The race for Lexington’s top job pits a longtime city hall mainstay against a political newcomer.

First-term Mayor Linda Gorton’s pitch to voters for re-election has been simple: Experience matters.

“To be the chief executive of Kentucky’s second-largest city takes someone with exceptional experience and leadership,” said Gorton at a WVLK mayoral forum on Oct. 20. Gorton rattled off those years of experience: 16 years on council, four as vice mayor and nearly four years as mayor.

“I have led this community through a pandemic, through racial unrest and reform and through a wild economy,” Gorton said. “I’m built for this job.”

David Kloiber, who is in his first term as a Lexington-Fayette Urban County Councilman and runs the Kloiber Foundation, told voters during various forums and debates leading up to the Nov. 8 general election that it’s time for a change.

“I’ve spent the last decade of my life managing multi-million dollar companies,” Kloiber said. “ I’ve spent those same years working as a leader in a nonprofit space. I’m committed to working with the community.”

“We have issues that need to be addressed,” he said.

The nonpartisan mayoral race pits the 74-year-old registered nurse against a newcomer who has been in office for two years. Kloiber, 39, represents the 6th Council District, which includes neighborhoods in the Winchester Road corridor. Kloiber did not have an opponent in the 2020 race. The mayoral race is his first campaign.

The vast majority of voters backed Gorton in the four-way May primary. In a landslide, Gorton received 71% of the vote and won all but one precinct. Kloiber received 14%.

There have been no independent polls in the mayoral race since May.

Kloiber, whose family generated its wealth through technology companies, has poured more than $632,000 of his own money into his campaign, according to Kentucky Registry of Election Finance records.

Gorton has raised $152,862 as of Oct. 26.

He leads Gorton in raising cash by nearly 4-to-1 and has been able to pump money into television advertising, attacking Gorton on the city’s homicide rate.

The two candidates have verbally sparred over various issues in debates and forums over the past five months — tussling over city crime rates, Kloiber’s wealth and Gorton’s track record on affordable housing spending.

Dr. Stephen Voss, an associate professor of political science at the University of Kentucky, said Kloiber was unknown to voters in May. Since then, he has had time to give residents an idea of who he is and what he would do differently.

Still, voters tend to trust past performance over a candidate’s platform or campaign promises, Voss said, who studies voter behavior.

In campaign ads and on the stump, Kloiber has attacked Gorton’s record on crime and pointed to the city’s record-breaking number of homicides as a reason why Lexington needs a change at city hall.

Voss said Kloiber may make some gains come Nov. 8 but it’s unlikely Gorton will face eviction from city hall.

“We will see some balancing,” Voss said. “But that doesn’t mean Gorton is likely in any danger unless the crime issue takes off even more in the next two weeks.”

Al Cross, director of UK’s Institute of Rural Journalism and Community Issues and a longtime political columnist, agreed.

“The effectiveness of the attack on crime depends on how well voters know and trust Gorton,” Cross said. “If they don’t feel like they know or trust Gorton, they are going to be more receptive to that message. You can’t rule Kloiber out, but it would be a very big upset to beat someone who had 71 percent of the vote (in the May primary).”

Two candidates, two takes on crime

Kloiber has hit Gorton hard on the crime issue during the weeks and months leading up to Nov. 8.

The city surpassed its previous record-high homicides in October. Non-fatal shootings also have continued to climb.

Kloiber has pushed the city to try group violence intervention, a program other cities have used that targets interventions and programs to groups and individuals who have experienced gun violence.

The program costs upwards of $200,000 per year to administer.

Kloiber said cities that have implemented group violence intervention have seen a drop in homicides.

“It has worked,” Kloiber said. “The community is saying what we are doing is not very effective.”

Gorton said that’s not true. Some cities that have implemented the model continued to see homicides increase over the past two years.

Kloiber said other cites that use the model have seen drops in homicides. Kloiber also said Gorton has not released all the names of the cities that have allegedly quietly dropped the program as she has claimed.

But Gorton said there’s another reason the program doesn’t seem like a good fit for Lexington.

“We don’t like that it targets minorities,” she has said of group violence intervention.

The two also have different stances on Flock Safety Cameras.

Earlier this year, the city placed 25 cameras, which take still images of license plates and then runs those numbers against law enforcement databases, throughout the city as part of a pilot program.

During an Oct. 18 Lexington council meeting, police said those 25 cameras have helped the police locate 11 reported missing persons, 82 stolen vehicles and helped with the investigation of seven murders.

Kloiber has said he does not think the cameras make Lexington safer. He’s also concerned that too much money and police time is spent on the cameras. (The police will have to pay for the cameras — upwards of $250,000 a year after the pilot program is finished).

“We don’t have unlimited resources,” Kloiber said. “I am looking at putting more officers on the streets.”

Gorton put an additional $275,000 in the current year budget for additional cameras if the pilot is successful. The police have not released the location of the cameras, citing safety concerns. However, the police have said they put them throughout the city and will release the location of the cameras after the pilot is completed in August 2023.

“It’s helped police in seven homicides,” Gorton said during the WVLK forum. Police would’ve had to go door-to-door to get the same kind of information, she added. “It’s proven its worth.”

Growth boundary, and rising costs of rents

During the WVLK forum, Gorton said she supports the city’s urban service boundary, or growth boundary, which limits what can be developed and where.

It’s a key issue that has dominated politics and races for years in Lexington: When Lexington should move its growth boundary. The last time land was added to the area that can be developed was in 1996. The city is about to begin discussions on its new comprehensive plan, which is typically when the city decides whether to expand the boundary.

“It works,” Gorton said. The city has a sustainable growth study, a matrix that looks at available land and determines when and if the city needs to add more land to meet the needs for manufacturing, retail, office space and housing. That study will guide when the city decides to expand, Gorton said on Oct. 20.

“No affordable housing was created,” Gorton said of the last expansion. A study conducted by the University of Kentucky found that after 5,400 acres was added to the urban service boundary in 1996, housing prices decreased only one year.

Kloiber said the city already knows certain areas that could be opened for development including along the Winchester Road and Polo Club Boulevard area where both Central Baptist Health and the University of Kentucky Medical Center plan to expand.

“Over 50 percent of our workforce can’t afford to live in Lexington,” Kloiber said. The urban service boundary “works for some people but it doesn’t work for everyone,” he said during the WVLK forum.

If the city allowed for more housing and more apartments, rents and the cost of housing would decrease, he said.

Both agreed that a recent push by a group of tenants for a “Tenants’ Bill of Rights,” was something worth exploring.

The group wants the city to pass an ordinance that bans discrimination on source of income, including Housing Choice vouchers, or federal Section 8 vouchers that low-income renters use to pay for rent. Other parts of the Tenants’ Bill of Rights include creating a central registry for landlords, which could contain building code violations and other information.

Kloiber put the ban on source of income discrimination into a council committee. If it passes, that means landlords can’t reject people with Section 8 vouchers. Many have said that Section 8 housing is only in certain areas of the city, limiting where people can rent and also where kids can attend school.

“I am a landlord and I support the Tenants’ Bill of Rights,” Kloiber said.

Gorton agreed.

“I think we should be exploring that,” Gorton said of many aspects of the plan to protect renters. Many of the planks in the platform Housing and Community Advocacy Commissioner Charlie Lanter has already started exploring, she said.

City finances and looming tax increase?

Kloiber has said Gorton has relied too much on one-time money — from various savings accounts or coronavirus relief money — to balance city budgets.

The city’s current $473 million budget has more than $40 million in one-time money in it. Of that, Gorton proposed $27 million. The council added an additional $13 million in spending using largely one-time money from city savings and other accounts.

Gorton has said the city has balanced its budget, and 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.

In a terse exchange during the WKYT debate, Gorton mentioned the city’s charter lays out when the mayor presents his or her budget proposal to council and how long council has to make changes.

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

Gorton has not said she supports any tax increases but said she thinks the state General Assembly should give cities more taxing options. The vast majority of the city’s revenues comes from an occupational tax or a tax on wages.

However, the city has had to increases wages across departments, particularly in public safety, to stop retirements and people leaving for better-paying jobs. Staffing at the Fayette County Detention Center has been a problem over the past two years.

Gorton warned during a September council meeting that if the city ups pay for police again, which many of the council have pushed, it may mean cuts or tax increases to pay for those additional bumps in pay. Over the past two years, the city has increased pay for its police, fire and the detention center. More than 60% of the city’s budget is salaries.

Kloiber has said that he would like to ask voters if they would support a separate tax dedicated for affordable housing programs.

This story was originally published October 27, 2022 at 10:00 AM.

Beth Musgrave

Lexington Herald-Leader

Beth Musgrave has covered government and politics for the Herald-Leader for more than a decade. A graduate of Northwestern University, she has worked as a reporter in Kentucky, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois and Washington D.C. Support my work with a digital subscription