Secession is a movement, all right.

Recently the same point was covered, dispassionately and sans humor, by Peter Weber at The Week (What would happen if Texas actually seceded?).  

Weber's conclusion (giving disgruntled states more power to reinforce their retrograde social instincts) is at least debatable in reasonable company, whereas the secession petitions are little more than the posturing of deluded losers, reminding us that some movements never go very far beyond bowel. But I'm as yet willing to consider their departure, just so long as they take their share of the national debt with them. Talk about a buzz kill.

The agony and the ecstacy of Texan secession, by Brian Tucker (Insider Louisville)

A couple of weeks ago, everyone was talking about a few meaningless petitions making the rounds in southern states in the wake of President Barack Obama’s re-election ...

... They say time heals all wounds, so since they’ve had a while to calm down, I thought I’d check in on the now all-but-forgotten (Texan) hayseeds who started this latest round of backwoods buffoonery.

Predictably, they have not moved on. Emboldened by “media inquiries,” these Texans have become even more determined to press on and drop out of the Union.

Currently, they boast more than 100,000 signatures on the 2012 petition. That’s four-tenths of one percent of Texas’ population to you and me.

By contrast, there are more people in Utah who have paid a hooker to whip them with a sock full of chicken fat than have signed the Texas petition.

Taxation thread at Facebook, and a newspaper columnist vacancy.

It probably will not surprise you to learn that my attitude toward Facebook has been one of highly personalized agitprop. Yesterday, I linked to my Thursday column, and wrote this:

‎Jeff Gillenwater wants to bid secessionists farewell. I believe secessionists should follow their own advice (to me) and move elsewhere. In Europe, secessionists want out of their countries, but not the EU. Clearly, we're all secessionists now.

Every now and then, a good discussion breaks out, and such was the case yesterday. As sometimes occurs, the topic shifted, in this instance to taxation, tax rates and tax reform. The thread still is going as Friday breaks: http://www.facebook.com/roger.a.baylor/posts/293759810724531?comment_id=1344041&notif_t=share_comment

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Speaking of columns, Debbie Harbeson has written her last essay for the News and Tribune.

Ending my current relationship with this paper does not mean I will stop writing though, particularly since writing helps me learn and grow. I will probably be writing for more specific audiences — people who already understand and share similar underlying philosophies.

Well, it's the perfect timing for a Beer Money (2009-2011) newspaper column comeback. Never have the troglodytes been more annoyed as during my tenure crafting weekly impenetrable satire. Coach K, too.

I'm tanned, rested, ready and completely rehabbed: No PEDs, EPOs and HGHs are to be found in my urine sample ... though IPA, well, that's another matter.

ON THE AVENUES: Idiot wind.

ON THE AVENUES: Idiot wind.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

America’s recently concluded election campaign proved yet again that we seem incapable of bipartisanship, but in one significant “absentee” sense we stand as one: Americans seldom pay the slightest attention to developments elsewhere on planet Earth – otherwise known as the place we all inhabit – until the moment our troops are headed to an isolated place stuck somewhere on the face of it.

Perhaps understandably, the campaign was ripe for fervent exclamations of American exceptionalism, birther lies, varied white male minority fictions, and numerous other USA-centric arguments about local matters on our own side of the planetary street. A discussion about the global economy and our place in it, contrasted with the advancing merits of localism and self-sufficiency, might have made an interesting topic for reflection. Unfortunately, apart from shared China bashing, it’s a discussion that didn’t occur.

It’s a given that we know almost nothing about emerging nations like Brazil, India and assorted locales in Asia. The African continent is just as mysterious to us now as it was when Kurtz sailed up the Congo, except for Libya’s current voguish usefulness as opportunistic right-wing propaganda, and who cares if a few tiny South Sea island sandbar principalities are swept away by rising tides?

Amid the political arm wrestling, we’ve missed plenty of noteworthy news items from abroad. Seeing as I’m a Europhile, I’ll focus there.

Most of what we’ve heard about Europe lately has been focused on the woebegone, profligate Greeks, and the pressing question of whether German taxpayers eventually will pay for recalibration even as the cradle of democracy emaciates itself back to fiscal rectitude. Paul Ryan will note that there is little interest on the continent as to Greece’s prospects for re-establishing an economy pushed back to the Stone Age by austerity – save for the unions and leftists marching as this column is being written.

Meanwhile, France elected a dangerous ideologue who genuinely is a socialist, as opposed to so many misbegotten right-wing caricatures of Barack Obama. François Hollande possesses a crazed tendency to speak about justice, workers’ rights and quality of life issues, and financial markets tremble in fear, lest the contagion spread from the Élysée Palace to a fast food chain outlet in the exurb outside Dubuque.

But give me Pere Hollande over Papa John, any day.

The former Soviet Union (now called “Russia” to everyone not named Mitt Romney, who evidently remains a devotee of hoary John le Carré novels) admittedly remains a cornucopia of governmental and societal dysfunction, with Vladimir Putin flipping job titles more often than Romney’s 2012 platform planks. Nowhere in the former USSR is everyday life worse than Belarus, where a one-party dictatorship has created its own super-majority by brutally suppressing dissenting voices, and enforcing political conformity the old-fashioned way: Job by job, block by block, school by school.

Any resemblances to beet-red Indiana, in the context of former Civil War states on the Union side gone Southern-fried totalitarian, are purely intentional.

---

These are small beer compared to a resurgence of European regionalism during these recent recessionary years, something we all might examine more closely, especially in the aftermath of Obama’s climactic re-election, as the tone of dispatches emanating from the American Right increasingly resembles those of South Carolinians following Abe Lincoln’s presidential victory in 1860.

You’re probably already aware that Belgium’s Flemish and Wallonian cultural and linguistic halves have been teetering on the edge of divorce for many years. Northern Italians see themselves as productive, modern and superior to the Mafioso-ridden southern provinces, and periodically make noises about splitting.

Spain for the Spanish? Not exactly, because many Catalonians fancy Barcelona as the capital of a Catalan free state.

While these continental peoples speak different languages and remain obscure to Americans, who generally speak only wretched English, there exists an example of an independence movement far closer to home in terms of white cultural legacies.

It’s Scotland.

Surprised? Don’t be, because the Scots will be holding a referendum on independence in 2014, and this is not a cultural autonomy proposal, but one that could enable full blown status as a separate country, following in the footsteps of Ireland a century ago, sans violence (we certainly hope).

Yes, the devil remains firmly ensconced amid future details, and each of these cases is different from the others. A full inquiry would be merited, and perhaps some day I’ll have time to do the necessary research. The overarching point, at least to me, is this: As people living in these places actively contemplate the implications of possible independence, few if any are advocating migration out of the larger, inclusive European Union. Flanders, Wallonia, Catalonia, Northern Italy and now Scotland are proclaiming blessed freedom … and future membership for themselves in the EU.

Talk about hedging one’s bets: A Scotsman eager to retain more of what remains of his North Sea oil wealth, so as to shield it from the grasping claws of Westminster, is not proposing to abandon the dreaded redistribution of wealth made possible by the EU. He’ll have his haggis, and eat it, too.

---

Perhaps this is why my eyebrow keeps arching as I hear the embittered voices of GOP voters screaming the secession word as they plot vengeance on demographic trends they regularly reject. It’s been surreal from the very outset, all these presumably “real” Americans turning back to the Confederacy’s dubious business model after all these decades, and only a considerable degree of weird, post-modern karma helps to explain why after several hundred thousand males, most of them white, died to preserve the Union and free the slaves, their ancestors now insist they’d be happy in opting to re-marginalize – in effect, oddly, to enslave themselves in a new “homeland” that would be the dumbest, fattest and most superstition-ridden imaginable.

Me? I’m delighted to discuss the prospects for their departure, but only after today’s new breed of secessionist recognizes that because it is they who seek to exit the federal structure, they’re the ones who’ll be forfeiting onerous government “handouts” like social security.

Military installations? I’ll be needing those back, as well. You keep telling me you’re armed to the teeth, and that’s fine, because you’ll not be keeping the jets. Remember to take plenty of shotguns when you defend your subsidized oil in the Middle East; them Hummers, they’se guzzlers for sure.

How many new secessionists will persist in D-I-V-O-R-C-E proceedings when it becomes clear that their own pensions are dependent on the combined weight of a modern industrial nation – you know, the manifest American destiny they cited by rote whenever challenged, right up until November 6, 2012, when the all-powerful God formerly on their side instead endorsed a solid victory by the Kenyan Islamic, and now, belatedly, their fortress turns out to have been not so damned mighty in the first place?

Of course, today’s secessionists are bluffing, pure and simple, although their clamor causes me to wish the nation had more wind turbines.

Energy sufficiency. That’s the thing, eh?

That's no ordinary piece of abandoned concrete.

The Green Mouse has learned that soon-to-be-former Floyd County Council kingpin Ted Heavrin, who was ousted from office in the 2012 Quasi-Democratic primary, plans to secede from the county and establish a new administrative unit called the Union of Fiscally Responsible Public Officials (UFrpO), to be located on this concrete platform in the middle of Sam Peden Community Park’s fowl lake.

Heavrin’s inspiration is said to be a photo he saw on the Internet.

It’s the Principality of Sealand, located off the coast of the United Kingdom.

Because the new unit has absolutely no revenue, the budget is non-existent, and this is fine with the founder and sole occupant.

“During my entire council career as a pretend Democrat, I never wavered from the belief that revenue is impossible,” Heavrin observed in a freshly mimeographed press release.

“We’re always better off starving than aspiring, I always say.”

But where there is an iron will, there is a way.

“I’m considering entering the UFrpO into next year’s Bicentennial Art contest," writes Heavrin, "because of course I’ll win, and I hear they pay a few bucks to the winners. After all, I need a rowboat to get out there, and a shovel for all that duck shit. Of course, I’ll be buying something third-hand.”

NA Confidential would like to be the first to formally recognize the UFrpO, and we look forward to hearing the national anthem while we're walking on the beltway.

Partying like it's 1993 (or 1900) as parks secession legislation passes.

(The council president tries in vain to extinguish the hallowed torch of city park liberty)

Via Twitter, the News and Tribune's Daniel Suddeath reports that the city and county park system's divorce is final.

Earlier in the evening, I predicted on Twitter that Bob "CeeSaw" Caesar would live up to my escalating disdain and change his vote. As you can see, he flipped. Somewhere out in his garage, King Larry Kochert is tumescent, and maybe even incandescent.

Parks Agitprank: What do you mean it wasn't "political"? Irv Stumler was there, for chrissakes.

Here's the plan: "The current Parks Department model entered into beginning in 1994 has contributed to a blatant and ongoing inequality in funding by Floyd County to Agreement."

Here's what happened on Friday:

... In front of the City-County Building, a group that included local business leaders, attorneys and elected officials gathered to make a final push to the New Albany City Council to strike down a proposal to split the joint parks department.

Toward the end of the press conference, NA-FC Parks Board Chairman Scott Klink was interrupted while addressing the media by Councilman Dan Coffey, who voted for the split on first and second readings last month and is the sponsor of the measure to divide the department.

Here's what Mayor Gahan had to say:

Gahan released a statement on the press conference Friday, as he called it “an obvious political stunt.”

“Election day jitters have forced county officials to make promises that are in complete contradiction to both their recent actions and public statements,” Gahan said. “My plan is the best way to improve parks and recreation here in New Albany, and I encourage everyone to visit our website to read it.”

Here's what CM Kevin Zurschmiede had to say:

"I think the county has put forth a lot of effort to equalize their funding."

Here's what I have to say:

Kevin, my dear man, exactly why was it that the county HAD to out forth effort to equalize funding if that's what it was SUPPOSED to do in the first place? 

Mom, apple pie, Chevrolet ... and NA-FC Parks Department?

I've never harbored any doubt that Roger Jeffers, the parks department superintendent, does a good job. I've heard nothing but praise for him. For all I know, he quite possibly is the finest local administrator of them all.

So, given the tenor of his comments ever since the mayor's parks secession project was announced, pardon my insouciance in asking: Was Roger Jeffers ever elected to anything?

And: Do residents of Floyd County (of which, at last glance, New Albany remained a part) answer to Jeffers, or does he answer to us?

Look, of course it's tough. You take a job, and then things change without warning. It's also called life, and sometimes politics, and it's something that happens to working people all the time. When it does, they adapt ... or get swept away.

But when Jeffers switches from hired hand mode to aspirant Gallup pollster, it's rather embarrassing: "The citizens are not happy," opines the super, and yes, the ones bothering to call him probably are. Me? I'm perfectly happy. Need I phone the Rajah to provide the other side of the story?

It might be easier for him to dismount the high horse and realize that Generalizations typically are Hell. It might also be the case that if citizens genuinely are unhappy -- as oh so many city residents have been during county's government's merrily irresponsible period of chronic parks underfunding -- this discontent will indeed be manifested at the polls when voting time comes.

To repeat: Parks are damned important, and for numerous reasons, but there are as many different ways to have, use and operate them as there are governmental entities. The NA-FC parks board's current theme of "Just the Way We Are" is one such strategy. It is neither the only way, nor a religious commandment set in balsa. Can someone representing the parks-business-as-always side of the aisle please conjure a persuasive argument? My eyelids are drooping, already.

They cannot plausibly deny that there are other organizational models. As for the "duplication of financing" arguments, we already have a profound example of non-duplication: The county's decade-long decision to not pay its share. No duplication there. All we seemingly have left is the argument from gloom and doom: If we cannot continue doing something the way we always have, there will be floods, pestilence and cross-dressers descending upon us.

As Nero Wolfe once observed, "Pfui."

Bluegill provides the closer:

Jeffers: "That makes me not want to work for either side to tell you the truth." Me: "OK."

In the newspaper (remember to lower the volume so you don't have to listen to the automatically generated sales dentist): Floyd County moving ahead with parks plan; Jeffers doubtful city can handle transition in two months, by Daniel Suddeath.

Amid universal nods of resignation, the 'Bune editorial board botches parks secession opinion.

Apart from Keith Olbermann and Charles P. Pierce, it's generally a bad idea to entrust political commentary to career sportwriters. That said, let's lower ourselves into the abyss of the newspaper editorial board's opinion on the evolving NA-FC parks split. Their text appears in normal formatting, and my replies as quotes.

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OUR OPINION: Plenty of problems to share for parks split

New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan’s justification for wanting to form a separate New Albany parks system is legitimate.

Over an eight year period, Floyd County shortchanged the New Albany-Floyd County Parks Department by about $4 million. This summer, the Floyd County Commissioners declined to vote on forming a cumulative capital fund to aid in expenses with the park, though city taxpayers have been footing the additional levy for years.

The reasons for not living up to their end of the bargain have changed numerous times for Floyd County officials. We’ve been told the money had to be used for murder trials, the county didn’t realize the taxes weren’t going to the parks department and even that the state cut the levy rate.

Those aren’t exactly the practices of an entity most would consider partnering with for any matter that has financial implications.

No, they’re not, are they? The ‘Bune’s editorial board clearly understands the magnitude of the county’s serial “deadbeat dad” approach to governance. But you just know it can't last …

However, the parks situation is much larger than a simple yes or no vote. Jobs, property and future collaboration with the county must be considered by the city before moving ahead with the divide of the parks system. The New Albany council voted 6-3 to do just that Thursday night, but finalizing the move will require one more vote.

Ah, I see. It is “much larger.” What does this mean, and why is it true? Yes, jobs, properties and “future collaborations” (Really? You wanna go out with that guy again after he dined and dashed before the check came due and made you go Dutch Treat?) are considerations, to be sure; as I noted last week, these also were presumed factors in seeking to avid the split of an entire Central European country, and Czechs and Slovaks somehow managed to work them out.

Frankly, Gahan hasn’t been forthcoming with the NA-FC Parks Board about his intentions, at least not in an official capacity. Gahan was one of the few city or county officials who skipped at least one of the joint meetings hosted by the parks board to try to mediate past woes between the entities. Also, no one from the Gahan administration addressed the parks board about the split prior to the measures being placed on the New Albany City Council’s agenda Thursday.

On one hand, county officials never came before the city to announce they wouldn’t be adequately funding the parks department. But the county’s mistake should be a lesson, not a reason to keep the parks board in the dark about what may transpire.

Two things here. First, what is it about the parks in general, and the parks board in particular, that cloaks them in a perpetual above-the-fray holiness, more so than other local administrative entities? Personally I believe parks are very important, but I can see numerous potential models of governance. Since when did this one become sacrosanct, unimpeachable and shielded from scrutiny? In addition, why does Mayor Gahan have a greater responsibility to be loquacious than county government? Gahan gets scalded for non-transparence, but the county’s years of similar mute funding behavior is merely a lesson. What of the parks board’s own non-transparence in conducting its affairs, as when it sought to engineer a state legislature-mandated tax hoarding without notifying the county or the city? Why wasn't that considered non-transparent?

The parks board oversees several employees, some of whom have served this community for 40 years. Gahan owed an explanation to those volunteer board members — whether they agreed with his choice or not — so they could, in turn, inform parks employees.

Subsequent news items suggest he has done so.

If he believes in the split, he should stand up for it and look parks board members in the eye. Not to mention it’s October, and if there’s going to be a city parks system in place by Jan. 1, there’s a tremendous amount of preparation and planning that will be needed.

Again, why is it that Gahan alone bears the solemn quasi-Old Testament obligation to look parks board members "in the eye"? Were these board members appointed by “god” herself? Why this disproportionate requirement of Gahan, while serial fiscal negligence on the part of county government gets little more than an affectionate butt slap -- hey, cool, you'll do better next eight year stretch, right?

What is the rush? Why not release a plan, get people on board and proceed in 2014. There seem to be too many questions that need answers before the split occurs.

Now I’m confused. The parks split is acceptable, and there are compelling reasons for it? If so, given that the editorial board can see that county government is culpable even if the board shrinks from learning its own lessons from the experience, why tolerate another year of county under-funding guesswork? Why not act swiftly? 

Here are some other questions to consider:

• What would such a divide really mean for the residents of New Albany? Sam Peden Community Park is the city’s largest and most frequented outdoor recreational facility. But the land is owned by the county, so if the split ultimately happens, it will solely be in charge of the park’s upkeep.

After what has taken place in the past, how much do you trust the county to maintain the city’s most sizable park? Floyd County Commissioners President Steve Bush said recently he would not be in favor of selling any of the park land for commercial use, but he’s only one vote.

What if the county decides one day to develop Community Park? New Albany would have very few options to stop the greenspace from being covered with asphalt and residential or commercial buildings if that were to transpire.

New Albanians are grateful the newspaper's editorial board seems to grasp that when it comes to the future of Community Park, county government can be trusted only as far as I can throw a keg filled with 12% beer. Naturally, the board cites this legitimate mistrust of county government’s ultimate aims as evidence that city residents should live in fear of the bully. Uh, right.

• Also, in a time where taxpayers are calling for condensed government, how will Floyd County and New Albany be affected when footing two parks departments?

New Albany taxpayers have already shouldered the biggest part of the parks funding load, but that won’t change when the split happens. Unless New Albany plans to secede from Floyd County, city taxpayers will still be paying for the bulk of parks operations. New Albany residents will be paying for city parks on their own, as well as taxes that will likely help foot a new and separate county recreation system.

The showdown over this issue has spilled over into other arenas as well. The city and county are now in the midst of a legal battle over planning control of the fringe area, and New Albany declined to merge its 911 dispatch operation with Floyd County. The county is the second-smallest county in the state in terms of land area, so shouldn’t we be coming together to cut out duplicated services and costs?

The Alabama-based N and T parent company eliminated duplication in 2011, didn't it, and look where THAT got us. But I digress. These bellicose taxpayers presumably are the very same ones who’d be among the first to demand that all parties involved pay their fair share into the parks just like the taxpayers themselves have been doing all along. Would taxpayers genuinely interested in fairness be willing to forgive and forget the county’s serial underpayment of parks monies? Or do we merely fluff taxpayers in a sort of ritualistic abnegation without exploring the nuances of what they're demanding this week? Sadly, nowadays, yes, but it’s also worth noting that if one is to follow this incredibly tired “duplicated services and costs” to its logical conclusion, we’d have only one government nationwide, obtaining the very best rates for bulk purchasing and distribution … wait, sorry; that’s the socialist bogeyman, isn’t it?

At some point, the city and the county are going to have to cooperate for the good of the residents.

When all is considered, New Albany may have a better chance of garnering a new outdoor pool and a Little League facility on its own. But such a big move as splitting a parks department shouldn’t be rushed into a special meeting with little notice.

Parks are one of the assets companies review before deciding to locate to a community. Just thinking about a warm sunny day in a park with family and friends stirs positive emotions in our minds and souls.

But this whole issue has been anything but warm and fuzzy. It shows incompetence by the county and lack of respect by the Gahan administration for the employees and board members who have served the parks system.

So, why isn't the editorial board asking the single most obvious question posed by this discussion: How do we compel county government to cooperate? To make this point again: If the newspaper is interested in clarity, mustn’t it explain why a simple, subjective and highly debatable “lack of respect” from Jeff Gahan is to be considered commensurate with a county government so objectively “incompetent” as to fail to honor its side of a money deal not merely for the brief tenure of Gahan’s term, but for a period of years? How are these failures equal, editorial board? And what on earth do warm fuzzies have to do with any of it?

— The News and Tribune editorial board is comprised of Publisher Bill Hanson, Editor Shea Van Hoy and Assistant Editors Chris Morris and Amy Huffman-Branham.

Perhaps it is, but since the managing editor freely acknowledges that 3/4 of this quartet rarely venture out of HQ in Jeffersonville, I believe we know who wrote it, don't we? And that explains a lot, doesn't it?

Nash on the split: "For the past several years the leaders of Floyd County have not done the right thing."

New Albany's city council voted last night, and in spite of One Southern Indiana's last-minute interference ploy on behalf of itself, the result was approval for a resolution and two readings of an ordinance to secede from the combined city-county parks department. Bob Caesar voted against the resolution and for the ordinance, and the smart money has him executing the rarest of all council maneuvers, the King Larry Gambit, by abstaining when the third reading comes due next time.

Prior to the meeting, Matt Nash traced the sources of the city's discontent in another fine newspaper column.

NASH: How should we fund our parks?

... If any of the elected officials in Floyd County say that they were unaware of funding inadequacies in the parks department until this year, they are either lying or just don’t care. A simple search will find request dating back several years from park’s officials. Ms. Fendley has been a member of the county council for nearly six years serving from 2005-2008 and again from 2011 to the present and for part of that time she was vice president of that board. How have they been coming up with the amount that was budgeted over the last few years? Did they just pick an arbitrary number out of thin air?

Matt's conclusion, an eloquent condemnation of the prevailing McAllister/Heavrin mentality of non-governance in the county is required reading.

I am a resident of New Albany and Floyd County. I believe that a vibrant park system with great facilities adds to the lives of all citizens. It is time that the leaders of Floyd County began to understand this fact. For far too long the priorities of our elected officials have revolved around the murder trial of a single individual and the incarceration of criminals in our county. It is time that the taxpaying citizens of New Albany and Floyd County begin to reap the benefits from the tax dollars we pay.

Parks secession: In which One Southern Indiana blatantly interferes in local matters.

Thanks to S for sending this to me. Obviously, NAC is not on the mailing list.

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Dear 1si Members,

In the spirit of keeping you informed of issues of concern to the business community, we wanted you to be aware that there has been a special City Council meeting called to vote on the breakup of the NAFC Parks Department. Unfortunately, this action would be counter to legislative positions taken by our organization in that it will likely result in less efficient local government.

Our 2013 Legislative Agenda includes the need to streamline current local government so that administrative efficiencies can be achieved by the expansion, standardization and coordination of collaborative purchasing. Vetted by the business members of our advocacy council and approved by our Board of Directors, this Legislative Agenda has been distributed to the 800+ business investors of our organization.

If you would like to attend the meeting or talk with City Council members to discourage the separation, the meeting takes place tonight, October 18, 2012 at 7:15 pm at the City County Building in downtown New Albany .

Sincerely,

Wendy Dant Chesser
President and CEO

Bile and acrimony on tap as city parks secession bid appears on city council agenda.

Suddeath's piece is uncommonly long for the newspaper (1,400 words), and that's good, because this issue isn't simple.

Speaking only for myself, this entire parks issue, from alleged highland/lowland togetherness to serial city/county funding disparities, and not excluding the park board's secretive 007 Agent Clere legislative taxation mission to Burma (or Indianapolis), testifies to the insanity of two decades of the Heavrin/McAllister Power Trip Show, when the budgetary marrow must be gnawed lest any county politician ever be compelled to speak honestly about the necessity of increased revenue.

Thus we come to the Shirley Baird school of governance (yikes): Reluctantly concede the extent of county government’s abject and cynical failure to equally fund parks within the city limits, but conclude that all should be smilingly forgiven in a joyous circle jerk of doubtful future unity; we need only “trust” the same conniving entities who have pulled away the football countless times before, relax, kick back, and enjoy the anticipation of the next time (and there’ll be a next time), when we must laboriously formulate a whole new convoluted Band-Aid of a fiscal plan to celebrate county government’s fresh new resolve to do what it was supposed to do all along, but did not, because it never was held accountable for the previous time.

The devil's in the details, so ...

Vote to split parks slated for tonight in New Albany; Parks board decries Gahan’s choice, says community will suffer from divide, by Daniel Suddeath (News and Tribune)

NEW ALBANY — Since 1994, New Albany and Floyd County have been partners in parks and recreation service. But that could all change after tonight.

A special New Albany City Council meeting has been slated for 7:15 this evening so that two measures can be considered. The first is a resolution calling for the re-establishment of the New Albany Parks Department, and the legislation will require only one vote by the council.

The second measure is an ordinance calling for the abolishment of the current New Albany-Floyd County Parks Department agreement, and it will require three readings by the council.

Fendley on parks funding: "We can’t change what happened in the past."

Floyd County Council member Dana Fendley says that she didn't have all the information until earlier this year. In other news, someone's homework was eaten by a pet hamster.

By the way, wouldn't it be nice if the newspaper linked Fendley's mention of Matt Nash's column to -- that's right, Nash's column?

Never fear: I do it here. Indirectly, of course.

NEWS AND TRIBUNE LETTERS — For Oct.17 ... Council member responds to recent column

... I personally have been in attendance at the parks board meetings and have assured the board that we will be in full compliance with our agreement with the city of New Albany. I should mention that the majority of the Floyd County Council members were not on the council when the funding agreement was initially drawn up, and were only made aware of the details of the agreement earlier this year. Since becoming aware of the requirements, we have paid our fair share for 2012 and will continue to do so in 2013.

This parks suspense is making me want to self-medicate.

The anticipation is building to ketchup-like proportions. What does Parson Clere intend to say about all this park splitting? How on earth can we proceed without wisdom and direction from the only perfect politician this city has produced ... well, since Verle Huffman, at least.

NASH: Has the time come to split the parks?

... If the officials in Floyd County can’t come up with the money to fund the parks department properly, maybe it is time for a split. There are many details to work out. It will be tough in the beginning to launch our city’s new parks department, but maybe the time has come. It is clear that Floyd County elected officials have very little intention on doing what is necessary for a vibrant park system in our community.

Is the city seceding from the NAFC parks department today?

(9:00 a.m. update: According to the News and Tribune, the answer is yes, secession is the mayor's ultimate aim)

The county object most resembling Ft. Sumter may need to be found, and quickly. Come to think of it, this might well be Rep. Clere's blood pressure, considering his involvement in ways to exonerate the county's chronic taxable parks double down v.v. the city.

New neighborhood association chartered in New Albany.

With a population of 6 – two humans and four cats – the 1117 East Spring Street Neighborhood Association (1117 NA, for short), seeks to capitalize on the city's enduring, unceasing factionalist disunity by actively competing against other, like-minded groups for scarce and diminishing resources at the precise time when co-operation is most needed.

“We believe that circling our wagon is the best approach to deal with the transitional status of the areas outside our own tiny patch of turf,” says 1117 NA founder R. A. Baylor.

“This way, it’s all for number one, and none for all.”

In like spirit, the formation of the 1117 NA is being lauded by those parasitical elements that readily thrive in New Albany’s historic downtown residential areas in the absence of principled unity, including the Slumlord Benevolent Society (SBS), the Meth Cooker’s Alliance (MCA), the Diversity Ends at the Tip of My Porch’s Nose (DETMPN), and the Committee to Re-elect Steve Price (JETHRO).

Its perimeter duly staked, 1117 NA intends an immediate petition to the Indiana Housing & Community Development Authority (IHCDA) Board of Directors for “purely an afterthought” funding from the NSP Community Neighborhood Revitalization Fund.

According to Baylor, 1117 NA’s bid for afterthought funding stands in stark contrast with applications submitted by other, larger neighborhood associations in the area.

“Seeking the betterment of whole city blocks is effete, outmoded, pie in the sky blather from the same liberal minds that brought us socialistic health care,” he says. “It only makes the slumlords mad, while getting the rest of us dirty. However, 1117 NA’s bold, innovative proposal keeps it small and sustainable. If approved, these neighborhood stabilization monies will be used as soon as possible to enhance the quality of life where it matters most: Right here at 1117 E. Spring.”

Items on 1117 NA’s neighborhood revitalization checklist include a big-ass brick wall to keep everyone else out, a new hot tub on the back patio, a humidor and cigar lounge in the unfinished basement, more refrigeration and beer tapping capability, and guaranteed lifetime supplies of both cat food and kitty litter.

Baylor said that when it comes to existing neighborhood associations, there are no hard feelings.

“There’s no ‘team’ in ‘I’, and there’s no ‘communal’ in ‘lone wolf’, but what the hell -- they’ll figure it out eventually. It just got to the point where too many hoity-toity bloggers were telling me how to live my life, and my wife's and cats’ lives, too, and if I believed in God, I’d say ‘by God’, that’s just un-American. Them people don't scare me.”

“If you'll pardon me now, I have an appointment for high tea with my 3rd district councilman. We’ll be discussing investments in offshore rental properties -- the ones in those other neighborhoods."

(submitted press release)