Cowardly lyin': "No legal or policy violations found yet after NAHA Taser comment" -- just the standard default everyday Team Gahan ethical and moral jaundice.

"Tawdry means cheap, shoddy, or tasteless. It can be used to describe almost anything from clothes to people to events or affairs."

Back here in New Gahania, it's yet another Magical Mystery Detour.

No legal or policy violations found yet after NAHA Taser comment, by Danielle Grady (News and Tribune)

NEW ALBANY — One month after a New Albany Housing Authority resident said he felt threatened by a comment the interim director made about him that the director says was originally meant as a joke, little has been done on the part of the agencies the resident complained to, two of which say they found no legal or policy violation.

When it comes to ethics on Jeff Gahan's watch, the already subterranean bar already was submerged before the flood waters came, as Brandon Brown is learning.

Brandon Brown, a six-year resident of NAHA, filed actions with the New Albany Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, the Indiana State Police, the New Albany Police Department and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development after NAHA Interim Director David Duggins instructed a New Albany police officer to shoot Brown with his stun gun on Jan. 22 after a NAHA board meeting that Brown taped with his cell phone.

As words go, "staged" and "stooge" are interchangeable as they pertain to potted apologies.

Duggins apologized to Brown for his comment later in an email, and told the News and Tribune that while it was insensitive, he meant no malice toward Brown.

A regular stand-up comic, that "interim" buldozer contractor of ours.

Duggins said he prefaced his comment by saying that next time when Brown filmed the meeting he should get his good side, and if he didn’t, the police officer should shoot Brown with his stun gun. Brown’s account differs. He says that Duggins asked him if Brown was on his side, and then said something that sounded like “since you like videotaping,” before he told the officer to shoot Brown with his stun gun.

I deeply appreciate the follow-up on the part of the News and Tribune, but once again, it must be asked whether anyone has asked for Gahan's viewpoint, even once. My guess: he'd hurriedly shunt the question to Irving Joshua.

Joshua said that personal problems have prevented him from scheduling a private, executive session among board members regarding the complaint, but that he plans to in the future.

First, he has to ask Duggins to provide him with a written summary of what happened, as well as one from Schneider.

Joshua said that he believes the board will have to do something about what Duggins said, although Joshua did not elaborate on what that could be.

Gahan probably would have us believe it's all about Joshua, who Gahan himself placed in the current position, meaning that the buck stops with Gahan and everyone knows it apart from Team Gahan itself, although it's been instructive to watch as the shadowy cronyist operator Joshua on loan to NAHA from redevelopment consistently flees the spotlight.

Then there's the police department.

The New Albany Police Department also has completed its review of the stun gun comment and its aftermath, prompted by the formal complaint made against its police officer, and has determined that no policy violations occurred, said New Albany Police Chief Todd Bailey in an email. No punitive actions were taken against Schneider either.

“I will say however it was a good training opportunity for officer Schneider as well as the rest of the department,” said Bailey.

See, Brandon? Your distress can be blithely explained away as a mere training exercise.

Of course, since Team Gahan first charted a course for constant evasion in this case, the news cycle has provided an augmented perspective. Jeff Gillenwater threads the needle with devastating precision.

When a public official and fellow Gahan crony issues a threat, police chief Todd Bailey accepts “it was just a joke” at face value and calls it a training opportunity for the officer who witnessed it. Likewise, the county prosecutor does nothing. When a teenager issues a threat online and Bailey and others agree it was a joke and no real harm was intended, they immediately arrest the teenager, charge him with a felony, and go on TV to proudly announce there will be no tolerance of threatening language, that anyone who engages in threats will be arrested and prosecuted. Their political posturing and hypocrisy leaves one young man intimidated and at risk of more with no recourse and another in jail and facing a lifetime stigma for behaving like a public official. New Albany justice, much more a matter of political connections than actual behavior.

The number of functionaries who have, in words or effect, gone on record as finding zero issues with Duggins' characteristically intemperate taser threat now includes Gahan, Joshua, Bailey, Dickey and prosecutor Keith Henderson ... and NAHA board members like Robison, Ginkins and Norwood ... and councilmen Coffey and McLaughlin, with Barksdale and Phipps both straining to look the other way.

With one exception, they're white males; most are proud members of the Floyd County Democratic Party. In short, they're supposedly  our best and brightest, although none care to fathom the sheer moral and ethical rottenness of Duggins in charge of feeding your pet hamster, much less the future of actual human beings fearing for their future.

It's political business as usual, and it's power-trip bullshit.

If you agree with me, don't forget to vote against each and every one of them when next you have the chance.

#FireGahan2019

Trump, Gahan (whatever): "Journalism wants the status quo more than the truth."

Amid the agitated slurping sound of beaks being wetted and the low moans of sated local Democratic Party grandees ... thanks to TS for the link.

Journalism wants the status quo more than the truth, by Allison Hantschel (First Draft)

Something an editor told me once, when we were digging into a story about public malfeasance:

“It is always worse than you think it is.”

At the time, the story we were in the middle of, I thought it was pretty bad.

“Always. It’s always worse.”

He was right. Every story’s an iceberg; for every single sharp thing you see there are a thousand others below the surface waiting to gouge holes in your boat.

I thought of that when I read this thread today, about Trump and Russia, though to be honest it could be about Trump and just about any other thing ...

BOOM

... Every story out now is the result of one or two or six people overcoming that just-keep-walking impulse and doing the damn dishes. Taking the fiction that makes it possible to go home at 5 and have a drink and exist in the world absolutely apart until every ugly machination on the part of the GOP is exposed and raw and of COURSE it’s all just too outrageous, that’s how things usually are under their skins. What made journos skeptical wasn’t reluctance to believe the breathtaking scope of Trump’s venality. What drove their skepticism was a sober assessment of the amount of work it would take to prove it, weighed against a desire to get away on the weekends.

When you get right down to it, journalism as an industry wanted the status quo more than it wanted the truth. That’s not a condemnation; all our systems are made up of people and people are what inertia eats. It makes it all the more laudable that there are journalists who are able to overcome the desire to sink into the couch for the next four years binge-watching Call the Midwife, because this is gonna get worse than we can even imagine.

It always does.

---

As an addendum, NAC has been unable to confirm whether New Albany Mayor Jeff M. Gahan or anyone working in the city's administration is under federal investigation or indictment for corruption, bribery or racketeering. It is standard policy of the U.S. Justice Department to refuse to confirm or deny the existence or non-existence of investigations or subjects of investigations. A similar policy exists at the F.B.I.

Is the investigation of Chloe Allen's crosswalk death still ongoing?

As we approach two months, I can find no further word as to the outcome of the ongoing investigation.

Readers, if any of you have a direct line to the Down Low Bunker, could you check for us?

In New Albany, as in St. Paul: "Finding the Political Will to Fix 'Four-Lane Death Roads.'"

ON THE AVENUES: On the crass exploitation and politicization of tragedy.

City Hall crassly exploits the death of a walker in order to brag about its achievements.

New Albany woman struck by vehicle dies of injuries (Otisco Ombudsman)

NEW ALBANY — An 83-year-old woman who was struck by a vehicle at Spring and Vincennes streets in New Albany on Friday afternoon has died of her injuries, New Albany police Chief Todd Bailey confirmed Sunday.

According to the Floyd County Combined Accident Reconstruction Team, Chloe Allen, 83, New Albany, was crossing Spring Street in the crosswalk shortly before 2 p.m. when she was struck by a 2013 Dodge Ram being driven by Terra Lawrence, 42, New Albany, who was turning left onto Spring Street from Vincennes Street.

Allen was transported to University of Louisville Hospital, where she later died.

Speed and alcohol are not believed to have contributed to the crash. The investigation is ongoing.

The newspaper finally finds itself a crusade. Are we blessed yet?

Looking at it another way, the newspaper's own lack of factual verification raises questions about the presumed nature of "innocent until proven guilty," which is rapidly jeopardizing my trust in the state of the newspaper.

In short, if the newspaper can't get the information it desires pertaining to Officer Humphrey, then what it has been printing in the absence of such verification must, by definition, be non-factual innuendo. It isn't clear to me how this is helping anyone or anything, but then again, the newspaper's forays into investigative journalism are about as rare hereabouts as a registered Democrat who actually voted for Barack Obama.

The newspaper is unhappy because its questions are not being answered? Maybe it should ask questions more often ... and not routinely accept the glib answers it gets in return. Is city (and county) government guilty of stonewalling, reticence and a serial unwillingness to proffer information unless it is pried away? Pretty much, although the time it has taken for the newspaper's editorial board to grasp this fact does nothing to strengthen the paywall's grip.

OUR OPINION: New Albany needs transparency from NAPD

Recent events involving a New Albany Police Department officer and the reassignment of the chief and assistant chief have raised questions about the state of the department.

Many of those questions remain unanswered, jeopardizing the public’s trust in the NAPD.

The city’s administration is doing a poor job of communicating with you, our readers, and it’s not from a lack of asking questions by the media — including this outlet.

NSP, DMB, SOL.

It's politics, you know.

(We need an investigation)

It's politics, you know.

(Let's let the state do it)

It's politics, you know.

(Can't be too careful with that Federal money)

It's Coffey tics, you know. Previously, there was this: Who dunnit? My money's on that copperhead over there.

And this.

Transparency? That's a fine idea. Found any yet?

Following is the official reporting. Sighhh.

State to get conflict-of-interest probe over New Albany home purchase; Gonder: Review gives impression of political motivation regarding councilwoman, by Daniel Suddeath (News and Tribune)

NEW ALBANY — On Tuesday, the New Albany Redevelopment Commission voted in favor of allowing the state to rule on whether the purchase of a home by a city council member’s niece would constitute a conflict-of-interest.

The issue revolves around the niece of Councilwoman Diane McCartin-Benedetti, who was a day away from closing on the purchase of a house at 315 E. 11th St. when the city administration froze the deal so it could be reviewed.

The house was refurbished through the $6.7 million federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program, which is managed at the state level by the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority, or IHCDA. Benedetti served as a nonvoting council liaison to an NSP board that was set up by former Mayor Doug England. She also was a member of the redevelopment commission while the project was being implemented.