Lexington mayor candidates don’t see eye to eye with incumbent over new city hall
Even as the troubled city response to recent winter storms and rising housing costs remain top of mind for voters, the most contentious moment in a debate on Tuesday between four Lexington mayoral candidates was about the recently approved plan for a new city hall building.
Hosted by the Herald-Leader’s reporting partner WKYT and the League of Women Voters, the debate covered housing, traffic, and winter response to how the city should work with both the University of Kentucky and Fayette County Public Schools.
But the temperature in the room spiked when moderator Bill Bryant asked the four candidates in attendance — incumbent Linda Gorton, real estate brokerage owner Raquel Carter, UK employee C.E. Huffman and iHeartMedia business manager Darnell Tagaloa — if they thought the new city hall proposal should continue.
All the candidates but Gorton said no.
“The project that we got was the worst government boondoggle I’ve ever seen in my life,” Huffman said. “Nobody wanted it.”
“You didn’t consult with any of the public folks about what we need, what a city hall should look like,” Huffman said directly to Gorton. “And I want to know why there were three proposals and the Lexington city council was only given one proposal, and it was done during the holiday season, and it was forced down their throat to make that vote.”
The new city hall proposal, narrowly approved by the Urban County Council in December in an 8-7 vote, will involve the city leasing the former Truist Bank building from the Webb Companies for 35 years. With upfront costs and annual lease payments totaled, the project will end up having a $152.5 million price tag.
The city reviewed three proposals from the project, ultimately choosing to negotiate with the Webbs in a series of closed-session meetings throughout 2025 involving both the mayor’s administration and the council.
The current city hall building was originally the Lafayette Hotel and was only intended to be a temporary home for the government when it took the building over in the 1980s. The city has spent millions to keep the building in mediocre shape since then, which Gorton argued is an inefficient use of taxpayer money.
But Gorton’s opponents said there were more pressing needs locally than a new building for the government.
“The issue is always the timing, and we seem to fail on timing all the time,” Carter said. “With the vote being this close and we’re being in this challenging time for our taxpayers — this is just not the time.”
Tagaloa said the fact that the government has been unable to keep the current city hall in good shape is a failure of the city.
“It just goes back to my perception of the current administration,” he said. “They’re so reactive and not proactive. … I grew up on Chestnut Street, and I’ve had a leaky roof before. You know what you do when it stops raining? You go fix it.”
Gorton argued the new city hall will better serve Lexington’s residents by being more accessible and will provide a better workplace for the over 3,000 employees the mayor manages. Many employees do not have windows in their offices and use buckets to catch leaking water.
“This building we’re buying is going to be a basic, a basic office building,” she said. “It will not be fancy, but it will accommodate our public.”
“I think it’s easy to criticize this when you don’t work in our government building every day,” she quipped.
That line echoed a constant refrain throughout the night from the two-term mayor. As her opponents lambasted her administration for lacking vision and failing to effectively lead the city, Gorton rebutted in many of her answers, “I’m the only one up here who works with this every single day.”
How the candidates would work with UK, FCPS
Bryant asked the candidates how they would work with UK as the university expands its campus, especially with noteworthy developments like the upcoming arts district on South Broadway and the entertainment district on Cooper Drive.
Gorton said she has met with UK president Eli Capilouto to discuss the arts district plan, which she says would primarily serve the university and would not provide much programming open to the public.
Neither Carter nor Tagaloa offered clear insights as to how they would work with the university as it grows, though both said it was important for the city to work with UK on those projects.
Huffman said he would create an education ombudsman position in his office to facilitate relationships between the city and UK, as well as working with Fayette County Public Schools.
“I’m going to meet with Dr. Eli Capilouto, (executive vice president) Dr. Eric Monday and the provost on a very regular basis to talk about its smart growth. University of Kentucky has to grow with Lexington. It can’t be the other way around.”
All three of Gorton’s opponents said the city needs to be more involved with Fayette County Public Schools, which is currently laying off staff and seeking a loan to cover expenses after uncovering financial mismanagement going back to 2008, according to superintendent Demetrus Liggins.
“All 40,000 of those children in Fayette County Public Schools are our kids, so we are responsible for them,” Carter said. “Because of that, if Fayette County Public Schools is struggling, if they have challenges, we shouldn’t be sitting back and watching what happens. We should be stepping up and saying, ‘How can we help?’”
“Frankly, what is going on in Fayette County Public Schools is one of the most embarrassing things,” Huffman said. “We’ve got to work to take care of our children, not just during the school day, but we have to also work with the county public schools to figure out ways to take care of those kids and give them opportunities after school, on the weekends and especially in summer.”
“I would love to see our mayor and the superintendent in the same room more often,” he added.
Gorton was quick to say they indeed are in the same room quite often.
“It’s so interesting to me that everyone says we haven’t done anything to help when I’m the one working in the government, and I meet regularly with Dr Liggins, with his chief of staff Tracy Bruno, (and) with others on his team.”
Gorton highlighted a partnership between the city and Fayette County Public Schools that provides financial assistance for new apartments to families within the school system.
“It is not fair to say that our government does nothing to help Fayette County Public Schools,” she said. “I don’t think anyone up here has a real picture of what goes on with these partnerships.”
“We’re still doing development like it’s the 1990s”
On addressing Lexington’s housing crisis, Gorton rattled off several programs her administration has implemented to bring more housing on the market.
Her proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year includes $5 million for the city’s affordable housing trust fund, which provides loans and grants to developers for subsidized housing. An ordinance requires the city to set aside 1% of its general fund revenue for that fund.
As for market rate housing, Gorton said a new industrial revenue bond incentive, a type of loan from the city, will encourage developers to incorporate a certain number of affordable units into their buildings.
Carter said those initiatives aren’t going far enough.
“(Affordable housing) is something that the government has to attack, and attack it very aggressively,” she said.
“At our current rate, even with the affordable housing fund, we’re, I believe, averaging about 170 units (being built) a year and we’re 17,000 units behind. At this pace, we’ll never catch up, and that is a failing that our system has currently.”
Tagaloa said working to increase wages would be key, as wages have not kept up with rising housing prices. The city should also work to make development approval processes quicker.
“I believe that everything will work itself out on the housing side. We just need to speed the process up.”
Huffman said he would “declare a housing emergency” on day one of his term as mayor to put all the city’s resources into building housing quickly. That would look like denser infill and redevelopment in the city.
“We’re still doing development like it’s the 1990s,” he said. “We’re having housing in one space, retail in another space, and businesses in another space. Gen Z … they want to eat, work, live, play. They want it all together. They want transit oriented development.”
“We have to start thinking like a major city,” he concluded.
This story was originally published May 6, 2026 at 6:00 AM.
