Some people assemble jigsaw puzzles, but during the coming weeks we’ll be plucking highlights from eight years of the Committee to Elect Gahan’s CFA-4 campaign finance reports. Strap in, folks — and don’t forget those air(head) sickness bags.
At some point during Jeff Gahan’s self-satisfied time in office, the city’s logo underwent a significant change. For decades New Albany had embraced the notion of movement, as symbolized by a rich history of steamboats on the Ohio River.
Through steamboats and river travel, people, freight, ideas, and news traveled faster and the region was linked to national networks of commerce, communication, migration, and popular culture.
Abruptly and without public comment of any sort, an anchor became the Gahan regime’s bound bundle of wooden rods.
Gahan’s chosen symbol emerged from the back rooms where appointed committees meet, utterly without the input or votes of any elected official, and as selected by then-redevelopment honcho and noted artistic design expert David Duggins because it looked “cute.” Now it has become the anchor that adorns every city-owned object.
As even a four-year-old child knows, anchors exist solely to keep boats from moving. Meanwhile, with our municipal anchor buried safely beneath the Ohio River’s voluminous mud flats, no evidence of brakes can be found on Gahan’s 24-7-365 Campaign Finance Express.
The Jeopardy! answer: “It’s why we’re here.”
The Jeopardy! question: “How important is campaign finance to Mayor Jeff Gahan?”
Ah, yes — the infamous classic video clip, embedded in one of 2018’s most-viewed blog posts.
There’s a reason why the forever agoraphobic Jeff Gahan’s handlers keep him secured in the bunker, and it’s because the moment any public scenario strays from the script, he cannot improvise. The more he tries, the worse it gets — and the angrier he becomes.
In this video, observe his petulance escalate with each “that’s why we’re here,” until he’s demanding to know why citizens aren’t listening to him, even as he insists his Potemkin facade of a meeting was to prove he’s listening.
As anyone who isn’t a blood relative of Gahan’s might expect, cash crumbs from the absurdly titled Mt. Tabor Road Restoration and Pedestrian Safety Project (was it Pinocchio Rosenbarger who coined this gem of purely Orwellian Newspeak?) conveniently landed in the mayor’s re-election piggy bank.
Just one example from 2017:
But let’s be fair about it, conceding that when you’re a C-minus student, even on your very best day, sometimes the bright kids can help out with term papers — and they pay YOU to do it.
As “consulting engineers and land surveyors,” Beam, Longest and Neff (BLN) “is an award-winning consulting firm with experience in all facets of infrastructure projects” with Indianapolis as its headquarters. BLN has donated to Jeff Gahan for eight straight years, one of a tiny group to have done so.
2018 2,000
2017 2,500
2016 3,000
2015 3,000
2014 1,250
2013 1,000
2012 1,000
2011 2,800
Total: 16,550
Give ’em this much: These reported donations all have come from BLN itself, absent the oft-repeated sham of having individuals make contributions ostensibly on their own, when the corporate parent obviously is coordinating the effort.
To close by repeating: All $16,500 of this money has come from somewhere else.
Think about that, and #FireGahan2019
Rebuttals are welcome and will be published unaltered — so don’t forget spellcheck. If you have supplementary information to offer about any of this, please let us know and we’ll update the page. The preceding was gleaned entirely from public records, with the addresses of “individuals” removed.
Part 16 link (coming soon)
