The Bluegrass and Beyond

I’m back after a week’s vacation. Each year, several friends and I go to Bike Virginia, a five-day bicycle tour through a different part of Virginia.

This year, about 1,800 of us were riding around Bristol and Abingdon, in far southwest Virginia, with a swing into Kingsport, Tenn. The scenery and weather were spectacular, and the company was even better. I rode a little more than 350 miles, including 100 miles one day. Bike Virginia is both physically challenging and mentally refreshing. It’s hard to think about everyday worries when you’re focused on pedaling up the next big hill. And southwest Virginia has a lot of big hills…

So, what happened in Kentucky while I was gone? A lot, apparently. Over the next few days, I’ll be catching up on CentrePointe and other issues and writing about what comes next.

By the way, Commerce Lexington has posted videos of the main presentations made during the Leadership Visit to Austin, Texas, in early June. While the other 274 Kentuckians on the trip were listening, Mark Turner, the chamber’s senior VP for communications, was capturing the speakers on video. Lucky for you; there are a lot of good ideas on those videos. Click here to watch them.

Dudley Webb is hardly the first ambitious businessman to want to leave his mark on the block in the center of downtown Lexington.

A five-member city board will decide this week whether Webb should be able to erase the marks of all those who came before him.

The Courthouse Area Design Review Board meets at 2 p.m. Wednesday in the Urban County Council chambers to hear Webb’s request to demolish the 14 buildings on the block bounded by Main, Upper, Vine and Limestone streets to build his proposed 35-story CentrePointe tower. The $250 million development would house a luxury hotel, high-priced condominiums, stores and restaurants.

The board must approve demolition of the buildings that face Main Street, which are included in the courthouse area historic overlay zone. The board also must approve the design of new buildings so they fit the character of the neighborhood.

Vice Mayor Jim Gray has spoken for a broad coalition of preservationists, architects and downtown activists who want Webb to change his CentrePointe design to be more in scale with surrounding buildings and to preserve some of the block’s existing structures — or at least their facades.

Webb argues that it isn’t economical to keep the old buildings, many of which suffered “modernization” in the late 1940s and more recent neglect by their owners. Webb says none of the buildings, which date as far back as 1826, are truly historic or worth preserving.

The Blue Grass Trust, the citizens group Preserve Lexington and others disagree, noting that these are some of the city’s oldest surviving commercial buildings.

Much of the discussion Wednesday is likely to center on the neo-classical building on Main Street that houses The Dame, a popular music hall that closes Sunday night and is looking for a new home.

Built in 1901, the building was a late work of noted Lexington architect Herman L. Rowe, who also designed the Opera House on Broadway and the Carnegie Center — the old Lexington Public Library — at Gratz Park.

A 1979 survey of the block by architectural historian Walter Langsam said the building, which originally housed a candy factory and ice cream parlor, is notable for its “Chicago School” influence, which was then emerging from the work of such architects as Frank Lloyd Wright. The building later housed the offices of Lexington’s utilities and trolley line, a florist shop and clothing stores.

But the buildings that most concern preservationists lie outside the courthouse overlay zone, and thus beyond the board’s reach.

Most significant is “Morton’s Row” — three structures built in 1826 along South Upper Street and anchored by what is now Joe Rosenberg’s jewelry store and pawn shop. The main building is recognizable by its pediment roof with a half-circle window. It is an early example of the Greek Revival style that became popular in 1830s Lexington.

“Although the interiors have been remodeled, it remains one of the most important early buildings in downtown Lexington, both historically and architecturally,” Langsam wrote in 1979 for the Kentucky Heritage Council survey.

Morton’s Row housed a store and other businesses started by William Morton, an Englishman known as “Lord” Morton because of his aristocratic bearing. He started as a Main Street shopkeeper in 1787 and became one of Lexington’s richest and most colorful characters.

Morton built himself one of Lexington’s finest homes, the 1810 Federal-style mansion on North Limestone that is now the centerpiece of Duncan Park. (After Morton’s death, it became the home of Cassius Clay, the fiery abolitionist and namesake of Muhammad Ali.)

Morton helped start Lexington’s first bank and first Episcopal church. He was among those who gave the land where Christ Church now stands. Upon his death in 1836, he left $10,000 for Lexington’s first public school, which was built in 1849 and named for him. He is best known today as the namesake of Morton Middle School.

Morton’s Row has housed groceries, shops and restaurants through the years. The Rosenberg family bought the main building in 1929 and the rest of Morton’s Row in the early 1950s, according to Langsam’s survey.

On the opposite corner of Vine Street at Limestone is a three-story, neo-classical structure with distinctive oriel windows, built in the late 1880s. Older Lexington residents will remember it as Levas’ restaurant, but it was originally Robinson’s European Hotel Dining Room and Eugene Buchignani’s meat market.

By the turn of the century, the building housed Mooney & Klair’s Saloon, which drew a steady clientele from the nearby railroad depot. It was owned by William F. Klair, a colorful character who rose from General Assembly page boy to state representative, railroad commissioner, businessman and Democratic wheeler-dealer.

When Prohibition shuttered Lexington’s saloons, the building became a grocery until the Levas family opened a restaurant there in the 1920s.

A plain but notable building with little chance for survival is the late 1880s shop of R.H. Gray, an African-American tinsmith and inventor who held several patents. The deep, narrow industrial structure, which faces Vine Street in the middle of the block, later housed saloons, a dance hall and several restaurants.

Preservationists would like to see some of this historic fabric woven into a unique piece of contemporary architecture that would help bring people and activity back to the center of Lexington. They want a development that will blend in with the surrounding historic structures — a place people will want to go because it meets modern needs while reflecting Lexington’s rich cultural heritage.

A century from now, Dudley Webb’s mark on Lexington will be considerable. But think how much greater that mark — and Lexington — would be if Webb also could find a way to acknowledge the likes of “Lord” Morton, Herman Rowe, William Klair — and maybe even R.H. Gray.

It’s human nature to focus more on what’s going wrong than what’s going right.

I noticed that a lot when I lived in Atlanta. Except for its traffic and smog, Atlanta is the envy of most Southern cities. But get a group of Atlantans together, and all they do is complain.

Commerce Lexington recently took 275 local leaders to Austin, Texas, to learn about that city’s successes in economic development and improving the quality of life.

Chambers of commerce from other cities visit Lexington, too, and you might be surprised by their reactions.

“These groups come here and they just think we walk on water,” said Robert Quick, Commerce Lexington’s president. “The things they say about us are almost the opposite of how we often see ourselves.”

Since Quick moved to Lexington seven years ago from Evansville, Ind., three chambers have organized trips to Lexington: Gainesville, Fla., in 2001, Springfield, Mo., in 2003 and Evansville in 2006.

The visitors did things you might expect: Some went to Keeneland and Calumet Farm to learn about the horse industry. They heard about New Century Lexington’s livability study and how Blue Grass Airport has improved relations with its neighbors. The folks from Evansville visited Applebee’s Park because someday they hope to replace old Bosse Field, home of the Evansville Otters.

The visitors wanted to know how Lexington managed town-gown relations and leveraged university research for economic development. They wanted to talk about regional planning, and to see how our local governments work together — or don’t.

“All three groups came here before our downtown development was in full gear,” Quick said. “Still, they all thought we had a dynamic downtown.”

In addition to chamber groups, officials from elsewhere often contact UK and Lexington Urban County Government looking for ideas. According to people who get those calls, these are some of the things outsiders think we’ve done right:

• Merged government. In 1974, Lexington and Fayette County became the first place in Kentucky and one of the first in the nation to merge local governments. It saved money, made services more efficient and sidestepped the annexation fights and turf battles that plague cities and counties across America. The decision to make Lexington’s 15-member Urban County Council non-partisan also is seen as a plus.

• The Urban Service Area. Lexington was one of the first cities in America to try to control sprawl, protect rural land and control infrastructure costs by limiting growth. Without those limits, Fayette County would have more subdivisions, fewer farms and a lot less of its famous natural beauty. A related accomplishment that attracts national attention is our purchase-of-development-rights program, which lets farmers get tax breaks by making their land off-limits for future development.

Sure, people in Lexington still fight over controlling growth and keeping housing affordable, but other cities seem to think we manage the balance better than most.

• Lexington is fortunate to be located along interstate highways that run both east-west and north-south. And it is even more fortunate that, when those highways were built, they were routed around the city rather than through the middle of it. It was a controversial decision — and it still is among people who gripe about traffic.

Still, downtown Lexington has an enormous advantage over most cities trying to rebuild their urban core. There are no noisy highways dividing neighborhoods, no ugly off-ramps, and little industrial blight needing redevelopment.

It also helped that railroad tracks were taken out of downtown in the 1960s, although we’re now wishing we still had some of the old streetcar lines that were removed decades earlier.

• Although many grand old buildings were torn down in the last half of the 20th century, many others were preserved and reused, giving Lexington more historic fabric than most cities can claim. Unique, quality architecture is something that gives a city identity, making it a place where people want to live.

• Keeneland and the horse industry give Lexington a “brand” that is unique and authentic.

• Lexington has a major research university, an excellent liberal-arts college and a top-notch community and technical college, all near downtown. Add to that a good public school system, and we have an educational infrastructure most places would envy.

The secret to success lies in appreciating your advantages and enjoying your accomplishments without becoming self-satisfied, as people in Lexington can sometimes be. After all, if you think things are good enough, you’re unlikely to work very hard to make them better.

As a chamber of commerce executive, Quick is paid to promote Lexington. Still, he thinks many Lexingtonians have too little appreciation for the city’s quality of life, even as they recognize the need to improve some things.

Quick has noticed many changes in Lexington in the short time he has been here, and most of them have been for the better. Downtown is being revived, and fresh faces are bringing more diversity to decision-making, and local leaders are working better together and seem to share more of a common vision for the city’s future.

“It seems like in the last seven years we’ve gotten over the pettiness,” he said. “We still have our differences, but it’s a different conversation. Things could be better, but we have a lot more going for us than against us.”

Google, I wish you had warned me you were coming.

I would have cut up that brush pile and stuffed it in the Lenny — as my wife probably told me to do — instead of leaving it at the curb for your roving camera to find.

Now, a color photo of my house and brush pile is there for all the world to see on Google Maps’ Street View.

Lexington and 36 other cities were added earlier this month to Street View, a year-old service that allows Internet users to type in an address or click on a map and get a panoramic view as if they were standing in the street.

It’s a big advancement from online satellite images, where you can zoom in and perhaps make out the shape of your driveway. With Street View, you can count the panes on the windows.

For Realtors, it’s a dream come true. For the rest of us, it’s fascinating technology — and more than a little creepy.

So how did they do this?

Google sent cars out on public streets equipped with special digital video cameras. The cameras filmed everything around them, including the lady walking her dog outside my neighbor’s house and the truck filled with pallets driving past City Hall. The images look as if they were taken last summer.

The video was reduced to stop-action images, embedded with global-positioning coordinates, matched with street addresses and posted online.

To find your house, go to Google, click “Maps” and type in your address. If Google’s video car went down your street, you’ll be shown a picture of your house. (Or, perhaps, a neighbor’s house. Addresses are approximate.) You can see where the video car went, because the maps shows those streets in blue.

Once you have an image on your screen, you can move up and down the street by clicking on computer-generated arrows. You also can zoom in and out, and spin the view around. Way cool.

Of course, not everyone is happy about it.

Communities in other states with private streets have banned Google’s video car. Others have asked Google to remove images of their homes, and the company has generally agreed. The Pentagon has banned images of military bases.

Despite technology that blurs the faces of most people caught in the Google lens, the European Union is concerned that future filming there might violate some countries’ privacy laws.

Taking pictures on a public street isn’t illegal in this country. Already, people with too much time on their hands have found Street View images more embarrassing than a front-yard brush pile. There’s a burning car, a man walking out of a strip club, a boy falling off his bike and a man urinating in an alley. None of those images seem to be from Lexington — yet.

I spent a couple of hours looking at Lexington through the eyes of Google.

The first thing I noticed was that some big streets were missed, while the camera car made a few odd detours — such as Von Alley, between 5th Street and Fayette Park, and the occasional dead-end rural road. The camera car went down every lane in Lexington Cemetery where, predictably, there was little activity. You can check your family plot to make sure.

I didn’t see anyone coming out of a strip club or doing anything risque. But, then, Lexington isn’t a very risque place in the middle of a summer day.

When you were little, your Sunday school teacher told you to behave as if someone were always watching. George Orwell warned us long ago about Big Brother.

But who would have thought Big Brother would have a goofy name like Google?

DANVILLE - In high school, I was a band geek.

Since then, I’ve mostly been a newspaper and bicycle geek.

But once you’re in a high school band, especially a marching band, you never seem to get it out of your system.

Just ask the dozens of musicians in the 18 bands performing at the Great American Brass Band Festival this weekend. Not to mention the several thousand people here to listen to them.

“For me, the great thing about this festival is seeing all the younger players coming out, having a great time and producing a great sound,” said Jim Drake of Frankfort, who started playing trombone in fifth grade, switched to tuba in ninth grade and is still playing in two brass bands.

Danville always seems to look like a Norman Rockwell painting, but never more so than each June when the brass bands come to town. People from all over the country set up lawn chairs around one of three stages and listen to bands like the ones most American small towns had a century ago.

“I’ve heard this is our 10th year, but I’ve lost count,” said Dan Shields, who plays tenor sax in the Circle City Sidewalk Stompers Clown Band of Indianapolis.

“All of the people are here for the music,” he said. “It’s a language that people should learn and not forget, even if they don’t keep playing. It makes them a more educated listener.”

In addition to free public performances, the festival included a Chautauqua Tea on Thursday, a Brass History Conference on Friday and a big parade down Main Street on Saturday.

You can still catch some of the action Sunday, when the main stage at Centre College will have performances from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. The annual balloon race, postponed Friday because of bad weather, has been rescheduled for 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Stuart Powell Field outside Junction City.

The bands range from Ameriikan Poijat, a Midwestern band that plays Finnish-style, to the Walnut Street Ragtime Ramblers, a four-man combo from Lexington led by Dick Domek, a University of Kentucky music theory professor who plays a mean piano.

There are several military bands - the Hellcats from West Point, the U.S. Army Brass Quintet and the U.S. Air Force Reserve Band. Plus crowd favorites from an earlier era of military bands: the Excelsior Cornet Band from Syracuse, N.Y., and Saxton’s Cornet Band from Kentucky, which use antique instruments to recreate Civil War-era music.

In honor of the Abraham Lincoln bicentennial, the history conference this year focused on music from his time. It included a re-enactment by the Olde Towne Brass of Huntsville, Ala., of a concert Lincoln and his Lexington-born wife, Mary Todd, attended. Saxton and Excelsior both played a popular tune that they noted, ironically, was one of Lincoln’s favorites: Dixie.

As a bicycle geek, I was fascinated by the 18 riders from the Ohio Wheelmen, who led the parade on big-wheel “bone shakers” and other two-wheeled relics.

“This is a unique parade,” said Del Nichols of Findlay, Ohio, the group’s leader. “There’s a higher class of people who come here because of the music.”

Back when I was a band geek at Lexington’s Lafayette High School in the mid-1970s, there were two musicians we all looked up to: Trumpeter Vincent DiMartino, who was then at UK and now teaches at Centre, and euphonium virtuoso Earle Louder, then a professor at Morehead State. They each performed solos in concert with us, and we were awed by how they could make their instruments come alive.

Now, DiMartino and Louder moonlight as the directors of the festival’s host band, the Advocate Brass Band of Danville, which is sponsored by the local newspaper. The band played Saturday evening at the festival’s Great American Picnic, and will perform at 3 p.m. Sunday.

If that wasn’t enough to make me love the Advocate Brass Band, there was this: Former director George Foreman spent years having the band explore the great heritage of newspaper music. Yes, newspaper music.

The most famous example is John Philip Sousa’s Washington Post March, which was commissioned in 1889 for the U.S. Marine Band to play at an awards ceremony for the newspaper’s student essay contest. The march became one of Sousa’s most popular, and started a trend.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, newspapers across America commissioned marches. It was like the 19th century version of a TV marketing jingle. Foreman documented more than 300 newspaper marches, and under his direction the band recorded four CDs of them.

There’s even a Lexington Herald March, written in 1936 by Robert B. Griffith, a UK student who went on to direct the University of Louisville marching band. Click here to hear a short clip of the Lexington Herald March. Click here to find out how to buy the Advocate Brass Band’s CDs.

If you have time Sunday, drive over to Danville. It just might make a band geek out of you, even if you weren’t one in high school.

Photos, top to bottom: Mick Gould of the Ohio Wheelmen leads out the parade Saturday. Members of the Excelsior Cornet Band from Syracuse, N.Y., play on a wagon in the parade. Dick Domek of Lexington plays with the Walnut Street Ragtime Ramblers. Natalie Fieberg, 3, of Danville, watches Dan Shields of the Circle City Sidewalk Stompers Clown Band of Indianapolis run by during the parade. Photos/Tom Eblen

This state doesn’t lead the nation in many aspects of education.

But Kentucky Educational Television has, over the past 40 years, been one of America’s most innovative and admired public TV systems.

KET produces more hours of programming and creates more instructional materials than almost anyone else.

“Around the country, everyone wants to grow up to be KET,” said Mac Wall, the executive director.

But that could change, if Kentucky isn’t careful.

State budget cuts have hit KET especially hard. About $2.4 million was sliced from KET’s appropriation for the coming year. Changes in state employee benefits have given many of KET’s veteran staff members little choice but to retire. About a fifth of KET’s 220 employees will be gone by December, including 10 who were laid off last week.

Among the biggest hits: Half of KET’s 12 program producers are leaving.

“These are really invaluable human assets that they are going to be losing,” said Leonard Press, KET’s founding executive director, who retired in 1992. “The loss of what they could have done for Kentucky will never be recovered. Time lost is tragic.”

It’s too early to say what all of this will mean to KET consumers in schools and living rooms across the state. Network executives are working on a plan that will be presented to the agency’s governing board in October.

State funding accounts for 52 percent of KET’s $25.5 million annual budget. The rest comes from fund-raising (17 percent), federal money (15 percent), grants and other revenue (16 percent).

“We will be helped a lot by new technology and what that will bring in terms of efficiencies,” said Shae Hopkins, KET’s deputy director. “But it still takes a producer to find a story and tell that story.”

What is happening at KET has set off alarms across the Public Broadcasting System.

“I’m deeply concerned about the impact these budget cuts may have,” said Paula Kerger, who has toured KET twice since becoming PBS’s president two years ago.

“If the long-term consequences of these cuts are not carefully considered, I worry they may diminish the impressive gains KET has made — especially in serving the state’s children. If further cuts are made, it would be a great loss not only to Kentucky, but also to public broadcasting as a whole.”

More than TV shows

I remember when KET first went on the air in September 1968. Cardinal Valley Elementary got several big black-and-white TVs on carts that teachers wheeled into class. If Mrs. Dawson timed our fourth-grade class just right — and if she could get the rabbit-ear antenna adjusted just so — we could watch a dowdy lady on KET’s one channel do science experiments.

Believe it or not, at the time, that was impressive.

Of course, that was years before Sesame Street helped teach my daughters to count and spell, Reading Rainbow fueled their love of books and Inspector Morse and Prime Suspect hooked me on British detective dramas.

Most Kentuckians know KET through those shows, and some of the 1,200 hours of original programming the staff creates each year: Kentucky Life, Comment on Kentucky, Kentucky Tonight, On to One, gavel-to-gavel coverage of the General Assembly and documentaries such as Where the River Bends: A History of Northern Kentucky.

KET has aggressively explored Kentucky’s history, celebrated its culture and created the kind of public affairs programs that commercial TV news has all but abandoned.

“Local production is the most expensive programming you can put on the air,” Wall said. “But it’s also the most important, the most relevant.”

What’s on your TV is only the beginning of KET.

In addition to the KET1 and KET2 channels, the network operates a channel just for schools and a new digital Kentucky Channel.

KET’s new EncycloMedia is a comprehensive online service with thousands of videos, photos, quizzes and lesson plans that Kentucky teachers can download and use. KET produces for-credit college courses, educational content for state prisoners and professional development materials for teachers.

KET developed study materials that have helped more than 1 million adults nationwide — including more than 20,000 in Kentucky — earn their high-school equivalency degrees. The staff will soon begin a $6 million project to update those materials to reflect changes being made in GED tests in 2012.

New Equipment

Ironically, KET’s loss of staff and experience comes as the network is installing millions of dollars worth of new digital equipment, bought with money appropriated by previous legislative sessions.

“We’re now able to do the things that Len Press envisioned 40 years ago, but the technology and the capacity didn’t exist then,” Wall said.

KET will have the equipment, but it will have a smaller staff with less experience left to use it.

Times are tight, and Kentucky leaders face difficult decisions about how to raise and spend taxpayers’ money.

Can this state still afford to maintain a first-class educational resource like KET?

It can’t afford not to.

As a small crowd looked on, the ceremonial reopening of the Lexington Public Library’s Kentucky Room ended Wednesday with two white- gloved librarians carefully placing in a glass display case a copy of Kentucky’s second-oldest newspaper: the Kentucke Gazette of Aug. 18, 1787.

So where’s a copy of Kentucky’s first newspaper — the Kentucke Gazette of Aug. 11, 1787? That’s a good question.

“I just have to think somebody, somewhere has one in their attic or an old trunk,” said Library director Kathleen Imhoff. “And I hope if somebody ever finds one, they’ll let us know.”

In the late 1700s and early 1800s, Lexington was one of the major cities in what was then the West. Several local newspapers sprang up soon after John Bradford began publishing his then-weekly Gazette.

The library has a substantial collection of old Lexington newspapers, including the most complete archives of the Gazette. Except for that first issue.

One story holds that somebody, many years ago, was looking at the library’s copy of the first Gazette, let it get too close to a coal stove and — poof! But that may just be a story, said Jan Marshall, the library’s assistant manager in charge of the reference department.

No other copies of that first issue of the Gazette, which measured about 8 x 10 inches and probably contained four pages, are known to exist.

The Kentucky Room reopened Wednesday after an extensive renovation made necessary by a water leak that  flooded the library on Feb. 21, 2007. Of course, the room containing the library’s most precious books and manuscripts was the most heavily damaged. But quick, tireless work by the library staff enabled everything to be salvaged — even waterlogged books that had to be sent off to Chicago to be freeze-dried.

All it needs now is a copy of Kentucky’s first newspaper.

One of the old arguments against building a water pipeline from Louisville to Lexington now appears to be all wet. You know, the argument that went something like this: “We don’t want that nasty Ohio River water. You can’t even eat fish out of that river!”

The American Water Works Association, meeting this week in Atlanta, has declared that Louisville has the nation’s best-tasting water. The selection was made by a panel of judges that included a newspaper dining critic, a wine educator, a chemistry professor and the chair of the association’s “Taste and Color Committee.” Second place went to the Mal Paso Filtration Plant in Puerto Rico and third place went to Blythe, Ga.

Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson celebrated today by passing out free bottles of tap water to people at Waterfront Park, and he credited the win to the fine work done by the folks at the Louisville Water Co.

So here’s the question: Does Louisville’s water taste better because the water company is publicly owned? Or did the years of fighting over condemnation of Kentucky American Water Co. in Lexington just leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouth?

Dead cicadas have replaced live tent caterpillars below the tires of my bicycle. That’s good for baby horses — and my ringing ears.

What if someone brought several dozen of the world’s smartest, most innovative people to Kentucky?

And what if you could spend three days listening to them talk about ideas that may change the world?

Sound unlikely? It’s not.

It has happened five times since 2000, and it will happen again Sept. 25-27, when the Idea Festival returns to downtown Louisville.

Scott Jones, the man who invented voicemail, will be there. So will J. Richard Gott, a Princeton University astrophysicist.

Richard Kogan, a psychiatrist and world-class concert pianist, will perform and lecture on the genius of Mozart. Immaculee Llibagiza, the international peace activist, will talk about what it was like to survive genocide in Rwanda.

Diandra Leslie-Pelecky will discuss her book The Physics of NASCAR, which examines how race cars can go so fast. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a risk-management expert and derivatives trader, will discuss his book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, the top-selling non-fiction title of 2007. Will Shortz, the crossword editor of The New York Times, will talk about puzzles.

The European architect Emiliano Gandolfi will launch the Curry Stone Design Prize, a new $100,000 award for innovation in architecture, to be administered by the University of Kentucky’s College of Design.

Vova Galchenko, a world-champion juggler, will demonstrate his skill and discuss the thinking behind it. Amy Chua, who analyzes global politics and economics, will discuss the rise and fall of hyperpowers.

They are among more than 30 presenters recruited for this year’s festival, said founder Kris Kimel, president of the Lexington-based Kentucky Science and Technology Corp. Program details were announced Tuesday.

“They’re all either doing something or thinking about something that’s really cutting-edge,” Kimel said.

They’re also people who think about how ideas cut across all areas of life, and they are good communicators to a general audience.

The big idea behind the Idea Festival is this: In today’s global economy, ideas and innovation are the keys to business success and making the world a better place. If you can bring together a diverse group of innovative thinkers from a variety of disciplines to discuss their ideas, it will stimulate more creative thinking by everyone else.

The Idea Festival started in Lexington in 2000, and it was held again in 2002 and 2004. Organizers wanted to make it a bigger, annual event. In 2006, they moved the festival to Louisville, where there was more access to corporate sponsors and large presentation venues.

The festival costs about $850,000 in cash and $350,00 in in-kind contributions to put on, Kimel said. A big group of sponsors — including Best Buy’s Geek Squad and the universities of Kentucky and Louisville — help keep ticket prices low.

“Business executives pay $3,000 to $6,000 to attend these types of events elsewhere, but we wanted to make it accessible to the public, to all ages, at a reasonable price,” said Kimel, whose private, non-profit corporation works to advance science, technology and innovative economic development in Kentucky.

Last year, about 7,000 people bought more than 12,500 tickets to Idea Festival events. At least 200 of those attending were school children, who can participate in a special program.

After five festivals, Kimel said, the event has gained an international reputation. The 120 or so presenters since 2000 have ranged from Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak to Sir George Martin, the Beatles’ producer.

Perhaps best of all, the Idea Festival has helped create positive buzz for Kentucky.

“We’ve always been known for a lot of things; innovation hasn’t been one of them — but now it is,” Kimel said. “Many of the presenters we bring in have never been to Kentucky before. They leave with the impression that innovation is valued here.”

What: More than 30 top thinkers from around the world discuss cutting-edge ideas in science, business, the arts and other fields

When: Sept. 25-27

Where: Several locations in downtown Louisville

Cost: Full pass is $298 until July 15, $350 afterward. Tickets for individual events go on sale July 15. Some individual events are free; others cost $15 to $65

More information: www.ideafestival.com

What kind of city should Lexington become?

That’s the big question each year when Commerce Lexington gathers local leaders and takes them to another city in search of ideas.

“Lexington is at a pivotal point — economically, culturally and physically,” Mayor Jim Newberry told the 275 people on this year’s trip as they gathered last Wednesday in Austin Music Hall in the capital city of Texas.

Everyone agreed. They also knew that economic success in the 21st century will belong to those cities and regions that embrace knowledge and technology.

So what was there to learn in Austin? Lexington is a prettier place and has much better weather. Yet, Austin is booming and seems wired for a bright future.

That’s because, over the past three decades, Austin has made smart, strategic decisions about creating an economic and social climate where technology companies flourish and the people who work for them can enjoy a high quality of life. Spinoffs from that climate include a rich live music scene.

Austin has worked hard to preserve its history, protect its environment and embrace creativity.

Creative people can be different — sometimes very different.

Austin’s unofficial motto is “Keep Austin Weird.” The motto might as well be official, because every government and business leader who spoke to the visitors from Lexington touted the notion.

“We have created, maybe you think, a monster,” said Pike Powers, an attorney and former Austin Chamber of Commerce chairman. “But what keeps us on the map is our young people, our creative people. They are the draw for technology companies and bright researchers.”

Some Lexington leaders joked that we should print T-shirts saying, “Make Lexington Weird.”

Others, who know our city better, pointed out that buttoned-down Lexington has always had a weird streak. Many people just don’t want to admit it, much less embrace it.

Someone offered a better T-shirt motto: “Lexington: Show Your True Colors.”

What does embracing creativity really mean? For one thing, it means tolerance.

“The ‘Keep Austin Weird’ thing has become a rallying point for championing diversity, for truly embracing that which is different,” said Ed Bailey, vice president of brand development for Austin City Limits, the successful Public Broadcasting System music show. “In Cleveland, where I come from, that’s not really valued. Here, it is.”

It also means encouraging citizens to become involved in decision-making.

“In Austin, civic engagement is a contact sport,” said Robena Jackson, a consultant who was once the Austin chamber’s “vice president for quality of life.”

Austin residents won’t allow a few elites to make big decisions about their city behind closed doors. There are dozens of groups, such as the Austin Area Research Organization, where issues are studied and debated.

The Austin City Council meets each Thursday, and the marathon sessions can last up to 15 hours. All who want to speak can have their say; no three-minute limits like in Lexington. Oh, and the meeting takes a break at 5:30 p.m. so everyone can listen to a local musician.

“People in Austin demand a voice,” Jackson said. “And leaders in Austin know they have to listen to them to get things done.”

Austin is often seen as a liberal island in conservative Texas. But Austin’s current mayor and two former ones said local government doesn’t try to be the solution to problems so much as a facilitator. Government seeks to help entrepreneurs succeed, not get in their way.

Locally owned businesses are valued. Entrepreneurship is celebrated. The city, state and University of Texas work closely together to develop the economy. Progress is tracked, results are measured. There’s a bias toward action.

Austin leaders were quick to say that their city is far from perfect. Housing is too expensive, air quality is often poor, traffic can be a mess. But they said leaders haven’t been afraid to try things and fail, and they’ve learned from their mistakes.

“We made a lot of this up on the fly,” Powers said. “Sometimes things work wonderfully for us, and sometimes we fall flat on our face.”

Creativity. Tolerance. Entrepreneurship. Early and meaningful public involvement in decision-making.

Some people in Lexington already believe in those ideas. What if many more did?

Lexington might come to see controversy as an opportunity for discussion, rather than an embarrassment to avoid. We might take more risks. We might try to be great instead of just good enough, knowing full well that somebody will always complain if things don’t turn out perfectly. Or even if they do.

That’s what I learned in Austin.

Steve Austin, who directs the new Center for Community Legacy Initiatives at the Blue Grass Community Foundation, formerly headed the “smart growth” group Bluegrass Tomorrow. He is one of those people who tries to think like a hockey player. You know, focus on where the puck is going, not where it is now.

While in Austin, Texas, on the Commerce Lexington trip, he noticed an interview in Austin Monthly magazine with Guy Forsyth, a singer and songwriter. Down in the article, Forsyth was quoted as saying home prices have tripled since he moved to Austin in 1990, pricing him out of many neighborhoods, despite his success.

A generation ago, musicians began coming to Austin because they were being priced out of California. “Austin has peaked, but they don’t know it,” Austin said. “Being the next hot thing has passed for them.”

If young musicians can no longer afford to live in Austin, will they stop going there? Where will they go instead? “Why couldn’t it be Lexington?” he wondered.

Here is a guest post from Billy Hylton, a 1998 University of Kentucky graduate who then lived in Austin for six years before moving to Chapel Hill, N.C., where he is a Web designer. He contacted me today after reading my posts from the Commerce Lexington trip to Austin.

* * *

CentrePointe Tower has been ridiculed as bland, uninspired, and elitist. It could be worse. Austin’s glass-skinned Frost Bank Tower was once described as “an enormous set of nose hair trimmers.” Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones even claimed that Frost was built at the direction of the secretive Bohemian Club. Something about it resembling an owl.

What did Austin’s vaunted creative class think? They wanted to keep the city weird and the “world-class tower” was the antithesis of funky, vibrant Austin. Build it in Houston, they said. But an interesting thing happened after the tower pierced the sky in 2003. Frost was voted “Best New Building” by readers of the influential progressive weekly Austin Chronicle for a whopping five years in a row. Huh?

The Frost Tower story offers a lesson for CentrePointe advocates and detractors. From a visual standpoint, Frost is certainly an impressive addition to the skyline. But what earned the building props in the Chron has more to do with what’s happening at the street level. There are no quasi-public plazas or landscape features set back from the road. Similarly, marble-walled fountains are missing too. Frost is pure urbanism, with retail and restaurants pushed right to the sidewalk. Standing in front of the building’s Congress Avenue entrance, you don’t appreciate the massive scale of a 33-story skyscraper looming above. Traditional urban form and shimmering post-modernism make the tower a success with high-minded architectural critics and the folks alike.

What can be learned from the success of this project? Good architectural design and aesthetics are often debatable, but what everyone in Lexington should agree on is that all four sides of the tower engage and energize the city around it. Here’s what that means:

• Entrances to the hotel, restaurants, and retail should be easily accessible on all sides from the sidewalk.
• Restaurants and cafes should be encouraged to include sidewalk tables.
• No poorly conceived garage parking, surface parking, or blank walls.
• No parks or plazas set back twenty feet, even if packaged as “greenspace.”
• Local businesses should be included in retail plans.

These simple considerations will go a long way to ensuring that this project is an asset to downtown Lexington. In fact, if CentrePointe is properly executed, Lexington’s creative citizens and downtown aficionados may recognize that losing the Dame, Mia’s, and other buildings on the block was ultimately worth the trade-off — just as Austinites now love Frost Tower.

Many of the record 275 people who went on Commerce Lexington’s 69th annual Leadership Visit go year, after year after year. They get ideas for improving Lexington. They make and develop contacts for improving their businesses and careers. And they get a lot of work done.

This week’s trip to Austin, Texas, was the sixth Commerce Lexington trip for Barry Brauch, the CFO of American Founders Bank. He said there’s often an expectation that the group will come back with some big idea that quickly transform Lexington, but it just doesn’t happen that way. What happens is small ideas are planted, germinate and bloom sometimes years later with a distinct Lexington twist.

“It’s like making a mosaic that, over time, gives a picture of what Lexington can be,” Brauch said as the group headed back to Lexington on Friday afternoon.

The best way for people to get to know each other is to travel together. There’s a lot of value in gathering together the mayor, all 15 Urban County Council members, the school superintendent, many of the city’s top bankers and business leaders, a local legislator and the speaker of the state House of Representatives, who lives in Bowling Green and may not otherwise spend a lot of time thinking about what’s good for Lexington and how what happens in Lexington is good for Kentucky.

“I can’t imagine, without this trip, how much more fragmented Lexington would be,” Brauch said. “Some people think Lexington is divided. I think they’ve just never lived somewhere that’s really divided.”

For business people, who often are focused on minding their own business, it’s a time to step back and think about what’s good for the entire city. “You feel plugged in, and when things come up back home later, you know how it fits into the overall things people are trying to accomplish,” Brauch said.

Brauch cited a small example: When artists, performers and creative entrepreneurs come seeking loans, bankers often look askance. They don’t understand the business models, and they worry when the collateral is more intellectual than concrete. But politicians and bankers in Austin explained to that such loans, when done carefully and intentionally, are good for business and good for a city.

Linda Gorton, an Urban County Council member, says these trips teach Lexington leaders as much what to avoid as to emulate. For example, last year’s trip showed that Boulder, Colo., has become such an expensive place to live that many police officers, firefighters, teachers and service workers must live in neighboring towns. “We sure don’t want that to happen in Lexington,” she said.

Lexington leaders whose success often depends on collaborating with other Lexington leaders found the trip invaluable. Fire Chief Robert Hendricks was able to discuss several issues, such as home sprinklers, with a variety of interested parties.

“In order to get a meeting with some of these people in Lexington, it can normally take a month,” said Stu Silberman, the Fayette County Schools superintendent. “Here, you can get those people together in 15 minutes and get the meeting done quickly.”

Susan Rayer, director of career development at Transylvania University, lined up internships for four students. “And that was all done before dinner last night,” she said on the second day of the three-day trip.

“For me, this trip is worth its weight in gold. I’ve gotten so much done,” said Wanda Bertram, executive director of LexLinc, a non-profit that helps poor neighborhoods solve problems. “We didn’t have the money in the budget, but my board chair said, ‘You’re going on this trip.’”

Commerce Lexington’s 70th annual Leadership Visit next year will be to Madison, Wis.

Woodford Webb, Commerce Lexington’s chair-elect for 2009, said Madison has changed a lot since the chamber trip there 11 years ago.

Madison has may things Lexington would like to have. It has 160 biotech companies, a dynamic downtown, low business taxes, good environmental protection efforts and a highly educated population. The city ranks high on national lists of places to live and raise a family.

Not far below Austin’s celebrated “weirdness” is a quirky streak of entrepreneurship and a passion for locally owned businesses.

You can see a lot of it in south Austin, where old buildings are constantly being repurposed by entrepreneurs with their own creative vision of the American dream. For example, a restaurant in an old gas station that still looks a lot like a gas station.

Along one big street is a billboard with a picture of Thomas Edison that says, “On the 10,000th time, there was light.”

Some of the quirkiest businesses are along South Congress Avenue. It’s a broad street with a commanding view of the state capitol dome in the distance. On each side of this avenue on a hill, there’s a funky collection of businesses, many in storefronts from the 1950s.

Where else can you see an old Airstream trailer rehabbed as a cupcake stand? A Japanese fast food restaurant next to an ice cream stand down the street from a Western wear store, jewelry boutiques and a psychodelic costume shop called “Lucy in Disguise with Diamonds.” And then there’s the Magnolia Cafe, whose sign proudly proclaims: “Sorry we’re open.” On the first Thursday of each month, South Congress merchants stay open late and have special events for their customers. It’s not just a shopping district: It’s an experience.

Photos/Tom Eblen

You hear a lot of talk in Lexington about how encouraging more live music and entertainment venues downtown would be good for the economy, and that’s true.

It would improve Lexington’s quality of life and attract and retain the creative, young workers of the future and the companies that want to hire them.

But what the 275 Lexington leaders on the Commerce Lexington trip to Austin, Texas, are learning this week is that music and entertainment can develop into a significant industry itself, with the right planning and encouragement from local government, banks and other business interests.

And you don’t have to be a Nashville, Los Angeles or Austin to make it happen.

Austin’s music scene goes back to the 1930s, when Kenneth Threadgill hired local bands to play at his Gulf station at night and started selling more beer than gas. Things really took off when the cowboys and hippies collided in the late 1960s, with University of Texas students providing a ready-made audience.

Now, music employs 11,200 people in Austin, generates $11 million in taxes and has an annual economic impact of $616 million. And it’s only a piece of what Austin calls its creative industry sector, which also includes art, film production, digital music and visual media - otherwise known as creating video games.

“Fun is an important part of the economy,” said Jim Butler, a city employee whose job it is to nurture creative businesses. “We take it very seriously.”

Here’s a not-so-small but telling example:

Austin City Limits is one of the most successful and longest-running shows on public television. It showcases both top talent and up-and-comers for a worldwide audience. The show began in 1975, when Austin public television station KLRU convinced Willie Nelson to shoot a pilot to kick off a series of shows featuring Texas musicians.

“We started out just wanting to put a lens on what was happening in Austin at the time,” said Ed Bailey, the show’s vice president for brand development.

When Austin City Limits was still going three years later, producers decided to upgrade the set. They came up with the backdrop that shows Austin’s skyline, which three decades later has become the show’s trademark and has helped make Austin famous.

“It wasn’t part of a business plan to promote Austin,” Bailey said. “It happened because a few creative individuals got together and made a judgment call.”

Then, seven years ago, the show’s producers decided they could use their contacts in the music industry to create a festival as a fundraiser for KLRU. After all, some of the nation’s biggest entertainers had gotten their start on Austin City Limits and returned regularly.

The three-day festival now attracts 130 bands on eight stages and 75,000 fans a day to Austin’s Zilker Park each September. Over the past six years, the festival has generated $100 million in economic impact for Austin.

It was a success story that got several Lexington people thinking: Why not us?

After all, Kentucky has produced some of the nation’s most successful musicians, and there’s a whole genre of music called bluegrass. Lexington already has successful niche festivals, such as Festival of the Bluegrass at the Kentucky Horse Park and Ichthus near Wilmore.

Lexington has its own home-grown live music success story: Michael Johnathan’s “Woodsongs Old-Time Radio Hour,” which is beamed each week from the Kentucky Theatre to 491 radio stations worldwide, XM Satellite Radio, a number of public TV stations and streams live online. It will record its 500th show on Sept. 15.

More than a little brand equity there. Great contacts in the music industry.

So, could Lexington boost its economy and image - not to mention the show’s - with a festival?

Austin’s experiences also sparked ideas for Lexington on a smaller scale.

Lexington has some great large venues for shows - Rupp Arena, the Opera House, UK’s Singletary Center for the Arts. But what the city lacks is smaller venues like the Dame, which is looking for a new home since being displaced from Main Street by the proposed CentrePointe development. Those are the venues where musicians get their starts and a local music scene takes root and grows.

The most popular activity for the Lexington visitors Wednesday night was a “pub crawl” to four of the bars in downtown Austin. Many people later wandered over to some live performances at other clubs, such as Stubb’s Bar-B-Q, where Kentuckian Loretta Lynn will be singing June 13.

Wednesday night’s acts were less famous, but still popular.

“There were probably 1,000 people at that one show on a Wednesday night,” Lexington architect Clive Pohl said. “And we passed dozens of clubs on the way there and they were all packed.”

Craig Robertson, a young attorney, dreams of an outdoor concert venue in downtown Lexington, perhaps in the Cox Street parking lot beside Rupp Arena, and lots of small, downtown music clubs. “Where can you go now in Lexington to see the people who aren’t big headliners?” he said.

Vice Mayor Jim Gray appointed a downtown entertainment task force in October 2007 that will soon issue a report and some recommendations. And a few more recommendations are likely to be added when this group returns from Austin.

Council member Linda Gorton said little things Austin is doing to encourage clubs and entertainment venues could easily be done in Lexington - relaxing some ordinances, for example, or providing loading zones on streets for entertainers to use at night.

“We could remove some small obstacles and make it happen,” Gorton said.

Here we are in the city named for Stephen F. Austin, the “father of Texas” and Transylvania University alumnus (class of 1810).

Commerce Lexington chartered two large jets for the 275 people making its 69th annual Leadership Visit. When those jets touched down at Austin’s new airport, we were taken to Austin Music Hall to hear from local leaders about this city’s successes and failures and how they might apply to Central Kentucky.

The music hall itself is a symbol of one of those successes. A former warehouse and chili factory, it was reopened seven months ago after essentially being rebuilt as a privately developed concert venue.

It’s not a fancy building — concrete floors, exposed beams and air ducts — and that is by design. Owner Tim O’Connor said the “dressed down” decor offers ultimate flexibility for whatever the function and whomever is appearing on stage — whether it’s Bill Gates, Barrack Obama or B.B. King. All have “performed” there.

It’s also an environmentally friendly building, with such things as automatic light switches and computer-controlled climate systems. The water-chilled air conditioning system uses no freon, and it worked quite well today as the afternoon temperature hit 100 degrees.

“The most important thing a developer can do is know the community and the needs of people in that community,” O’Connor said.

Austin’s transformation began in 1983 when it was chosen as the site for Microelectronics & Computer Technology Corp., a research consortium financed by a dozen technology companies. The consortium and the companies spun off from it made Austin a high-tech center.

But all that technology focus hasn’t made the city nerdy. Just the opposite. Austin has developed a live music scene and funky culture that attracts creative young people. Austin now has the youngest net in-migration of any city in America.

Growth has always been a constant in Austin. The metro area’s population has doubled every 20 years for the past 115 years. There are currently about 775,000 residents in the city and 1.6 million in the metro area.

Former Mayor Lee Cook said the keys to Austin’s success have been its willingness to take risks and focus on quality of life. Austin invested in water and sewer improvements, even during economic downturns, and made environmental protection a priority. Leaders have worked to improve schools and integrate the University of Texas and other local universities into the local economy.

But Austin still struggles with transportation and sprawl. Highway traffic is bad, although the city’s first limited light rail system will open later this year.

“Growth is the opportunity, and it is the challenge,” said current Mayor Will Wynn, who has a name any politician would envy.

Wynn came into office in 2003 from the commercial real estate industry, and he had a strong background in environmental protection and historic preservation. He stressed the need for quality, high-density, mixed-use urbane development that makes wise use of land and adds vitality to the city.

In just the past few years, the number of people living in downtown Austin has grown from 500 to 5,800. And another 7,000 or so will be joining them once 4,000 downtown housing units now under construction are finished.

A former mayor who now represents Austin in the state Senate, Kirk Watson, said cities like Austin and Lexington could be positioned well to succeed in the new economy.

Strong economies were once about being an empire, then a superpower, Watson said. Now, with digital technology, they’re about being a successful region. Wealth was once about having land, then industrial capacity. Now, it’s about having intellectual capacity and creative people.

So, Watson said, the places that will be winners in the 21st Century global economy will be those cities and surrounding regions that can attract the brightest people and the companies that want to hire them. “Places that never before could be economic powers can be now,” he said.

He cited these factors for Austin’s success: Improving education, attracting high-tech companies, preserving the local environment and investing in the arts and culture as a way to improve the quality of life and attract smart, dynamic people.

Watson noted that the city’s most popular bumper sticker says, “Keep Austin Weird.”

He noted that innovative companies such as Dell Computer and Whole Foods were started in Austin by people with “weird” ideas. “To attract and cultivate that creative mindset, you have to allow those weird ideas … that often become visionary 10 years later,” he said.

Most of the 275 people going to Austin, Texas, for Commerce Lexington’s 69th annual Leadership Visit have gathered in a big hall at Blue Grass Airport, waiting to board two chartered jets.

Ed Brand, a retired Fayette County middle school principal who now works at the airport, herded the folks through security and into a room for breakfast and lots of talking.

“We learn a lot from the cities we visit,” said P.G. Peoples, president of the Urban League. “But we also learn a lot from each other.”:

Have to go. My plane is boarding….

Legend has it that when many Kentuckians went west in search of a better life more than a century ago, they wrote “GTT” on their cabin doors - Gone to Texas.

About 275 of Lexington’s movers and shakers left similar messages on their voice mail Wednesday.

They’ve gone to Austin, Texas, for Commerce Lexington’s 69th annual Leadership Visit. Unlike their ancestors, though, they’ll return Friday night with lots of ideas for making life better in Kentucky.

Commerce Lexington’s annual trip is one of the nation’s oldest and largest of its kind. Past trips have been to such cities as Nashville; Providence, R.I.; Raleigh, N.C.; Boulder, Colo.; and Portland, Ore. And they have produced a variety of ideas for Lexington, ranging from the Fayette Education Foundation to city recycling programs.

This year’s attendees include Mayor Jim Newberry and all 15 members of the Urban County Council, as well as community leaders in business, education and the arts.

These trips are an invaluable chance for the people who run Lexington to see what is working and not working in other cities, to pick up new ideas, to discuss them and to network with each other, said Commerce Lexington President Robert Quick.

“It’s easy for us to look at any community we go to … and just think they’ve always had their act together,” he said. “A lot of these areas started 25, 30, 50 years ago, and the key is that they built the right infrastructure for change.”

Quick said that no matter where the trip goes, there’s always an interesting realization: “We have a lot more going for us than we give ourselves credit for, but we can’t see it because we’re so involved in our day-to-day lives.”

This year’s group of 275 is the largest ever. The three-day trip was sold out late last year, and 38 people on the waiting list had to stay home. Quick said special emphasis was put on including young professionals; there are 57 leaders on the trip younger than 30.

Austin was chosen for this year’s trip because since the early 1980s it has transformed itself into a diverse, energetic city that attracts high-tech businesses and young professionals. Austin’s live-music scene is a model for ambitious efforts to improve our city’s entertainment infrastructure - one of the keys to making Lexington an exciting place for both residents and visitors. Plus, Austin has had some success in regional planning and cooperation, a big issue in the Bluegrass.

The Lexington delegation will hear from Austin Mayor Will Wynn and other local officials. Group meetings will be at the Austin Music Hall, a state-of-the-art performance venue that was recently doubled in size.

Attendees will get to sample Austin night life Wednesday. On Thursday afternoon, groups can tour Austin’s city hall, airport and revitalization efforts downtown and in an historic African-American neighborhood.

“We learn a lot from other communities’ successes, and from their failures,” Quick said.

“Seeds get planted, even though it may take us years to follow through. By having everyone at the table - the policy-makers and the people at the street level - you have a group that can come back and get things done.”