Conjoined councilmen ready their Bics: Rag picking, rental property management and investing in the community.

New Albany downtown plan: Hotel, conventions; Isenberg Properties wants to continue Scribner Place development, by Eric Scott Campbell (News and Tribune).

A five-story hotel and adjacent convention center would sit atop a parking garage at Pearl and Main streets in New Albany in an area developer’s $20 million to $25 million plan for the second phase of Scribner Place.

When the two sincere and well-prepared ladies presenting this proposal began speaking to the council members, veterans in the crowd shuddered and scratched their heads: Hadn’t they been warned to wear flak jackets?

Predictably conjoined councilmen Dan Coffey and his echo, Steve Price, duly clucked, wagged fingers and discoursed as to the impossibility of progress, with Coffey insisting that city government immediately pay to have an economic impact study completed for the proposed development.

NAC’s prediction: If and when the impact study is produced, Coffey will take the opportunity to lambaste it for wasting taxpayer monies, then join Price in voting against $6 million to leverage $20 million in investments.

In other words, anti-business as usual, and who suffers? Coffey's and Price's constituents, who in spite of Coffey's geograpical confusion later in the meeting, do tend to reside downtown.