Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Stunning redistricting vindication: City council “failed to comply” with agreement to settle.

The C-J’s beat reporter provides the facts, followed by a link to the NA Shadow Council blog commentary. The Tribune’s coverage will be added when it is published.

Will the same dysfunctional council cabal that has botched this process from the outset heave one final Hail Mary pass prior to the Gang of Four’s forthcoming dissolution?

Stay tuned. The plaintiffs certainly are.

60-day extension granted on redistricting; Judge: New Albany still out of compliance, by Dick Kaukas (Courier-Journal):

The New Albany City Council made "a good-faith effort" but failed to comply with an agreement to settle a lawsuit seeking to realign the city's voting districts to make their populations more equal, a federal judge said yesterday.

U.S. District Judge John Tinder in New Albany, ruling from the bench, extended the period for council compliance by 60 days. By then, Tinder said, the council should file notice of what it had done to meet the agreement's terms.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, filed in May 2006 demanding that boundaries of the city's six voting districts be redrawn, would then have 15 days to indicate whether they were "satisfied, or the effort fell short," Tinder said.
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7:30 p.m. update: Tribune coverage was limited to a desultory sidebar bearing an extremely misleading headline that isn't archived on line. Shrug. We'll give it a pass.
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For the next six months (seven?), at NA Shadow Council.

News that emerged from 121 East Spring Street late on Tuesday, December 4th, in the YOOL 2007 is most heartening. Congratulations to the citizens and their counsel who finally petitioned for justice to be done. From all reports, that ideal was achieved in the ruling of the presiding judge for the Southern District of Indiana.

Will the defendants in Vogt v. City of New Albany dare to come back in 60 days with the very same boundary-drawing? Is Anna Schmidt that compelling an authority that the legislative body of this city would risk even more expense in trying to defend a patently unlawful apportionment?

2 comments:

Neal Page said...

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA.

I just re-read Dork and Mindy's October 7 drivel about this "outrageous" lawsuit.

Iamhoosier said...

Not only FOS but Fiscal Demo was promising surprises also. Those two blogs, for awhile, had seemed to part ways. Anymore, reading one is about like reading the other. One difference, at least FOS is consistent about not allowing comments.