Bevin tells a heated crowd: Louisville's programs have done nothing to lift the poor

Gov. Matt Bevin told a crowd of business people and residents in west Louisville that school busing, government assistance for low-income families and other solutions aimed at helping people are not working to lift the community.

In fact, in the 20 years since he arrived in Louisville, the governor said, the city has failed to reverse a lack of opportunity for residents living in its poorest neighborhoods. "I don't see us making forward progress. I see it going sideways or backward," Bevin said Wednesday afternoon at Caudill Seed in Louisville's Portland neighborhood.

It was billed as a roundtable discussion on how to boost investment and economic opportunity west of Ninth Street. But at times the discussion grew heated between members of the audience and two men with the National Diversity Coalition for Trump.

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Company owners Pat and Dan Caudill originally planned to invite local business people, but Bevin heard about the gathering and offered to come. He brought several of his cabinet secretaries and also convinced Trump advisers the Rev. Darrell Scott and Kareem Lanier to attend the meeting and to consider using the city as a pilot for the coalition's 13-point urban revitalization plan.

That includes adding transitional housing, urgent care and wellness centers, hubs for spurring innovation and providing better access to capital for new investment. Scott and Lanier said that the tax bill passed by Congress provides incentives to fuel investment in distressed areas of cities that will be designated as "opportunity zones."

Some audience members grumbled that the Trump advisers seemed patronizing, giving the impression they had the blueprint to save west Louisville from itself. Russell neighborhood resident Chanelle Helm told Scott that Louisville's history of redlining — a discriminatory practice used by banks and other businesses to deny service in some lower-income communities — had played a role in the community's development.

Scott responded that there was no redlining, which drew gasps from the crowd. Scott and Lanier both argued with Helm before Bevin took the stage and restored calm. His remarks touched on his own humble upbringing and the ways he thinks youngsters raised in many of the area's single-parent homes are falling through the cracks.

School busing with long bus rides for kids taken across the city is one example of how families are ill-served. "We take our kids out of neighborhoods ... they're little educational nomads," the governor said, adding that "they don't have any community."

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Metro Council President David James said as the crowd dispersed that the Trump representatives "were condescending ... infuriating and very disappointing. I hope that something positive" can come from the discussions.

Champion boxer Evander Holyfield also attended. He did not speak to the audience. State officials said he was in town to plan an event and had taken an interest in the empowerment effort.

Tricia Burke, a businesswoman and civic leader, urged Bevin and the Trump team to explore the many studies and recommendations focused on the neighborhoods west of Ninth Street.

Bevin said the next step is to get a team of local business representatives and community leaders to volunteer to work with the coalition. Together they can draw on the local research and assemble a game plan.

Cathy Shannon, the co-owner of E & S Gallery, an art gallery on 10th Street, said she's encouraged that local business owners are willing to step up. "It's not an easy conversation to have," Shannon said. "We all have to figure out a way to fix what's been brewing here for decades."

Grace Schneider: 502-582-4082; gschneider@courierjournal.com; Twitter: @gesinfk. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: www.courier-journal.com/graces

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