Friday, 25 July 2008

Time For A New Mayor

Louisville's "Mayor For Life's" time has past. He has been at the post too long and no longer brings anything new to the job. In the mean time, his administration has begun to get sloppy with arrogance. And it has cost the city $350,000 in federal money.

The $350,000 in affordable-housing grant money the federal government has taken back from Louisville over the past four years could have been used to get more homeless and mentally ill people off the streets and into apartments. Advertisement

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has reclaimed portions of 10 grants because not all the money was spent by the city, according to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Once the grants expired, HUD took back the unused money and spent it elsewhere.

How hard is it to lose federal money? How much incompetence is necessary to get HUD to come and take its money back? I would feel bad for the residents of Louisville if they didn't keep re-electing the man in charge of this ineptitude.

Posted by brians at 11:22 PM in Louisville Politics
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Beshear Is Still Looking For A Vision

I have come to believe that Beshear's rudderless leadership stems from the fact that he has no vision for Kentucky. How can he lead when he doesn't know where he is going? He got the job because he thought it would be cool, and now is at a loss for what to do. That is the reason he is on this town hall tour.

His latest stop is Winchester where he all but admits he is looking for an agenda.

And Beshear, who was making his third stop on his statewide town hall tour, said he's considering many of the ideas — which were big and small in ambition and scope.

“So far, we're just listening and taking notes and learning what people are concerned about,” he told reporters after an hour-and-a-half meeting with nearly 200 people at George Rogers Clark High School.

“We're going to sit back and start evaluating that as we do more of these to see if there are items that ought to be priorities in this state that I don't already think ought to be priorities,” he added.

He is desperately crossing the state hoping that someone will help him come up with some sort of plan. Until someone does, it looks like he is going to cling to legalized gambling. Unfortunately for him, no one wants it.

Beshear's other suggestion for raising more state revenue received a chillier reception: allowing casinos.

I think it is sad that we have a governor who has no idea what he wants to do as governor other than "being governor". The worst part is all of us have to wait three more years before we can find someone who can actually lead this great commonwealth.

Posted by brians at 10:43 PM in Kentucky Politics
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Louisville Arena's Costs Keep Rising

I always thought the idea of building a random Arena in downtown Louisville was a bad use of public funds. We are going to spend millions and millions on an arena that will occasionally be used. Well it looks like the "investment" is going to cost a lot more money than originally estimated. As much as 10% more!

The announcement follows Monday's move by Moody's Investors Service to consider downgrading its opinion of the financial strength of the arena's bond insurer, Bermuda-based Assured Guaranty.

Such a move could add more than $60 million to the project's total debt cost, which is about $600 million, Host said.

And this is before construction has even begun. Can someone remind me why this was such a great idea in the first place?

Posted by brians at 10:21 PM in Louisville Politics
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