Some of you won’t agree with me today, and that’s fine. I’m sure you’ll let me know about it.
When it comes to the relative merits of our elected council persons, most readers know that I hold Jack Messer in high esteem.
Conversely, my view on Dan Coffey is that far more often than not, his caterwauling political career is an unmitigated embarrassment to the council and the city.
Last night, Messer and Coffey flip-flopped on a controversial zoning change. The result was the same, a 5-4 turndown of what we’ll always remember as the Wendy’s ordinance, with Coffey’s dramatic closing flip negating Messer’s breathtaking flop and carrying the day against the change.
Briefly summarized, the two-year-long battle over the last remaining expanse of Charlestown Road green space on the city side of the beltway has been intensely political and occasionally personal, if for no other reason that the people involved, and more importantly, their careers. On one side is a group of respected, professional landowning types that includes County Commissioner Mark Seabrook, and their less savory chosen contractor, the famously condescending Gary McCartin.
On the other, there is a highly organized and motivated collection of neighborhood residents, who have played their defensive game to perfection, maintaining team discipline, researching legal precedents and attending all requisite meetings.
Bunches and bunches of meetings, in fact.
One proposal after another, or as some might say, one end-around after another, has passed or not passed muster with the planning authorities and arrived in better or worse condition before the council for mandated vetting, setting the stage for the usual preening and posturing, and perhaps more productive council hours have been squandered as a result than for any other single activity save full-contact sewer immersion.
As I reported earlier this morning, the Wendy’s proposal was defeated a few weeks ago in its 1st reading, with Messer voting “nay” (against the zoning change) and Coffey “aye.” When the ordinance returned for its 2nd and 3rd readings, Messer was on holiday. Chief “nay” voter Jeff Gahan (did he already know what was to come?) aggressively pushed for the final two votes to be held, much to the anguished squeals of the property’s owners, whose attorney Krafty John could not be present, and the result was two 4-4 tallies. Previous experience suggested that ties counted as “nay,” but council attorney Stan Robison subsequently announced that his research indicated otherwise, hence the presumed finality of last night’s reconstituted fourth and fifth readings.
Reconstructing all this as impartially as possible, it would seem that Messer had confided to some before the meeting that he’d be changing his vote based on a visit to the site, which allayed his initial concerns over increased traffic in the area. Perhaps this accounted for the strange tension in the corridor, as though something unexpected was fully expected to occur. Afterwards, it was plain that Messer’s voting strategy was largely predicated on his dead-certain expectation that traditional enemy Coffey would follow suit, change his vote and restore the status quo, enabling Messer to fulfill his tactical goal of … of what?
Of something, I guess.
However, aloud and for the council record, Messer explained his shift not as a thoughtful reaction to traffic patterns, but as a resounding vote in favor of the right of property owners to seek zoning changes, which sounded far more like Kevin “I am not Ward Churchill” Zurschmiede’s recent paean to fellow Republican Seabrook than that of a Democrat.
But I digress. For his part, Coffey described his last-second conversion as stemming from the realization that Randy Smith is right (huh?), and also the neighborhood advocates, in that there exists no coherent planning and zoning “plan” to follow in making such decisions, and that this was sufficiently troubling for him to change his stance after three (3) previous votes in favor of what he now opposed.
Hmm. Simply stated, it strains credulity to accept any of it at face value, and from either council member involved.
In effect, I’m being asked to believe that a city policeman of long standing didn’t have an accurate reading of traffic patterns, and that a ward heeler whose career defines contempt for any and all planning save that bearing his personal Bazooka Joe stamp might suddenly gain respect for the notion.
Furthermore, there is the strong suggestion that one politician, Messer, could score points of an as yet undefined nature by reading the behavioral playbook of another, Coffey, and proceed with the absolute certainty that Coffey would play his part and salivate at the ringing of a chosen bell. Since when has Dan Cofey been so easily read? How could anyone be thus assured, given the mercurial nature of Coffey’s previous machinations?
Politically, I still respect and support Messer, and I still abhor Coffey, but here’s why this travesty bothers me so much.
In this whole, sordid, ongoing struggle, only one entity emerges as anything approximating heroic, and that’s the neighborhood activists on Lafayette and Savannah.
Yes, there’s a fair share of NIMBY at work, and there always will be in such cases. However, the activists assiduously did their homework, patiently slogged through entire meetings, enduring Steve Price’s homespun platitudes and awaiting their assigned slot, generally at the very end, and in the final reckoning, came off as capable of articulating a principle, supporting the principle with facts, and performing the expected function of informed citizens in a democracy.
Granted, they got the outcome they sought, and given their perseverance and all-around chutzpah, they deserved it.
Here’s the problem.
The crass machinations and blatant cynicism of the flippy-floppy Wendy’s voting outcome tells both the neighbors and the remainder of the city that the final decision had almost nothing to do with the right reasons, and for the right reasons as based on law and order.
It was purely political.
In the end, the neighbors might as well have eschewed the hard work, stayed home to tend to their lives, and played the same style of game as the council persons by quietly raising money and making payoffs to the appropriate parties in the time honored fashion of machine-run cities everywhere.
Note that I’m not suggesting that something like this occurred. I don’t believe it did, and what’s more, it might not have been the best strategy for the neighbors to try and outbid folks wealthier than them. But it would have been drop-dead cynical, and as illustrated by the terms of the final outcome, fully in keeping with prevailing trends.
It remains that last night’s maneuvering sent an unmistakable message that political gamesmanship absolutely comes first, and facts always come second. Citizens thought they were playing – dare we say it? – by a shared sense of the rules, but the rules ultimately weren’t what mattered. Rather, what mattered were two council persons jockeying with each other for position, to the utter exclusion of the commonweal.
Sad.
Typical of New Albany, but very, very, sad.
