Elected officials send wrong message

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Lorie Love

July 6, 2009

Lorie Love The Richmond Register Mon Jul 06, 2009, 08:10 AM EDT

Much has been written on these pages about the ways government officials have continued to spend money as if we are not in a recession.

All three of our local governments — Berea, Richmond and Madison County — decided to find ways to fund a pay raise for its employees. While it is admirable that the agencies want to reward employees for hard work and raise morale, in these economic times, giving the same raise as they do every year is an unrealistic goal.

Publisher Nick Lewis has commented on those raises and I agree. Workers at companies across the United States are not only being denied raises, some are getting wage cuts or losing their jobs altogether. The message we regular citizens receive from the governments — even if it is not what they intend to transmit — is as old as our nation and is loud and clear: “We matter more than you.”

We shrug our shoulders and say, “It’s politics as usual. People in government think they’re better than us and they’re going to get their money no matter what.”

It shows just how out of touch government leaders can be with their constituents.

I am most appalled that the Richmond City Commission decided to partially fund its across-the-board $1,000 raises by cutting donations to local non-profits. It is a bad idea and certainly sends the wrong message.

The Salvation Army, for example, will now only get $5,000 from city donations, only a sliver of what they have received in past years.

Who among us hasn’t known someone who needed the services of the Salvation Army or another local non-profit organization?

With a jobless rate of more than 10 percent in Kentucky, non-profit charitable agencies are seeing their needs climb much faster than the rate of donations.

The city’s response was to slash funding.

It just doesn’t make sense.

And, for Americans struggling to pay the bills, government spending at the local, state and national level is incomprehensible and mindlessly extravagant. Do government officials ever stop to think about how these things look to us? The hardworking taxpayer. The one footing the bill.

Right here in our county, we have another man who also needs a new pair of glasses so he can see the world through his constituents’ eyes: Sen. Ed Worley.

Worley’s recent construction project was the subject of another newspaper’s critique this weekend. This project was not news to Richmond Register readers, as we have been reporting about this project since it was approved by the city’s architectural review board back in September.

Worley and business partner Michael Eaves have been buying dilapidated property in downtown Richmond and either restoring the buildings or tearing them down. In the case of the First Street properties, the old buildings were razed and the developers promised the architectural review board the new buildings would have the façade of the old ones.

At the time of the approval, Worley and Eaves said they had no prospective tenants.

We printed pictures on May 27 of the demolition of the buildings, and on June 15 reported about the concerns of other downtown business owners. On June 23, we reported that Worley and Eaves’ new $4 million building is going to be leased to the Administrative Office of the Courts and will house Madison Family Court.

The other newspaper reported this on July 4 as if it was breaking news. It isn’t.

However, with Worley’s company standing to gain $400,000 a year from the state, this project does not sit well with many residents.

I am glad downtown will get a boost from this revitalization project. But, Worley’s involvement in it appears to be a conflict of interest, even if he doesn’t think so.

Even if everything with this deal — from the purchase of the property to the negotiations with the Administrative Office of the Courts — is on the up-and-up, it is difficult for regular citizens to see it that way. Even if there are no ethics complaints about it. Even if it will help Madison County.

It seems wrong for the minority leader of the state senate to be awarded a state contract. Even though he says he did not pull any strings, some will perceive that he did.

It just doesn’t look right.

And perception is reality to most people.

As the economy continues its battle to recover, and more Americans lose jobs and homes, I wonder if it always will be politics as usual, or if politicians will ever become capable of looking at the world through the eyes of the hardworking taxpayer.

There really is only one way for that to happen.

We have to get angry. We have to speak out about it. And we must take it to the voting booth.

Lorie Love is editor of the Richmond Register. She can be reached at llove@richmondregister.com or 624-6690.

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