In response to the filing of the ballot initiative to transfer authority from the Louisville Revitalization Commission to the City Council, Chuck Sisk, the chair of the LRC and mayor, said the ballot initiative would scare away developers and investors. (Daily Camera, 8C, May 11).

No discussion of Mayor and LRC Chair Sisk's reaction to the initiative would be complete without a brief mention of his reaction to the last ballot initiative filed by Louisville citizens: Ballot Issue 200 in 2004. That initiative sought to amend the Louisville Home Rule Charter to include open-government provisions. For example, it prohibited public bodies from acting on items not listed on their agendas, and required that all public officials undergo minimal ethics and open-government training. Mayor Sisk opposed Ballot Issue 200, saying it would "hobble" elected officials and "suffocate" representative democracy in city government (Louisville Times, A5, Aug. 3, 2004). Ballot Issue 200 was approved by the People in a landslide at the November 2004 election. Yet, representative democracy in the City is thriving, and elected officials are working freely, unhobbled. After the election, Mayor Sisk and the Council opposition were roundly criticized for their use of scare tactics to try to defeat Ballot Issue 200.

Now, on to Mayor/Chairman Sisk's claim that the ballot initiative will "scare away" developers. This is another example of Mayor/Chairman Sisk's use of scare tactics for political purposes. How can we be sure? The answer is in the ballot initiative. If approved by the People, the initiative:

• transfers urban-renewal powers from the LRC to the Council and makes the Council the urban renewal authority ("URA");
• requires the URA to comply with the Louisville Home Rule Charter's ethics code;
  
• requires the URA's books to be audited annually;
• requires the URA to record its meetings;
• requires the URA to allow public participation at its meetings just as the Council does at its meetings;
• requires the Council to conduct fiscal-impact analyses before approval sales tax increment financing--i.e., diversion of sales tax dollars from the City;
• establishes the LRC as an advisory body.
  

That's it. See for yourself.

It's easy to try to scare voters by saying "boo." But it's improper when there are no facts to support the boo.

As noted, Mr. Sisk is not just the chair of the LRC. He's also the mayor. So, if as LRC chair he doesn't currently "scare away" developers and investors, it's unlikely he'll do so when the Council is the URA.

Mayor Sisk said the initiative would send "mixed messages" to developers, would "send out a message...that it's going to be problematic to do business in Louisville," and would "require lengthy financial analysis for even the smallest projects." One of the poorly kept secrets of scare-tactics operations is the scarer's tactic of misreading intentionally or exaggerating a proposal. The ol' Chicken Little sky-is-falling trick. That's what's happening here.

It's difficult to see how developers would get "mixed messages." The message is a simple one: We citizens want elected officials handling the millions of dollars of taxpayer money and spearheading any changes affecting our historic downtown. Which part of the initiative "sends out the message" that "it's going to be problematic to do business in Louisville?" The part that makes the Council—on which Mr. Sisk sits as mayor—the urban renewal authority? The part that requires the URA's books to be audited? Requiring recorded meetings? Public participation? The LRC as an advisory body? The same questions could be asked of Mayor Sisk's scare suggestion that the initiative's purpose is to "stymie economic development."

As Mayor Sisk knows, the impetus for the initiative is to return power and responsibility over urban renewal to elected officials like him. In the past, he's understood the importance of that. Here's what he said in 1999, when he opposed another ballot initiative, one seeking to create an open space advisory board (that board came into existence shortly afterward): "I don't see how Council can abrogate their responsibility and give their responsibility to a (non-elected) board. Council is the one vested with the responsibility of making decisions based on the best interests of the citizens who elect it. I don't see how we can abrogate that." ("Open land standards?", Louisville Times, Dec. 22, 1999). We heartily agree. That's why we want elected officials to accept leadership and responsibility with regard to urban renewal.

As far as the scare language of "lengthy financial analysis for even the smallest projects," there you go again, Mayor Sisk. As an initial matter, few could disagree that it makes sense for the City to do a fiscal analysis before it invests up to $35 million in sales tax revenues in the urban renewal district. Especially since that money otherwise would go into the operating fund, which pays for things like keeping our library open on Sundays.

The test for whether Mayor Sisk is at his scare-tactics worse again is the actual language of the proposed ordinance. It requires a fiscal-impact analysis and a cost-benefit analysis only if the Council is considering diversion of sales tax dollars to invest in the urban renewal area. See paragraph 1(f). The "smallest project" in an urban renewal area might be pretty small--adding a sidewalk, for example. That hardly calls for diversion of sales tax revenues. Since there would be no diversion, there also would be no need for either analysis.