The Bluegrass and Beyond

Economists and politicians say the economy is recovering. But what are conditions and expectations like on the ground in Lexington?

I surveyed a variety of local business people to ask what they are seeing and thinking. Most said business was better last year than in the previous two years, and they are optimistic about 2012.

But many were concerned about the effect this year’s elections would have on the economy. Regardless of their political leanings, most worried that continued partisan gridlock would hurt growth.

Here are excerpts from their comments:

■ Larry Bell, general manager of the Hyatt Regency, expects his hotel to have a good 2012 despite a soft business travel market. He wishes Congress and the president would “agree on an approach for payroll taxes and government spending without as much drama as we’ve seen lately.”

■ Phil Osborne, chief executive of Preston-Osborne, said a diverse client base has helped business at his marketing communications and research company remain steady. He thinks election-year politics will hurt job creation.

“I’m one of the guys the president is pointing his finger at,” Osborne said. “We technically have three job openings right now that I’m not rushing to fill. My mind-set in the current climate is not to create new jobs, or even to fill existing vacancies, but to wait and see what the political posturing in Washington does to the small business environment.”

■ Rob Morris, owner of Lowell’s Independent Automotive, is seeing strong business growth for the first time in four years. He recently added two technicians, but he worries about keeping them busy. “While we’ve seen some improvement, many of our customers are still delaying basic maintenance on their cars because they can’t afford it,” he said.

Morris would like to see more government stimulus aimed at middle-class people to create business demand. “A lot of folks will say that we need to cut taxes and regulation in order to get the economy growing again. That’s a head-scratcher for me,” he said. “Lowering my taxes and putting a little extra money in my pocket won’t help me create a job. Neither would letting me pollute more.”

■ Rick Christman, CEO of Employment Solutions Inc., which specializes in job-skills training, said the bad economy has increased demand for his company’s services. Among his plans for 2012 is opening a cosmetology school in Winchester. But he, too, is worried about politics.

“The uncertainties surrounding the ability of the United States to reform its entitlement spending and control long-term debt is keeping vast amounts of potential investment capital on the sidelines,” Christman said.

■ Brian Raney, a principal at the high-tech incubator Awesome Inc., is optimistic about the local economy. Lexington’s low cost of living makes it attractive for entrepreneurs, but the lack of local capital and investment activity is a problem.

“It’s a great time to be innovative and start something new, build something people want,” Raney said. “Awesome Inc. plans to help launch and grow 20 companies in 2012.”

■ Phil Holoubek, president of Lexington’s Real Estate Co., is optimistic about the coming year: “In fact, this is the most optimistic I’ve been since the year 2000.” Holoubek said both office and residential rental property at his company has filled up in the past six months for the first time since 2008.

“Interestingly, (residential rental) is the variable that may restart demand for home purchases, as renting eventually becomes more expensive than owning,” Holoubek said. “The one part of our business that will take a bit more time to recover is the development side. There is still a lot of commercial real estate that is being purchased from the foreclosure market for 50 cents on the dollar.”

■ Deborah Long, owner of Dudley’s On Short, is cautiously optimistic about the economic recovery.

“My biggest concern is the media painting such a bleak picture,” she said. “We often are so afraid to spend money, but the economy will not move unless there are some dollars spent.”

■ Wyn Morris opened Morris Book Shop in 2008, just as the economy was tanking. Still, he said, business has been good, and a move from Southland to Chevy Chase last fall helped produce his strongest year yet in 2011.

“I have lived here all my life, and there’s as strong a sense of community as I’ve ever seen,” Morris said. “That’s good for local businesses like ours.”

A scientist — originally from Mexico City, now living in Ottawa, Canada — sent me an email last Monday. She had been reading my columns online because her husband was offered a job in Lexington.

She planned to visit for the first time this weekend, but she wanted my answers to these questions: Why should she move to Lexington? What makes life beautiful in Lexington?

Her questions made me stop and think. She is the kind of worldly, educated person that Lexington leaders want to attract to build the city’s economy. The answers to questions like hers will determine Lexington’s future, because people now have more choices about where to live and work.

This is how I replied to her:

I admit to a bias for Lexington because I was born and raised here. But I also have some outside perspective. I went away to college and didn’t return for 22 years. Before moving back, I lived in Bowling Green, Nashville, Knoxville and Atlanta. I liked all of those places, especially Atlanta, except for its horrible traffic. But I miss Atlanta less than I ever expected.

Lexington feels like home to me because it is home. But I know people from all over the world who moved here and say they will never leave. When asked why, they usually talk about friendly people and a pleasant environment.

This is a comfortable place to live. Downtown has mostly retained a human scale, and the surrounding countryside is spectacular: green pastures filled with horses, stone and plank fences and scattered patches of limestone-etched wilderness.

Housing is more affordable here than in most larger cities. Lexington is blessed with a variety of lovely neighborhoods and country homes. The biggest improvement I have seen since moving back in 1998 is the renaissance of urban neighborhoods.

Lexington people are genuinely friendly, and they have become more welcoming as the city has grown more diverse. This has always been a great place to raise a family, but it also is becoming a more interesting city for young professionals.

The economy is stable, thanks to a variety of industries, a large medical sector and a wealth of schools. The University of Kentucky and Transylvania University bring many interesting people here, and they energize the city.

Lexington’s political leadership has been generally capable, and sometimes even inspired. Having a non-partisan mayor and Urban County Council makes a big difference, because it frees city government from the petty party politics that have made a mess of state and national government.

Lexington has a rich history, both positive and negative. Lexingtonians were slow to realize that tradition doesn’t have to be limiting; it can be leveraged to create an attractive brand and a foundation for innovation. But most of us realize it now.

I worried that I would miss Atlanta’s cultural attractions, but I haven’t much. The Lexington arts scene is getting richer and more accessible all the time. Poet Nikky Finney just won the National Book Award, and she is just one of many great writers in town. The visual arts have exploded over the past decade. The high level of musical talent is astonishing.

I have noticed a shift in Lexington attitudes and culture over the past four or five years. Many others have noticed it, too. Nobody can explain it, but the city seems more entrepreneurial, more willing to take risks and more open to new ideas.

A new generation of leaders is emerging, and they are finding creative ways to get things done. Maybe technology and social media are helping to connect and empower them.

Lexingtonians love to get together and have fun. The quirky “Thriller” parade down Main Street each Halloween has become almost as popular as the city’s huge Independence Day celebration. Other big gatherings include Picnic with the Pops, the Rolex Kentucky Three Day Event, the Roots & Heritage Festival and the Festival Latino. Keeneland Race Course is the place to be each April and October.

One of my favorite local celebrations is the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. I had just left it when I got your email. Like any city, Lexington has its share of problems, divisions, conflicts and tensions. But I think it is significant that a couple of thousand citizens — including most city officials and community leaders — show up every year, often in terrible weather, to make a symbolic, mile-long march through downtown to celebrate brotherhood.

As I photographed this year’s march, Andrés Cruz was doing the same thing. He publishes La Voz de Kentucky, a weekly bilingual newspaper that covers Central Kentucky’s growing Latino community.

Cruz and I have talked many times about the struggles and frustrations he and other immigrants have faced. But the Costa Rican native now considers this home, and he has played a significant role in making Lexington a better place to live.

Cruz is an example of what I see all over Lexington — and what I think is one of the best things about this place.

Lexington has many advantages of a larger city, but it is still small enough that a committed individual can make a big difference.

As the Unity Breakfast began Monday morning in Heritage Hall, Jim Embry was working the room.

Lean, fit and hard to miss in his colorful clothing and gray dreadlocks, Embry was quickly moving from table to table, handling out leaflets to promote his annual Bluegrass Local Food Summit, March 22 to 24 at Crestwood Christian Church.

Breakfast was followed by inspirational speakers and award presentations. But when Embry’s name was called as one of two Unity Award winners — along with Big Brothers/Big Sisters of the Bluegrass — he was gone. A son accepted the award for him.

“I have to leave by 8:15 to catch a 9 o’clock flight,” Embry had told me as he rushed from table to table, handing out leaflets to the breakfast’s 1,400 attendees. “I’m speaking this afternoon at Yale.”

It was classic Jim Embry. Who has time to rest on laurels when there is a world out there in need of improvement?

Embry, 62, was the featured speaker Monday afternoon in New Haven, Conn., at a master’s tea, sponsored by Yale University’s Pierson College and the Yale Sustainable Food Project.

Jim Embry, left, talks with Richard Knittel of Versailles in October, as they both joined Occupy Wall Street protesters on Main Street in Lexington. Photo by Tom Eblen

Embry now spends most of his time promoting sustainable living and locally grown food. But the Richmond native has been an activist since age 10, when his mother was president of the Covington chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality. He grew up attending civil rights events.

As state youth chairman of the NAACP, he helped organize the 1964 March on Frankfort, led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Embry went on to become president of the University of Kentucky’s Black Student Union. While he was in college, a summer job in New York City sparked his interest in health and food justice. In 1971, he helped found Lexington’s Good Foods Co-op.

After a four-year stint in Detroit as director of the Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership, Embry returned to Lexington in 2005 and founded the Sustainable Commun ities Network (Sustainlex.org). He has helped develop more than 30 community gardens and taught school garden workshops for more than 300 teachers.

Embry’s other passions range from the Central Kentucky Council for Peace and Justice to the Interfaith Alliance and Isaac Murphy Memorial Art Garden. Later this year, he plans to publish his autobiography, Black and Green, and a book of photographs, Through the Lens of a Sacred Earth Activist.

“I come from a long lineage of activists, so I don’t know any better,” he said.

Outlook for 2012

John D. Stempel, retired director of UK’s Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, doesn’t so much try to improve the world as understand it.

He spent 24 years as a U.S. Foreign Service officer, including a four-year stint in the U.S. embassy in Iran before the 1979 revolution.

Stempel gave his annual State of the World speech to the Lexington Rotary Club earlier this month, saying he expects this year to be even more turbulent than last year. Among his concerns:

■ The likelihood that European debt and American politics will hamper economic recovery.

■ The possibility of cyber attacks on critical U.S. infrastructure. “Our illusion of invincibility serves us poorly,” he said.

■ The potential for an Iranian nuclear crisis, increasing instability in Pakistan and tensions between India and Pakistan.

■ Iraq’s future. “The violent sectarianism the U.S. takeover and occupation provoked has already begun to transform Iraq from a nastily ruled balancer of Iran into a traumatized society under extensive Iranian influence. Not a good trade-off.”

Stempel said he worries about a “crisis of global governance that impedes common-sense solutions to common challenges like climate change, energy and food costs and availability, plus the imbalance between expanding human needs and the limited capacity of the world’s ecosystem to satisfy them.”

The U.S. presidential election is unlikely to help, he said.

“An administration that has delivered on only a precious few of the major promises it made to achieve election in 2008 seeks re-election against an opposition that seems more intent on repealing the 20th century than addressing the real and pressing challenges of the 21st,” Stempel said. “No one expects a serious discussion of the challenges now facing either the United States or the world.”

If Martin Luther King Jr. were somehow able to attend Lexington’s annual celebration of his birth Monday, where would he spend his time?

He probably would get up early for the unity breakfast, then walk in the symbolic march around downtown, which attracts several thousand people. He probably would return to Heritage Hall at 11 a.m. for the inspirational program and guest speaker.

This year’s event includes music from Mahalia, a musical honoring the late gospel singer Mahalia Jackson that was first performed in Lexington in 1983. The guest speaker is Marc Lamont Hill, a Columbia University professor, host of the syndicated TV show Our World With Black Enterprise, and political commentator on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News.

After that, King could choose among many other activities, including a program at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning and a screening of the documentary film Freedom Riders at the Kentucky Theatre.

But I suspect that King would be most interested in spending some time at the corner of Main Street and Esplanade, where local participants in the Occupy Wall Street protest have kept a steady vigil for 107 days, as of Friday, and counting.

Hill, this year’s guest speaker, thinks so, too. That is because the Occupy protesters in Lexington and cities across America echo many of the concerns about economic justice that King expressed, especially during the final year before an assassin’s bullet silenced him in 1968.

“We’ve always needed to talk about the have-nots and the have-gots,” Hill said in a telephone interview last week. “The Occupy movement kind of revives that conversation.”

Hill, who is best known to many TV viewers as a liberal foil to Fox talk-show host Bill O’Reilly, plans to discuss some of those issues during his Lexington speech.

“We live in a really, really dangerous moment, for a variety of reasons — politically, socially, culturally,” Hill said. “There has never been a moment where we more needed to draw on the insights of Dr. King’s legacy, not only to bring the nation together but to move the nation forward.”

Hill thinks America’s core problem is poverty, because it is a major cause of the crises in health care, education, crime, violence and high rates of incarceration.

“What we see is a gap between what we have and what’s possible,” he said. “And the gap isn’t an intelligence gap, an effort gap, it’s an opportunity gap.”

One reason for rising economic inequality, Hill said, has been a lack of effective regulation of big business since the 1980s.

“The point is not to demonize business, it’s not to demonize success, but to certainly challenge and critique excess,” he said. “There’s a way to have responsible corporations. There’s a way to have responsible markets.”

Hill said Americans can best honor King’s legacy by continuing to work toward the goals he pursued.

“I want to challenge us to go deeper,” he said. “To not just think about the man who wanted people holding hands and singing We Shall Overcome, but someone who really forced us to reimagine the relationship between the government and its citizens, between the rich and the vulnerable.”

That thought and work will be especially important during this election year, Hill said.

“Beyond the everyday political banter we hear on cable television and read in the newspapers, we have to pay attention to what’s going on in our communities,” he said. “One of the things Dr. King represented was mass action on a national level, but locally rooted. He said that when dogs bit us in Birmingham, we bled everywhere. That kind of mentality is what’s necessary.

“I want to challenge people to do something — to join organizations, to volunteer, to start organizations,” Hill said. “What can we do in our communities? What can we do in our schools? What can we do in our respective religious institutions? What can we do in our homes to bring about the world that is not yet?”

The political wild card in this year’s General Assembly is a high-powered proposal to make private University of Pikeville a state-supported school.

The idea is being pushed by House Speaker Greg Stumbo and former Gov. Paul Patton, who is now the University of Pikeville’s president. The idea has solid support from southeast Kentucky legislators and community leaders. Gov. Steve Beshear has ordered a thorough study.

Like many ideas that sound good but get complicated as you dig into them, this proposal needs thorough study. But it also provides an excellent opportunity for broader public discussion about how more educational attainment could improve life in Kentucky and how we should go about paying for it.

Having the state assume ownership of a private school is a very Kentucky thing to do. That is how five of the state’s eight public universities came to be: Western and Eastern in 1906, Murray and Morehead in 1922 and the University of Louisville in 1970.

“This sounds like the same thing: We’ve got a campus here and all we have to do is make it a state school,” said Bill Ellis, a history professor at Eastern Kentucky University and author of the new book, A History of Education in Kentucky. “It all comes down to politics and who has the votes.”

Creation of those state universities was generally a good thing for Kentucky, Ellis said. It made education more accessible and brought economic development and culture to communities across the state.

Many people in southeast Kentucky argue that their region — with some of the state’s highest rates of poverty and lowest levels of educational attainment — has been shortchanged.

Southeast Kentucky is part of the service areas of Eastern and Morehead state universities, but both campuses are a long way from many of the region’s towns and hollows. Pikeville and surrounding areas would no doubt benefit economically and culturally by having a state university.

But for years now, the General Assembly has cut state support for higher education. Given that, can Kentucky taxpayers afford another university mouth to feed? Stumbo and Patton say that is not a problem: Rather than using general fund money, state support can come from Eastern Kentucky’s coal severance tax revenues.

At this point, let’s step back and look at the big picture. What do legislators really need to do to help Appalachian Kentucky catch up with the rest of the state — and Kentucky catch up with the rest of the nation?

Let’s begin with the notion that more state support for education is essential. That is because nothing has more power to improve Kentucky’s economy and society than educational attainment.

Regardless of whether Pikeville becomes a state university, lawmakers should find ways to reverse the budget-cutting trends that have contributed to skyrocketing tuition at Kentucky’s state universities and made them less affordable.

The stated goal of the University of Pikeville proposal is to make higher education more affordable and attainable for mountain students. But are there more cost-effective ways to do that?

Rather than taking on another campus, would Kentucky get more bang for the buck by using coal severance tax money to finance scholarships for mountain students at Kentucky’s existing public and private universities, including Pikeville?

Perhaps those scholarships could be supplemented with loans from severance tax money that would be forgiven if students lived and worked in the mountains for a few years after graduation. That could curb the region’s historic “brain drain.”

But let’s not stop there. The Pikeville proposal creates a perfect opportunity for a broader discussion about the severance tax that Kentucky has levied on the coal industry since the 1970s, and how that money should be used.

The severance tax rate of 4.5 percent, which hasn’t changed in decades, is among the lowest of major coal-producing states. It generates more than $200 million a year. But over the years, much of that money has been wasted on building vacant industrial parks and other political pet projects, plowed back into subsidies for the coal industry or gone to benefit parts of Kentucky nowhere near the coalfields.

If the severance tax’s goal is to improve life and create a new economy in the coalfields for when all of the coal is gone, there could be no better use for that money than improving educational attainment.

So regardless of whether the University of Pikeville receives state support, the General Assembly should take this opportunity to raise the coal severance tax to national norms and focus the money on education. That’s right: Turn this political wild card into a trump card for Kentucky’s future.

As University of Kentucky diplomacy students follow Egypt’s attempt to transition from dictatorship to democracy, they can get some behind-the-scenes perspective from one of their teachers.

Stacy Closson, below, a visiting lecturer at UK’s Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, spent eight days in Egypt last month as an official observer during recently completed parliamentary elections.

An academic with years of international field experience, Closson found the experience fascinating, inspiring and, at one point, frightening. She left with a better understanding of the Middle East’s new political complexities — and why her fellow Americans should pay attention.

“Even after 30-plus years of dictatorship under (Hosni) Mubarak, people don’t lose their taste for freedom,” Closson said. “They seem very excited about the future prospects for their country.”

Closson is a Truman National Security fellow who worked six years for the U.S. Defense Department. She was among 33 observers from the National Democratic Institute who watched the second of three rounds of parliamentary voting Dec. 14 and 15.

Other observers were there from two more U.S.-based organizations, the International Republican Institute and the Carter Center. (Despite their names, the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute are non-partisan.)

Closson and another American woman — a congressional staffer — went to 25 polling stations in the Beni Suef region with an interpreter. Voting seemed to be orderly, with each polling station run by a “judge.” Each political party also had poll observers.

Because election turnout was low during Mubarak’s reign, voting was a new experience for many Egyptians.

“There was this initial excitement and pride that they could vote and know their vote could count,” she said, adding that the main issues for most voters were freedom, dignity and jobs.

New liberal parties were much less organized than the Muslim Brotherhood, which is expected to end up with a majority of seats in parliament, Closson said. But one surprise was the strength of a more conservative Islamic party, Salafi al-Nour. It seemed highly organized, with plenty of cars, computers, cellphones and operating funds, reportedly from Islamic interests in neighboring gulf states.

When the polls closed, Closson and other observers followed election officials as they transported ballot boxes through busy city streets to a central counting center. There, they found perhaps 200 rowdy Salafi partisans creating a chaotic scene.

Only a few international observers were able to get inside the center to witness the counting. Closson wasn’t among them.

“I still regret it,” she said. “I think we would have gotten pushed and shoved, but we would have gotten in. But when the two-star general said he couldn’t guarantee our safety, we decided not to push it.”

The third and final round of parliamentary voting was last week, and results could be announced this week. “There are a lot of mathematical shell games in how they’re going to allocate seats,” she said. “I think it’s going to be a political decision as much as a mathematical decision.”

Egypt has scheduled a presidential election for June. But without a constitution, it remains unclear how the president and parliament will function and relate to powerful military officials.

Egypt is likely to end up with a government dominated by Islamists, but the faction that comes out on top will have a big influence not only on foreign relations but on internal economic recovery.

Tourism is one of Egypt’s biggest industries, and last year’s revolution has all but brought it to a halt.

“The hotels were empty except for us,” Closson said. “You have more people in downtown Lexington than at the Giza pyramids. Even the camels where bored.”

If Islamists carry through with threats to ban alcohol sales to foreigners and require tourists to dress conservatively, Egyptian tourism might not recover.

Once all the voting is done, Closson said, “The question now is how they’re going to govern.”

Why should Americans care? Egypt’s transition could affect oil prices, Closson said. It also could have a big effect on Israel’s security and what happens in other unstable Arab countries, especially Libya, Yemen and Syria. But she is hopeful.

“Egyptians are pretty steadfast people,” Closson said. “They see this as the first step of a long process of getting more freedom.”

Gatewood Galbraith, one of Kentucky’s most colorful politicians, died Wednesday, just hours before Gov. Steve Beshear delivered his fifth State of the Commonwealth Address.

Many people didn’t take Galbraith or his politics very seriously, but they liked him anyway. He was a genuinely nice guy who could poke fun at opponents without leaving scars. Most of all, Kentuckians admired his willingness to point out obvious truths despite the political cost.

As I watched Beshear speak, I could not imagine Galbraith standing there before the General Assembly. There were good reasons he lost five races for governor.

Beshear’s speech wasn’t bad. He brought up some tough issues, and he avoided the “get off our backs” nonsense from last year that made him look like a coal-industry puppet.

Having just won re-election, Beshear finally admitted the need for state tax reform. Not that he has proposed any real action before the end of the year, when most legislators stand for re-election. But it was a start. Maybe.

Still, with Galbraith on my mind that day, I longed to hear more honesty, more leadership and more political courage from a governor who will not have to face voters again — and who might want a political legacy beyond “caretaker.”

I longed to hear something more like this:

Ladies and gentlemen of the General Assembly, I don’t need to tell you that Kentucky has big problems. That has long been obvious to you, me and every citizen of the commonwealth. The people sent us to Frankfort to solve these problems, not to keeping ignoring them while we take care of our friends and feather our own nests.

This is the time for bold action. We must be leaders, and leadership sometimes means taking people where they don’t want to go.

For more than a decade, state government has spent more than it takes in. We masked the problem for a while with economic growth and a lot of debt. More recently, we masked it with $3 billion in federal stimulus money.

Most of you claim not to like President Barack Obama. I’ve done my best to avoid him, too. But despite what his critics say, the president’s economic stimulus kept thousands of Kentuckians working and saved our state budget. Now that money is gone, and we must face up to our responsibilities.

We need significant long-term investments to make Kentucky’s citizens more healthy, educated and able to compete in a 21st century economy. That will take money.

Circumstances may force us to keep cutting the budget for a while, but no state or business ever cut its way to prosperity. We must spend the money we have more wisely. As political leaders, we must fight waste, fraud and abuse — and stop being some of the worst perpetrators of it.

Expanded gambling won’t solve Kentucky’s problems any more than the lottery did. We must increase state revenues in other ways. That’s right, folks, we must raise taxes.

Forget those fairy tales about how everything will be fine if we just let business do as it pleases and all but abolish government. I know, some voters love that rhetoric. But as important as the private sector is, it won’t solve all of our problems. That kind of thinking is a big reason why our nation is in this mess — the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer and the middle class disappearing.

Folks, what Kentucky needs is real tax reform. We need a state tax system that is fair and produces revenue that grows with the economy and Kentucky’s needs. That means wealthier people should pay more. Powerful interests must lose many of their tax breaks.

Sure, our tax system must remain “competitive” where business is concerned. But that can’t mean giving business a free ride at the expense of working people. States that do that hide a lot of poverty and misery beneath their “pro-business” gloss.

You and I know this won’t be easy. It will mean facing up to powerful people and companies that have funded our campaigns. And it will mean angering voters who want something for nothing. But it’s the right thing to do.

New Year’s is a day for hope and optimism — two words rarely associated with the United States Congress.

Americans’ disenchantment with their elected representatives is nothing new. “There is no distinctly native American criminal class, except Congress,” Mark Twain wrote more than a century ago.

A Gallup poll in December showed that only 11 percent of Americans approve of Congress’s performance — the lowest rating since the venerable research organization started asking that question in 1974.

It is no wonder. Partisan gridlock keeps Congress from getting almost any important work done. Worst of all, Republicans and Democrats have become captive to special interests whose big money funds their campaigns, often makes them rich and fuels a poisonous political climate.

How do we change things? Two recent bipartisan efforts offer some good ideas.

One is a movement called No Labels, which claims to include more than 180,000 Republicans, Democrats and independents. (Find more information at Nolabels.org.)

No Labels argues that the system is broken, but members of Congress could change their internal rules to fix many of the problems — if public pressure forced them to. Among No Labels’ proposals:

 Require Congress to approve a budget on time. If members don’t, they don’t get paid until the job is done.

 Give the Senate 90 days to vote up or down on presidential appointments. If it doesn’t, nominees would be confirmed by default.

 Curb filibuster abuse by requiring senators who want to stall legislation to actually take to the floor and hold it through sustained debate. Also, end the practice of filibustering “motions to proceed.” That would allow the Senate to openly debate and vote on more legislation.

 Allow representatives to anonymously sign discharge petitions on proposed legislation. Signers’ names would become public if a majority of House members signed. That would prevent party leaders and committee chairs from killing popular legislation for political reasons without allowing a vote. Enact similar reforms in the Senate.

 Prohibit members of Congress from taking pledges other than their official oath of office and the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. That would stop special interests from controlling lawmakers through pledges such as those against raising taxes or cutting Social Security benefits. No Labels says a combined 80 percent of current lawmakers have signed those pledges, making it almost impossible for Congress to govern in a fiscally responsible manner.

 Require the president to appear before Congress for monthly televised question-and-answer sessions, such as the British prime minister does with Parliament.

 Encourage cooperation across party lines by ending partisan seating arrangements, initiating monthly off-the-record gatherings of lawmakers and creating a bipartisan leadership committee to work through issues. As No Labels rightly points out, how can people with different viewpoints work well together if they don’t know one another and never talk honestly with one another?

Another good idea is a constitutional amendment proposed Dec. 20 by U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, a Louisville Democrat, and U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, a North Carolina Republican. (To read the amendment, click here.)

The proposed amendment would get special-interest money and its corrupting influence out of politics by overruling key provisions of Citizens United, a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2010 that made a bad situation dramatically worse.

The amendment would specify that financial expenditures and in-kind contributions do not qualify as protected speech under the First Amendment. It also would enable Congress to create a public-financing system to be the sole source of funding for federal elections.

Imagine an election without endless attack ads and robo-calls funded by millions of dollars from often-anonymous special interests. Not to mention a Congress and White House beholden to the American people rather than the highest bidders.

Reform like this will never happen without significant pressure from average citizens. It will be opposed by many political leaders, not to mention partisans who cynically throw around words such as freedom and liberty as a smokescreen to protect the powerful people, corporations and organizations whose bidding they do.

Some people will resist change because the status quo works just fine for them. But if, like me, you are among the 89 percent of Americans who think Congress is failing us, this is a good day to resolve to do something about it.

The street is named Short, but it is long on Lexington history.

I have been thinking about how this milelong street, which runs parallel to Main Street through downtown, ties together so many aspects of Lexington’s colorful and checkered past. I quickly came up with a dozen examples.

When I mentioned it to Jamie Millard, director of the Lexington History Museum, he quickly offered a dozen more. (The history museum, by the way, is on Short Street, in the old Fayette County Court House. It is worth a visit. More information: Lexingtonhistorymuseum.org.)

Maybe you will have a spare hour during the holidays, some nice weather and an urge to get out of the house for a walk. Clip this column and take a tour with me down Short Street.

Start on the west side, where Short Street begins at Newtown Pike. But first look behind you at the statue atop the 120-foot column rising out of Lexington Cemetery. It marks the grave of Lexington’s most famous citizen, early 19th-century statesman Henry Clay.

As you begin walking along Short through Lexington’s first suburb, you will see many homes Henry Clay would have seen. To your right, on the corner just across Old Georgetown Street, is the former home of Billy Klair, a colorful political boss in the early 1900s.

If you look beyond adjacent Klair Alley, you will see a gas station, the site of Belle Brezing’s childhood home. Brezing grew up to run a famous house of prostitution and is thought to have inspired the Belle Watling character in Gone With the Wind.

At Jefferson Street, you enter Lexington’s 1791 city limits. The next long block toward Broadway is filled with history. On your right, where First Baptist Church now stands, was the city’s original graveyard. It filled up quickly during the 1833 cholera epidemic.

William “King” Solomon, an alcoholic vagrant, became a local hero during that epidemic, risking his life to bury hundreds. After he died in 1854, the community saw to it that he was buried in Lexington Cemetery with an impressive monument. When you get home, search the Internet and read James Lane Allen’s fascinating 1891 story, King Solomon of Kentucky.

Farther along Short Street, you will pass two old homes on your left with a historical marker between them. They replaced two older ones where Mary Todd Lincoln was born in 1818 and where her grandmother, Elizabeth Parker, lived next door. (The future first lady moved to what is now the Mary Todd Lincoln House museum on Main Street when she was 14.)

When Abraham Lincoln visited his wife’s family in 1849, he got perhaps his most close-up view of the evil institution he would later take the lead in abolishing. There were slave jails across the street from the Todd and Parker homes and to their side facing Broadway. That side property is now occupied by three historic buildings: St. Paul Catholic Church, Sts. Peter & Paul School and Lexington Opera House.

The Short Street jail was Lexington’s most notorious because, from 1849 to 1856, it is where slave trader Lewis Robards kept what he called his “choice stock” — young mixed-race women he sold into sexual slavery.

In the block past Broadway, you will see the soon-to-close Metropol restaurant. It is housed in Lexington’s oldest surviving post office building, circa 1825. When you come to Mill Street, look to your right. The left side of Mill housed the shop of the great silversmith Asa Blanchard. Further on was the office of Cassius M. Clay’s 1840s abolitionist newspaper, The True American. It was an unpopular publication in slave-holding Lexington, so Clay guarded the door with a cannon.

The right side of Mill has the remaining half of a building that was a confectionery and ballroom operated by Mathurin Giron. The building now houses Silks Lounge. Giron’s upstairs ballroom played host to Lexington’s most prominent visitors in the early 1800s, including President James Monroe and the Marquis de Lafayette.

Cheapside was for many years the center of Lexington commerce, including outdoor slave auctions. Mary Todd Lincoln’s father had a store where Bluegrass Tavern is now. The old courthouse on the public square was Lexington’s fourth. Before that, in the 1780s, there was a log school, where the teacher was once attacked by a wildcat.

You might be tired of walking by now, but keep going for a few more blocks. You will come to the Deweese Street intersection, once the commercial hub of black Lexington. There you will find one of the city’s least-known historic buildings.

Now Central Christian Church’s child-care center, it was built in 1856 to house First African Baptist Church. It is an interesting piece of Italianate architecture, but what is most remarkable is that it was financed and built by slaves and free blacks.

The building was something of a monument to the church’s longtime minister, London Ferrill, who died two years before its completion. Under his leadership, the congregation grew to become Kentucky’s largest, black or white.

Ferrill was widely respected by both races. His funeral procession in 1854 was said to have been the largest Lexington had ever seen, save for one — that of Henry Clay two years earlier.

Click on each thumbnail to see complete photo:

Thousands of travelers cross the Clays Ferry bridge of Interstate 75 into Fayette County every day, never knowing what lies over the hill below them. Most Lexingtonians don’t know what is there, either.

Behind an Old Richmond Road building that used to be the Jolly Roger truck stop, there is a steep cliff. At the bottom of that cliff is the Boone Creek Gorge, one of the most ruggedly beautiful and inaccessible landscapes in Central Kentucky.

Before Boone Creek flows into the Kentucky River, it passes tall limestone palisades, an ancient waterfall, giant trees and rare wildflowers. The gorge is home to trout, wild turkey, deer, mink, otter and real Kentucky wildcats. It also holds the remains of a pioneer cabin, an 1803 grist mill and a cave where, legend has it, Daniel Boone hid from Indians.

“People don’t know this is here, because almost nobody ever gets to see it,” said Lexington businessman Burgess Carey, who took me on a hike through the gorge. He hopes to change that.

Carey bought more than 20 acres of the gorge in 1994 and cleaned up a mess from the former truck stop’s leaking fuel tanks. In 2000, he opened a small private fishing club to help pay for the property’s upkeep.

Now, Carey has bought and leased additional land between the fishing club and where Boone Creek empties into the river. He hopes to create Boone Creek Outdoors, a 167-acre recreation facility that would offer kayaking, limited camping and trails for bird-watching, hiking and mountain biking. The main attraction would be guided, small-group “canopy tours” above the gorge using zip lines and suspension bridges.

To do that, Carey must overcome opposition from some neighbors and local organizations that think his plans violate zoning laws and could hurt the sensitive environment. After a four-hour hearing Friday, which attracted a large crowd of both supporters and opponents of the project, Lexington’s Board of Adjustment continued the hearing until Jan. 27.

Carey, a lifelong Lexingtonian and outdoor enthusiast, thinks Boone Creek Outdoors could attract as many as 20,000 visitors a year and seasonally employ between eight and 30 workers.

The canopy tour would be an educational experience, not just a thrill ride, said Carey, who is working with some of the industry’s best course designers.

The tour would showcase the gorge’s beauty from above and explain the history of this section of the Kentucky River valley, site of some of the state’s first pioneer settlements. “It has the potential to grow into a national-class attraction,” he said.

Carey’s plans call for about $2 million in capital investment. He said that money would come from private financing and a $250,000 state tourism loan. The canopy tours would be key to making Boone Creek Outdoors a financially viable business.

Carey said tour revenues also would enable him to better protect and manage the gorge, as well as to restore land damaged by grazing cattle. The biggest threat to the environment isn’t visitors, he said, but invasive plant species, many introduced in the 1960s during I-75′s construction.

“We’ll manage it much like a ski resort: if you don’t behave yourself, you can’t come back,” Carey said. “Are we going to have an issue with popularity? I hope so. But we can control it.”

The city planning staff has recommended approval of Carey’s request for a conditional use permit. Other supporters include most of the adjacent property owners, the city’s environmental commission and the Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau. Tim McQueary, the city’s forester, told the Board of Adjustment that the canopy tour course wouldn’t damage trees.

The decision is up to the board of citizen volunteers. At Friday’s meeting, several citizens and groups spoke against Carey’s request, including the Old Richmond Road and Boone Creek neighborhood associations, the Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation and the Fayette Alliance.

Opponents had concerns about environmental impact, traffic and emergency access. But perhaps the biggest concern was whether the project would set a legal precedent that could threaten the integrity of zoning throughout Fayette County. Much of that issue depends on whether Boone Creek Outdoors is legally considered an amusement park, which city law prohibits in the agricultural zone.

“I really like the idea that Burgess has,” said Gloria Martin, a neighbor and former Urban County Council member. But she argued that his project is an amusement park, and therefore needs a special zoning amendment for proper regulation. Her view was shared by Knox Van Nagell, executive director of The Fayette Alliance.

“Eco-tourism could be a great thing, but it must be done carefully,” Van Nagell said. She urged Carey to withdraw his application until legal issues could be resolved to ensure both responsible operation of Boone Creek Outdoors and protection for rural zoning countywide.

City officials, Carey, his supporters and opponents face an important challenge. Long-term protection of the Boone Creek Gorge will require money and thoughtful management. Without something like Boone Creek Outdoors, where will that money and management come from?

The challenge here is to figure out how to both protect and allow more people to enjoy this spectacular natural resource — and to influence future generations to protect and enjoy it, too.

Click on each thumbnail to see complete photo:

Danny Maggard was 6 or 7 years old when his father took him up a mountain ridge to help him dig a dozen dogwood seedlings. They replanted those small sticks along the driveway to their home near Hazard.

“It’s something I didn’t think much about then,” said Maggard, 57, an executive with Kentucky River Properties. “Now, in the springtime, I admire those huge dogwoods every time I drive up that driveway. They’re gorgeous trees.”

Maggard uses that memory to explain the potential he sees in the Community Foundation of Hazard and Perry County, on whose board he sits. The foundation was created in 2009 to raise local money for community-improvement projects related to health care, education, housing, the environment and the arts.

The foundation and three other organizations are now taking that model to 11 other counties in the region through the new Appalachian Rural Development Philanthropy Initiative.

Last month, the federal Appalachian Regional Commission awarded a $1 million grant to the foundation, the Brush Fork Institute, the Foundation for the Tri-State in Ashland and the Center for Rural Development in Somerset. They will use the money to start community foundations in Bell, Clay, Elliott, Knott, Knox, Lawrence, Letcher, Lewis, Magoffin, Martin and Whitley counties.

The goal is to tap into local resources and focus them in meaningful ways. Last year, the General Assembly approved legislation giving tax credits to people who made permanent gifts to community foundations.

“It’s something that has always been in urban areas, but it hasn’t been in rural areas as much,” said Mack Baker, a Hazard insurance agent who also serves on the community foundation’s board.

There are now about 700 community foundations across the country. Many are in big cities, but others have seen big success in states such as Iowa and Montana, which are dominated by small towns and rural areas.

Since 1967, the seven-county Blue Grass Community Foundation has been a vehicle for creating 250 charitable funds that have awarded $17 million in grants to support community-improvement projects in Central Kentucky.

The new Appalachian Rural Development Philanthropy Initiative faces a special challenge. Those 11 counties are some of the poorest in America. Where will the money come from?

The non-profit Kentucky Philanthropy Initiative published a study last year that estimated Kentuckians’ wealth at $311 billion. The study estimated the amount of that wealth that will transfer from one generation to the next at $72 billion over the next 10 years and $173 billion over the next 20 years. If just 5 percent of that transferring wealth were donated to community foundations, the impact could be huge: $8.7 billion over 20 years.

Even in some rural counties, the numbers can be significant, according to the study. Perry County’s wealth transfer over the next decade is estimated at $410 million. If just 5 percent of that went to the community foundation, it could create endowments generating more than $1 million a year in income forever that could be used for local improvement projects.

“It’s a pretty common thing for people who were raised in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky to have a warm place in their heart for the area,” Baker said. “It’s just a matter of educating people to tell them what we’re all about.”

In just three years of fund-raising and grant-making, the Community Foundation of Hazard and Perry County has had an impact, Baker said. Grants so far have focused on health care and the arts. Among the foundation’s fund-raising and awareness events was a 5K run/walk in October called Run for the Hills.

Maggard thinks the early success of Hazard’s community foundation can be replicated to some degree throughout the region. “I think it’s got unlimited potential,” he said. “When you think of philanthropists, you think of Rockefellers. But philanthropy can be for everyone.”

The result, he said, could be addressing some of rural Kentucky’s longstanding problems with local direction and money, rather than always looking for help from the government or outsiders.

“I want things to be better in the future, and this is one way of getting there,” Maggard said. “It’s not about doing this for us, but for our kids and grandkids and great-grandkids.”

A loved one is in surgery, and all you can do is worry and wait. Unless, that is, you are at the University of Kentucky’s Albert B. Chandler Hospital.

In that case, you can soothe yourself by admiring original works by some of Kentucky’s best painters, sculptors, photographers and other visual artists.

In the surgery waiting room alone, there are equine paintings by Andre Pater and Peter Williams; blown-glass vessels by Stephen Rolfe Powell of Danville; a wood carving by Wolfe County native Edgar Tolson; interactive three-dimensional works by Steve Armstrong of Versailles; fiber art by UK professor Arturo Sandoval; a sculpture by John Tuska; Lexington painter Robert Tharsing’s fascinating landscape, A Natural History of Kentucky; and much more.

The huge room has just a sample of the more than 300 pieces of art that fill the 1.2 million-square-foot hospital addition, which opened in May. The medical center has become, in effect, one of Kentucky’s notable art museums.

“We wanted to make the public spaces empathetic and relaxing,” said Dr. Michael Karpf, UK’s executive vice president for health affairs. “And we wanted to make it uniquely Kentucky. It’s not all from Kentucky, but most of it is.”

UK has raised about $5 million in private donations to purchase art. The idea is about much more than making the new $532 million building pretty. Art can have a transformative effect on the human spirit. It makes people feel better, from reducing stress to inspiring hope.

“There’s a fair amount of research that shows art will improve moods and make people heal faster,” Karpf said. “So it makes financial sense for us to do this. People feel better and get out of the hospital faster.”

It is common in many cities for major new buildings to invest 1 percent of the construction budget on art. With this huge project, the results are impressive.

As soon as visitors enter the covered walkway over South Limestone from the parking garage, they see glass cases displaying folk art sculptures. Outdoors beneath the walkway is a landscape and water feature with curving fences made from traditional Kentucky dry stone.

Also outside is Second Breath, a bronze figure by Maurice Blik, a Holocaust and cancer survivor. “It ended up being controversial because it’s a nude,” said Jacqueline Hamilton, who coordinates the hospital’s art program.

At the end of the walkway is the education center, where patients and the public can research medical information. It is decorated with cityscapes by Louisville folk artist Anthony Mulligan, other paintings and a case of folk-art sculpture.

Ginkgo, a stainless-steel and fabric sculpture by Warren Seelig, is a focal point in the long lobby that connects the hospital’s wings. Elevator bays feature mosaics of paintings by Versailles glass artist Guy Kemper.

On the lobby’s second floor is the 90-foot-long Celebrate Kentucky wall. Tim Broekema, a Western Kentucky University photojournalism professor, created the wall using photographs and videos of Kentucky scenes taken by dozens of photographers. The wall is constantly changing with images that reflect the current season.

Karpf said the wall has been extremely popular, perhaps because it offers glimpses of home. About 40 percent of the hospital’s patients come from small-town and rural Kentucky.

There are landscape photographs in patient rooms, and paintings and sculpture in halls and reception areas throughout the hospital. Near the emergency room is a video installation called Mine-Control that changes shape as the viewer interacts with it. The pediatric emergency room has art that appeals to children.

The hospital tried to buy at least three pieces from each Kentucky artist it selected. “We’ve done a lot to stabilize the Kentucky art community during the recession,” Karpf said.

Two long corridors have become galleries for temporary exhibits. One now has drawings by Alabama’s Thornton Dial, and the other displays cut-and-paste photographic panoramas of Lexington and New York City by Albert Moser.

The UK hospital is a busy place, but only one piece of art has been damaged — a canvas was accidently ripped but is being repaired. “If you present it as art, people tend to respect it,” Hamilton said.

The Lucille Caudill Little Performing Arts in HealthCare Program and an endowment by Dr. Ronald Saykaly will sponsor performances by UK music students and faculty, as well as other performing artists. Performances can be in the hospital lobby or a new high-tech auditorium. When the violinist Midori was in town in September to perform with the Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra, she also played for hospital patients.

“What has been rewarding is that as we tried to humanize the building for patients, we also humanized it for staff,” Karpf said. Physicians have been big donors to the art program, and nurses have helped choose pieces for areas where they work.

When a pipe burst several months ago, filling an emergency room hall with water, doctors and nurses first made sure there were no patients in danger. “Then they started grabbing art off the walls and putting it on gurneys to take it to safety,” Karpf said. “They saw it as their art.”

Click on each thumbnail to see complete photo:

As a boy in the late 1960s, Ken Silvestri worked weekends at his grandfather’s fruit stand outside the McCrory’s store on Main Street, where the Lexington Public Library now stands.

Shoppers were beginning to leave downtown for the new Turfland Mall and other suburban stores, “but there were still lots of people on the street,” he recalled.

Then, in 1971, Main and Vine streets became one-way thoroughfares to speed traffic through the city. Other downtown street pairs were converted to become one-way including Short and Second; Maxwell and High; and Limestone and Upper.

“After Main became a one-way street, the traffic was moving so fast it changed the complexion of the place,” Silvestri said. Fewer people walked by, and it was harder for drivers to stop to buy apples and oranges. Sales dwindled at his grandfather’s fruit stand. “After a while, he just closed it,” he said.

Many people now want to return those streets to two-way traffic. The Downtown Master Plan calls for it. The Urban County Council has endorsed it. Mayor Jim Gray has commissioned a study to assess the business, traffic and environmental impacts.

Although Gray favors the switch, he wants a big-picture review and solid data before making any decisions, Scott Shapiro, a senior adviser to the mayor, said in a presentation Thursday to The Lexington Forum.

That review should be completed within 12 to 18 months, Shapiro said. The state Transportation Cabinet must sign off on changes, he said, but state officials “have been great to work with so far and have been very encouraging.”

Many cities that created one-way streets downtown about the time Lexington did have switched back and been glad they did, Shapiro said. But every city and street is different. No matter what decisions are made, some people will complain.

“My experience,” said former council member David Stevens, “has been that we have 300,000 traffic engineers in Lexington, and they all think they know what is best.”

Here is the central question: Does Lexington want a downtown that is better to drive through or come to?

One-way streets do move traffic faster. Suburbanites who commute to downtown offices like that, as do people coming and going from the area’s big events. One-way streets can also be less problematic for emergency and delivery vehicles.

Warren Rogers, a construction executive who said he has looked at cities that switched one-way streets back to two-way traffic, said accidents rose. That makes sense: motor vehicles may be traveling slower, but they mix it up more with each other, as well as with pedestrians and cyclists. And there are simply more pedestrians and cyclists on two-way streets.

“It’s about priorities. Is our priority the car, or is it people?” said Renee Jackson, executive director of the Downtown Lexington Corp., which represents downtown businesses and property owners. “Two-way traffic really is better for business.”

Two-way traffic encourages more people to use sidewalks, businesses have more visual exposure and streets are easier to navigate, especially for tourists and newcomers. Added traffic flexibility can ease congestion by providing more alternative routes.

While the city’s big traffic study is a good idea, here’s the thing: traffic, like water, tends to naturally make its way around obstacles. That’s what happened recently when sidewalk improvements reduced traffic on Main Street and shut it off completely on South Limestone. Drivers adapted.

Downtown is coming back to life, and eliminating most or all of the one-way street pairs is an important next step to making the heart of Lexington more pleasant and prosperous.

Silvestri, the boy who worked at his grandfather’s fruit stand, grew up to be one of Lexington’s major commercial real estate brokers. He says eliminating the one-way streets downtown will be especially good for smaller, locally owned businesses. It will help create jobs and lower vacancy rates, which in turn will raise property values and tax revenues.

Many Lexingtonians will still prefer suburbia to downtown, and that’s fine. Silvestri lives near Hamburg Place, which he points out has its own vexing traffic issues. “But at least,” he said, “the streets over there are two-way.”

Lexingtonians are a practical lot. If we talk about building something, we immediately want to know what it will look like, what it will cost and when it will be finished. And then we want to come up with reasons why it won’t work.

The Arena, Arts & Entertainment District Task Force is a different kind of process. It is about bringing stakeholders and the public together with some world-class planning and design professionals to brainstorm ideas and consider possibilities, both for now and the distant future.

Gary Bates

Last week, the public heard again from the design team leader, Gary Bates of the Norway-based architecture firm Space Group. Bates, who taught at the University of Kentucky for a year, said part of his role is to be a “provocateur” and spark creative thinking in others.

You may have seen news reports about Bates’ latest thinking: Renovate Rupp Arena, don’t replace it. Don’t expand the convention center, build a new one nearby to “free Rupp” for expansion. Connect the city better with bicycle and pedestrian space including a path to UK’s campus he calls The Catwalk.

Also, Bates suggests, better connect the district with the rest of downtown by bringing Town Branch Creek back to the surface in some form and build public space around it. “It’s such an enormous opportunity,” he said.

Bates’ team has offered some interesting ideas. Just as interesting are the basic philosophies behind them. Among those:

Build on what works; abandon what doesn’t. This concept is at the heart of Space Group’s evolving ideas about Rupp and the Lexington Center shops and convention facilities.

UK officials and fans have been wanting a new arena because Rupp lacks lucrative entertainment space and high-tech gadgetry. Rupp lacks the glamour of Louisville’s new KFC Yum Center and its exterior is as sexy as a shipping crate.

But if you put aside arena envy and 35 years of age, Rupp has always served its purpose incredibly well. It is one of the nation’s great arenas. Bates approached the issue like this: how could a renovation build on Rupp’s intense fan experience and use it to energize the surrounding area?

While Rupp has always worked, the retail space around it never has. The shopping center can be crowded when there’s an arena event or convention, but is a ghost town much of the rest of the time. Tenants have always come and gone. Bates suggested moving those shops to face Main Street — still accessible to arena and convention visitors, but more visible to everyone else.

After several expansions and renovations, the convention facilities wrapped around Rupp are scattered on three levels. Expanding the convention center won’t solve its inherent design problem and space constraints.

So Bates has suggested building a new convention center — perhaps a cluster of buildings connected by covered walkways — nearby. A task force study shows that renovating the arena and building new convention facilities would cost half as much as the opposite approach. (That is, assuming UK or the city can find the money to do either.)

Adaptive reuse. “There’s an incredible collection of old buildings in the downtown area,” Bates said. Economics and common sense suggest finding new uses for them.

For example, he said, restore the old First Baptist Church as a performance hall and “rethink” Victorian Square, which has a beautiful facade but interior space that has never worked.

Bates also emphasized adaptive reuse of open space, especially Rupp’s vast asphalt parking lots. He envisions a school building, athletic fields and underground and deck parking on the High Street lot; Keeneland-style lawn parking on the west Cox Street lot, which he said would look less like a gully if the Jefferson Street bridge were removed.

Slow cooking. Bates uses this term to describe a philosophy of not trying to make longer-term plans too specific. Especially in places such as the High Street lot, uses should evolve over time as needs change and construction money is available.

Better connect the city, focusing on pedestrians and bicycles. That explains the Town Branch and Catwalk ideas and better connecting bike lanes and trails and “safe” pedestrian streets. Also, he said, increase density downtown, which is only half as dense as it was a century ago.

Perhaps Bates’ biggest long-term idea is a public transit hub on the railroad yard northwest of Rupp. But he isn’t alone. Keeneland President Nick Nicholson asked the task force to consider a future light rail link to Keeneland and Blue Grass Airport.

Now that is an out-of-the-box idea. In our traditional way of planning, would any Lexingtonian have even had the courage to suggest it?

SHAKERTOWN — The Shakers were known for their crafts, architecture, music and dancing — not to mention their celibacy, which helps explain why they are history.

But Maynard Crossland hopes to employ some of the Shakers’ other famous traits — ingenuity and entrepreneurship — to improve the fortunes of Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill.

“We have a great story to tell, a great resource that needs to be protected,” said Crossland, who recently took over as president of the non-profit corporation that owns and manages the 19th-century Shaker Village in Mercer County and nearly 3,000 acres surrounding it.

Maynard Crossland. Photo by Charles Bertram

Like most historic sites, Shaker Village is suffering from changes in tourism and the economy. The organization has trimmed staff and programming, and dipped into its $9 million endowment to fund expenses, which include maintaining 33 historic buildings and 22 miles of dry-stone fences.

“We need to embrace some change here,” said Crossland, 56, former director of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, where he managed about 60 state historic sites and oversaw creation of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.

“It’s obvious to me that the profits we make at the restaurant, the inn, the craft store or even ticket sales to the museum are not going to be enough,” he said.

Shaker Village needs to more aggressively seek donations and grants, he said. But it also must innovate to raise more cash, as the Shakers did more than a century ago with their farming and seed business.

“People don’t realize how inventive the Shakers were and how diligent they were at their entrepreneurship,” Crossland said. “Those parts of the story are as relevant today as they were then. It’s just being able to figure out the best way to tell that story and to market it to a wider audience.”

Visitors now take self- guided walking tours among the Shakers’ buildings, picking up pieces of their history from written materials while watching costumed men and women make Shaker crafts. The story needs to be more cohesive, compelling and interactive, Crossland said.

“For people my age, (the current way) may work, but for 10-year-olds, it’s not the way they learn,” he said. “They’ve really got to be able to touch it, feel it, smell it — not just see and hear it.”

More than just a history lesson, Shaker Village should be an “experience” that meets modern visitors’ needs for education and recreation, Crossland said.

On his to-do list: More healthy menu choices at the restaurant, in addition to the classic Kentucky staples. More variety of merchandise in the craft shop, including more lower-priced items and children’s souvenirs. More flexible admission charges to attract more visitors.

Crossland wants more people to use the property’s natural areas. There are trails for hiking and horseback riding, plus a boat tour on the Kentucky River. He also would like to have concessions where visitors could rent a horse, bike, kayak or canoe. He hopes to bring in more bird watchers and bird hunters (the property’s first quail hunts were this fall).

He wants to use the property’s gardens and farmland more to promote sustainable agriculture and local food. And he plans to look at an idea that has been discussed for years: building a conference center outside the historic village to attract groups and supplement accommodations at the inn.

Crossland hopes to create more regional partnerships, such as those it now has with the Woodford Hounds, a fox-hunting group, and the Dry Stone Conservancy, a masonry preservation group. For example, he said, historic preservation students could learn restoration techniques by working on Shaker Village’s buildings.

“We really need to open this site up and have it embraced by people in the Lexington, Danville and Harrodsburg communities as a resource,” he said. “They are our best ambassadors.”

Shaker Village is planning special Christmas activities to attract locals and improve staff teamwork. On Dec. 3, Shaker Village Illuminated will include candlelight tours, children’s crafts and storytelling for special carload admission prices.

“Our challenge here is to figure out ‘what is the experience’ and then present that in the most efficient, customer-friendly way we possibly can,” Crossland said. “This staff has the brain power to figure it out. It’s not going to happen overnight, but it’s going to happen.”

Click here to read Janet Patton’s story about Shaker Village’s restoration.

You won’t see as many of my columns in the paper as you usually do for a few weeks. I’m taking some time off to move. Not out of town; into town.

Like many empty-nesters, Becky and I want a smaller house and yard. We want to live closer to our older daughter and her husband. And I want to be within a walk or bike ride of all the interesting things happening in downtown Lexington.

I have been watching downtown For Sale signs for years, but it was still tempting to leave well enough alone. After all, we had a great house in a beautiful suburb.

But here’s the thing: I have always wanted an old house in the city — a place with style, charm and a sense of history. Call me crazy; you wouldn’t be alone.

“What’s the matter: get tired of plumbing that works?” a colleague quipped. A college professor I know, who writes about Kentucky history but lives in a 1960s suburban home, said I am either braver than him or more foolhardy.

Still, I have many friends who are happy old-home dwellers. The ones I admire most are either braver or more foolhardy than me: they have invested a lot of hard work and money in restoring buildings that might otherwise have been lost to history. They have added immeasurably to Lexington’s unique character.

I can’t logically explain my attraction to old houses. Maybe it is because, before my family moved to a new home in rural Fayette County when I was 7, we lived in a turn-of-the-century house on what is now Wildcat Lodge’s back parking lot. I remember the high ceilings, handsome woodwork and the big front porch with a swing. My parents remember the creaky floors and drafty windows.

For many perfectly sensible reasons, the five homes Becky and I have had until now were in the suburbs of Nashville, Knoxville, Atlanta and Lexington. All were built between 1954 and 1985.

When we moved here from Atlanta in 1998, I looked at several downtown houses, most built in the early 1800s. High ceilings. Handsome woodwork. Big windows. Lots of fireplaces.

Becky understood my attraction to Antebellum homes; she had always been a fan of Gone With The Wind. Trouble was, all of the places in our price range looked more like Tara after the Yankees came through than before.

I liked a circa 1837 house on Short Street. I thought it was in good shape. Except that it needed a new kitchen. And a new bathroom — or two. One floor sloped suspiciously. Gutters and plaster needed work. Perhaps, we decided, that was not the best time in our lives to take on a house built 10 years before Atlanta existed.

Goodbye Short Street, hello Hartland. The four-bedroom home we bought in that lovely suburb turned out to be a great place to live and raise our daughters. Now, though, it seems too big and a little lonely.

We are leaving Hartland for a 101-year-old Queen Anne-style cottage near downtown. It has those high ceilings, handsome woodwork, five fireplaces and a big front porch with a swing.

The only thing I know I will miss about my Hartland home is the garage. My new house doesn’t have one. Few people in that neighborhood owned cars in 1910. Who needed one? The trolley track ran right past the end of the street.

This house was restored in the 1970s by a couple who have taken good care of it. The plumbing, wiring and windows were brought up to modern standards. The roof, kitchen and most mechanical systems are almost new.

Based on a report from the toughest home inspector I could find, I don’t think we are in danger of starring in a remake of the Tom Hanks/Shelley Long movie, The Money Pit. Still, I know projects lurk in every room; that just comes with a century-old home.

I have lined up contractors to refinish floors, refresh paint and wallpaper and replace some old wiring. Then, once we move and sell our Hartland house, we can enjoy city living in an old home with style, charm and a sense of history.

This is a month to celebrate two Kentucky media giants. Al Smith just published his memoir, Wordsmith: My Life in Journalism, and Leonard Press celebrated his 90th birthday.

Smith, 84, might be the better known of the two. That is because the former publisher of several small Kentucky newspapers spent more than three decades as the founding host of Comment on Kentucky, Kentucky Educational Television’s weekly public affairs program.

But without Len Press, there might not be a Comment on Kentucky program — or a KET network.

KET is now known as one of the most innovative and admired public television networks, producing hundreds of hours of programming and other instructional materials that are used across the nation.

But Press recalled in an interview at his Lexington home last week that when he started lobbying state officials in 1958 to create a statewide educational TV network, “The whole idea was novel.”

In the early 1950s, Kentucky was a disconnected state of isolated communities and some of the nation’s poorest schools. Press and his wife, Lillian, were living in their native New England, where they had earned graduate degrees in communications from Boston University.

The Presses had never been to Kentucky, much less thought of moving here. But after intense recruiting by the head of the University of Kentucky’s Radio Department, Press agreed to come to Lexington to teach for a year. One year.

After a few months, though, Press knew enough about the emerging technology of television to imagine what it could do to improve education in Kentucky. His vision became KET, and that one-year commitment will soon be 60 years long.

While Press was absorbed in building KET, Lillian Press created her own impressive record of service. She organized and directed several major state initiatives, including the Governor’s Scholars Program for talented high school seniors, the Regional Mental Health Board and Comprehensive Care Centers. At age 87, she remains active in The Women’s Network, which she started in 2000 to get more women involved in the political process.

It took Len Press more than a decade to raise the political and financial commitments to launch KET. But the network’s value has been apparent since the day it went on the air in 1968. “So many people have told me how KET changed their lives,” Press said.

Because educational television was a novel concept when KET began, the young staff Press assembled did a lot of experimenting. “What they didn’t know, they made up for in enthusiasm,” he said. “They made it happen, with a lot of help from our partners around the state.”

Over the years, as many public TV stations began creating entertainment programming for national distribution, KET remained focused on education — and Kentucky.

KET now makes more instructional programming than any other state TV network. One course first created by KET’s Sid Webb — to help people earn high school equivalency degrees — is in its fourth generation and is used across the nation and in several other countries, Press said.

KET has helped unite Kentuckians with shows about the state’s arts, history and culture. Another major emphasis has been public affairs: covering General Assembly sessions, hosting election debates and producing widely watched programs such as Bill Goodman’s Kentucky Tonight and Comment on Kentucky, now hosted by Ferrell Wellman.

Televising the General Assembly “did a great deal for their deportment and dress code,” Press said. Comment on Kentucky has occasionally drawn the ire of powerful politicians, Press said, but the network has always been able to maintain its independence and credibility.

Press said he marvels at the progress KET has made under three succeeding directors since he retired in 1992. The network has been able to expand offerings through digital television and the Internet, despite budget and staff cutbacks.

Press said he is proud that KET has continued to be a force for educating Kentuckians and making them more knowledgeable participants in public affairs.

“The technology changes, but the premise of KET has not changed,” said Press, whose vision and determination made it all possible. “Does it work for the teachers? Does it work for the students? Does it work for Kentucky?”

Click on each thumbnail to see complete photo:

Lexington’s Kinkead House is much more than just another historical home. For nearly a century and a half, its occupants have been on the cutting edge of progress.

The mansion was built in 1847 by Abraham Lincoln’s local lawyer, abolitionist George B. Kinkead. After the Civil War, he realized that former slaves would want to own their own homes, so he bought land for them behind his estate. Kinkeadtown became the heart of what is now the East End neighborhood.

A century later, Kinkead’s descendants shared the dream of residents who thought Lexington’s young people needed more exposure to science and the arts. In 1971, they loaned and later donated the mansion and surrounding 1.5 acres to become the Living Arts and Science Center.

The next chapter of the story begins Wednesday, when the LASC launches a $5 million capital campaign to renovate the Kinkead House and more than double the center’s size and programming capacity with a beautiful contemporary addition.

LASC will add a 65-seat planetarium/auditorium, a digital arts center, a recording studio, a children’s art gallery, more classroom and meeting space, and a guest artist’s studio. There also will be a “teaching kitchen” for uses as varied as teaching neighbors to prepare and preserve food they grow in their gardens and classes in chocolate sculpture. A “magic carpet” walkway, which includes outdoor sculptures, will tie the campus together.

The campaign begins with $300,000 in grants and donations, plus a $1 million matching grant from the W. Paul and Lucille Caudill Little Foundation. The LASC board hopes to raise the rest of the money by summer 2013.

“It’s hard to raise $5 million in this environment without some credible reasons,” said downtown developer Phil Holoubek, who with his wife, Marnie, is leading the campaign. “But this project can be a game-changer. We can better serve the community and improve the neighborhood and downtown.”

The LASC’s mission is to use art and science to inspire children and adults. During the past year, more than 6,000 school children from 21 Kentucky counties took field trips to the center, executive director Heather Lyons said. The LASC offered more than 400 classes and workshops, plus frequent community events.

The expansion already is creating buzz, because the Kinkead House addition promises to be one of Lexington’s most exciting pieces of contemporary architecture. It is the work of Louisville’s De Leon & Primmer Architecture Workshop, which two weeks after receiving the LASC commission last year won a prestigious Design Vanguard Award from Architectural Record magazine.

Architect Ross Primmer said the design is based on extensive conversations with the board, staff and neighbors of the LASC, which faces North Martin Luther King Boulevard between Campsie Place and East Fourth Street.

“It’s like they were hearing everything we were thinking,” said Kathy Plomin, the LASC’s development director.

The 11,000-square-foot addition is really a separate building, tucked along the south side and back of Kinkead House, complementing the scale of the 7,000-square-foot mansion and surrounding homes. An outdoor classroom separates the two buildings, which are connected by a glass walkway. Parking will move away from the front to create a larger lawn.

Primmer said the addition will have walls of dark-green wood siding and clear glass to visually connect with the outside and allow people to see inside. It will meet environmentally friendly LEED Silver standards and minimize energy use.

Steve Kay, an Urban County Council member who lives on Campsie Place, is excited about the LASC’s expansion and the new programming it will make possible. “We’re thrilled that such a good neighbor is investing in the neighborhood,” he said.

The design follows a trend of modern-style additions to classic old buildings. When designed well, these additions both honor the integrity of the historical structure and become a more functional piece of contemporary architecture.

“The goal is to create something that fits with it, but doesn’t mimic it,” Primmer said of the Kinkead House.

“I think it’s just brilliant,” Mayor Jim Gray said of the design. “This project is an example of great urban planning and great architecture that respects the character of the historic neighborhood and lifts it up. This is extremely exciting.”

Lexington architect Susan Hill just couldn’t figure it out. Soon after Locust Trace AgriScience Farm opened this school year, lights in the main building started turning themselves on and off in the middle of the night.

That was not good. The Fayette County Public Schools’ most innovative new facility is designed to generate as much energy as it consumes. Conservation is essential to this goal. To that end, sound-and-motion sensors operate lights so energy won’t be wasted when nobody is in a room.

Hill and her team puzzled over the mystery until it finally, well, dawned on them.

“We had a rooster in the animal science lab who was getting up at all hours and causing lights to go on and off all over the place,” she said. Lighting sensors were quickly adjusted to respond to motion only. Problem solved.

Architects usually don’t have to think about cock-a-doodle-doo-proofing a building. But this kind of issue has been the challenge and the fun of the project for Hill, a partner in the Lexington firm Tate Hill Jacobs, who has been intrigued by environmentally sustainable design since she studied under pioneering solar architect Richard Levine at the University of Kentucky.

Locust Trace is a different kind of public school, designed to prepare high school juniors and seniors for careers in the equine industry and agriculture, where a return to sustainability is the trend. School officials wanted their facility to set a good environmental example — and be less expensive to operate and maintain.

The $15.5 million campus is one of the most “green” developments in Kentucky. It also has become a laboratory for new building methods and materials that is attracting national attention from architects, builders and educators.

Locust Trace was built on 82 acres off Leestown Road that the federal government donated to the school system. From the very beginning, Hill and other planners studied the site’s location and topography to make the best use of it.

The design team collaborated with dozens of people from the school system, community and various industries. That included everything from seeking the advice of Kentucky Horse Park experts about footing in the livestock arena to technical assistance on air-flow technology from Lexington-based Big Ass Fans.

Sunlight and prevailing winds were analyzed to orient the classroom building and large arena building to make the best use of sunlight and natural breezes. The buildings use 21 Big Ass Fans — large high-volume, slow-speed fans — to help regulate indoor air flow and temperatures.

The arena building, for instance, is heated and cooled with five large fans that pull air through louvers along a roof gallery that are opened and closed manually or with automatic sensors. Clerestory windows along the gallery provide most of the arena’s light.

Both buildings make extensive use of solar energy. Sunlight is maximized by window design and “solar tubes” that funnel magnified sunshine through the ceiling. Roof-mounted photovoltaic panels convert sunlight into as much as 175 kilowatts of electricity.

Power not needed immediately is fed into the Kentucky Utilities grid to offset power drawn from it on cloudy days. Electricity is shut off at night, except for a few outlets needed to run things like fish tanks.

“We spent a lot of time with school officials to see what we could cut out, what we didn’t need” to minimize energy use, Hill said.

She said the main building’s roof has the nation’s third-largest array of solar thermal cells, which heat water to supplement the building’s geothermal heating system. Buildings are made of metal, limestone and insulated concrete. Floors are low- maintenance polished concrete and rubber.

A well provides pure limestone water for animals. Eventually, if state regulations allow, well water could be used for human consumption.

Permeable pavement, rain gardens and a green roof manage storm water runoff. Rain is collected in underground tanks for use with livestock and irrigation. An artificial wetland was built to naturally process the campus’ wastewater. Shredded paper and plant matter are being composted for fertilizer.

“It’s a different kind of curriculum, a different kind of student,” Hill said. “But it allows us to try out lots of ideas that might be appropriate for a regular school once we learn more about them.”

The architect said the best part of working on Locust Trace has been trying new techniques, materials and designs to reduce energy use — and operating costs.

“There was a great willingness on the part of school system officials to take a little risk to learn the lessons,” she said. “That’s really important.”

Click on each thumbnail to see complete photo: