Council Part One: “I don’t want to be spoon fed information,” says Coffey, who promptly chokes on it.

Tonight, someone in the IT section at the City-County Building gave the wheel of Internet access a mighty spin and … no Internet connection.

Live council blogging was cancelled, and the denizens of the peanut gallery began to compare on-line agendas and the printed copies, with the latter having nice formatting.

Speaking of which, I’ll try to devise some system of formatting that makes these off-the-cuff notes clearer. The new agenda is great and somewhat legal, but it will take some time to absorb.

THE COMMON COUNCIL OF THE CIVIL CITY OF NEW ALBANY, INDIANA, HELD A REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING IN THE THIRD FLOOR ASSEMBLY ROOM OF THE CITY/COUNTY BUILDING ON MONDAY, FEBRUARY, 1, 2010 AT 7:30 P.M.

The following order of business shall be observed by the Common Council at its meetings:

(A) Invocation. To be given by ministers, if present of different faiths

Wow. Apparently no ministers were here, not even Donnie Blevins, so for the first time in recent memory, there was not prayer. Never thought I’d see that. Genuine enlightenment from a council president. Is that legal in New Albany?

(B) Pledge of allegiance;

Check.

(C) Roll call of members;

Jeff Gahan is absent. Presumably he heard that the sewer utility's cash cow went over the cattle gate, so he went out looking.

(D) Reading, correcting and approval of the journal of the preceding regular or special meeting;

Not ready, so these approvals will be delayed. As a signal to a handful of people present who went to the trouble of lugging barrels of tar and bags of feathers up the stairs, President Gonder notes that because the sewer issue hasn’t been sorted out, there’ll be no discussion of it tonight. We roll out eyes. Does he really think we'll get through a meeting without Tweedledee and Tweedledum not speaking out about the sewer situation?

(E) Communications, in the following order:

(1) From city officials:

(a) Mayor;

Carl Malysz addresses on behalf of Mayor England, who is working on economic development projects.

Tax abatement requests are coming tonight. Also, the mayor is pleased about the February 6 meeting to discuss police and fire issues relevant to funding these departments. The administration wishes that council members seeking specific information should direct it to City Hall. It makes sense that department heads not have to answer multiple information requests from various council persons. Lastly, while he cannot release details, Malysz reveals that an unnamed famous food entrepreneur has agreed not to build a processing plant, but somewhat oddly, to provide 60,000 frozen meals to be distributed to the needy, right here in NA.

How this qualifies as good publicity is hard to determine. We must be damned impoverished to be proud of this point.

Coffey Time: He finds it “perplexing” that City Hall wants to clamp down on information sought by city council members from police and fire heads, and “disconcerting” (whoa - four syllable word!) that council members can’t seek this information on their own. Guess Coffey was the one rooting for what he can't have?

Malysz: Why have a meeting on February 6 if we go rooting for it before then?

Coffey: “I don’t want to be spoon fed information.” The council has the right to ask whatever questions it wishes of anyone it wishes whenever it wishes.

Coffey: “Just for the record I’m not the one who called.” Funny that he assumes that we’d all conclude that he’s the one.

Malysz: “The question seems to be one of ego.”

Indeed, it is unclear why this is happening.

Benedetti: “This council feels like the city controller should be at every one of our meetings” so questions can be asked. Can this be done by statute? “She’s got to be here … if you call her office and she’s not in, there’s no backup.”

Nice power struggle to begin the evening.

McLaughlin: Cannot be here for the meeting on Saturday the 6th.

There seems to be other council persons with the problem of attending, and a discussion follows about who can and cannot attend.

Coffey: “The budget can wait,” with other unnamed issues (sewers, anyone?) in more need of attention.

Many voices: Who scheduled the meeting? Can it be changed? Is there another option?

Now it is agreed that nothing can happen on Super Bowl Sunday because Steve Price will be pickin' and grinnin' at a party.

Gibson: We’ll work to reschedule a date with a majority who can come.

Price: “One has to wonder with this current crisis reported in the Tribune … sewers … sounds like a crisis.” Should we do sewers now and wait to do police and fire until later?

Malysz: Suggested sewer rates increases to preclude the current situation were always slashed by the council in the past, so if it’s a crisis, it's been “a long time in coming.” Notes that Gonder has asked for a recommendation by the Sewer Board. Not sure when that will happen and how it fits into the time frame.

Benedetti: The sewer board needs to vote on action first, before the council does.

Scapegoats are hard to find.

Gibson: Yes, the board will eventually vote, but the sewer report in question was just that, a report.

Gonder tries to return the discussion to the police and fire gab session. There is a vote. Some can come on a different date, and others cannot. Someone mentions the prospect of a Sunday meeting in spite of the Stupor Bowl.

Coffey: “I know we're no longer doing prayer, but Sunday’s just not the day for that (a meeting) … I believe in the old Sunday blue laws.”

That figures.

Malysz: “We’ll make it (a changed date) work.”

Price: “So Saturday’s out?”

It’s going to be 5:00 p.m., but I didn’t catch what day or year. Wait, it’s Monday.

Mark Cassidy suggests that I volunteer the use of the city’s patio at BSB. I said why not Wick’s? His sidewalk got fixed, too, but no one ever maligns those guys.

More exchanges between Malysz about information requests and whether it will be future policy. Oddly, on the topic of receiving information, Price concedes that he’s been “given everything I wanted” by both Kay Garry and Gibson.

Malysz concludes by observing that if Price could get all the information by asking to receive it, perhaps the remaining council members could, too, and this has the effect of igniting Coffey, who gets angry at the world, and quickly.

Coffey: “We got a sewer problem because you hid information.”

What a putz. I told Mark, "watch this," and squeezed off a flash picture in Coffey's general direction. He began mouthing dirty little copperhead cuss words at me, but Bob Caesar leaned back just then and I missed them. It was like Pavlov's Snake.

(b) Controller;

Kay isn’t here. She was off today.

(c) City Attorney; and (d) City Engineer.

As Gibson hands out sheets about something, Coffey is still griping, entirely out of turn. Gibson and Coffey verbally grapple.

Then it got surreal, and some dude in the crowd named Charlie Main went up to Coffey and began vamping that great Mary Magdalene number from Jesus Christ Superstar:

Sleep and I shall soothe you, calm you, and anoint you.
Myrrh for your hot forehead, oh.
Then you'll feel
Everything's alright, yes, everything's fine.
And it's cool, and the ointment's sweet
For the fire in your head and feet.
Close your eyes, close your eyes
And relax, think of nothing tonight.

Charlie Main rubbing Cappuccino's feet. What's next, Bob Mapplethorpe?

What a way to end part one of tonight's council coverage.