Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton has maintained a steady and deliberate pace since taking office last January. One of her immediate actions was to shore up a countywide budget shortfall due to downward trending revenues, while at the same time reining in bonding to avoid overburdening the city with debt. “There really wasn’t much of a honeymoon,” Gorton said during a recent interview at city hall. But, having served 16 years on city council and four as vice mayor under Jim Gray, Gorton was prepared to hit the ground running. She’s spent nearly every day since out in the community meeting with constituents, businesses, civic groups and local leaders; and working to strengthen connections within the Central Kentucky community. “One of the things I’ve been working on is to make sure that I have time to process things,” Gorton said of her fast-paced schedule. “The great thing is that I have the most wonderful staff.”
Can you offer an update on some of the key topics you addressed at the beginning of your term?
“One of the top ones is the opioid issue and substance use disorder,” Gorton said. “I hired [former council member] Andrea James for 100 percent focus on that issue. She has spent the year gathering data about Fayette County to let us know where we stand and where our gaps are. She’s met with probably all of the providers not only in Fayette County, but in surrounding counties—treatment facilities, sober-living facilities, everything—and a variety of people to find out what’s out there and what we need. What she learned was there are lots of silos of people working, but many of them are not connected.”
Gorton’s administration is putting together a work group comprising mental health and treatment experts, representatives from the faith community, family members who have lost loved ones, and others involved with or impacted by the opioid crisis. “Our next step is to appoint those people to work on the strategy moving forward,” Gorton said.
During her first months in office, Gorton also met with the mayors and judge executives of surrounding cities and counties to identify areas where they might collaborate. Not surprisingly, opioid abuse arose as a common area of concern. As a result, Madison, Scott and Fayette counties have jointly applied for a federal grant to help combat the crisis, Gorton said.
“It is unusual to have a multi-county grant for this sort of thing, and we don’t know if we’ll be awarded it, but even if we are not successful in the grant, we now have this relationship where we can partner on other grants,” Gorton said. “We are not in this alone.”
A landmark land swap
Last February, the mayor and her team met with University of Kentucky President Dr. Eli Capilouto and representatives from the university. “We shared our visions and our goals, and then I was invited to speak to the board of trustees at UK, which is a first for a mayor,” Gorton said. “I was able to talk about our economic development initiatives, one of which involved our land swap. They needed some roads and control over them, and we needed land for economic development. We swapped and it was essentially a $30 million cashless deal.” The city now owns 50 acres of shovel-ready land in the Coldstream Research Park and will acquire an additional 200 acres along I-75 once an agricultural research project there is completed.
High-tech agriculture, national and global headquarters, and small manufacturing are all included in the city’s development plan for the parcel, Gorton said. “We’re going about it in a very intentional way and going after jobs, through our partnership with UK and Alltech and the Commissioner of Agriculture [Ryan Quarles], that we know we are setting ourselves up for.”
Serving those who have served
Gorton is a registered nurse and her husband, Charlie, is a retired Army major general. Their son is an Army Black Hawk pilot, and their son-in-law an Air Force pilot. The mayor is a strong supporter of the military and of veterans, a group she said also plays a critical role in Kentucky’s workforce.
Gorton appointed a Veterans Affairs liaison to focus on veterans’ issues and to serve as a community representative—a first for the city—and also established a veterans hall of fame. In April, the mayor’s office announced the end of veteran homelessness in Fayette County. “This is a big deal,” Gorton said. “What that means is, when we identify a veteran who is homeless, we now have a full support system. They go into housing and they work through identifying any physical and mental issues they need treatment for, and they get off the streets. Other counties have been looking to our system to understand how to do it, and of course it’s based first on having a roof over their head.”
Is it fair to liken running the city to running a business?
“I think so. As I told one group, I’m the CEO of an organization that has 3,000 full-time employees. We have a general budget of $379 million, and then you add on the dedicated funding and it’s well over half a million,” Gorton said. “I serve 325,000 people—that’s what our business does.
“I’m kept up to date very well on things where I didn’t have a direct seat in the meeting, but this is how a good business operates,” Gorton said. “I put good people into the positions, and I trust them to do their job until there’s a reason not to. Communication is everything. If you ever meet a nurse who doesn’t believe in good communications, let me know, because they’re not out there.”
Looking ahead to 2020
The city recently opened a new salt barn to serve southern Fayette County and will open a new police K9 facility this year to replace one that dates from 1968. “We may get a new city hall some time,” Gorton said, “and of course we have the Lexington Center expansion going on right now. It is a huge project—well over $200 million—and it will change downtown.”
A company has also been selected to construct the Town Branch Trail, Gorton said, and work is set to begin in the first part of the year. Gorton also cites the census in August, the Breeders’ Cup at the end of September and the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage as important upcoming events for Lexington.
“For one year in, we have a lot of goals where we’re already at a point that we’re ready to break out.”
The mayor also plans to host listening sessions with local leaders from the faith community early in the year. “Believe me, they know the problems,” Gorton said. Several work groups—including a budget work group, finance work group and sustainable growth task force—are also set to report their findings and suggestions in the coming year, she said.
“Some people say ‘why does it take so long? It’s been a year since you took office.’ But if we set the groundwork in an intentional way, then these things we’re working toward can have a greater chance of success,” Gorton said. “For one year in, we have a lot of goals where we’re already at a point that we’re ready to break out.”
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Comment FeedMayor Linda Gorton Q&A
Brian O'Leary more than 4 years ago