COVINGTON — A session at today's Kentucky League of Cities convention is entitled “Oops, You Mean I Shouldn't Have Done That?” It deals with how public officials can avoid being sued.

It isn't known if the sexual harassment lawsuit pending against Gov. Paul Patton will be discussed during the session. But the governor's legal problems, now very public sex life and political future are hot topics of conversation among the estimated 1,200 local and state government officials meeting through Saturday at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center.

“It's the main topic down south, and everybody's talking about it here (Thursday) morning,” said Jerry Burnett, a City Council member from Somerset, near Lake Cumberland, in south-central Kentucky.

Somerset council member Jerry Wheeldon said Mr. Patton's administration, working in concert with the federal government and Fifth District U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, has brought more than $17 million in highway projects to Somerset and surrounding Pulaski County in recent years.

“He's been a good governor for Pulaski County, probably the best Democratic governor we've had in a long time,” Mr. Wheeldon said. “But I also think he needs to clean his act up ... and the sooner he steps down the better he'll be.

“He's a done bird.”

Some delegates said Mr. Patton's behavior has shamed Kentucky and hurt the state's image.

“It's an embarrassment,” said Paris Fire Chief Mike Withrow, a Democrat who voted for Mr. Patton. “He probably ought to resign.”

Mr. Withrow said he was particularly troubled when he saw the governor on television first denying the affair with western Kentucky businesswoman Tina Conner, then tearfully admitting it was true.

“It's Bill Clinton all over again,” said Mr. Withrow, referring to how the former president also backtracked after his original denials of an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

But Calvert City Council member Danny Greenfield, an admitted Patton supporter who hails not far from Mrs. Conner's hometown of Clinton, said there are people in the western part of the state who are supporting the governor.

“I think (Mrs. Conner) is looking worse actually than the governor is from the people I talk to,” Mr. Greenfield said. “She's just really cheating herself a great deal by bringing all this out.”

But once it came out, Mr. Patton “should have owned up to it,” said Mayfield council member Spencer Brown.

“I wish he would have just been forthcoming right up front and said, "Alright, I screwed up and did this.' Instead he comes out crying like a big baby on television,” Mr. Brown said. “I wish he had been a man about it”

But neither Mr. Greenfield nor Mr. Brown believes Mr. Patton should resign.

“I think some people have lost a little respect for him as a leader, but I don't think it has affected his ability to be the leader of this state,” Mr. Greenfield said.

“I think he should finish out his term and do the best job he can for the state,” Mr. Brown said.

Wanda Goins, an administrator for the city of Walton, said she could get past revelations about the affair.

“We all have skeletons in our closet, we all have made mistakes,” Ms. Goins said. “You have to look at has this adversely affected his job as governor? At this point I really can't say it has. But if starts to affect his job, then you have to take another look.”

Mrs. Conner has filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Mr. Patton, alleging he favored her businesses — a nursing home and an earth-moving company — while they carried on a two-year affair between 1997 and 1999 before he turned state regulators on her nursing home after she broke off the relationship. .

Mr. Patton initially denied the affair and the allegations he abused his power in dealing with Mrs. Conner and her businesses. But days after denying the relationship. Mr. Patton wept during a news conference as he admitted the affair.

“People are disappointed that our governor would do that,” Mr. Burnett said. “The severity of it is that he might have abused his position. I know some people I've talked to up here have said he should step aside and get out of the public's eye while all this is going on and let someone else take care of the governor's office, maybe the lieutenant governor (Steve Henry), until this can all be cleared up.”

E-mail pcrowley@enquirer.com

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