Bill Nighbert was a Republican government official in the U.S. state of

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

Career

Nighbert served as mayor of Williamsburg, Kentucky for three terms. In 2003 he strongly supported the campaign of

Ernie Fletcher Ernest Lee Fletcher (born November 12, 1952) is an American physician and politician. In 1998, he was elected to the first of three consecutive terms in the United States House of Representatives; he resigned in 2003 after being elected the 60th ...

for

Governor of Kentucky The governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky is the head of government of Kentucky. Sixty-two men and one woman have served as governor of Kentucky. The governor's term is four years in length; since 1992, incumbents have been able to seek re-el ...

, supporting Fletcher politically and with financial contributions. When Republican

was elected and took office in 2003, Nighbert joined the administration as Deputy Commissioner for the Governor's Office for Local Development (GOLD). That office gave millions of dollars in grant money to local government units. One of the offices in GOLD was Local Initiatives for a New Kentucky (LINK). Nighbert moved to the

Kentucky Transportation Cabinet The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) is Kentucky's state-funded agency charged with building and maintaining federal highways and Kentucky state highways, as well as regulating other transportation related issues. The Transportation Cabi ...

, serving as Commissioner for the Department of Intergovernmental Programs there. Nighbert's duties including allocating over $200 million in road funding for cities and counties. In March 2005 Governor Fletcher named Nighbert as acting Secretary for the Transportation Cabinet. In November 2005 Fletcher announced that Nighbert was given a full appointment as Secretary of the Transportation Cabinet. Nighbert has been involved in a number of controversies related to his term in Kentucky government. He was a party in a suit regarding workplace threats, and was a defendant in a bid rigging investigation at the Kentucky Department of Transportation. However, he was found not guilty of the bid rigging charges in 2010.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nighbert, Bill Living people Mayors of places in Kentucky Year of birth missing (living people) State cabinet secretaries of Kentucky Recipients of American gubernatorial pardons