A mask resolution remains useless BUT our city council is showing signs of a pulse.

Our 2023 municipal election season kicked off on Thursday night with a city council meeting, where the NA Confidential Leadership Axiom was tested in abstentia: Spare the Rod, Spoil the Councilman.

In short, everyone agreed to agree on a useless measure, while at least a few of those agreeing indicated that they'd agree to make it more substantive.

Okay, point taken.

It was mostly ridiculous theater, but points will be awarded for ... for ... well, I honestly don't know, but a pandemic is important, and maybe they'll yet get it right through the haze of partisan politics.

New Albany Mask Measure Stops Short Of Mandate, by John Boyle (WFPL)

Members of the New Albany City Council unanimously approved a resolution that “recommends and strongly encourages” the city’s citizens to wear face masks as coronavirus cases continue to increase across the country.

The resolution approved Thursday evening is not a mandate, meaning people are not required to wear masks. There are also no penalties for those who do not comply with the recommendation.

A fact-filled letter to the city council supporting a mask ordinance, authored by Mrs. Kate Caufield.

We've been talking about this for the last two days. Doing so by no means compromises my sabbatical; after all, the topic is health, medical science and public safety.

Politics is the seasoning, not the main course.

Pandemically speaking, a mask ordinance is NECESSARY in NA, rather than a non-binding resolution. Democrats can do it, if they choose.

Our position on last weekend's proms, COVID, and YOUR malignant narcissism.

Typically toothless city council mask resolution proves that even a pandemic can't compel New Albany’s Democrats to actually GOVERN.

Following is a letter written to city council members yesterday by Kate Caufield.

---

Good afternoon, New Albany city council members!

I'm writing today to urge you to adopt a mask ordinance for the City of New Albany, when indoors or in areas where social distancing cannot be observed.

We are in a pandemic.

There are some things we know for sure about COVID-19, regardless of our personal views as to the politics of a virus (viruses aren't political and don't much care whether you attribute their existence to US politics or not, and are just happy to have a host.) We know that there are several risk factors that cause citizens to become infected more easily, more severely, and with higher mortality rates than others.

These risk factors include:

• Age
• Obesity
• Heart Conditions
• Kidney Conditions
• Type 2 Diabetes
• COPD
• Anyone immuno-compromised (cancer, etc)
• Smoking
• Asthma
• Type 1 Diabetes
• Autoimmune disorders

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/need-extra-precautions/people-with-medical-conditions.html

There are many people that don't believe they are at increased risk, or that the higher risk only includes other people, but not them.

The truth is, those most at risk of the worst effects of COVID-19 aren't a small percentage of our city's residents.

34.8% of New Albanians are over 50. 
https://www.towncharts.com/Indiana/Demographics/New-Albany-city-IN-Demographics-data.html

31.4% of Hoosiers are obese, making us the 8th most obese state in the nation. https://www.newsandtribune.com/news/clark_county/indiana-s-obesity-ranking-is-8th-among-50-states/article_4eda5a8a-c816-5ca7-ba84-396cd34a2407.html

12.9% of Hoosiers have a diabetes diagnosis. 
http://main.diabetes.org/dorg/PDFs/Advocacy/burden-of-diabetes/indiana.pdf

35.2% of adults in Indiana have high blood pressure. 
https://thestacker.com/stories/4150/states-populations-most-vulnerable-covid-19

7% of the US population suffers from some autoimmune disorder. https://www.gene.com/stories/autoimmune-disease-101

21.8% of Hoosiers smoke. 
https://truthinitiative.org/research-resources/smoking-region/tobacco-use-indiana-2019

10% of Hoosiers have asthma.
https://www.cdc.gov/asthma/most_recent_data_states.htm

While I can't extrapolate the true percentage of Americans, Hoosiers, or New Albanians who are at risk, it is not a small amount and at the most cursory of glances is 30% plus.

30%+ plus of New Albanians are high risk for COVID-19.

Because of this, I am asking that we come together as a city and show empathy, compassion, and goodwill towards each other, by wearing a mask. I had certainly hoped that we could do so on our own. However, a walk through the grocery store, hardware store, or department store shows that selfishness abounds. 

Indeed, this past weekend, parents organized a social event for their children that brought in 160+ teenagers without masks and without social distancing, and with no regard to others' health- not to mention those of their families who may fall into that 30% plus with an increased risk from the virus.

Are masks effective in helping prevent COVID-19? The answer is YES. Please see this study from the University of California at San Francisco. This article provides links to several studies: https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/06/417906/still-confused-about-masks-heres-science-behind-how-face-masks-prevent

If a western institute of learning isn't worth your perusal, please consider this from the Mayo Clinic. MASKS ARE EFFECTIVE. 
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/coronavirus-mask/art-20485449

In closing, I've provided evidence that the risk for New Albany residents is substantially higher than it appears, due to the enhanced risk factors above. 

Additionally, I've also provided evidence that masks DO WORK in the fight against COVID. Please do the right thing -- not the selfish or political thing, the RIGHT thing -- and pass a mandatory mask mandate for New Albany when one is inside or cannot social distance outside.

There's nothing wrong with adding language that calls for review at each City Council meeting, either, as we learn more.

Thank you.

Kate Caufield

Pandemically speaking, a mask ordinance is NECESSARY in NA, rather than a non-binding resolution. Democrats can do it, if they choose.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a public health issue, but because "public" means all of us and not merely some, the pandemic's ramifications affect the entire community.

Inevitably, those measures required to deal with a public health crisis of this magnitude must emanate from government as the only conceivable arbiter of the maximum protection for all citizens, not just some.

Yes, I know; public health has become political during the pandemic.

Of course it has. 

Politics is the art and practice of defining power, accumulating power and distributing power. This power is required to make sense of coordinated responses to the pandemic, and we have seen a variety of examples as how it is to be used, or not used, in this escalating situation.

There is a consensus among those trained to consider such matters that masks, while imperfect, are one simple way of restricting the transmission of the coronavirus, along with proper hygiene and social distancing.

Is simple persuasion enough to increase the proportion of purported adults wearing masks, or is something more required?

Unfortunately, no, not alone, although persuasion ultimately is best.

It is my position that New Albany's civic power structure -- ideally bipartisan, but we'll take progress any way we can -- must extract political capital from its seldom-opened wallet and spend it now, when it matters most, in an effort to mandate what simple persuasion doesn't seem to be achieving.

Democrats control the executive and legislative branches of government in New Albany, with a mayor and five council persons. That's a veto-proof majority. Democratic party power in the city is at its highest level in my lifetime.

From the redevelopment commission down to the newest employee at the street department, the vast majority of appointments and sinecures have been the result of Democratic Party patronage. None of the elected officials will be seeking re-election until 2023, and the mayor's success last year in achieving a third consecutive term while increasing his margin of victory gives him a level of power that approaches the zenith of what's ever been witnessed in this city.

Isn't it time to use some of this power?

If this power isn't to be deployed as a means of alleviating risk even to a small degree during the public health crisis of an unprecedented pandemic, when exactly is the right time to consider deploying it?

Concurrently, resolutions are piffle. Anything is better than nothing, and in our form of municipal governance, city council resolutions count for nothing, perhaps even less than nothing.

They're mere statements of intent, required here and there for legal reasons, but otherwise toothless. The coronavirus can be counted upon not to read whatever toothless resolutions this or any other city council authors.

Democrats -- c'mon, really? In political terms, this is a gift. It cannot be about waiting on a Republican governor to mandate masks statewide. It needs to be about illustrating what must be done statewide, doing it locally, and making a head start in our own city.

You have the council votes. Wait ... you DO have the council votes, don't you?

Please tell me that the Democratic Party is united on the topic of a rational, sensible response to a public health crisis, especially when the irrational, insensible response by the Trumpians is final verification of the GOP's fondness for death cults.

Talk of a resolution has been an understandable trial balloon, and a reconnoitering of the perimeter. Good work. Now ditch it, and let's get the ordinance we need for the problem we have -- and yes --  undertake to enforce it.

Even if the enforcement is ineffectual, when it comes to a pandemic something is better than nothing in terms of a response. You can do this. Really.

Here's an article from today's IndyStar, detailing the ways we're losing ground to the coronavirus statewide.

 ... One interim measure many public health experts would like to see is a statewide mask mandate.

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Four counties, including Marion, and two cities already have put such a measure in place. Increasingly evidence has shown that masks may help prevent the spread of the virus, just as data once attested to the wisdom of wearing a seat belt.

Many other states, including some led by Republican governors, already have taken this step. Two weeks ago Holcomb said he believed that Hoosiers would do the right thing, so rather than mandating masks, he unveiled a public service awareness campaign #MaskUpHoosiers, which encourages them to do so.

But many public health experts say they support a stronger message.

“A lot of times these public health mandates are needed,” said Shandy Dearth, director of the undergraduate epidemiology program at Indiana University’s Fairbanks School of Public Health. “Now is really the time to take more public health action to keep those numbers lower so we don’t have a strain on the public health system.”

Typically toothless city council mask resolution proves that even a pandemic can't compel New Albany’s Democrats to actually GOVERN.

Local Democrats have adhered to the Warren Nash Dictum for the past half-century. It goes like this: "Talk like a liberal, perform like a conservative."

Vote slated on resolution requesting use of face coverings in public (Suddeath; N&T)

The assumption, which to my knowledge has yet to be proven wrong, is that any genuine left/liberal-minded person in New Albany will be content with mere words, not action, and still vote Democratic; meanwhile, the Strom Thurmond Democrats -- still far too much of a thing here -- will vote Democratic for many of the city offices while happily supporting Republicans higher up the ticket.

It's just that simple.

Resolutions are always meaningless; to float one during a public health crisis, declare victory and walk away is, well, disgusting.

What's worse, everyone involves knows it, and yet they gaze at the teleprompter, play their parts, mouth their lines without a trace of conviction, and look forward to the redevelopment commission meetings because the real business of decision-making is conducted by an appointed board.

All right, self-styled progressives. Now we can kick back and wait for Republicans at the state level to take the proper response to the pandemic; we might start trying locally, but our Democrats can't be bothered to govern.

Sorry, love you guys in an ideological sense, but you're prepared to continue rewarding local Democrats for doing nothing, even during a pandemic.

Why can't you see this?

City council unanimously approves Sherman Minton Bridge resolution as Team Gahan huddles in the bunker.

I'm not going to suggest that the politicization of New Albany's city council is at a steroidal fever pitch in the run up to Election 2019 ... although during roll call last evening, all four Democrats abstained -- then demanded more information.

My coverage of council's Sherman Minton Bridge irresolution is at The Aggregate News.

Council Approves Resolution on Sherman Minton Bridge, by Roger Baylor at The Aggregate News

As baseball hero Yogi Berra is alleged to have opined, Thursday evening’s meeting of the Common Council of the City of New Albany was an instance of déjà vu all over again. To understand the transportation trauma being addressed at the meeting, one must revisit recent history ...

Hello darkness, my old friend: Is David Barksdale yet again the council's swing vote on Gahan's Colonial Manor power play?

"Shades of the Reisz Mahal," said the spider to the fly.

The Green Mouse has been told that occasional Republican councilman David Barksdale, who has voted with City Hall almost as often as council's Rubber Stamp Quartet of Democrats, yet again looks like the swing vote; the Mouse's abacus shows the Democratic foursome in favor, with two Republicans and two Independents opposed.

Of course we're referring to Thursday evening's resolution to approve the Redevelopment Commission's use of the city's TIF One Platinum card to purchase the moribund Colonial Manor shopping center from absentee owners.

ON THE AVENUES: Amid Deaf Gahan's "victory" over grassroots activists at Colonial Manor, the toxic paranoia is no less rancid.

At last week's Redevelopment fix-fest, council president Blair asked for documentation of the city's current TIF zone status. It runs for quite a few pages, and can be viewed here: CCPackets-041819

Here's the resolution. The bracketed passage explains why this measure even appears before council, and isn't just another backroom deal.

And this statement by redevelopment director Staten is meant to allay fears that the crazily rushed Colonial Manor deal isn't, well, just another backroom deal.

Is a construction date of 1965 historic enough for Barksdale's fetish? Will he fall into Dear Leader's bed/web/thrall as before? Or is it time to Make Spines Great Again (MSGA)?

Belated recognition to city council for its hate crimes resolution.

Someday someone will write an entertaining History of New Albany Common Council Non-Binding Resolutions, in which a panel of experts will seek to unravel the reasoning behind CM Scott Blair's yes/no votes, as opposed to principled abstentions, on such resolutions.

I've never been able to detect a pattern, but then again, I haven't attended a meeting for a while, and maybe a new paradigm has occurred. Insofar as the council's recent hate crimes resolution is concerned, it's wonderful and bipartisan.

Thumbs up.

At the same time, am I the only observer puzzled by Deaf Gahan's willingness to allow a Republican to take credit for opposing hate crimes? Perhaps Hizzoner hasn't noticed any of the swastikas -- or the homeless people, or the opioid epidemic. There's bound to be a demented twist.

By the way, the Green Mouse informs us that Blair will be the next council president come 2019, this being (p)art of the deal securing his vote for Al Knable in 2018. But whose bidding will David Barksdale slavishly spin this time around? Only the shadow knows, and I may be compelled to attend that first January meeting, if only to drain a flask.

New Albany passes hate crimes resolution, by Chris Morris (Biblioteca de Tom May)

NEW ALBANY — Indiana is one of five states in the country without a hate crimes law. Al Knable said it's time for that to change.

Knable, president of the New Albany City Council, drafted a resolution recently supporting Gov. Eric Holcomb's push for the Indiana General Assembly to pass a hate crimes bill next session. The city council unanimously passed the non-binding resolution 9-0 earlier this month and Mayor Jeff Gahan was expected to sign it before it was sent off to the governor's office.

"The governor pushed for that last year and it failed. It didn't get much traction," Knable said. "The governor is still making this a key piece of his legislative agenda in 2019. It's been on my radar for several years."

Holcomb said at the the One Southern Indiana's Governor's Luncheon event that a hate crimes bill was "critically important" ...

Curbside Solutions: NA may or may not have a "parking problem," but this looks like a "parking space" ordinance of some sort.

Up for consideration at next Thursday's city council meeting is G-17-09, An Ordinance Amending City Ordinance §72.01. 3rd district councilman Greg Phipps is introducing it.

The amended passage:

§72.01 OWNER'S RESPONSIBILITY FOR ILLEGAL PARKING

Amended Version to Include

No person shall knowingly allow, permit or suffer any vehicle registered in his or her name to stand or park or occupy more than one designated and marked parking space in any street in the city in violation of any ordinances of the city relating to the standing or parking of vehicles.

In the absence of information from my council member, and given that the amended version has added the words "designated and marked," I'm assuming this revision addresses the painting of curbside parking spaces along those streets included in the Downtown Grid Modernization Project.

And, as such, I'm guessing the measure is intended to provide grounds for enforcement against bad actors owners of vehicles like this one.

If so ... cool.

Our City Council Thursday: Budgets, littering, furnishing and futility -- thank Jeeebus for bourbon.

“Useless laws weaken necessary laws.”
-- Montesquieu

At last evening's surreal and occasionally disjointed city council meeting, we learned that Mayor Jeff Gahan has in fact signed the beefed-up anti-littering ordinance passed by the body earlier this summer.

On Thursday night, CM Bob Caesar was to have introduced a corollary revision of ordinances pertaining to littering, this time focusing on the alley dumping and tree-cutting waste that some believe to be a province of Eco-Tech's garbage collection contract, and others the street department's daily job.

Caesar didn't attend, but the ordinance was introduced and approved on 1st and 2nd readings, now to go back into committee at the stated request of the city's single highest paid employee, corporate attorney Shane Gibson, who dominated the proceedings in the continued absence of the mayor.

My uninformed guess is that Gahan's annoyance with the previous littering ordinance as being a presumed "victory" for the GOP's councilman Al Knable was mollified by further (and in this instance proper) back channel discussion, with the result being the "balancing" ordinance of Caesar's, allowing everyone to -- dare we suggest it -- cooperate in crafting a useful and far more importantly enforceable clean-up measure.

We've been conditioned to eschew hope, although perhaps this time will be different. Of course, absolutely none of it addresses underlying socio-economic conditions that always preface the perceptions and practice of "littering," but action on this front would be far too much to hope for.

The city's 2018 budget and salary proposals were approved on 1st and 2nd readings with little discussion apart from independent (read: thoroughly isolated) councilman Scott Blair's insistence that a $500K line item for furnishings in a new city hall, as yet still on the adaptive reuse drawing board, was reason enough to amend the budget by stipulating that Gahan's plans for the governmental transfer to the Reisz building must come before council for review.

CM Dan Coffey, apparently satisfied that his recent assaults on Knable's littering ordinance had been sufficient to repay the mayor for a "historic preservation" facade grant awarded to his favored Knights of Columbus, unexpectedly joined Blair in supporting the amendment.

With Caesar absent and the council's GOP bloc once again failing to coalesce as a unit, the amendment was defeated by a 4-4 vote (ties don't count, folks).

Interestingly, Republican council member David Barksdale sided with City Hall in this vote, indicating that historic preservation is a more pressing concern to him than public vetting of expenditures.

Straight up: The Reisz-Turned-City Hall transaction is a decent enough idea, but still murky enough to merit scrutiny. It includes two other "historic preservation" building improvements, embracing both Coffey's KoC payback and the luring of the Indiana Landmarks office to New Albany.

In addition, there is an obvious element of crony corporate welfare, in that the Schmitt family finally will be paid reasonable money for a building they've plainly neglected for too long.

Vacating the current City County Building also is a middle finger to the GOP-dominated county; Gahan will be praised for his progressive commitment to adaptive reuse, while the other arm of government remains stuck in a homely, outdated structure that in a parallel universe might have been Stasi headquarters in an East German provincial city.

Consequently, Blair was absolutely correct in pressing the amendment point, because last evening's budget vote might well have been the last chance for council to wield a seeming technicality of future furnishings in order to reclaim a semblance of control over mayoral planning and spending prerogatives currently being almost entirely exercised without the legislative branch's participation.

Barksdale apparently was more interested in historic preservation sans qualifiers, and that's hardly a surprise, but shouldn't council have some say in this, too?

As we approach the end of Gahan Year Six, the council's power balance remains Democratic, though just barely. The mayor has shown no compunction in bedding down with Coffey, the politically promiscuous former Democrat turned conservative culture warrior, and a steady stream of well-placed, cash-stuffed envelopes to the Wizard of Westside have provided the fifth vote when necessary, as well as periodic theatrical obstructions and consistent comic relief.

Monetization or principle? We already know which of these Gahan will choose, every single time.

Meanwhile, an ever more dismal Caesar carries the mayor's jockstrap for the presumed Democrats, hoping that someday he might be king, and the other three Democrats usually line up behind him without question.

Blair has tried his best to be a watchdog; however, as an independent he has no natural allies and just isn't very good at making them. Knable and Barksdale are omnipresent and responsive, while David Aebersold flails ineffectually.

Well, at least there wasn't a non-binding Dreamer resolution. CM Greg Phipps mentioned DACA while refraining from the gesture; he also upheld the veracity of the two-way street reversion.

It's going to be a very long two years in what for all intents and purposes is a one-party mediocracy. After these many long years of beer, it may at last be time to delve into hard liquor, and put the hammer down -- or smash something with it.

Council Thursday: Heads up, tree contractors, because Bob Caesar wants to enforce your asses.

Tonight's power poll winner already is obvious. It's the city attorney, charged with enforcement of a whole new and upwardly revised set of fines for not properly disposing of tree limbs, litter, trash and unsold Bicentennial books.

First, at 6:45 p.m. there'll be a public hearing where you can comment on budget items of which you're entirely unaware -- as is Dan Coffey, who skipped two budget hearings as well as the most recent council meeting.

Tonight's agenda is next.

We're not even sure Deaf Gahan signed the last littering ordinance update, seeing as though it smelled a bit too Republican for the anosmatic-in-chief, but this one should pass muster far more readily given Caesar's dual position as lickspittle polisher and unofficial mayor-in-waiting.

All right, tree contractors -- who forgot to make the campaign donations?

Council approves solidarity resolution as Coffey's therapist advises him to skip yet another meeting.

Need help with voting? Just ask.

Dan Coffey didn't make it to tonight's city council meeting, although a few minutes before seven, he was busy like a beaver on social media.

Coffey pitching craft beer? New Albany never ceases to amaze.

In the Wizard's convenient and surely coincidental absence -- he also skipped a March non-binding resolution condemning white supremacy -- his colleagues inadvertently raised an interesting procedural point by unanimously approving Greg Phipp's request to insert the previously unannounced solidarity resolution into the agenda.

In short, the events in Charlottesville occurred over the weekend, past the deadline for agenda items. Because public speaking time at council meetings requires signing one of two sheets (either agenda or non-agenda items), and since there was no way of knowing the resolution would be inserted, there also was no way of knowing to sign up to speak about it.

It didn't matter this evening, but machinations like this need to be watched carefully in the future.

Of course, the motion to insert Phipps' resolution might also have garnered a "no" vote and failed the test of unanimity. Coffey would have cherished pulling this particular plug, and Scott Blair, who after a brief dalliance with pragmatism has newly rediscovered his uneasiness with non-binding resolutions, might have but didn't.

Consequently, and oddly, the newspaper's Elizabeth Beilman devotes the bulk of her coverage to two items that did NOT appear on the announced agenda: Phipps' resolution, and Tony Nava's non-agenda public speaking clinic on neighborhood issues.

Three quick questions for CM Phipps:

Exactly which Human Rights Commission?

The one you only recently (and publicly) conceded was moribund?

It's too bad Jeff Gahan built the HRC to fail, isn't it?

That sort of thing could come in handy during times like these, but there it rests, up on blocks, in the bunker's down-low garage.

New Albany City Council approves resolution condemning white supremacy displayed in Charlottesville

Councilman Blair abstains, says resolutions not council's role

NEW ALBANY — Though it bears no legal weight, a proclamation approved by the New Albany City Council on Thursday is meant to take a stand against acts of white supremacy in Charlottesville, Va. last weekend.

Entertainingly, Beilman was paying extra close attention to Blair.

While (Blair) said he agrees with its content, a non-binding resolution that makes a statement of this nature isn't the council's role, he said. Blair read from Indiana code during the meeting, which states the council passes legislation concerning "the government of the city, the control of the city's property and finances, and the appropriation of money."

Blair argued the council's role is to work on local issues and that government functions better when its sticks to its pertinent role.

"I think it's just a waste of time," he said. "For instance, I probably had more budget items I wanted to talk about but it became more of a distraction."

In fact, Blair stepped into a buzz saw.

This isn't the first time Blair said he hasn't voted in favor of non-binding resolutions of a similar nature. In the past, he said they often overwhelm council discussion.

But he did vote in favor of a resolution condemning the promotion of intolerance this March, after white supremacists and anti-Semitic fliers were posted around New Albany and on the door of a local restaurant owned by Muslim immigrants.

I'll return to Nava's thoughts tomorrow. Right now, I'm turning in.

ON THE AVENUES: Love in the time of choleric Coffey, though it's nice of Deaf Gahan to support the K of C's political agenda.

ON THE AVENUES: Love in the time of choleric Coffey, though it's nice of Deaf Gahan to support the K of C's political agenda.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Tonight there'll be a city council meeting, and I wouldn't miss it for the world.

Never mind the bobble-heads, it's Non-Binding Resolutional Culture Wars Night, and the potential for legislative grandstanding approaches solar eclipse levels of suggested pre-meeting martini consumption, toward which I pledge my last full measure of devotion.

New Albany city council, this Thursday: "Resolution Expressing Solidarity with the People of Charlottesville, Virginia, and a Public Condemnation of Racism, White Supremacy, and Neo-Nazi Ideology in Our Community, the Nation and the World."

As we've seen, autonomous councilman-for-hire Dan "Total Eclipse of the Heart" Coffey -- who on occasions as widely scattered as Monday's coming solar event actually stoops to represent the 1st District -- is organizing his own celebration of ragpicker's diversity.

Dan Coffey plans his own unity rally, because why should those smarty pants Democrats have all the fun?

Bring your own hoods, folks. There'll be barbecued bologna and toadstool crepes ... but alas, I digress. Let's begin with this excerpt from last week's column:

ON THE AVENUES: Super Tuesday shrapnel – or, tiptoeing through the tulips with Dan Coffey, now THE face of historic preservation in New Albany.

Glorious Stated Aim #2: Give the Knights of Columbus (Main Street) a new façade.

Translation: … since Coffey is a tremendous backer of the K of C, he’s neutralized and back on the mayor's payroll, at least for the moment.

Meanwhile: Deaf Gahan is Catholic … and the Democratic Party has been holding gatherings in Catholic-affiliated venues since the long ago days when bona fide Democrats like FDR walked the earth ... and that pesky priest at St. Mary’s keeps breathing down Team Gahan’s tight collars about the original sin of the two-way streets conversion … so POOF; all dissonance disappears, just like that, and to such a pervasive extent that we now see Coffey taking pride of place in the mayor’s MTV video touting Super Cash Stuffed Envelope Tuesday.

That’s right, folks. By means of just a teensy tiny bit of façade cash awarded to an organization that maintains an anti-abortion monument out front, welcome to a gay-baiting, venom-spewing, ward-heeling councilman forever in service to the highest bidder becoming the poster child of historic preservation in New Albany … but Gahan isn’t finished yet.

Absolutely no one doubts that as an entity, the Knights of Columbus does charitable works. Last week on Super Tuesday, when Coffey shuffled humbly to the anchor-bedecked podium to accept his cash-stuffed envelope (psst -- the one intended to pay for the K of C's facade work comes much later), he made it a point to emphasize this fact.

With the Knights of Columbus, it'll give a better appearance in the neighborhood, but the Knights of Columbus also does an enormous amount of charity work.

More accurately stated, it'll give a better appearance to Dan Coffey, because if there is any one cardinal rule to fathoming the Byzantine intrigues, gleeful backstabbings and gold bullion transfers inherent in the bottomless cesspool of New Albany politics as usual, it is this:

Never, ever accept a Coffeyism at face value. It will contort your face, and annoy the Wizard.

With still more money hoisted from the Redevelopment Commission, and alongside valued institutional cover from Indiana Landmarks, Jeff Gahan has struck another of his trademark political stink-bomb deals, enabling Coffey's ongoing jihad against modernity by blithely ignoring the separation of church and state -- a concept Coffey openly derides, of course, but the sort of appeasement legerdemain that democratic Democrats (where?) condone at their own peril.

However, Gahan's never met a ward-heeler he wouldn't fluff, and that old bromide about non-profits refraining from involvement in the political process? Think again.

online.org/news/politics/knights-columbus-leader-says-catholics-cannot-vote-abortion-advocates">Knights of Columbus head says Catholics cannot vote for abortion advocates (National Catholic Reporter, August 2, 2016)

Carl Anderson, leader of the Knights of Columbus fraternal order and one of the most influential lay Catholics in the church, has said that abortion outweighs all other issues in the presidential campaign and Catholics cannot vote for a candidate who supports abortion rights.

Much more detail is to be found here.

How One Religious Organization Bankrolls America’s Social Conservative Movement, by Josh Israel (Think Progress)

... But while much of the Knights’ charitable efforts in recent years have supported purely altruistic causes such as the Special Olympics and Habitat for Humanity, millions of their charitable dollars have funded a very socially conservative ideological agenda: opposing abortion, LGBT rights, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, and pornography, while supporting public funding for religious organizations.

(While legally independent from the Catholic Church, the Knights of Columbus entities call themselves the church’s “strong right arm.”)

The Knights also operate a legally-separate but affiliated charitable arm called the Knights of Columbus Charities Inc. That tax-exempt non-profit organization made about 57 percent of its annual grants in 2013 to efforts to “promote matters affective life family, marriage and similar priorities in building a culture of life.” More than $1 million of that went to support “Crisis Pregnancy Centers,” a network of facilities that dissuade women from choosing to terminate their pregnancies, often by sharing misinformation.

Tonight's council meeting should be a fascinating test of New Gahanian dysfunction.

Under normal circumstances, forced to endure another effete expression of council support for people and ideas he loathes, Coffey would be spewing, fulminating and dropping an occasional sotto voce hint of imminent violent revenge against the gays, libtards and drunkists.

But Coffey's also enjoying the sweet tea-laced post-coital glow of yet again maneuvering Gahan into merrily compromising everything the Democratic Party should stand for by indulging the councilman's Generalissimo Francisco Franco fetish.

Gahan should have had the good sense to accompany his ill-considered largess with a temporary gag order, but of course, it was chronologically impossible to anticipate Charlottesville, which led to the solidarity resolution, and which gives Coffey a convenient "get out of handshake free" card to play this evening.

Perhaps Coffey will choose to avoid the meeting entirely, as he did on March 6, the last time such a threatening resolution occurred, after white supremacist handbills were duct-taped to local alley walls.

Seize the gesture and read the city council's non-binding "Resolution Condemning the Promotion of Intolerance."

Will the serial bigot Coffey support a resolution in support of human rights? Contractually, he'll have to vote yes if Gahan demands it. But does the mayor even care? Will Scott Blair abstain, citing his oft-stated principle of eschewing non-binding resolutions?

To paraphrase Chico Marx: "Coffey -- he-a no show up."

THE COMMON COUNCIL OF THE CIVIL CITY OF NEW ALBANY, INDIANA, HELD A REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING IN THE THIRD FLOOR ASSEMBLY ROOM OF THE CITY/COUNTY BUILDING ON MONDAY, MARCH 6, 2017 AT 7:00 P.M.

MEMBERS PRESENT: Council Members Mr. Caesar, Mr. Phipps, Mr. Nash, Mr. Blair, Mr. Aebersold, Mr. Barksdale, Dr. Knable and President McLaughlin. Mr. Coffey was not present.

In spite of it all, there remains a valid reason to commend Coffey for a certain consistency of action. The second cardinal rule of New Albanian political geography is that Coffey's always in it for himself; consequently, he might be the only politician in town who is consistent with his gestures.

He may be repugnant, and quite possibly horrendous, but he's not hypocritical.

There's something to be learned from this, but is it too early to start drinking?

Events got all topical on us, but next week I hope to return to "Mr. Duggins Goes to Bob Lane's Old Office and Mistakes the Bidet for the Toilet." 

Yesterday:

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: I'll match your customary gesture politics and raise you a spate of virtue signaling.

FLASHBACK: You say you want a resolution? Ya gotta take yer growth industries where ya find 'em.

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Recent columns:

August 10: ON THE AVENUES: Super Tuesday shrapnel – or, tiptoeing through the tulips with Dan Coffey, now THE face of historic preservation in New Albany.

August 3: ON THE AVENUES: On the importance of being ancient.

July 27: ON THE AVENUES: Irish history with a musical chaser.

July 20: ON THE AVENUES DOUBLEHEADER (2): A book about Bunny Berigan, his life and times.

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: I'll match your customary gesture politics and raise you a spate of virtue signaling.

As noted last evening ...

New Albany city council, this Thursday: "Resolution Expressing Solidarity with the People of Charlottesville, Virginia, and a Public Condemnation of Racism, White Supremacy, and Neo-Nazi Ideology in Our Community, the Nation and the World."

Déjà vu is not the topic of today's column, but a song by the great Dionne Warwick never hurt a soul on a featureless Wednesday morning in New Gahania.

However, we've all been here before -- and only recently, on March 6.

Seize the gesture and read the city council's non-binding "Resolution Condemning the Promotion of Intolerance."

Will Scott Blair abstain, citing his oft-stated principle of eschewing non-binding resolutions?

At the time, I spoke about this resolution, and my feelings on the matter haven't changed, although it's timely, ironic and depressing that with a human rights complaint of my own ready to file, the once ballyhooed Human Rights Commission remains MIA, its father (Councilman Phipps) having already washed his hands of an entity constituted to fail even as he rushes to support Deaf Gahan's dismantling of public housing.

Mr. Roger Baylor stated that in the past he has been in favor of resolutions like the intolerance resolution on the agenda tonight. He said he has no reason to oppose it but feels there is some thinking in the community that what we end up doing might be classified as gesture politics. He pointed out that we have a human rights commission that by everybody’s admission seems to be kind of foundering at the moment and is a bit of a laughing stock because there is nothing to it. He said that you now have a resolution about intolerance and he is afraid that sometimes it just looks like symbolic gestures and are somewhat empty until there is some sort of force behind it.

Predictably, Blair's resolutional resolve failed him on this particular example of a council resolution.

R-17-03 Resolution Condemning the Promotion of Intolerance (Phipps)

Mr. Phipps introduced R-17-03 and moved to approve, Mr. Barksdale second, all voted in favor with the exception of Mr. Coffey who was not present.

Imagine that; Coffey not present for a resolution designed to tickle his nose?

He must have been affixing swastickers* to his peddler's cart, or perhaps protesting birth control on behalf of the Knights of Columbus. After all, the organization can use the money Deaf's about to give to it.

So, we belatedly arrive at the point: gesture politics, as used in this paragraph.

The good news is that it’s almost certainly too late for (Donald) Trump and (Australian PM Malcolm) Turnbull to derail the progress that’s being made towards a decarbonised and sustainable global economy. They are engaged in gesture politics designed to appeal to culture warriors on the right, not a serious strategy to revive coal and nuclear power.

Merriam-Webster provides the basics.

Definition of gesture politics: political actions or statements that are done or made chiefly as symbolic gestures and have little or no practical effect. First Known Use: 1971.

Oddly, a 1971 source is not revealed, and many on-line definitions of "gesture politics" quote the phrase's use in Social Issues and Party Politics, a collection of essays from 1998 -- specifically, by Frances Heidensohn.

Reading about gesture politics brought me to a similar and more recent concept. Honestly, until now I was completely unaware of "virtue signaling" as a phrase. In 2015, James Bartholomew took credit for it:

To my astonishment and delight, the phrase ‘virtue signalling’ has become part of the English language. I coined the phrase in an article here in The Spectator (18 April) in which I described the way in which many people say or write things to indicate that they are virtuous. Sometimes it is quite subtle. By saying that they hate the Daily Mail or Ukip, they are really telling you that they are admirably non-racist, left-wing or open-minded. One of the crucial aspects of virtue signalling is that it does not require actually doing anything virtuous. It does not involve delivering lunches to elderly neighbours or staying together with a spouse for the sake of the children. It takes no effort or sacrifice at all.

A year later in The Guardian, David Shariatmadari found the use of "virtue signaling" itself to be a form of ... well, virtue signaling.

As the Boston Globe columnist Mark Peters has pointed out, “virtue-signalling” has existed in isolated pockets since at least 2004, but was popularised (not, as he claims, invented) by James Bartholomew in the Spectator in April 2015.

Shariatmadari continues.

That’s not to say that there’s nothing in Bartholomew’s idea. Sometimes people do take positions to curry favour, or to burnish their reputations. But that’s hardly new. “You’re only saying that to make yourself look good” sums it up pretty well, it’s less pretentious, and still leaves 90 characters for the rest of your tweet.

His summary:

What started off as a clever way to win arguments has become a lazy put down. It’s too often used to cast aspersions on opponents as an alternative to rebutting their arguments. In fact, it’s becoming indistinguishable from the thing it was designed to call out: smug posturing from a position of self-appointed authority.

We're left with two phrases, both of recent vintage, each addressing human tendencies that aren't necessarily new. Symbolic gestures have always been with us, as have those who only say things to make themselves look good.

But speaking of gestures, politics, virtues and signalling ... addressing all the motives, linkages, posturing, actions, nobility, bootlicking and dumpster fires, I actually do remain proud of an idea that came to me roughly 15 years ago, amid the excesses of W's first term.

It still states my point of view with brevity and elegance.

Doing the modeling are two beer lovers at this year's Great Taste of the Midwest in Madison, Wisconsin; I don't know either of them, but thanks to my friend Ted for the photos.

I may no longer be active in the deployment of these particular machines, but I believe they still work in just the way I've always described.

---

* thanks R&A.

FLASHBACK: You say you want a resolution? Ya gotta take yer growth industries where ya find 'em.

It's only been a year since this column was published, but living in New Gahania means experiencing an infinite repetition of the terminally inane forever, and ever, and ever ...

---

ON THE AVENUES: You say you want a resolution?

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Last night in Cincinnati, drummer Steven Adler reunited with Guns N’ Roses during the band’s Not in This Lifetime Tour. While this is wonderful news for GNR fans, allow me to strike a discordant note and ask the most obvious question: Where the hell is Izzy Stradlin? Surely you realize that “Patience” is his song – not Axl’s, not Slash’s, but Izzy’s.

We need a resolution, don’t we?

Speaking of reunions, there goes Dwyane Wade, weary of global warming’s Heat, back to Chicago from whence he came to the NBA via Marquette – that’s a Catholic school, but let’s put our secularism front and center by casting a surreptitious glance to Sodom & Gomorrah by the Bay, otherwise known as San Francisco, right across the bridge from Oakland, where the Golden State Warriors just stole Kevin Durant from those poor cowpunchers in Oklahoma City.

There ought to be a law, except a resolution would be even more delightful.

If we really want to talk about vast sums better spent, there’s the pathetic Noah’s Ark fiasco in Kentucky. How the shameless Aussie charlatan Ken Ham ever got through the border I’ll never understand, so maybe Donald Trump’s right, and we need a wall to keep theocratic fascists from infiltrating the Commonwealth’s already enfeebled treasury.

Might we resolve to keep the dinosaurs in pre-history, where they belong?

Of course, had America built Drumpf’s immigration wall 150 years ago, when it really mattered, neither his family nor the Buschs would have come here from Germany, and we’d be spared the spectacle of international corporate threesome copulation between Americans, Brazilians and Belgians, because it’s not Zika we fear, but multinational brewing monopolies like AB-InBev.

A resolution would put a stop to it, right? No more Bud Light at municipal events … viva localismus.

But seriously, international news – do we really want to go there? Alas, we must, so let’s begin with a moment of silence for our kinfolk of the special relationship, the Brits. First, the collapse of Oasis, then sporting humiliation at the feet of Iceland. There was also a news item about something called Brexit, which appears to be a brand of salt and vinegar crisps.

So it is resolved: Liam and Noel are urged to come together over a pint of lager, some cigarettes and alcohol, and sort it out.

Let me tell you, Tony Blair could use a few pints of Scotch right about now, because according to the Chilcot report, the former British prime minister was as much George W. Bush’s fawning poodle during the catastrophic war in Iraq as we knew all along, even before the report’s 2.3 million words examined every last sinew and corpuscle in the lapdog’s vigorously wagging tail.

We don’t want to change the world, though a resolution would be all right.

Thirteen years ago, the U.S.-led coalition saw to it that Saddam Hussein was toppled and executed, for which the presumptive Republican presidential nominee Trump is newly annoyed, given that his old drinking buddy Saddam enjoyed great success in forestalling foreign terrorism by waging domestic terrorism against his own people. Sounds like a post-it note waiting to happen.

As well as a resolution, this one honoring Saddam’s anti-terrorism prowess, but stopping short of whiskey. Saddam didn’t drink whiskey. It made him mean.

While we’re on the topic of one-way, no-choice politics, can someone explain to me exactly why it matters that Hillary Rodham Clinton used a private e-mail server while working as Secretary of State? After all, Mayor Jeff Gahan does it, too, and he didn’t post an address for his city e-mail account until he’d been in office for four years – precisely the same period of time Clinton spent as SOS.

Seeing as we Americans are SOL when it comes to choosing between Clinton and Trump, a resolution asserting this conundrum absolutely must be drafted.

Come to think of it, Bush and Blair helped destabilize considerable tracts of the planet, and Clinton oversaw keeping them chaotic, which tells us that unrest must be profitable for the global economic order.

A resolution supporting the planet’s neoliberal elites, anyone?

However, the biggest problem with this ongoing upheaval is that terrorism seems to thrive amid the fissures. Consequently, in the brief period of time elapsing since the Pulse massacre, several hundred persons have been killed in places like Iraq, Nigeria, Turkey and Saudi Arabia – but hell, they’re only Muslims, and they brought it on themselves when they refused to sit at the back of the Ark.

Can we spare a resolution for them, even though they’re infidels?

Here in America, there were 990 deaths by police shooting in 2015, with another 500 or so this year. Surely the majority of these were justified, and I’m not here to argue cops, robbers and meth heads, only to observe that once again during the past week, there have been unarmed African-Americans shot by police, most recently in Minneapolis, and all the usual dog whistles and code words are being sprayed like projectile vomit across the wasteland of social media.

A resolution of solidarity … with … nah, never mind. It wouldn’t play here. We’re immune from that shit, aren’t we? It simply doesn’t happen in New Gahania.

It’s also been two months since an elderly woman was struck and killed by a driver at the intersection of Spring and Vincennes, and still no word from officialdom as to what actually happened.

I won’t even bother asking for a resolution about streets, because the closer we get to home – nearer the grassroots, which might seem to be the most fertile ground for genuine action, as opposed to non-binding resolutions, but doesn't ever work this way unless some team wins a championship, or on those rare occasions when propriety supports the politicization of tragedy – the more we seem eager to focus on far-off horizons, forever in search of symbolic gestures.

When the traffic’s still too fast, and all we really want to do is cross the street safely, we deserve those symbolic gestures – good and hard.

So resolved by this Common Council of the city of New Albany, Indiana?

I’ve resolved not to hold my breath.

New Albany city council, this Thursday: "Resolution Expressing Solidarity with the People of Charlottesville, Virginia, and a Public Condemnation of Racism, White Supremacy, and Neo-Nazi Ideology in Our Community, the Nation and the World."

Thursday evening, 7:00 p.m., 3rd floor meeting room. Let's see a big turnout for this.

City council déjà vu ... could this anti-littering ordinance be the dream that might come true?

Last evening's anti-littering ordinance is all well and good, but lest we forget, déjà vu is more than just a strip club in Louisville.

Definition of déjà vu

1
a : the illusion of remembering scenes and events when experienced for the first time
b : a feeling that one has seen or heard something before

Despite a blond, swept-back mane all his own, Fonda looks startlingly like his father, Henry … . He even moves like his father, only dispelling the eerie feeling of déjà vu when he opens his mouth. — Peter Biskind

2
: something overly or unpleasantly familiar: "The team's poor start to the season was déjà vu for its long-suffering fans."

Ah, the memories. Back in 2013, Greg Phipps heroically tackled porch fridges.

Panhandling in the middle of the street about to be abolished. That and porch furniture.

As for the ordinance ridding the city of "indoor" furniture and various appliances arranged tastefully (although usually otherwise) on porches, I'm mostly down with the notion, although (a) it's yet another aesthetic Band-Aid that addresses symptoms, rather than the fundamental rot of slumlordism, and (b) if there's any one thing we've learned during the past decade, such a Band-Aid is meaningless without concrete enforcement plans. I'm told the council discussed enforcement at its work session last week, and that's a positive sign.

Can anyone recall an instance of porch furniture ordinance enforcement?

Thursday's littering Band-Aid fits precisely the same pattern. It addresses symptoms, not fundamentals, and it will be meaningless without equitable, consistent enforcement ... and it's the latter that invariably stalls, if not every last time, then just about always.

Later this afternoon, I hope to link readers to a follow-up about this week's most compellingly New Gahanian story: Warren's sad Board of Works social research meltdown: "Jeff Gahan’s appointees could use a refresher course in due process. After all, it is a tenet of representative government and basic justice."

New Albany City Council approves stronger litter ordinance, by Erin Walden (N and T)

NEW ALBANY — New Albany City Council took major strides to make the city, as one council member put it, an “overall cleaner city” Thursday night.

The governing body passed a litter ordinance that imposes much heavier fines for littering, structured to make citizens think twice before dropping a cigarette butt, ditching a bag of trash instead of paying for a trash service or dumping an appliance.

The new ordinance is structured around the type of litter, proximity to a natural water source or storm drain, amount of litter and if the individual is a repeat offender.

A styrofoam cup can carry a $100 fine, a hypodermic needle or obscene magazine up to a $1,000.

The heftiest possible fine is $8,000.

Council member Al Knable introduced the ordinance, explaining that he was told both the police department and mayor’s office were behind it.

Seize the gesture and read the city council's non-binding "Resolution Condemning the Promotion of Intolerance."

That's funny. He didn't even catch the misspelling of his name.

Without further adieu, Councilman Greg Phipps offers a non-binding resolution condemning Councilman Coffey's account at Facebook.

Bizarrely, the forever conniving Coffey only recently garnered the full support of Phipps, Mayor Jeff Gahan, his Boy Adam Wonder and other paragons of Democratic Party hypocrisy in deposing city council attorney Matt Lorch, this being the price Coffey demanded to support the last Democrats left cowering.

Will the serial bigot Coffey support a resolution in support of human rights? Contractually, he'll have to vote yes if Gahan demands it. But does the mayor even care? Will Scott Blair abstain, citing his oft-stated principle of eschewing non-binding resolutions?

The resolution suits me, and my guess is it will pass; like most other examples of Phipps' council specialty (gesture politics), the result will be a big, fat, empty zero.