"After completing their first six months in office, Mayor Jim Newberry and Vice Mayor Jim Gray discussed with Business Lexington Editor in Chief Tom Martin how they have taken to their new leadership roles as well as near-term plans and initiatives for Lexington and Fayette County.
TM: You returned (recently) from Commerce Lexington's annual "Washington Fly-In." Could you recap for us?
JN: The Washington Fly-In is an effort for several people in Central Kentucky to visit with members of our congressional delegation about matters that are important to people throughout Central Kentucky. So we spent the last couple of days visiting with all the members of the Kentucky delegation. We talked with them about some of our regional water concerns, some of our regional transportation concerns, including the Newtown Pike Extension. We talked to them about some education initiatives, particularly with the horse industry and with the health care industry, so it's been a very good couple of days, but it's been a very tiring couple of days, and I'm glad to be back in Lexington.
TM: I heard the Newtown Pike Extension in there — any new developments on that front?
JN: We anticipate getting final approval on our environmental impact statement in just a matter of days now. As soon as that is done, we will be in a position to start acquiring the right of way, and as quickly as we can acquire the right of way, we'll start construction on the first stage of the project, which will run roughly from Main Street over to Versailles Road.
TM: You recently posted a six-month progress report on the city Web site, and in it, you noted completed initiatives such as the budget, reorganization, code enforcement, and a regionalism initiative. You cite more regular communication with both the public and council, and I note that you've also been working to strengthen relations between the office of the mayor and our state and congressional delegations. That brings me to a question about your plans for the future, and this is a specific one. Would you support efforts being led by the Kentucky League of Cities, among others, to amend the Kentucky constitution in a way that would allow communities such as Lexington to enact revenue initiatives of their own to address our own unique needs?
JN: We have a significant concentration of our revenue coming from the payroll taxes and other taxes that are directly tied to our economy. As a consequence of that, we are in something of a precarious economic situation here. If our economy were to go south and we experienced a downturn here, we would find ourselves in a substantial revenue crunch. Just probably, as a city, (we) would need to call upon our services even more. So I would like for us to have the option to diversify our revenue stream in some fashion or another.
Right now, the state constitution prohibits that, and it would take a lot of effort to make that change occur in Frankfort. But cities and counties need to have greater flexibility in terms of how they structure their revenue strength. I don't see us having any particular need to expand the revenue here, to increase the tax rates here, because we've been able to find a lot of inefficiencies in urban county government, and I think there is more to be had. But we've got to try to find ways to have a better balance on our revenue streams, so we're not so dependent upon those taxes that are directly tied to the economy.
TM: You have integrated economic development efforts from city hall with those of the University of Kentucky, with Commerce Lexington, with the state's Economic Development Cabinet. What do you hope to see come out of this partnership?
JN: I hope we will be able to get a better bang for our economic development buck here. UK has the potential to be an enormous generator for our local economy. And so, as they have started to make a greater effort to commercialize their technology, it makes an awful lot of sense to me for us to be working very closely with them in order to try to keep as much as that technology development based in Lexington as we possibly can. Similarly, it makes a lot of sense for us to try to utilize Commerce Lexington to do most of our economic development work. My own belief is the end result of utilizing Commerce Lexington will be a more professional effort and more consistent effort, over the long term a less political effort. And all of that, I think, would just enhance the quality of what we are trying to do on the economic development front. So I'm real pleased we have been able to work with UK and Commerce Lexington, especially to maximize our economic development efforts here.
TM: Since the city planning commission elected to hold the line, at least for the time being, on the expansion of the Urban Services Area, "infill" has become quite a buzz word in our city, and you've taken steps to promote infill and redevelopment within the Urban Services Area. What initiatives are underway in this area now?
JN: One of the more significant ones is the infill and redevelopment fund that we proposed in the budget and the council just recently approved. ... What I hope will happen is we would be able to use the infill and redevelopment fund to assemble smaller tracts of property into larger more developable tracts that we may be able to utilize for some affordable housing initiatives, those types of things, in order to maximize our ability to use the limited land resources that we have inside the Urban Service Area.
TM: The set of initiatives that you've mapped out include plans to appoint members of a planning commission who "understand the need to strike a balance between preserving the land, historic properties and green spaces," envisioning this as part of an overall effort to enhance economic opportunity in Lexington. There's something a little bit implicit in that statement; can you elaborate on it?
JN: I think in the past there's been a sense that people have been appointed to the planning commission either because they wanted to advance the agenda of the development community or they wanted to advance the development of the so-called no-growth community. My preference would be to find folks who were there to try to seek consensus, try to strike a balance between the need to preserve our land and the need to see our community grow economically. And so I'll be looking for people that don't have a personal agenda but who are looking to try to advance the best interest of the community as they can discern that.
TM: You would create an Office of Neighborhoods to support existing and future neighborhood associations. Would such an office work in cooperation with such independent organizations as the Fayette County Neighborhood Council? And I also know that you are proposing a Neighborhood Summit.
JN: I would certainly expect the Office of Neighborhoods to work with whatever groups might be involved with neighborhood associations. The general idea is that the Office of Neighborhoods would provide a contact point for those neighborhood associations around the community that need to access Urban County Government for whatever reason. Right now, homeowners associations and neighborhood associations are primarily overseen by our division of planning, but I would like for us to have some broader ability to help them do their work effectively and to make sure that they know how to access the resources of urban county government.
TM: There is funding in the new budget for the development of a community vision. Why do you sense a need for this, and what sort of process do you have in mind to make it work?
JN: It's not just a matter of my sensing. When our administration met with the council at Shakertown back in January, one of the things that came out of that effort was a sense on both the part of the council and folks in my administration that Lexington needed to develop a common sense of direction for our community, some context, if you will, within which many of our decisions could be made. We need to think 25 or 30 years down the pike and try to develop some sense about where Lexington should be. And then a lot of our other decisions will kind of fit within that broad context. In terms of the process, I'm fairly flexible about that. ... I know the Fayette County Public Schools went through a similar exercise not too long ago with the Vision 20-20 Project. And that's a real good model for us to pursue as well.
TM: Back during the campaign, you threw a new wrinkle into the dialogue and discussion by raising the idea of a scholarship fund that would make higher education more accessible. You call it the Lexington First Fund. And I see that it is on your agenda for the coming year. Has anything changed in regard to your initial projections of cost or required oversight for the program or is putting it off until next year simply a matter of priorities?
JN: It was just a matter of priorities. We didn't fund it this year because we had a number of very pressing issues that needed immediate attention. And it was just my judgment as we were going through the budget process earlier this year that as much as I wanted to do the Lexington First Fund, it was difficult to argue in favor of starting a new program when some of our existing programs were sorely under-funded. Like our police officers and firefighters pension fund needs every nickel we can put into it in order to meet our $221 million in unfunded liability, our self-insurance fund needs additional financial support. We have huge deferred maintenance issues all across urban county government. So in light of all that, I just made a decision that we ought to wait until next year. But I'm more convinced now than I've ever been that Lexington needs to have the sort of influx of scientists and engineers that the Lexington First Fund would bring to our community. Just by way of background, the idea about the Lexington First Fund was to provide a tuition scholarship to any of the schools within roughly an hour's drive of Lexington, for Lexington high school students who wanted to major in science, technology, engineering or math majors in college. And for every year they received a scholarship, they would have an obligation to live in Lexington and be available for employment here. So ultimately, I think that scholarship fund has the ability to help Lexington generate a large number of scientists and mathematicians and engineers. Those are the kinds of people that we desperately need to have in our economy to attract and retain the sorts of businesses that can sustain our economy for the years to come.
TM: How about those who have slipped through our fingers? You also mentioned in your list of to do items here, reaching out to those who have left Lexington, perhaps in particular those early in their careers, and see if you can talk them into coming back.
JN: I sure hope so. As a matter of fact, that process is already started. Just this week in Washington as part of the Fly-In, we had a reception, and I was visiting with some young Lexington natives who are now living in Washington who are contemplating the prospects of returning to Lexington. And I certainly hope that when people, after having the benefit of the big city experience, start thinking about where they want to raise their kids and permanently locate, that Lexington will be on their minds because this is a great place to raise kids and build a career. And I want to attract as many of those folks back to Lexington as I can.
TM: It was interesting to see that we need to adopt lobbyist registration and reporting requirements here in Lexington. I imagine a lot of people assume that those requirements already existed.
JN: They have existed for a long period time at both the state and federal level, but we have not had similar requirements at the local level. My own view is that it would serve us well to require people who are lobbying the urban county council to disclose who they are lobbying for and what money they are expending and how they are expending it, so that the public will know what is going on on that front. And I don't think it will be an unduly burdensome requirement. What I hope to do is model it after the state reporting requirements so that the disclosure obligations would be relatively simple and familiar to those who are lobbying, and I think it would make a lot of sense.
TM: The Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games are coming up in 2010. There is intense planning going on right now, and we've heard new projections for turnout, which now takes into account vendors, staff, crews which had not been taken into account previously. And so now the number is up in excess of 800,000 people coming through here over a couple of weeks. When you think about that as mayor, overseeing such an event, what goes through your mind and what improvements might we expect to see realistically associated with the Games?
JN: The thought that goes through my mind is it's going to be a lot of fun to be in Lexington in 2010. I haven't been involved in making those estimates about the projected attendance, but the 800,000 number doesn't shock my conscience at all. I think that's an achievable number. I think it will be a manageable number for Lexington to contend with, and so I'm very excited about the prospects for 2010. In terms of what changes we might see, I think you will see a lot of beautification efforts. We'll continue to try to make some infrastructure improvements along the way, and I think you'll see Lexington generally sprucing up and cleaning up. And I hope we'll put our best foot forward in 2010, and I'm very confident we will.
TM: It's an understatement to say that it's been a very busy six months. Do you have any plans to recharge your batteries at some point?
JN: I do. I plan to spend a little more time in the next few days with my family, and I'm looking forward to that, and the change of pace will be nice too.
TM: Do you get to turn off your cell phone?
JN: Not really. The nature of the job is such that you are kind of always on call. We've been very fortunate to have avoided any sort of natural disaster or any other kind of emergency that has created a major problem in Lexington, but that's always a possibility. So you have to be prepared for that and be in a position to deal with it when it happens. On top of that, there is just a certain ongoing flow that comes along with having 3,500 employees and a budget the size of the one that Lexington has. So it's a job that you just can't turn off and I don't want to turn it off either, but it's like any other job — a change a pace periodically is healthy.
TM: Mayor Newberry, thank you so much.
JN: It's been a pleasure.