UPDATED: Big Party in Tiny Town – NA’s lunatic fringe shifts focus to the best garbage pick-up bid, while retaining its monopoly on fatuousness.

Wednesday morning city council updates:

Coverage from Volunteer Hoosier:
Report: City Council Special Meeting, by Randy Smith.

Coverage from the Courier-Journal:
Lawyers to review sanitation plan; New Albany mayor wants privatization, by Ben Zion Hershberg (short shelf life on C-J links).

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The worst team in the history of baseball, the 1962 New York Mets, managed to win 25% of its games.

In like fashion, every ward-heeling demagogue reeling from a steady series of crushing defeats, who sees his political future turning ever cloudier, eventually has his day. So it is that at this evening’s special gathering of the New Albany City Council, it would appear that CM Dan Coffey finally succeeded in forcing an investigation into something.

An investigation into what naturally matters far less than winning a round for the first time in recent memory, so we’ll be good sports even if he isn't and congratulate the councilman in taking the first step toward bringing his imaginary city hall ogres to heel.

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For those just tuning in to this latest chapter in the struggle for New Albany’s future, we should note that conspiracy theories, class-induced constipation and simple, unvarnished envy constitute the lifeblood of the city’s “no progress at any price” faction of unreconstructed Luddites, who look to people like Dan Coffey for unscrupulous populist leadership in the same way that hormonal lemmings make for sheer face of the nearest cliff.

Appropriately, as this most recent demonstration of shameless, irony-free political grandstanding drew to a close, New Albany’s “little people” immediately took to the streets in a spontaneous demonstration of wee joy and small fervor, pouring gaily onto the plaza in the shadows of daisies, skinny-dipping in birdbaths, and drinking enough chilled thimbles of Regressive Grog to float a pencil -- and afterward, doze atop a discarded Big Buford wrapper.

Meanwhile, at this morning’s Board of Public Works meeting, city attorney
Shane Gibson explained the process of bidding with respect to the selection of a waste disposal “partner” for the public/private sanitation deal proposed by the Mayor, and said there was “no illegality in the process,” and that “the argument (alleging illegality) is absolutely ridiculous and false.”

Well, there you have it.

Take it away, investigators, and take it from us – it was Elvis on the grassy knoll.

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Last week, during a casual discussion of the Great Sanitation Debate of ’05, one of my customers commented that many people favor municipal garbage service because they’re leery of mafia-owned sanitation companies.

This seemed rather extreme to me, at least until I made a quick, simple Google search that yielded dozens of hits on the topic of the mob and its traditional relationship with trash hauling entities.

Which isn’t to suggest that Industrial Disposal or other companies making bids on New Albany’s sanitation contract have mob connections, but merely to point out that each of us carries a randomly loaded database of convenient cultural references and flagged markers like this one, gleaned from our own experience, but also from each movie and television show we’ve watched, book we’ve read, and conversation we’ve enjoyed.

Anyway, who needs the Sopranos if you already have “Giovanni” Mattingly?

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Earlier today, we indulged in a bit of blog-borne tweaking for the sake of drawing attention to an egregious instance of filth in the neighborhood.

See UPDATED: CM Mark Seabrook sees this scene every day ...

The long-suffering couple residing adjacent to this sore thumb of a poster-house for effective ordinance enforcement had taken the case to the city council on two previous occasions, with no action forthcoming, and decided today to bring their photos and facts to the Board of Public Works.

Along with NA Confidential, they were more than a tad chagrined at the contradictory manner by which Councilman Mark Seabrook publicly acknowledged their ongoing problem (“I drive past it every day on the way to work”) at the last council meeting before promising to abstain on the appointment of an ordinance enforcement officer, thus abetting the political mirror-gazing of council colleagues Dan Coffey, Bill Schmidt, Larry Kochert and Steve Price.

See Profiles in abject and supremely petty moral cowardice: CMs Coffey, Schmidt, Price & Kochert publicly urinate on code enforcement in NA.

It so happens that CM Price, himself a discerning purveyor of rental housing, is councilman for the 3rd District, where the rapidly disintegrating house in question is located.

Not unsurprisingly, CM Price was not in attendance this morning at the public works meeting, but his long-serving predecessor, Maury Goldberg, sat with the neighbors, offered support, and later spoke rather forcefully on behalf of ordinance enforcement, presenting numerous examples of derelict buildings and unkempt properties, and urging that something be done even if an ordinance enforcement officer has not been approved.

Maury also attended tonight’s County Council hearing on Scribner Place, and by stating firm support for the project, as well as an understanding of the cooperation required to achieve it, displayed a good grasp of the issues that actually matter to the 3rd District.

What a refreshing alternative to the ritualistic daily embarrassment meted out in a dirge-like cadence by the sitting councilman, whose “no Price for any progress” platform is a an insulting provocation to the city’s most progressive district.

See also City Council members calling sanitation bidding process into question, by Amany Ali, Tribune City Editor (9 August edition).