A Bright Night Follows a Rare Sunny Day

The seventh meeting of the New Albany City Council, 2008-2011 edition, was geeky and clunky, but altogether satisfying. The crowd draw was the long-awaited "State of the City" address by Mayor England, but those who sat through "tax abatement school" at an earlier council work session did not go unrewarded.

For the most part, this council is taking its job very seriously, which is making some of the slow kids frustrated as they try to keep up. It reminds me of the time I tried to join a midsummer bike caravan. For the first three miles, I held my own, but the first time I had to "up my game" it became apparent I didn't belong in the same pack.

The mayor's address to the assembled council, well-wishers, staff, and others was strained, but still effective. Frankly, the city council meeting is not the place for such an ambitious speech, but the mayor recognized that it would have been crass not to deliver his message in the most convenient forum.

It was well-received and we continue to pinch ourselves when we hear the "new" Doug England speak. He continues to advocate for progressive management of the city while preaching an ambitious brand of vision and leadership.

Fortunately for all of us, Hizzoner put it all down in writing, and you can read what he would have delivered if the forum had been completely his own.

Best for all of us if we could have watched a Webcast, broadcast, or cablecast of tonight's speech - live or in the weeks ahead. The promise of open government is not fulfilled when such important matters are restricted to those few who can arrange their schedules to view it live.

We are promised that the speech will be posted online. The mayor is taking off for a Spring Break vacation before his working trip to Japan next month, so he won't be doing a reprise.

Thus, as a custodian of hard copy, we feel obligated to give up sleep to share a few quotes from the document.

But the hard copy isn't all that quotable, and it doesn't begin to capture what the mayor actually said. England does not deliver a speech from a prepared text anywhere near as well as he does when he removes his glasses and speaks from his gut.

If you read the papers, you don't need a news recap. And if you don't, any analysis from this quarter will be redundant.

In sum, it was a good speech and a great message that deserved a bigger, better audience and the absence of a ticking clock and a waiting council agenda. We urge the mayor to find a better venue for his next such address, if he can find a way to do so without ruffling council's collective feathers.

P.S. We all got a good chuckle out of a mayoral slip. Seems a certain renowned blogger's investments in New Albany had drawn the attention of the mayor, who reminded those of us who knew and informed those who didn't the precise measure of one of those. Doesn't read funny, but it was. You had to be there. Alas, our beloved blogvestor was one of those who was forced to absent himself from the evening's proceedings. Ah, the rigors of high finance in the teeth of a recessionary hurricane.