The most common question is, “Why are you running for Council?”

Lexington is a pretty fine place to live – clean air, good schools, plenty of activities. Fiscally, we’re doing pretty well.

In that regard, I’d like help keep the city on the rails but stay open-minded for new ideas. For example, through the Lexington Planning Commission, and with the Chamber of Commerce, City Council adopted an ordinance for 'portable' signs in the Historic Business District.  Downtown businesses can now place OPEN signs and sandwich boards outside their businesses to attract customers. Five years ago, it would been almost heresy to even suggest such a measure. But in these tough economic times (I hope we’ve been through the worst), we needed to be a little more flexible. (Up until this point, temporary signs of any kind were not allowed.)

Guidelines were established, and the ARB was not burdened with having to approve each sign before it could be displayed. The part that was really important about this idea was to give it a chance, even to the extent of allowing merchants to ‘self-police’ the concept. Twelve months went by – it was working pretty well.  So the City made it permanent.

I think we can apply this kind of ‘sunset clause’ to future ideas – the risk is low, but the returns can be significant.