Isn't he always?But seriously, there is a recurring element of tragicomic pathos to the Wizard of Westside’s scheming machinations, of which the current Drainage Gate civic black eye is but one of many in the past, and many more to come, in which he has been complicit.
As ringmaster of the politics of semi-carnal envy that characterizes so much of small town life, CM Coffey certainly craves the office of mayor to such a noticeable degree that, presumably, he would gladly park his posterior on the gilded throne without accepting so much as a dime in remuneration.
Such is the vow of subservient poverty that Coffey has regularly demanded of other public servants, but it’s a moot point, because he knows that reliable support outside the hermetically sealed electoral comfort of his own fiefdom of Westendia is, shall we say, lacking; his prospects citywide aren’t worth a warm bucket of spit, and he’d be crushed in any such race like a fat and lazy late summer fly who has ingested one too many slices of fresh cow pie before trying to airlift home a bit too close to the waiting swatter.
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Now that the stormwater drainage board has resigned en masse – quite the parliamentary thing to do under increasingly daunting circumstances, and the purport of which is as certain to elude the comprehension of the clueless poseur Erika as the dusty and long dormant instructions for programming her obsolete VCR – all parties involved in the city’s latest embarrassing example of its inability to govern itself are cowering behind temporary barricades constructed of tattered legal pads and BBQ bologna-stained Bazooka Joe vocational diplomas, courageously lobbing desultory volleys of accusation and counter-charge at one another.
Fascinatingly, New Albany’s sewage system, a meandering labyrinth to which now can added a newly Coffey-tized and eviscerated stormwater drainage compliance mechanism, creates strange bedfellows the way that Bill Gates prints money. As an example, sewer board member and city council president Larry Kochert, who shockingly finds himself for once in the mayor’s corner, believes that certain “overzealous” councilmen should be volunteered for unpaid duty on the now vacant drainage committee.
The pot, the kettle … the King.
Perhaps dazed at CM Kochert’s presumptuousness toward an erstwhile ally in obstructionist mayhem, the Wizard somehow hasn’t yet grabbed this gracious offer of unpaid labor even though time and time again he has lectured a howling gallery as to the alleged superiority of his grasp when it comes to environmental engineering, Kosher dietary restrictions, nuclear physics, quilting, and his central interpretive role in a soon to be released, bold new updated translation of Thomas Aquinas’s “Summa Theologica.”
With sidesplitting laughter escalating to Comedy Caravan proportions, let’s step gingerly around the corner and cast furtive glances at the campfires burning within the confines of the open air museum. I hear artillery in the distance, but it might be thunder. Are the stormwater drainage Gods chuckling, too?
And these bizarre partnerships; what to make of them? More on that later ... assuming the creek don't rise.
Tribune coverage here
Courier coverage here
Bucket brigade and lots of sawdust here
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