Scrum dimensions, policy planks and the requisite safety goggles.

Belated thanks to all those who attended last evening's second meet 'n' greet, especially the five candidates, who are to be commended for taking the the time to share their views and listen to ours.

If you’re just tuning in, it’s a city election year in New Albany, and the anticipated scrum is widening as the filing period for May’s primary counts down toward its deadline.

One need possess only the most superficial appreciation for the rules of political gamesmanship to understand that during such times, there is a disorienting, swarming effect as aspirants rush to forge alliances, recruit backing, scratch backs and secure their most vital of currencies, the promise of your vote.

This process would be alternately infuriating and exhilarating even if the political life of the city were rigidly confined by the traditional two-party system, but this year’s computational dimensions have been augmented by at least one phenomenon that did not exist locally in 2003.

And you’re reading one of them.

Recalling CM Larry Kochert’s comment in 2005 that community-based activism usually fades away with time – an observation more in keeping with his own congenital immobility and absence of principle than providing evidence of a sagacious eye surveying the landscape – it remains that the ultimate strength and viability of New Albany’s emerging progressive movement have yet to be proven.

Traditional political practitioners in our community, some even more slippery than the 4th’s resident toadstool dweller, almost certainly regard the notion of an evolving progressive bloc existing outside the hidebound hegemony of Democrats and Republicans to be laughably effete, and a non-starter not to be taken seriously by veterans of the smoke-filled back rooms that politicos like Kochert have tended to prefer in spite of occasional personal regulatory convictions that the air, if not their own jaundiced motives, be magically rendered pollutant-free.

To judge by the events of recent days, at least some denizens of the realm of politics-as-usual aren’t so sure, and one of them declared for mayor yesterday.

Former mayor Doug England unexpectedly phoned last week to confirm his Balboa-esque candidacy and to seek an audience with the senior editor for the purpose of answering questions and discussing the pressing issues of the day. I accepted his previous honor’s invitation and will be meeting with him today, and while this knowledge will alarm some readers, it should not.

On numerous occasions, NAC has issued a principled call for candidates to produce issue-oriented platforms and to be prepared to discuss them. Furthermore, we have reminded local politicians that at least some members of the electorate intend to gauge the abilities of office seekers by their policy content and not church membership, high school graduation date or relationship by marriage to a second cousin’s ex-husband.

Last night, Democratic mayoral candidate Larry Scharlow responded to our challenge by attending the meet ‘n’ greet and chatting with those in attendance. It was a beginning, and he made a good – though of course not final – impression.

Quite simply, we cannot insist on access from some while denying it to others, Doug England included, even if there are those among us who regard his previous city hall tenure as a time that unfortunately came to represent the discredited ward-heeling norms of previous generations of political patronage and underachievement. Yet, like any other candidate, England deserves a chance to offer his policy platform. Let’s see exactly what platform he’s offering, and whether it will remain consistent as it is presented in coming weeks to other targeted audiences of varying demographic stripe ... and, in the end, permit our consciences to be our guide come election day.

The same logic goes for every other candidate, doesn't it? But be aware that if I'm finally offered those long overdue millions in brewery construction money ... I'm holding out for that nice Hour of Power building across from Scribner Place, including the corner car lot for drive-through keg pick-up, as well as a golf cart to get me back and forth.

As a closing note to Mark: Your point is well taken, and “Dutch Treat” it will be.

Can Guido be far behind?

10:00 p.m.: Tribune coverage is here.

We're told that this afternoon, former mayor Doug England will announce his candidacy for (surprise) mayor in 2007, joining incumbent James Garner and challenger Larry Scharlow in what should be an immensely entertaining Democratic primary.

It is not known whether GOP 6th district council hopeful Dick Stewart will stage an impromptu performance of minstrelsy in blackface on the sidewalk outside, if Auntie V will attend disguised as an amok NASA astronaut, or if debit cards will be accepted in lieu of unmarked bills.

England's last race in 1999 ended in defeat at the hands of Regina Overton (R), who was elected mayor by a margin of 57% to 43%. In turn, Overton was defeated by Garner in 2003.

----

Don't forget: NAC "Meet 'n' Greet" is tonight, and you're invited.

NAC "Meet 'n' Greet" is tonight, and you're invited to attend.

(Go here for brief nocturnal coverage of Monday's council meeting, including a Tuesday morning update)

----

• NOTE: Several declared candidates in upcoming municipal elections have tentatively indicated their intention to attend tonight's gathering.

Tonight (Tuesday, February 6, starting at 6:00 p.m.) it's the second gathering of "Confidentiaholics Identified," meeting this time at La Rosita Mexican Grill at 1515 E. Market Street in New Albany, which is a few doors down from the Tommy Lancaster Restaurant near Vincennes Street.

If you haven’t yet been to La Rosita, this is the ideal chance to sample superb, fresh and creative Mexican cuisine, and because I already know that the majority of Confidentiaholics adore Israel Landin's delicious offerings on a regular basis, we're moving the kick-off to 6:00 p.m. to accommodate diners. Of course, you may come at any time, and it isn’t required that you purchase food.

Read Marty Rosen’s C-J review here for a mouthwatering description.

Israel graciously has reserved the upstairs room for us, and as was the case at our previous gathering, the evening is being designed as a very informal meet 'n' greet for readers and friends of the NA Confidential blog, and by sincere extension, the New Albany blogosphere as a whole, but naturally you're not required to have a computer to attend.

I'll be toting selected refreshments.

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; political hopefuls; innocent bystanders; whatever … and bring a friend or a neighbor if you please.

Looking ahead, tentatively we're hoping to hold the March edition of the gathering at St. Marks United Church of Christ in downtown New Albany, with pot luck, self-catered munchies, and Pastor John Manzo hosting and educating us about the church's community activities.

See you at La Rosita's tonight.

Four hours and fifteen minutes later ...

Don't expect an immediate report on the marathon of election-year indecision otherwise known as Monday night's city council meeting.

Know that for all the hullabaloo, absolutely no progress was made on the firefighter hiring ordinance, discussion of which began about the time that President Shrub declared victory in Iraq, and much to the delight of unreconstructed 6th district Republican council hopeful Dick Stewart, who entertained the capacity crowd by performing minstrelsy in blackface.

Chairman Kochert's landmark anti-smoking legislation, which is intended by its author to salvage an underachieving political career by means of a bold progressive stroke, was unceremoniously tabled for further research. As noted previously, it will be coming back to divide the community numerous times before being enacted and failing for lack of enforcement revenue.

Even the no-brainer unsafe building fund revamp was delayed owing to a general inability to agree on the meaning of "lien" and its application to vacant lots.

However, the initial zoning adjustments required for the Summit Springs development project off State Street were approved, with 1st district CM Dan Coffey -- formerly an intractable foe of any such plan -- leading the charge in favor and demanding that we do a better job of attracting development to the city.

Huh?

We'll link here Tuesday to coverage in the newspapers, and perhaps be back for more analysis following a night's rest. Don't forget NAC's meet 'n' greet Tuesday night at La Rosita Grill in New Albany ... and so, to bed.

---

10:10 a.m. Tuesday update

Tribune: Fire department hiring change fails in New Albany City Council; Bill's co-author votes against it, by Eric Scott Campbell.

New Albany Today blog: Too Long For Nothing, by Maury Goldberg.

The more rope he is provided, the bigger Larry’s slippery noose grows.

It’s a city council Monday, and our elected officials will be looking at not one … not two … but three controversial agenda items, each guaranteed to generate heaping portions of bile, to pack the tiny council chambers with concerned citizens, and to provide CM Dan Coffey with his cherished biweekly opportunity to preen and posture while chewing the scenery in a purely McCarthygasmic celebration of spite and envy.

Here’s a brief rundown of the fun on tap this evening.

G-06-21
An Ordinance to Amend Section 32-80 of the Code Of Ordinances: The New Albany Fire Department Candidate Selection Act
(Blevins 1)

When last we visited the council, its newly elected president had somewhat ineptly dithered until the very last moment to change the meeting agenda, excluding G-06-21 from consideration, and compounding his problems by preventing discussion of the matter -- even though a large body of people who had not been informed of the sudden change sat earnestly in attendance.

See: CM Kochert’s petard: Self-hoisting, no waiting.

Tonight CM Kochert returns for an encore, and having given his random procedural wheel yet another mighty heave, a spanking new policy has gurgled forth: Henceforth, if one cares to sit through an entire meeting’s worth of foreplay, which customarily includes ample examples of conjoined councilmen pontification and oppositionist blather, then – and only then – Slippery Larry will permit the staging of “New Albany Idol” with his new “MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS: (public comments on non-agenda items)” design feature.

Seeing as both the NA Confidential and Volunteer Hoosier blogs first raised this notion of an expansion of citizen participation back in spring, 2005 (coincidentally, about the same time as the council began discussing the topic of firefighter hiring), we heartily endorse CM Kochert’s decision, and hope to be reading the telephone book to captive council persons at midnight.

Unfortunately, all of the preceding instances of damage control have been made necessary by executive bumbling that itself bears no direct connection to the firefighter hiring ordinance.

G-07-02
An Ordinance to Prohibiting Smoking in Specified Areas
Crump 1

The president’s ham-fisted pawprints are all over this one, too, even if his elevation to parliamentary kingpin has made it necessary to hand the brief to CW Bev Crump.

Given the smoking ordinance’s current semi-legible condition as a declamatory mishmash, large portions of which have been cribbed and crudely Kochertized from a template at the Americans for Non-Smokers’ Rights’ website (including references to a “city manager” and “county administrator”), obviously it is destined for considerable revamping and fine-tuning in committee, and will be returning with zombie-like regularity to foment community unrest well into the coming year.

One thing is clear: If the premises of the anti-smoking bloc are correct, and "there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke," then there should be absolutely no exceptions. If incorrect, there should be no ordinance. Gradualism and exceptions are meaningless; it should be all, or nothing at all.

View the ordinance here as a .pdf file, beginning circa page 27 and extending for at least 15 pages … imagine how long it will take for inveterate non-readers from West Endia to tackle … ask yourself whether a legal definition of a “bar” should correspond with that used by the regulating authorities in Indianapolis … and consider the likelihood of the Floyd County health department authorities being willing and able enforce a city ordinance without city money being allocated for enforcement by a council generally unwilling to enforce ordinances that already exist. Ask Larry Kochert this question: Why this, and why now?

And see: Emperor Kochert’s newly progressive anti-smoking clothes -- and their utterly striking invisibility and CM Kochert's council legacy? One clue: It won't be a smoking ordinance.

Z-07-01
Ordinance Amending the Code of Ordinances New Albany, Indiana, Title XV, Chapter 156 (Docket P-12-06: Pat & Pam Kelly – Summit Springs Development)
Crump 1

Discussion of this, the latest in a series of divisive green field development projects, is my not-so-dark-horse choice to prompt a shouting match, either between citizens, council members, or both.

In essence, local zoning authorities use existing sets of criteria to rate such projects, which pass to the council for final approval, and are considered by the council using entirely different sets of criteria (read: political and electoral). The predictable result is a wide divergence of philosophical intent, and a striking absence of contextual continuity from one debate to the next.

With open space at an ever-increasing premium within the city limits of New Albany, but numerous adjacent tracts available for redevelopment and the type of adaptive reuse that we advocate here on a weekly basis, it continues to be frustrating that the square-pegged development logic of the “limitless” exurb so often is forcibly jammed into what are urban holes of decidedly different shape and ideal usage.

Unfortunately, a big part of the problem is the community’s inability – perhaps its unwillingness – to unify for the pursuit and maintenance of common development goals. To reframe our zoning standards according to a futuristic perspective, and to step up enforcement of standards already determined, is to set goals that are consistent with a principled recognition of changing circumstances, and to plan how these bars can be cleared for overall betterment.

As with so many other issues, I’m entirely unsure how we get past the enmity of generations and eliminate the personal animus that tends to improperly provide the backdrop to most of the council’s zoning decisions. It is clear that a working compromise between certain development mentalities structured to transform corn fields into asphalt, and those addressing the city’s pressing need to meet the demands of a far different – not better, not worse, just different – target market for an urban experience downtown, must be achieved … and soon.

Like so many previous proposals that have come before the council for consideration, it is likely that the Summit Springs project will be subject to the spasmodic paradigms of the body’s ward-heeling faction, and that it will be approved or rejected in the lamentable absence of a genuine community debate over developmental standards. Where the coin will drop is anyone’s guess, as it always is with this group.

----

In a final bow to the surreal, we note the presence on tonight’s agenda of CM Bill Schmidt’s much belated request for funding to restore the viability of the Unsafe Building Fund, New Albany’s dereliction removal arm.

To recap, the UBF has been in deficit (not “deficient,” as some councilman persistently and incorrectly allege) since the current body took office, with CM Schmidt perennially content to permit the non-functional and unfunded entity to be used as a politically-motivated bludgeon against a mayor he despises -- until the bluff finally was called in January by the Building Commission president, who publicly asked for the council to revitalize the UBF.

Now, if the stars align, we’ll be able to demolish a few unsafe structures, although there’ll still be insufficient political will to enforce those building standards that might have prevented dilapidation in the first place -- and, true to form, the Schmidt coup d'geriatrique has done little if anything to redress this particular imbalance.

Will Blair Affordable Homes protest this unprecedented deprivation of its right, as provided by New Albany’s landmark Slumlord Protection Act, to quickly flip properties to aspiring, ahem, rental property managers and unsuspecting non-profits?

We hear that civil rights lawsuit coming. Until then, bring a magazine, knitting or some very strong drugs. It’s going to be a long, cool one.

The “Dork & Mindy” bitch-slap theory of local politics.

When America’s free-falling President Shrub and his GOP bunker mates publicly refer to the Democratic party the “Democrat party,” does it mean that they’re syntax-challenged dolts, or is it being done intentionally as a not-so-subtle means of disparagement?

Perhaps both. Here’s a handy explanation, as offered by Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo (I sincerely thank my source, who is in enough “trouble” already):

Matt Yglesias has an interesting series of posts on his site about just what the big deal is when Republicans call the Democratic party the 'Democrat party'.

As it happens, a few months back I got an email from a TPM Reader who I think was a linguist. And he explained that there is something about the concatenation of syllables, the sound or structure of the phrase 'Democrat party' that actually sounds somehow inherently grating or awkward on the ears. When I got the note I think I was busy with something else. And I never really got a chance to work through and understand just what the guy was saying. I think I'll probably try to dig it up.

But that is a secondary point. The whole issue of 'Democrat' party -- other than as an example of Republican infantilism -- is an issue of respect or rather intentional and repeated expression of disrespect as a means of asserting dominance.

There's a certain conservative columnist named James X. who shall remain unnamed. At some point a few years back I had cause to exchange an email with him. And I called him 'Jim'. I don't think I gave it a second thought. I'm Josh or Joshua -- doesn't matter to me. But a short time later I got a half questioning, half barely repressed anger email from the guy asking whether I was intentionally disrespecting him by addressing him as 'Jim', the diminutive form of the name. Now, as I say, it was accidental. I apologized and explained that it was totally unintentional. And if he preferred to be called James I would certainly do so. As it happens, in the intervening years, my lack of respect for him has grown apace. But I'd still always call him James and not Jim. And this is the point. You address people the way they choose to be addressed. You address them by what they consider to be their name. In the ordinary course of life, when people do otherwise, we rightly recognize that they're trying to pick a fight or demean the person in question.

It is, as Matt points out, another illustration of the 'bitch-slap theory of politics'. You assert dominance over someone by mangling their name and continuing to do so even after the correct pronunciation or style is pointed out. It's right off the schoolyard and it's no surprise that it's a stock and trade of this president.

Locally, we refer to this same phenomenon – one so appropriately summarized by Marshall as “infantilism” -- as the “Dork & Mindy” bitch-slap theory of politics … and, for that matter, of all troglodyte blogging.

Accordingly, when Ms. Denhart refers to Mayor James Garner as “Jimmy” at her gasbag shrine, does it seem to you – as it does me – that her strategic choice of diminutive has far less to do with any personal deficiencies in social grace than it does with the patrician Republican peering over the fake academic’s shoulder, who artfully impels the trogosphere’s most pathetic puppet to dance?

NAC wanted to find out, so we dispatched our purely fictional roving correspondent Gordy Gant to Primrose Lane, where he succeeded in capturing a brief interview with prominent businesswoman and GOP stalwart Auntie V. We offer it here in the spirit of outrageously contrived satire, lest undiscerning readers mistakenly miss the joke and believe that the following account is somehow real.

----

Gant:
You must be a special person to move to a new city and win the hearts and confidence of the populace with your first impression.

Auntie V:
I took on a project to create a quiet zone and kept trying to get the mayor to participate, as was a requirement by Norfolk Southern. He blew off five meetings, one which was even at HIS office. Norfolk Southern rep flew in from Roanoke for three of the meetings and it was getting embarrassing. I wrote a letter to a local senator and enrolled her assistance (one short pointed letter of support) and that ingratiated the railroad enough that they gave me $360,000 which enrolled INDOT (IN dept of Transp) to toss in the $180,000 balance I needed to upgrade our historic RR corridor.

SO, I went to the council meeting on Jan. 5th and explained the series of events which got me to the point that I called him a coward, a liar, a bully, wreckles, lacking in integrity, etc. and then I turned around and said, JIMMY, YOU WORK FOR ME And IF I was the boss I would fire you. For insubordination. His name is James and little did I know how upset he would be for calling him Jimmy, which I did on purpose to put him down, but didn’t realize I’d get such a rise out of him, which back fired on him worse, on top of making him look stupid. It’s much more involved than that, but that’s the nutshell explaination.

I had a video guy there to film the whole meeting. When I finished my speech, the entire room was cheering and clapping, as we are all fed up with him, and then I walked toward the door and one of the councilmen stood up and said, V, that is the most courageous thing I have ever seen anybody do. And the audience went crazy again applauded and all that stuff.

Gant:
I can't wait to hear the stories as to how that happened ... (muffled sounds … coughing ... we think that Gordy has fallen ill and will be taking a few days off ... )

Trognonymous local blogger called out for plagiarism responds by blaming the mayor.

Regular readers will recall that earlier last week, NAC took note of Ms. Denhart’s latest in a seemingly endless series of unattributed Internet plagiarisms, as regurgitated at her “Freedom to Screech” troglodyte rant blog: In which we check the facts, since she won't.

In case you were wondering, a substantial portion of the text used in the Freedom of Speech blog entry dated Wednesday, January 24 (but actually published on Tuesday, January 30) was purloined without proper attribution (or even scant acknowledgement) from a far more coherent political blog called Tennessee Ticket.

Now we’ve learned that the Volunteer State blogger from whom our laughably fictitious “Professor Erik” pilfered her material has taken public note of the theft, and references it here: Why Crib the Goofball Stuff?

Wow! A blogging member of higher education quoted this little site. Except, well, he didn't so much quote me, as use my words, without attribution, with every indication that he meant for a reader to think they were his own. In the quintessential sophomoric plagiarist's manner, he inserted two lines of his own, and "edited" text to a grammatically poorer result.

Alert! From one responsible blogger to another: Not only is our “Erik” not a professor, but “he’s” also not a “he,” and disingenuous gender confusion is only part of the recurring entertainment value proffered by this daily spectacle of an embittered, semi-literate, faux “academic” aspiring to trognonymous stardom. Please, don’t draw any conclusions about the state of Indiana’s educational system, which suffers from its own problems quite distinct from Erika's playground cluelessness.

Know that we fully comprehend the childish nature of her charade, and laugh at it – not with it.

Randy Hubbard and Salman Rushdie … where are you tonight?

Earlier this week, a prominent New Albanian Republican finally, formally announced his mayoral bid. Here’s an excerpt from the Tribune’s coverage.

Former Floyd County Sheriff Randy Hubbard entered the New Albany mayoral race Wednesday, saying he’d been coaxed by residents “disillusioned with current and past administrations” …

… Asked what his goals would be if elected, Hubbard replied, “At this point, I just need to talk to people in the community” to find out what issues are important to them.

I’ve no interest in disputing the prevailing local wisdom holding that Mr. Hubbard is a man of exacting professional integrity, primarily because I’ve no reason to doubt it unless proven otherwise. To me, it’s a given.

Rather, might we briefly glance past the testimonials and acknowledge the hair-pulling, maddening incongruity of a high-ranking community figure’s weeks-long courting of citizen disillusionment, his certain deliberation and careful planning leading to Wednesday’s well-crafted announcement, and then a bizarre, vacuous comment to the effect that after all this thought and consideration, he still has no personal recognition of pertinent issues, but must ask community members to provide him with some?

That’s simply incredible, but in the open air museum of congenital dysfunction known as New Albany, somehow we’re the ones regarded as crazed and dangerous for discussing numerous issues on a daily basis for months -- years -- and expecting those seeking our votes to approach the table with a platform in their hands.

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

Why insist? Without a coherent system of policy ideas -- without a platform -- the phrase “disillusioned with current and past administrations” has no substantive meaning apart from “my clan – your clan,” and we’ve seen where that particular “policy platform” has taken the city over long decades of decay.

With all due respect – and I want to be fair to him – how is it possible that Mr. Hubbard cannot think of a single issue beyond funding sources when so many pressing items currently crowd the city’s collective agenda? To be sure, integrity’s a promising start, but Mr. Hubbard and his fellow aspirants must do better than that.

Gratifyingly, someone already has done better.

Randy Smith, owner of Destinations Booksellers and a former contributor to this blog, is writing a series of guest columns for the Tribune. All the columns are archived together on-line.

SMITH: Walk this plank, candidates

By earning it, I mean that (city council nominees) will have campaigned on a platform of ideas. I believe that any candidate who does will benefit from a sharp increase in turnout that this city has seldom seen.

While no candidate will embrace all of these proposals (in fact, they’d probably be crazy to do so), I offer them up as a menu for action, free of charge, to any candidate bold enough to articulate them further. Some are tougher than others. Some will be controversial. But I believe in them all.

By local standards of antebellum ward-heeling and foot-dragging, it’s an audacious and ambitious notion to offer a unified system of ideas, and not unexpectedly, Randy’s already under attack for trespassing against New Albany’s long and sad history of anti-intellectual underachievement.

(Who in the hey do you think you are? This is our neighborhood, too. Do you even live downtown? BS.)

Note that the preceding comment refers not to genetic engineering or the advocacy of teenage sex, but to Randy’s suggestion that the city’s downtown streets be given bicycle lanes. If something as wholesome and healthy as biking prompts such gasbag Limbaughesque vitriol, just imagine how the remainder of his impeccably rational pleas for New Albany to gingerly consider joining the 21st century (soon, please) are going to be received down at the Luddite Bar & Grill.

Go here and read about policies and principles, and next time you drop in to Destinations to pay homage to the power of the written word – to the realm of ideas – say thanks to the proprietor for not being a coward.

Given the New Albany political climate in 2007, thinking publicly qualifies as an alternative lifestyle, and the open advocacy of thinking is a revolutionary act -- and we need as many of these revolutionary acts, and as quickly, as we possibly can find them.

---

Link: Candidate filings (updated daily)

At NABC this weekend: Anonymous Pirates Art Show, Super Bowl & four whole days of $3 NABC progressive pints.

In the past, I’ve shown restraint with regard to using NA Confidential as a vehicle for shameless self-promotion of my business – although it’s likely that the antebellum denizens of the Luddite Bar & Grill strongly disagree. Verily, we visionaries never are respected during our lifetimes.

However, today shall be an exception to the rule, the principal reason for which is the incredible amount of hard work that our youthful staff has put forward to stage their art show, running today and tomorrow from 3:00 p.m. to midnight.

In the end, it’s a matter of principle.

Their Anonymous Pirates Art & Music Show will be their second art show in the Prost special events wing. As with the previous effort last July, dubbed the Speak Easy Art Show, Prost has been transformed into a gallery, and the entire event has been conceived and organized by NABC’s staff, friends fellow travelers.

This time around, there’ll be music, too.

On Friday, Stephen J. Powell, Ben Traughber and Jared Williamson & Tommy Potts will be performing. Stephen and Jared both work for NABC (as server and brewer, respectively), and Jared and Tommy are members of the local band Sativa Gumbo.

On Saturday, Ben, Stephen (with Jay Nixon) and Pokey La Farge will play.

I simply can’t say enough about the way that the Anonymous Pirates organizers have approached the planning and execution of the art show, and their energy and diligence boldly discredits those folks among us who persist in dismissing the “younger generation” as somehow deficient in certain cardinal virtues, most of which never mattered, anyway. Think about coming out, enjoying their work, and supporting them.

Normally we don’t open on Sunday, but an annual exception is made for the Super Bowl – it being America’s national confessional, and all. Consequently, on Sunday, February 4, Sportstime Pizza will be serving pizza and beer for Super Bowl XLI. Hours are 4:00 p.m. until the game's over. Go Colts, etc.

Saving the best for last: From the opening bell Friday through last call on Monday, NABC will be further celebrating art, football and craft beer with $3 NABC Imperial pints (tax included). Sorry, hopheads, but Hoptimus will be $3.25. No growler discounts, either.

Beer-induced, Flaming Cougarhawk mania.

I seldom cross-post with my Potable Curmudgeon blog, but this piece was so much fun that an exception is merited. For more information on Gravity Head 2007 ("Gravity Madness: March Isn't Just About Basketball Anymore"), see: Badness and Preliminary Orders.

----

Perceptive reader Edward has noticed the inscription on the Gravity Head 2007 mascot’s basketball jersey, and he asks, undoubtedly smirking:

Can you tell the story behind Flaming Cougarhawks?

Not without pain, but here goes.

It is a widely and deservedly forgotten fact that while serving acne time during high school, your faithful Curmudgeon was a two-year varsity basketball player at Floyd Central. My active hoops participation ceased after our ignominious defeat in the morning session of the Seymour regional in 1978, after which spent the afternoon drinking Little Kings with friends in their Daze Inn hotel room before proceeding to an equally lackluster career of grabbing innings of varsity baseball pine.

Upon graduation, a regimen-free summer was spent lounging with like-minded pals, especially those with skills at being served, which magically added 25 pounds of non-muscle mass (i.e., goo) to an otherwise spindly frame.

A steadily growing affection for beer in its cheapest available incarnation accompanied four years of intramural basketball competition at Indiana University Southeast, and it should come as no surprise that my best-ever senior IM squad was called the Inebriates. By the mid-1980’s, activities like softball, walking and riding trains between European beer shrines had replaced organized basketball as my generally preferred forms of exercise, but as so often is the case, and without warning, there was to be an entirely unexpected roundball comeback.

It happened in 1999.

A group of Rich O’s Public House regulars, all of whom love the game of basketball – some of them can still be glimpsed limping to the bar for their daily medicinal pints – somehow fell into a summertime routine of meeting on Sundays atop the asphalt parking lot of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and shooting hoops, which led to half-court games followed by restorative ale drinking at the Shelbyville Road location of Bluegrass Brewing Company … and, fueled by these post-game sessions, led eventually to a bizarre delusion that we were good enough to compete in the autumn YMCA recreational league in Clarksville.

Mark, our starting guard and coach, did the paperwork, and I purchased garish bluish purple team jerseys for the team, which had been dubbed the Flaming Cougarhawks in honor of … owing to … hmmm, the ironic thing is that I have no memory of the naming process other than to suggest that we must have been drinking BBC APA when it happened.

When the newly minted Flaming Cougarhawks stepped onto the hardwood for their first-ever game, the average age of the starting lineup was about 35, and it quickly doubled when we suddenly realized that a regulation full court is very, very big, and that the opposing team of recently graduated 19-year-olds was very, very fast.

We outweighed them, though, and this came in handy on those rare occasions when one of us could catch up with one of them. Calling on long-neglected reserves of thespian talent, I duped the referee into calling a shooting foul and scored the first point in team history on a free throw. Moments later I jammed my right ankle and was lost for the season. The Flaming Cougarhawks dropped each and every game on the schedule, although we came close enough once to justify another BBC drinking spree.

Those young pups couldn’t touch us there, on our true home court.

(Thanks to Jared and Tony for remembering!)

The principal should spank her for failing principles of the English language.

Anywhere except New Albany, you’d be forgiven for thinking that a “college professor” should know the difference in usage between an adjective and a noun. Sadly, the crusading Vickster’s imaginary academic alter ego does not.

ACCOUNTING PRINCIPALS... INDIANA STATE BOARD OF ACCOUNTS

Perhaps 3rd district councilman Steve Price can compose a resolution providing “feel good” funding for Erika’s continuing linguistic education, but until that unlikely day, consider …

Principal is both an adjective, which means that it modifies a noun, and a noun. In the adjectival sense, it means, “First, highest, or foremost in importance, rank, worth, or degree; chief.” As a noun, it has several meanings, none of which are applicable to Erika's mistaken usage.

Principle is a noun – it names something – and in the sense that Erika should have used it, it means, “a fundamental, primary, or general law or truth from which others are derived: the principles of modern physics.”

Or, one might say: "The principal principles of the trognonymous Freedom of Speech blog are cowardly subterfuge and malice."

Glance here for accounting principles correctly used.

See, there really are rules, Erika. You simply must learn them.

Thanks to http://dictionary.reference.com/ for definitions.

Anywhere except New Albany, you’d be forgiven for thinking that a “college professor” should know the difference in usage between an adjective and a noun. Sadly, the crusading Vickster’s imaginary academic alter ego does not.

ACCOUNTING PRINCIPALS... INDIANA STATE BOARD OF ACCOUNTS

Perhaps 3rd district councilman Steve Price can compose a resolution providing “feel good” funding for Erika’s continuing linguistic education, but until that unlikely day, consider …

Principal is both an adjective, which means that it modifies a noun, and a noun. In the adjectival sense, it means, “First, highest, or foremost in importance, rank, worth, or degree; chief.” As a noun, it has several meanings, none of which are applicable to Erika's mistaken usage.

Principle is a noun – it names something – and in the sense that Erika should have used it, it means, “a fundamental, primary, or general law or truth from which others are derived: the principles of modern physics.”

Or, one might say: "The principal principles of the trognonymous Freedom of Speech blog are cowardly subterfuge and malice."

Glance here for accounting principles correctly used.

See, there really are rules, Erika. You simply must learn them.

Thanks to http://dictionary.reference.com/ for definitions.

On Thursday: Chili and beer with Jeffersonville Main Street.

In which we check the facts, since she won't.

In case you were wondering, a substantial portion of the text used in the Freedom of Speech blog entry dated Wednesday, January 24 (but actually published on Tuesday, January 30) was purloined without proper attribution (or even scant acknowledgement) from a far more coherent political blog called Tennessee Ticket.

Seems that the non-existent Professor Erika didn’t backdate her entry sufficiently far, as the original was published on January 22.

The preening professorial poseur is fond of demanding that rules be followed, and yet she’s entirely unable to consistently follow simple standards of honesty when it comes to identifying and attributing sources. Of course, this sort of serial misbehavior damages one’s credibility, but then again, credibility’s never been in ample supply at Dork and Mindy’s random character assassination generator.

The next NAC "Meet 'n' Greet" is on Tuesday, February 6, and you're invited.

Second call ... and I need to know: Will you be dining? Israel needs to know how to staff this, if in fact special treatment is required. If there will be only six of us, there's no sense putting him out to reserve and staff the upstairs.

----

On February 6, starting at 6:00 p.m., it'll be the second gathering of "Confidentiaholics Identified," this time at La Rosita Mexican Grill at 1515 E. Market Street in New Albany, which is a few doors down from the Tommy Lancaster Restaurant near Vincennes Street.

If you haven’t yet been to La Rosita, this is the ideal chance to sample superb, fresh and creative Mexican cuisine, and because I already know that the majority of Confidentiaholics adore Israel Landin's delicious offerings on a regular basis, I’m suggesting that we move the time to 6:00 p.m. to accommodate diners. Of course, you may come at any time, and it isn’t required that you purchase food.

Read Marty Rosen’s C-J review here for a mouthwatering description.

Israel graciously has reserved the upstairs room for us, and because he needs to know what to expect in terms of volume, please provide an informal RSVP to the e-mail address at my blogger profile. If he's willing, I'll bring a small five-gallon keg of Croupier IPA to accent the proceedings. Of course, Mexican beers also are available.

As was the case at our previous gathering, this evening 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 as a whole, but 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 … and bring a friend or a neighbor if you please.

Looking ahead, tentatively we're hoping to hold the March edition of the gathering at St. Marks United Church of Christ in downtown New Albany, with pot luck, self-catered munchies, and Pastor John Manzo hosting and educating us about the church's community activities.

But first: See you at La Rosita's on the 6th?

Tribune's Tucker asks: "Why not urge someone that you think would make a good community leader to run?"

On Sunday, the Tribune’s John Tucker resumed his periodic cage-rattling with a prime, timely essay: TUCKER: A few good candidates.

Here are two excerpts.

Very few hear the call of public office and fewer still answer. It also seems that the same people keep hearing “the call.” Many times you’ll see a councilman defend his post against a former councilman (with candidates filing last week, it looks like there will once again be plenty of “currents” running against “formers” in southern Indiana). This gives the voter the choice of “keeping the status quo” or “going back to the old way of things” — not a great choice if you want to see changes in your community …

… Winning a local political race does not necessarily take the backing of a political party. It is not for the rich or the famous. An average person, with enough campaigning can attain a city council position. There is no reason that your boss, your neighbor or yourself couldn’t win a local election — so why not urge someone that you think would make a good community leader to run? It’s simple math — the more people who run for office, the better our chances will be for quality leadership.

To subvert Elvis Costello, Tucker’s “aim” is true. Here’s the single most important sentence in a thought provoking piece:

Winning a local political race does not necessarily take the backing of a political party.

Verily, for any issues-oriented human being, the existence of two political parties acting consistently and predictably as though they’ve mistaken the word “platform” for “bubonic plague contagion” is the biggest stumbling block to the involvement referred to by Tucker. You will recall that NA Confidential spent the run-up to the November, 2006 mid-term election begging for one, the other, or both local parties to take a stand on something – in fact, to declare a platform position on anything.

The sounds of faucets dripping, pins dropping and crickets chirping were the lamentable, but entirely predictable, response to our pleas.

If one favors the notion of politics as the art of the possible, and is committed to sensible, contemporary readings of progressivism and their application to revitalization and growth, what benefit can be derived from civic participation via hidebound political party structures that have been handily manipulated time and again by less principled time-servers within them – Tucker’s “currents” and “formers” -- to actively thwart change and to promote the ongoing entrenchment of locally vested interest?

It’s maddening. Both parties count reasonable, forward-looking people among their memberships, and yet neither seem capable of expanding these positives into the meaningful articulation of concepts as larger entities.

On the Democratic side, examples of this profoundly debilitating dysfunction are legion, and include the resistance of its ward heeling bloc to ordinance enforcement, the gang’s opposition to rental property reform, their pathological aversion to economic development and cultural diversity, and an accompanying genetic propensity to tout elementary school “logic” for solving university-level problems. Imagine Jethro Bodine manning the controls of a jetliner.

Local Republicans, already burdened with a regressive and theocratic national political strategy designed to elicit panicked escape, not passionate embrace, have responded to the city’s Democratic disarray by … by … little more than a shrug of shoulders and a pining glance at the GOP’s strengthening prospects outside the city’s gates. Only scarcely have they formed a credible opposition to Democratic hegemony, as underachieving as those decades have been.

However, the unaffiliated among us shan’t escape without self-criticism, and it is such grudging recognition that I gleaned from reading John Tucker’s Sunday morning column.

It’s true that a proportion of our seeming disorganization derives from the fact that it is far more time consuming to explain what one is “for” rather than to simply chant “no” and be against it, but it remains that in all places and times, reformers must do more than offer facts and evidence, for they must also find ways to convince people why it is preferable to treat with the unknown as opposed to the known, even if all seemingly are in agreement that the known has serially failed.

Make no mistake: I’m damned proud of the archive that has been compiled at this blogspot. We – including collaborators past and present – have covered a breathtaking, and by the standards of New Albany, groundbreaking, amount of platform and policy ground in a short period of time. We genuinely feel, as Ann at Diggin’ in the Dirt put it yesterday, that we’re on the right path:

I have said it before and will say it once more: I am looking for a leader, and so far, this town does not have one. The key ingredient this city needs is leadership, and it is sorely lacking. If it were not for the fact that I epitomize New Albany too, I'd be outta here.

But I'm not going anywhere, and there are a lot more people just like me. Things are going to change in this town, and if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the pollution. Which do you want to be?

In fact, we all know what must be done, and furthermore, we know that we must be the ones to undertake it – regrettably, without backing from our rudderless local political parties and their patronage assistance agencies, and truthfully, even if the end results probably will be setbacks, though temporary, from whence the grassroots network that we already know exists can be bolstered and widened, and the aura of inevitability brightened.

Anyone for an independent insurgency? It’s looking increasingly attractive to me.

As an example on very short notice – and I’d appreciate someone checking these purported facts, as I have a doctor’s appointment to catch – a quick glance at last fall’s election results showed that 1,086 people in New Albany’s 3rd city council district voted in the Indiana Secretary of State race. A couple dozen valid signatures from residents (2% of the above) on a petition of nomination along with the remaining necessary paperwork filed by July 2, 2007, would be sufficient for an independent candidacy in the district.

Like I’ve said before … we need a common color – blue and red having been taken, so I’d propose green (the color of the city flag) or perhaps the more compromising purple, as well as a shared basic reform platform, a commitment to educate, and with luck, some nimble strategic instincts. Care to discuss? I’ll be back later this afternoon.

Sunday reading.

My top weekend pick can be found at Christopher Drake's New Albany Eyesores blog (Saturday, January 27), but his essay is not about blight. It's a touching and heartfelt tribute to his dad.

Still My Hero

My father was New Albany to the bone. He returned here after his years in the United States Marine Corps, a little trip to a place called Vietnam, at a time when they could be shot at, but were not truly allowed to return fire, as they were just advisers. Outside of the Marines, he only worked one other job outside N.A., that was at Colgate's in Clarksville, biding his time. He was hired onto the New Albany Police Department in the early 1970's and spent the rest of his life serving this community, at 51 years old he passed away as a result of complications from treatment for non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, an illness attributed by his doctors brought on by exposure to chemicals the military "did not use" in the jungles of south east Asia.

We're just delighted with our readership.

 

Six syllables of squirm … but could you do it as a waltz next time?

“We all do 'do, re, mi,' but you have got to find the other notes yourself.”

--Louis Armstrong

Can there be any remaining doubt that NA Confidential writes the set list and dictates the tempo of the 3rd district's ongoing civic debate?

Consider this strange, plaintive moan emanating from the incumbent's assisted writing center:

Perception Management

Wheee!! It's blogosphere quote day!!

If Dork & Mindy were in hardback ...

From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.

--Groucho Marx

The first wave of 2007 candidate filings, and a reminder of my rules of voting engagement.

UPDATED:
Add to DISTRICT 1 (Precincts New Albany 1, 2, 17, 21, 23)
D Theresa Timberlake

----

Courtesy of the Tribune, here’s a list of first-day filings.

As a reminder to the candidates, you may submit detailed, substantive platforms to NA Confidential as a prerequisite for securing my vote in the forthcoming elections. In case you missed it, here are the guidelines:

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

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.

Here are the current aspirants.

MAY 8, 2007
CITY OF NEW ALBANY MAYOR
(Precincts New Albany 1 through New Albany 29A)
DEMOCRAT James E. Garner, Sr
DEMOCRAT Larry Scharlow

CITY OF NEW ALBANY CLERK
(Precincts New Albany 1 through New Albany 29A)
D Marcey J. Wisman

CITY OF NEW ALBANY COUNCIL MEMBER AT-LARGE
(Precincts New Albany 1 through New Albany 29A)
D Jack Messer

CITY OF NEW ALBANY COUNCIL MEMBER DISTRICT 1
(Precincts New Albany 1, 2, 17, 21, 23)
REPUBLICAN Richard Berryman

CITY OF NEW ALBANY COUNCIL MEMBER DISTRICT 2
(Precincts 16, 18, 19, 19A, 19B, 22, 29)
D Bill Schmidt
R Harry T. Harbison

CITY OF NEW ALBANY COUNCIL MEMBER DISTRICT 3
(Precincts New Albany 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11)
D Maury Goldberg

CITY OF NEW ALBANY COUNCIL MEMBER DISTRICT 4
(Precincts New Albany 12, 13, 20, 24, 25)
D Pat McLaughlin

CITY OF NEW ALBANY COUNCIL MEMBER DISTRICT 6
(Precincts New Albany 26, 27, 27A, 28, 28A, 29A)
R Richard “Dick” Stewart

CM Kochert’s petard: Self-hoisting, no waiting.

The venerable phrase “hoist by your own petard” has a colorful background, and is meant to suggest that one has been “injured by the device that had been intended for use to injure others.”

In other words, those TNT-filled boomerangs tossed at the Roadrunner by Wile E. Coyote have a habit of coming back to explode in the face of the "genius" who threw them. And so it is that 4th district councilman Larry Kochert’s premeditated presidential shenanigans on January 18th have returned to pay him a visit.

EVANS: New Albany Council meeting disturbs pastor, by Rev. O. Lacy Evans (Local Guest Columnist; New Albany Tribune)

Having been called upon and identifying myself and the item I wished to address I was informed by the president of the council, Mr. Larry Kochert, that I would not be allowed to comment on this item because it had been postponed or removed from the agenda. Ironically, the person just prior to me had been allowed to comment on the very same item ...

... Such a “mistake,” i.e., granting permission to one person to speak while disallowing another the same privilege, has the tendency to infer something different, especially when the denied person is one of another ethnicity, gender, religious or political persuasion than the person who was granted permission.

There are times when the council Gang of Four’s fumbling ineptitude produces the type of embarrassed giggles one experiences while watching hoary reruns of "Hogan’s Heroes" – and then, in a sobering fashion, there are times when one grasps the extent of the mean-spiritedness that motivates this cabal’s enduring resentment against those manifestations of contemporary society that refuse to accommodate Luddite simplicity.

Looking on last Thursday as CM Kochert gleefully pursued the petty gamesmanship that has sadly defined his underachieving political career, all the while remaining painfully oblivious to the fact that his ward-heeling machinations were having the dual effect of insulting the African-American community leaders in attendance and empowering the very political target (think: Mayor James Garner) that he had intended these procedural hijinks to harm, onlookers were neither embarrassed nor laughing, but thoroughly disgusted with a spectacle that has no place in the process outside of redefining our city's socio-political dysfunction.

More and more people are starting to "get it," so please keep hoisting, Larry, while the NAC chorus sings from the Paul Simon songbook:

Slip sliding away, slip sliding away

You know the nearer your destination

The more you're slip sliding away

Development, redevelopment, and working "around (CM Price) to accomplish something."

Earlier today, my NAC colleague Bluegill offered these marquee-worthy thoughts. For context, see: CM Steve Price auditions for Geico commercial, dismisses education and economic development as "feel good projects."

----

I'm glad you brought up the topic of Development/Redevelopment. I was going to address it anyway, particularly in light of Steve Price's "isn't that what we pay Paul Wheatley for" comment.

The city has an Economic Development Director, Paul Wheatley. He's been on the job a couple of years and is paid and budgeted solely via Economic Development Income Taxes. He receives no money from the general fund.

Currently, Wheatley's paid $38,000 per year plus benefits at $13,267 for a total of $51,267.

He's given an office budget (supplies, travel, postage, printing) of $8,500 per year.

The only marketing/development funds he has access to without Council approval is a contractual services line item funded at $35,000 a year. For real world perspective, that's about what it costs to run a quarter page ad in the Courier Journal once a month for the year.

If my math is correct, that brings the grand total to $94,767 per year. Outside of the $137,000 allocated to leveraging a much larger private investment in Scribner Place, that's the only money the city currently has specifically budgeted for economic development.

For comparison, consider that over $1 million in EDIT funds will be spent on the sewer system in 2007.

In addition to his daily routine of dealing with business owners, real estate agents, developers, etc, Wheatley has brought ideas before the Council to improve the development atmosphere in the city.

During this summer's budget hearings, Wheatley presented two solid ideas to the Council. One was to use EDIT funds for preliminary design studies on vacant historic buildings downtown, sparing prospective investors the upfront costs of determining suitable uses. The other was for the city to use some EDIT as matching funds for a revolving, low interest loan program in cooperation with the Urban Enterprise Zone and local banks.

Both ideas have proven successful in other communities but were immediately shot down by Coffey, Price, et al, as "corporate welfare".

A general breakdown of recent Redevelopment spending is available via The Tribune here.

One large expenditure not included in the paper's breakdown is $150,000 allocated for emergency repair to owner-occupied, low income households. Because compliance with federal regulations becomes much more difficult above a specified dollar amount, repairs are limited to $5,000 per house or about 30 houses per year.

Their budget comes from federal Community Development Block Grants, again not from the city's general fund. If CDBG money dries up, as almost happened last year per a President Bush proposal, we'll have no Redevelopment Department.

You'll notice that $149,777 has been set aside for payroll and administrative costs, approximately 20% of the overall budget. That's supposed to cover five full-time employees and one part-time employee, plus office supplies, equipment, postage, etc.

I know that Redevelopment has been living with fewer employees to counter CDBG reductions recently but I'm not sure to what extent that will be remedied. To my current knowledge (and don't quote me on this) they recently had four employees but are now down to three since Adam Dickey just moved on recently.

One of the other items you'll notice in The Tribune breakdown is "$10,000 to train neighborhood-association representatives in community leadership through the NeighborWorks program."

NeighborWorks is a national nonprofit with an extensive network of successful revitalization professionals across the country. Amongst many other services, they provide training and certification in community and neighborhood revitalization.

They recently started a national pilot program to bring that training directly to communities rather than requiring locals to travel to conferences in major cities and then try to replicate their activities at home.

Through the diligence of New Directions Housing Corporation, the Louisville metro area was selected as the locale for that pilot program and New Albany was offered five seats in exchange for $10,000 dollars of CDBG funding.

The normal cost of that training for five people would be roughly $15,000, not including travel and hotel expenses for the five to attend several different conferences, a number that could easily equal another $10,000 to $20,000 and make it much more difficult for people to schedule. The total cost for bringing the whole program to the metro area is around $150,000.

After discussing the funding proposal with the Redevelopment Commission, it was decided that the five persons would be selected from a cross-section of citizens and not just neighborhood associations. In fact, only one seat was made available to association representatives.

During the Redevelopment budget approval process (the Council has to approve it even though we have a Redevelopment Commisssion and the money is federal), Steve Price singled out the training money for removal from the budget. His objection? Too many people in his district (or more specifically, certain neighborhood associations) might be selected for training. I'm neither kidding nor exaggerating.

When Redevelopment Director John Rosenbarger reminded Price that the Redevelopment Commission, of which Price was a member at the time, had decided to select a cross-section of citizens, he still refused to yield, insisting that the $10,000 be moved to the building demolition line item, enough to demolish one to two houses.

There was a legal question concerning whether Price and the Council had overstepped their bounds. The law isn't clear about the Council's authority to amend the Redevelopment budget. It seems to be a matter of either approving the budget or sending it back to the Redevelopment Commission for changes. The Council, with Price in the lead, amended it themselves against the wishes of the Redevelopment Commission and then approved it in one maneuver. It could've been grounds for a legal challenge.

In the end, it was decided to not waste additional resources fighting the inanity. Still, Price's political vendetta nearly cost New Albany the chance to participate in the program. Luckily, the City of Louisville and the Federal Reserve stepped in to cover the costs but that wasn't settled or known at the time.

Given the opportunity to learn and cooperatively achieve, Price spit in the face of those trying to improve things and, as usual, neighborhood associations, other nonprofits, and the Redevelopment Commission had to work around him to accomplish something.

CM Steve Price auditions for Geico commercial, dismisses education and economic development as "feel good projects."

(For more, visit the Highwayman: "And the Price Is.......!!" )

---

Our power-blogging, one-chord councilman -- or is that power-chording, one-blog councilman -- is back, and he’s more confused than ever about the fundamental meaning of words, with results far more revealing than he intends.

Need vs. Want Basic Economics

CM Steve Price begins by defining his terms ... sort of, as his definition of “need” is incorrect in the context used, even if a “lack of subsistence” inadvertently summarizes the prevailing paucity of ideas at his Dewey Heights compound.

In my opinion, I would say addressing the increasing need of 15th street to prevent a major catastrophe is a need. Giving $25 thousand to Montessori,or $92 thousand for Southern Indiana One to further the economic development of our city is a want. (Isn’t that what we pay Paul Wheatley for?) $117 thousand requested from Riverboat money so far this year.

Our councilman presumably was seated at a computer and linked to the Internet, so it isn’t too much to expect that he might search One Southern Indiana and render its name properly.

Sadly, but not at all unexpectedly, this lies entirely beyond his abilities, as does the correct pronunciation of the names of people with whom he disagrees (ask John Rosenbarger about that some time). In fact, this is a frequent Price stratagem: A bumbling, halting mispronunciation designed to entice titters from human laugh tracks like Professor Erika.

It's embarrassing.

Just as naturally, it wouldn’t be a vintage Steve Price yokel’s yodel without a disparaging cheap shot lobbed at someone like Paul Wheatley, complete with an ungrammatical sentence fragment about Riverboat money. Verily, writing requires different muscles than speaking, and can cause severe strains if the ones that have atrophied from lack of use are strained without proper stretching and preparation.

What about our NEEDS projects.

For example: the need to address 15th street, the need to address the deficient with our ambulance and street departments, the need to address our police and fire budgets, the need to address the issue of accountability and responsibility. $117 thousand could help in addressing these NEEDS.

To be honest, the “deficient” is something I worry about, too, seeing as he’s running for re-election on a head-in-the-sand-with-Dave Ramsey-tome platform of “no progress at any Price,” so perhaps someone will defeat him in the forthcoming election, thus correcting the “deficiency,” because if there’s any “deficiency” – any “need” -- that we must address, it lies in the 3rd district’s current mode of “deficient leadership,” which CM Price blithely expects us to believe is as easy as arbitrarily selecting a monetary figure, using it in conjunction with random citations of a half-dozen obvious problems of which we’re all aware (but not the only half-dozen), and using the predictable absence of a simplistic solution fit for a Sesame Street skit as the precise reason why all gears of the city must come to a complete halt, at least until a councilman who hasn’t managed to articulate a future-oriented strategy in three long years can catch up with a planet that refuses to stop spinning, evolving, and racing beyond his comprehension.

But here’s the bar-none, best part of CM Price’s plaintive paean to primitivism:

Where are our priorities? Funding feel good projects or attending to absolute necessities?

Check it out, New Albany. Read that paragraph very carefully, and remember it come election time. NAC most assuredly will.

In Steve Price’s mind, education is a “feel good” project.

In Steve Price’s mind, economic development of the sort pursued on a regional basis by One Southern Indiana is another “feel good” project.

Neither of these two necessary pillars of human civilization -- in the sense of things we "need" -- are "absolute necessities" to better the under-educated and the under-employed whom Steve Price is forever eager to help ... but in the end, to help do nothing except muddle through their lives while he selectively pursues shortsighted, futile policies of congenital limitation that are guaranteed to keep our pies – and our hopes, and our dreams – as small as his own narrow horizons.

This, my friends, is what the dreaded New Albany Syndrome can do for you.

Precious little.

CM Price's expressions of no-can-do are derived from the envy and resentment, the concurrent failures of the stunted small-timer to perceive politics as the art of the possible, and the cycle of miserable dysfunction that feeds on itself and perpetuates despair.

Price is a councilman, for heaven's sake. He's already confessed in print that he's done all he can do -- but my cats accomplished far more in the litter box today.

Don't you think we "need" something different in 2007?

Feeling "Auntie Bellum," Erika plays the gender confusion card.

Read what "she" said in PLAYING THE RACE CARD: TRUMP OR JOKER?, at "her" blog, Freedom to Screech.

The next NAC "Meet 'n' Greet" is on Tuesday, February 6, and you're invited.

On February 6, starting at 6:00 p.m., it'll be the second gathering of "Confidentiaholics Identified," this time at La Rosita Mexican Grill at 1515 E. Market Street in New Albany, which is a few doors down from the Tommy Lancaster Restaurant near Vincennes Street.

If you haven’t yet been to La Rosita, this is the ideal chance to sample superb, fresh and creative Mexican cuisine, and because I already know that the majority of Confidentiaholics adore Israel Landin's delicious offerings on a regular basis, I’m suggesting that we move the time to 6:00 p.m. to accommodate diners. Of course, you may come at any time, and it isn’t required that you purchase food.

Read Marty Rosen’s C-J review here for a mouthwatering description.

Israel graciously has reserved the upstairs room for us, and because he needs to know what to expect in terms of volume, please provide an informal RSVP to the e-mail address at my blogger profile. If he's willing, I'll bring a small five-gallon keg of Croupier IPA to accent the proceedings. Of course, Mexican beers also are available.

As was the case at our previous gathering, this evening 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 as a whole, but 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 … and bring a friend or a neighbor if you please.

Looking ahead, tentatively we're hoping to hold the March edition of the gathering at St. Marks United Church of Christ in downtown New Albany, with pot luck, self-catered munchies, and Pastor John Manzo hosting and educating us about the church's community activities.

But first: See you at La Rosita's on the 6th?

“Save Silvercrest” web site is launched: http://savesilvercrest.org/.

And now, straight from the new Save Silvercrest web site, here are the facts about Silvercrest, its history and future, and the grassroots, locally-based effort underway to stave off the wrecking ball and encourage its adaptive reuse. Be sure to check the web site itself for many more photos and pertinent details.

----

► What is Silvercrest?

Twelve buildings totaling 147,300 square feet nestled in a park like setting on a hilltop in New Albany, Indiana (1809 Old Vincennes Road). These magnificent buildings originally served as the campus of the Silvercrest Hospital and most recently the Silvercrest Children’s Development Center.

With the recent closing of the Development Center, the Silvercrest structures are ripe for private development.

As described in the original hospital prospectus this site is “surrounded with the natural beauty for which Southern Indiana has long been famous … with the myriad lights of the metropolitan area of Louisville … alive with scenic beauty.”

► Why is Silvercrest at risk?

The state owned facility has been vacant since May 2006. If a preservation-minded buyer is not found, the state may seek to demolish all structures on the site. The state does plan to initiate a bidding process for private developers soon.

This website was created by supporters from the community and the New Albany Historic Preservation Commission to give potential buyers a chance to review all available documentation on Silvercrest.

Our goal is to Save Silvercrest, a historically and architecturally significant site, by encouraging its adaptive reuse and preserving an important piece of Hoosier history.

► Community Effort Launches Website

The community of New Albany shows its support for saving Silvercrest by helping launch this website. It was a team effort that included the New Albany Historic Preservation Commission, Develop New Albany, Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana and Dragonfly Realty LLC.

Special thanks to Jim Sprigler of Halo Applications for the site format and design.

"There's no point in making a good argument when the body hearing that argument doesn't understand it."

Frequent readers know that my colleague Bluegill's thoughts are periodically lifted from the "comments" section to the marquee. Such is the case today. Refer to “Heart of Darkness: If Not for Me, This Could Be Us” for context.

----

As the Highwayman wrote, other than documenting Council Members' inadequacies, there's no point in making a good argument when the body hearing that argument doesn't understand it and has no inclination to learn.

Anytime anyone in the city tries to push for improvement that requires Council approval, even if it will save or make us money in the long run, they're met with disdain by at least three and sometimes more members of the Council, none of whom have yet to provide a sensible alternative plan for solving what they agree are problems.

Everyone in the city (municipal departments, constituents, developers, etc) legitimately trying to do a good job soon learns that Council involvement makes accomplishment more difficult and often impossible. Your reward for reaching out to the Council is to be publicly flogged by a group of angry, illiterate men who lack the capability to even identify success, let alone encourage it via intelligent investment.

Re: incentive pay system

Gee, you'd think a group of men with 50 years of financial "watchdog" experience between them may have come up with something like that by now, you know, as a means of asking the tough questions and all.

The idea that a group who makes no effort to hold themselves accountable (redistricting, comprehensive plan, rumormongering) is somehow suddenly going to develop an effective strategy to demand accountability in others doesn't offer much hope. In fact, they're currently using tax dollars to fend off a lawsuit rather than even trying. I wouldn't be surprised if more suits were on the way. They're deserved.

You want building inspection accountability? Provide inspectors a checklist of items to be inspected at each property and a digital camera. Require them to take a photo of each item inspected whether they approve it or demand corrective measures. When they return to the office at the end of the day with their inspection reports, it would take very little time to transfer the photos into a database or a folder with the properties' addresses attached.

That would prove that they're actually doing the inspections, serve as a visual record to resolve disputes, provide an objective measure of performance, and limit opportunities for corruption. Cost to the city? Less than $1,000.

Want an inspector just to handle rental properties? Set a fee structure that would pay for it. A single inspector checking three properties a day (two hours at each location and a remaining two hours each day to file reports and photos) could inspect 750 units in 50 weeks a year.

At a $60 average per inspection (hardly a burden on landlords once every couple of years), that inspector would generate $45,000 in fees each year. That would just about cover a $35,000 salary and benefits, the amount the city pays inspectors.

The current inspection system is dependent on citizen complaints and costs us money each time an inspection occurs. Mandatory rental inspections and an appropriate fee structure would guarantee that more buildings get inspected at no or substantially reduced cost to the city.

Could the Building Commisioner or Mayor's offices work on implementing these systems themselves?

Photos? Yes. Rental inspection? No.

As the fiduciary body of the city, does a responsible Council sit on its hands and wait for them to do so voluntarily?

No.

Has famed building expert and Commissioner basher Larry Kochert been advocating for such an accountability system for building inspections?

No.

Such a system would mean he'd have to back up his rants with objective information rather than innuendo. I've heard him drone on about the Building Commisioner numerous times but none of those grandstands were supported with specific examples of wrongdoing and, if they were, neither he nor the Building Commissioner could prove their respective positions.

It's OK for Kochert to blame the Commisioner for the Commissioner's shortcomings if he can quantify them. It's not OK for Kochert to blame his own shortcomings on the Commissioner.

Has self-described hero to the poor and taxpayer advocate Steve Price ever brought similar rental inspection ideas to the table under the guise of helping the poor, saving money, or both?

No. That would require a pencil and the ability to draw a line between dots. The problem with those country songs is that one line has to be followed by another, rhyming their way to resolution.

Nashville is safe for now.

CM Price and the need for "adequate legal resources to enforce local laws."

Here's an insightful comment by NAC reader Brandon Smith, which succinctly refutes the latest episode of historical revisionism (a form of blind man's bluff in hindsight) piously offered to the public by 3rd district councilman Steve "Yodeling Landlord" Price. See CM Price: The 3rd council district is "just like a spoiled child" for context. Take it away, Brandon ...

----

After further research and consultation with the actual City Attorney, the "neighborhood assocations" changed their minds about hiring a full-time City Attorney as a solution to the lack of resources in the City Legal Department.

The "neighborhood associations" did not change their minds about the need for adequate legal resources to enforce local laws.

According to our research and advice from the current City Attorney, the same $80,000 salary suggested by the Council could hire a full-time legal secretary and another part-time City Attorney dedicated to ordinance enforcement. Funding a single City Attorney at $80,000 would do little to expand his or her capability to enforce local ordinances. Furthermore, few attorneys would risk their private practices to serve at the whim of a Mayor and without adequate staff.

In the Council's defense, this plan was not properly articulated to them or the public. That will change.

More on this in the near future.

“Heart of Darkness: If Not for Me, This Could Be Us.”

(Submitted press release)

Have you ever wondered, “After the smoke clears and the pony show is over what will be standing there?”

If this makes sense to you, then join 3rd district councilman Steve “Itchin’ Ears” Price as he hosts a fun and educational, fully escorted motorcoach inspection tour of Louisville’s Heart of Darkness – the Frankfort Avenue corridor.

CM Price’s “If Not for Me, This Could Be Us,” tour, which will serve as a campaign fundraiser, is designed to illustrate contemporary, viable principles of New Urbanism, area planning and revitalization, and to prove conclusively that such workable, contemporary techniques should not ever be permitted to flower in New Albany, at least as long as Steve Price is on the city council.

While cruising through the Crescent Hill and Clifton neighborhoods (since there’s never any place to park there, the councilman believes it best to keep the bus moving), you will scratch your head, gape in amazement, and gasp in horror at the unspeakable overcrowding and sheer human misery all around you.

You’ll be saddened and outraged at these depths of depravity, but unable to look away, as you view teeming niche shoppers, suave gallery habitués, multi-cultural eateries, happy and sated diners, all-hours coffee drinkers, high paying job holders, stolid taxpayers and highly valued properties. After witnessing this veritable catalog of wanton despair, you’ll surely echo the councilman’s heroic thoughts: We as a society shouldn’t “pack people in like sardines” – unless they’re jammed into economically efficient multiplexes carved out of otherwise useless old buildings in his council district.

But too much learnin’ makes a guy all ornery and smarty-pants, so there’ll be entertainment and vittles, too.

Councilman Price himself will provide musical interludes of old nursery rhyme favorites like “Three Blind Building Commission Members” and “The Old Woman Who Lived in My Rental Property,” performed on his vintage Stradaprecarious ukulele.

Cold barbecued bologna sandwiches on white bread will be offered courtesy of 1st District councilman Dan “Wizard of Westside” Coffey. Generic colas have been donated by Big Lots.

Bring the whole family and see what we should never allow ourselves to become. The price of admission is $2, and includes a voter registration form and a handy matchbook filled with the “Wit and Wisdom of Nanny Price.”

----

For context, visit: An empty chair's better than an empty suit -- or why Frankfort Avenue is bad for an Uncouncilman's stunted imagination.

CM Price: The 3rd council district is "just like a spoiled child."

I wonder what that makes him?

Now that my councilman finally has a re-election campaign just around the corner, and suddenly and expediently sees the pre-existing light of the blogosphere, he is choosing to dispense a veritable "Greatest Hits" of one-chord, shopworn homilies electronically – the theory, generation and transmission of electricity ironically being aspects of a “can-do” outlook toward the planet Earth rather than Steve Price’s usual “can’t-do” twang of resigned desperation.

More on that in a moment.

Nonetheless, I’ve credited him with this decision to generate simplistic Internet content even if the quality of it has tended to remind me of the impending need to visit Feeder’s Supply for another 50 pounds of kitty litter. Such are the flagrant, self-serving and outright false deceptions that he’s managed to foist on the mercifully small reading public during two short weeks of soiled Internet post-it notes, and of course this isn’t surprising given the approaching election season follies.

Take this claim:

Various neighborhood associations wanted a full time city attorney – when it was presented, they changed their mind.

As was made clear at last evening’s council meeting, and as has been addressed on numerous occasions previously, CM Price’s much referenced full-time city attorney was to be funded at a salary level commensurate with that of a Taco Bell shift manager.

Note also that the councilman’s depiction of shifting neighborhood whims is deceptive in the extreme, as it does not take into account the toil expended by so many transparently sincere people to devise strategies that are comprehensive and meaningful, not ephemeral, symbolic and cynical in the fashion of an inadequately funded attorney.

Citizens learning on the fly deserve more than the level of participation and assistance consistently denied their efforts by CM Price, who has preferred to point to himself holding a shovel rather than a book – perhaps because no etchings of the latter currently exist. Like his fellow conjoined councilman Dan Coffey, CM Price is fondest of photo-ops showing him presenting a fish to you, and far less eager to go on record as teaching you how to catch it.

Here’s another bit of doggerel from CM Price’s Book of Dreams:

It is way past the time for us to look within the means we already have for resolution.

No, Steve. A thousand times, “No.” Your paradigm is a recipe for failure, precisely because it has already failed.

It is way past time for us to look outside the means we already have for resolution.

And, outside these means is a place you simply – as well as simplistically -- cannot conceive.