UPDATED: The Trib's Chris Morris asks and answers a vital question

In what may be the strongest writing from him that I’ve personally read, Tribune Managing Editor Chris Morris uses today's top editorial slot to take the City Council and the entire city government to task for inexplicably linking sanitation and Scribner Place and then failing to make headway on either, boldly asking What is wrong with the City of New Albany?

Unfortunately, the Tribune doesn’t make their editorials available online.

Lamenting the abhorrent behavior that’s become the de facto modus operandi of the Council and worrying that it may very well cost the city it’s generous Caesars gift if dirt isn’t turned soon on the Scribner Place site, Morris rightfully points out the lack of progress inherent in such derision and simply asks the Council, “What is the plan?”

An excerpt:

So far, the City Council members haven’t come up with an alternative plan. Some council members can yell and scream and call the mayor incompetent and insensitive, but where do we go from here? If there is an alternative plan, let’s see it in print. How can we make the sanitation department profitable, and keep all of the employees happy? Why can’t the mayor and City Council work together, instead of always working against one another?

Police and fire protection take up a large portion of the city’s budget and there is no way we can cut either one of those departments. Health insurance and gasoline costs continue to skyrocket which also eats away at the budget.

So what is the plan?

Council members need to put personal agendas aside, and focus on the problem. Yelling back and forth at a public meeting is not going to solve anything. This is a real financial crisis, and it needs to be solved. These people, along with the mayor, were elected to solve problems. If the council doesn’t like the mayor’s solution, they need to come up with a usable plan so both sides can begin comparing notes and solve the problem.

Kudos, Chris.

Mr. Morris has brought a decades-long New Albany problem to the attention of readers. As has been well documented by NAC, the choice in New Albany is all too often between small steps toward progress and, in simplest terms, nothing.

Like it or not, the Mayor has done his job and offered a workable solution to a problem that’s plagued the city for years. The City Council, despite the predictable yet utterly fruitless reactionary grandstanding of Dan Coffey and gang, has yet to bring anything to the table that helps the sanitation workers or the city at large, let alone both.

If you’re not helping either constituency, whom are you helping beside yourself?

* For the entire editorial and insightful analysis, see Volunteer Hoosier's Fair Use