“I cannot tune a harp or play a lyre,” said the Athenian soldier-statesman Themistocles, “but I know how to make a small city great.” – from Lords of the Sea, by John R. Hale of New Albany, Ind.
Randy says “the only thing keeping New Albany from being a great city is us. Our collective aspirations to make this a great city are too often thwarted by lack of imagination in the people we elect. We need to elect people who can persuade and can be persuaded. We need to elect people who can diagnose a problem and get to work building a consensus to fix that problem. We need to elect people who can communicate and who can be communicated to. These are the first steps to making our city great.”
HOW TO MAKE A SMALL CITY GREAT
Axiom #1: Lawmakers should not be lawbreakers.
Axiom #2: Every problem has a solution if we work to find it.
Axiom #3: Secrecy is death to democracy and the mother of corruption.
Axiom #4: Spending too little wastes every dollar spent.
Axiom #5: Conflicts of interest destroy trust in government.
Axiom #6: Party affiliation is no obstacle to cooperation.
Axiom #7: Decisions today affect lives for decades.
Axiom #8: Incentives are investments and must only be granted when the returns on that investment are measurable.
Axiom #9: Public expenditures are for the public, not private interests.
Axiom #10: Respecting others and treating them with civility is essential.
Axiom #11: Public actions must be transparent, explainable, and understandable.
Axiom #12: Elected officials must willingly take responsibility for their decisions, no matter the political cost.
Randy Smith for New Albany 
Randy, These axioms, if followed would clear up many of our problems unfortunately we have way to many sitting political office holders that claim they are for transparency but violate that every day! Thanks for being for what is right and just.