Fiscal Court - Regular Meeting

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We are now officially calling this June the 21st meeting of this report to order. Magistrate Sleeper, would you please lead us in prayer?

Yes, shall we pray? Father God in heaven, today we seek your wisdom and help us, Lord, to be the best possible stewards of the tax dollars that have been entrusted to our governance. And Lord, help us to faithfully execute our responsibilities as a court. And we thank you for those who are here today participating with us, Lord. We ask your blessing on them. And may we conduct ourselves in ways that honor you. We ask that you prosper and elevate all Boyle County citizens and protect those who protect us, our first responders and those in the military, Lord, who stand guard over us. We pray all this in your name, for your glory. Amen.

And now I have the pleasure of introducing a young lady I've just met, but I met her young mother some years ago when she suffered in my English class at Boyle County High School, and she's nodding her head. Isabella? Isabella Joseph, would you please rise and help us with the Pledge of Allegiance? You start when you wish. I pledge allegiance to the flag

of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you very much, Isabel. And we need to get pictures of you and give you a certificate. And your mama needs to buy a frame. And mama, come on up here, too.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Good job.

Good job. to stay and listen to all that we have to say. Thank you.

Nice to meet you.

Susanna, have we properly notified all the meeting, all the media of this meeting? We have. And do we have a quorum president? Okay, thank you. And we are absolutely official. Next. We have a reading of the minutes, and we'll dispense with the reading. First, the meeting of May 26th, the larger document. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes?

Make a motion to approve the May 26th meeting.

Motion by Magistrate Volter. And second? Second. Second by Magistrate Sleeper. Thank you. Any discussion? Any amendments or changes? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. Thank you. And then the special call meeting. Do I have a motion on that document?

So moved.

Moved by Magistrate Sleeper. Second. Second. By Magistrate Boehner. Any discussion on that document? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. Thank you. And that takes care of the minutes. Next we have budget transfers. Shannon.

Budget transfers in the amount of $128,679.38.

Do I have a motion for the acceptance of that transfer? Motion by Magistrate Sleeper and second?

Second.

Second by Magistrate Boehner. Any discussion on that first document? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, likewise? Okay, and a second document.

Cash transfers. I have $500,000 from the general fund, from the interest bearing account to the general fund. That is a revision from the original of 250.

Do I have a motion? I got several more.

I have $300,000 from the general to the road fund. That's also a revision. We have $275,000 from general to the jail and $100,000 from general to EMS.

All right, that motion by Magistrate Harmon. Do I hear a second? Second. Second by Magistrate Sleever. Any discussion on the documents? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. And any opposed? And by the way, I should have said at the start, if you hear an echo of a vote at the end, it's because two of our magistrates, Cullen and Gay, are remote, but they were included in the pre-meeting information to the media, so they are official and have the right to vote. All right. Okay, next question. cash transfer. Bills, I'm sorry.

Good morning everyone. Your bill packet totaled $725,635.02. We are going to add some additional bills being as this is the last meeting of the fiscal year. I'm going to attempt to get everything paid out of hand out of this budget.

It was on your iPad and you also have a copy of this one.

I'm the reason that Shannon had revisions. She got tired of it. So in your general fund, we had central bank, guardian pest control, demo office equipment, Code Red, who is HVAC. Amazon Animal Care and Control and 4 Imprint which was for recycling and that our general fund total is going to be $6,760.57 and then out of the road fund for the Allen Company we're going to go ahead and pay for the spring paving because that was in this budget as well it is $241,412.83 So the subtotal of your additional bills is $248,173.40. We're going to add that to your original bill packet total and that's going to give us a grand total of $973,808.42. So this is what you'll see on your iPad and what has just been explained by Elena. Do I have a motion for acceptance of the bills?

Motion by Magistrate Boedner. Second by Magistrate Harmon. Any discussion? Any line items for discussion? Gentlemen who are on the screen? All right. All those in favor of accepting the bills signify by saying aye. Any opposed? Thank you.

And I have one other thing, Tom, if you don't mind. We have a pending expense with Southern Communications that is for up to $10,000. It's for an interop communications device. So that allows our first responders to all speak to each other and communicate on the same frequency in the July 4th celebrations in the event of any type of disaster or anything. Communication is your number one. It can be your number one issue. So if we could get the approval to expend the 10,000 up to $10,000 for this piece of equipment. I'm going to attempt to get the invoice for it before before July 1. I just need your approval as a court to expense that when the device comes in.

Counselor, we're at the end of the month. It's needed before July. It was not in the packet. Any impediments to getting the approval now since it's under 10,000? Do I hear a motion for accepting? Second. Magistrate Boedner and seconded by Magistrate Harmon. Any discussion on that expenditure? Yeah. It's an important piece of communications tool. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. Thank you. And thank you for bringing that to our attention.

Absolutely.

for the second, very important and required under the statutes, reading on our budget for fiscal year 26-27.

It has been approved by DLG, so it is back to you all for adoption.

Do I hear a motion? Was that Magister Cullen?

It was Greg Chang.

Jimmy Gay, I want to thank you. And do I hear a second? Second. Second by Magistrate Cullin. All right. Any discussion on the very difficult to prepare? And thank you, Shannon, and everybody in the room for all the hard work. Any discussion before we move forward? All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Aye. All right. Thank you. That echo on the... tape will sound interesting because it is only that because the transmission from afar affords us that situation. All right. The code revisions which you have on your iPad, a critical document on how we function. I'm sure everybody's had an opportunity over the past several weeks. We've been making additions and changes. Do I have a motion to accept the new document as revised. I'll make that motion. Motion by Magistrate Sleeper.

Second.

Second by Magistrate Boatner. Any discussion on all the revisions and the completed document before we vote?

So the open records request We are going to give that to Julie. Who's been doing that, the open records request? Julie. Julie's always, that's what I thought.

Sometimes it comes into May, and then I'll make sure it gets to the right person.

So we just didn't have it listed under her. She's always done that. That's what I thought she did. It's on the website, like we talked about.

For the public's knowledge, that is a very critical area, because any time we hear from anyone in the public, And, Counselor, would that only be from our county or can someone from outside Boyle County petition for it?

Oh, no. I mean, you can have anybody within the state. They made some laws now where you have to be a resident of the state of Kentucky to request, do the open records request. But a non-resident can appoint somebody as their, from, like, Kentucky to be their, like, POA or something. And you can get it that way, too. But... It's good that they've kind of limited that. It's not a lot of out-of-state people just fishing for stuff.

Okay, I appreciate that clarification. And Magistrate Boehner, thank you for bringing up the fact that Julie Wagner heads up all those because We have to be very meticulous. I've done that in the past as a citizen before I was elected as a magistrate. And interestingly, on the 10th day required under the statute, what I petitioned for was not prepared. So the public needs to be aware that they have the right to put a light a fire under any request for information of that nature. So thank you both. All those in favor now of accepting the code revision signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Shannon you're back up again for treasurer monthly statement.

monthly treasurer's settlement in your packets thank you every time I thank you I like it it's a big quick shot of not showing all the work that you did but it still it gives us a clear idea of the bunny I like that we officially

Accepting. Right. Do I hear a motion for the adoption? Make a motion. Motion by Magistrate Boedner. And second? Second. Second by Magistrate Sleeper. Any discussion on the Treasurer's Monthly Settlement Report? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you very much. Okay. Next, we have appointments to the Property Appeals Board. Linda Green, we had heard that they would be here. I would accept a motion for the seating of Linda Green on Property Appeals Board and it's technically a judge appointment. met uh motion by magister bodner second second by miss harman all those in favor signify by saying by aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye

I don't know what happened to him.

I don't know.

We'll stand at ease for a few moments while we wait for the counselor to possibly go to the second floor and look for them.

Second floor. Mark Cross. Cross, yes.

In abstention, you are appointed.

We should get a picture. I'm pretty good at eating. Oh, this here? Listen, I didn't comb my hair hard this morning.

It looks hard.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, there's some research. And second?

Also for the Appeals Board, Mark Cross, do I hear a motion for acceptance of the recommendation?

I make a motion.

Motion by Magistrate Harmon, second by Magistrate Fogner. Any discussion? All those in favor of accepting the appointment, signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Okay. One of my favorite folks at church, Robin Mallory, I would accept a motion for her reappointment as payroll clerk. Do I have a motion?

It's requesting approval.

It's requesting approval for the reappointment orders.

Yeah, this is the reappointment orders. All of them. Yes. All of them.

Yeah, for all of them. And these will take effect July 1st.

I think you guys all got a copy of this. You will. Do you have anything to say? No.

Magistrate Day said he made a motion. Okay.

Thank you, Magistrate Day, for the motion. And do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Magistrate Bollinger. Any discussion? And we'll entertain that from you, Robin.

No, I think we're all good.

Well, we're very appreciative of everything you do. Thank you very much. And... All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. And any opposed? Aye. Thank you. Okay.

All right.

Congratulations and we didn't do it desperately.

Steve, you're not at the door. We're not used to this. Oh, I know, yeah. There he is. There he is. How are you? Good. How are you doing?

Good. I like the listener. I feel sorry for you. It's all right.

We just have it recorded.

No acceptance. Good morning, sir. The man I call on weekends.

That's all right, too.

No problem there.

Welcome, Brent, and you have the floor.

Thank you. I always appreciate talking to you all. Just a little bit of update on the health department, and then I've already given the tax rate form to Chris, and just get it right out of the way. We're not asking for a tax increase or anything like that. We're keeping it just what it's been. I think from the last... Six, seven years, I believe. So we're fortunate to be able to do that, and I'm glad that we can do that so we don't have to increase that. Real quick on the health department, then I'll touch on just a couple things, and then I'll be done. As far as the clinic goes, the WIC program continues to just go. A few numbers I got in the last couple months, we had over 100 babies in that they're working on, or not working on, working with. And just trying to help ensure that those kids get the right start, get the best start, and help those parents out the best way we can. The HANDS program continues to have between 45 and 65 families on any given day. And it just depends on if some of them have aged out and we've got some new ones in. We do have a Hispanic presence in that program, which I'm real glad we've got an interpreter that works great with us. So we're really glad to serve anybody with that. Environmental, it's great for the economy, all the new restaurants and stuff. And man, that just increases the environmental level, which we're thankful for to be able to do that. A lot of building, a lot of people are buying places and having to redo septics and stuff out in the county. It seems like it's still from Danville out towards the Parable area, all out through there, a lot of building, a lot of things happening. So really glad all those programs are going. The one I want to talk about just a little bit, and I know you all have heard from Bryce about the bridge. Just a couple of things that are going on over there that are really interesting to me. And I'll just tell you right up front, when that program became the bridge, you know, we started that in really 2016 as a needle exchange program. That's what it started as. Today, when you look at the numbers, it is about a fourth of the people actually come in for that anymore. Most of the people, as you've heard Bryce talk about, are coming in for something usually different than that. The amount of people coming in for food every day is astounding. It's really surprising. I knew we had people already coming in the program for food because they're just hungry. And a lot of times, they just want a snack. But the amount of people that are coming in every day is pretty substantial. The amount of people who come in just to recharge their phone and iPad or just to sit down and get out of the weather or just to have an air conditioner heated place just to hang out a minute and that they trust and they're comfortable. That has turned out to be something more than what I thought. I'm really glad it's turned into that because a lot of people use it for that. A lot of transportation bus tokens are given out of there. And as I've learned between Bryce and Casey and Tori who work that program, they are really good at figuring out how to get somebody where they need to be, whether it's a bus or other people they know. Whatever that takes to get people there. The amount of people that come in that are now going to treatment, if they're substance use related, is really nice. I'll give you an example of a lady that was sitting there yesterday. She'd been in town one day. For whatever reason, she was no longer allowed in the car she came up with. She was from Muhlenberg, and she needed a place to sit for two, three, four hours until some people came, got her, and took her back to Muhlenberg. And somebody somewhere referred her to come down there because it was a safe place for her. She could get some food while she was there if she needed it. And it's turned into a lot of that. I'm really excited about the bridge because it's our newest one and what it's becoming because it's just taking that next step from where we were in 2016 and I'll be curious five years from now to see what that continues to be. It's not lost on me that if you look at Magistrate Sleeper and all of you all because you all voted this in back when that task force started and maybe you all remember the year. I don't remember the year. but if you look at what was happening then to what has happened now even picking up the homeless coalition the bridge and the amount of people who are now involved in moving that forward it just goes to show you what can happen when the right people get going in the right direction and some some really cool things are happening in that so appreciate you all taking that step back when you did because in that world that's not always a popular step in some public perception. I think a lot of people in the public have sort of changed and see it now more as a service that's needed, I think, than it was obviously back in 16 and 17 when those things were going on. From the health department on the finance side, real quick, I'll touch on this just to give you an idea. Our budget this year is about 2.1 million, give or take a little bit, right at 20 employees. that we employ, and some of the, a few of those are part-time, but most are full-time or some version of that. Our biggest issue, as has been, and I've talked about this before, but just as a reminder, several years ago when the Kentucky retirement system was in bad shape, and it's in a little better now than it was. I think I saw that it's up to 28%. I'll call it solvency on the part that affects the health department. We are still in that 30-year period where we have to pay the additional every year to help offset what the retirement system needs. And so all the health departments and some other public agencies are having to do this. As just a reminder, out of our $2.1 million budget, this year or past year, $443,040 went to pay retirement. And when you start looking at finances and budgets, when you've got a fifth of your budget, don't directly just to that, you know, the feasibility and sustainability of that, it's a little iffy at times. We're fine for right now. We tried to pay off some of that debt because through COVID where we were able to, some of those federal dollars coming in and use them as needed, but Kentucky retirement system came back several months and said no. so we are i think in year 27 we'll keep paying our all through 27 years what we did is we took some of that funding and put it in well south invested it according to state guidelines so that future health department budgets have some kind of backup to help pay that and that's the intention of that funding where we put it I wish there was a way to change that, but there's not. It just is what it is, and we're going to go on and pay that. To give you an idea of how that $443,000 broke down, about $69,200 was what we normally would have paid for our retirement, and the remaining $373,000 was for that, I don't know what they call it, 30-year loan or whatever it's called, but that's how those numbers break down. Just a reminder, just to let you all know where that, and I know there's other agencies, it's not just us that are dealing with that. But that's what ours looks like on the health department side. Like I said, we're just keeping our rate at 3.6. That's working for us right now. I have no intention of raising that or looking at that right now. And it is starting to trend more. And I'll estimate we bring in about a million-ish from the taxes. And I would predict that within the next couple of years, we will use every bit of that. Every year is what I'm thinking. But for right now, we're moving forward. The last thing I'll talk about is something I'm actually really excited about. We are now looking at strategic planning just for the health department and what that means for the community and what we need to be looking at. Two things we already did. One is we decided in the current, or the budget that's coming up, we're gonna add a electronic health record, which we probably should have done a while back and we just didn't. But what I was waiting on, the key piece that's available to us now is if we pick one of the systems up in the coming year, it now has a third party billing. So if we have the opportunity down the road, not a program we're already tax funded for or anything like that, but if there's opportunity down the road where we can build on a program that has no funding attached to it, then that might give us an opportunity in future budgets to look at that. And then the board also voted to allow me to add a health educator for the upcoming budget full time. And you all heard me talk about this. 16 years ago when I first started in this position, we, like a lot of agencies, were struggling financially and one of the positions I cut was a health educator. One of the decisions, if I could go back, I would figure out a way not to do that. Because that is, on the PR side and just the health education side, that has probably hurt us some over the year with our message getting out to the public. So I'm really excited to grab that back. And then what we're committed to do over the next year or two, particularly looking at any funding that we have, is what do we need? What does the community need from the Health Department? What is a service that we're not providing that we can do? And one of the biggest data sources we use is the Ephraim McDowell Needs Assessment, which they're currently, I think, getting ready to do the three-year, or in the process of redoing that three-year version. But if you look at that, you can almost count diabetes, obesity, mental health, Tobacco, I think, is still probably in that top five, and then another one or two could be there. So we use that. That's what we look at a lot to help us determine. And then we're also looking at the public. People talk to us in programs, the schools, any group of people. Where can we be? Where do we need to be? No, we're not already. Okay, that's my health department speaker. Any questions?

I know in 2016 I was on the board, I was on the board for over 30 years, and we brought up, you brought up the needle exchange, and all the healthcare providers there were definitely for it, but a few in the community weren't real happy about it, but look what it's turned into. You had to take that first step to get to where you are today, so I appreciate all the hard work.

That's good. We had a board that was willing to look at it at the time, and not every county had that by any means. So we were fortunate. One other thing I do need to throw in, I forgot about this. Greatly appreciate what the county does with all of our programs, because you all help us out a lot. And I know one recently, and I'll just tell you, we messed it up. Bryce fixed it. He called Angie later. But you all had, I think it was recycling people, the Angie's people, came out and helped do a massive cleanup. I mean massive, if you look at the amount of garbage and stuff they took out. And we greatly appreciate that. That helped, just getting people to help in the community. And it just helped clean up an area that needed to be cleaned up. So much appreciated to that. We didn't get that out on social media. We totally missed putting them on the announcement and went back and did another one. But greatly appreciate it.

Other magistrates, comments? Don't leave, Brent. No, no problem. Gentlemen, we just got back from a conference of magistrates and judges all over the state. An issue I brought up with others was there have been reports within Lexington of rabies, particularly with bats, but that can be any warm-blooded animal. Have we had any reports here in Morrill County this year?

We have not had a positive rabies. I do not remember one this year. It has been a little while since we've had one. The last one I remember we were involved in, and I might be skipping a year or two, but we had the one that was the horse over in Garrett, that, because if I remember right, the horse made it over to Boyle County, so we were involved in that one. I don't remember a positive. Now, that doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of animals going to be sampling.

And another issue which Magistrate Bodner has helped me with and educated me on, tick bites, and there are now a variety of reported tick bite concerns. The one that I'm particularly aware of is a constituent who now has that syndrome, help me with it, which means forever, unless there's some cure found, an individual in Boyle County bitten with that particular tick and that syndrome will never eat red meat again. Help us out with that.

Yeah, Alpha-Gal, it comes from the Lone Star tick and I have it and my sister has it. We both were bitten by like, we got in a mist and we were bitten multiple times. It took me like 15 years to be diagnosed, but I was this year, which, and my sister has like a anaphylactic shock reaction. I just have stomach pain. and so we have two separate so and it doesn't happen every time but my sisters can't eat red meat at all she hasn't for five or six years i can eat red meat but i know i'm going to have severe pain but so everybody's different and the physicians when i went to i've been to so many doctors about that but when i went to the last physician gastroenterologist she said She didn't say much because they don't know what to say yet. It's at such an early stage. So everybody's just, it's a lot of information's coming out at the ground level. So you have to, Facebook, there's a guy, I wish I'd brought his name, that's really doing in-depth research on it. So it's going to be, really significant. They say there's 450,000 people with it in the United States now. I mean, that's really huge. My sister hasn't eaten a hamburger or steak, and she loves that. But here's the one thing I wanted to correct. Over time, after you haven't been bit by the tick, it diminishes. But my sister's reaction is so severe that she won't take the risk of even trying it. But some people have tried all these treatments and things, and you know, different things they say are working and some are not, but it's very scary.

But I recommend that you and Brent get together and it's wonderful you've got your health educator back and perhaps put out a news release about prevention because I'm a hunter and I'm a little reluctant not knowing exactly how to handle it from a prevention standpoint. I mean, I've used spray and everything if I go squirrel hunting, but But help us to really know from head to toe what do we do to prevent that tick from getting on us, let alone biting.

Not only, it's Lyme disease. You know, there's other diseases besides alpha-gal. Alpha-gal is the new thing.

We'll definitely do that.

Yeah, it's definitely very scary.

I agree. And that is definitely one. It's things like that a health educator can pick up real quick and get some good info out. Yes. Yeah, that is great. Prevention. It's crazy how quick that is. I think even more than how it spread, it's interesting how diagnosed it is right now. How many people now can go in and they actually, the doctor will say, all right, we finally figured it out. Here's what it is compared to like your case. 15, 16 years later, they finally figure you out.

It's so interesting. I asked and they said, no, it's just been too many years. You don't need to be tested. And I'd raised four or five times different people. Finally, I said, I want to be tested. I wasn't low, but you'd think after 15 years I'd be low. I'm medium after 15 years.

And it's a blood test? It's a blood test.

Simple blood test. Yeah, it's a simple blood test.

My brother-in-law has that as well. What's his reaction?

Everybody's so different.

I think that for... first couple years he's like break out in hives and just couldn't figure it out it took a while probably about two years to diagnose that and he can't have mammal or byproduct of mammal like milk and things like that and you know the red meat's a big deal and but there's some alternatives for example ostrich and you think that's a poultry but actually it's a it's a red meat which you don't have to cook like a chicken all the way through it's like you can So luckily there are some things like that. The people that are craving those steaks or hamburgers, they can at least have that alternative.

My sister took a vitamin, and there's a meat product in the vitamin, and something that they use in the vitamin, and she had a severe reaction, which was unusual. She usually has a mild reaction to something like that. So my friend, her daughter has a smell. She gets the smell of beef. So they can't come in the door. Similar to peanut. She'd come in the door and she had a reaction because of the smell. So now they say, don't come over, I'm cooking beef.

I'm so glad that you mentioned ostrich because my wife and I were riding around in my district caring for things recently. And we have an ostrich farm in Boyle County, in western Boyle County now. And I'm hoping to get a feature in the Advocate Messenger about them because that is so unique to have that. I don't think very many people are aware that we have that.

I know the person that runs that.

Oh, we'll get together and talk about that.

Here, yes. That's a good alternative. I think they actually sell the meat over down on Main Street. There's a place that carries the ostrich. Any other questions from anybody?

Brent? All I need is a vote on the tax rate to show in your own minutes.

Do I hear a motion on the tax rate from Magistrate Sleeper? And a second? Second. Magistrate Harmon. Any discussion on the tax rate for the health department? Hearing none, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you very much. Brent. Thank you all.

I appreciate you all very much.

I have a fellow to my right who's going to report on pickleball contract with Tennis Tech.

Right. I've reviewed the pickleball contract. I mean, I think that it's your basic contract. The only thing when you look at the contract, it refers to several items and attachments of which I have none. So, I mean, if you're going to approve it, I think that you approve it on condition that I get to see the attachments first because they're part of the contract. There's attachment A and B. I don't have any of that.

I need a motion on the approval of the contract. I think the motion we approve. I'll make a motion. Second.

I was just going to say with the condition of what he said as far as him getting to see the attachments.

Okay, that's included in your motion.

Well, they made, we let them make the motion, that's all right.

Okay, you're second?

No, Magistrate Cullen made the motion, Magistrate Gay seconded.

Oh, okay, I was hearing from you. I know, yeah, but that's all right. They're delayed, so. Motion by Cullen and second by Gay.

Discussion? I mean, again, it's the standard contract. There is a $50,000 allowance in there, contingency allowance, and that's, I guess, really unforeseen expenses. Okay, yeah. But it talks about item, like on that, on section 4.3, it talks about item 3.4, contingency allowance, $50,000, but again, I don't, item 3.4, I don't see that anywhere within the contract.

But you're comfortable with it?

I'm comfortable as far as the contract, but I want to see uh just the rest of the attachments that it references and there's like three attachments it talks about is there urgency to accepting today i mean i don't know the urgency i mean i think they want to get started on this yeah we'd like to get this under start under underway because they want to break ground so okay any reservations with what the council will work out all right i'll call for the vote all those in favor signify by saying aye

Any opposed? Likewise? Okay. All right. That's done. Thank you. And next, and some wonderful reporting from Kendall Clinton. Please come forward. Convention Visitors Bureau.

Good morning. Good morning. The Kentucky Department of Tourism, as you know, does their annual economic impact tourism statewide and county by county, and we got the numbers for Boyle County for 2025. You'll see those in your packet, but I'll go over the numbers and also kind of give you some trend information for Boyle County dating back to 2018. For 2025, the employment in jobs at Scorcherism was 679. That actually was down by 17 jobs from the year before. That was the only number that was down. Labor income was 19.9 million. State and local taxes paid was 6.7 million. And overall spending was 84.5 million, which was up a million dollars from 2024. This data is compiled by a company called Tourism Economics. The state hired them starting back with numbers for 2018. And that's kind of the benchmark year because they changed the way they process the information different from the company they had before. So that's kind of the benchmark here. So looking back over the past, I guess that'd be seven years, this is what the trend was for Boyle County in comparison to the state averages. For tourism supported jobs, we had a 7.1% increase Statewide, it was 2.97% increase in tourism jobs. Labor income, it went from $15.22 million to 19.9. That was a 30.7% increase, which outpaced the statewide average of 22.3. State local taxes generated by tourism went from 4.8 million to 6.7. That was a 39.6% increase. Statewide, the average was 31.5. And the overall spending went from 63.4 million in 2018 to 84.5 million in 2025, 33.3% increase, and the statewide average was 27.7. So Willow County has stayed ahead of the curve on that for the past seven years and consistently gone up each year. Awesome. So that just underscores the importance of tourism in Willow County and that it is a definitely part of economic development and includes a lot of people.

Comments folks, these are unbelievable comparatives to the state averages.

It's really great. I mean, we keep going. I mean, I've seen swings, big swings down, you know, before. So this is, we're continuing in the right direction. Maybe we want to go even further, you know, and encourage more, but I think we're doing great.

Yeah, we want to see those numbers go up every year.

Every year.

Gentlemen from afar, any comments? What I'd like to say is I'm very much aware that Kendall has been in Junction City a tremendous number of times and equally in Perryville working with Allie Huff. And we are very grateful for the emphasis because your emphasis is a good part of these tremendous numbers. So thank you very much.

And my son from Florida, he's with the Lee County government, he said he really loves the Wayfander signs. He just loves that. He said those look great. I was like, oh, thank you. They are well done. They are well done.

Can we do have a banner for Junction City as soon as we can get it? I think we're waiting on Breanna to get it on.

Well, we've got one banner up. We planned on it along a building, and they sent the wrong, so we had to put it on a a personal property fence. So we've got that, but we're going to get that. Yeah, that'd be good. We're excited. Thank you.

Okay. Very much appreciated. Thanks a lot. All right. Mike Rogers.

Good morning. Thank you, physical court and everyone today for a little bit of time to talk about, uh, budgeted item for this next fiscal year that we're going to need right off the bat for the July 3rd concert with Eddie Montgomery at Millennium Park. We've been attending lots of meetings, actually had one yesterday with Judge Wilder and all the first responder agencies in Lowell County. It's going to be quite the to-do for everyone. One of the things we put in our budget was to have an ATV and a UTV to be able to move around It's something we needed for a really, really long time. If you look at Parable at the battlefield reenactments to Brass Band to basically any place, the fair, we've never had anything to be able to move around with. And so we'd like to consider a purchase of a UTV and ATV if possible. We had several quotes. that we sent in with the packet. The first one was from Blue Grass Power Sports, which is over in Harrisburg. It's a CF Moto, which is a new kind of emerging brand that, for whatever reason, my phone is not working on the Wi-Fi.

Are you looking for the polls? Go ahead. Go ahead.

Can you move the podium over a little further? We're having trouble hearing you on our end. Just kind of get in.

Can you hear me now? Yeah, that works. Yeah, yeah. All right. So there's two quotes in that package. One is for two UTVs, and one is for an ATV and a UTV. And I've done a lot of research. I've got quite a bit of experience with off-road type vehicles. adventures we've kind of been I've been out west and everywhere riding dirt bikes and ATVs and so we priced the two ATVs which is the $21,786.53 and then an ATV and a UTV which is combined is $18,214.06. Some of the other quotes from Joe Hill Power Sports, I think that's in Bardstown. One UTV was for $12,448, which is a Ranger 1000. And then the other one was Marshall. It's a Polaris. Marshall Power Sports was $15,934. And so our recommendation is to be able to get Two, for basically the price of one to be able to get providers to where they need to be is to go with the Bluegrass Power Sports quote that has the both of them there. And one thing to also consider is we've also reached out to the team that's building the bike park. and we're going to have to have ways to get up and down at the bike park and so it's probably something that we're going to need to even think about having either on a trailer ready to deploy or maybe even on site and so we've reached out to the developers and last thing they we heard from them was that they want to get all the trails cut in first and they're going to have us out to do some pre-planning of how we're gonna extricate people if they was to be injured. They showed me some preliminary footage of what the trail's gonna look like. And so there's some risks there that they're taking, which is always a part of off-roading, no matter what you do, so.

Questions, comments from the court?

Mike, I have a question. Yes, sir. On your bids. Was everybody bidding as if we were getting two? No. Were they bidding?

No, we just asked for what we were looking for and to give us options. And so the other two quotes are for one item and the other one from Harrisburg is for two just because they're honestly just more affordable.

Okay, I just, yeah, that's what I saw in the information on the scene. I just wanted to make sure that everyone was bidding on the same thing.

That's all. We told them to price it out per unit. That way, you know, you can see the base price for each unit.

That's okay. You're comfortable with this?

Right. Yes.

Okay. Any other questions?

No, we definitely need it.

Mine's going to be a very naive question, especially with what you said about the trail and junction. Is either or are both equipped for a collapsible gurney or at least a backboard?

Not yet. The county fire has one that is ready to be able to put a Stokes basket on. We would work with them. if we were to be toned out for those. So the main thing is just transport to get our people there. We will look at adding, you know, whether it's a small little pull-behind trailer that we can fabricate ourselves. That's kind of the next phase.

That comes to mind immediately, especially with that terrain. And I'm sure they're going to have to have some staging area, which might be 600 feet from where your guys will actually get.

We have the ability in our chase vehicles to be able to move patients from the scene to the ambulance if it's too technical for the ambulance to get there. We just really need to be able to get personnel and equipment to the patient, and then we can work with county fire if we need to get them out. Or sometimes you just have to, it's too rough, you just have to stoke something out and full person carry out back to LA. That's what EMS did with my brother.

He fell from a grapevine back behind our mom and dad's in a ravine, and building all the way up the ravine. I mean that was a lot of work.

Very commonly in the fall hunting season comes around you know unfortunately people will fall out of or climb it up to or will fall out of tree stands. We've had that happen a lot and so so just being able to get personnel to the patient is the is going to be key.

Your acting judge did not ask for a motion but I'll do it now after the fact.

Do you will you need a check When you pick them up.

Yeah, I was going to say that.

Pay upon delivery, too.

Upon delivery, yeah. Hey, Tom.

Yes.

Tom, to kind of go back to Jamie's point, the budget on this is, what, $24,000, $25,000 to Shannon?

$25,000, I believe.

$25,000, I believe, too. And so originally, given that budget, I think there were talks about, you know, including a side-by-side and a trailer, something like that. But the request originally was for two vehicles, and so if we tried pricing out two vehicles from the other locations, you know, we'd be over budget, which is why we only got single requests from Ben. The place in Harrisburg actually was to accommodate both, you know, And like our EMS staff always does, they kind of reevaluate with the things that are happening in the county. And the idea came up of, you know, a side-by-side and a UTV would actually be very beneficial. So that's what we product on this at a good price.

Thank you. Thank you. Do I hear a motion? Do I hear a motion? I'm sorry?

Yeah, I'll make the motion that we accept the bluegrass sports in Harrisburg and pay on demand. Is that what you'd like?

Okay, yes. Do I hear a second to Magistrate Cullen's motion? Second. Second by Magistrate Gay. Discussion? Any further discussion? I know it's essential that we do this. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

All right. Any opposed? Likewise. Thank you, and this is critical. You're welcome. Everything you do on a daily basis is much appreciated. And thank you.

We couldn't do it without your support. Runs as of today, we're at 450, so it's a busy month. We're on track, you know, to be our usual far to 6,700 runs.

And we have a fiscal report in our packet this night.

Yeah, in the package. We always include that on the second, because our numbers come in from the previous month, somewhere between the first and second meeting, so we include them on the second meeting. If you have any questions about that.

Thank you all. Thank you very much. All right. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we are at the point of Magistrate Reports, and Magistrate Bodner?

I've got a lot. I'm sorry. All right. I just wanted to mention that on June 9th, I contacted Stacy Daniels of the state permitting department. She told me that there's a process. She thinks the process for getting the EDA property permitted should not be difficult. She said it may even be a transferable thing, but she's not sure if she would check that out. And I asked if anybody else had contacted her from Boyle County. And she said that a call from Angie Muncy was on her list for that day. So I don't know what their conversation was about. But I did tell her I wanted to keep, make sure we're having this on the fast track to get that burner moved. And that I'd be contacting her back to see how that was going. The fire hydrants in Justice City have a facelift. We have some of the oldest looking pitiful just a few really pitiful look ones, but they all needed to facelift, but we got some good fire hydrants. But they got a facelift, all these people have come out and we're doing a community service. Mimi Becker helped with Junction Voices and Jennifer Puckett has been really great with setting up people with fire hydrants and we're painting them. And so if you see painted fire hydrants, these are community service projects by lots and lots of people, I was gonna name them. But there's so many now, I just can't do it. My sister, my husband, and I started ours yesterday, so it looks a little, it's not finished. We've got another plan to it, but they're all looking really good. I'm really proud of our community for the way we're coming together. We did try to get the 250th steam engine that's going around the country to come to Junction, but we didn't get to. They said they're not coming our way, so we were sad about that. Junction Voices is still working on the Balloon Festival, and They're working really hard with that. August 9th will be the balloon festival. We have other activities going on besides the balloon because last year the wet wind would not drop to eight miles an hour and we couldn't put the balloons up. They just blew them up where they stood and that was very sad. But now we're gonna say the balloons may go up, weather depending, and here's all the other things we can do. So we're still working on that. I was gonna read this, but I know we can all read. But I wanted to say, just do this, hold on. Just to read a few of the things that our county administrator does. Serves as a liaison between this court, so she takes all of our comments, and the county department agencies. She assists the judge in administration of daily operations of county government. Therefore, the county administrator must be familiar with all county departments and operations. She'll assist the treasurer with administrative support, financial operations, support and assist the occupational tax office. She does large-scale projects, of which now our county administrator is doing the Bell Tower, securing that. The EMA building, Pine Knob Trails, the new sheriff's building, Of course, she worked on the administrative code, the ordinances. She's got them all. I could go on and on and on. You can get what I'm saying. She's got two pages worth of description of her job duties. And I have always said, and I met to talk to our personnel committee at the conference, but I didn't get to. I've always said that we misgraded that job. And I still agree that we have misgraded it it's a grade nine and I think at the least should be a ten more really but because of the difference of when she was hired her job duties when she was hired as to what we have now so I would like to make a formal motion that the personnel committee review and consider moving the county administrator position from the current county administrator position from a grade nine to a grade ten with the results being back within a month to this physical court.

You have heard the motion. Do I hear a second?

So the motion is for them to review it.

Yes. I'll second it. Seconded by Magistrate Sleeper. Yes. Discussion, please. And I think we have members of the personnel committee on board here.

Julie does a great job. She helps me a lot. She helps everybody. She helps everybody. Wears a lot of hats.

when I first got started I didn't really know enough to realize when we started out with the grading process I didn't really and so it kind of slowly came up on me I should have done this then but I was so new in this position I had no idea you know how important this was so it's still important to me and I meant to talk with the personnel committee this past week and I thought no I've got to go ahead and do that okay That's it.

Other comments? Stepping aside as acting judge.

Yes, I would just say that, you know, I welcome that, you know, review and look and I don't, you know, as we all know, Julie does a lot and does an amazing job. I would just add, though, that this would be something the review could be done based on the time frame that manager boner suggested but any adjustments would most likely not occur until the next budget cycle there's no there's no money increase you do know that right there's no salary increase with it which confirms that you're supportive that's the type of things that would need to be included in the review

Okay, and that's what I want you to look at. That's why I'm requesting it.

Prospectively for the next budget cycle.

But if it doesn't affect the budget, then it could be now, correct?

Correct. Okay. Any other comments from the court? Stepping aside for a moment as acting judge today, It has been more than a privilege to work with Julie and see the phenomenal work that she does. It is so expansive into every one of our areas of responsibility and accountability as a court. In my corporate life, I was privileged to have staff with two major corporations in Kentucky, and I had some fabulous staff. but none of them would have measured up to what she achieves on our behalf. So I encourage the strongest consideration by the personnel committee that we carry forward on the recommendation to go from grade nine to grade 10. Any other discussion? Thank you, okay. All right, and more?

We got no, did we vote?

Yes, we have a motion and a second.

uh all those in favor of the motion signify by saying aye aye aye and any opposed like sign wonderful okay all right okay after a complaint from a constituent about speeding and shelby green i think the person was doing 70 miles an hour uh junction city i went to jim and the council and well i went to jim and they put a sign up the next day so they put a speed limit sign And, of course, I told this constituent, be sure to contact the parents. It was a young child. Of course, of course. And so, of course, she did. She said, we've already done that, and the situation is corrected. But we thought that that sign went up so fast, I'm just really proud of our Junction City Council and the mayor. Okay, Junction City, a new announcement, was able to purchase two key acres of land That greatly improves the entrance. The entrance that they had, the eight acres that they previously bought, opens into a pond. So it was really gonna be expensive to do that pond and get around it and get that great entrance. So they now have the key two acres to make that ten acre park the best it could be. I mean, I'm so excited with this. that we're now starting to seek funds. This is now, it's for real. Once we got that, it opens the doors. I've been working with Blue Grass Ad on funding. I've contacted a friend of mine who's a great grant writer. We're expecting great things, and Brent Setter Carroll has taken the plan, which I wanted to bring again. I think I brought it two years ago. But this plan we have, here's the land. This land is behind the school. And this is the 10 acres. Here is Shelby Green that joins right with that 10 acres. So this is parkland. This is the backstop. I'm sorry, guys. This is the backstop and they kept five acres. But this 10 acres now is Junction City Park. I mean, it's a phenomenal thing. And here's our plant. of what we want to do. And Brandsteader Cara is going to transfer this plan onto that 10 acres down. We want a little band shell. They call it band shell. I call it a little outdoor little theater, amphitheater. It'll be a small little theater. The kids can come out and do plays. They can have all the elementary schools come and do, they can do graduation at Junction City. They can do it there potentially. We want this concession stand, a large shelter. We've They had thought about pickleball courts, but now with, I don't know what we'll do, but we've considered the football, but now we're rethinking that. The baseball field of which Reed Cash worked the current baseball field at Junction. He worked that for 10 or 15 years and a lot of time with just his family and him doing that. So I'd love to see that named after Reed Cash. I don't know that that'll happen, but that would be an honor since he passed. He was a He really would put his heart and soul in that. We've got all these. Over here, the little splash pad, a little splash pad. We've got a dream. If you don't have a dream, you can't start it. We don't have the money yet, but it'll come. I'm telling you, we've worked on it. To me, it makes me just so happy I can't even talk about it. But anyway, it's a great thing. So it's for real now. It's really for real. Junction owns it. all the land, the school does not own it, and this is a really big thing for us. The last thing I want to say is congratulations to Allie Huff of Main Street Perryville. She received a check for $100,000 for Perryville's community center project. JJ Harris, the former CEO of Danville-Bull County Development Corporation, appropriated $100,000 for Junction City also. As that funding is to go through Junction City in phases, Junction City was told to, they would receive their money amounts after each phase is completed. So therefore, they have torn down the back of the old city hall. It's a kind of an addition that was really bad shape, had a lot of structural problems. They've now torn that down, so they've completed one phase of that, I think it's four phases, four or five phases. So they will be contacting, but the development corporation has asked Junction City to bring a presentation. Allie had had a presentation, so we're gonna bring a presentation to the next meeting. But JJ Harris assured us that that money was appropriated for this current budget. Let's see, the Junction City Community Center has been started with that demolition. That historic building is, you can really see it better now. We're truly excited about it. JJ Harris had contacted Sarah Palum about being able to help us get our- So the public knows who Sarah Palum is. Yeah, the Chamber of Commerce director, I guess. She has agreed, has talked with us. I don't think there's any agreements, but she has said, yes, I've been talked to about it. So we're hoping we can get her to help us set up classes. It's really exciting. And that's all I have. I'm sorry. Thank you.

No problem. Thank you. Harman, you mentioned your continuing concern about Houstonville Road when we were in Lexington.

Yeah. Houstonville Road has been a problem. It's still a problem. We have vehicles that travel very high speed in the middle of rush hour and eventually something's going to happen and it's not going to be pretty.

The thing that concerned me the most that you mentioned was They're using that middle staging lane. Tell me about that. Tell us about that.

Yeah, they get up to a minimum speed of 80 so they can blend in where they want to. To some people, it's just a game. They come out there, they're driving recklessly, and somebody's gonna be killed. My neighbor was struck by a car that kept going. She had to go into the hospital several days. she's still working she come back after rehabilitation and it's all right at the end of carrigan drive crossing the highway which is five lanes because the middle lane now is open to whatever whenever and she was nearly killed primary jurisdiction would be danville city police have you contacted them no i'd recommend that you do that

Anything else?

I have talked to damage police, but it's not been an informal meeting. It's been with certain officers. Yeah.

That's all. Okay, thank you. Master Sleeper? Yes, last week I think all of us attended the Kentucky Judge Executive Magistrate Commissioner's Conference, Joint Summer Conference, prevailing a majority, a major I should say, topic was that of data centers, which is of course on everybody's minds these days. I think the takeaway was that while we don't want the Chinese controlling our data, data centers are going to need to come to this country, but the massive drain on local infrastructure resources and the issue of land speculators and such makes us want to proceed with extreme caution in terms of dealing with this subject. EDA met on the 15th and we Our master plan, just a little review, we bought, the EDA bought, purchased 200 acres. They're just outside the bypass for development. And things are progressing. There's still, there's so many steps to this process that it's taken a while. But what I can report on is that the Kentucky Transportation Department did, has approved permitting for encroachments and left turn lanes and things like that. And so that's been a good development. And there's a traffic study underway which should be completed any day now regarding the Parable Road-Blue Grass Pike intersection which will become a major thing once that area is being developed. So there's just a couple things that are important and that's really all I have.

All right.

uh yes just main thing i want to report on is the changes in curbside recycling that are coming soon to the city of danville effective july 1 it no longer will be included in your city plan it's now going to be individually contracted with republic services if you would like to continue curbside recycling. And so you will need to contact Republic. And really the best way I'm finding to do that is to text 859-368-1140. And we're working on making sure that all this information is readily available and it is getting out there on Facebook and city website. And hopefully we can put it on the county website as well. I do have an email, but I am hearing concerns with the functioning of the email address. So I would encourage people to text or call Republic Services to get signed up. That seems to be working efficiently. And it's important for people to understand and know that the product will be staying local. It will be going to our local recycling center. And the products that you can place in your curbside cans and that you can deliver to any of our convenience centers, including the recycling center on Stewart's Lane. Our cardboard, plastic bottles, numbers one and two, aluminum and steel cans, and paper, and then glass and styrofoam can be delivered to the recycling center only. So those are important things to know and keep in mind as we transition our county's recycling program away from you know in particular the city of Danville away from the every every residents having a curbside recycling can so there is a change and I know it's change is always hard and there's a real adjustment going on but definitely reach out to Angie Muncy If you have any questions, since she will be overseeing and extend the person, her our employees will be the ones doing these sorting of the recyclable material, and then the marketing and reusing of that material going forward.

That's good for you belong to another issue. I saw some of those Facebook actually concerns. And people, and I think it was only the people in the city limits, were under the, I believe, misimpression that they were going to pay extra for the service. Am I correct that that is not true?

No, you can drop off at all the, you know, you can take your material, your product directly to any of the convenience centers and the main recycling center for free. But if you want to continue the convenience of having curbside recycling biweekly, I want to say it's $7.80 or $6.80. I don't have that exact number in front of me, but there still is a fee.

Is that an increase? That seems an increase of $6.85. Okay.

For curbside. For curbside.

Thank you. Anything else?

I have a question regarding that too. Oh, I'm sorry. Would you, Magistrate Gay, would you please repeat that phone number for those who want to opt in to the recycling?

Yes, 859-368-1140. Thank you. And you can text, you can text to that number and they just ask that you include your name, your service address, your phone number, and your billing address if it's different from your service address.

thank you okay that's good any any more now that's all all right that's the cullen uh no i'm i'm gonna go okay thank you uh shannon counselor yes um last week i got to attend the

Juneteenth celebration at Jenny Rogers and at Michael Smith Park. Really good programs. The weather was perfect for the park last Friday evening, and there was good attendance. I saw Tommy flipping burgers from Parks and Rec, and so all the Parks and Rec were out there. Just a really good program they put on out there. I want to remind everybody that Brass bands coming up this weekend. I mean, the festivities start this Thursday, right here at Wisegar Park. And so I hope everyone attends. And they do need a lot of help still. I was looking at the www.gabbf.org, which is Great American Brass Band Festival. If you look on their page under volunteer, it's kind of at the top you can click. They still need a lot of volunteers for different things, including merchandise sales, hospitality. The Pepsi booth, from 7 to 11 PM, only one person signed up for that. So they need help there, parking, golf carts, and all that. So I would ask the community to get involved and help out with the American Breast Painting Festival. A lot of people come to our town from other places and put a lot of money into our community so we just want to make sure that we have all the people there to help out and make this festival run smoothly i went to church this past sunday and the governor scholars are now in town so that's really neat i like to see that one you have governor scholars visit your your church and so if you see them around town everybody should say hello and just welcome because you know very well they might come back and go to center and then maybe A lot of people that go to center love Danville and they end up coming back and residing here one day. So just greet the governor's scholars and just be very nice to them. Parade for our 250th anniversary, 4th of July parade is coming up as well. So just think everyone should take part in that as well. Istanbul's just got a lot of great things happening over the summer, and everyone should just take advantage of all the wonderful happenings that are going on. And that's all I have. Thank you.

Susanna, thank you for guiding me through. Do you have any others? And have I missed anything before my comments?

No, you went right.

Oh, Tom, I forgot one. Yeah. Okay. I was on vacation last week, came back. The military banners are... So amazing. Wonderful. Thank you for whoever put my dad's military banner up across from, right next to, in front of my old office building at 430 West 9th. That's good. It's awesome to have it right there. It's awesome. Tremendous. Just to see everybody's banners, that's amazing. It is. Thankful for the people who served in our armed forces.

The VFW. My sister is a hardworking person out there at the VFW. That's it.

help put these bags.

My brother's is on the corner right there, 3rd Street. Well, I appreciate her and all the VFW. They do a lot for our community.

My dad, my uncle, my friend at church, they're all, two of them are up, one's waiting on, so it's really amazing. I love it.

I've got three uncles. Alright, any others from the magistrates? I guess it's my turn. Interestingly, a Kinder Morgan major envelope appeared in my box over in the office. It is instructions and an appeal similar to before you dig. They still use one, perhaps two of their five pipelines through the area. I asked Brian if he could be here with us because I have recollections about them 12 to 15 years ago. Brian, do you have any comments about their product of instruction? And I'll give you the envelope after we're through here. I don't.

Good morning, guys. Master Villas reached out to me a couple days ago and was talking about this. I thought it'd be probably, I know it's probably stuff that you guys are already familiar with but just in case it was hurt. Here's just a this is a little bit older map but I mean it is accurate to the pipeline that we have coming through the county.

Are there more than just Kinder Morgan?

Well, the Tennessee gas, Tennessee pipeline, which is owned by Kendra Morgan. They've got the 230 inch and the 224s and then just a regular transmission line.

Am I correct that at least one, perhaps two are active?

Yes, yes, I know at least two are. I was, you know, we go back to the, I think it was 2019 when we had the pipeline explosion down in Lincoln County. They have... That's over past the airport where that took place? It was kind of down in the Moreland area, down that way, down off 127th. They were very responsive as far as dealing with, and another thing I know Magistrate Ellis has been before. Every year Paradigm does a pipeline training. Generally held at the Country Club. That's right, that's right. March, April is usually the time frame for that, but it seems like the last few years it's been in March. It's about an hour and a half, two hours. You can actually get credit hours for going to it also, but it's a lot of good information in it as far as It's just a two-hour class with those companies. Representatives from the companies are there. Atmos, Kendall Morgan, and of course, Tennessee Gas Pipeline. That gives you a good idea of what we've got running through the county. I know a lot of people go about their day-to-day life and don't even realize that those gas lines are are here, but they are.

My primary concern about receiving this in my mailbox from Kinder Morgan dates back 12 to 15 years. A brief history during World War II when Virtually every accredited welder and others were going to places like the East Coast and building airplanes and ships. Farmers during World War II installed these lines. At least I'm aware of one line. I can't say I didn't have to research the other ones. I got with our scientists of the area who tests our streams even now, Preston Miles, 12 to 15 years ago on this issue as soon as I was alerted to what might happen. If you reach your hand way above Boyle County up to the Great Lakes, they are getting what I call sludge out of cat cracking deep in oil wells And it becomes a saleable product once it is distilled. When I met with Preston Miles, he identified the potential for 12 to 15 carcinogens in the product that they were going to send through an 80 plus year old pipeline. And if you're familiar with plumbing, there's male female connections. And it's never advised to not flow this way, but to go against the grain. They have what they call pigs that they pull through their lines to assure that welds are in place. However, to me, as a neophyte on this, is that when I was putting in a line for my garden and for my barn in my yard, I asked the accredited plumber at Lowe's, what type of gravel do I put in that trench? And he said, oh my gosh, I'm glad you asked that question because just the simple movement of the soil and movement of the earth rise and fall because of ice crystals getting in gravel and expanding within a matter of 10 years, you will not have a water line and it'll be leaking and you'll wonder why your bill is $1,000 a month. Ladies and gentlemen, these lines put in by farmers and then backfilled, I would speculate that they took whatever they got out of the ground and plowed it right back in. I have reservations about those lines. I wrote two major columns in the newspaper. That got the attention of Mayor Ann Sleet, and she was the first to pass an ordinance that said that on the outskirts of Perryville proper, where the line came through, they would do all they could to stop it. Shortly after that, then Judge McKinney took likewise action. So because I have the privilege of speaking to that while we're in court, and I wouldn't have the privilege if we didn't have the quorum in session, I couldn't say this. But beyond the good knowledge that we know don't do the horrible thing of making a move anywhere where these lines might be without the 811, is it, that you call? Now, I didn't see a connection in the documents that it sent that I had in my mailbox. Who on that line from 811 would know where Kinder Morgan's lines are? Who would know to make that notification? So they definitely integrate their contact system. Because again, you can see another disturbing thing to me about the integrity of these lines over time is when you go out in my district, there are several easy to see several places where they actually overlap. So we all need to be keeping attention to what might be done. There was great consternation from Kinder Morgan when they finally gave up and did not fill that line from a product that would go from the Great Lakes down to New Orleans. So it's more than just the good news that they sent us that we better be careful when digging. We really need to know that history. My second issue, and I've talked with Chris about this, 11 states have passed ordinances and some of them state laws. prohibiting the release of celebratory helium balloons with births, deaths, whatever the occasion might be. I was alerted to this by our neighbor, Kerry King. And by the way, if you don't know of Kerry's background, he is the past president of the Kentucky Cattlemen's Association. He is the past president of the American Cattle Association. And when he put an alert on Facebook 10 days or two weeks ago, I piggybacked on that, put on five pictures of animals that have found these beautiful balloons, now deflated, in their fields. And if they ingest them even to the point of their esophagus, they will die. Farmers have found cattle. dead in the field. And until there's an autopsy, when they find that the balloon was ingested all the way into one of their stomachs, they die. So Kerry made an appeal that we look at this. I've talked to Chris about this. And I'm recommending that in the near future, we pass an ordinance prohibiting the release of helium balloons. That's not going to go over very well with some of the stores that sell them, but it is a critical area. I have a picture of a fox that died after getting a balloon just into his esophagus. I have pictures of various other animals, but my gosh, you lose one steer and a minimum of $1,000, probably more like $2,000 And we are the capital of cattle production east of the Mississippi as a county, which is a stunning stat that we've heard when we've gone to the Farm Bureau breakfast. So please consider the fact that I'll get with Chris and we'll find some language. And next year, I'll be out of office, but I'll be in Frankfurt appealing to the state that we look at the 11 statutes across the country. I'm feeling that pain of being six months out in the transition. My successor is sitting in the back of the room, which I very much appreciate, because the more we can orient our new magistrate, the better off we are. And with Judge Trilley's endorsement, we've actually been working together, Matthew Ellis and I, over the past six months to make sure that and of course his seatmate is going to be his mentor and I know that would be true so thank you. That's scary. We heard way too much about the deficiencies of the state budget on roads and bridges so folks you're gonna have a tough time next year but we heard that last week at Griffin Gate. I'm so glad that Magistrate Sleeper talked about the data center issue over in Mercer County. I went last night and interestingly within an hour of the scheduled meeting it was canceled. So all the more we have to be attentive to the fact that we've got a moratorium on that and we will in the United States have data centers all over and we just have to take a cautionary note on that. I would recommend, and I'll get with Julie, that we make sure under the statute of four years ago, Senate Bill 8, that we get our special taxing districts in here for their quarterly reports, because I think a couple of them have fallen behind. I'm pleased to hear that there's progress with EDA and the movement of the burner. That's a commitment that we made as a court. that it will not be in Junction City for the long duration. And one other thing, go on Facebook and look at those fire plugs in Junction City. That's one piece of beautification along our highways. And any of you who, and I think all of us except perhaps Magistrate Gay, have state, well you do have state roads, but you don't have grass on them, Magistrate Gay. But The state committed a year ago this month to put new 18 to 24 inch margins of gravel. There was zero plan to either kill the weeds that come up in that, which I think would be a terrible idea because of the gallons and dozens of gallons just going along Perryville Road. along major stretches right now of Perryville Road. And I've been on 52 and some others, same thing. Where they have put these gravel margins in, the weeds are 12 to 16 inches high and some of them are those tough weeds that have the purple flower on them. And if you tried to weed eat that along the highway and hit a school bus with that gravel, you'd probably be looking at litigation. So yesterday I wrote a lengthy email to District 7 E-Town Kelly Baker appealing that something be done about that and I don't know what that might be because I anticipated a year ago in an email that he has on file what would be happening now and it has now taken place. So I'm very concerned because we got that tremendous report from Kendall Clinton today about our rising revenues from tourism, and even if we didn't get the revenues, getting people in from Maine, from Florida, from Texas, from the state of Washington, and they've all been here with the beauty of our highways between those wonderful fire plugs in Junction and the glorious roads that we have that the state is now not properly maintaining. I think my email is going to hit pretty hard. I even copied Jim Gray knowing that he is no longer the Secretary of the Department of Transportation because he and I talked for 20 minutes a year ago in Griffin Gate about my anticipation of where we would have the weeds today and it just detracts tremendously from the beauty of our highways. So I don't have a good solution for it and I don't think the state contemplated one at this point. I'm sorry for being as usual lengthy. Any other comments before I call for adjournment? Do I hear a motion to adjourn?

I'll make a motion. Second.

A motion by Magistrate Boehner, second by Magistrate Sleeper. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Thank you.

Bye.

I thought you had one more thing. Thank you. We are adjourned.

There you go. Very good. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job.

What's your email address?

We'll email it.