Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear and Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson have announced their seven selections for a bi-state panel to oversee the Ohio River Bridges Project.
Here’s today’s press release from the governor’s office:
FRANKFORT, Ky. (Oct. 30, 2009)—Gov. Steve Beshear and Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson today appointed the seven Kentucky members of a bi-state authority that will help develop a financing plan to ensure construction of two bridges between Louisville and Indiana and the reconstruction of the Kennedy Interchange in downtown Louisville.
“It is essential to the economic future of this region that we provide safe, modern interstate connections across the Ohio River between Kentucky and Indiana,” said Gov. Beshear. “These are highly qualified people who have the experience and expertise to help us bring this important transportation project to fruition.”
Mayor Abramson said, “This group of experienced, respected leaders will help Kentucky and Indiana meet the challenge of financing the most important bi-state transportation improvement in our lifetime.”
The Kentucky General Assembly, in its 2009 special session, authorized creation of the bi-state authority and established guidelines for the group’s work. Under the new legislation, the governor has three statewide appointments and the Louisville mayor has four appointments from within Jefferson County.
Gov. Beshear’s appointments include:
Mayor Abramson’s appointments include:
The governor’s appointments are subject to confirmation by the Kentucky State Senate. The mayor’s appointments are subject to approval by the Louisville Metro Council. The other members will represent Indiana.
As mandated by the General Assembly, the bi-state authority’s proposed financial plan would contain a timeline for construction of the project and its financing parameters. The financial plan must be approved by the state authority.
The bi-state group’s meetings will be open to the public under Kentucky law. Both Beshear and Abramson said they will ensure the panel conducts several public meetings on any proposed financing plan to share details and seek citizen comment.
The bi-state group plans to hold its first meeting in December.
Healthcare overhaul legislation was introduced in the House of Representatives Friday, and Third District Congressman John Yarmuth of Louisville expects it to win easy passage.
Yarmuth says H.R. 3962 includes many of the reforms he wanted, and many compromises that were necessary.
He expects it to pass next week without any Republican support. It will then be reconciled with healthcare legislation the Senate passes in the coming weeks. Yarmuth doesn’t expect there to be many changes in either bill during that process.
“We’ve been actually working as much as we could to make sure the lion’s share of the two proposals is the same,” he says. “Most of the two bills is very similar.”
Republicans continue to criticize the proposal as too expensive.
Yarmuth says both chambers have different plans for paying for the overhaul, but he expects final passage of the reconciled legislation by the end of the year.
Friday, October 30, 2009
State of the News
It’s tricks and treats for this week’s State of the News. First we’ll get an update on what’s been happening in the Metro this week, from Metro Animal Services to Trans Fat to Federal Grants. Next, for the treat, we’ll talk about sports, sports, sports; baseball, football, basketball, and who knows, maybe even a little cricket …Nah. Join with your questions and comments.
The University of Louisville football team (2-5) attempts to snap a two-game losing streak this weekend against Arkansas State. The Red Wolves (2-4) broke a four-game losing streak last weekend against Florida International.
Cards head coach Steve Kragthorpe says Arkansas State has a good offense and a talented quarterback.
“So he’ll employ a lot of the game things we saw against Cincinnati in terms of quarterback running game, which is tough to defend when you’ve got a guy that can run it and pass it,” says Kragthorpe, “and they’ve got big play receivers and they’re very solid in the running game.”
Kickoff is set for 3:30 tomorrow at Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium.
From Kentucky Public Radio’s Tony McVeigh
The number of doses of H1N1, or swine flu, vaccine allocated to Kentucky has doubled in the last week, but demand still far outstrips supply.
State Epidemiologist Dr. Kraig Humbaugh says Kentucky has been allocated 342-thousand doses, and 215-thousand doses have been shipped.
“Even though we’ve doubled the number of doses that are potentially available, many of those will be coming next week,” says Humbaugh. “Just because they’ve been allocated, it takes awhile for the health departments to order, and then for them to receive their shipments, but many will be coming next week.”
Humbaugh says more than half of the doses will be the injectible form of the vaccine.
To date, at least 14 Kentuckians have died from swine flu. The latest victims were in Knox, Hardin, McCreary and Madison counties. Two were females and two were males. Two were in their 30’s and two were in their 50’s.
With children out trick-or-treating this weekend, two southwestern Louisville politicians are concerned about a block of registered sex offenders living in their district.
Metro Councilman Doug Hawkins and State Senator Dan Seum held a press conference Friday to discuss a housing complex off the Greenbelt Highway where 40 registered sex offenders live in 36 units.
The offenders are not in violation of any laws, but Hawkins and Seum say they want warning signs put up in the area or legislation passed to limit how many offenders can live in a given area. Seum says doing that now would violate fair housing laws.
“That doesn’t mean that we can’t tweak it or change it,” he says. “If you’re talking about people that have criminal convictions and they may have paid their dues and fines, if you will, or served their time. But if you’re a child molester out there, you’re pretty low on the totem pole as far as I’m concerned as far as rights go.”
“This is a sickness,” says Hawkins. “You would not take an alcoholic, a reformed alcoholic to a bar. We don’t need to have a high concentration of registered sex offenders in one particular area. Especially within 1500 feet of a daycare and right next door to family neighborhoods.”
The owners of the apartment complex were not available for comment.
From WFPL’s Haley Hart
The nomination deadline for Leadership Louisville’s Connector Project is approaching. The project aims to identify regional leaders from all walks of life and bring them together for brainstorming sessions and other events.
Leadership Louisville President Chris Johnson says the response thus far has been impressive.
“We have over 4,000 nominees already for the project representing close to 70 zip codes in Southern Indiana and the area around Louisville,” she said.
Although the official deadline is this Saturday, Johnson says nominations will be taken through the beginning of next week. Leaders who are ultimately selected through the process will be publicly recognized and will have the opportunity to work together on leadership and civic projects of their own design.
