Yes, Virginia, there was a time in 2011 when Dan Coffey insisted on the immediate implementation of two-way streets.

"Coffey is arguing that it's the pedestrians that are causing trouble

for the 'poor' motorist. Poor is a quote. Subject new crosswalks."

I missed a city council meeting last Thursday, and so was denied the orgasmic opportunity to witness the latest configuration of the Contortionist Copperhead, our Councilman Cappuccino.

Of course, in many world languages the hard variable "C" of English is represented with the letter "K", which would render the preceding usage a delightful quartet: KKKK.

But enough of strikeouts.

If you're just coming to NAC's coverage of New Gahania, you may not know why we often refer to Dan Coffey as a Copperhead (Kopperhead).

Actually, we didn't pioneer this appellation. It's how Coffey once referred to himself.

Dan Coffey's copperhead shake described: "Hot toadstools and cold cappuccino" (2015/2011/2009).

... surrounded by witnesses numbering at least one fellow council member and various other public officials as well as ordinary pub patrons, Coffey initiated a heated discussion with (Jeff) Gillenwater that ended with Coffey aggressively grabbing Gillenwater by the shoulders and vowing to be “like a copperhead” and to “strike when you least expect it.”

In case you’re wondering, here is the definition of assault ...

Naturally, nothing whatever was done about Coffey's bullying then, nor will it be now. New Albany's "pillars" of leadership -- chief among them Dear Leader, Jeff Gahan -- always tolerate Coffey's antics because they think he can be used, when in fact, he's almost always the one pushing their buttons.

Beyond this idiotic cowardice on the part of presumed community standard bearers, it also may be surprising to learn there was a time when Coffey not only supported two-way traffic on New Albany's interstate-grade streets, but also wanted to be seen as the valiant leader of the effort.

From March 11, 2015, this remembrance of the forgotten time in 2011 when Coffey thought he could fool a new generation of downtown business operators into respecting him.

For once, he miscalculated. They laughed -- and that's why Coffey has returned to bashing them, and defending our beleaguered universal autocentrism.

(thanks Mark)

---

Our long civic nightmare finally ends as CM Cappuccino returns to the country comforts of obstructionism.

Boy, that was strange.

Around the time the Sherman Minton Bridge became ill back in 2011, Dan Coffey started making sense on occasion. I remember him convening a meeting at Lancaster's, and speaking stridently of the importance of using the opportunity of the bridge shutdown to restore two-way traffic to New Albany's streets, RIGHT NOW.

Why? Because it would be beneficial to small, independent businesses downtown.

In subsequent years, the unknown space alien continued to occupy Coffey's body. Heads were scratched raw as he actually became the voice of reason at council meetings. Perhaps the makeover was a run-up to the county commissioner's race in 2014, when Coffey -- with no city council seat to wager or lose -- was unable to muster any semblance of a fighting spirit, and suffered a humiliating 22-point defeat to Mark Seabrook.

Maybe he just decided that urban demolitions were more lucrative kicking back than exurban bulldozing.

Whatever the rationale, the universe has been out of sync, and the gods obviously weren't happy, and so now, at long last, we have our Cappuccino back, merrily contradicting himself on the topic of streets, and -- unopposed in his re-election to the post of Wizard of Westendia -- freely caterwauling and chewing scenery on topics of which he knows next to nothing. It's just like old times. Now all we need is Professor Erika blowing rancid cigarette smoke in his face.

The odds that Coffey actually read Speck's report?

Same probability that I've chugged a Miller Lite in the last five years, which is to say: Zero.

Welcome back. We've missed you so very much.

(Click through to read reporter Suddeath's redevelopment report in its entirety)

River Ridge may gain Toyota instead of New Albany, by Daniel Suddeath (N and T)

TIF ALSO TIED TO TWO-WAY STREETS

New Albany would likely use TIF funds to provide its 20 percent match to a $2.5 million federal grant for calming traffic in the city’s downtown.

The money could, for example, be used to flip one-way streets to two-way traffic.

On March 18, the city will hold its final public hearing on planner Jeff Speck’s street study, which is strongly in favor of two-way conversion, smaller traffic lanes and more on-street parking.

It’s one step the city has taken as it prepares its strategy for utilizing the federal grant, which was awarded through the Kentuckiana Regional Planning & Development Agency, or KIPDA.

But New Albany City Councilman Dan Coffey believes the city might need another report.

“I still don’t think it would hurt to have another, unbiased study,” said Coffey, who is also a member of the redevelopment commission.

Speck’s study is a plan “that’s been slanted toward one view,” he added.

“I’m really disappointed in the way that turned out,” Coffey said.

Mayor Jeff Gahan’s administration has largely remained noncommittal on Speck’s recommendations. With the Ohio River Bridges Project expected to bring more motorists to New Albany, Gahan has acknowledged the city will likely need to make adjustments to the traffic grid.

The final public meeting on the Speck report will be held from 6 to 7:30 p.m. on March 18 at the Pepin Mansion, which is located at 1003 E. Main St.

Dan's ideal invocation: "Oh, it's Cof-Cof Coffey Time, the very best time of day."

For about three years, 1st district councilman (and Wonderful Wizard of Westside) Dan Coffey had nothing whatever to say about prayer at council meetings, even if prayer has been a consistent recourse all along among those unfortunate souls in attendance, who consistently are spotted beseeching various deities for shelter from Coffey's rambling, self-serving oratorios.

Then Coffey, who is a Democrat in the same way that Auto-Tune is a singer, was compelled to join discussions earlier this year on a council resolution concerning the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

There Cappuccino sat, fuming, as modernity invaded his personal council fiefdom, malignantly contemplating his newfound role as Gahan's Chosen Hammer, determined to exact tribute not only from the villainous gays, whom he despises, but even more importantly, from the whining downtown shopkeepers, those highfalutin foreigners who've never accepted a humble hardscrabble rag-picker like Coffey as one of their own -- who refused to acknowledge Coffey as their natural leader.

Magically, from that point on, Coffey has become the veritable malfunction junction where the Ayatollah Khomeini meets Billy Sunday, and they breathlessly procreate, and a vivid new politically-motivated obfuscation is born.

But rejoice, anyway, because there will be deliverance. The council will vote this evening to move its starting time forward from 7:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., meaning that as the body accomplishes even less without the written consent of the mayor to whom its president is subservient, at least there'll be more time for Bud Light longnecks at The Road House afterward.

Closing prayer in New Albany: Measure establishing call for invocation to receive final vote, by Daniel Suddeath (That Clark County Newspaper)

... Councilman Dan Coffey has pushed bringing back vocal prayer during meetings, and has criticized fellow members for not being more supportive of allowing an invocation.
“I’m tired of people saying we have to be tolerant of others, but they want to take the prayer out of our council,” he said last week.

Our long civic nightmare finally ends as CM Cappuccino returns to the country comforts of obstructionism.

Boy, that was strange.

Around the time the Sherman Minton Bridge became ill back in 2011, Dan Coffey started making sense on occasion. I remember him convening a meeting at Lancaster's, and speaking stridently of the importance of using the opportunity of the bridge shutdown to restore two-way traffic to New Albany's streets, RIGHT NOW.

Why? Because it would be beneficial to small, independent businesses downtown.

In subsequent years, the unknown space alien continued to occupy Coffey's body. Heads were scratched raw as he actually became the voice of reason at council meetings. Perhaps the makeover was a run-up to the county commissioner's race in 2014, when Coffey -- with no city council seat to wager or lose -- was unable to muster any semblance of a fighting spirit, and suffered a humiliating 22-point defeat to Mark Seabrook.

Maybe he just decided that urban demolitions were more lucrative kicking back than exurban bulldozing.

Whatever the rationale, the universe has been out of sync, and the gods obviously weren't happy, and so now, at long last, we have our Cappuccino back, merrily contradicting himself on the topic of streets, and -- unopposed in his re-election to the post of Wizard of Westendia -- freely caterwauling and chewing scenery on topics of which he knows next to nothing. It's just like old times. Now all we need is Professor Erika blowing rancid cigarette smoke in his face.

The odds that Coffey actually read Speck's report?

Same probability that I've chugged a Miller Lite in the last five years, which is to say: Zero.

Welcome back. We've missed you so very much.

(Click through to read reporter Suddeath's redevelopment report in its entirety)

River Ridge may gain Toyota instead of New Albany, by Daniel Suddeath (N and T)

TIF ALSO TIED TO TWO-WAY STREETS

New Albany would likely use TIF funds to provide its 20 percent match to a $2.5 million federal grant for calming traffic in the city’s downtown.

The money could, for example, be used to flip one-way streets to two-way traffic.

On March 18, the city will hold its final public hearing on planner Jeff Speck’s street study, which is strongly in favor of two-way conversion, smaller traffic lanes and more on-street parking.

It’s one step the city has taken as it prepares its strategy for utilizing the federal grant, which was awarded through the Kentuckiana Regional Planning & Development Agency, or KIPDA.

But New Albany City Councilman Dan Coffey believes the city might need another report.

“I still don’t think it would hurt to have another, unbiased study,” said Coffey, who is also a member of the redevelopment commission.

Speck’s study is a plan “that’s been slanted toward one view,” he added.

“I’m really disappointed in the way that turned out,” Coffey said.

Mayor Jeff Gahan’s administration has largely remained noncommittal on Speck’s recommendations. With the Ohio River Bridges Project expected to bring more motorists to New Albany, Gahan has acknowledged the city will likely need to make adjustments to the traffic grid.

The final public meeting on the Speck report will be held from 6 to 7:30 p.m. on March 18 at the Pepin Mansion, which is located at 1003 E. Main St.

Another purely "negative" report on Thursday's Bridges Unauthority meeting.

The unelected, extra-governmental Bridges Authority held a meeting on Thursday, September 2.

The nine a.m. meeting paused after 20 minutes so that traditional local media could get derive the meat of their stories from Greater Louisville Inc. head Joe Reagan's bullet points. Public speaking time came two hours later, when the room had largely emptied of media. In most significant ways, the meeting was a venue for "equal time" only in the narrow sense of the Nurnberg Rallies.

Ed Glasscock (right) gives Louisville mayoral candidate Hal Heiner's campaign manager Joe Burgan (left) an earful about proper respect for Bridges Authority: Spotted At The Bridges Debacle Meeting.

The chief architect of Goebbelsian bridges disinformation was spotted -- Courier-Journal's David Hawpe, glad-handing to the last.

Our own Jeff "Bluegill" Gillenwater's comments were insightful, as usual. He counseled the Bridges Authority to provide "facts" in their proper context. Reagan and the others yawned; many had already left the room.

One of Reagan's bullet points was his assertion that the Bridges Authority has a "moral obligation" to address the safety element of area transport as corrected by the scope of the Bridges Project. Moral? Then how come the Kye's bar wasn't open for business? And why just light beer on tap, even if it were open? Tlak about immoral.

Or, how to properly froth a Cappuccino.

The Tribune's Chris Morris reports that City Hall has called a second council meeting in hopes of convincing more than 5/9 of the membership to attend, and then feels the lash of spittle as the Wizard of Westside searches for his political equivalent to Cialis.

However, Coffey said the council only had two days to look at the plan following Thursday’s vote, and that was not enough time to digest the plan.

“They work on this for months and we get the information one or two days before ... no,” he said. “They expect someone from the council to understand all of this. I’m tired of this administration trying to ram stuff down our throat at the last minute.”

As numerous people can attest, Dan Coffey repeats these words or a variation of them at least once at every city council meeting.

Exactly what constitutes the "last minute" in this context? What has Coffey -- what has the council -- done to alleviate the situation? Can anything be done? Should anything be done? Why can't we be friends? Or, do we merely dodge spittle and splutter forever, or until the 1st district finally upends the petty wannabeen?

The roar of the greasepaint, the smell of the crowd?

“The city council is up to here with the sewers … (there’s) more than enough money to fix them things.”
-- a cappella anatomical and grammatical croonings from the Wizard of Westside.

----

1st district councilman Dan Coffey customarily devotes substantial portions of his bountiful twice-monthly council speaking time to strident claims of overarching expertise in numerous fields of human endeavor, and last evening was no exception, with the Wizard or Westside pontificating on the history of housing in Silver Hills, the width of parking spaces, linguistics and semantics, sewage system engineering, and the history and application of legalese.

Frankly, NAC is puzzled. Why is the city squandering Coffey’s considerable talents in the narrow confines of the council chamber when a career as troubleshooting municipal polymath – dare we say a veritable New Albanian Homo universalis – beckons so enticingly from just offstage?

Perhaps Professor Erika can convince the regents of Bazooka Joe U. to add Coffey to its crackerjack (make that "bubblegum") staff.

Speaking of cretinous faux academics, now that the parading masquerader has found common ground for agreement with 6th district councilman Jeff Gahan on the topic of sewer accountability, will she reverse long-cherished course and cease spelling his name “Gayhan” in her bile blog?

Inquiring minds want to know.

CM Gahan’s doggedly firm pursuit of satisfaction with respect to information about the sewer utility’s budget and its recent awarding of a no-bid service contract to EMC proved again that it really is possible for a sitting councilman to be persistent while retaining decorum and eschewing the pyrotechnics preferred by the legislative body’s inveterate grandstanders.

Overall, the July 2 city council meeting was fairly uneventful by normal Marxist (brothers) standards, and with the exception of Coffey’s tiresome peacock boastings, the cast and crew were well behaved. For the record, CMs Schmidt and Blevins were absent, and the Courier’s Dick Kaukas provides this useful overview: Council OKs funds for street operations; vote cleans slate for New Albany department.