I Wanna Go Back To..........!

If I heard that particular statement once last evening, I heard it at least a half dozen times. The refrain has become commonplace at New Albany's Common Council Meetings. So much so that I am toying around with the idea of suggesting that we introduce an ordinance to amend either the Lord's Prayer or the Pledge of Allegiance to include the phrase. Such is it's importance to these proceedings.

I wanna go back and recall the mutant gene that came from my loins that caused my firstborn to enter this world with a heart defect! I wanna go back and stop my older brother from falling out of the barn loft into a concrete feed trough that resulted in his demise!

On second thought, no I don't! My son is now 27 years old and healthier than I ever was. My brother had been dead for over a decade when I was born! It no longer matters whose cow kicked over the lantern and burned Chicago to the ground. The Windy City is doing just fine thank you!

For the common council to spend hours, weeks, nay MONTHS in debate over whose administration or better yet, which individual in whose administration is responsible for a reoccurring sewage overflow in a ballpark in the west end is stupidity personified at best and outright theivery of taxpayer dollars at worst! After all, we are in the end, paying the light bill for the city county building.

A better use of time would be to corral the the city engineer, the head of the sewer department and a shovel and go down there to find out where the breech is . Then, and here is the part that no one wants to do, allocate the funds needed for the repair and stand there to see that it is done!

But we ain't got no money! Yes we do! There is something in the neighborhood of a million dollars in boat fund monies that is just laying around soaking up sunshine. But we may have an emergency and need it! We may have an ice age! We may get hit with a hurricane as it comes up from the Gulf! My kid could have died on the operating table! But he didn't. But they may abscound the money and use it elswhere! Oh, I'm sorry! I failed to explain that's why you stand there to see that the job gets done. But that ain't my job! I beg to differ. If you are an elected official of New Albany in any capacity, it is your job to serve it's citizens. That means YOU ALL, administrative and legislative alike, have oversight over IT ALL! You asked for it, you got it, now do it! But I gotta work for a livin'! Welcome to life! It's a bitch ain't it!

People, we can't go back. Neither can we stand still. We must move forward for nature abhors a vacuum. What convoluted series of events created this debacle is irrelevant. What we do to correct it is vital. Proposing solutions is a great first step but it requires follow through to accomplish the task.

This city is full of honest, hardworking people from all income and education levels that are not getting their moneys worth from their government. 2007 is an election year. Are we gonna step up to the plate, or are we gonna sit on our hands and watch the world go by?

You all have the floor.