New Albany's "Person of the Year" for 2012?

This idea was thrown out for discussion in 2011, but if memory serves, it was lost in the year's end rush. Given that the "person" of the year need not even be human, my choice last year was the Sherman Minton Bridge, and because a formal vote was not taken, the bridge is hereby retroactively declared the winner.

Let's try it again for the year 2012.

Person of the Year (formerly Man of the Year) is an annual issue of the United States newsmagazine Time that features and profiles a person, couple, group, idea, place, or machine that "for better or for worse ... has done the most to influence the events of the year."

So, who/what would be the winner if the consideration were to be restricted to New Albany in 2012? Here is an admittedly incomplete starter list.

Horseshoe Foundation ... it converts gaming losses into funds for the social services that Erika's taxpayers eschew, does so with consummate impartiality, and never, ever deigns to interfere in local governmental affairs conducted by those officials who actually were elected ... LOL.

Jeff Gahan … it’s about time someone called county government’s perpetual bluff.

Parson Clere … because after all, what good is an 800-lb gorilla if it cannot be included on an “of the year” list? It WILL be included ... or else.

Mike Ladd … the Urban Enterprise Association director had to be sacrificed so that the outside world could see clearly, definitively and conclusively, the depths to which the outgoing England administration had plunged. Let's all join together in saying, "Never again."

Our local Democratic Party … but logically speaking, can non-corporeal bodies capture corporeal awards? Quick, someone find a theologian -- or Connie Sipes.

Develop New Albany … not since Spain patiently awaited Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s passing has the future of an entity been so conclusively tied to a change in discredited leadership. Can an invisible organization win a prize? Can it win a Prozac? Regime change now, please.

Bob Caesar … seldom has a local political figure become so reliably consistent in occupying the entirely mistaken side of any given issue, especially when it comes to anything pertaining to the general concept of "urban". CM CeeSaw's Bulova Watch Time? Round about 1938, give or take a Roosevelt administration.

River View Project … it seems to have died in 2012. Maybe now something good can happen, although we might wish to dispose of the corpse.

Rent Boy Park, a.k.a. Somnolent Estates, a.k.a Caesar’s Folly; also known only by its enabling commission (the Coup d'Geriatrique) as Bicentennial Park. A truly monumental waste of time and money when so many other projects go wanting, and as such, utterly and ironically indicative of the city's first two hundred years.

Steve Resch … year in, year out, quietly doing redevelopment right.

What do you think?