Sunday morning update:
It's now official: We have a Democratic primary race in the 3rd council district.
Former 3rd district councilman Maury Goldberg, who held the seat for two decades prior to declining a re-election bid in 2003, placed three paid ads in Sunday's Tribune high school basketball preview supplement. It is unclear whether Maury's New Albany Today blog will go the way of John Yarmuth's LEO column during his bid for office.
It also is not known whether the Luddite incumbent, Steve Price, will seek to hold his seat, but if so, aficionados of instant gratification now can look forward to only the smallest of entertainment gaps between the recently concluded 2006 general election and the forthcoming primary campaigns, which will decide candidates for city offices, including what shapes up to be an epic mayoral slugfest.
Meanwhile, today's Tribune news coverage is subtitled, “A World Turned Upside Down,” with underachieving council reactionary Larry Kochert announcing the advent of a smoke-free New Albany, work scheduled to begin on our portion of the Ohio River Greenway, and publisher John Tucker advancing the unfashionable but spot-on viewpoint that a casino would not be the most profitable smart growth option for downtown Jeffersonville.
If you haven't read the Tribune for a while, pick up a copy of the Sunday edition, and see just how much has changed (well, ignore the spelling goof on the front page and the slothful web updates -- I'm referring to content here).
Contrast it with today's barren and uninspired Indiana Section in the Courier-Journal, which recently seems to have settled on New Albany and Floyd County coverage by a rotating committee of disinterested reporters, and see what is possible when a local paper finally starts playing aggressively.
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Item:
“After what New Albany has endured over the last four years, it will be fun to watch who New Albany choses for their new council people. I hope the cumulative I.Q. is more than 70! It takes smarts and problem solving skills to run and make decisions for a town (YOUR town, MY town).”
-Anonymous blog comment.
Item:
“You're allowed your opinion, but our family sure does like Councilman Price. Have you ever even tried working with him on an issue? His tenure is lookin' fine to us! Any others, though? We'd probably be in agreement on, ya gotta think, at least one?"
-Anonymous blog comment.
Item: After several members argued about drainage system repairs, (councilman) Donnie Blevins spoke up: “I’d like to say something, if you guys are done seeing who can pee the farthest.”
-Quoted in the Tribune.
In 2007, New Albany's city council seats will be contested. From its inception in 2004, NA Confidential has observed snippets of magic, extremities of pain, moments of statesmanlike vision, and endless hours of self-aggrandizing bilge emanating from the current aggregation, and if you've been watching this space for any length of time, you probably have a vague notion of what we're looking for in a city council representative – and which present members have come closest to the ideal.
A clue: As seated in the meeting room facing the council, look to the left and begin counting to five. Stop with the council president, who is in the middle. Those four on the right? Best change the topic.
Subject to the NA Confidential Community's usual rules for comment identity, i.e., screen names and pseudonyms are permitted so long as the senior editor knows who you are in real life, here's the chance for readers to weigh in on the question, “What qualities should we expect from our council representatives?”
Feel free to elaborate -- but let's keep it clean.
Barring an unexpected news item of significance, I'll leave this thread on the marquee until Monday afternoon.
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13 comments:
NAC,
Thank you for taking the lead on opening this particular Pandora's box. It's one that I'm sure will prove to be entertaining and hopefully thought provoking. With any luck and a lot of hard work we'll end up with a slate of candidates to choose from who are at the very least, different from what we have now.
As to the qualities that I'm looking for in my local government?
First and foremost is accountability!
I want each and every ofice holder to be aware of and up to speed on the items on the agenda before them. They need to do their homework prior to the meeting. If they are too busy, too lazy, unwilling, or just unable to comprehend and intelligently (not emotionally) explain their position an issue, they are doing a disservice to not only the district that put them in office but the city as a whole!
Next would be an ability and willingness to communicate. I seek candidates who are willing & able to go in person to the mayor, police chief, city controller, city clerk, or whatever other department head or individual that can provide them with real time information on a given issue as opposed to relying on he said/she said third party removed!
Another would be the ability & willingness to think outside the box.
Just a few of the many outstanding issues facing New Albany are; abandoned vehicles (we have no place to store them), real time ordinance enforcement (we have an understaffed legal department and no city court), and rental property control (perhaps the hottest of the hot potatoes)! All of these when addressed will have winners and losers but all must be addressed. Candidates who are willing to look beyond the next election cycle & party lines to how these issues and a hundred more like them will affect our cities future ten, twenty, thirty years down the road, will get my support and vote. Those who are not will get my active opposition.
Again, this is only the beginning of a conversation that will go on for months to come, yet one that I hope gets more voters involved and draws out some legitimate, honest candidates.
I failed to point out that Maury's ads are purely ecumenical: One each by Christian Academy, New Albany High School and Providence High School.
Highwayman wrote:
Candidates who are willing to look beyond the next election cycle & party lines to how these issues and a hundred more like them will affect our cities future ten, twenty, thirty years down the road, will get my support and vote.
There's not much evidence that future perspectives have ever been a quality that carries weight for candidates, and how many really see past party lines?
Note also that the Tribune quoted CM Schmidt as saying he was tired of drainage problems and would move to the Knobs. I'm sure it was a botched joke ... but a boy can dream.
Personally, I am tired of the same people being recycled for various public offices or serving in multiple, conflicting positions within the city. I don't know whether this is by circumstance or whether it is by design, but it is a problem.
For example, we have 2 council people now who are City of New Albany employees. To me, that's bad from the beginning. I have absolutely nothing against either party--they aren't poor council people or City employees. But it's a conflict to serve in both positions, and it shouldn't be permitted.
I want council members who are knowledgeable about the issues facing citizens, and who are accessible. But we as taxpayers have a responsibility here, too. Most council members only hear from their constituents regarding problems. As citizens, do we offer suggestions and solutions to our council person(s)? We cannot expect them to know it all. Remember, we have merely elected them to serve as our representatives. We have to communicate to them what is important to us, rather than expecting them to instinctively know that.
A fine point, Ann, and the crux of the problem many of us have with several sitting council persons, who've reacted to the suggestion that there might be better ways of approaching contemporary issues with a reaction akin to a cat's hiss or a diabetic's view of triple chocolate cake.
For someone to judge the desirability of the standard of living and economic development along Louisville's Frankfort Avenue solely by periodic parking problems belies a shallowness of perception that simply can no longer be tolerated from elected officials.
Constituents like those loosely grouped as “progressive” have taken the lead in communicating, and are indeed offering positives and examples of future thinking, and we're watching as these bounce of the elected targets like spitwads off the head of a dozing classmate.
Money's certainly at the heart of the majority of issues at play, but there's more to it. Most Americans recognize that education is the key for success and attainment, and yet we must watch as a handful of elected officials express undisguised contempt for it at every opportunity.
That's the damaging part.
More non-native representation in city government is an attractive idea.
Candidates have a tendency to point out their life-long residency status as if it's somehow tantamount to being more caring or qualified. There are exceptions, of course, but most often it realistically translates into having been well indoctrinated into the New Albany Syndrome.
Lifers are more prone to have strong but limited preconceived ideas about what New Albany is and could be, less exposure to alternative ways of life and business, and more ties to the preexisting political networks that hamper positive change.
Contrarily, newcomers typically recognize New Albany's potential as more immediate and possible. As recent investors themselves, they have a more developed picture of what it takes to attract new people and investment and how to communicate their perceptions of value to others.
City demographics are changing in spite of the unwelcome mat put out by many city officials. The continuance and perhaps acceleration of that change is necessary for effective, sustainable revitalization.
It's a testament to the knowledge and skills of those newer, more active residents that they've been able to begin creating neighborhoods of choice given that they've often had to fight their own city representative to do it. I'd like to see what they could do if the circumvention of their representative(s) wasn't a necessary first step in forward movement.
I’d like to see a Council put some emphasis on public safety, like find the money to double the police force until the drug subculture is reduced; learn about and promote sustainable economic development (no more tax abatements to rich Floyd county republicans…), infrastructure – have some vision, for example - adopt storm water systems for the 21th century instead of the 19th, realize what an asset our historic downtown is and PROTECT IT not pave it, and our support neighborhoods, strengthen outreach to the burgeoning neighborhood associations where there’s so much good civic energy. Further I’d like to see a city budget process on-line so everyone can get on the same page with the financials.
That's what it is -- a public audition.
CannonFarms said, I want to encourage each of you to file for office.
Been there, did that, threw away the T-shirt!
However, it was an experience.
I wonder what my chances might be from a "typical" New Albany view.
Positives:
1. Married
2. Registered
3. Meets any age requirements
Negatives:
1. No religion
2. Non native
3. No children
4. Likes "queers"
5. Liberal/Progressive
6. Educated
7. Knows and often agrees with Roger Baylor.
Don't think much of my chances.
Does the concept of leadership belong in this equation, or does serving the taxpayer imply otherwise?
Is serving the taxpayer defined by watching every nickel and dime to the exclusion of any larger picture?
Is there hope that voters might view an "unconventional" candidate favorably out of a recognition that although there might not be 100% agreement, at least the candidate is recognized as competent?
From where I sit, if there wasn't at least a modecum of that hope to which you refer, we would all be getting stoned or drunk to escape the current reality in leau of hving these discussions!
HYM,
Guess where I am headed in a couple of minutes? I am plenty cynical.
Tom, I really did enjoy the challenge, I had lots of fun and met lots of good people.
I think I got something like 950 votes, that amazed me! I don't think I owe 950 people money, and 950 people don't owe me money, so I say that was a pretty fair showing for a first time out!
I might consider running for something else. I have always said if you don't vote you have no right to complain. Now, if you do vote, then excercise that right to complain, and go one step further and run to make changes, change is good!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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