kelly flood

This evening, Wednesday, August 6th, the delegates of the Fayette County Democratic Party will convene at 6:00PM at Memorial Hall on the UK Campus to select a candidate for the newly-opened seat of everyone’s favorite state representative, Ms. Kathy Stein. This meeting is open to all.

The following is an email sent to these delegates responding to charges from two of the five campaigns that a previous message violated the spirit of this special election.

Dear Democratic Party Precinct Delegates:

Our email from Sunday night has started a wonderful discussion, one worthy of the party to which we all belong. Through phone calls, emails and conversation, many of you have talked with each other, have spoken with us, and have contacted the party itself. This is what democracy is all about.

The process the Fayette County party created to field a candidate for
Kathy Stein’s seat was a perfect solution to an imperfect situation. The party could have simply convened its higher ups, as the county’s GOP did, and selected a candidate for us.

The leaders of our party developed an open and transparent process to select our candidate.

This past spring, each of you took time to spend a Saturday morning in your local polling place and engage in the most basic part of this American democracy. At schools and fire houses across the city, handfuls of dedicated citizens gathered and voted.

That process was also open to all and, by and large, all who showed up were elected.

This is the most fundamental activity of a democratic society. And now, because of that simple act of service, you have in your hands a very powerful decision.

It is said that all politics is local. This is true, but local politics is too often marked by apathy. The people most affected by it do not either see its rewards or really feel its effects and rarely involve themselves in its process.

The people who have pushed CentrePointe on this community, the forces that would blow the tops off mountains in our names, those who would make illegal the equal rights of all our citizens to love each other as they see fit — these are the last people we need representing our party.

Many of you have contacted us in the past two days. We have continued this democratic dialogue with each of you. Most have expressed thanks for spreading news of this vote. Some have objected to our tone and through a thoughtful exchange of ideas, we have come to a common ground with nearly all of you.

Two of the five campaigns seem particularly hurt not only by the content of our message but that our message existed to begin with. They have lamented the fact that we were able to send our message to you, the delegates who have the power in this election.

Their anger is misguided. The Party instituted rules for this special election specifically to make it a representative vote — they spread this vote amongst the precinct delegates and divided that vote proportionately. They set a date for you, the delegates, to meet, and they opened that meeting to the public.

They have encouraged voters to contact you, the delegates, with our thoughts on this election and the candidates running in it.

These two campaigns have insinuated that we misconstrued facts. We did not.

Ms. Grimes sent a message to each of you objecting to our representation of her campaign. But we simply represented her as she presented herself. It was Ms. Grimes, not us, who filed an application to the party with letters of recommendation from one of the leaders of the CentrePointe debacle and a representative of the mountaintop removal lobby.

Mr. Ockerman chose himself as a spokesperson for that same CentrePointe debacle. It was Mr. Ockerman, not us, who wrote a lengthy op-ed in the Herald-Leader arguing the project’s questionable benefits, and it was Mr. Ockerman who spent an hour on KET last month defending its questionable merits.

We have heard from a reliable source that Mr. Ockerman also voted against equal rights for our fellow citizens and after a series of emails, Mr. Ockerman continues to refuse to answer that question.

Mr. Ockerman and Ms. Grimes have complained that we were able to send our message to each of you. This is particularly disingenuous of Mr. Ockerman. He has blamed the party, but he is the one who an sent email on to you all on Saturday without hiding your email addresses. We, on the other hand, have revealed your contact information to no one.

That said, this is the Democratic Party, and it does no harm to have an open dialogue. Anyone interested should be able to take part in this process and should engage in a dialogue with you, the precinct delegates.

Our hope in sending our message was to encourage others to join this discussion, regardless of their views, and tonight you will fill the seat of our most vaunted progressive representatives, Ms. Kathy Stein currently and Mr. Ernesto Scorsone before her.

Neither one of us is party to any particular campaign. We are members of the Democratic Party. No candidate asked us to email you. We simply took it upon ourselves to take part in this great process.

It is untrue to suggest otherwise.

We are genuinely concerned that Kathy Stein — who has served this community in tremendous fashion — might be replaced by someone who does not truly represent the spirit of this district’s citizens. Her valuable seat should be filled by a candidate who stands against mountaintop removal and who opposes the same old plans for downtown development that have so clearly failed in the past.

Kathy Stein championed the campaign for the local ownership of our water company and was an outspoken critic of the attempts to restrict the civil rights of the gay and lesbian community. We need a candidate who represents these values.

That is why we wrote to you with our thoughts on Ms. Kelly Flood. We looked at the candidates and what they stood for and we concluded that Ms. Flood is the candidate best positioned to succeed in Ms. Stein’s seat. Ms. Flood is a champion of this community, a strong woman who serves as an inspiration to us all.

But our vote lies with you. All we can do is share our thoughts. That some would wish to silence public input is simply further evidence that they do not have what it takes to hold Kathy Stein’s most important seat.

If they take office, what will they do when you wish to speak your mind to them?

The Democratic Party has principles. One of those is an open dialogue with an open exchange of ideas. We have greatly enjoyed this chance to communicate with so many of you and we look forward to continuing that dialogue in the day ahead.

More importantly, we wish you luck this evening. Your service is fundamental to this democratic union, and it is to be commended.

Sincerely,
Willie Davis & David Schankula

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Until we each individually engage in the local political process, we are collectively asking for leaders on every level who do not represent our values as a community.