7:53 Last question is about ethics in Metro Government. Rumpel is talking again about MSD, this time in the context of the Cordish deals. Osborne says that all members of Metro Council should be holding their colleagues to a high standard. Miller thinks part of the solution to ethics problems is term limits, and pledges to serve no more than two terms. Osborne is now calling him out on this, saying that Miller is sandbagging, and is considering a run for State Auditor. Miller denied it, saying "rumors must be old by the time they get to Daniel." Rumpel says he's heard the same thing about Miller's aspirations. The show's ending with a bizarre string of accusations from Rumpel. Your guess is as good as mine.
7:51 Here we go: bridges. What would you do to hasten the pace of the East End Bridge construction? Osborne is in favor of it, and would do everything he could to get it done stat. Miller thinks Greg Fischer and the River Fields organization are conspiring against the project and says it should be built NOW. Rumpel concurs.
7:49 Anything else you want to add? Miller addresses fiscal responsibility and increased services for District 19, saying the latter has gotten worse since merger. Osborne says as a father of five, he thinks improving libraries in District 19 is a priority for him. "There are a lot of things that need to be implemented," Rumpel said. "But it's not caused by the economy, it's because of the people in charge."
7:38 What's your plan for bringing jobs to town? Rumpel: lower taxes. "Once taxes are under control, I think we have the opportunity to lure a lot of businesses here," Rumpel said. Osborne says "there's no reason other than taxes" that businesses should be staying away from Louisville. Miller thinks that state mandates, like Kentucky's workers' compensation laws, are also deterring businesses from coming to town.
7:34 Buying LG&E? Osborne says "as a conservative," he thinks the gov't shouldn't be buying energy companies, and doesn't think it's feasible besides. Rumpel can't get off the oversight soapbox, predicting that Louisville Metro will run LG&E the same way it runs MSD. Miller doesn't think Louisville Metro should be getting involved in managing interstate commodities like energy.
7:29 Questions of water pressure in District 19. One of the promises of merger was an increase in services for the outer reaches of Louisville Metro. All candidates say that the water pressure issue is being resolved (apparently it's spotty out there), and all candidates agree that MSD needs some serious oversight. "The build now, plan later mentality is something that really needs to be addressed," says Osborne.
7:20 First question: How do you put teeth in transparency measures? How can you enforce it? No one has a good answer, but everyone has pointed to Senate Bill 80 and the Louisville Checkbook program. Rumpel just said that the latter "is not transparency. Anyone who thinks that is in a pipe dream."
7:11 p.m. Ed Springston's "My View Matters" show is hosting a debate between the Republican candidates for the District 19 Metro Council seat being vacated by Hal Heiner, who's running for mayor. The show just started, let's meet the candidates: Daniel Osborne is a Louisville transplant of eight years. This is his first foray into politics, though he was the vice-chair of the Louisville Young Republicans in 2009. Kaven Rumpel is a retired police officer, small business owner, and Lake Forest Country Club member. He said he's running for this office because District 19 is "stagnant," and because there isn't enough transparency in Metro Government. "No one's seen the books except Jerry," he said (referring to Abramson, not Miller). For the record, it's pronounced just like "Kevin," just spelled differently. Jerry Miller is the departing chairman of the Jefferson County Republican party, who vacated his post after a few months to run for this office. He agrees with Rumpel on the issues of stagnation and transparency, and said he thinks Louisville is ready to elect a Republican mayor and if that happens, he said, "the Mayor will need a proven leader on Metro Council." He thinks he's the man for the job.
Candidates who call for lower taxes, especially in a town where taxes aren't that bad, need to declare exactly which programs they would cut to pay for the cuts.
A prediction: if the 2010 Louisville Mayor's race ever heats up, everyone will say it started with the Louisville Forum events. This month's put the three Republican primary candidates head to head—in a format designed to let them try and separate from each other—and next month's will do the same with the Democrats.
The Louisville Forum, as a regularly occurring event that has a reputation for being high-minded and non-partisan, can do what the other mayoral forums can't, which is give each candidate the chance to articulate him- or herself fully. The other forums have been so crowded that each candidate can only answer a maximum of about 5 questions, their answers are limited to 60 or 90 seconds, and despite this efficiency everyone in the audience gets bored because the candidates can't help but repeat something that's already been said.
Not so at today's event. Hal Heiner, Jonathon Robertson, and Chris Thieneman seldom overlapped their responses, and moderator Mark Hebert—who's been the best moderator of any of these forums so far—kept them on a tight enough leash to squeeze eight separate questions in between opening and closing statements. In an hour. Nice. Here are some of the highlights.
The best part of the format was the middle portion—after the opening statements and before questions from the audience, in which each candidate could pose a single question to a single one of his opponents.
It looked like sparks were going to fly when Heiner asked Thieneman how he could be trusted to run the city when he couldn't run the Mint Jubilee without losing money (Thieneman co-founded the Derby Eve cancer benefit gala; Heiner claimed that six years ago, despite raising over $1 million for the Mint Jubilee, the event lost $75,000 and didn't make any donations to cancer research).
But Thieneman's answer was weak (he said he was proud of the work he had done for cancer research, and that two bad fundraisers don't spoil the whole bunch) and his counter punch merely asked Heiner why he hadn't done more to make government more transparent (Heiner responded by saying he spearheaded the effort by launching the new Metro Government accountability website).
Only a few questions had to do with tangible policy positions, but one stood out for its significance. The question asked if the candidates supported the city buying LG&E and having total control over its utilities. Robertson said flat out that he opposed it, pointing out that its $8 billion tag is out of our price range. Heiner demurred, saying in the span of about 30 seconds that it would be “extremely difficult” and “tough, really tough,” and said his priority would instead be to keep LG&E's employees in Louisville if the company was to be sold. Thieneman said he thought it was an opportunity for the city to replicate the success it's had with the Water Company. All three candidates do support, however, the use of underground power lines—which are protected from severe weather problems—in future projects, but they didn't agree on how to pay for that.
The most telling question asked what each man thought were the skill sets they brought to the office of Mayor of Louisville Metro. Thieneman said it was important for the mayor to not be shy, to not be afraid to tell the truth, even when it's ugly, and said he would draw on his experience in real estate development. Robertson noted his various jobs—architectural design, real estate, and information technology—and said that he would be a well-rounded mayor. Heiner, as he did for most of the hour, gave the best answer, saying that the next mayor has to have knowledge of what it takes to attract businesses to Louisville and what the issues are that the city is currently facing, and said that he has both.
Which one of these candidates are willing to step uup and not just try and attract new business to Louisville but to do all they can to keep the ones going that are already here,. What business would evebn think of coming to a city where there are so many layoffs going on. These candidates need to focus more on how they will strengthen our local economy rather than but LG&E, That will not create jobs, nor will the fact that they dont buy this utility cause any job loss'.
There was also a forum yesterday evening for Democratic candidates at the Metro Democratic Club, with attendance of over 200 registered voters. The interchange among the candidates was lively and thoughtful. It was covered by the C-J (see report in today's paper with about the same level of coverage as the GOP candidates' forum) and I am told LEO covered it as well. This will be the first election since merger in which Democratic primary voters have a real choice, and Dem voters are showing a lot of interest in the race. Given the clear policy and personal differences among the candidates, I look forward to the candidates meeting again soon, at the Louisville Forum and elsewhere. Democratic politics are more fun than the GOP version.
Last night's mayoral forum, sponsored by and for Louisville's international community of immigrants and refugees, was shaping up to be something pretty exciting, and pretty different.
The format wasn't totally clear to me at first—nor was it, it seemed, to the candidates—but I caught on: the candidates drew random questions and had 90 seconds to answer. Most other forums had each candidate answer every question.
And the room at the Americana Center where it was held didn't at all resemble the cozy confines of previous forums (I'm comparing it here to the Kentucky Center for the Arts, the Downtown Marriot, and the Convention Center). The audience of about 75 was often bustling last night, not hushed.
And it was the first such event to be multilingual, so every answer was accompanied by the sound of someone in the back of the room translating it into either Swahili, Spanish, or French.
But this forum was most significant because of the subject matter and the audience—and what both of those things said about the candidates answering the questions.
Most questions had to do with immigrant- or refugee-specific issues—Shannon White was asked, for example, what she would do to make it easier to open a cemetery for Muslims—and it became clear pretty quickly which candidates had and hadn't seriously thought about what concerns this community might have.
Nearly all of candidates used their opening statements as an opportunity to share something about themselves they thought might appeal to someone from another country.
Shannon White said “hello” in a few different languages before beginning. Chris Thieneman said he'd just taken a trip to Indonesia and Singapore. Jim King spoke for a few sentences in American-accented Spanish. Greg Fischer said he was married to an international (his wife is Greek). Lisa Moxley wore a red, yellow, and green skirt instead of suit pants.
But the only two candidates who seemed to really comprehend the circumstances of the forum's audience were Jackie Green and Tyler Allen. In talking about his family's relocation to Sao Paulo, Brazil, when he was 12 years old, Green made pains to note that his was a migration of choice—since some in the audience had no choice in coming to Louisville.
Allen began by saying that the United States “was built by people who came from somewhere else,” and then talked about how much he learned about the world and himself from the Sudanese refugees he took into his home in 2001.
What set Allen and Green apart at last night's forum, though, was that they seemed to be talking to the audience of immigrants and refugees, and not about them. The other candidates talked about what they would do for the “international community;” Green and Allen (and to some extent Hal Heiner) talked about what they would do for “you.”
When mentioning a culture of “inclusion,” as many of the candidates did, it's important to sound inclusive yourself. Green and Allen (and again, Heiner), talked about the benefits of inclusion like they understood them.
This forum didn't teach us much about the candidates when it comes to matters of policy, but it did show us how some of them responded when the people they were engaging came from very different circumstances.
If mayoral candidate Greg Fischer has decided to make endorsements his number one priority in the Democratic primary race, he's doing a pretty good job of bringing home the hardware.
The Fischer campaign rolled out another big one today, this time from Louisville's chapter of the professional firefighters' union, bringing his total endorsements from labor workers to eight.
Fischer said this endorsement was particularly significant because the firefighters will make up a part of his "future team" of city employees, but added that he was proud of all of his endorsements.
"They are all important because they represent the most prominent and politically active unions in Jefferson County with an active and retired membership of over 35,000 working families," Fischer said. "That's an important base of grassroots support."
Craig Willman, the president of the local union chapter, said Fischer would “shine a bright light on the working men and women in city government.”
Fischer was described by Greg Dearing, the head of the Louisville Federation of Retired Firefighters, as someone who bring a “new leadership style” to Metro Government—a quote that is best read as a small shot at current mayor Jerry Abramson.
Abramson has been criticized for his handling of the lawsuit brought against the city by nearly 800 firefighters who say they were owed millions of dollars in back overtime pay. The city has settled that suit, but is still deciding how to finance the $30 million it still owes.
The Metro Council's budget committee will be discussing the city's options at its meeting on Tuesday.
Fischer will be one of six confirmed candidates at tonight's international-themed mayoral forum, scheduled for 6:30 p.m. at the Americana Community Center.
Fischer, as well as Democrats Tyler Allen and Jim King, Republicans Hal Heiner and Chris Thieneman, and Independent Jackie Green, will be addressing Louisville's international community, and will have their statements translated into French, Spanish, and Swahili. Check Mojo for a recap.
7:53 Last question is about ethics in Metro Government. Rumpel is talking again about MSD, this time in the context of the Cordish deals. Osborne says that all members of Metro Council should be holding their colleagues to a high standard. Miller thinks part of the solution to ethics problems is term limits, and pledges to serve no more than two terms. Osborne is now calling him out on this, saying that Miller is sandbagging, and is considering a run for State Auditor. Miller denied it, saying "rumors must be old by the time they get to Daniel." Rumpel says he's heard the same thing about Miller's aspirations. The show's ending with a bizarre string of accusations from Rumpel. Your guess is as good as mine.
A prediction: if the 2010 Louisville Mayor's race ever heats up, everyone will say it started with the Louisville Forum events. This month's put the three Republican primary candidates head to head—in a format designed to let them try and separate from each other—and next month's will do the same with the Democrats.
Last night's mayoral forum, sponsored by and for Louisville's international community of immigrants and refugees, was shaping up to be something pretty exciting, and pretty different. 
If mayoral candidate Greg Fischer has decided to make endorsements his number one priority in the Democratic primary race, he's doing a pretty good job of bringing home the hardware.
John LaFollette