Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman promised to keep economic opportunities coming for every Kentucky family.
At a meeting of the Radcliff Small Business Association Tuesday at the Colvin Community Center, Coleman highlighted large investments companies like Ford are making in Kentucky. She said, last year, the state broke “every single economic development record on the books.”
“In one single year, we brought in over $11 billion worth of economic development investments in the state of Kentucky,” she said. “That’s going to create over 18,000 jobs across the state.”
Coleman also said they currently have the largest rainy day fund in the history of Kentucky, and they are investing in communities “like never before” to improve infrastructure and make sure Kentucky is ready for progress.
“Right now, we have the opportunity to do the right thing and to take two years of progress and to turn it into 20 years of prosperity,” she said. “We want to make sure that every single family feels that.”
She told the crowd she understood the importance of small business, having come from a family of small business owners herself.
“I know the grind that you do every single day and the work that you do that goes unnoticed because you’re supporting your family and your community,” she said.
Coleman said growing up in a small town gave her the opportunity to see what community really was.
“I watched my grandfather and then my dad serve the community through our small business, and I learned the importance of providing high-quality products that would save you a trip to the big box store the next town over and also offering a great place for your neighbors to work,” she said. “And it was there that I learned the Kentucky values that would then shape who I am, values like hard work and honesty and treating people the way that you want to be treated. That’s a novel concept these days, but I know that those values run so deep in this room.”
Seth Dukes can be reached at 270-505-1413 or [email protected].
