The West End Opportunity Partnership continues to meet the open meeting requirements established by Kentucky’s statutes. A meeting announcement for their December meeting was distributed this morning with the meeting agenda and Zoom link.

It will be the first meeting since WDRB’s Marcus Green provided the public with some new and important facts about the players involved in writing the legislation authorizing the TIF.

In the video piece accompanying Green’s reporting, WDRB’s Lawrence Smith begins by saying “It was unveiled with much fanfare back in February, a bipartisan effort to jumpstart the economy of west Louisville.”

The process by which the bill was drafted and passed by the General Assembly has come under scathing criticism from local grassroots ever since. (Link and link).

At a West End Partnership meeting in October, Sadiqua Reynolds — President of the Louisville Urban League and former WEOP Board member — amplified one of the main points being voiced by community activists:

“It is important that community members are saying ‘who was behind those who created it’…somebody was behind (drafting the legislation) and if that was a developer the community needs to understand that.” (Link)

Pivoting from Reynold’s comments, the Center for Open Government wrote:

An article covering the announcement of the initiative said Senate President Robert Stivers stressed the proposal grew out of nine months of work and listening to people in the community it would affect.

The question Urban League President Sadiqua Reynolds appears to be raising - and it is a good one - is who exactly were the bill sponsors listening to prior to it being unveiled to the public?

Green’s reporting provides new answers to that question.

Activists have focused their attention on the role developers played in writing the bill, often singling out Steve Poe from the Poe Companies.

WDRB confirmed Poe's involvement:

In an interview, Poe said his work on the bill stemmed from his connection with OneWest, which was created through Leadership Louisville’s 2014 Bingham Fellows class. Poe was one of the 2014 fellows.

He said the TIF proposal sought to mirror the one established to help the Louisville Arena Authority pay off debt on the KFC Yum! Center.

“Let's do the same thing we did with the Yum! Center and let’s create a TIF zone that flows to a non-political board -- this is not controlled by politicians -- and let them come up with a master plan to invest those funds over the next 20 years for great change with community input,” Poe said.

There is a lot to unpack in Poe’s statements.

Advancing a narrative about the non-political nature of the effort rings hollow. Poe’s argument is first undermined by the fact that he was deeply involved in creating One West, where he still serves as a board member.

The TIF legislation prescribed the membership of the Partnership’s board, including a seat for OneWest. The argument that there is a certain virtue in the Board not being “controlled by politicians” is undercut when the people drafting the legislation selected - and codified in statute - the organizations that determine who will serve in positions reserved for them.

Anyone who’s observed Frankfort for long enough knows that politics absolutely influences which organizations are granted a seat on a board like the West End Opporunity Partnership. Existing and close relationships with the elected officials writing the legislation is key to securing a coveted spot.

The second thing about Poe’s comment is his reference to the Yum! Center TIF. Poe appears to be appealing to what may be the general public’s perception that the arena is an undeniable success where people from all across the state enjoy basketball, concerts, comedians, Disney on Ice, etc.

We agree the Yum! Center is a great venue. However, we’ve paid close enough attention to know that taxpayers are shouldering a significant burden to finance the debt that made the arena possible.

Four years ago as part of a massive refinancing deal, Louisville Metro Council committed to paying $10.8 million a year until 2054 to prop up the arena’s shaky finances. Reporting at the time, Louisville Business First wrote, “The Yum! Center TIF has fallen tens of millions short of original projections” which left “the arena authority unable to pay its debt payments…without additional revenue and refinancing the deal.”

WDRB’s story included conversations with west end residents, including one that voiced strong concerns about the lack of financial projections for the TIF. Green interviewed Ameerah Granger, a Chickasaw resident and organizer:

(Granger) is especially concerned that there has been no formal estimate on how much revenue the TIF district could generate during its 20-year life.

“When the people pitching that idea cannot present you with concrete numbers, then I'm already skeptical,” Granger said. “What are we doing? Numbers do not have flowy adjectives associated with them. They are what they are. And so when you describe, ‘Oh, it's beautiful. Oh, it's going to be wonderful, awesome’-- Well, why is that awesome? And tell me that numerically.”

The west end TIF’s impact on local revenues is “indeterminable,” according to an analysis by the state Legislative Research Commission. State Senator Gerald Neal said it’s impossible to predict just how much revenue might be created until more work is done to calculate existing property values in the area. (Source: WDRB)

Neal is right.

He represents that area of Louisville and, in our opinion, is genuinely interested in seeing Louisville’s west end develop in a way that brings a better quality of life to his constituents while mitigating the forces that could push people, especially renters, out of their homes.

Senate leaders didn’t allow for an open and transparent process last year, instead ramming the legislation through in the last minute of the ‘21 session (likely violating Kentucky’s “3 readings” constitutional requirements).

The Bluegrass Institute told WDRB that lawmakers ought to reintroduce the legislation when they convene in January:

The Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions, a free market think tank, pushed for legislators to hold off on passing the bill this year and instead discuss it between sessions when issues can be debated more broadly, visiting fellow Andrew McNeill said.

(McNeill) said lawmakers ought to revisit the bill when they convene in January “so that we can finally have a process that allows for this type of input and input from other stakeholders.”

Reintroducing legislation in 2022 will provide a chance for the west end’s residents and Kentucky’s taxpayers to participate in a meaningful way.

The developers will no longer have the advantage of working the process in the shadows. If they mean what they say and really want the west end Partnership to succeed, debating the bill out in the open will be the most effective way for the program to establish long term legitimacy.