By all rights, 1st District councilman Dan Coffey should have been in his element, merrily pontificating as the journalistic spotlight shone directly on his perpetually conniving visage, following a surreal city council meeting dominated by the presumed grandeur of CM Coffey’s legislative being.Reporters for both local newspapers were interviewing the Wizard of Westside, with the Courier-Journal’s Ben Zion Hershberg serving the expected crushable softballs while Eric Scott Campbell of the Tribune patiently waited for his turn on the mound.
In retrospect, it must have been unspeakably irksome to CM Coffey that your humble NA Confidential correspondent was standing nearby, gleefully riding on the coattails of the pros and taking notes as the Wizard whizzed wads of wheedling words. A handful of onlookers soon grew silent, as though anticipating the inevitable, and then it – of course – it happened.
CM Coffey halted in mid-bloviation, leaving the reporters to stare awkwardly at their pens, and wheeled to face his proudest and most unrepentant critic.
“Didja like my pictures, Baylor? Ya taking notes?”
CM Coffey was proudly referring to a choreographed vaudeville routine from earlier in the evening, one featuring photographic enlargements of local filth and disrepair, much of which might already have been cleaned if not for CM Coffey’s (and the Gang of Four’s) serial reluctance to cease collectively acting as the Big Lots of scatterbrained conspiracy theories long enough to fund city departments.
As though embarrassed, CM Coffey jerked back to face his puzzled questioners, quickly embellishing his previously suspended comments with a spluttering expectoration: “Some people are getting desperate, and some people are losing it.”
Indeed they are, Dan.
Indeed they are.
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For procedural reasons, the Great Reneger’s anti-Scribner Place/downtown redevelopment resolution remained tabled until July 3 – perhaps to die – and the focus of CM Coffey’s laughably tedious oratorical pretensions moved instead to another of his carefully orchestrated troglodyte casting calls, this one calling for an audit/investigation/analysis/proctological examination.
In spite – or more likely, because – of CM Mark Seabrook’s spirited advocacy of an audit resolution with more specificity than Coffey’s coyly proposed “fry the mayor no matter what,” the resolution was approved, with Donnie Blevins joining the Gang of Four for reasons that remain unclear.
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CM Coffey’s post-game distemper wasn’t the only instance of undisguised petulance displayed by the avowed enemies of civic progress who tend to congregate on the east side of the council table.
The 3rd District’s Steve Price, whose recorded utterances on the topic of urban revitalization have tended to bear an uncanny resemblance to Gen. William T. Sherman’s marching orders for his tour of Georgia, thanked members of the reality-based blogosphere, Tribune publisher John Tucker, and police officer Keith Whitlow for their eagerness to publicly describe in detail CM Price’s myriad conceptual deficiencies and performance anxieties.
According to CM Price, this unprecedented and virtually universal negative publicity has enabled him to make a broad appeal to similarly under-qualified office holders in other unfortunate communities, with the predictably ensuing support group slated for an appearance on Oprah next month.
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“Some people are getting desperate, and some people are losing it.”
Indeed they are, Steve.
Indeed they are.
11 comments:
Precisely the question asked by CM Seabrook, John.
Having resolved to seek an audit, there must now be a plan for same, presumably constructed by councilmen Coffey and Price. I'd guess that neither of them know at present where the money's going to originate, but stay tuned.
CM Seabrook deserves acknowledgment for consistently playing his outnumbered hand about as well as can be imagined. In the face of the Gang's persistent lunacy, he is permitted the unquestioned luxury to position himself as a voice of dispassionate reason, as pulled off tellingly last night as he rigorously questioned Coffey as to the Wizard's audit plans.
The C-J’s Hershberg maintains that Councilman backs off Scribner challenge; New Albany plan can go ahead, but such a conclusion doesn’t completely jibe with what the Great Reneger was saying afterward in the corridor.
What I heard was ducking, weaving, and an obvious hesitancy to conclusively answer the reporter’s questions. When it doesn’t necessarily mean this, but may not mean that, and one insists that various options remain open – stop, go, yes, no – the conclusion that CM Coffey will be content to permit the object of his culture war to proceed without fruther attempts to pour sugar in the gas tank seems a tad over-optimistic.
After all, sophism is a perennially reliable weapon in the Wizard’s arsenal.
I think that all of the calls Mr. Price has gotten in support have been from just a handful of people punching redial on their phones.
Somehow, that has a familiar ring to it.
Their inability to read a spreadsheet, their disdain for learning to read a spreadsheet, and their overweening desire to lash out at anyone who does know how to do their job may result in giving the Gang of Four exactly what it wants.
As the audit would cost in the neighborhood of $100,000, they will now be able to say "we don't have any money" and vote NO to any request.
And isn't that what it's all about? Saying "No?"
Instead of paying $125 an hour to have someone re-balance the checkbook, why not pay $125 a semester-hour and learn how to do your job, Gang?
Or better yet, call back some of that junketeering money being spent by Mr. and Mrs. Schmidt every year and go take a workshop from IACT on fund accounting and public finance.
Keep paying attention. An informed voter is an armed voter, and drawing attention to the misdeeds of public officials is our job. As for Mr. Price's amateur act of theater, my only response would be to ask him: When your "supporters" discover the depth of your ignorance and the extent of your prevarications, will you still be thanking us?
It occurs to me that this discussion is appearing pretty much in a vacuum.
Let's take a look at the actual resolution put forward by Coffey and backed by the entire Gang. If you think this is muddled, just imagine the rationale behind it.
Resolution R-06-18
Where as: The civil City of New Albany has had State audits with concerns in many areas, and the city council desires to have knowledge of the city's true financial status.
Now therefore, be it resolved by the common council of Civil City of New Albany Indiana that; 1. The budget, and or budgets and all expenditures thar are derived through the passage of said council be reviewed by council after a thorough audit has been performed by an independent accounting firm of said council's choice. 2. This resolution will be in effect upon passage.
That's it. Most 5th-graders could draft a better resolution, but that's beside the point. Who is responsible for budgets? The council. Is the council provided all the information on budgets and budget expenditures on a monthly basis? Of course, and they won't deny it.
They just can't understand it.
I'm not willing to pay for their ignorance and unwillingness to learn. And neither should you be.
Of course, it's hard to imagine any real benefits that will accrue to the city or its residents. Which inevitably leads to my belief that the sole purpose of this "demand" for an audit is nothing but a calculation that words that Coffey and Price don't understand (and apparently Bolovschak, too) will make nice little crap-bombs to confuse the voters next year.
See, once again, Dan and Steve and Viola, and Nikki and Anna and Bill, and Larry and Donnie, apparently, are betting that the voters of New Albany are stupid enough to fall for their subterfuges and diversions.
Once again, I'll take that bet.
You will recall that, despite the claims of the political brute force bunch, the state recommended that the governing body (the city, and specifically that does not exclude from responsibility the appropriating authority, the city council) investigate some deficiencies. They did not call for an expensive independent audit, but rather an investigation of matters that the state could not issue a clean bill on because of recordkeeping deficiencies.
So, does the Gang and their Pied Piper investigate? No, they create a circus and claim a mandate to spend $100,000 on a report that will result in no more information given to the city than they have right now.
This, too, is an admission on the part of five members of the city council, many with long tenure thereon, that the job is too much for them, it's too tough. "Them maths is hard," they say. Rather than devote any effort whatsoever to investigating, or even learning to read a spreadsheet and gain even a modicum of understanding of government accounting (fund accounting), they cry "we don't know."
Well guys and gals, if you don't know it's because you don't care enough to know. You admit you can't do the job you asked the voters to give you. You don't train yourselves, you don't educate yourselves, and the people want to know why.
But we know why. You don't want to fix anything, you just want the opportunity to grandstand and make provocative gestures and soundbites to aggrandize yourselves and your ambitions and grudges.
It ain't your sandbox anymore. The people won't stand for it.
This weekend, I invite you to draft an effective resolution to resolve the "concerns in many areas" while revoking the resolution passed Thursday night. Start drafting, and feel free to bring the neighborhood kids in on the project. They're bound to do a better job than Coffey did.
Why don't you guys try looking at the truth of the matter:
"...we noted certain matters involving the internal control over financial reporting and its operation that we consider to be reportable conditions. Reportable conditions involve matters coming to our attention relating to significant deficiencies in the design or operation of the internal control over financial reporting that, in our judgment, could adversely affect the City's ability to record, process, summarize and report financial data consistent with the assertions of management in the financial statements."
Indiana State Board of Acoounts.
Has nothing to do Council's ability to read the financials, but more to do with the fact that financial information is "inconsistent".
Why? Because there are: "significant deficiencies in the design or operation of the internal control over financial reporting"
Geez...how much clearer can the problem be?
I suppose your rabid desire to oust the Council Member's who's seats you want to fill clouds your abilities of reading comprehension.
I have a question concerning tabled items at a council meeting. From what I know of "Robert's Rules" (which is limited) I am under the impression that tabled items may be taken "off the table" by a motion and vote. I see no reason that it should be on the agenda. I believed that it is assumed that it will be discussed in the remainder of the current meeting or at the next meeting.
So EE, what about the 2004 audit tells you we need to repeat it? What tells you those deficiencies haven't been corrected? What tells you an independent audit is even legal? What tells you that some of the deficiencies aren't left over asset records from the 70s, 80s, and 90s that the state refuses to allow NA to write off?
An audit is not the mechanism for having a professional consultant come in and make recommendations. An audit is for catching crooks and incompetents. But then, you've already made that judgment.
I hope the five guys who voted for this open-ended, "thorough" audit have very deep pockets.
EE spluttered: "I suppose your rabid desire to oust the Council Member's who's seats you want to fill clouds your abilities of reading comprehension."
No more than your rabid desire to oust the mayor clouds yours, but then again, how can one go lower than bottom?
Run along now, Laura, and enable some more anonymous character assassination in yonder litter box.
Matt, another good question, and one I don't claim to fully understand. I was chatting with a local attorney yesterday morning, and it was suggested that strictly according to Roberts, there would have to be a vote to revive a tabled measure for inclusion at the next meeting. We did not see that Thursday.
As I understand Robert Rules', if an item is tabled, it can be brought back to the Council without being on the agenda. At least, "that's the way they've always done it".
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