Go Green Campaign News

Mayoral candidates talk transportation, jobs and LMPD at JCC forum

By Sean Rose - September 15, 2010

The three Louisville mayoral candidates locked horns over transportation, job growth and the metro police department at a forum held at the Jewish Community Center on Wednesday night.

When asked about the Ohio River Bridges Project, Democrat Greg Fischer and Republican Hal Heiner both emphasized building an eastern Jefferson County bridge first before constructing one downtown.

Fischer advocated waiting for a final cost estimate for the downtown bridge before deciding to go through with that portion of the project.

“Lets wait and see what the bridges authority says, if we can't afford it, let's scale it back and build the east end bridge,” he said, while also warning that breaking the project up into two would require a new environmental impact statement among other things and could delay a second bridge anywhere to three to 10 years

Redesigning the Spaghetti Junction interstate interchange will cost more than any other portion of the project — about $1.5 billion of the $3 billion total — and Heiner said the city needs to re-examine ways to incorporate the current junction to drive down the price tag.

“Let's move the east end bridge to construction,” Heiner said. “But we need to re-look at the downtown bridge to make sure it's affordable.”

Independent Jackie Green kept with his theme of pursuing reliable and accessible public transit, advocating more investment in TARC and eventually light rail instead of building new bridges.

“Our greater need is a world-class public transit system rather than to continue investing in interstate highways,” Green said.

All candidates had plans for attracting jobs and businesses to Louisville. Heiner called for the mayor's office to take a greater role in wooing businesses, saying he had traveled to other cities and watched how mayors met with business officials considering a move.

“Here in Louisville we have outsourced that responsibility to our chamber of commerce, Greater Louisville Inc.,” Heiner said. “Do you know who's closing the deal in Indianapolis? It's the mayor of Indianapolis.”

Fischer said Louisville already is attractive to businesses, but needs to think like an entrepreneurial city, moving and reacting quickly to business inquiries, as well as expanding on business presences already in the city.

“It's got to be the easiest city in the country to start a business … We don't have to reinvent the wheel with a lot of these processes, but we're too slow,” Fischer said.

Green said any focus on new business had to be coupled with a focus on a new green energy economy. One of the perks of Louisville from a business standpoint is the cheap cost of energy from coal, which will not always be the case, Green said.

“Cheap energy is not going to be here for very long, that's on the way out,” he said.

Instead he advocated bringing in new businesses that capitalize on alternative energy like solar panel manufacturing.

The candidates also were asked what they might change in the Louisville Metro Police Department to reduce crime and whether or not they would keep Chief Robert White.

Fischer has said he will keep the chief and searching for a new one would be a distraction from more important issues, such as job growth.

Green also said he would keep White and called Louisville a very safe city by and large.

Heiner has said he will not commit to keeping White or firing him while he is campaigning, but differed from the other candidates in his concern about the morale of officers in the department, which Heiner said was caused by police administration.

“Any of you in business, you know there's a connection between morale and productivity and results,” Heiner said. “That's not the case in other cities, but it is the case in Louisville.”

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