U of L Hospital Still in Trouble: Another effort to get U of L Hospital some love from the Governor has failed. Beshear announced today there will be no revised plan to get U of L a piece of the merger pie. That deal was consummated last week between Jewish Hospital and St. Mary’s Healthcare and Catholic Health Initiatives, a deal that will basically save Jewish. U of L simply botched the merger from the start by keeping details secret from the public and not playing nice enough with politicians, including Beshear, and failing to emphasize the positive ($$) aspects of the merger.
Aspire to be One of the Coolest: City leaders could learn something about the way we are perceived around here from this excellent piece at Broken Sidewalk — it’s an urban planner’s critique of downtown. Summary — those surface parking lots are hideous, we need to ditch the one-way streets and, optimistically, “it can become one of the cooler places in the Midest.” Wonder why we didn’t test that slogan instead of Possibility City?
Yarmuth Starts Campaign with Great Quotage: “The Republicans really do have a radical agenda and are willing to do reckless things in order to advance an ideological perspective. The tea party members on the Republican side are not going away. And you’re going to see a split in the Republican Party there, which might again highlight what I consider to be a very radical element in the Republican Party.” John Yarmuth quote announcing his re-election bid. He is going for a fourth tw0-year term.
King for Today: The Metro Council is holding a special meeting today, the result of which will be the unprecedented election of Jim King as Council President for the second straight year. His priorities, as told to WFPL: “Job creation and economic development as clearly people in our city continue to hurt in this economy and there’s more that needs to be done. Hopefully the bridges construction, they’re scheduled to being this year. We need to find a solution for Kentucky Kingdom. We’re going to work on vacant homes and abandoned home issues, and certainly working with the mayor on selecting a new police chief. So we do have our plate full,” he says.
Tasty Towniest: The campaign to get Louisville the top spot in this Southern Living contest has reached epic proportions on Facebook status updates. We’re currently about 4,000 votes behind Lafayette, La.
WAVE’s Changes In Effect: If you missed it, today WAVE moved its Noon News to 11 a.m., putting the WAVE3 Listens show with John Ramsey at Noon.
The Greatest Birthday: Turning 70 will get you noticed if you are a worldwide celebrity. Muhammad Ali, whose birthday is the 17th, will mark the occasion by appearing at a $1,000 a plate fundraiser downtown at the Ali Center, culminating a week full of events.
Sex News in the City: There’s a sexual harassment claim by a former County Clerk’s office employee, Mary Sue Turner, who says fellow employee John Clark “allegedly slapped her behind, repeatedly touched his groin, made gestures toward Turner and slept in her office.” (C-J)
