If you were wondering where Louisville’s candidates for mayor stand on the $4.1 billion Ohio River Bridges Project, 8664 has your answers. (What, you were expecting The Courier-Journal to do this work, maybe?)

Of the nine candidates who responded to the survey, only one, Democratic front-runner Greg Fischer, supports the unpopular method of tolling existing bridges as a means to pay for the behemoth public works project — which may not even be legal in lieu of recent federal precedents.

Fischer’s equivocation on the issue is typical for a campaign steeped in feel-good platitudes devoid of actual substance:

In regard to tolling: 1) We need to let the bridges authority complete its work and present its recommendations on financing the project to the community; 2) The process must be transparent and inclusive; 3) I am hopeful it will not be necessary to use tolls, however; 4) The project may require funds from various sources, including tolls; and 5) If tolls are necessary, I will push for them to be as small as possible and to be lifted as soon as the project is paid for.

Deciphering the gobbledygook, Fischer essentially says he supports tolling existing bridges without really saying he supports it, throws in meaningless words like “transparency” and then defers to the undemocratic decision-making power wielded by the 14-member authority, proving (once again) my theory that Louisville voters respond best to a candidate who answers questions with non-answers.

Or one who doesn’t answer them at all: Republican front-runner Hal Heiner completely ignored the questionnaire, which is funny, considering Heiner’s campaign manager, Joe Burgan, was a spokesperson for the 8864 campaign before it became political suicide to do so.

“It is ironic that (Burgan’s) candidate is the one who refused to answer the questionnaire,” says JC Stites, co-founder of 8664. “I was surprised. They said tolls was a very hot issue, and they weren’t willing to weigh in on that subject. I was disappointed and thought it was a very straightforward questionnaire. I hoped all the candidates would respond.”

That, more than anything, is what this questionnaire reveals about this ridiculous so-called election: Although most of the candidates in the race are opposed to most (or all) of the ORBP’s tenets, the front-runners in either party remain on-board or answer with silence. David Nicklies, a real-estate developer and chairman of the Build the Bridges Colation, made this ethos explicitly clear in The C-J’s profile of anti-ORBP candidate Tyler Allen that Louisville’s next mayor “has to be with that program … as it is approved today” or basically receive the ire of the city’s moneyed elite.

When asked if he thinks there’s been a sufficient dialogue on the bridges project in this election, Stites says “absolutely not.

“I don’t think we have had one considering it’s the most important issue for the community moving forward,” he continues. “The downtown portions of the project will be the biggest mistake of a generation. The more we talk about it, the better choice we can make.”

But the city’s paper-of-record is, of course, also notoriously silent on the issue, which Stites laments as a “sad state of affairs.”

UPDATE — Burgan repsonds:

We receive dozens of questionnaires from  various organizations but unfortunately have not been able to complete every organizations questionnaire.  In this instance we feel that Councilman Heiner’s position has been adequately stated in previous forums and questionnaires.  If this campaign has the good fortune of moving into a general election we expect to roll out a much more specific policy addressing transportation and transit issues.

Nice… what were we saying about non-answers again?

You can view the entire questionnaire — plus detailed responses from the candidates who actually answered — here.

[BTW: Independent candidate Jackie Green did respond to the questionnaire, but since he's not running in the primary, we decided to exclude him from this post. Don't worry though, Mr. Green — we'll be all over you come May 19th]