Council Monday: If we're spending $$$ "saving the neglected Reisz Furniture Building to use as a new city hall," then can we be clear as to how it became "neglected" in the first place?

Actually, we already know the whys and wherefores about the neglect. We'd prefer Jeff Gahan or David Barksdale to concede them aloud, but we'll probably have to settle for Mike Hall saying nothing at all -- 'cuz that's the way Dear Leader rolls.

Private sector, here we come.

Can't we have a factually accurate discussion about municipal history, just this once?

ON THE AVENUES: Super Tuesday shrapnel – or, tiptoeing through the tulips with Dan Coffey, now THE face of historic preservation in New Albany.

But there's good news: Coffey's now a skeptic, and he is vigorously advocating a Reisz-xit.

10 short months ago.

Not to be a pest, but we're wondering about the rumored cost overruns. When not chortling over Duggins/Keeneland junkets with women, booze and Duggins, as staged by the preferred contractor's top brass, Denton Floyd's workers have been gossiping freely about the unexpected expenses to stabilize the building.

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Is the price tag escalating for our luxury City Hall at the Reisz Furniture building?

That's because the building's been sitting there barely tended for decades -- in the city's own words (not ours), "neglected."

To neglect something is to not take good care of it, like neglecting your pet salamander by not cleaning its cage, or fail to show your usual affection — neglecting your old friends when you make new ones. The person or thing that endures such shabby treatment is neglected — feeling unloved, ignored, and in need. Another meaning of neglected is "overlooked," like when you neglected to bring your umbrella and got soaked.

In fairness, there'll be a gleaming, windowed Schmitt Furniture rehab when all is said and done; Denton Floyd paid Schmitt Inc. $390,000 for the Reisz building, and now Schmitt Inc. pulls 25% of the cost of facade improvements at the Furniture Corner, with Horseshoe Grants accounting for the 75% match.

That's good leveraging for a "neglected" building -- city's words, not ours.

The Green Mouse also has been hearing rumors about City Hall informing the Harvest Homecoming governing committee that 2018 will be the last year for Fiesta Rides in the parking lot behind the projected City Hall (by the levee). Sidestepping the many ongoing (and in some instances, unresolved) issues pertaining to Harvest Homecoming and the independent business community downtown, it remains that Fiesta Rides generates lots of cash for the festival.

The Mouse thinks that threatening to evict Fiesta Rides is Jeff Gahan's way of staking a claim to a negotiating stance v.v. co-billing for Anchor City and Harvest Homecoming. In other words, the city would offer the festival a subsidy for lost revenue, or a credit for other expenses, in return for branding rights: Hon. Jeff Gahan Presents Harvest Homecoming, or some such.

There are many moving parts in this Reisz story, but unless someone like Coffey decides to ask some hard questions on Monday night, I'm guessing we'll hear only one side of it.

Here's the agenda. The Green Mouse and I will begin drinking shortly after lunch -- and by the way, if you're read this far, it is my intent to use non-agenda public speaking time Monday evening to address the forthcoming Taco Walk: cultural appropriation last year, theft of the founder's intellectual property rights, and the need for city government to monitor Develop New Albany's cliquish tendencies.

One clique overseeing another? This isn't Scandinavia, you know.