But didn't taxpayers already forward $750,000 to Denton Floyd to "stabilize" the Reisz Luxury City Hall?

Of course, they might be maypoles. They're certainly not giants.

The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 17: Denton-Floyd feels M(ighty) Fine -- and the resulting Reisz Krispies Treats never tasted better to Mayor Gahan.

Jeff Gahan handed Denton Floyd $750,000 to kick-start the Reisz project. Where are the documents detailing this transaction?

The Chase Bank Building at 120 W. Spring St. might have made a groovy city hall, but the Reisz Mahal fix already had been non-transparently finalized.

When we think back to last summer's Reisz Mahal luxury city hall boondoggle -- the Barksdale Ritz -- it's interesting to contemplate "what might have been."

It's the building where my old Scoreboard Liquors stomping grounds (and Cadillac Lanes) used to be. Plenty of space on the upper floors for city offices; conveniently located across the street from the Federal Building and the current City-County Building -- and a mere million-five, as opposed to the $10 million+ tag for the Reisz-Stag.

The biggest drawback would have been the insistence on the part of car-centric city planners that Spring Street remain a three-lane, high-speed on ramp for the interstate, rather than a calmed section of urban territory suitable for all users; the Gahan-Flavored Kool-Aid is strong, and city engineers notoriously weak.

At any rate, it might have been creative, ideal and relatively inexpensive, and while the Green Mouse is told that a few tepid discussions actually took place, Jeff "Dear Leader" Gahan is not noted for his ability to improvise on the fly, especially when the Denton Floyd+Schmitt+Reisz Mahal lavishness fix already was firmly plotted.

As an aside, is it true that on Tuesday when the mayor departed the Culbertson, where free booze was flowing like the loss-leading waters of River Run, he was tailed on the way home by an Indiana State Police car?

Democrats just can't hold their Bud Light Ultra Cactus Pomegranate Lime very well, can they?

CARTOON: Bunkermania and the Midas Touch.

But Monsieur Hall would be happy to speak with you.

Panel of polemicists proposes an exciting non-Reisz city hall relocation idea.

These adaptive reuse pieces took a while to come together, but now it's my pleasure to offer an viable alternative to David Barksdale's City Hall's plan (or is it David Barksdale's City Hall's plan -- so very confused) to deploy millions of back-scratching dominoes (and dollars) so that the neglected/dilapidated Reisz furniture building might be used for city offices.

It works like this: first, Culbertson gets a new name.

Unoccupied since 2011 in spite of constant assurances, the historic structure at the corner of 8th and Champs-Ely-GAHAN becomes the mayor's new office.

There's enough square feet for an official state guest room with plenty of faucets for visiting campaign donors to wet their beaks.

There's ample space in the old Emery's Ice Cream Building for remaining municipal offices and city council chambers.

As Dear Leader often says, "if you're not out panhandling for papa, you might as well be residing in a closet."

Best of all, just a few hundred feet down the Champs-Ely-GAHAN is the acreage inhabited by the Democratic Party's most loyal voters.

This plan is a slam dunk, a home run and a bottomless pint glass, all in one. In fact, it makes so much sense that satire is rendered helpless. Say what you will, but this makeover is destined for a Mayor Jeff M. Gahan Lifetime Empillarment Award.

Yes, and by the way, Greg Sekula got some good ink from Dale Moss last week.

MOSSWORDS: Answering the call to preserve in Southern Indiana, by Dale Moss (Inexplicably Tom May-less)

JEFFERSONVILLE — If not in Birdseye, where a former commercial building burned, Greg Sekula may find himself again in Medora, home to an abandoned brick factory.

Or Sekula could be in Charlestown, weighing in further on in the bitterly-debated future for Pleasant Ridge.

Sekula directs our region’s office of Indiana Landmarks. In other words, he asks pointed questions, poses daunting challenges and, all in all, pokes his nose routinely in business you or someone might suggest is not his.

Out with the old, in with the new? Not so fast, Sekula urges ...

In which Deaf Gahan sets us straight about the naming rights.

Desperately we seek solace through satire. As always, satire begins with the unreality of real life.

Throwing Reisz: The Jeff M. Gahan Luxury Government Center keeps the emphasis on buildings, as opposed to people.

While the rest of us were preoccupied with a luxury city hall, the Floyd County Parks Department was stealing a march on His Deafness's NA City Parks unit.

Ah, but the Deafster was on top of it all along.

"You haven't factored in the Romeo Langford Municipal Complex. First reading coming soon as soon as Barksdale puts us over the bar."

In other words, Monday.

For more Hon. Deaf Gahan, visit Twitter.

Quiet no longer, Josh Staten makes the newspaper: "New Albany reveals new redevelopment, economic development director."

Previously we grappled with the implications.

Redevelopment welcomes Josh Staten as its new director. So does this mean Duggins is 4-ever NAHA? Let's follow the money.

Former councilman John Gonder's viewpoints always are well-considered and thoughtful, which surely is why Mayor Gahan brutally sabotaged Gonder's re-election bid in 2015. Gonder appended this comment to NAC's post.

I would consider the appointment of Josh Staten as the Director of Redevelopment to be the most hopeful sign I've seen in New Albany's City Government in a long time. I wish him well.

That's reassuring.

City Hall's strangely subdued stealth in introducing its new redevelopment and economic development director stands in stark contrast to the hosannas accorded David Duggins, Staten's matinee idol predecessor, who came to us with the persona and press clippings of a rock star, and proceeded to trash his share of hotel rooms.

Staten is highly qualified and young, and that's a good start. He's also intimately connected to the AdamBot's hypocritical-by-design DemoDisneyDixiecratic party apparatus -- and that's not as good. We'll have to wait and see.

Hey, Irving Joshua -- how's that job search for a permanent bulldozer maintenance mechanic going over at NAHA? Inquiring minds want to know, even if you don't want to tell us.

New Albany reveals new redevelopment, economic development director, by Danielle Grady (News and Tribune)

NEW ALBANY — Josh Staten, a New Albany High School graduate, has mostly worked in the Kentuckiana area throughout his life. Well, except for a recently ended 10-month period when he was a planner in Florida. But now Staten is back in Southern Indiana for a position to which he couldn’t say no: redevelopment and economic development director for the City of New Albany.

“I always wanted to work in redevelopment, economic development. That’s just where my background is as far as studies are concerned,” said Staten, who has two master’s degrees from the University of Louisville, one in public administration and the other in urban planning. “And the idea of me getting a chance to come back to my hometown where I grew up and do this job was something I definitely jumped at immediately.”

Staten quietly started working for the city on Feb. 28 after an eight-month search by the city to replace the former director, David Duggins, who now is the interim executive director of the New Albany Housing Authority.

Gahan in eclipse? The ruling circle continues to shrink, but cerebral inbreeding makes better ideas, right? It certainly does wonders for pay packets.

The past two weeks have been vintage in the annals of the scandal-plagued second term of Generalissimo Jeff Gahan.

After Dear Leader's recent Super Tuesday vote-buying spree, we find serial bigot Dan Coffey once again firmly cemented to the mayor's side, with not a peep from local Democrats as to the repugnant irony of the Wizard of Westside's return to grace, or why the right-wing political arm of the Catholic Church should receive special facade treatment at Cappuccino's behest.

Ever noticed how Democratic Party chairman Adam Dickey's pious and mellifluous public words almost never seem to match with what he's engineering, sanctioning and blessing in private?

More intriguingly, recent personnel moves point to the ongoing domino effect of whatever foul-up caused David Duggins to be rushed overnight from the inner Hauss Square sanctum to the relative Siberia of Bono Road.

I've continued to point out that this transfer probably wasn't planned, and because when a mayor predicates campaign finance on the well-versed skills of a bag man at Redevelopment, losing such a financier's daily presence isn't a void to be filled in midstream without difficulty. Knowing where the bullion is buried is a form of job security, after all.

Hence the apparent (rumored) solution: allow Duggins to double-dip while at NAHA, continuing to moonlight coordinating the cash-stuffed envelopes at Redevelopment even as a loyal Democratic foot soldier (Tony Toran) is added at NAHA to do the unqualified Dugout's job, while assigning the task of pretending to do redevelopment work to the already well compensated corporate attorney, Shane Gibson, whose only true mission in the Church of Gahan is to coordinate the Machiavellian subterfuge of the preceding flow chart.

In reality, the troika of Gahan, Gibson and Dickey governs the city, with occasional input from Duggins, and kibbles and bits tossed in the ragpicker Coffey's direction at regular intervals.

#OurNA?

Hardly.

It's #TheirNA at present, though this needn't be a permanent affliction.

Previously:

Newspaper letter writer savages a failing, flailing and floundering Duggins at the NAHA, and follows the bread crumbs back to Deaf Gahan.

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Shane Gibson to fill David Duggins' shoes as economic development & redevelopment bag man, with a joyous wetting of beaks to follow.

Council approves solidarity resolution as Coffey's therapist advises him to skip yet another meeting.

ON THE AVENUES: Love in the time of choleric Coffey, though it's nice of Deaf Gahan to support the K of C's political agenda.

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As an addendum, NA Confidential has been unable to confirm whether New Albany Mayor Jeff M. Gahan or anyone working in the city's administration is under federal investigation or indictment for corruption, bribery or racketeering. It is standard policy of the U.S. Justice Department to refuse to confirm or deny the existence or non-existence of investigations or subjects of investigations. A similar policy exists at the F.B.I.

A message from Mayor Gahan.

James "U of L" Ramsey, sombreros, stereotypes and DNA's institutional legacy of tone deafness.