Hot Bites!

Tiny nuggets of observation from Thursday's New Albany City Council meeting.

ITEM: Mayor Doug England seems determined to establish a clear delineation between the executive and legislative branches of government. Pleading more important obligations, His Honor sent his professional staff to the meeting, but promised to again visit with the council on Feb. 20 to deliver his State of the City address.

ITEM: England was rebuffed in his request to have a sewer board constituted immediately. It is clear that a 3-member board will be created, a motion to suspend the rules and pass a new organizational structure for the utility failed for lack of a second. Sewer business is thus suspended for as many as four more weeks, much to the chagrin of the administration and "new" sewer board attorney Lee Buchanan. The council didn't buy the argument that having no sewer board for the first six weeks of the year is such a critical impediment that it couldn't wait.

ITEM: The previous council had asserted itself with regard to sewer board contracting processes, going so far as to file a lawsuit against the board (Does New Albany v. New Albany qualify as an intra-squad competition?). Thursday night the council instructed its counsel, Jerry Ulrich, to withdraw its suit. It's hard to fault any of the council votes on this one. While we consider the suit to have been ill-advised and marred by rather successful demagoguery, there is some appeal to seeing the court rule on the key question, namely, does a contract to manage operations fall into the category of "professional services," and thus exempt from requirements for competitive bids, or can those professional services be treated as "public works," and thus subject to rigorous (cumbersome?) requirements most often related to time and materials projects. Shadow5 believes the sewer board acted properly, but can't find fault with those who would like a legal ruling. Since you can't just call up Judge Cody and ask him what he thinks, pursuing the lawsuit could be justified.

At-large council member Kevin Zurschmiede made a convincing case in defense of his previous service on the board, but even he claimed to welcome a judicial resolution.

In any case, the suit is dropped. And in several weeks, a sewer board can be so informed.

ITEM: England's tenure is sure to be more productive after council gave final approval to a reorganization of "third floor" functions. The team is now in place and as a local entrepreneur said today, there had better be a quick improvement in performance. A short-lived effort to sever the new code inspector position from the executive reorganization was quashed. An impassioned letter drafted and presented by citizen Jeff Gillenwater on behalf of numerous neighborhood associations made it clear that this enhanced enforcement position was an expected part of the mayor's campaign commitment to further a key progressive aim.

ITEM: We've always maintained that we'll respect disagreement that has a rational basis. Mrs. Benedetti (D5) is prone to using council meetings themselves as the time to educate herself, but showed strong indications that her votes will be based on rationality. As much as we'd like to think that she could be an ally to a progressive vision... (and let's face it, "we" decide what qualifies as progressive, but we do need a label. It can't just be a political party or a geographic zone or a personality. Although "Baylorite" has a nice ring.) ...we'd settle for obvious and apparent cogitation over each recorded vote. On balance, Thursday night was an improvement.

ITEM: Signals. That's the word we were searching for in response to criticisms of this blog from "Ruthanne" last week. Like barometric pressure changes that signal incoming weather, a city council meeting is filled with signals. Ruthanne believed that the only fair report was "not enough data." We saw enough to forecast stormy seas. The predominant mode of civility and reasoned discourse, with predictable lapses from the Wizard of Westendia, signaled good weather ahead. If the climate holds, there is a downside - council meetings will be far less entertaining. The greatest show in town may have moved over to Larry McAllister's County Council. The circus may have changed nights! Now, if McAllister can just declare which party he belongs to...

ITEM: Council demonstrated a measure of parity with the mayor's office this time around. You may recall that the reorganization of the executive offices went unchallenged, even unquestioned in January's first meeting. Without rancor, but with some steel, Mrs. Benedetti demanded at least a cursory explanation from the deputy mayor. And she made it clear that when she requests information that does not issue on a timely basis, she intends to condition her votes accordingly.

ITEM: A truly interesting (and hungry) crowd descended on one downtown nightspot (not Hugh E. Bir's) following the evening's festivities. Civility, if not bonhomie, characterized the night, with Gahang members cohabiting the space with Baylorites and aficionados of the Restoration. Much discussion revolved around the fact that the 2011 1st District campaign fund had ballooned beyond the $9,000 mark. Realtors report a swelling of interest by residents seeking to relocate to the West End sometime in the next two years. Overheard in reference to a certain council member: "Send him back to Birdseye!"

ITEM: Congratulations are in order to Bob Caesar, Pat McLaughlin, Diane Benedetti, John Gonder, Jack Messer, and Kevin Zurschmiede. Those worthies repealed the 2007 ordinance setting district boundaries, the ordinance that Judge Tinder warned would meet with disfavor if returned to his court. Ironically, that restores the horrendously inequitable districts that maintained after the 2000 census. But fear not. Concurrently, the council voted to establish a committee of three disinterested and impartial (at-large) members who will join with three people designated by the plaintiffs in Vogt v. City of New Albany, the redistricting lawsuit, to design a lawful ordinance that presents equal districts based on the only legally relevant census numbers. Yes, sanity has prevailed (well, 66.67% sanity).

One can expect that we'll read a news brief in the local papers soon announcing that a consent decree has been entered that terminates the existing lawsuit in exchange for a binding commitment from the city to abide by the Constitution and its equal protection requirements.

What a long, strange trip. Even in defeat, council member Dan Coffey could not resist restating his slanders of the plaintiffs and his grossly inaccurate history of the case. Perhaps the most repellent piece of his recital was the claim that a unanimous council responded with alacrity to the lawsuit (or, as he put it, "once we were made aware of it"), agreeing that it needed to be fixed. If that were true, wouldn't it have been nice if Mr. Coffey and his recalcitrant colleagues had issued a press release or a legal response acknowledging that. The fact that no such statement ever issued is proof of the lie.

We'll grant that Mr. Coffey may have been so willing to listen to the deposed Karry Ling that he was snookered by the erstwhile D4 council member. But we doubt it.

For the record, Messrs. Gahan, Coffey, and Price rejected the consent decree, preferring to risk the clearly signaled ire of a federal district court judge. How they will defend that position is the first campaign issue for 2011.

ITEM: Some discreet digging revealed that the plaintiffs intend to conduct an exhaustive search for qualified residents willing to serve on the newly authorized committee. Although the right to designate lies with the plaintiffs, the actual appointment will be made by council President Jeff Gahan. Interested applicants should send their submissions to the plaintiffs by e-mail to hlwimp@insightbb.com or to the council president, by e-mail to gahan@insightbb.com or by mail to The Hon. Jeff Gahan, 1122 Eastridge Dr., New Albany, IN 47150. We trust that Mr. Gahan will forward those for approval by the plaintiffs.