Aquatics bucks: This whole cost-benefit thing, and simple arithmetic?

The meat of Randy's post is a reconsideration of the numbers being floated as worthy of a banker's support for the aquatics center bond, which received its first positive council vote last Thursday.

Crippling Bond Issue Based on False Premises, by Randy Smith (The NewAlbanist)

 ... According to the newspaper of record, the Gahan administration is proceeding with plans for a $9 million aquatic center to be located at the failed site of the Camille Wright swimming pool off W. Daisy Lane.

Their professional design consultant, The Estopinal Group (and who else would you expect them to use?) says that a new outdoor facility can be expected to have 66,000 visits each year and to generate $932.000 in revenues. TEG asserts that the operating costs of the pool will not exceed $700,000 annually. Simple arithmetic yields a net revenue stream of $232,000 each year.

Oh, but that it were true.

The 6-3 vote in favor of moving forward is history. While retaining my overall doubts, I'll say that if we really must insist on defining our civic commitment to youth in terms of sports instead of brains, the greening of the squalid Hoosier Panel property makes better sense on multiple levels than the square-peg, round-hole aquatics center scenario; apart from serving as a bricks and mortar manifestation of mail order appendage enhancements in the context of the ongoing parks libido war between city and county, I fail to see the usefulness of the aquatics center.

Then again, I don't swim. The water gets in your beer, and it's plain nasty.

The most surprising aspect of last Thursday's pro-bond vote was the seeming exhaustion of the usual "no new spending" bloc. I've never seen such resignation going into a scrum; perhaps advanced age finally is taking its toll on the stalwarts. Like always, Erika Denhart rallied her troops -- and perhaps three attended. Her speech was Charlie Pride-laden boilerplate, and the vows of unceasing combat uncharacteristically hollow.

A handful of Republicans were collected, including Irv Stumler, who allowed himself to be taken down fairly easy by Dan "I'll have more of that drunken sailor expenditure, please" Coffey. Even the leather-jacketed former councilman, Steve Price, was unable to muster much of his patented oppositionist enthusiasm. Maybe they're preparing an ambush.

Until then, it would be nice to think that council persons like Scott Blair might contemplate whether the numbers really add up.

Our Gahanic Majesty's Bequest: How many days since this/any city council redistricted?

The answer, as of today, is 5,870 days (the most recent lawful ordinance was 12/17/92).

Sunday readers, I need a little help.

I'm working on a Tribune column about the city council's ongoing failure to redistrict (see Bluegill's thoughts below), and it would be helpful to have a definitive rendering of exactly how long it has been since any New Albany city council has complied with its own rulebook and carried out lawful redistricting hereabouts.

The number of days will become part of the column's title, and can be converted into a running daily digital count on the blog's front page. Think of it as the sum numerical total of accumulated unconstitutionality.

Bluegill brought all this back to my attention with this comment earlier today hre: Tribune's "2009 agenda for Floyd County."

Kudos to the Tribune for publishing a very sensible agenda.

All the more baffling, then, that the City Council seems unable to produce an agenda of its own.

I would note also that waiting for the 2010 census would delay fair voting even more than what might be apparent. Results of that census won't be available until 2011, within a year of a municipal election, barring the Council from acting until after yet another unconstitutional vote was complete in 2012.

And that's exactly what Gahan, Coffey, Price, Benedetti, and McLaughlin, based on their voting records, want.