Bullseye: With three primary-eve council resolutions, Kevin Zurschmiede demands accountability from Jeff Gahan.

For Monday night's final city council meeting prior to the conclusion of primary election voting on Tuesday, Dan Coffey has scheduled "Prayer Prattle-Thon: The Sequel," a down home camp meeting designed to reunite the city's errant legislative arm on the rack of bimonthly rote invocations.

Customarily, we'd give this time-wasting idiocy the ritualistic lancing and satirical lampooning it so richly deserves, but not today, because in a well-played tactical thrust, councilman (and Republican mayoral candidate) Kevin Zurschmiede has chosen the very same evening to place Team Gahan on the docket, with three precisely-aimed resolutions, each of which addresses one of City Hall's many recent prominent examples of institutionalized non-transparency.

Of course, given that Coffey has become the most vocal Gahan advocate this side of the mayor's own blood relatives -- to paraphrase POTUS, Gahan and Coffey have gotten so close that some places in Floyds Knobs won't serve them pizza anymore -- the wizard's opportunities for grandstanding and caterwauling in response are endless, and the jokes just write themselves. The three resolutions appear in their entirety below. Here are handy summaries.

R-15-10 On botched appointments to the stormwater and/or sewer boards
R-15-11 On city seals, logos and Dugginsesque branding skittles and doohickey proliferation
R-15-12 On ceasing the hitherto unknown practice of waiving sewer connection fees

Further merriment comes from the fact that 6th district councilman Scott Blair, who has consistently derided council resolutions and refused to vote on them out of principle, also has openly stated his eagerness to vote with Coffey on the latter's vacuous invocation ... resolution.

How will the fundamentally beleaguered denizens of the down-low bunker react to Zurschmiede's resolutions? I think they won't.

At the end of the day, over ice-cold long-necks of soothing light beer at the roadhouse, resolutions are merely symbolic. I expect to see Mike Hall on hand Monday, with perhaps a drive-by on the part of corporate counsel. As for the vote tallies, one wouldn't expect a largely pliant council with a DemoDisneyDixiecratic majority to muster the "yeas" necessary to pass resolutions amounting to censure, introduced by a Republican who's running against their paymaster -- but I'm the sort who values the little things, like a furrowed brow or a barely discernible squirm.

This may require a pre-meeting martini at The Exchange, but only one, please; I must be in shape to ask Bob Caesar why the bicentennial commission financial report I requested last time has yet to appear in my inbox.

R-15-10

R-15-11

R-15-12

The evening's agenda.

Whatever it is, Price is against it. No matter what it is or who commenced it, he's against it. Maybe he'd vote in favor of my new hat.

More about the ball cap to come.

First, Babe Ruth has nuthin' on me. It's just too easy calling shots when you have such a wealth of perennial degradation from which to pick and choose. As a case in point:

New Albany City Council could soon get monthly breakdown on sewer finances, by Daniel Suddeath.

The New Albany City Council mixed requirements from an old ordinance with new stipulations for financial oversight of the sewer utility before passing the measure 8-1 on two readings Monday.

That's right. As predicted yesterday, 3rd district councilman Steve Price voted last night against precisely the sort of safeguards he formerly serially demanded, because ...

... as (Price) explained he has no confidence that any council-ordered guidance of wastewater funds will be adhered to by the administration.

It would appear that Price and rationality have permanently parted company. Meanwhile, Dan "Copperhead" Coffey grimaced while pulling his yes lever, but provided the contents of yet another council bingo card slot:

“Our sewer board wasn’t given the information [about sewer revenue], the council wasn’t given the information,” he said.

How could we forget the critical information, which has been denied Coffey (and now the sewer board) continually since his very first day in office? But, the Wizard of Westside's oft-repeated utterance joins other enduring chestnuts like his own "I don't have a problem with that" (followed by an explanation of why he has a problem with that), and Price's "we shouldn't put all the eggs in one basket" as prime bingo card fodder. How's that project coming, anyway?

So, in the end, Mark "I Am Hoosier" ignored the begging of his cousin Daniel and gifted me with the finerprint smeared evidence that he drank Budweiser last week in St. Looey. When asked the one word to describe my feelings at owning such a prestigious item, all I could think of was:

"Halloween."