Richard Moloney is one of six candidates for three Council-at-large seats in Tuesday’s election. All Lexington residents vote on candidates for the at-large seats, while the other twelve City Council seats are filled by representatives from each district.
Moloney said his experience sets him apart from the other candidates for the seat. He has previously served as the representative of District 11.
He also worked in the state government on the issue of affordable housing, which he believes is a very important issue for Lexington. “We need to work with federal and state programs to help get low interest-rate mortgages for baby boomers who are trying to downsize and for millennials who are looking for a home,” he said.
“Mixed income housing allows us to keep the culture of communities intact,” he added.
Moloney attributes the city’s budget woes, another of his top issues, to “the state government using pension surpluses to fund projects and not fully funding the pension of civil service jobs.”
“In order to deal with the budget cuts, we need to work to bring in new businesses in order to have more tax revenue,” Moloney said.
The influx of business that Moloney hopes to create would not just benefit the city government, he says. “It would provide skilled trade jobs to areas in the community that face high rates of unemployment.” Moloney believes that by bringing in these jobs, “young people will see opportunities to earn a good living that don’t require going into debt for school.”
“We have so much unused land near the interstates,” Moloney said of where these new companies could locate. “We are not taking advantage of our interstate connections.” He also believes that the low cost of land in these areas can be used to attract businesses to the area.
A major problem that Moloney foresees with the budget stagnation is the funding of police and fire departments. “Every new police officer that is hired requires us to set aside more money for their pension, so not only must we pay their salary, we have to fund their pension. This creates problems because we don’t have the funds to create new police precincts to serve newer suburbs that are becoming larger.”
Moloney says that to create future economic growth, the city and the state need to focus on hemp. “Kentucky has the best conditions for growing hemp. Lexington can serve as a major processing location for hemp that is grown in surrounding counties. We need to process the crops that are grown here locally in order to keep the profits in the state of Kentucky.”
The 2018 election will be held on November 6. Polls will be open from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM.
Disclosure: Richard Moloney is the cousin of Transylvania’s VP for Marketing and Communications, Megan Moloney.
