LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Not long after he and his family moved in 2018, Matthew Brotzge ran as a write-in candidate for commissioner of his new suburban city of Richlawn.
He won the seat and was reelected in 2020. The position in the city — population 412 — "runs the gamut," Brotzge said, from helping neighbors with leaf collection and trash pickup issues to property line disputes. He was chosen mayor during last month's general election and is set to take office in January.
In all three of those contests, however, Richlawn voters received ballots without enough candidates to fill the four-member city commission. Just two residents, for example, filed to run for the commission seats this year.
Brotzge said city officials plan to add two more commissioners by voting to appoint new members once the new term starts. Kentucky law lets legislative bodies fill those vacancies. If they don't, the governor makes the assignments.
"We know everybody or are fairly close to everybody. And so we can identify who we think are good candidates and we just approach them directly," Brotzge said. "It's grassroots as it gets, I think. You just tap on the shoulder of our neighbors and say, 'Hey, we think you'd be a good fit for this. Would you mind doing it?'"
The dilemma facing Richlawn, which abuts larger St. Matthews, is not unusual among other home rule cities that receive tax revenues and provide basic services within Jefferson County even after the merger of the old city of Louisville and county governments nearly two decades ago.
Roughly 36% of those cities did not have a full complement of candidates running for the two-year legislative terms in the November elections. That compares with 25% during the 2020 election and 29% in 2018 voting, according to a WDRB News analysis of Jefferson County Board of Elections data. Five cities had no one running for mayor this year.
In Brownsboro Farm, there isn't typically a shortage of candidates, outgoing Mayor Kim Franklin said. But it was short one person running for the four-person commission this year. -- and already with a solution to ensuring a full slate.
Franklin said a resident who lost the mayor's race has expressed interest in being on the panel.
"We do have people on the commission who are willing to serve long terms and, when their terms are up, we really don't have a problem finding someone to step up to take that position," she said.
Brownsboro Farm Mayor Kim Franklin (WDRB photo).
The dearth of candidates doesn't concern Bonnie Jung, the longtime mayor of Douglass Hills and president of the Jefferson County League of Cities.
"This happens all over the state of Kentucky," she said.
The city-county merger that took effect in 2003 and created Louisville Metro government didn't eliminate independent cities. They continue to provide targeted services such as garbage and recycling and collect property and other taxes, including federal funds from the American Rescue Plan COVID-19 relief bill.
The cities range from Jeffersontown — home to more than 25,000 residents — to 11 places with less than 200 people. They're represented by a mayor and either a four-member commission or typically a six-member council. Some cities — like Indian Hills, Lyndon and West Buechel, for example — have larger councils.
Jung said most cities with open seats typically fill them within weeks of their terms starting. In some cases, a would-be candidate might have simply missed a filing deadline. And "sometimes years and years ago," she said, a small city resident may not have wanted to pay the filing fee.
"If I thought it was going to be a really, really big concern, we probably would have tried to address it already," she said.
Richlawn City Commissioner and Mayor-elect Matthew Brotzge during interview with WDRB (WDRB photo).
At the same time, Jefferson County's 83 small cities are at a transition point.
Jung said 26 mayors are retiring, including some who have served for at least a decade. House Bill 314, which the Kentucky General Assembly approved earlier this year, will allow new cities of at least 6,000 in the county and will make it easier for cities to annex surrounding areas, including existing municipalities.
No cities have been added to others since an annexation moratorium in Jefferson County was lifted in 2014. Richlawn's commission voted to be annexed by St. Matthews that same year, but its voters turned the proposal back in the general election.
"Do I think there's too many cities in Jefferson County? I think that there's a possibility that there will be more," Jung said. "I think that there's a possibility smaller ones may conjoin."
The issue of having enough elected officials to govern home rule cities was mentioned during an October meeting of the Louisville Metro Review Commission, which the bill created to study the effectiveness of merged government.
Metro Council member Jecorey Arthur, a Democrat, noted that a number of small cities didn't have enough candidates running for office in the November elections. In response, Kentucky State Rep. Ken Fleming, a Republican who formerly served on the Metro Council, said these issues aren't new.
"There's always been a struggle to fill that out going back to the early '90s, if not the '80s, to fill those things out," said Fleming, who represented Riverwood and Brownsboro Village before running for the newly created Metro Council in 2002.
In the end, Fleming said in an interview that "it comes down to citizen involvement and basically taking care of keeping the lights, keeping the roads paved."
But Arthur told WDRB he believes a system of continuously appointing people to serve on elected councils and commissions takes "the power of choice away." He likens it to when a Metro Council member leaves office and the council — not the voters of the district — chooses a temporary replacement.
"They should have a say. They should have a choice in who represents them," Arthur said. "And when you have appointments, you really silence people from being able to voice who they believe would best represent them."
In Audubon Park, council member Andrew Klump said he understands why people might not want to run for office in small cities. Budget and legal issues can be complicated, for example. And there's a time commitment. Klump estimates he spends about 10 hours a month on city business.
Audubon Park has had full slates of candidates in recent elections. But, in general, Klump acknowledges that appointing people to elected positions is "not good."
"But there's nothing else you can really do about it," he said. "You have to fill the seats and keep the government operating, because there's too much money sitting there."
Of the five cities where no one ran for mayor, two of them — South Park View and Poplar Hills — are considered "non-functioning" by the Kentucky Department for Local Government, meaning they remain an incorporated city even though they have no officers.
The current mayors of Beechwood Village and Parkway Village, which had no mayoral candidates, did not respond to requests for comment.
In Cambridge, a city of about 160 people, no one ran to succeed Mayor Sherry Tyler. She told WDRB she wants to retire but would consider serving another term through an appointment.
Back in Richlawn, Mayor-elect Brotzge said he understands why there sometimes aren't enough candidates for small city offices: It's a "labor of love" in addition to a regular job.
"I think residents are hesitant to govern their next-door neighbor," said Brotzge, an attorney. "There's a chance for conflict. And I think most people want to get along with people they live next to. So when you step up to be in a government role, that doesn't always happen."
Copyright 2022 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.