OK, I missed you too last week. Our switchboard operator Pat Burton said some of you called to ask why there was no City Ink in last Sunday's newspaper. So that's why I'm writing this, although I'm still technically on vacation -- if you want to call it that.

The first week I was sick, and the second I was scrubbing and cleaning things around the house until I broke a blood vessel in my thumb, which slowed me down a bit. And the rest of the time was filled with tears, tax assessments and termites, about which I will not bore you, although it is all quite interesting now that I think about it. Some of the tears were for the departure of our executive editor, Dennis Sodomka , who ended his distinguished 20-year career at The Chronicle on Thursday.

I'm telling you all this so you won't think I was lolling around on the deck of a cruise ship, which will never happen to me in this lifetime.

In fact, I told Ernie about a month ago to never let me talk him into taking me on a cruise because just as soon as I got out into the middle of the ocean I'd have a panic attack, and he'd have to get a helicopter to come pick me up. He said not to worry. He went deep-sea fishing one time and got so sick, he made everybody on the boat sick, even those who hadn't been seasick to start with.

He said he was so sick his skin turned green, and if he'd had a gun he would have killed himself.

WHAT I MISSED DURING MY SUMMER VACATION

- A bombshell at a Coliseum Authority meeting when the wife of one of the members stood up and accused her husband of having an affair with another board member.

- Augusta Commissioners Jerry Brigham, Don Grantham and Joe Bowles , who usually fulminate against tax increases of any sort, voting against a zero increase this year. Mr. Brigham said he'd been against an increase until the final discussions, when he realized it would leave the city's reserve fund with only $12 million after the city spends $10 million to buy the Gilbert Manor property for the Medical College of Georgia and uses the $5.1 million surplus from last year to balance this year's budget. The reserve fund will be paid back with money from the next special purpose local option sales tax issue, but that's at least a year away. But who guarantees that voters will approve it?

TAXING ISSUES: Speaking of taxes, I'd like to know why property assessments in Richmond, Columbia and McDuffie counties keep going up when values have fallen 16 percent nationwide. I'm not sure, but I don't think there's a buying boom in Augusta. I counted 23 properties for sale last week on Walton Way between 15th Street and Walton Way Extension.

Also, if those Richmond County elected officials toying behind the scenes with eliminating the school property-tax exemption for folks 65 and older want to get thrown out on their ears, they should do it.

NOT GOING. GROWING: The Medical College of Georgia Foundation, whose members MCG President Dan Rahn recently asked to resign so he could appoint his own foundation, has added six new members, four of whom are MCG alumni.

They are Walter Brown , M.D., president and CEO of the Eighth Air Force Museum in Savannah; Augusta dentist J. Ben Deal ; Ellen Goodrich , R.N., M.N., former faculty member of the MCG School of Nursing; state Rep. Barbara Sims ; Francis Tedesco , M.D., president of MCG 1988-2001; and Mason P. Thompson , M.D., former MCG faculty member and current secretary-treasurer of the MCG School of Medicine Alumni Association in Augusta.

COURTING CONTEMPT: Somebody should have told the city's in-house lawyers that U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge W. Leon Barfield can be a bit grouchy on a good day. Maybe they would have known to get to court on time and hide the attitude.

Several weeks ago, the judge scheduled a status hearing for the case in which several businessmen and a loose association of taxpayers have sued the city over its purchasing practices. The hearing was set for 10 a.m. Tuesday. The city's lawyers showed up at 10:25.

Judge Barfield, whose own watch runs a little slow some days, was calm about the tardy folks. Instead of a tongue-lashing, he told a story about a judge's cruel remarks three decades ago when a young Judge Barfield committed a legal error.

The plaintiffs' attorney, Robert Mullins , who has received a few cruel remarks from Judge Barfield over his prolific motions and briefs, told the judge he couldn't get the city attorneys to cooperate with the discovery process -- the exchange of information between the parties -- and was being blocked from finishing the mayor's deposition.

City attorney Andrew Mackenzie told Judge Barfield that city officials are tired of Mr. Mullins' irrelevant questions, which drew a sharp rebuke from the judge. Opposing counsel doesn't get to decide what questions from the opposing side are relevant or necessary -- that's his job, the judge said.

Although the judge hadn't stuttered, the city's general counsel, Chiquita T. Johnson , wanted to complain about Mr. Mullins, too. He keeps asking the same questions and refuses to understand the city's procedures for buying goods and services, causing everyone needless work and bother, she told the judge.

Evidently she didn't notice the steam coming from his ears. He had just ordered the city to comply with Mr. Mullins' requests for information.

"Are you actually accusing me of being disingenuous?" he demanded to know.

THEY JUST DIDN'T WANT TO SAY "RIFFRAFF": The art of trying to say something without really saying it was on full display when the Augusta Housing Authority unveiled its latest plan for a mixed-income development, this time on Sand Bar Ferry Road to eventually replace Underwood Homes. It was particularly evident during a meeting at Eastview Community Center, the second of two held Thursday to inform Underwood residents and homeowners in the community about the plan.

During this meeting, which drew mostly homeowners, Richard Arfman , the authority's director of planning and development, explained several times that the proposed development would set aside only 30 percent of the units for public housing, which in effect would lower the number of low-income residents in the community.

One of the reasons a planned mixed-income complex off Deans Bridge Road was derailed last year was the fear among homeowners that it would attract mostly low-income residents, leading to increased crime and lower property values.

Several Augusta commissioners -- all five black commissioners attended along with Sen. Ed Tarver and Reps. Hardie Davis and Wayne Howard -- took cracks at stating the obvious without saying it. Some people in attendance still didn't seem to get the message.

Finally, a woman in the audience said: "Am I to understand that there will be a mixture of people and they won't be all from public housing?"

Mr. Arfman replied: "That's exactly what we're saying."

MAYBE HE WAS JUST THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX AT FIRST: Commissioner Calvin Holland told those at the meeting that they need to educate themselves about the development and took a shot at the housing authority for not having similar public hearings about the Deans Bridge Road project in his district before it was set to be voted on by the commission.

"If this had happened a year-and-a-half ago in south Augusta, there might have been a different outcome," Mr. Holland said. "Communication is the key. You don't want anything in your community that some others don't want in theirs."

He didn't mention that he was informed of the Deans Bridge project a year earlier without stating any objection before deciding to help torpedo it when residents started to loudly complain. Mr. Holland was one of three commissioners who attended an Augusta Affordable Housing Corp. board meeting in March 2006 to hear about the proposed 23-acre mixed-income, mixed-financed housing.

City Ink thanks Staff Writer Sandy Hodson and Editor Mike Wynn for their contributions to this week's column.