LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — Emma Curtis filed to run for Lexington Council. She's running against two other candidates for the Urban Council District 4 seat.
Curtis says, "I am the only candidate in this race who wasn't on the ballot last go around and quite frankly, I wanna bring something back to this seat which is servant leadership. I greatly admire Susan Lamb who is our current county clerk and the former representative for the fourth council district. And I’ve missed her service and I wanna bring back that style of leadership."
Curtis explains that she's lived and worked in south Lexington for all of her adult life. She says many of the points that she's running on are issues that have impacted many in the community, including herself — one of the biggest being affordable housing.
"I think that you would have to be delusional to ignore that we are facing an affordable housing crisis here in Lexington. And that's disproportionately falling on renters, that's disproportionately falling on young people, its disproportionately falling on people that don't have a seat at the table on our urban county council. I want to change that,” says Curtis.
She says she'd also like to see tax dollars enhance economic prosperity for the whole community, improved safety, improved public spaces, among more issues. Last year, Curtis ran in a special election to fill Kentucky’s 93rd House Seat after the passing of her friend, Representative Lamin Swann.
Curtis says, "I ran for that seat because the folks closest to him asked me to and I genuinely believe that we need more regular people in politics, in government, and that when we have our government run by folks who don't have the lived experiences, that reflect their constituency nobody benefits from that."
Curtis says that her campaign is about sharing the community's lived experiences and working together to move Lexington forward.
She shares, "This city's future is my future too and I don't think that we're gonna get anywhere unless we get people elected to local office whose life experiences reflect those of the communities they serve."
John Brack Marquette and Brenda Monarrez have also filed to run for the Urban Council District 4 seat. The primary election will be held on May 21.
