The Bluegrass and Beyond

There was unease among some journalists, mayoral candidates and their staffers about the format for the first public forum of the Lexington mayor’s race. That’s because the candidates were to be questioned by three community bloggers as well as four journalists.

The concern was this: would the bloggers act professionally?

As it turned out, the bloggers were fine, and they asked some excellent questions.

It was one of the mayoral candidates, Clarence “Skip” Horine, who went off the deep end.

Horine is a businessman who ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 1993. He was last to join this race, which also includes Mayor Jim Newberry; the mayor he defeated four years ago, Teresa Isaac; and Vice Mayor Jim Gray.

Many of Horine’s responses to questions were fine, although they included a lot of generic conservative “free enterprise will solve everything” language. Then he started making vague and confusing allegations about police corruption and bid-rigging on city projects, prompting Newberry at one point to say that if Horine has evidence of wrongdoing he should give it to prosecutors.

Then, when it was time for the candidates’ closing statements, Horine began with what he (accurately) described as a convoluted story about alleged police wrongdoing. Then he accused a police officer by name of vague impropriety and mentioned that his mother was murdered in Lexington years ago.

As I surveyed the crowd at the Main Street business incubator Awesome Inc., people were glancing at each other with “what the …. ?” looks. Whatever credibility Horine had as a serious candidate evaporated. He seemed more motivated by his own issues than Lexington’s issues.

Aside from the Skip Horine sideshow, the forum offered good discussion on a variety of issues, but few surprises. The three major candidates said jobs and economic development are the biggest issues Lexington faces. Horine said the biggest issue is “trust” of city government (see above).

Newberry had good answers to many questions, but was defensive and aggressive for an incumbent.  Gray made good points about his business expertise and the need for more visionary leadership, but some of his answers were rambling. Isaac answered many questions well, but portrayed her administration as much more successful than most others remember it. (She was voted out of office four years ago by a wide margin.)

The panel’s journalists were me, Bill Bryant of WKYT-TV, Erik Carlson of Business Lexington and Kenny Colston of the Kentucky Kernel, UK’s student newspaper. The bloggers were Bianca Spriggs, Joe Sonka and Steve Smith of UK College Republicans. The forum was organized by Kakie Urch, assistant professor of new media at the University of Kentucky’s School of Journalism and Telecommunications. It was sponsored by the Scripps Howard First Amendment Center at UK.

I was too busy asking questions, listening to answers and condensing them into dozens of 140-character Twitter posts to take notes. But Herald-Leader Andy Mead has a well-done news story summarizing the forum. Read it here.

If this forum was any indication, the 2010 Lexington mayor’s race will be interesting. Let’s hope that amidst the bragging, blaming, posturing and Twilight Zone moments the candidates will give voters some clear information about who would do the best job of helping make a fine city even better.

The four candidates for Lexington mayor will answer questions from a panel of journalists and community bloggers tonight from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the first major forum of the campaign.

The forum at Awesome Inc., a business incubator space at 348 East Main Street, will feature Mayor Jim Newberry, former Mayor Teresa Isaac, Vice Mayor Jim Gray and businessman Skip Horine. Seating — and standing room — is very limited, so here are the best ways to follow the action:

• Watch streaming video at www.wkyt.com.
• I’m one of the panelists, and I will be sending Twitter updates at twitter.com/tomeblen. (While you’re there, click “follow”.) You can follow everyone’s Twitter feeds on the forum by using the hashtag #lexmayor.  I’ll also post assessments of the forum afterward on this blog.
• Live blogging at www.kykernel.com.
• Reporter Andy Mead will write a news story for www.kentucky.com and Thursday’s Herald-Leader.
• Read and watch what other panelists have to say about the forum.

Other journalists on the panel are WKYT’s Bill Bryant, Business Lexington’s Erik Carlson and the Kentucky Kernel’s Kenny Colston. Community bloggers are Joe Sonka, Bianca Spriggs and Steve Smith of UK College Republicans.

In addition to presenting the mayoral candidates’ views, the forum is an effort to show the variety of ways voters now get political news, information and commentary. The forum is being organized by Kakie Urch, a veteran journalist and assistant professor of new media at the University of Kentucky’s School of Journalism and Telecommunications. It is sponsored by the Scripps Howard First Amendment Center at UK.

Central Kentucky is known as a center for horses, bourbon and basketball. As a center for creative technology people? Not so much.

Yet, technology employment in the Lexington area has grown at a rate that is more than four times the national average in the past decade. More than 6,000 people are now employed by technology and software companies, including Lexmark, Belcan Engineering, ACS/Xerox, Hewlett-Packard and Mersive Technologies.

“I don’t think people realize how pervasive technology is here,” said Ben Askren, a Lexmark engineer. And that makes it difficult for technology companies to attract and retain the best employees so they can keep growing.

Askren is part of a volunteer group called In2Lex that has worked to help Lexington’s creative technology workers get to know each other through events such as Geek’s Night Out and Pecha-Kucha, an idea-generation program in which speakers make presentations of no more than six minutes and 40 seconds each.

Now the group wants to raise Lexington’s national profile as a place where creative technology people can find career opportunities and a pleasant, interesting lifestyle.

In2Lex is promoting “April Is …” to focus attention on more than 20 events being sponsored by several organizations that month. They include the Creative Cities Summit and a “TedX” seminar — a local version of the Technology, Entertainment, Design events that feature big-name speakers with “ideas worth spreading.”

Several technology gatherings are planned: the Kentucky Innovation & Technology Conference, the Kentucky Space Conference, and seminars related to electronic health information, mobile devices, government information systems, social entrepreneurship and business development.

And then there’s the geeky, fun stuff.

Mechanalia is an interactive game in which small teams drive electric rovers with robotic arms and try to accomplish tasks while opponents shoot at them with tennis-ball cannons; Tinker is a combination jazz festival and science fair for adults; and at the No Mercy Full-Blown Gamers’ Party, attendees can play unreleased video games.

All this will be going on during one of Lexington’s traditionally interesting months: the horses are running at Keeneland and competing in the Rolex Kentucky Three Day Event. And then there is the Best of the Bluegrass festival.

“We really want to promote Lexington as a lifestyle, career and education destination for people in creative technology,” Askren said.

OK, I can already hear some of you snickering. But, if you think about it, this economic development strategy makes a lot of sense. Digital technology increasingly allows creative workers to live wherever they want. And they usually want to live near a city with a lot of professional opportunities.

Competing with Austin, Texas, and Seattle is a challenge, but Central Kentucky has some advantages that it can exploit. “Once people see what’s here, it changes their perception of Kentucky,” said Gina Greathouse, Commerce Lexington’s senior vice president for economic development.

Those advantages include a laid-back, affordable lifestyle; a beautiful landscape; more arts and cultural offerings than many people realize; and a central location not far from Cincinnati and Louisville. Plus, Lexington has one of the nation’s best-educated labor forces: 38 percent of people older than 25 have college degrees, and there are 15 colleges and universities in the area.

Those attributes regularly put Lexington high on national rankings of places to raise a family or start a business.

In2Lex hopes to make its “April Is …” an annual event, and it is looking for new ways to market the region’s creative technology potential. “It really comes down to how do we make Lexington a better place,” Askren said.

• If you go

  For more information about In2Lex and a schedule of events planned in April, go to www.in2lex.com.

A century ago, farm-to-market roads were the new infrastructure Kentucky needed to move its economy forward. A half-century ago, it was interstates and parkways.

Now, it’s the information superhighway.

As the federal government begins taking applications Feb. 15 for $7.2 billion in second-round stimulus money to expand broadband, it’s a good time to check in on a Kentucky program that has become a model for other states.

ConnectKentucky was launched as a public-private partnership in 2004 to map high-speed Internet access in Kentucky, find gaps in coverage and work county-by-county with citizens, local officials and service providers to fill them. Much of the work focused on rural areas and the mountains.

From 2004 to 2007, broadband availability grew from 58 percent of Kentucky households to 95 percent, ConnectKentucky says.

The organization’s newest initiative uses money from coal severance taxes and the Appalachian Regional Commission to expand broadband access in Breathitt, Powell, Estill and Lee counties.

ConnectKentucky also works to teach people how to use computers and to promote broadband as a way to improve economic and community development, education and health care.

That’s because broadband availability and affordability aren’t the only issues, said René True, executive director of ConnectKentucky. “Sometimes there’s a lack of understanding of the value that broadband can bring to a household or an individual,” he said.

ConnectKentucky’s Computers 4 Kids program has distributed 3,203 computers to low-income families and non-profit organizations. Many of those were older models refurbished by state inmates, who in the process learned skills they can use to get jobs when they leave prison.

The organization’s Web site — www.connectkentucky.org — includes county-by-county information and broadband speed-testing software.

ConnectKentucky has become a national model for broadband expansion. After Ohio and Tennessee wanted to copy ConnectKentucky’s approach, a national non-profit, Connected Nation, was formed as an umbrella organization. Connected Nation also now works with 10 other states and Puerto Rico.

ConnectKentucky and Connected Nation haven’t escaped controversy. Critics complain that the public-private partnership favors major telephone and cable companies at the expense of small providers and public broadband solutions.

The organizations dispute that, saying they work with all providers in a given area. Nationally, 19 big corporations now provide 93 percent of all broadband services, according to Leichtman Research Group, an industry consultant.

They also have been caught up in a larger debate about national broadband policy. Critics say America needs a more ambitious national broadband strategy than simply supporting the individual business strategies of private providers.

Connected Nation has attracted bipartisan political support, as has ConnectKentucky, which was launched by then-Gov. Ernie Fletcher, a Republican, but built on work begun by his predecessor, Gov. Paul Patton, a Democrat.

Still, in the scramble to balance the two-year state budget in 2008, Gov. Steve Beshear vetoed $1.2 million in annual funding for ConnectKentucky, which surprised some lawmakers. True said the organization hasn’t asked for state funding for the next budget cycle.

ConnectKentucky is being kept afloat now by Connected Nation, $100,000 in corporate support and other revenue from grants and consulting work, True said. Rather than statewide projects, it is focusing on local efforts where it can secure grants and other funding.

One such project begins in April, when ConnectKentucky will use a $134,000 Kentucky Housing Corp. grant to provide computers, broadband connectivity and training to low-income residents in the redeveloped Equestrian View neighborhood of Lexington’s East End. Lexmark is donating printers.

True said ConnectKentucky plans to apply for some of the new federal stimulus money to expand that kind of program to other public housing in Kentucky.

“It’s a key component for participating in the 21st-century economy,” he said of computer knowledge and broadband access. “Without it, we’re going to be left behind.”