Building the Democracy Kentucky needs is a key step to winning our vision for Kentucky’s future. We need to make sure all Kentucky voices have a chance to be heard
The campaign to restore voting rights of Kentuckians with felonies in their past is continuing, with increasing field work to find the 170,000 people who recently got their right to vote back and to help them register to vote! That’s happening alongside our online efforts to train people, reach people through texting, lobby legislators, and more.
A number of Kentucky Just Transition Organizing Fellowship Stipends will be awarded in the fall of 2021 to celebrate, strengthen, and invest in community, labor, youth, and cultural organ
I’ve spent over a week attempting to write a “good-bye” letter for this issue. Instead of a letter it seems I’ve inked part of a chapter for a memoir. It was hard to capture in a few hundred words what it’s been like to serve in this role and share parting words for your consideration. In its place, I’ll offer you the letter I penned for our 2020 annual report.
After the announcement of the KFTC staff union’s formation in October 2019, and recognition by KFTC’s Steering Committee, we took the bold step of building an initial contract through Interest Base
Working with allies, the Jefferson County chapter recently helped engage thousands of Louisvillians in the Metro budget process and secured a major victory that built community power.
From protecting natural resources to building apartment complexes, decisions about our communities and day to day lives happen through local planning and zoning. We see the impacts of these decisions when Black neighborhoods face displacement, when gentrification pushes the working class out of affordable housing, and when pollution in our air and water hurts our bodies. While planning processes are designed to shape the future of Kentucky cities, planning and zoning are often difficult for the public to offer input into and to navigate.
The grassroots campaign to protect rooftop solar in Kentucky and prevent electric utilities from rigging the rules against locally-owned distributed solar generation won a major victory in May, ending (for now) a multi-year dispute between solar advocates and monopoly utility companies over the value of fed-back rooftop solar energy.
On May 14, 2021 the Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC) issued a ruling rejecting Kentucky Power Company’s proposal to slash by seventy-five percent the value of the credit that new solar customers would receive for electric power from their panels that is fed back to the grid. Importantly, the PSC order established a methodology to determine a fair value of that fed-back distributed solar energy. The Commissioners then applied that new framework to calculate that, for Kentucky Power customers, the value for that credit is just twelve percent below what it would have been under the old policy.
After more than a year of demands from residents, the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council passed an ordinance that bans the use of no-knock warrants with a 10-5 vote. There was a packed house for the council’s discussion. 35 people made comments in support of the ban and none made comments in opposition.
Black faith leaders in and around Lexington are at the forefront of the coalition that got their demands and stories heard by tens of thousands of Lexington residents. They held vigils and press conferences. They talked with the mayor and other city leaders and organized their congregations.
Eastern Kentucky Organizer Jacob Mack-Boll has been leading a learning circle about deep canvassing. Below are his reflections from the first two months of facilitating and participating in the learning circle.
Over the past two months, a small collection of KFTC members, staff, and allies have been probing the questions “what is deep canvassing?” “how do we design field canvassing operations that are responsive to this moment?” and “what can we learn from the powerful work being done by other organizers around the country to engage people meaningfully where they are?” Partially prompted by a desire to work with other organizations in Kentucky to build support for federal THRIVE agenda and Green New Deal policies, it also resonated with other pieces of our work – folks are talking in all corners of KFTC about wanting to do more door knocking.
I’ve spent over a week attempting to write a “good-bye” letter for this issue. Instead of a letter it seems I’ve inked part of a chapter for a memoir. It was hard to capture in a few hundred words what it’s been like to serve in this role and share parting words for your consideration. In its place, I’ll offer you the letter I penned for our 2020 annual report. 
After more than a year of demands from residents, the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council passed an ordinance that bans the use of no-knock warrants with a 10-5 vote. There was a packed house for the council’s discussion. 35 people made comments in support of the ban and none made comments in opposition.