A PAC attacked a Lexington council member with purposeful misinformation. Don’t reward it. | Opinion

I am deeply disturbed by the recent op-ed published by Mr. Rowland attacking Liz Sheehan for her vote on expansion. In my estimation, and by common consensus among the people she works with on Council and in city government, Dr. Sheehan is one of the hardest working, most thoughtful, fair, and effective members of City Council.

I understand, and share, the frustration of many people in our community with the misinformation some expansion supporters produced prior to the Council’s expansion vote. But when Protect Lex uses the same kind of misinformation and misleading innuendo to attack an outstanding Councilmember, it is equally cause for concern.

Let me be explicit.

Most importantly, it is misleading to single out Dr. Sheehan’s final vote for expansion without explaining her efforts to delay the vote and to minimize the size of expansion in the votes that led up to her vote in favor of the final compromise along with twelve of her colleagues. She has been a constant advocate for measured, responsible growth. Here is what she wrote to constituents about the process and her vote.

“I supported an amendment by Vice Mayor Dan Wu during our June 1 Committee of the Whole meeting that would have paused any expansion and allowed for more time for the Goal 4 process to be formalized. That amendment failed to get enough support to pass, which made clear that the general will of the Council was to move forward with the proposed language on expansion.”

It is misleading to make it seem that expansion will cost the taxpayers $578M, when 90-95% percent of that cost will be paid by developers.

It is misleading to confuse voters about the difference between our community’s strong support for protecting our rural land, on the one hand, and their strong support for careful expansion of the Urban Service Boundary, on the other hand. There is strong support for the former, and there is strong support for the latter, as the vote by the Council demonstrated.

It is misleading to downplay the belief that failing to expand puts additional pressure on housing prices for those in the low-income community and will likely lead to a community where only the wealthy can afford to live. In my judgment, that was the single strongest reason why Council chose to support limited, careful expansion at this time.

It is misleading to say that Dr. Sheehan does not represent the views of her constituents based on her receiving double the emails on the topic. Rather, I suggest it reflects the community’s understanding of her role as one of the thought-leaders on Council. In addition, emails like this are often generated in bulk by interest groups and do not necessarily reflect the views of a Councilmember’s constituents.

There is a larger question. In this community, do we want to reward special interest groups that rely on these tactics in our local races? It’s bad enough how this works at the state and federal level.

This latest effort by Protect Lex, with ads aimed at a particular Councilmember rather than a policy position, opens the door for much more contentious, much more expensive Council races. At the same time, it escalates the noise and reduces the ability for thoughtful deliberation about one of the most important issues facing our community. We need reasonable voices on all sides to continue the conversation about the kind of community we wish to live in, and the kind of community we wish to be.

Dr. Sheehan, an outstanding Councilmember in all respects, has been unfairly attacked. Please do not reward this behavior.

Steve Kay is the former vice mayor of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government.

This story was originally published November 1, 2024 at 11:57 AM.