Commentary

If you listened closely at last week’s press conference—the one where Vice Mayor Dan Wu announced $12.6 million in medical debt had vanished from Fayette County—there was a faint sound underneath all that civic cheer. A tiny ka-ching. Because by the time the Herald-Leader’s Adrian Paul Bryant peeled back the wrapping paper, Lexington’s feel-good…

It takes real talent to look at the summer FCPS just had — the audit, the budget fiascos, the public fury, the payroll-tax side hustle in a trench coat — and decide the next big move should be silencing elected officials. But here we are. Again. The latest stroke of genius arrives in the…

If you listened only to the speeches, you’d think Lexington was about to boldly tackle its housing crisis. Six hours of testimony. Dozens of speakers. Councilmembers invoking “affordable housing,” “historic character,” and “the fabric of our community” like they were auditioning for a planning textbook. And then, with an 8–7 vote, they quietly killed…

On Tuesday night, a Lexington resident summed up the vibe in the Council chambers with a shrug: “Feels like they picked out the drapes before asking if we even wanted the house.” Hard to argue with her. Because in the span of just two weeks, Lexington’s government has sprinted toward a deal that would…

It was a long night at the Fayette County Board of Education. The kind of meeting where the clock ticks past 10 p.m., the coffee cools, and the words “fiscal responsibility” start sounding like a prayer someone forgot the meaning of. By the end of it, the board had voted against letting district employees…

It was a bright October morning downtown, the kind that makes even concrete look proud of itself. A small crowd gathered near the courthouse as city officials—beaming, confident, armed with adjectives—snipped the ribbon on Lexington’s newest public artwork: “A Common Thread,” better known by its emerging Internet street names. The $900,000 sculpture—an arrangement of…

So it finally happened: a concert at Lexington’s shiny new Gatton Park got canceled — not because of rain or politics, but because not enough people cared to buy a ticket. Kansas, Jefferson Starship, and Molly Hatchet — a lineup that reads like the playlist at a 1983 Camaro meetup — were supposed to…

The recent decision by the Fayette County School Board to move forward with an external audit might look like progress—but it is not the more in-depth forensic audit the community demanded. What it really confirms is that something is wrong, and those responsible seem more interested in covering it up than in letting the…

The concept of “erasing history” has been a popular talking point over the last several years. It was first weaponized by Republicans to attack attempts by activists to remove Confederate monuments. Now, in a spectacular bit of irony, the same people who said that removing statues was tantamount to pretending that something did not…

For years, the Lexington Times has raised alarms about Fayette County Public Schools Superintendent Demetrus Liggins — and for years, our reporting was dismissed, mocked, or ignored. In 2022, we obtained a report detailing troubling behavior tied to Liggins and his husband during their time in Texas, a matter serious enough to prompt an…