A trio of shameless mob bosses attended yesterday's ribbon-cutting, because the Balkans have nothing on New Albany.

I'm so old I can remember all the way back to January of 2017, when Bob Caesar and Pat McLaughlin merrily conspired with Mayor Jeff Gahan to produce then-council counsel Matt Lorch's head on a platter for the approbation of swing voter Dan Coffey.

It's perfectly clear that the wheels are coming off what remains of the Floyd County Democratic Party. If we were to send a drone aloft to gaze at the respective checking accounts of local Democrats and Gahan's political action committee, we'd find a huge disparity. The mayor is hugely flush, and Dickey's oxcart tapped dry (ethically as well as financially).

Gahan surely is dictating Lorch decapitation terms. Dickey has no choice, and no backbone even if he did. Coffey gets back on the train, and Phipps isn't even bothered to rehearse his increasingly trite Hamlet routine. Caesar and McLaughlin both want to be mayor. Blair continues to be cast out by both parties, and a Republican likely will win the next mayoral contest in any event.

Do you have an alternative scenario? Let me know. The entertainment won't last forever, and it helps take our minds off the next Democratic central committee meeting:

Most folks who value a semblance of basic human decency would like to believe that Caesar's, McLaughlin's and Gahan's glad-handing appearance yesterday at the ribbon cutting for Lorch's law office had something to do with penance for their lingering guilt over the way they humiliated Lorch two years ago.

But that's not it. Rather, an election season is upon us, and Develop New Albany remains eager as ever to (a) claim responsibility for matters touching the arm-of-city-organization not one jot, and (b) to provide as many photo-ops as possible for the big fish inhabiting our small local pond, thus enabling yesterday's ludicrous scene.

On second thought, now I'm the one feeling guilty -- about comparing New Albany to the Balkans. That's plainly an insult to the Balkans, and I apologize profusely.

Pass the Scissors: Balkan Ribbon-Cutting, the Silly and Absurd, by Martin Dimitrov, Mladen Lakic, Anja Vladisavljevic, Die Morina, Filip Rudic (Balkan Insight)

From a shiny new elevator to a border-crossing toilet, Balkan politicians rarely pass up the chance to cut a red ribbon

In the Balkans, good news can sometimes be hard to find.

So why wouldn’t a deputy prime minister cut the ribbon at the unveiling of a toilet, or a cabinet minister christen an elevator?

They did, and they are not alone. The past few years have seen politicians in the Balkans plumb new depths in their search for a decent photo-op and a chance to take credit for the state’s largesse ...

ON THE AVENUES: Democrats should judge city council incumbents in districts 2, 3, 4 and 5 by their regressive deeds, not their progressive words.

ON THE AVENUES: Democrats should judge city council incumbents in districts 2, 3, 4 and 5 by their regressive deeds, not their progressive words.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Ever since Dan Coffey’s how-did-it-take-so-damned-long-anyway defection from the Democratic Party in January of 2016, New Albany’s nine-member city council has been populated by just four presumed Democrats.

• District 2: Bob Caesar (now in his twelfth year)
• District 3: Greg Phipps (eighth year)
• District 4: Pat McLaughlin (twelfth year)
• District 5: Matt Nash (fourth year)

The scuffed fingernails of this motley 44th percentile have managed to cling to an ever-shrinking semblance of significance for a variety of reasons, absolutely none of which attest to any specific distinction or merit as public servants.

Both literally and figuratively, it hasn’t been about them at all. The gradual evolution of mayoral authority, as capable of governing New Albany by authoritarian decree apart from direct council oversight, has allowed the city’s diminished Democrats to hang on to what’s left of their power.

With the municipal populace forever determined to ignore local matters in favor of arguing endlessly over national issues, apathy and inertia play their roles, too.

It also took a while for the three council Republicans and two Independents to come together (occasionally) for a semblance of common cause against the imperial excesses of Jeff Gahan’s reign.

One example: In hindsight, Al Knable probably regrets being conciliatory at the beginning of his council career in 2016, seeing as conniving and opportunistic Democrats lost no time in paying back Knable for his equanimity by savagely attacking his character over the contrived and nonsensical 9-1-1 phone call episode.

Unfortunately the Republican at-large troika hasn’t always been able to maintain a unified front. Their biggest head-slapping disgrace in recent memory remains David “I'm Passionate for Masonry” Barksdale, who resembled a slobbering puppy angling for tasty kibbles and bits during the course of gulping Dear Leader’s cynical pleasantries, as necessary to procure approval for the cherished Democratic Party goal of an election-ready Reisz Mahal luxury city hall boondoggle.

Then earlier this month, a befuddled David AeberSOLD out his compatriot Knable by bizarrely rolling over on behalf of an unctuous Caesar in the election for 2019 council vice-president.

With friends like those, who even needs Adam “Tricky” Dickey as an enemy?

---

The enduringly fascinating aspect of our bedraggled Democratic council quartet is the beige patina of its blandness. The best historic parallel is those jowly Politburo geriatrics propped atop Lenin’s Mausoleum during Soviet May Day parades of old; colorless and featureless functionaries without the first original thought of their own, committed only to agreeing in lock step with the First Secretary.

By the end of 2019, New Albany’s four remaining Democratic council critters will have 36 years of combined service – and for what ultimate purpose? They’re faded pawns waiting to be pushed around the chess board, and veritable rubber stamps in desperate need of re-inking. They seem far older than they really are, with a collective demeanor suggesting mute charred hulk burnout.

That’s no surprise, given that their chief duty these past eight years has been to purge their souls of any damning stain of cogitation and meekly obey whatever orders Gahan and Dickey have given them as obsequious toady foot soldiers digging trenches to maintain Gahan’s sole achievement as mayor: a cash-laden political patronage machine constructed to enable VIP treatment for donors and vested interests, boasting pay-to-play as the order of the day, and with the lion’s share of the proceeds going to the mayor himself.

Witnessing these four remaining council Democrats in (re)action at last Thursday’s meeting, and knowing that all of them will trudge forward to re-enlist for four more senseless, torpid years of tuck-pointing Gahan’s prophylactic wall against fresh thinking and new ideas, I couldn’t help noticing their utter political exhaustion.

They’re bored, lethargic and absent anything resembling excitement, save for the sporadic flaring of pet fetishes. As such, Caesar briefly showed a heightened pulse when allowed to gush like a hormonal crush-afflicted schoolboy over One Southern Indiana’s yearly panhandling appointment to tout its oligarch masturbation outreach.

Similarly, Phipps became momentarily lucid on the topic of resuscitating (yet again) his otherwise toothless Human Rights Commission; those of us with long memories winced while recalling the time just a year ago when he dramatically “washed” his hands of the HRC. This exceedingly rare moment of Phippsian candor evidently has been delightfully airbrushed from the narrative, Dickey having issued contradictory marching orders numerous times since then.

In customary fashion McLaughlin said almost nothing the entire evening, leaving the accidental Democratic council yes-man Nash to shock the peanut gallery by erupting at freshly installed council president Scott Blair’s appointment of civilian Scott Whalen to the Board of Zoning Appeals in place of Stephen Pacciano, whose term had expired.

It is the prerogative of the council president to reappoint or replace board members, which the remaining eight councilmen subsequently affirmed. It later emerged that Pacciano had wanted another term, with Blair preferring his own man, although characteristically secretive Nash didn’t clearly explain any of this during the course of his weirdly emotional and garbled complaint.

Nash’s outburst came as a surprise to veteran council watchers, who’ve grown accustomed to the passing of entire seasons between instances of Nash saying anything at all. Last summer when it came time for the final Reisz Mahal vote, Nash remained impassive and unquestioning through a lengthy and detailed discussion without uttering a peep apart from the single syllable “aye” when called upon by Gahan and Dickey to vote in favor of the most misguided expenditure of public funds I’ve witnessed since my council viewing began in 2004.

The 5th council district plainly deserves better than this.

As much as I like Nash personally, the sad fact is that politically, he is a pliable tool of the Democratic Party’s fix-is-in machine, a jalopy lubricated for decades on end by Warren Nash, the councilman’s father.

In 2015 Matt Nash became the nominee for 5th district councilman by predetermined precinct committee decision when Dustin Collins became ill, and later when down on his luck in 2018 after the failure of his business venture, he abruptly and miraculously landed a job with the housing authority, itself the victim of a hostile annexation by Gahan the year before – something Nash has yet to publicly reference even once as a councilman.

If that’s not nepotism and political bondage according to the gnarly Tammany Hall model, American history books might have to be rewritten.

For Nash to be angry about Pacciano’s treatment might well have been exemplary and praiseworthy – but exactly where has Nash’s outrage been hibernating during his council term as Gahan and Dickey have run roughshod over basic human decency, bullying, bribing and bartering without any semblance of empathy or conscience?

Had Nash murmured even once about the immoral morass and selective ethics of his Democratic Party overlords, it might be different for me – but wait, I forget; he has the same tired excuse as every other Democrat in town, namely that Republicans are always worse.

Spare me.

---

Meanwhile here in the 3rd, the PhippsBot becomes even further estranged from his self-described powers of cool, analytical detachment, with these skills inevitably being spotted solely as knee-jerk responses to Republican initiatives, and never in gauging the various special interest power plays advanced by his own party.

Last Thursday Phipps haltingly described the inadequacy of the digital speed control installations on Spring Street, and he’s right, but apparently it has not occurred to Phipps that his own cowering and complicit complacency during the run-up to two-way street reversion crucially enabled Gahan to assign HWC Engineering the task of unceremoniously junking the vast majority of Speck-recommended precepts as intended to REDESIGN these same streets to lessen vehicular speeds.

And this is the ultimate truth: unalloyed enablement.

Each of these four Democrats – Caesar, Phipps, McLaughlin and Nash – are pleasant enough company for a beer (well, maybe three of them, excepting the former jeweler, who still has those Bicentennial Commission finances safely hidden), but the political roles they’ve agreed to play are exuberantly passive.

They’re to emit gurgling sounds of rote acceptance on cue to whatever degraded and dictatorial whims Gahan and Dickey decree – just as Shane Gibson’s daily insider job is to find legal precepts capable of being artfully molded to accommodate a mayor and party chairman so crooked that it takes two valets each morning to help them screw on their pants.

Enablement and passivity, silence and culpability.

These are the de facto re-election “platforms” of New Albany’s four incumbent Democratic council representatives Caesar, Phipps, McLaughlin and Nash. That’s 36 years of … what, exactly?

As you might expect, Gahan and Dickey are working hard to assure there’ll be no primary opposition to incumbent council candidacies in 2019. That’s highly ironic, given that during mid-term elections last November numerous residents of the council districts represented by Caesar, Phipps, McLaughlin and Nash loudly declared themselves to be progressive, and publicly supported folks like Liz Watson, Dan Canon and Anna Murray.

If we are to assess the situation today, referencing the record of 36 combined years of actual city council seat-warming rather than their imagined stances pertaining to substantive policy, the incumbents in districts 2, 3, 4 and 5 are nowhere near as “progressive” as their 2019 Republican challengers – and Phipps’ underachieving sinecure is as yet uncontested, at least until I get my Independent petition started.

It’s very sad for the Democratic Party, though not for residents of those districts, who have high-quality Republicans ready and waiting for November. Personally, I find it hard to fathom that seemingly none of Watson’s, Canon’s and Murray’s purportedly progressive enthusiasts living in these precincts have grasped that when it comes to deeds and not words, their own Democratic council representatives are the ones who are completely out of sync.

There’s still time. Shouldn’t the local Democratic Party be walking the walk and not just talking the talk?

---

Recent columns:

January 15: ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: Jeff Gahan and Adam Dickey are Trumping the Donald when it comes to breathtaking moral turpitude. Have they no shame?

January 8: ON THE AVENUES: In the 3rd district, that "stepping aside" time finally has arrived.

January 1: ON THE AVENUES: As a new year dawns, I’m existentially yours.

December 29: ON THE AVENUES: Another year older and deeper in debt, so let's doo-doo it all over again.

First council meeting of 2019 is tonight -- is it Scott Blair's indie turn for the presidency?

It's nice to know that in a community filled to the brim with issues and challenges, 4th district seat-warmer Pat McLaughlin is concerned about what the library is called.

(slaps forehead)

Then again, it's the Floyd COUNTY Democratic Party, right?

Pfui. In a triumph of institutional/political inbreeding, all nine city council members attended New Albany High School, and I sometimes wonder whether those of us who didn't might some day be compelled to wear ... well, you know.

Here's the agenda for this evening's first Common Council meeting of 2019. The Green Mouse has been told that one deferred aspect of the smoky back room maneuverings in 2018 that unexpectedly brought Al Knable (R) to the council's presidency was an understanding for 2019, and the elevation of Scott Blair (I) to the seat.

Even regular blog readers may be surprised to learn that I haven't attended a council meeting since July. This might be the longest such streak of non-attendance since the inception of NA Confidential.

The Reisz Mahal luxury city hall relocation fix disgusted me and still does, and the aftermath of this "Make Special Interests Great Again" debacle was concurrent with the advent of Pints&union, which precluded attendance for Thursday evening council gatherings, with or without an air sickness bag.

This left Mondays, and I might have made it to the third floor for two or three of these gatherings, but in the end it just seemed like a good idea to hike up into the Sierra Maestra instead -- or maybe that was Silver Hills -- and begin plotting the next stage of the revolution.

What about tonight?

It's not a work night, and it's a new year with new priorities. Someone told me there's a local election this year.

Hmm. Is my hazmat suit back from the cleaners?

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: The demeaning squalidity of own goals -- but who is the resistance to object?

A quick blog search reveals that in the 13-and-a-half-year history of NA Confidential, the word "squalid" has appeared on only 15 occasions. That's a bit odd, considering my love for this word. Of particular interest here are the many glorious synonyms for squalid.

squal·id
ˈskwäləd
adjective

1 (of a place) extremely dirty and unpleasant, especially as a result of poverty or neglect: "the squalid, overcrowded prison"

synonyms: dirty, filthy, grubby, grimy, mucky, slummy, foul, vile, poor, sorry, wretched, miserable, mean, seedy, shabby, sordid, insalubrious; neglected, uncared-for, broken-down, run-down, down-at-heel, down-at-the-heel(s), depressed, dilapidated, ramshackle, tumbledown, gone to rack and ruin, crumbling, decaying; informal scruffy, crummy, ratty, flea-bitten, skeevy

2 showing or involving a contemptible lack of moral standards: "a squalid attempt to save themselves from electoral embarrassment"

synonyms: improper, sordid, unseemly, unsavory, sleazy, seedy, seamy, shoddy, cheap, base, low, corrupt, dishonest, dishonorable, disreputable, despicable, discreditable, disgraceful, contemptible, shameful, underhanded

The etymology leads back to Latin, as noted (above) by a regular reader who also teaches the language.

online.com/word/squalid">squalid (adj.)1590s, from Middle French squalide and directly from Latin squalidus "rough, coated with dirt, filthy," related to squales "filth," squalus "filthy," squalare "be covered with a rough, stiff layer, be coated with dirt, be filthy," of uncertain origin. Related: Squalidly; squalidness; squalidity.

Squalidity City! At last, we have the proper branding mechanism.

In all honesty, I never took Latin in school. No matter; I adore timeless classic, top-quality words, and "squalid" scores highly, particularly when deployed amid "truthful dialogue" in politics -- or even better, its absence.

Just this past Monday, I described councilman Pat McLaughlin's self-defeating censure resolution as being squalid, then ran through the many diverse synonyms during my three minutes at the podium.

Another way of saying "self-defeating" is "own goal."

own goal

In sport, a point that a player scores by mistake against their own team:

"Our team lost when we scored an own goal late in the second half."

Something that you do that gives you a disadvantage and helps someone else, even if this is the opposite of what you intended.

The hastily abandoned censure resolution was squalid, and a Democratic Party own goal, and so much ... less, at least in terms of integrity. But there is good news, as it propels us one step closer to regime change in 2019.

We’re confused. Does McLaughlin's censure climbdown mean he isn’t a mayoral contender any more, or is he the front runner now?

(Thanks to Jeff Gillenwater for today's header.)

There were somewhere around 80 people at the city council meeting on Monday night, and perhaps in direct response to Pat McLaughlin's censure resolution, management of the City County Building (it's owned by the county) decided to remodel both 3rd floor restrooms, which were closed.

Feeling the effects of pregame cocktails, I sneaked a peek at the men’s room.

It was in such a state of demolition that for a moment there, I thought I was privy to one of David Duggins’ wet dreams about the future of public housing.

On the topic of poo, irresolute thinking as muddled as McLaughlin's should disqualify him from consideration for any future office, but this is New Gahania, not Birdseye, and by noon today the DemoDisneyDixiecratic Party's resident Machiavelli in Knee Pants (A. Dickey) will have transformed McLaughlin's clueless farce into another great propaganda victory for Dear Leader.

How the AdamBot spins this abysmal train wreck is a mystery, but so it goes here in the land of congenital political underachievement.

For the best council coverage you can steal for 600 words at a 3rd-grade level of comprehension during two minutes' reading time, visit the newspaper.

Chris Morris also reports the outcome of the latest zoning imbroglio, in which a development proposed for the corner of Green Valley Road and Daisy Lane was defeated.

Following are five points I learned amid the straining bladders.

1. Clearly, the cynically fabricated hue and cry over Knable's statement to the News and Tribune has had far less to do with his actual comment than seeking to deflect any rational discussion of a combined 9-1-1 call center for city and county -- although if there were a few stray points to be scored by attacking Knable's character, the DemoDisneyDixiecrats are happy to take them. There weren't many, and overall, it's hard to imagine a bigger public relations misfire.

2. Given that there is a rational case to be made for a combined call center (as well as a corresponding argument against it), and seeing that the sliming of Knable was meant to derail anything that might resemble "truthful dialogue," we're compelled to consider the call center issue from a different angle: who currently wets their beaks from the dual call center organization as it presently stands? In short, it's time to follow the money, especially when the upper echelons insist that it's about safety, not cash.

Speaking for myself, I'm pro-union and anti-unigov, but the presence last evening of a spokesman for the call center/dispatcher union provides one clue; another might be found in a detailed examination of the mayor's campaign finance records.

3. Police chief Todd Bailey is planning to run for office. Granted, he hasn't said as much, but since this contrived controversy first reared its nasty, snarling, Gahanesque head, no public appearance by Bailey, as ostensibly devoted to defending the integrity of his unfairly maligned officers (heavens; spare us the melodrama, please), has come without the earnest recitation of his personal curriculum vitae. Bailey currently is jostling with Greg Phipps to determine which of the mayor's hips will be a target for attachment, but of the two, I suspect only the former has the requisite ambition.

4. Speaking of Phipps, the single greatest political disappointment of the current generation, who is fond of bragging about his Olympian detachment when it comes to decision-making, but unfortunately tends to embrace reasoning that mimics the circuitous gibberish of the Delphic Oracle rather than Mr. Spock's Vulcan logic, he was spared from casting a "yes" vote on Monday by virtue of McLaughlin's disintegration. However, Phipps hurriedly reminded the chamber that when it comes to cooperation between city and county, he is opposed to any measure that involves space aliens outside city limits.

Gahan himself couldn't have said it any better, and this is the point. Sycophants, unite -- you have nothing to lose apart from your dignity.

5. Answering Phipps' expression of disdain for perfidious county reactionaries (psst, Greg ... Democrats live there, too unless your implying that ... ), Knable reminded the room that county government recently came into an inheritance, this being the proceeds from the sale of the hospital -- and maybe, just maybe, this is a good sign as it pertains to future cooperation.

Speaking only for myself, sometimes when the facts change, one must recalibrate his opinions. County government no longer is the self-starving mechanism of old, and the closing of JeffBoat assures Clark County of a 20-mile-long development (and redevelopment) corridor from Charlestown and River Ridge to the South Clarksville project at the former Colgate. I may or may not like it, but this is the case. Unfathomable heaps of money are roosting there, and more is coming. If our plan is to bask in the backwash, it would be helpful to have a coherent niche. Right now, we don't.

A luxury dog spa nestled atop a Native American sacred area just might not be enough for New Albany and Floyd County to cope with the ramifications. Instead of wasting everyone's time with a resolution of censure derived from the reeking DemoDisneyDixiecratic swamp of petty and limiting self-interest -- those great big fish in this curbside puddle by the handicapped ramp -- perhaps a genuine commitment to the as-yet purely euphemistic "truthful dialogue" might help us move forward in the coming years.

A final takeaway: The usual DemoDisneyDixiecratic bait and switch -- gestures and signalling about social justice as intended to provide cover for the grubby excesses of the local party's patronage machine -- bears no similarity to the words "truthful dialogue" except as an expression of brutal irony, and as we know, they don't do irony. If there is any lasting value to be derived from McLaughlin's idiotic censure resolution, it's the appearance of these words, "truthful dialogue" within it.

Consequently, if anyone sees "truthful dialogue" emanating from a local ranking Democrat, please let us know. It would be a veritable holiday from the prevailing malice.

How would Pat McLaughlin know what "truthful dialogue" means when his local Democratic looters so very seldom participate in it?

Tonight's the night. If you're a fan of sleazy, slimy, self-serving seediness, you'll want to be at this evening's council meeting as Pat McLaughlin (D-Fantasy Island) introduces a politically-motivated resolution to censure council president Al Knable.

“Resolution to Censure the Council President for Misstatements to the Council and Media Concerning New Albany Public Safety and the 911 Emergency Telephone Service.”

To be sure, it's no use assembling a political patronage machine if the elders can't periodically lift the jalopy's leg and spray Bud Light Lime-scented urine around the room, but even by the barren, subterranean intellectual standards of Gahanism, this resolution is a sham, one that closes with what surely are the most hypocritical words every uttered in Councilpalooza.

“THEREFORE, We the Common Council of the City of New Albany adopt the censure and encourage truthful dialogue in all matters.”

LOLWRP (laugh out loud with rusty pitchforks).

These pitiful Democrats now piously stipulating truthful dialogue – how often have they collaborated in denying it, or telling whoppers themselves? Here are a few occasions that spring to mind in my personal experience.

---

Truthful dialogue? I attended a Tree Board meeting in May of 2016 and asked to see minutes of previous meetings. Two years later, I've received nothing.

Truthful dialogue? Was there even five minutes of public discussion about the plan to gift Flaherty and Collins with sewer tap-in waivers, a freebie without precedent, and one never previously offered to non-profits and educational entities?

Truthful dialogue? I famously asked Bob Caesar to provide the Bicentennial Commission financial records. He delayed me for two whole years, then flat refused; I made an information request from the city "corporate" attorney, who informed me these records of a formally chartered municipal entity, one that spent taxpayer money over a period of several years, don’t exist.

Truthful dialogue: We created the storm water board to be self governing and independent -- until it acted independently, then mayor-in-waiting Gahan mounted the lawsuit to strip it of independence, this being a precursor to City Hall annexing the Urban Enterprise Association and the New Albany Housing Authority.

Truthful dialogue? Develop New Albany, another taxpayer-supported organization, refuses to answer questions about the cultural appropriation encouraged by its own governing board during last year’s Taco Walk.

Truthful dialogue? Has anyone outside the mayor’s immediate circle seen financials from the water park's operation? Anyone? Bueller?

Truthful dialogue? Speaking of parks, has evidence yet surfaced of a single word in Gahan's 2011 campaign platform suggesting that just a few years later, he'd have split the county parks department and added almost $3 million in annual budget outlays to a new city-only "quality of life" want?

Truthful dialogue? Jeff Gahan, who as council president angrily refused to allow minions to speak at council meetings on behalf of the mayor at the time, has himself sent a minion to represent him at council meetings almost every time since day one in 2012.

---

The preceding are just the first vivid examples to come to mind.

Until a local DemoDisneyDixiecrat shows the first sign of a weak, labored pulse with regard to the concept of "truthful dialogue," it's the same old bait and switch: Indulge in endless “for show alone" gestures and signaling on social issues to avert eyes from the machine-led pillage being conducted by Dickey, Gahan, Gibson, Duggins and their merry crews, who'll go to any length, however nasty, fetishistic and depraved, to remain the biggest bottom-feeders peddling influence in this shrunken pond.

I encourage you to attend tonight and use your three minutes. Message me and I'll tell you how. 

Previously:

Ethically challenged local Democrats can't find a single friend as public opinion weighs in on the party's toxic Knable censure resolution.

More profiles in cravenness: "McLaughlin did not want to make a public comment until Monday's meeting."

ON THE AVENUES: Al Knable doesn’t lie, but the local Democratic Party is a flood-plain Pinocchio. Let’s censure it at the ballot box.

Gahanism is gangsterism, and Pat McLaughlin's nonsensical resolution censuring Al Knable is the best example yet of the local Democratic Party's utter depravity.

Did you miss the headline? The crux of it - DemoDisneyDixiecratic chairman Dickey is up to his eyeballs in fake facts, not to mention male moo cow feces.

The politics of diversion: "Chief Bailey is playing a losing hand, but then, they're not really his cards."

Ethically challenged local Democrats can't find a single friend as public opinion weighs in on the party's toxic Knable censure resolution.

Cricket's chirping? That's their swamp music.

For those just tuning in for today's sad installment of Local DemoDisneyDixiecrats of the Formerly Black But Now Very Greenback Lagoon, two pivotal local election cycles are approaching, the soulless pretend-left political machine is on the ropes, and that bleakest of functionaries, Pat "How High, Sir?" McLaughlin has channeled his inner Adam Dickey into a resolution to censure city council colleague Al Knable for an entirely imagined offense -- or to be brutally frank, for performing the task of council president far better than Paddy Mac ever did.

These are the depraved depths to which Team Gahan has plunged, whether the News and Tribune's deficient management team can bring itself to admit the obvious, or not.

McLaughlin's resolution serves as convenient and compelling proof that our local Democrats have left the rails. The only viable alternative to more of the same is to vote against them at every opportunity.

But first, let's take a brief glance at some of the reactions to our coverage of the ongoing travesty.

---

Did you miss the headline? The crux of it - DemoDisneyDixiecratic chairman Dickey is up to his eyeballs in fake facts, not to mention male moo cow feces.

Jeff Gillenwater (junior editor): "This (Democratic Party Fb post) is a lie to advance a political agenda. Members of both parties have been discussing the possibility of a call center merger for nearly a decade. Bailey and the rest of you affiliated with this ridiculous smear attempt ought to be ashamed but, as so many have learned and are learning the hard way, you all don’t really recognize shame amongst the cheap shots, half-truths, and innuendo. The number of people swearing off the local party and its candidates because of abominable behavior like this is growing. They do not see the party as a vehicle for progressive ideas and humanitarian concerns precisely because it’s not. Those still clinging to “local leadership” are likewise losing the respect of many. Keep it up.

D: "The conflicts we Democrats face at the national level require we take the high road at the local level. This (Democratic Party) article and what lies behind it do the opposite, and threaten everything the Dems should be standing for."

B: "Wow. That’s incredibly dishonest, even by local standards ... This has been thoroughly discredited in other threads and forums. The censure is complete partisan nonsense of the worst kind."

K: People know better than to believe that crap, don’t they? I believe Al at his word - a mistake ... This is going to backfire on them.

Billy Stewart (county commissioner): "We can have disagreements about policy and what we believe in how things should be but there is never a reason to try to destroy someone over partisan politics. I don't always agree with other elected officials but I respect their views. I'm truly saddened by the actions of a few City officials trying to smear the reputation of a good person. The only way we can change things is through the ballet box. Remember who did what and vote accordingly."

A: "So, does Pat's Resolution invite us all to write our own Resolutions? Whereas, we can encourage truthful dialogue from he, Jeffrey, and other city officials? That sounds like a fun game! Pat's Resolution could be used as the template and we just change the words and subject to expose real liars. It could be a competition. All participating have their first reading on Monday under Pat's agenda item, and all who participate win because standing up to bullies makes you a winner! ... I hope Pat doesn't become chicken at the last minute and pull his resolution from the agenda. That would spoil all the fun."

BC: If this is the best the Dems can do, then they are in major trouble in Floyd County. They are dying on the vine already and this is simply an extreme stretch to TRY to be noteworthy. Knowing Al as I do, he is an upstanding member of the community and is a straightforward guy who wants the best for New Albany.

---

Gahanism is gangsterism, and Pat McLaughlin's nonsensical resolution censuring Al Knable is the best example yet of the local Democratic Party's utter depravity.

R: "Mclaughlin is my council rep. I haven’t seen him in my neighborhood since Baron Hill was running for re-election more than a decade ago. I’m vacillating between whether anger or appalled embarrassment better describes my reaction to this idiocy. Al Knable may have some views with which I differ, but he’s not averse to listening and actually hearing what citizens say."

D: "What a waste of time and money... to attempt to discredit someone you are working with for the greater good of your city. It’s an embarrassment. I’m sorry Al Knable ... keep doing what you’re doing. Posing questions and getting the answers for your constituents. Representing their best interests with integrity. It’s in your job description. What I’m SURE is not there is when something you don’t like comes to light, you strike out at the credible people. Stay the course and do the right thing, always."

---

More profiles in cravenness: "McLaughlin did not want to make a public comment until Monday's meeting."

S: "Not sure what to make of this world when Dan Coffey is the voice of reason."

M: "Think I have figured it out. It’s just his way of announcing that the price will be high for him to flip. And he will, if the price is right. Have seen him make 180 turns before."

P: "I’ve known Al for around 40 years, both personally and professionally. I will continue to trust and support him. This is what happens when a good person tries to get into to politics to make a difference, and it greatly saddens me."

W: "This is a total waste of the city council's time. I want to know how the $5 million is going to be spent on the city. I want to know what’s going to happen to the NAHA residences. I want to know about cleanup in the city parks department. I want my city to have a combined efficient 9-1-1 center."

---

ON THE AVENUES: Al Knable doesn’t lie, but the local Democratic Party is a flood-plain Pinocchio. Let’s censure it at the ballot box.

Reverend Mike Becht: "I am certain that if Mr. Baylor and I sat down to discuss issues and politics, we would find ourselves holding opposite points of view on many areas of public concern. However, it is telling that we appear to be 100% in sync with respect to one pressing matter - the current tempest enveloping Dr. Al Knable.

Having known Al for more than 35 years, I can personally vouch for his honesty and integrity. That is not to say we always agree on every topic. I'm sure we do not; but I have NEVER once found him to be less than candid, respectful and fair, even when we find ourselves landing at opposite positions on a matter. To suggest that he would lie for political gain is patently absurd, and reveals more about the character of the ones who are making that claim than about the good doctor, himself.

"I am never surprised by the ugliness and mudslinging that goes on in politics. But I am surprised that some in power have calculated that their best course of action is to engineer a public attempt at character assassination.

"Some question the provenance of the quote attributed to Edmund Burke, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Regardless of who originated the thought, there is no escaping the truism it propounds. I, for one, am not willing to stand by and watch a good man pilloried. And if you have any sense of decency, neither should you."

---

Following are comments posted here and there in support of the censure resolution.

More profiles in cravenness: "McLaughlin did not want to make a public comment until Monday's meeting."

A teensy-weensy microdot of back story and context would be nice, but you'll never get it from the News and Tribune, which seeks only to transport you to the end of the article in two minutes or less, and get back to cooking school.

But now for the good news: That's why you have NA Confidential to take you down into the bunker with the flies on the wall, to where the 'Bamatized chain newspaper can't -- nay, won't -- go.

If you're just tuning in, the Floyd County Democratic Party has fired up a mess of monkey brains, chased their souffle with ice-cold Bud Light Lime-A-Ritas, and contracted prion disease (eternal thanks to Charles P. Pierce).

Kuru belongs to a class of diseases called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), also called prion diseases. It primarily affects the cerebellum — the part of your brain responsible for coordination and balance.

NAC started covering this story on Tuesday.

ON THE AVENUES: Al Knable doesn’t lie, but the local Democratic Party is a flood-plain Pinocchio. Let’s censure it at the ballot box.

Gahanism is gangsterism, and Pat McLaughlin's nonsensical resolution censuring Al Knable is the best example yet of the local Democratic Party's utter depravity.

Did you miss the headline? The crux of it - DemoDisneyDixiecratic chairman Dickey is up to his eyeballs in fake facts, not to mention male moo cow feces.

The politics of diversion: "Chief Bailey is playing a losing hand, but then, they're not really his cards."

Today the newspaper picks up the story, and quite badly.

Folks, let's get real: the lame censure resolution directed against Al Knable could not have sprung fully formed from the brain of Pat McLaughlin. The party's ranking Democrats are behind the chicanery. The puppet's strings are connected to city corporate counsel, party chairman and mayor. This is the way it always works, and will continue to work until voters fire them in 2019.

Chances are that Dan Coffey's not the only observer who understands this, even if Chris Morris doesn't.

New Albany City Council to consider Knable censure over 911 dispatch statements

 ... Councilman Dan Coffey did not withhold comment about the censure, or how he will likely vote on the resolution.

"It's 100 percent political," Coffey said. "Al is one of the most honest people I've ever met. I know his votes on the council are not political. I am really disappointed in that one [resolution]."

Coffey said the vote will likely go along party lines. That means the two independents, Coffey and Scott Blair, will likely decide the matter on whether Knable will be officially censured. The council also includes four Democrats and three Republicans.

McLaughlin did not want to make a public comment until Monday's meeting.

ON THE AVENUES: Al Knable doesn’t lie, but the local Democratic Party is a flood-plain Pinocchio. Let’s censure it at the ballot box.

ON THE AVENUES: Al Knable doesn’t lie, but the local Democratic Party is a flood-plain Pinocchio. Let’s censure it at the ballot box.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Last night I wrote to Greg Phipps, my 3rd district councilman, urging him to vote against Pat McLaughlin's absurd, politically-motivated city council resolution to censure Al Knable, the body's current president.

Phipps' characteristic reply was cut and pasted to at least one other like-minded questioner.

"Just received the council packet this evening. Will carefully examine the arguments then vote accordingly."

What were you expecting, profiles in courage?

Welcome to Adam’s Enable Asylum, and remember to check your humanity at the door, because New Albanians presently are witnessing the most blatant example yet of the pervasive gangsterism of Gahanism, and perhaps (at long last), we've arrived at the auto-destruct nadir of the Floyd County Democratic Party, although at this point they’ve placed the bar so low in the primordial mud that just about any of the regime's ward heelers smashed out of their minds on Bud Light Lime could faint over it.

Monday’s upcoming censure resolution, team-authored by Adam Dickey, Jeff Gahan, Shane Gibson, Warren Nash, a late-model robot Adam borrowed from the Democratic National Committee and maybe even McLaughlin himself, who otherwise is destined to serve only as sycophantic delivery device, has two chief aims.

First, it is to cripple the council for the remainder of Knable's term as president. He became council president only because the two independents fled from designated Democratic grandee Bob Caesar. Once Knable was seated and got down to work, Dear Leader's conspiracy against him began taking shape.

Of course, the Republican Knable has been far better organized and much more ambitious than former president McLaughlin, whose "leadership" during endless years amounted to dysfunctional acquiescence to whatever was asked of him by Dickey’s and Gahan's greasy cabal of human slush siphons.

With only four mostly reliable Democrats remaining on the council, and in spite of the mayor’s ability to periodically “convince” non-Democratic members (including one lamentable Republican) with attractive special interest barters, the fact is that Team Gahan can’t rely on council obedience as currently constituted, so it might as well throw a grenade in the room, and blame Knable at year’s end for the lack of results.

Second, and far more importantly, it is to serve as a clear and unmistakable warning to all and sundry that no childish act of malice, pettiness or chicanery is too small to be considered for deployment by the Floyd County Democratic Party if it is deemed sufficient to maintain power in the city (the county bolted years ago).

Dickey, Gahan, Gibson, Duggins and their crews will go to any length, however nasty, fetishistic and depraved, to remain the biggest fish peddling influence in this pitifully small pond.

Indeed, in the absence of coherent principle, mobster tactics are all they have left, but fortunately these have useful and instructive purposes for those among us who still value basic human decency. As such, the ludicrous Knable smear campaign actually serves as a convenient referendum on the fitness of our council representatives to govern.

Every last one of them comes up for re-election in 2019, and speaking only for myself and my home 3rd district, Phipps’ vote on Monday evening absolutely will determine my level of political involvement next year. If Phipps casts a ballot to abet character assassination, we can pretend no longer. The journey from thoughtful idealist to abject Dickey lackey will have ballot implications of its own.

I promise.

More importantly, for those readers considering themselves as progressives, and aligned with “the resistance” as defined nationally (and on Facebook), the advent of this local Democratic Party resolution to slime an honest man means you no longer have the luxury of indulging your purely selective cognitive dissonance.

It’s wonderful to resist tyranny, but if you are decrying it there and coddling it here, we have a problem.

If you’re on the left side of the aisle, and if you persist in believing that the local Democratic Party shares your views in terms of genuine action, as opposed to Dickey’s “forever for show only” gestures and signaling, then you’re quite simply swallowing a colossal bait ‘n’ switch.

It may be helpful to grasp that Dan Canon and Jeff Gahan are as diametrically opposed as the North and South Poles. They are parallel lines that cannot meet. The criteria you’re correctly using to celebrate Canon just as surely disallows Gahan and his shameless flunkies from consideration.

That’s because the local Democratic Party is not about ideas, and hasn't ever been.

Rather, it is a crass patronage machine designed to create those juicy rivulets of sustenance that wet the beaks of appointees, secure loyalty, and maintain a level of largess capable of exploitation.

Our faux Democrats feed on sycophantism, nepotism, favoritism, glad-handing, threats and intimidation. It’s a swamp of fear, loathing and third-raters, and it’s not in Washington DC – it’s right here, rising like an oily mist from Falling Run, oozing between the third floor cracks, and inundating all of us in a morass of embarrassing complicity.

Gahan’s and Dickey’s vision of a local Democratic Party is about ideals only in the jaundiced and opportunistic sense that these can be voiced without any compulsion to follow through, and used as convenient camouflage for the down-and-grubby utility of reanimating what the local party historically existed to achieve, which isn’t civil rights or justice, but preferential pork-barreling and the maintenance of favoritism alone -- enforced with "gentle" brass knuckle reminders (or TASERs) when necessary.

Folks, if you’re shaking your fist at the "enemy," and your “friends” are behaving no differently, then it’s time to look in the mirror. Lest we forget, the only local elected official to publicly oppose Gahan’s public housing putsch to date is Ed Clere, a Republican.

Meanwhile, esteemed and credentialed Democrats like Phipps have stated for attribution that the demolition of 500 affordable housing units has nothing to do with them. Tell me, progressives: Which one’s your enemy, and which one’s your friend?

McLaughlin’s bullshit resolution means it’s time at long last to be truthful. You cannot “resist” the excesses of the Right by doubling down on behalf of the Democratic Party as it currently exists and operates on a daily basis right here in the real world, as opposed to Adam's orgasmic Disney World.

In my view, both major parties can go to hell, and the Democrats might as well board the first train to Hades. The sooner the local DemoDisneyDixecratic Party disappears, the sooner something better can be built in its place. How can it get any worse?

But it can’t get better until we realize and openly affirm that McLaughlin’s censure resolution bares this gutless local version of pretend-Democrats for all to see. They're soulless monetizers without a moral compass, and the only humane thing to do is euthanize the party, and start all over again.

Resistance?

It isn’t enough for the left-of-center resistance to be solely predicated on identity politics and social justice issues of the sort that Mayor Gahan routinely and insincerely hoists to bedazzle progressives, who are sufficiently desperate to accept toothless Potemkin human rights lean-tos in exchange for looking the other way as Gahan’s increasingly self-serving and megalomaniacal “luxury” expenditures and attacks on the working poor jump the rails of sustainability and common sense -- and contradict everything a progressive purports to stand for.

I’ll close with my own testimony.

At this point in time, after 14 years of observing this endlessly self-renewing political debacle, I’d like nothing better than to make a clean break. It would be wonderful, indeed, to enjoy a quiet existence, with my lovely wife, our cats, books, music and oceans of booze; and be back in the good beer business, helping and mentoring my friend Joe with Pints&union and reconnecting the threads of brewing, history, geography, food and folkways, just like oft times before.

It’s what I’m very best at doing, and I should be doing it. I’d prefer doing it here, in New Albany. We've so very much unrealized potential.

Alas, I understand all too well that these many years of blogging advocacy, and my perpetual willingness to say what others can't (or won’t), certainly damages my chances of getting back to work.

If so, then so be it. Here's the thing.

Among other disgraces, Gahan’s public housing putsch, his endless budget-busting luxury expenditures, their contempt for the disadvantaged among us, those botched pro-automotive two-way street grid “reforms,” the mayor’s thuggish threats against city employees – and now this fresh new character assassination directed at Al Knable – you see, these are rancid, reeking failures and abominable power plays.

They’re disgusting, and they’re wrong, and while I sometimes wish my father hadn’t raised me to speak my mind and stand up to tyrannical bullies, cliques and personality cults, that’s surely what he did.

At this juncture, I can’t seem to unlearn his lesson. I don't want to unlearn it, and I'll continue to dissent from this crisis of pure avarice. I can’t ignore Gahan’s and the Democratic Party’s divisive megalomania, and I won’t.

You shouldn’t, either.

The first step in fixing what ails us is to open our eyes and see the local Democratic Party hypocrisy in the clear light of day for what it really is, not what you’d like for it to be – and with McLaughlin’s horrendous and indefensible censure resolution, there no longer can be any doubt about who is lying.

And who isn’t.

---

Recent columns:

March 22: ON THE AVENUES: Remembering Max Allen, bartender extraordinaire.

March 15: ON THE AVENUES: The books I've been reading during the winter months.

March 8: ON THE AVENUES: Necessity was the mother of NARBA, a food and drink invention in need of re-animation.

March 1: ON THE AVENUES: Scoreboard daze of old.

Gahanism is gangsterism, and Pat McLaughlin's nonsensical resolution censuring Al Knable is the best example yet of the local Democratic Party's utter depravity.

I've witnessed a lot of ridiculous things the past 12 years concerning New Albany city government. This is in the running for the top spot.
-- Mark Cassidy (it's 14 years for me, brother)

Pat McLaughlin couldn’t be bothered to contest Dan Coffey’s myriad bullying behaviors meriting censure, so long as Coffey was voting on the mayor’s side.

It meant nothing to McLaughlin when Bob Caesar, and later the city's corporate counsel Shane Gibson, bluntly refused to disclose the finances of the Bicentennial Commission.

Neither was McLaughlin troubled by his Roadhouse drinking buddy David Duggins’ TASER threats against a public housing resident, nor by the proposed demolition of 500 units of affordable housing, a mayoral putsch undertaken in the tawdriest of fashions, as well as being a move completely opposed to McLaughlin's own political party's purported commitment to working class citizens.

Just details to be ignored, right?

Ah, but now, with two local election cycles approaching, and with his DemoDisneyDixiecratic fraternity on the ropes, Paddy Mac seeks to censure Al Knable for an entirely imagined offense, which is to say, for no other discernible reason than petty politics.

However, McLaughlin's resolution conveniently serves as the most compelling proof yet that Jeff Gahan’s and Adam Dickey’s thuggish monetization organization has completely flipped its lid. Our local Democrats have left the rails, and the only alternative to more of the same is to vote against them at every opportunity.

Did you miss the headline? The crux of it - DemoDisneyDixiecratic chairman Dickey is up to his eyeballs in fake facts, not to mention male moo cow feces.

That swamp we keep hearing about? It begins at party chairman Dickey's keyboard, and extends in a steadily escalating stench through the proximity of the party's elected and appointed officials.

The politics of diversion: "Chief Bailey is playing a losing hand, but then, they're not really his cards."

But it doesn't have to be this way, and there are ways to make your voice heard now, before voting begins.

The city council meeting is on Monday night, April 2, beginning at 7:00 p.m. Public comments about agenda items occurs at the beginning of the meeting, and you, too, can have your three minutes to comment on the ludicrousness of McLaughlin's resolution, which at its very root is a vicious personal attack on the council president Knable -- and while you may disagree with Knable on certain matters (as I have), I'm guessing you can see the plain intent in this case.

It's knee-capping, it's character assassination, and it's intimidation. 

It's Gahanism as gangsterism -- but when it's all they have to offer, they'll use it.

Come out, and be heard -- and please, engage your councilman ... nope, no women, and that's another problem to be resolved at the ballot box, isn't it?

At-Large – David Aebersold
1202 Aebersold Drive
(812) 944-9823, daebersold@cityofnewalbany.com

At-Large – Dave Barksdale
614 Terrace Court
(812) 945-1839, dbarksdale@cityofnewalbany.com

At-Large – Al Knable, MD
2241 Green Valley Road
(502) 386-5051, aknable@cityofnewalbany.com

1st District – Dan Coffey
213 Eagle Lane
(502) 797-8347, dcoffey@cityofnewalbany.com

2nd District – Robert Caesar
614 Camp Ave.
(812) 945-8744, rcaesar@cityofnewalbany.com

3rd District – Greg Phipps (Vice President)
1105 E Spring Street
(812) 949-8317, gphipps@cityofnewalbany.com

4th District – Patrick McLaughlin (President)
1739 Florence Ave.
(812) 949-9140, pmclaughlin@cityofnewalbany.com

5th District – Matthew Nash
2510 Larkwood Drive
(502) 718-4986, mnash@cityofnewalbany.com

6th District – Scott Blair
3925 Rainbow Drive
(812) 697-0128, sblair@cityofnewalbany.com

In the wake of Sunday's pedestrian murder by autonomous Uber in Arizona, councilman McLaughlin renews his call for proper speedway markings.

They work where I work, he added.

Whether Gahan or street grid, if we'd all just stay inside the boundary stripes, it would be so much easier for the pillars of our community to think clearly.

Fatal Uber Crash Raises Red Flags About Self-Driving Safety, by Laura Bliss (CityLab)

After a woman in Tempe was killed by a self-driving Uber, local law enforcement was quick to absolve the company of blame. Transportation experts aren’t so sure.

Every day, as he goes to and from work, Arizona State University urban planning professor David King rides his bike* past the intersection where Elaine Herzberg was killed on Sunday night. The seven-lane road (counting turn lanes) in Tempe, Arizona is wide open, with no bushes or parked cars for a person to jump out from behind. In the immediate vicinity are a large park, an office building, and a nightclub that’s closed on Sundays—few potential distractions for a driver negotiating the area.

Herzberg, a 49-year-old woman who was homeless, was pushing a bicycle laden with her belongings along this road when she was struck by a self-driving Uber vehicle around 10 p.m. Sunday. She later died at a hospital, gaining the grisly distinction of being the first known pedestrian to be killed by a self-driving car ...

Last night at city council, the News and Tribune looked the other way as McLaughlin condoned Duggins' TASER hilarity.

My frustrations with local media's coddling, in a nutshell.

New Albany City Council adjusts some parking fines, by Chris Morris (Sweet Home Alabama)

Haven House receives $50,000 appropriation

NEW ALBANY — The New Albany City Council made some amendments to parking violations Monday night. Motorists can expect higher fines and to be towed for parking in an intersection, blocking a fire hydrant or crosswalk, parking on a sidewalk and parking illegally in a handicap space.

It's the usual by-the-numbers council coverage, and that's just lovely -- until someone who was present volunteers to fill in the missing bits.

By the way, Mark Cassidy attended last evening.

"At city council mtg. Pat making excuses for David Duggins. Al and David A. both had strong statements condemning such comments by an official."

Making excuses for Duggins' TASER misbehavior?

Cluelessly normalizing ugliness of this magnitude might be the default reaction of almost any ranking Democrat in town, but in this instance, it's 4th district's Pat "Methodical" McLaughlin, formerly the council president, now as ever joined to Mayor Jeff Gahan's swiveling hip in a surely forlorn hope that (a) Dear Leader might opt for the monastery some sweet day, and (b) McLaughlin then could become the biggest fish in this painfully small pond.

(Interestingly, Gahan didn't fight at all for Bob Caesar's bid to become council president in 2018; Caesar lost, and now his sinecure on the Redevelopment Commission has ended, too. Perhaps this is Gahan's pleasant way of saying "sorry, Bob, but your own mayoral ambitions just ain't happening.") 

I asked Mark to elaborate on the public vetting of Duggins on Monday night.

Al (Knable) brought it up at the beginning of the meeting. He said he'd talked to the Mayor about it, and also talked to Duggins. Knable thought it was totally inappropriate, but the person harmed is the only one who can accept Duggins' apology or not. He didn't think anyone should lose their job over it. David Aebersold wanted to know if Duggins now was on a short leash (paraphrased), suggesting that Duggins can't screw up again and still represent New Albany. Knable said yes. Next Aebersold stated that he's received far more e-mails and calls about this (TASER hilarity) episode than anything else since he's been on the council, and he didn't want to go through any of it again. I believe that if it had been up to Aebersold, he would've fired Duggins. After that is when Pat made his milquetoast defense.

And exactly how spineless was it, Mark?

Pat said "familiarity" probably was the reason Duggins said what he did, and that we all make comments that we shouldn't. 

Mark concludes with a concise thought, one that every DemoDisneyDixiecrat should read, reread and read again.

True, but that doesn't excuse it, especially not coming from an official with control over peoples' lives.

On second thought, it might interest a newspaper's editorial board, too. That is, if the newspaper ever gets around to taking its Fourth Estate obligations seriously.

Cue the inevitable Valentine's Day poll and chocolate pairing.

Here's where a newspaper reporter might start -- because see, there was a discussion at a council meeting about a tawdry lapse by a public official, at which it was divulged that the council's current president has discussed the issue with the mayor, who as yet has had nothing to say about it.

Here's an idea, Chris.

Shouldn't you go talk to the mayor, too?

City Council Thursday: Knable seeks the HRC's reanimation and appoints a heavyweight. Coffey rightly speaks up for public comment placement. But who squelched free speech in the first place?

Thursday's city council meeting clocked in at a brisk 32 minutes from gavel to gavel. The only ordinance on the agenda was Haven House homeless shelter funding (3rd and final reading). It was tabled until February owing to administrative something-or-another.

Mike Hall promptly performed 30 seconds of workmanlike stand-up mayoral ventriloquism, and then President Al Knable introduced council member appointments, three of which deserve special note.

Matt Nash (D) joins David Aebersold (R) on the Horseshoe Board.

Knable (R) will serve as one of two council appointments to the ignominiously beached Human Rights Commission (the other council appointment is local realtor Paul Kiger), supplanting Greg Phipps (D), who in 2017 vocally wishy-washed his hands of "his" crowning achievement.

Knable announced his intention to request two remaining mayoral appointments to the HRC (the body itself then chooses a fifth member) and to reanimate it. Jeff Gahan let it die, so this should become interesting very quickly.

Finally, David Barksdale (R) remains posted to the Duggins Turbo Pay Play Station (Redevelopment Commission), but Bob "Human Rubber Stamp" Caesar (D) is removed, to be replaced by an extremely well-qualified citizen, new Albany native Scott Stewart, who recently retired from his position as director of the Port Authority. Previously, Stewart was an executive at Proctor & Gamble, and worked for Governor Mitch Daniels.

Pro tip: time to start attending Redevelopment Commission meetings. 

Now, let's comment about comments. Last night, something was missing.

Last year, former council president Pat McLaughlin (D) echoed the local Democratic Party's aversion to dialogue by implementing a requirement to specify one's subject when speaking.

Knable now has removed it, and this is good. 

Meanwhile, it is perfectly normal (if surreal) for 1st district councilman Dan Coffey (I) to be on his best behavior during the first few meetings each year. He's studying the terrain for maximum self-aggrandizement, and sniffing the best opportunity to maintain beak-wetting.

Last night, the "good" Coffey ventured a genuinely thoughtful point, sans his customary theatrics: Why not move non-agenda public speaking time back to the beginning of meetings, rather than keeping it at the end?

Wouldn't this be of benefit to long-suffering members of the public, who simply want to be heard?

Shouldn't their comments be made first, up front, without restrictions?

Have a seat and a shot, because Coffey's right. This way members of the public would be spared the inexcusable agony of enduring Coffey's customary theatrics.

Nash asked Coffey how these public comments came to be pushed to meeting's end in the first place. Coffey chuckled and replied (paraphrased): let's just say some council persons weren't interested in listening.

Who was it?

You're in luck, because THAT'S WHY WE'RE HERE.

Let's begin in January of 2010, when at-large councilman John Gonder was elected president. Previously, public comment time was on the agenda at the beginning of meetings. It was not divided into agenda and non-agenda slots. There was a single sign-up sheet, and before the introduction of ordinances and resolutions, those persons listed on it came forth and spoke.

(There are legitimate questions about how long members of the public should be allowed to speak, but these aren't the point, at least at present.)

Gonder changed the agenda; if memory serves, he lifted the original wording from the city's enabling ordinance. Throughout 2010 during Gonder's term, communications still occurred at the beginning of the meeting, in this cadence.

(E) Communications, in the following order:

(1) From city officials
(a) Mayor
(b) Controller)
(c) City Council
(d) City Attorney; and
(e) City Engineer

(2) From official commission:
(a) Board of Public Works;
(b) Plan Commission; and
(c) Park Commission

(3) From members of the public, including petitions and remonstrances

Other council business came after these communications, including committee reports, appointments, and the introduction of ordinances and resolutions.

By the first meeting of February, 2011, the agenda had been streamlined under a new council president.

You might even know him; it was an ambitious veneer peddler by the name of Gahan (D), in what was to be his final year as 6th district councilman prior to enthronement as mayor.

By February 7, 2011 the Great Wall of Comment Segregation had been erected.

From this point forward, members of the public were compelled to restrict their comments to items on the evening's agenda, or cool their heels -- maybe 30 minutes, maybe two hours -- to make general observations about the zeitgeist.

In 2017, McLaughlin cynically refined it further; now general comments were to be strictly delineated, too. Mercifully, this petty suppression is gone, and last evening, Knable also seemed amenable to re-ordering public comments according to Coffey's suggestion. He should. We can't help it if Coffey's right every now and then.

In closing, let's be clear.

If, according to Coffey, some council members back in the day didn't want to listen, it was Jeff Gahan as council president in 2011 who was most eager to rig the proceedings to result in less communication, as opposed to more of it. 

Because as we know, in 2011 or 2018: THAT'S WHY HE'S HERE.

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Let's help Demolition Commissar Duggins with his quotation marks. Or not.

My, my ... Team Gahan has been testy of late.

Governing from 30,000 feet on an anchor-festooned magic carpet adorned with electronic press releases and disembodied remote-control utterances, the functionaries have found it hard to adapt in situations where their intended dupes have the temerity to talk back.

Meanwhile, the minions have a 100% effectiveness rate dealing with doomed trees, which have no voice and succumb readily to the mayor's Husqvarna libido.

Former city council president Pat McLaughlin is the latest New Albany public official to embrace wild-eyed paranoia over the community's growing grassroots refusal to swallow Dear Leader's Kool-Aid as it pertains to the hostile public housing takeover.

McLaughlin was quoted in the Jeffersonville newspaper:

"Negative talk (is) circulating about the plan ... I definitely believe some entities have gotten involved and some residents have been misled."

Way to be specific, Pat. Speaking of being misled, perhaps the most entertaining outburst of befuddled sycophantic flatulence to date comes from interim NAHA demolition director David Duggins, who apparently fears the loss of Team Gahan's monopoly of the spigot.

The Board felt it to be even more important that they formally take a stance against the “false” rumors that have been spread in the community and here on our housing campuses.

We can't be sure what Duggins is trying to convey, but he keeps using quotation marks with the word "false" (see what we did there?) when quotation marks are NOT a highlighting technique.

They ARE intended to tag verbatim quotes (if so, then Duggins is quoting himself, which seems odd, if characteristically masturbatory), and they CAN be used to communicate sarcasm and irony -- but as with most participants in the ruling cabal, Duggins is utterly allergic to irony.

My vote goes to his intended use of "false" quotation marks as the persistent highlighting of a personal fetish, which just goes to prove that power trips are the ultimate kink -- talk inaccurately to me, baby.

It's fascinating to watch as local Democrats fall over themselves to maintain fealty to this favorite son's exaltation of the lowest common ethical denominator.

The Floyd County Democratic Party is terminally ill. That's why its members are praising Gahan's Goons and the ongoing attack on the city's vulnerable public housing residents.

Gahan and his posturing bootlickers cannot imagine public housing residents being capable of defending themselves and standing up for their own interests. It's a patronizing attitude that speaks volumes to the ethical rot within the Down Low Bunker, because the response thus far has been the condescension and suppression we'd expect from thugs.

But hey, as the mayor himself now insists, again and again: "That's why I'm here."