KET Panel Presentation: Is Kentucky Making Progress?

From Kentucky and the New Economy/Challenges for the Next Century: The Conference Proceedings
p. 65-80, published 2001

Moderator
Bill Goodman, host of KET’s Kentucky Tonight

Panelists
William Baker, attorney, former member of the Kentucky Supreme Court and the Kentucky General Assembly
Betty Bayé, Courier-Journal columnist, writer and civic activist
John Berry, Jr., attorney, counsel for burley tobacco farmers, and former member of the Kentucky General Assembly
Paul Chellgren, Chairman and CEO, Ashland Inc.
Gordon Davies, President, Council on Postsecondary Education
Wendell Ford, former Governor and U.S. Senator
Nancy Jo Kemper, Executive Director, Kentucky Council of Churches
Kris Kimel, President, Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation
James Klotter, State Historian
Sylvia Lovely, Executive Director, Kentucky League of Cities
Gerald Smith, Professor and Director, African-American Studies and Research, University of Kentucky
Jane Stephenson, founder and former director of Berea’s New Opportunity School for Women in Berea and civic leader

From the Northern Kentucky Convention Center, KET and the Kentucky Long-Term Policy Research Center present “Kentucky, Challenges for the Next Century.” A panel of distinguished Kentucky leaders has gathered in Covington to discuss the state’s progress on issues vital to its future. Specifically, the group will address 26 long-term goals crafted in 1994 as part of the Visioning Kentucky’s Future project. Our host and moderator is Bill Goodman.

Bill Goodman

We’ve had an election in Kentucky. Governor Smith has been elected. He’s promised to bring a new energy, a new vitality to the state, and he’s talking about a New Economy. But there are problems ahead. The report card is not good. The headlines in the newspaper decry “State Economic Rank in Decline,” and they cite a low pay scale, an economic condition that is not good, a continuing education deficit and a large population of working poor; but there is help on the way. Governor Smith has asked you, Kris Kimel, to head up a group of citizen thinkers to craft a strategy for him which will take Kentucky into this next century with good, solid economic prospects for all Kentuckians. And he wants you to bring him information on what he’s calling the “New Economy.” What’s the first thing that you tell, or do, for Governor Smith?

Kris Kimel

Well, I think in terms of explaining the dynamics of the New Economy, probably I would emphasize two initial points that I think would be incredibly important for the Governor. It could be a female governor, right?

Governor Smith, that’s right.

For the Governor to think about as they craft this strategy, those two things would be speed and innovation. I think in today’s world, clearly, if the state is going to move forward, it’s going to have to address innovation in a pervasive way and then, coupling innovation. And when I say that I mean innovation that’s really diffused through the entire apparatus of state government, everything from government to the economy. Then secondly, and very close to that, is the issue of speed. We live in a world where speed has become as important as price and cost in the competitive equation and, again, that goes for both the economy and, I think, government as well. So those would probably be the two things that I would start with.

How do you include in your report to Governor Smith all of the citizens of Kentucky? How are you going to be the enabler with your citizen panel here to allow Governor Smith to understand that it’s not just the few, but all the citizenry that need some assistance?

Kris Kimel

I think that would be self-evident in today’s world. Even this conference has addressed a lot: the issue of education, knowledge, and the importance of ideas to the economic development of the state. Clearly we talk about ideas and knowledge we have to encompass everyone in the society. We can’t afford to leave out any particular group, and if we do, if we are leaving out economically disadvantaged people or minorities or whatever, then we are basically eliminating from the equation a large group of very bright and potentially successful people who can contribute to the economy. So it really is something that isn’t just for a few people.

So we recognize we have a few problems. Sylvia Lovely, you have written that the worst thing about a crisis is not having one, the idea being that a crisis will stir enough passion and prompt enough action to find a new way to approach a problem. Kentucky should be primed for problem solving since we have a plate full of them, wouldn’t you say?

Oh, yes. I would say that we do. I guess Al mentioned this morning of recession coming and that perhaps would be the next crisis that would be our opportunity, but I think our opportunity’s upon us. I think this Governor Smith would find out very quickly that the alpha and omega is community building and would find that to be quite natural. But Bill, if you look at the 26 ranked goals, I think it’s interesting that health care is number one and safe and vibrant, caring communities is number three. It’s those basic things that are real important. Now we’re not doing all that well on health care reform.

We’ve got our problems. We share those with everyone, but I think safe and caring communities is the basic building block, which actually we have in great abundance in Kentucky. And I guess I would tell the Governor that one of the things that I’ve become of late is an optimist–that we can fix our problems. We have small and vibrant places in abundance out there and I think what we’ve got to do is build on our strengths better than we have in the past. And I did write that about crises, and I believe that that’s true. I think we have an abundance of crises, but I think those have to reach people as well. And we have a very low crime rate in this state, for instance. It ranks very high, but maybe people don’t realize that it’s actually safer in most Kentucky communities than it is anywhere in the nation.

So to begin the conversation with Governor Smith, how would you concretely go about sharing some ideas to really enhance what you’ve both just spelled out? How would you instill in people an entrepreneurial spirit that will encompass all 26 goals and tell Governor Smith that this is the forward direction that he needs to take the state in?

I think we’ve got to engage local leaders. I don’t think we’re doing all that good a job with a broad-based civic engagement. The communities you see really catching on are those that are very vibrant, that have found a way to tell their story internally within their community and outside as well and to start their problems from a local leadership perspective. I think we’re going to have to engage broad-based local leadership in education, the New Economy, whatever it is. We have to reach down and we can’t do that from a centralized level. I think it has to reach down at the local level.

Kris Kimel

You mention the word entrepreneurial, and certainly to me that’s probably the key aspect of this. That is, I think I would encourage the Governor to focus an awful lot of attention to the issue of helping people become entrepreneurs; and by becoming entrepreneurs, I’m not speaking only of starting companies. In fact, at the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation, we have our own definition that involves the relentless pursuit of new ideas resulting in an innovative creation. Because it’s our view that entrepreneurs, whether they’re starting companies, or working in existing companies, or scientists or engineers, have to have certain characteristics and traits which embody the aspects of the New Economy.

Mr. Berry, Mr. Kimel has asked you to be on this panel because of your experience, your wisdom, and your sage advice throughout the years. Are you troubled at all about this conversation that we’re having in the state having to do with entrepreneurial and New Economy and have we left something out of the equation, out of the conversation?

John Berry

Well, the conversation about entrepreneurship is not an unneeded conversation. We need entrepreneurship. We need people attempting to form small businesses and be involved in the economy and to be a player in the economy. We need people out in the rural areas to get involved in such undertakings that in a way complement agriculture and the rural community. I think the problem that you would have advising the Governor about that subject is that there is some serious question today about the extent to which anybody can be a meaningful player in the economy. Where all of the major segments of it have been gobbled up by large corporations and, in the case of farmers, for instance, the only thing left is the possibility of maybe filling a niche somewhere because mainstream agriculture is only available to them through contract.

So, do we have a national or a state policy that even permits the small businessman to be a player, to have a piece of the action? The world market certainly doesn’t offer much of an opportunity except on a case-by-case basis and to fill a niche here and there. So, yes, I would advise the Governor to pursue that as a part of industrial and economic development, but in a way that offers the average person an opportunity to engage in business. For instance, in rural Kentucky, our businesses are drying up. The small businesses are simply closing and they’re boarded up because we have a policy and a philosophy in this country that bigger is better and that a few ought to have it all instead of all of us having an opportunity to have enough. So I think it would be difficult, as a practical matter, for the Governor to say “make that investment, invest your time, energy, money, and risk your family’s ability to survive” on endeavors for which there’s not really a practical and feasible place in the economy.

Mr. Chellgren, would you address the situation that Mr. Berry has brought up?

Paul Chellgren

Well, it’s a real issue, but you have to start off from the assumption that Kentucky doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Kentucky is part of the national economy. Kentucky is part of the global economy and some of these trends toward globalization, lower costs, greater economies of scale, and more productivity are relentless and cannot be ignored over time. The challenge is going to be picking the niches, focus, setting priorities, and trying to understand what particular competitive advantages Kentucky has in this kind of national and global competitive milieu we’re talking about. If you’re trying to fight it, you’re not going to be successful, and occasionally we’ve tried to fight in Kentucky.

Bill Goodman

Would you say we’ve already lost the fight?

No, not at all. On the contrary, I think Kentucky has extraordinary competitive advantages and our recent economic success demonstrates part of that. But you’ve got to pick and choose and set priorities, have focus, have a center of excellence, and do the kind of things that play on Kentucky’s great strengths and great traditions. And we have many, many of them.

Mr. Berry, do you accept that analogy?

I’ll accept it as being the prevailing analogy and analysis. A couple of good points were made. One is that there’s this relentless effort to bring about the national and international, global economy and that all of this is happening and we can’t do anything about it. I think that is capitulation to the terms of surrender, which I’m not willing to sign at this point. People call that progress and Webster says progress is forward movement, among other things. But that’s saying forward movement in any direction is progress. Forward movement that is not in the direction that improves quality of life, achieves the greatest good for the greatest number, makes people happier, and includes the most people, is not progress. It’s just a policy that says that we should be prepared to make the best of a situation we don’t like and clean up after bad policy. In other words, it’s to have a big scoop and have it setting on ready and I just don’t buy that as being good public policy. I think in this country we have the ability to determine the direction we go. And so good policy evolves from good leadership and vision, which I think is sorely lacking.

Well, that’s what we’re going to get from Governor Smith. You quoted Webster. Let me quote Brother Wendell. He wrote that “competing in the global economy means that we now have an opportunity to sell the same things we’ve always sold at even lower prices.” So, to the rest of you, let’s just narrow it down and talk about that one particular area first. That would be the conflict we see between where we’ve been and where we are today and where, some of you and certainly a lot of people would say, we need to go and how we get there and be successful in both ends.

Bill, let’s get back to where you started. We’ve kind of veered off a little bit the advice to Governor Smith. I think that you can take a leaf from the present administration in Frankfort and look at what the process has been. I like it and it should be accelerated in my judgment. That is forming partnerships with the business community, with the educational community, and with labor unions. Bring them all, form these partnerships and, when you do, you have the programs that are now going forward in Kentucky. The leverage funding comes from the legislative budget for Kentucky and so that is the drive. How well Governor Smith handles that budget in the future will be one of the major areas in which he, or she, will be successful or not. So, I think you have to look at the partnership.

I think you have to look at cities and counties to form a partnership without going through the rigors of a political merger. I think you could get away from that and the city and the county could work together. Sylvia probably could come up with some pretty decent ideas. I don’t know whether I’m right or not, but I think I am. And if there’s someone here from Murray they can correct me, but, as I understand it, the rural utility service and the city of Murray are putting in fiber optics. Of course, they have the Murray State University, which is important to the community, but the total community will do that through a cooperative effort and it had to be approved somewhere along the line. And, so, you get into this decision of whether you’re going to debate or discuss. I always found you accomplished more if you sat down at the table and discussed it rather than having a debate.

So the forming of these partnerships out there will depend on the leadership of Governor Smith and this commission that he is attempting to appoint to give him the ideas. Now, number one on the list is the toughest. That’s health care. When you have people that will not participate, you go on television and advertise that it’s there and you increase the participation. Then you find some people that fall through the cracks because they’re not paying any attention to it until they have problems. This goes back to Sylvia’s comment that you have to have a crisis to get them interested. I hope not. We’re sitting here now with Kentucky on the verge. Energy in my judgment will be deregulated soon. We have the lowest energy rate, electrical rate, in the country and, when we start wheeling our energy, there’s going to be a potential crisis. Everybody is going to want to buy ours at our price and sell it high. That’s all right. I think that’s the American way, John, but then we will be forced into churning out more energy, and basically it’s from coal; and then that becomes a problem for the emissions.

And if I could raise from the ashes of 1980, when we lost an opportunity to have an economy that would be new sources of energy, if we had stayed the course, today we’d be producing in Kentucky tens of thousands of barrels of oil per day. Canada stayed the course with Tarsands. It has been estimated that 30 percent of the petroleum used in Canada is from Tarsands. So that’s 20-20 hindsight. But if we made a mistake and didn’t take advantage of it, we still have the resource. We still have the knowledge. We still have the ability. It might be a little more costly. So you get into a lot of things. This is going to be the middle of a blackberry pie.

Some comment from the panel on Senator Ford’s synopsis there? Again, look at economic growth, pointing out the number one problem with health care. Mr. Chellgren, again, let me hear from you on the strategy that you might bring to Mr. Kimel in the first meeting of the citizen thinkers and recommend, encompassing what you’ve heard in the last few minutes.

Well, a couple of points have already been made, like the point that the Senator just made about partnerships. And, in recent years here in Kentucky we’ve seen a wonderful entrepreneurial, with a small “e” rather than a capital “E,” kind of an attitude. There is a lot more flexibility with the state government, the universities, and a lot of private firms inside and outside the state; and clearly these are the kinds of advantages Kentucky can bring to the table in a national and global sense. We have many, many other great advantages and assets to bring to the table, so I think my advice for Governor Smith would be to use the term “optimism,” Sylvia. Accentuate the positive: our labor force, its availability, its stability, its predictability, its work ethic; the kind of things we’re doing in K-12 education and higher education reform under Gordon and his team’s leadership, which I think are some of the most exciting and dramatic things in the country.

I travel around the country a lot and in Kentucky, and actually more so than within our own borders we’re pointed to as a model of form and excellence and progress in a very dynamic and exciting way. We can build on those kinds of things. I mean, clearly, we have certain centers of excellence and certain industries: distribution, auto parts, certain agricultural things, service, and transportation centers of excellence. We can pick priorities and focus on our competitive advantages, and this is where we need to accentuate and play to our strengths.

I just wanted to comment because the kind of discussion that you two are having about the global and the local is something that I’ve really been struggling with a lot. I do believe it’s a basic tenet of our future that our communities have to live by the new rules of the game and there are new 21st century rules of building economic prosperity. But, John, I think of you and I think of Wendell’s writings, too, about this.

Would you say Wendell Berry?

Wendell Berry. I’m sorry about that. How important this local piece is and how it’s absolutely right that local has to become first. Maybe we’re just using the wrong words. When we’re talking about building jobs, we have this mentality that you have to attract in jobs. That usually means other folks coming in. There is nothing wrong with that as part of a strategy, but what we never talk about, Kris, is building wealth at the local level. Wealth is a lot of different things, moving all the way from money to quality of life, but build prosperous local wealth in our communities. And I know at the local level people don’t think like that. They think in terms of economic development having to be building out in the countryside an industrial park and waiting for something to fall from heaven. I think that would be what I’d advise this Governor. Let’s not be talking about numbers of jobs. Let’s talk to people at the local level about building their communities in terms of wealth and prosperity in a variety of ways across the board. It may be a little simplistic, but it’s where I’m struggling to come to so that I can balance these two things and come to some resolution.

Bill Goodman

No, it’s not simplistic. I think that’s what is on the minds of so many people, in your minds today. Thanks for stimulating that part of the conversation. Nancy Jo Kemper, you were nodding. Gordon Davies, can you jump in at this point?

Yes. I think we’re not going to have sustainable economies in the future with speed and innovation and all of those things unless, as Sylvia suggested, we help people understand that we are not autonomous individuals and that we depend on and need one another to survive. In fact, there are enormous gifts already present in the community if we can accept and learn to enjoy one another’s differences and the challenge that that presents. To build a more exciting Kentucky, I think, you turn people onto the possibilities of their own imaginations and what is potentially right there amongst them. We talk about building on our heritage and resources in this state, and one of our resources is the depth of piety and of commitment to religion, if it can be used in positive ways so that people are engaged with addressing the needs of their neighbor. We cannot move ahead so long as we do not have just economy as well; and the “just” economy is going to be one that has a low base, where everybody cares for their neighbor and there’s an opportunity to explore different possibilities within that context. We have nearly a million people in the state functionally illiterate, and 25 percent of our children living in poverty, and most of our old folks as well. We’re not going to move ahead if we just leave these people behind. They’ll not be a drain on everybody. Instead they have things to give us all.

All right. So Nancy Jo Kemper brings in not only the information economy, the knowledge-based economy, and the New Economy, which we’re going to talk to Governor Smith about, but the “just” economy. Gordon Davies?

Sure. Well, Nancy Jo said some very important things. I’d say to the Governor, “Governor, you already know this,” because the Governor’s a smart woman and that’s why she’s Governor. I’d say, “as you said in your speech over in Paducah the other day, the best way to predict the future is to create it,” which goes to Mr. Berry’s point. If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll get there, but you have to set a direction and you have to decide what the future is going to be. And then I would say to the Governor, “the reason I hung around here until you got elected was because I know you believe in education.” And what education really does is help people develop an adaptive capacity. A capacity to adapt to the environment needs to be adapted to, Mr. Berry, but also to change the environment when the environment is intolerable. “What we need to do in this government,” I would say to the Governor, “is to model the kind of behavior we want, which is a fast behavior, a just behavior, an entrepreneurial behavior,” in Kris’ words. That goes to developing an educated and skilled workforce, yes, but we don’t want to develop that workforce and then hear the tramp of its feet across the bridges into Ohio or Indiana. So we have to create jobs and not just import jobs, but create jobs. That means we need research universities that become the magnets for creation and entrepreneurial activity, the creation of intellectual property that is valuable. Because if we’ve built institutions of higher learning but 25 percent of the children still live in poverty and a million people still are challenged as to reading and writing, we shall have failed. If at the end of 20 years we haven’t changed the conditions within which women and men and their children live in this state, we shall have failed. Very simply, we shall have failed. There is more to educational reform than building strong institutions. They have to have an effect on the society in which we live. I don’t buy the distinction, Bill, and maybe you don’t even mean to make it, between a New Economy, a knowledge economy, and a just economy. If it is a knowledge economy, it has to be a just economy. To know the good is to do it.

Exactly. Let’s talk a minute about regionalism. Walter Baker.

When we look at what we’re trying to do in the state, the recommendations that Mr. Kimel is going to make to Governor Smith, where’s the power of this intellectual capacity, this just economy? Where’s that to be located? Is that from the border? Is there a debate about whether to be concentrated “in the golden triangle?” Is it to be in our smallest rural areas?

Kris Kimel

Hold it. I think it can be almost across this Commonwealth. The expectation is that the golden triangle here in northern Kentucky, Lexington, and Louisville will be the centers because they have driven the economical machines and to some extent the academic engines for the entire Commonwealth. But there is a richness in the geographic diversity of Kentucky that I think we can learn and gain a lot from. I was sitting here listening and we were talking about basically the two things that every Governor has talked about in Twentieth Century Kentucky: jobs and education. Go back when Wendell Ford ran for Governor, or when W. J. Fields in 1927 ran for Governor. Those were the two things that the gubernatorial candidates talked about. And we need to go forward dramatically, not just incrementally, in both of those areas, and we have at times done that in Kentucky.

I look right now across the state and I see things that make me very proud as a Kentuckian and very proud of the direction we’re going and they may be small things to many people, but they’re large things to others. We have in Munfordville, Kentucky, a very small community outside the golden triangle. We have Davis McCombs, who was recognized a year or two ago as winner of the Yale prize for younger poets. Incidentally, in the last seven years, three of the winners have been Kentuckians. We have in Louisville Kentuckian Sena Jeter Naslund who wrote Ahab’s Wife, that was recognized last year as one of the great novels written by any American writer. John Berry’s brother, Wendell Berry, has been a prolific writer of the agrarian viewpoint; but a national figure, not just a Kentucky or regional figure. So I think in our own way we have a richness in our diversity that we’re beginning to recognize and I think will help all of us. If we become merely wealthier, possessing better jobs and some better education, we will not try to move the ball very far in Kentucky. We’ve got to be deeper. We’ve got to do as Gordon is trying to do. Let the University of Louisville and the University of Kentucky research universities leap out of the pack and move toward the lead in this nation and in this world. We’re competing in a world, not just a nation. These are things that I see that we’ve got to do. We have to create a climate in this state in which our young people coming along recognize not only our sense of place and our sense of history. But this is an exciting, wonderful Commonwealth in which to live and in which to interact with other people, hopefully in a fairer and more just way than we have in the past 200 years.

Betty Bayé, are we creating that atmosphere for all people in the state of Kentucky?

Well, no. I subscribe to the notion that you can’t know where you’re going unless you know where you’ve been. I’m always interested when we talk about the New Economy to note that there are thousands of people in Kentucky who never participated in the old economy and we’re moving on without that. They don’t have computers yet. They don’t have the Internet. They’re not online. We’re trying to get more people online. We’ve looked at the election results and people have talked about how divided the country is in terms of where they think we ought to be going. Well, Kentucky is not divided. Kentucky, to me, has chosen its direction and it’s thrown its lot with interests of tax reductions, no matter what it means for the surplus. This is how we voted and how we have thrown our interests. It is sometimes confusing to me as to how Kentucky has this many poor people in it and still we are moving ahead as if we’re Silicon Valley or something. That seems to be the political decision that we have made as a state.

I’m not sure what is going to happen to the people who fall through the cracks because we have bought the notion, I suppose, that for those who do not succeed it’s because they are failures. I have seen people very much attacking Kentucky’s Education Reform to the degree that many African-Americans have decided that segregation was, in fact, better because they’ve not been able to make it in this new whatever-we’re-talking-about. The kids are still failing in the schools. So I don’t think Kentucky is divided on where it’s going politically. I think we’ve made our decision as to where we want to go. We don’t have to count ballots here to know what happened in the election.

My concern with that is, what does that mean for the people in our state who cannot make it on their own? If the message is a tax break, what is that going to mean for somebody who makes minimum wage? We’ve thrown our lot with people who are opposed to raising the minimum wage a dollar, or, if we raise it, then let’s give something to everybody and let’s, in fact, take some people off the table in terms of their ability to make a minimum wage. So, for me, I’m thinking about the old economy. I look out in this room and I hear us talking about diversity, but I don’t see diversity here. The decisionmaking is still being made by the people who always made it. We’ve not done, I think, a good enough job at bringing the people to the table. What has always interested me about this state is the fact that we have so many poor people with so many opportunities for them to see their interests as being similar that base primarily on race. They have decided that they don’t have any interests in common and, therefore, they don’t work together enough to pull at the coattails of the economic powers in this state to say “don’t forget us, and we can do it together.” So excuse me for going backwards, but I’m looking back and asking where we are going in this state. I’m not sure that we’ve made our decision that we’re really talking about those people who have a lot of issues. I don’t want to get political. I’m just saying that I think that we have bought into a political philosophy as a state that seems clear to me that we’re going to be on a collision course with some people who are talking about justice and economic parity. I’ve got a feeling that we’re going to have a problem doing that.

It’s not “excuse” you. It’s thank you for introducing this part of the discussion and what needs to be talked about because that really is a dilemma that we all face and it may not be spoken of. It’s almost a cliché, is it not, to talk about have and have-nots? You went through that wonderful soliloquy and didn’t even mention that, but that’s what we’re talking about, is it not, Ms. Stevenson and Gerald Smith? Are we talking about the people that are left behind? Those who are already left behind and the people that are going to be left behind? How do we reach those people in eastern Kentucky? Jane Stevenson.

I agree totally with Betty. I think she has really hit right on the mark. You know we talk about wanting computers in all the homes when we have thousands of people out there without telephones in their homes. And imagine what a life is like without a telephone when you can’t go for a job interview because no one can call and tell you to come. Elderly can’t get medical and emergency services because we can’t get to a telephone. I think there are so many basic things that we have to address as well as these many others that have been brought up today. We talk about a safe environment. We still have a large problem of spouse abuse. We don’t have shelters for women in every county. We don’t have easy access for these women to be safe. There are still women who are virtually prisoners in their own homes and that have no one to turn to and nowhere to go. Some of these are very basic things that we have to talk about. We certainly are concerned about health care. Sometimes we don’t think about basic things such as dental care. I know women and have worked with women in their 30s who have no teeth. And we think, how could this be? Because they have not had preventive care and their nutrition perhaps has had a part of that. There are just so many basic things like that that we have to address. In our rural areas, it’s harder to address some of these issues. The rural parts of Kentucky are so precious to us, so important, yet a lot of time they’re left out and we must remember how to include them. One of the things that we need to work on, I think, in our rural areas is building more philanthropy. In this country we have billions of dollars in foundation grants to be given away. Some statistics I recently read is that in our persistently poor counties, and certainly we have those in Kentucky, only 1 percent of those funds from these foundations come back to these rural areas of persistently poor counties. We’ve got to work on that.

Gerald Smith, is there a possibility in all of this conversation about moving forward in the New Economy and the just economy that we are really in danger of enhancing the thought, the idea, and the reality that we’re still leaving people behind? That we’re really not reaching as many as we need to and that might possibly get even worse than it is today?

Yes. I think so. As I sat here, our point of reference has been Governor Smith, and I believe I’m the only one on the panel with the last name Smith. So I’m going to take the prerogative of saying that I’m the first African-American Governor of Kentucky. So, as Governor of Kentucky, I would be very optimistic, but, at the same time, very realistic, especially about some of the things that Ms. Bayé said. Going back to your first question there, in terms of what would you do, I would be very much concerned about the demographics of the state regarding age and education, race and ethnicity, and at the same be very much concerned about what’s happening on the local level. We have become, like much of the rest of the nation, very arrogant, callous, insensitive, and materialistic. We have literally forgotten the least of these and, too often, I believe that we speak in generalizations when we talk about education and crime and health care. For example, crime is on the decline in the state, but, by the same token, I think that we need to pay particular attention to those who make up a large part of the criminal justice system. What about those individuals? What is going to be their role in the New Economy in terms of education? So, when we think about these terms, don’t forget the other side of the spectrum.

James Klotter, historian. Where have we been in this state? Do we have any reference point? What are the models that we need to look at? How do you see all of this conversation? What’s your input to the citizen thinking panel that is going to make a report to Governor Smith?

Well, I think it was Casey Stengel that said something like, “predictions are hard, especially about the future.” So I look at Gerald as Governor Smith and, of course, Governor Smith is a historian, so I didn’t aim to tell him all these things, but, in fact, we all should be historians. But, Governor Smith, history tells us that we have to look back at history, but it also tells us that change is constant throughout. We have to produce a generation, and we seem to be producing a generation, that looks forward to change. At the same time as we’re doing that, we have to make sure that we honor the past in that generation but that we’re not chained to the past and that’s what history tells us. If we chain ourselves to the past, if we worship at that shrine, then we will not advance as we need to. At the same time, all the things that are old are not bad; all the things that are new are not good, and we have to determine which of those we need to take with us into this future and which of these are the important things. We have to be in a sense future-minded and history-minded. And I think Mr. Chellgren was saying that we need to know that we’re not operating in a vacuum in Kentucky, a kind of an international vacuum. We also make sure that we train people and I think education is a key to all of this. As Gordon said, we have to train people that operate both at the international level and at the national level, but also we train people who can operate at the local level because that’s where governance is taking place; that’s where the people are affected.

And we have to have this infrastructure so that we can move forward in the New Economy but we also have to determine what are those things, Governor Smith, that make us important, that make us as a state stand out above other places. We have to have some of those entrepreneurial things that Kris said, but we also at the same time have to develop things that we have as strengths and make sure they are our strengths. I think Walter Baker was talking about our literary strengths. People in the nation don’t know those things. The quality of life issues can be a real strength, as we move forward, in our tourism. In the future, when we finish training all these people and we’ve developed these skills, people in our schools should know how to think with perspective and not operate in any kind of vacuum as we move forward. Because change is so rapid all around us, we have to have something to lead us into that change, so that every generation after this generation is the greatest generation.

If there are members of the audience who would like to ask a question, pose a comment, and join the conversation, we’ll ask you to come to the microphones and we’ll take those as best we can. There were comments, I think, from Kris and then Ms. Kemper.

I want to go back to something that Gordon Davies said earlier when you were talking about the just society, the knowledge society. I think it’s very important from a strategic and philosophical and moral perspective and that is it isn’t multiple societies. When we talk about a knowledge society I think implicit in that is certainly that it’s just, that it’s based on sound values and all the kinds of things that we’re thinking about. I think that’s important to recognize because one of the things that we often make a mistake about in Kentucky and across this country is we’re not talking about one strategy. One strategy will not work. We talk about economic development. We certainly have to have multiple strategies. If you ask Mr. Chellgren about Ashland, I’m sure he’s going to tell you that his company has multiple strategies. They don’t just have one or two because one size doesn’t fit all. And we have to recognize that a strategy for a small high-tech company is not going to be the same as a strategy for Harlan County where my wife happens to be from. I think we need to understand that and that brings us back to this need to talk amongst each other and understand that it’s not an either-or situation. Oliver Wendell Holmes said one time that most people go to their graves with the music still inside of them. And I think certainly our goal among all of us, whether we’re dealing with technology or religion or education, is to unleash that music and to bring those out of people. And that’s going to require a very different approach, I think, than certainly one or two different strategies.

Reverend Kemper, then is it more than just an economic problem or is there something larger at work here that we’re discussing?

Yes. I think it’s the issue of communities, our citizens thinking together about what kind of a Commonwealth we really want to be and what does that mean. Does it mean that we work to make sure that the weakest amongst us has an important place? See, I happen to think that some of the most vulnerable and helpless are given to us to remind us that all of us at one time or another may be in a position of need. In an instant, any one of us could become helpless and desperately need one another. As we go into this speed and innovation, we’re increasingly going towards an isolated kind of individuality, which is destroying us. We’ve gotten so focused on progress of the individual that we’ve neglected to look at the progress of community. It was three great virtues that helped found this nation: equality, fraternity and liberty; and it wasn’t just liberty. We need to understand our liberties, when it comes to issues such as gun control. Taxes, for example, need some control by the humanizing virtues of equality and fraternity or community to use a more balanced point of view.

I really, though, want to piggyback on something that Ms. Bayé said a moment ago, too, about taxes. I think it’s time to start in the present and say that people who take a pledge of no new taxes should be ashamed of themselves. This is not good government. Good government looks at how we generate revenue for the benefit of the whole, and it may mean that we adjust and make changes. When we’re taxing our poor at the highest rate in the nation or second highest rate, it doesn’t matter almost; it begins to be really offensive. We’re not going to make one iota of progress as long as we’ve got politicians that keep getting elected because they say “no new taxes” and then drive off in their Jaguar. I’m sorry, I won’t buy it anymore. (Applause.)

This is from a minister who might say, “now you’re going to go meddling there,” but she crossed that bridge real well. Gordon Davies, you want to say something.

You know I just wish Nancy Jo would be forthright and say what she really thinks. She is so wishy-washy. About the notion of multiple strategies, I couldn’t agree more with what Kris said. And, somehow, you just have to have it not only both ways but all ways. A good example is the Council on Postsecondary Education, for which I work and on which Senator Baker sits. It has two responsibilities, one of which is to help Kentucky’s universities prepare and participate in the New Economy and basically we’re in the business of developing intellectual property and we work with Kris Kimel on that. At the same time, the Council has assigned responsibilities for those million people, Nancy, that you mentioned as functionally illiterate. They’re like a barbell: it’s a little off balance sometimes and it can torque us, but that million people has to come along (a) because it’s right, but (b) because it’s strategically simply necessary as part of our enlightened self-interest. If we try to move in a state whose population is not increasing into a New Economy with 40 percent of the workforce having difficulties with fundamental literacy, it’s like going sailing with your anchor down. You will sail in a circle around your anchor. We can’t get free unless we work with that population and especially with the younger part of that population, the part that’s in childbearing and child-rearing years. The single greatest predictor of whether a child is ready to read when she comes to school is whether her parents read to her. And the single greatest predictor of whether a child goes to college is whether her parents have had some experience in postsecondary education. And this is not a single-generational issue. Governor Smith, who is Gerald’s sister, knows that and needs to constantly, as Governor Patton does, remind people that if we get where we want to get by 2020, we’ll reap the benefits of getting there by 2040. That’s a pretty extraordinary political perspective, but that’s a perspective that’s dominating in Kentucky right now, and I hope it remains dominant.

Mr. Klotter and then Ms. Bayé.

I was going to say that 2,000 years ago people were recognizing the importance of education. Plato said something like “if you start somebody in one direction, that’s the direction his or her whole life will go.” A statistic that all Kentuckians probably should be ashamed of is one the Long-Term Policy Center has stressed: that in the last quarter century the income of the top 10 percent of the population in Kentucky, in real dollars, has increased almost a third. The income of the bottom 10 percent in Kentucky in real dollars in that quarter century has gone down by 20 percent. Until we deal with those issues, and deal with education for that element of the population, we’re still going to have that anchor, I think.

I wanted to say something about education because I’ve been thinking and writing about this. We’re real hung up now on standardized tests and I keep thinking what the outcome is of us stamping kids failures, putting a big F on their head in the third grade, second grade, or fourth grade, because we’re testing them all over the place. I’m working on a column about the number of Americans who are ineligible to vote because they’re felons. They’ve been convicted of felonies; fully 13 percent of all African-American men cannot vote. In Florida, I think it’s like 31 percent of them were ineligible. But more frightening than those statistics, because you don’t have to feel sorry necessarily for felons, is that as we have lowered and lowered the age at which we can try children as adults, we’re creating convicted felons at 14 and 13 years old. They’ve already been disenfranchised. So they can never vote because in our state and other places our laws say that no matter how they turn their lives around, if they’ve been convicted of a felony, they cannot vote.

So we’re saying to 13-year-olds, “You’re a little criminal and you are disenfranchised.” We are saying to eighth graders, “You cannot pass the standardized test and you’re a failure.” We can say that it’s real liberal and namby-pamby to try to have this multiple strategy we talk about because testing is one strategy, but how does society benefit? This is my question when we are stamping and disenfranchising people as children and saying, “No matter what happens in your life, you are not eligible to vote.” So, I mean, it just seems to be that we are setting up a formula because probably that 14-year-old felon was that same third grader who was a failure and couldn’t read because they couldn’t pass the standardized test. And it’s creating this cycle so when we look and find this monster who is now 18 years old, we can predict. We could have predicted what was going to happen and it seems to me that if we can predict then we have to figure out what is the appropriate intervention.

We’re now so hung up on testing, testing, testing; and testing like that only benefits the people it’s always benefited. They will always do better. They have more resources. They have two-parent families. They have parents who went to higher education. But the challenge is the children we’re stamping as failures, children who are going to come through our system, and the children who will grow up to prey on us. It is in our vested self-interest to come up with some kind of strategy that makes sense to bring other people along, because we cannot live in our gated communities and not expect the people to climb the walls. If they have nothing, we will not be safe and this is a big concern of mine. When I looked at those numbers of Americans who are ineligible to vote because they’ve been convicted of felonies, you can’t count their votes because they can’t vote.

I think we have a lot to think about and just one last thing. I remember a very well known executive who is no longer in Kentucky who came to the Courier-Journal Editorial Board. He said of the people in eastern Kentucky, "Well, why don’t they just move? Why don’t they just move? If they can’t get health care up there, they ought to just move.” And it was the most callous statement. That person brought some changes to Kentucky, but they’ve moved on and those other people are still stuck there. That person came to Kentucky with a certain attitude about what this state was about, about who these people were, and really it was to me a certain contempt. And that’s what I’m saying: it’s good to bring in new people, but if they have contempt for this state and what they think about it, they may bring some jobs, but they’re also going to bring some attitude that’s not going to help us to try to push the state forward and all of the people in the state forward.

All right. We have a comment from the audience.

Questions, Answers and Comments

My name is Pat Delahanty. I’m with the Catholic Conference of Kentucky and to follow up on what Betty is saying, I had written down the word disenfranchised as she began to speak. It might be interesting to people to know that in the state we lock up 4,840 black persons per 100,000 as opposed to 584 white people per 100,000. So, if you’re black in the state, you’re 8.3 times more likely to be locked up in our institutions. We also run a system where 77 percent of the people that we have in these prisons are there for nonviolent crimes and yet we continue to build prisons. And, instead of developing a New Economy, we hire correctional officers in counties and create those kinds of jobs, which are not even necessary if we really took a look at it. I just wonder what the Governor might do because he can’t do this by himself and part of the problem is how you work with a General Assembly.

Let’s go to Governor Smith for a response on that.

I’m not proud of my last name right now. Well, let me say this, just generally speaking, Kentucky is one of those places where for African-Americans, it’s very difficult to want to live in this state. It’s difficult recruiting African-Americans to this state. Kentucky’s a state that’s historically been poor and rural, known for its racial violence and discrimination, so there are a lot of prevailing attitudes scattered throughout the state. It doesn’t matter whether you live in eastern Kentucky or northern or the Bluegrass Region of the state. And so, it’s important, in terms of when you’re putting together your Cabinet and working with the General Assembly, that we really speak to this issue in terms of addressing peoples’ hearts. In looking at the facts, just get a true sense of how this is affecting the image of our state. You know, Kentucky is a state that has a lot of pride, resilience, creativity, and imagination on some things and I think we can channel these positive aspects of our state into addressing this kind of problem. It’s going to require us to reach beyond the break in the rope. In other words, to step out on faith. When we step out of the box, great things happen, and that’s going to require us to do this in terms of dealing with the criminal justice system. You’re going to have to give people an opportunity and let them know that that opportunity genuinely exists. When you look around the state, for those who are incarcerated, for many of them, there’s never really been an image, a role model, or an idea that an opportunity exists. So it’s either give up or get out of the state. And too many African-Americans are choosing to leave the state of Kentucky because of not only the history but because of the reality of what they see in the criminal justice system and educational system, as well as in other issues that affect the state.

I guess, just to answer that to you, Governor, or your sister if you’d pass along the word. I go back to strong local communities, and even stronger local leadership is going to emerge. For some reason in this state it tends not to be strong. You have the gulf between the golden triangle, Walter, and the rest of the state. The people in that triangle area don’t seem to know, and it’s really true, I think, that life goes on out in the state. There’s just a really big gulf when you talk about some of the great things that are emanating out there. People aren’t talking about Louisville and places like that. But I want to also say that I think the whole crisis maybe, that is emerging, this opportunity and crisis at the same time, is globalization as I’ve heard it called, but global versus the local. It’s starting to come in sharper focus. I think one of the scariest statistics we have in this state is the growing gulf between the haves and the have-nots. It threatens to grow even larger as we attempt to go global without paying attention to the local. And that happens to people. At the people level, people don’t have computers or whatever, but it’s also happening at the community level. I think we have some very threatened communities out there. We had ghost towns at the turn of the last century. Who knows if we will today? It’s a different set of circumstances, but you have technologically nonready communities. You have some who are taking up the initiative, like Murray, to do some exciting things locally, but you have others that aren’t. And we have schools that are technologically ranking high in the nation but that only encourages our kids to leave those communities faster. Then you have that continuing gulf between the so-called golden triangle and the rest of the state and the bottom line is we don’t even tell our stories very well. Whether it be our bad stories or good stories, we don’t tell stories in this state and spread the word; and that, Bill, may be in part with the media—no statewide media. There are a lot of issues about connectedness of the state and the lack thereof.

I think somebody made reference to partnerships. I think there’s a lot of potential there if we maximize that potential, and if we are a little more creative in terms of the kind of partnerships we can create in this state. Too often we focus on the same old resources or go to the same old places, but we need to start looking beyond those areas and thinking of ways we can bring everybody into this New Economy. And I believe partnerships are the way we can do that.

All right. Another question from the audience?

I’m Richard Heine from Lexington. I’m retired. My comment is a question. What do you all think that you could tell the Governor that would cause Kentucky to feel like it was more together? That is, in order for Kentucky to benefit, all of the citizens of Kentucky have to benefit. We have to have the people in eastern Kentucky raise up their educational level in order for Kentucky to become tenth or something like that. What can you tell the Governor that could be done that would cause Kentucky to feel more like Kentucky in that we’re all in this together?

I think one thing you could do is what’s been done here in northern Kentucky where Campbell, Kenton, Grant, Boone, and Pendleton Counties have all come together. It’s one northern Kentucky. It isn’t separate counties working independently; they’re all together, and I think you can look around this area and see what’s occurred when they are together. And when you can get a Democrat and Republican in the Kentucky legislature all going gung-ho for the same thing for this area, then they’ve got the partnership going. That’s what we ought to do. And I can give you an idea how to do it, too. They had districts. They siphon off funds to operate their shop from communities and that’s all right. I have no objection to that. I think it’s good, but they can be the leverage or the overseer or the pusher of these partnerships locally, somebody to point to that had responsibility. If we get those that say it’s your responsibility, and that is the district, they’re being paid, they’ve got a budget and so they’re leveraged.

Senator Ford, is that only happening here in northern Kentucky? Are there areas of Kentucky in western Kentucky, south central Kentucky that are doing it that we just don’t know about?

There’s some and Sylvia can tell you the other ones. But the one that emerged as the best is the one that came from here and I think we ought to model after it. Look at the airport, the industry coming in, and Ashland Oil moving here. You can begin to look at the positives from this partnership. You have to take into consideration that state government has been important here. This facility we’re in, for instance; where did it come from? So you have this partnership and you have to give Frankfort some credit for the positive aspects. I think you have to give it some demerit, not this one particularly, but over time.

Look at Highway 23 in eastern Kentucky. We started long before I was Governor and long after, and I was able to complete one county for $40 million. So you’re putting all the money up there. Well, that’s a drag. You’ve got to be willing. And this tax reform has to be there. Daddy told me in politics they’ll tear the hide off you, but there’s one thing about it, when it grows back, you’re tougher. And so some are going to have to be willing to have the hide taken off in order to make the decisions.

All right. Let’s go to another question or comment.

Thank you. Representative Fred Nesler of Mayfield, Kentucky. The Governor’s getting some good advice from this good panel. I would ask the panel to be considerate about giving the Governor advice about crime, and crime is down in many areas and in many ways. But let’s not forget what the drug abuse is doing to our young people and to our communities. Also, of course, what has been mentioned today about domestic violence and child abuse growing, certainly not going down. One other comment, if I may; we all agree that education is the foundation and the stepping stone regarding nearly anything in the spectrum. Any suggestion that has been brought up today, basically the success or failure of that will be in regard to education. I’d be interested in knowing what you advise the Governor to do with regard to elementary education, early childhood development and children of that early age. Because of the global economy and the amount of money that people with higher education make, what would it do to our educational system if we compensated our teachers more in Kentucky for the good job that they are already doing? Thank you.

Well, I think that’s a good place to start. If we want to solve the crime problem, do something about getting people more involved in their communities, and teach them truly that education pays, we would abolish the lottery tomorrow. We would stop teaching our people that life is luck. That’s what the state is suddenly in the business of doing. By the year 2020, most lotteries are going to be gone because of corruption, one thing or another, but if we continue to try to find new ways to entice people to believe that life is luck, we’re never going to get anywhere. And they will continue then to say, “Well, if life’s luck, then why not just go out here and get stoned. If life is luck and fate, why not just take somebody’s gold chain off their neck or their tennis shoes out of their locker? If life is luck, then why bother to learn at grade school? Why work to become a teacher that might make a difference in people’s lives?” That’s not what life’s about and we need to be focused on helping people understand that life’s about our community.

Gordon Davies, what about the education questions and teacher pay?

Well, I agree with Fred Nesler. We’re not going to get where we want to get in Kentucky unless we increase the salaries of teachers and here I want to start talking about teachers from preschool all the way through graduate school. We tend to think that K-12 people are teachers and university people are faculty, so the faculty can say to the teachers, “We trained you so how dare you tell us what to do?” But, in fact, it’s a spectrum and I think it’s as true about elementary schools in Kentucky as it is about the University of Kentucky that every single one of them has to increase the faculty salaries. The University of Kentucky salaries for full professors are $18,000 lower than the University of Virginia’s. Now that’s a lot of money. That can tempt you to move over the mountains. And that’s true about elementary salaries, too. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve got to spend more money on education, but it does mean you have to spend the money you have on education very differently than you do.

I’m Katherine Bickel with the University of Kentucky Lexington Community College. We’ve spoken a lot today about bridging the digital divide and reaching the people who don’t have computers, who aren’t computer literate, and who often can’t read. There was a unique event this summer that Kris Kimel’s organization hosted called “The Idea Festival” that reached out to a lot of people. If Kris can talk about that today, maybe some of these kinds of events would reach out throughout Kentucky and this would be some way to address people that don’t normally know about this kind of innovation and things that we’re talking about.

I appreciate that comment. Basically we, along with a lot of other groups and companies, put together what’s called “The Idea Festival,” which was held in Lexington. Actually it was even international, to provide a forum for people to exchange ideas and innovation about different fields. We oftentimes just talk to each other and we don’t have an opportunity to explore important ideas which can lead to solutions to problems. From educators talking to scientists, entrepreneurs talking to people involved in human rights work, artists talking to other kinds of people, that was the basic gist behind it.

Jeanne Hibberd from Berea. You were talking about low teacher pay, but we have a lot of people who work full-time and still can’t afford to live. So I wanted to propose something to the panel and get your response. What if we agree to pay, if we really value education, a livable wage to anybody who graduated from high school or who got a GED? Would that lead us in the direction we’re trying to go?

Walter Baker, can you make a comment on that, please, sir?

Well, I’m not sure that the government can guarantee a wage to every citizen. I think there’s a role for government in providing incentives for people to be better educated. I discussed one time with Governor Patton the possibility that we give a stipend to those Kentuckians who are working on a GED. If they will continue working on the GED and try to get it, we give them an economic incentive to do that and I think that may be the direction we might go on things like that.

Anyone else on that particular issue? We’ll go back to the audience and another question or comment.

Very quickly. David Clark, Lexington, Kentucky. Regarding our preferred vision for the future, I’m sure that you all represent different parts of the state here. What are you hearing from the citizenry as far as what they want maybe in different regions of the state for the future? We’re talking about what we think should happen a lot. What are you hearing from our people of Kentucky? Are they wanting to get into the digital age? Are they wanting to immerse in the new technology? What are you all hearing?

Walter Baker, what are they talking about at the drugstore in Glasgow? Are they talking about the digital divide? Or from other parts of Henry County, Mr. Berry? Or from western Kentucky, Mr. Ford? In the cities, Sylvia Lovely?

Well, we’re talking about votes in Florida right now. (Laughter) I think there is a great thirst throughout this Commonwealth for education. In Glasgow we’re in the construction phase of the new postsecondary education center that will be there. We’ll have approximately 2,500 students starting out. And the same thing is duplicated around the Commonwealth and outside the golden triangle. This is going on and I think that is all for the good. One word of caution I would give Gerald Smith’s sister as she embarks upon her governorship. With all of the impetus that should go to education as a vehicle for creating better jobs for our Kentuckians, we ought not overlook the civilizing effect of education and that aspect of education that makes us better individuals and a better society. Sometimes I have a fear that we want to train people to make better widgets, but we’re not willing to train them to be better citizens.

Bill Goodman

We’re going to begin to ask for your closing comments. Mr. Berry, you’ve been awfully quiet and very attentive. I can almost hear everything working up there.

Well, I’ve learned a lot. I mean that sincerely and to some extent facetiously as well. I think, if I were giving advice to Governor Smith, I would echo some of the things that have been said about the people that have been left behind. People are stigmatized because they flunked the third grade or got in trouble when they were teenagers, because of their color or the part of the state they’re from, or because they happen to be farmers. It’s the Governor’s responsibility, as it is other leaders, to affect attitudes and what we think about people is in large part based on the examples we see.

I think that I would have to say to the Governor, “If you’re going to plan in any of these areas of policy for the future, Governor, for instance, with agriculture, you ought to say what your vision is for rural Kentucky and rural America 50 years from now. What would you like to see? And if you don’t have an opinion, have you maintained a dialogue with the people that’s sufficient to know what they think about it? And if they don’t have an opinion, you should prepare yourself to lead in that direction and you need to ask yourself questions like, ‘Who do you want to produce the food and fiber of this state and this nation? Do family farms and farm families have a role and are they worth saving? Are rural communities worth saving?’ Find out what the people think about that and at least that ought to be a part of the dialogue and the political debate. And if you think that there are policies either in this state or the nation that stand between you and the accomplishment of that vision, then take a leadership role to do something about it. Don’t just accept it and try to make the best of a bad situation, but take the responsibility to lead.”

I don’t want to dominate this segment, but I do want to say one other thing. There is a group of people that I think has been left behind. There are people out there who have jobs and who only want to make enough to adequately support their families. They don’t want it all. They don’t want to be millionaires or billionaires. They are good parents. They’re good marriage partners. They’re good citizens. They’re good neighbors. They support their communities. They’re mutually dependent and dependable. What role is there for them in this big race to see who can achieve the technological accomplishment first or to see who can be the biggest hog in the world? We need to make a place for these people that are satisfied with enough and not accommodate the wishes of those who want it all.

Mr. Chellgren, do we have the will? Do we have the capacity to do what needs to be done in this state?

There are probably better people on the panel to respond to that than I, those who are more involved in public sector life than private sector. I’m optimistic about Kentucky and I’ve been here essentially all my life in and out. I feel about as optimistic as I have for a number of reasons: the public will, the general recognition of the opportunities we have, and the needs we have. And also for the issues that have been raised by many of the panelists about those groups that have been left behind and a sense of responsibility, obligation, and opportunity for them. I think we’ve got a very exciting opportunity.

Let me turn to Mr. Klotter very quickly.

Very quickly, if we want to deal with the state, all we have to do is do what they said in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird: walk in somebody’s shoes, and you will understand them. If we understand the other people and their problems, then we can deal with them.

Kris Kimel, we’ve got a few seconds for you and not enough time for you to sum up. What are your final comments and what’s your report going to say?

I would be presumptuous to try to summarize what these great minds have thought of up here and talked about. If I had to summarize, it would be that we are certainly one state; all of these aspects have to be taken in their totality. I often say that, in today’s world, people can live and work anywhere, which is a great opportunity for places like Kentucky, but the biggest threat is that people can live and work anywhere and, if you don’t have your act together completely, they will choose somewhere else.

Sylvia Lovely?

Just very quickly. I think, in answer to an earlier question, there’s a buzz in the urban areas. There’s some desperation, I think, in our rural areas. There’s desperation among various kinds of people in all areas. I think the leadership issue for this Governor is going to be to lead those desperate agendas. And that will not be easy to continue on with good leadership.

I want to thank the panel for participating today. I want to thank the audience for their questions and comments and we want to thank you for watching. For KET, I’m Bill Goodman.