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For the people who own horses and don’t just release them (it happens), an injured equine can present myriad problems. And for communities, convicts without marketable job skills released into a competitive economy can present just as many difficulties.
If only someone could solve both of these problems.
Well, a sherriff New England has done it. A Plymouth County, Massachusetts program puts inmates to work caring for injured race horses.
The inmates have built a new stable and fenced nine acres of pasture. Eventually, several prisoners will feed, groom and walk the horses daily as part of the new Second Chances vocational rehabilitative program, the only one of its kind in Massachusetts and one of seven at correctional facilities around the country.
The farm bestows “that sense of responsibility that comes from taking care of something other than oneself,” McDonald said.
The idea is to heal the thoroughbreds’ physical and emotional scars so they can be adopted privately or begin second careers as show horses.
And the horses help rehabilitate the prisoner while the con rehabilitates the horse, the sheriff said.
The criteria for eligibility is strict: a criminal history of violence of any kind, drug distribution or restraining orders disqualifies inmates from the program. Eligible offenders are likely to have operated under the influence or committed other civil infractions, according to Capt. Dan Callahan, who trains the inmates.
The program is funded entirely by the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, and does not use any taxpayer dollars to sustain it, Callahan said. It is also sponsored by Suffolk Downs.
So Harley-Davidson isn’t coming to Shelbyville. Maybe it never even planned to relocate and used Shelby County as a bargaining chip with the union. Perhaps.
Jake says Governor Beshear is spinning the rejection; saying the relocation that never was helped the county. He makes a point and he might be right, but Shelbyville isn’t at a total loss. They did get a new water pipe extended to the county line. Of course, there’s no money in the county budget to connect to Jefferson County’s end of the pipe yet.
I wonder what will happen to the project. I assume that development will eventually approach the pipe from both sides and warrant an extension, but with the economy the way it is, that seems a long way off.
This week, Metro Parks and the Department of Health and Wellness will release a walkability study of West Louisville. The walkability studies are part of the Mayor’s Healthy Hometown Initiative.
The study will be unveiled at an open house Thrusday at the Shawnee Golf Course between 3 and 7 PM.
Business First reports that the open house will also an include an update on the Louisville Loop project:
About 23 miles of the 100-mile project are complete, according to the release. The finished section, known as the Ohio River Levee Trail and the Riverwalk, extends from Waterfront Park in downtown Louisville to Riverside, the Farnsley-Moremen Landing, in southwest Louisville.
Planned segments of the Louisville Loop include:
• A route from the Ohio River Levee Trail and Riverwalk to Bardstown Road, near McNeely Lake Park;
• The Floyds Fork Greenway, from Bardstown Road to Shelbyville Road, passing through new parks being developed by 21st Century Parks;
• A route from Shelbyville Road to River Road;
• A route along the Ohio River corridor, leading from the northeast suburbs to Waterfront Park;
• And paths along the Olmsted Parkways — Algonquin Parkway, Cherokee Parkway, Eastern Parkway, Northwestern Parkway, Southern Parkway and Southwestern Parkway.
Comedian and talk show host Bill Maher will visit Louisville Saturday for an evening of standup comedy at the Palace Theatre. WFPL is sponsoring the event and I talked with Maher about his place at the intersection of politics and comedy. Maher says even though he supported President Barack Obama, he’s found no shortage of material in the new administration. The problem, he says, is finding an audience for the jokes.
The group assigned to create guidelines for where a homeless shelter can be built is complete.
This group’s decision will affect the Wayside Hotel. That is, if JCTC doesn’t get the building through eminent domain.
Louisville Mojo (among others) has the list:
* Dolores Delahanty, formerly with Metro Housing Coalition
* Deb Delor, Louisville Downtown Management District
* Ken Herndon, Louisville Downtown Management District
* Sue Ernst, Planning Commission
* Jack Francis, Neighborhoods Coalition
* Anna Wooldridge, Neighborhoods Coalition
* Marlene Gordon, Coalition for the Homeless
* Cathy Hinko, Metro Housing Coalition
* Debby Levine, citizen
* Victoria Markell, League of Women Voters
* Virginia Peck, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
* Maria Price, St. John Center for Homeless Men
* George Unseld, Metro Council
* Leah Stewart, Board of Zoning Adjustment
* Stephanie Warren, Kindred Health Care
* Regina Warren, Metro Housing & Family Services/Urban Government Center
* Lee Weyland, CITY Properties Group
* Ed Wnorowski, St. Vincent de Paul Society
* Jon Baker, Jefferson County attorney’s office
* Theresa Senninger, Jefferson County attorney’s office
* Dustin Wallen, Jefferson County Attorney’s office
* Rebecca Fleischaker, Metro Economic Development Department
* Chris Brown, Planning & Design Services
* Chris Cestaro, Planning & Design Services
* Chris French, Planning & Design Services
* Dawn Warrick, Planning & Design Services
Bill Weyland, the architect who redeveloped the Henry Clay building at 3rd and Chestnut is leading a group who just purchased the Guthrie Coke Building one block west of the Clay. Both buildings are next to the Louisville Public Media headquarters, and I talked to Weyland (though his interview didn’t make the cut) and a Henry Clay resident for a feature on suburban decay.
Weyland told the CJ it may take a year to start work on the $1.2 million purchase, but plans are in the works now:
He envisions a mixed-use project, perhaps with retailing, office or other commercial uses on the street level and 20 or more dwellings, probably apartments, on the upper three floors.
“We are going to hold it until we’ve got an opportunity to redevelop it as a full-blown, historic rehab,” Weyland said, adding that “we have some existing tenants in the building who will continue to be there, until we are ready to redevelop.”
The Weyland group is inheriting three leases. They are with the Roseland Beauty Supply store, the Essence clothing store and System Parking, which manages the 26-space lot on the property just west of the building along Chestnut.
Until fairly recently, one other ground-level retail space was occupied by the Olive’s on Fourth restaurant and catering business.
Weyland said an unidentified business has expressed interest in leasing the space vacated by Olive’s.
Former director of the state’s Division of Mine Permits Ron Mills–who was fired last month–was an opponent of the 33 1/3 rule. The unofficial rule lets coal companies obtain permits to mine underground in plots when they can only legally use 2/3 of the land.
Mills’ firing set off alarms for watchdogs and skeptics, and now the Herald-Leader has this:
Gov. Steve Beshear’s administration overruled its top mine permitting official last year to “accommodate the coal interests” and reinstate a policy the official said was illegal, according to state documents.
At issue: The Beshear administration’s use of the so-called “33 1/3 rule,” which allows coal companies to mine underground when they have shown the legal right to enter only two-thirds of the acreage included in their plans.
Some critics say the policy is illegal because federal and state law requires coal companies to show they have the right to enter all land included in their plans.
[edit]
State documents show that Mills fought and briefly rescinded the 33 1/3 rule until he was overturned by his superiors at the Energy and Environment Cabinet following a debate in October 2008.
“I have recommended to the secretary that we can accommodate the coal interests with reinstating the 2/3’s rule,” the cabinet’s deputy secretary, Hank List, wrote Oct. 8, 2008, to Natural Resources Commissioner Carl Campbell, who was Mills’ boss.
Three months later, on Jan. 9, List wrote to Campbell: “Carl, let all the permit applications that include the 33 1/3 provision out the door.”
[edit]
Mills said that before he was fired, Campbell told him Alliance Coal — specifically, a company executive named Raymond Ashcraft — and the governor’s office were pushing for his ouster because of his opposition to the 33 1/3 rule. One of Beshear’s staff assistants, Jeff Belcher, often called the Division of Mine Permits on behalf of coal companies to ask about their permit applications, Mills said.
Alliance Coal is a big political donor, having given several hundred thousand dollars to Kentucky politicians and parties on the state and federal level, including to Beshear and the Kentucky Democratic Party.
“I didn’t want to do anything that was illegal,” Mills said.
Belcher did not return a call seeking comment. The governor’s office has denied playing a role in Mills’ firing.
Broken Sidewalk readers have voted Presentation Academy’s arts and athletics building at Fourth and Breckinridge the year’s best new landmark. The building topped Chamberlain Pointe, ZirMed Towers, St. Mary Academy and the new Lincoln Memorial in a readers’ poll.
- Readers overwhelmingly praised the architectural detail and continuity of Presentation Academy’s new addition with its original 19th century building and with the surrounding neighborhood. Many commented that new growth in the historic neighborhood is welcome and refreshing providing life to the corner.
- Respondents favoring the Chamberlain Pointe project weren’t so talkative but were refreshed that new suburban development isn’t just a cookie-cutter strip mall. Readers were happy to see the building’s facade broken into individual components resembling human scale buildings.
- Votes for the ZirMed Towers remarked on the striking juxtaposition of old and new architecture surrounding the structure as well as the building’s materiality of industrial concrete and smooth blue glass. Many compared the reflections in the glass to the facets of a diamond and enjoyed how the building emulates the spirit of the ZirMed Corporation itself. And, of course, several readers found it refreshing that new development is happening on the western edges of Downtown.
- Entries praised St. Mary Academy for bringing back the traditional image of the schoolhouse while blending with the architecture of nearby Norton Commons and the rural nature of surrounding farmland. Several reported a calming affect brought about by its design.
- The majority of readers who voted for the Lincoln Memorial felt that the project would stand the test of time as a true landmark. Several guided their decision by a more fundamental idea of the word landmark and what it should represent in a community. Connections to Kentucky history were also cited.
- Notable comments for other projects included praise for the Cliff View Terrace’s attention to urban form, sustainability, and innovative structural system, admiration for theClinical & Translational Research Building’s unique, cutting edge design that reflects the advanced research going on inside, and pointed out the McAlpine Locks & Shippingport Bridge’s vast economic boon to the city as well as its long history and the design of the bridge.
