At Root, This is Our Goal

Your host here at NA Shadow Council will admit to having a deep sense of foreboding about impending public policy decisions in New Albany. By the time you read this, you will undoubtedly have heard about how the "English Restoration" is in full retreat with the barbarians hot on their heels. Nothing less than the future solvency of the city is at stake this month. This city's ability to grab onto the tow-rope of progress now appears to be thwarted by naked appeals to ignorance.

The council members who will tonight sound the death knell for New Albany's near-term future would not prevail if the residents of New Albany could pause long enough to think about the consequences. It is not unreasonable to believe that even this council might, if they would just pause, recognize the insanity of their actions.

The England administration does not escape blame here, either. Faced with resistance and sabotage, the mayor and his minions have elected to hoard their political capital. We are sure they will claim that discretion is the better part of valor or wisdom or some other such self-serving nonsense. Instead of marshaling support and fighting for what is right, the England administration caved. Instead of taking their message to the people, they cowered. Instead of expending their political capital on an issue it was banked for, they huddle and count their coin.

Those who hail the virtues of "comity" and "cooperation" only abdicate when they let a desire for "comity" prevent them from using their best judgment on behalf of their constituents. Leadership is not the result of elections. It is the result of actions. The character of leaders is revealed by their actions, not their positions.

A correspondent sent us a missive alerting us to an October book titled Becoming Good Ancestors. We won't tell you about the book. But the title motivated us to take keyboard in hand with this last-minute plea.

Remember June 19, 2008. Tell your friends, your family, and your neighbors. Witness the carnage yourself at tonight's city council meeting, if you will.

As a matter of fact, by stripping New Albany's income tax revenues to "save" ratepayers from a sewer rate increase, a council majority is handing your tax dollars to businesses and outsiders who don't even pay taxes. Why, we ask, should that be treated as some type of "salvation?"

In a rational world, that would be labeled as corruption of the most heinous degree. For a council member to, without explanation, vote to hand over city tax revenues to pay the operating expenses (not even the investment, but the operating expenses) of the city's largest industrial concerns, to pay the household expenses of Floyd Countians who don't live in or pay taxes to New Albany, provokes only two possible explanations - absolute drooling imbecility, or felony solicitation of bribery.

Absolute drooling imbecility is not a bar to retaining (or attaining, apparently) public office in this city. But conviction of a felony is grounds for removal and incarceration. If Republican prosecutor Keith Henderson won't convene a grand jury to gather evidence (and he won't), would someone please tell me what number to call to motivate a political corruption investigation?

The citizens of the Iroquois Confederacy, among other Native American tribes, aspired to conduct all their public policy with an eye to the seventh generation; that would be their sons' sons' sons' sons' sons' sons and likewise so on down the matrilineal line of daughters.

The tribe of New Albanians (at least their elected representatives) seems to have trouble looking as far forward as the seventh generation of a fruit fly. And the responsibility, ultimately, lies on the tribe, not the representatives. Unless and until the tribe renounces the short-sightedness of the people they elect, then it will be their legacy that is besmirched and their memories cursed by future generations.

At root, then, this is our goal...to become better ancestors.