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

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.

Here's the post in question.

From the first moment the recent discussion of a unified 9-1-1 call center commenced, the city's intellectually vacant and yet still theoretically "ruling" Democrats have been lashing back, first against Knable in city council (where the politically emasculated "democratic" rump enjoys an entirely new fixation with rules of order), then via Chief Bailey's whistle stop tour to express theatrical rage at slights against the police department's integrity (which has not been questioned, not even once).

Now comes Adam the DNC Bot's social media charade.

It's a genuine Alamo scenario on the horizon for the local elites in 2019. Adam and crew have bet the entire stack on personal loyalty to El Jeffie, as opposed to a coherent platform (witness the NAHA putsch against the poor), and they're facing the end of the generational gravy train.

Bereft of consistency, principles or any semblance of shame, all that our local DemoDisneyDixiecrats have left is an unctuous array of robotic templates in which to insert fake facts and fabrications. I can hear them now: "Hey, it's okay as long as it's OUR side doing it."

That's an excellent reason to avoid taking THEIR side. Bluegill is awarded the coda.

Whether they’re running for local, national, or intergalactic office, local candidates who don’t make a concerted, public effort to disassociate themselves from the Floyd County Democratic Party will not be receiving a vote from me.

Nothing fake about THESE sentiments. IN fact, they're just about the only hope.

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

Much ado about nothing, Jeffrey. Zilch, nada ... ничего.

New Albany police chief questions motivation for 911 dispatch merger, by Erin Walden (Let Them Eat Fake)

NEW ALBANY — The need for a joint city-county dispatch center in New Albany is disputed by the city's police chief.

Chief Todd Bailey called a news conference Friday, when he accused City Council President Al Knable of telling a falsehood to show a need for a unified dispatch. Bailey also said the push for joint dispatch is political.

In short, another round of made-for-somnolent-media bile and spittle.

Chief Bailey sadly pursued the same contrived attack line at last week's council meeting, hoisting Jeff Gahan's jockstrap like a maypole as the mayor beamed happily from the bunker's shadows, his increasingly nervous appointed minions trotting out to join forces with the remaining jellied Democratic spines on the city's legislative body to sing a rousing chorus of "Job Security Uber Alles."

In an interview following the news conference, Knable maintained there was a call made, but said he believed the error was on his end, not a result of the two dispatch centers. Knable said he did make a call, and turned over his phone records to the chief of police to prove it, but he used Siri to do so. As Knable explains it, he has the New Albany Police Department’s tip line saved in his phone under “911/NAPD,” so when he instructed Siri to call 911, the virtual phone assistant called the wrong line.

By the time he hung up from the tip line, he had assessed the situation and helped the young child, who had been scared and screaming “fire” and "help,” said Knable, adding at that point he realized it wasn’t an emergency. He said he did not make claims of an alarm sounding.

Knable contends Bailey's focus on the anecdote is a distraction from the bigger conversation, merging the two centers and “making sure the taxpayers have the safest, most-efficient system out there.”

“I’m looking to get the chief of police, sheriff, mayor and commissioners to the table,” Knable said.

The fact is that throughout this entire 9-1-1 call center non-discussion, Bailey's professional integrity hasn't ever been questioned, not even once.

Rather, certain Republicans, joined by some like-minded independents and even a Democrat or two, are petitioning for a discussion of costs and potential savings.

Is this also a political position? Yes, just as much as Gahan's benumbed, rote insistence that past county government fiscal turpitude -- a habit of suicide by starvation pioneered not by the GOP but by old-school Strom Thurmondesque pretend Democrats like Ted Heavrin and Larry McAllister -- somehow forms an eternal excuse for the mayor to erect straw men and gather municipal power into a veneer salesman's idea of an unbearably vapid cult of personality.

Another day and another display of petty, time-wasting theatrics by Team Gahan's resident DemoDisneyDixiecrats.

Is this really the best that local government has to offer?

Previously: The devil's in the framing, and it's public safety versus cold hard cash in the discussion about merging city and county dispatch centers.

The devil's in the framing, and it's public safety versus cold hard cash in the discussion about merging city and county dispatch centers.

Let's take a quick glance at the calendar.

January 1 in 2020 falls on a Wednesday, meaning that the first city council meeting will take place on Monday, January 6, by which time an electoral comet is likely to have metaphorically struck the local political landscape, scattering the fee-range Nashosaurs and Triceratops Adams, and suggesting that dispatch center unity in the sense suggested by Billy Stewart will be only a matter of scheduling.

I'm not a fan of uni-gov in the broader sense, although my ears remain attentively perched. But it's quite likely that while not a game-changing issue in itself, most ordinary folks sense the merit in the idea of merging this function.

It's also worth noting that the mayor is "waving the bloody shirt" with regard to county government's iniquity. The phrase derives from the decades following the American Civil War.

In the American election campaigns in the 19th century, "waving the bloody shirt" was a phrase used to ridicule opposing politicians who made emotional calls to avenge the blood of the northern soldiers that died in the Civil War.

Since taking office in 2012, the nominally Democratic Gahan often has justified decisions, perhaps most famously the parks department split, on the basis of county (read: Republican-controlled) government's impoverishment-impelled duplicity. In the e-mail reply quoted below, Gahan once again levels this charge, the veracity of which continues to diminish with the passage of time.

Power, folks. Whether the big time or the small pond, politics is about who has power -- and who gets the money deriving from it. The problem for Gahan and his clique is that in this instance, county Republicans have a solid, common-sense argument based on public safety -- which the mayor has answered by talking about money.

Framed in this way, that's an argument Gahan ultimately will lose, probably sooner rather than later.

Floyd County Commissioner favor merging dispatch centers, by Chris Morris (Hanson's Random Ephemera Generator)

Mayor Gahan, however, not a fan

... Floyd County Commissioner Bill Stewart said it's time for both dispatch centers to be merged into one. He said following the recent school shooting in Florida, seconds can mean the difference between life and death.

“Surely we can do that for Floyd County,” Stewart said. “For county police to listen to city calls, they have to change their radio. Can't we put politics aside and get together to have one call center? I propose we do it this year.”

It looked like the merger was going to happen in 2011, but the New Albany City Council defeated the measure 4-4 on final reading. Then-mayor Doug England supported the measure. Current Mayor Jeff Gahan, who was a member of the city council in 2011, voted against it according to a News and Tribune story.

... Gahan's stance as mayor has not changed.

"Given the recent interest regarding these issues at the Statehouse, and Floyd County leadership’s history of not paying their bills and reneging on inter-local agreements, we are not interested in entering into a messy political arrangement with the county," he said in an email response. "Our current model has proven successful in protecting the citizens of New Albany and has the full support of our public safety command staff."