Yep, "A Police Shooting Gives the Lie to Buttigieg’s Campaign Narrative."

If Joe Biden can be VP, there's nothing stopping Mayor Pete -- except that if the Democrats nominate the sort of candidate likely to choose Mayor Pete as VP, Trump will win re-election.

Just try to imagine Jeff Gahan's probable handling of such municipal matters (his inept public housing putsch gives you a pretty good idea of his attitude) amid the veneration of local Dickeyite neoliberals, and the basic disconnect is easy to see. It's all surface sheen deflecting attention from functional vacancy.

Maybe Gahan can move to South Bend and be Pete's vice-mayor.

A Police Shooting Gives the Lie to Buttigieg’s Campaign Narrative, by Jeet Heer (The Nation)

Black voters are wary of Mayor Pete, for good reasons.

... In announcing his candidacy, Buttigieg said, “But I would also argue that we would be well served if Washington started to look more like our best run cities and towns rather than the other way around.” The implication is that South Bend was one of the “best run” cities. Now Buttigieg has to acknowledge that he’s failed in dealing with one of the pressing municipal problems of our time, police violence.

But Buttigieg’s problems go even deeper. Buttigieg has often touted South Bend’s diversity and economic success. But the shooting of Eric Logan has exposed the fact whatever economic success South Bend enjoys has been unevenly distributed, with a glaring racial divide persisting.

David White for Mayor: People first, back-alley out-of-town pay-to-play donors last.

For the record: I've never accepted paid advertising at NA Confidential -- and I still haven't.

The following passage supporting David White for Mayor will appear in many blog posts from now through election day. I'm explaining this to you, my loyal readers, so there can be no confusion: My advocacy for White is based on facts and principles, not payola (or as we call payola hereabouts, "Gahan's Chosen Way").

Democratic mayoral candidate David White understands that change begins with a whole lotta scrubbing, and NA Confidential advocates just such a deep civic cleansing. 

After eight years on the job, Mayor Jeff Gahan's list of stunning "achievements" is long, indeed: tax increases, budgetary hide 'n' seek, self-deification, daily hypocrisy, public housing takeover, non-transparency, pay-to-play for no-bid contracts, bullying city residents and bullying city employees. Eight years is enough. It's time to drain Gahan's swamp, flush his ruling clique and take this city back from Gahan's Indy-based special interest donors. 

NA Confidential supports David White for Mayor in the Democratic Party primary, with voting now through May 7. 

By whichever method you intend to vote, please do so, and whatever your party affiliation, be aware that you can do a wonderful service to New Albany and help set the stage for an intelligent, sensible dialogue this fall … by voting for David White today.

ON THE AVENUES: Democrats should judge city council incumbents in districts 2, 3, 4 and 5 by their regressive deeds, not their progressive words.

ON THE AVENUES: Democrats should judge city council incumbents in districts 2, 3, 4 and 5 by their regressive deeds, not their progressive words.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Ever since Dan Coffey’s how-did-it-take-so-damned-long-anyway defection from the Democratic Party in January of 2016, New Albany’s nine-member city council has been populated by just four presumed Democrats.

• District 2: Bob Caesar (now in his twelfth year)
• District 3: Greg Phipps (eighth year)
• District 4: Pat McLaughlin (twelfth year)
• District 5: Matt Nash (fourth year)

The scuffed fingernails of this motley 44th percentile have managed to cling to an ever-shrinking semblance of significance for a variety of reasons, absolutely none of which attest to any specific distinction or merit as public servants.

Both literally and figuratively, it hasn’t been about them at all. The gradual evolution of mayoral authority, as capable of governing New Albany by authoritarian decree apart from direct council oversight, has allowed the city’s diminished Democrats to hang on to what’s left of their power.

With the municipal populace forever determined to ignore local matters in favor of arguing endlessly over national issues, apathy and inertia play their roles, too.

It also took a while for the three council Republicans and two Independents to come together (occasionally) for a semblance of common cause against the imperial excesses of Jeff Gahan’s reign.

One example: In hindsight, Al Knable probably regrets being conciliatory at the beginning of his council career in 2016, seeing as conniving and opportunistic Democrats lost no time in paying back Knable for his equanimity by savagely attacking his character over the contrived and nonsensical 9-1-1 phone call episode.

Unfortunately the Republican at-large troika hasn’t always been able to maintain a unified front. Their biggest head-slapping disgrace in recent memory remains David “I'm Passionate for Masonry” Barksdale, who resembled a slobbering puppy angling for tasty kibbles and bits during the course of gulping Dear Leader’s cynical pleasantries, as necessary to procure approval for the cherished Democratic Party goal of an election-ready Reisz Mahal luxury city hall boondoggle.

Then earlier this month, a befuddled David AeberSOLD out his compatriot Knable by bizarrely rolling over on behalf of an unctuous Caesar in the election for 2019 council vice-president.

With friends like those, who even needs Adam “Tricky” Dickey as an enemy?

---

The enduringly fascinating aspect of our bedraggled Democratic council quartet is the beige patina of its blandness. The best historic parallel is those jowly Politburo geriatrics propped atop Lenin’s Mausoleum during Soviet May Day parades of old; colorless and featureless functionaries without the first original thought of their own, committed only to agreeing in lock step with the First Secretary.

By the end of 2019, New Albany’s four remaining Democratic council critters will have 36 years of combined service – and for what ultimate purpose? They’re faded pawns waiting to be pushed around the chess board, and veritable rubber stamps in desperate need of re-inking. They seem far older than they really are, with a collective demeanor suggesting mute charred hulk burnout.

That’s no surprise, given that their chief duty these past eight years has been to purge their souls of any damning stain of cogitation and meekly obey whatever orders Gahan and Dickey have given them as obsequious toady foot soldiers digging trenches to maintain Gahan’s sole achievement as mayor: a cash-laden political patronage machine constructed to enable VIP treatment for donors and vested interests, boasting pay-to-play as the order of the day, and with the lion’s share of the proceeds going to the mayor himself.

Witnessing these four remaining council Democrats in (re)action at last Thursday’s meeting, and knowing that all of them will trudge forward to re-enlist for four more senseless, torpid years of tuck-pointing Gahan’s prophylactic wall against fresh thinking and new ideas, I couldn’t help noticing their utter political exhaustion.

They’re bored, lethargic and absent anything resembling excitement, save for the sporadic flaring of pet fetishes. As such, Caesar briefly showed a heightened pulse when allowed to gush like a hormonal crush-afflicted schoolboy over One Southern Indiana’s yearly panhandling appointment to tout its oligarch masturbation outreach.

Similarly, Phipps became momentarily lucid on the topic of resuscitating (yet again) his otherwise toothless Human Rights Commission; those of us with long memories winced while recalling the time just a year ago when he dramatically “washed” his hands of the HRC. This exceedingly rare moment of Phippsian candor evidently has been delightfully airbrushed from the narrative, Dickey having issued contradictory marching orders numerous times since then.

In customary fashion McLaughlin said almost nothing the entire evening, leaving the accidental Democratic council yes-man Nash to shock the peanut gallery by erupting at freshly installed council president Scott Blair’s appointment of civilian Scott Whalen to the Board of Zoning Appeals in place of Stephen Pacciano, whose term had expired.

It is the prerogative of the council president to reappoint or replace board members, which the remaining eight councilmen subsequently affirmed. It later emerged that Pacciano had wanted another term, with Blair preferring his own man, although characteristically secretive Nash didn’t clearly explain any of this during the course of his weirdly emotional and garbled complaint.

Nash’s outburst came as a surprise to veteran council watchers, who’ve grown accustomed to the passing of entire seasons between instances of Nash saying anything at all. Last summer when it came time for the final Reisz Mahal vote, Nash remained impassive and unquestioning through a lengthy and detailed discussion without uttering a peep apart from the single syllable “aye” when called upon by Gahan and Dickey to vote in favor of the most misguided expenditure of public funds I’ve witnessed since my council viewing began in 2004.

The 5th council district plainly deserves better than this.

As much as I like Nash personally, the sad fact is that politically, he is a pliable tool of the Democratic Party’s fix-is-in machine, a jalopy lubricated for decades on end by Warren Nash, the councilman’s father.

In 2015 Matt Nash became the nominee for 5th district councilman by predetermined precinct committee decision when Dustin Collins became ill, and later when down on his luck in 2018 after the failure of his business venture, he abruptly and miraculously landed a job with the housing authority, itself the victim of a hostile annexation by Gahan the year before – something Nash has yet to publicly reference even once as a councilman.

If that’s not nepotism and political bondage according to the gnarly Tammany Hall model, American history books might have to be rewritten.

For Nash to be angry about Pacciano’s treatment might well have been exemplary and praiseworthy – but exactly where has Nash’s outrage been hibernating during his council term as Gahan and Dickey have run roughshod over basic human decency, bullying, bribing and bartering without any semblance of empathy or conscience?

Had Nash murmured even once about the immoral morass and selective ethics of his Democratic Party overlords, it might be different for me – but wait, I forget; he has the same tired excuse as every other Democrat in town, namely that Republicans are always worse.

Spare me.

---

Meanwhile here in the 3rd, the PhippsBot becomes even further estranged from his self-described powers of cool, analytical detachment, with these skills inevitably being spotted solely as knee-jerk responses to Republican initiatives, and never in gauging the various special interest power plays advanced by his own party.

Last Thursday Phipps haltingly described the inadequacy of the digital speed control installations on Spring Street, and he’s right, but apparently it has not occurred to Phipps that his own cowering and complicit complacency during the run-up to two-way street reversion crucially enabled Gahan to assign HWC Engineering the task of unceremoniously junking the vast majority of Speck-recommended precepts as intended to REDESIGN these same streets to lessen vehicular speeds.

And this is the ultimate truth: unalloyed enablement.

Each of these four Democrats – Caesar, Phipps, McLaughlin and Nash – are pleasant enough company for a beer (well, maybe three of them, excepting the former jeweler, who still has those Bicentennial Commission finances safely hidden), but the political roles they’ve agreed to play are exuberantly passive.

They’re to emit gurgling sounds of rote acceptance on cue to whatever degraded and dictatorial whims Gahan and Dickey decree – just as Shane Gibson’s daily insider job is to find legal precepts capable of being artfully molded to accommodate a mayor and party chairman so crooked that it takes two valets each morning to help them screw on their pants.

Enablement and passivity, silence and culpability.

These are the de facto re-election “platforms” of New Albany’s four incumbent Democratic council representatives Caesar, Phipps, McLaughlin and Nash. That’s 36 years of … what, exactly?

As you might expect, Gahan and Dickey are working hard to assure there’ll be no primary opposition to incumbent council candidacies in 2019. That’s highly ironic, given that during mid-term elections last November numerous residents of the council districts represented by Caesar, Phipps, McLaughlin and Nash loudly declared themselves to be progressive, and publicly supported folks like Liz Watson, Dan Canon and Anna Murray.

If we are to assess the situation today, referencing the record of 36 combined years of actual city council seat-warming rather than their imagined stances pertaining to substantive policy, the incumbents in districts 2, 3, 4 and 5 are nowhere near as “progressive” as their 2019 Republican challengers – and Phipps’ underachieving sinecure is as yet uncontested, at least until I get my Independent petition started.

It’s very sad for the Democratic Party, though not for residents of those districts, who have high-quality Republicans ready and waiting for November. Personally, I find it hard to fathom that seemingly none of Watson’s, Canon’s and Murray’s purportedly progressive enthusiasts living in these precincts have grasped that when it comes to deeds and not words, their own Democratic council representatives are the ones who are completely out of sync.

There’s still time. Shouldn’t the local Democratic Party be walking the walk and not just talking the talk?

---

Recent columns:

January 15: ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: Jeff Gahan and Adam Dickey are Trumping the Donald when it comes to breathtaking moral turpitude. Have they no shame?

January 8: ON THE AVENUES: In the 3rd district, that "stepping aside" time finally has arrived.

January 1: ON THE AVENUES: As a new year dawns, I’m existentially yours.

December 29: ON THE AVENUES: Another year older and deeper in debt, so let's doo-doo it all over again.

New Albany primary filings: Old white male Democratic council functionaries as yet unchallenged by diversity.

Amanda Pahmeier joins Scott Stewart on the 2nd district GOP ticket.

If the two major parties restrict choice during their primary elections, how can we lament low voter turnout?

Just remember that the primary election rationale is based solely on the needs of the political party system. Independent candidacies come later, as with Dan Coffey's probable run for mayor.

Kudos to Jennie Collier, but where are the women and minorities to challenge the Democratic Party's old white functionary council slate?

ELECTION FILING UPDATE: Hall to face primary opposition in Charlestown, by Chris Morris (Two Christian Columnists Every Sunday)

Deadline to file for primary is Feb. 8

 ... NEW ALBANY

Only a handful of candidates have officially filed for the municipal primary in May.

All three New Albany City Council Republican At-Large representatives, David Aebersold, David Barksdale and Al Knable have filed for re-election. Maury Goldberg is the only Democrat to throw his hat into the at-large race.

There will be a new representative in District 1 as independent Dan Coffey does not intend to run for re-election. Republican Stefanie Griffith and Democrat Jennie Collier have filed in District 1. Both are political newcomers.

In District 2, Republicans Scott Stewart and Amanda M. Pahmeier have filed, as has incumbent Democrat Bob Caesar. Democrat incumbent Greg Phipps is the only candidate so far to file in District 3. In District 4, Republican Cisa Kubley and Democrat incumbent Pat McLaughlin have filed, as has Republicans Josh Turner, District 5, and Scott Evans, District 6.

ON THE AVENUES SPECIAL EDITION: As David White's mayoral campaign begins, let's briefly survey the electoral landscape.

ON THE AVENUES SPECIAL EDITION: As David White's mayoral campaign begins, let's briefly survey the electoral landscape.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Here's what we know: David White, a Democrat, is running for mayor in 2019.

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: David White addresses citizens and city employees in News & Tribune insert today, denouncing deception, bullying, non-transparency and debt.

White's probable opponent is two-term incumbent Jeff Gahan, who has yet to formally declare.

All indications are that outgoing county commissioner and former city councilman Mark Seabrook will seek the Republican nomination for the general election.

Rumors persist, but currently no other candidates for mayor have been revealed, although veterans of the political primary process know that wild card candidates are the devil in the ballot details.

Before hazarding a brief analysis of yesterday's David White for Mayor newspaper insert, allow me to disclose to readers that we talk to each other. I've known him since I was in college and he was running his first business, a sporting goods store at Highlander Point. We stay in touch.

Moreover, I chat on a regular basis with numerous other locals involved with politics. Seeing as I'm a disenfranchised, left-leaning, European-style Social Democrat, you'd think most of them would be Democrats in the American parlance.

Actually they tend to be Republicans, although in fairness those Democrats somewhat outside the mayor's (and party chairman Adam Dickey's) compact ruling clique have remained civil to me, and I thank them for being open-minded. The inner circle tends not to communicate openly with me, or for that matter, anyone else who has an opposing point of view.

But it's indisputable that they're all reading the blog. Quite frankly, I find this delicious. In the months to come, NA Confidential's overall ideological standpoint will remain quite clear: Eight years is enough, and it's time to flush Gahan's clique -- time for a new cast of characters, and time for inclusive, transparent and fresh thinking.

However, I think this mandate for change applies to me, too. I've reached the pinnacle of polemics and the apex of pure satire, and consequently the blog's tone is going to undergo a revision.

Make absolutely no mistake: politicians and their acolytes at any level of governance who amass power and make decisions impacting human lives always seek to use their power (read: money) to thwart dissenting points of view. Gahan's circle is no exception.

To be blunt, they've richly deserved every last bit of my abuse, and I'm unrepentant. But I'm also capable of looking in the mirror, and with White's formal announcement tomorrow, we're entering the next phase in local political terms. For the moment, this political phase isn't about me.

This liberates me to focus on my own next phase, because I'm quite happy to be back in the better beer business, and thankful for the opportunity. With this opportunity comes responsibilities, and I intend to honor them.

Since exiting NABC three years ago, I've been a free agent of sorts, bound to no one (except the missus) and in large measure unassailable. My inner Mencken has been given free rein to roam, much to the clique's annoyance, but now I'm working again, and a measure of circumspection is required.

Besides, given that the coming race stands to be highly partisan and emotional, it's time for raw facts and cool analysis to help build the case against Gahan's continued presence in the Reisz Mahal he's erecting for himself with the use of taxpayer Viagra.

(Oops -- sorry about that. Old habits die hard, and I'm not a cold turkey sort.)

Recalling the Trump supporters in t-shirts proclaiming they'd rather be Russians than Democrats, it remains that I'd rather a souvenir pet rock from the 1970s, dusty and attic-bound for forty years deep within a rat-gnawed Special Export beer crate, to serve as mayor of New Albany rather than Jeff Gahan.

If you didn't know it already, now you do. I desperately desire change, and as one small way of achieving it, I'm prepared to change my own approach in the hope of being part of the solution.

Two decades into his career with Rush, Neil Peart sought a drum tutor and "reinvented" his approach to drumming. Peart already was one of rock music's greatest drummers, and yet he sought to become better. I'm inspired by his example and will do my best to emulate it, starting tomorrow morning.

---

Let's return to yesterday's newspaper insert, which the Green Mouse has learned is the de facto text (subject to revision) of tomorrow's announcement by White.

White couldn't be any more clear as to the gist of his coming campaign: Gahan has the city on the wrong course, and he must be "fired."

According to White, the city has used its "credit card" (no doubt referring to the TIF mechanism) to pay for "shiny objects," while neglecting those residents most in need.

He suggests that budgetary scrutiny is needed, and raises what is likely to be a recurring topic: Gahan's campaign finance effort, wherein the mayor's team solicits vendors and contractors to donate large amounts to the mayor himself.

By saying he will not accept campaign donations from those individuals, businesses and outside entities seeking to grease their own wheels, White clearly seeks to distance himself ethically from the incumbent.

White has much to say about Gahan's secretiveness, bullying, and imperialist instincts as mayor, and by openly mocking Gahan for "hiding" in his office, the challenger references the mayoral inner circle's raging paranoia.

This opening broadside focuses on changing the tone of governance from the "Dear Leader" model to a people-oriented, grassroots, community-based approach -- approachable and front-porch as opposed to Gahan's favored ultimatum-by-press-release.

Among Democrats, few have been as vocal as White when it comes to questioning Gahan's commitment to helping the community's most vulnerable, especially as this pertains to the mayor's public housing takeover. This is a promising start, but left-leaners and self-styled progressives are likely to seek more depth from White as to his positions on social issues.

It's only one statement of intent, and we cannot infer too much from it. However, few candidates in recent memory have come out of the gate for the primary election with such a barrage. Agree or disagree, but obviously White is going straight for the jugular.

Much of what happens next will be prefigured by the 2018 mid-term election coming on November 6. The playing field for our 2019 municipal elections probably will take shape depending on whether a "Blue Wave" materializes here.

If it does, and the Democrats show local gains, the party's current leadership will be strengthened. If it does not, then Gahan, his party chairman and a scant four remaining city council Democrats will be placed in a last-ditch, us-against-them scenario -- and we can expect them to do whatever it takes to defend the lucrative system of political patronage that Gahan has adeptly exploited these past eight years.

On the other hand, the party chairman's conflicts of interest aside, Gahan's steadily escalating negatives make a strong case for White, given the centrist (at best) and right-leaning (bingo) tendencies of those older local Democrats who actually bother voting. After all, White is a fiscal conservative.

Concurrently, while no flaming radical, and stopping short of Bernie Sanders, White's concern for the vulnerable and his libertarian attitudes toward social issues might be a welcome change for those of a more youthful and progressive bent, given they'd no longer have to clench their teeth and tolerate Gahan's reactionary worldview in an ongoing Faustian bargain to preserve the party's declining prospects.

Personally, I believe White is correct to come out swinging, because in point of fact, Gahan has been given a free ride -- and it must stop.

Insulated by a crushingly passive local media, his own groveling sycophants, those fat-cat supplicants bearing wheelbarrows of cash, and a generally apathetic malaise, Gahan successfully has deflected scrutiny. Will the famously ill-tempered Gahan be able to resist White's calls to come out and grapple over the issues?

And, will Adam Dickey's blatantly compromised Democratic hierarchy even pretend to referee a fair fight?

This should be very interesting, indeed, so stay tuned to a kinder, gentler NA Confidential.

---

Recent columns:

September 28: ON THE AVENUES: If this is adulting, I’d rather be leaving on a jet plane.

September 20: ON THE AVENUES: Fighting the power with ballots, not bullets.

September 11: ON THE AVENUES: After 49 years, two more reasons to be an Oakland A's fan.

September 9: ON THE AVENUES: May, Kennedy, wigs and prayers, but where's the delightful infidel gardening column?