(WHAS11) - As two formal presentations and public comment periods get underway this week on proposed changes to the Ohio River Bridges Project, one of Louisville's most influential voices is speaking up in support of the project.
Humana co-founder David Jones is the latest civic leader to criticize the environmental group River Fields and its legal challenges to the bridges project. Along with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, River Fields is a co-plaintiff in a September 2009 federal lawsuit against the Federal Highway Administration.
"They have executed a brilliant and successful strategy," Jones states in a letter to civic leaders, "using multiple provisions of various federal regulations to delay construction of the eastern bridge for decades."
Kentuckians for Progress (KFP), a group formed several months ago and headed by former Jefferson County Judge Executive Rebecca Jackson, is publicly pressuring River Fields to drop its lawsuit.
"It is going to take people who have influence with them to say, 'You know, wait a minute. you are stopping progress for the whole community,'" Jackson said.
"This is an attack on democracy and citizens' rights to constitutionally hold our government accountable through the public process and due process of law," countered River Fields President Lee Cory, "and Mr. Jones and the Kentuckians for Progress are trying to take away that right by silencing our voice."
"I'd like to see the whole city rise up in support of the project," Jones told WHAS11 by phone Monday.
To that end, Jones is inviting civic leaders to a gathering on Wednesday, July 13, where he hopes the assembled will "take a principled stand against endless obstruction and in favor of jobs and progress."
"The interstate highway system and Louisville desperately need this bridge and the jobs it will create," Jones writes in the letter, dated June 23, "To accomplish these ends we need to confront the well-organized opposition, and we need your help."
"River Fields has been involved in the public process on this project, getting the facts to the public since day one of this project,"Cory said, "By contrast, neither Mr. Jones nor KFP has participated in the public process and neither has the facts."
"We believe it is important for everyone in this community, through the public process and due process of law have the facts and to understand the impact this project is going to have on Louisville and in the region," Cory said.
River Fields contends that the project's original environmental impact study was flawed, that misconceptions reign regarding a need for an eastern bridge, that a downtown bridge should be built first and that no right-of-way acquisition should be made until a realistic funding plan in place.
"Many of (River Fields') members are neighbors who don't want the bridge built in their neighborhood," Jones states in the letter.
"They have just kind of diverted the mission of River Fields," Jackson concurred. "When its 'days on' mission does a good job, but this is not the mission. And this is standing in the way of progress for our whole community."
Cory disputed the assertion, saying its 2100 members live in 104 zip codes, and that River Fields has a stake in the future of the project because it is Louisville's single largest infrastructure project ever on the Ohio River.
Jackson welcomed Jones' entry into the debate, as well as his call for other civic leaders' voices to be heard.
"That's what I always did when I was in public office," Jackson said, "I invested myself personally in that and so I obviously believe the people should do that."
When Kentucky and Indiana leaders announced the projected cost savings from a scaled down bridges project on June 2, WHAS11 asked Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer if he had lobbied key political supporters who are also River Fields supporters.
Fischer said he had not - at that time. On Monday, WHAS11 asked Fischer, again, if he was investing any of his personal clout behind this project.
"Well, at the appropriate time, whatever is required to help move the community forward, I'd do that," Fischer said.
"I have not spent any concentrated time on that since we spoke," Fischer continued, "Nothing specific around it. I suppose at some point in time we'll be having a conversation around that."
Congressman John Yarmuth, a former River Fields trustee and contributor, was also asked of his support of the bridges project and opinion of the lawsuit.
Yarmuth told WHAS11 News that it his responsibility to reflect a consensus of the community.
"All I can say is, first of all the courts should move as expeditiously as possible to either dismiss the suit or to facilitate its prosecution," Yarmuth told WHAS11, "so that we can move on. We've been at this an awful long time."
