Flip flops and open-air footwear, how we get from here to nowhere.

City council recap, by Grace Schneider in the Courier-Journal:

… At its first reading, the panel voted 5-4 against an ordinance to back an additional appropriation of EDIT funds, or economic-development income tax money, for the hiring. The money is normally used to supplement the general fund ...

… Council member Bob Caesar, who'd voted on a resolution to support the hiring plan on June 18, said he decided to vote no this time over concerns about the city's tight budgets.

"I've just got to see some numbers before I vote on it," Caesar said.

With this comment, CM Caesar leaps feet first out of the closet and declares to the city that he’s a swinger -- specifically, the swing vote on this particular issue. With two readings remaining, proponents of the EDIT-for-police ordinance may freely target the 2nd district councilman with advice, persuasion and ardor.

How might those wishing to lobby this self-identified swing voter proceed?

Since Caesar wants to see numbers, show him numbers. Lots and lots of numbers: Phone books, spread sheets, personal bank statements, a prospectus or three, and the stack of Tommy Lancaster cocktail napkins dating to 1956 with the real, unadulterated sewer utility receipts scrawled in pencil.

But why all those messy napkins?

If any one secure point emerged from last evening’s grandstanding-laden scrum, it’s that every politician involved, whether executive or legislative in origin, agrees that the sewer utility is the proverbial cash cow that needs to be appropriated from EMC at the earliest legal maneuver.

Trouble is, not a one of them trusts any of the others to fondle the trophy first, for fear that some of the money will rub off. It's "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" -- make that "Treasure of the Sewage Treatment Plant" -- in living, New Albanian Techno-Color.

That said, pro-police lobbyists also need to ensure that they provide the final five phone calls to Caesar’s cellular just prior to the beginning of the next meeting … wait, sorry – that’s the chosen methodology of the 4th district’s Pat McLaughlin, not Caesar, but what the hell – it might work with Bob, too. Dressing up like Sheriff Taylor might help neutralize CM Steve "Mayberry Reverie" Price, but I doubt it. He's pickin' ... and no one's grinnin'.

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It couldn’t have helped city council attorney Stan Robison sleep last night to hear both Price and Caesar publicly concede that it’s the council’s responsibility for sewage and storm water invasions in the ‘burbs.

In the sense that numerous decisions at different times over long periods of years contribute to the way things are now, yes, then we’re all responsible for the present. In New Albany, it all adds up to a living heritage of penny-wise, pound-foolish, and sadly, this is the philosophy that returns politicians to office to make decisions in the same futile vein that come back to haunt future voters – who, in the main, don’t so much as blink before repeating the process.

Doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different outcome? That’s the popular definition of insanity. In New Albany, it's politics as usual.

Who’ll change his or her vote next time?

To learn this and other tales of the Open Air Museum, you'll have to heed the wisdom of Emerson, Lake and Palmer: "Come and see the show."

The next council meeting is on Thursday, July 16. By then, I hope to have secured the Coney dog and beer concession – if a sewer tap-in is still available.

Can someone just tell me who to pay?