Fwd: Newberry's interview with LaVoz!! Newberry is for the amnesty resolution passed by Isaac.
Mark Lowry
There is no attempt to reach out to our Irish, Italian, Polish, Russian, English and numerous other diverse groups or establish programs to recognize their accomplishments. We need similar festivals for all of them and our strong representation from the Jewish Community. Lexington lacks adequate Kosher Delicatessens. Our growing Muslim populations will also need special recognition for their holy days and historical events like the wars they have fought for freedom. Please advise how Lexington will in the future eliminate its exclusionary and discriminatory policy towards the other minority groups in the city.
Lexington needs to be very careful to not discriminate against one group by providing preferential treatment to another. You may want to consider an equal application of city funds to each group based on citizen population before you create a legal mess that will tie Lexington up in legal battles for years to come. Your duty is to citizens of the community not residents. Residents are those who remain in the city overnight from Richmond. Are you going to have a Richmond Festival? If you are going to acknowledge the independence days of foreign nations with government funds, We need to start with Ireland, Germany, Poland, Russia, Israel, Italy and work your way down to the few Mexican citizens we have in the community.
It is illegal for the city to spend taxpayer money on those events not beneficial to citizens and harmful to citizens of this community. We do not want our money spent to aid the grand conspiracy of illegal immigration into the community.
RICCO laws are being violated on multiple levels by the conspiracy between local government and those employers who hire them. Any government assistance to the illegal alien community is defined by federal legislation as aiding and abetting illegal immigration law violation and is a federal felony. how does the LFUCG plan to avoid civil litigation for these criminal conspiracy involvements and how does the city plan to assure all citizens that it in now way will aid and abet illegal alien immigration with government funds in violation of federal law that requires equal rights for all?
We are patiently waiting for a response. The nation is watching this experiment in democracy and also watching. We the legal citizens of this community have repeatedly petitioned this government for redress of these issues to no avail.
Previous mayoral hispanic organizations were in direct violation of the federal immigration law and the state law. They were set up for the benefit of citizens of a foreign government. If you as mayor are saying you will not enter the national debate on immigration, your neutrality must be demonstrated by dismantling all existing programs designed to aid and abett illegal alien invasion of our community.
We insist at least that the city provide a resolution rescinding the previous resolution requesting amnesty for illegal aliens. If we knew you were for amnesty before, support for your candidacy may have been considerably different. Amnesty is not the law and does not represent the interests of the citizens of this community. All local polls show at least 70% of the citizens opposed to amnesty and illegal aliens in the community. If you are going to be a mayor of the people who elected you, it is time to start and make a commitment to the citizens of this community who have been forgotten for so long.
We await your answer with bated breath.
The interviews with La Voz and your remarks are very disappointing. Lexington will never get out the the financial and growth difficulties it has unless you quit using local money to fund illegal alien invasion. This is a sad day for our community when our government endorses violation of federal law to appease the interests of foreign citizens. This is not Mexico and we don't want to pay taxes to Mexico. That violates our constitutional rights on so many different levels.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Meier, Cindy <cme...@email.uky.edu>
Date: Feb 9, 2007 6:05 PM
Subject: Newberry's interview with LaVoz!!
To:
This is quite interesting. Found it on the LaVoz website. Check it out. Newberry knows how to walk a fine line.
Go to this link and you can listen to the interview: http://www.lavozky.com/story.php?id=208&lang=eng
Heads up folks – they're definitely persistent getting their foot in the door.
Transcript of interview with
Lexington Mayor Jim Newberry
Randi Ewing
| lavo...@yahoo.com
La Voz: How is your administration planning on reaching out to the Latino community and making sure that they are a part of participating in that vision and helping to plan it?
Newberry: A lot of that will have to do with the special events that LFUCG gets involved in from time to time. For an assortment of reasons, that are kind of complicated, we have yet to hire the person that's going to be in charge of special events. The reasons have to do primarily with internal personnel rules, restructuring the job a little bit, so it has taken us longer than I would have preferred to get in a position to hire somebody, but we pretty much have all that paperwork out of the way, so I anticipate that we will be hiring someone fairly soon. And then we'll start focusing on events that will be held during the course of the year and that will be the primary way.
Obviously the police department and some of the other public safety officials will be coming into contact with the Latino community from time to time. And I think what the police department has done in order to try to reach out to the Latino community has received a lot of national recognition and I certainly want to help them continue to do that job effectively.
La Voz: How do you plan on . . . for instance, your address last night, I noticed that there was a sign language interpreter, how would a Latino community member that's maybe not an English speaker, or not fluent in English, be able to receive that information that you gave?
Newberry: It will be difficult.
La Voz: OK. Do you all have any plans or anything in place to start to look at that?
Newberry: No, not really. Obviously, we have some obligations as a result of some federal funding to do some bilingual publications, but I don't want to give the impression that we're going to be doing a lot of that, because we have limited resources and there's a fair amount of expense associated with translation and publication of those documents, and so I would prefer to be spending what money we have to try to encourage folks to develop English skills.
La Voz: Last night you stressed how important the 2010 World Equestrian Games will be for Lexington's future. How do you see the role of the Latino immigrant worker in the horse, construction and hospitality industries playing a role in that event?
Newberry: I don't know. . . I don't know that I see their role as being markedly different as the role of everybody else in the community. We've got a lot of people who will be coming and so obviously there will be the need to ramp up our hospitality industry, generally. There will be some construction, but not an awful lot, mainly projects at the Horse Park, indoor arena, perhaps a stadium; but I doubt that there will be an awful lot of game-specific construction beyond that. And, then the horse industry here won't be particularly impacted by the games. The vast majority of the horses here are not the kinds of horses that will be participating in the games. There will be a lot of countries that will be bringing their stables here in anticipation of the event. Those horses are maintained in a very meticulous sort of way and I suspect that they'll bring most of their support staff with them. So I really don't anticipate that there is going to be a lot of impact as far as the horses themselves are concerned.
La Voz: Kind of still looking at that horse industry, which obviously has… I don't know if majority is the right word, but a very large Latino immigrant workforce, how would you respond to the resolution last year proposed by the Thoroughbred Industry and approved by the city council to support comprehensive immigration reform in Washington?
Newberry: I looked at that pretty closely last year. And I think that I was generally supportive of it. I can't recall that there were any changes that I would want to make to it.
La Voz: Do you see that there is a role for this Latino immigrant worker in the strengthening of the horse industry? Have you considered their role in that? At this point there kind of at all echelons of the horse industry as far as working.
Newberry: Right. To be candid with you, I haven't given that any thought, and in light of that, I don't know that I have anything to offer that would be particularly insightful on that front. There's no denying the fact that there are a lot of immigrants that are involved in the horse industry, from all around the world, as a matter of fact, and I expect that's going to continue to be the case for a long time to come.
La Voz: I promise not to bring up a lot of old business, but I am interested in if you're familiar with your predecessor's . . . she commissioned a Task Force on Hispanic Workforce Development and that task force reported its findings in December of 2005. Are you familiar at all with the recommendations made by that task force?
Newberry: I read those last year. I don't recall what they were right off hand. I haven't pulled that back out for months, so I'm really not in a position to talk about it right off hand.
La Voz: Do you plan to pull it back out and to look at some of those recommendations?
Newberry: Actually, I'm interested in taking a little different approach than what that group did. There has been a lot of heated discussion in the community for months over the whole immigration issue and, specifically, a lot of discussion about what local government should or should not be doing. I'm more interested in trying to focus some attention on that particular question than I am in trying to go back and . . . and focus on the issues which I understand that Task Force addressed, right now. So, that's where I anticipate spending most of my energy, is focusing on what kind of role is appropriate for local government with respect to immigration issues.
La Voz: I have a very bad habit of needing to write down everything just in case.
Newberry: That's quite all right. In law school and in several other places along the way I wished I had taken shorthand in high school.
La Voz: My grandmother was trying to teach it to me the other day and it's hard.
La Voz: You are a strong advocate for increased access to higher education. And I was reading a little bit about Lexington First Fund for high school students who are interested in pursuing math, science and technology. Would that program, and I think you mentioned it last night in your address as well, is that program that you are proposing also going to be available to undocumented students who have been residents?
Newberry: No.
La Voz: OK. Considering that group of students with few opportunities for being able to afford higher education who are finding it difficult to find motivation to stay in school and therefore we see an increase in the truancy and drop out rates in Fayette County do you have any programs that you are thinking about developing to increase their access to higher education? ?
Newberry: No.
La Voz: You have said before that Lexington needs to strive to be a more united community and on your website you cite that among those is the support of cultural activities like the Festival Latino and the Cinco de Mayo celebration. In what other ways do you plan to bridge the gap between Lexington's growing Latino community and the larger Lexington community?
Newberry: I referred to this effort to try to resolve some of the ambiguity about the role of local government in dealing with immigration issues. I think that's been a real bone of contention with a lot of folks in the community. And I hope by eliminating some of those issues from the discussion, Lexington will be able to focus its resources more effectively and eliminate some of the rancor from the discussion about immigration issues. Beyond that though, the events that you alluded to a few moments ago, as well as other heritage festivals of one type or another, are probably going to be the main ways that we'll try to encourage greater understanding, cultural understanding; and I'd like to do more but our budget is going to be constrained in such a fashion that it's just probably not likely to talk about a lot of new initiatives in the foreseeable future.
La Voz: In the Lexington Latino community's history with the larger Lexington government two things have been kind of key; one is the Cardinal Valley Center on Versailles Road and the other is the office of Multicultural Affairs. Both of those, under the current budget, have an operating budget, well, the Cardinal Valley Center has an operating budget of $3100 and the Office of Multicultural Affairs has an operating budget of a little less than $3000. What is your understanding of how this level of funding will affect your stated goals?
Newberry: You know, I wish it could be more, but just from a practical standpoint I think it's unrealistic to anticipate that there's going to be any kind of material change in either one of those two budgets in this coming fiscal year, fiscal year '08. We have some enormous issues, many of which I alluded to last night, that we're going to have to wrestle with, we have to wrestle with those; and the revenue projections we currently have are such that we don't have enough money to do a continuation budget, so I'd say the prospects of any increase are extraordinarily remote, unfortunately. And while I'd like to do everything at once and immediately, I can't. And we'll see what revenue looks like in subsequent years, but I don't want to create the false hope that either one of those two situations is going to be receiving materially greater funding.
La Voz: What do you see as the role of that Multicultural Affairs position and or office? How do you see the role of the Multicultural . . .Some of the things you've mentioned – with not being able to allocate more funding and having planned at this juncture the Festival Latino as being the primary way . . . given that there's some question in how local . . . well, I think . . . hmm, I'm kind of making a question on the fly, but . . .
Do you see that the Multicultural Affairs office could play a role in bridging some of this misunderstanding like you said, and helping people understand better the situation that affects the Latino community?
Newberry: I hope so. I haven't had a chance to discuss the role of the Multicultural Office to any degree with Commissioner Marlene Helm yet, and I'll be doing that in due time, but that conversation just hasn't happened yet. We have had some conversations though about the possibility of involving that office to help staff this group I alluded to a little earlier so that to the degree this commission or work group, task force, call what you will, that's going to be looking at immigration issues needs some help, I hope we'll be able to use the Multicultural Office to provide some support for that effort.
La Voz: So, I'm not sure that I got that completely the first time you mentioned it, so you're going to create some sort of a task force or commission that will examine these immigration issues and . . .
Newberry: In so far as they relate to local government . . .
La Voz: What is local government's role. . .
Newberry: We're not going to try and get into all of the national debate, except to the extent we'll identify what's a national issue and what's a state issue, or a local issue. But we're not going to be making recommendations about how to solve immigration reform. What I want this group to do is focus on what precisely can local government do to address immigration issues, if anything. And what exactly the problems are that the community perceives that local government might be addressing. I think a lot of the problems that I hear about when I talk with people about immigration really aren't immigration issues so much as they are just matters of concern about criminal activity that doesn't have anything to do with anybody's immigration status. Whether you're here as a native-born citizen, a naturalized citizen, you're here with some legal status or not, you've got an obligation to obey the law; and I think a lot of the concerns that people raise in the immigration discussion has more to do with the criminal laws than they do with the immigration laws, and so we'll try to focus on what local government really can do to address the problems, and I hope we'll be able to identify some things that we can do to improve the quality of life throughout the community. But I don't think we're going to get actively involved in the national immigration reform debate.
La Voz: The concerns that you mention people bringing up sound like concerns coming from one group of the issue, not necessarily the Latino residents of Lexington – Fayette County.
Newberry: I've heard it from both groups, about the criminal activity particularly, people are interested in being safe in their homes and I've heard that from both groups.
La Voz: OK. . . . How will you and your staff stay kind of up-to-date and informed on issues and events happening in Lexington's Latino community?
Newberry: We have, you know, made a commitment to try to have as diverse administration as we can, and so I hope we'll be able to recruit some folks to work in Urban County Government who are members of that community. Beyond that, the Multicultural Office that you talked about a little bit ago will be, I would anticipate, a primary outreach mechanism. And then, as a consequence of working with members of the community in connection with the events that we alluded to, I hope we'll develop some informal relationships there. Beyond that there are an assortment of groups in the community that I hope to stay in contact with on a regular basis, La Voz, the Hispanic Association, all of those groups are ways that we can kind of stay in touch with what's going on there. But you know, I encourage. . . I encourage members of the Latino community to participate in some of the things that we'll be doing too, it's … We're going to be hosting or conducting what we call Mayor's Nights Out around the community where we'll go to different parts of the community with key folks from the administration here and we'll open the doors and invite people to come and if the have issues with the local government I hope they'll do so. We'll try to address what we can there and follow up with those we can't resolve on the spot. We're also going to be visiting around the community with members of the city council and when we are out and about in that fashion I hope people will not hesitate to visit with us. And so they need to contact their city council members and let them know if they have issues they want to address when we're doing those district tours.
La Voz: When you do do those tours and have those nights, those community nights will there be advertising done to target that part of the community which may feel marginalized from the city government in the sense that they don't have a lot of . . . for language barriers or cultural barriers what have you, will there be some outreach toward that community?
Newberry: We haven't talked specifically about that kind of public relations campaign, or advertising campaign or outreach campaign that we might be doing, and I really don't know how to answer that question as we speak, but I doubt we'll be doing a lot in the way of paid advertising but we'll certainly . . . we'll do it and try to do it in the best way we can on the front end and to the extent we need to tweak the outreach effort we'll maybe try and do that as we go along.
La Voz: Well, certainly let us know when you're going to be going into neighborhoods and things so we can. . . a big part of what we try to do is just get information out there for new residents.
I'm almost done. It sounds like, just from some of the answers that you've given that there's kind of a duality to the Latino community in a lot of ways. On the one hand there's the issue of immigration and immigrants, of course it's a very big issue right now, and on the other hand there are, of the 260,000 some odd residents of Lexington, 35 to 40 thousand who are Latino, so both some who have immigration concerns and some who don't. So I guess really what maybe the primary thing that we want to get out of this interview is what would you like to say to that sector of Lexington's community that is probably not as tuned in to what's going on at City Hall as other parts of the community?
Newberry: I hope they'll avail themselves of the opportunity to do two or three things. One is find out who the elected officials are from their particular area of town and do not hesitate the council members if they have concerns with local government they're really good about trying to follow-up with their constituents, and that's one way.
A second way, to the extent that they have specific questions about the Urban County Government they can call LexCall by dialing 311 . . .
Susan Straub – There are Spanish-speaking operators.
Newberry: And that's, I think, an extremely effective way of accessing local government services. The third thing, I hope they'll not hesitate to go to the website, which is lfucg.com, there's a lot of information available there. And then, cable channel three, GTV 3 as its sometimes called, is another source of a fair degree of information about local government, so I guess those are four different ways - officials, LexCall, the website, Gtv3 that I hope they'll not hesitate to access. And, we don't have the resources to go out and personally knock on every door and identify what the needs are and try to match up the needs with our resources so, it will be necessary for folks to take the initiative and make some phone calls. Hopefully they'll be able to get access to the information they need.
La Voz: As far as you public address and any other, I guess, kind of "state of things", kind of updates that you might be giving the city of Lexington, for instance, last night you mentioned some things that are very important to the city like the sewers and the budget and the needing to do some improvements on the public buildings, for a non-English proficient resident of Lexington what's the best way for them to find out that information?
Newberry: Well hopefully La Voz will do a story about it. But, I think LexCall is probably going to be the best way to access it. That'd be my best suggestion.
La Voz: Well, thank you very much for your time.
Newberry: Nice to meet you.
La Voz: Nice to meet you as well, and hopefully this will be the beginning of a relationship. We're hoping to start to be able to cover more that's going on with city government, with exactly that idea of getting people as involved as possible.
Newberry: Well, it will be helpful for us if you all will do that, and to the degree that you need information call Susan, especially from the mayor's office, and she can also fill you in on some of the other . . . resources and information on the Urban County Government.
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Mark, 8th member SU7+1,
http://groups.google.com/group/standup71 Populist-American, retired in hell-USA's worst Sanctuary City: Corrupt, Ignorant, Backwater, Lawless Lex. Ky. Free Ramos And Compean! [STOP MEXICAN INVASION, DEMAND CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT BEFORE INTERNATIONAL TRADE AGREEMENTS UNDERMINE NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY. It ain't over! He who dares not offend cannot be honest: Thomas Paine • Eisenhower: "The rise in illegal border-crossing by Mexican 'wetbacks' to a current rate of more than 1,000,000 cases a year has been accompanied by a curious relaxation in ethical standards extending all the way from the farmer-exploiters of this contraband labor to the highest levels of the Federal Government."