I want to take a moment to applaud the efforts of the Maysville Chamber, WFTM and Ledger Independent in pulling together Wednesday night’s primary presentation. As a community, we should all appreciate the public service they perform in working to better inform citizens across Mason County regarding the issues and events affecting citizen’s lives and our community.
Additionally, I’ll say I appreciate all those who have mustered the courage and energies to run for local office. While few jobs are as difficult, no leadership position is more impactful for our citizens, friends and neighbors than that of a local elected official. Those that volunteer and run for these local leadership roles should be appreciated and applauded.
In Saturday’s Ledger Candidate Questionnaire and at Wednesday night’s Candidate Forum, I heard several main themes. Those themes could be summarized in (1)finding additional high paying jobs and employment opportunities for all while also retaining our youth and graduates, (2)repairing an aging water and wastewater system and eliminating water line breaks and finally, (3)lowering taxes by finding additional revenues for the city and county. While all candidates addressed or identified these themes as deficiencies, I heard very few ‘actionable plans’, strategies or solutions. Mayor Dwayne Sharp did discuss second chance employment as a workforce issue AND has put forth his ‘actionable plan’ or strategy of CORE, an inmate work plan, that I support.
Citizens of Mason County, for almost a decade now, between Economic Development and now as your Judge Executive, I’ve consistently proven I implement actionable plans, strategies and solutions. From PPI, Enviroflight, Pepsi, Good360 and more to ensuring the retention and growth of Mitsubishi/Melco’s employment base with a successful $50M DOE grant that transitions Maysville to the largest domestic manufacturer of heat pump parts in the US. From returning healthcare to Downtown Maysville in the form of Primary Plus’s Family Physician Residency Program to finally getting movement on Hayswood Hospital with our EPA Brownfield Grant that ultimately, will add much needed housing to our area. In short, I’m confident in the long list of community improving projects and ‘actionable plans’ I’ve implemented over my tenure and I believe the citizens of Maysville and Mason County deserve to hear other candidate’s defined strategies and not just identified deficiencies.
Some 18 months ago, I laid out a plan to recruit and land a “Transformational and Generational” global top ten corporate partner for our community in posts, public statements and our Ledger Independent, that addresses all of the deficiencies our candidates described. At that time, I described a Fortune 10 technology partner that would ‘provide at least 400 full time, permanent, high paying, career and family sustaining jobs for our community and 1000s of long term construction jobs at peak. We discussed the Kentucky Public Service Commission approved Data Center Tariff put forth by EKPC that guarantees the project not only pays 100% of their generation, transmission and distribution upgrades, but significantly bolsters our ‘regional grid’, ensuring residential and other cooperative owner members bills are not increased. In posts regarding our aging water and wastewater system, I described in detail how I would leverage these partners to finally address an aging system and line breaks while also obtaining a new water treatment plant. Finally, 18 months ago, I described a new corporate partner that would pay more in local tax revenue than a multiple of our combined commercial taxpayers today. Given the defined amounts it takes to run the city and county budgets, this new revenue will lessen the tax burden on all citizens while also opening endless possibilities for the amenities our citizens have dreamed about and deserve like newly paved roads, water lines that don’t break, regional animal shelters, incredible parks and beautiful walking trails.
While I agree with the identified themes or complaints our local candidates all described, I did not hear any ‘actionable plans’ that addressed them. Look, leadership is tough at all levels however, identifying deficiencies without defining and acting on strategies that address them is only complaining. Some 18 months ago, I described a “Transformational and Generational Project” that addresses each of these ‘complaints’ and many more and, while we are not across the finish line as of yet, I believe my track record of successfully landing projects speaks for itself. This project addresses and/or fixes each of these issues and more. Ultimately, you have to wonder, are some of our prospective local leaders saying ‘I’m not against data centers, just Judge McNeill’s data center’? My friends, we have the best community in ‘the universe’ with an incredible quality of life and some of the best citizens in our friends and neighbors. I think we can all agree that complaining is easy while leadership is tough, and finding actionable solutions, even tougher. The incredible citizens of Maysville and Mason County deserve solutions in the form of actionable plans, not complaints.
Owen McNeill
Mason County Judge Executive
Maysville, KY
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