2024 Lexington Election Results!
Yesterday, Lexingtonians showed out to vote for the future they want to see in our city. There will be some new faces in City Hall and the Fayette County School Board - here are the highlights.
City Council Highlights
Council will have a number of changes with Districts 1, 4, 7, 8, and 12 seeing new Council Members.
Tyler Morton (District 1), Emma Curtis (District 4), Joseph Hale (District 7), and Hilary Boone (District 12) all won their contested races, and will be new members of the Urban County Council.
Incumbents Shayla Lynch (District 2) and Liz Sheehan (District 5) held on to their seats to win reelection for a third term.
Amy Beasley ran unopposed in the District 8 race. This will be her first term on Council. Beasley is a pharmacy technician for Kroger, and has a background in labor activism. She is the President of the Bluegrass Central Labor Council, and a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers.
Beasley said in her LexVote survey that the biggest issue facing District 8 is “the food insecurity that faces our families.”
Incumbent Councilmembers that ran unopposed and will serve another term are: Hannah Legris, Denise Gray, Whitney Elliott Baxter, Dave Sevigny, and Jennifer Reynolds.
School Board Highlights
School Board Districts 1, 3, and 5 all had elections this year. The School Board members will be:
District 1 - Monica Mundy
District 3 - K. Penny Christian
District 5 - Amy Green
Contested Council Results
District 1
Tyler Morton unseated Tayna Fogle, winning his first term as the District 1 Councilmember. Morton currently works as an Anesthesia Technician in the University of Kentucky Healthcare system. He was Councilmember Fogle’s Legislative Aide for the first few months of her term and has previously interned for the Urban County Council office.
The priorities on Morton’s campaign website include “accessible leadership,” “resource and knowledge sharing,” and “innovative problem solving.”
In our LexVote questionnaire, he said the biggest issue in the 1st District is “community safety and the need for expanded youth engagement via programming and resources.”
You can learn more about Tyler Morton here.
District 2
Incumbent Shayla Lynch was reelected to her second term. Lynch has previously served as the Executive Director for both the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning and Ampersand, and worked for several years with the Lexington Fair Housing Council. As a Councilmember, she serves on the The General Government & Planning and the Environmental Quality & Public Works Committees.
Councilmember Lynch was one of the lead sponsors for Lexington’s CROWN Act, which prohibits employment discrimination based on hairstyle.
Councilmember Lynch was also one of the lead sponsors on Lexington’s source of income discrimination ban.
In our LexVote questionnaire, Lynch said the biggest issues in the 2nd District are “natural growing pains” life traffic that come from the District being “the fastest growing council district in Lexington.”
You can learn more about Shayla Lynch here.
District 4
Emma Curtis unseated Councilmember Brenda Monarrez to win her first term on Council. Curtis is an independent filmmaker known for advocating against Senate Bill 150, the 2023 bill passed in the Kentucky State Legislature that regulated discussions on sexuality and pronoun use in the classroom, banned gender-affirming care for transgender minors, and more.
In our LexVote candidate survey, Curtis said District 4’s number one issue is “is improving road safety and reducing traffic.” She has campaigned heavily on improving traffic congestion and bicycle and pedestrian safety on Nicholasville Road.
Other priorities listed on her campaign website include “housing for all Lexingtonians,” “supporting public safety,” and “fair taxation.”
You can learn more about Emma Curtis here.
District 5
Incumbent Liz Sheehan was reelected to her third term. Councilmember Sheehan serves on the Budget, Finance, and Economic Development Committee; the General Government and Planning Committee; and is the Chair of the Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee.
Councilmember Sheehan has led a number of initiatives, including Lexington’s Short Term Rental regulations, a revised funding structure for Lexington’s Innovative and Sustainable Solutions for Homelessness Fund, and has secured funding for an ADA Transition Plan to make Lexington’s public infrastructure more accessible.
In our LexVote survey asking what the biggest issue in District 5 is, Sheehan said “priority issues for my constituents change from neighborhood to neighborhood, but always come back to meeting our basic needs.”
Top issues listed on her website include “housing,” “food access,” and “physical/mental health.”
You can learn more about Liz Sheehan here.
District 7
Joseph Hale has been elected to fill the District 7 seat and to serve his first term on Council. Hale is a Resource Management Analyst for the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
Hale says in his LexVote survey that the biggest issue facing District 7 is “bolstering public safety and ensuring equitable access to affordable housing.”
You can learn more about Jospeh Hale here.
District 12
Hilary “Hil” Boone, IV has been elected to fill the District 12 seat for his first term on Council. Boone is the owner of the restaurant Boonedogs and Wimbledon Farm.
In his LexVote survey, Boone said the biggest issue in District 12 is “the Urban Service Boundary expansion, and industrial solar.”
You can learn more about Hil Boone here.
School Board Results
District 1
Monica Mundy unseated Marilyn Clark to win her first term on the Fayette County School Board. Mundy is an Assistant Professor of Public Health at Eastern Kentucky University.
Mundy’s top priorities include “student achievement,” “positive learning and working environment,” “transparency and fiscal responsibility,” and “health and safety.”
You can learn about Monica Mundy here.
District 3
K. Penny Christian has been elected to fill the District 3 School Board seat and to serve her first term. Christian is the chair of the National PTA Family Engagement Committee and served as the former president of the 16th District PTA in Lexington, Kentucky.
One of Christian’s top priorities for the School Board is “rebuilding and regaining trust.”
You can learn more about K. Penny Christian here.
District 5
Incumbent Amy Green has been reelected to serve a second term on the School Board. Green is currently the Vice Chair of the Fayette County School Board and represents District 5. She was a former mathematics instructor and course coordinator at the University of Kentucky and a former math teacher at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School.
Green’s top priority is to ensure that “district initiatives and programs align with our strategic priorities and student achievement goals in our CDIP (Continuous District Improvement Plan).”
You can learn more about Amy Green here.
Ballot Questions
Local Parks Referendum
The Parks Sustainable Funding Ballot Initiative was passed last night.
The Initiative will create a new property tax of 2.25 cents per $100 of taxable property, which will begin being assessed on January 1st, 2025.
The tax will go exclusively to a new Parks Capital Fund. This new Fund will provide approximately $8 million a year to go toward capital parks improvements.
Capital improvements include playgrounds, walking trails, art installations, and other new physical construction projects.
The Mayor's Administration and Council will decide what projects will be funded as part of the regular City Budgeting process.
You can learn more about the Parks Sustainable Funding Ballot Initiative here.
Constitutional Amendment 1
Constitutional Amendment 1, which would add language to the Kentucky State Constitution stating that Kentucky voters must be United State citizens, has passed.
The State Constitution already requires voters to be a U.S. citizen to vote, but this language makes that requirement more clear. Amendment 1 narrowly passed in Fayette County.
You can learn more about Amendment 1 here.
Constitutional Amendment 2
Constitutional Amendment 2, which would have allowed the Kentucky State Legislature to send public money to be directed to private schools, failed. Moving forward, the Legislature will still only be able to allocate public money exclusively to public schools.
Amendment 2 failed in Lexington, with roughly 72% of voters voting against the amendment.
You can learn more about Amendment 2 here.
