Jeff Gahan's re-election campaign, and what $9 million IS and IS NOT buying.

$9  million is buying a shiny wet bauble, and with this being an election year, the mayor (or more likely, an acolyte) finally has returned to his Facebook page to campaign after a couple of years off-line, and on the seemingly permanent down-low.

My first reply was deleted. Let's see how the second one fares.

Meanwhile, a vast selection of needed improvements will not receive $9 million or portions thereof. A few of these are depicted below.

Flashing lights at a crosswalk adjacent to an urban elementary school (they've been out for months, and the street department told a constituent it couldn't afford to fix them).

An explanation as to why New Albany's premier autumn festival gives independent small businesses the ingratitude of a bum's rush.

A crosswalk and calmed streets, so this lady can get from one side to another without being hit by ...

... trucks that shouldn't be allowed in a residential area in the first place.

Of course, it would help if signals like this one worked.

$9 million won't purchase relief for this house, located a fee blocks from the planned Coyle redevelopment, the city's cost for which isn't yet known, but hey: A million here, a million there, and it's okay, because HE'LL be paying for it:

(Can you find the truck that shouldn't be there in the first place?)

$9 million won't be addressing the city's trashiness.

It won't be used to address the abominable decay at Fairview Cemetery, where "perpetual maintenance" signs are used as metaphorical doorstops.

It didn't save the building at 922 Culbertson, which came down for no reason apart from the mayor's need to humiliate Landmarks -- and Dan Coffey's penny ante electoral deal-making with CCE's demolition teams.

There'll be no love for the Amphitheater, although 2015 will see a renewal of temporary re-election shows in places not built for the purpose, which require abnormally high expenditures for temporary infrastructure.

I could continue until bandwidth is as limp and exhausted as Jeff Gahan's governing tactics, but the message is fairly clear. Look past the shiny baubles to be financed by your (and their) grandchildren, and ask: Is New Albany genuinely cleaner and fundamentally better than it was four years ago?