We’re confused. Does McLaughlin's censure climbdown mean he isn’t a mayoral contender any more, or is he the front runner now?

(Thanks to Jeff Gillenwater for today's header.)

There were somewhere around 80 people at the city council meeting on Monday night, and perhaps in direct response to Pat McLaughlin's censure resolution, management of the City County Building (it's owned by the county) decided to remodel both 3rd floor restrooms, which were closed.

Feeling the effects of pregame cocktails, I sneaked a peek at the men’s room.

It was in such a state of demolition that for a moment there, I thought I was privy to one of David Duggins’ wet dreams about the future of public housing.

On the topic of poo, irresolute thinking as muddled as McLaughlin's should disqualify him from consideration for any future office, but this is New Gahania, not Birdseye, and by noon today the DemoDisneyDixiecratic Party's resident Machiavelli in Knee Pants (A. Dickey) will have transformed McLaughlin's clueless farce into another great propaganda victory for Dear Leader.

How the AdamBot spins this abysmal train wreck is a mystery, but so it goes here in the land of congenital political underachievement.

For the best council coverage you can steal for 600 words at a 3rd-grade level of comprehension during two minutes' reading time, visit the newspaper.

Chris Morris also reports the outcome of the latest zoning imbroglio, in which a development proposed for the corner of Green Valley Road and Daisy Lane was defeated.

Following are five points I learned amid the straining bladders.

1. Clearly, the cynically fabricated hue and cry over Knable's statement to the News and Tribune has had far less to do with his actual comment than seeking to deflect any rational discussion of a combined 9-1-1 call center for city and county -- although if there were a few stray points to be scored by attacking Knable's character, the DemoDisneyDixiecrats are happy to take them. There weren't many, and overall, it's hard to imagine a bigger public relations misfire.

2. Given that there is a rational case to be made for a combined call center (as well as a corresponding argument against it), and seeing that the sliming of Knable was meant to derail anything that might resemble "truthful dialogue," we're compelled to consider the call center issue from a different angle: who currently wets their beaks from the dual call center organization as it presently stands? In short, it's time to follow the money, especially when the upper echelons insist that it's about safety, not cash.

Speaking for myself, I'm pro-union and anti-unigov, but the presence last evening of a spokesman for the call center/dispatcher union provides one clue; another might be found in a detailed examination of the mayor's campaign finance records.

3. Police chief Todd Bailey is planning to run for office. Granted, he hasn't said as much, but since this contrived controversy first reared its nasty, snarling, Gahanesque head, no public appearance by Bailey, as ostensibly devoted to defending the integrity of his unfairly maligned officers (heavens; spare us the melodrama, please), has come without the earnest recitation of his personal curriculum vitae. Bailey currently is jostling with Greg Phipps to determine which of the mayor's hips will be a target for attachment, but of the two, I suspect only the former has the requisite ambition.

4. Speaking of Phipps, the single greatest political disappointment of the current generation, who is fond of bragging about his Olympian detachment when it comes to decision-making, but unfortunately tends to embrace reasoning that mimics the circuitous gibberish of the Delphic Oracle rather than Mr. Spock's Vulcan logic, he was spared from casting a "yes" vote on Monday by virtue of McLaughlin's disintegration. However, Phipps hurriedly reminded the chamber that when it comes to cooperation between city and county, he is opposed to any measure that involves space aliens outside city limits.

Gahan himself couldn't have said it any better, and this is the point. Sycophants, unite -- you have nothing to lose apart from your dignity.

5. Answering Phipps' expression of disdain for perfidious county reactionaries (psst, Greg ... Democrats live there, too unless your implying that ... ), Knable reminded the room that county government recently came into an inheritance, this being the proceeds from the sale of the hospital -- and maybe, just maybe, this is a good sign as it pertains to future cooperation.

Speaking only for myself, sometimes when the facts change, one must recalibrate his opinions. County government no longer is the self-starving mechanism of old, and the closing of JeffBoat assures Clark County of a 20-mile-long development (and redevelopment) corridor from Charlestown and River Ridge to the South Clarksville project at the former Colgate. I may or may not like it, but this is the case. Unfathomable heaps of money are roosting there, and more is coming. If our plan is to bask in the backwash, it would be helpful to have a coherent niche. Right now, we don't.

A luxury dog spa nestled atop a Native American sacred area just might not be enough for New Albany and Floyd County to cope with the ramifications. Instead of wasting everyone's time with a resolution of censure derived from the reeking DemoDisneyDixiecratic swamp of petty and limiting self-interest -- those great big fish in this curbside puddle by the handicapped ramp -- perhaps a genuine commitment to the as-yet purely euphemistic "truthful dialogue" might help us move forward in the coming years.

A final takeaway: The usual DemoDisneyDixiecratic bait and switch -- gestures and signalling about social justice as intended to provide cover for the grubby excesses of the local party's patronage machine -- bears no similarity to the words "truthful dialogue" except as an expression of brutal irony, and as we know, they don't do irony. If there is any lasting value to be derived from McLaughlin's idiotic censure resolution, it's the appearance of these words, "truthful dialogue" within it.

Consequently, if anyone sees "truthful dialogue" emanating from a local ranking Democrat, please let us know. It would be a veritable holiday from the prevailing malice.

How would Pat McLaughlin know what "truthful dialogue" means when his local Democratic looters so very seldom participate in it?

Tonight's the night. If you're a fan of sleazy, slimy, self-serving seediness, you'll want to be at this evening's council meeting as Pat McLaughlin (D-Fantasy Island) introduces a politically-motivated resolution to censure council president Al Knable.

“Resolution to Censure the Council President for Misstatements to the Council and Media Concerning New Albany Public Safety and the 911 Emergency Telephone Service.”

To be sure, it's no use assembling a political patronage machine if the elders can't periodically lift the jalopy's leg and spray Bud Light Lime-scented urine around the room, but even by the barren, subterranean intellectual standards of Gahanism, this resolution is a sham, one that closes with what surely are the most hypocritical words every uttered in Councilpalooza.

“THEREFORE, We the Common Council of the City of New Albany adopt the censure and encourage truthful dialogue in all matters.”

LOLWRP (laugh out loud with rusty pitchforks).

These pitiful Democrats now piously stipulating truthful dialogue – how often have they collaborated in denying it, or telling whoppers themselves? Here are a few occasions that spring to mind in my personal experience.

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Truthful dialogue? I attended a Tree Board meeting in May of 2016 and asked to see minutes of previous meetings. Two years later, I've received nothing.

Truthful dialogue? Was there even five minutes of public discussion about the plan to gift Flaherty and Collins with sewer tap-in waivers, a freebie without precedent, and one never previously offered to non-profits and educational entities?

Truthful dialogue? I famously asked Bob Caesar to provide the Bicentennial Commission financial records. He delayed me for two whole years, then flat refused; I made an information request from the city "corporate" attorney, who informed me these records of a formally chartered municipal entity, one that spent taxpayer money over a period of several years, don’t exist.

Truthful dialogue: We created the storm water board to be self governing and independent -- until it acted independently, then mayor-in-waiting Gahan mounted the lawsuit to strip it of independence, this being a precursor to City Hall annexing the Urban Enterprise Association and the New Albany Housing Authority.

Truthful dialogue? Develop New Albany, another taxpayer-supported organization, refuses to answer questions about the cultural appropriation encouraged by its own governing board during last year’s Taco Walk.

Truthful dialogue? Has anyone outside the mayor’s immediate circle seen financials from the water park's operation? Anyone? Bueller?

Truthful dialogue? Speaking of parks, has evidence yet surfaced of a single word in Gahan's 2011 campaign platform suggesting that just a few years later, he'd have split the county parks department and added almost $3 million in annual budget outlays to a new city-only "quality of life" want?

Truthful dialogue? Jeff Gahan, who as council president angrily refused to allow minions to speak at council meetings on behalf of the mayor at the time, has himself sent a minion to represent him at council meetings almost every time since day one in 2012.

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The preceding are just the first vivid examples to come to mind.

Until a local DemoDisneyDixiecrat shows the first sign of a weak, labored pulse with regard to the concept of "truthful dialogue," it's the same old bait and switch: Indulge in endless “for show alone" gestures and signaling on social issues to avert eyes from the machine-led pillage being conducted by Dickey, Gahan, Gibson, Duggins and their merry crews, who'll go to any length, however nasty, fetishistic and depraved, to remain the biggest bottom-feeders peddling influence in this shrunken pond.

I encourage you to attend tonight and use your three minutes. Message me and I'll tell you how. 

Previously:

Ethically challenged local Democrats can't find a single friend as public opinion weighs in on the party's toxic Knable censure resolution.

More profiles in cravenness: "McLaughlin did not want to make a public comment until Monday's meeting."

ON THE AVENUES: Al Knable doesn’t lie, but the local Democratic Party is a flood-plain Pinocchio. Let’s censure it at the ballot box.

Gahanism is gangsterism, and Pat McLaughlin's nonsensical resolution censuring Al Knable is the best example yet of the local Democratic Party's utter depravity.

Did you miss the headline? The crux of it - DemoDisneyDixiecratic chairman Dickey is up to his eyeballs in fake facts, not to mention male moo cow feces.

The politics of diversion: "Chief Bailey is playing a losing hand, but then, they're not really his cards."

Ethically challenged local Democrats can't find a single friend as public opinion weighs in on the party's toxic Knable censure resolution.

Cricket's chirping? That's their swamp music.

For those just tuning in for today's sad installment of Local DemoDisneyDixiecrats of the Formerly Black But Now Very Greenback Lagoon, two pivotal local election cycles are approaching, the soulless pretend-left political machine is on the ropes, and that bleakest of functionaries, Pat "How High, Sir?" McLaughlin has channeled his inner Adam Dickey into a resolution to censure city council colleague Al Knable for an entirely imagined offense -- or to be brutally frank, for performing the task of council president far better than Paddy Mac ever did.

These are the depraved depths to which Team Gahan has plunged, whether the News and Tribune's deficient management team can bring itself to admit the obvious, or not.

McLaughlin's resolution serves as convenient and compelling proof that our local Democrats have left the rails. The only viable alternative to more of the same is to vote against them at every opportunity.

But first, let's take a brief glance at some of the reactions to our coverage of the ongoing travesty.

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Did you miss the headline? The crux of it - DemoDisneyDixiecratic chairman Dickey is up to his eyeballs in fake facts, not to mention male moo cow feces.

Jeff Gillenwater (junior editor): "This (Democratic Party Fb post) is a lie to advance a political agenda. Members of both parties have been discussing the possibility of a call center merger for nearly a decade. Bailey and the rest of you affiliated with this ridiculous smear attempt ought to be ashamed but, as so many have learned and are learning the hard way, you all don’t really recognize shame amongst the cheap shots, half-truths, and innuendo. The number of people swearing off the local party and its candidates because of abominable behavior like this is growing. They do not see the party as a vehicle for progressive ideas and humanitarian concerns precisely because it’s not. Those still clinging to “local leadership” are likewise losing the respect of many. Keep it up.

D: "The conflicts we Democrats face at the national level require we take the high road at the local level. This (Democratic Party) article and what lies behind it do the opposite, and threaten everything the Dems should be standing for."

B: "Wow. That’s incredibly dishonest, even by local standards ... This has been thoroughly discredited in other threads and forums. The censure is complete partisan nonsense of the worst kind."

K: People know better than to believe that crap, don’t they? I believe Al at his word - a mistake ... This is going to backfire on them.

Billy Stewart (county commissioner): "We can have disagreements about policy and what we believe in how things should be but there is never a reason to try to destroy someone over partisan politics. I don't always agree with other elected officials but I respect their views. I'm truly saddened by the actions of a few City officials trying to smear the reputation of a good person. The only way we can change things is through the ballet box. Remember who did what and vote accordingly."

A: "So, does Pat's Resolution invite us all to write our own Resolutions? Whereas, we can encourage truthful dialogue from he, Jeffrey, and other city officials? That sounds like a fun game! Pat's Resolution could be used as the template and we just change the words and subject to expose real liars. It could be a competition. All participating have their first reading on Monday under Pat's agenda item, and all who participate win because standing up to bullies makes you a winner! ... I hope Pat doesn't become chicken at the last minute and pull his resolution from the agenda. That would spoil all the fun."

BC: If this is the best the Dems can do, then they are in major trouble in Floyd County. They are dying on the vine already and this is simply an extreme stretch to TRY to be noteworthy. Knowing Al as I do, he is an upstanding member of the community and is a straightforward guy who wants the best for New Albany.

---

Gahanism is gangsterism, and Pat McLaughlin's nonsensical resolution censuring Al Knable is the best example yet of the local Democratic Party's utter depravity.

R: "Mclaughlin is my council rep. I haven’t seen him in my neighborhood since Baron Hill was running for re-election more than a decade ago. I’m vacillating between whether anger or appalled embarrassment better describes my reaction to this idiocy. Al Knable may have some views with which I differ, but he’s not averse to listening and actually hearing what citizens say."

D: "What a waste of time and money... to attempt to discredit someone you are working with for the greater good of your city. It’s an embarrassment. I’m sorry Al Knable ... keep doing what you’re doing. Posing questions and getting the answers for your constituents. Representing their best interests with integrity. It’s in your job description. What I’m SURE is not there is when something you don’t like comes to light, you strike out at the credible people. Stay the course and do the right thing, always."

---

More profiles in cravenness: "McLaughlin did not want to make a public comment until Monday's meeting."

S: "Not sure what to make of this world when Dan Coffey is the voice of reason."

M: "Think I have figured it out. It’s just his way of announcing that the price will be high for him to flip. And he will, if the price is right. Have seen him make 180 turns before."

P: "I’ve known Al for around 40 years, both personally and professionally. I will continue to trust and support him. This is what happens when a good person tries to get into to politics to make a difference, and it greatly saddens me."

W: "This is a total waste of the city council's time. I want to know how the $5 million is going to be spent on the city. I want to know what’s going to happen to the NAHA residences. I want to know about cleanup in the city parks department. I want my city to have a combined efficient 9-1-1 center."

---

ON THE AVENUES: Al Knable doesn’t lie, but the local Democratic Party is a flood-plain Pinocchio. Let’s censure it at the ballot box.

Reverend Mike Becht: "I am certain that if Mr. Baylor and I sat down to discuss issues and politics, we would find ourselves holding opposite points of view on many areas of public concern. However, it is telling that we appear to be 100% in sync with respect to one pressing matter - the current tempest enveloping Dr. Al Knable.

Having known Al for more than 35 years, I can personally vouch for his honesty and integrity. That is not to say we always agree on every topic. I'm sure we do not; but I have NEVER once found him to be less than candid, respectful and fair, even when we find ourselves landing at opposite positions on a matter. To suggest that he would lie for political gain is patently absurd, and reveals more about the character of the ones who are making that claim than about the good doctor, himself.

"I am never surprised by the ugliness and mudslinging that goes on in politics. But I am surprised that some in power have calculated that their best course of action is to engineer a public attempt at character assassination.

"Some question the provenance of the quote attributed to Edmund Burke, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Regardless of who originated the thought, there is no escaping the truism it propounds. I, for one, am not willing to stand by and watch a good man pilloried. And if you have any sense of decency, neither should you."

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Following are comments posted here and there in support of the censure resolution.

More profiles in cravenness: "McLaughlin did not want to make a public comment until Monday's meeting."

A teensy-weensy microdot of back story and context would be nice, but you'll never get it from the News and Tribune, which seeks only to transport you to the end of the article in two minutes or less, and get back to cooking school.

But now for the good news: That's why you have NA Confidential to take you down into the bunker with the flies on the wall, to where the 'Bamatized chain newspaper can't -- nay, won't -- go.

If you're just tuning in, the Floyd County Democratic Party has fired up a mess of monkey brains, chased their souffle with ice-cold Bud Light Lime-A-Ritas, and contracted prion disease (eternal thanks to Charles P. Pierce).

Kuru belongs to a class of diseases called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), also called prion diseases. It primarily affects the cerebellum — the part of your brain responsible for coordination and balance.

NAC started covering this story on Tuesday.

ON THE AVENUES: Al Knable doesn’t lie, but the local Democratic Party is a flood-plain Pinocchio. Let’s censure it at the ballot box.

Gahanism is gangsterism, and Pat McLaughlin's nonsensical resolution censuring Al Knable is the best example yet of the local Democratic Party's utter depravity.

Did you miss the headline? The crux of it - DemoDisneyDixiecratic chairman Dickey is up to his eyeballs in fake facts, not to mention male moo cow feces.

The politics of diversion: "Chief Bailey is playing a losing hand, but then, they're not really his cards."

Today the newspaper picks up the story, and quite badly.

Folks, let's get real: the lame censure resolution directed against Al Knable could not have sprung fully formed from the brain of Pat McLaughlin. The party's ranking Democrats are behind the chicanery. The puppet's strings are connected to city corporate counsel, party chairman and mayor. This is the way it always works, and will continue to work until voters fire them in 2019.

Chances are that Dan Coffey's not the only observer who understands this, even if Chris Morris doesn't.

New Albany City Council to consider Knable censure over 911 dispatch statements

 ... Councilman Dan Coffey did not withhold comment about the censure, or how he will likely vote on the resolution.

"It's 100 percent political," Coffey said. "Al is one of the most honest people I've ever met. I know his votes on the council are not political. I am really disappointed in that one [resolution]."

Coffey said the vote will likely go along party lines. That means the two independents, Coffey and Scott Blair, will likely decide the matter on whether Knable will be officially censured. The council also includes four Democrats and three Republicans.

McLaughlin did not want to make a public comment until Monday's meeting.

Gahanism is gangsterism, and Pat McLaughlin's nonsensical resolution censuring Al Knable is the best example yet of the local Democratic Party's utter depravity.

I've witnessed a lot of ridiculous things the past 12 years concerning New Albany city government. This is in the running for the top spot.
-- Mark Cassidy (it's 14 years for me, brother)

Pat McLaughlin couldn’t be bothered to contest Dan Coffey’s myriad bullying behaviors meriting censure, so long as Coffey was voting on the mayor’s side.

It meant nothing to McLaughlin when Bob Caesar, and later the city's corporate counsel Shane Gibson, bluntly refused to disclose the finances of the Bicentennial Commission.

Neither was McLaughlin troubled by his Roadhouse drinking buddy David Duggins’ TASER threats against a public housing resident, nor by the proposed demolition of 500 units of affordable housing, a mayoral putsch undertaken in the tawdriest of fashions, as well as being a move completely opposed to McLaughlin's own political party's purported commitment to working class citizens.

Just details to be ignored, right?

Ah, but now, with two local election cycles approaching, and with his DemoDisneyDixiecratic fraternity on the ropes, Paddy Mac seeks to censure Al Knable for an entirely imagined offense, which is to say, for no other discernible reason than petty politics.

However, McLaughlin's resolution conveniently serves as the most compelling proof yet that Jeff Gahan’s and Adam Dickey’s thuggish monetization organization has completely flipped its lid. Our local Democrats have left the rails, and the only alternative to more of the same is to vote against them at every opportunity.

Did you miss the headline? The crux of it - DemoDisneyDixiecratic chairman Dickey is up to his eyeballs in fake facts, not to mention male moo cow feces.

That swamp we keep hearing about? It begins at party chairman Dickey's keyboard, and extends in a steadily escalating stench through the proximity of the party's elected and appointed officials.

The politics of diversion: "Chief Bailey is playing a losing hand, but then, they're not really his cards."

But it doesn't have to be this way, and there are ways to make your voice heard now, before voting begins.

The city council meeting is on Monday night, April 2, beginning at 7:00 p.m. Public comments about agenda items occurs at the beginning of the meeting, and you, too, can have your three minutes to comment on the ludicrousness of McLaughlin's resolution, which at its very root is a vicious personal attack on the council president Knable -- and while you may disagree with Knable on certain matters (as I have), I'm guessing you can see the plain intent in this case.

It's knee-capping, it's character assassination, and it's intimidation. 

It's Gahanism as gangsterism -- but when it's all they have to offer, they'll use it.

Come out, and be heard -- and please, engage your councilman ... nope, no women, and that's another problem to be resolved at the ballot box, isn't it?

At-Large – David Aebersold
1202 Aebersold Drive
(812) 944-9823, daebersold@cityofnewalbany.com

At-Large – Dave Barksdale
614 Terrace Court
(812) 945-1839, dbarksdale@cityofnewalbany.com

At-Large – Al Knable, MD
2241 Green Valley Road
(502) 386-5051, aknable@cityofnewalbany.com

1st District – Dan Coffey
213 Eagle Lane
(502) 797-8347, dcoffey@cityofnewalbany.com

2nd District – Robert Caesar
614 Camp Ave.
(812) 945-8744, rcaesar@cityofnewalbany.com

3rd District – Greg Phipps (Vice President)
1105 E Spring Street
(812) 949-8317, gphipps@cityofnewalbany.com

4th District – Patrick McLaughlin (President)
1739 Florence Ave.
(812) 949-9140, pmclaughlin@cityofnewalbany.com

5th District – Matthew Nash
2510 Larkwood Drive
(502) 718-4986, mnash@cityofnewalbany.com

6th District – Scott Blair
3925 Rainbow Drive
(812) 697-0128, sblair@cityofnewalbany.com

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.

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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.

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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.

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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).

Newspaper's editorial board goes where Dickey, Gahan won't: "New Albany is stuck with Dan Coffey whether residents like him or not."

The Green Mouse reports that several of our city council's members, all theoretically Democratic, discussed the possibility of a motion of censure for Dan Coffey, but none would introduce it for fear of going on the record.

Seeing that it's difficult to imagine even this moderate level of spine, it's probably just a rumor.

But count it among those rumors that match the group's disposition so perfectly that it might as well be true -- not to mention the attendant fear, given City Hall's record of reprisals against dissidents.

The way Jeff Gahan is protecting Coffey is touching, isn't it? Sorry to make waves, but I'll have to keep asking why. Click through the read the entire editorial; better late than never.

OUR OPINION: Voters left with no option over Coffey’s words

Last week’s candidate filing deadline passed with no opponent for New Albany District 1 Councilman Dan Coffey. He didn’t have a foe in the May primary, either.

It’s Coffey who has been pelted with criticism recently for his comments at a June council meeting, when he said his push for the return of public prayer at meetings was fueled by the recent drive for legal rights for “gays, lesbians and transvestites.”

For starters, we believe Coffey meant transgender individuals with that last word, but there’s plenty more with his statement and actions to take issue with.

They’re full of bluster and callousness, but still we support Coffey’s right to speak his mind.

However, his grandstanding on what’s a really a nonissue — the previous format for public prayer at New Albany meetings had never been a problem — and his insensitive words come with consequences, or should.

But what really can be done? His peers on the council could censure him at tonight’s meeting.
Coffey has already declined to apologize for his remarks, and anyone figuring a public scolding is going to change his behavior is a fool.

The people who ultimately control Coffey’s fate are voters.

Refer to the start of this editorial and you’ll see the problem at present. Coffey has waltzed through the 2015 election season, and that’s a shame.

ON THE AVENUES: This is Dan Coffey, New Albany’s quintessential Democrat.

ON THE AVENUES: This is Dan Coffey, New Albany’s quintessential Democrat.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Dan Coffey is a Democrat.

I know, I know.

Go and paste a photo of Coffey into Google Images, and the magical search engine yields various glamour shots of none other than Governor Mike Pence.*

But as Coffey surely would remind you in his very best caterwauling drawl, “that Ol’ Man Goggle ain’t from HERE, is he?”

And HERE, in New Albany and Floyd County, reverting to the curiously deceptive dialect spoken by those who have their obscure reasons for not being publicly identified as Republican in a benighted place where only two options for political affiliation are permitted, Coffey remains a card-carrying, fully sanctioned and purely customary Democrat.

In fact it says so, right there, at the Floyd County Democratic Party’s web site.

Dan Coffey is a Democrat.

He also is an unreconstructed homophobe, a serial bully, and a perennial opportunist. He has occupied a council seat since the year 2000, and during all that time, while amassing a record of non-achievement notable even by New Albany’s subterranean standards, he never once has troubled himself with deep thoughts about prayers and invocations, apart from repeating them by rote, mindlessly, along with everyone else in the council chamber.

Then along came “them people” asking for their rights, and all of a sudden, Coffey sprang forward to defend the faith from these godless heathens, of whom I surely must be numbered as one. For reason of my atheism, perhaps my testimony is unreliable to some. However, as it pertains to Coffey’s most recent council displays or righteousness, you needn’t take my heretical word for it.

The following forceful and passionate passage was written by a certified believer, the Rev. John Manzo of St. Marks United Church of Christ, and posted at Facebook. Seems Coffey might not be speaking on behalf of all the city’s Christians.

The other night God got mocked at the City Council meeting.

Councilman Dan Coffey swore at another member of the Council by calling him a "lying piece of (expletive)" during a debate over public prayer on Monday.

Later, Mr. Coffey said, "No, I didn't bring this up to curry favor," Coffey said, hitting his hand against the council's desk. "I brought it up because every time you turned around, there was something coming up about gays, lesbians, transvestites and making sure they had their rights."

The council then considered an amendment that would've allowed members only to pray, give an inspirational message, or to skip their turn in the rotation.

"If someone chooses to say a prayer, that's fine," Councilman Greg Phipps said. "I they choose to read an inspirational poem, that's fine."

"I can hear it now, 'tiptoe through tulips,'" Coffey replied in reference to a gay person presenting a prayer or a devotional reading.

This was all bad an offensive in and of itself. Swearing at a colleague and bashing people is offensive behavior in and of itself. This, out of context is just bad behavior that doesn’t mock God. But in context, wow.

Mr. Coffey was promoting and advocating for a bill to mandate prayer at the City Council meetings. He swore while advocating, seemingly, for God. He mocked people while saying he was advocating for God. He was promoting prayer.

This is worse than Bill Maher. Mr. Maher regularly mocks religious people but he doesn’t believe in God. He’s a comedian. He’s an entertainer. I often find him to be offensive but he does no harm to Christianity because he simply doesn’t believe in God. I don’t take him seriously.

The problem with what Mr. Coffey did is that he was acting like he was protecting God and protecting religion. He wasn’t. He was being offensive and saying he was doing this in God’s name. That mocks God. As a pastor of a church in downtown New Albany I find his actions deeply offensive. He made a mockery of those who us who take our faith seriously and pray. My hope and prayer is that he takes time at the next Council meeting to apologize to his colleagues for his offensive behavior, but most of all, to the people of faith for his vulgar mockery of God.

Hmm. Did I mention that Coffey is a Democrat?

This Democrat, when handed the gift of tailor-made grandstanding, abruptly coiled like a copperhead and stung like a Pharisee, professing hitherto unwitnessed allegiance to points of order, and volunteering to explicate obscure passages of Constitutional law which have confused genuine scholars since before the ink was dry on the original document.

Coffey, a Democrat, knew fully well the camera was focused on him, and so he was suitably explicit for the viewing audience at home, because he no longer can suppress his revulsion at the inexorable advance of the Sodomites.

Dan Coffey?

He’s a Democrat, and he knows that as a Democrat in New Albany and Floyd County, he is perfectly free to say and believe and do anything, or nothing, however egregious, nasty and untruthful, because there’ll always be a fellow “Democrat” in need of the sin-eating services of a small-pond operative utterly devoid of scruples or ethical sensibility.

Dan Coffey’s been HERE his whole life, and he merely shrugs. How can it be a crime if there isn’t any punishment … ever?

It has been ten days since this episode of KoffeyKulturKampf was aired on the boob tube, as recounted evenly and accurately by Pastor Manzo, who has been joined by the LGBT community and numerous other fair-minded individuals in expressing revulsion.

Our leaders tend to be Democrats, just like Dan Coffey, and they ... are silent.

The Floyd County Democratic Party has said absolutely nothing. Mayor Jeff Gahan, like Coffey a Democrat, and moreover, quite content to deploy Coffey as his dull, blunt Sancho Panza, to be wielded in pursuit of his and the party’s monetization aims, has remained mum.

Both party and mayor invite you to go swimming, and forget about the rest.

Of Coffey’s city council colleagues, six of whom are Democrats, only one has referred to the landmark council evening publicly, and yet  John Gonder’s welcomed critique was mostly oblique, as usual, and his brave but doomed loyalty to a political party – to his own Democratic Party – itself largely in connivance with Coffey’s and Gahan’s despicable targeting of Gonder for defeat in the November election, is elegiac, fated and shaded with melancholy.

Ideals, anyone?

Four years ago, Jeff Gahan’s stated aim in seeking the office of mayor was to somehow alchemize New Albany into a “fundamentally” better municipality.

As Coffey’s recent human rights slurs abundantly illustrate, this has not occurred. In fact, it has not begun.

Fundamentals are basic, underlying, core standards. They must exist to serve as the foundation for what follows. They are the procedures and protocols defining more universal matters like human and civil rights, but also those daily markers wrongly viewed by many as mundane, including topics like the demeanor, practices and expectations of public officials and employees, and their bodies, boards and commissions.

Dan Coffey is a Democrat, and his peers would rather enjoy weekly colonoscopies than call his bluff.

There are no fundamental guidelines available for needed discipline, save one: The ballot box, except that Coffey had no challengers in his party’s primary in May; the GOP apparently refuses to run a candidate against him; and no independent alternative has emerged.

Dan Coffey, Democrat?

Might as well – and a lean, mean Democrat at that, mercifully stripped of any platform compliance obligations or other burdensome adornments resembling anything remotely democratic, with upper- and lower-case meaningless, and thus completely interchangeable.

Apart from the many citizens Coffey has openly denounced, he also has humiliated his nominal political party, his cowering patron of a mayor, and the entire city, for good measure. Each and every one of us looks bad at the present time.

And Dan Coffey, the Democrat, is winning.

He is winning by default.

Even by New Albany’s traditionally subterranean standards, that’s absolutely appalling.

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* When I pasted this into Google Images ...

... this was returned.

---

Recent columns:

June 4: ON THE AVENUES: Dan Coffey speaks for Jeff Gahan and the Democratic Party … unless they say otherwise.

May 28: ON THE AVENUES: The last of the summer beer.

May 21: ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: "I Just Want to Know, Can I Park Here Somewhere?”

May 14: ON THE AVENUES: Take this cult of personality and shove it.

May 7: ON THE AVENUES: In Havel I trust.

April 30: ON THE AVENUES: Until philosophers become kings.

KoffeyKulturKampf 3: Democrats release bold statement of principle.

Don't just do something -- stand there.

As Dan Coffey continues to define the parameters of our "new" Democratic Party, here's what we've had to say.

KoffeyKulturKampf 2: Why are Democrats averting their gaze as Democrats enable Dan Coffey?

KoffeyKulturKampf 1: John Gonder writes, "I'm just one Councilman who probably has been/is being targeted for defeat because of (Coffey's) antics."

Dan Coffey sniffs the wind, smells impending defeat for the mayor -- and tacks starboard.

Matt Nash on Dan Coffey: "His views are backward and repugnant."

ON THE AVENUES: Dan Coffey speaks for Jeff Gahan and the Democratic Party … unless they say otherwise.

Mount Tone Deaf just doesn't have the same ring, does it?

Vintage Coffey Klatch: "Let me explain by threatening you."

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

Dan Coffey's homophobic council tantrum: The Video.

Longtime homophobe Coffey offers heartfelt prayer for his "lying piece of (expletive)" colleague.

Prayer duly restored, the Ayatollah Coffey will now decide whether your religion deserves his stamp of approval.

ON THE AVENUES: Dan Coffey speaks for Jeff Gahan and the Democratic Party … unless they say otherwise.

ON THE AVENUES: Dan Coffey speaks for Jeff Gahan and the Democratic Party … unless they say otherwise.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

For many New Albany residents, the WAVE 3 video of 1st district councilman Dan Coffey’s antics during Monday’s prayer – I mean, council – meeting, during which Coffey made intemperate and homophobic remarks, then denied them even as he was chased down the stairs by the reporter, have proven shocking.

In sad fact, they’re the time-tested norm.

Many of these same residents promptly took to social media, asking why the Floyd County Democratic Party and our incumbent mayor, Jeff Gahan, for whom Coffey has recently served as unofficial council whip and “fundamentally better” enforcer, both have failed to comment on the situation.

You guessed it: Mute Democratic impotence also is the norm hereabouts.

I’ve been describing Coffey’s frequent outbursts at NA Confidential for a very long time. His career in playacting at public service has been an embarrassment to his party and the city in myriad ways since before I even began attending meetings in 2004, but there is "Something Different" about the most recent episode of the Wizard of Westside’s frothing at the mouth.

It was captured on video.

But there’s a twist, because I think Coffey planned it that way.

Why?

That’s how much he hates gays, lesbians and transvestites.

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It’s worth remembering that Joe Stalin attended seminary school before embarking on his stellar career of thuggery and mayhem, and in like fashion, Dan Coffey’s belated discovery of prayer has not been meant to bring him a step closer to a ragpicker’s sainthood.

Rather, it has been a convenient means to an end. It’s been about inciting and assembling an angry mob – like the crowd of angry “Christians” who gathered a few meetings back to learn who was taking their cherished rituals away – which can be called back to the podium when needed.

Of course, in this case, it’s been about three years since council protocol changed, with nary a peep from Coffey. He didn’t care an iota about the Lord’s Prayer, not then or now; it merely was another chit to be safeguarded whilst nursing his elderly white man’s panoply of grudges, at least until the right cue came along.

Coffey got his chance when the council resolved to denounce the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Astronauts on orbiting space stations could see him salivate in anticipation.

You see, the gays, lesbians and transvestites had taken it a step too far … and it was time to declare Coffey Jihad Time by paying them back with the resumption of invocations.

True enough, only Sigmund Freud himself might be able to establish the Coffey-concocted connection between prayer and sexual orientation, but if Freud were reincarnated and attended a council meeting, Coffey would start prattling on about the Jews taking over.

And a majority of his colleagues wouldn’t say a damned single word about it.

---

That’s because Coffey is accustomed to saying and doing as he pleases; after all, he’s a Democrat, and generations of council presidents have been Democrats, too, and none of them have ever tried very hard to discipline Coffey.

Current president Pat McLaughlin treats his gavel as though it had only recently been dipped in Ebola jam, and he cannot so much as use the restroom until the Gahan gives him a signal via earbuds. Coffey’s been bullying his cohorts for years. He knew the cameras were there, knew he could do as he pleased, and knew he’d not be censured for it.

That’s how enduringly tone-deaf Gahan and the Democratic Party have become.

Yes, Dan Coffey’s behavior is routinely despicable, but the Democratic Party persists in enabling him. With few ethical principles of their own to promote, local Democrats jokingly handle their “Coffey problem” by siding with Lyndon Baines Johnson’s preferred method of dealing with J. Edgar Hoover:

“Better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than the other way around.”

More importantly, ostensibly "respectable" elements in the party are forever in need of Coffey’s services as sin eater, and to launder their own bile. They won’t say it aloud – but Dan sure will! They believe they can use Coffey, and even if he usually turns the tables and uses THEM, non-democratic Democrats get exactly what they need in the interim.

What’s more, Coffey's invoice doesn't go to the Democratic Party. Rather, the entire city pays it, again and again, in a loss of civic reputation … and of remaining a regional backwater.

---

I’m hoping to be proven wrong, but there’s as much chance of Dan Coffey being censured for his most recent bullying as the aquatic center actually paying for itself.

Way back in 2009, when Coffey physically threatened my colleague and friend Jeff Gillenwater, only one council member, John Gonder, had the intestinal fortitude to suggest that Coffey deserved some form of censure.

The other council members sat and stared at the floor.

I watched them look the other way, ducking and covering, and I’ll watch them do it again, this time, all the while remaining pathetically incapable of grasping why they’re regarded as political laughingstocks by anyone in town who takes the time to observe them in twice monthly repose.

What of Jeff Gahan? Dan Coffey has been Gahan’s loyal, groveling Sancho Panza. Will the mayor emerge from his bunker to reassure the LGBT community that Coffey does not speak for him?

I doubt it. Gahan believes what he reads on the city’s Facebook page, which is updated by a paid contractor, who provides precisely what its client wants to hear. A typical animated Disney feature contains more reality than this.

Coffey’s snarling disregard for the rules of simple human civility is a nasty symptom of the rot within, one that is being left to fester by mayor and council alike. Coffey is a nasty bigot, all right, but far more significantly that this, he’s an apt metaphor for the diseased existence of the local Democratic Party, which now operates purely from a principle of machine monetization.

It’s more Republican than ever before. There’s a lot of censure to go around.

None of it will.

Think of it as the sorrow of New Albany.

---

Recent columns:

May 28: ON THE AVENUES: The last of the summer beer.

May 21: ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: "I Just Want to Know, Can I Park Here Somewhere?”

May 14: ON THE AVENUES: Take this cult of personality and shove it.

May 7: ON THE AVENUES: In Havel I trust.

April 30: ON THE AVENUES: Until philosophers become kings.

April 27: ON THE AVENUES MONDAY SPECIAL: Et tu, Greg Phipps? Or: Anger and the electoral variability of transparency.

Mount Tone Deaf just doesn't have the same ring, does it?

It's simple, If the Democratic Party and Mayor Jeff Gahan can't step outside their soulless political machines (and bunkers) to disavow Dan Coffey's homophobia and bigotry, then they're endorsing Coffey's behavior.

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

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?

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

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?

For the sake of progress and civility, Dan Coffey must be censured by the city council.

The facts are undisputed.

Last Thursday evening, Dan Coffey, who is New Albany’s council president, first refused to permit a citizen to speak during the meeting time allotted for it, and then afterward both verbally and physically accosted another citizen in a public place.

Both citizens are taxpayers. Imagine that, and note how it is so conveniently forgotten by the troglodytes who typically rush to the defense of such tactics.

In correspondence over the weekend, several friends and readers contributed opinions on these events, ranging from the hope that correction will come from within the same council that acquiesced in elevating Coffey, to the view that diplomacy should be allowed to run its course, and including the sensible advice that we all begin wearing wires around the clock and posting hidden cameras in preparation for the next “60 Minutes” (if not YouTube) moment.

Coffey’s behavior was so wrong, and on so many levels, that the metaphors with New Albany’s crippling primitivism would be obvious to cavemen with far better manners than Coffey’s, although they might yet elude New Albanians accustomed to congenitally low standards of office holding.

And, it’s hardly the first time for such disgraceful displays, to which I can personally attest. Once upon a time roughly a year ago, Coffey paused from grandstanding during a council meeting to duck low behind Bob Caesar’s chair, look right at me, and mouth the words, “I’ll kick your ass.”

I'm quite sure he would try, and this, my friends, is the man that Jeff “he who would be king” Gahan regards as suited for a position of leadership in a city of 37,000 people. I believe that in this context, Gahan is an accessory to last Thursday’s civic embarrassment. He has enabled the boorishness and helped place it in a position to make us all look like dullards.

Why put us through it, Jeff?

How does this help us shed our reputation as laughing stock?

Recall that in essence, Coffey is council president because Gahan bizarrely finds the unthinkable to be somehow useful according to the hidden master political strategy that Gahan has never once been willing to share with those members of the community who by all rights should be Gahan’s natural political allies, but who have been summarily abandoned during his speedy descent into the dark side.

Gahan might sincerely believe that Coffey has something constructive to offer, or maybe his intent has been to neutralize Coffey with just such a damaging fall, but I believe that either way, the events of Thursday, January 15 are sufficient to question Coffey’s suitability for office and the veracity of Gahan’s judgment in back-room maneuvering.

You can rationalize it any way you like, but if you believe that Coffey serving as president removes him from a position to inflict mischief, this belief has already been proven wrong. If you believe that he can be co-opted for your own gain, you’re quite likely to be disappointed, too. Coffey serves Coffey, and he has been doing it for so long that his most recent ill-tempered bullying seems little more than par for the degraded course he’s always played.

Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, and Coffey gotta dispense self-aggrandizing malice. In some ways, it’s a yawner ... unless, of course, you're the one actually being threatened by an elected official who apparently didn't get the memo and doesn't think that human decency -- not to mention rule of law -- applies to him.

Speaking personally, I’ve spent two years mortgaging my life in order to expand or business into a downtown that has been moribund for most of my adult life. I’ve chosen to do this for two reasons. First, I believe it will be successful, and we’ll make a profit. Second, I want to do my bit to get us through an open window of opportunity and make downtown live again. It’s a risk, but also an opportunity, and I’m not the only one who sees it.

I’ve tried to talk other people into taking the same chance … and then they see the council president hiking his leg and urinating on free speech. I volunteer my time to two economic development entities, and then the same council president tells me that the only way for me to participate properly is to run for council; otherwise, I’m to have no say.

Granted, Coffey isn’t the council representative for the precinct where the new business will be located, but his closest sycophant, Steve Price, is.

To top it off, Gahan, the council representative for the area where my existing business is located, has spent the past year consistently acting against my personal and professional interests, and recently enabled the ascension of the council member who’s now doing the former president’s territorial pissing for him.

And … consider that if the current council president lacks the basic self-restraint to control his anger, avoid physical contact and refrain from verbal threats directed at a private citizen in a public place, why should I or anyone else put personal safety and business investment dollars at risk by locating anywhere close to his sphere of influence?

Rational people will recognize that without investments made by business owners like me, there is no hope whatever of Coffey’s (or Price’s) neighborhood ever improving, and yet he harbors such depths of ignorance that it’s a deal he’s willing to accept … and, in perhaps the most delicious irony of all, this elected official who works tirelessly to frighten away anyone in a position to bolster the local economy serves on the Redevelopment Commission.

Damned right I’m concerned.

This time, Coffey needs to answer for his transgressions, and in a big way. Permit me this opportunity to call for his removal as council president and a formal censure on the part of his colleagues, who by doing so might yet indicate to the rest of us that they support progress in the city of New Albany.

It is long past the time to end Coffey's habitual bullying in and out of the council chamber, isn’t it?