TRIBUNE CHEERS & JEERS: June 24, 2009

June 24, 2009 11:44 am

— CHEERS
... to what appears to be a new sense of unity and teamwork in downtown New Albany. It’s great to see downtown development organizations and festivals all talking and working together lately for the common good.
— Tribune Publisher Steve Kozarovich

JEERS
... to New Albany City Councilmember Jack Messer for not abstaining from the council’s recent vote supporting increased funding and additional police officers. Is it against the law? No. Will he directly benefit from it? Who knows. However, it is another example of New Albany government living up to its crude reputation of disregarding simple ethical standards. In this particular example, there is some gray area because the vote didn’t create a new law or actually approve the money. There’s more public discussion to be had. However, in a tight 5-4 vote is it really an objective decision to benefit taxpayers when one of the 5 is a police officer?
— Tribune Publisher Steve Kozarovich
... to the Georgetown Town Council and Floyd County Commission for the continued hold up on realizing the inevitable — that Georgetown should see a sewer increase of some sort. Another public meeting was held last week and of course, the residents there complained of the hardships that would be caused by a rate hike. They can hold public meetings for the next 10 years but nothing is going to change because the majority of people are never going to be for a rate increase in anything. It almost is as if these meetings are held to make New Albany officials look like the bad guys for trying to enforce a contract that Georgetown officials agreed to — officials that the people of Georgetown elected, though they have since lost their positions. Obviously Floyd and Georgetown politicians have much more to lose in this than New Albany’s leadership, which may be the reason for the pull-on-the-heartstrings approach.
— Tribune staff writer Daniel Suddeath

Do you have someone or something to cheer or jeer? Submissions should be sent to Publisher Steve Kozarovich at steve.kozarovich@newsandtribune.com or by mail at 303 Scribner Drive, New Albany, IN 47150.