Bomb Storage Shelter: The power of the administration

It has come to my attention through anonymous sources that there are at least 20+ new sites that can be considered for the LMPD explosives storage facility.

The most interesting of these is in Minor Lane Heights. Why you may ask is this so interesting?

Many of you may know the plight of residents in Minor Lane Heights. The Louisville Regional Airport Authority (LRAA) agreed to buy out and relocate residents there and still to date have not completed this endeavor.

In 2006, while running for Mayor against Abramson, I spoke on this issue as one of many issues our Metro government has dropped the ball on. The area is a relative ghost town with a few still stuck there and no direction for their future. It is an insult to all of us to allow a neighborhood to be destroyed by government and left to hang in the wind for so long not being able to plan.

Which brings me back to this.

This is just one of the sites not considered which makes me wonder why we are not being thorough in our search.

There are properties in this area that fully meet the requirements for a bomb storage facility and literally no residents would be in harm's way nor would water supplies be potentially affected as they would be on Cardinal Hill.

SO why would we not consider this Minor Lane Heights area?

How is it that my source can locate more than 20 additional sites (beyond those mentioned by Abramson) that also meet the published criteria? A history of power unchecked?

Therein lies the rest of the story.

According to the latest data, one organization that owns a sizeable amount of the property in the Minor Lane Heights area is none other than the Louisville Renaissance Zone Corporation (LRZC).

Who is on their Board of Directors you may ask?

Well none other than Mayor Jerry Abramson and, as usual, a few of his select and most ardent supporters, including mega-developer J.D. Nichols of NTS Development Corporation, and Jack Dulworth.

Below are excerpts from Louisville's own Gail McGowan Mellor's scathing 2003 ebook entitled Land Machine :
(http://www.earthsciences.com/Views/)

In 1986, Bingham-wing Sloane (who had become county judge executive) and Mayor Abramson (Louisville’s first Jewish mayor, presiding over parties shattered by the exodus of eleven billion bucks as the old families sold their holdings to get into the stock market boom) adopted a city/county compact. It was essentially a measure to suspend the bitter battles then being waged over the city’s attempt to annex the suburbs and small towns around it.

Auerbach, who was in 1986 about to take over as land use commission chair from Lurding, explains,"Jerry [Abramson] didn’t like those independent agencies out there, making decisions without having to check with him. The planning staff now reported not to the commission but to line people in the county bureaucracy. It really took them down a peg."

And let's look at Jack Dulworth, formerly land use commsioner until merger in 2002. Some of that information is below and can be obtained here: http://www.earthsciences.com/Views/.

Some of you may want to read this. It is very interesting to say the least of how we came to do business in this City including graft and corruption and unlimited power.

For example in the case of Jack Dulworth there are many quotes available primarily Chapter 7-9. Some of which include the following:

All the anger at the good old boy system was at one point focused on Jack Dulworth, who headed the land use commission 1996-2001......Dulworth demonstrably was in tight control of the land use commission, was political and partisan and had little patience with planners.

"Jack Dulworth became a law unto himself......"

State Representative Jim Wayne [D-Louisville], chair, Kentucky state legislative subcommittee on land use, emphasizes, "The fundamental problem is not Jack Dulworth the person. The fundamental problem is the system that put a political appointee, a person who was neither a professional planner nor an elected official, and thus is not subject to voter control, in a position of such unrestricted power over a land use planning system affecting seven counties. The decisions that he made will mark the city and the counties for 100 years."

Throughout the time that he was chair, 1996-2001, Dulworth was pulling power both to his commission and to himself from every part of the dismantled land use system that was weak--in other words, from all of it.

Dulworth, who had no formal training in land use planning or any related field, and with a demonstrable contempt for the planners who could have advised him, oversaw the rewriting of the master plan and all the laws that govern development, then with his commission interpreted what the plan meant, and finally punished or chose not to punish violators.

Dulworth revels in power. "It really feels good to be in a position to do what you want to do and make the decision that you want. Really enjoy that. And I do that."

Dulworth was both political and partisan, an active Democratic Party fundraiser

"Jack Dulworth does anything that Jack Dulworth wants to do. He has more power than anyone else in Jefferson County," Tom Thieneman Sr., a 50 year veteran of the business, said in 2001.

According to KREF records, Dulworth contributed another $33,750 of his own money to Democratic candidates 1990-2000. He says that his family donated "much more heavily" than he.

Another quote from the man himself: "I’m not afraid to sit down, ask somebody, and get into their pockets."

Back to me.

Why then would we not allow ALL of the additional 20+ other sites to also be considered?

And yet another quote from Land Machine:

A state official who wishes not to be identified says,"We need reformers in office. If you run for election, though, you need to go through one of the political parties, and you lose a lot of steam because immediately the party starts to form you, to discipline you. They offer help in your campaign and you need help, so you make some compromises, soft pedal your issues because they tell you that other issues will get you elected. You need money to get your message out. If you start stepping on people’s toes, you can’t get money, and you figure without that money you won’t win the election, so you stop talking about the things that really matter to you or at least carefully take the passion out of what you say. You tell yourself that you’ll compromise so you can get into power and make a difference but it starts to change you. If you get power that way, you’ll keep on compromising until you’re nothing but a cog in their wheel."

Mayor Abramson anyone?

There seems like there could be a CONFLICT OF INTEREST here by the Mayor.

One more thing. We have been continually told we must meet ATF requirements in this regard by none other than Okolona's very own Madonna Flood, who continues to say we are making a mountain out of a molehill in this regard and states that this is a provision directed by Homeland Security.

Fair enough.

Yet she has failed to provide any public proof of these allegations nor has she provided any appropriate references to other council members.

Has anyone on the Council seen these ATF requirements in writing ?

NO? Why is that? Now that's a damn good question.

There will be more to come........

Ed