A Frankfort Plant Board consultant’s thorough dismantling of a plan for local governments and schools to buy their electricity from a new solar farm might seem to be the last word on the project.

A quick conclusion after three whirlwind days of service on a citizen committee selected to help interview finalists for Frankfort city manager: City Hall will be in capable hands regardless of whom the mayor and commissioners select.

Sheriff Chris Quire, still on something of a political honeymoon after his 2018 trouncing of incumbent Pat Melton, faces the first public leadership test of his young career in elected service.

In a 2020 city election cycle notable for slim victory margins, City Commissioner Katrisha Waldridge solidified her standing as Frankfort’s most popular politician. And it’s not even close.

Who will win Frankfort’s mayoral race?

The false economic security that comes from being a government town could be on the verge of collapse.

The crystal ball is unusually cloudy for the June 23 primary election, so this columnist will stick with some observations rather than confident predictions:

Keith Parker and Susan Laurenson are wise voices of fiscal caution as city and county governments wind down budget discussions for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

In perhaps the most uncertain times in which any of us have ever lived, or will again, remarkable to me is the certainty of opinions about the COVID-19 crisis and its health and economic impacts.

The generosity of our readers in recent days has lifted and inspired us in as challenging a business climate as The State Journal has ever faced, or will again. My staff and I are deeply appreciative.

My Vanderbilt-educated brother-in-law, who works on the front lines as a rural nurse practitioner, says we should have seen coming the American health care system’s complete lack of preparedness for what has hit us.

The State Journal staff has been working hard in recent days to ensure that we remain — both in print and online — a trusted source of information in scary and uncertain times.

The infamous “sewer bill” that brought scorn to Kentucky legislators a couple of years ago apparently taught no lessons on transparency.

Jolting news of Mike Davenport’s death came — appropriately — on a day of brilliant sunshine, rare in these parts in February.

A change agent who can walk a tightrope over hot coals of competing interests has a big opportunity in this year’s city elections.

In fractious times such as these, one especially appreciates those important institutions that quietly, effectively plug along in service to community, rarely a source of controversy or division but indispensable to our quality of life.

Three things to watch in 2020 …

God bless Al Cross. And Margaret O’Donnell.

When his obituary is written one day in his hometown Greensburg Record-Herald, retired Col. William M. Landrum III’s legacy won’t be the fate of a dozen acres of dirt in Downtown Frankfort or the concrete that once stood on it.

The outcome of Tuesday’s gubernatorial election and another delay in the state’s decision on the future of the former Frankfort Convention Center land raises the valid question of whether the matter would benefit from fresh eyes.

Amid much citizen disappointment over a seemingly paltry response to the state’s effort to put former Capital Plaza land on the tax rolls and revitalize downtown Frankfort, those who understand the economics of real estate development had the opposite reaction.

Editor’s note: This column was updated at 11:15 a.m. Sunday to reflect that Jeff Abrams retired as police chief rather than resigned.

If the divorce becomes official in coming days, it should come as no surprise. The political marriage of Mayor Bill May and Frankfort Plant Board Chair Anna Marie Pavlik Rosen was a bad match from the beginning, propped up the past two years only by the mayor’s rivalry with a former city com…

An observer of city and county politics who left the country a year ago, stayed off the internet and just returned to town might be shocked by what he sees.

Frankfort is blessed with such a good mix of annual events that locals tend to shrug when a new one hits the scene.

The art of compromise is close to dead in Washington, D.C.

A popular narrative around the Frankfort Plant Board’s Tanglewood water tank controversy puts the blame for expensive and time-consuming litigation on the so-called “Roach commission” — a reference to the city commission’s 2018 vote to side with Tanglewood residents in the squabble.

Don’t look now, but the Frankfort Plant Board is finding its stride.

When Frankfort City Commissioner Katrisha Waldridge, during a debate over bicycle trails last month, publicly ridiculed Mayor Bill May as an alleged flip-flopper, observers were too stunned to realize what they’d just witnessed: the unofficial start of the 2020 mayoral race.

Turns out that there’s still some appetite for civil political discourse in an era of, well, incivility.