No TIF for CenterPointe? That might be best

Dudley Webb now says he can build his CentrePointe tower without public money.

Maybe he should.

Originally, Webb wanted as much as $70 million in tax increment financing ­— known as TIF — to pay for ”public“ improvements related to the $250 million project. Those could include additional underground parking, a giant outside video screen and some public art.

Last week, after during a hearing in which a city panel gave Webb permission to tear down all of the old buildings on the block, he his attorney surprised everyone by saying he could do the project without TIF financing.

But if he did that, of course, the public amenities would be “scaled back.”

You get the idea.

“The community and the Urban County Council need to tell us, do they want us to go ahead with the TIF application?” Webb said.

The Urban County Council and a state board must approve any TIF financing for CentrePointe. The council could begin discussing it Tuesday.

Maybe council members should call Webb’s bluff and say, “Fine. Go ahead.”

CentrePointe has always seemed to be questionable as a TIF project.

The state TIF program allows a portion of future taxes generated by a new development to go toward paying for public improvements needed to make the development possible.

The idea is to help build “signature” projects that will spur economic activity around them.

Others have proposed TIF projects to replace Rupp Arena and create an entertainment district along Manchester Street. It’s easy to see how those projects could accomplish the goal.

CentrePointe, on the other hand, would house a luxury hotel, luxury condos, stores and restaurants.

When Webb spoke to the Bluegrass Hospitality Association recently, hoteliers expressed skepticism about the market for a new luxury hotel. Meanwhile, downtown is awash in unsold condos and vacant retail space.

Would CentrePointe create new economic activity downtown, or just compete for what’s already there?

Not to mention that Webb is trying to build CentrePointe during the worst construction and financing market in years. Aside from vague references to “international” money, Webb hasn’t disclosed his financing.

All of those factors should give local and state officials pause about putting public money into CentrePointe.

Plus, there’s this: Kentucky law requires officials to certify that a TIF project couldn’t be built without public assistance. Webb’s comments last week seem to undermine that idea.

So what if there is no TIF financing? The developer should still be required to provide adequate on-site parking and streetscape improvements.

Webb has resisted meaningful public participation into what would be one of the biggest, most high-profile developments in Lexington’s history.

When preservationists heard rumors of his plans two years ago and expressed concerns about some of the historic structures on the block, Webb listened politely — and ignored them. With help from some city officials, he kept his plans secret from the public until March, when they were unveiled as a done deal. While Webb has made some design improvements to respond to critics, they have been minor.

Given Webb’s lack of interest in public participation, it may not be a good idea to put public money at risk on CentrePointe.

If Webb does apply for TIF financing, the council should ask a lot of questions, and insist on some safeguards.

The first safeguard would be to prohibit demolition of the buildings now on the block, some of which date to 1826, until the TIF application is approved and other financing is secured and documented.

Remember the World Hole Center?

When the Phoenix Hotel block across Limestone Street from the CentrePointe block was cleared in 1981, future Gov. Wallace Wilkinson was promising to build a 50-story office tower he called the World Coal Center.

It never happened.

Instead, Lexington was left for several years with a big hole, dubbed the World Hole Center. Eventually, the public library, Park Plaza apartments and Phoenix Park were built to fill the void.

Here’s the best thing that could have happened with CentrePointe: Webb could have incorporated a few of the existing structures, or their facades, into a contemporary development that would be uniquely Lexington.

But here’s the worst that could happen: Webb could clear the block, his development plan could collapse and we could be left with another hole in the middle of town — and no historic fabric for a more creative developer to work with in the future.

A Kentucky TV treasure is threatened

This state doesn’t lead the nation in many aspects of education.

But Kentucky Educational Television has, over the past 40 years, been one of America’s most innovative and admired public TV systems.

KET produces more hours of programming and creates more instructional materials than almost anyone else.

“Around the country, everyone wants to grow up to be KET,” said Mac Wall, the executive director.

But that could change, if Kentucky isn’t careful.

State budget cuts have hit KET especially hard. About $2.4 million was sliced from KET’s appropriation for the coming year. Changes in state employee benefits have given many of KET’s veteran staff members little choice but to retire. About a fifth of KET’s 220 employees will be gone by December, including 10 who were laid off last week.

Among the biggest hits: Half of KET’s 12 program producers are leaving.

“These are really invaluable human assets that they are going to be losing,” said Leonard Press, KET’s founding executive director, who retired in 1992. “The loss of what they could have done for Kentucky will never be recovered. Time lost is tragic.”

It’s too early to say what all of this will mean to KET consumers in schools and living rooms across the state. Network executives are working on a plan that will be presented to the agency’s governing board in October.

State funding accounts for 52 percent of KET’s $25.5 million annual budget. The rest comes from fund-raising (17 percent), federal money (15 percent), grants and other revenue (16 percent).

“We will be helped a lot by new technology and what that will bring in terms of efficiencies,” said Shae Hopkins, KET’s deputy director. “But it still takes a producer to find a story and tell that story.”

What is happening at KET has set off alarms across the Public Broadcasting System.

“I’m deeply concerned about the impact these budget cuts may have,” said Paula Kerger, who has toured KET twice since becoming PBS’s president two years ago.

“If the long-term consequences of these cuts are not carefully considered, I worry they may diminish the impressive gains KET has made — especially in serving the state’s children. If further cuts are made, it would be a great loss not only to Kentucky, but also to public broadcasting as a whole.”

More than TV shows

I remember when KET first went on the air in September 1968. Cardinal Valley Elementary got several big black-and-white TVs on carts that teachers wheeled into class. If Mrs. Dawson timed our fourth-grade class just right — and if she could get the rabbit-ear antenna adjusted just so — we could watch a dowdy lady on KET’s one channel do science experiments.

Believe it or not, at the time, that was impressive.

Of course, that was years before Sesame Street helped teach my daughters to count and spell, Reading Rainbow fueled their love of books and Inspector Morse and Prime Suspect hooked me on British detective dramas.

Most Kentuckians know KET through those shows, and some of the 1,200 hours of original programming the staff creates each year: Kentucky Life, Comment on Kentucky, Kentucky Tonight, On to One, gavel-to-gavel coverage of the General Assembly and documentaries such as Where the River Bends: A History of Northern Kentucky.

KET has aggressively explored Kentucky’s history, celebrated its culture and created the kind of public affairs programs that commercial TV news has all but abandoned.

“Local production is the most expensive programming you can put on the air,” Wall said. “But it’s also the most important, the most relevant.”

What’s on your TV is only the beginning of KET.

In addition to the KET1 and KET2 channels, the network operates a channel just for schools and a new digital Kentucky Channel.

KET’s new EncycloMedia is a comprehensive online service with thousands of videos, photos, quizzes and lesson plans that Kentucky teachers can download and use. KET produces for-credit college courses, educational content for state prisoners and professional development materials for teachers.

KET developed study materials that have helped more than 1 million adults nationwide — including more than 20,000 in Kentucky — earn their high-school equivalency degrees. The staff will soon begin a $6 million project to update those materials to reflect changes being made in GED tests in 2012.

New Equipment

Ironically, KET’s loss of staff and experience comes as the network is installing millions of dollars worth of new digital equipment, bought with money appropriated by previous legislative sessions.

“We’re now able to do the things that Len Press envisioned 40 years ago, but the technology and the capacity didn’t exist then,” Wall said.

KET will have the equipment, but it will have a smaller staff with less experience left to use it.

Times are tight, and Kentucky leaders face difficult decisions about how to raise and spend taxpayers’ money.

Can this state still afford to maintain a first-class educational resource like KET?

It can’t afford not to.

Idea Festival: Top thinkers converge on Kentucky

What if someone brought several dozen of the world’s smartest, most innovative people to Kentucky?

And what if you could spend three days listening to them talk about ideas that may change the world?

Sound unlikely? It’s not.

It has happened five times since 2000, and it will happen again Sept. 25-27, when the Idea Festival returns to downtown Louisville.

Scott Jones, the man who invented voicemail, will be there. So will J. Richard Gott, a Princeton University astrophysicist.

Richard Kogan, a psychiatrist and world-class concert pianist, will perform and lecture on the genius of Mozart. Immaculee Llibagiza, the international peace activist, will talk about what it was like to survive genocide in Rwanda.

Diandra Leslie-Pelecky will discuss her book The Physics of NASCAR, which examines how race cars can go so fast. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a risk-management expert and derivatives trader, will discuss his book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, the top-selling non-fiction title of 2007. Will Shortz, the crossword editor of The New York Times, will talk about puzzles.

The European architect Emiliano Gandolfi will launch the Curry Stone Design Prize, a new $100,000 award for innovation in architecture, to be administered by the University of Kentucky’s College of Design.

Vova Galchenko, a world-champion juggler, will demonstrate his skill and discuss the thinking behind it. Amy Chua, who analyzes global politics and economics, will discuss the rise and fall of hyperpowers.

They are among more than 30 presenters recruited for this year’s festival, said founder Kris Kimel, president of the Lexington-based Kentucky Science and Technology Corp. Program details were announced Tuesday.

“They’re all either doing something or thinking about something that’s really cutting-edge,” Kimel said.

They’re also people who think about how ideas cut across all areas of life, and they are good communicators to a general audience.

The big idea behind the Idea Festival is this: In today’s global economy, ideas and innovation are the keys to business success and making the world a better place. If you can bring together a diverse group of innovative thinkers from a variety of disciplines to discuss their ideas, it will stimulate more creative thinking by everyone else.

The Idea Festival started in Lexington in 2000, and it was held again in 2002 and 2004. Organizers wanted to make it a bigger, annual event. In 2006, they moved the festival to Louisville, where there was more access to corporate sponsors and large presentation venues.

The festival costs about $850,000 in cash and $350,00 in in-kind contributions to put on, Kimel said. A big group of sponsors — including Best Buy’s Geek Squad and the universities of Kentucky and Louisville — help keep ticket prices low.

“Business executives pay $3,000 to $6,000 to attend these types of events elsewhere, but we wanted to make it accessible to the public, to all ages, at a reasonable price,” said Kimel, whose private, non-profit corporation works to advance science, technology and innovative economic development in Kentucky.

Last year, about 7,000 people bought more than 12,500 tickets to Idea Festival events. At least 200 of those attending were school children, who can participate in a special program.

After five festivals, Kimel said, the event has gained an international reputation. The 120 or so presenters since 2000 have ranged from Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak to Sir George Martin, the Beatles’ producer.

Perhaps best of all, the Idea Festival has helped create positive buzz for Kentucky.

“We’ve always been known for a lot of things; innovation hasn’t been one of them — but now it is,” Kimel said. “Many of the presenters we bring in have never been to Kentucky before. They leave with the impression that innovation is valued here.”

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Idea Festival

What: More than 30 top thinkers from around the world discuss cutting-edge ideas in science, business, the arts and other fields

When: Sept. 25-27

Where: Several locations in downtown Louisville

Cost: Full pass is $298 until July 15, $350 afterward. Tickets for individual events go on sale July 15. Some individual events are free; others cost $15 to $65

More information: www.ideafestival.com

Could Lexington get a lift from more music?

You hear a lot of talk in Lexington about how encouraging more live music and entertainment venues downtown would be good for the economy, and that’s true.

It would improve Lexington’s quality of life and attract and retain the creative, young workers of the future and the companies that want to hire them.

But what the 275 Lexington leaders on the Commerce Lexington trip to Austin, Texas, are learning this week is that music and entertainment can develop into a significant industry itself, with the right planning and encouragement from local government, banks and other business interests.

And you don’t have to be a Nashville, Los Angeles or Austin to make it happen.

Austin’s music scene goes back to the 1930s, when Kenneth Threadgill hired local bands to play at his Gulf station at night and started selling more beer than gas. Things really took off when the cowboys and hippies collided in the late 1960s, with University of Texas students providing a ready-made audience.

Now, music employs 11,200 people in Austin, generates $11 million in taxes and has an annual economic impact of $616 million. And it’s only a piece of what Austin calls its creative industry sector, which also includes art, film production, digital music and visual media - otherwise known as creating video games.

“Fun is an important part of the economy,” said Jim Butler, a city employee whose job it is to nurture creative businesses. “We take it very seriously.”

Here’s a not-so-small but telling example:

Austin City Limits is one of the most successful and longest-running shows on public television. It showcases both top talent and up-and-comers for a worldwide audience. The show began in 1975, when Austin public television station KLRU convinced Willie Nelson to shoot a pilot to kick off a series of shows featuring Texas musicians.

“We started out just wanting to put a lens on what was happening in Austin at the time,” said Ed Bailey, the show’s vice president for brand development.

When Austin City Limits was still going three years later, producers decided to upgrade the set. They came up with the backdrop that shows Austin’s skyline, which three decades later has become the show’s trademark and has helped make Austin famous.

“It wasn’t part of a business plan to promote Austin,” Bailey said. “It happened because a few creative individuals got together and made a judgment call.”

Then, seven years ago, the show’s producers decided they could use their contacts in the music industry to create a festival as a fundraiser for KLRU. After all, some of the nation’s biggest entertainers had gotten their start on Austin City Limits and returned regularly.

The three-day festival now attracts 130 bands on eight stages and 75,000 fans a day to Austin’s Zilker Park each September. Over the past six years, the festival has generated $100 million in economic impact for Austin.

It was a success story that got several Lexington people thinking: Why not us?

After all, Kentucky has produced some of the nation’s most successful musicians, and there’s a whole genre of music called bluegrass. Lexington already has successful niche festivals, such as Festival of the Bluegrass at the Kentucky Horse Park and Ichthus near Wilmore.

Lexington has its own home-grown live music success story: Michael Johnathan’s “Woodsongs Old-Time Radio Hour,” which is beamed each week from the Kentucky Theatre to 491 radio stations worldwide, XM Satellite Radio, a number of public TV stations and streams live online. It will record its 500th show on Sept. 15.

More than a little brand equity there. Great contacts in the music industry.

So, could Lexington boost its economy and image - not to mention the show’s - with a festival?

Austin’s experiences also sparked ideas for Lexington on a smaller scale.

Lexington has some great large venues for shows - Rupp Arena, the Opera House, UK’s Singletary Center for the Arts. But what the city lacks is smaller venues like the Dame, which is looking for a new home since being displaced from Main Street by the proposed CentrePointe development. Those are the venues where musicians get their starts and a local music scene takes root and grows.

The most popular activity for the Lexington visitors Wednesday night was a “pub crawl” to four of the bars in downtown Austin. Many people later wandered over to some live performances at other clubs, such as Stubb’s Bar-B-Q, where Kentuckian Loretta Lynn will be singing June 13.

Wednesday night’s acts were less famous, but still popular.

“There were probably 1,000 people at that one show on a Wednesday night,” Lexington architect Clive Pohl said. “And we passed dozens of clubs on the way there and they were all packed.”

Craig Robertson, a young attorney, dreams of an outdoor concert venue in downtown Lexington, perhaps in the Cox Street parking lot beside Rupp Arena, and lots of small, downtown music clubs. “Where can you go now in Lexington to see the people who aren’t big headliners?” he said.

Vice Mayor Jim Gray appointed a downtown entertainment task force in October 2007 that will soon issue a report and some recommendations. And a few more recommendations are likely to be added when this group returns from Austin.

Council member Linda Gorton said little things Austin is doing to encourage clubs and entertainment venues could easily be done in Lexington - relaxing some ordinances, for example, or providing loading zones on streets for entertainers to use at night.

“We could remove some small obstacles and make it happen,” Gorton said.

What’s new in the CentrePointe debate

Woodford Webb, president of the company that wants to build CenterPointe in downtown Lexington, has an op-ed piece in today’s Herald-Leader that explains some design changes made in response to community opposition to the project. “We have taken serious looks and made deep analysis into this project while preserving the building program elements required to make this a successful block and with the confidence that it will serve as a catalyst for the neighboring blocks’ imminent revitalization,” Webb writes.

Here are PDFs of revised renderings for CentrePointe released by The Webb Companies. The files are large, so they could take awhile to download. Click here for a Main Street view. Click here for an Upper Street view.

Donovan Rypkema of PlaceEconomics, a Washington, D.C., consulting firm that specializes in the economic revitalization of city centers and development of historic properties, discusses CentrePointe on his blog. He writes about LEED certification, which is intended to result in more environmentally friendly buildings and construction practices. But he says CentrePointe is an example of what is becoming a national pattern of “using LEED certification as the club to demolish historic buildings.”

Preserve Lexington, a community group formed to urge that CentrePointe incorporate some or all of the 14 buildings on the block that date as far back as 1826, plans a rally and fundraiser on Friday, June 13. The event will be from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Limestone Club, 213 North Limestone St. Admission is $20. There will be two bands — “The Swells” and “Between Clark and Hillsdale” — along with beer, barbecue and a silent auction of art posters.

Meanwhile, the South Hill Neighborhood Association has donated $2,000 to Preserve Lexington and challenged other downtown neighborhood associations to donate. The Elsmere Park Neighborhood Association also has given an undisclosed donation, a Preserve Lexington spokeswoman said.

The next step in the CenterPointe dispute comes June 25 at 1:30 p.m. in the Urban County Council Chambers when the Courthouse Area Design Review Board considers The Webb Companies’ revised development plans. The board must approve any changes to or destruction of buildings on the Main Street side of the block that fall within the courthouse overlay area. To win approval to demolish the buildings, The Webb Companies must show that it can’t make a reasonable financial return by restoring them.

And, finally, somebody sent me this example of a bar/restaurant in a century-old building in New York City that has helped humanize the scale of the skyscraper that covers the rest of the block. Something like this may or may not work on the CentrePointe block, but it’s interesting.

Where to find teen driving classes

My column Friday about the need for more hands-on training for young drivers prompted a lot of response from readers, many of whom suggested some good resources.

Perhaps the best is a full-day seminar that will be coming to Commonwealth Stadium’s parking lot in Lexington on Aug. 2.  It is the Tire Rack Street Survival program, which costs $60, can take as many as 30 students.

The program was started as a non-profit organization in 2002 by the BMW Car Club of America and puts on seminars around the country coordinated by local volunteers and supported by local sponsors.  Sponsors for the Lexington session include the Sports Car Club of America and Kentucky Children’s Hospital.

Gail Morgan Reynolds decided to organize the Lexington session after taking her son, Don Morgan, 17, to one in Louisville last year. “We were just so impressed,” she said. “It was such a good course.”

To sign up for the course, go online to www.streetsurvival.org and look for the Lexington course information under the “school schedule/registration” link.

Reynolds is still looking for experienced volunteer instructors, as the goal is to have one instructor for every two students. She said additional classes may be scheduled in the future, depending on demand and the ability to schedule dates when Commonwealth Stadium’s lot is empty, or find another suitably huge expanse of asphalt.

Other Street Survival sessions planned in the region including Carmel, Ind. (just north of Indianapolis) on June 21; Columbus, Ohio, on July 12; Chattanooga, Tenn., on Sept. 13 and Oct. 18.

Another non-profit program is Driver’s Edge, which offers a two-day course that’s free. But the only course planned in our region is Aug. 23-24 in Nashville, Tenn.  Registration for it will open soon at the organization’s Web site,  www.driversedge.org.

The Mid-Ohio School in Lexington, Ohio, north of Columbus, offers a teen defensive driving course, along with many other courses for people who want to learn to race cars.  The teen course costs $350.  For more information, go online to: www.midohio.com.

Among the other solutions: BMW offers a one-day course for teens at its Performance Driving School in Greer, S.C., for $495. And while it’s nothing like hands-on experience, a company called Road Skillz (www.roadskillz.com) sells a DVD for $19.95 that covers the most common mistakes young drivers make and how to survive them.

Your life right now, in one sentence

I love Facebook, the online social networking tool. It was created for college students, but I find it more useful for adults.

Over the years, you collect a diverse and far-flung set of friends, but you rarely make the time to contact them to see what’s new in their lives. On Facebook, that information comes to you automatically.

My favorite part of Facebook is the “status update.” That’s where you say in one sentence what you’re doing, thinking or feeling, and it goes out to all of your Facebook friends with a time stamp.

Today’s lineup on my Facebook home page was classic. It included the following:

• (A friend in Detroit) is very worried about Lebanon today. 2 hours ago
• (A photojournalist friend in Florida) is editing audio. 3 hours ago
• (A foreign correspondent friend) is back from Afghan, which was good, and Dubai, which is weirdsville, and is now in Moscow, which is chilly, and soon to be headed for the states, which is far. 5 hours ago
• (A young friend in Australia) ’s favourite food is risotto. 7 hours ago
• (A friend in Maine) has high spirits, but a creaky knee. 16 hours ago

So how would you sum up your life at this moment, in one sentence? Comment below.

Derby hats: Pros beyond the merely fashionable

Some people work a lifetime in the faint hope that they and a horse they love will achieve Kentucky Derby fame.

And then there is Charles Matasich, who has been achieving his own version of it for 41 years.

Matasich, a retired steelworker from Proctorville, Ohio, wanders Churchill Downs each Derby Day, posing for photographs and chatting with fans. He’s easy to spot in his rose-covered cowboy hat, white beard and a vest full of kitschy bling.

He is “Derby Man” — it even says so on his business card and Web site.

Matasich, 66, is one of a handful of characters who come year after year. They wear outlandish hats and pose for photos with spectators whose own bonnets are merely fashionable. They love the scene, the conversation and, most of all, the attention. Like mint juleps, they are part of the flavor of the first Saturday in May.

“Derby Man” Charles Matasich is interviewed by David McArthur of Louisville’s WAVE-TV. Photos/Tom Eblen

Derby Man first came 43 years ago with infield tickets and a wife who was seven-months pregnant. He wore a decorated hat, which year after year got bigger and wilder.

“When I would go out in the infield they would say, ‘Here comes the Derby Man.” he said.

“My wife said, ‘Aw that looks gaudy.’ But I come down here and everyone loves it,” he said, adding that Patricia Matasich stopped making the trip with him years ago. “She can’t take all these women having their picture taken with Derby Man.”

His outfit has grown over the years to include temporary rose tattoos on his neck and cheeks. “I’ve threatened to get permanent ones, and my wife threatened to leave me,” he said.

“This is his life,” said Matasich’s daughter, Tricia Vegil. “Last year he was really ill, and I told him that if he worked on it to where he could walk and get better I would bring him back.”

Ernie Trent’s millinery creations began as a lark 32 years ago and soon turned into an identity.

“One time I put a horse on my head just for the heck of it and people said, ‘We like that,’ and it started from there,” he said.

The 61-year-old retired factory worker from Louisville makes a different hat each year and said his 1993 creation is in the Kentucky Derby Museum. He visits several schools each year to help kids make their own hats.

Trent was strolling the paddock Saturday with a homemade model of the twin-spired grandstand built on a pith helmet, complete with little speakers playing horse sounds.

“Every year I say, I don’t know if I’ll go anymore, because it’s kind of dumb-looking,” he said. “But other people love it and love to take pictures of it. It puts them in a Derby mood.”

Ginny Keen of Louisville rode a motorized chair with the pink feather and pin-covered hat she’s been wearing for 39 years.

“Everybody smiles and everybody’s so happy,” Keen said. “You can go up and talk to anybody from any place you want.”

Skip Koepnick of Wyoming, Mich, is in his 14th year of hat-building. He said he also has one in the museum collection. He makes a different hat each year, although they all have his signature spinning model horses on top.

This was only the second Derby for Jan Baty of Traverse City, Mich., but she was making up for lost time.

Her straw hat was covered with huge silk flowers and topped off with a plastic pink flamingo plucked from her front yard.

“I’m having a grand time,” she said. “My grandkids are home going to watch it on television and I said, ‘Maybe grandma will be on TV.’

Middle photo: Ernie Trent of Louisville has been making crazy hats to wear to Derby for 32 years.

Bottom photo: Skip Koepnick of Wyoming, Mich., has been to 32 Derbies and has been making special hats for 14 of them.

MULTIMEDIA: To watch David Stephenson’s time-lapse photo report with audio about Charles “Derby Man” Matasich, click here.

At the Kentucky Oaks: No glitz, but a little jingle

It was mid-morning and the crowd was just beginning to pour into Churchill Downs, but Josh Schneider of Louisville was already hard at work, waving his arms and jumping around to attract attention.

It wasn’t hard for him to attract attention: He was wearing a huge plastic mint julep suit. A very hot one, at that. And he knew it would get hotter. “A friend got me this job,” Schneider, 32, said through the small screen in the suit. What would he earn for the day? “Not enough. I’ll work my way through mint juleps; that’s how I’ll get paid.”

Schneider may be one of the more oddly dressed, but he’s part of an army of hundreds of concession workers and ticket sellers who pick up some extra cash during Oaks-Derby weekend every year.

Debbie Jones of Louisville is here for a fourth year to sell wagering tickets. It’s two very hard days of work, but the pay is good: $375, plus tips. She hopes to get a good window in a glitzy part of the track, where the tips are best. “It’s hard work, but it’s fun,” she said. “You’ll see about everything here this weekend.”

Post time for the first race today: 11 a.m. The Oaks is at 6:04 p.m. Watch this blog today for updates from the scene in Louisville.

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.