Palmer named interim judge-executive

R.J. Palmer is Clark County’s new inter­im judge-executive.

The for­mer state leg­is­la­tor for Clark County was sworn in by retired Circuit Judge Jeff Walson dur­ing the March 26 Fiscal Court meet­ing after Gov. Andy Beshear appoint­ed him to suc­ceed Les Yates, who resigned as coun­ty judge-exec­u­tive on March 3.

Yates was tem­porar­i­ly suc­ceed­ed by Magistrate Stephen Craycraft, who was appoint­ed by the Fiscal Court. 

Craycraft ref­er­enced his suc­ces­sor in a Facebook post Thursday after the meet­ing and com­mend­ed the appoint­ment in an inter­view Friday morn­ing with WinCity Voices.

“We think he’s an excel­lent choice. We wel­come him,” Craycraft said. “We look for­ward to work­ing with him.”

Craycraft said that oth­er than a cur­rent mem­ber of the Fiscal Court, he couldn’t think of any­one more knowl­edge­able about Clark County gov­ern­ment than Palmer, who works for Compass Municipal Advisors, a firm based in Columbia, South Carolina, and Lexington, Kentucky that serves local gov­ern­ments across the south­east­ern United States, pro­vid­ing finan­cial advi­so­ry services.

“I will help him any way I can,” said Craycraft, who was meet­ing with Palmer Friday morning.

Magistrate Ernest Pasley also com­ment­ed on the appointment.

“I’ve known R.J. all my life,” he said. “He has a servant’s heart, and I look for­ward to work­ing with him for the good of the county.”

Palmer, who presided over his first meet­ing Thursday, said in an inter­view with WinCity Voices it was an hon­or to be appointed.

“When you get a call from the gov­er­nor, obvi­ous­ly, it car­ries some weight,” he said. “It’s a short stint, and we’re not going to change the world, but we want to kind of get every­body rolling in the right direction.”

Palmer, who is a Democrat and was appoint­ed by a Democratic gov­er­nor, said he told the mag­is­trates, who are all Republicans except for Robert Blanton, that he was not com­ing to the posi­tion as “a par­ti­san ... but as a part­ner” with them “to do what’s best for Clark County.”

“I think we face some chal­lenges here, but they’re not chal­lenges that we can’t over­come,” he said. 

And they’re not all of the coun­ty’s mak­ing. Costs have increased for coun­ties and cities because of infla­tion and gov­ern­ment man­dates, but those issues can be man­aged, he said.

“The biggest chal­lenge and oppor­tu­ni­ty right out of the gate is the bud­get,” he said.

He must have a pro­posed bud­get to the mag­is­trates by May.

Palmer said he will con­tin­ue his job with Compass, but on a lim­it­ed basis while he is judge-executive.

Palmer served in the Kentucky House of Representatives for District 73 from 1999 to 2001, and in the state Senate for the 28^th District from 2001 until 2015. During his last four years in the leg­is­la­ture, he was the Senate minor­i­ty leader.

He lost to Dr. Ralph Alvarado, a Republican, in the 2014 elec­tion by about 2,000 votes, four years after hav­ing defeat­ed Alvarado by about the same margin.

Palmer is a grad­u­ate of Transylvania University and has an MBA from Eastern Kentucky University.

He has lived in Clark County all his life. He and his wife, Tawana, have three daugh­ters, the youngest of whom is in college.

Palmer said he does­n’t know whether he will ever run for pub­lic office again.

Yates, a Republican, who became coun­ty judge-exec­u­tive in 2023 after being elect­ed the pre­vi­ous year, abrupt­ly resigned on March 3 because he was run­ning for state rep­re­sen­ta­tive and felt that he could not “in good con­science” col­lect a salary for serv­ing the coun­ty while spend­ing a sig­nif­i­cant amount of time run­ning for anoth­er office.

Under state law, the Fiscal Court must imme­di­ate­ly appoint one of its mem­bers to fill the posi­tion until the gov­er­nor can appoint some­one, which he has 30 days to do. The mag­is­trates appoint­ed Craycraft dur­ing an emer­gency meet­ing on March 5. Palmer’s appoint­ment was announced at the Fiscal Court meet­ing 23 days after Yates resigned.

This is the sec­ond time Beshear has appoint­ed an inter­im Clark County judge-exec­u­tive. When Judge Chris Pace died of COVID-relat­ed com­pli­ca­tions in 2021, Magistrate Daniel Konstantopoulos was briefly named by the Fiscal Court to suc­ceed him until Beshear appoint­ed for­mer Democratic County Judge-Executive Henry Branham to take his place. Branham served until after Yates was elect­ed in 2022.

Palmer will serve until the win­ner of the November elec­tion is sworn in.

The four can­di­dates in the May 19 Republican pri­ma­ry are Craycraft, Winchester City Commissioner Shannon Cox, busi­ness­man Justin Charles, and phar­ma­cist Eric Vetter. Businesswoman Vaché King is the only Democratic can­di­date and there­fore will not be on the bal­lot until the Nov. 3 gen­er­al election.