County candidates clash over growth and data centers

Candidates vying for seats on the Clark County Fiscal Court dis­agreed about how to pro­tect their com­mu­ni­ty from the adverse effects of data cen­ters and sub­ur­ban sprawl dur­ing the first of two can­di­date forums. 

The Values at the Venue debates at Whiskey & Wiles fea­tured can­di­dates for coun­ty gov­ern­ment and school board on Tuesday night and city gov­ern­ment on Wednesday. 

Questions were writ­ten by mem­bers of the pub­lic on a Facebook link to the busi­ness venue’s website. 

Only two vacan­cies on the Fiscal Court remain to be filled by vot­ers in the gen­er­al elec­tion on Nov. 3: those for District 1 mag­is­trate and coun­ty judge-exec­u­tive, who pre­sides over the court and is a vot­ing member. 

Who will fill the oth­er five seats was decid­ed in the pri­ma­ry elec­tion in May. 

In the con­test for coun­ty judge-exec­u­tive, Democrat Vaché King, a pro­gram man­ag­er for an infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny, faced off against Republican Justin Charles, a mas­ter electrician. 

On the ques­tion of data cen­ters for arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, King point­ed out that “it’s what I’ve done for the past 25 years,” and she cau­tioned the audi­ence about wish­ful thinking. 

“Data cen­ters bring jobs in the very begin­ning,” but those jobs are not sus­tain­able over time. “I just want to make sure that’s under­stood,” she said. 

She said it’s impor­tant that res­i­dents be informed about “what is being brought into their home,” as well as what it means for the economy. 

But the eco­nom­ic impact was what mat­tered to Charles. 

Data cen­ters may not require many work­ers, but they gen­er­ate tax rev­enue, and Clark County needs more rev­enue to pay its expenses. 

That’s why he’s against a one-year mora­to­ri­um on the sit­ing and devel­op­ment of any data centers. 

“I believe a mora­to­ri­um would cost us,” Charles said. “At this point, folks, I think we need to be open to any kind of busi­ness in the county.” 

But King would favor a moratorium. 

“Absolutely,” she said. “We should wait until we under­stand com­plete­ly” what data cen­ters would mean for the community. 

She said the coun­ty gov­ern­ment should use that time to have a series of pub­lic forums on the issue and “cre­ate space for peo­ple to ask hard questions.” 

Some of the con­cerns raised about data cen­ters is that they are often extreme­ly large and noisy, and they use huge amounts of water and elec­tric­i­ty. In some places, pro­vid­ing those resources has caused people’s util­i­ty rates to rise. 

“I don’t think we know enough about data cen­ters to make an edu­cat­ed deci­sion,” said Jeannie Gwynne, the Democratic can­di­date for District 1 mag­is­trate. “I would enter­tain the idea of a mora­to­ri­um if that gives us the time to do the research that I think we should do.” 

Her Republican oppo­nent, Scott Hisle, disagreed. 

“I do not sup­port a blan­ket one-year mora­to­ri­um on data cen­ters,” he said. “What I do sup­port is a process for review­ing indi­vid­ual pro­pos­als with pub­lic input and clear stan­dards for util­i­ties, capac­i­ty, noise, loca­tion, and infra­struc­ture costs.” 

All four can­di­dates agreed that pub­lic opin­ion should play an impor­tant part in any decision. 

“That’s our job: Bring infor­ma­tion to the peo­ple, take their feed­back, and make the best deci­sion we can for the coun­ty,” Charles said. 

The four also agreed that Clark County needs more busi­ness and res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment to grow its econ­o­my, but they dif­fered on the details. 

When asked about bring­ing in new busi­ness­es and pro­vid­ing more afford­able hous­ing in a way that pro­tects prime farm­land and lim­its cost­ly sub­ur­ban sprawl, Charles made it clear he’s for con­struc­tion in rur­al areas. 

Clark County has a hous­ing short­age and needs to build more homes. If the coun­ty is going to bring in more busi­ness­es, he said, “we need places for the new work­ers to live.” 

“I don’t know how you can stop sprawl,” he said. “If you want to have growth, there is going to be some kind of sprawl.” 

“I don’t dis­agree with any­thing Justin has said,” King responded. 

However, she said, she would sup­port “the plan that is already in place,” an appar­ent ref­er­ence to the city and coun­ty com­pre­hen­sive plan. 

Charles and King agreed that Veterans Memorial Parkway (the east­ern bypass) is one place growth should occur, but it isn’t ready yet and needs infra­struc­ture to be in place before con­struc­tion can occur. 

Asked whether Clark County should have a pur­chase of devel­op­ment rights (PDR) pro­gram like Fayette County’s to try to save farm­land, Charles was against it, say­ing it doesn’t “make a whole lot of sense.” People keep their land, but the coun­ty gov­ern­ment keeps the devel­op­ment rights, he said. 

PDR is a vol­un­tary ini­tia­tive that allows a local gov­ern­ment or land trust to buy an owner’s devel­op­ment rights for a per­ma­nent con­ser­va­tion easement. 

“I’m for prop­er­ty own­ers’ rights. I do not believe that the gov­ern­ment should be able to tell peo­ple what they can do with the land,” he said. 

“I’m not sure how that would work in Clark County,” King said, but added that there might be oth­er ways. 

Asked about whether they pre­ferred urban infill or rur­al devel­op­ment, King asked: “Why can’t we do both?” 

She said there are many vacant build­ings that can be repur­posed for small busi­ness­es, but she would also like to see “more activ­i­ty out in the rur­al areas.” 

Charles agreed, and said he would like to see emp­ty spaces devel­oped first. But, he said, he would “like to see rur­al Clark County devel­op a lit­tle,” and that it would be best in the long run. 

Hisle said Clark County needs growth to strength­en its tax base and pro­vide good jobs. 

“From my per­spec­tive, we should encour­age invest­ment in exist­ing indus­tri­al areas where roads, water, and sew­er can sup­port it,” he said. “This approach will pro­tect prime farm­land and keep tax­pay­ers from bear­ing unnec­es­sary costs.” 

He said some coun­ties have grown too rapid­ly, oth­ers too slowly. 

“We want to be some­where in the mid­dle,” he said. 

Gwynne said the Fiscal Court should work with the indus­tri­al devel­op­ment author­i­ty, the cham­ber of com­merce and tourism on the issue of eco­nom­ic development. 

“We need to grow, but in a smart way, and we can pre­serve our farm­land and our rur­al char­ac­ter that makes us so spe­cial. I believe we have the abil­i­ty to do that,” she said. 

All the can­di­dates said they sup­port­ed the Fiscal Court doing what it can to pro­vide more resources for the coun­ty coroner’s service. 

Charles said that until the coun­ty gov­ern­ment gets back on sol­id fis­cal ground, how­ev­er, it can only do so much. 

The oth­er can­di­dates agreed that, in Gwynne’s words, “get­ting our finan­cial house in order” should be the county’s priority. 

“Right now, I believe Clark County is in a finan­cial cri­sis,” said Gwynne, who is a dis­patch­er. “In my line of work, when peo­ple are in cri­sis, they call 9−1−1. After decades of answer­ing those calls, I can tell you this: When you’re in a cri­sis, you need some­one who knows how to respond, who knows how to assess the sit­u­a­tion, and knows how to find solutions.” 

Hisle, chief finan­cial offi­cer for the Freeman Corporation and a for­mer school board mem­ber, empha­sized his decades of finan­cial experience. 

“I’ve spent my entire career man­ag­ing mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar bud­gets, mak­ing dif­fi­cult finan­cial deci­sions, solv­ing prob­lems and find­ing ways to make the best use of lim­it­ed finan­cial resources,” he said. 

County PVA 

Candidates for oth­er coun­ty gov­ern­ment offices and the Clark County Board of Education also had their time at the micro­phone Tuesday night, but there was no debate in those races because only one can­di­date in each race attended. 

In the con­test for coun­ty prop­er­ty val­u­a­tion admin­is­tra­tor, the incum­bent, Republican Jada Brady, had the floor to her­self. However, her Democratic oppo­nent, Jason Neely, who was absent because of the death of his father, had the mod­er­a­tor read a statement. 

Neely was Clark County’s PVA from 2018 to 2022, when he lost to Brady by eight votes. Before that, he worked as a deputy PVA in Fayette County, Kentucky’s sec­ond largest com­mu­ni­ty, for nine years and even­tu­al­ly became chief deputy prop­er­ty val­u­a­tion admin­is­tra­tor there. 

He empha­sized his experience. 

Neely said the Kentucky Department of Revenue has over­sight of the PVA offices, but he didn’t work for the depart­ment; he worked for all the peo­ple of the county. 

Brady said that in the four years she’s been in office, she and her staff have expand­ed what the office does, but “there’s still more work to be done,” she said. 

One thing she wants to do is add a chat­bot fea­ture to the web­site so peo­ple can get auto­mat­ed answers to their ques­tions in real time and not have to wait to come into the office. But she and the staff wel­come peo­ple to come in or call and talk, she added. 

One ques­tion sub­mit­ted online asked why farm­land val­ues were raised in 2022 for the first time in 20 years.

Brady said that was the year the Department of Revenue raised their agri­cul­tur­al land values. 

“We reached out to farm­ers. We sat down with them. We looked at their prop­er­ty. We made adjust­ments,” she said. 

In recent years, prop­er­ty val­ues have increased sub­stan­tial­ly. PVAs are required by law to assess prop­er­ty at 100 per­cent of fair mar­ket val­ue. They have noth­ing to do with set­ting tax rates. 

Brady said she added a fea­ture on her web­site to allow peo­ple to look at their neigh­bors’ prop­er­ty and com­pare those assess­ments with their own. 

If they dis­agree, own­ers can appeal the deci­sion to a board, and then to the courts. 

County jailer 

Republican can­di­date for jail­er Chris Grant had con­firmed, but did not attend, leav­ing Jailer Frank Doyle, a Democrat, to answer ques­tions alone. 

Doyle com­pared him­self to the chief exec­u­tive offi­cer of a mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar busi­ness and said that since 2015, he has raised more than $24 mil­lion by hous­ing state and fed­er­al inmates at the coun­ty lockup. 

During his time in office, he said, he has made improve­ments to the Clark County Detention Center, paid off the build­ing, installed a new HVAC unit, a new roof and kitchen, and saved tax­pay­ers $1.5 mil­lion per year through an inmate work pro­gram. He not­ed that the inmates do all the main­te­nance on all coun­ty gov­ern­ment property. 

He hous­es about 260 inmates each day. 

One of the ques­tions he was asked was whether he sup­ports a mod­el pro­gram for treat­ment of inmates with sub­stance abuse disorder. 

“Not only do I sup­port it, I have imple­ment­ed the MRT pro­gram,” he said, refer­ring to moral recona­tion ther­a­py, a kind of behav­ioral ther­a­py intend­ed to break the cycle of addiction. 

He also has a med­ica­tion-assis­tance ther­a­py pro­gram, and is work­ing with a local group that helps women and chil­dren who are vic­tims of domes­tic violence. 

Doyle said that about 95 per­cent of the jail’s inmates have drug or alco­hol problems. 

School board 

Valerie Frost, a write-in can­di­date for the school board’s District 4 seat, was the only school board can­di­date who attend­ed the forum. She is one of two write-ins. The oth­er is Katie Brashear Jones, who couldn’t attend because of oth­er oblig­a­tions, but had a state­ment read. 

“Our chil­dren deserve a school board mem­ber who pri­or­i­tizes stu­dents and fam­i­lies, sup­ports teach­ers, and puts the best inter­ests of our schools first,” Jones said. 

As a young moth­er of six chil­dren and some­one who isn’t a politi­cian, she said, she would bring a “fresh perspective.” 

The incum­bent is Ben Dorsey, who has been charged with com­plic­i­ty to theft of mon­ey from the Winchester Youth Soccer League. Dorsey, who says he is “vig­or­ous­ly defend­ing” him­self against the accu­sa­tion, remains a candidate. 

Frost, a for­mer Head Start and kinder­garten teacher, is now a child wel­fare advocate. 

Most of the ques­tions asked by mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty had to do with tax­es and spending. 

One asked whether the board should con­sid­er an occu­pa­tion­al tax rather than rely­ing heav­i­ly on prop­er­ty tax. 

“Legislation was passed this year that would pre­vent that, start­ing next year,” Frost answered. 

HB 757 was enact­ed in the 2026 ses­sion of the General Assembly and restricts school dis­tricts from estab­lish­ing new occu­pa­tion­al tax­es begin­ning Jan. 1, 2027.

In response to anoth­er ques­tion, Frost said school board mem­bers have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to care­ful­ly stew­ard tax rev­enue in a way that ben­e­fits stu­dents and families. 

“That’s not my mon­ey,” she said. 

Frost said she couldn’t say whether she would low­er tax­es because that would be a ques­tion for the whole board and would involve lis­ten­ing to fam­i­lies, look­ing at what prop­er­ty assess­ments are, and see­ing what the needs are. 

The school tax rate of about 65 cents per $100 of assessed val­ue is the largest tax on people’s tax bills, but the rate is typ­i­cal­ly low­ered to a “com­pen­sat­ing rate,” which gen­er­ates the same amount of rev­enue as the year before, or a rate that brings in less than a 4 per­cent increase in rev­enue over the pre­vi­ous year.