GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Has Bob Lane settled his lawsuit against NAHA for wrongful termination?

(Verified to have fulfilled the 30-minutes-or-less rule)

The grapevine is abuzz with hot rumors that the wrongfully terminated Bob Lane, former head of the New Albany Housing Authority, reportedly has accepted a six-figure settlement from Deaf Gahan's minions, such as to keep Lane's lawsuit against the city from going to court.

Yes, we know: any such settlement will be couched in carefully worded legalese to the effect that Gahan's sycophants aren't admitting to guilt, and merely wish to put the lawsuit to rest so we can all move forward, etc, etc ... whatever.

Those of us outside the Kool Aid Tent can still see the truth quite clearly; Gahan and the goons remain sufficiently crooked that each of them requires two daily helpers just to get their pants screwed on right.

Congratulations to Bob Lane. He's a far better person than his vacuous oppressors.

Previously: 

Bob Lane will serve as interim director of the South Bend Housing Authority, making Jeff Gahan's dismissal of Lane even more questionable.

GIVE GAHAN A PINK SLIP: (Friday) Jeff Gahan fired NAHA's Bob Lane to promote David Duggins, but now it's time for voters to do some firing of their own at the ballot box.

Gahan's public housing putsch: "We won't allow the City to revise history to their liking."

Newspaper letter writer savages a failing, flailing and floundering Duggins at the NAHA, and follows the bread crumbs back to Deaf Gahan.

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Laggard, though not to omit straggler, loiterer, lingerer, dawdler, sluggard, snail, idler and loafer.

Welcome to another installment of SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS, a regular Wednesday feature at NA Confidential.

But why all these newfangled words?

Why not the old, familiar, comforting words, like the ones you're sure to hear when asking the city's corporate attorney why the answers to my FOIA/public records request for Bicentennial commission finances, due to be handed over on July 8, still haven't arrived on October 12?

Bicentennial commission financial trail? What's two (yawn) weeks (shrug) after 463 days?

October 12 update: Make that 14 weeks since the FOIA record request's due date and  546 days since I asked Bullet Bob Caesar to tell us how many coffee table books were left unsold, and how much the city's 200-year "summer of love" fest actually cost us.

It's because a healthy vocabulary isn't about intimidation through erudition. Rather, it's about selecting the right word and using it correctly, whatever one's pay grade or station in life.

Even these very same iniquitous, paving-bond-slush-engorged municipal corporate attorneys who customarily are handsomely remunerated to suppress information can benefit from this enlightening expansion of personal horizons, and really, as we contemplate what they knew and when they knew it, all we have left is plenty of time -- and the opportunity to learn something, if we're so inclined.

Today's word is laggard, including some of my favorite synonyms in the English language.

laggard

ˈlaɡərd/

noun

1. a person who makes slow progress and falls behind others: "there was no time for laggards"

synonyms: straggler, loiterer, lingerer, dawdler, sluggard, snail, idler, loafer

adjective

1. slower than desired or expected: "a bell to summon laggard children to school"

Here's another example in a sentence, from August 26, 2007.

Redistricting: Grudgingly coming soon to a laggard city near you.

For more than a year, the single most hypocritical game in a city widely known for its jaw-dropping talent at self-deception has been the irony-free ability of its tub-thumping “law and order” advocates to be magically transformed into defenders of flagrant illegality when the topic turned to the city council’s abysmal failure to heed pertinent statutes and to redistrict.

In other words, the failure of the council to simply do its job.

The council later reneged on its agreement, and can you guess who led the way in thumbing his nose at the court ruling?

Jeff Gahan, that's who. Is it any wonder his corporate attorney won't honor a simple FOIA request?

Late rally by city council's rational thinkers brings hope to redistricting imbroglio.

With two outs in the bottom of the ninth, following a contentious meeting and the final, non-agenda item public speaking round, the city council suddenly regained a measure of sanity and dramatically entertained a motion to form a committee of at-large council persons and plaintiffs in the redistricting lawsuit in the hope of achieving resolution prior to trial.

This moment came after three of the plaintiffs carefully and factually outlined the current situation. We’ll see about publishing these comments later this weekend.

After counsel was consulted, the vote was 5 to 3 in favor of the committee, with Bill Schmidt (bafflingly and incredibly) abstaining.

Needless to say, Larry Kochert and Dan Coffey remain bitterly opposed. Steve Price joined them in voting against the committee even though he almost certainly doesn’t grasp the impact of the determination of his brethren to run the bus off the cliff rather than join together to ensure equality of representation in New Albany.

Apologies for scooping the Tribune, but Mr. Campbell left early.

There’ll be more on this topic in the coming days, but before then, I’d like to thank Dan Coffey for introducing the following NAC blog post into the public record during the meeting:

Redistricted dimensions of Kochert & Ko. Koup revealed by our friendly informant, Even Deeper Throat.

This should effectively thwart any effort by the council’s vindictive bloc to resuscitate the “Caesar’s assassination” scenario that our informant previously and correctly reported, because any effort to do so in the future would only prove that our report was spot on.

And Coffey and Co. would really, really hate that.

Redistricting: Grudgingly coming soon to a laggard city near you.

For more than a year, the single most hypocritical game in a city widely known for its jaw-dropping talent at self-deception has been the irony-free ability of its tub-thumping “law and order” advocates to be magically transformed into defenders of flagrant illegality when the topic turned to the city council’s abysmal failure to heed pertinent statutes and to redistrict.

In other words, the failure of the council to simply do its job.

The same people shrilly demanding audits, full investigations and ritualistic scourgings have been capable of mind-bending, 180-degree turnabouts at the mere suggestion that a council charged with the task of maintaining fair representation might actually pause briefly from the task of masturbatory game-playing and do the type of work job it was elected to do.

Instead, any mention of “redistricting” has revealingly prompted a collective Pavlovian response of epic dimensions, wherein politically-charged partisans would drop everything they were doing to quickly circle the wagons around the since defeated councilman Bill Schmidt, whose 2nd District just happens to be “home to 42 percent more people than Dan Coffey’s District 1, the second-most-populous district.”

Obviously, such a discrepancy is Exhibit A in the case for redistricting, and yet in the end, it was never about the fading Schmidt, or the perpetually scheming Larry Kochert, or an obviously frightened Dan Coffey, who rightly or wrongly looks up at Silver Hills and spies the apocalyptic end to his petty, ward-heeling career.

It was, however, about the letter of the law, and as expected, U.S. Magistrate Judge William Hussman has agreed:

Deal near for new districts in New Albany, by Eric Scott Campbell (News & Tribune).

A tentative settlement hammered out in federal court Friday evening directs the New Albany City Council to redraw the boundaries of its six voting districts by Nov. 22.

The accord cancels a Dec. 3 trial in the lawsuit brought by 20 city residents in May 2006, alleging unequal representation. It hinges on the council paying undisclosed court costs, something that would need to be approved at an upcoming meeting …

… The redistricting plan defeated in 2002 was conceived jointly by political party chairmen, Kochert said. (Plaintiff Jeff) Gillenwater stressed that that wouldn’t be acceptable this time.

“It’s important to me that it’s done correctly and done in such a way that the public has the opportunity to monitor this,” Gillenwater said.

Council obstructionists, now burdened with the responsibility of fulfilling the redistricting mandate publicly, and with transparence, can now be counted upon to mobilize the misdirected malice of downtrodden ratepayers and (what else?) strenuously object to being forced to pay the legal costs accrued solely by reason of the council’s own vacuous indolence.

Indeed, it will be grandstanding hypocrisy of a high order, and in the rich tradition of New Albanian consent decrees, another sad reminder of the persistent failure of a local political class that possesses too many scofflaw heels to drag, and not enough fresh ideas to harness.