The 2A opponents' new angle is a strange one: If 2A passes and the City Council gains control of urban renewal (and the up to $77 million over 25 years that comes with it), businesses will be "scared off," will shrivel and blow away, or will simply disappear.

Let's first look at this claim logically and dispassionately based on the other claims and arguments advanced by the 2A opponents over the last three and a half months. They have argued many things, including "there may be unintended consequences," "developers will be scared away," and "there really isn't $77 million." As we've already demonstrated, these arguments don't hold water.

One of their key arguments is that the ordinance 2A would enact is "redundant." Their reasoning? An agreement to "cooperate" between the unelected Louisville Revitalization Commission (LRC) and the elected City Council effectively permits the Council to "control" the LRC. The reasoning is premised on a flawed or mistaken—deliberate or otherwise—view of the agreement. But let's ignore the problems with their reasoning and assume they're right: the agreement puts the Council in control, and 2A therefore is "redundant."

The American Heritage College Dictionary defines "redundant" in part as "superfluous" and "[n]eedlessly repetitive." As we can all see, this is another example of the 2A opponents advancing an argument that proves too much. The 2A opponents' arguments have gotten so creative and divorced from facts and reality that they present two points that cannot both be true. If it's true that businesses will be scared off or otherwise will perish if 2A passes and the elected Council gains control of urban renewal, then it cannot also be true that 2A is "redundant" and the Council is already "in control." Conversely, if it's true that businesses will be scared off or otherwise will perish if 2A wins and 2A is "redundant" (because Council already is in control of urban renewal), then it must also be true that businesses now are being scared off and are perishing.

The truth—from which the 2A opponents have strategically spared us—is suggested by the 2A opponents' own contradictory arguments: In truth, the Council is not in control of urban renewal; in truth, the Council's grip over actual expenditures of taxpayer dollars is remarkably weak; and in truth, the agreement to "cooperate," as a means of "controlling" the LRC, is little more than a mirage.

Now, let's return to reality. We're not the only ones who've figured out that the 2A opponents are being economical with the facts and are resorting improperly to scare tactics and outright falsehoods to win an election.

The Daily Camera. The Camera met with the 2A opponents for 90 minutes, during which they were invited to present their best arguments for why 2A should be defeated and were questioned by the Camera editorial board. The Camera rejected the 2A opponents' arguments, endorsed Issue 2A, and urged voters to vote "Yes." The Camera noted that the 2A opponents claimed 2A would slow urban renewal, scare off developers, and retard development. But the Camera dismissed these arguments: "Those assertions have not been corroborated."

The 2A opponents later sent a mass mailing to voters coincided to arrive with the ballots. In the mailing, which had color photos of children and dogs, the 2A special-interest group, Louisville Moving Forward (which includes council members Dave Clabots, Sheri Marsella and Don Brown), falsely claimed that if 2A passed it "will diminish the sales tax base that funds your city services, obstruct investment in historic downtown" and "weaken Louisville's economic and employment base." (Our emphasis.) It contained no discussion that the substance of 2A is the transfer of urban-renewal powers from the unelected LRC to the elected Council. The Camera rightly condemned the 2A opponents' use of falsehoods to try to win an election. Nowhere did the 2A opponents try to explain why our elected Council would harm our city while the unelected LRC would not.

Council members Muckle and Yarnell. Bob Muckle and Frost Yarnell professionally and dispassionately laid out the facts of urban renewal in a published guest opinion. As they point out, "Issue 2A has nothing to do with growth or the support of downtown businesses."

Halloween I. It's dismaying to see the 2A opponents make the same discredited sky-is-falling arguments that Mayor Sisk imprudently made months earlier.