Jaws drop as Messer, Coffey execute simultaneous 180-degree flip-flops, killing Wendy's ... for now?

Here's the ordinance:

Z-09-05 Ordinance Amending the Code of Ordinances of New Albany, Indiana, Title XV, Chapter 156, (Docket P-02-09; Fairway Developers d/b/a The Charleston’s LLC, by Gary McCartin)

The battle lines seemed drawn those many weeks ago when the first reading resulted in a 5-4 vote against the plan commission's affirmative recommendation.

For: Caesar, Benedetti, Zurschmiede and Coffey
Against: Price, McLaughlin, Gahan, Gonder and Messer

Then came the quasi-epochal (sorry, D), Gahan-inspired call for 2nd and 3rd readings with the developers' attorney and Messer both absent. These resulted in 4-4 washes, and it was over ... but it wasn't over, with council attorney Robison determing that there could be no stake through the heart without a clear, non-draw.

Which brings us to tonight, and the neighborhood again in attendance. With Wi-Fi not available, I noted that something about the attitude made me uneasy, like a trick was about to be played. I shrugged it off and awaited the expected 5-4 vote against the Wendy's, and that's exactly what we got, except that when it came time for Messer to vote, he launched into full explanation mode and flipped to "aye."

A gasp rose from the crowd, but it wasn't over. Coffey, who'd voted three times in favor, now offered his own explanations before joining Messer in the act of flipping, though opposite, becoming a "nay," and the ordinance was defeated.

I'll leave it at that, adding only that one explanation offered for Messer's change in voting heart was his certainty that Coffey would always vote differently out of spite owing to animus between the two, thus assuring that Messer could serve whatever political purpose necessary for the flip while knowing that the council president would kill the proposal just to be contrarian.

I don't buy it, but for the residents of the neighborhood, who've now viewed something like a dozen votes in two years, it doesn't matter.

In most other ways last evening, the council sought to serve notice that its struggles over turf with the England administration will surely manage to handicap the city for months to come. A high point for me was Price's suggestion that the UEA staff person is paid too much not to be the man in charge of a merged UEA and DNA, with the implication being that Mike Ladd's salary comes from city coffers.

Seeing as Price spent a year as council representative to the UEA, and actually attended roughly half the meetings, he might have known that the city does not pay Ladd's salary -- unless the information was hidden in grandma's cookie jar, which Price is strictly forbidden from invading.

I'm tired.