The next Mayor of Louisville

What do I want to see from the next mayor? I want to see someone who has a clear and concise vision for the city. Not just downtown, the highlands, and the East End, but the entire CITY. I want to know what they think Louisville's brand is or should be and how are they going to make it happen. You know. The basic stuff. But this is probably the hardest question to answer.

I haven't heard to many people really articulate what Louisville is and have it encompass the entire city. I've heard some people say Louisville is progressive, but that really only encompasses the Highlands, downtown, and the Frankfort Ave. area. Parts of Eastern Jefferson County and Southwestern County are pretty conservative.

Once we get that out of the way then I want to know how they are going to make their vision happen? How does the west end fit into that vision? The South End? At this point in the discussion we may need to use the "no politcal Cliche' " rule. Because when we talk about any type of re/economic/ or any kind of development in the West End most politicians usually something along the lines of we need to lower crime first. Cool, but what that translate to for many West End residents is "We need even more cops on your streets, because we haven't apparently arrested enough of you guys yet. "

I want to hear something different. What plan/s do you have to reconnect my community back to the rest of the city? How are you going to improve economic development in Western Louisville? When I say improve economic development I don't mean more light industrial. Most of the light industrial businesses in Western Louisville don't employ residents from Western Louisville. They're great for the tax base of the city, but don't do anything for the community.

My next question would be about the future. How are you going to prepare Louisville for the future? What do you think the future holds? What is the future? This is another important question because the answer will tell a lot about where they plan to take our community. If you think the future is about finding niches and exploiting those niches then the focus of the next administration should be in that direction. There should be a clear and concise plan to get us from point A to point B. If they think the future is in Green jobs then there should be a plan to get us from where we are now to that point.

Basically, you can sum it up like this. What is Louisville, where do you want us to go, and you how do you plan to take everybody there? That shouldn't be to hard. Should it?