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Monday’s inauguration breakfast will be held in the Kentucky International Convention Center downtown. The room is being decorated with city vehicles (police boat, TARC buses) and replicas of various landmarks (Metro Hall, Churchill Downs). Black carpets will be dotted with yellow tape to look like streets. Louisville Magazine’s correspondent told me the setup reminded him of this movie.
Don McNay has a piece on the Huffington Post (h/t B&P) about the next generation of Kentucky leadership. Louisville attorney and developer Craig Greenberg is listed among the new class. Greenberg was rumored to be considering a bid for mayor last year, but is now occupied with the Museum Plaza project.
Like Greenberg, many of the names are of people who have not held political office. Republican state representative Bill Farmer, of Lexington, thought that Bill Samuels Jr., President of Maker’s Mark Distillery, and Bill Farish, son of the Ambassador to England, might be potential candidates.
Former Secretary of State Bob Babbage mentioned several people, including Adam Edelen, who is running for State Auditor, a position Babbage once held. Babbage and several others touted former Kentucky Democratic Party chair, Jennifer Moore, who is a Louisville trial lawyer.
John Y. Brown III noted Luther Deaton, the CEO of Central Bank in Lexington.
The Louisville Metro Council has not yet voted on Insight Communications’s franchise agreement. But Dan Klepal at the Courier-Journal has an interesting story on Insight’s recent offer of luxury suite tickets to Friday’s basketball game in the KFC Yum Center.
Here are a few quotes:
“Whenever I do, that’s my business,” [Councilman Dan] Johnson said, adding that he doesn’t believe the tickets and suite access represent a conflict of interest. “Do you really think we’re going to vote against the Insight contract? I don’t think that’s even a question.”
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Council President Tom Owen, a Democrat, was not offered tickets and told his colleagues in an e-mail that accepting them would be “unwise” because it would be “impossible to avoid the public perception of inappropriate influence.”
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“Given the circumstances we’re dealing with … I don’t think it would be wise,” said Democrat David Tandy. “I’ll just watch it on TV.”
Democrat Barbara Shanklin declined, she said, because of the pending vote on the franchise agreement.
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“Insight routinely entertains business, civic and political leaders,” [Insight spokesperson and former Council Member Ellen] Call said. “There’s really nothing unusual about this — it’s the ordinary course of business.”
The water taxi that has taken Hoosiers (and people who are bad at parking) across the river to events at the KFC Yum Center will stop running after Friday.
From WFPL:
Louisville Orchestra musicians must be paid, despite the orchestra management’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. That’s the ruling a federal judge handed down Wednesday. The ruling gives the orchestra’s board of directors limited options for what to do next.
Pay up or go under: those could be the only options the board has. The orchestra’s management was seeking temporary relief from the musicians’ contract as part of its Chapter 11 filing. The judge denied the request, saying the orchestra would only accrue more debt if the musicians didn’t play, since ticket holders and guest artists could seek money for cancelled concerts.
Now the board must come up with around $650 thousand that will be paid out between Friday and mid-April. The musicians will tentatively continue playing.
If the board can’t find the money, it may need to tap the orchestra’s nearly $10 million endowment. The board could also file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and essentially close. Board president Chuck Maisch said after the proceeding he couldn’t comment on what the board will do.
The judge told the musicians not to gloat. Their contract expires at the end of May, and the orchestra’s management would then have more leverage in trying to reshape the orchestra into a smaller ensemble that plays fewer shows. Management has argued that a smaller orchestra would stay solvent.
The orchestra is still seeking Chapter 11 protection, and management is hoping to cut one million dollars in annual operating expenses. Both sides could come to an agreement out of court and end the bankruptcy proceedings.
Letters from children have been submitted as evidence in the Louisville Orchestra’s bankruptcy case. The Wall Street Journal picked up on it.
“I’ve just heard the terrible news, please don’t shut down the Louisville Orchestra,” beseeched one Keegan Taylor. “PLEASE! I beg you!”
One of her classmates, Hanna White, had similar sentiments.
“I’m terribly sad that we might not get to take our filed trip to the louisville orchestra [sic],” she said. To make sure her point wasn’t lost on the reader — Judge David Stosberg, the bankruptcy official assigned to the case — White added in a hand-drawn little girl with the words “I would Love [sic] to go to the lousiville orchestra [sic]” ballooning out of her mouth.
Benjamin G. Morley also pleaded with the judge to try to turn the case around, saying that he had heard the orchestra might have to shut down.
“If it does I will be devestated. [sic] Plese [sic] reconsider so we can go,” he said, signing the letter “your best friend” and peppering his plea with ample exclamation points, capital letters and underlined phrases.
Our sources indicate the letters were not carried into the court in large mail sacks by letter carriers. Further, the letters were not dumped out in the court, and no letter carrier said, “One thousand letters to the Orchestra.”
This week, the Courier-Journal ran a front-page story on a restructuring in the Louisville Metro Police Department. The force will focus more on fighting drugs and gangs.
Your thoughts?
Only one city among those observed–Bakersfield, CA–has more factory jobs than it did ten years ago. Louisville has 37,000 fewer.
A benefit show for the beloved but financially-troubled Ear X-Tacy music store has been receiving positive reviews.
Here’s an update from Louisville.com:
[Owner John] Timmons also spent a few minutes with me to chat about Ear x-travaganza and what the future holds. When I asked him about the possibility of having another Ear X-travanganza benefit concert like this, he stated “Well I don’t want to start a charity or benefit event or anything like that, but my staff planned this on their own. So I couldn’t say ‘No’ once they had it all done all the work and the musicians had already agreed to play.” Timmons continued by saying “This event is really speaking to me in a big way. It makes me feel like people still give a shit about what we do. Like the store can survive.”
