Just Go Away.

Of course Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer should resign, if for no other reason than persistent incompetence, although you're advised to deploy a Galt House-sized grain of salt when digesting today's purely partisan GOP no-confidence measure.

At the height of the BLM protests, I was paying attention nightly to District 19 councilman's Anthony Piagentini criticism of Fischer from the right; Piagentini would have called in the black shirts if allowed. Lots of quasi-Peronist ambition in this one, don't you think?

It's true that Fischer's "bourbonism" mantra has ceased to cast a spell; he'd bungled matters hideously, and it's hard to imagine that any substantive bloc of support remains.

Fischer just needs to go away, but the push certainly doesn't need to come from the fascistic opposition. Democrats need to do it, and they won't.

Welcome to L'America.

Louisville Metro Council to consider no-confidence vote in Mayor Greg Fischer, by Darcy Costello (Louisville Courier Journal)

Louisville Metro Council Republicans are calling for an unprecedented no-confidence vote in Mayor Greg Fischer and suggesting he resign — a move Fischer has dismissed as a political game.

The resolution, filed Monday with all seven Republicans as co-sponsors, says a new mayor is essential to bring needed change in the Louisville Metro Police Department and that a lack of trust has been fostered by "false claims" of transparency and accountability from Fischer.

It goes on to urge Fischer to resign and to work with the Metro Council to "establish a transition to ensure that the community can begin the process of healing."

The legislation will be assigned to a committee, where it could be voted on next week and sent to the full Metro Council for its consideration as soon as Sept. 3. It has no Democratic co-sponsors ...

Bourbonism can't help us. Neoliberal frauds be gone. Greg Fischer is clothesless, and he should resign, now.

And yes, it SHOULD be a national holiday.

Richard M. Nixon resigned the presidency on August 8, 1974.

I was 14 years old, vacationing with my parents at Mt. Rainier National Park. Inside the lodge, there was a rectangular common area with a vast carpet occupying the center. Apparently there wasn't adequate television reception, because the news was coming from a radio sitting stop of a simple wooden chair at one end of the carpet.

People had lined up around the carpet's edge to listen, as though stepping on the carpet itself would be an impolite transgression. My father suggested returning to the car, where we turned on the radio and listened to Nixon's speech, his words bizarrely echoing through the parking lot from the cars of other visitors who had the same idea.

Meanwhile, the silent behemoth looked on, impassive, unimpressed with the transitory nature of human affairs.

Public Housing Putsch '17: Gahan, Trump remain in lock step as sycophants queue after the NAHA's director of finance resigns.

It's a measure of Jeff Gahan's generalized ethical barrenness (GEB) that when word reached the Green Mouse that Mike Bainbridge had resigned on Thursday as director of finance and compliance at the New Albany Housing Authority (NAHA), all thoughts immediately turned to the flagrant unsuitability of whatever pre-rigged replacement is to be chosen by Gahan's handpicked board of bobble-headed sycophants (GIGO).

ON THE AVENUES: Hi there, NAHA wastrels. My name is Peter Principle, and these are my friends Deaf and Dugout.

Given Gahan's perennial nepotism fetish, will it be a member of the mayor's extended family, perhaps Chris Gardner or Steve Bonifer?

Perhaps a regency by the Wizard of Westside, Dan Coffey himself? If so, he'll need an ivory abacus with gold lamé turnbuckles -- but Dugout can have it TIFFed, right?

Better yet: Bob Norwood, bootlicking insurance mogul to the stars?

And again this reminder: No local elected officials with the possible exception of a typically venomous Coffey have spoken publicly about Gahan's plans for the NAHA.

Silence is acceptance, is it not?

Seems they're all imaging the Orwellian words inscribed on the locomotive headed for the camps, right next to the smiley faced mud flat anchor: “Hop on Board the Quality of Life Express.”

---

Previously:

It's #OurNA, all right: "New Albany attempting to purge itself of the poor" ... so, are local Democrats finally catching on to the Gahan shell game?

D.J. Hines resigns from school board seat, lottery to commence.

Last evening at Twitter, this was posted.

Councilman Al Knable later confirmed that yes, D.J. Hines has resigned from the school board. There has been speculation on social media as to the process for replacement, but I think we should let Superintendent Hibbard pick.

That's a joke, by the way.

True, although Uncle Walt had a better year in 2016 -- and he's been dead since 1966.

With apologies to the mirthful empire, there's just nothing more entertaining than a party chairman self-immolation watch.

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

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.

Dust in the Wind Turbines: Welcome Closer to Home, Carl Malysz.

Thanks, M; I needed an excuse to repost what just might be my favorite city council photo ever (2011).

Community Development Director resigns publicly (WKKG)

Columbus Community Development Director Carl Malysz publicly resigned during Wednesday night’s meeting of the Columbus City Council ... Malysz says that he has accepted a job offer with the Louisville Downtown Partnership as Deputy Director of Project Management and Strategic Planning.

Green Mouse: Stan Robison has resigned as city attorney.

The Green Mouse says that Stan Robison has submitted his resignation as city attorney, effective the end of 2014.

That's all we know, at least for now. Deputy Mayor David Duggins is said to be searching for a replacement from Sellersburg.

I first got to know Stan while working at the old Scoreboard Liquors, and I've always been a big fan of his. All the best to him in the future.

Red face, white flag and a thin blue line.

On the very same day that local media delighted in snapping 467 look-alike photos of citizens walking the just-now-walkable Big Four Bridge in Jeffersonville, the city of New Albany also made headlines, and like so often, they weren't flattering.

New Albany police chief Knight stepping down, by Grace Schneider (C-J)

New Albany police Chief Sherri Knight, the city’s first woman chief, is stepping down, Mayor Jeff Gahan announced in a brief statement Tuesday afternoon.

Knight has requested reassignment to her former position in the detective division, and a new chief will be named soon, Gahan’s administration said.

Assistant New Albany Police Chief Greg Pennell also requested reassignment Tuesday, according to city spokesman Michael Hall.

You can take a city out of medieval times, but ...

WDRB covered the story here: Top New Albany police officials request reassignment.

Naturally, during the course of crediting itself for breaking the story and promising vengeful wrath to come (between cigarette breaks), Freedom of Speech is jubilant.

As the various police department stories unfold during the coming weeks, it's going to be quite interesting to watch as the Gahan administration attempts to control the flow of information. If the past two and a half years have proven anything, it's that City Hall as currently populated is deeply (and perhaps pathologically) suspicious of transparency.

Of course, sunlight is the single best deterrent to scandal. Note this Fb comment by WDRB's Chris Turner.

That word, "contentious." We may be seeing more it it.

Tony Bennett and Trofim Lysenko: Separated at birth?

To refresh your memory as to Lysenko, Wikipedia's fine.

The biggest loser in the Tony Bennett resignation, by Valerie Strauss (Washington Post)

... What Bennett did in Indiana and the Board of Education did in Florida show how little the rules matter to some school reformers who wrap themselves in the mantle of “accountability for all” but try to escape it themselves. In both Indiana and Florida, the Bush-inspired A-F school grading system had to be changed to keep corporate-influenced school reform from collapsing under the weight of its own illogic, revealing the reform model as bankrupt.

If Darin Coddington is without the "skill set," then what about the voters who chose him to be auditor?

The C-J's Grace Schneider outlines the departing Darin Coddington's predicament as scapegoat for the county's budget crisis, as nary a Republican can be found who'll publicly go to bat for Coddington.

Perhaps this scurrying might be taken as a sign of emerging political maturity, except for the fact that ever since Coddington took office, word on both left and right sides of the street has been that his glaring absence of applicable experience meant that he barely knew what he was doing.

Of course, the seeming tumult in Dave Matthews's GOP ranks might be diversionary, too. Is Coddington's convenient springtime abdication also the metaphorical washing of hands by commissioners Bush and Seabrook, v.v. the auditor's willingness to pay Keith Henderson's legal fees without examination?

It's a legitimate question, right?

Floyd County auditor resigns amid budget crisis

Floyd County Auditor Darin Coddington resigned Friday, effective May 3, after county leaders acknowledged that a series of missteps during the past year have led to a major budget emergency.

Coddington, a Republican who was elected in 2010, had told fellow county leaders that he was resigning for personal reasons. An after-hours number for him could not be found Friday.

John Schellenberger, a Republican and current chairman of the Floyd County Council, acknowledged in an interview that the financial crisis — an estimated $2.4 million budget deficit discovered about eight weeks into the new year — was a factor.

“If a person doesn’t have the skill set, it’s a really stressful job” serving as auditor, Schellenberger said.

Buckley departs from The National Review: "The GOP likes to say it’s a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me."

In the wake of his endorsement of Barack Obama, Christopher Buckley has resigned from The National Review, which was founded by his father, the late William F. Buckley.

Hmm.

So much for "laughing at the hypocrisy of all you left-leaning individuals always touting intellectual honesty, tolerance, and freedom of expression."

Looks like that particular malady is afflicting our friends on the right, too. Imagine that. Here's the Buckley piece in its entirety. Thanks to Bayerfan for the tip.

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Buckley Bows Out of National Review, by Christopher Buckley (The Daily Beast).

I seem to have picked an apt title for my Daily Beast column, or blog, or whatever it’s called: “What Fresh Hell.” My last posting (if that’s what it’s called) in which I endorsed Obama, has brought about a very heaping helping of fresh hell. In fact, I think it could accurately be called a tsunami.

The mail (as we used to call it in pre-cyber times) at the Beast has been running I’d say at about 7-to-1 in favor. This would seem to indicate that you (the Beast reader) are largely pro-Obama.

As for the mail flooding into National Review Online—that’s been running about, oh, 700-to-1 against. In fact, the only thing the Right can’t quite decide is whether I should be boiled in oil or just put up against the wall and shot. Lethal injection would be too painless.

I had gone out of my way in my Beast endorsement to say that I was not doing it in the pages of National Review, where I write the back-page column, because of the experience of my colleague, the lovely Kathleen Parker. Kathleen had written in NRO that she felt Sarah Palin was an embarrassment. (Hardly an alarmist view.) This brought 12,000 livid emails, among them a real charmer suggesting that Kathleen’s mother ought to have aborted her and tossed the fetus into a dumpster. I didn’t want to put NR in an awkward position.

Since my Obama endorsement, Kathleen and I have become BFFs and now trade incoming hate-mails. No one has yet suggested my dear old Mum should have aborted me, but it’s pretty darned angry out there in Right Wing Land. One editor at National Review—a friend of 30 years—emailed me that he thought my opinions “cretinous.” One thoughtful correspondent, who feels that I have “betrayed”—the b-word has been much used in all this—my father and the conservative movement generally, said he plans to devote the rest of his life to getting people to cancel their subscriptions to National Review. But there was one bright spot: To those who wrote me to demand, “Cancel my subscription,” I was able to quote the title of my father’s last book, a delicious compendium of his NR “Notes and Asides”: Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription.

Within hours of my endorsement appearing in The Daily Beast it became clear that National Review had a serious problem on its hands. So the next morning, I thought the only decent thing to do would be to offer to resign my column there. This offer was accepted—rather briskly!—by Rich Lowry, NR’s editor, and its publisher, the superb and able and fine Jack Fowler. I retain the fondest feelings for the magazine that my father founded, but I will admit to a certain sadness that an act of publishing a reasoned argument for the opposition should result in acrimony and disavowal.

My father in his day endorsed a number of liberal Democrats for high office, including Allard K. Lowenstein and Joe Lieberman. One of his closest friends on earth was John Kenneth Galbraith. In 1969, Pup wrote a widely-remarked upon column saying that it was time America had a black president. (I hasten to aver here that I did not endorse Senator Obama because he is black. Surely voting for someone on that basis is as racist as not voting for him for the same reason.)

My point, simply, is that William F. Buckley held to rigorous standards, and if those were met by members of the other side rather than by his own camp, he said as much. My father was also unpredictable, which tends to keep things fresh and lively and on-their-feet. He came out for legalization of drugs once he decided that the war on drugs was largely counterproductive. Hardly a conservative position. Finally, and hardly least, he was fun. God, he was fun. He liked to mix it up.

So, I have been effectively fatwahed (is that how you spell it?) by the conservative movement, and the magazine that my father founded must now distance itself from me. But then, conservatives have always had a bit of trouble with the concept of diversity. The GOP likes to say it’s a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me.

While I regret this development, I am not in mourning, for I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for. Eight years of “conservative” government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case.

So, to paraphrase a real conservative, Ronald Reagan: I haven’t left the Republican Party. It left me.

Thanks, anyway, for the memories, and here’s to happier days and with any luck, a bit less fresh hell.

Related: Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting for Obama

Randy Stumler resigns as Democratic party chairman and will teach overseas.

Important morning news in local politics, and here's an extended excerpt from the Tribune. Feel free to discuss.

Stumler steps down as councilman, chairman of Democratic party, by Daniel Suddeath (News and Tribune)

Randy Stumler has stepped down from positions of Floyd County Councilman and chairman of the Floyd County Democratic Party.

Stumler will pursue a teaching opportunity with the U.S. Department of Defense, assisting with military personnel. He will move in August to the Azores Islands, which are located off the coast of Portugal, about a five-hour flight from the U.S. east coast ...

... Vice chairwoman Marcey Wisman will step-in for the time as head of the county’s Democratic party, a position held by Stumler for four years.

He said a caucus will be held to choose a permanent replacement, but he supports Wisman.

“Marcey is just a great person. She’ll run for the chairperson spot and she’ll do a great job,” Stumler said.

Stumler expects a successful year for the party in Floyd County. “This is a great team, and we’ve worked very hard to bring everyone into the party and keep this a big tent,” he said.

"John Wilcox has resigned from Mayor England's administration."

From at-large councilman John Gonder's blog (Tuesday, 12 February):

Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye

John Wilcox has resigned from Mayor England's administration. He says he is simply tired and wants to enjoy the retirement he set aside to join England's team. He was the campaign manager during the primary and general election. The proof of his effectiveness is shown by the results of the election. Although he didn't say it directly, I believe John was somewhat reluctant to enter the fray full time. I think the England team has lost a valuable member.

New hope for the riverfront: Thousands gather downtown to toast Trinkle’s departure.

Okay, perhaps they were in streaming through the streets for Harvest Homecoming, but a boy can dream, right?

33 years ago, Richard M. Nixon recorded his greatest achievement in a lifetime of public service by leaving the White House in disgrace.

In October, 1994, the Peter Principle was turned upside down when Eddie Laduke received his pink slip and was dismissed from the editor’s chair of the New Albany Tribune.

Someday, sooner or later, councilman Dan Coffey will no longer hold an elected office in the city of New Albany, and his neighborhood can finally emerge from captivity and turn its calendar pages forward.

Meanwhile, all the imagery this weekend is joyful:

New Albany City Wrap: Riverfront Director Bob Trinkle resigning, by Eric Scott Campbell (News and Tribune).

Bob Trinkle, director of riverfront programming under Mayor James Garner, announced Thursday that he’ll step down Dec. 31, the end of Garner’s term.

Trinkle told mayoral candidates Doug England and Randy Hubbard about his plans to resign, “and both of them concur,” Trinkle said in a media statement. He told the candidates he is willing to help in a transitional capacity or to return to the part-time post.

On the campaign trail, England and Hubbard have expressed the desire to improve and expand the use of the Riverfront Amphitheatre.

For the remainder of the year, Trinkle will plan next year’s spring and summer events. He thanked Garner for his “unqualified support within the constraints of a city budget with many priorities.”

Trinkle who couldn’t find his way out of the conventional thinking box with a Saturn rocket bungeed to his back side, was undoubtedly James Garner’s single worst appointment as mayor.

Throughout his career, Trinkle has gazed in fear upon multi-generational diversity and artistic creativity and always -- always -- he has seen only encroachments and dire threats to the suffocating limitations of his own preferred monocultural milieu. Never has it occurred to him that these offer virtually limitless possibilities for circumventing the “constraints of a city budget with many priorities," which he now predictably cites as an excuse upon exiting the scene.

Trinkle's tenure on the waterfront was a pathetic failure. Perhaps, for once, the city will learn something from the experience. I, for one, am learning not to hold my breath.

Previously at NAC:

On the merits of Boblessness: Inject entrepreneurialism into New Albany’s Riverfront Amphitheater, and restore value to a mismanaged community asset.

On the waterfront: Same old song and dance .

Not spectacular enough? Maybe they should play some Zappa, instead.

If he's not going to use the Riverfront Amphitheater, would Bullet Bob mind if we borrowed it and made some money?

Sorry to say ... told ya so.

NA-FC Parks leader Bill Koehler resigns position (Tribune).

This is a huge loss to the community, if for no other reason (although there are many others) than the ex-Marine Koehler's ability to walk purposefully into the council chamber, and deploying nothing more than a natural commanding presence, reduce Councilman Cappuccino to respectful silence.

We need much, much more of that around here.

Friday afternoon massacre claims entire stormwater drainage board; Putsch leader Dan “Agent Zero” Coffey reassures traumatized city: “I’m in charge.”

Isn't he always?

But seriously, there is a recurring element of tragicomic pathos to the Wizard of Westside’s scheming machinations, of which the current Drainage Gate civic black eye is but one of many in the past, and many more to come, in which he has been complicit.

As ringmaster of the politics of semi-carnal envy that characterizes so much of small town life, CM Coffey certainly craves the office of mayor to such a noticeable degree that, presumably, he would gladly park his posterior on the gilded throne without accepting so much as a dime in remuneration.

Such is the vow of subservient poverty that Coffey has regularly demanded of other public servants, but it’s a moot point, because he knows that reliable support outside the hermetically sealed electoral comfort of his own fiefdom of Westendia is, shall we say, lacking; his prospects citywide aren’t worth a warm bucket of spit, and he’d be crushed in any such race like a fat and lazy late summer fly who has ingested one too many slices of fresh cow pie before trying to airlift home a bit too close to the waiting swatter.

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Now that the stormwater drainage board has resigned en masse – quite the parliamentary thing to do under increasingly daunting circumstances, and the purport of which is as certain to elude the comprehension of the clueless poseur Erika as the dusty and long dormant instructions for programming her obsolete VCR – all parties involved in the city’s latest embarrassing example of its inability to govern itself are cowering behind temporary barricades constructed of tattered legal pads and BBQ bologna-stained Bazooka Joe vocational diplomas, courageously lobbing desultory volleys of accusation and counter-charge at one another.

Fascinatingly, New Albany’s sewage system, a meandering labyrinth to which now can added a newly Coffey-tized and eviscerated stormwater drainage compliance mechanism, creates strange bedfellows the way that Bill Gates prints money. As an example, sewer board member and city council president Larry Kochert, who shockingly finds himself for once in the mayor’s corner, believes that certain “overzealous” councilmen should be volunteered for unpaid duty on the now vacant drainage committee.

The pot, the kettle … the King.

Perhaps dazed at CM Kochert’s presumptuousness toward an erstwhile ally in obstructionist mayhem, the Wizard somehow hasn’t yet grabbed this gracious offer of unpaid labor even though time and time again he has lectured a howling gallery as to the alleged superiority of his grasp when it comes to environmental engineering, Kosher dietary restrictions, nuclear physics, quilting, and his central interpretive role in a soon to be released, bold new updated translation of Thomas Aquinas’s “Summa Theologica.”

With sidesplitting laughter escalating to Comedy Caravan proportions, let’s step gingerly around the corner and cast furtive glances at the campfires burning within the confines of the open air museum. I hear artillery in the distance, but it might be thunder. Are the stormwater drainage Gods chuckling, too?

And these bizarre partnerships; what to make of them? More on that later ... assuming the creek don't rise.

Tribune coverage here
Courier coverage here
Bucket brigade and lots of sawdust here