Columns

About a year after George Washington was elected President, Congress decided that one of the country’s first orders of business was finding out just how many lived here.

It declared that Aug. 2, 1790, would be Census Day, and those in charge of counting were called upon to include not only the original 13 colonies but also several other districts that would later become states, including Kentucky. What the numbers showed is that, just 15 years after Daniel Boone blazed the Wilderness Road through Cumberland Gap, 74,000 people were already calling Kentucky home.

While the Milton-Madison Bridge was in the planning and early construction stages in 1928 there was talk of building yet another bridge spanning the Ohio River at Carrollton. Among the movers and shakers behind the proposed span was Joseph Lyter Donaldson, Carroll County attorney at the time. Donaldson would, in the years to come, serve as chairman of the state highway commission and was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for governor in 1943.

During the legislative session that ended earlier this month, Kentuckians saw a textbook example of what positive things can happen when both parties in the General Assembly come together and work toward the Commonwealth’s greater good.

The end result was a landmark law that stands as the biggest change to our criminal code since it was overhauled in the mid-1970s. It showed just how effective the legislative process could be when everyone has a seat at the table and a desire to do something truly meaningful.

The 2011 General Assembly Session wrapped up March 9 with both a success story and a disappointment. 

The Senate passed House Bill 463, a landmark bill that was the result of a long, thoughtful, and bipartisan study of the spiraling costs of corrections. This is the first serious revision to our penal code in more than 30 years.

The nationally recognized Pew Center brought both local and state authorities together to recommend several provisions to improve public safety while lowering correctional costs and the state crime rate.