Shows
Side by SideRichard Young and Lucas Grindley discuss rural-urban interdependence in Lexington, KY and the value of an urban service boundaryIn this episode, Ellen talks with Lucas Grindley from Next City and Richard Young from Civic Lex. Lucas and Richard discuss their respective organizations and their dedication to strengthening urban and rural areas through solutions journalism and transforming civic engagement. They also share about their collaboration on the 2024 Next City Vanguard Conference in Lexington, Kentucky, which explored rural-urban interdependence, its complexities and opportunities. Conference discussions focused on themes such as rural-urban balance, using Lexington's unique urban service boundary as a case study, the importance of reckoning with historical context, and the need to transform regional planning efforts beyond government...
2025-07-2346 min
Local Global Leaders"Never Ask Permission to Lead" with Noel OsbornNoel Osborn (she/her), Director of Development for CivicLex and Co-Director of New Leaders Council Kentucky, discusses her passions for fundraising, civics, and diversity.
2025-02-1450 min
Next CityRepairing Democracy Beyond the Ballot BoxParticipating in elections is just one part of civic engagement. The many other ways of influencing your community and public policy are arguably the greatest difference to rebuilding trust.Healing democracy was never going to happen with an election. In this episode, we discuss real ways to go beyond the ballot box and engaging people as we restore trust in government and in city leadership, based on our recent webinar on the same subject.“A colleague at a conference I was at earlier this year said, 'In city government, we hear so much about creating an enviro...
2024-12-0428 min
Rust Belt StartupInnovating Civic Health: CivicLex’s Guide for Small Cities with Richard Young
In this episode of I sit down with Richard Young, founder of CivicLex, an innovative organization based in Lexington, Kentucky, focused on improving civic engagement and strengthening local government responsiveness. CivicLex bridges the gap between citizens and local government, offering workshops, newsletters, and tools that make local governance more accessible and transparent. They are creating a more engaged, informed, and cohesive community. We’ll get into the details of some of CivicLex’s projects, and their role in shaping community-wide conversations around critical issues like land use, public policy, and civic health. We’ll discuss how CivicLex led hundreds of con...
2024-09-3059 min
Local News Matters“From news deserts to civic media” from When the People DecideWe’ve taken a little time off to focus on the Colorado Press Association’s 145th annual convention last month. It was a great event, featuring many of the guests you’ve heard on this podcast. But it’s an all-consuming event, and I’m excited to go back to putting out episodes. For now, I’m dropping a guest episode of When the People Decide, a show about how everyday people are shaping democracy. It’s hosted by Jenna Spinelle, who is also a journalism instructor at Penn State and produced the News Guest podcast for LION Publisher...
2023-10-2628 min
When the People DecideFrom news deserts to civic mediaSome 2,500 newspapers have closed in the U.S since 2005, leaving entire communities without a source for local news, as well as with limited means to keep their government officials accountable. What if there was a way to fill the news desert, with an entirely new approach to informing the public? Host Jenna Spinelle discusses the relevance of civic information with Mike Rispoli of Free Press, and then uncovers how that can be put into practice with Richard Young, founder of CivicLex, a non-profit that is bridging the gap between news and news consumers in Kentucky.Read the...
2023-08-1425 min
L.A.M.E. Podcast2023.07.07: The Urban Service Boundary Expansion Episode (Feat. Adrian)In a full length side A: Jenry, using god's worst microphone, interviews Adrian Bryant of CivicLex fame. Where we finally get back up to speed on the recently expanded Urban Service Boundary, affordable housing, soccer gossip, r-1 zoning, public housing. You name it, I say it over literally the worst mic quality to ever hit this show. You'll love it.
2023-07-081h 11Next CityWhy So Many People Attend City Meetings in LexingtonToday we’re learning about a solution in Lexington, Kentucky, where a non-profit called CivicLex is changing things up. We’re speaking with the founder of CivicLex about how they’re getting folks informed and involved in local decisions big and small.
2023-06-2830 min
DoGood RadioOTT EpisodeWe had a DoGood Radio Hour chat with Kit Anderson from CivicLex about the upcoming On The Table conversations happening here in Lexington!
On the Table is an opportunity for people who live, work or play in Fayette County to gather and discuss Lexington's environment, jobs, growth, neighborhoods, design and more!
From April 10th to the 16th, thousands of residents across Lexington will gather in homes, businesses, libraries, and parks to discuss the present and future of our city. Your input will inform Lexington's Comprehensive Plan and will help direct how our city grows and changes over the next 20 years.
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2022-04-0424 min
The CivicLex PodcastPrimary Voting 101Welcome back to the CivicLex podcast! Come listen to our Director of Programs, Megan Gulla, interview the Fayette County Clerk Don Blevins. She'll ask him some crucial questions about voting and the upcoming election.Today, we're going to walk you through these questions and Blevins' answers so you'll be able to understand the need-to-know voting details of the primary election! We'll chat about absentee ballots and who are eligible for those, voting locations, and new voter technology you'll be seeing at the polls on May 17, 2022!We won't be doing CivicLex Weekly Episodes like w...
2022-03-2821 min
Beyond the Fourth Wall"Creativity, Democracy & The Power of Process" - Richard YoungRichard Young is the founder of CivicLex and specializes in social practice where, as he says "creativity meets democracy." In this fascinating conversation we unpack the parallels between his love for classical music and civic engagement, and the power that the creative process can have on finding our way forward as a community. "When we shift our focus from 'getting things done' to 'how we do things' we can start to change how people trust in the society in which we live." - Richard YoungAt The Lexington Theatre Company, we create professional theatre and train the ne...
2021-03-1133 min
The CivicLex PodcastThe CivicLex Weekly - March 8, 2021Here’s one thing this week to watch in city hall… a presentation on the impact of the Fayette County Mental Health Court.📺 - Watch this presentation live on March 9 at 1:00pm.Why should you care?If you care about reducing homelessness, prison recidivism, or addressing community mental health, you should pay attention to this meeting.With the increased, bipartisan national focus on criminal justice reform and reducing incarceration rates amongst communities of color, and many places are looking for solutions. Mental health courts are one of the many tools available to build a more...
2021-03-0924 minThe CivicLex PodcastThe CivicLex Weekly - March 1, 2021Here's one thing this week to watch in city hall... a presentation in the Planning & Public Safety Committee on the Imagine Nicholasville Road project and changes it may bring to one of Lexington's busiest streets.📺 - Watch this presentation live on Tuesday, March 2nd, at 1:00pm.Why should you care?Have you experienced traffic on Nicholasville Road? We sure have!Nicholasville Road traffic is one of the most talked-about congestion issues in the city. This presentation will highlight some potential changes that could alleviate that traffic - including enhanced pedestrian and mass-transit conne...
2021-03-0119 min
The CivicLex PodcastThe CivicLex Weekly - February 8, 2020Here's one thing this week to watch in city hall... a presentation in the General Government & Social Services Committee on the Mayoral Administration's proposal to create a new Department within LFUCG - the Department of Housing Advocacy.Watch this presentation live during the General Government & Social Services Committee Committee on Tuesday, February 9th, at 1:00pm.Why should you care?Lexington's linked housing crises - affordable housing shortages, rising homelessness, and evictions - have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis. Housing prices are rising across Lexington; homelessness cases pose massive local public health challenges; and, despite a nation...
2021-02-0816 minThe CivicLex PodcastThe CivicLex Weekly - February 1, 2021Here's one thing this week to watch in city hall... a presentation in the Planning & Public Safety Committee on how the Fayette County Detention Center cooperates with Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE).Watch this meeting live on LexTV on Tuesday, February 2 at 1:00pmWhy should you care?You should care about this if you are interested in the relationship between the City of Lexington and the federal Immigration and Custom's Enforcement (ICE) agency. A history of controversy has long surrounded ICE. As ICE's tactics have fallen under increased scrutiny in the past decade, pressure has m...
2021-02-0117 minThe CivicLex PodcastThe CivicLex Weekly - January 25, 2021This week, we’re covering a presentation in the Budget, Finance, and Economic Development Committee on Tuesday, January 26. This presentation will focus on current plans for the uses of buildings the City owns.Watch this meeting live on LexTV on Tuesday, January 26 at 1:00pmWhy should you care?City Government owns a significant amount of property and real estate across Lexington. While the City Government does use most of them for internal uses, many are public-facing, and some even house organizations or businesses outside of the City Government. With the City’s financial prosp...
2021-01-2525 minThe CivicLex PodcastThe CivicLex Weekly - January 18, 2021This week, we're covering two presentations happening in this week's Environmental Quality and Public Works committee meeting on Tuesday, January 19th. These presentations involve ways that the City reduces its carbon footprint, although that isn't the presentations' explicit framing.Watch this meeting live on LexTV on Tuesday, January 19 at 1:00pmWhy should you care?With the pace of climate change accelerating and green infrastructure costs dropping, cities across the country are finding it makes good financial and societal sense to focus on reducing their carbon footprint. These two presentations present two different approaches the City i...
2021-01-1917 minThe CivicLex PodcastThe CivicLex Weekly - January 11, 2021We're back (again)! The CivicLex Team is starting out the new year with an audio version of our weekly newsletter. This week, we're discussing the new Lexington Urban County Council - what challenges they face, and how new members could change the conversation.Read more about this issue and more at civiclex.orgSupport CivicLex by becoming a member.
2021-01-1113 min
How Do We Fix It?Why Voting Isn't Enough. CivicLex: Richard Young, Megan GullaHow do you get supporters of Donald Trump and Joe Biden in the same room at the same time working together on something political? It sounds almost impossible, but even at a time of hyper-partisan division, progress and trust can be achieved on a local level. In this episode, we look at the groundbreaking work of CivicLex, a non-profit civic education and solutions journalism group based in Lexington, a Kentucky city of nearly 400,000 people. Civic Lex has three main goals: Improve access to information, Change the processes that govern how the city interacts with residents, an...
2020-10-0930 minThe CivicLex PodcastThe CivicLex Weekly - 9/22/20Welcome to a new version of the CivicLex Radio Hour! We've been away from the microphone for a while, but today, we're coming back with a new podcast experiment - The CivicLex Weekly. Now that name might sound familiar to some of you, and for a good reason! It is also the name of our newsletter that goes out every Monday. Now, we're going to release a short companion podcast at the beginning of each week to help you understand what is happening in city government that you need to keep your eyes on. It will go s...
2020-09-2113 minThe CivicLex PodcastDigital Town Hall: LFUCG FY20/21 BudgetIn April 2020, Mayor Linda Gorton has announced a $40M Budget shortfall for the upcoming FY21 Budget due to Tax Revenue losses from the COVID-19 Crisis. In this Digital Town Hall, we discussed the implications this had on city services with Council Member Amanda Bledsoe, Chair of the Budget, Finance, and Economic Development Committee and Tyler Scott, Chief of Staff to Mayor Linda Gorton.
2020-05-071h 06The CivicLex PodcastDigital Town Hall: COVID-19 & Basic NeedsIn times of crisis, the need for support systems for Basic Needs becomes can become more acute and clear to a wider audience. In this Digital Town Hall, we were joined by Sharon Price of Community Action Council and Michael Halligan of God's Pantry Food Bank to discuss how they are responding to this pandemic and what we can do to build a more resilient society once the threat of COVID-19 has cleared.
2020-04-201h 01The CivicLex PodcastDigital Town Hall: COVID-19 & Arts OrganizationsThe entire purpose of most Performing Arts Organizations and many Visual Arts Organizations is to gather people together and share in the same cultural experience. In a time of social distancing, this becomes nearly impossible. In this Digital Town Hall, we discussed how the COVID-19 Crisis is impacting Non-Profit Arts Organizations, and what strategies organizations are using to still fulfill their mission. This Town Hall featured Allison Kaiser of the Lexington Philharmonic, Bo List of Athens West Theater, Emily Moses of the Kentucky Arts Council, and Ame Sweetall of LexArts.
2020-04-151h 13The CivicLex PodcastCivicLex Digital Town Hall - Journalism & COVID-19News and information is an essential part of the public health landscape, especially during a crisis. The Lexington Herald-Leader has provided robust coverage of the COVID-19 crisis and has removed its paywall for any article related to the issue. In this Digital Town Hall, we'll talk with Peter Baniak, the Executive Editor and General Manager of the Lexington Herald-Leader about the steps they've taken to ensure information is reaching people and the challenges they face in this ecosystem moving forward.This part of a series of Digital Town Halls that CivicLex has developed to keep people informed...
2020-04-0955 minThe CivicLex PodcastCOVID 19 & The Local Food Service EconomyThe CivicLex Radio Hour is back!!! ...Sort of. CivicLex has launched a new program focused on bringing together people to discuss the impacts of COVID-19 on our community in a way that is safe for everyone. While primarily a video service, we're distributing the recordings from the Town Halls via video on the web, and via audio on our podcast feed.This CivicLex Digital Town Hall features Alexandra Canada from A Cup of Common Wealth, Dan Wu from Atomic Ramen, and Rebecca Self of Foodchain discussing the impact of the COVID-19 health crisis on the L...
2020-03-301h 01The CivicLex PodcastCivicLex Releases a Blog & Spends Its Weekend Making CartoonsThe CivicLex Team discusses what's new at CivicLex - including CivicLex's new blog, and its participation in the national program Let's Make a Mark.CivicLex is a non-profit organization that is working to build a more civically engaged community by providing better access to information and building stronger relationships between citizens, those who serve them, and the processes that impact them. This podcast is brought to you by The Blue Grass Community Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Lexington Community Radio, Anchor, and CivicLex Member Support.Links links links:
2019-04-0556 minThe CivicLex PodcastCivicLex is On The TableThe CivicLex Team sits down with Christian Motley of the New Leaders Council and Russell Allen of The Plantory and Take Back Cheapside to reflect on our joint 2019 On The Table... tables. We talk about Belonging in the context of Data, Nonprofits, Boards, and Journalism.CivicLex is a non-profit organization that is working to build a more civically engaged community by providing better access to information and building stronger relationships between citizens, those who serve them, and the processes that impact them. This podcast is brought to you by T...
2019-03-3055 minThe CivicLex PodcastOn The Table & The Board of Architectural ReviewCivicLex Radio Hour is back in 2019 with a new live show format, developed in partnership with 93.9FM Lexington Community Radio! CivicLex Radio Hour airs live every Friday at 11am on WLXU.This episode, recorded on March 15th, features Andrea James talking about On The Table, and Graham Pohl talking about the Board of Architectural Review and the Lexington Planning Commission. CivicLex is a non-profit organization that is working to build a more civically engaged community by providing better access to information and building stronger relationships between citizens, those who serve them, and the processes that i...
2019-03-2652 minThe CivicLex PodcastHow is Lexington Addressing Wage Growth for Low Wage Workers?In November of 2018, CivicLex distributed a city-wide survey asking what residents considered to be major issues within twelve sectors of city government and policy. When we looked at the survey responses, we found that respondents placed wage growth for low wage workers in Lexington as their priority issue. In this episode, we interviewed Dustin Pugel, a policy analyst at the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, about wage growth in Lexington and the state, and Elodie Dickinson, the city's Workforce Development Program Manager, about the program and how it's helping workers in the city. Read...
2019-01-3159 minThe CivicLex PodcastMinicast 1: What is LexArts?We're recording the issues from our website's Issue Hub into short, easy to digest Minicasts: all the information you'll need in just 10-15 minutes. In this first episode, we're talking about LexArts- what it is, what it does, and why its' important to Lexington. Listen to find out!
2018-12-1315 minThe CivicLex PodcastAffordable Housing in Lexington IOn this episode of the CivicLex Radio Hour, the CivicLex Team discusses issues of Affordable Housing in Lexington - particularly, what folks are impacted by Housing issues, and what the city is currently doing about it. The episode also previews an interview with Justin Kirchner of the Lexington Community Land Trust that will be in a future episode on Affordable Housing.CivicLex is a non-profit organization that is working to build a more civically engaged community by providing better access to information and building stronger relationships between citizens, those who serve them, and the processes that impact them. This podcast...
2018-12-0650 minThe CivicLex PodcastCouncil Member Roundtable & Tom Martin of WEKU's 'Eastern Standard'In CivicLex's Election Special, we featured snippets from a roundtable conversation we had with Vice Mayor Steve Kay and Council Members James Brown and Kathy Plomin - this episode features the rest of that conversation. We also sat down with Tom Martin, host of WEKU's 'Eastern Standard' to talk about his new spin on the show, and what upcoming episodes will be focused on.CivicLex is a non-profit organization that is working to build a more civically engaged community by providing better access to information and building stronger relationships between citizens, those who serve them, and the processes that impact...
2018-11-2956 minThe CivicLex PodcastLexington's 2018 Election: Part TwoIn this episode of the CivicLex Radio Hour, the CivicLex Team interviews Lexington residents and poll workers on Election Day 2018, talks with New Council Member Jennifer Reynolds and Lexington Herald-Leader Reporter Beth Musgrave, and sits down for a Roundtable Conversation with Vice Mayor Steve Kay and Council Members James Brown and Kathy Plomin. CivicLex is a non-profit organization that is working to build a more civically engaged community by providing better access to information and building stronger relationships between citizens, those who serve them, and the processes that impact them. This podcast is brought to you by The Blue Grass...
2018-11-261h 07The CivicLex PodcastLexington's 2018 Election: Part OneIn this episode of the CivicLex Radio Hour, the CivicLex Team interviews Lexington residents about their mood in advance of the 2018 General election, talks with Lisa Adkins at the Blue Grass Community Foundation about On The Table, and reviews the results of its very first public poll of local issues.
2018-11-131h 01