Courier-Journal says: "Change in sanitation legal."

Lapping the absentee Tribune, today's Courier-Journal reports:

The way apparently has been cleared for New Albany Mayor James Garner to proceed with his plan to privatize the city's sanitation department.

Change in sanitation legal, say attorneys; New Albany mayor plans to hire private trash hauler, by Ben Zion Hershberg, bhershberg@courier-journal.com (short shelf life for C-J links).

The C-J’s Hershberg continues:

Lawyers for Garner and the City Council agreed this week that the mayor is within his authority in negotiating a contract with a private garbage-hauling company.

But, as always, there’s darkness on the horizon:

His union will file suit against the city if it completes the contract with Industrial Disposal, (union president Mickey) Thompson said. He said it doesn't believe Garner followed state requirements for privatizing, and he thinks Garner failed to negotiate in good faith when he completed a new contract with the union last month without saying that he planned to privatize.

Naturally, the scenario would not be complete without vaudevillian grandstanding by our local legislative body’s most consistently dim bulb:

Councilman Dan Coffey said he plans to propose an ordinance at the next council meeting that would make the sanitation department's budget a part of the city's general fund, removing it from the sewer board budget.

That would require budget cuts in other departments, Coffey said, but would keep sanitation a part of city government, as the public wants. He said he doesn't know yet how much support the ordinance will get from other council members.

Perhaps CM Coffey and his “no progress at any price” obstructionists on the council might donate their yearly “discretionary” district income to the sanitation bail-out.

Surely the council also possesses some form of travel stipend that could be thrown into the pot.

Of course, the 3rd District’s Steve Price remains diligently on the hunt for nickels and dimes, this morning joining the bemused catfish for a stroll on the bottom of Silver Creek.