Here you go, Slick Jeffie -- I fixed it for you.

Yep, it's another Seabrook-sliming mailer from the DemoDisneyDixiecrats, and I just took a few minutes to make it accurate, because while ploys like this play well on the Kool Aid Corridor, the rest of us know the truth. 

Don't forget it was Jeff Gahan who raised your sewer rates.

Speaking of remembering:

Election 2019: The buying and selling of a city, or our updated master list of 73 Gahan wheel-greasers, a veritable pornographic potpourri of pay-to-play.

These 30 free-spending special interest donors top Jeff Gahan's 2019 pay-to-play campaign finance windfall of $150,000 (so far).

CFA-4 Follies: OMG, just look at Gahan's huge pile of special interest donor cash flowing to out-of-towners.

Don't forget it was Jeff Gahan who raised your sewer rates.

In 2017 Jeff Gahan's sewer board ... and make no mistake, it's a sewer board in Gahan's vise grip ...

Jeff Gahan pays himself around $11,000 each year to head up the sewer board. Shouldn't Gahan attend the city council rate increase hearing on February 6 and listen to public comments?

... asked city council to raise sewer rates.

TONIGHT: Public hearing to discuss the sewer rate increase (and yes, it is an increase).

Yes, Virginia, it is a sewer rate INCREASE, in spite of what you may have read elsewhere.

Bump? Hike? If sewer rates are higher, then that's an increase, by definition.

City council complied, but it would be sophistry to suggest these annual sewer rates increases were not applied at Gahan's behest, or that they're anything other than a tax increase on Gahan's watch.

A week or so ago Slick Jeffie began attacking Mark Seabrook for raising sewer rates, which raised more than a few jaded eyebrows. Exactly how does a county commissioner have control over a sewer utility process controlled lock, stock and barrel by the mayor?

Jeff Gillenwater explains.

The reference is to Seabrook’s time as a City Council Representative. He did vote for sewer rate increases at the time as the City faced an EPA mandate to perform sewer system upgrades that had been needed but neglected for decades.

What they’re not saying: The sewer rate increases were championed by then Democratic Mayor Doug England and passed by a Democratic majority Council.

As a minority member, Seabrook voted WITH the Democrats. Then Councilman Gahan voted against, railing against the sewer department as corrupt but while offering no repair or upgrade alternatives other than personal grandstanding as the City faced potential fines and legal action from the EPA.

Fast forward a few years: Mayor Gahan appoints himself as president of the sewer board (a paid position in addition to his mayoral salary) and tries to take public credit for paying down sewer upgrade debt even though he consistently voted against the plan to do the work and pay down the debt.

In review, Floyd County Democrats now say that Seabrook is awful for having voted with a Democratic majority on the Council and a Democratic Mayor. Likewise, Gahan said the sewer plan that the Democratic majority and Seabrook voted for was horrible right up until it started to work as designed and he took public credit for it.

An addendum from Bluegill:

And lest any local Democrats again try to falsely accuse honest folks of lying, here’s the official, straight from the mayor’s office public appeal from Gahan (acting as both mayor and paid sewer board leader) requesting the passage of an ordinance that seeks to raise sewer rates on an annual basis. Gahan can argue that it’s a good idea to raise those rates but a) laying sewer rate increases at Seabrook’s feet while his own party is most responsible and b) trying to act as though he doesn’t support regular sewer rate increases himself are just more lies from an all too common source.

And these explanations are why I no longer trust local DemoDisneyDixiecrats to tell the truth, or the local chain newspaper to bother performing its historical function of setting the record straight.

Accordingly, this is why NA Confidential exists, and when it comes to determining why local DemoDisneyDixiecrats detest NA Confidential, Occam's Razor is the best source for the answer because the simplest answer is best: They hate me because I tell the truth about them.

In closing, lots of Gahan's supporters profit from his stewardship of the sewer board, don't they?

Gahan could have told Moore how to handle these pesky sewer-tap-in waiver requests.

Jeff Gahan and Mike Moore have something in common, as both mayors inhabit the chieftains's chair at their own sewer boards, self-appointed and salaried.

In Jeffersonville, Emperor Mayor Moore is being asked for a dispensation.

New Hope in Jeffersonville asks for city sewer credits, by Elizabeth Beilman (Hanson's Folly)

JEFFERSONVILLE — A local nonprofit organization building affordable housing is asking Jeffersonville officials to credit its sewer fees.

New Hope Services Inc., which is in the middle of building M. Fine on Spring Street, made its request at a city sewer board meeting on Thursday.

Moore is having none of it.

But Mayor Mike Moore, president of the sewer board, didn't seem open to changing the terms of the agreement.

"I wouldn't expect because of policy changes, months after you and I have reached an agreement, I'm not going to go back and start changing all old contracts because the city's changed directions," Moore said.

Surely Moore would have benefited from texting Gahan for the wording of Dear Leader's 1st Commandment of sewage-based subsidies:

NO SEWER TAP-IN WAIVERS EVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES UNLESS IT'S LUXURY HOUSING, AWARDED TO DEVELOPERS WHO DON'T NEED THEM.

Lesson: Focus on luxury at the expense of affordability, Mike.

You're a Republican, for chrissakes, and can do this sort of thing without being a hypocrite.

ON THE AVENUES: If we're waiving sewer tap-ins, nothing less than gold faucets will do.

ON THE AVENUES: If we're waiving sewer tap-ins, nothing less than gold faucets will do.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

At the March 19 meeting of New Albany’s city council, the legislative body that seldom legislates very much any longer was asked by City Hall to approve a TIF area extension to accommodate infrastructure improvements for the prospective Coyle site housing development, which in recent days has been upgraded from “upscale” to “luxury” in terms of hyperbolic descriptors for the apartment units soon to be built there.

Why the semantic escalation?

Probably the dreaded random adjective generator, although as the primary draws closer, expect frequent comparisons to Mobutu Sese Seko’s Kawale palace in Gbadolite, Congo – or in our local New Albanian dialect, “Versailles of the Bungle.”

As is its habit, the council supinely did exactly as it was told, but not before David Duggins, the city’s Standard TIF Area Statistical Incentivization Specialist (STASIS), who once was quoted to the effect that he couldn’t possibly explain the manifest benefits of Jeff Speck’s downtown street network proposals for fear of being proven mistaken in any way, shape or form even on the most minor of points, let slip that the board of New Albany’s sewer utility was “discussing” further enticements to the Coyle site developers to the tune of waiving 150+ sewer tap-in fees … or (according to the newspaper) $200,000.

Diane Benedetti immediately questioned this, reminding Duggins that in a city where affairs of the sanitary sewer are the surest ever proof of Sigmund Freud’s potty doctrines, ironclad historical precedent precludes granting waivers for any construction. As an example, not so long ago, waivers were denied to IU Southeast for its new dormitories. In short, no one gets a break.

I wasn’t there to see it, but Duggins surely rolled his eyes and muttered “yes, ma’am,” fingers tightly crossed behind this back, because he somehow neglected to inform the assembled council that not only had the sewer board “discussed” the waivers, it had touched all four and approved them, along with “what the hell, why not” waivers for both of Mayor Gahan’s signature parks-in-splendid-isolation, on March 12 -- a full week prior to the council meeting.

Like the child whose hands are smeared with cookie batter, did Duggins think no one would find out, or has City Hall’s level of yo-the-fix-is-in nonchalance now reached the point of default hubris?

The sewer board’s vote was 2-0, with the motion introduced by the city engineer Larry Summers in the absence of the board’s chair, who is none other than Mayor Jeff Gahan himself. Evidently the mayoral hologram was undergoing maintenance in a secluded Disney Store factory outlet, affording the very maximum in plausible deniability – and speaking of Uncle Walt, Summers’ motion came at the request of the Redevelopment Commission, which includes among its members Adam Dickey, the chairman of the Floyd County Democratic Party.

Eeeeewww … damn, it smells like sewer gas around here, doesn’t it?

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Council president Pat McLaughlin, who doubles as co-chair (with Dan Coffey) of the Gahan Jockstrap Conveyance Patrol (no acronym), conceded to the News and Tribune’s Daniel Suddeath that yes, there was a mild “concern” over these new and unexplored precedents, but hey -- what can an elected lackey do, apart from popping the top on an ice-cold Bud Light at the Roadhouse?

Also according to Suddeath, City Hall’s legal team as yet is finding it difficult to unravel the impenetrable thicket of the city’s own ordinances.

Summers is expected to be replaced soon after questions arose as to whether he could serve on the Stormwater and Sewer boards as a paid city employee.

Say what?

We already knew that the convenient Summers’ placement on the Stormwater Board was a two-pronged mistake according to previlaing ordinance, which clearly prohibits a paid city employee from serving, and stipulates that it’s a council appointment in the first place, and not a forum for City Hall’s attorney to be enthusiastically brokering the mayor's fondest wishes.

(B) One member appointed by majority vote of the members of the Common Council, provided that the member shall be a registered professional engineer, and further provided that the member shall not otherwise be a paid or unpaid official or employee of the city.

We also knew that when the issue was raised by this blog, city attorney Shane Gibson promptly and honorably fell on his sword and took one for Team Gahan.

The Storm Water Board and the Sewer Board are both set up under the same Indiana authority. The former board member was on both the Sewer and the Storm Water Boards. When he stepped off the boards, I looked at the Sewer Board membership requirements in the City Ordinance. That Sewer ordinance states one member shall be the City engineer. I let our City engineer know this and his duties as required by the Ordinance. I didn't, however, review or the pull the Storm Water board requirements for members and assumed they were the same since the two boards were established under the same Indiana authority. As I mentioned above, this was an error on my part. We will be taking the necessary actions to remedy this matter.

Except that the Indiana state law establishing sewer board guidelines, which apparently dates from 1981, also prohibits a paid employee from serving.

(a) A sanitary board established under this chapter consists of:

(1) the municipal executive; and

(2) two (2) persons appointed by the municipal legislative body, one (1) of whom must be a registered professional engineer.

The legislative body may not appoint any paid or unpaid municipal officer or employee to the board.

Meanwhile, New Albany’s sewer board staffing ordinance, first enacted in the 1990s when the Federal government firmly pointed out to us that a city our size might wish to treat more than a fraction of its wastewater, appears to deliberately obfuscate the state’s intent … and no one has noticed until now?

(2) Two members, appointed by majority vote of the members of the Common Council, provided that one such member shall be the City Engineer or a registered professional engineer, and further provided that such non City Engineer person shall not be a paid or unpaid official or employee of the city.

I’m no legal bagel, but someone out there other than me surely is asking the same question: How many illegal votes actually have been taken the past 30-odd years on all these boards?

And: If Summers wasn’t supposed to be on the Sewer Board, what about the casual Gahan-less vote on March 12 to break with decades of precedent and waive sewer tap-ins?

Was it legal?

Finally, this: At some point, as one oddball screw-up piles atop another, doesn’t a hands-on mayor genuinely believing in his "fundamentally better" agitprop actually call the press, quote Harry Truman, point to his desk, and make the buck stop there?

Maybe the problem for Gahan is all those bucks, roughly $90,000 of the campaign variety at last count. Or, conversely, maybe taking responsibility voids the hologram’s warranty. In three-plus years, has Gahan yet to acknowledge an error?

Now, about those ivory toilet seats …

What do you mean, "may" ask the Sewer Board for tap fee waivers? You already rammed it past them a week ago.

At last Thursday's (March 19) city council meeting, there was a discussion about perfect marriages.

Luxury rental housing project in New Albany gets another blessing, by Daniel Suddeath (N and T)

NEW ALBANY — The city is moving a 154-unit downtown apartment project along at a swift pace after the development garnered a $3.3 million commitment from the state.

The New Albany City Council voted 8-0 Thursday to place the planned apartment project site — the former Coyle auto property along East Spring Street — into a tax-increment financing district.

“This is a big project that could not be done without a perfect marriage between the state, the city and Flaherty Collins,” said David Duggins, director of economic development and redevelopment for the city.

As part of the deal, Flaherty Collins signed-off on a minimum assessment agreement stating the developer will be responsible for paying the TIF tax ...

... The city is expected to foot some infrastructure improvements near the apartments, which could be under construction by late summer, and the New Albany Sewer Board may be asked to waive tap-in fees. Councilwoman Diane McCartin-Bendetti asked the administration to consider other incentives to waiving the tap-in fees.

It wouldn't be the first "perfect" marriage undermined by loose interpretations of the truth, because it seems that the Sewer Board already had been asked -- in fact, actually had approved the waiver at its meeting of March 12, a full week before the council's gathering, saving the developer somewhere in the neighborhood of $350K. From the board's March 12 minutes ...

I wonder when City Hall was planning on breaking the waiver news to council ... or perhaps they did, and Paddy Mac just torched the memo on sterno, like Mission Impossible.

This comes after the recent revelation that city attorney Gibson forgot the contents of the stormwater ordinance he wrote, and Pat McLaughlin forgot that council appointments are supposed to be made by council -- and is this really the sort of "fix always in" game-playing we need?

Yes, they build lots of nice things with your grandchild's future tax revenues, but where's the transparency?

And as pertains to the sewer board's waiver, where's the truthfulness?

Where's the hologram?

Gibson on Summers on Stormwater: "The simplest answer is that it was an error on my part."

Whatever it is, Price is against it. No matter what it is or who commenced it, he's against it. Maybe he'd vote in favor of my new hat.

More about the ball cap to come.

First, Babe Ruth has nuthin' on me. It's just too easy calling shots when you have such a wealth of perennial degradation from which to pick and choose. As a case in point:

New Albany City Council could soon get monthly breakdown on sewer finances, by Daniel Suddeath.

The New Albany City Council mixed requirements from an old ordinance with new stipulations for financial oversight of the sewer utility before passing the measure 8-1 on two readings Monday.

That's right. As predicted yesterday, 3rd district councilman Steve Price voted last night against precisely the sort of safeguards he formerly serially demanded, because ...

... as (Price) explained he has no confidence that any council-ordered guidance of wastewater funds will be adhered to by the administration.

It would appear that Price and rationality have permanently parted company. Meanwhile, Dan "Copperhead" Coffey grimaced while pulling his yes lever, but provided the contents of yet another council bingo card slot:

“Our sewer board wasn’t given the information [about sewer revenue], the council wasn’t given the information,” he said.

How could we forget the critical information, which has been denied Coffey (and now the sewer board) continually since his very first day in office? But, the Wizard of Westside's oft-repeated utterance joins other enduring chestnuts like his own "I don't have a problem with that" (followed by an explanation of why he has a problem with that), and Price's "we shouldn't put all the eggs in one basket" as prime bingo card fodder. How's that project coming, anyway?

So, in the end, Mark "I Am Hoosier" ignored the begging of his cousin Daniel and gifted me with the finerprint smeared evidence that he drank Budweiser last week in St. Looey. When asked the one word to describe my feelings at owning such a prestigious item, all I could think of was:

"Halloween."

They're baaaccck.

The agenda for tonight's first of two May council meetings is up, and it is mercifully short, which almost makes me wish I could attend. Alas, a crucial beer and cheese pairing demands my professional attention, although not until after buffing and shining the golden deck screws that bind the Taxpayer Memorial patio at BSB.

Looking for a professional touch; New Albany council to vote on CPA oversight of sewer revenue, by Daniel Suddeath (Tribune writer and IAH's long-lost cousin)

The New Albany Sewer Board will hire a certified public accountant to prepare a monthly financial review under the terms of an ordinance that will be weighed by the City Council on Monday ...

... (CM Bob) Caesar said he’ll be shocked if the ordinance doesn’t pass unanimously.

CM Caesar may wish to reconsider this risky assessment of council odds making, because any entity that includes Steve Price is only a brisk thumbs-down away from non-unanimity on virtually any matter.

The sun rises in the east and sets in the west? 8-1 in favor.

Abraham Lincoln grew a beard after his election? Same vote total.

Neil Young is Canadian?

Well, he might get that one right. Perhaps I should be writing these thoughts in larger fonts to make it easier for the evidence against me to be collected by Legal Bagel.

Open thread: Last night's Sewer Board hearing and the odds that we'll botch the sewer issue yet again.

It generally constitutes a victory for responsible journalism and all around good taste when neither of the local newspaper accounts includes a quote from the transgendered Professor Erika or Councilman Cappuccino. Both the C-J's and the Tribune's stories are factual and absent the hyperbole of shrieking, sobbing "little" people. Good work, guys.

Daniel Suddeath's coverage in the Tribune:

STINKY SITUATION: Sewer board hears public complaints about proposed rate hike Presentations, testimonies display wastewater revenue is falling far short of expenses

The dozens of overhead slides, hours of testimony and stack of handouts the Sewer Board presented Thursday basically boiled down to one message — wastewater revenue is falling far short of expenses.

Tribune: "Sewer Board passes 36 percent rate hike."

Hot off the wire from the Tribune's Daniel Suddeath: Sewer Board passes 36 percent rate hike.

Recall that it's no longer 70% because of Ed Clere's deal with the Indiana Finance Authority.

For more, check all4word at Twitter, and expect live council blogging this evening here at NAC. We think we have a signal.

OUCH!!! Mama Said That Burner Was Hot!

As the April showers taper off and the May flowers burst open in all of their finery I note that one had best enjoy the peaceful refreshing evenings on the back deck swing while they last.

I’m reminded that the long hot daze of summer is just around the corner and if rumored upcoming events have any credibility, the 3rd Floor Assembly Room air conditioning system is going to get quite a workout.

Not to worry though as Trish promises to have plenty of Sierra Nevada on hand for the afterglows at Studio’s.

As I understand it Mayor England has been renegotiating terms with Southern Indiana Waste Systems in order that they take a more active role in collecting refuse other than just household garbage.

That would include yard waste, brush, the occasional sofa, and the like. Of course this service would require a stipend increase in monthly fees.

The implementation of such would free up the Street Department to return to their duties of maintaining New Albany’s streets, signs, and other infrastructure.

The other hot button issue that may very well be on this Thursday’s agenda for our Common Council is a proposed Sewer Rate increase for Georgetown customers.

You can link to the Tribune article here; http://www.news-tribune.net/local/local_story_135111700.html

The jest of it is Georgetown has been given several extensions to the agreed deadline for them to transfer their waste water to their own treatment plant thus freeing up capacity for New Albany to move forward with its own development plans.

As I understand it as long as they are feeding affluent into our system, we are under strict scrutiny from the EPA looking for capacity overloads.

Were that to happen for any reason, we’d be back in lockdown stage in terms of our own growth & expansion.

For a variety of their own in house reasons Georgetown has been unable to begin construction on their treatment plant and our Sewer Board has decided further extensions without an increase in fees would be unwise for New Albany.

Of course all these efforts and many others as well require Common Council approval prior to becoming viable. And the odds are??

As you can readily see the summer is shaping up to be a warm one on the Sunny Side of the Ohio!

So what think ye of the above proposals?

As for me, I’ve no problem paying a few pennies a month more to see the trash gone.

On the other matter although I have no beef with the residents of Georgetown, I don’t see the wisdom continuing to treat their affluent if it risks us losing the ground we’ve gained in our ongoing effort to pacify the EPA.

All in all, I’d suggest coming early for the good seats and bring your own palm leaf fans!

President Gahan keeps his foot on the gas and an eye on the hourglass.

Odd.

Tonight’s council meeting clocked in at 42 minutes, flat, and I’m not sure whether to demand my money back or dance naked in the street – and even the latter’s no longer a safe bet, seeing as (perhaps) we’re finally beginning to enforce an ordinance or three.

New Albany revives suit over bids; Sewer, storm-water contracts challenged, by Dick Kaukas (Courier-Journal).

The major move of the evening came when the council voted 7-2 (CMs Jack Messer and Kevin Zurschmiede dissenting) to rescind resolution R-08-04, which had been approved 5-4 at the second January meeting.

R-08-04 was the resolution to drop the council’s lawsuit against the sewer and stormwater boards over the legality of those boards awarding no-bid "professional services" contracts to EMC in 2007.

In reversing course tonight, CMs Bob Caesar, Pat McLaughlin and Steve Price insisted they were influenced to change their votes by the dramatic resurfacing of new information. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I can’t recall this new information ever being introduced at any point during the session. All Caesar had to say was to deny that it was aimed at any one person.

Chalk this one up to heavy behind the scenes lobbying of the two council newbies by the faction that favors a court decision.

As it stood, and without the mercifully retired Larry Kochert to chime in, Zurschmiede yet again defended his role in negotiating the EMC contract, and CM Dan Coffey yet again damned Zurschmiede with faint praise and vowed to place his paws around the wastewater spigots post haste.

In short, it was a rerun.

Coffey also used the opportunity offered by the debate over sewer board and related legal fees to suggest that the battle three years ago against New Albany DVD, the generally empty porno front on West Main Street, was worth every penny it cost the city because it prevented a slew of similar businesses from locating along the strip.

As with the “new” information about sewer-related legal action, no documented claims for any of this were offered by Coffey.

Apparently Bazooka Joe U. offers no courses in pornography forensics; either that, or pumpkin patches just aren’t in season.

They sell wax ones, you know.

Traffic redirect: New postings at NA Shadow Council.

Can't think of anything to say today? Not Shadow5, who closed January with three postings at NA Shadow Council.

Me? I'm holed up with my dog-eared copy of "The Wit and Wisdom of Larry McAllister" -- both squares.

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First Monday Preview

In his second stint (and third year) as council president, we hear that Mr. Gahan intends to lock in the council agendas five business days prior to the meetings. That might make it easier for members and watchdogs to prepare. It might just make it easier for members.

It does create a situation where evolving issues will be shut out from discussion. One such issue where the city council could lend its influence has arisen. We are waiting to find out if this new, unannounced parliamentary procedure will be used to stifle debate or invigorate it. The convenience of members shouldn't be the paramount consideration. But then, as seen below, some members just need more time to avoid confusion. But will they use the extra time or simply wait until the gavel falls to begin their consideration.

In any event, you don't have to wait until Monday to study up. The Feb. 4 agenda is posted now, accompanied online by the exhibits included in members' packets.

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Defending Diane

Over the past two weeks we've heard a number of complaints about Diane McCartin-Benedetti's rocky start as the rookie council member representing the old 5th District. Around here we call her "D5" to differentiate her (and to avoid the temptation to coin a new label).

Today, we'd like to take a few moments to look on the bright side of her month-old term of office and offer a lawyer's defense of her performance so far.

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The Kochert Legacy Begins to Crumble

And now work begins on the other Larry's legacy...

A long-awaited and much-appreciated move by the new sewer board (created without the input of Diane McCartin-Benedetti, council member for D5) earns the top spot in Friday's editions of The Tribune.

Many have advocated for the city to use its financial and regulatory muscle to encourage preferred development. One of the most immediate ways for the city to do so is to impose or waive various fees.

The city-owned sewer enterprise moved Tuesday to waive the sewer tap-in fees for two Community Housing developments, signaling that they "get" the whole idea of progressive community development.

Bring out your holy men: Cappuccino on a roll as the council meets tonight.

Tonight and December 20th.

That's it for the current incarnation of the common council of the city of New Albany, and more than anything else, any consideration of attendance must be weighed by the same precepts that would govern a decision on whether or not to sit in the bleachers at the next to last Tampa Bay Rays home game during another 95 loss campaign.

Is it possible to like baseball that much?

Meanwhile, our local beat reporters provide the background for tonight's meeting, first with a strange Gang of Four-splitting proposal to refit the sewer board:

Sewer board is topic of meeting; New Albany ponders appointment process, by Dick Kaukas (Courier-Journal).

After debating the issue last month, tonight the New Albany City Council again scheduled to consider changing how sewer board members are appointed.

Last month, the council gave preliminary approval to an ordinance proposed by Councilman Dan Coffey giving the mayor the authority to appoint a board of three or five members.

This can only mean that Coffey's campaign for mayor in 2011 has started in earnest, but there's more. Over behind Door #2, and with Coffey's fear-mongering on crime remaining front and center in whatever Byzantine plot he's been concocting this week, the random appointment generator is being given another mighty heave. Dare we look?

Public-housing board could expand, by Eric Scott Campbell (News andTribune).

City Councilman Dan Coffey has proposed expanding the New Albany Housing Authority’s Board of Commissioners from five to seven members, a matter that could be voted on at Monday night’s meeting.

Looks like the Rays are starting some guy called up from Double A ball so he can make the final notch on his pension. The mascot's batting cleanup. The meeting agenda is here.

Sorry to disappoint yet again, but I’ll be listening to John Fogerty perform new tunes and Creedence songs at the Louisville Palace tonight as a guest of my buddy Jerry, but rest assured that council meeting attendance (finally) will resume on the 20th. After all, I wouldn't want to miss the token faux gold watch awarded to Slippery Larry, the tearful farewells, the Bronx cheer, and other assorted mementoes of the concluding atrocity.

High Noon in the Romper Room as “Even Deeper Throat” tells all.

Readers, please know that while the following might be filed under satire, Even Deeper Throat is in fact a real person, not a fictional creation; his comments have been incorporated here in an effort to provoke discussion, and are not necessarily those of the author. What do you think? New Albany's city council meets this evening ... and here's the sparse agenda. Bring sunscreen (for repelling the harmful glow cast by the Glimmer Twins), a seat cushion and your sedative of choice.

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There are times when New Albany’s perpetual sewage follies seem to surpass daily human understanding in a manner that invites immediate, involuntary psychotherapy. Consider this relevant passage in a 1993 Art Journal commentary; it's not for the squeamish:

Freud argued that feces, as matter that comes from within oneself and then becomes matter outside and thus independent of oneself, is recognized by the child as his "creation." In this recognition, the child frequently uses feces for love, offering it up as a gift to those for whom he cares. As something which he makes and which becomes his own (and is not bestowed on him externally), the child perceives of feces as personal property that defines independence. The child also recognizes that this substance, often problematically received by the world, can be used aggressively, as a weapon. Thus a child's sense of mastery, power, and defiance derives initially from manipulation of excrement.

The last sentence deserves an encore:

Thus a child's sense of mastery, power, and defiance derives initially from manipulation of excrement.

But in New Albany, sewage isn’t so much a weapon as it is the ultimate excuse. When it comes to the sewer utility, successive generations of local elected officials are like the Welsh and Scottish sin-eaters of olden times, absorbing the procrastination, sloth and expedience of their predecessors, and then being ritually absolved in turn by the next wave of unimaginative caretakers, and so we find ourselves as a city always in the position of fighting previous battles, and always using the urgency of unfurnished previous business to explain why we can’t look into the future or plan for anything beyond the shortfall to come.

And that’s because when it is least expected, the Grim Reaper, otherwise known as the wielder of the dictates of the court-ordered consent degree, summarily demands a huge pile of money, and amid much wailing and gnashing of teeth, a check for the interest is cut, the principle remains untouched, Band-Aids are applied, and having spared the citizenry the unfathomable burden of another couple bucks a month, another election cycle makes its merry way through their craniums, much cheap beer is consumed, BBQ bologna is tossed merrily from second-floor windows, and God is thanked yet again for overlooking us.

Doesn't "He" ever.

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Sewers and storm water, budgets and no-bid contracts, grandstanding and stand-up commedy, resolutions and overturned vetoes, chaos and rancor, marriages of convenience and battlefield divorces … and right up front, the Odd Couple holds sway.

Verily, it is next to impossible to attribute purity of motive to an inveterate, self-serving ward heeler like 1st district councilman Dan Coffey, so how to explain the scruffy and vainglorious Wizard’s current agenda-sharing partnership with the 6th district’s affable Jeff Gahan?

After all, during three years of council service together, the two routinely have been at odds. Moreover, CM Gahan is everything his amok counterpart is not: He’s educated, polite, reasonable, and as close to progressive-minded as any single person presently serving in local government at any level.

How to explain the cognitive dissonance engendered by this seemingly irreconcilable tableau?

One interpretation of the situation comes to us from the lips of Even Deeper Throat, an apparent insider, who last week agreed to a surreptitious meeting at the rear of the buggy whip factory located atop the parking garage at State and Market.

Dodging distracted commuters, Even Deeper Throat explained it this way:

There has been some criticism of the council due to personalities and boy, do I understand it. I do not think that many realize how important the vote was (last) Saturday. I think it was the most important vote of the past four years. This was the council starting to take back control of the city finances from the sewer board. Next year we will have a much better council. Getting the sewers under the council control is very important. I have looked at all of the figures of their monies (believe me it is not a budget), except for their "special projects" which are mostly expansion of sewer lines into the fringe and the county, they operate about 2.5 million in the black each year.

Peering over the guardrail, I could see Pat Harrison's picket line. Her sign read, "HOW ABOUT WELFARE FOR SLUMLORDS -- FOR A CHANGE." I lamented the death of irony in America as Even Deeper Throat continued:

Once they are under control, the council will have the money to do great things for this city. Once they solve the sewer issue there will be money to fix all of the streets, which are in the worst condition I have ever seen), hire more inspectors (I doubt twenty though), and make room for special lanes for those that enjoy two wheeled transportation. I am of the opinion that the sewer board has been holding this city back (and up) for a long time and if things work out the way I am hoping there could be a very bright future for the city during the next ten years.

We continued to chat while walking to a handy park bench across from the sewage treatment plant, which smelled of lilacs and brand new automotive interiors on a brutally hot day. What about that cognitive dissonance? Giving the benefit of the doubt to Gahan, could it be possible that Coffey, too, is somehow sincere, and if so, how do we go about detecting trustworthiness behind the numerous chips of acrimony resting on the Wizard’s slumped shoulders? Do they make Geiger counters that strong? Are hazmat suits recommended? If we come into contact with the unadulterated bile, will it leave an unsightly blemish on our favorite Kochertian leotards?

Deep Throat thoughtfully drew from his Gauloise, and paused before answering:

It is just that the issue cuts across all lines, which makes for an odd alliance. Kochert and Zurschmiede are sewer board members first and council members second. Messer wants to be chief. Coffey needs an audience. Blevins needs to learn to read the ordinances before he votes on them. Crump needs development. Price needs to get rid of cell phones and Schmidt needs his medicine.

As Even Deeper Throat connected the dots, I saw a huge, carcass-engorged groundhog slithering across the grounds of the treatment plant across Main Street. Upon further examination, I was surprised to see that it was two women in conjoined full camouflage, crawling in the underbrush with an infrared camera in tow and a Big Chief tablet in hand.

Meanwhile, my chain-smoking informant was by no means finished. I needed to understand how the Friday afternoon massacre and the veto override went hand in hand to explain the “strange coalition” between Coffey and Gahan.

The stormwater board went too far. Even Messer said so at the last meeting and was willing to vote for court action against them but not the sewer board. When the sanitation department was eliminated there were months of public debate in the papers and at council meetings. The storm water board did the same with no warning at all and it took everyone by surprise. The reaction should have been obvious but it was not to inexperienced board members.

Was that Donald Sutherland and Kevin Costner speeding past on the way to uncounted riches at Caesar’s? And if the city council refuses jurisdiction over the fringe area to forestall sewer construction, does that mean that enterprising businessmen are free to erect high-dollar “gentlemen’s clubs” there so long as they’re connected to septic tanks? Even Deeper Throat concluded:

Gahan had to let Coffey take the lead on these issues, in fact he told him he had to. Gahan understands that it is better to let Coffey take the lead from that side of the table in order to gain the support that is needed to make the necessary changes. I believe it was Churchill who said that he would jump into bed with the devil himself (Stalin) to rid the world of Hitler. There has to be some postering and odd alliances to do, in the end, what is right for the city.

As the ghost of LBJ descended in the odiferous gloaming, we parted ways. It was late, and the hop juice was calling.

High noon: Resolutions, vetoes and the New Albany tradition of conflict enhancement.

There’s nothing at all inappropriate about the timing. On the hottest day of the year, certain politically temperamental thermostats at the City-County Building are set for certain intemperate global warming:

New Albany mayor vetoes sewer ruling; Panel planned suit in contract dispute, by Dick Kaukas (The Courier-Journal).

Less than 24 hours after the New Albany City Council voted to file lawsuits to challenge the validity of two no-bid contracts, Mayor James Garner vetoed the resolution.

What the future holds for New Albany’s leading index of governmental dysfunction is by no means clear, but the C-J’s reporter Kaukas has earned our eternal gratitude for revealing an all-time, bar-none, classic King Larry Kochert moment:

Kochert yesterday accused some council members who object to the contracts of engaging in "political grandstanding" before the November election.

"They had been acting like lapdogs, and now they want to look like watchdogs," Kochert said.

That’s breathtaking. No single pot ever accused an accompanying kettle of blackness to such a sweeping degree. Thanks, Dick, for catching that one. You made our year.