CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?
I know its b’ball madness all over again — and there’ll be more than enough wolf tickets bought and sold to make the Girl Scouts turn Irish greenwith envy, so let me all my two cents in up front. So what’s up with the NCAA seedings? Portland, Oregon. Really?! Let’s see. I believe it was San Antonio in ’11 and Houston in ’10. You get the picture. And if that isn’t enough….
What’s up with this report?? Duke University was the only NCAA tournament team to outspend the University of Louisville and University of Kentucky basketball programs during the 2010-11 season!?
According to an analysis of Equality in Athletics data from the U.S. Department of Education, Duke, UofL and Kentucky — along with Marquette University in Milwaukee — were the only programs among all those making this year’s NCAA basketball tournament that spent more than $10 million for the season. They outspent every other school in the tourney!
Hmmmm…. $10 M? I’ll put a pin in that one for now so as not to upset your basketball “sensibilities”…
Speaking of which – let’s see… UK – played in Louisville. WKU played in Louisville. Murray State played in Louisville — SO WT IS LOUISVILLE DOING PLAYING WAY OUT IN OREGON, of all places??
[You’d think that after spending all that money on basketball…]
And why do two Kentucky teams seem to regularly be paired up so one gets bounced early in the tourney?
And can someone answer how it is that WKU only got 1,000 tickets for their YUM Center fans, anyway?
As a state, we may be at the bottom of the barrel in most areas, and we may have a few issues that we need to focus on and fix. We might even be 20 years behind the rest of the country in everything else, but when it comes to Madness –at least in March, we can show ‘em they got NOTHING on us!
GO CARDS!! GO RACERS!! ….and even widdle PUDDYCATS!!!
WKU, you’ve made us proud!
SO, HERE’S WHERE YOUR BUTTER GETS CHURNED:
The Senate is burning the midnight oil – painstakingly pouring over each and every budget page – meeting day and night to account for every penn….what? You’re not buying this? Ahhh, that business about not working on Fridays, surely it must be – oh, Monday’s too? I, eh, I didn’t know. Surely they must be doing something! After all, we continue to send bills over there almost daily… I’m sure somebody’s keeping up with all the bills they are hearing…and passing….and sending on to the Governor…
This week, we tackled a growing synthetic-drug problem that has re-emerged all across the Commonwealth: synthetic drugs including so-called “bath salts” and synthetic marijuana found in convenience stores and head shops. This is a fascinating snapshot of just how quickly illegal drug manufacturers respond to new challenges. A 2011 law we passed banned specific compounds of synthetic drugs. Underground manufacturers got around the law by altering a drug’s ingredients just enough to create new, technically legal ones. HB 481 fixes that loophole by banning entire classes, not just compounds, of synthetic drugs. It also extends seizure and forfeiture laws to retailers who sell these drugs; makes selling them a felony crime for second and subsequent offenses, and makes simple possession a misdemeanor with a penalty of up to 30 days in jail.
We then turned our attention to the alarming number of abused and neglected children who have fallen through the proverbial cracks of the state’s child-protection system in recent years. HB 200 creates a statewide external expert review panel to thoroughly investigate the death or near death of a child from abuse or neglect. The panel will determine if the state took reasonable measures to save that child or prevent his or her injuries (if the child was under protective services at the time) – and it expands the statutory definition of child abuse to include abuse by a sibling. A major feature is the creation of an independent office to oversee Kentucky’s Child Protective Services agency.
The state’s Transportation Budget and Road Plan was also passed out of the House this week. The Road Plan is a planning document which lays out priority construction projects for the upcoming 6 years. The first 2 years of the 6 year plan is separated out for immediate funding. Projects in the remaining 4 years you might say are put on the shelf in anticipation of continued funding and favorable revenue streams. Transportation projects are interesting. I’ve seen them stay on the books for years before they are begun. Often, Road projects are very high dollar projects. Under this plan, some $1.5 Billion in state construction funds and $1.3 Billion in federal construction funds are allocated for key projects in our Commonwealth.
I will soon publish specific details on Transportation and Road projects in and around our 42nd District.
Question of the Week – What is the proper balance between state supported schools profiting from athletics and state government having sufficient resources to meet the state’s educational needs?
CONTACT ME: Call me directly at 502.564.8100 or write me at Rm. 329C, Capitol Annex, 702 Capitol Avenue, Frankfort, KY 40601. I’m also on FACEBOOK so hit me up there or online at Reginald.Meeks@lrc.ky.gov or at http://reginaldmeeks.com. To reach any particular legislator, contact our toll – free number at 800.372.7181. For the deaf or hard-of-hearing, that number is 800.896.0305
