For those of you competing in the May primary in New Albany, seeking a city council seat as Democrats (as words go it’s a non sequitur, but we’ll let it slide), I have a question.
Bob, Dan, Pat … you can leave the room.
Mayor Jeff Gahan obviously is “receiving significant campaign contributions from companies who are awarded large public contracts,” in what is “an obvious conflict of interest, ethically stunted if not outright graft.” The chairman of your party sits on the appointed Redevelopment Commission, which has been used early and often by the Gahan team to bypass the elected council to which you aspire.
There is a noteworthy absence of transparency, and millions of dollars are being borrowed against future taxes not merely to subsidize capital projects, but to finance them in their entirety — and plenty of campaign finance slush is flowing back into the mayor’s coffers from those private entities scoring the contracts.
Sure, the GOP does it, too — except you’re not the GOP type, right? You’re a Democrat, and there are core ideals to such an identification beyond massed money, right?
In fact, many of you sincerely espouse progressive ideals, but when it comes to genuine manifestations of these ideals — not scattershot park improvements or prayer breakfasts, but (for instance) the transformational social impacts of street design on neighborhoods and independent small business, nothing much at all is happening.
In fact, you’re being patronized, or more commonly, just ignored outright, and so, my question to you is this.
Are you feeling queasy yet?
