Cosmic liability, Mayberry politics, designer flip-flops -- hmm, must be city council tonight.

I was teaching "beer class" (seriously) and couldn't make it to last evening's work session, so this question may have been answered.

R-09-16 Resolution To Appropriate E.D.I.T Funds To Assist Residents With Damages Caused By Recent Storms And Flooding

Can readers recall a bigger can of worms being opened by the city council than CM Jeff Gahan's proposal (evidently coming tonight) to extract EDIT funds to reimburse flooding victims?

Note that in asking this question, I'm not ignoring the drainage problems in the neighborhood behind my business interests off Grant Line. Once I owned a house there, and the blessedly unfinished basement was prone to the very same issues discussed by residents at the last council get together. Yes, I have seen sewage geysers. Three years ago, we killed a car dead by driving it into suddenly revealed, knee-deep water near Our Lady.

Just the same, as council attorney Stan Robison's pained expression last Monday indicated, does the city council really want to establish a precedent that it acts as the community's insurance fund, ready for tapping each and every time something goes wrong? How far (and for how much) does this responsibility extend? Does it ever end? And what does any of it have to do with economic development?

Answer to the last question: About as much as using EDIT monies to subsidize sewer rates, which is tantamount to a yearly political action committee donation to the re-election campaign of each city council member.

Not that storm and floor repair monies would resemble that remark in the 6th district sense, mind you.

It should be wonderful tonight, and I'll be blogging live if there's an available connection.

Go here for the agenda, spin your council wheels of flipping flopping chance and whim, and come out to the historic City-County Building tonight for these and other enduringly entertaining diversions, including the unknown landing point of the Blevins Memorial Swing Voter (i.e., CM Bob Caesar) on supplemental police funding. There's also the question of whether Gomer removes the bucket before Aunt B's cookie jar is emptied, but we'll let Goober resolve that one.