Lexington

Public University Trustees Move Forward with Privatization Plans for Housing

February 22, 2012

The University of Kentucky’s Board of Trustees signed off on the plan to privatize the public university’s student housing. Ms. Blackford of course has all the details, including but not limited to:

EdR vice president Tom Trubiana said his company is accepting low returns on the first dorm “because we wanted to be part of UK for the long term.”

“The uniqueness here is potentially that we could be the sole-source housing for UK for the future,” Trubiana said. “That’s why it absolutely needs to be a home run.”

Cool. A home run! This deal isn’t a single or a bases clearing double or even a ground rule double. It’s a home run!

Or it needs to be one. Continuing…

If UK and EdR agreed to build a theoretical $10 million dorm, a financial model presented on Tuesday shows that UK would get $239,000 in revenue during the first year of the deal, and EdR would bring in about $239,000. However, the model shows that EdR would not start to make a profit until year 11 of the deal. By year 50, UK would make almost $2 million a year, and EdR would make $1.1 million, an 11 percent profit.

UK and EdR are deciding whether they will pursue an exemption from property taxes on the new dorm. Those taxes are built into EdR’s rates of return, Trubiana said.

“Any benefit would go to UK students in the form of lower rents,” he said.

1) Why would you lower rents when you could make more money? That’s bad business sense.

2) What are the guarantees behind that statement? Is it in the contract?

3) Why does EdR feel no responsibility to the community it seeks to profit off of?

4) Why does the University feel no responsibility to contribute to the upkeep and safety and well being of the city in which it exists?

As Blackford reported the other day:

Property taxes are divided by school systems, city governments and state government, with the majority going to public schools.

Fayette County taxes about 1 percent of a property’s assessed value. Approximately 68 percent of that goes to Fayette County Schools, 13 percent goes to the state, 9 percent goes to the city, 3 percent goes to the public health department, and 7 percent goes to LexTran. Less than 1 percent goes to UK extension services and soil- and water-conservation programs.

Lexington’s PVA David O’Neill estimates the proposed dorm could pay out $280K per year in property taxes.

Poor big businesses and their big tax burden. If corporations are in fact individuals, then should they really be granted tax relief individuals would never get?

In what world could you stop paying your property taxes?

Wouldn’t that be nice? Don’t you give enough back to the community as it is, just by being you?

Here’s another idea: Stop charging homeowners who live in the neighborhoods bordering the UK campus property tax.

If they don’t have to pay their property taxes, these homeowners could invest the money in a scholarship fund or something to reduce student costs and make college cheaper for the kids.

Because they would. They really would.

****

Hide your wife, hide your kids, because nobody’s safe outside the pedways

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February 20, 2012

By David M. F. Schankula

Last week the Webbs’ released their new CentrePointe design. Or, not really new but refashioned — it’s a Studio Gang design stripped of some of its power but better than what the Webbs kept coming up with on their own.

One part of Beverly Fortune’s really fantastic article we didn’t get around to mentioning on Thursday — because it deserves more than passing mention — was Dudley Webb’s pedway vision:

Several members took issue with a pedway shown connecting the hotel to the Financial Center parking garage. It would be possible for people to walk from the CentrePointe hotel all the way to the Lexington Center via pedways.

Board member Kevin Atkins asked whether that worked against the current push to get more people walking downtown. Last summer the city completed a multi-million-dollar, three-year project to build new sidewalks on Main Street, Vine Street and South Limestone.

Dudley Webb said that when women had to walk from the Lexington Center to the CentrePointe hotel at night, they would feel safer walking in pedways.

There are two points to discuss here.

The first is Dudley’s idea that pedways are good design.

The second is his hilarious (or, if you want to be angry — craaazy) views on safety.

Let’s start with the design element.

We here at B&P have long advocated for MORE PEDWAYS. Like the cowbell is to music, so too is the pedway to our urban-county fabric. Time and again, we have called for pedways in our time, even going so far as to google bomb Lexington, effectively turning us into the Pedway Capital of the World (regardless of the fact Louisville is now looking to build a significantly longer track — a classic example of that sad city’s Lexington-envy). As written in these pages in 2010, the Webbs are building a pedway to heaven:

Sure, “CentrePointe” does not yet exist and its current business plan – a hotel twice as expensive as the competition achieving occupancy rates well above the city’s current average – makes absolutely no sense. And the fifty million dollar condos aren’t exactly a hot commodity.

But Jim Newberry and the Family Webb know something the rest of us do not. They have a secret weapon.

It is the power of the Pedway.

As we have detailed over and over, the CentrePointe project as a whole is laughable: high on ego, short on funding, mindless in design, lacking in brains, etc.

But its Pedway system… oh, the CentrePointe Pedway system is genius. We hope this thing gets built some magical day in the future just because of the heavenly Pedways it offers the well-healed citizens of this fair city.

You see, even if the CentrePointe monstrosity sits essentially empty and serves no purpose for the vast majority of Lexington’s citizens – it will still have the Pedways!

Like Festival Market, Victorian Square, the Big Blue Building, the “World Trade Center” and the “Radisson” hotel before it, if there is one thing the Webb Company knows how to do… it’s build Pedways.

Images courtesy of Clarke.

So we are not opposed to the pedways. Webbs idea to build a pedway from his latest CentrePointe project to his parking garage is fine with us — it’s brilliant. We personally advocated this to Woodford Webb last summer when the Webbs brought in Jeanne Gang and listened to her bizarre pedwayless plans. In fact, we want the Webbs to go even further. To build another pedway from the parking garage at Park Plaza and the Public Library above Phoenix Park and across Limestone into the CentrePointe blocke. This would allow one to walk on air from the center of downtown all the way to its western end. This is genius.

Now, some would say that Jeanne Gang is a “genius.” But she said pedways were bad design. So did the Rupp Area master planner. And so did the Court House Area Design Review Board.

But what do they know?

Dudley Webb knows pedways.

And he knows that not only are they good design, they are a public safety imperative.

There is a lot of violence on Lexington’s downtown streets with people being attacked at all hours of the day by murky forces of evil.

Our streets are not safe. Our women are not safe.

Dudley Webb said that when women had to walk from the Lexington Center to the CentrePointe hotel at night, they would feel safer walking in pedways.

This is true.

It is true even though every single woman I have spoken with finds it offensive. And it is true even if every single person I have spoken with thinks it’s stupid or totally disconnected from reality.

The thing about the downtown Lexington pedway track is that much of what it connects are well-designed Webb family structures.

Should Webb’s latest pedway stand (and it should!) it would stretch above McCarthy’s, into the Big Blue Building parking lot, through the building, across Mill into the World Trade Center to the Radisson (or whatever) across to Festival Market and over Broadway to Victorian Square then all the way down to the empty condos and across to the Lexington Center at which point it circles back through to Kentucky Central (or whatever) and back into the Radisson.

This is about the safest route any woman would want to take late at night.

Put another way: Any woman who wouldn’t take this route is taking her fate into her own hands. Or feet.

The streets are dangerous. Anyone who has ever walked from one place to another in downtown Lexington and gotten there quickly, directly and without incident understands this.

The pedways hold many advantages.

1) The pedways are isolated. People don’t use them, they are generally deserted. Assuming that no criminal elements are there, you are unlikely to come across any witnesses or anyone who might hear you scream.

2) The places the pedways connect are isolated. There is very little foot traffic in the parking garages late at night. It’s a good place for someone to hide in a car, or between them, and there’s few passersby to contend with. The long empty hallways inside the empty buildings the pedways connect are winding and contain many blind corners. There is safety in not knowing what is hiding around the bend. You cannot find this safety on the open street level where, for the most part, you can see both in front and around you.

3) No one will hear you scream. On the street, people make noise and they holler at each other and cars drive by and people wave and laugh and sometimes some jackass vomits or two meat heads hit each other while large groups of people remain in total safety in the places around them. Inside the pedways, none of this awfulness can happen. That means you — man or lady, it doesn’t matter — can get good and sauced and wander all throughout the Lexington pedway system singing your brains out. You can scream songs at the top of your lungs crossing over Main or Broadway, and no one will hear you. You can chant and drum and, because there is no one around, no one will stop you or come to your harmonic aid.

Let us sing.

There’s a Dudley who’s sure
All that glitters is gold
And he’s buying a Pedway to heaven

When he gets there he knows
If the hotels are all closed
With a word he can get what he paid for

Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh
And he’s buying a Pedway to heaven…

Downtown Master Plannner speaks tonight, Feb. 20th @ 6PM

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February 20, 2012

By David M. F. Schankula

via ProgressLex:

Main author of Downtown Master Plan to speak at Lafayette Seminar, this Monday, 2/20!

The first session, featuring Dhiru Thadani, the principle author of Lexington’s Downtown Master Plan, and one of America’s most distinguished planners, will be THIS MONDAY, FEB. 20, 6 P.M. in PATTERSON A-B ROOM, THE HYATT REGENCY HOTEL, 401 West High Street. Councilmember Tom Blues, Chair of the Design Excellence Task Force, will respond, and give an update on the work of the Task Force. As new and exciting plans emerge for the CentrePointe block and the Rupp/ Arts and Entertainment District, it is especially important to remind ourselves of, and update our thinking about, the Downtown Master Plan, probably the most extensive downtown planning exercise that Lexington has ever experienced, with hundreds of citizen and professional participants. Many of its recommendations have been implemented, and more are in the process of implementation.

(If that doesn’t sound like fun to you, there’s also LexArts’ great 21 Nights Happy Hour series starting at 5p… so do as you will.)

“Ultimately, the university’s desire is to be fair to everyone involved — local and state governments, the university and, most importantly, students.”

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February 20, 2012

By David M. F. Schankula

From Ms. Blackford’s must-read story on the UK dorm deal:

Under the contract for the first dorm, UK and EdR would sign a 50-year ground lease, meaning that UK still owns the land but the new building would be owned by EdR.

EdR would construct the $26 million dorm, financing it with its own cash and equity. UK would put up no capital in the deal, which was important to them because of the need to issue debt on academic buildings. Rating agencies such as Moody’s have been somewhat vague about whether these kinds of projects might eventually be held against the school’s credit rating.

Once the dorm was up and running, UK would receive 10 percent of gross revenues. After EdR receives a 9 percent rate of return from rents, then UK would get 25 percent of the net income. At the same time, EdR would receive a 4 percent management fee for operations in addition to the remaining net income.

That deal’s coming down on Tuesday.

There’s a lot of cheerleading going on, what a deal. Turns out UK decisions to spend decades not building dorms and investing that money elsewhere was a solid business decision. See green!

Corollary, from Ms. Blackford: UK’s decision to lease the ground to a private company (in the best interests of the students, of course, not the bottom line) does come with a significant silver lining:

As a government entity, UK doesn’t pay property taxes. But once the school enters into a ground lease with Education Realty Trust, any new dorms would probably be considered private property that is subject to taxation.

“I intend to put those buildings on the tax rolls,” said David O’Neill, the Fayette County Property Valuation Administrator. “UK and other government-owned properties are tax-exempt but, since they are signing a ground lease to another company, my position is, the company would have to pay taxes.”

UK officials said they hope EdR would not have to pay property taxes because the increased cost would probably be passed on to students.

Beautiful.

You really have to give UK credit.

Also especially enjoyable:

“We had a very positive discussion with the PVA as part of our efforts to keep everyone informed about this important issue,” [UK spokesman Jay] Blanton said. “As to property valuation and assessment, we’re still studying what the potential impact would be. Ultimately, the university’s desire is to be fair to everyone involved — local and state governments, the university and, most importantly, students.”

Love it.

CentrePointe is back with a brand new invention!

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February 16, 2012

By David M. F. Schankula

Well that only took four months.

Back in October when Dudley and fam fired the worldclass architect they’d hired to reinvent their dead block they said they’d have a new plan in three weeks.

The Herald reported at the time:

Webb hired Lexington firm EOP Architects to incorporate Gang’s ideas into a design for the block. EOP already was involved with the project as one of Gang’s guest firms.

“We are excited to be able to take a great vision in terms of the master plan and move forward with it,” EOP’s Rick Ekhoff said Thursday. He said he hoped to make the EOP plan public in two to three weeks.

We last checked in six weeks later. EOP and the Webbs had remained silent, no new designs, no word, no action. Just a four year old “Coming Soon” sign.

But seasons change. And the CentrePointe rises again! At least on paper:

The view from Vine, between Upper and Mill.

The Webbs hung out with the Court House Area Design Review Board yesterday for a ‘preliminary review’ of a “project bounded by Main Street, Vine Street, Upper Street and Limestone Street.”

The current plans which have not yet met the same fate as all previous plans are basically a rip off of the Gang principle. At its base, that is a good thing.

The hotel and million dollar condos appears to be about 25 stories tall and occupies just the south west corner of the block — as had the Gang design. Where the Gang hotel was iconic, pleasant to the eye, the Webbs’ latest effort is frankly better than anything they’ve come up with before without losing that classic “generic” Webb touch. It looks a little like they took one of the cheapo skyscrapers that have gone up in Manhattan in the past six years and lopped off the top. It’s kind of stubby.

But it’s still far better than the pre-Gang designs. And it does a better job (how could it not?) of keeping the street open.

Same view, street level.

From the ground, you see the austere hotel entrance (because that’s what fancy people want out of a hotel entrance, that’s why they’re paying significantly higher rates to stay here than to stay at the Hilton down the street) and in the background a fun four story glass shard structure.

This Vine street view would be a huge change to the nature of Vine. Before it was a stretch of broken sidewalk stretching in front of an empty field, this part of Vine was a stretch of broken sidewalk stretching in front of buildings that, basically, did not open to Vine. There were some trees and shade, but it was largely a beige place not inviting foot traffic nor offering a driver anything to circle back around and possibly stop for.

With the CentrePointe designs pre-Gang, the Hotel/Condo monstrosity devoured the entire block, did nothing for the public street level. It’s a bit different here and again, they’d love to take the credit, but this is Jeanne Gang’s work, not the Webbs.

The Tour de France passes the block at Vine and Limestone at dawn. Or is that dusk? It’s been raining.

And just as Gang prescribed, the plan hangs on to the 10 story office building at Main and Lime and the squatter glass shard building at Vine and Lime, which may host a rooftop garden, possibly with bar/restaurant, and restaurant inside. And along Main Street… three and four story retail. Again… Gang.

The biggest change here is the hotel itself.

Studio Gang’s CentrePointe, from the Vine Street canyon.

Other than that, the Webbs have done what Gang told them to. And even with the hotel, they’ve done some of what Studio Gang told them to do and for the first time, the Webbs have put forward a plan of their own (if you want to give them credit for this plan like it’s their own, which obviously it is not) that doesn’t allow the hotel to dominate the entire block (or all of downtown).

B.Fortune writes:

The block is included in the Courthouse Area Design Review Zone, in which all new buildings and exterior changes to existing structures must be approved by the Design Review Board.

Board members on Wednesday were tactful in their remarks, but they said they wanted to see changes in parts of the plan Ekhoff presented.

Several members said there needed to be more pedestrian access through the block, at ground level, so people could walk from Main Street to Vine Street.

Buildings facing Upper Street needed more windows instead of solid brick walls, they said. One board member said it now looks like the project has “turned its back on Upper Street.”

There’s a fabulous discussion about pedways — in which Dudley promises to protect the city of Lexington — but we’ll cover that in a separate post.

The Board pushed the Webbs to promise a public meeting on the project and they ecstatically agreed. Or at least, they said they would hold a public meeting.

And in terms of progress and prospects:

Board member Harry Richert asked whether the entire project, with all the buildings, could be built in phases. Webb said it would be too expensive. It will be built at one time, he said.

Webb said three businesses — Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse out of Cincinnati, Saul Good Restaurant and Pub, and Urban Active gym — have committed to take space on the block. J. W. Marriott will take the hotel space.

That would leave a floor wide gym empty above the Big Blue Building’s parking garage (Urban InActive, I suppose) but other than that it saul good. Right?

I’ve reached out to J.W. Marriott for comment on their continued commitment to making Lexington the next location for their brand.

I recently had the chance to visit the J.W. Marriott in Grand Rapids. It was a pretty place. There were these lights. It had big windows looking over a rollicking river.

Anyway… we’ll have more later, including a closer look at the crime fighting pedways and perhaps a rumination upon the Courthouse Area Design Review Board.

Rupp Funding, UK’s Response & UK Housing

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February 6, 2012

By David M. F. Schankula

The Big Sunday editorial heaped praise on Mayor Gray and the Rupp Area Task Force, then called for realistic numbers in the financing phase:

However, in the next step, estimates and ideas must give way to hard numbers.

Here again, history produces a credibility gap. Painful examples of big ideas drowning out bad numbers are close at hand.

Just down the street from Rupp some of Lexington’s most historic buildings were destroyed because of promises of a huge hotel development financed by a mysterious foreign investor. Instead there’s a block of grassland.

The CentrePointe debacle also included a financial feasibilty plan that contained projections that defied reality.

Down the road in Louisville The KFC Yum Center is struggling to pay its bills because a TIF is not producing the revenue that had been anticipated, leaving the city holding the bill.

Even in these tight times, there are worthy public investments. But both the state and Lexington have little to spare and UK President Eli Capilouto has rightly made it clear he’s going to argue in Frankfort for funding education before athletics.

On that last point, of President Capilouto’s decision to focus his energy on taking state money to sell student housing to a private corporation and not get behind the city’s plans for Rupp, Dan Rowland writes:

I understand and applaud Capilouto’s desire to contrast his aims symbolically with those of his predecessor, notable for the Wildcat Coal Lodge, and other distortions of UK priorities. But to insist repeatedly and forcefully that UK places all its priorities on its own campus and none on the fate of Lexington is a symbolic statement of its own kind — and one that is badly mistaken.

Lexington has a visionary mayor and the best council I can remember. The task force working on the Rupp Arena plan has functioned smoothly, creating a strong consensus around the plans approved Jan. 31. The plan itself is outstanding, the best example of downtown planning by far that I have seen in over 30 years of sitting on downtown planning committees. These opportunities do not come around every day, and UK needs to be on board.

I am one of the most unlikely people to support a renovation of Rupp.

When my wife and I moved to Lexington in 1974, I was appalled by the plan to create a 16-acre parking lot for Rupp.

Continue reading Rowland’s piece here…

Now, while Rowland and the Ed. Board applaud Capilouto for his campus privatization plan (or, make a show of applauding him), one of the paper’s most excellent reporters takes a closer look at deal, prospects, realities and more:

U of L officials, along with those at other schools that have used EdR, call the process largely positive. But UK’s proposed deal is so much bigger and more sweeping — managing all student housing and spending as much as $500 million to replace most of the school’s 6,000 existing beds and add 3,000 more — that it largely covers uncharted territory.

….Although the EdR Web site now features a picture of all its employees in blue UK T-shirts holding Wildcat banners, a contract between the company and UK is not supposed to be approved by the UK Board of Trustees until Feb. 21.

UK officials say going this route gets them out of the costly and complicated business of construction, allowing them more time and money to focus on instruction. Modern and expanded student housing will help recruitment and allow more students to live on campus, which usually helps retention and graduation rates. In addition, UK says, it won’t have to put up any capital in the deal.

But until the details are made public, it’s hard to judge how good a deal it will be for UK and its constituents, said Lou Marcoccia, a vice-president at Syracuse University, who has worked successfully with EdR on much smaller projects.

“The question is, how can EdR put up the capital and operate it and make a profit, and why couldn’t UK do the same thing?” Marcoccia said, referring to UK’s proposal to turn over all its housing stock to EdR. “If it’s such a good idea, why isn’t everyone doing it?”

The piece goes on to examine a number of smaller deals at campuses around the country, looking at financials, and the struggle for transparency as UK works with the private company — Read It.

Rupp Area Task Force Final Meeting

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January 31, 2012

By David M. F. Schankula

The big show started with this video from Bullhorn Marketing:

You can read the executive summary here (PDF) and Beverly Fortune’s rundown here.

All in all, it was a rehash of where we’ve already been, with Bates and crew again going through the plan as it exists.

[Read about the previous meetings here, see images of the redesign concepts here and here]

The Highlights come from the Executive Summary. There was little new information outside of it (though there were some new images, it seemed.) and almost all the new information comes in the financials (or, very preliminary financials) that come toward the end.

Here we go:

Transformation of the Lexington Center itself, including Rupp Arena, the Lexington Convention Center, the Civic Center Shoppes and immediate environs, is estimated as a $250 to $300mm project that catalyzes all other investment. This important project will require a mix of local, state and private funding for construction. Possible major funding sources include new revenue from premium seating, advertising, sponsorship, concert/event promotions, concessions and parking associated with proposed plans. It will also likely need local and state funding to create a new economic engine. Private fundraising and federal grants and tax credits should be fully explored. The plan also anticipates the establishment of a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) District to support needed infrastructure and civic facilities.

So the school, the arts place, the sports fields and everything else is outside that funding figure and goal (including Town Branch/Commons/Central Park). No surprise there.

Three year funding and design schedule:

2012: Organization, Business Plan, Survey/Environmental
2013: Concept Design/Engineering, Pre-Construction Estimation & Schedule
2014: Completion of Schematic Design, Confirmation of Construction Funding

If Beshear’s $3.5 Mil and Lex’s $1.5 Mil come through, they get spent like this:

If that $5 mil works out and the $250 to $300 Mil in overall funding for Arena, Convention and Shops is secured (or however much it turns out to be after schematic design alters cost and timeline) by 2014, then…

The construction schedule anticipates an approximate 3 ½-year construction period:
Site Work/Lexington Convention Center Construction (Spring, 2014 – Fall, 2016)
Rupp Arena, Town Branch Park Construction (Spring, 2015 – Summer, 2017)

New Rupp comes by 2017 at this most ambitious pace.

Here’re the 14 avenues of funding they will investigate:

There was quite a bit of talk about TIF financing and it is spread throughout the document. It would be the third Tax Increment area in Lexington joining the Distillery District and the Webb’s failed hotel project (which, if government actually functions, should be forced to go back through the TIF approval process since it’s now a different project… or a non-project).

TIF districts, especially for arenas, have come under increased scrutiny as the Yum! Center Arena district in Louisville is losing money, not generating what was projected (see here, here, here). It will be fascinating to see how the Rupp folks plan to accommodate for more realistic TIF projections.

As the Courier reported:

The taxing district “will become self-sufficient again when the economy recovers, but this is way too much risk for Louisville to have taken from the beginning,” said John Vrooman, a sports economist at Vanderbilt University. “This volatility should have been anticipated before the debt was issued.”

He said in an email that tax-increment financing is “very risky” for financing sports arenas and should not exceed 10 percent of the total debt. The tax plan makes up 35 percent of the KFC Yum! Center’s annual debt.

Also… it’s worth noting that the timeline proposed in this plan, which they admit is a best case, predicts a completed Rupp by 2017, while the University of Kentucky’s lease with the Lexington Center, re-upped in 2001, runs through the 2017-8 season. It’s unlikely UK would try to move at this point (but who knows what lurks in the hearts of the UK powerclass), but the projected timeline may not be purely coincidental.

LFUCG Candidate Filings & Good-Byes

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January 31, 2012

By David M. F. Schankula

Time is winding up to get your signatures in… you’ve got until the close of day today. Some more folks have filed their papers while some others have made it official they won’t. [See more at the Herald, which also has a nice map showing how your district may have changed.]

Let’s start with good-bye, shall we? Or, on second thought, perhaps good-bye is too good a word.

Jay McChord of the 9th District and Doug Martin of the 10th are leaving City Council. McChord will leave office in December to focus on “personal training and coaching.” Jay’s been on council forever and during Newberry’s reign became known around town as a member of “the Axis of Asshole.” Still, whatever one thinks of his policies, you still have to thank him for his service and all he accomplished, and although he hasn’t yet propped up all the private golf courses by closing all the public ones, he did improve Lexington’s disc golf courses. It is fair to say Jay has earned some time off. Perhaps he can head to the beach, relax by the ocean, and get a good tan.

Doug Martin, a fellow member of that Axis, also leaves us. And we are sad to see him go. We will remember him best for being appointed by Mayor Newberry, barely winning an election against a write-in candidate, unleashing a vein-popping fury of “F*cks” inside a city council task force hearing directed at our own Joe Sonka, and riding to the defense of Commerce Lexington and demanding we increase their taxpayer pay check when all rational voices demanded it be slashed. For all that fun, The Southside Screamer could also be a pleasant conversationalist and seems a decent fellow… suggesting that perhaps non-public life will suit him well and we look forward to seeing him around town, especially now that he has more time to focus (hopefully) on his music. (Yes, sir, I remember… you tell me the night and I’ll show up for the jazz.)

We bid warmer adieus to Tom Blues of the 2nd District and K.C. Crosbie of 7th. Blues has always seemed a decent man and usually came down on the good side of the vote. He’ll leave office having wrapped up a downtown development task force. Crosbie was a pleasant surprise on Council who, like countless regular citizens, seemed to find Jim Newberry’s cronyism and closed-door good-ol-boy way of doing things somewhat unpalatable. She lost her race for State Treasurer but hopefully she’ll be back in some fashion… as far as Republican public servants go, she’s a pretty good one.

Of course, none of these four are going anywhere fast… they’ve got almost a year left in their terms which means there’s still time for each of them to do truly awesome things and we hope they will. Serving on City Council ain’t glamorous and it’s generally not all that rewarding on the pay front (unless you know how to play it), so give them all thanks and a smile when next you see ‘em.

On that note, Ed Lane, 12th District, has filed for reelection. He currently stands unopposed.

Other unopposed incumbents are Bill Farmer, Kevin Stinnett, George Myers and Peggy Henson.

In the 1st District, Marty Clifford will again challenge Councilmember Chris Ford. In the 2nd, Lisa Sanden takes on Shevawn Akers (with a third still rumored). In the 3rd, Diane Lawless faces a challenger of sorts in Stephanie Spires, while Julian Beard in the 4th has one of his own in Sam Cox.

District 7 still has only one candidate on file, Jason Scott Rainey, while District 9 has two: Connie Kell and Jennifer Mossotti (who put out a statement on McChord). In the 10th, we have a Harry Clarke currently running unopposed to fill Doug Martin’s large bright red shoes.

The minutes are ticking away. You still have time. Who will file under the wire? We should have a complete list tomorrow — if you have links to candidate websites or tips on who them newbies are, leave a comment or send an email.

Final Rupp Area Task Force Meeting, 1.31.12 @ 10AM

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January 30, 2012

By David M. F. Schankula

Happening tomorrow:

Final Rupp District Task Force Meeting
January 31, 2012
10am-noon
Hilton-Downtown, Grand Ballroom
369 W. Vine St. – Lexington, KY. 40507 [map]

This is the final meeting. There should be a final report and, most importantly, the Finance Committee’s “Development Plan.” Cause, you know, it’s gonna take money. A whole lot of spending money.

Lexington City Council votes 11-3 to shake finger at Frankfort

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January 27, 2012

By David M. F. Schankula

Council-at-Large member Steve Kay proposed a resolution expressing concern about the redistricting plan and the resolution passed, 11 to 3.

Ed Lane, K.C. Crosbie and Bill Farmer all voted against chastising Frankfort for disenfranchising the voters of Fayette County.

Councilman Jay McChord said he was “sick and tired of Lexington looking weak, acting weak” at the state level. “If they don’t like it up there, so be it. Maybe it is time to send somebody else up there,” he said.

Councilman Chris Ford said when an action by Frankfort legislators “harms the citizens of Fayette County, we should stand up and speak.”

“This is classic gerrymandering,” said council member Julian Beard. “I don’t think we should duck our head and go quietly into the night.”

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Public University Trustees Move Forward with Privatization Plans for Housing

Hide your wife, hide your kids, because nobody’s safe outside the pedways

Downtown Master Plannner speaks tonight, Feb. 20th @ 6PM

Main author of Downtown Master Plan to speak at Lafayette Seminar, this Monday, 2/20!

“Ultimately, the university’s desire is to be fair to everyone involved — local and state governments, the university and, most importantly, students.”

CentrePointe is back with a brand new invention!

Rupp Funding, UK’s Response & UK Housing

Rupp Area Task Force Final Meeting

LFUCG Candidate Filings & Good-Byes

Final Rupp Area Task Force Meeting, 1.31.12 @ 10AM

Lexington City Council votes 11-3 to shake finger at Frankfort

TAKE IT OVER!

LEO’s Fat Lip JOE SONKA

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