Final thoughts on fireworks: Score Slick Jeffie's veto as a slight boost for the GOP.

In New Albany, the Democratic Party's intellectually exhausted bait 'n' switch brand of politics is making some mighty strange bedfellows out in the hoods.

It reminds me of the old socialist-realist script in the Soviet Union's cinema and literature: Boy meets tractor; boy falls in love with tractor; boy and tractor live happily ever after.

Back here in anchor-laden New Gahania, non-ironic dishonesty on the part of the ruling elite has accomplished one noteworthy feat of erasure: tractors no longer are needed. Instead, we have mirrors -- cracked rear view mirrors, to be sure, but it doesn't stop the Dickeyites from admiring their twisted, impotent reflections in the debris.

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The city council's recent vote on a Republican-sponsored fireworks ordinance, which might be described as a cautious attempt to lightly restrict the bedlam of explosive civil liberties celebrations, was bipartisan in both directions.

Two Republicans voted for, one against. Two Democrats for, and two against. And, one independent for, one against. That's about as even a split as can be imagined given the state of our legislative body's usual rigid partisan alignment, and as a result, the measure proved vulnerable to a veto.

Mayor Jeff Gahan's argument against the litmus test of an only slightly restrictive fireworks ordinance was conveyed to the body by police chief Todd Bailey, a reliably pliant spinner of Dear Leader's self-serving party line.

It was yet another matter of such supremely overriding community importance that Gahan couldn't be bothered to attend; in all probability, our Genius of the Flood Plain shuns the council chamber because it gives him flashbacks to those eight long years spent there as a woefully underpaid savior of humanity, before a visit with former (now deceased) East Chicago mayor Robert Pastrick resulted in Gahan learning the real tricks of the patronage trade.

Chief Bailey said fireworks complaints were down this year (if true, it's because most people have given up on any hope of relief) and that enforcement of the ordinance would be a terrible burden.

(As such, it should be noted that there are few if any known instances of the police enforcing existing fireworks regulations, this laxity owing to the ruling Democrats viewing fireworks as example of usefully distracting "circuses" -- "bread" is what Rally's does, after all -- allowing the lower orders to entertain themselves so they won't get involved with questioning the Democratic Party's patronage machine.)

The posturing mayor's hasty "trampling on our God-given right to make noise" laugher was attached cynically and belatedly, only when publicizing his veto, and it most certainly WAS a political expedient on the perennially unimaginative Gahan's part.

I'm guessing this won't help him in electoral terms.

Those New Albanians citing the civil liberties argument in favor of unrestrained fireworks make up two broad groupings: right-leaning libertarians in the suburbs near the fringe area, and apolitical inner-city residents, a majority of them young, and probably a fair number renters.

The suburban libertarians vote, but while they're possessed of a worldview that enables agreement in principle with Gahan's veto, this alone won't change their antipathy toward the mayor in countless other instances.

Meanwhile the majority of inner city neighborhood folks I see and hear detonating fireworks are either youthful and transient, or ignorant of municipal election cycles, although they might turn out for presidential elections. In short, they're unlikely to vote in terms of prevailing demographics.

The most probable POLITICAL outcome of the vetoed fireworks ordinance is a slight boost for Republican candidates on the part of (a) older neighborhood stakeholders, who (b) value order and stability and (c) actually do vote. Just my two cents.

Feel free to disagree.

Look, ma, CM Greg Phipps’ favorite mayor ever vetoed the fireworks ordinance.

As predicted, Mayor Deafley "Slick Jeffie" Gahan announced his veto (sorry, Susie, no capital 'V' on veto) of the city council's recent tepid fireworks ordinance in an insulting and poorly worded post at Payhan's propaganda site.

Weddings, birthdays and holidays ... and the time Gahan bulldozes a homeless encampment?

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I hereby Veto recent action by the city council to ban legal fireworks in New Albany.

The proposed ban would limit the use of fireworks to only 4.5 days (107 hours) per year, without first obtaining a government permit.

The 5-4 split council vote to ban legal fireworks is an intrusion into the private lives of our citizens and could silence the joy of many important occasions, like weddings, birthdays, and holidays.

As written, the proposed ordinance is impossible to enforce and introduces confusion between New Albany police officers and the people of New Albany.

Indiana State Law has already addressed the use of fireworks in IC 22-11-14.

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Previously:

Limiting fireworks is the easy part. Enforcement is New Albany's traditional Achilles heel.

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Is it true Deaf Gahan won't sign the littering ordinance?

The Green Mouse has been told that Mayor Jeff Gahan has refused to sign the littering ordinance recently approved by city council, which voted 9-0 in favor on the ordinance's first two readings, and 7-1 (Coffey against, Blair not present) on the third and final reading.

Coffey lands a role in Game of Drones as council passes littering ordinance, though not before an appearance by the ghost of James Stockdale.

If memory serves, the ordinance originated with council Republicans Al Knable and David Barksdale, with Democrat Matt Nash also appearing as "co-sponsor." In theory, this suggests bipartisan support (as well as a veto-proof majority).

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

Previously an insider suggested that after initially favoring the measure, Gahan had concluded that it would be associated with potential mayoral rival Knable, and therefore decided to go full frontal petty for fear of the positive association.

Deaf Gahan mulls bringing King Larry out of retirement to toss a spanner in council's littering ordinances.

Will Gahan divulge his reasons publicly, or trot out a minion's press release?

Stay tuned.

Daniel Suddeath reports: Gahan veto stands, 5 - 4.

On Twitter, the News and Tribune's Daniel Suddeath reports that Mayor Gahan's veto of the parks funding agreement with the county stands: 5-4 again, with the necessary sixth vote not materializing.

"Honestly, if Floyd County had been paying what they were supposed to all along, this would not be an issue."

A full two days later, the News and Tribune has finally gotten around to updating the "discussion" on its Saturday editorial about park funding, and it's a doozy. Here's a sprinkling of opinion.

OUR OPINION: Mayor's veto sends wrong message.

Stan Robison (city attorney):
"The Mayor has taken a stand against the way things have always been, and he will stand by his veto to protect the citizens of New Albany against the fleecing it has taken at the hands of the County."

Scott Klink (president of the parks board):
"They must override this veto. We need one of those four 'no' votes to become 'yes' vote."

Steve (?):
"So, editorial board, by your reasoning if all of your subscribers failed to pay for 2 months of newspapers, then they could just work out an agreement to keep getting the Tribune and not pay the 2 month's bill that was owed."

NAC's view came yesterday. We believe it would be a mistake for the council to kill Mayor Gahan's veto tonight, because this issue only so much as hints at far funding larger concerns unlikely to be addressed so long as these temporary patches continue to be applied, and for so long as county government is not held accountable.

Newspaper editorial board: Let's hold hands, drink lemonade and sing happy songs about parks funding.

If I were a Nigerian in need of outside assistance in transferring my funds, I’d direct my e-mails to the following eager and willing aides: Publisher Bill Hanson, Editor Shea Van Hoy and Assistant Editors Chris Morris and Amy Huffman-Branham.

Newspaper editorial board: Let's hold hands, drink lemonade and sing happy songs about parks funding.

Let’s see if my reading comprehension is up to snuff.

The newspaper’s long-dormant editorial board truthfully concedes the extent of county government’s abject and cynical failure to equally fund parks within the city limits, but concludes that all should be smilingly forgiven in a joyous circle jerk of suspect future unity; we need only “trust” the same entities who’ve pulled away the football countless times before, relax, and enjoy the anticipation of the next time (and there’ll be a next time) we’ll have to 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.

If I were a Nigerian in need of outside assistance in transferring my funds, I’d direct my e-mails to the following eager and willing aides: Publisher Bill Hanson, Editor Shea Van Hoy and Assistant Editors Chris Morris and Amy Huffman-Branham.

At the city council meeting tomorrow night (May 7), apparently there will be a rare "4th reading" of G-12-05: An Ordinance Adopting Interlocal Agreement and Ordinance and Adopting Ordinance Creating a Joint New Albany-Floyd County Park and Recreation Department, as prompted by the mayor's veto. The 3rd reading passed 5-4, as did the famously controversial smoking ordinance in 2008; the latter did not return to council for a veto-busting vote requiring a sixth "yay."

This one is coming back, and owing to the emotions shrouding the parks funding discussion -- a big bundle of undifferentiated feelings posing as facts, in the vein of the newspaper's editorial -- it's easy to imagine the amount of pressure being applied toward flipping a dissenting city council person's vote. NAC believes it would be a mistake to over-ride, because this issue only so much as hints at far larger concerns unlikely to be addressed so long as these temporary patches continue to be applied. Well-meaning is nice. Future-oriented is better, don't you think?

May 5, 2012

OUR OPINION: Mayor’s veto sends wrong message

New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan decided Monday to veto an ordinance passed last month that establishes a new interlocal agreement between the city and county to fund the New Albany-Floyd County Parks Department.

The mayor has the power to veto ordinances passed by the New Albany City Council. But in this case, the veto stamp should have been left in his desk drawer ...

… He’s right when he says the county had not lived up to the old agreement, initially signed in the early 1990s. According to the administration, the city has paid about $2 million more to the parks department over the past five years than the county. The matter of funding the parks came up last year after the county failed to meet its obligation under the old agreement.

So, the county definitely shoulders a lot of the blame for this ongoing soap opera. But why not cooperate instead of continuing this us vs. them mentality? Why dwell on the past when steps have been made to move forward for the betterment of the residents of the city and county? We do not need this division; we need city and county officials working together to save taxpayers money and provide the best possible living conditions for the residents.

Smoking law - go away!/Come back another day/We have so much work to do/Not that we ever knew …

Dick Kaukas’s C-J coverage of yesterday’s veto of the city council's smoking ban ordinance paints by the numbers, but he contributes a handful of largely unintended but fascinating observations from council members: New Albany's smoking-ban ordinance vetoed. Noting Mayor England’s pledge to sign legislation that incorporates his three proposed exemptions, Kaukas writes:

The nine-member council could override the veto if a two-thirds majority -- at least six members -- vote to do so. But no members have indicated a willingness to change their votes, and the council could decide to let the veto stand.

It would appear that unless the council has a sixth vote in favor of the smoking ordinance, and accordingly, votes unanimously on Thursday night to suspend its rules and tack a veto overturn vote onto the evening’s agenda, the ordinance is dead. It might be reintroduced verbatim in the future, or in revised form according to the mayor’s wishes.

The only sure thing to me is that the future of New Albany's smoking ordinance will be plotted according to the internal political calculations of council president Jeff Gahan and his ally of the moment, Dan Coffey, who'll viciously turn on Gahan at the drop of a hat when it become politically expedient for him to do so.

C'mon, people: Did you really think any of this was ever about workplace safety? The petty political machinations are mind-numbing, though not unexpected. Accordingly, reporter Kaukas performs a commendable journalistic service with these framed quotes from three council members:

Councilman Bob Caesar, who sponsored the ordinance, said yesterday that he believes that the council needs to address other issues and that "I will not bring it up again” ...

... After England left, Councilman Dan Coffey, who had voted for the smoking ban, and (Councilwoman Diane) Benedetti each made statements.

Coffey accused England of "playing politics," adding that the mayor never provided his views when council members who were working on the ordinance asked for his input.

Benedetti said she and other council members had hoped the mayor's decision to veto or sign the measure would settle the issue.

"We do not want it back on our plate," she said. "We have too many other things to do."

Simply bretahtaking, isn't it? The obvious question for citizens of New Albany to ask Caesar and Benedetti (who, in fairness, voted against the ordinance):

If you’re cognizant of all these “other things to do", then why has so much of the council's time been wasted on the smoking ordinance?

The obvious question for the perpetually conniving Coffey, for whom intricate political maneuvering comes as naturally as greenhouse gas from a coal-fired power plant:

Are you the pot, or the kettle? Or both?

Coffey to world: We're confused, and so should you. Be. Too.

After Mayor England concluded his comments this morning, council persons Dan Coffey and Diane Benedetti assumed positions behind the microphones to answer media questions about their reactions as council representatives. Steve Price was skulking somewhere in the crowd, but I guess he didn’t have press credentials.

The odd couple spoke for somewhere around 10 minutes, but I ceased listening after CM Coffey’s introductory remarks, which were offered in the trademark Cappuccino whine, outlining many of the major policy areas that no council blessed by his presence has ever attempted to address, blaming these failures entirely on the past two mayors, and noting that now, with the council finally accomplishing something (albeit a misdirected smoking ordinance that not a single candidate, Coffey included, openly supported in the 2007 elections), the mayor first refused to assist the council by offering potential exceptions to the ordinance, and then vetoed the result.

Let me get this straight: What we should have been doing as a council, we couldn’t, wouldn’t or just plain didn’t … and then we finally did something, even if it made a mockery of our ability to prioritize given previous glaring omissions … therefore, it’s the mayor’s fault that we’re confused, and he should give us even more latitude accordingly.

Right. Like I told the television interviewer, there’s a fallacy in there somewhere (theatrical batting of eyelids), but I just can’t find it amidst the flagrant grandstanding.

For early local blogosphere returns, go to http://www.thevillevoice.com/, which selects England (as) Worst Politician of the Day.

Here are some photos of the festivities.





The photo of me come to us from WFPL-FM. The others I took.

England vetoes smoking ban, Tim Filler packs up lies in carpetbag and moves on.

While we await a more complete report, I'll leave an open thread so that all the ban apologists can further adopt big tobacco tactics in their quest to prove them diabolical. It's entertaining in a masochistic sort of way.

11:37 a.m. update

Thanks, Bluegill.

I'm back from the scene in front of the City County Building, where the first salvo in the Jeff Gahan for Mayor 2011 campaign was fired earlier this morning.

In other news, the the sitting mayor also vetoed the smoking ordinance, as reported above, and councilman Dan Coffey made as hypocritical a public statement about council priorities (and persistent failures) as I've heard uttered in four years of writing this blog ... but I need to be at work, and it will have to await a future posting.

Mayor England seeks three exemptions to the smoking ordinance, which if implemented would "garner (his) support":

(1) bars
(2) private clubs
(3) restaurants with bars that serve and employ only persons who are 21 years (of age) or older

Here is the mayor's closing statement:

"In conclusion, I am really trying to heal our divided community via compromise. I have heard snokers and non-smokers alike speak in favor of and against the bill. This is not 'black and white' as the activists on either side of the issue would have you believe. I believe that my proposal strikes such a compromise. It is time for the Common Council and the activists to strike this balance, as well."

Let the games begin.

From the horse's mouth? Erika says so.

Professor Erika is reporting that Mayor Doug England will "veto" the smoking ordinance.

COMMON SENSE APPROACH ON LABOR DAY

News flash: Mayor will not sign smoking ban. Mayor England will suggest a change in wording in the Smoking Ban Ordinance on Tuesday.
Source: Mayor England

See you all at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. I'll be the tall one with the cigar ... the lighted cigar. Don't worry. I'll stay well clear of the door.

Veto the smoking ordinance, yer Honor. You’ll survive squawking that primarily comes from afar.

Here it is: The resident contrarian’s case in favor of mayoral intervention in the Greatly Unnecessary Smoking Debate of ’08.

(After all, I wouldn’t want to use the word “veto” … so, sticking to my principles, I’ll happily persist in doing so.)

I’m told that Mayor Doug England will hold a press conference next Tuesday morning circa 10:00 a.m. to reveal whether he’ll put the kibosh on the city council’s controversial smoking ordinance, or permit it to stand on its wobbly feet.

None of us on the outside will ever know the full depth and range of Mayor England’s thought processes in making this decision. I imagine he’s being pelted with advice from all angles (see below for mine), and predictably, outside interests already have weighed in with a full page advertisement in the Tribune, as referenced in today’s Courier-Journal:

Opponents and supporters have continued to lobby England in an attempt to win him over.

One of the latest efforts was from the American Heart Association and Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, which took out a full-page ad in today’s New Albany Tribune.

The ad said second-hand smoke causes heart disease, cancer and other health problems, that bar and restaurant workers are at greatest risk and that most area residents support the ordinance.

The ad, which asked if England would stand for “all workers and the public” or “big tobacco and its allies,” urged people to contact the mayor and ask him to sign the measure.

The money spent on that ad alone might have purchased a working toilet or two for a rundown rental property, don’t you think? But I forget so very quickly that the professional public health lobbyists don’t have a dog in the slumlord abatement fight.

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Me?

I believe the mayor should veto the ordinance, primarily because there has yet to be a telephone poll that asks the truly pertinent question: Would you rather the city council ban workplace smoking, or take action to pave the streets?

I’m guessing that such a poll would return a majority in favor of smoother driving surfaces, and one well in excess of that portion of the populace favoring a smoking ban in the absence of substantive progress in other areas.

I believe the mayor can make a perfectly logical case that far from being a measure assisting in the furtherance of public health, the ordinance in fact is little more than frivolous in nature – that it is yet another in a series of unfunded mandates of the sort that usually emanate from Indianapolis or Washington, D.C., except that this time around, it comes from our own council. The ordinance as written is unenforceable, and as such, frivolous isn’t too strong a word to describe it.

I believe that the mayor can plausibly connect the smoking issue with economic development by noting that the city council, having established a changed condition of daily business operation that will require fair and equitable enforcement, has made no provision for such enforcement apart from expecting the businesses that stand to be hurt most by the ordinance to pay for its accommodation by constructing elaborate outdoor smoking areas that surely will be the next target of an insatiable (and perpetually carpetbagging) anti-smoking lobby.

I believe the mayor can accurately decry the transparently shambolic nature of council president Gahan’s somewhat less than deft guidance of the smoking “debate,” which in the end comprised a solitary and inadequate public meeting and two catastrophically truncated public “speaking” allowances, all of which amounted to the council’s pro-ban bloc honoring the need for discourse only in the barest of minimum permissible breaches, and not in such a manner as to allow anything remotely approximating sufficient discussion pertaining to a topic destined to divide the citizenry.

Yes, these may be viewed in some quarters as procedural technicalities. I’m not a lawyer, but it is a regular, recurring and fully justified feature of the American system of governance that we expect important decisions to be made in a way – in the “right” way -- that involves people, and not excludes them, and yet the unprecedented speed with which an eternally dormant council moved to facilitate legislative action that was nowhere to be seen or sighted in any council candidate’s platform during the last election.

This largely underreported aspect of the current situation is perhaps the most annoying of all.

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Does anyone else wonder why an issue now being portrayed as critically important did not produce a blip on last year's electoral radar screen?

Does anyone else remember when King Larry Kochert, then the council president, announced that 2007 would be the year when his cherished smoking ban finally came into effect, and the same reactionary who did so much for so long to keep New Albany rooted in the 19th century would suddenly leapfrog the moribund experience of long decades by the magically simple act of chasing smokers from their bar stools, into the streets, to disappear into unrepaired pot holes?

Remember how the smoking ordinance unceremoniously died almost on the spot, and how none of the council members at the time – and none of the candidates challenging them – uttered so much as a peep about smoking as the 2007 election loomed?

How not one of them campaigned on a platform of smoking as the issue most deserving of immediate action in 2008 -- for that matter, was it even in the Top 10 of any candidate's published list of aims?

Was it ever mentioned publicly on the campaign trail one single time?

Actually, to be fair to the candidates, not a one of them offered a decipherable platform of any sort, smoking or otherwise, but I digress.

Which brings me to the primary reason I hope Mayor England vetoes the smoking ordinance. As my high school baseball coach was known to say, the covert way all this has come down, and the timing of it coming down, is chickenshit, plain and simple, and I’m not using that word because I want to spare Steve Price the indignity of being the only potty mouth hereabouts.

Rather, this legislative spectacle was transformed into political theater early on, and it has been bereft of political courage from start to finish. Why this, and why now? No one has provided a satisfactory answer, and until they do: Mayor England, muddy the scrum and veto this ordinance.

Give ‘em a year under strict supervision to do something genuinely progressive, and to undertake it sans the subterfuge that has been such an alarming aspect of the smoking travesty, and I’m quite willing to visit the smoking issue again, but not under the current discredited terms.

I know that quite a few of you disagree with my thoughts, and that’s fine. In the end, given my personal interests and my chosen vocation, perhaps I’m overly sensitive to the historical atrocities wrought by the prohibitionist instinct in America. They’re documented, and they’re real. Given that experience, the legislative bar needs to be higher, doesn't it?

Open thread: To veto, or not to veto?

Should Mayor England veto the smoking ordinance? What are the reasons for and against a veto? What do you think?

(Note to potential posters: Our usual rules of non-anonymity apply. Photo credit goes to Christopher)

High noon: Resolutions, vetoes and the New Albany tradition of conflict enhancement.

There’s nothing at all inappropriate about the timing. On the hottest day of the year, certain politically temperamental thermostats at the City-County Building are set for certain intemperate global warming:

New Albany mayor vetoes sewer ruling; Panel planned suit in contract dispute, by Dick Kaukas (The Courier-Journal).

Less than 24 hours after the New Albany City Council voted to file lawsuits to challenge the validity of two no-bid contracts, Mayor James Garner vetoed the resolution.

What the future holds for New Albany’s leading index of governmental dysfunction is by no means clear, but the C-J’s reporter Kaukas has earned our eternal gratitude for revealing an all-time, bar-none, classic King Larry Kochert moment:

Kochert yesterday accused some council members who object to the contracts of engaging in "political grandstanding" before the November election.

"They had been acting like lapdogs, and now they want to look like watchdogs," Kochert said.

That’s breathtaking. No single pot ever accused an accompanying kettle of blackness to such a sweeping degree. Thanks, Dick, for catching that one. You made our year.