The race for the McCracken County judge-executive seat features a contested Republican primary election in May, with the winner likely facing current Paducah Mayor George Bray – who filed to run for the county office as an independent this spring – in the general election.
The GOP primary will see incumbent Judge-Executive Craig Clymer – who is currently on his second term in office – take on two challengers: a fellow fiscal court member in McCracken County Commissioner Richard Abraham and Paducah businessman Matt Moore – who also ran against Clymer in the Republican primary in 2022.
Responses appear in the order that candidates’ names are listed on the ballot. McCracken County’s sample ballot, which shows what other races voters will see when they go to cast votes on May 19, can be found here.
A portion of McCracken County is in the state House’s District 2, which also has a primary election this month. Interviews and answers from those candidates can be found here.
Richard Abraham
Editor’s note: These answers have been transcribed from interviews with Richard Abraham and have been edited for length and clarity. You can also listen to WKMS’ interview with Abraham below.
Q: What should voters know about you and why you're running for office in McCracken County?
A: Well, quite simply, I have served with [three Paducah] mayors [and] three city managers since I've been in office. [I] first got elected back in 2000; so, it's been a long time. I've had the pleasure of serving the folks in Paducah-McCracken County.
I've always brought a common sense approach to the job, and I enjoy the job. I love having a say, having a vote on the topics that face our county residents. I just love the job, and I like to think I'm good at it.
Q: What would your priorities be if you were elected to the office of judge-executive?
A: Well, the priorities are what they are. We're pretty conservative. We say we're pretty conservative. We're all Republicans that’s running. So, to keep taxes low, we cut the insurance premium tax. We cut here, not so long ago, about $1 million dollars … the only funding that the McCracken County government gets in is through taxes. When you… reduce taxes, that's a couple of things. One, it's more money that the taxpayer keeps in their pocket. Also understand that is about $1 million that the county's not getting in as revenue. So the only way to do that is to make sure you're financially sound – on good footing – so you can do that. So it's kind of a double deal there that you can do that. You have to make sure that decisions you've made financially prior to that type of action is strong, and most folks appreciate that.
Q: What do you see as the signature issue in McCracken county over the next four years?
A: We have issues here in McCracken County, like most counties across the country, with housing. Now, if you've paid attention to some of the potentially upcoming projects out around the former [Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant] site, there's going to be a lot of activity going on out there, companies projected to come. And so, when that happens, you're going to have an influx of folks coming to this area.
And so, like I said … housing, it will be an issue. But I look at that as, what an opportunity for [a] capitalistic society where you have folks that that's what they do…they're builders. They scout out opportunities to build exactly what you're needing. So I think, as the county moves forward, those folks that have those particular skills looking for opportunities to enhance work where your fellow McCracken Countians live, and the opportunity to advance their own financial independence. All of that goes together, and the McCracken County Fiscal Court has a part to play in that, but also … some other folks that live in this area.
Q: Can you talk about how, if elected, you would work to improve the quality of life for county residents?
A: Yeah, it's all about it's all about the part that we play – the fiscal court. We have a part to play in moving McCracken County forward. We have to present a balanced budget. We take care of infrastructure … roads and things like that. We have to do that job [as defined by KRS ordinance 67.710]. We have to take care of that first, and then at that point we have community partners, agencies that do great work advancing McCracken County, making it very attractable for businesses and folks to move to our area. We have the number-one chamber of commerce in the United States. Their job is to gather the priorities of our community. And they go to Frankfort and Washington, D.C. and they lobby for those and apparently they've done a really good job. We have [West Kentucky Community & Technical College] … we have 29 barge company headquarters here in Paducah. That's massive. GPED – Greater Paducah Economic Development Council – their job is to recruit and develop businesses to come here … The McCracken County Fiscal Court has a part to play, but we also support those other agencies, those other organizations, that's moving us toward the same goal, and that is to enhance the lives of our McCracken County residents.
Q: Obviously, you currently sit on the McCracken County Fiscal Court as a county commissioner, but you are running for the office of Judge Executive. So talk to me about what needs to change in your local county government and why people should vote you into office to do that.
A: That's a good question, and I've always looked at that question a little differently. We all bring what we bring to the table. Before I got elected [to Paducah’s City Commission] back in 2000, I came out of the non-for-profits. We had a street ministry – Vision Inner City Paducah – and we would work with inner city youth and we would connect them with potential employers. And so when I got elected, that's what I brought to the table. I would ask maybe a different type of question than some of my colleagues would ask, not that I was, you know, any better than them. It's just that that's what I brought to the table.
I've always used a common sense approach. I think sometimes we overthink things, and it's not that complicated. I'm telling you: this job that we have as elected officials, it's not that complicated, but here's the thing … you got [other people to work with on elected bodies], and we all think a little different. So you have to try to get to a compromise a lot of times, but sometimes you can't. Sometimes you have to be the long one that says no… As we used to say it when I played football, ‘You can't play scared if you believe in what you're doing.’ You speak humbly, speak boldly about that and folks – most folks – are reasonable. They may not always like what you have to say, but they respect the consistency of your service, and that's what I've tried to do over the last few years that I've been elected.
Q: Is there anything that I haven't asked about that you would want people to know about you?
A: If I win this primary and make it through to the fall and [am] successful there, I'll be a great judge-executive. I know all the players, understand how the system works. [I plan on] truly being a servant of the people, making sure that we're doing everything we can to make sure that they have more money in their pockets as far as taxes going – but at the same time, not putting ourselves in a situation where we have to draw down on reserves and then we don't have the money to support those other agencies that I talked about earlier.
Craig Clymer
Editor’s note: These answers have been transcribed from an interview with Craig Clymer, and have been edited for length and clarity. You can also listen to WKMS’ interview with Clymer below.
Q: What should voters know about you and why are you running for office?
A: Well, I love the job. I've been the judge-executive for seven years. I think I've got a strong record of success in doing it for the last seven years. I intend to continue to make McCracken County a safer, more beautiful, more enjoyable place to live. We're growing jobs, we're lowering taxes.
As far as my background, I began public service in this county as a police officer way back in 1976. I have a four-year degree in law enforcement. [I] minored in psychology, [and] have a law degree… I was a state judge here for 23 years. [I’ve] studied toward a master's degree in public administration. I'm a certified mediator by the National Judicial College. [I] studied economics at Northwestern and George Mason universities. [I] have a particular interest in economics. Don't know why, I just enjoy it, and it's very helpful in this position. I attended seminars around the country in the last few years on nuclear power to educate myself about what's on our horizon.
I think all that background provides me with the tools to excel at managing the challenges of a county our size. The ability to negotiate, to understand, to draft a contract, to mediate with people, to work toward economic impact of complex issues is just really invaluable, and I think it's led to a lot of our continued growth and success. We're moving forward. We're poised for, really, just great prosperity from these nuclear projects that are here already and more coming. This is what I do. It's all I do. I’m motivated, fully engaged, got a great team put together, got all the tools and just ready to continue moving McCracken County forward. I think it'd be a bad time to jump ship, put somebody else at the helm. I just believe when you got somebody who's doing a good job, why replace that person?
Q: What would your priorities be, if elected?
A: I think one of the strongest things we have, really, is the relationships… When I go to D.C. or go to Washington state, or been down to New Mexico…[and] the Savannah River nuclear sites. Get to know those people a little better. That's all the nuclear side.
We want to also continue to strengthen our sheriff's office, our emergency management, fire [and] first responders. Priority is safety, and so we're getting that done. I want to finish the sports park for our children and the strong tourism dollars that's going to bring into the community.
[I want to] support the uranium enrichment [and the] nickel decontamination projects out the DOE site… I want to continue to lower taxes and as the new tax revenue from these multi-billion dollar companies that are setting up out there at the DOE site that will alleviate the need for residents’ tax payments will shift. These multi-billion dollar companies that are coming in … they're going to make good money off of us. We're going to get some tax money off of them. And so the more money we get in new tax revenue alleviates the need for us to continue at the tax rate we are with our citizens. We can give them some relief. So that's exciting. We want to continue to improve neighborhoods by cleaning and or demolishing structures. We're improving our parks, putting in new lighting, playground equipment, parking, fencing, play courts, pickleball, tennis.
Really, I guess the bottom line is [that] we've got so much potential. I want to just elevate our county to its full potential.
Q: What do you see as the signature issue in your county over the next four years?
A: If you want to put your finger on just one: this activity at the old [Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant]. It's just going to transform this county and this entire region into just an economic development machine. It's just unimaginable what's going to happen out there. When I came into office seven years ago, they said, ‘Maybe [in] 20 years – could be 30 – we might be able to start reindustrializing. If you want to do that,’ they said, ‘or [if] you don't want to … make it a park. You need to decide what you want to do.’ And so we talked amongst ourselves – the city, the chamber, county, other entities – and decided it's a no-brainer: We're going to reindustrialize that and we're going to bring good paying jobs for decades in here.
And so here we are now, seven years later, and we already have these two projects out there [General Matter and Global Laser Enrichment]. One’s leased land on the DOE site [and] one’s bought land adjoining it – each of them in excess of $1.5 billion – to produce enough uranium for the entire nation's needs for decades.
I'm confident an artificial intelligence data center will follow [at that site]. That's a $30 billion project required to produce its own power. So it won't increase electric costs for us. That's the criticism of the data centers, that it just consumes so much electricity that supply and demand causes residents’ electrical rates to go up. But I've talked to Tim Walsh, the [Assistant Secretary for Kentucky’s Office of Environmental Management], several times. He assures me that whoever leases that ground for the AI data center will be required, as a condition of the lease, to generate their own power outside of the grid … and, along with that, I guess the issue is planning. We've got to plan and get this right. These projects are going to require thousands of workers, initially [for] construction for several years, and then for operations of the plants for decades. We're going to build several 1000 housing units. Our schools and colleges, you're going to step up the relevant training and certification and degrees. And then there's the indirect businesses. That area there used to be called Atomic City. I've taken to calling it Atomic City 2.0 because it's going to generate a new community out there that will bolster and make us all stronger throughout. not just for McCracken County, but the whole region. This planning, it's difficult, but it's a good issue to have and we're going to be sure to get it right.
Q: How would you work to improve the quality of life for county residents?
A: If you don't have a safe community, you don't have a good community. And we really focused on that … [a] community that's safer still with stronger law enforcement, emergency personnel, firefighters. That's our number one priority.
Along with that lower taxes means more money in people's pockets … [and] we've already started reducing the insurance tax. I foresee us continuing that. I think there's no doubt we'll be able to do that and at some point to likely eliminate that. And then we started looking at our property tax rates. I think we can make some downward adjustments there.
These large numbers of high-paying jobs allows for upward movement for our residents. Our children can find strong and meaningful employment right here when they get out of school, whether they graduate from high school or university or whatever. They don't have to move away anymore for lack of work. These are high-paying and meaningful jobs. Now I'm a patriot and I know a lot of people here are … to work at a facility, at a job where you are enriching uranium to provide the fuel for nuclear reactors throughout the United States … that's strong. Our parks, our schools, our neighborhoods, our businesses, our roads, our opportunities are going to all improve from all of this. I get excited about it when I talk, but it's just a multi-generational quality of life improvement, really multi-generational. I think the challenge from that is people hear that they think, ‘You know, there's this axiom: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.’ Well, this sounds too good to be true, but it is. It's not even probably is. It's coming. It's right here now, and we've got to be focused and prepared. And I am, and my team is. We're fully engaged and ready for it.
Q: What have you accomplished during your time in office and why should people vote you back in?
A: I and my team, we brought the county from a poor to a strong financial position. When I took office seven years ago, we discovered – I didn't know – we were in a … call it desperate [straits] but, boy, we were down there. We were looking at what services we [could] cut in order to keep a balanced budget. We had been, in the prior administration, spending out of savings for quite some time, and it depleted it down to a low, very low and dangerous level.
We've strengthened all the first responders for a safer community. We've brought a lot of high-paying jobs and, as I said already, we're bringing many, many more. We built a sports park for our children's use and tourism. That's something I'm really proud of. We've supported the Department of Energy cleanup and promoted reindustrialization out there, providing all this huge economic benefit I mentioned already. We're reducing taxes. We built a new airport terminal. We've increased services, we beautified neighborhoods, we've improved area parks, we've maintained quality roads, prioritized spending for maximum benefit to the community. We've balanced the budget each year. We've maintained the highest honest and transparent government. We've really set us on a path of continued prosperity and strength moving forward. Gosh, I think I should be re elected, because we just can't stop now. I think if it ain't broke, why do we want to try and fix it? And so I'd appreciate people giving me the opportunity to finish what we've gotten started and just bring us up to our potential. We'll be proud in four years from now, what all has been done, I think.
Matt Moore
Editor’s note: These answers have been transcribed from an interview with Matt Moore, and have been edited for length and clarity. You can also listen to WKMS’ interview with Moore below.
Q: What should voters know about you and why are you running for office?
A: I'm a local businessman and entrepreneur here in McCracken County, and have been for a couple of decades now. I feel that a business background should be something that everyone that operates the business of McCracken County should have. And it's been some time, maybe decades, since we've had a judge-executive that has had a business background. But you really need to know and understand how business works and growth works in order to prepare yourself to not fail in growth … which growth is the key to a community, it's the key to lower taxes, it's the key to a safe community, [to] being able to pay your sheriff's deputies [and] your employees in the county courthouse without raising taxes. Obviously, we're coming off the highest tax that we've ever had in the history of McCracken County, with the insurance tax they created for us that's taken in over $21 million in five years of taxpayer money. It's something that's crucial that we get rid of that. Personally, I know that growth will take care of a lot of that, but you've got to have somebody in there that knows how to do that. So my business mindset, I think, is a major qualification in this.
Q: What would your priorities be, if elected?
A: Obviously, in order to grow, you have to have [a] safe community. So our Sheriff's Department has to be supported correctly. They have to have the right tools, the right, the right amount of deputies on staff. You know, we're short-handed right now. They've just recently got an increase in pay, but it's not where they need to be to, you know, keep our community as safe as possible. Because when businesses start to look to your community to relocate, people start to look to relocate to work, first thing they're going to do is [ask about] safety. What is the safety?
And then, priority number two would then be [to] go into our building department and rework our whole building department. Because, as a builder and developer, I can tell you that we put our contractors in a pinch. It's not a red carpet service. The service needs to be more concierge service … that all has to be done fast and efficient so that we don't move people away. We've lost a lot of our major builders around here because our building codes have just gone crazy. And a lot of things people don't understand, that goes into growth [and] we're hindering ourselves from that by doing so. So those are two big qualifications. And of course, with growth comes lower taxes and comfortable living. So that's from a business standpoint, I can tell you that qualifies me to do that.
Q: What do you see as the signature issue in your county over the next four years?
A: We've got a potential for growth coming and I know that a lot of people are talking [like] we're the next boom town. But basically, they're just basing that on the two nuclear facilities. And what's going on: the government has ramped up a need for nuclear energy. Therefore, they're on a press right now to get these facilities built. We were lucky enough to be one of four or five places in the United States that have depleted uranium sitting on site. So they're going to take that uranium and enrich it into energy for AI centers.
But we have to have other growth, and we have to get on the ball making changes to our community and be prepared for growth. Just like anybody that's ever owned a business – if you're not prepared to grow, you're going to fail. And if you have a major influx of people move in at once, you have to be prepared through your building departments. You have to be prepared to balance your growth. We can't just keep going out to Exit 4 and growing on out Highway 60, because we're going to end up in Ballard County. The people in our Reidland area – Exit 11 and Exit 16 – they have been neglected ever since the new [McCracken County] high school was built out there on by the airport. And so we have to incentivize a balanced growth to our community to make sure that we're not clogging up one area to where we're going to have to avoid that area at all cost. With the new sports facility going in with 10,000 people a weekend or so coming in [and] using our hotels and restaurants, it's already hard to eat out there. So a balanced growth is crucial for a good community, and I think we're overlooking a lot of that. So I think that's going to be the biggest issue moving forward, is smart growth.
Q: How would you work to improve the quality of life for county residents?
A: How I'm going to work to improve the quality of life is to get rid of these taxes that are taking extra money away from us by growth. This is what I do every day, all day, is dealing with people, building, developing, growth. But you also have to incentivize people to come into your community. And when you do that, our numbers will get a little higher. But, if you do it smartly, you won't notice it near as bad because, like I said, you have to incentivize a balanced growth, and that's super, super important as a leader. You can make it really, really bad for your community or you can make it really, really enjoyable for your community. But there's a line of what to do and what not to do, and these are things that I will bring to the table.
Everyone's property taxes had been reevaluated, and I feel like – [for] some – unfairly. I felt like, as a real estate agent, too, that I know that people in Reidland’s property [saw] about a 30% drop in value, but they're still getting taxed on the same as what people in West Paducah are getting taxed and your bigger subdivisions. So it's not fair. I think we need to address that too a little bit. We need to look into that a little harder. I think that was asserted to us a little more acutely than it should have been. I think we should have gradually brought that on, instead of just hammering everybody with doubling your property tax on insurance because that was too big of a blow to some of these people. Just being smart and not putting a strain on your community means the world, I think. And that's kind of what I intend to do … is put the people first, provide more means of learning trades for our young people so that we don't lose them to bigger cities. When they graduate, they'll actually have something to do here, a trade to work in. We're losing people, like I said. We haven't had any growth in 35 years and, you know, we've got a guy on his second term in there [incumbent Craig Clymer] who has not got any growth either. He's done nothing different than anybody else. We've been kicking the can for so long. We can't afford to stay this way. We have to have some growth in our community in order to be successful.
Q: What needs to change in your local county government, and why should people vote you into office to do that?
A: Well, my success in business speaks for itself. I'm the only candidate that doesn't need this job. I'm also the only candidate that's not a politician. All the other candidates for decades now have been politicians. I'm a businessman. I want to work as a public servant, and I've been lucky enough and made good enough decisions in life and in business that I put myself in a position to where I can give back to my community now. My family has served the community. I've been called to serve the community, and it's something that, now that I've looked into [it], I really feel passionate about. I know without a shadow of a doubt that I will be the best judge-executive that McCracken County has had in the 52 years that I've been alive because I'm winning in life. I'm winning in business. And, if I win this election, McCracken County is going to win with me.
