The Bluegrass and Beyond

When I moved back here 15 years ago, Lexingtonians were battling with bumper stickers. Builders and developers had “Growth is Good” stickers on their bumpers. Preservationists had “Growth Destroys Bluegrass Forever” on theirs.

It was a pointless debate. Growth is inevitable. The question is how best to handle it.

Fortunately, discussions about growth and development are now less heated and simplistic and more productive. Both sides realize that Lexington’s future depends on steady, well-planned growth that encourages compatible economic development but doesn’t spoil the Bluegrass’ unique beauty and quality of life.

I gained some valuable insights into these issues recently by joining 28 other local people in a program called Citizens Planning Academy. We met two hours each Wednesday morning for six weeks to hear experts speak about all aspects of local growth and planning from a variety of viewpoints.

The program was organized by the land-use advocacy group Fayette Alliance and co-sponsored by the Home Builders Association of Lexington, the Fayette Farm Bureau, the American Society of Landscape Architects and The Plantory, a shared workspace for social entrepreneurs.

While Lexington has made mistakes over the years, it has been trying longer and harder than most cities to manage growth. The city’s first comprehensive plan was adopted in 1931. My house was then at the eastern edge of the city limits. Now, many people refer to it as being “downtown.”

The 1931 plan referred to Union Station, the long-ago-demolished train depot, as the most important building in town. Ironically, it is now the site of the recently renovated Helix  parking garage and the office where people take automobile driving tests and get their licenses.

In 1958 — 15 years before city-county merger — Lexington became the first city in America to set an urban growth boundary to limit suburban sprawl and protect rural land. Over the years, the Urban Services Area has been expanded from 22 percent of the county to about 30 percent.

From the 1950s to the early 2000s, Lexington experienced rapid, automobile-centric growth as residential subdivisions and shopping centers were built on former farmland. In recent years, there has been more focus on urban infill and redevelopment as everyone realized Fayette County’s farmland and open space is precious, finite and a vital to Lexington’s economy, image and quality of life.

Unlike most areas of Kentucky, Lexington is likely to see continued population growth, from a current 302,000 people to about 376,000 by 2030.  How are we planning for that growth?  Here are a couple of trends to watch:

Future growth will likely be more dense, more urban and less dependent on automobiles.

“We’re planning for a different type of population,” said Chris King, director of Lexington’s Division of Planning.

Many aging baby boomers and young people want to be able to walk or bike to work, shopping and entertainment. That means different styles of new neighborhoods and retrofitting older neighborhoods to make them less isolated.

Residential development and revitalization of in-town neighborhoods has been a key piece of the renaissance of downtown Lexington as a mixed-use area. That trend is likely to continue, King said.

That’s good, because it makes more efficient use of land. But increasing density is sure to spark conflict with some existing neighborhoods.

Another big factor in Lexington’s future growth will be outdoor water quality. Many developments in recent decades were built with inadequate infrastructure, which led to storm-water runoff problems and pollution of local streams. The city must spend millions of dollars to remedy past sins and prevent new ones under a consent decree with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

That means that sewer capacity will limit future growth much more severely in the past. But the consent decree also has prompted city officials to get creative with natural solutions for storm-water management and filtering: permeable pavement, stream-bank restoration and systems for capturing and reusing rainwater.

The exciting Town Branch Commons proposal could be another piece of “green” infrastructure, creating both a linear park through downtown and helping to manage storm-water runoff.

The Fayette Alliance plans another Citizens Planning Academy next year, but dates have not been set. Watch FayetteAlliance.com for more information about how to apply.

Morgan County’s strategic plan for rebuilding from a March 2012 tornado includes encouraging super energy-efficient construction of new homes and commercial buildings to lower operating costs. Habitat for Humanity has already built several such homes in Morgan and neighboring Rowan counties. This one was under construction in January. Photo by Tom Eblen

Each time I have visited West Liberty since the devastating tornado, people have expressed determination to rebuild. But they didn’t just want to put things back the way they were; they wanted to use the disaster to reposition their community for the future.

The Morgan County seat had been hurting for years before the twister, which killed six people on March 2, 2012. West Liberty was like so many other small towns that have struggled to adapt to the loss of cash crops and factories.

Last week, after more than a year of study and work, West Liberty leaders unveiled a new strategic plan for their community. It is a creative, forward-looking plan designed to attract national attention and support. If successful, it could serve as a model for struggling small towns throughout Kentucky and across America. (Click here to download a copy of the plan.)

“I’m very excited about it,” said Hank Allen, CEO of Commercial Bank in West Liberty and president of the Morgan County Chamber of Commerce. “There is such a will to rebuild, to not only get back to where we were but to be better than we were.”

One key aspect of the plan follows the lead of Greensburg, Kansas, which was wiped out by a 2007 tornado and attracted national attention by rebuilding using the latest energy-efficient technology.

West Liberty’s energy-efficient reconstruction plans include replacement houses with “passive” design and construction, which can cut energy costs as much as 70 percent over conventional construction. Habitat for Humanity has already built several such homes in the area.

The downtown business district also would be rebuilt using energy-efficient construction, including a geothermal loop that many buildings could share to lower their heating and cooling costs.

Allen says he thinks that will be one of the biggest factors in recreating a viable downtown. Rent was cheap in the old buildings the tornado blew away. But reconstruction will be expensive, pushing rents beyond what many mom-and-pop businesses can afford.

Commercial Bank is kicking off the geothermal loop as part of its headquarters reconstruction. Allen said designs are almost complete for a new bank building that should be certified LEED Gold. The pre-tornado bank building cost about $4,000 to $5,000 a month to heat and cool, but Allen estimates the new one will cost about $1,500 a month.

The bank building will include about 1,800 square feet of incubator space on its first floor to help small local businesses get back on their feet, Allen said.

The strategic plan also calls for encouraging downtown to be rebuilt with mixed-use structures housing businesses, offices, restaurants and apartments. That would create a more lively downtown with lower rents because of more efficient use of space.

Plans also call for installing free wireless service downtown to attract businesses and people in a region where wi-fi availability is now limited.

The strategic plan’s economic development initiatives have a big focus on eco-tourism, built around Morgan County’s natural beauty and local assets such as the Licking River, Cave Run and Paintsville lakes, and nearby destinations such as the Red River Gorge.

There would be encouragement for entrepreneurs to start businesses focusing on kayaking, rock climbing, hiking, canoeing, fishing and hunting. Plans also call for developing walking and biking trails along the Licking River through West Liberty.

Other economic development ideas in the plan also focus on existing strengths, such as trying to use the local ambulance service and hospital to develop new methods for rural health-care delivery.

The strategic plan grew out of a partnership among the city, Morgan County, local businesses, Morehead State University’s Innovation and Commercialization Center and the nonprofit Regional Technology and Innovation Center.

Midwest Clean Energy Enterprise LLC of Lexington was a consultant on the process. Jonathan Miller, a clean-energy advocate and former state treasurer, has been retained to help raise money nationally for the effort by promoting it as a model for small-town revitalization.

The Morgan County Community Fund, an affiliate of the Blue Grass Community Foundation, has been set up to help collect and distribute donations for the rebuilding effort.

These efforts got a big jump-start in February, when Gov. Steve Beshear and U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers announced a package of about $30 million in federal, state and private money for various rebuilding projects.

“That really opened people’s eyes to what is possible,” Allen said of the financial package. “As a community, we must think really, really large. But we have a long way to go.”

Wendell Berry, right, joined conference attendees on a tour Saturday of the farm at St. Catharine College in Washington County. Photo by Tom Eblen

SPRINGFIELD — Wendell Berry is a true conservative. He believes in conservation, the idea that God gave us the Earth to sustain our lives and the responsibility to care for it so it can sustain the lives of future generations.

Four decades ago, the writer and farmer was alarmed by the methods and economics of modern farming and mining, which were (and still are) destroying land, water and rural communities. So he wrote his 1977 book, The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture, which has become an international classic.

That book and Berry’s subsequent work did much to spark the sustainable agriculture and local food movements, just as Rachel Carson’sSilent Spring in 1962 helped spark the environmental movement.

So it was no surprise that 300 people from 35 states and several foreign countries came to Louisville and Springfield last weekend for a sold-out conference revisiting the book. Well-known speakers discussed both progress and challenges, and they pondered this question: What will it take to resettle America?

The conference was organized by the Berry Center in Henry County, which is run by Mary Berry Smith to promote the philosophy of her father, as well as her uncle and late grandfather, both farmers, lawyers and conservationists named John Berry.

On Saturday, the conference was at St. Catharine College in Springfield, where the Berry Center has just begun a partnership to create undergraduate degree programs in ecological agriculture. The Catholic college campus includes an 800-acre farm the Dominican Sisters of Peace have operated since 1822.

The conference included an on-stage interview of Berry by veteran journalist Bill Moyers, who will use it on one of his Public Broadcasting System programs. Other speakers included Bill McKibben, the best-selling author and climate change activist; Wes Jackson, a MacArthur “genius” award winner and founder of The Land Institute, a leading sustainable agriculture organization; and Vandana Shiva, a renowned author, scientist and environmentalist in India.

In his interview with Moyers, Berry blamed many of today’s ecological problems on industrialization, unbridled capitalism and political systems that favor wealthy corporations, which make big political contributions to reap far bigger returns in taxpayer subsidies and lax regulation.

“There’s no justification for the permanent destruction of the world,” Berry said. “It’s not economically defensible. It’s not defensible in any terms.”

Berry, 78, lamented that the three and a half decades since his book’s publication have been marked by further environmental degradation, from strip mining and soil erosion to water pollution and accelerating climate change.

“It’s mighty hard right now to think of anything that’s precious that is not in danger,” he said.

Berry noted that black willows no longer grow beside his Henry County farm on the banks of the Kentucky River, 13 miles from where it empties into the Ohio River, but still flourish just upriver on the Ohio. There seems to be something in the Kentucky River’s water they can no longer tolerate.

“If the willows can’t continue to live there, how can I be sure that I can continue to live there?” he asked.

Berry, a lifelong Baptist, said the unholy alliance between corporate capitalism and many conservative Christians is “a feat which should astonish us all.”

“A great mistake of Christianity is speaking of the Holy Land as only one place,” he said. “There are no sacred and unsacred places; only sacred and desecrated places.”

But Berry noted that many faith communities are beginning to heed the Bible’s call to environmental stewardship and justice. That gives him hope, as does the growing popularity of organic food, local farmers markets and the sustainable agriculture movement.

“I don’t like to talk about the future, because it doesn’t exist and nobody knows anything about it,” Berry said. “The problems are big, but there are no big solutions.”

Berry said he thinks “resettling America” will require enough people living on and being able to earn a living from the land to take care of it. That will take individual initiative, better government policies and the political will to deal with urgent global threats such as climate change. Can it succeed?

“We don’t have a right to ask whether we’re going to succeed or not,” Berry said. “We only have a right to ask what’s the right thing to do and do it.”

Journalist Bill Moyers, left, and writer Wendell Berry autograph books after Moyers filmed an interview with Berry. It was part of a two-day conference revisiting Berry’s landmark 1977 book, “The Unsettling of America.”  Photo by Tom Eblen

The University of Kentucky raised eyebrows last year when it decided to outsource housing to a private company. Now, it is considering doing the same with food service.

These are tough questions, but, after years of declining state support, UK needs to be asking them. What are the right answers?

By all accounts, UK Dining Services is well-managed. It pays for itself and provides good food and jobs. So why consider outsourcing? It is not about saving money, UK spokesman Jay Blanton said.

As with the decision to outsource housing in a 50-year deal with Memphis-based Education Realty Trust, this possible deal is more about raising capital. Lots of it.

“A business partner potentially could pop tens of millions of dollars into infrastructure improvements,” Blanton said.

UK needs capital because it has a lot of catching up to do on infrastructure. The General Assembly has always been stingy about letting UK borrow money for new and improved buildings, even when it could generate revenues to repay the debt.

But there are other considerations, too, Blanton said. Might a giant food service corporation be able to offer more variety and convenience at less cost?

“The question becomes what are the core competencies we have?” he said. “What are the things we do best as an institution, and then what are the things that need to be done as services to students that might be best facilitated with a partner?

“We’re not going to give up course delivery and instruction; we do that better than anybody else,” he added. “But are we the best entity to build a residence hall? Are we the best entity to provide food service? Or is that better facilitated through a partner? It’s worthwhile to at least ask the question.”

There are other issues, too. Dining Services has become a key player in supporting Kentucky’s budding local food movement. This year it will buy more than $1 million worth of “Kentucky Proud” products.

UK Dining Services is just the kind of partner UK’s College of Agriculture needs to help Kentucky farmers develop more sustainable production methods that in the long run will provide the state with more healthy food and stronger local economies.

As a land-grant university, UK’s mission extends beyond the classroom. The university has a responsibility to help show Kentucky the way forward by supporting innovation that will improve quality of life. That is a big reason some students, faculty and citizens have objected to outsourcing.

UK officials said last week that they will consider proposals from food service corporations, hold public meetings and make a decision by the end of the year about whether or not to outsource.

But, in response to the concerns, UK officials said that if they do outsource, they will protect current employees’ jobs and set criteria for vendors. That would include a mandatory commitment to partner with the Kentucky Proud program to buy locally produced food.

Those assurances are commendable, but are they good enough? That depends on how the criteria are set, and how well UK officials follow through during the decades this contract is likely to last.

Tens of millions of dollars in up-front capital is a powerful incentive. But any company offering that kind of capital to UK will want to find ways to get its money back, plus a healthy profit.

In many ways, UK’s outsourcing of housing made sense. UK will quickly get a more adequate supply of good, on-campus housing. But some critics worry that the housing will be too expensive for students. Others worry about the quality of the new residence halls.

Those critics say UK should have negotiated for more durable and energy-efficient construction, which would then have saved money in the long run through lower operating costs. Plus, at the end of the contract, UK would inherit buildings with more potential for future use.

Whichever way UK decides to go on food service, a real commitment to supporting local, healthy and sustainable food production is critical for Kentucky’s future.

As UK officials consider all of the implications of this long-term decision, they should keep this question in mind: Will a corporation care more about what is best for Kentucky or what is best for its shareholders?

I have been bicycling in the countryside for fun and exercise for nearly two decades. One of my New Year’s resolutions for 2013 was to make most of my short, in-town trips by bicycle once spring arrived.

Spring arrived last Wednesday. Despite below-freezing temperatures in the morning and a cold afternoon wind, two trips downtown and one to the University of Kentucky campus went well. Since then, it has snowed. And snowed.

Oh well, one of these days the weather will catch up to the calendar. When it does, more Kentuckians will be looking to bicycles as a means of transportation, an enjoyable form of exercise and even a vehicle for economic development.

To jump-start those efforts, the Kentucky Rails to Trails Council and several other organizations are planning the first Kentucky Walk Bike Summit, April 11 and 12 at the Capital Plaza Hotel in Frankfort.

The summit was modeled after the Lexington Bike Summit that Mayor Jim Newberry’s administration helped put together in 2007. It gave momentum to several Lexington efforts, including new bike lanes and the highly popular Legacy Trail.

Bill Gorton, a Lexington lawyer who is chairman of the state Bicycle and Bikeways Commission, said the goal of the summit is to share stories and strategies about successful projects around the state with people in other communities who want to do their own.

“We want to create a place where people get together and meet other people and share the stories about how they made these things happen,” Gorton said. “We’re hoping some of the smaller communities will work with the Transportation Cabinet and other sources of funding and say, ‘You know what, we can do that!’”

Among an extensive list of speakers and panelists are Lt. Gov. Jerry Abramson, a cyclist who as Louisville mayor began a 100-mile trail around the city; Transportation Cabinet Secretary Mike Hancock; David Adkisson, president of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce; Andy Clarke, president of the League of American Bicyclists; and representatives of state cycling groups and the Federal Highway Administration.

Gorton said the Transportation Cabinet has become more supportive of bike lanes and trails, such as the one connecting Lexington and Wilmore that was built along old U.S. 68 when the road was widened several years ago.

“It took the engineer in the district to say, ‘Hey, we can do that,’” Gorton said. “But these things need continued attention and advocacy.”

In addition to making existing roads safer for cyclists, Gorton said recreational trails can become important economic development assets. They are a part of the Beshear administration’s focus on “adventure tourism.”

One such effort involves converting abandoned rail lines into trails. Kentucky has only about 30 miles of those trails scattered around the state, and most are short. The most ambitious project now under way is the Dawkins Line, which would be a 36-mile trail in Breathitt, Johnson and Magoffin counties.

“There’s lots to see and experience in rural Kentucky, and by creating a destination like that, it can serve as the nucleus of other tourist activities,” Gorton said. “If you could link these with Kentucky State Parks, which are some of the best in the nation, there are great opportunities. You’ve got to have people see the potential.”

For more information and to register for the Kentucky Walk Bike Summit, go to Kywalkbikesummit.com.

I see the tourism potential for road cycling in Central Kentucky every Memorial Day weekend, when I run a rest stop at the annual Horsey Hundred ride. The Bluegrass Cycling Club, of which I am a member, has sponsored the two-day recreational ride for 35 years.

The Horsey Hundred is two days of supported rides of between 26 and 100 miles. The event attracts about 2,000 participants each year. I have met people at the Horsey who came from across North America, including a big group of Canadians who spend more than a week each year riding our back roads (and spending money at our hotels, restaurants and stores).

The Bluegrass Cycling Club makes money on the Horsey and gives most of it away to bicycle-related philanthropic projects in Central Kentucky. Grants are in the $2,000 to $4,000 range. For more information about applying, go to Bgcycling.org. The application deadline for this funding cycle is May 15.

Surely by then the snow will be gone.

Lexington didn’t finish in the money in Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Mayors Challenge, which gave $9 million to five cities to help them work on big ideas to improve urban life in America.

But Mayor Jim Gray isn’t too disappointed. More than 300 cities applied, and Lexington finished in the top 20, despite having little track record of applying for major foundation grants.

Gray said he and his staff learned a lot about how to do that. They also raised Lexington’s national profile in ways that could pay off in the future with the philanthropic arm of New York’s billionaire mayor, Michael Bloomberg, and similar foundations that fund city initiatives.

“I think there will be other bites at the apple,” Gray said in an interview last week. “We have an opportunity to leverage the visibility we got in making top 20.

“This process was a test case for how Lexington can dial up marketing to private foundations,” he added. “We have plenty of room to grow in this model. But what the Bloomberg Challenge showed is that we have the ability to compete.”

Bloomberg officials announced the five winning cities March 12. Providence, R.I., won the $5 million first prize, while Philadelphia, Houston, Chicago and Santa Monica, Calif., were each awarded $1 million.

Lexington applied for funding to speed up creation of CitizenLex.org, an online portal and system within government to collect citizens’ ideas for improving city life, gather the right people in and out of government around them, and track their accomplishments.

The idea for CitizenLex came from the Bloomberg competition process itself. Gray asked citizens to submit ideas for what Lexington should propose to Bloomberg, and he got more than 420 written submissions. So many of the ideas were good, the mayor said, that he wanted to figure out a way to make many of them happen rather than focusing on just one.

Gray and Lexington have yet to receive any detailed feedback from Bloomberg officials about how its application compared to those of the winners.

Many of the winning proposals were more concrete than Lexington’s. But, aside from Providence, none of the winning ideas struck me as being that revolutionary. Except for Santa Monica, all of the winning cities were much bigger than Lexington. Many were cities that, unlike Lexington, have been losing population and experiencing economic decline.

Providence’s idea is a high-tech plan to improve vocabulary and language skills among young low-income children. Research has shown that children from families receiving welfare have smaller vocabularies than their more-affluent peers, contributing to diminished academic performance and job opportunities.

Houston proposed a single-container recycling system, which Lexington already has. Chicago wants to better use city data to track trends. Philadelphia proposed a streamlined system for allowing local companies to bid for city contracts. Santa Monica, the smallest and wealthiest winning city, proposed a project to measure citizens’ overall well-being.

Lexington made a good impression on Bloomberg officials, Gray said, especially because of its high level of citizen engagement in the competition. That could bode well for future grants. The world of megabucks philanthropies devoted to city issues is small, he added, and they pay close attention to what each other are doing.

Gray still plans to push forward on CitizenLex, as funding is available. City officials also are working on pilot projects for many of the good ideas citizens submitted, such as bike trails and LED street lights.

Lexington has applied for a grant for CitizenLex from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The foundation has donated millions to Lexington over the years, because the Herald-Leader was once owned by Knight Newspapers. Grant winners are to be announced in July.

“We’re on their radar now,” Gray said. “People know about Lexington.”

Losing Michael Speaks

Few University of Kentucky deans have had more impact on Lexington in a short time than Michael Speaks, dean of the College of Design for the past five years. He announced last week he is leaving to take a similar post at Syracuse University.

Speaks, a brilliant and ambitious man, had his share of admirers and detractors within the university. Beyond campus, he played a big role in making good architecture and design a topic of conversation among average Lexingtonians.

The Mississippi native arrived here as the CentrePointe controversy erupted. His contacts helped attract international talent to improve CentrePointe’s design and develop world-class plans for the proposed Arena, Arts and Entertainment District and Town Branch Commons.

Speaks will be missed. Whomever succeeds him must keep the conversation going.

 The CentrePointe block awaits development. Photo by Charles Bertram

For a project yet to be built, CentrePointe has had a big impact on Lexington.

The most immediate impact was the election of Mayor Jim Gray in November 2010. Were it not for the controversy surrounding CentrePointe, I doubt then-Vice Mayor Gray would have run against, much less unseated, Mayor Jim Newberry.

What Gray understood — and Newberry didn’t — was that CentrePointe focused many people’s longtime frustrations about development in Lexington. People didn’t like the secrecy, the politics and the often-mediocre results.

Most of all, people wanted more say in how their city looks. They didn’t want Lexington’s architectural heritage bulldozed at a developer’s whim. Development occurs on private property, but everyone must look at it and live with it.

Five years later, CentrePointe is still a grassy field waiting for developer Dudley Webb to find financing and tenants. But the project has taught Lexington some valuable lessons.

One lesson is the value of historic preservation. Webb was quick to demolish an entire block, including some buildings that were more than a century old and could have been renovated into unique, valuable space within his larger development.

Lexington’s biggest development trend since then has been for entrepreneurs to renovate fine old buildings and adapt them for new uses — restaurants, bars, stores, offices and homes. These projects make economic sense and preserve Lexington’s history and unique charm.

Another lesson is that good design matters. With CentrePointe stalled and Gray in the mayor’s office, Webb felt pressure to hire top architectural talent and get public input to redesign his project. That work dramatically improved his development plan.

The CentrePointe redesign also helped pave the way for Louisville-based 21c to decide to build one of its acclaimed hotels and contemporary art museums across the street.

The 21c Museum Hotel will be in the century-old Fayette National building, which will get an extensive renovation.

That momentum helped Lexington attract world-class talent to design competitions for two public projects that could transform downtown: the Arena, Arts and Entertainment District and Town Branch Commons.

The arena area plan calls for renovating Rupp Arena, building a bigger convention center and gradually redeveloping more than 30 acres ofunderused, city-owned surface parking lots.

The winning plan for Town Branch Commons would turn marginalized downtown property into a linear park along the historic path of Town Branch Creek. Such projects in other cities have created popular amenities that have attracted many times their cost in new private investment.

Gary Bates, a highly regarded American architect now based in Norway, was chosen to develop the arena district plan.

The winning Town Branch Commons plan was designed by Kate Orff of New York, one of landscape architecture’s rising stars.

Why is such world-class talent suddenly being attracted to Lexington? Because the city has set the bar higher. Why is that important? Because if Lexington wants to attract the best employers, it must create an environment where the best and brightest people want to live and work.

One final lesson from CentrePointe is that Lexington needs better laws and processes to both encourage good development and prevent bad development, especially downtown.

A city task force has spent a lot of time studying “design excellence.” Now, with new leadership from Councilman Steve Kay and help from a consultant, task force members have begun trying to figure out how to turn talk into action.

That won’t be easy. It is not just a matter of creating laws and systems to keep developers from doing bad things. It is about creating laws, systems and incentives so developers can do great things. This will require rules that provide both clarity and flexibility. It will require high standards, but also processes that minimize hassle and unnecessary costs for developers.

I don’t know if the Webb Companies will ever succeed in building CentrePointe. And I worry that the longer the block sits empty, the harder it will be to attract outside investment for other major downtown projects.

But something will eventually be built on the CentrePointe block, and now is the time to make sure that it and other new construction downtown enhances the city rather than detracts from it.

 Watch a video about the CentrePointe block’s demolition:

Time lapse: Tearing down a block, one building at a time from David Stephenson on Vimeo.

To read previous CentrePointe columns and see photos of the project as it evolved, click here.

A CentrePointe gallery:

A group of Louisville high school students in Frankfort to attend the I Love Mountains Day events toured the Capitol Education Center roof, which has solar panels, a wind turbine and a roof garden. Below, an interactive exhibit inside shows how much less power LED and compact florescent lights use than traditional incandescent bulbs. Photos by Tom Eblen

FRANKFORT — Each year, I notice more young people attending I Love Mountains Day. The rally against mountaintop-removal coal mining is organized by the citizens group Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, and it has been a Valentine’s tradition since 2006.

The young people join hundreds of their elders from across Kentucky in marching to the Capitol steps to hear speakers that have included writer Wendell Berry and actress Ashley Judd. This year’s main speaker was writer Silas House.

Before the speeches, many marchers visit legislators and urge them to curb the coal industry’s worst environmental abuses, to no avail.

But this year, there was something new for the young people to see: the Capitol Education Center, which had its grand opening Feb. 8. The center was the brainchild of First Lady Jane Beshear, and it is located in a formerly vacant building beside the Capitol that once housed heating and cooling equipment.

Beshear thought the 60,000 students and teachers who visit the Capitol each year needed a place to rest and eat their lunch. Then, the former teacher realized that this recycled building could play a role in teaching students about one of the most important issues facing Kentucky’s future: environmental sustainability.

The building got a “green” renovation that included recycled materials and energy-efficient technology. Solar panels and a wind turbine that feed into the utility grid were installed on the roof. Rain water is recycled to water a roof garden that will provide food for the Governor’s mansion kitchen.

The Kentucky Environmental Education Council coordinated a dozen universities and state agencies in developing interactive multimedia exhibits for the building. They teach students about Kentucky history, civics and geography — but mainly about energy efficiency and alternative energy sources.

The project was funded with $1.1 million from the Finance Cabinet and a $250,000 donation from Duke Energy. General Electric donated appliances for a commercial kitchen that Beshear hopes to use for demonstrations of healthy cooking and eating. (For more information, go to: Cec.ky.gov.)

In an interview, Beshear said these issues are “so important for the future. The more we as a state get into energy efficiency and alternative sources, the better off we’ll be.”

This education center is outstanding, and the First Lady’s vision for it is inspired. But it was hard to ignore the irony when I took a tour on I Love Mountains Day.

That event was created eight years ago to push for the so-called “stream saver” bill, which would ban coal companies from burying streams with mining debris. KFTC says the practice has obliterated more than 2,000 miles of Appalachian waterways.

But thanks to the coal industry’s enormous clout in Frankfort, the proposed legislation has gone nowhere. Most elected state officials proudly call themselves “friends of coal”. That friendship, which comes with lots of campaign cash, has always meant that public health, mine safety and environmental stewardship take a back seat to coal company profits.

Kentucky’s coal industry is in decline because of depleted reserves, cheap natural gas and the Environmental Protection Agency’s newfound willingness to do its job. But, like the National Rifle Association, the coal industry has always fought every attempt at common-sense regulation. Anyone who threatens the industry’s freedom to mine with impunity is branded as an enemy of coal.

There was an added emphasis for this year’s I Love Mountains Day: House Bill 170, which would require utilities to use increasing amounts of renewable energy and put more emphasis on energy-efficiency programs.

In short, this bill, sponsored by Democrats Kelly Flood of Lexington and Mary Lou Marzian of Louisville, would put into law some of the good ideas showcased at the new Capitol Education Center.

Change is hard, and progress can be slow. But I can’t help but be encouraged when I attend I Love Mountains Day or see something like the Capitol Education Center. Politicians will always be captive to power and money, I suppose, but it is good to see other Kentuckians working for a better future.

Few legislators have the courage to attend I Love Mountains Day, and the coal industry would go after any governor who dared show his face there.

But it is perhaps worth pointing out what Gov. Steve Beshear was doing shortly before the crowd arrived for I Love Mountains Day. He was in the Capitol rotunda with former Wildcat basketball star Derek Anderson, calling for legislation to create a statewide public smoking ban.

If you had told me 20 years ago that a Kentucky governor would do such a thing, I would have said you were crazy.

I went to the annual “I Love Mountains” march and rally at the State Capitol today to gather material for my Sunday column — and to take photos. Here are a few of them:

Kentucky author Silas House, center, led the annual “I Love Mountains Day” march down Capitol Avenue to the State Capitol. The event was sponsored by Kentuckians for the Commonwealth in opposition to mountaintop-removal and other destructive forms of coal mining. Several hundred people attended. Many marchers this year were advocating for two pieces of proposed legislation: one would limit coal mine waste dumped into streams; the other would require more use of renewable energy by utilities in Kentucky.

Many children brought homemade signs. 

Eric Sutherland of Lexington, center, was among those cheering the rally’s speakers.

Writer Silas House, on the steps of the State Capitol, urged citizens to “clean this house” of politicians who do the bidding of the coal industry at the expense of Appalachia’s people and communities. 

Kentucky author Wendell Berry, right, shares a laugh with disabled coal miner Carl Shoupe of Harlan County, who spoke at the rally.

Ella Corder, a student at Meece Middle School in Somerset, waited for applause to die down so she could read the essay that won her a contest sponsored by Kentuckians for the Commonwealth.

Kentucky writers Bobbie Ann Mason, left, and Ed McClanahan were among hundreds who participated.

Daniel Mullins, 10, of Berea, makes his feelings known.

A Valentine’s Day reminder 

Don Ament’s photo of a dogwood tree in his front yard was enlarged to 42 feet wide by 11 feet tall to cover a folding wall that separates an employee cafe from a meeting room at TempurPedic’s new corporate headquarters building in Lexington.   Photo by Don Ament

Many artists dream of landing a big commission. For photographer Don Ament, it came from Tempur-Pedic, the Lexington-based mattress company.

Representatives from Tempur-Pedic met Ament last March at Kentucky Crafted: The Market. Then they saw an image on his website of dogwood blossoms in sunlight. The website has images Ament made all over the world, but this one was shot in his yard in Lexington.

The company was furnishing its new headquarters building near Coldstream Park, and executives thought Ament’s photo would be perfect for a folding wall that separates the employee café from a meeting room.

This commission was challenging because it literally was big. The image, taken on a 2.25-inch square piece of film, needed to be enlarged and printed 11 feet tall by 42 feet wide.

Ament scanned the film to create a high-resolution digital file, then, with help from friend and fellow photographer Frank Döring, manipulated the image to sharpen edges and preserve color vibrancy. A company in Maine printed the photo in sections, and last week it was installed like wallpaper. The result is stunning.

“They could go anywhere for art,” Ament said of Tempur-Pedic. “But they seem really dedicated to local.”

Indeed, as Tempur-Pedic settles into its new 128,000-square-foot space, much more local art will be purchased, said Patrice Varni, a senior vice president.

The only other pieces now are two Italian glass and stone mosaics designed by Guy Kemper, a Woodford County glass artist who has done installations all over the world, some as big as airport terminal walls.

Kemper’s mosaics for Tempur-Pedic are abstract evocations, roughly 10 feet square, for the fourth-floor executive area.

One is called After the Storm. “It recalls the feeling of a Kentucky forest after a summer storm, when a steamy sun comes out and everything is dripping wet,” Kemper said.

The other mosaic, called Daybreak, is “a shot of color to energize the work environment and promote creativity,” he said. “A reference that you’ve had a good night’s sleep.” (On a Tempur-Pedic mattress, no doubt.)

Kemper said Tempur-Pedic executives and their interior designer, Gary Volz of Champlin Architecture in Cincinnati, approached him after seeing two mosaics he did for elevator lobbies at the University of Kentucky Chandler Medical Center.

“We couldn’t be more thrilled with the pieces by Don and Guy,” Varni said. “I’ve really been struck by the positive response from employees.

“There was a steady stream of people stopping by to watch the installations.”

Tempur-Pedic built its new headquarters, which has large windows and expansive views of the Bluegrass landscape, to replace a former warehouse that had evolved into offices and become overcrowded as the company grew.

“This building was designed with a particular focus on collaboration and integrating the various work groups, and engendering creativity and innovative thinking,” Varni said. “Art is a big part of that, that is meant to showcase and inspire creativity and innovation.”

Varni said the company has budgeted purchases of more art during the next few years, as its 360 employees settle into the building, figure out what would complement the space and learn more about the work of local artists.

“We feel very much a part of the community, because the company was founded here,” Varni said. “In our support for the arts, we felt first and foremost we should support local artists.”

Varni said the Kentucky Arts Council has suggested several local artists whose work might be a good fit.

“Art is such a subjective, personal taste kind of thing,” she said. “We like things that have some sense of nature and that run the range from more literal to more abstract. And we’re interested in a different range of mediums.”

As part of its mission to help Kentucky artists be able to earn a living from their art, the council sponsors Kentucky Crafted: The Market, which returns to Lexington Center from March 1 through 3.

Kemper and Ament hope more Kentucky companies will follow Tempur-Pedic’s example because the arts flourishes only in places where artists find good patrons. Plus, when that investment is made in the community, it help’s Kentucky’s economy.

“You don’t have to run to New York or Chicago to look for something great,” Ament said. “There’s more good work being done here all the time.”

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Hardly a week goes by that people don’t tell me how they wish the open block where the Webb Companies hopes to build CentrePointe could become a public park instead.

As the block awaits redevelopment, it is planted in grass and surrounded by a plank fence to resemble a horse pasture. It has become a popular gathering place during downtown festivals. (At other times, it is off-limits, just as horse pastures are.)

CentrePasture’s popularity points to a couple of ironies about Lexington.

One is that we have a lot of open space, but little public space. The other is that we are surrounded by some of the world’s most beautiful rural landscapes — an artful blend of the natural and man-made — but our central business district is a generic jungle of concrete and asphalt. There are only a handful of small parks or plazas downtown, and few trees of any size.

Although recent renovations of Triangle and Cheapside parks have been excellent, the comments I hear make me think Lexington residents still yearn for more public space downtown.

Town Branch Creek resurfaces west of Rupp Arena. Herald-Leader photo

The Downtown Development Authority on Monday will choose the winner of a design competition for Town Branch Commons — some form of linear park on city-owned property along the path of the long-buried stream that gave birth to Lexington.

This project would involve bringing parts of the creek back to the surface, either literally or symbolically, to create attractive public spaces for nature and a variety of activities. A jury of design professionals was to recommend a winner to the DDA board after closed-door presentations Friday by the five finalists.

The competition attracted 23 entries. The finalists are among the world’s best landscape architects and designers: Coen + Partners in Minneapolis; Denver-based Civitas; the Netherlands firm Inside Outside; Scape Landscape Architecture of New York; and Copenhagen-based Julien De Smedt Architects working with Balmori Associates of New York.

All five finalists’ designs will be on display at the Downtown Arts Center from Tuesday until Feb. 22, including during Gallery Hop on Feb. 15.

I can’t wait to see the designs, especially after hearing the finalists make presentations about their previous work Thursday at the Lexington Children’s Theatre. They showed amazing projects from all over the world, including in cities such as Bilbao, Spain, that had far more daunting problems than Lexington has.

(An interesting side note is that three of the six presenters were women: design legends Diana Balmori and Petra Blaisse and one of landscape architecture’s rising stars, Kate Orff.)

(Also worth mentioning: several of the landscape architects showed projects that used wetland parks to effectively solve storm-water problems. Lexington officials should remember that as they decide how to spend millions of dollars on storm water issues under terms of the federal consent decree.)

I can already hear Lexington’s naysayers: This whole idea is impractical, unaffordable and frivolous. It is none of that.

The compelling argument for Town Branch Commons is not esthetic, but economic. This sort of urban public space has been an effective way to attract people and investment dollars to cities of all sizes, from Seoul, South Korea to Yonkers, N.Y.

People who have attended recent Commerce Lexington trips have seen it work in Greenville, S.C., where a long-neglected riverbank became Falls Park; and in San Antonio, where a once-buried stream similar to Town Branch became the Riverwalk, now Texas’ second-largest tourist attraction after the Alamo.

New York’s High Line project turned an abandoned elevated rail line into a linear park that has transformed a once-decaying section of lower Manhattan. Despite huge cost overruns, the Millennium Park that Chicago built over an urban rail yard has more than paid for itself with the private development it has attracted.

The kind of public-private partnership envisioned with Town Branch Commons is under way in Atlanta, which is turning an abandoned rail line around the city into 1,300 acres of parks and 33 miles of trails, and in Louisville, which has raised more than $60 million in private money for the 21st Century Parks project that is creating 4,000 acres of linear parkland and 100 miles of trails around that city.

What excites me about the potential of Town Branch Commons was mentioned frequently by the world-class designers who submitted plans. This isn’t about building Disney World in a swamp; it is an authentic reflection of Lexington’s history, geography and culture.

Pioneers chose Town Branch as the site for their town, laying out Lexington’s grid according to the creek’s path rather than a compass. Its banks were where early Lexingtonians gathered for fun and refreshment before the stream was polluted, built over and eventually buried.

Town Branch Commons will require public money and even more private money. But it could be a great long-term investment, one that uses the authenticity of Lexington’s past to create both an amenity and economic generator for the future.

Kentucky kicks ass. Often, unfortunately, its own.

To stay with anatomical metaphors, Kentuckians are good at shooting ourselves in the foot. We consider creative people to be a thorn in our side, because new ideas can be a pain in the neck.

So I wasn’t surprised at the Kentucky Department of Travel and Tourism’s tone-deaf response to three 30-something advertising men from Lexington who suggested that “Kentucky Kicks Ass” would be a more effective state marketing slogan than “Unbridled Spirit.”

The suggestion came from Kentucky for Kentucky, a little company formed two years ago by Griffin VanMeter of Bullhorn Creative, Whit Hiler of Cornett-IMS and fellow Lexington native Kent Carmichael, who works for Energy BBDO in Chicago.

Kentucky for Kentucky began as a hobby — an online platform for celebrating the young men’s pride in their state, its people, places, history and “general awesomeness.”

They started with a Facebook page and website. Then, in the fall of 2011, they drew national attention with an unsuccessful online campaign to raise $3.5 million for a commercial promoting Kentucky on the Super Bowl telecast.

Their kick-ass branding idea was unveiled last month in a cheeky YouTube video that also attracted national attention. In the video, Hiler and VanMeter argued that the “Unbridled Spirit” slogan state government has used since 2004 is, well, lame.

(Maybe so, but it is a big improvement over “It’s that Friendly,” which appeared on Kentucky license plates from 2002-2005 along with a smiley-faced sun that looked like it belonged in a Walmart ad.)

The Kentucky for Kentucky guys hired Lexington artists Brian and Sara Turner of Cricket Press to design a cool Kentucky Kicks Ass logo, which they have printed on T-shirts and other merchandise for sale on their website, Kentuckyforkentucky.com.

They also created some sample tourism ads that cleverly promote Kentucky’s places and culture while minimizing the word they acknowledge may offend some people.

State tourism officials were not amused.

“We certainly would not sanction or endorse that phraseology,” spokesman Pat Stipes told a USA Today reporter. “These guys are Kentucky natives and they love the state. But they have a different constituency. Which is no one.”

For these ambitious marketers, that fuddy-duddy response was a gift.

“We couldn’t have asked for anything better,” VanMeter said. “It really gave this a lot more legs than it had.”

The controversy generated even more press coverage — and a lot of orders for Kentucky Kicks Ass T-shirts. VanMeter also has received emails from organizations within Kentucky, and as far away as Arizona, seeking creative help for their own rebranding efforts.

State Tourism Commissioner Mike Mangeot sent the guys a letter offering congratulations for a slogan that has “generated a lot of buzz about Kentucky and all our beautiful Commonwealth has to offer.” But he insisted they clarify that state government neither sought nor sanctioned their work.

The Kentucky for Kentucky guys replied to Mangeot with a letter from their lawyer, Scott White, saying they never meant to imply such a thing.

The letter also included an open-records request for all “emails, notes, written correspondence, memoranda” and any other communication with state government discussing his clients and their slogan. White said state officials had not responded as of Friday.

When I called tourism officials for comment, spokesman Gil Lawson offered only this statement: “We applaud the creativity and efforts of these three gentlemen. It’s great that they support their home state of Kentucky.”

I hope that when the Kentucky for Kentucky guys receive a response to their open-records request, it will include internal communication among high-ranking state officials that goes something like this:

“Our strategy worked perfectly! By playing the role of clueless bureaucrats we generated a lot of free publicity for Kentucky. Of course, we can’t actually endorse their slogan. We would rather be boring than take the chance of offending anyone. But what can we do to quietly support this kind of home-grown creativity?”

Neema Dominic puts in volunteer hours painting a foreclosed home on Savoy Road that is being renovated by Habitat for Humanity.  Habitat has renovated four foreclosed homes in Lexington this year and will do a fifth next year as part of a city program to keep foreclosed homes from becoming vacant liabilities in their neighborhoods. Photos by Tom Eblen

Lexington has a couple of big housing problems: there is too little affordable housing, and there are too many vacant houses in neighborhoods all over the city, especially since the wave of foreclosures that followed the 2008 financial crisis.

A partnership between city government and Habitat for Humanity has offered small help for both problems, but it has left officials optimistic that it could lead to bigger solutions.

On Wednesday, Mayor Jim Gray will help dedicate a renovated house at 224 Savoy Road in a well-kept, middle-class subdivision off Versailles Road. After a foreclosure in 2010, that house and another down the street sat empty for more than two years. That worried neighbors, including Urban County Council member Peggy Henson, who lives around the corner.

“These were sturdy, good, well-built homes,” Henson said. “But they weren’t going to stay that way the longer they sat empty.”

Those two houses were among 10 foreclosed, vacant properties the city was able to acquire with federal stimulus money through the Neighborhood Stabilization Program of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008.

The city turned the 10 properties over to Habitat for Humanity for $1 each. Five had homes that could be renovated; the others will become building sites for new Habitat homes. Four of the renovations have been completed; the fifth will be done next year, as will the new construction.

Habitat for Humanity, the Georgia-based non-profit organization made famous by former President Jimmy Carter’s volunteer efforts on its behalf, builds affordable homes for low-income people willing to put in hundreds of hours of “sweat equity” to become homeowners.

In Lexington, Habitat has typically built new homes, usually in neighborhoods north of Main Street in the East End, West End and Winburn, where inexpensive lots were available. This venture was Habitat’s first at renovating existing homes in other neighborhoods, and Rachel Smith Childress, the organization’s Lexington executive director, said it turned out to be a winner for everyone.

“Our families like them because they’re in other nice neighborhoods and have amenities that aren’t typically part of our homes,” she said. “Plus, it removes vacant houses from neighborhoods, increases property values for everyone and increases property tax revenues for the city.”

For example, the house at 224 Savoy Road, which was built about 1960, is brick with hardwood floors and vintage knotty pine paneling. The kitchen includes a dishwasher. None of that is in a new Habitat house.

But the house needed work, including bathroom and kitchen remodeling, which was done by Habitat staff, volunteers and future Habitat homeowners. Whirlpool donated other needed kitchen appliances.

Money for the renovation was donated by business sponsors Paul Miller Ford, Ford Motor Co., PNC Bank and the PNC Foundation. Support for the other renovations has come from Ashland Inc., Calvary Baptist Church and Back Construction.

More than 500 hours of work was performed by the new owners of 224 Savoy Road, Emmanuel Katchofa, and his wife, Marceline Ilunga. He was a physician in the Congo before they and their five children fled the war-torn country and were resettled in Lexington by the U.S. State Department and Kentucky Refugee Ministries. Katchofa and Ilunga both now have jobs, although he is unable to practice medicine because his license is not valid in this country.

Legal refugees from the Congo and other troubled African nations now make up about half of the 15 or 20 Lexington families Habitat is able to help become home owners each year. That is because refugees come here without bad credit histories and with strong motivation to succeed, Childress said.

Henson said she and her neighbors are happy to have the vacant house on Savoy Road restored and occupied.

“It was a real blessing to the neighborhood,” she said. “Those properties are looking great now, and it will be really good to have folks living there.”

Although federal stimulus money is no longer available, Henson and Childress hope Habitat’s partnership with the city on rehabilitating vacant houses or building on abandoned lots can find new ways to continue.

“We’re talking with the city about property and buildings and partnerships,” Childress said. “But the need for affordable housing goes beyond home ownership.

“Everyone is not going to be a homeowner. We really have a huge gap in decent rental housing that is affordable in Lexington. It’s a huge need.”

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When a poor person gets a government handout, it’s called welfare. When a rich corporation gets one, it’s called an economic development incentive.

With local, state and federal government budgets tighter than ever, social programs are getting a hard look. But what about corporate welfare?

The New York Times started a good conversation last week with a three-part investigative series called the United States of Subsidies. Reporter Louise Story spent 10 months analyzing corporate tax breaks, gifts and other incentives in all 50 states, which she figured add up to at least $80 billion in annual taxpayer subsidies to business.

Business subsidies have mushroomed since the 1980s, when automakers started pitting states against one another to host new assembly plants. The strategy worked so well that other industries demanded freebies, too.

A big reason corporate welfare has flourished is that politicians love being able to announce lots of new jobs coming to their area. (They often are out of office when those jobs never materialize or leave for another state offering better incentives.)

From a national perspective, it is a zero-sum game. State and local incentives do little or nothing to grow the national economy; they just determine where in the nation the growth will occur.

But it’s more insidious than that. Incentives redirect billions of tax dollars to corporate bottom lines instead of to improving education, health, safety, infrastructure and making other public investments that will create genuine, long-term economic development.

The Times website (Nytimes.com) has state-by-state breakdowns of incentives and a searchable database of recipients. It shows that the nation’s biggest business incentive Santa is high-growth, low-wage, high-poverty Texas, at $19 billion a year. West Virginia and Oklahoma give up incentives equal to one-third of their budgets.

The Times calculates Kentucky’s annual incentives at $1.41 billion — about 15 percent of the state budget, or $324 per Kentuckian. Those include $264 million in personal income tax credits; $108 million in sales tax refunds, exemptions and discounts; and $69.2 million in corporate income tax reductions, credits or rebates.

The Times reports that most Kentucky incentives, $569 million worth, go to mining, oil and gas industries — no surprise there, given their political clout. That is followed by $341 million for agriculture and $180 million to manufacturers.

As is true nationally, some of the biggest Kentucky incentive recipients in recent years were automakers: $307 million for Ford; $83.8 million for Toyota and $10 million for General Motors. Given their high wages and large supplier networks, those might be good investments.

But the big head-scratcher in the Times’ database was $94.1 million in incentives to Tyson Foods from 1995-2009 for a low-wage chicken-processing plant in Henderson County. Is that the kind of economic development Kentucky taxpayers should be subsidizing?

While the Times’ report is impressive in its national scope, there has long been debate about the value of incentives. The Herald-Leader published an investigative series in 2005 that questioned the value of many Kentucky tax breaks and other giveaways. The report resulted in some improved accountability, but did little to stem the flow of tax money into corporate pockets.

A state-commissioned study issued this summer came up with incentive figures smaller than the Times reported, but still pretty staggering: $1.29 billion between 2001 and 2010. The report said 577 companies took incentives to locate 55,173 jobs in Kentucky at a cost to taxpayers of $23,385 per job.

The incentive system favors large corporations over small businesses — often the employers who are already in a community and aren’t looking to leave. Officials have responded by coming up with some incentives for them, too, which just further drains government coffers.

How do we stop this racket, where cities and states compete to steal jobs from one another? It would be great if Congress could pass a law, but it probably can’t. Still, with about 20 percent of state and local government budgets coming from federal dollars, somebody needs to be looking out for the national interest.

Taxpayers should demand reform of these corporate welfare systems, just as they did social welfare systems in the 1990s. But it won’t be easy. Corporations employ more lobbyists and make more campaign donations than poor people do.

Let us now give thanks for Kentucky’s locally owned businesses.

Yes, I know Thanksgiving was last week. But the holiday season is a good time to acknowledge, appreciate and patronize Kentucky companies and those special mom-and-pop shops.

I was reminded of this Wednesday when our younger daughter came home from New York City for the holiday. Shannon wanted to be met with fresh doughnuts from Spalding’s Bakery.

On her way in from Louisville, where a friend picked her up at the airport, she was stopping at Rebecca Ruth Candies outside Frankfort to get bourbon balls. They would be dessert after we went for lunch at Bourbon n’ Toulouse.

Late that afternoon, Shannon wanted me to take her to West Sixth Brewing Co. Another day, I said, we need to go to Country Boy Brewing. But if there isn’t time this trip, there’s usually Kentucky Ale in the refrigerator. Thanks to Lexington’s many fine new brewers, plus places such as The Beer Trappe and Lexington Beerworks, there’s no excuse for drinking commodity beer.

That discussion led to plans for Saturday morning breakfast from North Lime Coffee & Donuts. That new business was just getting ready to open the last time Shannon was in town, and the owners gave us samples from their test run.

Lexington has so many great places to eat, it’s no wonder I have to put in a couple of thousand miles a year on my bicycles to keep from getting fatter than I am.

I live within a short walk or bike ride of Spalding’s and Magee’s bakeries. When I drive to Versailles, my car seems to steer itself into Doughdaddy’s. And I can never go to Danville without picking up a bag of gingerbread men from Burke’s Bakery.

I rise before dawn a couple of mornings each week from late spring until mid-fall for a 25-mile bike ride with friends, followed by a country-ham biscuit and coffee at Windy Corner Market. No ride to Midway is complete without lunch at Wallace Station, just as Rick’s White Light Diner is a must-stop on a ride to Frankfort.

Other lunch favorites include Mr. Kabab, Stella’s Deli, Natasha’s, Charlie’s Seafood (home of Lexington’s biggest and best fried fish sandwich), Ramsey’s and Bangkok House. Most of the owners know me; some even recognize my voice when I call in takeout orders.

Nobody makes a better $3 sandwich than Wilson’s Grocery & Meats. And I’m constantly finding great new food trucks. (Lexington needs to make it easier to patronize food trucks; they don’t so much compete with restaurants as create a more dynamic food scene that attracts more patrons to all eating establishments.)

When it comes to dinner, Lexington has so many great restaurants it takes us forever to make the rounds to them all: Grey Goose, Dudley’s, Nick Ryan’s, Joe Bologna’s, Pazzo’s, Table Three Ten, Portofino, Goodfellas, Jonathan’s, Mary Lou’s BBQ, Yamamoto, Rincon, Mi Pequeña Hacienda, Billy’s Bar-B-Q and Sal’s Chophouse. I’m sure I’m leaving out a dozen others.

In the grander scheme of eating and drinking, Kentucky is blessed with many local farms, vineyards, bourbon distilleries and country ham processors. Plus local farmers markets and retailers such as Good Foods, Corner Wine, Liquor Barn, Wines on Vine and Wine + Market.

Aside from food, local businesses offer Kentuckians goods and services that the big national chains can’t match.

While renovating an old house this past year, I became a regular at every home-improvement store in town. But I finally discovered that if Chevy Chase Hardware doesn’t have it, I probably don’t need it.

I take my dry cleaning to Sonny’s in Chevy Chase, alterations to the Button Hole. My cars have kept running thanks to Lowell’s, Georgia’s Service Center and B&W Automotive. Then I think about all of the local book stores, florists, repair shops, contractors and tradesmen too numerous to mention that I have patronized in recent years.

I’m sure you have a similar list of local businesses for which you are thankful. If you want to share them, leave a comment.

Happy holidays.

Good ideas can come from strange places. This one came from playing FarmVille, the online simulation game that Facebook users either love or hate.

Andrew Beck, vice president of software consultant Metaformers Inc., was showing the game to President Ed Bouryng, and they were discussing the digital currency system that players use to operate imaginary farms.

“After I stewed a bit, I thought, what about a digital currency that can only be used for charity, a digital civic currency?” Bouryng recalled. “Then we started looking at providing individuals a way to use social networking as a way to get out into the community and get things done.”

The result was CivicRush, a new Metaformers subsidiary based in Lexington that launched Oct. 12 with a party at Cheapside that raised $14,000 for charity. Initially focused on the Bluegrass region, the company plans to expand across the nation within a few months. So far, CivicRush has only 1,000 registered users, but the company has yet to begin marketing.

“We think it could be very big,” Bouryng said. “We have a number of new innovations here.

“We think having a single place where charity, business and individuals can get together to make change for their community is very exciting.”

CivicRush.com is a free Web site that allows individuals to make and manage financial donations to charity, as well as be paired with volunteering opportunities and build a “civic résumé” of their activities. The company also will provide donation management services to companies and charities.

“One of the complaints of social networking is you develop a lot of relationships, but they’re thin, they’re virtual,” Bouryng said. “CivicRush is designed to get people to use the power of digital socialization, but get out in their community and make things better.

“You can socialize around the good deeds you do for your community.”

When users set up profiles, they list their skills and causes they support. They can search for organizations, events, volunteer opportunities or “needs” they can help meet. They also can follow organizations and create events.

“We take an online dating engine, and we apply it to getting out into your community,” Bouryng said.

Users can donate money by purchasing CivicRush’s online currency, called “Civ,” even through payroll deduction if they wish.

Each Civ is worth a dollar. Civs can be assigned to any government-registered charity, allowing users to manage all their giving without having to go to multiple Web sites and entering personal information in each. At the end of the year, they get a single tax statement from CivicRush’s non-profit affiliate, Civillos.

Charities pay a fee of 1 percent to 3 percent when they redeem donated Civs, which Bouryng said basically covers the cost of bank and credit card fees. Bouryng said CivicRush’s revenue stream will come from additional services that businesses or charities can choose to purchase.

“All of that right now is in the development phase,” he said when asked for specifics. “We’re looking at ways to engage businesses that have charitable programs.

“We still need to find ways to make this project self-sustaining. It’s a longer term play because the initial services are all free.”

The company hopes to be self-sustaining, if not profitable, within 18 months, he said.

Metaformers, headquartered in suburban Washington, D.C., has based some operations in Lexington since 2006, when the company was hired to fix the city’s dysfunctional new financial management system.

Metaformers’ core business is designing human resources and supply chain management solutions for clients.

When the company was considering where to develop CivicRush, Bouryng said, “We were initially thinking the D.C. region. But when we started to look around at the talent pool, we found that for the tool we were using … Lexington had a very strong skill set.”

He said Metaformers was able to assemble a “world-class” development team under Lexington software designer Todd Willey.

CivicRush has 12 employees, but Bouryng said that could grow to between 20 and 100, depending on the success of its national rollout.

CivicRush occupies the top floor of the historic McAdams & Morford building on West Main Street, and Bouryng expects the company to remain in Lexington.

“We’ve had a lot of success here; I like the city, I like the people,” he said. “It has a great climate for business.”

It didn’t take long for a couple of fringe preachers to proclaim that Hurricane Sandy was God’s retribution for homosexuality and other aspects of society they don’t like.

Such freakish, attention-seeking claims have become as common as the freakish weather that inspires them. But that doesn’t mean God or the forces of nature aren’t trying to tell us something.

There are a couple of obvious lessons in this pre-election hurricane, which killed at least 40 people and caused perhaps $50 billion worth of damage in the Northeast.

The first lesson is that Americans and their leaders should stop ignoring climate change and its increasingly disastrous effects. As the new cover of Bloomberg Businessweek magazine says in bold letters above a news photo of a flooded cityscape, “It’s global warming, stupid.”

Scientists say climate change can’t be directly blamed for any particular storm, or even hurricanes in general. But there is strong scientific evidence that man’s carbon emissions have increased the frequency and severity of destructive weather.

Global warming has caused sea levels to rise, and that magnified the storm surge responsible for so much of Sandy’s destruction.

Yet, climate change has barely been mentioned during the presidential campaign of 2012, which may end up being the warmest year on record. You can attribute that to willful ignorance and complacency on the part of a large segment of the population — and the encouragement of that ignorance and complacency by powerful business interests and the politicians who do their bidding.

You can find some of the most blatant examples of this in Kentucky, where the coal industry and its favored politicians have waged a “war on coal” propaganda campaign, which in reality is a campaign against clean air, clean water and public health.

Appalachian coal reserves are dwindling and cheap natural gas has eroded coal’s markets, but the industry seems determined to extract every last bit of profit from Kentucky, no matter how much damage it does.

The lack of action to address climate change underscores a failure of leadership in both government and business.

President Barack Obama rarely spoke about climate change during this campaign, because he knew it would hurt him politically. Instead, he trumpeted domestic oil drilling and “clean coal” technology, which is still more oxymoron than reality.

Challenger Mitt Romney was even worse. At the Republican National Convention, he mentioned climate change only mockingly. “President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet,” he said. “My promise is to help you and your family.”

There is strong scientific consensus on climate change, but acknowledging and addressing it remains politically controversial. That is because fighting climate change would threaten economic interests invested in the status quo — and because it would require citizens and businesses to make some sacrifices. Heaven forbid that any American should be asked to sacrifice, even if the future of mankind may depend on it.

And that brings us to a second obvious lesson from Hurricane Sandy.

For at least three decades, many political leaders — especially Republicans — have won elections by offering simplistic and unrealistic solutions to increasingly difficult problems. Tell voters what they want to hear, then blame the consequences on the other guys.

Storms such as hurricanes Sandy and Katrina underscore the inadequacy of our aging national infrastructure — and the likelihood that climate change will force us to repair and rebuild it more frequently in the future.

Rather than cutting taxes, piling up debt and wasting money on unnecessary weapons systems and wars of choice, we should be investing in the physical and human infrastructure that will keep America safe, secure and economically prosperous in the future.

Natural disasters remind us that sufficient and efficient government is essential. During the GOP primary, Romney suggested that the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s work could be turned back to the states, or even privatized.

Since Hurricane Sandy, though, he has ignored reporters’ questions on the subject.

If religious leaders are seeking sermon topics from this pre-election hurricane, here are a few possibilities: greed, selfishness, complacency and why leadership matters.

Lexington should have some answers in a few months to old questions about Town Branch Creek. What lies beneath? Would it be practical to resurface some or all of it as a downtown amenity?

Lexington was founded along Town Branch in 1775. But like many urban streams around the world, the creek was abused, polluted and finally buried in culverts more than a century ago.

The Downtown Development Authority last week asked for proposals from firms interested in creating a master plan to use a resurfaced Town Branch Creek, or some representation of it, as a commons through downtown. The plan is due April 30, after which more engineering and financial analysis likely will be needed.

Town Branch Creek resurfaces west of Rupp Arena. Photo by Charles Bertram

Like many people, I used to be skeptical of the idea. But that was before I saw what San Antonio did with River Walk and read about what other cities are doing to reclaim once-buried urban waterways. Plus what New York City has done with the High Line, an abandoned elevated rail line that is now a hugely popular linear park.

In Yonkers, N.Y., a $48 million project is uncovering six blocks of the Saw Mill River, a tributary of the Hudson that was buried in the 1920s. Two blocks of the stream have been uncovered so far, creating a park-like area with benches, the New York Times reported last month.

The project has been a catalyst for several hundred million dollars of mixed-use development in New York’s fourth-largest city. Old industrial buildings are being converted into apartments, offices and commercial space.

The Saw Mill River is “no longer a resource people want to hide,” Ned Sullivan, president of the environmental group Scenic Hudson, told the Times. “Not only is it a catalyst for revitalization of the downtown, but now it will become the centerpiece of the city.”

Seoul, South Korea, offers an even more ambitious example. In 2005, that city finished a two-year, $348 million project to “daylight” more than three miles of a buried stream called Cheonggyecheon (pronounced Chung-gye-chun) and turn it into public recreation space.

The stream had been the heart of Seoul for 600 years before industrialization and population growth turned it into an open sewer. In the 1950s, it was buried by an elevated highway that has been removed.

Since the project’s completion, nearby property values have risen and an estimated 90,000 pedestrians visit the stream’s banks on an average day. Like San Antonio’s River Walk, it has become a major tourist attraction.

It is intriguing to imagine such an urban green space through downtown, especially one that would highlight the historic authenticity of Town Branch Creek, whose path literally determined the shape of early Lexington.

Town Branch flows underground from its source near the Jif peanut butter plant along Midland Avenue. It crosses Main Street and runs roughly along Vine Street to just past Rupp Arena, where it becomes an exposed stream. Much of the underground path is beneath public streets and rights of way and city-owned parking lots.

Jeff Fugate, president of the Downtown Development Authority, wants this master plan to be creative but realistic. Possibilities could range from resurfacing the creek or parts of it to some sort of symbolic interpretation of Town Branch’s historic path.

However Lexington hopes to use Town Branch as a magnet for people and development, it will require philanthropy in addition to public money. Not to mention an inspiring plan. “If you want to leverage philanthropy, you have to have a vision to show people,” Fugate said.

Like cities all across America, Lexington is seeing an urban renaissance, with more people wanting to live, work and entertain themselves downtown. Private development and commerce follow smart investments in civic infrastructure, such as the Fifth Third Pavilion at Cheapside and the recent renovation of Triangle Park.

Alltech on Monday will open what is sure to become a popular tourist destination near Rupp Arena. It is a bourbon distillery housed in a beautiful new building beside the Kentucky Ale brewery and a visitors center in a renovated old ice house.

Alltech founders Pearse and Deirdre Lyons know a good brand when they see one. I suspect it is no accident that their newest product is called Town Branch Bourbon.

I’m not a doctor, and I don’t play one on TV. But I did spend two days last week shadowing doctors and talking with them about what they do and the environment in which they do it.

I was one of seven people who participated in the Lexington Medical Society‘s Mini-Internship Program. Since 1994, nearly 30 groups of community “interns” have been given a two-day, close-up look at the working lives of physicians.

One of the things I have always enjoyed about being a journalist is exploring other people’s worlds. Journalism is a license to be nosy, ask questions, observe others, and discuss issues with people who have unique expertise.

That’s how I found myself in a locker room at Central Baptist Hospital, changing into scrubs so I could spend the morning in an operating room. I watched as Dr. Kaveh Sajadi, a second- generation orthopedic surgeon, performed shoulder replacements on two patients suffering from severe arthritis pain.

With help from a skilled team, Sajadi replaced two worn ball-and-socket joints with precisely fitted new ones made of high-tech metal and plastic. If you assume this is a difficult and messy process, you would be correct. But for Sajadi and his team, it was a well-choreographed ballet.

Sajadi explained each step of the operation as I stood and watched from a distance. I had to sit down a couple of times when my knees got wobbly. But soon I was able to focus on the miracle of medicine taking place before my eyes rather than, well, you know.

I spent the afternoon with Dr. John Kitchens, an ophthalmologist who specializes in the retina, the light-sensitive tissue that lines the inside of eyes. Digital imaging technology allows him to find and treat microscopic leaks in blood vessels that can reduce a person’s vision.

His most common treatment that day was injecting medicine into eyeballs. It was a process slightly painful for the observer, though not the numbed patient. But after watching shoulder- replacement surgery, I was ready for anything.

Kitchens was a busy man, dashing from one examining room to another. But he never seemed rushed when he was with patients. He carefully explained diagnoses and treatment options. He even took time to ask about patients’ families, impressively recalling many personal details about people he had seen before.

I spent the next morning in St. Joseph Hospital’s emergency room with Dr. William Wooster, an emergency-room veteran who has seen it all, sometimes in the same day. But this was a slow morning. A middle-aged man with a history of heart trouble came in with chest pains. An elderly man came in suffering from dizziness. A young man came in with an infection from a mouth full of rotten teeth.

Like more than one-quarter of all Kentuckians, the young man and several other people Wooster saw that day had no health insurance. What people forget when they debate the cost of universal coverage is that society already pays for treating uninsured people, often at high-cost emergency rooms.

I spent that afternoon making rounds at Central Baptist Hospital with Dr. Andrea Lyons, an internal medicine “hospitalist.” The young mother of two examined patients — many of them elderly and sick with a variety of issues — and worked to coordinate care with their primary physicians and specialists.

Those two days confirmed several things I already knew: Doctors have demanding jobs and exhausting schedules. They spend a lot of time updating and consulting patients’ medical records. They depend heavily on nurses, other skilled professionals and staff. And they care deeply about their work.

Like everyone else, the doctors I met had a variety of opinions about health care reform. But they all said the nation will never curb rising costs without legal tort reform. Fear of lawsuits forces physicians to pay huge sums for malpractice insurance and practice costly “defensive” medicine.

As I shadowed these physicians, I kept thinking how much of their patients’ pain and suffering could have been avoided if they had taken better care of themselves — if they had eaten better, gotten more exercise, and avoided cigarettes and substance abuse.

I wondered how we will continue to manage not only our health care system, but our rising expectations. As people live longer and get sicker, we may need to focus more on quality of life rather than simply extending it at all costs.

When Mayor Jim Gray decided Lexington should enter Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Mayors Challenge competition for innovative ideas to improve cities, he asked local citizens for their suggestions. He was impressed by the response.

More than 7,000 people participated in the process, and 420 ideas were formally submitted. Many of those ideas for improving Lexington were good, even if some didn’t fit the Bloomberg criteria.

Then it dawned on Gray and his staff: The “big idea” was the citizen-engagement process itself.

So, earlier this month, Lexington joined 393 other cities in submitting ideas to Bloomberg in the hope of winning a $5 million first prize or one of four $1 million second prizes to help make their ideas reality.

Bloomberg Philanthropies, founded by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, will choose 20 cities as finalists in December. The winners will be announced in early 2013.

Lexington’s proposal is called CitizenLex.org. It involves creating an online platform with city data and reports to help citizens identify problems, then aggregate and manage their ideas for solving them.

CitizenLex.org will be a “collecting tank and control tower” to organize and manage ideas as well as connect people and organizations within the community. Efforts will focus on seven key areas: crime, housing, social services, aging and the community, health, education and jobs.

The basic idea is that government often functions best not as a problem-solver but as the facilitator of problem-solving by businesses, non-profit organizations, churches, community groups, entrepreneurs and volunteers.

“It’s a powerful idea,” the city’s application says, “that serving up government transparency in a social-media platform can fuel citizen engagement and improve a city.”

So, is this more than just a high-tech suggestion box?

“You mean the black hole? Yes,” Gray said. “We recognized that the big idea is not just the ideas but the continuous engagement of citizens in the process. It’s using technology to push the fabric of democratic process. It’s about partnerships and good management, and the platform helps you manage.”

If Lexington wins money from Bloomberg, the application said it would be used to develop CitizenLex.org, pay a “director of city innovation” to manage the process and fund some initial projects that grew out of citizens’ suggestions for the competition.

Those projects are:

 Expand the Better Bites healthy-food program now at city park concession stands into local schools to reach more kids.

 Create more bicycle lanes and walking trails to improve local health.

 Expand the Fayette County Public Schools’ Delivery-to-Diploma program with a focus on expanding early childhood education.

 Partner with the University of Kentucky’s True Lean program in the College of Engineering to use Toyota-Lean management principles to improve efficiency in city government.

Gray and his staff plan to have much of this work under way before Bloomberg Philanthropies even chooses its winners.

CirrusMio, a new technology development company in Lexington, is already working on the online platform. City officials also have begun forming partnerships for the projects with UK, the Blue Grass Community Foundation, the Fayette County Public Schools and other organizations.

(An interesting side note: The Bloomberg application asks when the mayor’s term ends. Lexington responded that Gray’s first term ends Dec. 31, 2014, “but he is interested in a second or third term.” The Urban County Charter limits a mayor to three consecutive terms.)

Gray said he thinks Lexington has a good shot at being a Mayors Challenge winner.

“If they’re measuring success to date, learning to date, engagement, innovation and creativity to date, I think we’ve got a good chance of a least making the top 20,” Gray said, adding that even if Lexington doesn’t get Bloomberg money he will try to find ways to do most of this project. “It makes too much sense not to.”

That is the challenge. Gathering good ideas is one thing; making them happen is quite another.

Watch Lexington’s Bloomberg Mayors Challenge entry video:

Bloomberg Mayors Challenge: Lexington, KY from Bullhorn on Vimeo.