Louisville developer Chris Thieneman will hold a press conference this Thursday to discuss a lawsuit he plans to file against Metro government for denying part of his recent open records request. Last week the south Louisville activist sent a request asking for specific details on how The Cordish Cos. spent a $950,000 city loan to build the Sports & Social Club located in the Fourth Street Live entertainment district. He says more than half of the requested items were denied.

Recently five Metro government officials took a trip to Cordish’s Baltimore headquarters seeking to squash suspicions about how the loan was spent, but they came back with little useful information after signing a confidentiality agreement barring them from discussing the details.

Though slightly encouraged by the recent “open-books” ordinance introduced by Metro Councilmen Jim King, D-10, and Kelly Downard, R-16, Thieneman remains skeptical about the council’s latest Cordish law in part because attorney Jon Fleischaker, who helped write the state’s sunshine laws, said the city bill was “better than a hole in the head.” There’s also a concern that the law is more about Councilman King’s mayoral ambitions than transparency.

“I think a lot of that has to do with King running for mayor,” says Thienemen. “I just don’t have a lot of faith in (King) to make (the ordinance) tough enough to where it’s ironclad.”

Originally the ordinance only required that companies receiving public financing provide their expenditures to the city’s internal auditor, who it should be noted was one of the Metro officials who signed Cordish’s confidentiality agreement. King and Downard have amended the bill to force any business receiving city tax dollars to tell the public how the money was spent and make those transactions available to the public.

Currently the ordinance is in the Government Accountability and Oversight Committee, where the debate will begin Sept. 9. There will likely be heavy input from several legal and business viewpoints before the committee votes on the bill. In a telephone interview, Councilman Downard told LEO Weekly the council needs to take its time to make sure the law does what council members intend without any loopholes.