GREG FISCHER'S JOBS PLAN: MORE OF THE SAME

Today Greg Fischer put forth his 10 step plan to job creation. Trust me no one I have spoken with is remotely impressed. And why should they be? This is the most lackluster and none productive jobs plan I have seen yet. details are below with my comments of course in italics. Enjoy:

Greg Fischer will put Louisville back to work and lead the way in making the city competitive nationally and globally by:

1. Making Louisville the Long-Term/Aging Care Capital of the World. There are more aging care companies - such as Kindred, Almost Family and Signature Healthcare — headquartered in Louisville than in any other city. Boston is #2. With the aging of America, this sector has huge growth potential - much like Louisville's embrace of the logistics sector. In the early 1980s, UPS had fewer than 200 employees in Louisville. Today, because of the city's logistics strategy, logistics, UPS employs more than 20,000. Greg will ensure the city's workforce development and economic policies align with the needs of this industry.

Actually Greg this is wrong. As usual. UPS certainly had more than 200 employees in Louisville in the early 1980's. In fact in 1981 they added even more employees to start the whole 2nd Day Air plan that evolved into the UPS operations we have in Louisville today. Additionally, Greg if this is your plan for jobs keep it. The majority of UPS jobs in Louisville are part time and no one can live on that.

Do we want to be known as the aging capital of the World? Seriously? That is not manufacturing growth and in fact Kindred itself has had so many lawsuits for substandard care, why would you base your jobs plan on continuing that tradition. Of course we all know Almost Family is owned by the Democrats current favorite son John Yarmuth and they get more than 80% of their funding on our tax dollars through medicare/medicaid.

FAIL

2. Reclaiming Louisville's historic manufacturing economy through new 21st Century clean-energy jobs. Louisville should be known as the world's leader in manufacturing energy-efficient appliances at GE and fuel-efficient cars at Ford. Greg will work hand-in-hand with the top executives of GE and Ford and other companies to bring more manufacturing jobs to Louisville. As a co-founder of an international manufacturing company, Greg has the experience needed to attract, retain, and grow this sector.

Explain your leadership experience to Louisville in regards to attracting jobs. You have not brought one job to Louisville that is verifiable. In fact GE and Ford have been well on the way to this marketing approach already. Ford will be retooling starting in December and will shut down for 10 months to accomplish just that. GE already is manufacturing energy efficient appliances because of consumer demand. Of course many of those are imported from Mexico and other places.

FAIL

3. Slashing government red tape that hampers local businesses by reducing the time for permitting construction and other projects. Greg will make Louisville an easy place to do business by implementing a "Make It Happen!" policy in city government - closely monitoring and continuously improving the time it takes businesses, contractors, and residents to receive city approvals. Greg will make Louisville an easy place for entrepreneurs to start and grow businesses.

Since you have spent the majority of your time working outside of Louisville you have no relevant experience to bring to this effort. In fact while many have been leading the way towards trying to streamline the red tape towards a faster way of getting business done your brethren and leader Abramson has abused the Planning and zoning department for his own benefit. How so? By "closely monitoring" all aspects and forcing business out of here when they didn't pay to play.

FAIL

4. Making Louisville a leader in GREEN — green construction, green buildings, green jobs. Greg will put incentives in place to encourage the construction of green buildings, especially LEED-certified structures (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), in everything from homes to business offices. Greg will also place a renewed emphasis on the revitalization of Brownfields, such as the Park Hill corridor, and he'll use the 100-mile Louisville Loop and the city's renowned arts, parks and neighborhoods to attract companies and people to Louisville.

Once again no substance. What incentives will you put in place? Green buildings? We already are screwing up those that we have pursued. Renewed emphasis on Brownfields? Sorry Greg that just does not compute. Th e100 mile loop is yet another example of por planning and wasted resources and will do absolutely nothing, even when completed and if it worked as designed, to bring new business to Louisville. Companies do not relocate here because of the loop they relocate here because of friendly government. Way to reach out to the River Fields base.

FAIL

5. Building a 21st Century business park in the Renaissance Zone. The Louisville Regional Airport Authority has hundreds of acres of land south of the airport available for redevelopment. Known as the Renaissance Zone, the area could be Louisville's next major commerce center, similar to Riverport. Greg will help lead this effort by convening the city and airport leaders with local developers, MSD and state and federal officials to build the necessary infrastructure (roads, sewers, etc) that will attract development and industry.

One more fail Greg. If we are to compare the Renaissance Zone to Riverport than we must be honest. For starters the Renaissance Zone is still not empty as was promised years ago. The last figure I know of to relocate the rest that are stuck was $20 million and that was a few years ago. Until this is done no real discussion can take place.

Additionally. Riverport is a revolving door of temporary worker jobs. With a majority of those jobs low wage distribution jobs that rely on temporary workers to succeed this is not a great argument for Renaissance Zone.

FAIL

6. Developing the next generation of logistics in Louisville. One of Louisville's biggest competitive advantages is our logistics sector and the city's location in the center of North American commerce. Greg will identify the next generation of logistics. Instead of just shipping products, for example, Louisville should become a leader in adding value for companies. For example, UPS Third Party Logistics center not only ships computers, it repairs them in Louisville.

Um Greg? You just admitted you didn't know what the next generation of logistics are. Additionally you just outlined yet another plan for few jobs if any and mainly part time low wage jobs at that.

From a logistics standpoint we have everything already that we can build on. Air, Rail, water. We also have the foundations for what you list above with distribution possibilities that are already existent.

Once again Yawn.

FAIL

7. Building the bridges and Museum Plaza for immediate and long-term jobs. Greg will build two new bridges, starting with the East End bridge immediately as planned in the Record of Decision, which will create tens of thousands of construction and other jobs. He will also do everything possible to start construction of Museum Plaza and the new VA Hospital, which also will create thousands of construction and permanent jobs.

First Greg has been on the record as wanting to fulfill the ORBP plan in its entirety even though the majority do not want it. After being called to task on it several times he backpedaled a bit and finally agreed to build the East end bridge first. Of course this was after his competition in Hal Heiner had already stated he would. By the way his theory of producing tens of thousands of jobs has already been proven false by just about anybody. At best it will create a few thousand jobs, not the ens of thousands he is still trying to portray, and they will be temporary construction jobs.

The VA hospital is just one more area Greg is proving t be out of touch on. The majority of the citizens and Vets do not want the VA hospital moved to a Downtown location at a cost of over $700 million.

FAIL

8. Growing the local food economy to create jobs and help Louisville feed itself. Create the Urban Agriculture Program to attract people from across the country to live and raise food in urban areas and on vacant lots. Greg will also help develop food processing plants so local growers can process their goods for the market and utilize UPS to ship fresh Louisville produce and products globally.

Not feasible Greg. Even now we are trying to establish "Farmer's Markets" and a fresh food approach. It isn't working well for one main reason. The local government continually tries to manipulate the farmers in this regard. Case in point? Check out the Okolona Farmer's Market on any day they are open. They have maybe 2 or 3 booths and they are not allowed to self price their products. In short they cannot sell their products at a price they want. Price control kills this initiative Greg.

Additionally nice spin wording on utilizing UPS. Anyone can utilize UPS now without any help from you. Let's see the co ops and private growers sell their products locally on their own competitive terms first then make a case.

Nice pandering though.

FAIL

9. Linking Louisville and Fort Knox and making Southwest Jefferson County a hub for the military/defense sector. Greg will lead an effort to position Louisville-Fort Knox as a civilian military jobs hub by attracting security and defense manufacturing jobs, and transforming Southwest Jefferson County into a thriving business and recreational center between Fort Knox and downtown Louisville. This will be part of a larger military jobs hub that is developing from Indianapolis to Ft. Campbell and includes military defense contractors and military posts.

This is original? Welcome to the bandwagon. Myself, Chris Thieneman, and many others have been advocating including the SW for years. The unlimited growth potential is enormous in this area because of the Ft Knox connection. We have advocated for it and we have also included one phase you have not. The Southwest corridor bridge at the Gene Snyder. By building it you complete the South portion of the loop and give us another alternative means of transportation which will be more attractive in building business here as well.

FAIL

10. Making Louisville a business-friendly, entrepreneurial "can do" city. Greg will create the Economic Innovation Center to build on the exclusive strengths of Louisville's economy, from aging care to logistics to the 100-mile Louisville Loop. The office will focus on the business sectors and industries that make Louisville unique and set it apart from other cities - and determine how to grow those sectors. On top of this strategy will be a relentless entrepreneurial focus by Greg, who will infuse city operations with a "can do", attitude where we use our size as a competitive advantage to be quicker and better than the cities we compete against.

This is a synopsis of everything above that will be a dismal failure with a Fischer Mayor.

What sets us apart now is our inability to compete because of high taxation and an overreaching local government. A dictator style of governing and a strong arm Mayor.

Unfortunately, Greg Fischer is more of the same............