"How can you be a leader?" Simple.

The persistent dysfunction of “New Albany Politics” can be seen in its genetic propensity toward stunted comprehension of the modern world, an inbred inability to visualize, and a sometimes sentimental but periodically violent adoration for the palpably untrue.

--NA Confidential, May 5, 2006

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3:00 p.m. update
For more meeting coverage, read: City Council Meeting = Bad Manners, at the New Albany Today blog.

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If last night’s city council meeting was any indication, the Larry Kochert Era is going to be remembered as the time when the reins finally were loosened, any remaining pretense abandoned, and all – not just some – of the Gang of Four’s persistently unprofessional, native dysfunction brought into full, Technicolor view of the city’s residents, and permitted to fester, then drown, in a puddle of self-generated bile.

A boy can dream, right?

New Albany council shuffles changes agenda; New firefighter rules were not considered, by Dick Kaukas, (short shelf life for Courier-Journal links).

Members of the New Albany City Council were criticized for not considering an ordinance last night that would set new rules for hiring firefighters.

It had been removed from the agenda over the weekend.

While CM Larry Kochert gyrated wildly from one direction to the next from a seated position in his well-greased presidential chair, seemingly unable to issue firm dictates on matters ranging from agenda items to public speaking topics, the handy “Wardheeler-O-Matic” grandstanding detector used by NA Confidential to measure the preposterousness of the Conjoined Councilman clicked like an amok Geiger counter positioned outside Professor Erika’s shabby double wide.

Details are important, of course, but it should suffice to note that while specific content varies, the institutionalized unprofessionalism of the current council remains consistent from meeting to meeting, and in spite of the best efforts of those council members who obviously have acted in a manner that differs from the baser instincts regularly flaunted before the gallery by members on the east side of the table, these self-aggrandizing outbursts are what sets the tone and will unfortunately be remembered by visitors, who walk away in amazement to perpetuate New Albany’s sad public image by word of mouth.

One such episode was the topic of last night’s posting, “A weasel ripped the Building Commission president's flesh.”

Steve Laduke, president of the building commission, took advantage of speaking time allotted to public officials to present a brief overview of recent actions taken by the city’s building department to creatively facilitate the demolition of derelict properties. Laduke’s basic message: In the absence of a council resolution to restore the demolition fund from its current position in the “red,” and to push it into the “black,” such creativity is necessary, takes more time, but is being exercised on a weekly basis.

Given that many of these derelict properties had been part of an inaccurate list circulated by CM Bill Schmidt at the previous meeting, and later published by the non-fact-checking Erika, it’s probable that Laduke intended his presentation at least in part as a refutation, on top of his stated aim of providing good news amid the customary litany of acrimony and complaints.

And, surely, the simple act of pointing out that the building department is doing some measure of its job does not excuse legitimate criticism of it in several areas. This blog has joined in the criticism, and will continue to do so as merited by circumstances.

But rather, it was the ill-tempered response to Laduke’s comments that provided the most recent cogent illustration of the council’s persistent dysfunction, as well as pointing toward the most common offender.

If we’ve heard it once, we’ve heard it one hundred times: CM Dan Coffey complaining loudly and bitterly that he has not been provided information … or doesn’t know where the proper information is hidden … or that critical pieces of the puzzle are being denied him.

At least as often, one or the other public official has been heard to respond that CM Coffey’s request has yet to be forthcoming, that he hasn’t asked, that the phone hasn't sounded, or that he’s shown no interest in learning. Instructively, last night, Laduke provided precisely such information to the council – just as the council in general, and members such as CM Coffey in particular, had been asking for him or someone like him to do.

CM Coffey’s immediate and predictable response was to attack the building department (“it’s a mess”), to viciously accuse Laduke of performing shoddy work in his day job, and to ask Laduke to identify for the jury the part of town where he lives – as though this were at all germane.

(Germane … wait, GERMANS!! Nazis in the VFW exhuming the video poker games of our vets, NAAAHHHZZ – screeeeech – not now, CM Price … not now. Here, have a nice umbrella rum drink and read this article in Rental Property Weekly)

What’s worse, and more damning, is that CM Coffey maligned Laduke’s act of sharing information with the people who asked for it as “politics” and nothing more.

Think about that one for a moment.

Later, on another topic, CM Coffey lamented that very soon, New Albany could begin "losing companies" owing to a lack of acreage compared to Clark County. Have readers ever wondered how many businesses of any size -- whether these require bricks and mortar homes or merely the laptop occupying space at a coffee shop -- have been frightened away from New Albany by people like Dan Coffey himself, and the mode of "thought" that he represents?

Sometimes it’s so bad at these meetings that I arrive back home to find that my pot and kettle are no longer on speaking terms.

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The Tribune’s Eric Scott Campbell was there, and we’ll link to his coverage when it appears on-line: ___

A weasel ripped the Building Commission president's flesh.

It was his own fault, though.

After all, why give a councilman information the CM couldn't find on his own? 

Open thread: City council meeting of January 18, 2007.

Here is tonight’s city council agenda: 2007 JANUARY 18, 7:30 P.M.

And, here you can find agenda items in detail (.pdf), thanks to the city clerk, Marcey Wisman: Agenda items.

Mr./Mrs./Ms. Candidate: Just in time for the filing period, here are my modified rules of voting engagement.

This rumination has been a long time gestating. Am I just joking ... or not? Is it an early sign of bibulist’s dementia? Even I'm having trouble deciding, but at present, I'm comfortable with the notion of being clear and open about the current state of my thoughts. We’re told that voting is supposed to be a matter of conscience, and in the past, I've claimed status as a conscientious objector, but as we approach the next electoral milestone in this city’s cluttered history, anything short of perfect honesty would be remiss. In the absence of genuine choice, options are few.

Have a wonderful day.

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What was that? You're running for office, and you'd like my support?

Damned glad you asked. It's going to be a (insert cliche here) this election season, isn't it? Brutal, unrelenting and vicious ... which reminds me, I have something to tell you. But first, a digression.

It isn’t that difficult to understand why election cycles bring out some of the worst manifestations of latent human savagery, and to grasp these venomous expressions of the heart of darkness lurking somewhere within us all, it’s barely relevant that we as voters are rarely offered anything that remotely resembles a choice.

Indeed, ideological differences originating in the intellect aren’t what motivate otherwise placid and normally harmless individuals to become virulent, fire-breathing instruments conveying Dr. Thompson’s fabled fear and loathing. The subconscious roots of the ailment extend far deeper than that, reaching into base impulses of tribal mysticism that are expressed as “us against you,” not “our ideas and platforms against yours.”

It is by no means helpful that the cynical power-sharing accord brokered more than a century ago by America’s two-party system has rendered numerous Americans functionally impotent with regard to concepts of non-partisan achievement.

Just as basic training in the armed services is structured to instill a core set of conditioned responses that can be summoned from the depths of the subconscious decades after the instructional experience has concluded, political party identification acts as a self-defining urge apart from conscious reasoning and is intended to bypass external considerations. One doesn’t “think,” but instead “reacts,” as a Democrat or a Republican, customarily owing to a process of socialization that took place in childhood, and in some extreme cases, the womb.

Given that New Albany remains a veritable Amazon Basin of abundant, aberrant (sometimes abhorrent) sociopolitical species, it comes as little surprise that we’ve managed to do more than our fair bit in rendering null and void the concept of non-partisanship.

At this point in our city’s history, the most merciful thing to do would be to eradicate non-partisanship entirely, and to hasten our reorganization into armed camps. A demilitarized slumlord zone could be left under the protection of both sides, so as to encourage the continued economic boons of multiple-family rental properties, methamphetamine production and petty thievery. We'll also need a food court of burger joints. Otherwise, it’s off to the mattresses.

These all too probable musings aside, the current situation strongly suggests that one risks senseless redundancy to so much as attempt a sincere disclaimer of local non-partisanship.

Such a disclaimer might bear a shred of meaning only if one or the other of our two major local political parties possessed an action platform pertaining to distinctly local issues. Since neither does, and since both have in effect abdicated the game in terms of coherence and relevance, partisanship has been rendered moot in terms of ideological significance. A party member is no more than a clan member, a club member, or perhaps a Sam’s Club member, spouting the dogma “little progress at the lowest price.”

And this brings us, full circle, back to the ghostlike non-platforms that we’re about to be relentlessly insulted with as the 2007 election season rounds into full fury.

Consequently, and speaking here only for me -- as one who considers himself a small but sometimes annoyingly loud component of a genuine constituency that is working to bring about change and to offer a vision of the city’s future, while remaining grimly realistic about the willingness of ordinary people to play ball with the devil they know to the exclusion of ideas that strike them as incomprehensible and just plain crazy with a decidedly "progressive" taint -- I’m ready to publicly offer my conditions to vote for you, the candidate.

As the most immediate example, though hardly the only applicable one, it is widely known that I regard the city council tenure of Steve Price as a nadir for my 3rd council district. I am absolutely positive that the district and the city need better if we’re ever going to escape the leaden grip of the self-defeating, self-perpetuating, underachieving and anti-intellectual New Albany Syndrome.

This having been said, it should come as no surprise that I’ll not be voting for CM Price in his probable re-election bid. In fact, I'd sooner vote for the villainous neo-con troll Dick Cheney, the blessedly deceased dude who invented Miller Lite, or even one of Auntie V's many and varied personalities.

However, contrary to past habits, I’ll not necessarily vote against CM Price by voting for his opponent UNLESS his opponent provides a clear, coherent platform that addresses my concerns and the concerns of my neighborhood. It’s as simple as that.

Precisely because my expectations of job performance from CM Price are low, there's no chance of disappointment on my part. Conversely, I absolutely must demand more of those who may decide to run against him, because my expectations of he/she/them are accordingly higher, and it logically follows that my risk of crushing disappointment correspondingly far greater.

Therefore, lacking a potential challenger’s clear public articulation of intent and of discernable content -- no back room deals for me -- I propose to sit on my hands come Election Day if these strategies and goals are not forthcoming. Expediently selling out to the least objectionable bidder no longer fits into my grand scheme of ethical voting conduct. Now, the stakes are raised. You must earn my support against the primeval empire, both within the 3rd council district and as applicable to citywide races.

Mr./Mrs./Ms. Candidate, henceforth the two of us working together shall be a two-way street, and as we know, two-way streets are something that New Albany desperately needs to restore to working order, along with the notion that every once in a while, if only once in a generation, an election should be about a competition between ideas. I've been making my ideas clear for quite some time, so it’s entirely up to you, the candidate, to make the first move and to throw me some red meat. Higher standards begin right here, and at this instant.

It is revealing that as I write, CM Price has (only recently) set up a campaign kiosk in the blogosphere and is busy doing just that. We can't really call his product "ideas" -- not yet -- and what clear notions manage to sneak through his borrowed talking points and vapid homilies can be surreal in an acid-trip-like, Timothy Leary sort of way ... and though what CM Price is doing with his blog isn't even necessary given the blissful ignorance of his Coup de'Geriatrique constituency, he seems to recognize the importance of at least trying to say something.

And for that, I give him public credit. There are others with a far longer presence in the blogosphere who have not attempted -- not yet -- what CM Price now purports to do.

To repeat: I speak here as an individual.

Almost certainly my closest associates won't agree with me, and at any rate, my influence is severely limited, or so I’m told by the nay-saying cadre that continues to fear such unlikely contingencies. I fully understand that my purely figurative ballot fee of an idea or three -- no more, lest we confuse and frighten Joe Six Pack -- to punch your ticket may be far too high for prospective partisan office holders to proffer considering the long, dreary New Albanian history of offering absolutely nothing and usually delivering even less.

Mr./Mrs./Ms. candidate, please understand that my demands are less about you than about me, specifically, about my not wanting to feel ashamed and dirty any longer when it comes time to cast my vote. However, if you act soon to secure my support, it -- I -- we -- may be of some help acting together to displace those dreadfully simplistic remnant of discredited old ways that continue to retard progress in New Albany.

It’s all the more reason to illustrate very soon that you have a program, a plan and a platform.

If not – if you don’t, or you won’t, or you can’t – well, in truth, guerilla warfare becomes addictive after a while, and in the end, the council's obstructionists ultimately will dissolve and fade away, anyhow, whether one, two or all of them are re-elected this time around. Together, we can speed their departure. Apart, we're in for more long years of inactivity, excuses and non-business as usual. Make no mistake: I'm confident we'll win in the end. It'll just take longer.

But this year, "for a change," it's all about me.

Dear readers -- my fellow New Albanians -- in closing, it occurs to me that a former roommate’s telephone answering machine message used to be, “You know what to do and when to do it.”

Ditto. Let’s hear it, candidate(s). The sooner, the better. What’s it going to be?

(tick tock, tick tock, tick tock)

On the downtown urban fabric.

I don’t always know which topics will spur a discussion on this streetcorner.

Sunday’s legal notice about the abandoned historic property on Main Street started slowly, then suddenly accelerated into a spirited debate over the nature and suitability of new construction downtown. Meanwhile, Monday’s human rights rumination elicited a few insightful comments, but didn’t reach critical mass.

Many thanks go to Lawguy for sharing at least some of the plans for new construction at 3rd and Main. There certainly is consensus that a building standing at the corner is preferable to the gravel-strewn scar currently occupying the space, and looking at the west side of 3rd between Main and Market, we hope that the building and renovation bug spreads inward from his firm’s job site.

One comment of Lawguy’s caught my attention:

It would be nice to have the resources to build a marvelous italianate design, or something equally exotic to compliment the Parthenon building a block away. However, in the end, it is an office, not a museum, so some amount of daily practicality will inevitably have to prevail.

Ironically, when it was built almost two hundred years ago, the Parthenon wasn’t a museum, either. It was a bank – an office of the time. How many of us have marveled at the epic scale and loving detail of buildings built in the city’s “imperial” era? Did the planners and builders of the day have the same discussions as we had yesterday about resources and practicality?

Something about this idea of exoticism vs. practicality strikes very closely to the heart of a topic that arises here with clocklike regularity, and perhaps mirrors a similar strain in the nation as a whole. Exactly how is it that our city’s founders “could do,” and did, and we chronically “can’t do,” and don't? Supposedly we’re far more advanced in every manifestation of knowledge and skill, yet we seem incapable of the simple feat of imagining qualities of bigger and better.

This rumination shouldn’t be taken as a swipe at Lawguy’s new building at 3rd and Main. I’ve not seen the design, and as noted yesterday, it is my fervent hope that the structure leans more toward the instincts of Columbus than Madison. Even as we observe the necessary protocols of historical preservation, which I personally find quite worthy, it remains that each era of human habitation should have its own signature -- and will, whether we always approve or not.

Ultimately, my favorite places are those where the different signatures of different eras each exhibit a similar conceptual exuberance and an explicit recognition of the striving toward the potentialities of excellence that should preface all our activities as people.

Make us proud, Lawguy. I’ll be happy to see the gravel displaced and the activity begin.

REWIND: An oblique nod toward “human rights in our own backyard.”

NA Confidential’s entry for November 10, 2005 was overtly inspired by the New York Times and its Sunday book review section.

Books, a bogus Texan drug sting, and New Albany's human rights obligation.

As I noted 14 months ago, there was an “ulterior motive” to introducing the subject, as there were efforts underway at the time toward reviving New Albany’s moribund human rights commission. These have come to nothing, and that's appalling even if there were valid reasons for the inaction.

Like so many other ordinances, a human rights commission is on the books – albeit unfunded, unused and unknown. It is an ironclad fact that there remains interest in the community for reviving it, and I’m equally certain that it is sorely needed in a place where topics like basic rights, diversity, and fundamental human dignity are regularly the targets of gleeful disparagement and outright malice on the part of those who've obviously not suffered owing to such generally institutionalized deprivations.

Might a functional human rights commission be at least a part of any possible slate of solutions to the city’s housing problems? Tenant rights and human rights are cut from the same bolt, aren’t they?

Are any candidates for office willing to go on record as supporting the revival of New Albany’s human rights commission?

Although a better question might be: Are any candidates for office willing to go on record as supporting anything?

Tune in tomorrow for more on that topic.

Legal notice: 1003 E. Main Street -- is the reign of Espinoza error ending?

WWR #05534644 STATE OF INDIANA COUNTY OF FLOYD SS: IN THE FLOYD CIRCUIT COURT CAUSE NO. 22C01-0610-MF-697

FIFTH THIRD BANK, (LOUISVILLE) Plaintiff, v. LEOPOLDO ESPINOZA MORTGAGEIT, INC. UNKNOWN OCCUPANT (S) 1003 E. Main Street New Albany, Indiana 47150 Defendants

NOTICE OF SUIT
SUMMONS BY
PUBLICATION

TO: Leopoldo Espinoza BE IT KNOWN, that Fifth Third Bank, the above-named Plaintiff, by its attorney, Nicholas K. Rohner, has filed in the office of the Clerk of the Floyd Circuit Court its Complaint against the above-named Defendant, and the said Plaintiff having also filed in said Clerk’s office the affidavit of a competent person showing that the residence and whereabouts of the Defendant, Leopoldo Espinoza, upon diligent inquiry is unknown, and that said cause of action is for default on the promissory note and to foreclose a mortgage on the following described real estate in Floyd County, State of Indiana, to wit: Parcel I All Lots 5 and 6 and the South 43 feet of Lot No. 9 in Plat No. 1, Floyd County, Indiana, described as follows: Beginning on the North line of East Main Street as its intersection with the East line of East Tenth Street; running thence North on the East line of East Tenth Street 163 feet; thence East parallel with Main Street, 120 feet to a 20 foot alley; thence South along the West line of said alley, 163 feet to the intersection of the North line of East Main Street with the West line of said alley; thence West on the North line of Main Street 120 feet to the Place of Beginning. Parcel II Lot No. Ten (10) and the North 7 feet of Lot No. Nine (9) on Upper Tenths Street in Plat No. 1 of the Floyd County, Indiana records. commonly known as 1003 East Main Street, New Albany, Indiana 47150. NOW, THEREFORE, said Defendant is hereby notified of the filing and pendency of said Complaint against them and that unless he appears and answers or otherwise defends thereto within thirty (30) days after the last notice of this action is published, judgment by default may be entered against him for the relief demanded in the Complaint.

Dated December 18, 2006 Eugenea Freiberger Clerk, Floyd Circuit Court Nicholas K. Rohner (23364-15) Attorney for Plaintiff, Fifth Third Bank WELTMAN, WEINBERG & REIS, CO., L.P.A. 525 Vine Street, Suite 800 Cincinnati, Ohio 45202

Telephone: (513) 723-2200
Facsimile: (513) 723-2230
Email NRohner@Weltman.com
Dec. 26, Jan. 2, 9

Hot time in the old town? Could be nerves, I guess.

The Highwayman asked first, and I’ll provide the echo: Is It Just Me or Is It Getting Hot 'Round Here?

Indeed, tempers seem to be fraying as the filing period for New Albany’s 2007 city elections draws ever closer.

Here’s my favorite blog comment of the week (unedited), which was directed at none other than your humble senior editor:

Why is it you hide behind your key board. And you do not speak out at council meetings? But it appears easier holding on to your digital camera, or writing with your so called solutions, opinions, and feeding your followers nothing but slanders lies.

It was written by (drum roll please): Anonymous!

Now that’s what I call “hiding behind a keyboard.”

Meanwhile over at Freedom to Screech, everyone’s favorite academic wannabe actually reaches deep to perform something roughly approximating a public service by publishing CM Bill Schmidt’s grail-like derelict housing list, complete with the names of owners – proving that as NAC has long held, even a stopped pre-digital clock is right twice a day, or in Erika’s case, twice a year.

The hottest new blog of the year comes from 3rd district councilman Steve Price. In his most recent posting, excerpted (again, unedited) below, CM Price does his best Michael Crichton:

It is inevitable that 15th Street will cave in.

One can only hope that a train will not be on the tracks when it happens.

What are we going to do when it caves in? Who is going to pay and where is the money going to come from? Where is our emergency fund when we need it?

If this problem was seriously addressed during the numerous time I mentioned it, would we be viewing this from a different prospective?

This is a true case of proactive vs. reactive.

Finally we understand why the councilman has been so regularly non-responsive (dare we say, reactive?) on so many other pressing everyday issues during his council tenure: Like those strange people carrying signs predicting the end of the world, he’s been busy focusing on just one of many potential future problems.

In fairness, 15th Street is mess. Perhaps CM Price agrees with me that the best way to repair it is to nationalize the railroad, which would solve numerous noise and traffic problems in addition to removing the threat of a hazardous waste spill form the vicinity of so many unregulated, substandard rental housing properties.

Against this backdrop of venom and bile, most of it dispensed by people who are plainly (and mistakenly) terrified of emerging non-partisan ideas to promote a less dysfunctional civic future – New Albany is a prime natural habitat for those preferring the devil they already know – the rebirthing work slowly unfolds downtown.

I donned the raingear and walked through the historic business district Saturday, and saw interior remodeling work being done in at least four different places, in addition to the construction area where Scribner Place is rising. Clearly there are people with vision hereabouts, ones who look forward and say “we can do more,” rather than “I’ve done all I can do” or "it's his fault, not mine."

My bet is placed on those who can. They're doing it even as the obstructionists insist that it can't be done.

Doing: That’s why there’s a city standing here in the first place.

Saving Silvercrest? The effort is underway.

In coming weeks, you’ll be hearing much more about the future of the hilltop wonder known as Silvercrest.


For now, it’s enough to be aware that there are people in our community who are diligently working toward imaginative and adaptive strategies to preserve and protect the city’s historical heritage. Newspaper coverage comes first; see below for further links.

Sides debate historic value of Silvercrest, by Eric Scott Campbell (News and Tribune).

Local preservationists have persuaded the state to take private developers’ bids for the former Silvercrest Children’s Development Center and postpone its application for demolition.

New uses sought for Silvercrest; Former child development center could become apartments or offices, by Dick Kaukas (short shelf life for Courier-Journal links).

About 30 developers, preservationists, government representatives and others toured the buildings and grounds of the former Silvercrest Child Development Center in New Albany yesterday.

They reached no conclusions about what to do with the property but talked about a range of possible uses, including offices or apartments in the five-story main building.

For further reading:

The New Albany Historic Preservation Commission’s history of the Art Moderne and Art Deco Silvercrest Hospital: An Architectural Treasure in the Hills of New Albany.

Full Text of NAHPC Letter to County Commissioners.

Images of Silvercrest and Silvercrest: Can It Be Saved?, at the Diggin’ in the Dirt blog. 

Open thread, part three: "When (CM Steve Price) repeats that he's done all that's in his statutory power, it's clearly not true."

Earlier this week, 3rd district councilman Steve Price kicked off his 2007 re-election campaign by combining with unknown collaborators on a blog entitled “My Struggle.”

Not really. It's actually called “My Vision.”

Because words actually have accepted meanings, it's important to point out that in its adjectival context, “revisionist” modifies the noun history in this manner:

Revisionist: Attempting to reevaluate and restate the past based on newly acquired standards.

Leave it to my colleague, Bluegill, to illustrate with devastating precision the fashion by which the councilman blatantly dissembles as he seeks now to rewrite the record of his disastrous term in office.

The following was posted as a comment to the post, Open thread, part two: Councilman Steve Price as reactionary progressive?

See also: Open thread: Councilman Steve Price - "progressive" or regressive?

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Bluegill wrote:

Let's review what's painfully obvious to everyone but CM Price.

NAC recently put forward eight potential planks of a platform to advance city clean up. They're listed again below for convenience:

A rental inspection/licensing program.

Legal staff whose sole purpose is ordinance enforcement.

A total revamping of the building commissioner's office, including all new employees.

A fine structure that's of high enough scale to actually act as a deterrent.

A city court to expedite the prosecution of offenders and to keep fine revenue in the city.

Local dollars budgeted for redevelopment. That amount is currently zero.

Much more than the measly $7,000 dollars a year total the city currently spends on historic preservation.

A scientific study of land use and value in the city in order to objectively strategize where to implement resources first.

Of the eight planks, seven of them are under the direct authority of the City Council. A revamped Building Commissioner’s office would fall under the authority of the Mayor, but the Council could certainly, through financial incentive or disincentive, attempt to influence such decision making.

There are certainly arguments to be made concerning which should be given higher priority, but has CM Price, who reportedly loves options, introduced any of these concepts as worthy of further exploration and possible action by the Council?

No.

When he repeats that he's done all that's in his statutory power, it's clearly not true.

Unfortunately, this type of misrepresentation seems to be a habit for CM Price.

I've heard him personally state several times what he wrote to Sloburn*: That he voted to appropriate funds for a paralegal. He usually says, "We gave (City Attorney) Shane (Gibson) a paralegal."

The reality of the situation is that the Council appropriated $16,000 for the legal department. Trained paralegals typically make approximately twice that much, more with significant experience. What the Council actually approved was just enough money to hire a part-time administrative assistant. That's what we have.

I know this has been explained to CM Price because I've personally explained it to him. He simply ignores that explanation, however, and continues to repeat something to his constituents that's fundamentally inaccurate.

CM Price may respond to questions in a timely fashion. What he consistently fails to do, whether due to ignorance or malice, is to answer them in a manner that shows he understands the question and is able to help his constituents better understand a given situation.

He does have a point, though. He has, in fact, done all that he can do. It’s just too bad he doesn’t realize that’s such a strong argument for his replacement.

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* Here is the text of CM Price's response to Sloburn's questions, referenced by Bluegill above, and as originally posted by Sloburn on Thursday.

Kevin,

What is going to change if I am re-elected?

Change with regards to cleanliness is going to have to be a team effort. I alone cannot fix the problem. I do feel I have started the movement towards the resolution by promoting the cleanliness ordinance as well as the Code Enforcement Officer. Unfortunately, I am unable to micro-mange the various departments within the city. (I do think that someone needs to) It is up to the administration to enforce the ordinances and resolutions enacted by the council.

Why hasn’t it already happened?

Options that I have presented in the past have been pushed aside and placed on the back burner. For instance, an actual route system in the street department would be a great first step towards cleaning up trash and debris from the alleys. As for the houses in disrepair the only means for resolution lies in the hands of the administration. The council, with my vote, appropriated funds for an Ordinance Enforcement Officer as well as a paralegal to assist the work load of our City Attorney.

As I stated in my posting, I have done all that is in my statutory power. I will help my neighbors resolve their cleanliness issues one house at a time.

On the lessons of the Ermin's relocation.

While walking downtown last Saturday night, we saw the “moving” sign on the window at Ermin’s. These days, if you wait too long to strike, the Tribune scoops you:

Ermin’s closes downtown, moves to Charlestown Road; Owner of Main Street restaurant cites lack of traffic at breakfast, dinner, by Eric Scott Campbell (News and Tribune).

Bob and Debby Haynes uprooted Ermin’s Bakery and Cafe downtown Saturday to move three miles north, the prospects of more traffic and tables outweighing the impact of a 40 percent spike in rent.

The new location is the former home of Bean Street Cafe, between a Subway and a Domino’s Pizza at 2736 Charlestown Road. Bob Haynes said Monday he expects to open next week.

As a fellow business owner, I wish them luck in the new location, where traffic flow indeed is heavier – though ominously, competition for the discerning diner’s discretionary income also is far greater.

That they’ll be moving to a location owned by a developer (Gary “The Gary” McCartin) with no apparent instinct for the downtown state of mind (or its potential for a certain demographic that he doesn’t try to comprehend) seems eerily appropriate, as their publicly stated rationale for the shift is the lack of sufficient downtown traffic and the slow pace of the Scribner Place development.

With no disrespect intended for the owners of Ermin’s, and accepting their sincerity and hard work as a non-negotiable given, it is nonetheless possible for us to consider such matters in the same fashion as we discuss coaching strategies in basketball or the “should haves” and “what ifs” of human history.

Having submitted my disclaimer, permit me to suggest that the business model of the New Albany branch of Ermin’s, and not traffic patterns or construction delays outside its walls, is the primary reason for the restaurant’s failure downtown and its subsequent change of venue.

The Ermin’s business model for downtown New Albany, and presumably for its other satellite in Kentucky, quite obviously has embraced the logistics of a relatively inexpensive catering operation rather than those necessary to provide genuine café ambience.

Most (perhaps all) of the food was brought in to the Main Street location from a central kitchen in Louisville, heated in microwaves, and served, like any fast food, with disposable plates, cups and utensils.

This may have made good business sense at the start, as start-up costs could be reduced, and the expense of operating a kitchen and a dishwasher fully avoided. However, it’s my opinion that once competition began to increase downtown, Ermin’s quickly lost several steps, and what’s more, other than tweaking opening hours, the café did very little to adapt its bill of fare and its mode of presentation to the obviously changing marketplace and expectations of downtown diners.

In short, at least two other establishments within a city block, both with warmer “dine in” atmospheres (Bistro New Albany and the reconstituted Main Street Café), began offering fresh, creative food prepared on the premises. While it’s true that BNA’s prices may have been 15-20% higher than Ermin’s, the food was served on real dishes with table service provided. Consider also Joy’s Coffee Nook, which served wraps and sandwiches, and with better coffee.

When La Rosita’s came into being, suddenly the Louisville area’s finest Mexican eatery was only a five-minute drive from Ermin’s. A longtime stalwart like Tommy Lancaster’s continued to pull its crowd irrespective of season and prevailing trend, and once again, provided a good value with pleasant atmosphere for people choosing to dine in.

In short, when Ermin’s first took up residence on Main Street, the competition was thin, and undoubtedly this was a primary reason for the owners taking the risk. However, increased competition exposed institutional weaknesses in the Ermin’s business plan, and if the café hadn’t moved now, it probably would have been forced to face the inevitable when the Treet’s café opens soon on Market Street.

Given these proliferating choices in an expanding competitive atmosphere, exactly what did Ermin’s do to differentiate itself from its competition, or to persuade the dining public to have a microwave casserole rather than visit the well-stocked steam table down the street or eat like kings at a critically praised Mexican eatery – both for the same price or perhaps less than Ermin’s?

Perhaps there’s hope for Ermin’s to ramp it up. When Bean Street Café was at the Slate Run location, there was a kitchen behind the counter, and at least some baking took place on site. Is it still there? If so, perhaps the Ermin’s model will be updated and adapted to new circumstances.

But it isn’t going to be easy. Even with more cars passing Lauren’s Corner, Ermin’s now must compete with the very popular Los Indios Mex-Mex, with national chains on both sides of Ermin’s, with Sam’s Food & Spirits, and with those cheap and tasty hot dogs cooked without pretense on the Thornton’s spits -- and out beyond the Interstate, there’s a whole exurb filled with dining alternatives, ranging from Japanese to Cajun, from Tumbleweed to Bearno’s.

In closing, allow me to stress again that none of this should be construed as criticism of Ermin’s. In my own business, I’m aware that as secure as one might feel at any given time, the marketplace remains forever volatile. With the possible exception of certain self-proclaimed “progressive” councilmen, nothing in the world actually stands still. Flux is a constant. Guessing which way it will travel can be maddening.

To succeed in selling anything, one must know the product, know the market, and know his or her own aptitudes and abilities. All these factors are subject to change, to modification, to improvement, and to regression.

As for me, I’m sure of few things in life, and this is one: In business, as in nature, certain fundamental things still apply. Consequently, you evolve … or, disturbingly often, you die.

Good luck to Ermin’s in its new location.

Open thread, part two: Councilman Steve Price as reactionary progressive?

As we observed yesterday, 3rd district councilman Steve Price would have us believe that he is "progressive."

I am progressive, in the perspective meaning of “not bound by traditional ways or beliefs”.

Here's the rest of it:

As the election year progresses do not let someone dictate your opinion based on the so called “right information”. Base your opinion on facts that can be proven. Ask yourself are the “progressives” really progressive or are they continuing down the path we have been on for the last 30 years?

Just as we once were beguiled with the term "compassionate conservative," so we're now offered Steve Price, the "reactionary progressive."

How can such terminology make sense?

Considering the incredibly expansive list of possibilities that genuine local progressives have discussed and are working to achieve, customarily against the active opposition of CM Price, is it possible for us to measure his disingenuousness in proclaiming "progressive" instincts?

Does he, himself, really know the difference?

Open thread: Councilman Steve Price - "progressive" or regressive?

The discussion and open thread today refers to an article, Ghost writer in the sky?, published here yesterday. It describes the advent of a blog apparently written by 3rd district councilman Steve Price. I’ve decided to pull a comment by New Alb Annie to the marquee, with my added thoughts, in the hope of starting a conversation. This is not to be construed as a debate between New Alb Annie and myself, just a way of starting a dialogue. Enjoy.

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In a comment, New Alb Annie wrote:

I know I am subjecting myself to a big blast here, but I have to say, in all fairness, that I have not had any problems with Steve Price. He has always been more than willing to discuss things with me, and he has been helpful and responsive.

If I had to cite a specific area that I think isn't the best it could be, I'd say that applying the same financial philosophy, reasoning and methods that a small business owner uses is not the most effective way to approach city/governmental budgeting and spending. They are two different animals.

But, small business is what his experience is in, and our city doesn't have a specific educational/background requirement to hold a Council position, nor does it provide any method to educate incoming council members, as far as I am aware.

You run for office, and if you get the majority vote, you're pretty much thrown in there with no preparation at all. I'd be floundering if I was ever on Council--it's a complicated job, and there isn't any sort of training provided.

From what I know of his personal life, he is similar to a lot of us--living here all his life, raising and educating a child, a homeowner in a modest neighborhood.

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The New Albanian replies:

No blasts, Ann. I appreciate the comments. I recall during the decade of the 1980’s feeling that Ronald Reagan would have made a fine next door neighbor, for cookouts and a beer or two, and to listen to colorful Hollywood war stories. It’s just that he had no business being in charge of a superpower. Leaving aside differing opinions about Reagan’s legacy, I feel much the same way about CM Price. Our city needs more than what CM Price is able to offer.

It is one thing to be cautious and prudent, and to stress fiscal responsibility, although as you correctly point out, there's a big difference between these qualities as applied to one's personal world or small business, and to a city at large.

It's another thing to actively impede forward thinking of the sort that if nurtured, can march hand in hand with fiscal prudence to the enhancement of both. CM Price’s most fundamental failure, one shared with the more fanatical of his “not with my dime” devotees, is an utter inability to understand that the size of the pie is not finite and fixed. It is variable. The pie can become smaller, but it also can become larger. Perhaps owing to personal preferences or upbringing, CM Price inhabits a world that does not change, that always remains the same, where incomes are limited and roles predetermined. But that’s not the way our dynamic world works.

CM Price tells us that he "spearheaded" cleanliness by pushing for an ordinance addressing it. At the same time, he's been opposed to any semblance of funding the mandate he advanced, which makes it possible for him simultaneously to claim credit and to shift blame. In our informal group discussions, and in discussions with city officials, one thing is perfectly clear: You must spend money to make money, and if ordinance enforcement ultimate is about enhancing the prospects for a city to make money, either directly through fees and fines or indirectly through development, then any such mandate must be funded to succeed, not just subsist.

CM Price won’t take the next step. Why, I don’t know, but the accumulated evidence of obsession with nickels and dimes at the expense of the “big picture” he claims to observe is unmistakable.

How can someone with credentials like these insist that he’s progressive? Only Karl Rove knows for sure, but on the other hand, CM Price claims to be a New Age Democrat.

Readers?

Ghost writer in the sky?

I suppose it was inevitable. After all, it's an election year ... and what's an election campaign without a politican shamelessly dissembling his record?

Steve Price – My Vision.

That's right. A blog.

Here’s a teaser:

I am progressive, in the perspective meaning of “not bound by traditional ways or beliefs”.

Simply breathtaking.

Stay tuned for Dan Coffey - My Bologna and Larry Kochert - My Reverie ... both coming soon to a blog near you.

A reminder: NAC "Meet 'n' Greet" is tonight at 7: 00 pm, and you're invited.

At Rich O's Public House, 3312 Plaza Drive:

NAC "Meet 'n' Greet" is on Monday, January 8, and you're invited.

Rocky 6 … Doug England 3?

It will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me or nobody is going to hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit, it is about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much can you take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!
-- Noted prizefighter Rocky Balboa.

“I’ve had polls done before and they’re very reliable ... if the poll comes out a certain way, I’m going to say, ‘Adios, amigos,’ and continue on my present business.”
-- Former New Albany mayor Doug England.

News item: Former New Albany mayor England weighs return bid (News and Tribune).

After weeks of speculation, official certification has come that the political entertainment quotient might yet undergo a considerable upgrade in star value as we usher in a city election year.

Unfortunately, bluff and bluster aside, it remains that in the context of the year 2007, Mr. England puts the "old" back in "OLD school politics" … in the "good OLD boy network" … in observing “OLD ways” … and probably even in writing "OLD Days," the group Chicago's seventies smash hit, with lyrics about looking backward through rose-colored, nostalgic glasses.

Real life’s always more challenging than even the finest of pop songs, and Mr. England currently is polling voters to see whether his shtick still ticks, but what really needs to happen is for him to tell US how this time around might be different from the last, and specifically, what he is proposing NOW, in the current time, to improve upon the present situation in New Albany.

Lest we forget, Mr. England’s last exit from the political scene was messy and embarrassing. His high wire act had grown so stale by 1999 that he was blown away at the polls by Regina Overton, who both as a woman and a Republican did not possess the gender and political party indicators for success generally favored by New Albany’s clannish and primeval voters.

The notion of a strong Republican female in City Hall didn’t resonate with New Albany’s electorate – that is, until voters compared her prospects with the evidence of two previous and tumultuous terms with Mr. England at the helm. It was as decisive a mandate as this city is capable of offering.

It's true that times change, and yet neither bringing out the best in one’s opposition, nor engineering a sea change for the other party, may be the most bankable platform for a Democratic mayoral candidate in 2007, although in New Albany, one is best advised not to hold that breath for too long.

At the same time, and seeing as the city is utterly bereft of solid choices, I'd give due consideration to any reality-based, pro-active policy platform – any specific, coherent plan for the future – that the former mayor might choose to draft.

In like fashion, I'd give due consideration to any reality-based, pro-active policy platform – any specific, coherent plan for the future – that any mayoral candidate might choose to draft, including the incumbent or the half-dozen others in both parties whose names continue to circulate as possibilities.

I’m sorry to say that anything else, whether from the former mayor, the current mayor or any other candidate, qualifies as the same OLD song and dance ... and in New Albany, that's the very last thing we need.

Speaking personally, I find Mr. England to be an interesting fellow, and quite charming. He's a classic schmoozer, relishes the daily combat of leadership, and is a wonderful salesman. But lacking any firm answer as to exactly what he intends to sell us, there’s little reason to be excited about yet another self-aggrandizing political comeback.

At least until NAC receives one of the phone calls.

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A reminder: NAC "Meet 'n' Greet" is on Monday, January 8, and you're invited.

Silly me - I thought it was a death metal band.

In a very few hours I arrived in a city that always makes me think of a whited sepulcher. Prejudice no doubt.
-- Joseph Conrad, from "Heart of Darkness."

The novel's protagonist is referring to Brussels, capital of Belgium. It isn't certain whether Conrad ever came near New Albany.

As (variously) a non-churchgoer, an atheist, a Communist, a progressive, and a drunkard, to use just a few of the colorfully descriptive things said about me both by friends and enemies, the former generally rolling their eyes and the latter usually securely anonymous from afar, every now and then someone pulls out a phrase that even I haven’t heard in a while.

It was yesterday, at the slowly reviving Luddite Bar & Grill, otherwise known as SOLNA, or Speak Out, Lout (NA), that the obscure Biblical reference was wielded:

Anonymous said...

To hear you talk Roger Baylor. You have it all, done it all, and so worldly. But.....your still the biggest whited sepulcher in New Albany.

5:42 PM, January 06, 2007

Heavy artillery, indeed, and "sez you" or "your mama" fall short as potential retorts. For the record, here's the definition of “whited sepulcher,” courtesy of http://www.answers.com/:

whit·ed sepulcher (hwī'tĭd, wī'-) n. An evil person who pretends to be holy or good; a hypocrite. [From the simile applied by Jesus to hypocrites as exemplified by some scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 23:27).]

Hmm. Now, in addition to being on the mayor's payroll, riding a bicycle because of a drunk driving conviction, and being jealous of Professor Erika, I'm also evil. Who'd make such an accusation? Let's see, what clues to we have?

We're in New Albany, and we know that the fan mail comes from devout coward wearing a mask.

Boy, that sure narrows it down.

Pastor Manzo profiled in the Saturday edition of the Tribune.

Kudos to John Manzo, pastor at St. Marks, who scores front-page focus in the Saturday edition of the New Albany Tribune.

New Albany pastor plugged in, by Eric Scott Campbell (News and Tribune).

Here’s an excerpt:

Q: Shifting gears, technology-wise, you’ve engaged in some very spirited discussions among New Albany bloggers. What’s your general opinion of the blog medium?

MANZO: “It’s interesting in that there’s a diversity of opinions. It’s given me a greater insight into the community, as well and actually given me ... a better understanding of some of the wider concerns of the downtown. I think one of the overriding concerns of the downtown has been the poverty line is dramatically increasing. Our soup kitchen has significantly grown in size, our clothes closet has been really hit hard with people needing stuff. I keep thinking, when your soup kitchen is one of the things growing, it’s indicative that there’s something wrong someplace else.”

John’s blog is here.

John, I'm looking forward to meeting you Monday night at the meet 'n' greet. Media notoriety is great, but don’t forget the little … er, perhaps that’s not the best analogy for NA Confidential to use in this context.

City council body language for the evening of January 4.

Okay, so they didn't exactly say these things out loud ... but nonetheless, here are the subliminal messages as gleaned from body language, in order of the newly implemented seating arrangements, and ending with the president and vice president.

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Bill Schmidt: Mr. Building Commissioner, tear down these houses … uh, well, not that I’m going to let you have anywhere close to enough money to do it. That way the grandstanding can continue. Heck, can’t take care of what we got. Why, when I was a boy, we’d take ‘em down with Bowie knives and bare hands.

Steve Price: Any notion of economic development that requires funding beyond the inexpensive level required for random divine intervention is unacceptable to me, and we can't afford it, and I’m against it now, forever, and always. Have you tried asking another God for the money?

Bev Crump: 361 days and counting.

Jeff Gahan: Free at last, free at last.

Donnie Blevins: Black socks or blue? Wheaties or corn flakes? Progs or trogs? I just can’t decide.
Jack Messer: You do your duty, and sometimes, they thank you for it. Other times …

Kevin Zurschmiede: Are these second thoughts, or am I coming down with a really nasty case of the flu?

Larry Kochert: Hah! It’s all about me.

Dan Coffey: No, Larry. It’s all about me.

Wizard of Westside to Dalby: We don’t need any stinking outside world – poverty was good enough for our forefathers, and it’s good enough for us!

Thursday’s city council proceedings offered the citizens of New Albany a clear and unmistakable preview of the year to come.

Assuming you have long observed, as we have long explicated, that during the three previous years, the council’s obstructionist Gang of Four* has been vigilant in preventing the council from discernable forward movement, then kindly be aware that with 4th district councilman “Slippery” Larry Kochert at the council helm, and with all the Gang’s council seats up for grabs in the forthcoming 2007 election, we’re in for twelve months of a do-nothing Ice Age with banana republic dimensions.

Sugar will be allocated to gas tanks, spanners tossed in nearby works, and heels dug in "well" below the water table … but not, of course, if you take the unctuous new kingpin at his word. After the Thursday session’s work was concluded, its newly elevated president read aloud his list of agenda items for the coming year.

And, to be fair, most are worthy, although it must be noted that President Kochert’s three years of stubborn gang-related intransigence are a major part of the reason why these issues have yet to be tackled conclusively, and politics being what it is, he now is in a position to take credit for any successes.

What’s the over/under on the number of phone calls Slippery Larry will make to at-large councilman Donnie Blevins in the year to come?

At any rate, Kochert’s stated council wish list includes maintaining service for a second ambulance, resolving hiring issues at the police and fire department, finishing sewer projects, funding the street department, and delving into inaction at the building commissioner’s office.

But make no mistake: Kochert’s agenda is purely reactive, and while New Albanians understand the importance of efficiency in the city’s basic services, they have not failed to grasp that money will remain exceedingly tight, a fact that in turn illuminates the council’s inability to develop a coherent strategy with respect to economic development, downtown revitalization, wealth creation and proactive planning for the future, which in turn, and to put it mildly, threatens even the best intentioned of reactive decay management plans.

Want proof?

Consider the muddled reception given 1 Southern Indiana’s Michael Dalby, who attended the Thursday council meeting to explain his organization’s mission, and to support a resolution before the council calling for the city to become a funding partner of 1SI to the tune of $92,000 per annum.

Having just finished an inelegant and embarrassing procedural kneecapping of local Montessori advocates, and with the council’s reactionaries deliriously in their cups over the public bloodletting, progressive minds on the council somehow momentarily prevailed, and the 1SI resolution actually was accorded a second. This permitted a relieved Dalby, who looked as though he was only beginning to comprehend the unfathomable density that lay ahead, an opportunity (denied Montessori) to at least present a case for his position.

As with Montessori’s artfully evaded request for money, there are numerous legitimate questions that the council might ask of people like Dalby, and of bodies like One Southern Indiana, and credit Dalby with being prepared. His outline of the rudiments of 1SI’s job matched that available to us on the Web:

One Southern Indiana is the combined Economic Development Council and Chamber of Commerce for Floyd and Clark counties on the Indiana side of the Louisville, Kentucky metropolitan area. One Southern Indiana proactively works to grow our regional economy through business attraction, retention and expansion; through encouraging and supporting entrepreneurs; and through providing government and workforce advocacy, business education, networking opportunities and other business services to our investors. We are one vision, one voice for business.

Dalby’s brief presentation introduced such topics as non-partisanship in expanding the tax base, the educational and training needs of the global economy, local cooperation toward regional economic development, and aggressive marketing of the area to industries interested in establishing operations in Floyd and Clark counties.

As Dalby spoke about a complex and inter-related planet, where ever-changing paradigms require nimble thinking, the Gang of Four’s eyes began to glaze. Visions of simple pleasures, childhood, white bread, light beer, kickball, bedtime stories and that first kiss behind the incinerator – all began crowding into the already filled meeting room.

Most prominently, CM Coffey fidgeted uncomfortably, obviously troubled that such an upstart – hell, he’s not even from here! – would stand before him on the Wizard’s own hallowed 1st district turf and pretend to know more ‘bout makin’ cold hard cash than he – a successful businessman and “antique” dealer, for chrissakes – has learned out there on the hard streets in the grammar school of hard knocks … well, anyone who’s watched the council before could guess that an objection was being molded and prepared for lobbing toward Dalby like a Molotov cocktail filled with liquid envy.

“They’ll benefit more than we will,” intoned the Wizard.

Excuse me?

“Charlestown will be the biggest beneficiary,” CM Coffey continued.

Out came the venom.

“We” have less land than “they” do. “We” have less industrial potential than “they” do. “We” already have an economic development person detested by CM Coffey, and hardly need for “they” to have one as well, since he’d have to split his spite between the two. “We” can’t, “they” might, and so “he” wanted no part of it.

Dalby went on to explain that 1SI is headquartered in New Albany and that much of its recent work has come at New Albany’s industrial park. He noted that the suggested funding partnership level was based on population alone; also, that other communities in Clark County were being asked to join, too (and some already had), and finally, that joining 1SI merited an advisory position to be filled by a council delegate.

CM Coffey was adamant, and understandably, Dalby was confused, having not been briefed that in the fevered, clannish brain of the Wizard, and by extension, his sycophants and the remaining three-quarters of the Gang of Four, there exists no metropolitan Louisville area, no unified Southern Indiana, no Floyd County outside the flood plain, and perhaps not even a city of New Albany.

However, there is such an entity as his fiefdom of an impoverished council district, his own street, and the perimeters of his own yard. The probability of a New Albany resident seeking employment at an industrial plant in Clark County apparently does not figure into the famed ward heeler’s equation. Perhaps such cognitive achievements have been displaced by ambition, or spite; certainly their absence is why CM Coffey has never had, and never will have, a plan for the future of the city of New Albany, at least one extending beyond the narrow limits of his own ambition.

Once again, those seeking future vision from the Gang of Four are left with smoke, mirrors, posturing, and the art of the grandstand.

Hard as it is to imagine, considering the depths already observed, it stands to get even worse before it gets better.

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* If you’re just tuning in, the Gang of Four is made up of councilmen Coffey, Kochert, Price and Schmidt.

State of the Kochert address: “Ask not what your city can do for you ... no, wait ... here it is … the beatings will continue until morale improves."

A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretense. No truth seems true. A simple morning's greeting and response appear loaded with innuendo and fraught with implications. . . . Each nicety becomes more sterile and each withdrawal more permanent.
--- Maya Angelou

At the first city council meeting of 2007, Jeff Gahan oversaw a peaceful transition of presidential power to Larry Kochert, who was elected on the second ballet following what may have been the single most surreal abstention since the current council came to bat in 2003, this one coming courtesy of Donnie Blevins, who opted out of the first presidential ballot. The result was a 4-4 stalemate between CM Kochert and Jack Messer.

With ominous Wagnerian music queued, and the Gang of Four marching in lock/goose/misstep behind the 4th district’s ever slippery chameleon, CM Blevins could only have been seeking sufficient breathing space to gather his senses and offer a preconceived, laborious mea culpa to the two contestants, which he accordingly did. Seconds later, CM Blevins folded like a cheap canvas camp chair in favor of Shelby Street’s favorite ward-heeling son, who in turn later was spotted beaming autocratically as the Wizard of Westside, Dan Coffey, was anointed vice president of the council for 2007.

Not since the sainted duo of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew have we seen two high ranking public officials of such singular obfuscatory caliber, all of which somehow reminds me of the valuable, yet unrelated, insight contributed by the late Dr. Hunter S. Thompson’s in his eulogy of Nixon, entitled “He Was a Crook”: “Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning.”

Thompson's hilarious piece has nothing to do with the council, but you're encouraged to read it.

After a five minute break to organize his first official assault on decorum (see “Montessori” below), our new arbiter of unctuous occupied the council love seat and began dispensing profuse thanks to the academy even as his trigger finger unaccountably began twitching.

“But this is the one I shoot with … no, wait, here it is … this is what America’s all about,” began a predictable torrent of clichés, which included chestnuts like “serve the taxpayer” (make mine medium rare, Chef Dave) and “be courteous to one another.”

Then it was over, and the time came for the public to speak. Oddly, and with grating inconsistency, President Kochert referred aloud to the first speaker by his formal name of “Mr. Duggins” (sic), but for the second citizen, decided instead to use her more familiar …

(Sorry for the interruption. At NAC, we’ve decided that because the person in question actively seeks to be known by her first two names as an obvious form of political branding, we will refrain from taking the bait, and will instead refer to her formally as Ms. Bolovschak, and satirically as Auntie V. Thank you, and we now return you to the continuing beatings)

… “non-surname.” She then spoke for longer than five minutes, mentioning a potpourri of topics, most of which you’ve already read about here at NAC, and was cheered enthusiastically as a returning, reconquering heroine by a huge crowd of exactly one – the blushing, adoring Professor Erika.

There was a brief lull as Al Goodman was unanimously approved to join the Storm Water Board, and then it got strange.

R-07-01 Resolution to fund Community Montessori Charter Public School (Coffey)

CM Coffey, whose public stance toward most educational pursuits might be fairly characterized as hostile to the point of pathological, introduced the ordinance as required of him, perhaps randomly. Not one of the seven other councilmen (not counting CM Kochert himself) who were able to do so chose to second the resolution, and so it died an immediate and unceremonious death. However, it can be reintroduced at a future meeting.

Hmm.

The pros and cons of the Montessori method are open to honest debate among people, as is the suitability of its application within the public school structure. Moreover, there may be perfectly legitimate concerns with the timing of the resolution, with the council’s lack of information as to its merits, and so on.

And yet …

At least twenty parents and a half-dozen children had come to the council meeting ready to take up the newly enthroned president on his “this is America” boast, not to mention his request for “courtesy,” and to become a part of the governmental process. They appeared eager to share their story with the world – or, at least, that portion of the world with nothing better to do on a Thursday night in January.

Nope.

Thanks to an inexplicable measure of adult childishness run completely amok – precisely the frame of mind that this council will be remembered for in years to come – these almost certainly exemplary parents and children left the chamber with understandably bad tastes in their mouths, having been summarily kneecapped in a benignly procedural fashion, and without having the simple chance to present their case to the council, which could have then tabled the measure indefinitely using the always handy excuse that there isn’t enough information, or otherwise found someone to blame for being out of the Montessori loop.

But why cop the non-seconding attitude?

Don’t these citizens – don’t any of us -- deserve better from public officials who constantly pontificate about how badly they’re treated by city hall? A few scraps of dignity, perhaps, rather than a smirking, preening, good old boy’s nod ‘n’ wink orchestration of a non-second?

Talk about bad actors; some of these council guys couldn’t get a part on Baywatch if they bribed the producers with a mountain of cocaine the size of the Trinkle Dome. In three years, how many other such funding requests have been manhandled in such a mind-boggling, transparently staged fashion?

Does President Kochert, self-described steward of courtesy, really believe that it is honorable to deny these sincere people the courtesy of a hearing, and even worse, to do so while groaning aloud about unforeseen procedural matters and whining for the umpteenth time about harmful precedents that will ensue if the council gives money for education to one group without giving money for education to all groups (well, come to think of it, that is rather revolutionary … way too socialistic for a New Albanian of CM Kochert's antiquity).

Will more brilliant non-seconding fiascoes be contrived as a means of not having to face the council’s responsibility?

Shall this be Kochert’s legacy in the chair? Does he understand how embarrassing it was to watch?

Ironically, and with a rare display of humility, the only council member to get it right was CM Coffey, who said, “In the future, I’d rather not have this one,” meaning the task of introducing a resolution he decided long ago to abhor.

That’s good, because putting anything even remotely pertaining to education in CM Coffey’s “to dew” folder is risking cosmic hypocrisy on such an epic scale that fish might begin quoting Shakespeare, the Arizona Cardinals could win a Super Bowl, and a typhoon would blow into Floyd County straight from Japan without stopping for coffee in Albuquerque, sweeping New Albany into oblivion as punishment for our unprecedented impertinence.

Come to think of it, at least that would take care of those dilapidated houses, eh? Maybe there’s a method in this madness after all. 

Those late-night pickled garlic snacks sure do make a difference … by the way, it’s a city council Thursday.

In a startlingly vivid dream last night, my wife and I were in a large, sparsely decorated church somewhere in New Albany, and as we sat on a hard pew toward the rear, we listened as we both were publicly denounced and threatened with irrevocable excommunication.

Taking large roles in these somber proceedings were two wildly disparate local citizens, at least in their relationship with me. It wasn’t a surprise to see the first one, 3rd district councilman Steve Price, playing a lead part in the prosecution.

But the second person was my old friend and attorney Lee Cotner, who once was responsible for marrying me, although not to the same wife as now. Of course, Lee’s presence can be explained only by the need for proper legal counsel in the church’s decision to oust us, but it’s okay, Laszlo. I know it was only business, not personal, and we can still be pals.

What sums it up for me is that throughout the dream, we were laughing aloud. Gut laughing. Hard and continuous. Deep. From the very soul. Exceedingly funny.

Now that I’m awake, I’m still chuckling over it. While Gary Shteyngart's recent and much praised novel, “Absurdistan,” purports to be about an imaginary and chaotic post-Soviet nation in Central Asia, the title of the book sometimes far too closely describes life in New Albania, where the old models never worked even when they were youthful, and proposals for new modes of thinking are waved away and heckled by small minded people who insist that their own past failures somehow predetermine the fate of any future efforts.

It’s a theology of despair, all right, and so it makes perfect sense that in the real world, just as in a dream, there always will be the possibility of being voted off the island. Imagine that. Exile to a place where things actually work.

Say it ain't so, Steve.

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Don’t forget that at 7:30 p.m. this evening, it’s opening night for the 2007 city council season. The agenda is available here. As if we needed another example of New Albania as real-life Absurdistan, take note that 1st district councilman Dan "Bazooka Joe U." Coffey has been given the task of introducing a “Resolution to fund Community Montessori Charter Public School.”

Absurd ... and so totally New Albany.

Coffee break's over; time to get back on your heads.

Yes, the gong is sounding.

Kochert, Messer seek president's post on New Albany City Council, by Eric Scott Campbell (News and Tribune).

Democrats Larry Kochert and Jack Messer will vie Thursday night for the City Council’s presidency, which two-time incumbent Jeff Gahan said he is not seeking again …

… The council president moderates meetings and assigns sponsors to pieces of legislation, among other responsibilities. Gahan said he is pleased that meeting guidelines adopted over the past two years had made discussion among members and residents in attendance more issue-oriented.

Although it would be deliciously ironic to spend the next twelve months watching Slippery Larry grapple with the decorum and impartiality traditionally expected of the council’s president, it remains that I cannot in good conscience support the originator of the Kochert Doctrine, which calls for the potential good of any measure intended to enforce the city’s ordinances always to be compared unfavorably to the possible loss of votes from friends and neighbors, who would object to being held accountable.

However, I’d gladly trade a single year of CM Kochert seated at the head of the council table, if – and only if – he were to consider the position of president as a coda to his long and always reactive council career, and announce his retirement from politics, effective at the end of his current term.

Not unexpectedly, I support CM Jack Messer, but his selection would not be without certain deleterious implications for the sanity of onlookers.

Already, with Mark Seabrook gone, the most effective counterweight to the incessantly self-serving Coffeyite blather that mars so many meetings has been taken from the chamber, and with CM Messer serving as president, his like-minded reality checks against the incoherent ramblings of the 3rd district’s foremost embarrassment, CM Steve Price, also would be missing.

In the end, one thing’s for sure: CM Gahan has done a good job during his two terms.

The fourth and final year of the current council configuration kicks off Thursday night with only one personnel change: Kevin Zurschmiede replaces Mark Seabrook (now a county commissioner) as the body’s lone Republican. What’s more, it’s an election year, so hold on to your hats. It stands to get far thicker before the dawn.

You know, my personal rule is never to drink alcohol before attending a council meeting.

But it may well be that kind of year. Hip flasks, anyone?

A reminder: NAC "Meet 'n' Greet" is on Monday, January 8, and you're invited.

On January 8 at 7: 00 p.m., it's "Confidentiaholics Identified" at Rich O’s Public House, 3312 Plaza Drive in New Albany (across University Woods Drive from Feeder’s Supply and the Grant Line Kroger).

This is being designed as a very informal meet 'n' greet for readers and friends of the NA Confidential blog, and by extension, the New Albany blogosphere. However, you're not required to have a computer to attend. There'll be no set agenda beyond getting to know one another, widening the circle of faces to names, and chatting about local issues.

All citizens are welcome. Tribune forum readers, owners and readers of other local blogs, sincere political hopefuls, innocent bystanders, whatever; we’ll be in the Prost banquet room, and there’s enough room for 50 or more.

It wasn’t my intention to have the gathering at my place of business, but this was the wish of those initially responding to the idea. If it looks like something we’ll try to do again, and I think we should, and often, then we can spread the wealth to other establishments in New Albany with no objections from me.

Bring a friend or a neighbor if you please. See you on the 8th.

An endorsement? How's this: Anyone but the incumbent for 3rd district councilman in 2007.

For much of the past two years, I’ve ceaselessly espoused the position that to gain a quick, intuitive grasp of the condition the city’s condition is in, observers need expend little more effort than the bare minimum required to monitor the statements and votes of Steve Price, the 3rd District city councilman.

Verily, if CM Price is for it, the measure at hand is at best suspect, at worst utterly senseless, and either way it bears exceedingly close examination.

If he’s against it, then "it" is almost certainly right, urgently necessary, and inevitably destined for an attempted kneecapping by CM Price and his merry Gang of Four council cohorts.

Granted, he’ll surprise you every now and then, but when he throws that occasional soft curve, you can take comfort in knowing that it wasn’t intentional. In scatological terms, sometimes it just happens.

In a recent NAC council meeting analysis (Conjoined Councilmen wear boogie shoes, seek help in VCR programming), I noted that as the conceptual vacuity of CM Price’s wasted term in office continues to trickle down to his increasingly impatient constituents –- at least those whose neighborhood interests and cultural proclivities range somewhat beyond those of the entitled beneficiaries of New Albany’s Slumlord Protection Act – the councilman’s blind counterpunches grow more erratic, and his public persona more bizarre.

CM Price, however, is increasingly willing to assume the role of the shambolic court jester. Whether intentionally mispronouncing (John) Rosenbarger’s name in the fashion of a junior high school slight, or publicly struggling to comprehend simple mathematical explanations desperately proffered him by friend and foe alike in an effort to spare him from steadily compounding embarrassment, CM Price has now pole vaulted past the point of self-parody, belly-flopping instead into a bubbling tub of bile and bathos.

Amazingly, last evening’s meeting found CM Price professing his inability to fathom the type of average salaries that are paid to college graduates in numerous fields in all sectors of the American economy – all of whom know far less about their professions than CM (Dan) Coffey – and concluding plaintively that this slowness and incomprehension is to be expected because CM Price comes “from the poor side of town.”

And, as we know, whether from rampant personal insecurity or just a plain unwillingness to fathom any other course, CM Price has acted in office as if he fully intends to keep his side of town just as poor as his excuse for quoting singer Johnny Rivers, using as justification the handy and pathetic mantra, “we can’t afford progress.”

Not only blog readers but all citizens, especially those with children, are invited to think very carefully about such impotent expressions of “we can’t” that bizarrely masquerade as public policy pronouncements.

So it has come to pass that aficionados of self-imposed and backward-looking despair have been provided a patron saint in the form of our 3rd district’s Bard of Dewey Heights, and while it makes for compelling, bottomless satire, it’s not the sort of platform upon which to build morale – or any semblance of a pro-active civic future that rests on any foundation other than decay management, but alas, the eternally corrosive politics of envy and venom blossom in such perpetually narrow worldviews.

When they do, CM Price’s self-fulfilling prophecy is unsurprisingly borne out, in the sense that we as a city remain burdened with a virulent form of impoverishment, but not one capable of being measured in neat stacks of accumulated nickels and dimes. Rather, we are pauperized by the blithe denial of hope, the cruel stunting of dreams, and the fatalistic acceptance of a status quo that can result only in an inexorable slide backward, and never a great leap toward something better.

Why this reprise? The calendar page has turned, and 2007 is a city election year. To begin the New Year, let there be no mistake as to who we think is not the best choice to represent the 3rd district. Of course, this isn't to suggest that we know who is qualified, at least yet. I imagine it will become clearer as the May primaries approach.

Almost a year ago, CM Price consented to an interview with NA Confidential, and unlike the vapid creampuffs later bestowed upon him in a carefully scripted Q & A session at Freedom to Screech (Yellow), our hard queries, and CM Price’s serial non-answers, really did combine to illustrate how much the city of New Albany continues to lose by ennobling short-term political mediocrity at the expense of those capable of thinking in the future tense.

Here is a brief excerpt, followed by links to the entire January, 2006, series. Now more than ever, CM Price's evasions are relevant and should be considered by 3rd district voters.

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1. Mr. Price, you ran for council as a Democrat. How does your performance in council reflect your role as a Democratic Party officeholder? How can we separate your public statements from those of myriad Republicans over the past 40 years? Why are your stated preferences so different from the historic and progressive ideals of the Democratic Party? Does being a Democrat mean anything to you? What would that be, and how do you differentiate yourself from a Republican?

SP:
I am a 21st century Democrat who represents all the people. I believe in standing up for what is right and speaking out against injustice. New Albany is seeing first hand the repercussions of frivolous spending. History has been my teacher. I am not against “community-based” progress just force fed growth. It is not about trying to differentiate myself from anybody; it is about fulfilling the needs of the citizens of New Albany, and doing what will ensure a positive future for this city.

RAB:
CM Price’s answer to the opening question sets the tone for the remainder of the interview by indicating clearly that either the specifics of the question elude him, or just as likely, he had no intention of risking an explication of them in the first place.

Along with (300) million fellow Americans embracing a myriad of political persuasions, CM Price claims to stand up for what “is right” and to “speak out against injustice.”

He provides no concrete examples of what these might be, or how his definition of “right” and “injustice” as a member of the Democratic Party differs from the perspective of the card-carrying Republican on the other side of the aisle.

Exactly when has CM Price taken the lead in “speaking out against injustice? Exactly what was the injustice?

In the overall context of political self-identification, CM Price’s choice of words seems quite odd, for in fact there is an organization called 21st Century Democrats, which has antecedents in the political campaigns of the late Paul Wellstone and former presidential candidate Howard Dean, and connections to another contemporary “blue” Democratic lobby group called Think Blue.

It should suffice to say that neither of these philosophies seem to be in harmony with what little of his personal political beliefs that CM Price is willing to let us glimpse in his answer to our first question.Moreover, he moves with unseemly quickness to distance himself from the obvious burden of political self-examination by establishing the existence of his own personal bogeymen, “frivolous spending” and “force fed growth.” As you will see, these concepts are vital to CM Price’s narrow worldview, but they are not defined.

What is Steve Price in the political sense? He doesn’t tell us, but he strongly suggests that it is cautious, provincial and populist.

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Here are the links:

Part 1: NA Confidential examines Councilman Steve Price’s interview responses.

Part 2: NA Confidential examines Councilman Steve Price’s interview responses.

Part 3: NA Confidential examines Councilman Steve Price’s interview responses.

Outside, it's 2007 ... and the Publican invites Louisvillians to come wander the open air museum.

This morning, I posted the following at Robin Garr’s Louisville Restaurants Forum.

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As many readers know, I unapologetically beat the drum for the future hope being currently engendered by the behind-the-scenes work done by many good people, who have the ultimate aim of revitalizing downtown New Albany within the context of the metro Louisville area.

We hope that 2007 will be a very good year for the cause of forward vision in New Albany, as there are at least three food- and drink-related projects on the drawing board for downtown, and it is hoped that these will join the already growing entertainment infrastructure. Planned ventures include a bakery café, music and bar venue, and informal sports bar/eatery. Prospects are good that all will come to fruition by spring.

Up until now, most of you have heard about Bistro New Albany, La Rosita’s and Federal Hill Café. All are excellent in differing ways. Also, Main Steet Café has opened in the space formerly occupied by the Main Street Grind. Ermin’s is a few doors down. Old standbys Tommy Lancaster, South Side and Little Chef are still around. There are certainly gaps. There also is more going on than at any time in recent memory as we attempt to educate and enable an appreciation for contemporary redevelopment strategies.

Downtown New Albany remains an undervalued entity within the whole of metro Louisville, and we have our share of problems like anywhere else, but this finally could be changing soon.

Construction has started on the Scribner Place YMCA project (State and Main), which represents the biggest investment in downtown since the founders arrived almost 200 years ago. Several entrepreneurs are beginning the rehabilitation of long unused upper floor spaces for apartments and condos. There is much interest in the arts as a catalyst for further progress. As the bland chain-influenced exurb grows, the value of refashioned older urban areas increases.

It may not always be the case to glean the good news from the reports provided in the Courier-Journal, and yet there is good news, nonetheless, and prospects are cautiously positive.

Speaking personally, I’d just like to invite the forum readership to consider coming over, having a meal at one of the establishments listed above, and strolling around downtown New Albany. It’ll be a “warts and all” experience, but it’s safe, and instead of recounting the obvious matters yet to be addressed, consider the possibilities. My wife Diana and I have invested in downtown by buying a house and living here, and if the proper opportunity presented itself, I’d gladly do the same with an extension of my current brewery/pub/pizzeria business.

Thanks for the time. Hope to see some of you around.

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In other news, 3rd district councilman Steve Price plans to organize a rally to urge forum readers to stay the hell away from New Albany, lest our cement pond status quo be upset by an influx of people who don't share our cultural values.

"Don't need no more of them people here," he twanged to a reporter. "Can't park yer pickup as it is. Can't afford it, either. None of it. Nickels and dimes add up to a mixin' of the cultures. Uppity. Don't wanna be like that Frank-fert avenoo, do ya? But whadda I know. Wrong side of the tracks. Nazis at the VFW. Gotta go tend to my yard couch."

Taking the bait, our mock Professor Erika promises to erect a blockade at the approaches of the K & I bridge, having seen in an anonymous blog posting that "pergessives on bikes" would be coming across.

Actually, they couldn't make it. Because of the barricade on the Louisville side.

A New Year’s Eve in New Albany … it was a treat.

We wish to thank Chef Dave and the crew at Bistro New Albany for a wonderful meal; Israel, Lidia and her visiting relatives at the La Rosita’s late night bash for making us feel like family; and Mr. & Mrs. Bluegill for the nightcap.

Diet? What diet? It may have been back to carrots and granola today, but worth it knowing that a fine time can still be had in the old town.

Cheers for 2007. It is going to be a good year.