New CentrePointe links: More news and opinion

Here are four new articles discussing the proposed CentrePointe project in downtown Lexington:

Joe Rosenberg, a jeweler who owns much of the block and is partnering with developer Dudley Webb on CentrePointe, defends his role as landlord for The Dame music hall in an op-ed piece in Monday’s Herald-Leader.

On the same page, Lexington architect Van Meter Pettit makes the case for a more open process and a public-private oversight board to guide downtown development.

Linsen Li, opinions editor of the Kentucky Kernel, the University of Kentucky’s student newspaper, comments in Monday’s paper on UK President Lee Todd’s endorsement of Webb’s CentrePointe plan the day after it was announced. The Kernel reported Friday that Todd wrote a supportive letter to the developers before controversy began swirling about the CentrePointe plan.

Rolex: Fans love sport, excited about 2010

Some people think of this as the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event.

Others think of it as the annual dress rehearsal for the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games — one more almost down, two more to go.

Still others think of it as the apex of the horse sport they love, with all of its beauty, excitement and danger.

However you think of it, the biggest day of this year’s Rolex seemed for organizers and spectators to go about as smoothly as one of those expensive watches it is named for.

The only sadness came for the cross-country competitors, three of whom tumbled at jumps, sending one rider and two horses to hospitals.

“It has been a big crowd, a great day,” said Stewart Perry, a Lexington insurance agent and Rolex board member who is the volunteer director of spectator services.

“They’re all leaving with smiles on their faces,” Perry said by cell phone as the crowds dispersed.

Hawley Bennett clears a jump aboard Livingstone. Photos/Tom Eblen

The only operational hiccup seemed to be getting people in and out of the Kentucky Horse Park. Road work within the park for the 2010 Games contributed to a morning backup that reached down Ironworks Pike and Newtown Pike almost to I-75. It was a 45-minute trip, but at least traffic never stopped moving.

Jack Kelly, CEO of the 2010 Games, has always known that moving people in and out of the park will be one of his biggest challenges. The annual Rolex traffic jam confirms his group’s decision to shuttle people in from outside the park. Perry said Rolex would love to shuttle people, too, but it would be too expensive.

Still, Kelly has nothing but praise for Rolex organizers, who have marshaled more than 1,500 volunteers. “I think they’ve made some tremendous strides,” he said.

Jurgen Gohler thinks so, too. The Cleveland-based dressage trainer, who was on the German three-day eventing teams at the 1968 and 1972 Olympics, has attended every one of the Kentucky three-day events since they began with the World Championship in 1978.

Gohler also is a regular at the World Equestrian Games, and he thinks the Horse Park will be a great site in 2010.

“They will handle it very well,” he said. “This is a wonderful facility.”

The crowd of 50,275 Saturday was a diverse lot, from all over the country and around the world.

Some Central Kentuckians might have been there out of curiosity, or because it seemed like a fun thing to do on a beautiful spring day. But the parking lot contained license plates from dozens of states, and evidence that many of them belonged to serious horse people.

For example, there was UPNOVER from Indiana — a jumper, no doubt.

“I like to watch riders who are better than I am,” said Kirby Schmidt, an electrical contractor from Medford, Ore., who mailed his deposit for World Games tickets last year.

One obvious demographic in the crowd was horse- loving girls and their parents, such as Mary Beth Brungardt, 14, of Marshall, Minn., and Bethany Beres, 15, of Roswell, Ga. They stood in a long line to get autographs from Stephen Bradley, a star rider and former Olympian.

“It’s great to be around all these amazing riders,” said Bethany, an avid rider who hopes her father will bring her back in two years for the World Games.

And what happens when those horse-loving girls grow up? They keep coming.

“We’ve been coming off and on for more than 20 years,” said Rosemary McGarrah of Evansville, Ind., who was there with her friend and fellow rider Janet Davis of Newburgh, Ind. “This sport has grown by leaps and bounds. In the 1980s, if they had 10,000 people here, it was a big crowd.”

Linda Palumbo of Orlando, Fla., and her sister, Ruth Travis of Franklin, Tenn., came to Rolex for a “girls’ weekend.” They grew up with horses in Florida, where their father bred appaloosas, and Palumbo still rides.

“This place is just fabulous,” she said.

Throughout the day, there were sad reminders of the sport’s danger.

After the first of Saturday’s three falls, Bill Jansen of Tryon, N.C., watched with a worried look as emergency workers checked Dornin Anne North. The daughter of retired Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North had taken a hard fall.

Jansen’s daughter, Kaitlyn, rides on the University of Tennessee’s equestrian team and hopes to make it to the Olympics someday. “I just don’t want to be one of those fathers,” he said, nodding toward the ambulance that took North off the course.

After the second fall of the day, Joe and Donna Bihner, who live near Chicago, watched quietly with a large crowd as emergency personnel behind big blue tarps worked on Sarah Hansel and her horse, The Quiet Man.

“Everyone here’s an animal lover, and we hate to see anyone hurt,” said Donna Bihner, a rider attending her fourth Rolex. “I hope he’s OK. They put a lot of love in those babies.”

UPDATE: This column was written Saturday evening for Sunday’s newspaper. On Sunday afternoon, it was reported that two of the three horses involved in falls Saturday were euthanized because of their injuries. The rider, Laine Ashker, is hospitalized in intensive care. Read Amy Wilson’s latest update, from Tuesday’s Herald-Leader.

Middle photo: Outrider Heather Bellis-Jones of Paris spent much of the day having little girls admire her horse, T.J. Left to right are Haley Penland, Kadison Leaphart and Kelsey Louthan, all of Greenville, S.C.

Bottom photo: Sisters Ruth Travis of Franklin, Tenn., left, and Linda Palumbo of Orlando, Fla., enjoy a “girls’ weekend”.

Signs of spring: Cast your vote May 20

Campaign signs are popping up like dandelions as Kentucky’s May 20 primary election nears. This crop is at a crossroads on Ky. 1269 near Salt Lick in Bath County. Photo/Tom Eblen

Who is your favorite candidate, and why? Leave a comment below

Global warming means change for coal, Kentucky

MOREHEAD - If you want to start a fight about global warming, go to coal country.

That was clear Friday at the East Kentucky Leadership Conference. It wasn’t a fight, really, but a spirited debate about what global warming could mean for the coal-rich region and how Kentucky should respond to inevitable change.

It was the kind of discussion that made this 21st annual conference worth attending.

At its best, the East Kentucky Leadership Conference is like a big family reunion where people get together to talk about the future instead of the past. Everyone knows the touchy subjects and all of the back stories. Most also know which cousins are smart and which uncles are crazy.

It helps that the conference always takes place in late April. When the hills are ablaze with redbud and dogwoods, no problem seems too big to solve.

On this year’s agenda were all of the usual subjects: health, education and economic development, plus a session with the curious title, “Adventure Tourism: An Idea Whose Time Has Come.”

While it wasn’t on the official agenda, there also was plenty of discussion about the plague of drug abuse.

When talk turned to coal, nobody, thankfully, tried to argue that global warming is a myth, or that we’re not making it worse by burning coal.

Cheap power threatened

The world’s changing energy picture doesn’t bode well for Kentucky, said Jim Lamb, the senior vice president of power supply for East Kentucky Power Cooperative in Winchester.

About 96 percent of Kentucky’s electricity is generated by burning coal. That has given Kentucky some of the nation’s lowest power rates. But as concerns about climate change prompt more restrictions on coal-burning, power rates are sure to rise

Many at the conference - including Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo, a Hazard physician, and House Majority Leader Rocky Adkins of Sandy Hook, who works for a coal company, touted the possibilities of new technology to convert coal to liquid fuel that burns cleaner than oil.

Coal companies are pressing for federal and state tax breaks to develop that technology.

John Hennen, a history professor at Morehead State University, said it’s fine if coal companies want to invest their own money in such research, but public money should be used to explore alternatives to fossil fuels.

“I think a (public) commitment to coal conversion technology would be a disaster,” he said, raising eyebrows around the room.

Hennen noted that converting coal to liquid fuel requires massive amounts of water and produces more carbon dioxide than burning it. While there’s a lot of talk about capturing that carbon and storing it, nobody has shown it can be done on a large scale.

Investing beyond coal

Hennen said he would rather see public investment in conservation, energy efficiency and sustainable energy sources. Solar power, for example, could become a lot more cost-effective as technology improves and other energy prices rise.

One example: The state could provide tax credits or other funding for solar-powered home water heaters. They could cut demand on the power grid and pay for themselves in a few years.

“We cannot afford to look to the coal industry to be our salvation,” Hennen said.

He and Jason Bentley, a lawyer in Frankfort with the firm McBrayer, McGinnis, Leslie and Kirkland who works with big energy companies, argued about what they both said was “fear-mongering” for and against coal.

“The reality is that these other fuels cannot compete with coal in price and flexibility,” Bentley said. And they won’t anytime soon.

Everyone agreed that coal will be Kentucky’s dominant energy source for decades to come. But they also agreed that big changes are coming - and the clock is ticking.

Notes from the East Kentucky Leadership Conference

MOREHEAD — It’s perhaps the oldest question at the annual East Kentucky Leadership Conference, which met this week for the 21st time: How can the region attract more jobs from elsewhere.

In 1990, former Gov. Wallace Wilkinson created the East Kentucky Economic Development Job Creation Corp., which supporters say recruited more than 5,100 jobs to 28 counties in the region over the next 14 years. Former Gov. Ernie Fletcher cut off funding for the corporation in 2004 amid questions about its effectiveness and political squabbling within the region about where the jobs went.

Bill Weinberg, a Knott County lawyer and a founding member of the East Kentucky Leadership Foundation that sponsors the conference, pointed out that recruiters can do only so much. Ultimately, companies decide where they want to locate facilities. Appalachian counties are not only competing with each other, but often with bigger metro areas, such as Lexington and Knoxville.

House Majority Leader Rocky Adkins of Sandy Hook said East Kentucky needs its own recruiting arm, because statewide economic development efforts aren’t enough. “We can toot our own horn better than anyone else,” he said.

Attracting outside companies is important. Equally important is helping to foster more local entrepreneurs.

That’s what the Kentucky Highlands Investment Corp. in London has been doing for nearly 40 years. The region needs more emphasis on and training in entrepreneurship, not only at universities and community colleges in elementary schools.

“The culture in Appalachia is if you stay in the community you’re going to go to work for somebody else,” said Jerry Rickett, the president and CEO of Kentucky Highlands. “We have to change that culture.”

Rural Kentucky once could attract jobs with low labor costs. But many of those employers have gone overseas in search of ever-lower labor costs. “Much of Eastern Kentucky is not in a competitive position for industrial recruiting,” Rickett said.

The Internet has made it easier than ever for entrepreneurs to create businesses in eastern Kentucky and sell products and services worldwide. “If you start a business here, the high-paying jobs and equity will stay here,” Rickett said.

*****

Gov. Steve Beshear was to have been the featured speaker at the conference’s dinner Thursday. But that honor fell to Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo, a Hazard physician. It was a great platform for a native son, and Mongiardo’s popularity was obvious at the conference that has always leaned heavily Democratic. But more than a few people remarked on the fact that Beshear was the first Democratic governor in the 21-year history of the conference to not attend. Two constitutional officers who have had their eye on the governor’s office also attended: Auditor Crit Luallen, a Democrat, and Secretary of State Trey Grayson, a Republican.

*****

In his remarks, Mongiardo noted that East Kentuckians have always had to stuggle with limited resources, so there’s no reason the region can’t continue making progress in tough economic times. He noted that history remembers people who embrace change, not those who resist it.

Click the arrow below to listen to a 2-minute excerpt from Mongiardo’s speech. He talks about the importance of expanding early childhood education and how information technology can be used to cut healthcare costs.

*****

The conference has always been a forum for discussion, rather than a policy-making meeting. But part of this year’s conference was spent trying to draft a regional platform statement to guide the governor on issues affecting the region. At several sessions, panels went through a draft document and made revisions. The original draft can be downloaded from the East Kentucky Leadership Foundation’s Web site, where it is likely to be updated soon with the revisions.

East Kentucky Leadership Foundation award winners

The East Kentucky Leadership Foundation, which is having its 21st annual conference in Morehead, honored six individuals and organizations Thursday night for their service to the region: Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo, a Hazard physician; Morehead activist Shirley Hamilton; visual artist and illustrator Paul Brett Johnson; Pathways Addiction Program of Ashland and its founder, Todd Trumbore; Don Rigsby and the Kentucky Center for Traditional Music at Morehead State University; and healthcare advocate Linda Gayheart. The conference, which focuses on strategies for improving Appalachian Kentucky, continues Friday at the Morehead Conference Center.

Saving Kentucky’s aluminum industry, can by can

Don’t throw away that aluminum can — Subodh Das could be watching.

Das, an aluminum engineer, is working with the city of Lexington and researchers from the University of Kentucky’s Gatton College of Business to study what you throw away and what you recycle.

They want to figure out how to persuade you to throw away less and recycle more.

Das isn’t out to save the planet, although that would be nice. He’s out to save Kentucky’s aluminum industry.

“In the 1970s, recycling was important because it was a good thing to do,” said Das, president and CEO of Lexington-based Secat Inc., which provides technical research to the aluminum industry. “Recycling now is strictly a business proposition.”

Although not as famous as horses or bourbon whiskey, aluminum is big business in Kentucky. The industry employs nearly 18,000 people at 142 plants that make everything from beverage cans to auto parts. Where is the world’s biggest can sheet factory? Russellville. The world’s biggest recycling plant? Berea.

Foreign competition

But, like so many other industries, aluminum production is moving to countries with cheaper energy, raw materials and labor — not to mention slacker environmental standards. It’s also following new demand for aluminum in supercharged economies such as China’s and India’s.

Das thinks much of Kentucky’s aluminum industry could quickly disappear unless it secures a long-term supply of cheap raw materials, which account for 80 percent of the cost of making aluminum.

There are basically two ways to get aluminum:

The first way is to mine bauxite, copper, silicon, magnesium and manganese in places such as Africa, Brazil and Indonesia. Then refine those minerals and process them into metal in places such as Ireland, Iceland, China and Dubai.

The second way is to recycle the Coke can you’re holding.

Economics and environmental awareness first made aluminum recycling popular in the 1970s. It has slacked off since then, and only about half the cans now used in America are recycled.

Kentucky’s recycling rate is much lower. Lexington, Louisville and Bowling Green have the state’s best recycling programs. Still, the aluminum recycling rate in Lexington is only about 40 percent, Das said.

Cans that aren’t recycled end up in the nation’s landfills. Das estimates the value of that thrown-away aluminum at more than $60 billion.

Producing new aluminum also comes with a host of other environmental costs: It uses enormous amounts of energy and creates a huge amount of carbon dioxide, which contributes to global warming. By contrast, recycling aluminum takes only 5 percent of the energy required to produce new material, Das said.

The price is right

Until a few years ago, the cost difference between new and recycled aluminum was only pennies a pound. Now, because of a variety of global economic factors, recycled aluminum is about 50 percent cheaper than new materials.

“If we can recycle more aluminum, companies in Kentucky will automatically have a cost advantage,” said Das, a native of India who moved to this country in 1971 to earn a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

Das hopes the research into Lexington’s recycling habits will provide the scientific basis for better educational efforts to promote recycling. After all, recycling often comes down to personal habits and cultural behavior.

One key to changing behavior, Das says, is bringing an idea home to people in human terms. As an example, he notes those signs you see along highway construction zones that urge drivers to slow down when workers are present.

“It’s like saying, ‘Don’t throw away that aluminum can because my Dad’s job depends on it,’” Das said. “Because for much of Kentucky, it really could.”

Photo: Subodh K. Das, president and CEO of Secat Inc. Photo/Secat Inc.

What do you think? What could government and industry do to encourage you to recycle more aluminum and other materials? Comment below.

How to prevent so many deaths of young people?

I’ve heard from a lot of parents — and even a few young people — about my “nothing good ever happens after midnight” column Sunday.

So what could be done to prevent so many senseless deaths? Some who have written me suggest more parent oversight, more university- sponsored education, stricter enforcement of liquor laws or simply just more responsible behavior among young people.

What do you think? What do you suggest? Post a comment below.

Senseless deaths are parents’ nightmares

There’s an old saying among parents: Nothing good ever happens after midnight.

Last week, two very bad things happened in Lexington while most of us slept.

Two University of Kentucky students died in tragic accidents. By all accounts, they were the most promising of young people.

Brian Hardin, 27, died Wednesday after falling and hitting his head on a sidewalk. He was walking near the intersection of Woodland Avenue and Maxwell Street about 4:30 a.m. after a night out with friends at a nearby bar.

Hardin’s professor and mentor at UK described him as one of the best physiology research graduate students he had ever taught. Just this month, Hardin was published in physiology’s most prestigious journal — a remarkable achievement for a first-year grad student.

Three days before Hardin’s death and a few blocks west on Maxwell Street, Connie Blount, who was about to turn 19, was killed as she crossed Broadway with a friend. It was 2:15 a.m. and raining. The police report said that as the couple crossed the street, against the signal, she “stopped in the roadway for unknown reason” and was struck by a hit-and-run driver.

At a memorial service Monday night, more than 200 people packed UK’s Baptist Student Center. Friends spoke of Blount’s cheerful disposition, her winning personality and her infectious smile.

Wednesday evening, as the sun was beginning to set, I stopped by the makeshift memorial Blount’s friends created near the intersection where she died. A photograph of the smiling UK equestrian team member was pinned to a small street tree. Below it was a mound of fading flowers.

On one bouquet was a hand-written card: “We love you more than you could ever imagine. You were our best friend, and I know we will see you soon. Keep those horses ready for us. We love you.”

It was a vision from every parent’s nightmare, like the ringing telephone that wakes you in the middle of the night. In the seconds before you pick up the receiver, you pray it is not a police officer or an emergency room doctor with bad news.

Young adulthood is a heady time — newfound independence, boundless possibilities and a feeling of invincibility. But all too often, when youthful exuberance finds alcohol after midnight, even the best young people become victims of life’s random cruelty.

It’s too early to say what role alcohol played in last week’s deaths, but it appears to have been a factor — just as booze in the wee hours contributed to the deaths of seven other UK students since 2002. Two young women fell into a flooded storm drain. A young man ran in front of a truck; another in front of a train; a third in front of a car, whose driver also was drunk. Another fell off a cliff while camping with friends. Another fell through a third-floor dormitory window, along with the brother of another student.

Spurred by such tragedies, UK and other universities have emphasized alcohol education. That’s good. But education, like parenting, can do only so much in the struggle against human nature.

These tragedies have been on my mind a lot this week, and I know why. I’m the father of two daughters in their 20s. The younger one turned 21 last Monday, and, of course, she had planned a big night out with her friends.

I told her at least three times that day to be careful, be responsible. I’m sure she thought I was overdoing it, because she has always been responsible. But bad things happen to good kids. We saw that last week.

Parents find themselves in a strange place when their children are suddenly no longer children. We aren’t in charge anymore, and are no longer around every minute to help them and protect them. And it wouldn’t be healthy if we were.

All we can do is hope that we did a few things right in the past two decades. We can tell them to be careful, to be responsible. And we can remind them that nothing good ever happens after midnight.

Retirement track: Loving those green-jacket jobs

Albert P. Horrigan, a retired state district court judge, comes down from his home in Flint, Mich., twice a year to work as a doorman at Keeneland. Photos/Tom Eblen

Take a closer look sometime behind the smiles of all those green-jacketed ushers, greeters and doormen at Keeneland Race Course.

You never know who you might see.

In pre-retirement life, they were a judge, a restaurant owner, a corporate executive, a fire captain and even the University of Kentucky police officer who guarded Coach Adolph Rupp.

Now, during Keeneland’s April and October racing meets, they work long days for modest wages opening doors and helping people get where they need to be. Some move to Lexington for the privilege. And they seem to enjoy every minute of it.

“We used to come down here for long 3-B weekends,” said Albert P. Horrigan, a retired state district court judge from Flint, Mich. “You know — betting, bourbon and burgoo.”

On one trip, Horrigan asked an usher how he liked his job. The next meet, Horrigan was an usher, too. That was seven years ago. Now, twice a year, the judge rents an efficiency apartment for a month and moves to Lexington.

“My son thinks I’m nuts,” he said. “He figured it up and finally said, ‘You’re paying them to work here!’ I said, ‘Yea, but it’s a vacation.

“Every Irishman has a place in his heart for an acre of land and a horse,” Horrigan said. “We don’t have anything like this in Michigan.”

The judge is one of 179 members of the Keeneland Guest Services staff. More than 80 percent of them are retirees, and about 70 percent of them live in Central Kentucky. But a few come from as far away as Michigan and Florida. And most come back meet after meet, year after year.

“We want someone who’s here for the experience,” said Howard McKenzie, an IBM retiree who leads the staff. “If they’re here for the money, they’re in the wrong place.”

Ric Hodges, who ran a convenience store in Winston-Salem, N.C., drives over twice a year and books a room at an extended-stay motel so he can usher.

“I’m having a ball,” he said. “I love talking to people. I love to see the horses run.”

Charles Ellis spent 35 years with Ashland Inc., where he was senior tax manager and a corporate officer.

“I always told my wife that when I retired I wanted to get ‘one of those green-jacket jobs,’” he said. So, four months after he retired in 1998, he was working at Keeneland.

Ellis’ main job is handling the trophies and managing awards ceremonies for sponsored and stakes races.

“There are no unhappy people in the winner’s circle,” he said.

Other times, Ellis ushers and acts as the “fashion police” on corporate-box row. Along the way, he has met celebrities such as actress Ashley Judd, NASCAR driver Michael Waltrip and legendary horse owners Bob and Beverly Lewis.

Bill Rice, 78, came to work at Keeneland after he noticed his neighbor loved the job so much. Now, he says, it’s the most fun he’s had since he was a UK cheerleader and went to the Cotton and Sugar bowls with Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant and the team in the early 1950s.

Tony Williams, a retired Lexington firefighter, leads a five-member team whose fleet of wheelchairs helps older patrons get to and from their seats. He’s been working at Keeneland for 35 years.

“There’s no place like Keeneland,” he said.

Robert Stoudemire, 69, is quick to agree. He spent 30 years on the UK police force, including several as Rupp’s body guard at home games. He retired in 1994 and was working at Keeneland the next year.

“I just love the horses, the scene, the good people,” he said. “I just love talking to people.”

The toughest part of Stoudemire’s job is keeping the grandstand aisles clear. But even that’s not too hard.

“If people are losing money, they’ll sometimes get rowdy,” Stoudemire said. “But they finally calm down. Sometimes, they even come back and apologize.”

Robert Stoudemire, a retired UK police officer who used to guard Coach Adolph Rupp at home games, talks with Keeneland patron Joan Jaber of Newport at the track Thursday.

Above photos:

Howard McKenzie, left, who has headed Keeneland’s guest services team for 21 years, greets old friend James “Smitty” Smith, who was enjoying the races Thursday. Smith was maître d’ at Columbia Steak House in Lexington for many years.

Charles Ellis retired as a top corporate executive with Ashland Inc. in 1998 and started working at Keeneland the next year. He manages the trophies and presentations for stakes races.