Part 2 of 4.
NA Confidential believes that CM Dan Coffey, while indisputably eligible for the post of city council president by virtue of a measurable pulse, is fundamentally unsuited for this position of visibility and responsibility, owing to what Thomas Jefferson once referred to as a “long train of abuses and usurpations,” ones that we have assiduously documented throughout 2005.
We propose to emulate Jefferson’s method of presentation by listing these examples of unsuitability, organized quarterly and in chronological order, as we have reported them here.
The viewpoints expressed in this series are entirely ours, and all quoted passages in the series were written by The New Albanian, unless otherwise attributed.
Unfortunately, many hyperlinks to local media sources have become broken during the months since the original publication dates, and while this is infuriating from an archivist's perspective -- the Courier-Journal's inconsistent articles-for-pay policy and the Tribune's web site revamp are to blame -- it simply can’t be helped.
As always, and subject to NA Confidential's procedures, reader comments are welcomed.
April 4: UPDATED: A dynamic (hot) Air Supply reunion at Monday night's City Council meeting.
Judging from tonight's council meeting, and with a long grace period behind him, it must now be said that our 3rd District Councilman Steve Price is not only gaffe-ridden and abjectly confused. Politically, he is becoming an embarrassment to the district.
Taking Price in tandem as Tweedledee to Dan "Wizard of Westside" Coffey's Tweededum, or as Charlie McCarthy or Mortimer Snerd to Coffey's Edgar Bergen -- and given the sad propensity of both Price and Coffey to admire the dulcet tones of their own voices for periods of time far longer than that required for Hannibal to march elephants over the Alps -- I am quite frankly apologetic for ever having castigated Mayor James Garner for his periodic difficulties in communicating.
It would seem that Mayor Garner at least knows when not to speak, and that even if his words aren't always ideal, he at least knows the material.
Price can lay claim to neither of these virtues, and to make his performance even more unfortunate, he refrains from butchering the syntax only when Coffey pauses to take a drink of water.
Tonight's dispiriting performance by a self-aggrandizing ward heeler obsessed with locked public park toilets (Coffey), and his fawning 3rd District acolyte Price ("we won't get no riverboat money") serves to remind us of how far we must travel before genuine change takes root and grows.
April 5: Campaign slogans we'd like to see.
Coffey for Mayor in '07: "You trusted him with the keys to the public toilet … now trust him with the keys to the city.”
April 17: The time is now for New Albany's Constituency for Progress.
Decades pass. Our worthiest sons and daughters – the bright, capable and eager future leaders of the city – get away from New Albany as fast as they can, far away from institutionalized slum lord debasement not just tolerated but welcomed over a period of four or more decades, away from the overcrowded and trashy Harvest Homecoming that is our sole and only claim to infamy, away from a place where any good idea, any sign of intelligent life, any revolt against the lumpy mashed potato norm is dismissed and derided as craziness emanating from a book-reading, un-American faggot who can just move the hell out if he or she doesn't like it here ...
... Remember, we’re looking for something that can be achieved empirically at a fundamental level of everyday life throughout the city, something that can be measured and quantified, and something that can unite those of like mind.
And, punish those opposed. If this elusive “something” also costs our current crop of politicians votes, then that’s even better.
April 18: City Councilman Cappuccino speaks with NA Confidential.
NAC: The rule of law?
CC: (Exasperated) Law, schmaw. No, VOTES! Can’t live with ‘em when they’re cast by those hoity toity East Enders, and can’t live without ‘em if they’re my neighbors on the West Side! They don’t call me the Wizard for nothing, you know. At the same time, my world-famous barbecued bologna cookouts only go so far, and at some point, you have to earn the respect of your constituents, and one great way to do that is to protect them from the heat.
NAC: Mr. Cappuccino, what were your thoughts last year when the city of New Albany began enforcing the right of way for street sweeping?
DC: Quite frankly, it was a blatant attack on our cherished West End way of life – family, church, iced tea, NASCAR and the ice cream social, all under siege by the Silver Hills elite and the book-readin’ snobs. You know, I’d call it discrimination, maybe even genocide … if I knew what genocide meant …
April 22: This just in: Council's Coffey announces Anschluss with city's 3rd District, appoints Price as property manager, announces "drainage in our time"
Abruptly at 8:02 p.m., Coffey jauntily announced his contempt for the principles of teamwork, piously intoning that he hadn’t bothered attending Tuesday’s city budget work session because unidentified officials refuse to let him have “all the pieces to the puzzle.”
Not that he wouldn’t find them on his own, mind you, and of course he will manage to do so, against all the odds …
... You could almost hear the public toilet keys jangling in Coffey’s pocket.
As is customary, Coffey’s bravura performance satisfied all the requirements of his favored brand of reactionary retro chic: Ward heeler, demagogue, and populist savior of the downtrodden suffering at the hands of the (fill in the blank) conspiracy.
Coffey’s council persona is calculated to baffle and intimidate his less experienced legislative brethren, and to play to the folks in Coffey’s home district, who after all is said and done must remain somehow “oppressed” if the Wizard is to retain a viable political pulse.
However, as was convincingly demonstrated in the recent Democratic leadership contest when his bid for party secretary was crushed, Coffey’s citywide appeal is considerably less universal than the adoration within his fiefdom.
Unfortunately for Coffey, this situation is a serious impediment to the aspirations of a small-time neighborhood politico who craves power not because he is capable of offering the slightest glimpse as to the future direction of the city of New Albany, or can truly grasp the Freudian nature of recurring drainage obsessions, but because he seeks to perpetuate each and every discredited local stereotype by sticking it to the uppity book readers, the snotty degree holders, the pie-in-the-sky progressives, and most importantly, those people from all walks of life who are too preoccupied with their lives to pay sufficient attention to the political theater that is Dan Coffey.
Accordingly, to wreak his preferred style of self-aggrandizing havoc outside the boundaries of the 1st District, Coffey needs strategic allies on the council. And, in the time-honored fashion, such allies need not agree on every individual point just so long as they unite on shared central issues, which in the case of the current City Council is that espoused by the faction inhabited by Coffey, which opposes virtually every activity undertaken by City Hall and the person of Mayor James Garner.
May 1: "No progress at any price" faction may use New Albany's budget crisis as an excuse to target Scribner Place.
Specifically, in her article, the ‘Bune’s Lowry notes that “council member Dan Coffey suggests that the Scribner Place project be put on hold.”
The city’s contribution to the Scribner Place project is coming in the form of land acquisition, preparation and infrastructure, and this is the money (for this year and next) referred to by Councilman Coffey.
Wear knee-high boots if you have them, because Coffey’s linking of the budget crisis with Scribner Place is an obvious signal that potentially divisive public grandstanding is about to occur.
As the perpetual ward-heeling politico who lacks vision the way that albino mice lack pigment, Coffey probably intends to glad-hand the city’s depressingly morose “no progress at any price” faction by arguing that the city’s budget cuts provide “proof” that thinking in the future tense is mistaken.
May 2: UPDATED: Open thread: What did you think of the City Council's performance tonight?
What was the single most annoying moment of the evening?
Mine would have to be Councilman Cappuccino ... er, Coffey's response to the statement of Greg Roberts, who had praised Councilman Donnie Blevins for being of service during Saturday's Clean Up New Albany work day.
Coffey felt compelled to point out that his fawning acolyte, Steve Price, had been out there working along with all the others, and had in fact paid out of his own pocket for people to help clean the streets ... and, to Coffey, Price's dispensing of cash was more impressive than someone (i.e., Blevins) who was on the clock in his role as sanitation department superintendent.
As Coffey proved that he is far more than a demagogue (he's a playground bully, too), and Price made sounds like a lowing calf, we were reminded of the early M*A*S*H episodes, when Margaret Houlihan would defend Frank Burns while the camp rolled its collective eyes.
May 3: Fly on the wall, gnat in "Comments": NAC listens as Citizen Huckleberry slurs Southern Indiana United Soccer Club.
Citizen Huckleberry speaks for that segment of New Albany’s population that considers themselves to be besieged on all sides by strange outsiders who want to make the city a better place to live, work, and raise children … and, recoiling from the prospect of a well-adjusted and productive social order, they chant the words of the Grinch with a certain nostalgic fondness:
“I must stop this whole thing! Why, for fifty-three years I've put up with it now. I must stop (it) from coming ... but how?
He has a perfect right to continue speaking, and he no doubt will do so irrespective of NA Confidential’s or anyone else’s opinion on the matter, but it is important for those of us who believe in the power of ideas and the possibilities afforded by an intelligent future to understand that not all of our brethren agree, and they -- like Citizen Huckleberry, Councilman Cappuccino and Li’l Stevie, they are prepared to fight ... to obstruct progress.
May 4: An evening on the brink: Tragicomic opera courtesy of NA's Siamese councilmen.
Q: Mr. Cappuccino, how many audits will be needed before you can remember what you missed during your previous term on the council?
A: Why, it's obvious, son - cut Scribner Place!
1st District councilman Dan Coffey plays the game of ward politics like Liberace played the grand piano, with a costumed, grandiloquent bravado so transparently obvious as to submerge any notion of subtlety or restraint beneath a positively Nixonian tsunami of rampant insecurity and malignant overcompensation.
If you were to encounter a piranha on the street, and the carnivorous fish proffers his fin and tells you he’s given up meat for Lent, the ensuing skepticism necessary to protect you against losing a digit or two would be no match for the wave of audible chortling that filled the third-floor meeting room of the City-County building Monday evening when Coffey again skillfully evaded even the remotest sense of irony and kept a straight, if reddened, face while denying any interest in “playing politics” during a heated discussion over Mayor James Garner’s general fund repair plan.
If Coffey could somehow muster just a fraction of Liberace’s deft touch at high camp, the incident might be laughed off as a harmlessly small-town politico objecting to the sun’s habit of rising in the East, but unfortunately a steady diet of barbecued bologna has been known to starve the body of the vitamins it needs to behave responsibly at times of crisis, and so the Wizard of Westside continues to hector, bloviate, bully and grandstand in opposition to a resolution of the city’s budget crisis.
Although, not to the extent of casting an unequivocal “no” vote during the first reading of two separate parts of Mayor James Garner’s plan. An entire evening’s worth of unrelenting demagoguery produced the stunningly sparse yield of two abstentions by Coffey, the second of which was so damningly indicative of Coffey’s craven abdication of responsibility that even Steve Price of the “District Formerly Known as the Third, and Now Identified by a Symbol from a Captain Marvel Comic Book that Stands for First and a Half” resisted the tug on his leash and voted “yes.”
To find the best contemporary example of Coffey’s careful grooming of Price into an obsequious, fawning sycophant, you’d have to travel to Pyongyang and view the posters that proclaim Kim Jong Il as the fountain of all human knowledge.
Like Price, captive North Koreans know when to stand up, sit down and roll over, and these talents are helpful when one is faced with the prospect of his revered leader (Coffey, not Mr. Kim) droning for hours on selected matters that range from proper drainage and the untrustworthiness of professional engineering to newspaper proofreading and an unmatched record of attendance at public works board meetings.
May 9: The Coffey/Price dumbumvirate's rear-guard action against progress.
A City Council faction has developed, led by the forever erratic and increasingly malevolent Dan Coffey (1st District), pneumatically seconded by the pliant Coffey sycophant Steve Price (3rd District), and frequently but not always abetted by at least two veteran councilmen who apparently have yet to grasp the mean-spirited medievalism that courses through Coffey’s veins like incendiary fuel through a flamethrower that is aimed squarely at a village soon to be destroyed in order to be “saved.”
The Coffey/Price dumbumvirate is taking the city to the edge of the abyss, not just to discredit the current occupant of the mayor’s chair, which is a given, but also to wage what plainly amounts to crass cultural warfare against those citizens of New Albany who are best placed to assist in boosting the city’s hopes of getting smarter to get better, even as state, national and world economies show no signs of waiting for us to rub two sticks together, make a fire, and begin barbecuing our council Wizard’s bologna.
The dumbumvirate’s alternative plan is to unilaterally suspend the city’s project of constructing infrastructure for the Scribner Place downtown development, and to divert money from Scribner Place as a means of balancing the budget.
It remains unclear whether the money in question can indeed be diverted, but this vital consideration should not detract from a clear understanding of what our Siamese councilmen are most interested in achieving, which is a rear-guard action against progress in any and all forms, a crusade borne of obvious spite, simple envy, and the type of sneer you’d expect to see on the face of a playground bully, not an elected official.
May 16: Politics, preservation and a festival -- or, the week ahead in New Albany.
It’s 3rd District Councilman Steve Price, who will be attending this meeting only two days before he casts votes critical to the city’s future … but will his “handler” dare to permit Price to comment on an increasingly regressive voting record and the fumbling public advocacy of positions that aren’t favored within the 3rd District?
Verily, only The Cappuccino knows for sure.
Word on the street is that Price’s politically conjoined benefactor, 1st District Councilman Dan Coffey, fears the messy outcome of an unscripted meeting between Price and his constituents.
Recognizing that Edgar Bergen remains dead and thus is unavailable for the job, Coffey plans to attend the meeting, presumably intent on performing selected arias from the “Bloviate’s Shuffle” while protecting his acolyte, Price, from well-deserved scrutiny.
May 18: Price rocks S. Ellen Jones: The last person to leave New Albany, please douse the candles and drop off your keys at the Brambleberry residence.
(Minus Coffey) 3rd District Councilman Steve Price was capably supported by the hard-riffing “Fact” Masters, his backing band, whose morose recitation of impenetrable and unverifiable rhythmic cadences freed the headlining Price to explore countless creative variations on a solitary, numbingly repetitive melody from his chart-topping single, “Paralysis.”
May 27: UPDATED: Scribner Place: Who's for it, who's against it, and who hasn't decided.
(Louis) Schmitt, by all accounts a successful and respected local businessman, obviously is a proponent of the Scribner Place/YMCA project.
This fact would be entirely unremarkable if not for the incessant hue and cry from the city’s blinkered flat-earthers, grandstanding Brambleberries, petty obstructionists and unrepentant Luddites, who demand variously that the city of New Albany operate according to the dictates of their own admittedly threadbare household finances, but beyond even that, from the trustworthy perspective of good business practices.
June 3: "Cave living is the life for me," notes CM Cappuccino as City Council work session considers city's role in YMCA, Scribner Place.
(Reported by Rick Carmickle).
CM Coffey directed this comment to Mr. LaRocca.
-- This city is in a crisis as far as budget and funding, so why doesn’t the YMCA take over the whole project, and eliminate the middleman, the city. With the city not involved, your project will speed up and become a reality much sooner. The money funded by Caesars is there -- ask them for all of it up front, use that $10 million, and only have to borrow $5 million, instead of putting this city into further debt.
Mayor Garner interjected that the city still owns the land and leases it to the YMCA for a one dollar a year.
Mr. Ricke and Mr. LaRocca stated that since the beginning, this project has been a three-way joint effort with the City of New Albany, YMCA and Caesars Foundation, and that they could not speak for the other two parties, but would take it under advisement.
June 5: City Hall admits to hiding Scribner Place information under the bedroom mattress, along with swimsuit issue and a spare key to the safe.
Speaking of the perpetual quest for information on the part of certain City Council members, who echo Bono's oft-stated view that he still hasn't found what he's looking for, the following is an unexpectedly informative comment thread from Speak Out Loud NA, which heretofore has served primarily to “empower” the voiceless outrage of generally anonymous citizens (who’ve donned a variety of masks and taken assorted guises, many emanating in spluttering clusters of semi-legible comments posted in the early morning hours, and probably from the same IP address).
Whiskey River, take my mind ...
June 7: Monday night's City Council meeting: “24 eyeballs are better than 4 or 6,” but only if they’re properly cooked.
The meeting wasn’t always smooth, and it was not without an occasional glitch -- it simply wouldn’t seem right if Councilman Dan Coffey didn’t throw a red-faced tantrum by evening’s end, and this he duly contributed over the unexpected topic of the patio home development at State Street and Kenzig Road -- but all in all, our elected officials toned down the rhetoric and went about their tasks with determination.
At the same time, there can be no doubt that the 2007 election season has started in earnest, with much of what was said and done on Monday capable of being interpreted by means of the hoary “local politics” playbook.
June 12: The Tribune's Amany Ali fearlessly shines a light into the dark corridors of troglodyte misinformation.
But star billing this Sunday must be given to the Tribune’s city editor, Amany Ali, whose column, “New Albany has its share of problems,” is an ambitious effort to focus attention on the persistent, destructive presence of a cult of misinformation in New Albany.
Her writing is mature, her anecdotes amusing, and her stylish denunciation of the roots of misinformation unstinting. The Tribune has performed a valuable public service in publishing this illumination of the devious methodology favored by the community’s “no progress at any price” obstructionists.
June 16: City council tonight, but first, a few words about the nature of progress.
Receptivity to new ideas and new methods is a central facet of a progressive worldview, and when applied toward the imperative of improving the quality of life in New Albany, such an attitude of openness must characterize our economic development strategies as well as the view we hold of ourselves as members of a community and possessors both of rights and responsibilities.
At this crucial juncture in the history of New Albany, we see elements of a progressive ideal struggle to take root and grow. These efforts are manifested by the actions of citizens both within and outside of governing circles, ranging from small businessmen downtown to the members of neighborhood associations, and from earnest bids to advance the cause of historical preservation to worthwhile and justifiable governmental projects to provide impetus to revitalization.
June 17: Coffey to Redevelopment Commission: I'm clueless, and you should be, too.
For the record, Dan Coffey represents the 1st council district, which arguably stands to benefit the most from both Scribner Place and any future redevelopment in the project's immediate vicinity.
Meanwhile, the market that currently exists for "such private development" extends well into the 3rd District, represented by Steve Price, who also is opposed to the Scribner Place project. Naturally, the potential market ranges far beyond the blade-thin perspectives of Coffey and Price, who seem to be echoing the traditional New Albany refrain of "we can't."
June 17: Price to citizenry: I'm scared, and you should be, too.
We’ll leave the Pavlovian implications of (Steve) Price’s jerking knee and ticklish larynx to those trained in the fields of psychology, sociology and Wal-Mart shopping.
Credit my unrepresentative representative for having completed a difficult mid-term transition, from clinging Coffeyite toady to cynically calculating practitioner of the political art of the scare tactic, which is designed to arouse groundless fears in the minds of voters, and then to cite these fears as evidence of the claim he is making.
Accordingly, New Albany’s “no progress at any Price” sect is happy to have Li’l Stevie as its council spokesman. Although council allies of the unreconstructed Brambleberries, apart from Price, remain on board the Luddite bandwagon, their public rhetoric has become increasingly muted, leaving him as the Ken doll rallying point for the retrograde movement to 1948.
June 21: Rog's rant: On the very nature of nay-saying.
Why must we perpetually insist that superstition and backwardness are our best friends?
I’m not speaking here about Scribner Place, Cannon Acres, the City Council, the Mayor, or any of the specific local political topics that have been discussed at NA Confidential since its inception last year.
Rather, with the memory of Chicago’s vibrant neighborhoods and can-do spirit fresh in my mind, I’m referring to the recurring phenomenon hereabouts that currently enjoys its most prominent, and saddest, manifestation in apoplectic opposition to progress in the city of New Albany, an opposition that unfortunately doesn’t confine itself to screaming that present circumstances stand in the way of progress, but that taken together, all past mistakes by any and all politicians and community leaders indicate that we simply can’t do anything right, and should never, ever try.
I am utterly sickened by this cancerous attitude.
June 22: Two classics at Volunteer Hoosier are required reading in progressive New Albania.
“Coffey Brake, or, If I Could Save Time in a Bottle," By Randy Smith, Volunteer Hoosier.
"I'm here to tell Mr. (Dan) Coffey, quality of life doesn't just happen. As an elected official, it is his responsibility to use the resources of this community to build. It is not his prerogative to sit on his ass and rely on "someone else" to do it. He must be accountable to the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh generations.”
June 23: Councilman Cappuccino declares city administration null and void, invites YMCA to form provisional government with himself as regent.
The development proposal that so plagued Cappuccino surely was missing its single most important ingredient, the key fundamental element, the one crucial aspect without which there could be no hope for his approval, no chance for the project’s ultimate success, and no progress at any price.
Why, Cappuccino himself.
The councilman’s indelible stamp was nowhere to be found. Neither had he giddily appeared on television, nor had the public seen his stern and statesmanlike visage displayed in the local newspapers.
Kept infernally busy interfering daily with affairs in council districts other than his own, Cappuccino had thus far played a negligible role as the development project was debated and inched forward, and now, with the clock ticking, how could he yet manage to claim credit for moving the project forward – or, as the case may be, for tossing the decisive spanner into the works to have the project stopped or altered, thus discrediting his major political enemy?
June 28: UPDATED: Councilman Dan Coffey on Scribner Place: “It’s gonna happen. It has to happen.”
Just as the sum of a half dozen zeroes is still zero, so the impact of the Coffey Plan, as presented by the councilman to an audience precluded by accepted protocol from speaking, and illustrated with poster board, magic marker and hastily assembled snapshots of dilapidated houses and potholed streets, was no more than that of a balefully muted fart at a rock and roll show.
June 29: More work session thoughts from Tuesday night, June 28.
To the vast majority of human observers, the world is a dauntingly complex place. Fortunately, New Albany has 1st District Councilman Coffey to publicly elucidate the principles of benign simplicity.
Thus, while many of us look to towns of similar size and history like Columbus and Madison to serve as models for progress, the Wizard of Westside sets his gaze on simpler and better examples of cleanliness and organization.
“New Albany can be like Birdseye,” he said last evening, as an astonished crowd listened and asked, just exactly where is Birdseye?
And why would a council member compare Birdseye to a city of 40,000 residents?
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