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The April 20 article "Mixing business with politics" by staff writer John Cheves reports that "more than one in five state lawmakers sponsor measures that would directly benefit their outside businesses, investments, employers or industries."

You could have knocked me over with a medium-sized truck. This is news?

Since the days of the Roman Senate, legislators have been looking out for themselves while "serving the public weal." While living in Buffalo, N.Y., for 45 years, I observed it at the municipal, county, state and federal levels.

The only part of the article that came as news to me is that it's only "more than one in five." Maybe it's a lot more.

Budget cuts in public schools are predicted to cause layoffs and jeopardize essential programs for our children.

Public universities are increasing their tuition up to 9 percent, putting an additional financial burden on parents and students already struggling with the skyrocketing cost of higher education.

The public defender office is forced to cut 54 positions, which will leave many vulnerable people without proper representation mandated by the U.S. Constitution.

And in Louisville, it was announced that Seven Counties Services is closing its southeast Jefferson County office, which serves 1,500 people with mental health problems.

To believe that the budget Kentuckians have been dealt is the best we could hope for is to give legislators a free pass for their dereliction in the handling of the state's public affairs. Instead of rallying to address Kentucky's economic woes and to move the state in a direction where it can sustain funding for its core program responsibilities, the legislature caved in to political shenanigans at taxpayers' expense.

It's hard not to focus on the flat funding and cuts to programs such as child care and public health that will have long-term effects on the state However, Kentuckians must also look ahead to the next budget session and make our expectations clear.

There are two leadership imperatives for legislators. If they become a reality, this is a state with a future. If they are ignored for political expediency, we will be having the same discussion in 2010.

The legislature must ensure transparency in the budget decision-making process. Good government and secrecy simply cannot co-exist. When deliberations are conducted behind closed doors, critical information is obscured, and when timing is orchestrated to preclude debate, the public good is not served.

Brad Cowgill is right to shine a bright light on proposed tuition increases. But Cowgill can't be an effective advocate for affordable higher education, or anything else, under the current circumstances.

An attorney general's opinion last week said that his hiring as president of the Council on Postsecondary Education violated a state law requiring a national search.

Gov. Steve Beshear, who sought the advisory opinion, said the controversy is not about Cowgill, who was Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher's budget director before being named interim CPE president a few months before Fletcher lost re-election.

Cowgill, a Democrat, was once Beshear's partner in a Lexington law firm, but had no experience in higher education.On the qualifications question, also raised by Beshear, Assistant Deputy Attorney General Tad Thomas wrote that the law is contradictory.

When I negotiated the lease for 156 West Main Street with the Harvester Group of Atlanta in 2002, I dealt primarily with Cole Skinner, a local manager-partner. I met Tom Yost and knew that other investors from the Atlanta area were involved in the potential operation of The Dame, but Skinner was the point person.

During those discussions, I made Skinner aware that my family had significant holdings on the Woolworth block and that our plans included seeking additional acquisitions and fostering development of the block.

Skinner and I discussed the fact that a long-term lease would inhibit that development and that the possibility of an early termination of the lease would expose his group to potential loss of investment. For that reason, we included in the lease a provision for early termination and a predetermined amount to reimburse the group for its loss.

In 2005, Skinner was apparently forced out of The Dame's day-to-day management, and a new era began.

We have produced more new housing downtown in the last few years than in many preceding decades. The Lexington Center-Rupp Arena Complex has been dramatically improved. The fine building stock of our historic urban neighborhoods has enjoyed a big boost in investment and a shift back to home ownership. Major urban stakeholders -- schools, universities, churches and hospitals -- have made major investments in staying downtown. It is a place full of life, with concerts, parades, footraces, sidewalk cafes and children playing in fountains.

Success has a thousand parents and probably as many people deserve thanks for downtown Lexington's turnaround.

A dense downtown is an efficient economic engine for the whole state that can create a world-class quality of life while avoiding the negative affects of sprawl. This, in turn, will attract and retain the young talent needed to maintain and increase our economic vitality.

So how do we build on this successful pattern? How do we make Lexington competitive with an Austin, Portland, Boulder, Madison or Charleston? As Vice Mayor Jim Gray says, how do we raise the standards of our B-minus downtown to match our A-plus landscape?

The mayor's refusal to take a lead in water planning pretty much guaranteed that investor-owned Kentucky American Water would get its way, which it did last week when the PSC approved a $160 million treatment plant and 31-mile pipeline.

The average Lexington water bill is expected to go up about $100 a year to pay for the project, which is supposed to meet the city's needs for at least 20 years.

Under the circumstances, the PSC had little choice but to find that Kentucky American's project was needed and a reasonable approach.

The next big question is whether a group of local government utilities can come up with the money to buy a 20-percent stake in the treatment plant on the Kentucky River north of Frankfort.

But last year in a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court imposed this unrealistic deadline on workers seeking redress.

It's an absurd and unfair interpretation of the law, but Sen. Mitch McConnell likes it that way.

The Senate minority leader, who touts himself in campaign ads as a friend of Kentucky's working people, played a leading role in blocking the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in the Senate last week.

Ledbetter was a supervisor in a Goodyear Tire and Rubber plant in Gadsden. Ala. As she was nearing retirement, she got an anonymous letter telling her that for 19 years she had been paid less than her male counterparts. The discrimination had cost her $250,000 in wages and lowered her pension.

Another sign is that city officials and law enforcers think the law has been so widely embraced that it is now safe to toughen the penalties for violating it.

Something has to be done to get the attention of the 17 persistent violators, many of them adult-entertainment clubs.

The county attorney needs a process that produces evidence that can be used in court. And that evidence needs to be collected by health department employees in a way that does not put them in physical jeopardy.

Although it may be easier to ticket individual smokers, the responsibility should remain on the owners and managers to ensure that an establishment is smoke-free. Clean air is just as much a health concern as sanitary food preparation.