Paul Rose, a real estate broker and investor who served four terms on the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council, died Wednesday after battling cancer, his family said. He was 89.
Rose was among the members of the first council under Lexington’s merged government, having been elected to serve the 11th District in 1974. He was elected to three more terms before deciding not to run for re-election, said his son Dan Rose.
Dan Rose said his parents raised him and his three siblings in the Meadowthorpe neighborhood, and he decided to enter public service because “he just took an interest in that area.”
“He really cared about Lexington and was proud to be a Lexingtonian,” his son said.
At that time, Dan Rose said, “they were still feeling out how the government operated,” and council members didn’t have aides.
“We could get two to three calls a night about somebody’s trash didn’t get picked up, somebody’s dog barking,” he recalled.
Rose was a graduate of Lafayette High School and was recruited to play football at the University of Kentucky by Bear Bryant and attended on a full scholarship, according to his obituary .