Commentary: A Diversion and a Digression

I don't intend for this to be either a partisan blog nor an "attack" blog. At root, it is a billboard for the radio show. In the past, I have been boisterous and opinionated and have often, by my vitriol, caused even friends to recoil. You can search around to find my mothballed blog to verify that for yourself.

Nowadays, I take keyboard in hand to comment on the blog postings of others with discretion, contributing to other blogs only when I feel it is truly needed.

That does not mean that I have retired from the field, though. On occasion, though, something demonstrably egregious arises, and this blog will not erect any fences prohibiting frank commentary. New Albany Now is and will continue to be a bright light shining on the issues in this city. That is our purpose. That does not mean i will arbitrarily muzzle myself when an injustice is done.

I posted an historic broadcast last evening. For the first time in many, many months, the deliberations and debate of the New Albany City Council were made available to the public. And for the first time ever, that record is continously and forever available ON-DEMAND. If you need to refer to it, it will always be there.

With that in mind, I'd like to point out that Thursday night's meeting was (as usual) degraded and tarnished by yet another vicious, venal, and veracity-challenged circus of horrors, orchestrated awkwardly by Dan Coffey, the embarrassment of a human being who reigns over the seat intended to represent the interests of constituents in the 1st District of New Albany on the City Council.

I imagine that Coffey once found himself bed-ridden and without batteries and thereby forced to watch a one-hour documentary on Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy. Apparently, he saw that as a "good thing," and decided that would be his model.

Late in Thursday's meeting (segment 6 - slide the show slider to the last 20 or so minutes), Mr. Coffey put on an abysmal dramatic performance. Co-star Diane McCartin Benedetti (D?-D5)played foil to Coffey in a feeble attempt to slime at-large council member John Gonder.

Simulating a great concern for "comity" and decorum, Mr. Coffey practically soiled himself while presenting a sham concern for an individual who was "concerned" about a "fax" that had been circulated declaring the "news" that Mr. Gonder had been one of the original people who believed that New Albany shouldn't be unique in the state of Indiana, unique in the roster of municipalities across this great land of ours, and that its legislative (city council) districts should be drawn to offer equal representation as guaranteed under The Constitution of the United States.

It was "brought to" his "attention" by this "fax" that Mr. Gonder was once a plaintiff seeking the deserved assistance of the U.S. Federal District Court to enforce the law.

Please show me ONE person who believes that a "fax" caused Mr. Coffey and Ms. McCartin Benedetti to become aware of Mr. Gonder's past status as an advocate for the law and The Constitution.

Over the previous 10, or 110 days, Coffey had plotted his ambush, his blatant attempt to smear Mr. Gonder with fecal matter and to attempt to intimidate him from casting a considered vote on whether the city should continue to be a rogue city or whether this city, New Albany on the Ohio, should conform to the requirements of the 14th Amendment.

During a serious, substantive portion of the council meeting, Coffey and city council attorney Jerry Ulrich conducted their own meeting, and Mr. Ulrich, knowing that Coffey stand fully prepared to lever him back into fully private practice, signed on to the smear attempt.

Ulrich, Coffey, and McCartin Benedetti struggled to appear sincere in their faux concern that, somehow, having stood up for the law, Mr. Gonder was thus unqualified to vote on G-08-05, the ordinance to, at long last, draw lawful districts for the first time since at least 1992. Ulrich went over the line in his attack by saying to Mr. Gonder that if his "conscience" were clear, he couldn't see why Mr. Gonder should recuse himself from voting.

I, for one, looked around to see if Karl Rove had entered the room, for this was a classic Swift-boat attack. That Gonder stood up for the law before he was elected and continues to stand up for the law now that he is in office became, with the full complicity of a majority of the City Council, a declared black mark on Gonder's reputation.

Without any fear of being disputed, I'll tell you that Coffey manufactured, fomented, and stoked a fake popular uprising, including a disingenuous "fax," to smear his colleague.

As would be expected by anyone who knows John Gonder, the enormously popular at-large council member handled the kneecapping with inordinate grace, willingly identifying himself as the member who Mr. Coffey pretended to be so concerned for, for whom Mr. Coffey shed crocodile tears over the fact that he simply had to step forward and pour a bucket of excrement on.

What has New Albany come to that an entire council (well, a majority of the council) would be complicit in trying to eviscerate a man who stands up for following the law?

What is, indubitably, a virtue, was treated as something to be ashamed of by the city council and its attorney. They, individually, and as a body, owe Mr. Gonder an abject apology.

I urge you, if you are reading this, to demand it. Write to your newspapers, call your council members, and tell all your neighbors about the atrocity that was committed at Thursday's meeting.

John Gonder is a ray of sunshine on this council. We couldn't do better to have eight more of him serving this city. Don't let this political crime go unpunished.

Coffey, who like a majority of his colleagues believes he "owns" his district, needs to realize that constituents pick their representatives, and not the other way around. Mr. Gonder, who received more votes in the last election than all but one other candidate, has more credibility in a single eyelash than the combined integrity of Gahan/Coffey/McLaughlin/Price/McCartinBenedetti.