Snippets from the Lexington Herald Leader, http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/14408534.htm
Urban County Council candidates boast lengthy political resumes
By Valarie Honeycutt Spears
Herald-Leader Staff Writer
[...]
But eight of the nine at-large candidates who could take that post by getting the most votes in the fall Urban County Council election say a top priority is to stop public bickering at city hall.
And the ninth candidate wants to focus on a new way of planning for growth.
[...]
Five candidates are current or former council members, including one incumbent at-large councilman. There's also a businessman who ran for mayor in 2002, a defense attorney who has served on a number of city commissions, a well-known public policy consultant and a lawyer who ran for Congress.
[...]
Candidate Steve Kay has already brought up the contentious past four years in a campaign commercial, and businessman Jim Gray has coined the slogan, "Let's stop the fighting and start the progress."
Much of the discussion has focused on the tenure of Vice Mayor Mike Scanlon, who is not seeking re-election. Scanlon's time on council has been marked by feuding with the mayor and divisive fights among council members, one of whom sued Scanlon for defamation.
[...]
Voters can pick up to three candidates in the May 16 primary. Six of the nine will move on to the general election in November. Ultimately, voters will choose three. The big prize -- which goes to the top vote-getter among the three -- is the vice mayor's seat.
[...]
But the job will take more, such as the ability to build consensus on the 15-member council, candidate Bryan Coffman said.
"To get anything done," said Coffman, a lawyer, "you have to be able to persuade eight people to agree. It is embarrassing what has happened in the last few years."
Term limits boost field
George Brown, the current District 1 council member, aspires to be mayor one day. He says the at-large race will be a gauge of his support and a chance to see whether an African-American can win a countywide seat.
Both Brown and Sandy Shafer, the District 10 councilwoman for the past 13 years, are running at-large because term limits prevent them from seeking re-election in their districts.
[...]
Coffman ran unsuccessfully for the 6th District congressional seat in 2004 as a Republican.
Gray ran for mayor in 2002, but lost in the primary. Gray made headlines when he publicly acknowledged last year that he is gay. As a result, he said, he no longer is concerned that his sexual orientation would affect his campaign.
[...]
Kay, a consultant on organizational development and public policy, ran seventh in the 2002 at-large primary. This time, he touts the backing of former Mayor Pam Miller, former Councilwoman Debra Hensley, former Vice Mayor Isabel Yates and businessman Alan Stein, who all appear in a television commercial for him.
[...]
Many in agreement on issues
As soon as the infighting ends, the at-large candidates say, the council and mayor should focus on basic services, preservation and growth, traffic, education and the local economy.
[...]
All, for example, say they think the Urban County Government should own the water company. But Coffman, Brown and Mitchell oppose condemnation as the route to ownership.
Mitchell said that while the infighting at city hall must stop, it did not render the council as ineffective as some people think. "I do think that they have needed to do what they did or we would have been in financial ruin," Mitchell said.
[...]
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Notice how the article first starts with pro-condemnation candiate Kay?
It sounds like Coffman, Brown and Mitchell are the ones who are most free-market oriented.
