Beshear pt 1

Beshear pt 1

Only on 44news tonight?

The kentucky governor?

Talks about settling into the role.

The democrat took over a republican led?

State legislature.

But governor beshear is determined to bring his team kentucky motto to the capital?

Working to unite the state on common issues.

In one of his first si?down interview as governor?

I had a chance to talk with him about his plan for tackling everything from medical marijuana to the closure of kentucky's coal mines.

Jh: how are you settling in?

Ab:?oh it has been a transition, but it is good.

By moving in over here governor mansion full time, i see my kids more and that is what keeps you normal?

Jh: kind of grounds you amidst all the craziness and battles of politics.

Ab:?that right.

I have a 9 and a 1?

Yea?old and i want to be a good governor, but i have to be a great dad.

It is special.

They are great kids and the most important thing to me?

Jh: any great stories from your time in the mansion?

Anything memorable.

Ab:?we have a new puppy and i don think people in frankfort expected to see a governor being walked by a dog, instead of the other way around.

She is already about 55lbs.

And she continues to grow?

Jh: just pulling you along?

Ab:?yea, and also puppies need to go out in the middle of the night, so that has been interesting.

My son is now in a basketball league here in frankfort.

It is fun to meet parents in that way too?

Jh: and at that point, you get to just be dad.

Ab:?i do and it is important when you are being dad, to just be dad?

Jh: i bet that is a hard balance.

I know family is so important to you and britainy.

Will and lila were a part of the inauguration ceremony and part of your time in the office, but how do you really balance the two?

Ab:?you are intentional about it.

Will and lila are so important to me; britainy as well.

You make sure that you carve out time.

We have dinner together a lot and living 55 secs from the office, actually is beneficial.

Some people think it would be the opposite, but you can go home and see them.

You can get them in bed and then if you need to, you can come back to work.

But it is a lot of what everybody faces with the pressures of a career, but it's about knowing what your priorities are and i love spending time with my kids.

It a reason i don have a lot of hobbies because they have a lot of hobbies.

Every minute that i am not doing this, i want to make sure that i am with them because it moves so fast.

When they were born, that changed my life.

I don think i be doing this, but for them and that miracle that was the birth of both of my children.

Making sure that i am there and present; not just there, but present in their lives?

Jh: i think my parents would agree with the not having a lot of hobbies because i had so many.

But getting down to business.

With medical marijuana; the potential of it passing here in kentucky, there is a growing concern in western kentucky that it is going to benefit large corporations.

How do you ensure that local farmers, local businesses aren shut out of the business?

Ab: well, we have to do it right.

I am pr?medical marijuana.

I think it is going to be so helpful for our chronic pain patients that we are not filling their medicine cabinets with opioids that get other people addicted and drive this drug epidemic.

But as the former top prosecutor, the attorney general of the commonwealth and now governor, it is my job to do it responsibly.

That is responsibly both on ensuring there are real prescriptions and dispensaries work the way they should, it is also about making sure that we set it up economically in a way to benefit our farmers, to benefit kentucky businesses, to make sure that the economic impact that this generates that we feel.

To me, that real important that western kentucky is a part of that.

Some of my biggest commitments are to western kentucky to ensure that we can compete there.

It is where my dad from and my mom too.

It is the ?69 bridge which we are going to build.

Wee got $250 million in my proposed budget for it.

We just announced, we want to provide funding to build a new airport terminal in paducah.

It is the idea of giving the region all the pieces that it takes to compete and we are going to hav some good announcements in the near future about good jobs coming to western kentucky?

Jh: that is great to hear because my next question is the mining industry.

We are seeing so many closures of coal mines.

How do you help those families whose way of life is really disappearing?

Ab:?first thing wee got to do is respect the work that these miners have done in building this commonwealth and building this country.

Providing the lo?cost power that helped us recruit so many businesses, so we owe a debt to them.

My first job as governor is to protect them; to make sure we have the wage bonds in place to where if a company goes bankrupt, there is money to pay the bac?wages owed to these miners.

Wee had multiple occasions where we have had miners on the train tracks just to get the pay that they worked hard for and deserve.

We are going to ensure that those folks are paid for it.

Then we have to look at diversifying our economy; diversifying it everywhere and there are some real exciting opportunities.

One is agricultural technology.

This is something that is leading investment in the country and around the world.

Just to feed the world growing population, we have to increase our output by 70% in the next 30 years.

That has led to an area of growth that we are building the largest greenhouse in northern america; we are building it in eastern kentucky.

Wee got a drone port that is growing; that is so important to managing an acre not just a field.

Western kentucky has so much potential to be a center of agr?tech, where we have the science and manufacturing jobs in addition to lifting up our farmers?

Jh: and hopefully some job training and education to transition those workers.

Ab:?absolutely and one of the ways we do that is investing in public education.

My budget proposal doesn just have $400 million new dollars in ?12, we have new dollars going into our community and technical colleges.

Incredibly important parts of their community and they must be tied to the businesses in those communities to create the workforce of the