Aw-dit days are here again ... skies above are clear again.

Oh dear. Another performance to attend.

Audit of New Albany bicentennial commission back on council agenda; Former treasurer claims event proceeds not turned over, by Daniel Suddeath (N and T)

NEW ALBANY — After being tabled last month, a resolution approving an audit of the New Albany Bicentennial Commission’s financial records is back on the city council agenda for Monday night’s meeting.

Councilman Kevin Zurschmiede sponsored the resolution after former commission treasurer Vic Megenity stated his concerns over the record-keeping and procedures of the nonprofit entity.

Have you ever wondered what Bob Caesar is thinking as he drives serenely along the $2 million half-mile stretch of the repaired Spring Street Hill road that leads to his house in Silver Hills? My guess is that he thinks about out-of-town interlopers like Megenity; after all, Vic didn't attend New Albany High School.

Councilman Bob Caesar serves as the co-chair of the commission. He said the issue of accounting is driven by a personal disagreement between (Barbara) Zoller and Alice Glover, who was the vice treasurer under Megenity before she also resigned. In his resignation letter to the commission, Megenity disagreed with Caesar, and stated only Zoller felt like she had a personality conflict with Glover.

All the lonely people; where do they all come from? And why didn't they just stay there and stop agitating for aw-dits and two-way streets? Perhaps we'll know more if the aw-dit proceeds, assuming CeeSaw remains blissfully unaware of the meaning of the term self-immolation.

I'll be on hand tomorrow night to live-tweet the dire proceedings.

Nash suffers through a Coffey-centered council conclave.

We watched last week's council ordeal together. My version came in two parts.

Coffey: Planets and employers must be protected from human rights.

Gone for so long, the Copperhead suddenly returned to the fray. The old Dan Coffey oozed to the surface to begin an impromptu filibuster in objection to the stipulations of the Human Rights Commission, ones that he happily approved thrice before in 2012, evidently without ever reading the document he rubber-stamped.

and

Council still snoozing as Meginity asks for a Bicentennial Commission audit.

Unfortunately, if Meginity believes a council that has tended to regard bicentennial oversight as a disease akin to poison ivy or genital warts now will be swayed by the mere eloquence of a whistle blower to perform long overdue audits, he's likely to receive yet another clear reply.

Now, by fluke of the calendar, we're sentenced to another meeting this coming Thursday, May 16. We know there'll be a bicentennial audit resolution, which Dan Coffey will oppose because he possesses all the necessary information, and for whatever other tactical copperhead maneuver of the moment, he's up for some Caesar fluffing.

KZ on BicenComm: Pass me an abacus.

Not unexpectedly, commission member (and councilman) Bob Caesar could not be reached for comment. What are the odds that he votes on the resolution rather than recuse or abstain? Solid, I'd say.

It's really too bad about the bicentennial experience to date. Apart from audits and oversights, had the big kids just decided (for once) to be genuinely inclusive and let others have just a bit of sandbox time, we might have accomplished something. But from the very start, the foremost imperative was to guard the birthday from those who would use it. Oh, well; it's all so utterly New Albanian.

There's always the Tricentennial.

For this reason, I decided that NABC will sit out this year’s “official” commemoration, better to honor “next,” or the more hopeful, forthcoming party we’re all guaranteed to miss – not because we were not invited, as was the case in 2013, but because each and every one of us will be dead as door nails in 2113.

Take it away, Matt.

NASH: Lessons from a council meeting, by Matt Nash (N and T)

Over nearly four years of writing this column, I have attended many New Albany City Council meetings. I had been taking a little break from going because of the emotional toll that it takes on my soul, but I decided to return this week ...

... When he had finished speaking, Mr. Coffey gave a vote of confidence to Councilman Bob Caesar as co-chair of the committee, and said that the council had been given every piece of information that they asked for. No one else had any comments and the meeting was adjourned.

Mr. Megenity’s comments raise some very important concerns. Has the all the money that has been collected for the bicentennial events been accounted for? Why was the treasurer not in charge of depositing all monies? How many people had the ability to write checks on the committee’s account?

Audit those Crutchfields, or at least use them for paving stones.

What was that?

The city's now the number one lien holder on the Crutchfield mercenary coffee table door stop tome?

Oh, wait; that was Linden Meadows. The Crutchfield lien holder is the Redevelopment Commission, right? We don't really know, do we? I mean, the big kids said we shouldn't ask.

Meanwhile, credit to my friend Mark for succinctly summarizing Bicentennial Gate. Isn't if funny how for once, Dan Coffey says he has all the information he needs ... and yet he's not sharing any, is he?

Iamhoosier left a new comment on your post "Council still snoozing as Meginity asks for a Bicentennial Commission audit.": 

I don't personally know most of the principals involved in this "dispute". I do know that there has been no public accounting of funds and darn little other information about the committee's operation.

While I don't suspect any "pocket lining" to have gone on, it does appear that proper accounting and management techniques have not been used. We deserve some answers. 

Council still snoozing as Meginity asks for a Bicentennial Commission audit.

And that's why NABC is sitting this one out and skipping ahead to next century: I'll see your bicentennial, and raise you a Tricentennial. Whatcha got?

Reporter Daniel Suddeath set the stage earlier on Monday, predicting an appearance before the city council last night by Vic Meginity -- retired teacher, historic preservationist, and as we learned, former treasurer of the city of New Albany's Bicentennial Commission.

How this came about proved a top-quality reminder that civic dysfunction is alive and well 200 years after the ill-fated Scribner canoes ran aground.

By the way, boys and girls, are you also wondering how many Crutchfield Coffee Table Door Stops have been sold so far? We'll get back to that.

Meginity proceeded to meticulously question the bicentennial committee's handling of monetary accounts, charging that commission and private monies were commingled and liberties taken with accounting, all on his watch but without his input.

He told of how he approached commission members seeking an explanation, then went to co-commission chairs Shelle England and Bob Caesar, then various city officials, and finally to the mayor. Nothing happened, and then Meginity was told by Caesar he'd be fired along with an assistant, so he quit first.

When Daniel's newspaper report is published, I'll link to it here. It should suffice to say that Meginity believes there should be an audit of the bicentennial commission's accounts, and moreover, there should be accessible information as to just what the commission has been doing with roughly a quarter of a million dollars since it was formed, turned loose ... and never, ever monitored by the city council or anyone else.

Meginity said that he became aware of potential problems only last October, and coincidentally or not, October 1, 2012, was the most recent occasion for the  council to utterly refuse even a cursory probe into the commission's dealings and expenditures. It was the occasion for final approval of Bicentennial "Rent Boy" Park, and council member Caesar was buttressed by co-chair England in deflecting all questions.

England's position was clear: This is the big kids' table, and thou shan't ask.

The council's reply last October was equally clear: So very sorry for so much as insinuating a questioning stance; carry on; like we'd ever want to know anything of you, heaven forbid!

Unfortunately, if Meginity believes a council that has tended to regard bicentennial oversight as a disease akin to poison ivy or genital warts now will be swayed by the mere eloquence of a whistle blower to perform long overdue audits, he's likely to receive yet another clear reply.

HA HA HA HA HA ... especially after Coffey, of all people, leaped to Caesar's defense and assured all and sundry that for the first time in recorded human history, every last bit of the bicentennial "information" has thus far been passed from jeweler Centurion to the council and the copperhead himself.

In the end, the main reason why this episode so saddens me is that Meginity himself artfully alludes to the probable crux of the issue in his report to council, of which I've obtained a copy.

He notes that New Albany is his "adopted hometown for the past 50 years."

Yes, "adopted."

Small wonder the cool kids dumped him.

Dude isn't even from here.

In today's Tribune: Vic Megenity on historic preservation.

Vic Megenity's guest column in today's Tribune ostensibly is a statement of intent with respect to the current fundraising drive to create a museum for the preservation of the late Fred Conway's antique fire equipment.

However, the paragraph reprinted below forms the crux of his argument, which extends past the specifics of the proposed fire museum. It is a lamentation of narrow-mindedness in the past, and an appeal for historic preservation in what strikes me as the narrowest sense of protecting and preserving buildings.

That's fine, and I'm for it. At the same time, as we've recently considered in this space, there are broader elements to historic preservation, and in order to make this point, I'll be blunt: How does the idea of spending more than $500,000 on restoring the Cardinal Ritter house appear to the residents of the transitional neighborhood surrounding it?

It's encouraging to see a dialogue under way with respect to this and other aspects of the urge to preserve. Speaking only for myself, preserving a building without context in a more pervasive societal sense strikes me as a less than conducive exercise. Should the North Annex building be adaptively reused? Yes, but not only because of what the building itself is, or perhaps symbolizes.

What will its reuse mean to the people of the area? Historic preservation pitched too narrowly can come to resemble dilettantism, especially when it comes to the perception of the clueless Philistines we typically elect to office -- like the ones who mechanically signed the demolition permits to facilitate the 1960's era destruction that Vic so effectively decries.

We all must do a better job of casting preservationism in a sense of how it will impact the day-to-day life of the individual, who is otherwise disposed to stand on the sidelines absent a sense of personal involvement with the principles being espoused.

But pleae feel free to disagree with me or to expand upon this brief digression. For more on historic preservation in Floyd County, see reporter Harold Adams's story in today's Courier-Journal. Here is Vic's excellent column.

MEGENITY: Antique fire equipment presents unparalleled opportunity for city

New Albany has a checkered past in preserving its most valuable assets — the history and heritage of the City. When I first moved to this community in the early 1960s to start my teaching career, I was amazed at the rich history that I found. Steamboat building, glass works, iron works, woolen mills, to name just a few important industries. The architecture was outstanding with scores of 19th century buildings, but then something terrible happened. During 1961-62, I observed the demolition of four historic buildings: (1) on the southeast corner of State and Spring Sts., the County Courthouse; (2) on the southwest corner of State and Spring Sts., the City Hall; (3) on the northeast corner of State and Spring Sts., the fortress like Jail, made famous by the hanging of the notorious Reno brothers; (4) on the corner of Spring and Pearl Sts., the magnificent Post Office.