From trust fund zingers to attacks on budgets, Lexington mayor candidates clash in TV debate

Mayor Linda Gorton and challenger David Kloiber offered different views on crime, affordable housing and the city’s finances during a WKTV and League of Women Voters debate Monday night.

The first-term mayor and the first-term Lexington-Fayette Urban County Councilman also butted heads during the one-hour debate over trust funds and the role of mayors in planning and zoning.

Gorton, a nurse, served 16 years on council, including four as vice mayor, before stepping down in 2014. She easily bested former Lexington Police Chief Ronnie Bastin in the November 2018 general election for her first term as mayor of Kentucky’s second-largest city.

In the May primary, Gorton finished with 71% of the vote and won all but one of the county’s 133 precincts.

Kloiber finished second with 14% of the vote. The race is nonpartisan.

As the city’s homicides spiked over the summer, Kloiber focused his general election campaign on Gorton’s record on crime. The city recently had its 38th homicide, a new record.

Kloiber said Monday the city should explore group violence intervention, a type of program that targets interventions and resources to people involved in violent crime.

It’s worked in other cities and the city needs a multi-faceted approach to violent crime, he said.

Gorton said she has talked with multiple cities that have used group violence intervention models. Some, like Memphis, Tenn., have seen homicides increase after implementing the program. Other cities have quietly stopped using the program.

“We don’t like that it targets minorities,” she said of the model.

Kloiber shot back that the city’s Flock Safety Cameras, cameras that take still photos of license plates, have been placed in predominately minority neighborhoods. The Lexington Police Department has not released the location of those cameras, citing public safety.

Gorton defended the use of the cameras, saying they have helped apprehend a murder suspect from Detroit, Michigan. “We have found 82 stolen vehicles,” she added.

Affordable housing

The two also tussled over affordable housing and who is responsible for money put into the program.

Gorton said she has supported affordable housing. Since its creation in 2014, the affordable housing fund has created or maintained 3,000 units.

Most of the credit for funding affordable housing goes to the council, not the mayor, Kloiber said.

Gorton shot back that the council put $10 million of American Rescue Plan Act funding into the affordable housing fund on her recommendation. Gorton’s spending proposal for the $121 million for the ARPA funds included $10 million for affordable housing.

Kloiber also said Gorton voted against the creation of the affordable housing fund while she was vice mayor.

In a February 2014 meeting before the final vote was taken, Gorton voted to table the creation of the fund. She later voted and urged the council to set aside money for the fund in March 2014.

Gorton also shot back that Kloiber called it the affordable housing “trust” fund, but it’s not a trust fund that produces principal.

“You are used to a trust fund because you have your family’s trust fund,” Gorton said, referring to Kloiber’s wealth.

Kloiber, who runs his family’s foundation, has largely self-funded his campaign, contributing more than $580,000 in the general election, according to the latest campaign finance reports filed last week.

In total Kloiber has raised $594,720.97 as of Oct. 9.

Thanks to his hefty loans, Kloiber has outraised Gorton 5-to-1.

Gorton has raised $107,366 mostly from individual donors, according to the latest Kentucky Registry of Campaign Finance reports.

Is the city’s spending unsustainable?

The two also bickered over the city’s finances and its financial outlook.

The current proposed budget is more than $473 million. It uses more than $27.8 million in one-time funds, including money from various city savings accounts. It also includes $42 million in borrowing.

Gorton said the economy has largely rebounded from the pandemic with unemployment now at pre-pandemic levels. Gorton said the city has maintained a strong double AA bond rating over the past several years, despite lean revenue collections during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

Kloiber has said he supports a separate tax for affordable housing, Gorton said: “At a time when inflation is high and when people are really struggling. He’s clearly pro-taxes. I would look forward to what he says on his tax plan.”

Kloiber called Gorton’s use of one-time money to balance the budget irresponsible and said he voted against the budget for that reason.

“It was completely unsustainable,” Kloiber said of Gorton’s proposed budget.

Gorton said her original proposed budget was $460 million. It was the council that added additional spending.

Kloiber said Gorton has months to prepare the budget but the council had less than 50 days to make changes. “The polices you have put in place will necessitate large tax increases in the coming years,” he said.

Kloiber said he’s not pushing for a tax. He would like to ask the public if they would favor a tax for affordable housing.

“There is a set way to go about the budget presentation. It’s incredible that after two years on the council you don’t understand that. It’s driven by our charter and the rules that our charter acts us to follow,” Gorton said. The mayor has a certain time frame to pass the budget as does the council, which is in the city’s charter.

“Does our charter say you should also be fiscally irresponsible by using one-time funds for re-occurring costs?” Kloiber said.

Gorton countered the city’s budget was balanced.

Should mayors decide on where Lexington should expand, weigh in on specific projects?

Kloiber said one way to address housing affordability is to build more housing. Areas that make sense for the city to expand its growth boundary including areas along Winchester Road, which will soon have two new medical campuses, and other areas near Interstate 64 and Interstate 75.

Gorton said the Urban County Planning Commission makes decisions on where and if the growth boundary should be expanded, not the mayor.

Kloiber said Gorton spoke out against a proposal to put youth soccer fields on agricultural land out Newtown Pike. That proposal was later dropped. Yet, Gorton did not speak out against the proposal to put those same Lexington Sporting Club youth soccer fields out Athens Boonesboro Road near I-75. That conditional use for agricultural land for the youth soccer fields was recently approved.

“The only difference was who owned the land,” Kloiber said.

Gorton said she was concerned about a proposed zone text amendment that would allow changes to the agricultural zone. That’s why she wrote an opinion piece for the Herald-Leader in opposition to the Newtown Pike location.

“It would have affected the entire (agricultural) zone,” Gorton said of the zone text amendment.

Kloiber has previously said some of Gorton’s donors, including Greg Goodman, who has a farm near the proposed youth soccer fields on Newtown Pike, opposed the youth soccer fields and the stadium that’s why Gorton opposed the project at the Newtown Pike location. Gorton has said that was not true and that she has long been a supporter of agricultural interests.