Reisz Vote Buy Bonanza: "The News and Tribune asked to interview Mayor Jeff Gahan and was instead referred to statements in a news release."

Even in his shining moment of triumphant megalomania, the mayor cannot be bothered to emerge from the bunker and face his adoring public.

He sends a video and a news release instead. And a repurposed Valentine's Day card, as grasped in the furry proffered hand of Dan Coffey, who until Tuesday afternoon was the city's foremost opponent of historic preservation.

Look like that conversion therapy works, after all.

Meanwhile, as the questions proliferate like the tortuous imagined narrative in Cappuccino's noggin, and the star-spangled Chronicles of New Gahania roll endlessly toward a bright and enriching future, reporter Beilman updates Super Tuesday.

Isn't Coffey being paid to be the Knights of Columbus janitor?

If David Barksdale is correct in asserting that the Reisz Furniture building might not have deteriorated so far if its owner would have been pro-active 15 to 20 years ago ... don't we routinely take absentee slumlords to task for the very same neglect?

Exactly which Redevelopment honey pot was dipped into?

Why was only one out-of-state contractor involved with the option, and did local contractors even have a chance to bid?

Might they have been more interested in the project had it been public knowledge that $750,000 would be given them to grease the skids?

Must we even guess which of the office in the renewed Reisz will have the best view of the toll-free (for now) Sherman Minton?

Don't the Knights of Columbus support political and social agendas quite apart from Coffey jihad against modernity?

Rinse and repeat, ad nauseam. Take it away, Elizabeth.

UPDATE: New Albany officials seek to rehabilitate Reisz Furniture building into new City Hall (N and T)

Proposed deal calls for $750,000 investment

NEW ALBANY — New Albany officials are planning to relocate city headquarters out of the government center shared with Floyd County and into its own city hall in an historic Main Street building.

The proposed move into the mid-19th century Reisz Furniture building may be its last hope for survival, as private development interest in rehabilitating the old structure has waned.

"It's probably the only project that would save the Reisz building," said New Albany City Councilman and Redevelopment Commissioner David Barksdale, who is also a local historian. "Fifteen, 20 years ago when it started that small decline, that would have been maybe when the private investor could have gotten involved, but I don't see anyone else stepping up right now and saving that building."

The announcement came along with funding commitments from the redevelopment commission to rehabilitate three historic buildings downtown, including Reisz Furniture.