“Details available on a need to know basis and you don’t need ... "

Our intrepid roving reporter Gordy Gant attended last evening’s New Albany Common Council meeting and filed the following excerpts to NAC for your reading pleasure!

With a sparse agenda and an even sparser audience, Monday evening's Common Council gathering was relatively quiet and uneventful.

There were only three items to be discussed and a nearly empty room to entertain, so time was not wasted on gittin’ ‘er done.

There was only one public speaker, a citizen encouraging the Council to pass the first item on the agenda in order that the city’s employees could get paid this month.

Following that Deputy Mayor Malysz approached the podium to send the Mayor’s regards and explain that his absence was due to other obligations.

He went on to say that the Mayor England was going to personally deliver a live report to the Board of Works at Tuesday’s 10 a.m. meeting concerning the post storm cleanup activities and costs thus far. Carl declined to give any further details.

The first item on the list was R-08-41, an Emergency Resolution for a Temporary Transfer of Funds to a Depleted Fund for cash flow purposes. Long story short, to move up to $1 Million TIF dollars in order for payroll and other claims to be paid over the next month or so. Ms. Garry informed the Council that this money would be refunded when our tax money became available.

When Kay was asked why this move was necessary, she related that the County Treasury has not received enough property tax dollars as of yet to pass them along to the city its share.

There was further inquiry of her as to why borrow TIF funds as opposed to other avenues. She replied that other sources had already been depleted.

The resolution passed 8 to 0 and the Council moved on.

Up next was A-08-13 which was an Additional Appropriation Ordinance for $250K of EDIT money to help pay for the Hurricane Ike cleanup.

These are the same dollars that were approved by resolution at the previous Council Meeting. It seems that the Council cannot by statute approve the spending of monies by Resolution unless they have first been appropriated by an Ordinance. Are we confused yet?

At any rate once that was cleared up (huh?) Kay suggested that this money could become available much sooner if the Council were to suspend the rules and do all three readings at this meeting.

A motion to suspend the rules was made, seconded, and the motion was agreed to. Debate was called for and then it got interesting.

Remember the mention above of the Mayor’s forthcoming report to the Board of Works?

CM Coffey took this opportunity to pose the question as to why Mayor England had the time to present a report to his appointees but not so with the Council whom he had just asked (albeit by proxy) to suspend their rules to pass his request in one meeting?

Of course there was no answer forthcoming save to say that the suggestion would be passed along to Doug.

Dan went on to state that such future requests would likely be looked more favorably upon if the Council were to be given its due consideration. In cases like this, yours truly tends to agree.

Following a few more tit-for-tats between the Deputy Mayor and CM Coffey, the vote was called for and the ordinance passed on all three readings.

Then came G-08-09 which was an Ordinance to Correct Ordinance G-08-31. This was the bill passed recently to Establish Permit Fees to update our City Code. Turns out this was to correct a series of typos in the first bill so as to insure all was done proper and legal.

For a few minutes it looked as though our short meeting was going to turn into an all- nighter but cool heads prevailed, Council’s rules were suspended for s second time in one session (that’s gotta be a record) and the bill passed in all three readings.

The clock on the wall fell just short of 8:30 p.m., the gavel dropped and all concerned parties departed for their separate ways.

This reporter is on pins and needles to witness this morning's Board of Works meeting. Until then, have a good day!