Northern Kentucky Forum

We see it on cable news shows and college campuses, in the workplace and even at family gatherings – what starts out as a simple conversation quickly devolves into a nasty confrontation, with people taking sides and everyone talking and no one listening.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2011-2015 American Community Survey, 18.5 percent of people in Kentucky live below the poverty level. One of the challenges to reducing poverty is for communities to provide access to affordable housing.

Daily stories of overdoses, deaths and efforts to reduce opioid addiction have made us all too aware of the continuing drug crisis taking place in Greater Cincinnati. 

Yahoo recently announced that at least 500 million of their users had their information stolen in 2014. And earlier this year the Internal Revenue Service said a cyber hack of its system gained access to personal data from more than 700,000 taxpayer accounts. 

Given just how unusual this presidential campaign has been, political pundits have found it difficult to accurately predict what is going to happen next. 

The Democratic and Republican Parties are the largest political parties in the United States, and the two receive most of the attention from voters and the media. 

The Kentucky Republican Party held its presidential caucus this March, but the state held its primary yesterday. Hillary Clinton won the  Democratic presidential race with a very narrow win over Bernie Sanders. And members of both parties voted for the candidates they want to compete in the down-ticket races this November. 

Heroin abuse is becoming epidemic across the country, and the Northern Kentucky area has been particularly hard hit, experiencing a dramatic increase in those addicted to the drug and overdose deaths. Local communities, law enforcement, service agencies and medical professionals are collaborating on efforts to reduce heroin use, but there are different views on how best to combat the problem.

  For their book, “Running for Office: Why Young Americans are Turned Off to Politics,” Jennifer Lawless and Richard Fox asked more than 4,000 young Americans if they were interested in running for office one day. Eighty-nine percent of respondents said no. So what drives someone to run for political office at a time in their life when most of their peers are focusing their time and energy on building their careers and starting families?

Homelessness is a serious and continuing problem in Greater Cincinnati, on both sides of the Ohio River. In 2013, the State of Kentucky ranked worst in the nation in the extent of child homelessness. And the number of sheltered individuals in Kenton, Boone and Campbell Counties increased by more than 60 percent in 2014.

The overall voter turnout rate in the presidential election of 2012 was about 58%, with the rate among young voters, those ages 18 to 29, just 45%. Even in hotly-contested presidential elections, why don’'t more eligible U.S. voters go to the polls, and how can more young people be encouraged to get engaged and vote? A day-long symposium, “I Count Because I Vote,” will be held tomorrow at Northern Kentucky University to explore the issues that impact voting, in America, and in our region.

As the advanced manufacturing sector expands in Northern Kentucky there are good, well-paying jobs going unfilled. Local public education institutions, including our high schools, Gateway Community & Technical College, and Northern Kentucky University, are committed to preparing students for the sector. And a new campaign by the Advanced Manufacturing Workforce Development Coalition, I Made it in NKY,  aims to educate the public about the opportunities for jobs and careers.

Voters in Kentucky went to the polls Tuesday to choose the candidate they hoped would replace Steve Beasher as the next governor of the commonwealth. 

  The relationships between local police and the people in the areas they serve have been under ever-closer scrutiny during the year, with calls for greater oversight and reforms increasing with each new incident involving possible excessive force by police officers. An upcoming Northern Kentucky Forum will address police community relations and explore the measures local police departments have enacted to build trust in their communities.

  Since it was founded in 2008, The Northern Kentucky Forum has conducted more than 50 public affairs events, exploring a range of political, economic, health, education and social issues.