During the speech, she touched on points like economic development, public safety, youth outreach, infrastructure investments and homelessness prevention while looking back at the city’s 250th anniversary.
The city’s economy was one of the main points of the speech, with Gorton pointing out the city’s low cost of living and growing employment.
“Economic development remains a top priority for me,” she said. “As I start my eighth year as mayor, it continues to be something I work on every single day to secure a bright future for our children and their children.”
Gorton also brought attention to economic development projects announced this year. Those include new industrial parks, like a groundbreaking on the Legacy Business Park in north Lexington and a joint project with Madison and Scott counties in Berea. It also included a new agricultural technology initiative and a plan to build a solar farm on the Haley Pike landfill.
Public safety was also a main point of the speech. Last year saw investments in the police department’s Real-Time Intelligence Center, the expansion of a partnership with the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, a new program with the Kentucky Blood Center that allows Lexington ambulances to perform on-scene transfusions and adding a crisis response program to the city’s community paramedicine team.
Gorton drew attention in particular to the city’s One Lexington initiative, which works to keep people aged 10-to-29 away from gun violence.
“The One Lexington approach, with support from public safety and community partners, is working. In 2025, Lexington experienced its fourth consecutive year of declining gun violence,” she said.
City officials say 2025 saw the fewest total homicides of that age group in a decade, and violence involving young people has gone down drastically because of the program.
Other topics included investments in public parks – the city invested more than $29 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act money in parks last year.
Lexington is also investing in affordable housing, with the plan to top 4,000 affordable units across the city by the end of 2026. That comes as Lexington is trying to address a rising unhoused population.
Lexington created a Task Force on Homelessness this year, meant to find ways to shelter and provide resources for the unhoused. The city opened its seasonal shelter off Versailles Road before this winter season.
Gorton closed the speech touting the Lexington’s Big Give initiative, which was organized following the temporary pause on SNAP benefits during last year’s government shutdown. She said 41% of all food collected for God’s Pantry Food Bank, which serves much of central and eastern Kentucky, was donated from the Big Give.
