Lexington, KY - World War II and the post-war years brought sweeping changes to this community. From the Army Air Corps training center came Bluegrass Field. Converted war production led to Lexington's long time title as "Artificial Christmas Tree Capital of the World" (hence the street Jingle Bell Lane off New Circle Road). The tidal wave of IBM became the tsunami of Dixie Cup, Square D, Trane and other light manufacturing. The University of Kentucky joined the space race with the training of orbital pioneer Ham (a chimp).
Lexington's first two post-war mayors, R. Mack Oldham (1943-48) and Thomas G. Mooney (1948-52), were in the bank business. Oldham, who served in the Navy during World War II, was director of Central Bank and a city commissioner before serving as mayor. Mooney worked in the Kentucky State Banking Department after serving as Fayette County magistrate. He was also the community's rationing attorney during the war.
Fred Fugazzi, another Navy veteran, served two terms that represented two iconic periods in Lexington's history. His first term (1952-56) concluded with the announcement that IBM would relocate its electric typewriter division to Lexington, building its plant on land donated by the state that had been the farm for Eastern State Hospital. His second term is credited with bringing urban renewal to Lexington (for good and bad) and for the removal of the railroad tracks through downtown Lexington (traced by the configuration of today's Vine Street).
Navy vet Shelby C. Kinkead (1956-60), with a degree in engineering from the University of Kentucky, worked as an engineer for the Chrysler Corp., then returned to Lexington to manage the parts department at Kinkead-Wilson. Appointed city commissioner in 1952 to fill an unexpired term, he was elected commissioner outright a year later, and two years after that, mayor. Under Kinkead, Lexington began a series of "annexations" of former county areas to broaden its tax base and bring improved city services to the growing subdivisions. In time, the boundaries were so convoluted, the city and county police and fire departments often were confused as to who had jurisdiction where. After leaving office, Kinkead was elected state senator.
Richard J. Colbert (1960-64) was one of the few Republicans to hold the office (a sign that "bossism" was truly over -
see the previous column in the March edition). An Air Force veteran of World War II and Korea, Lexington's first M.B.A. mayor served two terms as commissioner before elected mayor. After leaving office, he moved to New Brunswick, N.J., his wife's hometown.
Charles Wylie (1968-72) was the last mayor to serve a full term before the merger of the city and county governments in 1974. And even then, he served as mayor in name only for his final two years.
With the city commission government adopted in 1912, four commissioners were elected at large to serve two-year terms along with the mayor who served for four years. Although tickets had been a long tradition whereby a slate of candidates would run representing a platform, none had ever attempted to replace a constitutionally elected mayor.
Enter Thomas R. Underwood, Jr. A commissioner for several terms, Underwood seized on an unpopular sewer service charge to fund improving sewage treatment (Lexington water woes go back a bit), formed the "People's Ticket" (this being the zenith of Flower Power) with two other commissioners and essentially took over city hall. Calling himself the "mayor pro-tem," Underwood's "three-man majority" pushed Mayor Wylie and former U.K. basketball player Harry Sykes to the sidelines.
Next came one of the most controversial political periods in Lexington's history. To its credit, the majority pushed for what would become Rupp Arena. And it initiated the hotel "bed tax" that helped fund tourism development. But it drug its heels on consideration for a merged city-county government. The most controversial proposal, however, was to set at 65 the mandatory retirement age for the police and fire departments and to reduce the health department and public library budgets. Both efforts eventually failed.
In the next election cycle, Underwood lost his bid to become mayor outright, coming in a distant third in the primary to eventual winner H. Foster Petit and Sykes. Petit had put together a four-man ticket with a platform that included merged government, which overwhelmingly prevailed in the general election, with the remnants of Underwood's bloc trailing by a wide margin.
Thanks to both unusually strong support in the General Assembly and to then-County Judge Robert Stephens, serious steps were taken toward merging the city and county governments. Essentially, Stephens was twilighting his job. Although constitutionally mandated, many of the powers of the judge would have to be absorbed by the mayor if a merger were to work. Other constitutional offices were more easily resolved. The sheriff became the tax collector, the jailer would administer detention, and the property evaluation officer would conduct assessments.
In a move the echoes of which were heard in the 2010 elections, the county judge and fiscal court would be stripped of their authority and remained vestiges of an antiquated government.
A 70 percent majority vote adopted the merged government charter in Nov. 1972, setting the stage for a series of legal maneuvers that would not be settled until just four days before the charter was to take effect. (For whatever reason, merged government leaders rejected the "metro" moniker, opting for the clunky "LFUCG"; Louisville showed no hesitation when it merged in January 2003.)
On January 1, 1974, Lexington embarked on a new course under the last seven mayors: Foster Petit (who was re-elected as the first mayor of the merged government), Jim Amato, Scotty Baesler, Pam Miller (Lexington's first female mayor), Teresa Isaac, Jim Newberry and Jim Gray.