Come out of your cave, Ms. Bolovschak, and disavow the treacherous troglodyte.

Warning: If you’re no fan of the so-called “blog wars,” then please consider clicking through to the Hundred Acre Wood.

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Hmm, wonder which of the masked character assassins at Freedom to Screech (Yellow) wrote this one?

WHY SCHARLOW FOR CITY COUNCIL?

For the past four to five years, the Scharlows have been working on a 16 unit condominium project. Located right behind Mansion Row and blocking the views of historic homes.

Historic homes like the Admiral Bicknell Inn?

More cowardly unsigned claptrap, to be sure, and so resolving to operate under the assumption that it’s always better to take one’s complaints straight to the top rather than waste time with the disposable hired help, today provides the perfect opportunity to reprint this NAC posting from December, 2006. While a few of the specifics are dated, the gist remains as valid now as then.

Periodically there are hints of a thaw, although little ever comes from it. When last I spoke with Auntie V, she seemed to imply that she’d be abandoning her trash talking blog alliance with the trognonymous Denhart and finally – finally -- openly supporting the sort of ideas, projects and civic advancement that Erika routinely slimes for reasons that make no sense to anyone.

Unfortunately, there’s been no evidence of such a conversion; perhaps we must wait until after the election, or gasoline falls back to a dollar a gallon, to see the umbilical cord mercifully severed. Perhaps it will never happen and not only is that a very sad state of affairs. It's also injurious to the prospects for a civil society here in New Albany.

I renew the appeal: Come out of your cave, Ms. Bolovschak, and disavow the treacherous troglodyte.

Here's the reprint.

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The same ambition can destroy or save,
And makes a patriot as it makes a knave.

--Alexander Pope

Imagine you’re Auntie V.

Imagine also that you’re an inveterate behind-the-scenes schemer who, among other bizarre double-naught spying activities, regularly abets an anonymous Internet flame queen while denying even the slightest interest in the existence of the information superhighway.

Ah, but like Mark Twain ... I repeat myself.

Instead, imagine that you’re an aspiring GOP politico who campaigns for a providentially vacant position on the city council by enabling your guileless, tail-wagging flunky to stump on your behalf by means of artlessly lampooning the very party stalwarts who’ll vote to determine who occupies the seat.

Of course, you don’t spread the insults yourself, as even the most sophisticated of dry cleaning techniques won’t take the smell of manure out of a pair of white silk gloves, but you farm it out to your eager Sancho Panza of an incessantly enraged minion, Prof. Erika, who provides useful cover and lacks the insight to object to being used in such a humiliating fashion for so long as someone – anyone – continues to pay attention to her antics.

Especially her patrician idol.

Not unexpectedly, you lose the race to fill the seat, and you emerge from the predictable defeat -- the most recent public relations debacle -- looking exactly like Wile E. Coyote after the stick of dynamite inserted in his ear by the speedily departing Roadrunner ignites, and an earsplitting boom fills the air with confetti, soot and the laughter of both children and adults, all of whom are saying to themselves, boy, that coyote just doesn’t seem to get it … ever … just keeps on repeating the same mistakes, again and again, thinking it’ll turn out differently next time.

So clinical … and with another Putsch attempt derailed, what can you possibly do to regain some measure of equilibrium – to restore the proper balance of nature between yourself and the slider-slurping "noodleheads" and unresponsive sow’s ears who can’t seem to understand the majesty of what you're proposing to do for them?

Why, start by attacking the New Albany city clerk, of course, and follow by offering two flagrantly willful misinterpretations of recent council activity, and maybe, just as a change of pace, blame it all on the building commissioner, or the Mayor, or anyone else who wanders into the line of fire.

That’s it. Stress relief for the social saboteur.

Do we feel better, yet?

Auntie V’s latest salvos in the ongoing political flame war-by-proxy were launched with clocklike regularity in a Freedom of Speech blog posting Saturday, with another following on Sunday, and yet another some time after that (among other things, Erika can’t fathom the workings of the time/date stamp at her blog), and as always, onlookers lucky enough to emerge from the sliming session without collateral spitwads lodged in their own eyeballs are left to lament the recurring disingenuousness – the sheer volume of disinformation disguised as “outraged taxpayer” verbiage – that hangs thick like a pea soup fog within the confines of the Admiral Bicknell war room.

Consider Auntie V’s sentiments, as translated by the ever willing psychophant Erika, here: HERE WE GO AGAIN!...IS THIS ANOTHER POLITICAL FAVOR FOR JIMMY'S RE-ELECTION?

Be aware that at the Dec. 4 council meeting, the ordinance in question, which in essence is a routine bonding mechanism to allow the use of money already collected for tourism-related projects, passed its first reading by a 6-2 vote, with 1st district ward heeler Dan Coffey stridently objecting before meekly abstaining, and 3rd and 4th district councilmen Steve Price and Larry Kochert, respectively, voting against.

Go here to examine the state law referenced therein: Floyd/Clark County Innkeeper's Tax. Know that nothing in this ordinance merits the attention being given it at Freedom to Screech, beyond the need of the chronically dysfunctional to maintain disaffection amongst imagined future cadres of mad-as-hell squirrel brain eaters.

And know that the ongoing personal attacks against city clerk Marcey Wisman are both unwarranted and tactless, not unlike the majority of the vitriolic drivel oozing from Ms. Denhart’s (a.k.a. Erika’s) poison crayon – but never without the approval of the aspiring Ms. Bolovschak.

It’s sad that we must continue refuting churlish childishness rather than devoting column inches to the many examples of positive news in New Albany, but when the shameless slander vandals push, even feebly, genuinely decent people must push back, and that’s what I’m doing, because make no mistake: When it comes to the venom of FOS, there is an ultimate source, and it isn’t the masquerading collegiate site manager.

It isn’t Erika, it’s Ms. Bolovschak, and as the months slip past, it becomes so insanely surreal that one is forgiven for believing that it’s Groundhog Day all over again, and again, and again.

I’m no longer concerned with the possibility of rifts, feuds and other manifestations of the New Albany Syndrome, so let’s say it publicly.

Ms. Bolovschak, you’ve got much -- perhaps even all -- of what it takes to succeed. You possess a work ethic, abundant smarts, good looks, sufficient money, proven business acumen. These combine to create an enviable potential foundation from which to seek any political office you so desire.

Then why?

Why must you stoop in this continually abhorrent manner to conquer?

Why the ceaseless games, the empowerment of anonymity, the cloak-and-dagger nastiness?

With so much to offer, why hurt so many undeserving people by enabling Erika’s malevolence, and by using people for whom you feel nothing as a Auntiebellum corduroy road to drive atop in pursuit of your own ends?

Do you feel that you’re forced to do it? As a woman, as someone who “isn’t from here”? That unless you do the funky Machiavelli, they’ll not take you seriously?

Is there a conscience in there somewhere?

What happens to these pillars of support once you’ve achieved your goals, and they're no longer needed?

It isn’t as if you don’t know this already, but the buffoonish mock Professor Erika, the knee-jerk flatlining 3rd district uncouncilman, the clamorously vacant denizens of the Luddite Bar & Grill – all come to us largely unable to comprehend diversity, generally absent any unified vision for the future, and sadly unable to see a place for themselves and their own milieu in a world that must, by necessity, change and renew. That’s life, and if we’re to accept a planet teeming with human diversity, a certain percentage of the unreconstructed throwing themselves in the path of progress certainly constitute standard equipment during the course of any substantive journey.

You know as well as I do that often these folks often become frightened, panic, and seek reassurance and succor from others whom they perceive as better situated to “lead” them, but here’s the important difference between those duly chosen to "lead."

Some are born to transcend the limited options afforded them, and do so by their own talents and on their own merits without taking advantage of others, and seek to educate, empower and improve the options of the less fortunate.

But others choose to pursue power more cynically, by riding on the backs of those less able to discern reality while they’re perpetually face down in the mud … and populism of this calculating variety always brutally mocks the very people it purports to rescue.

Every time a FOS posting goes merrily into orbit, those among us capable of a fundamental clarity as to which leader is which have an obligation to expose the transparency of the fawning charade – of the sheer, hide-in-plain-sight chutzpah emanating from whichever of Sybil’s personalities awoke this morning and ventured into the cold light of day in pursuit of whatever it is, and is so important to obtain, right now, that it has been deemed necessary to publicly disassemble, to enable semi-literate Internet attack dogs, to construct one after another elaborately staged theatrical presentations, and to earnestly promise the “little people” – these same sincere citizens oblivious to the otherwise palpable “noodlehead” contempt showered on them behind closed doors -- that there’s someone who’ll look after them and be their savior.

But this town doesn't need a savior, at least not under such unfavorable terms. It needs multiple saviors, preferably one on each city block, and a few in city hall, and a few more business owners, all of whom willing to work together as equals to improve the quality of life and the prospects for all people choosing to live here.

You’ve undoubtedly done good things toward this end, and you are to be commended for the persistence and hard work.

Seemingly, you have it all.

Why isn’t all enough?

More on CSX, the 15th Street corridor, sandbagging councilmen and steroidal egos.

Permit me to expand on the hurried posting from last evening. If you're just tuning in, please read it first:

Does the CSX railroad "own" the 15th Street right of way?

The only speaker during non-agenda item public speaking time was our famously self-appointed “citizen’s advocate,” Ms. Bolovschak, who addressed the council (minus CMs Donnie Blevins and Jack Messer, who were absent, and Bev Crump, who had to leave on short notice).

Bolovschak, who serves as Minister of Railways in the troglodyte shadow cabinet, discussed her tirelessly free-lance efforts to bring CSX to heel for repairing the 15th Street corridor, to the tune of $1.8 million in necessary improvements. She stressed that such huge expenditure would not be borne solely by the railroad, and that the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) might be induced in cooperative funding in concert with a tithe from the city of New Albany.

All well and good so far.

She went on to say that the key to it all would be the city’s willingness to curb alley crossings of the tracks, presumably so all major streets would have appropriate signals. At this point, matters rapidly escalated into entertainment, as CM Kevin Zurschmiede asked, “Do you represent CSX?”

Bolovschak responded, “They asked me to come to the council. Why would you ask a question like that?”

The sparring then began in earnest, with Zurschmiede asking, in essence, who she was, why she was there and why she cared to be the conduit of information for absentee railroad executives, Bolovschak arguing the merits of safety for area residents and dismissing concerns over the alley curbs, and Zurschmiede aggressively insisting that he wants actual representatives of CSX to be in the room addressing the council.

Seeing as we now understand the origin of the suddenly confrontational Zurschmiede’s surprise counter-attack, i.e., the subsequent revelation that Sewer Board attorney Greg Fifer believes that CSX does not own the right-of-way after all, the display makes much more sense. Sewer Board members Zurschmiede and CM Larry Kochert (council president and wielder of the selective gavel) were only too glad to kneecap the unelected “advocate” with information, as yet ongoing and unverified, of which she was apparently entirely unaware.

Boy, those old-line Republicans really stick together when it comes to disciplining interlopers … but wait – Larry Kochert’s an old-time Democrat, not an old-line Republican.

Same difference, apparently.

Amid the presentation by the unelected citizen’s advocate and the most recent addition to the council, with the former sprinkling her self-referencing narrative with future Erika tag lines and the latter shaking frequent quasi-socialist fists at the railroad and issuing ultimatums, one extreme example of a Freudian slip came forth in all the grandeur that inflated egos are capable of mustering.

Zurschmiede asked Bolovschak to explain the point of it all, and she responded thusly: “If I pull this off … I mean, if we pull this off ... "

‘Nuff said, indeed.

A sewer runs through it.

Yesterday afternoon, NAC’s Bluegill previewed the evening’s city council meeting, and while doing so asked a few pertinent hypotheticals.

Speaking of Slippery Larry, one wonders if he'll again conveniently forget his own long tenure on the sewer board and try to pin any accounting deficiencies on the Mayor, or if he'll suddenly spin his head and allow us the joy of watching him grimace as he owns up to actually agreeing with Garner.

Actually, CM Kochert was far too busy committing the most fundamental of substitute teaching errors, which is making an exception to classroom rules for one student, and then being forced to explain to others why preferential treatment was merited.

This rather hilariously led to a spanking new, tower-of-quivering-jello Kochert Dictum: Ya wanna talk during the meeting? So go out in the hall, already.

In turn, this fresh interpretation of Kochert’s increasingly obvious unwillingness to fairly run a council meeting meant that having declined to bounce the initial citizen peanut gallery violators (the odd couple Glimmer Twins, Bolovschak and Denhart), Kochert couldn’t quite summon the nerve to send others (my better half meritoriously included) to the penalty box.

Only Larry knows for sure and, in the absence of a crowd to play to, he probably hasn't decided yet … And what of at-large CM Kevin Zurschmiede? Having vociferously opposed paving appropriations without full documentation of the street department's intentions during early discussions, will he hold himself to the same standard as a sewer board member or give up the grandstand now that the Republican party no longer needs to concern themselves with Garner as a candidate?

I’ll leave it to others to fully document CM Jeff Gahan’s search for a sewer utility budget, and whether the financial information proffered the council last evening qualifies as such. It is interesting to note that both Zurschmiede and Kochert, dual council and sewer board members, publicly took the position that the sewer utility simply cannot ever be held to the same standards of budgetary accountability as other city departments.

Will 3rd district CM Steve Price involuntarily vote no on the measure before realizing its purpose is to withhold funds?

In the end, CM Gahan tabled it to further study the sewer board financials, so we don’t know what was or wasn’t happening between the ears of the 3rd district’s “37% Solution.” Later, Price’s continued inability (or more likely, unwillingness) to fathom how decades of “nickel and dime” tactics by politicians remarkably similar to himself have managed to produce the deterioration that has directly led to the current sewer rate reminded viewers that you can lead a quasi-Democrat to knowledge … well, you know the rest.

What are the chances that mayoral candidate Doug England's name comes up in the discussion?

It did, at least twice. But Guido already had left the room by then.

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In closing, I invite readers to contemplate the nature of the grandstand, which an on-line dictionary defines as:

“To conduct oneself or perform showily or ostentatiously in an attempt to impress onlookers: The senator doesn't hesitate to grandstand if it makes her point.”

Last evening Ms. Valla Ann Bolovschak took advantage of public speaking time to address items not specifically on the council’s agenda (the 2006 state audit report for New Albany). This is prohibited by the council president’s own rules, which he once used to chase an African-American minister from the rostrum.

However, the council president permitted it.

She was introduced by the council president by her chosen forename appellation of Valla Ann, presumably because he cannot pronounce her surname, although others generally are paid the courtesy of Mr., Mrs. or Ms.

Indeed, branding is an important facet of all marketing campaigns. She used 15 minutes when five is the stated limit.

Looking thoroughly powerless, the council president permitted it.

Returning to her seat, she joined with the academic poseur Denhart in audibly clucking throughout city controller Kay Garry’s reasonable point-by-point explanations of the items not on the agenda that Ms. Bolovschak used too much time to present to a council that already had access to the information in the audit.

As murmurings of discomfort began spreading through the room, the council president finally was moved to issue a half-hearted warning, which later became his equally flaccid “out in the hall” directive -- which he tepidly declined to enforce.

Now, make no mistake. The author does not pretend to be blameless when it comes to outbursts during council.

But mine are not politically premeditated theatrical performances, designed to disrupt and muddy, and unfortunately abetted by a council president who both implicitly and explicitly endorses the notion that rules are to be applied differently depending on his bias and whim.

That’s the very root of the problem in New Albany, Larry. I asked you before, and it's again important: Do you intend to run a meeting fairly at any point this year?

The Bolovschak phenomenon: A nod's still as good as a wink to a blind voter.

Did you know to whom I refer in the title before looking at the photo? Surely she’s the only candidate in recent memory to seek local office sans surname, which points to one of several contradictory aspects of Main Street Bed & Breakfast owner Valla Ann Bolovschak’s bid for an at-large seat on the city council.

Historically, New Albany’s voters have shown considerable reluctance to turn the calendar page forward -- and that's putting it mildly. Surely there have been exceptions (Regina Overton comes immediately to mind), but partisan municipal voters seldom have been keen on Republicans in general, on women running for big ticket offices like mayor or city council, or on people with seemingly unpronounceable “foreign” names – like Bolovschak.

Not unexpectedly, it has been an obvious imperative from the very start that Ms. Bolovschak’s political brand identity must consistently and repetitiously be pegged to her forenames, and moreover, that her fervent GOP leanings in the broader state and national senses be somewhat muted locally in favor of a universal populist message capable of being appreciated by the dull mass of primarily Democratic voters, who otherwise might be frightened even if they’ve bought into her familiar “Jimmy G – You Work for Me” stratagem.

Many of them are going to be surprised on Tuesday when they declare Democratic allegiance and find Ms. Bolovschak’s name missing from the list. Here’s a clue: Think pachyderm, even if it isn’t indicated on the yard signs.

Barely concealed slash ‘n’ burn alliances of purely Machiavellian convenience with nominal Democrats like the Freedom to Screech blog’s cowardly and trognonymous Vicki Denhart have been undertaken with the intent of lowering cultural resistance from older female voters, while at the same time not directly implicating Ms. Bolovschak in the slanderous mayhem foisted on the public by the embittered professorial wannabe.

Of course, we live in a spittle-obsessed America, and photogenic good looks are never a bad strategy to win over undecided and sexually frustrated older males.

Undoubted ability doesn’t hurt, either, and virtually no one – even the author – contests the fact that Ms. Bolovschak possesses reams of useful business experience of the sort generally lacking on the council. She also has useful connections in a state dominated by the Republican Party (see “spittle”, above).

By positioning herself more than three years ago as an entity approximating that of a shadow city government, Ms. Bolovschak has worked behind the scenes on a number of issues, some of broad usefulness to the community in general (railroads and the Greenway – that’s “green-a-way” for those Steve Price voters reading), and others undertaken for puzzlingly less reputable motives (taking a lead role in financing and leading the attempt to scuttle the worthy Linden Meadows low-income home ownership project).

Through it all, I’ve formulated a cautionary dictum: You’re free to take Ms. Bolovschak at face value so long as you understand that there are multiple faces, ones deployed at different times to different people, and for different reasons.

The do-gooder or the narcissist?

The savvy negotiator or the scheming character assassin?

Defender of the downtrodden, or cynical manipulator of the White Castle-eating noodleheads?

She’s been all of these things at various junctures during a carefully orchestrated period of political ascendancy. One must understand from the outset that hers is not a candidacy built for transparency, but rather a Rove-influenced shell game intended to take advantage of what she perceives as weaknesses of perception and intellect on the part of a bickering yokel populace.

Sadly, she may even be right when it come to the latter assessment, with implications even more disturbing than her tactics to date. Indeed, it’s sometimes hard not to admire hardcore realism even as the rancid stench of abhorrent methodology send you running in search of a convenient bucket.

Will Ms. Bolovschak successfully charm the somnolent GOP urban cadres and rise to the top three on the GOP at-large council ballot? It seems like a reasonable prospect, although inexplicable local proclivities for self-defeating xenophobia can never be entirely dismissed.

One thing is clear: Aficionados of governmental gridlock may think that the current council offers the ideal components for a profound lack of progressive movement … but what if Ms. Bolovschak and a handful of newly elected fellow council Republicans face off for four long years against a second-term Mayor James Garner – with obstructionist “Democrats” in tow?

It’s a scenario that would make the siege of Troy seem like an adolescent’s attention span, redolent of the nothingness of wheels spinning in deep mud or the lonesome yelp of starved puppies chained behind slumlord properties.


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As an addendum, here is a comment previously posted as a comment by reader All4Word on Thursday, May 3.

Ms. Bolovschak continues to boast that she has personally paid for the videography of city council meetings, but something remains unsaid, at least recently.

Upon my earliest acquaintance with the now-candidate, I extracted a pledge from her. That is a pledge that was given, but not fulfilled.

Not everyone in New Albany has cable TV, so even if the school system (the owner of the cable station) were willing to give up part of its educational programming time to government meetings, many still would not be able to access them.

So I asked Ms. Bolovschak to promise that she would deposit copies of the tapes in the public library. She did promise, but she never came through.

It is the height of Rove-ian politicking to boast about privately taping city council meetings without making those tapes available to the public. Much in the same way that she claims to be on the board of Historic Landmarks (we're members, and we can't find any list that includes her), the claim and the underlying truth are at variance.

Indeed, there is a cost to tape the meetings. But there's a cost to driving a Ferrari (or a golf cart), too. But if that Ferrari isn't being driven for the benefit of the public, it hardly counts as a legitimate campaign selling point.

Voters should know that videotaping of city council meetings would not go "poof" if Ms. Bolovschak were to stop taping. Others stand ready to underwrite those costs, but they are committed to making them publicly available, not to secreting them in a boudoir for private viewing.

Thanks to NAC for the recent efforts to bring visual representation to what this blog has been saying for more than three years now. Yesterday the word "unbelievable" was bandied about in regard to the 3rd District candidate forum/debate. Unfortunately, it is all too believable.

Would that those videos were available to all.

Photo credit: B52s