Nick Martin's concerned

for the. working man

irk .llortin
B MONTY FOLEY
Leader staff writer
When the votes ar counted on the
e nin of Ma 24 and the s1x-cand1-
dat field in the race for mayor ha
n narrowed to two. 1ck Martin
wi ll probabl find himself finishing out
of th moo y.
uch 1s the lot of the "fringe can
d1dat ," who goes against all of th
d to make his view known.
Martin 1s a 21-year-old form r Um
v r 11 of Kent uck tudent who
worked bnefl y as a local radio news-
caster. His past poh11cal expenence
con 1sts of having served as th state
coordinator for the independent pre 1
den11al candidacy of Eugene McCa r-
th .
H sa s he entered th ra to
ent "the working m n and
n, whom the established cand1
1 nor in fa vor of the w alth
mt r t ."
His concern "for th average c1 1-
zens ... h says. grew out of h1 e rt
nc as a local n wsman who
covered ci ty hall. He claims he no-
11c d "that the ma or and a ROod
number of peopl und r him r all
think r lo I of th people th
r .. And 1f on of t e three ma1or
candidates - Jim Amato, Scotty . . . . '. . . t . ,,. . . light we'll ad1'ust," he says.
Baesler or Joe Graves is elected - . .
1
r, - . .'$fr.- .. . .at empt to have. property
h .
11
b l'
1
. h f This is the last of a m- '" valuat10ns for businesses increased,
t e
1
re wih . e. ttt e in thellwaMy
0
.a terviews with Lexington's six in the downtown area
po icy c ange at city a , artm candidates . " , .. b h b
says. . ' . ':; .. some ave ene-
H
11
B
1
" d from the c1v1c center develop-
e ca s . aes er a warme over dat h . ed
Foster Pettit; Amato, a puppet for es ave ignor . .,.,":.' - ,., .
Gov. Julian Carroll ; and Graves, a For instance, Martih says some- to conserve revenues,
strong arm for contractors and devel- thing needs to be done about a tax he would striye to elimi-
opers." structure "which favors the city's nate the: police department's home
Martin says many of the voters wealtllY, interests." fleet through which individ-
he's contacted agree with the above If, efected, the youthful candidate ual. officers are allowed use of a
observations, but Martin's views seem says urge the urban county coun- on an around tbe clock
to run counter to what most observ- cil to" drastically revise some of its i.: .
ers report. tax collecting ordinances. The per The qontroversial pro ram is. de-
When questi oned further, Martin payro
1
tax . signed to;. give the police greater visi-
himself seems to doubt that . he has ne ma1or revis10ns, ' J:>ility. But Martin says there's no
much of a chance in the primary. For wage-earners who make ; ex_isting '.Gata to prove that allowing
That's evident from his comment than $3,000 per year, there should the officers to take their cars home
about the voter turnout he expects 'on no payroll tax deductions. For work-_., . impedes } rime in residential neighbor-
election day: "Fm guessing that only ers .whose incomes fall between hoods. ' .
between 25 000 and 30 000 will vote be- minimum and $20,000, the tax should' . Martin would he number .
cause peopl e are that be reduced to 1.5 per cent; for those of cars in the fleet and pu more offi-
they're going to get a mayor who m the $20,000 to $25,000 income cers on a walking be<l,t.
. be very much different from bracket, two per cent; and for
the one they have now. I guess it's making more than $25,000, Martin fa. The rban county govetment also ,
hard for them to get excited about vors a 2 .. 5 per cent levy. needs to establish day c .re centers
that prospect. " (Some 42,000 levers For businesses, an attempt wou.ld . throughout the city, Marti says. And
were pulled in the last mayor's race.) be made to increase taxation. Martin' he would also try to opeq' a govern-
" Regardless of what appears to be would try to impose taxation on gross ment sponsored cooperative super-
. an almost certain defeat, Martin says business incomes "rather than after marke.t if elected. are t.he
he'll continue to campaign on the is- they've taken advantage of federal kinds of programs we be talk-
sues whi ch he says the other candi- tax or investment loopholes.'" And he ing about instead of which traffic
Traffic is becoming a serious
problem, he admits, but claims that
none of the other candidates "has the
expertise to really do anything about
it." In the long run it wilf take a
greater emphasis upon public trans-
portation ...: in the form of a rail sys-
tem - to really solve the problem,
Martin says.
"There will be an inc11easing
amount of federal funds available for
transit systems," he says.
On the. issue of growth, j\fartin
says there 1s no way to stop the city's
rapid population increase, it
should be channeled into
urban services districts. "We've ot to
stop growth and development from
glutting up the countryside."
To impede . further development of
agricultural land, Martin would i seek
to impose a capital gains tax on land
speculation.
"In this election, we are going to
decide if the people are going to be a
part of the government, or if they're
going to continue to be by
a very small group of people who tep-
resent their own self-interests," .Mar-
tin concludes.