That’s Courier-Journal columnist Tim Sullivan’s excellent question this afternoon about businessman Douglas Cobb, who tweeted that climate change was a hoax; evolution was for patsies; “gay Christian” was an oxymoron, plus other controversial views — before abruptly deleting his account last night.
Cobb
Cobb, a venture capitalist and former CEO of Greater Louisville Inc.’s predecessor organization, was one of a slew of high-profile business men and women Gov. Matt Bevin added yesterday to his dramatically redrawn University of Louisville board of trustees. Since Bevin was trying to introduce adult supervision to the board, he’s now in a major jam: Does he stick by Cobb, or press him to step aside so — as the boilerplate language goes — he doesn’t become a “distraction”?
Yesterday afternoon, Cobb initially defended his Tweets, telling WDRB he wouldn’t back down. But by evening, he’d zapped his account — sparking a continuing storm of Twittercism:
Tightening his grip on the University of Louisville, Gov. Matt Bevin today added 10 more members to his reconfigured board of trustees, appointing a slew of business heavy hitters, including at least one with long family ties to the board.
Among them: Papa John’s founder and CEO John Schnatter; Glenview Trust Co. founder and chairman David Grissom, who’s also a retired Humana executive; and Brown-Forman heiress Sandra Frazier.
Schnatter is a major UofL booster, donating millions for naming rights to Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium. He and conservative industrialist Charles Koch donated $6.3 million to the school in March 2015 to establish an on-campus center to study the virtues of free enterprise; responding to criticism, the university said the money wouldn’t curtail academic freedom.
Frazier
Frazier, who is now cycling off the Brown-Forman board of directors, also is a director of Glenview Trust, a boutique investment firm that serves more than 500 of the area’s wealthiest families. Her late father, Harry Frazier, is a former UofL vice chairman, and her uncle, the late Owsley Brown Frazier, was once chairman.
Bevin’s announcement today follows his surprise June 17 dismissal of the previous 20-seat board, which he called “dysfunctional” in its oversight of the university and President James Ramsey. He replaced them with an interim three-member board, which he filled out with today’s appointments. The school has been roiled with controversy over Ramsey’s seven-figure compensation; a sex scandal involving the marquee men’s basketball program, plus other administrative missteps. Ramsey offered to resign when Bevin dissolved the board, but a final decision on his future was deferred to the next board.
Gov. Matt Bevin, asked if he sought James Ramsey’s resignation, said he’d spoken to many people, including the embattled University of Louisville president himself, and the “culmination of all the conversations I’ve had with everybody on all fronts is what I just announced to you,” the Lexington Herald Leader says.
Bevin said today those conversations also included leaders in the higher-education community,” and there is pretty much uniform agreement . . . (that) the board as it exists right now is not particularly functional. Its dysfunction has precluded it from doing what its responsibility is, and that is to be effective fiduciary leaders of the university,” according to The Courier-Journal.
Ramsey, 67, has been president since 2002. He offered his resignation, but it hasn’t been formally accepted, because a new board of trustees hasn’t been formed to replace the one Bevin dismissed today, according to multiple media accounts. The governor said Ramsey’s exit could come in the next two weeks. But state Sen. Morgan McGarvey, a Louisville Democrat, said Bevin’s firing the board is illegal, the Courier-Journal says.
Ramsey
Bevin issued an executive order this morning that scolded the 20-member board for its “lack of transparency and professionalism” and described the relationship between the U of L administration and trustees as “operationally dysfunctional,” according to WDRB.
The governor appointed a temporary three-person board until a permanent one can be assembled: Junior Bridgeman, a businessman and former U of L basketball player; Bonita Black, a Louisville attorney, and Dr. Ron Wright, said WAVE.
Benz
The board chairman is Larry Benz, a healthcare business owner. He’s been a trustee since July 2011.
Trustee Robert Hughes, the Murray physician who has supported Ramsey, said he learned about Bevin’s plans via social media — echoing statements by other trustees about being in the dark, the Courier-Journal reported).
According to Ramsey’s contract, if he resigns at the request of the board of trustees, he can keep a tenured professor position — for 75% of his most recent base pay as president, which is $350,000, according to WFPL.
Ramsey has been under fire for numerous scandals over the past several years, said WFPL. The NCAA is investigating the basketball program after a former escort alleged an ex-coach paid for strippers and sex for players and recruits. Last October, Ramsey apologized after he and his senior staff posed for a photograph at a university Halloween party wearing stereotypical Mexican garb, the radio station said.
One of the university’s most influential and wealthiest graduates is Humana co-founder David A. Jones Sr., who received a bachelor’s degree in business there in 1954.
Gov. Matt Bevin announced today that University of Louisville President James Ramsey is stepping down and that he is reorganizing the Board of Trustees, according to The Courier Journal.
Bevin said he is appointing an interim board that will serve for the next two weeks. Ramsey is willing to step down immediately, Bevin said, but he could remain as president for as long as two weeks.
Bevin, a Republican elected in November, said it has been evident that changes in the oversight at U of L has been needed for some time. He said his intent is to “give a fresh start” to the university, according to the newspaper.
It is unclear whether there is a precedent for Bevin’s stunning move this morning. But it follows other aggressive steps he’s taken to reshape state government, moves that have roiled higher education and entrenched power players in Frankfort.
The governor’s decision is at least a tacit rebuke of Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat on whose watch Ramsey became a lightning rod for criticism over his seven-figure pay checks and bonuses as well as other administrative problems.
The two men have been engaged in an increasingly nasty war of words, virtually since the first day Bevin took office.
This story is still developing; updates coming. (Boulevard is hamstrung in our reporting because we’re working on a travel story here at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence. And we’re working off our iPhone.)
Lexington Mayor Jim Gray won the Democrats’ nomination for U.S. Senate yesterday by campaigning on his experience helping save the family’s Gray Inc. construction company after his father’s death. He’ll now face Republican Sen. Rand Paul in November — a contest he concedes will be tough.
Gray
“I have no illusions about it being a challenging race,” he told the Lexington Herald-Leader, “but I’ve got the experience and I’ve got the record. That experience is in the private sector, in building a family business.”
In the race to the senate, Gray, 62, joins other well-heeled candidates who’ve run on business bona fides, including Gov. Matt Bevin and White House hopeful Donald Trump. Gray’s first financial disclosure report, filed last month, offers a glimpse at that record.
The April 15 report covers the period extending back to the start of 2015. As with all such reports candidates and office holders must file annually, Gray’s assigns only a range of values for his family’s business, real estate and stock holdings. An individual stock, for example, may be valued at between $15,001 and $50,000 — the value Gray gave to his investment in the biotech giant Amgen. What’s more, it’s a point-in-time view; there’s no way to know the value of any of the assets today, nor whether they’re even still owned.
Still, Gray’s report offers a revealing snapshot of his family’s more big-ticket assets:
Gray Inc.: valued between $5 million and $25 million
Gray Realty commercial property: $1 million to $5 million
Woodford Realty commercial property: $250,000 to $500,000
Visual and Antiquity Investments, which consists of contemporary paintings, sculptures, mixed media and rare books: $1 million to $5 million. The report doesn’t say whether this is a private collection or commercial venture
The report also lists stocks and other investment securities, with a combined value between $1.8 million and $4.1 million. The portfolio includes a mix of technology stocks (Apple and Facebook); pharmaceuticals (Bristol-Myers and Merck, in addition to Amgen) and consumer goods (Starbucks and Walt Disney). A partial list:
Finally, Gray also reported annual wages of $160,000 as mayor, and $125,000 from Gray Inc., where he’s non-executive board chairman.
Some 70,000 National Rifle Association members are holding their annual meeting in Louisville this week, a four-day gathering that will include speeches on Friday by White House hopeful Donald Trump, plus Gov. Matt Bevin, Sen. Rand Paul, and others.
McConnell
The group gave $810,462 to federal candidates for the 2014 election, including a total $22,900 to six Kentucky Republicans, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics:
Sen. Mitch McConnell: $9,900
Rep. Hal Rogers: $5,000
Rep. Brett Guthrie: $2,500
Rep. Ed Whitfield: $2,500
Rep. Andy Barr: $2,000
Rep. Thomas Massie: $1,000
Overall, the NRA’s Political Victory Fund has given $197,609 to Kentucky congressional candidates since 1998, according to this new Courier-Journal story.
Unexpectedly, the Responsive Politics center’s data, from the Federal Election Commission, doesn’t show any NRA money for Sen. Paul. And I don’t find any going to Bevin, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics’ data for the governor; it tracks campaign money at the state level.
The NRA meeting and trade show will be held at the Kentucky Exposition Center; more key information in today’s CJ, which also reports on the group’s history and rise to one of the nation’s most powerful organizations.
Related:etiquette advice for party hostesses who don’t want gun-totin’ guests.
News about business and culture in Louisville, Ky.
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