Commission reviewing Louisville merger nears deadline to submit recommendation

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A panel reviewing Louisville Metro government is debating issues that could affect everything from services, to taxes, and your ballot.

This review was ordered part of a state law passed last year. That law also address mayoral term limits and the creation of small cities.

The Louisville Metro Comprehensive Review Commission has been meeting off and on for months, holding public meetings throughout the summer, and now has just one week to submit recommendations. That final report will be considered by the state legislature, dominated by Republicans.

While some meetings across the city were highly attended, the final ones inside the chambers of Metro Council have been held in front of mostly empty chairs.

One of the final recommendations they discussed on Friday involves the election of fire district boards located outside of the Urban Services District. Panel members say they are often held when few know they're happening.

Commission Co-chair Jason Nemes, a Republican state representative, said their recommendation is to move those elections to November.

"Their revenues have grown, their responsibilities have grown, but the election is in the summer when very few people know about it," Nemes said.

The board is also urging for a constitutional amendment that could pave the way for local governments to decide on their own sales taxes.

"To allow more diversity of taxes. Not to raise taxes, but to diversify taxes, which will enable us to get more money, especially from tourism," Nemes said.

There's also the move to make mayoral and Metro Council elections nonpartisan.

"It might be good. It might be bad. Who knows," Jeff Cavalcante, a Louisville resident, said.

Cavalcante is a city government watchdog who is interested to see how the legislature takes the panel's recommendation on setting geographic, political, and other diversity requirements for boards and commissions across the state.

"But you do also have to weigh in a person's qualifications to be on the board in terms of what the board is doing," Cavalcante said.

He also raised the concern that some Louisville Democrats, including State Sen. Gerald Neal, have voiced: how Republican-led supermajorities will take the recommendations, and the motive of the commission.

"Are they a partisan power-grab? Or are they really for improving the city-county merger process," Cavalcante said.

The co-chairs, Nemes and attorney Earl Jones, dismiss those concerns, pointing to the makeup of the bipartisan board.

"Those tensions are always gonna be there. We're trying to make sure all those views were represented on this commission," Nemes said. "We don't work well divided. My district (outside the Watterson) is going to be stronger when downtown is stronger. Downtown Louisville is gonna be stronger when my district is stronger."

Jones is optimistic the legislature will consider the priorities agreed on by the bipartisan panel.

"We hope that in that spirit, that they will look at them, and adopt the ones that we are suggesting," Jones said.