The First Monday

Traditionally, the first Monday and the third Thursday are the designated days for the Common Council for the second class City of New Albany to meet. You should mark those days on your calendar. From time to time, usually around the holidays, those dates shift, but you owe it yourself and your children and your children's children to attend at least some of those gatherings.

Next Monday, January 7, will be the first meeting of a newly elected council. How this council (8 Democrats and 1 Republican) will align, remains to be seen. What we can be sure of is that three impediments to progress have left the council. Will the three who replaced them be more progressive? Will that translate into legislation and oversight that moves us forward?

This first meeting is usually pro forma, with a concentration on organizational matters. The council will elect a president (and a vice president to preside in the absence of the former) and begin to establish its standing committees.

But this incoming council has been far from passive. Its secret meetings and other informal discussions promise a dynamic agenda from the opening tip-off. Oddsmakers say that second-term at-large council member Jack Messer will give up his flagship role as the leader of a progressive movement to assume the chair. The headcounts say he has the votes to take the gavel from the barely lamented Larry Kochert. Kochert, by the way, is already lobbying for a lucrative sinecure on the city's municipal utility board. While we don't begrudge "King Larry" a paycheck, we sincerely doubt that he will behave himself in keeping with the traditions of democracy and open government. Why should he start now?

The Messer ascendancy seems assured. Once again, though, incoming council members will be tempted by "Councilman Cappucino's" fall charm offensive to give the District 1 rep the booby prize and award him with the vice presidency. I urge the majority who elects Messer to enforce its will by electing either of Messrs. Gahan, Gonder, or Caesar to fill the seat in the president's absence.

On a related note, uncertain intelligence reports that more than $8,000 has already been raised for Candidate X to use in the 2011 race for the District 1 seat. Considering we're less than two hours into Mr. Coffey's third term, that's pretty impressive. That sum equals every dollar invested in the nine races contested last November. Someone is pretty serious about removing DJC from his representative role.

The incoming council will be handed at least one serious decision to address. In the fading moments of the last council's tenure, a motion was successfully tendered to solicit applicants for the role of counsel to the city council. Incumbent Jerry Ulrich has served as an able parliamentarian to the chair and as a perfectly adequate advocate for litigatory causes championed by a council majority. Perhaps that allegiance to the former majority is what has prompted this vote of "less than confidence." I've maintained that Mr. Ulrich has represented his communal client (the majority) in his advocacy and in his public pronouncements. That's something for this new council to consider as they review the applicants. Do they want an attorney who tries to make policy, or an attorney who will vigorously defend and prosecute their will?

If the new council is concerned that Mr. Ulrich "skewed" to the majority too often in the past, and perhaps to the detriment of the city and the council, perhaps they should interview him to determine the causes. For example, in the late council's indefensible refusal to draw lawful legislative districts, Mr. Ulrich merely claimed to be willing and able to present a defense. Given that a clear majority of the late council demanded that even its patently unlawful redistricting ordinance be presented to the Federal District Court with a straight face, wasn't Mr. Ulrich doing everything within the bounds of his charge?

Some have suggested to this observer that Mr. Ulrich did not serve his clients well. I've suggested that he may, in fact, have been representing "their" views with as much vigor as a sentient being can do without drawing obvious horse laughs. Whether in its lawsuit against the city-owned utility, against the tyro stormwater board, or against the clear reading of the U.S. and Indiana constitutions and statutes regarding equal representation, Ulrich propounded positions demanded by his clients (the council majority). Is that a reason to replace him? Maybe so, maybe not.

On the intriguing subject of the citizen lawsuit to enforce the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution, it should be noted that only three of the remaining council members voted to resist the arguments of legal history: Messrs. Coffey (D1), Price (D3), and Gahan (D6). The extant ordinance, certain to be rebuffed and declared void sometime in February, should be repealed by the incoming council. And it should be repealed on Jan. 7. Every member knows, or should know, that the Federal court has signaled that this ordinance will be met with extreme displeasure, that its variance from equality exceeds the permissible.

We look forward to an immediate vote by this council to agree to a consent decree whereby the council will undertake to complete an aggressively public redrawing of districts before the end of 2008. Such a vote would avert a costly and losing legal battle next month. Some member should propose it for the agenda by Thursday afternoon. And if no one does, it should be presented in executive session following the public meeting as new and emergency business. By Monday, the city will be within less than 30 days from a reckoning that could present the city with needless expense and great humiliation if it tries to defend the indefensible.

How about you, Mrs. Benedetti? You could make a great statement for democratic values by proposing that as your first measure as the representative for District 5.

For new readers: The City Council meets on the third floor of the City-County building. You can't miss the assembly room as it is directly opposite the elevators. For the past four years, it has been the best entertainment (if you could keep your lunch down or your eyes from popping out of your heads) in town. One hopes the next four years will see a more sober and rational series of meetings.