Reed’s passion fuels second mayoral bid

At a time when most can­di­dates don’t want to be thought of as career politi­cians, JoEllen Reed is unapolo­getic about hav­ing giv­en her life to serv­ing others.

It began when she was only eight years old. Her father, Joe Reed, head­ed the American Heart Association fund dri­ve in Winchester, and she would join her par­ents in ask­ing for dona­tions as a volunteer.

For 20 years, Reed was a teacher in Clark County’s pub­lic schools. She quit teach­ing to work for the Department of Education under Gov. Martha Layne Collins, a for­mer school­teacher her­self and Reed’s men­tor, and then for Gov. Wallace Wilkinson, whose admin­is­tra­tion led the effort for edu­ca­tion reform that would be a mod­el for the nation.

She also ran unsuc­cess­ful­ly for state rep­re­sen­ta­tive in 2012.

Since her time in Frankfort, Reed has served in local gov­ern­ment, as a coun­ty com­mis­sion­er, city com­mis­sion­er, vice may­or, and may­or, and is now seek­ing a sec­ond term as may­or of her hometown.

“My pas­sion for this city is so strong,” she said. “This com­mu­ni­ty has been so good to me my whole life. They’ve sup­port­ed me in every­thing I’ve done.”

And she hopes vot­ers will sup­port her again so that she can help lead Winchester dur­ing what she sees as a promis­ing time for growth and improvement.

“Winchester, I think, is mak­ing steady, pos­i­tive growth the last three and a half years, but there’s more to be done,” she said.

That includes com­ple­tion of the east­ern bypass, replace­ment of the bridge on Martin Luther King Boulevard so that it can sup­port the weight of fire trucks and cut response times to the schools there, address­ing the issue of hous­ing afford­abil­i­ty by build­ing more homes on Lincoln Street, con­tin­u­ing the Depot Street project — which will include restrooms and an amphithe­ater — and com­plet­ing the down­town ren­o­va­tion, which will include new side­walks on Main Street from Washington Street to Boone Avenue.

Perry Williams, a down­town prop­er­ty own­er and Reed’s oppo­nent in the gen­er­al elec­tion, has made the city’s han­dling of the revi­tal­iza­tion project from Broadway to Lexington Avenue a main empha­sis of his campaign.

Reed admits there were unfore­seen problems.

City offi­cials nev­er expect­ed, for exam­ple, that his build­ings and oth­ers “would be hit by a water tsuna­mi,” she said.

The city gov­ern­ment gave grants to busi­ness­es adverse­ly affect­ed by the con­struc­tion, but Williams thought it should have been done earlier.

“That’s his opin­ion, and he’s wel­come to it,” Reed said.

“Once you put things out for bid and you hire a con­trac­tor, they’re basi­cal­ly in charge,” she point­ed out.

Williams has said he didn’t run against Reed four years ago because she led him to believe she would serve only one term.

“I’m not going to say that I didn’t say that, because I may have. I prob­a­bly did. At the time, I prob­a­bly thought that four years is long enough,” Reed said. “But I feel like right now, we’re in the mid­dle of some major projects and things I can’t even dis­cuss at this point,” and she wants to see those through.

Reed and Williams say they con­sid­er each oth­er friends.

“But I’m going to work hard to remain the may­or,” Reed said.

Reed, 73, grad­u­at­ed from George Rogers Clark High School and earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees and her Rank 1 in ele­men­tary edu­ca­tion from Eastern Kentucky University.

She has nev­er mar­ried and has no chil­dren, but her cousin, Erika Palmer O’Brien, is like a daugh­ter to her, and she is close to Erika’s fam­i­ly, includ­ing Sean and their chil­dren, Hagan and Ella, as well as her dog, Beau.

“It’s not that I haven’t been asked, sev­er­al times,” she said about being sin­gle, “but I’ve ded­i­cat­ed my life to doing what I do.”

“I eat, sleep, and breathe gov­ern­ment,” she said.

Reed cur­rent­ly serves on the Bluegrass Area Development District’s board and exec­u­tive com­mit­tee and the Kentucky League of Cities’ exec­u­tive board.

City elec­tions are offi­cial­ly non­par­ti­san, but Reed is a Democrat run­ning against a Republican.

“That does not mat­ter one bit to me,” she said. “I’m nonpartisan.”

Asked about her pri­or­i­ties as may­or in a sec­ond term, Reed men­tioned bud­get sta­bi­liza­tion, replac­ing aging infra­struc­ture, and con­tin­u­ing to pro­vide ser­vices such as police and fire pro­tec­tion and emer­gency med­ical ser­vices as effec­tive­ly as possible.

“I want to see merged ser­vices,” espe­cial­ly fire­fight­ing, she said.

Reed said the city’s bud­get is cur­rent­ly about $27 mil­lion, and grant coör­di­na­tor Alyshia Martin is “doing a tremen­dous job” in get­ting fund­ing for projects. But Winchester can’t depend entire­ly on grant mon­ey. She said she would like to see more pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships involv­ing “angel investors.”

“I strong­ly believe there are peo­ple in this com­mu­ni­ty who just want to be asked to help,” she said.

Reed said she wants the city com­mis­sion to avoid rais­ing tax­es “if at all pos­si­ble,” and she “will work hard to see that doesn’t happen.”

Economic devel­op­ment is one way to grow rev­enue, and she sup­ports growth “as long as it’s pos­i­tive” and con­tributes to “qual­i­ty of life,” she said.

“We have expe­ri­enced slow to no growth for way too long,” she said.

But that is about to change. A major res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment is under­way on Boonesboro Road, there are plans to widen U.S. 60 (Lexington Rd.) and improve san­i­tary sew­er access in that area. Spillover is expect­ed from Fayette County, which is run­ning out of room to grow with­out destroy­ing the icon­ic horse farms that are part of its eco­nom­ic appeal.

Promoting afford­able hous­ing is a con­cern of Reed’s, as well as attract­ing busi­ness­es that will pro­vide good jobs.

“After all these years of expe­ri­ence, I’m still learn­ing every day,” Reed said regard­ing her qual­i­fi­ca­tions. “Experience counts, but expe­ri­ence is not every­thing. You have to be open to peo­ple, and you have to be transparent.”

She said a may­or has to be will­ing to be avail­able in per­son and by phone, and always return mes­sages. And be honest.

“I may not always tell you exact­ly what you want, but I’m going to tell you the truth,” she said.

In a city man­ag­er form of gov­ern­ment like Winchester’s, the unelect­ed man­ag­er is the head of pub­lic admin­is­tra­tion, and the mayor’s office is con­sid­ered a part-time posi­tion. The may­or pre­sides over the city com­mis­sion and is a vot­ing mem­ber, and also han­dles cer­e­mo­ni­al func­tions and rep­re­sents the city as a kind of ambassador.

“I could show you my cal­en­dar, but I aver­age 15 or 16 meet­ings every week,” Reed said when asked if the may­or was a “fig­ure­head.”

“Really, this posi­tion is what you make of it,” she said, and for her, it’s “twen­ty-four sev­en,” mean­ing all the time.

She sel­dom has a whole week­end off from work, she said, and she may be on the phone talk­ing with a busi­ness prospect late at night or with the police in the event of an inci­dent such as a recent bomb scare.

“It’s a huge invest­ment of time, and you have to be com­mit­ted, and you have to be pas­sion­ate about it,” she said.

She calls being may­or “a full-time job with a part-time salary,” which amounts to about $14,200 a year. But she doesn’t do it for the pay.

“I do it because I love this com­mu­ni­ty,” she said. “When I’ve served my time, I hope I leave things just a lit­tle bit bet­ter than when I found them.”