Price to propose banning bicycle use by all 250-lb council critics ... or maybe not.

To survive in New Albany without dawn-to-dusk doses of tranquilizing chemicals is to accept a fundamental and capricious inequality of gray matter when it comes to governance.

While I was away in Boston, the third council district’s Steve Price – the man who votes “no” the way the rest of us make daily trips to the toilet – rolled over in bed and felt the urge to say “yes” to the notion of saying “no” to the use of cell phones by drivers of automobiles, citing a pressing interest in public safety that somehow never previously has emerged during wide-ranging discussions on other issues, ranging from living conditions in rental properties to working conditions for servers in smoke-filled rooms.

Having duly announced to voters in next year’s election that he possesses some measure of doo-dah rhythm approximating a legislative pulse, and passionately cares for their welfare even if there is little evidence during seven years of congenital underperformance to support such an absurd proposition, Price now has reverted to Drivel Libertarian form with August’s first council meeting just around the corner:

“I don’t know if this is the time to do that (cell phones) with the budget.”

He couldn’t have executed this latest white boy pump fake without a little help from his friends. In the grand tradition accorded the current occupant of the D. Blevins Chair for Persistent Council Indecisiveness, the fourth district’s Pat McLaughlin helped put the brakes on Price’s pretend-stagecraft, noting (wait for it) … Pat hasn’t made up his mind:

“I just haven’t seen the numbers on it yet, and I pretty much go by the statistics.”

If you’re keeping score at home, pull those again Twister games from the cedar closet and try to transcribe Price’s opposition to both code enforcement and the registration of rental properties, his support (albeit lukewarm) for banning cell phone use while driving, his votes against outlawing indoor smoking, and those favoring prohibiting novelty cigarette lighters.

Speaking personally, I can’t say that I’ve ever seen Price texting while behind the wheel, but driving while playing the theme from "Deliverance" on a harmonica?

That’s another matter entirely.