Louisville Blogs

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MBC   mon feb 08 2010 at 7:51 pm         ·  Hey Rick...now the Herald-Leader is beating the CJ in its own back yard. Pitiful.

This is getting good. Today Tyler Allen will go down to the Courier-Journal building at 3 and tell the newspaper's editorial board just where it can stick its opinion about the Ohio River Bridges Project. The Mayoral candidate, who's long opposed the Ohio River Bridge Project as pushed by the city and touted his own 8664 plan, seems to be a little hacked off about the C-J's latest in a series of editorials supporting the ORBP. On Friday, it published this:: ... the community should insist that candidates who aspire to city and state leadership fully embrace the bridges project. It was distressing, for example, to hear Democratic mayoral hopeful Greg Fischer say the other day that the effort should begin with a new East End bridge, with fixing Spaghetti Junction and building a new downtown bridge to come later. It shouldn't be necessary to repeat this for mayoral candidates, but here goes: The record of decision for the project is a done deal, arrived at after years of study and discussion and agreed to by a broad consensus of the political and business leadership in two states. It calls for both bridges to be pursued at the same time, and for good reason. The downtown bridge is needed primarily to meet the area's transportation needs; the eastern span will be an economic development boon. First of all, credit to Fischer for taking a strong position for the first time in the campaign. But Allen shouldn't be blamed for thinking the piece was directed at him. He's been fighting this case with the C-J's editors for years, and they've been consistently close-minded about alternatives to ORBP. The C-J's stance reminds me of George W. Bush -- who kept saying things that weren't true in hopes that eventually everyone would believe him. Well, the bridges aren't built, and no matter how many times the C-J and the Mayor and GLI and the Indiana politicians toe the company line, it's not too late to change direction before building an unnecessary $4.1 billion project. In fact, architect Steve Wiser has offered up a more sensible plan than the ORBP disaster, but no one except a few open-minded Mayoral candidates are taking it seriously. Today Allen used the word "fantasy" to describe the current bridge proposal, and continues making sensible arguments against it. Here's his statement: The charade continues. I strongly disagree with the CJ's editorial of February 5 calling on the “next wave of community leaders to get with the plan.” Now is not the time to “get with the plan”, now is the time for real leaders to step forward and publicly say enough is enough. The “plan” in this case is the Ohio River Bridges Project and the Tolling Authority set up to finance it by tolling the citizens of this community. The need to build the East End Bridge has been clear for more than half a century! The fact that it is not yet built has had enormous consequences for this community's belief that we can “get things done.” The solution to this problem is to build the East End Bridge, not continue down an unrealistic path in the wrong direction. It is a shame that the CJ has been taken in by the fantasy that the current bridges proposal is what the citizens want and the city needs. The idea that we are stuck with a political compromise set in motion before merger, and that has never been publicly vetted by our elected leaders since merger, is very bad public policy. Must Louisville bury its downtown under a $2 Billion 23 Lane-Wide New Spaghetti Junction just to have the privilege of connecting I-265? Must Jeffersonville double the size of I-65 through its downtown just so its citizens can finally bypass downtown on a East End Bridge on their morning commute to work? The answer is 'NO'. Let's be clear, we cannot set our city back just because very powerful people do not want an East End Bridge. Gov. Daniels told the authority at its first meeting that they “need to be creative” to get this financed. Creativity cannot be limited to where to look for money (especially since it's clear they are looking mostly into our pockets). Creativity demands looking at the needs and scaling the project down to what we can afford to build. Critics of mine, including the CJ, have said I'm a one issue candidate. Interestingly, they clearly believe that my so called “one issue” is “the most important civic undertaking in the metro region and is pivotal to the area's economic future.” Wow, we better get this right. The CJ thinks the candidates for Mayor should get in line. Louisville deserves a “new wave” of leaders who don't get in line, but rather listen to the citizens, demonstrate a vision and move Louisville forward... starting with an East End Bridge!

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	Beverly Bartlett   mon feb 08 2010 at 12:46 pm         ·  I think you are the first person I've ever heard compare the CJ editorial board to George W. Bush!
	curtis   mon feb 08 2010 at 1:35 pm         ·  Beverly's right. Kudo's for your courage, Redding. I say we tell on them. I have a hunch Gannett doesn't realize just out of control it's editorial board really is. Since the majority of our citizens are for building the East End Bridge first, their arrogance in telling our leaders to "get with the plan" is lame as hell. http://www.gannett.com/contactus.htm
	Stevietheman   mon feb 08 2010 at 1:41 pm         ·  Per usual, I have also responded to the C-J board's ongoing "sick prank against the best interests of the Louisville region". http://www.historyandissues.org/louisville/viewtopic.php?t=1888
	chuck   mon feb 08 2010 at 2:12 pm         ·  Louisville is OUR city and we deserve better than this. Louisville is one of the few cities in the country without a bypass. Everything is forced through our downtown, causing massive congestion, noise and air pollution. We need a BYPASS, not an EXPANSION of Spaghetti Monstrosity. And honestly, three downtown bridges are more than enough if we have a bypass. Why do the advocates for ORBP (4.2 BILLION!!) never mention that we already have the worst small particulate pollution in the country? The price we pay in air pollution for routing so much traffic through downtown is already staggering. It is NOT too late... Please call and write your elected leaders today and ask them to: Spend $1.2 Billion on an east end bridge to re-route 30K vehicles daily from downtown. Save the other $3 billion in cost. SAY NO TO TOLLS! ORBP can't, and they know it, which is why they created a bi-state tolling authority to fund this mess. To get more details, please visit: www.8664.org Best, - Chuck

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	SciFiNut   mon feb 08 2010 at 10:22 am         ·  >Sells had a lofty title -- associate vice president for government relations and special assistant to President James Ramsey...So why would the school be so generous<< Maybe she was a Very Special Assistant and she's being paid not to become another Karen Sypher.
	~Carolyn~   mon feb 08 2010 at 3:04 pm         ·  Rick, challenge Bailey to a plunge! Polar Bear style! lol
	sniper310   mon feb 08 2010 at 3:17 pm         ·  If there is truth to the CJ story about Marlowe, then one wonders what has taken Louisville Metro Internal Affairs so long to respond to accusations, or if there isn't more to the story that hasn't been told, since this has allegedly has been going on for awhile. If what I have read in the CJ is true, then there is shared responsibility among supervisors, one would think, up the chain of command. But then again, I have noted a distinct liberal bias in the CJ before.
	BASHFUL   mon feb 08 2010 at 5:06 pm         ·  Maybe Ramsey took her to dinner at porcinni's??
	SciFiNut   mon feb 08 2010 at 7:43 pm         ·  Bashful, that joke was done in the first post. Please try again.

Thanks to everyone, especially those nice Heineken gals, who came out to the Super Bowl party at Saints last night. No matter who you were pulling for, we should all be happy for the team that shares our adopted logo - the fleur de lis. Some commercials I thought were worth noting, available for your viewing at this site. First Quarter: Not sure what all the controversy was about with the Tim Tebow ad. The spot was done in good taste, showing the Florida QB and his Mom in a spot for Focus on the Family. Funny Snickers spot with Betty White getting leveled in a football game. Second Quarter: I was a little disappointed in the Papa John's spot, having expected to see Schnatter on the sidelines or something spectacular, rather than just handing out pizza to game crews. Three worth noting -- Budweiser's Body Bridge, Hyundai's hilarious Brett Favre spot, and CareerBuilder's visual shocking Casual Fridays. This was the best quarter. Halftime: All you people making fun of Pete Townsend remember this -- dude's 64 years old. Hope I'm still rocking then. The halftime show was evidence that you can do anything with enough lights and fireworks. Third Quarter: Megan Fox in a bathtub. Enough said. Not sure why the Census is spending $3 million on an ad, but it was an attention-getting spot. And an E-Trade spot with a jealous girlfriend of one of the babies. Fourth Quarter: Emerald Nuts always comes up with something cool, like this year's shot of people performing as dolphins. Audi's Green Police spot, using a Cheap Trick song, was cool, and then Charles Barkley, the poet of Taco Bell. One of the many polling results showed that Audi spot as the best, along with the Snickers one with Betty White. So What do You Mojo Readers think?

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	busy busy mommy   mon feb 08 2010 at 9:01 am         ·  The fave at my house (probably because I have kids) was the Doritos ad that had the dog putting the bark collar on the mean man and then barking... My kids and friends all loved that one!! We were thinking PETA might have been behind the making of that one! Lol...
	Paul Najjar   mon feb 08 2010 at 9:50 am         ·  The Audi ad? You mean "if you don't do what we tell you to do we're going to arrest you" ad? That ad ruined a good Cheap Trick song. As for the rest of them....seemed like a down year overall. Two semi-nude commercials back-to-back, and a bunch of spots that were 27 seconds of "what the hell is this?" and then 3 seconds of a sponsor's logo...weirder than most years.
	Strawberry Burns   mon feb 08 2010 at 5:44 pm         ·  "Not sure why the Census is spending $3 million on an ad, but it was an attention-getting spot." I can answer that for you Rick. :) The 2010 Census is a high stakes game, very high stakes! We want the most accurate count possible. Form return numbers have ran low in the past few Censuses. For every 1% increase in form return it saves 90 MILLION dollars!!! The commercials and PR campaign are to educate the public on what the Census is and why it's important for them to fill out the form and mail it back to us. It's a case of spending a few million in the hopes of saving WAAAAAAAY more in the long run.