Go Green Campaign News

Environmentalists wary Jackie Green could spoil Louisville mayor's race

By James Bruggers - October 13, 2010

The mayoral candidate whose platform is most focused on strengthening public transit, encouraging more bike riding, and developing a “post-carbon” economy doesn’t have the backing of the Sierra Club’s Louisville group.

Jackie Green, the environmentalists’ group decided, doesn’t have a good chance of winning and their support would be more effective behind Democrat Greg Fischer.

In fact, even as one of their own runs for the city’s top job, some leading environmentalists are worried he could turn out to be a spoiler who splits the liberal vote and puts Republican Hal Heiner in office.

And a University of Louisville political science professor says they may have a point.“It’s is conceivable, said Dewey Clayton, a professor of political science. “Clearly this race is still up in the air.”

The local Sierra Club’s chairwoman, Joan Lindop, said Green “is raising issues that need to be raised,” but the group’s members don’t believe he can win.

They’re backing Fischer because they like parts of his platform and they believe he has good managerial skills, Lindop said. She said they are also concerned that Heiner would, as mayor, tilt too much toward business.

“It is enthusiastic but I guess not passionate,” she said of the endorsement, adding that Green is “raising issues that need to be raised.”

But another local environmental advocate, Tim Darst, said citizens should vote for the candidate who shares their values, even if he or she may seem hopelessly behind in the polls.

“If you vote for the lesser of two evils, you will just get an evil,” said Darst, the executive director of Kentuckiana Interfaith Power & Light, a faith group that focuses on energy and climate change and does not make endorsements.
Darst said he supports Green and his aggressive positions on public transit and development.

The most recent Courier-Journal/WHAS11 Bluegrass Poll, conducted in late September by SurveyUSA, had Green at 3 percent and Fischer 48 percent — six points ahead of Heiner. The margin of error was plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.

For his part, Fischer said his campaign has “a very strong environmental message and a strong jobs message.

“We certainly would like Jackie’s supporters to keep that in mind.”

Heiner said: “I don’t view Jackie as someone that’s pushing the race one way or another. I view Jackie as someone with a passion for Louisville that is tired of the status quo and is working just as hard as Greg and I to win this race.”

Green dismisses any idea that he might be a spoiler taking votes from the more liberal candidate.

With registered Democrats outnumbering Republicans in Louisville, “This was (Fischer’s campaign) to dance through,” Green said. “If he loses… it won’t be because of me.”

Green is a bicycle enthusiast, business owner and transit activist. Heiner is an engineer, developer of two local business parks and a Metro Council member. Fischer is a businessman who co-invented a combination ice dispenser and beverage server, just as convenience stores began appearing all over the country.

The mayor has a fair amount of control over agencies that handle such tasks as planning and zoning, air pollution control, water quality protection and the city bus service. In recent interviews, each of the candidates said they recognize that a clean and healthy environment is important to attracting and retaining businesses.

But they have differences.

Climate change

In March, during the primaries, 11 candidates were asked at a U of L forum whether global warming was real. Heiner was the sole candidate to not raise his hand.
When asked recently to explain, Heiner said, “I am running for mayor, not for international scientist. First, I believe the globe is warming. I think that’s irrefutable.

There is, however, “an international debate on what is causing that,” he said, and on that, “I haven’t taken a position.”

Nevertheless, he said he’d speed efforts to make city buildings more efficient; get the city to piggy-back economically on U of L’s developing Conn Center for Renewable Energy Research and Environmental Stewardship; and work to tap more methane for energy at the Outer Loop Landfill and local sewage treatment plants.

Fischer said a city “can do a lot” to address climate change, and that businesses looking to move here will want a “progressive” mayor who recognizes human activities are contributing to global warming.

“First, you have to say it’s a priority,” he said.

If elected, he said, he would create a city office of sustainability to coordinate environmental initiatives. He said he wants to make the city a leader in efficiency; supports a local food economy; and would sign a U.S. Conference of Mayor’s pledge to reduce carbon dioxide emissions — extending one previously made by Mayor Jerry Abramson.

Green called the climate pledge “meaningless” because it has no teeth. Efficiency would be a priority with him, too, but he said he’d press for better bus service and work toward bringing light rail to the city; guide job growth along bus lines; save local farm land from development; and encourage the use of solar panels on public and private buildings.

Air

Each of the candidates said they supported the city’s Strategic Toxic Air Reduction program, which was adopted in 2005 and has lowered levels of certain toxic chemicals from factory emissions.

But Fischer has been taking shots at Heiner, a Metro Council member, for voting against a 2005 Metro Council resolution that backed the STAR program. Heiner said he believed businesses at the time when they complained they weren’t included in writing the regulations.
Heiner later worked on an air district task force with business, neighborhood and environmental members that led to changes in the program. The local air district has also extended compliance deadlines.

“I think they (air district staff) have really matured over there the last few years, and it has proved to be a workable regulation,” Heiner said.

Art Williams, the former director of the Louisville Metro Air Pollution Control District when STAR was developed, said Heiner is wrong to suggest industry was unable to participate. He said the rule-making took place over two years, with multiple public hearings, and a review of some 2,000 public comments from all sides, including the business community.

Any adjustments that have been made so far have been “at the margins” and have not altered the program’s core goals for healthy air, said Williams, who has been advising the Fischer campaign.

“We now have a situation where we are cleaning up the air and people are able to operate their businesses,” Fischer said.

Development

Green attacked Heiner and Fischer on growth, saying both would pack more people into suburban Jefferson County, increasing traffic and gobbling up “green fields” at a cost to existing neighborhoods, which also need investment.

“Our (land use) patterns of the past 45 or 55 years, as a result of those, there are all sorts of other problems that spin off,” Green said. “You live farther afield, more spread out, you have to burn more fuel just to transport goods and people and services. You are paving more of the Earth. You are polluting more air.”

And in fact, the Home Builders Association of Louisville would be happy with either Fischer or Heiner.

“We’ve endorsed both candidates,” said Chuck Kavanaugh, executive vice president of the group, who said he believes both would focus on job creation to bring more housing needs.

Fischer has promoted green development methods more than Heiner, Kavanaugh said. “But I think Hal is probably there, too,” he said.

Heiner said he’d work to smooth MSD’s rollout of new storm water rules that will require developers to better manage runoff from rain. New developments in the outer areas of the county should set aside land for open space, he said.

“One thing is clear to me, people are going to locate where they want to locate,” Fischer said. “We just have to be smart about it.”
Transportation

Heiner and Fischer both said they’d press for quick bus service improvements from the Transit Authority of River City, such as text messaging or electronic signs at bus stops providing updates on arrival times. Heiner dismissed light rail as “tremendously expensive” but said the city needs to work on a better way to get people from the airport to downtown swiftly.

Fischer has called for a rapid bus shuttle pilot project from the airport to downtown. He also said a future of robust rapid bus service or light rail can only happen “if we grow. It all comes back to jobs … and we can afford these types of things.”

Arguably the biggest transportation issue locally is the Ohio River Bridges Project — a new bridge downtown, one between Prospect and Utica, Ind., and an overhaul of Spaghetti Junction downtown.

Green opposes the project.

Heiner has said he favors building an East End bridge first, if the entire project is too costly, and he has called for keeping parts of the Spaghetti Junction interchange intact to save money.

“My position is, ‘What can we afford?’” Fischer said, saying the community will know more in December, when a bi-state authority is due to come out with a financing plan.

“If we can only afford part of the project, let’s build the East End bridge.”

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