Open to Opportunity

In the past the city operated a training facility to provide jobs training to residents throughout the city. It eventually stopped due to constraints in the budget, and has been replaced with a grants program to partners in workforce development. As Mayor I intend to build off of these initial collaborations to help reestablish a robust and permanent training program similar in size and scope to what we used to operate. By collaborating with industry leaders and educational organizations like FCPS, UK, and BCTC the city can actively help foster this program while sharing the financial cost amongst like minded community partners. Additionally, I plan to offer graduates of these programs certifications to improve their ability to get jobs and work contracted by the city, as an added incentive from our participation in the program. Training and educating our workforce is vital to the health of our local economy, and I believe this is one area where we need to invest more resources into our future.

Based on recent surveys 58% of fortune 500 CEO’s plan to achieve net zero greenhouse emissions by 2050 or sooner, and one part of that is relocating their headquarters to new net zero campuses. With our interstate access, and central location, Lexington is positioned well to recruit these and other like-minded companies to settle in our city. Under my administration we will actively pursue new corporate headquarters that will merge seamlessly with the neighborhoods and greenspaces we value as a community. Our future depends on the development of more job opportunities for our youth, and if we do not take an active and targeted role in recruitment, we will continue to see a lack of new and vibrant companies making their home in Lexington.

Both the interstate and our universities are established resources for our community that are currently underutilized in the growth of our local economy. To retain more of our graduates we need to reduce the cost of housing and provide more high paying jobs. To that end, we need zoning and infrastructure projects that will allow us to cultivate our presence along the interstate, attracting the new companies and jobs that our city deserves. By leveraging the regional access that the interstate provides, we can easily improve the diversity and pay of jobs for workers at all levels, simultaneously improving our graduate retention. This policy will take years to develop, but is a concrete example of how I plan to leverage multiple city resources to further the economic development of our future.