together in rare unanimity to publicly support Scribner Place as a crucial first step toward the betterment of Floyd County in general, and downtown New Albany in particular.

In fact, apart from abrasive, noisy, sel-serving but ultimately negligible fear mongering instigated by an anonymous clique of embittered Internet trolls, there has not been any significant opposition to the overall merits of the project itself, at least on the part of those willing to go on the public record with their objections … and their names.

According to our records, 3rd District Councilman Steve Price is the only one to do so, stating at an S. Ellen Jones Neighborhood Association meeting that he is against Scribner Place, period, and considers the money slated for it to be better used elsewhere.

There may be a handful of other opponents we’ve missed, but at least for some, it has been fiendishly difficult to isolate the precise gene denoting sincerity, since they tend to favor a passive/aggressive approach with respect to hedging their bets, along the lines of “I’m for it, even though it’s going to fail in the end, just like anything New Albany does.”

It is a notoriously poor argument -- it really isn't an argument at all, not that this means anything to the functionally illiterate -- but surely it provides the perfect drumbeat of a segue to the Wizard of Westside, 1st District Councilman Dan Coffey, whose presence on any public stage is the unfailing harbinger of riotous farce.

For reasons that remain hazy amid the unchecked, ward-heeling grandstanding that perpetually defines his daily political performance, Councilman Coffey has at various times spoken both for and against Scribner Place, stating last week that it “has to happen,” but at the same time informing the Courier-Journal that he doubts it will do any good in assisting economic development.

And yet, ever attuned to the surreal, the always opportunistic Councilman Coffey first scattered these conflicting signals the way that your dog putters around the yard, diligently marking territory, then immediately scrambled to reposition himself as the second coming of Neville Chamberlain by waving his blank notebook and offering a compromise plan that would “save” Scribner Place in our time by privatizing it before it was built – thus negating its very reason for existence, and doing so before the first nail is struck.

Because nothing from nothing still leaves nothing, Councilman Coffey's plan was politely applauded and subsequently yawned out of the room, freeing him to return to his favored lesiure time activity of Byzantine plotting in preparation for his next political campaign.

Unfortunately, the saga doesn’t end with Councilman Coffey's barbecued bologna.

The 4th District Councilman Larry Kochert also has tried to have his Scribner Place and gut it, too, by claiming to adore the plan, but qualifying his adoration by tying it to support “in kind” from the county government – and, until very late in the game, not divulging the exact size of the annual support check that he expects the county to cut before he climbs down from the fence he’s lovingly built for maximum straddling.

Between Price’s ongoing and blatant sabotage of the interests of his own increasingly progressive district, Councilman Coffey’s transparently self-aggrandizing efforts to wash Scribner Place right out of the city’s hair, and Councilman Kochert’s demure considerations of citywide dowry (say, a couple hundred thousand a year, a half-ton of tangy Capriole goat cheese and a vat or three of that deelish Huber red vino), one might arrive at the conclusion that some among New Albany’s sitting city council are, shall we say, somewhat less that well equipped to lead the city into the 21st century.

Such a conclusion has the saving virtue of complete accuracy, but more importantly, others on the City Council seemingly are ready to lead, and they’re now the ones who must step to the forefront and hasten the process not only of launching the Scribner Place project, but also of doing so according to the financing plan that makes the most sense for residents of all sizes, and finally (if all that weren’t enough) commencing the process of ending the disruptive Reign of Error foisted on the citizens of New Albany by the council’s Gang of Four.

Likewise, Mayor James Garner must come to the assistance of the council's moderates and act in the best interests of the city of New Albany by forcefully occupying his bully pulpit and resolutely urging the adoption of Option #1 of Scribner Place, Phase I financing, which pledges the city's taxing authority as backing for the project, and consequently will result in a significant savings over the lifetime of the bond.

Readers, you already know that NA Confidential differs with those among us who would seek to tie the city’s future to an exceedingly narrow definition of break-even accomplishment, and who remain far too eager to cite the admittedly numerous failures of the past as an all-purpose excuse not to excel here and now.

In the context of the Scribner Place project, the best way to break New Albany’s seemingly perpetual cycle of underachievement is most emphatically not to try and tiptoe past rearguard roadblocks erected by obstructionist Brambleberries both inside and outside the council, and risk settling for a less seaworthy financing plan that only temporarily stands to appease the irrevocably lost voters of a minority opposed to Scribner Place from the beginning, but rather, to expend the necessary political capital to unapologetically smash to bits New Albany’s detestable inferiority complex by opting for the best available plan.

And that is Option #1.

It is neither the Mayor’s plan, nor the YMCA’s plan; neither NA Confidential’s plan nor "concern taxpayer's" plan, neither your plan nor my plan alone, but rather, New Albany’s Plan.

Beginning this Thursday night, it will be time to get to work on a viable future for this city. Let's support those public servants who see the way forward.