We don't need no stinking meetings, as the GREEN MOUSE presents NAWBANY WEEK IN REVIEW for 17 April.

The good news is that Republican mayoral candidate Kevin Zurschmiede finally has a platform.

The bad news is that Rush Limbaugh wrote it yesterday -- and the election was five years ago. Off to Facebook we go:

K: I’ve been saying for several years that life has been so good for so many of us for so long that we take it for granted that it always will be good.

Guess what -- We have reached a lengthy blip of uncertainty lasting for several days, weeks now, turning into months soon. If we do not act now many of our treasured day to day activities will be gone for years to come and many may never return.

See thoughts from Rush yesterday

---

April 16, 2020

R: All right this cannot go on, folks. It cannot go on. Even Barry Diller now is calling this cataclysmic, and it is cataclysmic ... We’re at a point now where no matter how many people die from coronavirus, it’s not gonna equate to the damage done to the U.S. economy. 22 million people are not working ...

 ... It is hurting all of us. And it’s scary that there are still people who want to maintain this and have it get even worse. Literally scary. But as I have been saying — I’ve been overusing the word — this isn’t sustainable. It hasn’t been sustainable for a month. It has to change.

(T)here are people who want to continue this. Why?

Jeff Gahan defeated Zurschmiede in 2015 (I participated as a candidate as well and tallied more votes as an independent than Dan Coffey did four years later), and Gahan's giving it his best Winston Churchill pandemic impression.

Also getting $1 million from the state is New Albany. Mayor Jeff Gahan said that the city is currently focused entirely on the coronavirus pandemic, but that officials look forward to moving ahead when the time comes.

“We continue to encourage employees and contractors to wash their hands, practice social distancing, wear DIY masks and other Personal Protection Equipment when it is available, but we are very happy to learn we are the recipient of Community Crossings Grant for $1 million," Gahan said in a statement. "This important grant allows us to extend our road repair efforts and to be fully prepared once construction resumes. Roads are selected by need from our Paving and Road Status Inventory that ranks each road in New Albany by condition. This street ranking and selection list is required for the Community Crossings Grant.”

Inspiring, and they're words that make me want to run out and storm a beach -- masked and socially distant, of course. It's like General Patton said: "The object of campaign finance is not to die for your TIF zone, but to make some other mayor die for his."

The biggest local story of the week came from John Boyle at the Newsy 'Bune: New Albany City Council cancels meetings during outbreak.

“My interpretation, the council attorney’s interpretation and the city attorney’s interpretation was that we shouldn’t have gatherings of 10 or more people and that the only city business that should be taken care of had to relate directly to COVID-19,” (council president Bob) Caesar said of his decision to cancel the meetings. “We didn’t need to take care of anything else. The mayor’s office would take care of everything else.”

Caesar contended that the city’s finances, along with entities like the police and fire departments, are in “great shape.”

If you can't trust the city's most prolific sycophant, who can you trust? Fortunately there are dissenting voices.

(5th district councilman Josh) Turner contends that the council should be holding meetings digitally, utilizing tools like Zoom. Other governing bodies in Southern Indiana have taken advantage of such tools during the pandemic.

The New Albany City Council did hold a virtual meeting last month to pass five funding resolutions to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jeffersonville City Council and the Floyd County officials have held meetings that were broadcasts using those platforms. Even in New Albany, the redevelopment commission and board of public works are holding meetings via Zoom.

Maybe Caesar's reasoning is more, um, personal.

If meetings were to be held over Zoom or any other digital platform, Caesar said only those with certain technological capabilities and savvy would be able to participate. “We can’t have public hearing, because people can’t come into our building,” he said. “You can’t just have one for people with access to those devices. You have to have it for everybody.”

Dude's still on AOL dial-up, isn't he?

Certain situations, Caesar noted, would call for a meeting. If an essential entity in the city were to need immediate assistance to make it through the outbreak, he said the council would spring into action.

One hypothetical situation would be a food bank, for instance, needing food or money to serve their clients.

“We’ve got to do something about that, and we will do something about that,” he said. “We will act extremely fast to get something like that done.”

At least CeeSaw has used the shutdown to hone his stand-up routine. Maybe he'll entertain us on YouTube soon, or more likely utilizing the latest in black and white Pathe newsreel technology prior to the Roy Rogers double feature at the Bijou.

Speaking of political maladroits, they come in all party affiliations. By the way, Tennessee Trey Hollingsworth, whose net worth of $50 Million Dollars makes him the 7th wealthiest member of Congress (deliciously, just behind Nancy Pelosi), wants to buy a vowel, or a consonant -- aw, what the fuck, daddy, just buy the newspaper for scrap.

In an exclusive interview with IndyStar Wednesday, Hollingsworth declined to say his words were poorly chosen but indicated he was trying to make a more nuanced argument about the need for better planning as the White House, Congress and other elected officials make tough decisions going forward.

"I believe that I stood up and said on a radio show, (that) we are going to have to make tough decisions going forward ," Hollingsworth said, "and we owe a plan that acknowledges the reality that the risk of coronavirus will never be equal to zero and there are costs associated with this shutdown of our economy, real costs that Hoosiers and Americans are bearing.

"What I got back was Trey wants people to die. I never said that, and it's not true."

Hollingsworth spoke more starkly to WIBC on Tuesday, saying Americans have to go back to their way of life, and it's the lesser of two evils versus the number of people who might die from the coronavirus.

Now if you're excuse me, I have to go take a shower.

Dining on the poor, part one: "Meet Joseph Albert “Trey” Hollingsworth III, the biggest goober in Washington."

Dining on the poor, part two: Trey "Big Boy Pants" Hollingsworth reminds us that capital accumulation comes before YOUR life.

It's the morning after the Sherman Minton Bridge meeting, and Alka-Seltzer isn't helping Dear Leader's mood.

Sherman Minton Bridge leadership litmus test as Mark Seabrook stays for the entire meeting, while Jeff Gahan lasts seven whole minutes.

Sherman Minton Bridge leadership litmus test as Mark Seabrook stays for the entire meeting, while Jeff Gahan lasts seven whole minutes.

Ever since it was announced that repairs to the Sherman Minton Bridge might require its complete closure, or barring this drastic remedy at least a prolonged period of reduced access and heightened economic pain for New Albany, we've been waiting for Team Gahan to step up to the plate and lead.

Silly us.

At Thursday evening's "Six Great Ways to Suffer" community meeting at the Calumet Club, which began at 5:30 p.m., I arrived at 5:37 p.m. to find Dear Leader standing outside the venue's exterior door. Like most reasonable people, I assumed he was on his way inside.

But no; actually he was leaving. 

As more than one onlooker confirmed, evidently one glance of 125 persons milling around the third floor ballroom caused Gahan's agoraphobia to kick in with a vengeance, and he turned tail and skedaddled, terrified of an unscripted setting in an enclosed space amid uncontrollable people.

Probably there exists medication for this condition, maybe even marijuana-laced Rice Krispies Treats with a Kool-Aid chaser, although first the patient must concede to being ill. If it's too much for his insurance policy deductible, maybe the Genius of the Floodplain could donate some of Mr. Lanz's money to the Democrats, who in turn would give it back to Gahan for a scholarship prescription.

Meanwhile Mark Seabrook, Republican candidate for mayor who is about to be pilloried by the Fanged Adamites for poor health, arrived early and stood through the entire presentation.

Like I always say: Socialists for Seabrook in 2019.

As for the content of the proceedings, I'll leave that to another post. It should suffice to say that there'll be epochal pain accompanied by scant recognition of the very real possibility of epic small business tribulations.

At the end of the day, it comes down to this: there are no good choices, because this manner of clusterfucking is what happens in a society that has concluded the very best way to have "mobility options" is to compel people to drive everywhere for everything, generally with cars occupied by the driver alone.

But what, Gahan worry?

After all, it's not like HE'S going to be the mayor when the hammer falls in 2021.

Jeff Gahan redefines the Human Rights Commission as an exciting new captive mayoral art project.

This post was edited on September 7 to correct an unfair bias against HRC appointee Cliff Staten. For the explanation, go here.

Mayor Jeff Gahan has released the winning entry in his Human Rights Commission Mayoral Art Project, which posed the question: Can you take this strange idea ...

... and make it palatable to Democratic Party voters?

And the winner is: JEFF GAHAN!

Here is the mayor's winning entry.

To recap:

Gahan belatedly rediscovers misplaced "pride," appoints Warren Harding Nash to the long lost Human Rights Commission, and disappears back into the bunker.

Predictably paranoiac and suitably suspicious, and unable to find any symbolic minorities to co-opt with Human Rights Commission seats, Gahan appointed two old straight white males tied to the local Democratic hierarchy, so no, he's not exactly artistic, our Jeffrey.

The bunker-bound mayor seeks only to control the HRC, and we need to understand that assigning political cronies like Nash to an HRC kept inert on blocks by Gahan himself over a period of YEARS reflects absolutely no commitment to human rights.

Gahan barely understands the concept, much less cares to pursue it. Rather, it's about appointing loyal Democratic sycophants to keep CONTROL over the apparatus -- in short, to try to ensure the HRC remains dormant.

The last thing Gahan wants is an autonomous, principled and active HRC, because the first order of business for an autonomous, principled and active HRC would be investigating Gahan's record in office.

The good news? It's a malfunction that we can repair, very soon.

#FireGahan2019
#FlushTheClique
#CleanSweep2019
#GetOutYourPitchforks
#VacantGahanValues

Loss leader? Adam wrote a press release about himself as standard bearer for the Democrats.

Film at 11.

According to testimony from a peanut gallery populated by his sycophants, party chairman Adam Dickey is doing all he can. He washes jockstraps, sweeps the floors, sells popcorn, write self-laudatory press releases ... and still finds time to guide local Democrats through a series of catastrophic losses (in elections) and own-goals (in support of Emperor Gahan's accumulative agenda).

ON THE AVENUES: A luxury-obsessed Jeff Gahan has packed a board and now seeks to break the New Albany Housing Authority. Can we impeach him yet?

ON THE AVENUES: Jeff Gahan and Adam Dickey are Trumping the Donald when it comes to breathtaking moral turpitude. Have they no shame?

The fact that Gahan hasn't yet annexed the party outright (wouldn't the famously pliant Bob "Judas" Norwood look just comfy as party chair?) indicates one of two possibilities: First, that Gahan already is receiving all the deep back rubs necessary from Dickey as groveling masseuse, or conversely, the party's so completely irrelevant to Gahan's ongoing power grabs that it no longer matters.

Or both.

Hail to the thief?

Floyd Co. Democratic Party Announces Candidate Filings

Democratic Central Committee to Reorganize Saturday, March 4th

NEW ALBANY, March 1, 2017 – The Floyd County Democratic Party has announced candidate filings for their Central Committee reorganization set for Saturday, March 4th. Under party rules, individuals had until 10:00 a.m. on February 22nd to file for one of four officer positions – chair, vice chair, secretary and treasurer. The candidates for each position are as follows:

Chair: Adam T. Dickey
Vice Chair: Sarah Bonifer
Secretary: Anthony Toran
Treasurer: Janey Willman

The reorganization meeting occurs once every four years in accordance with party rules. The meeting will be held at:

Floyd Co. Democratic Party
Reorganization Meeting
March 4th, 2017
10:00 a.m.
New Albany Voiture #1250 Veterans Club
221 Albany Street
New Albany, Indiana 47150

The caucus is open to all Democrats with each of the party’s 120 precinct committee persons eligible to cast a vote in the caucus. Following the election, the committee will conduct a regular business meeting with agenda items including an update on activist activities, party events, and related operations.

For more information on the meeting or related questions, individuals can contact Democratic Party Headquarters at 812-725-2020 or email Chair Adam Dickey at atdickey@gmail.com.

Precinct, trust, communicate ... three strikes and local Democrats are "out," though free to continue pursuing a GOP-style public housing power grab.

Am I bugging you?

The Nation and Elle, right there on the front lines ... and back here in Floyd County, we have Jeff Gahan and Adam Dickey, doing the work of good Republicans, while perpetuating the same old monetization-based exclusion of ideas that cost Democrats last fall's election in the first place.

Let's summarize 2017 with a Gahan and Floyd Democratic Party meme and a few essential links.

There's this:

Why We Support Keith Ellison for DNC Chair (The Nation)

He will address the party’s—and the nation’s—crisis by aligning Democrats more closely with movements for social and economic justice.

 ... The Nation enthusiastically endorses Ellison in the contest to lead a DNC that must repurpose itself in order to derail Trump, while at the same time speaking to young voters who won’t settle for anything less than an aggressively progressive opposition party. The job of DNC chair is to build a party that can win elections on every ballot line and in every state. But in an age when party loyalties are weakening, and when movements matter more to tens of millions of Americans than partisan labels, Ellison is ready to build an activist party. In fact, the high-energy congressman (who says he’ll quit his House seat if he wins the DNC post) is already doing that: calling for mass rallies to oppose Trump’s Muslim ban, taking part in those rallies, and then appearing on the Sunday-morning talk shows to rip discriminatory policies as un-American ...

 ... What distinguishes Keith Ellison is his experience as a progressive who has won and won and won again—and who knows that Democrats can turn red states blue by transforming their party into a movement.

And this:

Rep. Keith Ellison on What the Democratic Party Needs to do Right Now, by Melissa Harris-Perry

Three little words, one big objective.

 ... It is hard to imagine an entity in American politics more irrelevant right now than the Democratic Party. This is why the decision that the 447-member body of the Democratic National Committee will make when it meets in Atlanta on February 25to choose its next national party leader is crucial. Officially it is a crowded field of contenders, but in reality a two-man race. One frontrunner is former Obama Labor Secretary Tom Perez who earned the backing of Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday. Perez is well known and well liked among the existing party leaders. He is a known quantity likely to pursue a strategy very similar to the status quo.

The other front running candidate is Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota. Representative Ellison was elected to the 5th district of Minnesota in 2006. Minnesota's 5th district includes Minneapolis and its suburbs, where immigration, growing racial diversity, class identity, and concerns about economic security mirror those animating current national anxieties. Ellison was the first Muslim and the first African American from the state of Minnesota elected to the U.S. Congress. If he is chosen to lead the DNC, it will likely represent a substantial change in direction for the national party.

As of Tuesday's epic Democratic fail, Gahan's a bigger fish in a smaller pond -- and Dickey's looking for a food taster.

I devoted precious coffee time on Sunday morning to surveying the social media feeds of local political officeholders of the Democratic persuasion. Most are on holiday, communications-wise, and have been for a while, but you never know.

While respectful of their positions as inhabitants of a severely listing ship, one that probably needs scuttling to qualify for salvage, it remains that hard times like these are those most in need of something approximating leadership from what we've always been taught is one of two major political parties in America.

So far, not much of this quality is on display, although maybe conditions will change once the shock wears off, assuming it ever does.

Happily, 3rd district councilman Greg Phipps has been quite prominent on social media since Tuesday's reeking debacle. However, much of what I've seen emanating from him is long on bombastic agitprop and short on road maps toward a coping mechanism, as with this meme:

However, perhaps this rumination begs a larger question: If the Democratic Party is to be considered the "legitimate" local political opposition to Trumpism, loyal or otherwise, then whose hand is on the damned wheel?

At times like this, aren't we supposed to look to the calm, measured wisdom of elder statesmen-and-women?

Wait, there's a statement coming through from the down-low ether ...

Never mind.

Are there any elder states-persons still aboard the wreck? Politically, Chuck Freiberger is damaged goods, having now lost three of his past four campaigns (the most recent for County Commissioner, and twice previously to Ron Grooms for State Senate).

Freiberger might have been considering another race for state office, but preferably from a position of electoral strength, and to say the least, this no longer is the case.

In a post at Fb, Freiberger thanked those who've supported him during 28 years in elected office, and there's the rub. He'd have commenced a career in politics at the age of 26 or 27; today, party chairman Adam Dickey's bench is thin and the farm system barren.

It has long been rumored that Jeff Gahan also is desirous of the State Senate seat held by Grooms, who persistently has been rumored to favor retirement, with former Floyd County Commissioner Steve Bush waiting in the wings as a formidable candidate with power bases in both Clark and Floyd Counties.

And Gahan?

Megalomania aside, the mayor's in a bit of a pickle. With C. Pralle Erni excepted, New Albany usually doesn't reward those seeking three consecutive mayoral terms, though Bob Real and Doug England managed it non-consecutively. I still think Gahan will go for Grooms' seat in 2018, because if he loses, there'd still be time for Plan B in terms of the mayor's office in 2019, though he'll likely receive a stiff primary challenge in the spring as well as a stronger Republican opponent than ever before if he makes it through to fall.

Given its steady hemorrhaging in the city, what's to come for the Floyd County Democratic Party without major surgery beginning right now?

In lieu of Dickey's ongoing unfitness to keep his job, are we to consider Gahan as the de facto "leader" of the FCDP? After all, Gahan is the highest-ranking local office holder in the party, and with Freiberger's imminent departure and Dan Coffey's declaration of independence earlier this year, he's now the one with the most experience (two city council terms preceding his tenure as mayor).

Will Gahan take this opportunity to cashier Dickey, whose status has been downgraded to junk bond, and seize the levers for his own Anchor the Mud Flats Movement?

Perhaps the reason why we're hearing nothing but dead air from the Democrats is their seclusion deep in the bunker, behind those perennially favored closed backroom doors, sharpening stilettos for prospective duty.

Bernie Sanders: It looks as if an Independent is the current leader of a rudderless Democratic Party.

ON THE AVENUES: Kind-a full-a you know what, but now we're going to find out whether Jeff Gahan has any cattle under his hat.

ON THE AVENUES: Don't be a Dickey, local Democrats. The verdict is in, and it's time for a change.

Nash hits target's very center: New Albany's lack of bicycle planning is "unconscionable."

Matt Nash is being all subversive again, and he's right. "Unconscionable" covers a lot of ground in this context, doesn't it?

It defines John Rosenbarger's entire wasted, self-serving career in quaint small-town job protection, masquerading as "planning.".

It references the proclivity of elected officials, both in City Hall and on the council, to fall back on "quality of life" as a mantra without once explaining what the words actually mean, or how they might be extended to cover the whole of the city, and not merely those areas targeted for extravagant expenditures.

It describes the currently surreal situation, wherein city officials will ferociously swear fidelity to bicycles, walkers, two-way streets and street grid revolution, so long as they do so privately -- never aloud, never from a position of leadership in front of this topic, as opposed to cowering behind it. This is the part that utterly eludes me. Why the consistent secrecy, the non-transparency, the cloak-and-dagger coded spy novel of a decision-making process?

Private reassurances are one thing. Leadership is another very different quality, and it's presently absent.

Mayor Gahan: If you really believe in these ideas ... if it's really you "leading" from the back rooms and darkened corridors ... then damn it, get out in front and lead. You ... not underlings and hired hands and attorneys and acolytes.

Not them. You!

NASH: Where are our bike lanes?

... The people that we have elected to run our city haven’t done enough to provide the citizens with the quality of life that we deserve. They spend millions on asphalt for cars to get from one place to another as fast as they can and forget about alternatives. Spending $20 million on recreational facilities and then not providing a way to get there besides an automobile is unconscionable.

We have wasted too many years and too much money while other cities have sped ahead of us when it comes to building bike lanes. We could have been building a healthier community all these years while we were updating our infrastructure, but our leaders have not had the foresight. We should have had a master plan years ago that included connecting high traffic roadways to recreational amnesties and local attractions. Maybe one day we will learn, but I’m not too optimistic.

First, we need to want to have ideas. Then ...

Think about New Albany's leadership caste.

Think about where the leadership caste gets its information, and how it exercises "leadership."

Think about how any number of cities in New Albany's position might benefit from being a pro-active laboratory of change (if it's been broken for decades, then why not fix it?), and by thinking outside of the stultifying, traditionalist, limiting boxes that invariably yield white bread, by-the-numbers policies and designs for expenditures such as Bicentennial Park and a potential (unnecessary) farmers market "expansion."

Think about how fresh-think always seems to subjugated to old-think.

Think about how our best and brightest generally seek their futures elsewhere.

Think again about New Albany's leadership caste, and if you're still thinking, and haven't yet decided that Morose Hour might as well begin at 6:30 a.m. on a Tuesday, then read this article ... and think about what might be ... with some thought.

9 Ideas That Can Change Everything We Think About Cities, by Carina Kolodny and Ashley Woods (The Huffington Post)

 ... The race is on for cities around the globe to meet the needs of a rising population amid a changing climate and a shifting technological landscape. The cities of the future will have to balance high-tech advances with sustainable living. Here are nine ways they can do that ...

Southern Indiana same-sex marriage suit a suitable counterpoint to Pence's Brown Suits.

Nice phrase, this: "v. Pence," with a certain poetic justice to it. The fact that Southern Indiana couples are taking the lead is even more delicious, given we just had to endure the governor's prattling to the suited pre-oligarchy "leadership" cadres.

TAKING THE FIGHT FOR MARRIAGE EQUALITY TO THE HOOSIER STATE, by Joe Dunman (L. Joe Dunman, Attorney at Law)

Today, four same-sex couples from Indiana filed suit in federal court against the Governor of their state, challenging its discriminatory marriage laws which prevent them from getting married or from being recognized as already validly married. The suit has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana.

The case will be called Love, et al. v. Pence.

"Under Stemler’s watch, GLI’s demise accelerated, apparently without the board exercising any sort of oversight."

Here's a disclaimer: I probably care more for the health and well being of AB InBev's board of directors than the institutional disposition of Greater Louisville Inc, which to me is little more than another collection of clueless suits who should be wearing striped garb and breaking rocks somewhere for the public's fun and profit, rather than pillaging for their own.

Having divulged this shocking truth, Terry Boyd's assessment of GLI's leadership void makes for unintentionally hilarious reading.

Terry Boyd: Who will lead Greater Louisville Inc.?, by Terry Boyd (Insider Louisville)

Nature abhors a vacuum, and for the moment, Louisville has a stunning leadership vacuum.

Greater Louisville Inc. president and CEO Craig Richard has been on indefinite leave for more than two weeks.

Before there was a public confirmation of his absence, our sources tell us Richard had kept a peculiarly low profile for the leader of the city’s economic development effort. In the last three years, GLI’s finances and standing have declined precipitously to the point sources tell us his successor inherits a crisis situation ...

Boyd subsequently surveys the list of possible kingpins, and provides this rollicking, all-purpose punch line:

... Kerry Stemler, the current GLI chairman. We nominate him under the Colin Powell rule of “you broke it, you own it.” Under Stemler’s watch, GLI’s demise accelerated, apparently without the board exercising any sort of oversight.

Ah, yes. The bridge giver. Is Alcatraz still accepting new clients?

Floyd famine fetishists cheer as fiscal starvation advocate presumably appointed to county parks board.

The URL is the same, but the web site's content has changed to match new realities.

Last week, the Green Mouse was told that there'd been an appointment to the new stand-alone Floyd County Park Board: None other than Ted Heavrin, recently ousted county council member.

Hit it, Slash.

If this rumor is true, Heavrin will be the only parks board member with his own island ...

 ... as well as a long-standing, cherished plan to reform Community Park's scandalously wasted space.

Before filing this notice under "Fox, Meet Chicken Coop," enjoy the board's statement on leadership.

PARKS LEADERSHIP

With the recent abolishment of the New Albany Floyd County Department of Parks and Recreation separated into two entities a newly appointed Floyd County Park Board will be appointed in 2013. The appointments will be acquired through the County Commissioners, Council and Circuit Judge. We will inform you of these appointments in 2013.

http://www.nafcparks.org/