Some weeks, Lexington feels less like a city and more like an invitation-only club — velvet rope, bouncer, and all. This week’s guest list: the people who can actually afford to stay in public office. Hannah LeGris left the stage recently. Not for lack of love for the job, but because the num bers simply didn’t add up. Council work is a 40-plus-hour commitment; the paycheck is under $40,000. She put it plainly: she needed “a more financially sustainable career path.” It’s the kind of sentence you can only write if you’ve ever stared at a utility bill and thought: maybe next week. Most Lexingtonians have. A lot of council candidates can’t — or don’t have to. But the vacancy didn’t sit long. Within days, up popped LeGris’ heir-apparent, Griffin Van Meter — a man whose family assets throw enough shade to block out the sun. His brand was forged during the NoLi CDC years, that grand experiment in “creative revitalization” that just happened to nudge longtime residents out of sight while lifting the property values of the board’s social circle. A neighborhood makeover brought to you by people who never worried about their own roofs. And he’s not running alone in the horse-country lane. District 12’s Hilary Boone — yes, of that Boone family, the one with a UK building named for grandpa and a horse farm that could swallow a subdivision — will likely be right beside him. Boone, for his part, had no visible hesitation voting yes on the new City Hall deal, a project that will send more than $100 million in public and private financing to a pair of Lexington’s richest dynasties. Funny how “responsible stewardship” always seems to align with the comfort of people already sitting pretty. This is the pattern now: working-class representation leaves; generational wealth steps forward. The benches turn over, and the new lineup looks like a cocktail party that wandered into a public chamber. And hovering at the top of the ticket? Vice Mayor Dan Wu — who just announced his re-election kickoff at Old North Bar, housed inside Greyline Station and owned by entrepreneur Chad Needham, one of the biggest beneficiaries of the North Lime redevelopment wave. A fitting venue, really. Lexington loves symbolism as long as it’s dressed up as synergy. Wu, for all his charm and story, is something of a local enigma. ProPublica reports he took out roughly $96,000 in PPP loans around the time his restaurant, Atomic Ramen, closed in the pandemic — a cushion most small businesses only dream of. Call it a golden parachute, call it good timing, call it having options. Whichever way you slice it, it beats scraping together rent between committee meetings. Vice Mayor Dan Wu had $96,000 in PPP loans forgiven in 2021. (ProPublica) Meanwhile, on the ground, folks in town try to figure out whether the “new leadership class” will ever speak their language. The real sting? None of these new candidates will ever have to cite financial hardship as a reason to leave office. They won’t be hustling a second job. They won’t be debating groceries vs. prescriptions. They won’t be wondering whether the council stipend jeopardizes their ability to stay housed. Those survival calculations — the ones shaping real life for thousands of Lexingtonians — don’t exist in their universe. And that’s the quiet crisis. When serving the public becomes a luxury hobby, the public stops being represented. Lexington keeps polishing its image of inclusion, progress, and civic vitality. But look closely at who gets to stay in the room. It’s not the folks living the struggles our policies supposedly address. It’s the folks who host their campaign launches in curated market halls, surrounded by artisanal cocktails and reclaimed wood. Maybe someday we’ll design a city government that doesn’t require a trust fund, a farm, or a PPP parachute to participate. Until then, we can keep calling these moments what they are: classic Lexington. And Lexington deserves better than its classics. The post When the Cover Charge for Public Office Is Generational Wealth appeared first on The Lexington Times. ...read more read less