Kentucky Local Politics

Feeling Good Friday

By rick | October 10, 2008

Tonight’s Lead Story: Did anyone expect Cordish to stick around after all the teeth-gnashing and accusations leveled by Hal Heiner in local media this week? And then all those threats from Metro Council members to hold them to a financial guarantee? The Baltimore developer is walking away from the deal. Told ya.

No Offense: To my former co-workers at Business First, but the main story you’ve got on the front page about the contractor suing the African-American Heritage Center? We had that one Sept. 24.

And We Told You About This, Too: That overcrowding problem at Male High, and JCPS’ plans to do something about it, then to not do anything for a year. The paper had the story on its front page — we had it Oct. 2. Not that we’re getting cocky or anything.

First Post-Debate Shot: The Yarmuth campaign attacked Anne Northup’s support of privatizing Social Security, a position she stated clearly during their lunchtime Louisville Forum face-off. Less than three hours after lunch.

Corbett, Esquire: This week we saw that Corbett’s made Esquire’s Best Restaurants List, but were too distracted looking at the Halle Berry photos to remember to mention it here. So today we got a news release on it, and it’s in Business First. Esquire had to overlook the fact that there’s a Costco across the street.

Southwest Sparring: We’re hoping to get some pictures from the Southwest Commnity Festival this weekend, where the politics will be as pungent as the smell of funnel cakes. We do know a terrorist Halloween costume was purchased at a Dixie Highway Walmart. Because, you know, the terrorists are targeting Cardinal Hill.

Komen Run: Jeanine and I will be downtown in the morning for the Komen Race for the Cure, because breast cancer sucks. It’s a worthy event for a good cause. Beautiful weather. Join us.

Other Weekend Events: Send us photos from these events - and we might put them up right here. There’s the Garvin Gate Blues Festival, the Belknap Fall Festival, the Caufield’s Halloween Parade on Bardstown Road and plenty more stuff to do that’s uniquely Louisville.

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Mayor Blames Council for Blowing Cordish Deal

By rick | October 10, 2008

Mayor Jerry Abramson put the blame on the Metro Council for blowing the city’s chances to land a major development deal downtown. In a release sent moments ago, his quote is strong:

“The nation’s top downtown developer wants to invest between $200 million and $430 million in our city and create 3,000 construction and permanent jobs, yet the Metro Council has turned its back on them,” Abramson said. “This is a sad turn of events after more than two years of planning and partnership to bring this project to reality.”

The Mayor said he got a letter from an unnamed Cordish VP that said this:

“Unfortunately, without the support of the Council, we have no choice but to turn our focus to other markets that desire our expertise and capital, and understand the dynamics of complex public private partnerships. We are fortunate, even in these trying economic times, to have a strong balance sheet and capital to invest in these kinds of projects,” the letter said.

“We had reserved and committed resources and cash to make Center City a reality in a financing market that demands enormous cash equity by the developer,” the letter continued. “We cannot hold these funds and resources for Center City any longer and reluctantly will move them to other opportunities. Continued negotiations with the City of Louisville do not make sense after over a year of good faith efforts by all sides has failed to produce an agreement. We sincerely wish the City every good luck in its revitalization efforts.”

Abramson vowed to try to save the project, but he needs something he can’t get — cooperation from the Council. The release continued:

“There were naysayers when we built Louisville Slugger Field – but it’s been a huge success. There were naysayers when we expanded the airport – but it’s been a huge success that has resulted in 21,000 jobs at UPS alone. And there were naysayers when we joined with Cordish to build Fourth Street Live – which now attracts between 4 and 5 million visitors a year,” Abramson said. “The Center City project comes with risk, as does every major economic development deal, but our development agreement protects taxpayers’ investment.”

Anybody got a good idea for building on the Water Company block?

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Some Explosives Advice for the City

By rick | October 10, 2008

Now that the legal obstacles are at least temporarily cleared for the bomb storage device on Cardinal Hill, the city should get its crews out to the site and start building. Tomorrow.

Surely the police department is ready to go. They’ve been awaiting approval for at least five months. Whatever funding it needs is there. And the opposition isn’t giving up. You get the feeling that Doug Hawkins will be sitting atop Cardinal Hill whenever the police decide to start building, daring a bulldozer to run over him. He’ll be like those tree-sitters at UC-Berkeley who spent 21 months in a tree trying to save them.

Hawkins’ critics will tell you, however, that his crusade on behalf of Cardinal Hill will end Nov. 5, the day after Hawkins is either elected to the State Senate or dismissed by voters.

It didn’t take Hawkins long to come out swinging this morning, 12 hours after his latest attempt to block the bomb-storage plan failed in the Metro Council. Hawkins’ e-mail targeted Rick Blackwell, along with South End Dems Bob Henderson, Madonna Flood, Marianne Butler and Vicki Welch,”who chose to support the Mayor’s desires over his constituents’ needs.”

Rumor has it Hawkins is seeking an attorney to file a suit to stop the action as well. His morning missive concluded with this:

“This is not over. We will be taking this issue to a higher level.”

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Score! One for Maven, LEO

By rick | October 10, 2008

The new online incarnation of LEO has a few treats, or tricks, depending on your point of view, for online readers.

One of them is the return of C.D. Kaplan the sportswriter. The Maven’s rumor column on sports disappeared from the print edition some time back, part of a subtle shift in focus and space constraints at the paper. When something had to go, weekly coverage of sports at the alt-weekly went.

But there are no such constraints when it comes to the Web, and LEO is making an effort to remain relevant in local sports by putting Kaplan’s sports rants on a new blog - Score!

It’s way early to make a judgement on how well the blog will do in the crowded field of sports commentary, and I’m not yet making any snarky comments about LEO’s new online effort (I promised). In one of Kaplans’ first posts, he brings back the popular SchnellSpeak segment, looking forward to the Pipe’s upcoming trip to Bowling Green (Oct. 18).

Kaplan is king of sports gossip, so I’m expecting that Seedy K will get some exclusive info that might not even be reported first by Joe B. and Denny, Bob & Will, Dave & Scott, Drew & John L., Rick & the Big EZ, the Freak, Matt, Jody & Trevor, Lach, or the Afternoon Underdogs or Eric Crawford or anybody else, like us.

LEO’s got a few other new and/or improved blogs of interest — Sara Havens’ Bar Belle blog has transitioned to LEO, and they’re calling Mat Herron’s music blog Bluegrass Catastrophe. Cool. Lastly, General Sense of Outrage is Out. The new news blog is called. . . Fat Lip.

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Yarmuth-Northup Live. . . Right Now

By rick | October 10, 2008

Score one for the C-J.

If you want to catch the John Yarmuth-Anne Northup debate, you can watch it live on the C-J’s website, starting up in a few minutes.

It’s on WFPL radio and a delayed version will be on Metro TV — but if you want to watch it live, looks like the Courier is your only option.

We’ll stick with it and make smart-aleck comments:

11:50 — who do we know here? Some dude’s doing a John McCain, walking in front of the camera. There he is…our hero, Hebert. There’s Yarmuth. Don’t you love those awkward pre-debate moments. Looks like our fave attorney saying hello, Shelia Berman.

Where’s Anne?

Does Vincenzo know his wait staff is chewing gum?

12:01 – No worries, she’s here.

12:02 — Hebert’s telling some dude he thinks Gwen Ifill did an awful job. Going over rules. Hebert’s going to make them answer the questions, he says.

Where’s the timer lady going to sit?

One-minute answers to questions, then candidate will be cut off. Maybe they’ll do it like SNL last night. Ha.

12:09 — Shouldn’t we be getting started? Timer lady needs a pen.

12:10 – Timer lady is Barbara Albert, president of the Forum. Calls for written questions from audience. Past presidents of the Forum will answer questions. hey, the prinicipal from Iroquois High is there, a special guest. Valley, too. Doing it all over for broadcast. Forum takes no positions, remember. Membership pitch: It’s $225 a year for 12 meals. Next month it’s Wednesday morning quarterback - post-electin - with Danny Briscoe, Hunter Bates, Ricky Jones and Al Cross.

12:15 — Hebert shouts out Councilman King. Intros John and Anne. John’s opening statement. He’s gotten a lot of awards for his first year — says the partnership with community is working. Brings up vote on rescue package, and all the people he talked to about it. Oops, time’s up.

More After the Jump. . .

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There’s Katie King News–Go To Page One

By rick | October 10, 2008

Here’s the pictures we got in the mail yesterday. With 25 days and counting before the election, this is getting more and more interesting. Almost makes it fun to check the mail.

We don’t mean to make light of the situation. King faces David Holton in an election for District Judge. She’s inexperienced, but has the support of her dad, the Metro Council President, and was the leading vote-getter in a 10-way race in the primary.

We encourage you to take a look at the story on Page One.

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Doll Should Say: News People Are Dumb

By rick | October 10, 2008

From the people who brought you the image of Jesus in a Cheetoh is this story that seems to have originated at a Tulsa news station — there’s a growing number of grandmas who think a Fischer-Price doll says “Islam is the Light” and “Satan is the King.”

You’ll be shocked to learn that Fox41 sent Julie Tam out to find people who have fallen for this one. She discovered Louisville grandmother Melissa Rush, who said on camera:

“This is a Christian Country. This is not an Islamic Country. If this doll can come into our country and say this, what other stuff can come into our country? I think our borders need to be protected.”

Clamp down the borders, people. Dolls are corrupting our children!

The comedy continues. Tam says a Target employee told her she thought the doll said “Hit momma with the lighter.” Some stores in Oklahoma have pulled the dolls from shelves.

And guess which national network has picked up the story? If you guessed anyone but the “We Report. You Decide.” bunch, your sentence should be a trip to Julie Tam’s website.

The station seems to think the story’s legit. It even outfitted morning anchors Barry Bernson and Candyce Clifft with the dolls on the set this morning to talk about it.

By the way, Fischer-Price claims the dolls are speaking gibberish:

The only scripted word the doll says is “mama.” There is a sound that may resemble something close to the word “night, right, or light.”

Melissa Rush says of the Islamic threat “it’s so very clear.” She plans to talk to her pastor about it.

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Nothing Doing on Metro Council

By rick | October 10, 2008

The Metro Council last night chose to put off any decision on the controversial Cordish Company negotiations. We finally heard from the Baltimore developer, who is none-too-pleased with the Council’s questioning of the deal it had already worked out with the Mayor.

Bottom line is there are several deal-breakers involved, the biggest being a desire by Council members that Cordish guarantee it will spend $200 million on the project. Jim King told the C-J that a minimum investment requirement would shoo Cordish away.

Crazy twist of the night — Hal Heiner wants to dictate that there’s no gaming on the block. Huh? Hal, there’s a state law against casinos, and the Governor famously can’t get that changed. Heiner obviously wants to put up more hurdles, assuring that Cordish won’t play and will go away.

But the Council members may have come to the Cordish topic fatigued from a sometimes comical and consistently partisan fight over the bomb storage facility the administration wants to put at Cardinal Hill. For two hours, Council members argued the issues they were arguing four months ago, then spent another 30 minutes going over the rules of argument because no one could figure what Robert had in mind when he made these rules.

At issue was an ordinance sponsored by Doug Hawkins to cut off funding for the facility — a back-door, last-ditch attempt to get the facility out of his district. Rick Blackwell offered an amendment limiting the amount of explosive that could be stored there. Then Hal Heiner introduced an amendment requiring a 700-foot barrier from residences, a move that everyone knew would eliminate Cardinal Hill.

At issue was a public safety meeting where the administration provided reasons that 100 sites offered up by Hawkins were eliminated — they were either in the parks system, in a flood plain, or Metro didn’t own it. There were other reasons, but Cardinal Hill, according to the administration, was the only suitable place in the county. Twelve councilmen (11 Republicans and Dan Johnson) don’t believe it.

Based on the references to the proceedings being televised, I’d say the discussion would have taken about half as long if members weren’t so aware that there was a TV audience.

So for two hours they tossed the topic around, trading barbs about NIMBY, politics, explosives, etc. Here’s some highlights. I’ve taken some liberties with the paraphrasing:

Read the Rest after the Jump. . .

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