On Monday our city council met remotely by means of Zoom, and once the body's president Tiberius Severus Octavian Elagabalus Septimius Augustus Claudius Hadrian Gluteus Maximus Caesar -- Protector of Fitting and Proper Scribnerian Values, Deliverer of all Downtown Datedness, Master of the Ex-Mercantile, and Guardian of the Gates -- also known as Bobby Bicentennial -- was convinced to surrender the tin cans and string, things went fairly smoothly.
Hanson's newspaper seems to be in transition as it approaches a date with room temperature, and our coverage comes courtesy of Noah, Diane and others who commented on Facebook.
As is its ancient, hallowed custom of indifference to the most vulnerable in our community, the Democratic Party-controlled council is opting to interminably delay any consideration of the annual outsourcing of homeless assistance funding to agencies in Clark County.
Recall that the city of New Albany's contribution to homeless assistance generally takes the form of demonizing them and bulldozing their tents. Why? Because the homeless induce gastrointestinal distress in Mayor Gahan and fellow (purely partisan) social architects like Squire Adam and David Duggins.
How can we be an All-Gahanian City when poor people keep embarrassing the purported left-wing "leadership"?
On Monday there was a vote to consider a vote to provide money to Catalyst Rescue Mission Homeless Shelter (the topic first was broached in February).
On Gahan's perennial instructions (he was socially distant long before it was cool), pretend-Democrats Collier, Caesar, Phipps, McLaughlin and Applegate poo-pooed the idea. Republican David Aebersold gave his internal consistency wheel a spin and joined the Democrats, leaving Republicans Knable and Turner, and the Independent Blair, to vote in favor.
I asked Mr. Phipps to explain his vote, coming at a time when unemployment and homelessness are up, and societal health and well being down, and he returned this dry, bureaucratic verdict.
We need to have a public hearing and find out more about how the large grant money they received will be used.
But at some point, isn't pinching more than a few pennies going to be necessary? Homeless funding might be put to better use polishing the rotors at River Run, at least when the Gahan's most wasteful achievement is allowed to reopen.
That's because the most fascinating aspect of Gahan's deeper-than-ever bunker residency during our COVID lockdown has been the ostensible continuance of "business of financial profligacy as usual" at the same time as virtually every other municipal entity in America is preparing for extreme pain.
From Houston to New York, America’s Muni Finances Are in Tatters, by Amanda Albright, Danielle Moran and Fola Akinnibi (Bloomberg)
In Dayton, Ohio, Mayor Nan Whaley has furloughed a quarter of the city’s workforce and is warning that more cuts may follow. In Baltimore, which has one of the highest murder rates in the nation, Mayor Bernard Young is negotiating layoffs with the police union. And in Houston, Mayor Sylvester Turner is deferring all five police cadet classes.
New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, may have only been referring to his state when he declared on national television in March that “we are broke,” but he was, in a broader sense, speaking for the vast bulk of city and county and state governments in America.
Never before have U.S. municipalities been hit so hard or so quickly or in so many different ways as they are right now by the coronavirus pandemic.
Maybe HWC Engineering will bail us out for a change.
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