New Albany is a state of mind … but whose? Since 2004, we’ve been observing the contemporary scene in this slowly awakening old river town. If it’s true that a pre-digital stopped clock is right twice a day, when will New Albany learn to tell time?
Monday, June 05, 2006
On the eve of an attempted Putsch, a statement about Democratic Party leadership in New Albany and Floyd County.
On the eve of an attempted Putsch, a statement about Democratic Party leadership in New Albany and Floyd County.
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To: Connie Sipes
CC: Bill Cochran, Randy Stumler, Marcey Wisman, Warren Nash, and Linda Moeller, Tony Toran, Adam Dickey … are we leaving out any other Democratic Party leader?
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Sen. Sipes, where are you?
Locally elected officials of your Democratic Party are making a mockery of the whole process of government.
Both resolutions authored by 1st District councilman Dan Coffey – the first to rescind the council’s promise to pledge EDIT monies to the Scribner Place redevelopment project, and the second to direct $2.5 million to the sewer utility -- are illegal and immoral, craven and cowardly.
While Democrats at the state level are fighting the good fight for tax equity and responsible social services, for infrastructure improvements and economic development with living-wage employment, the Democrats with the longest tenure on YOUR city’s common council are disgracing the party’s principles in a display of concentrated malevolence without precedent in New Albany’s recent history.
How can you, who have so much experience and knowledge of government, remain silent in the face of the patent dishonesty and cynical illegality being perpetrated from their seats of power?
How can you, an admired and respected educator and a legislator of uncommon capability, fail to protest the disgusting display of ignorance and disingenuousness on display on the third floor of the New Albany/Floyd County City County Building?
An embittered and vicious contingent of rogue Democrats, unable to accomplish anything approaching progressive competence despite a collective tenure of more than five decades, have revealed their complete disrespect for the will of the people and the rule of law.
Is it not your responsibility to speak out and expose the patent dishonesty of Dan Coffey, Bill Schmidt, Larry Kochert, and Steve Price? Doesn’t your position of leadership in the county and the party compel you to come forward and call their actions what they are: disreputable, dishonest, and a complete embarrassment to YOUR party?
What these four propose for Monday night’s city council meeting agenda is indecent.
Their McCarthyite tendencies are well documented and indisputable, and we can expect no more sensitivity and courage from them than we would from the disgraced Senator from Wisconsin.
Won’t you join the working, thinking, achieving and capable folks of Floyd County in opposing the Gang of Four's efforts to violate the legal obligations of the city utility and to plunge us further into an abyss that is largely of their own making and perpetuation?
Won’t you forcefully speak to the compelling wisdom of moving forward and moving forward NOW with the Scribner Place redevelopment project, the western anchor to the Ohio River Greenway?
NA Confidential admires you and your work for us, your constituents.
But we don’t buy any argument that says a Democratic state senator bears no responsibility for the behavior of municipal elected officials of your party.
You are a party leader.
Lead, then.
Another party leader is Randy Stumler, whose moral compass and erudition we have long admired, but who, thus far, has been utterly adrift, unable to offer the long suffering citizens of the city little more than a theatrical scrap of blank paper held aloft and an utterance that is all too familiar to citizens of New Albany: “I ... we ... can’t.”
Lead, then.
Such capitulation is unbecoming the Democratic Party. What in your silence is indicative of leadership?
Given that silence, what could possibly compel the public to believe your claims in November to be anything but cheap lip service?
Why would anyone even care to hear those claims of leadership with the knowledge that they are not backed by the character necessary for public advocacy and implementation?
Lead, then.
Party leaders, past and present, have no excuses for remaining silent. No thinking person can possibly stand idly by in the face of this atrocity, this pitiful excuse for representative government.
Join us Monday night. Share with us your feelings as a citizen, a taxpayer, a ratepayer, and yes, a party leader, in that portion of the council meeting devoted to public comment.
YOUR city needs you. YOUR party needs you. And WE need you now. Failure to speak out constitutes an unforgivable passivity in the face of criminal ignorance masquerading as Democratic principles.
Lead, then.
Signed: Roger A. Baylor, Jeff Gillenwater, Randy Smith
City Council members can only be removed by death or conviction for a felony, or conviction of a misdemeanor germane to the office and duties...or in May of 2007.
On the eve of an attempted Putsch, a statement about Democratic Party leadership in New Albany and Floyd County.
ReplyDelete----
To: Connie Sipes
CC: Bill Cochran, Randy Stumler, Marcey Wisman, Warren Nash, and Linda Moeller, Tony Toran, Adam Dickey … are we leaving out any other Democratic Party leader?
----
Sen. Sipes, where are you?
Locally elected officials of your Democratic Party are making a mockery of the whole process of government.
Both resolutions authored by 1st District councilman Dan Coffey – the first to rescind the council’s promise to pledge EDIT monies to the Scribner Place redevelopment project, and the second to direct $2.5 million to the sewer utility -- are illegal and immoral, craven and cowardly.
While Democrats at the state level are fighting the good fight for tax equity and responsible social services, for infrastructure improvements and economic development with living-wage employment, the Democrats with the longest tenure on YOUR city’s common council are disgracing the party’s principles in a display of concentrated malevolence without precedent in New Albany’s recent history.
How can you, who have so much experience and knowledge of government, remain silent in the face of the patent dishonesty and cynical illegality being perpetrated from their seats of power?
How can you, an admired and respected educator and a legislator of uncommon capability, fail to protest the disgusting display of ignorance and disingenuousness on display on the third floor of the New Albany/Floyd County City County Building?
An embittered and vicious contingent of rogue Democrats, unable to accomplish anything approaching progressive competence despite a collective tenure of more than five decades, have revealed their complete disrespect for the will of the people and the rule of law.
Is it not your responsibility to speak out and expose the patent dishonesty of Dan Coffey, Bill Schmidt, Larry Kochert, and Steve Price? Doesn’t your position of leadership in the county and the party compel you to come forward and call their actions what they are: disreputable, dishonest, and a complete embarrassment to YOUR party?
What these four propose for Monday night’s city council meeting agenda is indecent.
Their McCarthyite tendencies are well documented and indisputable, and we can expect no more sensitivity and courage from them than we would from the disgraced Senator from Wisconsin.
Won’t you join the working, thinking, achieving and capable folks of Floyd County in opposing the Gang of Four's efforts to violate the legal obligations of the city utility and to plunge us further into an abyss that is largely of their own making and perpetuation?
Won’t you forcefully speak to the compelling wisdom of moving forward and moving forward NOW with the Scribner Place redevelopment project, the western anchor to the Ohio River Greenway?
NA Confidential admires you and your work for us, your constituents.
But we don’t buy any argument that says a Democratic state senator bears no responsibility for the behavior of municipal elected officials of your party.
You are a party leader.
Lead, then.
Another party leader is Randy Stumler, whose moral compass and erudition we have long admired, but who, thus far, has been utterly adrift, unable to offer the long suffering citizens of the city little more than a theatrical scrap of blank paper held aloft and an utterance that is all too familiar to citizens of New Albany: “I ... we ... can’t.”
Lead, then.
Such capitulation is unbecoming the Democratic Party. What in your silence is indicative of leadership?
Given that silence, what could possibly compel the public to believe your claims in November to be anything but cheap lip service?
Why would anyone even care to hear those claims of leadership with the knowledge that they are not backed by the character necessary for public advocacy and implementation?
Lead, then.
Party leaders, past and present, have no excuses for remaining silent. No thinking person can possibly stand idly by in the face of this atrocity, this pitiful excuse for representative government.
Join us Monday night. Share with us your feelings as a citizen, a taxpayer, a ratepayer, and yes, a party leader, in that portion of the council meeting devoted to public comment.
YOUR city needs you. YOUR party needs you. And WE need you now. Failure to speak out constitutes an unforgivable passivity in the face of criminal ignorance masquerading as Democratic principles.
Lead, then.
Signed: Roger A. Baylor, Jeff Gillenwater, Randy Smith
Councilman Coffey, have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?
ReplyDeleteHave you left no sense of decency?
Signed: Roger A. Baylor, Jeff Gillenwater, Randy Smith
What time is the council meeting tonight and where for those of us who've never been.
ReplyDeleteDear Ms. Coyle,
ReplyDeletethe meeting is at 7:30 PM EDST in the third floor assembly room at the city county building.
Maury
City Council members can only be removed by death or conviction for a felony, or conviction of a misdemeanor germane to the office and duties...or in May of 2007.
ReplyDeleteBut study up on remonstrances.