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The ongoing shake-up at the Metro-politan Sewer District now includesstate Sen. Gerald Neal, D-Louisville,whose lucrativesubcontract to do legalwork for the agency for more than 10years ended quietly a month ago.

MSD board Chairman Arnold Celen-tano confirmed Friday that the MSDboard agreed Nov. 28 that it wanted to

break ties with Nealand conveyed thosewishes to the boardsattorney, LarryZielke, whom Nealworked for as a sub-contractor.

Documents pro-videdtotheTheCou-rier-Journal underKentuckys open-

records law showNeal hasbeen paid atleast $672,000 since2006forhislegalser-vices to the agency.He is a former MSDboard member whoserved 11 yearsstarting in 1979, in-cludingfiveaschair-man.

MSD officialswere silent Fridayon their concernsabout Neal, whichMSD spokesman

Steve Tedder said were discussed dur-ing a closed session of the board.

Asked whythe board wasconcernedaboutNeal,Celentano,whoattendedthe

Nov. 28 meeting, replied: I am not toosure. I will have to get back to you.

But Neals dismissal came a day be-foreMSD officialsreportedreceiving a$1,938reimbursementfromNealtocov-er part of the cost of a private retire-ment party in 2008 for Neals wife,Kathy Cooksie, who was the agencys

Sen.Neals

MSDworkendsMove comes as he repaysagency for wifes party

By James Bruggersjbruggers@courier-journal.com

The Courier-Journal

Sen. Gerald Neal

ONTHEWEB

Find this story atcourier-jour-nal.com for a linkto other storiesabout MSDstroubles.

See NEAL, PageA6

After winninghis first politicaloffice by a razor-thin margin,Louisville Mayor Greg Fischerhas received generally good re-views during his administrationsfirst year.

A political novice whose onlyprevious experience came in afailed run at the U.S. Senate in2008, Fischer hashad to cope withcrisessuchasafatalexplosionataRubbertown factory and the sub-sequent failure of the citys emer-

gencyalertsystem,andthefalloutfromhighlycriticalaudits of Met-ro Animal Servicesand theMetro-politan Sewer District that result-edin managementchangesat bothagencies.

Since succeeding longtimeMayor JerryAbramsonlast Janu-ary as only the second leader ofLouisvilles merged government,Fischer has ordered reviews ofseveral departments and of themerger itself, while also workingto expand metro Louisvilles econ-

omyand confronting a budget im-balance that will persist into thenew year.

JohnDavid Dyche, a conserva-tiveauthorwhosecolumnsappearin The Courier-Journal, saidFischer has had a successful firstyear particularly at uniting thecommunity behind his leadershipafter narrowlydefeating Republi-canHalHeinerinthegeneralelec-tion.

Theevidence is inhis good re-lationship with Metro Council Re-publicans on issues ranging fromthe budget to his handling of the

Fischer earns mostly good marksFIRST-YEAR ACHIEVEMENTS

The city recorded the creation of 3,800new jobs in Louisville, with 65 companiesmoving or expanding here. The Fischer administration eliminated a$22.5 million budget deficit with aninflux of one-time cash and cost savingsfrom various actions. The city secured a $4.9 million Bloom-berg grant to identify more-efficientways to provide city services. The administration found buyers forthe $30 million Whiskey Row Main Streetdevelopment. The administration also helped securefunds for the Big Four Bridge and beginning deck work. It adopted a new policy requiring bidding for all city contracts. The mayor ordered a citywide review of overtime pay and policies.

Mayor wraps up busy, eventful first year in office

ByDanKlepaldklepal@courier-journal.com

The Courier-Journal

SUNDAY EXCLUSIVE

SeeFISCHER,Page A13

Mayor Greg Fischer

LEXINGTON, Ky. This tellsthe story of theUniversityof Ken-tuckys 69-62 mens basketball vic-tory over the University of Louis-ville on Saturday in Rupp Arena.

UKs two leading scorers, Mi-chael Kidd-Gil-christ and AnthonyDavis, each spenttime as the nationsNo. 1-rated highschool prospectlastseason, and bothwillbe lotterypicksin the NBA draft

whentheydecidetoenter it.U of Ls leading

scorer, Russ Smith,was an unheralded some wouldsayunknown recruit outof NewYork City who was assumed to betransferring in search of playingtime after last season.

Inthisseries,itisincreasinglya

Happy New Year for the fans inblue because the stars, recruitingand otherwise, are aligned on theirside.

Againstthe heavilyfavoredandNo. 3-ranked Wildcats (13-1), No. 4U of L (12-2) foughthard, absorbedruns, fouled prodigiously, got UKinto foul trouble, tied the score inthe second half and kept thingsclose, even while not playing par-ticularly well.

Theydidwhattheyhadtodototry to win the game, UK coachJohn Calipari told radio voice Tom

Leachonhispostgameshow.

Theymuddied it up.What U of L could not do, how-

ever, wasanswer talentof the typethat Kidd-Gilchrist and Davisbring to the court.

Calipari is playing with bluechips. U of L coach Rick Pitino, by

Kentucky's Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, who scored 24 points Saturday, shoots over Louisville's Jared Swopshire. Kidd-Gilchrist hauled

down 19 rebounds, two more than the Cardinals entire starting lineup.MICHAELCLEVENGER/THECOURIER-JOURNAL

U of L has no answer when stars are aligned for Wildcats

KENTUCKY 69, LOUISVILLE 62

EricCrawford

MOREONTHE GAME

UK triumphed in ugly game. C1 Columnist Rick Bozich says Louisvilles offenseneeds major overhaul. C1 Go to www.courier-journal.com for video,photo galleries and our experts opinions

Carla Means, center, and Michelle Means, right,watch the game at Brownie's The Shed Grille &

Bar near Middletown. The crowd was split evenlybetween Kentucky and Louisville fans. Story, B1

See GAME, PageA6

FAN-TASTIC ACTION

Love UofL and hate BigBlue? Or cant stand BigRed? Go toRedNBlueFans.com andlet everyone know.

SPORTS | C1

IU KNOCKS OFF

NO. 2 OHIO STATE

IN 74-70 UPSET

8/3/2019 Gerald Neal at MSD

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A6 | SUNDAY, JANUARY 1, 2012 | THE COURIER-JOURNAL FROM PAGE ONE | courier-journal.com KY

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and large, is playing withblue-collar guys. Of Piti-nos topthreescorersgoinginto the game, Smith camefroma prep schoolandwasa surprise, Kyle Kuriccame initially as a non-scholarship player andChris Smith showed up atU of L when his brother,

NBA player J.R. Smith,asked Pitino to give him achance. Theyre very goodplayers but not eliteplayers.

Thats no disrespect forU of L,because ithas talentand will have more whenMcDonalds All AmericanWayne Blackshear joinsthe team and its injuredparts become healthier.The Cardinals of today arenot the team they will be inMarch. Saturdays gamedoes not define their sea-son, but it very clearly de-fines them in relation totheir cross-state rival.

Lexington doesnt havejust the horse farms. It hasthe horses.

This is the team I likethe most, just being a fan,in the past five, six yearsfor Kentucky, Pitino said.Theres no take this therightwaynodistractionsin terms of the guys. Like,Michael Gilchrist is one ofthe nicest young men; heplays every possession asif hes going to die tomor-row.AnthonyDavisisater-rific young man.So theyreall great guys playing to-gether, and they play veryhard.

FreshmanshinesThe scene for Caliparispostgame radio show is al-ways a Kodak Kentuckymoment. He walks acrossthe Rupp Arena court to sitwith Leach, while a crowdlarger than most South-eastern Conference teamsdraw for actual games sitsin the stands to hear hiscomments.

Saturday, as if gettingready to lead a choir, Cali-pari raised his hands to thecrowd and said, his voiceamplified, And we wonthis game because ...

The crowd, in unison,answered: Michael Kidd-

Gilchrist.The indomitable fresh-man never wavers. WhileCalipari juggles his talent-ed pieces and he had toadjust repeatedly for foulson Saturday Kidd-Gil-christ keeps churning. Hefinished with 24 points and19 rebounds, two more re-

bounds than U of Ls entirestarting lineup.

And hemade the gamesbiggest play. With UK upeight and about four min-utes to play, the Wildcatshad missed three straightshots before Kidd-Gil-christ waded in, grabbedan offensive rebound andscored while being fouled.His free throw made it 61-50, and the Wildcats leadremained in double digitsuntil the final seconds.

He was vicious, Cali-pari said.

Cards surge backThe game looked as if it

might getout of handearly.UK led by as many as 15 inthe first half, but when Da-vis, the 6-10 freshman wholeads the nation in blocked

shots, left the game withtwo fouls, U of L began toget to the rim, scoringenough to put more defen-sive pressure on the Wild-cats. At the half, UKs leadwas only 36-33.

With Davis back in thesecond half, however,U of L couldnt get to therim. He blocked the Cardi-nals first two shots, andtheir offense ground to ahalt.

How big is Anthony

Davis? Caliparisaid againto his postgame crowd,raising his hands, andcheers thundered downforthe freshman who finishedwith 18 points, 10 reboundsand six blocks.

For a U of L team strug-gling to find ways to score,having Davis beneath the

basket proved too much.Russ Smith, who scored 30points,found ways anyway.The rest of the Cardinalswere handcuffed by thelonger, more athletic Wild-cats.

And many of them weresaddled with fouls.It wasabizarre, whistle-filled af-fair. U of L freshmanChane Behanan had threefouls inside of four min-utes. UK was shooting thebonus after 5 minutes.

The Wildcats got into ma-jor foul trouble, too, sittingdown starting guards Mar-quis Teague and DoronLamb with four fouls eachearly in the second half.

Neither coach disputedthe whistles.

I thinktheywerefouls,I really do, Pitino said. I

kept saying to your guys,You fouled him. Theyre fouls.

UK made just 17 of 57shots but hit 32 of 43 freethrows. U of L nearly hadmore fouls (29) than re-bounds (31),and UKs 57-31edge on the boards was asbig as the number looks.

You people make thisgametoo big, Caliparitoldhis radio audience. ... Butits a really big game whenyou win.

Pitino said hewas proud

of his team. It is establish-ing a reputation as a teamthat will always fight back.But with Caliparis recruit-ing revolving door stillspinning, UKs is the pro-gramthatis runningahead.

Reach Eric Crawford at (502)

582-4372 or ecrawford@

courier-journal.com. Com-

ment on this column or read

his blog and past columns at

www.courier-journal.com/

crawford.

GAME: Talented Wildcats have the horses in fierce rivalry with Louisville

Louisville's Russ Smith tries to stop UK's Marquis Teague. Smith led the Cardinals with 30points. PHOTOS BY BILL LUSTER/SPECIAL TO THE COURIER-JOURNAL

Kentucky's Darius Miller, who scored 7 points, defendsagainst Louisville's Kevin Ware.

human resources director.Neal said in an interviewhesuspectsthatwas theis-sue.

The MSD expenditure

of public funds for a pri-vate party was found to beinappropriatein a scathingmanagement auditby Ken-tucky Auditor Crit Luallenthat wasmadepublic threeweeks later, on Dec. 16.

This was a board thatwas responding with anabundance of caution,Neal said.

Zielke did not returntelephone callsor emails todiscuss the matter.

Teddersaid boardmem-bersdid notinstructZielketo drop Neal, but theyraised concerns.

Mr. Zielke said it washis subcontract, and he

would take care of it, Ted-der said.

An hour after the meet-ing ended, Zielke wrote anemail to Paula Purifoy,MSDs legal counsel, thatsaid:Today,I notifiedGer-ald Neal that his subcon-tract has ended with myfirm to perform legal ser-vices forMSD.I requestedall his files be returned tomyfirm.We will meet con-tractrequirements within-house minority counsel.

Neal, who is black, hadbeenhiredtomeetMSDre-quirements that a portionofitscontactworkgotomi-noritiesor women businessowners. Tedder said Nealhas filled that role withMSD for more than a dec-ade.

Neal denied he did any-thing wrong and said nomoney ever came to himfor the party. He said hesentMSDthecheckassoon

as he learned that expensewas being called into ques-tion.

I dont want anybodyassociating my name,

rightlyorwrongly,withtheinappropriate useof publicfunds, he said in an inter-view.

The board's discussionabout Neal was not includ-ed in the minutes of theNov. 28 meeting. Teddersaid there was no need be-cause theboard took no ac-tion.

Neal isjustthelatest ca-sualty of disclosures aboutMSD, many of which werefirst made public by TheCourier-Journal.

Audit triggerspersonnel changes

Luallens audit, donefor

Mayor Greg Fischer,found MSD beset by poormanagement, lax businesspractices, conflicts of in-terest and wasteful spend-ing. The agency has an op-erating budget of $110 mil-lion and a capital budgetthis year of more than$200 million.

This year, Fischer hasreplaced four of MSDseight board members andis looking for replace-mentsfor threeothers whorecently quit, and for Ce-lentano, who has promisedto step down after a re-placement is found andconfirmed by the MetroCouncil.

Fischer, on Dec. 16, alsoannounced the pending re-tirementof MSDexecutivedirector Bud Schardein,whowillserveinanadviso-ry role until his departure.And the former chief engi-neer previously left after

the newspaper reported aconflict of interest thatwas later included in Lual-lens audit.

Zielkes own role with

theagencyis alsochangingin the wake of the releaseof the audit. In August, theMSDboardalteredZielkescontract from year-to-yearto month-to-month, run-ning through the comple-tion of the Dec.16 audit.

Interim Executive Di-rector Greg Heitzman,who took over that sameday, has informed Zielke,who has represented MSDfor 25 years, not to take onany new MSD matters andto focus on anything thatis time-sensitive related tocourt actions, Teddersaid.

Tedder said the MSD

board, which next meetsJan. 9, needs to decide howit will handle future legalservices. The audit recom-mended that legalservicesbe competitively bid.

Hotel billquestioned

Luallencalledthe $1,938hotel bill for Cooksies re-tirement party a personalexpense that should nothave been partially offsetusing MSD funds. Shesaidthepartypaymentwasone of the issues she wasgoing to point out to Louis-villeMetroPolicefor anin-vestigation of whether anycrime was committed.

Officer Carey Klain, apolice spokeswoman, saidthedepartments Public In-tegrity Unit has receivedLuallens report and woulddiscuss any conclusionswith the Jefferson Countycommonwealth attorney's

office.Neal said he cant re-

member the details of thebilling, which he said in-volved audio-visual ser-

vicesatalocalhotel.Buthesaid he recognizes that hadMSD refused to pay thebill, the hotel would havelooked to him to for pay-ment.

I stepped up to theplate, doing what was ap-propriate under the cir-cumstances, he said.

Neals wife also was re-ferred to in the audit, al-though not by name.

The newspaper in Mayreported that Schardeinhad boosted Cooksies payby $27,580 over the last 22months of her career, ef-fectively increasing hergovernment pension.

Schardein said he wasmerely trying to keep herpension the same during atime when retirement ben-efit calculations werechanging. But state offi-cialsatthetimesaidSchar-dein made a mistake re-garding the deadline forretiring under the moregenerous pension formula.

Luallenrecountedthosecircumstances in the auditand cited Schardeins er-ror, saying he had failed toconfirm how the salaryboost would increase herretirement.

Neal said he was frus-trated to be brought intothe MSD controversy.

There was no intentionto do anything that was notappropriate or proper, hesaid.IamfeelinglikeIamsort of in a swirl here.

Reporter James Bruggers can

be reached at (502) 582-4645.

NEAL: Reimburses MSD; subcontracting ends