Questions & Answers

The Go Green Mayoral Platform

Go Green!

Why are you runnning for mayor?
In October 2009 I led a group at the University of Louisville in a discussion of local transportation issues. Those 30/40 people from Louisville and out of town generated great discussion, great energy. As we closed the session one of the out of town guests asked who in local political or civic leadership was carrying the flag for sustainable transportation. I turned the question to the residents of Louisville. They quickly responded that none of our local political or civic leaders are out front on this. That answer disturbed me for several nights.

When I returned to Louisville in 1999 I began working with transportation issues as a volunteer. Upon discovering that Louisville had no bicycle based courier service I repeatedly, for several years, asked local automotive-based courier businesses to service the central business district with bike couriers. After being told “no” several times I started a bicycle courier service in 2002. I then began to ask local bicycle shops to open a bike shop downtown. Again, after years of hearing “no”, we opened a bike shop on Market Street in 2005. Today, we have six couriers, a dispatcher and two and a half bike shops. I have a track record of seeing a need and filling the gap. Louisville is in need of a leader with a vision appropriate to 2020.

Analysis of the transportation plans as set forth by 8664, River Fields * and the Build the Bridges Coalition reveals each of them to be little more than schemes to build yet more automotive infrastructure. As such, they are all three regressive 1950s style transportation plans. All three plans argue a case for more automotive infrastructure - in different locations. All three plans delay the day, no, the decade Louisville can invest in a great public transit system. All three do nothing for pedestrians and/or cyclists. All three are operating under the illusion that tolls will solve the challenge of funding these automotive infrastructures.

The Commonwealth of Kentucky does not have the finances to fund a bridge (or two) and the accompanying highways. Even if it could fund a bridge in Louisville, Frankfort's rural legislators would not follow that investment with funding for a first-class public transit system in Louisville. Louisville must decide whether it will build a great public transit system or continue the 1950's plan for more and more automotive infrastructure.

All the other mayoral candidates are supporting one or another of these regressive 1950s style transportation plans. Louisville cannot afford to follow their lead into 2020. I am promoting making public transit our first priority.

Why are you runnning as an independent?
Two reasons. First, the issues Louisville faces transcend our two party system. Secondly, the party boxes are too small, too cramped, too steeped in an adversarial relationship with the other party to easily work cooperatively. The two parties need a mediating 'third party' and Louisville needs leadership free of two party constraints/limitations.

Who are your advisors?
"You are. I am listening to nearly everyone. Some of my best advisors are critics."

What are your chances of being elected mayor?
I read it as being 50/50. The citizens of Louisville either will or will not elect to put this mayoral platform in the office. This platform is very different from the platform of other candidates. I am the only candidate committed to building a world class public transit system before building another Ohio River bridge and to changing our urban growth patterns so investment flows into our established neighborhoods, our abandoned commercial and industrial sites and our blighted neighborhoods rather than into an effort to turn the few remaining local farms, forests and fields into suburbs. The other candidates are not factoring in the coming energy price increases, EPA's particulate standards, tolls on bridges, TARC service cuts, the arena's gridlock creating traffic, Copenhagan's failures and the carbon economy's future. Our platform is very different from that of the other candidates.

Will voters respond favorably to the platform? Time will tell. And that is said without flippancy as this is written in December, 2009. Voters go to the polls in November of 2010. That is twelve months away. In the next twelve months the public will come to a new understanding of what tolling bridges means. In the next twelve months the public will be paying a different price for fuel. In the next twelve months the public will understand the real cost of cutting TARC service. In the next twelve months the public will realize the implications of running afoul of the EPA. In the next twelve months the public will understand the lesson the arena traffic is about to teach us regarding access and public transit. In the next twelve months the public will come to a new understanding of the implications in Copenhagen's failures. Time is on my side. See? now the reading is 51/49, in our favor. :)

Some organizations have endorsed other mayoral candidates, who has endorsed your candidacy?
Individual citizens vote, organizations do not. Given the current lack of platform that other candidates have, one might question any organizational endorsement as being premature.

You have proposed a pedestrian right-of-way within three (3) blocks of schools and suggested that Jefferson County Public Schools modify the school assignment plan to guarantee students and parents who commit to walking and/or bicycling to school may attend their neighborhood school. How can that neighborhood school policy be inforced?
We can begin to guarantee that students walk to school by eliminating student parking. Turn the parking lots into sports facilities. We could also explore eliminating the drop off line at the school doors. Dropping off students at the perimeter of that three block zone turns all students into walkers.

Does your vision for a better Louisville include wearing helmets while riding bicycles?
Sometimes. It depends on the cycling speed, weather conditions, road conditions, traffic, etc.. There are many forms of cycling, all demanding different forms of riding. Some cycling styles are dangerous, many are not. Maybe it would help to consider a football analogy. We don't wear helmets playing flag football, we do when we suit up for football's more physical version. Blind insistance on wearing helmets sends the erroneous message that cycling is dangerous. Wikipedia carries a surprisingly compelling argument against helmet laws - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bike_helmet.

Why doesn't your platform elaborate on crime and police enforcement.
I oppose crime :) and support the work of our police force. I haven't had a conversation in any detail with Chief White. And do not plan on elaborating on the topic until that conversation has run its course. I am concerned with the violence in our community. There is a level of individual responsibility for the violence, a community responsibility and a national responsibility. Local violence is a reflection of the violence in our natures, our nation and the world. How much does violent national response to international events trickle down to the community and to individuals? When we send our good troops and mobilize our military to violent international action, what message of conflict resolution does that send to the children and young adults of Louisville? Thankfully, Louisville holds, as the hometown of the greatest boxer in memory, an institution dedicated to peace.

Just as I support the work of our police force, I support the work of our military. I do think we rely too heavily on our military and ask them too often to do work they are not equipped to do. We should celebrate peace making as much as we celebrate war making. Every spring Louisville has in 'Thunder Over Louisville' a huge military celebration with no equivalent celebration of organizations such as the Peace Corps.

Having digressed, and drifted into dangerous waters, let's ask some questions regarding Thunder. Why is Thunder not required to obtain a permit from Air Pollution Control District (APCD)? Is it time we consider the fallout of the Thunder event? APCD currently "flags" that day's particulate readings as an "exceptional event." What are the particulate readings of that day? If high, can Thunder be redesigned as an event that does not result in a spiking of particulate readings?

Where do we get media campaign photos to download?
If you would like to download high resolution photos for media use please click here.