Why former police chief Ronnie Bastin wants Lexington's top job and what he's promising

When Ronnie Bastin was 16 his father had a massive heart attack and could no longer work on the family farm.

Bastin had to quit his high school basketball team to help his mother on the farm. He got up at 3:30 a.m. most mornings and would work late after school. He loved basketball and didn't want to quit, "but this is how we fed our family," Bastin said. "I grew up poor."

An assistant basketball coach saw Bastin in the hallway at school shortly after he quit and told him: "Quitters never win." Bastin said that interaction taught him a lot about leadership.

"A good leader would have found out why," he said. "Or maybe would have offered to help; bring the team over on a Saturday to help. But he didn't. I always try to figure out why and offer to help instead of judging people."

It's a mantra he used throughout his nearly 33-year career as a Lexington police officer, rising through the ranks to become chief in 2008. In 2015, Lexington Mayor Jim Gray appointed him public safety commissioner, a post that oversees fire, police, corrections and 911 operations. He stepped down from that position in January, when he announced his bid for mayor.

Background

A Barren County High School graduate, Bastin, was the first person in his family to attend college. He started working at Blackburn Correctional Complex while still at the University of Kentucky and spent six years at the prison. It was there he decided to pursue a career in public safety.

He also got a master's degree in criminal justice at Eastern Kentucky University, and eventually took a job as a Lexington police officer in 1984.

Sandra Bastin, his wife of 38 years, is chairwoman of the University of Kentucky Department of Dietetics and Human Nutrition. They have two adult children.

Gray and former Mayor Jim Newberry also are Barren County natives. Bastin knew the Newberry family well, he said. Newberry had donated $500 to Bastin's campaign as of April 27.

Experience

Bastin, a Democrat, said his experience overseeing the city's public safety departments, which make up more than 50 percent of the city's budget, make him the best pick to replace Gray. But Bastin, 61, said it's his love of his adopted hometown and its people that made him jump into the crowded race.

Bastin said he helped push for creation of the "One Lexington" program, which brings together a host of resources to address crime and gun violence. That program should be expanded, he said. He also would like to bring back a program he started as police chief called "We Care,"in which police officers helped with clean up projects and other neighborhood events in the Georgetown Road corridor.

Bastin, though, insists he is not just a law-and-order candidate.

Jobs

Job retention and job creation are key to the city's future, he said. Large companies are important but the city also needs to help the county's more than 8,000 small business owners, he said.

"I want to put together a group of small business owners and figure out what we need to do and the services they may need to help them expand," Bastin said.

He thinks the city can also do a better job connecting businesses with much-needed employees. For example, an owner of a car dealership told Bastin that he often has to retrain his certified mechanics because the equipment used to train mechanics at local vocational schools is so out-of--date that the certification is practically useless. The car dealership owner and others have even offered to pay to replace the teaching equipment so they can get trained mechanics, Bastin said.

The city can help fill these types of gaps in technical training programs, he said.

He also hopes to replicate a job fair held in Chattanooga, Tenn., for people with prior felony convictions.

"If people don't have a job, it's all to easy for people to default to crime," Bastin said. "A job can help us break this cycle."

Crime and drugs

The felon job fair is part of a six-point plan Bastin unveiled on May 4 to improve public safety.

That plan includes adding 40 police officers over four years, appointing someone in the mayor's office to oversee drug enforcement and prevention, and re-starting a regional drug task force to help stop the flow of opioids and drugs into the region.

"Most of the crime we have is directly related to opioids," Bastin said. "We have to limit the supply of drugs and we need to get more people into treatment and help them get their lives back together."

The city, though, can not incarcerate it's way out of a drug problem, he said.

"Crime is a very complicated issue. If you don't go after the root causes, you will always go after the symptoms," he said.

Bastin said he would also like to create "addiction safe havens" where anyone can come to get referred to treatment without fear of prosecution.

School safety is also a community-wide issue, he said. Bastin said he would offer additional Lexington police resources to schools and help them use the best technology to keep guns out of schools. He does not support arming teachers.

Growth and development

Bastin said he supports the county's Purchase of Development Rights program, which uses taxpayer dollars to purchase conservation easements to protect farmland from future development. He doesn't think the urban service boundary should be expanded and thinks there needs to be more incentives for infill development.

"At the same time, we don't want to price people out of their homes — we don't want to get to the point where they can't afford the property taxes on their homes," Bastin said.

Bastin said he supports the city's homeless prevention programs and its affordable housing fund, but the city could do more. "I would like to see us explore other private funding options as well," he said.

He also supports a planned expansion of the Lexington Convention Center.

"From the studies that I have seen, it looks like we would lose business if we did not expand," he said.

Minorities

Bastin said another issue facing Lexington that has not been adequately discussed is making sure there are events and activities that appeal to everyone.

"Right now, there are young African-Americans who leave town every weekend and go to Memphis or Indianapolis because they don't feel there is anything for them to do in Lexington," Bastin said. "Quality of life means everyone."

Bastin has also said he supports ensuring that city contracts that go to minority-owned businesses are more inclusive — most go to white, women-owned businesses..

New city hall?

Bastin said he would only support building a new city hall, which has been proposed, if it saves money in the long-term.

"We have to be able to afford it," Bastin said. "I am fiscally conservative and I believe in making sure the numbers support it."

This story was originally published May 13, 2018 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Why former police chief Ronnie Bastin wants Lexington's top job and what he's promising."