GIVE GAHAN A PINK SLIP: (Friday) Jeff Gahan fired NAHA's Bob Lane to promote David Duggins, but now it's time for voters to do some firing of their own at the ballot box.

Last week was so much fun, I did it again.

As a run-up to Decision 2019, again this week I delved into the ON THE AVENUES archive for five more days of devastatingly persuasive arguments against four more years of the anchor-imbedded Gahan Family Values™ Personality Cult.

I've already made the solid case for Mark Seabrook as mayor.

The case against Gahanism has so many chapters that it might be necessary to lob five additional informative and entertaining installments next week. After all, heaven knows we have enough raw material.

Following are this week's and last week's Rice Krispies MisTREATments:

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Monday) The Reisz Mahal luxury city hall, perhaps the signature Gahan boondoggle.

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Tuesday) Gahan the faux historic preservationist demolishes the historic structure -- with abundant malice.

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Wednesday) The shopping cart mayor's cartoonish veneer of a personality cult. Where do we tithe, Leader Dearest?

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Thursday) That Jeff Gahan has elevated people like David Duggins to positions of authority is reason enough to vote against the Genius of the Floodplain.

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Friday) Slick Jeffie's hoarding of power and money is a very real threat to New Albany's future.

And this week's "please let there be a pink slip" chronicles:

GIVE GAHAN A PINK SLIP: (Monday) No more fear, Jeff. This isn't East Germany, and you're not the Stasi.

GIVE GAHAN A PINK SLIP: (Tuesday) In 2015 roughly 14% of New Albany's eligible voters opted for the Anchor Deity, and they’re getting exactly what they deserve – good and hard.

GIVE GAHAN A PINK SLIP: (Wednesday) When he seized NAHA, Slick Jeffie depicted himself as a wise, caped, fatherly hero, when in fact he was more two-faced than Harvey Dent.

GIVE GAHAN A PINK SLIP: (Thursday) Slick Jeffie's car-centric street grid remains designed to maim and kill, and his clique doesn't give a damn.

GIVE GAHAN A PINK SLIP: (Friday) Jeff Gahan fired NAHA's Bob Lane to promote David Duggins, but now it's time for voters to do some firing of their own at the ballot box.

Today we return to Gahan's 2017 public housing putsch, which remains the single greatest indicator of his fundamental unsuitability to serve New Albany as mayor.

At the time, several DemoDisneyDixiecrats were scandalized by Gahan's hostile takeover and concurring promise to demolish living spaces as a way of purging the city of poor people who have failed to budget properly and thus failed contribute their fair share to the Genius of the Floodplain's bulging campaign finance coffers (demolition is an effort that stalled yet stands to regain lost momentum if he succeeds in securing a third term).

Many of those who dissented have since groveled returned to the fold -- because ya know, the Re-Pubs are always worse. Some might even be in this photograph of protesters from early 2017.

Here's some eye candy.

Now for the words. As we know, NAHA director Lane was fired and Deputy Dawg Duggins brought aboard to make an experienced administrator's salary absent an iota of qualifications -- when he wasn't "joking" about Tasers and various other forms of physical violence -- but of course, the idea wasn't ever that Duggins actually would run NAHA (Tony Toran does THAT boring work) but instead wheel, deal and leverage properties like a Trump lackey to keep the special interest campaign donors pumping green lifeblood into Gahan's veins.

Mission accomplished ... unless you're a public housing resident.

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March 16, 2017

Burger Chef and Jeff? No, it's TIF Man and Warren.

ON THE AVENUES: It's all so simple, says Jeff Gahan. Remove the impoverished, and voila! No more poverty!

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

It was another vintage week for home-wrecking and game-playing by the tittering, braying donkeys who populate Team Gahan's toxic bunker bullpen (surely they're possessed of a remarkable consistency, if nothing else noteworthy), but let's try to disregard the latest round of slapstick and self-parody, and look instead at the purported blueprint for a "balanced mix of public and subsidized housing."

It is revealed within the recent, artfully contrived Comprehensive Plan, a Disneyesque document written by many of the same malleable functionaries now fairly itching to seize the controls of their testosterone-charged bulldozers, which currently idle nervously for the signal to VAROOM.

Bullet points "a" and "b" are sufficiently vague as to be nonsensical.

We know from long, repetitive experience that the desired Gahanian context for terms like these can be summarized in a sentence.

City Hall encourages you to redistribute a percentage of your lucrative new contract to the Gahan for Life fund, and we can assist in extracting your wallet if mandatory tithing is a burden.

Furthermore, if the objective of public housing demolitions is to reduce density, improve the condition of surviving units and geographically distribute new construction (the latter is thoroughly dubious), why target Riverside Terrace for destruction?

Riverside's units are many blocks away from the densest concentration of public housing, and make up some of the NAHA’s newest and best maintained buildings.

Location, location ... LOCATION. Riverside Terrace has the misfortune of being situated within a healthily-lofted Duggins spitball of Loop Island Wetlands, which straddles the Greenway and is envisioned by city planners as potentially rivaling New York City’s Central Park in sheer, “Are you fucking kidding me or what?” grandeur.

They must be spiking the Kool-Aid with LSD.

Point "c" is an example of classic Gahanite circular reasoning. These "recommendations" are not to be found in the detailed program already devised by the professional, trained staff of the New Albany Housing Authority, but rather as stipulated in the form of demolition-friendly reductions forced on the NAHA by means of a daintily termed Memorandum of Understanding, a writ of annexation slated for approval by a board packed by the mayor with the usual servile sycophants, as fully intended to render the result Gahan has fixed in advance.

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The scant slivers of meat on these otherwise bleached bones are to be found in points "d" and "e."

First comes the soothing panacea of "voucher-based units," which numerous local social service agencies already have publicly testified as being non-existent, at least in numbers sufficient to re-house public housing residents facing eviction.

Because Deaf Gahan and Donald Trump might be twins as it pertains to a genetic predisposition to ignore dissenting expertise, perhaps the testimony of an ordinary human being would be useful in making this fact clear.

Hmm.

Did Gahan even once bother speaking with any real people before pursuing his hygienic “reforms” on their behalf?

I'm one of those tenants with a Section 8 voucher. I've been trying to find a new place to live for over a year. Pickings are slim and coming up with the deposit on a limited income is nearly impossible. Now I'm afraid to let go of what I have, however unsuitable it is for my needs. Fortunately, I only have to be concerned about me. I don't have kids to bring into the mix. I can't imagine how much that situation would make you worry. You are very correct about low income folks being insecure about their housing, just as they are insecure about having enough food. I am a registered democrat and I do not support this administration and their agenda. This town smells fishy to me. From Breakwater to Housing Authority demolition and a few things in between. Maybe it's the river, maybe not...

Ah, yes. Speaking of the Breakwater, our flame-broiled but defiantly bocce-clad shining avatar of Gahan’s imagined “democratic” mission to bring pure top-shelf living to New Albany, we now must be reminded that luxury and affordability are not incompatible, at least on Fantasy Island.

e. When the City of New Albany is a partner in the development of housing through public incentives, a total of 8 percent of the units shall be affordable.

This empty promise should suffice for years of uproarious hilarity on the part of city officials observing it in the breach.

You’ll notice that this affordability component is applicable only to housing the city already has chosen to subsidize, implying that we’re not going to be having a discussion about this particular form of odious corporate welfare, either.

Moreover, an instructive example of what can go wrong in times of toothlessness is to be found across the mighty Ohio, where Greg Fischer, Gahan’s go-to manly man and political idol, has become the absolute master of gesture politics without content.

As Caitlin Bowling of Insider Louisville explains, a potential out-of-town recipient of public "incentive" largess is balking at the notion of an affordability component, insisting that if a mere 18 out of 272 luxury units are discounted, it simply can’t go forward with the project.

An out-of-town developer may back out of plans to build a $56 million luxury apartment complex in NuLu, according to the developer’s attorney, Jeffrey McKenzie, of Bingham Greenebaum Doll.

“Flournoy Cos. is frankly not able to go forward,” McKenzie said when addressing members of the Louisville Metro Council’s Labor and Economic Development Committee Tuesday afternoon. The council was set to vote on a tax incentive agreement between the city and Flournoy Cos. but instead tabled it.

The Georgia-based company has asked the city for just more than $5 million in potential tax incentives, and in return, city officials told Flournoy Cos. that it must include 18 workforce housing units in its development at 700 E. Main St. and 121 S. Clay St.

The workforce housing request is part of an initiative by Metro Council leaders to ensure that there is housing affordable to residents who earn 80 percent of the area median income for Jefferson County. Teachers and police officers are often given as examples of people who would benefit from workforce housing.

Flournoy Cos. previously agreed to rent 18 of its one-bedroom apartments at $947 per month, whereas a regular one-bedroom unit would go for $1,300 a month.

However, when McKenzie addressed the council committee Tuesday, he stated that the project can’t move forward if Flournoy Cos. is required to have the 18 cheaper apartments. Either that requirement would need to be eliminated, or the property owner, Service Welding & Machine Co., must agree to sell the properties on Main and Clay streets at a lower price.

Let’s hope Fischer goes full gesture. That'll show 'em.

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You may recall that on Monday, there was to have been a pre-rigged housing board vote on the memorandum of annexation, but the measure was tabled.

Initial media reports implied cold feet on City Hall’s part, though soon enough a defensive press release was emitted, with Gahan making sure the world knew it was director Bob Lane’s illness and not his own agoraphobia to blame for the delay.

Concurrently, deputy dawg and down-low soothsayer Mike Hall covered for a typically absent Gahan here:

Mike Hall, a spokesperson for the mayor's office, said in an email, "The MOU recognizes that much of the public housing stock in New Albany is poorly located, does not reflect current thinking and best practices in housing assistance, and is not in good condition."

Principled opposition makes them testy, doesn’t it? The newspaper reporter released this overview, clarifying matters.

New Albany Housing Authority board pushes back reduction plan to April meeting, by Elizabeth Beilman (Cooking School Chronicle)

Executive Director asks for delay to prepare comments

NEW ALBANY —A plan to reduce the New Albany Housing Authority's stock has been pulled from tonight's board meeting agenda, at the request of Executive Director Bob Lane.

A vote on the plan, originally scheduled for 5:30 p.m., will now be held April 10. The 10-year plan initiated by New Albany city officials that would result in a reduction of more than half of the housing authority's stock and redevelopment and relocation of several others.

Lane, who has been on sick leave for the past two weeks because of emergency eye surgery, said he has not had the time to prepare his comments on the proposed plan. He expects to have a response ready to the city by March 24.

"The City of New Albany and the New Albany Housing Authority worked together for months to draft a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the future of public housing in New Albany," a city news release stated. "The City was hopeful that it would have been adopted tonight at 5:30 p.m. during the New Albany Housing Authority’s regularly scheduled meeting."

Alas, with dreary and numbing predictability the editorial board already had changed into water sports attire and jumped on Gahan’s wrecking ball bandwagon with a bizarrely worded essay about the need to smash things up right away … but please be careful and make sure the flying bricks don’t hurt anyone as they queue for the cattle cars?

Of course, all but one of the editorial board’s contributing members live outside New Albany; sole local Chris Morris is always ready to shine the shoes of elected officials, and it’s never clear whether Gahan is in Bill Hanson’s pocket, or the other way around.

Looking for the world’s worst topic sentence? Try this one:

There are too many public housing units in New Albany. Most would agree with that statement.

Really?

Doesn't it depend on how we define “too many” and “most”?

You won’t be surprised to learn that the editorial board proffers no evidence to support this opening bit of fawning hearsay fluffery, although weirdly and completely inadvertently – like your dog managing to catch the occasional car – the newspaper stumbles onto a point even if it can’t recognize what it is.

That’s because New Albany has absolutely no idea whether most, some or none of its residents agree, as this question hasn’t once been aired publicly, now or ever.

Rather, the entirety of public expertise on public housing  in New Albany remains stuck in a lily-white 1980s time warp, with decades of tall tales and folk “wisdom” emanating from the upstanding suburban folks, and sufficing for those pesky facts that Gahan and the editorial board duck as if they were rotten fruit.

It’s an abysmal information gap, and Gahan is exploiting it not so much in the sense of ethnic cleansing, but of low-income cleansing. Like generations of conclusion-jumpers before him, he has hitched the cart in front of the horse and declared that the overt existence of safety nets like public housing is the cause of unsightliness -- not the poverty, because he can't bring himself to admit that such a thing as poverty exists in his city, and so he's quite sure that if we stop treating symptoms, the disease will vanish, just like in one of his beloved Uncle Walt’s animated features.

And anyway, what good are poor people if they neither vote nor give often enough to Big Daddy’s campaign finance war chest?

Nick Vaughn said it best (and also elaborated on the problem):

The proposed plan spearheaded by Mayor Gahan would effectively demolish nearly half of the affordable housing units in New Albany in the hopes that low-income housing becomes less centralized. I am against this proposal and I am writing in the hopes that not only the Housing Authority and city officials see this, but also to help my fellow New Albanians become more aware of the growing crisis in our city called poverty.

In the end, amid the intellectual squalor, there is only one inexplicable development in this absurd and discouraging tale. Why didn’t Gahan name his demolition proposal The World’s Greatest Poverty Eradication Plan of 2017?

Wait -- I forgot another.

How can Gahan be considered a Democrat?

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2019 Election Appendix

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.

GIVE GAHAN A PINK SLIP: (Wednesday) When he seized NAHA, Slick Jeffie depicted himself as a wise, caped, fatherly hero, when in fact he was more two-faced than Harvey Dent.

Last week was so much fun, let's do it again.

As a run-up to Decision 2019, I'm headed back into the ON THE AVENUES archive for five straight days of devastatingly persuasive arguments against four more years of the anchor-imbedded Gahan Family Values™ Personality Cult.

I've already made the case for Mark Seabrook as mayor.

Now let's return to the voluminous case against Gahanism in five informative and entertaining installments -- at least until next week, when I may decide to do it all again. Heaven knows we have enough raw material. Following are last week's hammer blows.

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Monday) The Reisz Mahal luxury city hall, perhaps the signature Gahan boondoggle.

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Tuesday) Gahan the faux historic preservationist demolishes the historic structure -- with abundant malice.

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Wednesday) The shopping cart mayor's cartoonish veneer of a personality cult. Where do we tithe, Leader Dearest?

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Thursday) That Jeff Gahan has elevated people like David Duggins to positions of authority is reason enough to vote against the Genius of the Floodplain.

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Friday) Slick Jeffie's hoarding of power and money is a very real threat to New Albany's future.

And this week's pink slip chronicles:

GIVE GAHAN A PINK SLIP: (Monday) No more fear, Jeff. This isn't East Germany, and you're not the Stasi.

GIVE GAHAN A PINK SLIP: (Tuesday) In 2015 roughly 14% of New Albany's eligible voters opted for the Anchor Deity, and they’re getting exactly what they deserve – good and hard.

GIVE GAHAN A PINK SLIP: (Wednesday) When he seized NAHA, Slick Jeffie depicted himself as a wise, caped, fatherly hero, when in fact he was more two-faced than Harvey Dent.

Time and time again Gahan has displayed a propensity to spend whatever amount of money his current expression of self-deifying megalomania demands, deploying any and all subterfuges and machinations, as seized from whichever available honey pot that doesn't have the good sense to buy a one-way ticket to Birdseye.

More than two years after Supreme Leader's hostile takeover of public housing in New Albany, Occam's razor suggests the simplest answer to the question of why he did so remains the best: Follow the money.

Neither Gahan himself nor his stupefyingly overpaid NAHA colonial administrator David Duggins -- and don't get me started on the motley collection of fawning sycophants surrounding da bosses -- seized the housing authority out of tender concern for those in need of affordable housing.

One aspect of Gahan's public housing putsch was frankly racist offal thrown to the city's conservative Strom Thurmond cadre of white voters, who have tended to stick with the Democratic Party's vile political patronage machine, but now might be tempted to bolt to the GOP in Our Time of Trump.

And the other aspect? Gahan's goons sniffed an opportunity to leverage NAHA's land to bolster the pay-to-play prospects for the business of luxury residency elsewhere in the city. Poor people are in the way, and so not unlike the need to empty a trash can, they need to be hidden from view.

Nothing during 16 years of congenital lucre-bation has better revealed Gahan's amoral political depravity than his attack on NAHA.

Period.

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February 2, 2017

ON THE AVENUES: A luxury-obsessed Jeff Gahan has packed a board and now seeks to break the New Albany Housing Authority. Can we impeach him yet?

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Righteous anger is a breathtaking emotion when properly harnessed, but the problem for me is that writing is hard enough without feeling like planting a fist upside a fascist’s cheek, or even better, a soulless bureaucratic timeserver’s noggin.

I’m telling you this because today’s column has been inordinately difficult for me to write. It is based on many conversations and a fair amount of reading, and even then, the complexity has been daunting.

I may get a few of the details wrong, though not the gist. I believe a mockery of social justice is about to occur in New Albany, and that a mock Democratic mayor is primarily responsible. Here is the story as I see it.

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Once upon a time, Leni Riefenstahl produced a Nazi propaganda film called Triumph of the Will. We begin this week with Jeff Gahan’s animated sequel, Triumph of the Shill, because at next week’s city council meeting, they’ll be asked to rubber-stamp an updated “City of New Albany and Unincorporated Two Mile Fringe Area Comprehensive Plan (Year 2036).”

This plan purports to be a blueprint of sorts for future decision-making, though I’m here to tell you that it reads like a Disney screenplay as drunkenly sketched by an unemployed Hollywood Hills hack, with the final template-driven boilerplate cut and pasted by the very same hired outside engineering contractor which employs the economic development director’s wife, producing a document incorporating the posturing of a typically unrepresentative steering committee filled with usual suspects (city employees, contractors, realtors and “economic development” functionaries from DNA and One Southern Indiana), to the complete exclusion of alternative points of view, thus leading to this conclusion:

The Comprehensive Plan reveals far more about what members of the city’s “leadership” caste think of themselves, today, than where the city will be in 20 years.

In mind-numbing lockstep with all previous steering committees, this one is populated by 50-plus-year-old white people, with not a twenty-something in sight in spite of the “many years from now” orientation, and of course neither African-Americans nor Latinos were invited to participate.

In short, the updated comprehensive plan is equal parts fiction, theater and suburban-weighted dreckscape. Reading through these sterling commitments to bedrock facets of urban life that have remained entirely alien to the plan’s authors, most of whom don’t live these tenets and wouldn’t recognize one if it wandered by mistake into their Olive Garden chain-haven and pulled up a chair, you become jaded remarkable quickly.

For instance, I saw a handful of references to bicycling, felt a surge of excitement, then realized that all it really means is the procurement of more spray paint to draw sharrows, the most useless of a city planner’s excuses to do absolutely nothing, declare victory, and gaze lovingly at holiday photos of the time share.

I wouldn’t have bothered trying to digest this chamber of commerce-inspired triumphalist drivel if not for a fascinating revelation buried within a predictably dull January 4 press release from City Hall detailing the forthcoming demolition of affordable public housing units.

New Albany Public Housing Plans Advancing

... As part of this process, along with the creation of an updated comprehensive plan for the city, recommendations have been made for a reduction in overall housing authority units. The new comprehensive plan calls for a reduction of units, along with a decentralization of current units in New Albany. The housing authority will soon begin demolition on 7 buildings, totaling 44 units, in the Parkview/Broadmeade neighborhood.

“This marks the beginning steps the City of New Albany and the New Albany Housing Authority will be taking to improve public housing. In conjunction with the comprehensive plan and the recommendation of CF Housing Group, we will reduce the density of public housing on HUD properties inside the city limits, improve existing public housing stock, and improve the quality of life for all residents,” stated Mayor Gahan.

Before I sketch the commencement of Gahan’s hostilities against the New Albany Housing Authority’s mandate to provide affordable housing in New Albany, which you will not be surprised to learn is understood far better by the NAHA than the G-A-H-A-N, please note that the passage above refers to recommendations in the Comprehensive Plan that are by no means legally binding, as plainly stated in the plan itself, and had not even been approved at the time of the press release’s writing.

But marvel at the pomposity of the raw cheek: Gahan writes his own Comprehensive Plan, and before it is so much as finalized, he’s already referring to it as though the document were Biblical, bearing force of law. Evidently this is a side effect of personality cults.

I’ll return to this Comprehensive Disneyfication Plan, and explain how the rush to approve it pertains to an accompanying push to eradicate the city’s affordable housing safety net. Since it’s hard to find a good starting point, let’s just dive into it.

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Since 1937, in the aftermath of the catastrophic Ohio River flood, it has been the responsibility of the New Albany Housing Authority to provide affordable housing to residents of New Albany.

In essence, NAHA oversees affordable public housing for an economically challenged segment of the population that needs it most, in NAHA’s own housing units and through the Section 8 program, and including very many of what we might call the working poor.

Dig a little deeper, and you’ll see that NAHA’s work goes “beyond sticks and bricks.” It is a de facto social services agency, performing numerous functions that are not financed or prioritized by municipal government, whether out of ideology or indolence.

Yes, New Albany’s dense concentration of affordable public housing isn't always ideal, although this is a discussion that ranges beyond my intent today. I’ll merely point out that many social workers will tell you that if concentrated affordable public housing is administered capably, as ours is, there are benefits to such density for economically challenged residents.

Overall, I believe that the NAHA plays a difficult hand quite well, and has a track record to prove it. The NAHA also has displayed an awareness of the need to evolve, and has planned for various contingencies, but what we’re seeing now is this vision, as articulated by NAHA and its director, Bob Lane, colliding headlong with the growing megalomania of Gahan, whose emphasis on luxurious capital projects does not include reasoned consideration for affordable housing and social services.

And hasn’t ever. Some Democrat he is – or is not.

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The CF Housing Group is yet another of the city’s top-dollar consultants from afar (Washington DC), presumably engaged because all the professional planners we keep on cushy retirement tracks aren’t able to handle the heavy lifting – or maybe they’re just insufficiently versed in the required chicanery.

Contrary to what City Hall would have you think, the CF Housing Group has not been hired to help implement long-term objectives pursued for many years by the NAHA, and unsurprisingly, the perennially confused and deferential Chris Morris got it wrong in his News and Tribune article of January 5, perhaps because the city’s press release of the previous day was as much of a lie as any told recently by Donald Trump.

New Albany Housing Authority tearing down 44 units; Work at Broadmeade/Parkview should take 60 days

Work on reducing the number of units at the Broadmeade/Parkview complex began in 2012 as part of a strategic plan, according to Bob Lane, executive director of the New Albany Housing Authority. The plan was to accomplish the following goals: Analyze the need for deeply affordable housing; insure that any housing owned or operated by NAHA met stringent HUD guidelines for the ability to maintain such housing in a climate of diminishing funding; and seek out options to deconcentrate housing as such options are available.

"We have been in the process to do this ... things wear out whether it's automobiles or apartments," Lane said. "These have served their purpose."

For a very long time, the NAHA has been doing exactly as Morris’s description implies, with a critical difference, one that separates the NAHA’s intent from Gahan’s: The NAHA has been seeking to replace these public housing units on a one for one basis by building a new unit for each one torn down, utilizing tax credits and grants to finance the turnover.

Conversely, it has been Gahan’s long-term desire, one stated so often to so many city residents that almost everyone in town has heard him say it at one time or another, to eliminate affordable public housing in general, and “The Project” specifically, this being a dog-whistle to signify poor people, whom Gahan would ship in rail cars to tent camps in Galena if the law allowed.

Or, if the CF Housing Group finds a way to circumvent the federal mandates.

It’s easy to imagine how Gahan might direct the subservient Building Commission to condemn affordable public housing units, demolish these structures, and then deny building permits to rebuild them, all for whatever contrived reason suits a Bud Light Lime at the Roadhouse.

And what of the actual people who live in public housing, who have no representation in any of this?

Some of them will occupy naturally recurring vacancies in NAHA housing. Others will go into Section 8 housing, which is marginally better than NA’s signature slumlord rental housing sector * – and by the way, the Comprehensive Plan makes frequent mention of rental property registration as a dreamboat panacea to reduce instances of slumlord abuse, but strangely, no reference is made to what we have been told would be a second phase of slumlord taming – namely, meaningful enforcement.

Perhaps by 2036?

Interestingly, just last year the NAHA succeeded in aligning stars and tax credits after literally years of effort, with the aim of taking down public housing units by Erni Avenue and Bono Road opposite the hospital, and replacing them with supportive housing – in short, housing with services for a population that is very difficult to house.

In order to do this, the NAHA needed three signatures, one each from Gahan, David “I want 500 units gone” Duggins and the utterly defeated Scott Wood. It got none of them. The project fell apart, and the mayor’s bluff was called.

As for any of Gahan’s claims about cooperation with the NAHA board, it must be understood that he’s done everything in his power to subvert its legal operation, primarily by withholding appointments – an abuse so flagrant that Rep. Ed Clere has been compelled to author legislation in the House that would forestall such chump maneuvers in the future.

First Gahan starved the NAHA’s board by sitting on so many appointments that the body has scarcely been able to muster a quorum. Now, with CF Housing’s evasive blitzkrieg apparently ready to unleash, Gahan has reversed field and packed the board with the same old usual sycophantic suspects – Irving Joshua, already one of the most powerful non-elected officials in the city owing to his Redevelopment Commission fiefdom; former city attorney Stan Robison; and shameless longtime administration rent boy Bob “Judas” Norwood.

In yet another insider appointment to the board, which hasn’t been well publicized, city engineer Larry Summers’ mother Kathy has been placed in an NAHA seat.

The Green Mouse was told that she devoted ample time during her first meeting to issuing glowing paeans to the mayor, whose predilection for nepotism is so pronounced that the only real wonder in this instance is that one of his teenage daughters didn’t get the appointment instead.

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Next week the revamped Comprehensive Plan will be approved by city council in the form of a single-vote resolution.

On Monday, February 13, at a meeting of the reconstituted and sardine-packed NAHA board, there’ll be something tantamount to a Memorandum of Understanding, and it also probably will pass with the secured votes Gahan has added. This will be some manner of boilerplate resolve to reduce our dependence on affordable public housing, sans substantive details about implementation, and as always, the least well off will be the ones to bear the brunt of "reform."

(This pogrom will have been facilitated by people who pretend to be Democrats, and it you consider yourself one, my suggestion is to take a good, hard look in the mirror. You may well be mistaken, though there’s always time to recover).

In the real world, the debate about merits and demerits of affordable public housing is far more complicated than my efforts to write this column.

Want to scatter such housing? Fine, though trying to imagine a 6-plex in Silver Hills, or another perched among the Main Street median-enriched mansions is almost impossible. Can you imagine Bob Caesar and Greg Phipps going for it?

Almost inevitably, Jeff Gahan intends to deal with this unquestionable need for affordable public housing by privatizing it, and just as inevitably, this privatization will occur not from any weighing of options or earnestness in community dialogue, both of which terrify the agoraphobic Gahan, but by virtue of the acreage where the NAHA’s concentrated housing currently lies.

Those affordable public housing units along Beechwood? They’re smack in the way of projected luxurious gentrification near the shining edifice of Silver Street Park -- an objective included in the Comprehensive Plan.

The NAHA’s newest units are at Riverside Terrace, and soon they’ll be an impediment to projected luxurious gentrification stemming from the Moser Tannery/Loop Island Wetlands/Rear Market prioritization, also discussed in the Comprehensive Plan, and which Team Gahan seems to believe will be the second coming of Windsor Palace’s minutely tended gardens.

Last, though surely not least, “The Project” itself is situated between the hospital and the urban golf course, in an area long regarded by city planners as some of the city’s best potential redevelopment property -- if only those damned poor people would have the presence of mind to go somewhere else, though if they did, the exodus just might deprive State Street’s chain stores of a labor force, one currently within walkable distance of home.

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Actually none of these factors account for the bulk of my anger.

Rather, at two junctures in Chapter Seven of the Comprehensive Plan, it is stated that in order to mollify community “concerns” over public housing, bureaucratic buzz phrases must be strung together in impenetrable, horridly written cadences, as designed to “newspeak” the reader into believing that City Hall is holding a forceps, when in fact it is a bulldozer, and in my view, these are among the most cowardly statements of sheer bullshit in Jeff Gahan’s long career of non-transparent underachievement.

Because: In citing community “concerns,” Gahan depicts himself as a wise, caped, fatherly hero, when in fact he’s more two-faced than Harvey Dent.

Yes, so his outrageous self-referential revisionism goes -- Gahan spots his pasty white suburban voters armed with pitchforks, intent on burning “The Project” to the ground, and so he courageously intercedes: “Not on my watch! We’re humane! We’ll take care, and be fair; erect a patina of legality and a sheen of respectability; reduce densities, and decentralize … and turn the temperature up incrementally, so the frogs won’t ever know they’re being boiled alive.”

Gahan might be fooling you, but not me. What’s going down with the NAHA is a travesty of social justice, and even if you’re okay with the idea of eliminating affordable public housing, be aware that the mayor’s methodology is hardly less malevolent than Trump’s.

When Gahan comes for the residents of these houses, for the sole reason that there are more profitable uses for their homes, will anyone be there to do something?

Because what you permit, you promote. I’ll be at the NAHA meeting on the 13th at 5:30 p.m. Consider joining me, and we’ll watch the minions. Someone should.

---

* In a highlighted passage inserted in the January update of the Comprehensive Plan ...

Future multi-family housing developments are strongly encouraged to include up to 8 percent of total units as affordable housing units. When the City of New Albany is a partner in the development of housing through public incentives, a total of 8 percent of the units shall be affordable.

Too late for Break Water, isn’t it?

ON THE AVENUES: It's all so simple, says Jeff Gahan. Remove the impoverished, and voila! No more poverty!

Burger Chef and Jeff? No, it's TIF Man and Warren.

ON THE AVENUES: It's all so simple, says Jeff Gahan. Remove the impoverished, and voila! No more poverty!

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

It was another vintage week for home-wrecking and game-playing by the tittering, braying donkeys who populate Team Gahan's toxic bunker bullpen (surely they're possessed of a remarkable consistency, if nothing else noteworthy), but let's try to disregard the latest round of slapstick and self-parody, and look instead at the purported blueprint for a "balanced mix of public and subsidized housing."

It is revealed within the recent, artfully contrived Comprehensive Plan, a Disneyesque document written by many of the same malleable functionaries now fairly itching to seize the controls of their testosterone-charged bulldozers, which currently idle nervously for the signal to VAROOM.

Bullet points "a" and "b" are sufficiently vague as to be nonsensical.

We know from long, repetitive experience that the desired Gahanian context for terms like these can be summarized in a sentence.

City Hall encourages you to redistribute a percentage of your lucrative new contract to the Gahan for Life fund, and we can assist in extracting your wallet if mandatory tithing is a burden.

Furthermore, if the objective of public housing demolitions is to reduce density, improve the condition of surviving units and geographically distribute new construction (the latter is thoroughly dubious), why target Riverside Terrace for destruction?

Riverside's units are many blocks away from the densest concentration of public housing, and make up some of the NAHA’s newest and best maintained buildings.

Location, location ... LOCATION. Riverside Terrace has the misfortune of being situated within a healthily-lofted Duggins spitball of Loop Island Wetlands, which straddles the Greenway and is envisioned by city planners as potentially rivaling New York City’s Central Park in sheer, “Are you fucking kidding me or what?” grandeur.

They must be spiking the Kool-Aid with LSD.

Point "c" is an example of classic Gahanite circular reasoning. These "recommendations" are not to be found in the detailed program already devised by the professional, trained staff of the New Albany Housing Authority, but rather as stipulated in the form of demolition-friendly reductions forced on the NAHA by means of a daintily termed Memorandum of Understanding, a writ of annexation slated for approval by a board packed by the mayor with the usual servile sycophants, as fully intended to render the result Gahan has fixed in advance.

---

The scant slivers of meat on these otherwise bleached bones are to be found in points "d" and "e."

First comes the soothing panacea of "voucher-based units," which numerous local social service agencies already have publicly testified as being non-existent, at least in numbers sufficient to re-house public housing residents facing eviction.

Because Deaf Gahan and Donald Trump might be twins as it pertains to a genetic predisposition to ignore dissenting expertise, perhaps the testimony of an ordinary human being would be useful in making this fact clear.

Hmm.

Did Gahan even once bother speaking with any real people before pursuing his hygienic “reforms” on their behalf?

I'm one of those tenants with a Section 8 voucher. I've been trying to find a new place to live for over a year. Pickings are slim and coming up with the deposit on a limited income is nearly impossible. Now I'm afraid to let go of what I have, however unsuitable it is for my needs. Fortunately, I only have to be concerned about me. I don't have kids to bring into the mix. I can't imagine how much that situation would make you worry. You are very correct about low income folks being insecure about their housing, just as they are insecure about having enough food. I am a registered democrat and I do not support this administration and their agenda. This town smells fishy to me. From Breakwater to Housing Authority demolition and a few things in between. Maybe it's the river, maybe not...

Ah, yes. Speaking of the Breakwater, our flame-broiled but defiantly bocce-clad shining avatar of Gahan’s imagined “democratic” mission to bring pure top-shelf living to New Albany, we now must be reminded that luxury and affordability are not incompatible, at least on Fantasy Island.

e. When the City of New Albany is a partner in the development of housing through public incentives, a total of 8 percent of the units shall be affordable.

This empty promise should suffice for years of uproarious hilarity on the part of city officials observing it in the breach.

You’ll notice that this affordability component is applicable only to housing the city already has chosen to subsidize, implying that we’re not going to be having a discussion about this particular form of odious corporate welfare, either.

Moreover, an instructive example of what can go wrong in times of toothlessness is to be found across the mighty Ohio, where Greg Fischer, Gahan’s go-to manly man and political idol, has become the absolute master of gesture politics without content.

As Caitlin Bowling of Insider Louisville explains, a potential out-of-town recipient of public "incentive" largess is balking at the notion of an affordability component, insisting that if a mere 18 out of 272 luxury units are discounted, it simply can’t go forward with the project.

An out-of-town developer may back out of plans to build a $56 million luxury apartment complex in NuLu, according to the developer’s attorney, Jeffrey McKenzie, of Bingham Greenebaum Doll.

“Flournoy Cos. is frankly not able to go forward,” McKenzie said when addressing members of the Louisville Metro Council’s Labor and Economic Development Committee Tuesday afternoon. The council was set to vote on a tax incentive agreement between the city and Flournoy Cos. but instead tabled it.

The Georgia-based company has asked the city for just more than $5 million in potential tax incentives, and in return, city officials told Flournoy Cos. that it must include 18 workforce housing units in its development at 700 E. Main St. and 121 S. Clay St.

The workforce housing request is part of an initiative by Metro Council leaders to ensure that there is housing affordable to residents who earn 80 percent of the area median income for Jefferson County. Teachers and police officers are often given as examples of people who would benefit from workforce housing.

Flournoy Cos. previously agreed to rent 18 of its one-bedroom apartments at $947 per month, whereas a regular one-bedroom unit would go for $1,300 a month.

However, when McKenzie addressed the council committee Tuesday, he stated that the project can’t move forward if Flournoy Cos. is required to have the 18 cheaper apartments. Either that requirement would need to be eliminated, or the property owner, Service Welding & Machine Co., must agree to sell the properties on Main and Clay streets at a lower price.

Let’s hope Fischer goes full gesture. That'll show 'em.

---

You may recall that on Monday, there was to have been a pre-rigged housing board vote on the memorandum of annexation, but the measure was tabled.

Initial media reports implied cold feet on City Hall’s part, though soon enough a defensive press release was emitted, with Gahan making sure the world knew it was director Bob Lane’s illness and not his own agoraphobia to blame for the delay.

Concurrently, deputy dawg and down-low soothsayer Mike Hall covered for a typically absent Gahan here:

Mike Hall, a spokesperson for the mayor's office, said in an email, "The MOU recognizes that much of the public housing stock in New Albany is poorly located, does not reflect current thinking and best practices in housing assistance, and is not in good condition."

Principled opposition makes them testy, doesn’t it? The newspaper reporter released this overview, clarifying matters.

New Albany Housing Authority board pushes back reduction plan to April meeting, by Elizabeth Beilman (Cooking School Chronicle)

Executive Director asks for delay to prepare comments

NEW ALBANY —A plan to reduce the New Albany Housing Authority's stock has been pulled from tonight's board meeting agenda, at the request of Executive Director Bob Lane.

A vote on the plan, originally scheduled for 5:30 p.m., will now be held April 10. The 10-year plan initiated by New Albany city officials that would result in a reduction of more than half of the housing authority's stock and redevelopment and relocation of several others.

Lane, who has been on sick leave for the past two weeks because of emergency eye surgery, said he has not had the time to prepare his comments on the proposed plan. He expects to have a response ready to the city by March 24.

"The City of New Albany and the New Albany Housing Authority worked together for months to draft a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the future of public housing in New Albany," a city news release stated. "The City was hopeful that it would have been adopted tonight at 5:30 p.m. during the New Albany Housing Authority’s regularly scheduled meeting."

Alas, with dreary and numbing predictability the editorial board already had changed into water sports attire and jumped on Gahan’s wrecking ball bandwagon with a bizarrely worded essay about the need to smash things up right away … but please be careful and make sure the flying bricks don’t hurt anyone as they queue for the cattle cars?

Of course, all but one of the editorial board’s contributing members live outside New Albany; sole local Chris Morris is always ready to shine the shoes of elected officials, and it’s never clear whether Gahan is in Bill Hanson’s pocket, or the other way around.

Looking for the world’s worst topic sentence? Try this one:

There are too many public housing units in New Albany. Most would agree with that statement.

Really?

Doesn't it depend on how we define “too many” and “most”?

You won’t be surprised to learn that the editorial board proffers no evidence to support this opening bit of fawning hearsay fluffery, although weirdly and completely inadvertently – like your dog managing to catch the occasional car – the newspaper stumbles onto a point even if it can’t recognize what it is.

That’s because New Albany has absolutely no idea whether most, some or none of its residents agree, as this question hasn’t once been aired publicly, now or ever.

Rather, the entirety of public expertise on public housing  in New Albany remains stuck in a lily-white 1980s time warp, with decades of tall tales and folk “wisdom” emanating from the upstanding suburban folks, and sufficing for those pesky facts that Gahan and the editorial board duck as if they were rotten fruit.

It’s an abysmal information gap, and Gahan is exploiting it not so much in the sense of ethnic cleansing, but of low-income cleansing. Like generations of conclusion-jumpers before him, he has hitched the cart in front of the horse and declared that the overt existence of safety nets like public housing is the cause of unsightliness -- not the poverty, because he can't bring himself to admit that such a thing as poverty exists in his city, and so he's quite sure that if we stop treating symptoms, the disease will vanish, just like in one of his beloved Uncle Walt’s animated features.

And anyway, what good are poor people if they neither vote nor give often enough to Big Daddy’s campaign finance war chest?

Nick Vaughn said it best (and also elaborated on the problem):

The proposed plan spearheaded by Mayor Gahan would effectively demolish nearly half of the affordable housing units in New Albany in the hopes that low-income housing becomes less centralized. I am against this proposal and I am writing in the hopes that not only the Housing Authority and city officials see this, but also to help my fellow New Albanians become more aware of the growing crisis in our city called poverty.

In the end, amid the intellectual squalor, there is only one inexplicable development in this absurd and discouraging tale. Why didn’t Gahan name his demolition proposal The World’s Greatest Poverty Eradication Plan of 2017?

Wait -- I forgot another.

How can Gahan be considered a Democrat?

---

Recent columns:

March 9: ON THE AVENUES: Never preach free speech to a yes man; it wastes your time and annoys Team Gahan.

March 2: ON THE AVENUES: Breaking up is hard to do. Just ask the Reichstag.

February 23: ON THE AVENUES: A stern-side view of Gravity Head, nineteen times over.

February 16: ON THE AVENUES: In 2014 as in 2015, then 2016, now 2017 ... yes, it's the "Adamite Chronicles: Have muzzle, will drivel."

Public housing demolition men: "Hi, I'm Mayor Jeff Gahan and this is David Duggins, and we're here to help."

Can someone loan us a vaudeville hook?

As you're reading Elizabeth Beilman's excellent follow-up piece, keep this quote from economic dishevelment director David Duggins in mind.

As local pretend-Democrats whistle Dixie(crat), Gahan prepares to launch the public housing pogrom.

“I think we’re happy that (public housing residents) would go and find any place — if it’s in the city, great, if it’s outside the city that makes them happy and gives them a quality of life that they’re looking for, I think that’s the whole concern.”

Really?

If you self-identity as a local Democrat, then consider this: You're demanding that Trump appointees resign for statements like this, but you're tolerating it from Gahan appointees.

Hypocrite much?

Is there a spine among you?

New Albany Housing Authority fields concerned calls about demolition plans, by Elizabeth Beilman (News and Tribune)

Letters sent to tenants advising no action on demolition yet

NEW ALBANY — New Albany Housing Authority’s executive director distributed letters to all public housing tenants, following the release of a board’s proposed plan to demolish more than 600 units over the next 10 years.

Its message — nothing will be decided overnight.

“It’s just informing people factual things and not causing them to be unduly scared of the situation,” Executive Director Bob Lane told the News and Tribune ...

... The Housing Authority has fielded calls from residents, as well as community members, concerned about the authority’s future plans, he said.

“If you’re going to lose your housing, and that’s one of the basic human needs, you have concerns for that sort of thing,” Lane said.

As local pretend-Democrats whistle Dixie(crat), Gahan prepares to launch the public housing pogrom.

When Donald Trump and his gasbag minions dispense massive and flabbergasting lies, Democrats get hot and bothered -- and then they look the other way when the same phenomenon occurs among their own.

On the impending Gahanization of public housing:

“Since 1937, the city of New Albany has done their fair share. We’re leading. I think there’s no question that some other communities need to up their game.”
-- Jeff Gahan

On what happens if housing voucher holders can’t find spaces in New Albany once turned away from existing public housing:

“I think we’re happy that they would go and find any place — if it’s in the city, great, if it’s outside the city that makes them happy and gives them a quality of life that they’re looking for, I think that’s the whole concern.”
-- David Duggins

Our agoraphobic mayor, who seldom emerges from the safety of the command bunker, agreed to an interview with the News and Tribune's Elizabeth Beilman.

PARADIGM SHIFT IN PUBLIC HOUSING: New Albany aims for significant changes of public housing stock over next decade; Plan calls for reduction by half of units

NEW ALBANY — A 10-year public housing plan that would result in demolition of more than half of New Albany’s stock has local advocates concerned that low income residents will struggle to find alternative housing ... the plan, which goes up for a board vote next Monday, calls for the demolition of Parkview Tower, Parkview Terrace/Broadmeade, Vance Courts and Riverside Terrace. That’s a total of 635 of New Albany’s roughly 1,100 units, or currently almost 1,500 people. These units would not be rebuilt.

Previously we assayed Gahan's decidedly undemocratic (and non-Democratic) megalomania.

ON THE AVENUES: A luxury-obsessed Jeff Gahan has packed a board and now seeks to break the New Albany Housing Authority. Can we impeach him yet?

Gahan might be fooling you, but not me. What’s going down with the NAHA is a travesty of social justice, and even if you’re okay with the idea of eliminating affordable public housing, be aware that the mayor’s methodology is hardly less malevolent than Trump’s.

When Gahan comes for the residents of these houses, for the sole reason that there are more profitable uses for their homes, will anyone be there to do something?

Notice how Gahan's schemes almost never become public knowledge until they've been fixed into place by unelected bureaucratic stooges working behind closed doors.

Is this really what democracy is about?

So very many questions, and as always, so very little time to find answers for them ... and not a single City Hall functionary who'll even pretend to try apart from rote, boilerplate bromides to the press.

So, what's the plan for building scattered site affordable housing units? Silver Hills needs to be a part of this diaspora, doesn't it?

Isn't it working at cross purposes to be using TIF and other incentivization mechanisms to promote gentrification, when doing so reduces the amount of potential affordable housing for the working poor?

And what about projected uses for public housing sites slated for demolition? Won't the Riverside Terrace property be given over to more "luxury" owing to its Ohio River Greenway and Loop Island proximity?

Do we have enough Section 8-worthy rental properties to absorb the evicted? Conversely, shouldn't we be inspecting rentals and not merely registering them?

Finally, what's the experience in other cities seeking to substitute Section 8 vouchers for bricks 'n' mortar?

Fairly dismal, it would seem, although not every city has as luminous presence as economic dishevelment director Duggins to gleefully pack the cattle cars.

In Defense of Public Housing, by Karen Narefsky (Jacobin)

Imagine a future in which many of us live in, and thrive in, quality public housing.

 ... In line with this shift toward private ownership of subsidized housing, US public housing authorities have become increasingly reliant on Housing Choice Vouchers, or Section 8. While possession of a mobile Section 8 voucher guarantees subsidized rent, the units where the voucher can be used are privately owned.

This allows landlords to discriminate against tenants, whether through outright exclusion or by charging rents that exceed HUD’s fair market cap. Section 8 tenants can easily be forced out by property value increases and rising rents, one facet of the cycle of gentrification and displacement currently affecting many US cities.

In a process partially justified by these many challenges, public housing is currently either being killed by neglect or aggressively privatized ...

Indeed, Deaf Gahan is doing his part. Because what's permitted is promoted, this pogrom is being facilitated by hypocritical pretend-Democrats, and if you're one of them, time to stop looking away. In fact, it's time for a good, hard look in the mirror.

The February meeting of the New Albany Housing Authority board was cancelled because of illness. The next meeting is Monday, March 13 (5:30 p.m. at 300 Erni Avenue).

Gahan and Coffey Together Forever, Part 9: Dan Coffey is less than zero without Jeff Gahan actively enabling him -- again, again and again.

LAST: Gahan and Coffey Together Forever, Part 8: Open thread: City council meeting of Monday, February 2 (3 February 2009).

After nearly five minutes of deep reflection, following an afternoon spent feeling as though I might vomit at any moment -- such is the revulsion that the preceding chapters of New Albany's eternally recurring political "business as usual" have engendered -- I can think of no comprehensive way of summarizing the sheer toxicity of the twenty-year partnership between the faux urbanist mayor and coiled copperhead councilman, save for this Harvey "Two Face" Dent view from the Batman comics.

I don't have the Photoshop skills to do it right (heck, I don't even have Photoshop), but your imagination should suffice. The only problem is determining which half is which.

Matt Lorch, if you're reading, thanks for your service. It's small consolation that so many other victims of the local Democratic Party's rapidly declining "machine" have fallen before you, though at least there are likely to be fewer in the future, because a "machine" that must rely on the likes of Dan Coffey for routine maintenance is destined for history's landfill.

The sooner is lands there, the better. Does it really matter whether anything rises from Adam Dickey's ashes?

All the links in the series are here:

Gahan and Coffey Together Forever, Part 1: Gavel passed and triumphant Wizard on best behavior as council meets (6 January 2009).

Gahan and Coffey Together Forever, Part 2: Ulrich out, Robison in as city council attorney (15 January 2009).

Gahan and Coffey Together Forever, Part 3: What The F@#* Opie? Ya Ain't Seen Nothun Yet! (16 January 2009).

Gahan and Coffey Together Forever, Part 4: The new conjoined councilmen are Coffey and Gahan (17 January 2009).

Gahan and Coffey Together Forever, Part 5: Did you know that humanity poses the greatest threat to the natural habitat of copperheads? (22 January 2009).

Gahan and Coffey Together Forever, Part 6: Let's hear it from the council: Can taxpayers speak openly during their time, or does the Wizard decide who is heard? (24 January 2009).

Gahan and Coffey Together Forever, Part 7: Hot toadstools and cold cappuccino (29 January 2009).

Gahan and Coffey Together Forever, Part 8: Open thread: City council meeting of Monday, February 2 (3 February 2009).

Gahan and Coffey Together Forever, Part 9: Dan Coffey is less than zero without Jeff Gahan actively enabling him -- again, again and again.

Gahan and Coffey Together Forever, Part 8: Open thread: City council meeting of Monday, February 2 (3 February 2009).

Joined at the hip. (2 February 2009)

LAST: Gahan and Coffey Together Forever, Part 7: Hot toadstools and cold cappuccino (29 January 2009).

These final three installments of the story (two blog and one newspaper) serve as reminders of who was willing to speak openly about Dan Coffey's misbehavior (that'd be John Gonder), and those who weren't ... or, everyone else involved, to be precise.

Neither for the first time nor the last, New Albany's elected council chose to protect its own rather than offer evidence of a pulse. The trend continues to this very day; witness the manner by which all parties involved with the Bicentennial Commission are cooperating with each other to ensure that NA Confidential doesn't see the records.

It's all the same people.

It's always all the same people.

And that's why the results -- that's right: they're always the same.

---

Live from the council chamber.

2 February 2009

The mayor is about ten minutes into his speech ... but the highlight of the night has been CM John Gonder's passionate calling-out of council kingpin Dan Coffey.

Granted, the remainder of the council sat on its hands. Yes, Coffey himself meekly thanked Gonder, perhaps because he didn't understand the Latin phrase Gonder used. It appears that no censure will be forthcoming. But Gonder did much good by not permitting the topic to be swept under the rug, as undoubtedly the default mechanism would have guaranteed.

A formal rebuke is necessary. Yet, we owe Gonder.

---

Open thread: City council meeting of Monday, February 2.

3 February 2009

Thanks to the library's newly powerful Wi-Fi signal, I was able to post live from the council chambers last night. It was slapdash, but I'm not much of a typist.

In contrast to so many previous spectacles, the meeting was professional and business-like to the point to befuddlement. It was like watching a European art house flick as opposed to an American car chase epic.

It should be noted that council president Dan Coffey appeared to have been sedated. He sat expressionless through colleague John Gonder's brilliant, dispassionate public explication of Coffey's January 15 meltdown. Coffey similarly endured my later questions about public speaking rights and Bluegill's subsequent request that the council publicly rebuke the president so as to establish a principle that remains so elusive in New Albany: There are consequences for bad behavior.

Both Gonder and NAC's co-editor correctly stated that Coffey had lied to the police about his behavior at Studio's, and Coffey did not deny it, which I plainly consider an admission of guilt, if implicit. There were witnesses, and yet the council president chose to provide the police with pure fiction.

If one lies in such a manner to the police, is this not an example of hindering a police investigation?

Isn't this fact alone grounds for the council to officially and publicly ensure its loose cannon of a president?

The point is this: Coffey obviously has been taken to school since the previous meeting, and last night, he did not contest any of the statements made in his presence. Yes, he took his medicine like an adult, and that's admirable in a limited sense.

But he did not apologize for his behavior.

He should. If he doesn't, the council should take action to police itself.

What do you think?

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Coffey criticized for Studio’s incident (Daniel Suddeath in the Tribune)

3 February 2009

 ... Councilman John Gonder said Council President Dan Coffey’s reaction to two residents during and after the Jan. 15 meeting “crossed the line.”

Coffey became engaged with Mark Cassidy, a resident and former member of a redistricting committee, during the January meeting when Cassidy asked about council progress on forming a new redistricting body.

The confrontation led to Cassidy being gaveled down from the podium before he could read a prepared statement.

Following the meeting, Coffey and resident Jeff Gillenwater were involved in a debate at Studio’s Grille and Pub revolving around redistricting that resulted in Gillenwater filing a police report claiming he felt threatened by Coffey.

Gonder said Monday that the council president must be held to a higher standard. Coffey did not react to Gonder’s comments and he was the only council member to say something about the two events.

But Mayor Doug England mentioned better relationships between council members and the public during his State of the City address. Additionally, Gillenwater and resident Roger Baylor made statements to the council about what transpired.

Gillenwater — standing just a few feet away from Coffey — called for the council to make corrective measures regarding its president. He questioned Coffey’s take on the situation by saying the council president “reported events falsely to the police and falsely reported the events to [The Evening News and Tribune].”

But Coffey did not respond to Gillenwater’s statement either, only saying “thank you Mr. Gillenwater” when he concluded.

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NEXT: Gahan and Coffey Together Forever, Part 9: Dan Coffey is less than zero without Jeff Gahan actively enabling him -- again, again and again.

Gahan and Coffey Together Forever, Part 6: Let's hear it from the council: Can taxpayers speak openly during their time, or does the Wizard decide who is heard? (24 January 2009).

LAST: Gahan and Coffey Together Forever, Part 5: Did you know that humanity poses the greatest threat to the natural habitat of copperheads? (22 January 2009).

Let's rephrase the question for 2017: Can taxpayers speak openly during their "agenda" and non-agenda" council time, or does Pat McLaughlin decide who is heard?

It's a trick question, because McLaughlin doesn't make decisions without the approval of his wet nurses. More on that in a later installment.

For now, it's enough to know that among the many points of order shared by Jeff Gahan and Dan Coffey, prime among these is an all-encompassing aversion to dialogue. It's why Coffey screams at council speakers, and also why Gahan rarely emerges from his command bunker.

It's also worth recalling that throughout this period of time in early 2009, Gahan and Coffey constantly reinforced each other by upholding the principle that if citizens don't stand for public office, they aren't the sort of citizens who merit engagement in the courtesy dialogue.

How dare mere taxpayers take an interest in redistricting?

You think Trump invented totalitarian knee-jerks? Gahan and Coffey just might be receiving residuals from The Donald.

---

Let's hear it from the council: Can taxpayers speak openly during their time, or does the Wizard decide who is heard?

24 January 2009

My memory is hazy as to when the city council agenda was altered to include “miscellaneous communications” at meeting’s end. An admittedly cursory glance at archived minutes suggests this “non-agenda item” speaking time first appeared at the beginning of 2007, although I persist in thinking that the topic came up earlier than that.

It is a recurring feature of council meetings – in fact, of most if not all political discourse, here or elsewhere – for elected officials to pay lip service to the principle of honoring and serving the taxpayer. Naturally, this brings up the side issue of why only taxpayers are eligible for service, but the point remains that of all the conceivable ways that a councilman might observe this dictum, sitting quietly and listening for five minutes while a taxpayer speaks to the assembled body strikes me as the barest of minimums.

As was made clear last Thursday, Dan Coffey cannot even achieve the bare minimum when it comes to the notion of free and open speech for the taxpayer, although the current council president has never hesitated to reference his obligation to the taxpayer during the act of filibustering, grandstanding or scratching the anti-intellectual itch that feeds his all too frequent, apparently uncontrollable frenzies.

As I’ve pointed out on numerous occasions, it isn’t as if Coffey’s totalitarian impulses have never before been witnessed. Back in 2005, when for the very first time I decided to make comments during the public communications portion of the meeting, Coffey interrupted me, disagreed with me, and hectored me from his seat near then-president Gahan … who sat passively upon his gavel.

Almost four years later, this time as the council’s president, Coffey treated Mark Cassidy in precisely the same way. Not only did Gahan – Geppetto to Coffey’s Pinocchio – again sit silently, but so did the remainder of the council, many of whom subsequently have suggested that Coffey’s behavior disturbed them.

My question to the council: If so, and when confronted by damaging loutishness, why sit passively and do nothing?

Those members of the city council who are not animated by vendettas, and who are capable of comporting themselves with the professionalism and dignity demanded of those who have been elected to public office, are sorely in need of a reality check. Each time that Dan Coffey embarrasses the council without correction or rebuke, he is, in effect, branding the council’s “product” – and the image he is giving the product, whether the council’s image or the city’s itself, is tantamount to the consumer’s reaction upon encountering a jar of peanut butter with the words “now with salmonella” printed boldly on the label.

Geppetto apparently likes his creation just fine, although why is a mystery for the ages, but for the remainder of the council, it’s time now to lead and to do something, not merely be content to wave blank sheets of Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement stationary at the ogre and say, “don’t let it happen again, or we’re going to do something!”

Do it now, and send a message to the people in this city who genuinely are working toward a better future that you actually get it.

Beginning on February 2nd, I intend to avail myself of miscellaneous communications time at every opportunity. As a taxpayer, and in consideration of the council’s own speaking policy, I will be approaching the podium with the expectation of five uninterrupted minutes in which to enlighten our elected representatives on a wide variety of topics. I may read from the phone book, or quote passages of HL Mencken’s on the subject of political cupidity. Perhaps a verbatim run-through of my latest column will strike me as appropriate, or a recital of a previous meeting’s minutes.

I may even have my five-minute appearances filmed, and post them on YouTube.

The question: Is this my right as a taxpayer, or isn’t it?

We know how Dan "Copperhead" Coffey would answer this question … but what about the other council members, whose stock plunges further with each passing day of inaction?

"Peace" in our time ... or finally doing the right thing?

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NEXT: Gahan and Coffey Together Forever, Part 7: Hot toadstools and cold cappuccino (29 January 2009).