Pretense, foolish optimism and the ascendancy of New Albany’s “Destructive Class.”

The times are tough now
Just getting tougher
This old world is rough
It's just getting rougher
Cover me
Come on baby cover me
Well I'm looking for a lover who will come on in and cover me
-- “Cover Me,” by Bruce Springsteen

As a prelude to the evening’s council follies, here are four commentaries of significance at NA Shadow Council. I recommend you visit the site and read each in its entirety.

At Root, This is Our Goal
As a matter of fact, by stripping New Albany's income tax revenues to "save" ratepayers from a sewer rate increase, a council majority is handing your tax dollars to businesses and outsiders who don't even pay taxes. Why, we ask, should that be treated as some type of "salvation?"

Logical Conclusions
By all logical interpretation, the current regime (administrative or legislative) desires to use at least a portion of those revenues to prop up the sewer utility.Why not, then, go all the way?Let's divert 100% of taxes to keeping sewer rates artificially low. Let's abandon 100% of city services. Building inspection? Zero it out. Police protection? Zero it out? Fire protection? Forget about it.

Dump It in the Sewers!
There is a rational solution to making our sewer utility permanently viable. But demagoguery is blocking it. By appealing to the least common denominator in the populace, the regrettably naive and ignorant (ignorant=unknowledgeable, which is not to say that they are stupid, just gullible and susceptible to the machinations of politicians who prosper at their expense), the entrenched regressive majority of the council is both pandering and insulting the constituency it purports to represent.

A June Week of Consequence
Our illustrious Sewer Board, purportedly not under the direction of our current chief executive, is prepared to continue a policy designed to further degrade New Albany, and by extension, the prosperity of all New Albanians.

Hmm, so I’m not the only one surmising that the longer the England administration waits to expend the slightest farthing of political capital, the more it is likely that it doesn’t have any. Is it just me, or are we witnessing retreat on every front?

Is it just me, or is watching this dysfunctional entity called New Albany meander yet again down a path of self-mutilation and sheer nuttiness goes far beyond the titillation of NASCAR wrecks and Hollywood rehab breakdowns into the realm of the purely psychotic?

Is the England team ever going to go for the jugular – damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead – or not?

While we ponder the answers to these questions, which would have been familiar to a New Albanian of fifty years ago, such is our perennial level of dysfunction, let’s keep it fair and balanced. Council president Gahan, this one’s for you:

Does the bizarre council alliance that continues to endorse the use of economic development monies to subsidize sewer rates -- a collection of strange bedfellows that seemingly unites good and thoughtful people with the most self-aggrandizing, doltish ward heelers this city has to offer -- intend to offer something of an alternative to throwing EDIT money down the drain pipe, or do we spend another three years fighting the lost battles of the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s, oblivious to the opportunities that finally are landing on our doorsteps?

Is it really worth allying with the likes of Dan Coffey and Steve Price to reward the incapable and to stymie the city’s progress?

For that matter, can any elected official in this city step outside the box – just once would be appreciated -- and eschew the politics of anti-this and anti-that and anti-them people, and present a coherent program to accomplish something?

Anything?

Will there ever be an end to the passive-aggressive tug of turf war that consumes all the time and most of the resources while the remainder of the planet shrugs, turns the pages of the calendar and gets on with the business of planning for the future?

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but it’s not a chicken-and-egg argument, or some encrypted ancient code that can’t be fathomed by New Albanian eyes. Pre-schoolers can figure it out. The city’s future depends on a bigger pie, and a bigger pie can be achieved with new blood and new money. Quite a few people spend their months working toward this end, and when the city’s political leaders play their time-encrusted games and take their “against it” cues from embittered troglodytes like Dan Coffey, it’s not just comical.

It’s deadly. It’s leprosy and Ebola rolled into one. It sends investors fleeing for more sensible places like Chad and Bolivia. It takes every principle of successful urban reinvention and sacrifices it on an altar of class-conscious spite. Pat Robertson on the board of Atheists International makes more sense than Dan Coffey at Redevelopment, and so it goes.

Other cities extend a hand. We trot out Coffey with a nail-studded board, warning newcomers that they're not welcomed. Understandably, they take their money and spend it elsewhere, leaving Coffey to beam with pride at how, once again, he saved his constituents from a better life.

And, council president, whatever your seeming good intentions in allying with the lunatics for whatever short-term political gain there is to be derived from expediency, make no mistake: You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. You have the information? You envision a plan to use it and solve the sewer fixation once and for all? For God’s sake, man, use it. Offer an alternative. Tell us how we get it done, because time is running out. Quit communicating in code. Be a leader.

But maybe failure is a foregone conclusion in a city where ignorance has been elevated to a virtual religion and education is regarded as a Scarlet Letter to be subjected to the derision of those whose only contribution is to jeer at things they don’t understand. If anyone can explain the source of these resentments against the modern world, we're all ears.

So tell me, council president and fellow factionalists: What do we say to those people who see New Albany not for what it has been, but for what it might be, the ones with money in their hands, but with Dan Coffey and Steve Price blocking their way?

They look at New Albany, and they see a place oozing with potential. All they’re asking is for the city to keep its end of the deal and address infrastructure, so tell me, how do we pave the streets? How do we bring down the tradition of starving the city of investment to appease that segment of the population least capable of contributing to its necessary reinvention?

Is New Albany’s birthright perpetual squalor, and the diminished expectations of the conjoined councilmen, or can we hope for something more?

Yes, I’m being harsh, and it’s purely intentional, but I know for a fact that there are members of the current council who have the brains to address these questions and perhaps even to prove me wrong by explaining the answers. And yet, so far, these same council members are busy pandering to those among them who have nothing to offer except venom.

Why is this? Any of you?