Fiscal Court - Regular Meeting

Well, it's funny about the time we hit little past summer, we've been on with Indianapolis ATC and then they would move us over to Lexington. Good morning. We will call this meeting of the B County Fiscal Court to order on November 25th, 2025 at 9:00 a.m. Madame Clark, do we have a quorumman, has this meeting been properly advertised? Yes.

All right. Uh, welcome guests. I will ask you all to please silence your phones. If you have a phone on or in your pocket, if you all could silence those, please uh so that they do not disrupt the meeting. First item on the agenda is invocation by Magister Gay. Thank you, judge. Before we pray, I do want to as we enter the holiday seasons with this week of Thanksgiving that we be mindful of those that have missing empty chairs around the table this year. Will [snorts] you be mindful of those that don't have a table to set around this time of year and those that don't have a house to set in this time of year? Gracious heavenly father, accept our thanks and praise for all that you have done for us. We thank you for the splendor of your creation, the beauty of this world, and the wonder of life. We are especially grateful for your son Jesus Christ, for the truth of his word, the example of his life, and his victory over death. Grant us your spirit that we may always give thanks to you in all things. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Amen. Thank you, Master Gate. All right. Next, we have our pledge of allegiance. And we have a special guest, Josh Moss. He is from Woodlon Elementary and in the fifth grade. And his parents are Kirsten and Ben Moss. All right, Josh, if you will stand up and the rest of the group will stand. We will follow Josh in the pledge of allegiance right here to the flag. I aliance 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. All right. Good job.

Yeah. For you. Come over here. And Miss Julie is going to take our picture. How about that? And you hold that side and I'll hold this side. There you [clears throat] [snorts] go. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here today. Judge, mom wants to take pictures. Okay. Mom wants to take a picture, too. [laughter] All right. Now, you can stay and be entertained or you can go back to school and learn something. Go back [laughter] to school. Okay. Thank you for being here. Thank you.

Okay. Okay, prior meeting minutes. We have minutes from the November 10th meeting. Uh, [clears throat] is there a motion to approve? So move. Master Gay, second by Master Bner. Any discussion on the minutes?

Seeing none, all those in favor of approving the minutes. Signify by saying I. I. Any oppose? Name. Motion carries. Minutes are approved. Okay. Next we have budget transfers. Miss Sha, [clears throat] I have budget transfers in the amount of 253,000 40571. Okay. Motion to approve budget transfers. Make a motion. Second. Maser Cullen, second by Maser Sleeper. Is there any discussion on the budget transfers? All right. All those in favor signify by saying I. I.

Any oppose? Nay. Motion carries. Now we'll have cash transfers. Have a cash transfer from the interestbearing account to the general fund for $500,000. Make a motion to approve. I'm not done. [laughter] From the general fund to the jail for [snorts] for 50,000 from general fund to EMS 175,000 and general fund to fleet for 10,000. All right. So we have a motion by Minister Con to approve all of the cash transfers. All the ones listed in our packet. [laughter]

All the ones listed in our packet, second by Minister Harmon. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any oppose? Nay. Motion passes. Thank you, Miss Shannon. All right. Next is our bills. And Miss Elena, good morning. Good morning. All right. Your bill packet today totals $22,139.98. That's all I got for you. No add-ons. Awesome. Good deal. Move we pay the bills as presented.

Have a m motion by Master Gay, a second by Master Cullen to pay the bills as presented. Any discussion on the bills? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any oppose? Nay. Motion carries. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. And would you have uh Miss Avery come in with her parents? Avery Long, please. [snorts]

Come on in. Come on in. Mom D coming. All right. Come on in. That's awesome.

Okay, so you all have some of you all have met Avery. Uh Avery Long. She is a seventh grader at uh Bait Middle School and she entered the KO art contest and she won second place. And so I wanted Avery to come. She was recognized at the KO conference uh and got to go up on stage and receive a certificate. But Avery, I wanted you to come and I wanted the fiscal court to uh provide you with a certificate of recognition. It's in honor of your outstanding achievement in earning second place in the 2025 KO art contest. [snorts and clears throat] The Boil County Fiscal Court proudly recognizes your creativity, your talent, and your dedication. Your artwork reflects exceptional skill and provides great pride to Bo County.

And judge, all 120 counties. And how many entries do I do do I? No, I don't remember that. [laughter] This is that she drew to represent Bo County. and she said that this reminds her of a country road traveling down a country road and looking at the scenery in the country and I thought she did an outstanding job. So Avery, if you will come over here, we'll get your picture and I'm going to issue this colorful art [laughter] certificate. How you like that? How long did it take her to do that? Do you remember how long it took her to do that artwork? How long? Like two hours. Two hours. Yeah.

So that's good. CONGRATULATIONS, HONEY. THANK YOU. [applause] And Avery, your your uh place at the conference won a candle. Yeah, I need to get with you. And I've got to get you your candle. So, you got a nice little candalent [laughter] from your mom. [laughter] You all have happy Thanksgiving. Great. Thank you. Yeah, that's awesome. Do we do we have that mounted up here in the courthouse by chance? No, but we should we should get a picture of that. Come in. Come in. Come in.

Okay. We've got some introductions of new employees. And the first one, um, Jackie has brought in a new Yes, we finally have a new employee for the tax office. This is Trish Dunar. Nice to meet you. And just want to introduce her to you all. Okay. And welcome. Welcome, Trish. Thank you. Yeah, she's a wonderful addition. All right, we know you're finally happy. We know you're happy to finally have someone. Yes. Yes, very much. [laughter] Happy to be here. All right. Great. Well, thank you. You all have a good day. And then we've got the animal control. Is they out? Are they out there?

[clears throat] [snorts] All right, we've got a new animal control employee. Got a new outreach coordinator, community outreach coordinator, Alexandria Young. She just started last week. It was. Yeah. So, she's uh already hitting the ground running. Got a cat spay already in our [laughter] program. make a post of that with their whole. So that's awesome. Okay. And you'll be be providing uh like social media um and different things, you know, for people to know what's going on. Yeah. At the animal control shelter. You'll be updating everybody on what's going on.

Good deal. All right. And and I think you're part vet tech as well, so you'll be able to help with medication. Oh, wait a minute. [laughter] That's what I thought. All right. Well, welcome to the team. We're proud to have you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Elias. And then we've got Sheriff's Department. Okay.

Keep going. [laughter] Our door keeper. [clears throat] You got introduction cost. Can we Can we Hey, Steve. Let's bump him down. Yeah, let's b sheriff's actually at elementary school reading to the kids and so he wants to come back and and Okay. All right. I wasn't aware of that. Well, well, here comes the man, the myth, and the legend. There you [laughter] will. No, but he should be. [laughter]

Yeah. So, uh, sheriff had to cut out early on our committee meeting this morning because he needed to go over and and Okay. Well, that's fine. We'll pick him up when he comes back in. All right. Stay in the room only, guys, but you're welcome to stay. All right. Next up, um, harm reduction home homeless coordinator Bryce Gibson. Welcome. Good morning. Morning.

All right. Um, so I'll give y'all a few numbers. Um, so I started September 1st. Um, since then I've given out 156 meal kits. Uh, those meal kits consist about uh three to four meals in each one. So, y'all do the math on that. It's pretty good. Um, and um, so what I've really come to talk about was the hotel vouchers that we're running right now. Um they'll go on effect December 1st and all this stuff's through the the Bull County Homeless Coalition uh which was started out of U Steve Sleepers U homeless task force. Um so they're going to start on December the 1st and they're going to run we're going to try to run through March 31st. Uh there's a temperature activator on them of 28° a high of 28°. Um [snorts] the other thing is is that if the warming centers are open the nights that they are open the vouchers will not be uh available that evening um or evenings.

Um

so in in doing all this like to get a hotel voucher you're going to have to come in you're going to have to do an intake basically. Um it's going to be 43 questions that way that we can start collecting the data that we need to be able to track all this stuff. um you know, we'll be able to get some root and causes um to the reasons why some some of these individuals are are homeless. Um and it will just help us kind of better understand everything that that we're trying to do like the the the big scheme of everything. So, um it's B County residents only. Something else, we're actively still fundraising for this. Um, the health department had funds the last two years of approximately $35,000 a year. Um, Hudson Ellis gave us 175. Um, so that's another reason why I think the criterias are lower than what they have been in the years past because we're working on half the budget. Um, and at $60 a night, this doesn't include pet fees, which there's a $10 pet fee, and we all know that that some of these individuals have pets. Um, it's about 291 rooms, and I I believe that we used roughly 450 rooms over the the last two years. Um, so, and that's also at $70 a night. That that's that's the cheapest that I can find it. Um, and that's through one hotel provider. Um, I would say that I'm going to have to end up using another hotel provider also. Um, which is going to be probably close to $100 a night. Um, I think they're around between 80 and 90. Um, but I just wanted you all to know that that, you know, this is kind of some of the stuff that that we're doing right

now. Um, I hope that um that we find some type of um answer for some of this stuff. I know we're not going to solve the problem. Um, I know that. Um, another thing is that um we got a move in date for this RCC, which is a recovery community center. Um, the state [clears throat] awarded three grants to health departments and we've received one of those. Uh we were one of the three counties that got the grant and um moving dates December the 2nd. Um we'll come back after the first of the year. It's going to be called the bridge. Um and I've already lined up like I'll have I'll have case manager in there once a week. Um to be able to help clients, you know, the um our connector uh Julia Turpin, she will be in there at least once a month to be able to sign people up for insurance. um because we haven't what we're trying to do is just bring people in and we're trying to connect all these services and if we have one centralized location um then it's easier for everybody to get there. Um we found an office space right on Fourth Street. Um it's actually right across from the health department except on Fourth Street. So we're all getting very centralized in our locations. That's good.

Um which I think will be a big big help in close proximity. Yes. Um, so how many vouchers uh have you gotten donations for so far? Well, we've gotten 175. So if you figure them up Yeah. If you figure 175 up at $60, which is not which isn't right really. Yeah. Um it's approximately 291 [clears throat] uh rooms. So, um I I I really think once you really do the math on it and you start figuring in the pets and things like that, you're going to probably bump it down to about 250, maybe 260.

Um then you've got to factor in, well, if this person's banned from this hotel, because I do have some that are banned from some certain hotels. Uh um then I can take them to another place and they can get a room there and that room's probably going to be 80, 90, maybe $100 for that night. Now, it's my understanding that the health department can't contribute this year. Is that right? No. Okay.

No. Um, they cannot. Um, so through the homeless coalition, they're doing a they're calling it adopt a month, but it's really about like 10 nights. Um, so that's going through the the homeless coalition in the United Way. Uh, I think that First Christian Church has stepped up and covered at at least one month.

Okay. Um, but we're still actively, you know, looking for for money to be able to sign finish out the year. Plus, like, you know, that little cold stretch that we just had, I didn't open them because I was scared [snorts] to open them cuz I don't want to run out in the middle of February. You know, if we hit a real real bad patch, you know, and I run out of fun in the middle of February, then I'm out of funds. Yeah. We could have like 14 years ago the the vortex that came in and I mean the ice was all over the county. Yeah. Temperature plummeted. They could be in there for days. That's right. And aren't they calling for a really rough year this year? I think the forecast is supposed to be really cold this year. So, uh this week

Yeah. coming in. It's going to start chance of snow next week. So, uh, judge, I've been working with Bryce a lot trying to find different ways to to fund this other half. And, um, uh, I didn't know if there's a possible way that if the county could possibly not just give the funds, but act as a resource that if needed, you know, we could bridge that gap a little bit, possibly work with the city to see if they could kind of bridge it until he can find some some some of those resources. I mean, he's only been doing this since September, so he's he's running he's running ragged, you know, he's he's outside of donating food everywhere and doing everything else, he's got this on his plate as well. So,

yeah, I don't know if maybe we could work with Shannon to see if we have, you know, our our half would be, you know, just under $8,800 uh that we could possibly act as a a resource for them and they didn't find anything else. Um or just give a full commitment. I don't know what the court wants to do. Yeah, I think uh Excuse me.

No, go ahead. I was going to say open it up for comment. Uh, I think that we don't we forget like the the good stories that come out of people reaching out and and pulling these people together. They have issues. They're homeless. But we have one that's a published poet. Remember, she came in because somebody reached out and they pulled her out of her little tent behind one of the stores. And my daughter was telling about a family that was she and we had some food at the church and none of the homeless came in but we didn't think about it. They don't want to leave their home of a night because somebody might take it their little tent. So Wes and Jeffrey took it out took the food to them. Well, one of those families now has a full-time job, the the family, and they have their children in a home. And it's those little small things that we keep reaching out, reaching out, and it doesn't work every time. But the ones that do work, it it makes you feel good that we're doing the right thing. And it's kind of hard sometimes to keep helping the same people over over time, but we have to reach them. We have to reach them where they are. There was unfortunately the the young gentleman that lost his life at East Maine,

you know, uh due to the to the fire in his tent. And and we also have to realize that, you know, a lot of times when it gets really cold, they'll do what they have to do and they'll we'll find them at the jail uh because they they needed to get out of the cold. So, one way or another, we're probably going to end up having to house them somehow. Yeah. And so if you can kind of keep them out of jail, that would probably be a much better better option.

Here's something else that really surprised me. Um cuz I'm doing I'm doing street outreach a couple of times a week and um and when I say that I'm going into encampments and I'm I'm visiting people in tents, not the not people in cars and things like that. The people who are really living in tents, over half of them have jobs. uh or draw a disability check and they just can't put everything together. Um no matter what the problem is, I mean it's it's still their still a problem. Still a problem.

Um and if if we can get them in, that's another thing about this RCC. If we can get them in and start offering them some services, then then maybe we can can make a difference. Diana's a a prime [snorts] example of what can happen when a community will come together and provide good resources like we do in Bo County and they get offered to her and you surround someone with the right people of what can happen. Um she's in a one-bedroom apartment of her own right now. Yeah. That's awesome.

It's great. It's great. We've seen the success of what you started at Shepherd's House when you opened up meals and and showers to homeless. And so a lot of them, you know, very much trust you as well, which is why you're perfect for this role because, you know, you've bridged that gap. So, I'd like to see the county, I mean, be able to to um commit some funds. I don't know how much funds because I'd also like for uh maybe area churches to to step up and commit funds to this as well. And I know you mentioned one uh that had already given a donation, but um and I'm sure you're probably reaching out to them in the area and in the community because you're already reaching out to them, but I'd like to see, you know, churches step up and and commit some funding toward this as well. But um

if there's a motion to be made, well, I'll make one in a second, but I think his role was the missing piece. And Steve, I don't want to speak for your group, but yeah, we we do have a lot of churches that do, you know, uh give a lot and try to help in lots of ways, but you you need a coordinator to say, well, this is all the stuff that you're doing is good, but if we can kind of focus and have a focus on that and really put those funds together for a more useful

uh purpose, then things will will work out better and you're you're and you're spending less money doing it. Um but I do know speaking to you know you know one foundation I particularly you know uh deal with uh you know they also would like to see you know some county and city uh input as well. Yeah. Uh you know and so I think that this is kind of part of that piece too. Yeah. I agree with with all that. My wife served for 14 years as a church secretary. And so, and I I'm sure it's true for all church secretaries throughout the community, at least churches that have full-time staff, that

there wasn't a day that went by that she didn't have at least one, if multiple requests. And it it's helpful to everybody if they have a person to refer to and for each for all the churches to consolidate their resources so that you know you're not going to this church and then going to that church and and going around town. It just helps the overall structure of the system if there is a that system in place. So yes, a lot of churches will will have big drives for certain times of year. Oh yeah. Home this just isn't certain times of the year. So all year long. Yeah.

So I mean uh I'll make a motion that we um commit 888 $8,800 to reimburse. Um, I'm not wanting to just give $8,800, but um, as as a resource, you can invoice us for services towards the uh, hotel vouchers uh, to help um, place more people in in hotels as needed throughout the winter. Um, the one part that you left out was [clears throat] right now the the kicker is 28°, but if we can get you up to the 35,000, the kicker is 32°.

Yeah. Um, and so, you know, that 4° makes a lot of difference. I mean, I honestly 32 is cold. you know, uh, you know, let's 28 because of funding, you know, cuz I'm I'm scared to Okay, before we have any more discussion, let's get a second on the motion. Measure. Okay. Now, you want to go ahead and discuss all you want to. Yeah. Those that that one tent with the family, they had three children in a tent, you know, and it was really cold out, you know, I thought, oh, how's this happening in our county? [cough and clears throat]

So, this is a very needed. I once worked at a Lexington restaurant when I was in graduate school. And sad to say, but the owner hired an alcoholic and that fell would do a lot of work. He was watched all the time, of course. Um, but he would take out trash. He would clean up the parking lot. If there was snow on the ground, you uh is there any way that with some you meet and know and trust that you can negotiate with that hotel manager to subsidize

what we're able to help with and you more than us with with the money we're giving you. Um where that manager might agree that well, yeah, Charlie's trustworthy. I've seen him in the lobby. Um, and I'll offset his room by half or about a third or something like that.

Um, I I think that I think they've given us probably the cheapest rate that they're going to give us. Um here's a here's another thing that I don't think's really uh vi viable right now is that um after we kind of get this RCC developed then you can start when you're getting those in you start rewarding um you know making appointments or those types of things with some stuff like that some incentive based stuff. Um I don't think the hotels are going to give us any more.

But you're talking about other workplaces that you're Okay.

Um but and and that'll come as that'll come down the road. Um really really really early IN THIS WHOLE DEAL. LIKE WE haven't even got that office open yet. Um, and I think that you'll start seeing a lot of things come out of that just because you're putting you're putting [clears throat] u me and the harm reduction program all in one building. Um, and you know um Brent Brent told you all a couple weeks ago, you know, [snorts] the harm reduction stuff is not what we think of. You know what I'm saying? Like it's not what it what started out being. And you got 40% of the visits that are coming in there that have nothing to do with the SSB program. I mean, that's huge. It's huge. So, they'll be also coming in to our new office and that's why we're trying to get all the the the community involved as far as the case management side of things. Um, and as far as like insurance, you know, everybody's got to have health insurance. That's what the connector does. um all those little things and then you can start saying, "Well, if you're going to come in and do this, then we'll we'll make sure that that this works out because we'll have more community partners 6 months from now um to be able to do some things like what you're talking about."

Thank you. [clears throat] All right. Any other discussion [snorts] on setting aside $8,800 um to help with the other half of the cost for um hotel vouchers. Thank you, Shannon. Where's that come from? Yeah, we have a little extra because we didn't um we budgeted for ESD loan or rent payments and we're not going to do that. So, we have extra in there. Good. And I would just add that I don't think that's part of your motion that this is for this budget year. Current current budget year, right? Yeah.

And you will invoice us and it'll be a uh pay you back unless unless you want it for next winter. We'll we'll get there. We'll get there in a few months. [laughter] We'll reimburse as needed. Yes. Yeah. All right. As you provide. All right. So, everybody ready to vote? Okay. All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? Nay. Motion carries. Thank you. And I would check with the city too to see. Grace, you're the missing link.

Um I thought I was on the agenda yesterday, but it turns out I wasn't. Uh [laughter] so I sent them an email this morning uh to get on their next uh meeting. So talk to them about this. [clears throat] Um I really appreciate um everything you all do for our community and uh we have to work together. Yes. Any chance the smaller cities could help as well? Do you know Paul or I mean talk to because I mean you do have people from [clears throat] the junction area that that you're helping as well.

So ask both the cities and see what it would be great to have all the you [clears throat] know any cities to assist any way they could. I just go and talk to the makers. Good relationship with All right. I appreciate you. Have a good day. Happy Thanksgiving. All right. Next up, recycling director Angie Muny. Come on down. Seek back there. [laughter] They're all Baptist back there. We already [laughter] this morning.

They told me I was too cuz I got in the corner. So, there you go. So, um, I'm just here, you know, that we got the grant to get a EPS densifier, in other words, styrofoam. So, I am ready to put that out for bid. Um, I'm in a I'm going to put out for bid, but I'm in a deal with uh Rump of Kentucky happens to have one that is new and it's available now, so it's a lot cheaper. So, the bids come in, it'll be a lot cheaper than what was on the grant. And we won't have to wait six to eight months to get one. And um and we'll also save about $23,000 that I'll be able to get other stuff with that I've already talked to the state.

Can they put a bid in? Yes, we have to bid it out regards because it's over. So, Ronkey can put a bid in. Okay. All right. I've already talked to the state all the legalities and all that stuff. We are good. I saw what it was. Excuse me, Julie. [clears throat] [laughter] So, is this what we're looking at, though? This is what you're talking about. The SK240, the one that that's all basically the information that anybody would have had. Okay. Yes. That's the one the one with the little stars there. That's the one I'm putting out for. Yes. Okay. Is that the one they had?

They have one. They got one for Amazon and they didn't use it. So instead of um since they had one, they can do it put it in if I have to get it through the other company which is um more or less Danish. It's tariffs and everything else. So they're definitely going to get the bid, no doubt. Okay. But we still have to bid. And this is a piece of equipment that will allow us to take styrofoam and make it into cubes. Yes, you'll make the cubes [laughter] and we'll have a market for it

and then we'll make a big pile of styrofoam houses [laughter] there. Angie, I think my biggest TV is 32 in, but I've got a buddy who got a 70 in. And I'm sure the foam was like this. I wish they just quit making it. Our guys will have to break it down. Our guys will have to break it to put it in the machine. There's a big hopper. No, basically it feeds it. It densifies it. It basically It gets hot is what it does. When it gets down in there, it gets hot and starts compressing it. Yeah, it's got to be just feed it in like a log. They can feed It'll come out like a log.

Okay. So, you are here to receive permission to advertise for bid for a foam densifier machine. Motion by Master Gay, second by Master Harmon. Any discussion? [snorts] Seeing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any oppose? Name. Motion carries. You may advertise the bid. Thank you. Thank you. By the way, thank you all for allowing me to go to the first ever Archon conference in Columbus the other week. Learned a whole lot and stuff that I can add and get more money. All right. More more employees. Any news on the convenience center? The air burn?

Uh I wasn't prepared for that. It's not on the agenda, but no, everything's still in the process and everything's still good to go. Okay. All right. All right. Thank you. Have a good day. Happy Thanksgiving. You, too. Uh, workforce development. They're sitting down the hall. Yay. Come on in. I know. I know. All right. We've got Tiffany Reeves and uh Roly Becker, and they're going to present. Yep. You ready for me to go? Yes, ma'am. All right. So, I'm going to give a little background on um the OJT training contract

back in um March and April whenever there was the um winds. Well, there's technically four storms that are connected together. You had the wind, you had the flooding and all that stuff. Um the um education and labor cabinet had reached out to the local workforce areas to see if there was any any counties had any damage. But we know in bluegrass that all the counties sustained a little bit, but Franklin really got it the worst. Franklin County did. So I had reported that back whenever they um were talking about applying for a grant. Um the educational labor cabinet applied for a grant. Um it encompassed all of our 17 counties because of the four different weather related um issues that had happened over a small time frame. Um, whenever they did that, we were awarded for the bluegrass, we're awarded $657,000. It is a three-year grant, right? And I'll point this out. Um, it is a marathon, not a sprint. So, that's what I say with this.

Um, to help with the physical courts on alleviating some strain with some new hires. Okay. And that's what the OJT uh, excuse me a minute. Yes. That's 200 a year for for the three years or it's renewable 600 each year. No, no, it it that's 657,000 is the grant time frame [clears throat] is the three years. It expires um June 15th of 2028. Have that clarification. Yep. Yeah. And that's where the OJT contract comes in.

Uh and basically uh and that's why we're here today to see if you guys would sign on the on the job training contract. And basically that's where this uh grant comes into play where we would be utilizing this uh this uh opportunity and basically what it is is for new hires um and we would reimburse the physical court up to 50% of the wages that earned during that training period. Um the training length would be no less than 6 weeks up to a maximum of 24 weeks. And so we would do u there based off their wage the training length um and the hours worked. uh we would then reimburse the physical court up to 50% of the way to their underight training period. But there's a maximum amount, right? There is a maximum amount. Um it cannot exceed um 6,000.

Okay. All right. So 6,000. So after 6,000 it just caps off right there regardless of the training length. Yep. So it's any position new hire position that falls under your physical court. Right. We have in Esto County, um [clears throat] they have a custodial position that they're doing. In Mercer County, um there's someone that's with the water. Um so in the city of Versales, it's one [snorts] of their police officers that um we're working with them on. So a new employee would have to fill out the pre-sreenraining checklist. You fill out the pre-rain.

We fill this out. Okay. So, the way it would work is, and so that brings me to my next point. So, that pre-screening you have right there, you would fill that out, get that over to us, and then we would draw you up this this blank agreement. I'm only seeing his screen that's sitting there, but it's that blank on the job training agreement based off the information that you put on the pre-screen. Um, and then, yep, that's it. And then once you sign off on that, you guys are good to go. And then basically what I would recommend is,

uh, maybe getting us connected with the person that does the hiring for the physical. And what we would do is we would meet we would set up a different meeting with her just to kind of uh just kind of walk or her him to walk the steps through the on the job training. So like what are the first steps, second steps and we do have a step-by-step guide that kind of shows that but we can explain that a little bit. Mhm. Now this is totally separate from BCTC and all they do. Correct. Okay. Yeah. This is through the Kentucky Career Center. Yeah. Um but yeah, once you sign off on it, that covers you guys up for for the on the job training agreement and it does expire June 30th and then we will do the same thing July 1st.

But um once you guys sign off on this, then we will schedule a meeting with your HR department and then we would go over the steps. So basically the three new employees that we introduced earlier in the meeting, they would have all qualified to to do this had we if everything had this in place ahead of time. Yeah. Yep. But it looks like you're putting an emphasis on giving special consideration to hiring uh disabled vets uh and separated recently separated vets through this program. Yes. We always with um all our funding come technically comes from the Department of Labor and that will always be a strong.

Fantastic. That's great. Well, so right now we're just asking if you guys would be interested in participating on the on the job training agreement. And then if like I said, if you guys sign off on it, then the next steps would be to um have you guys fill out the pre-screening. We'll develop this agreement and then maybe schedule an appointment with your HR to is there any kind of contribution that we have to give our assistant? Okay. No, this is a reverse. We're paying for it first. We have a motion by Master Gates or a second your taxes. Second by Mer free discussion. I looked it over. [clears throat] I think it's a good thing. I think they'll pay up to what's it like 6,000

6,000 but then you can ask her like up to like 11 or something like that. 10 there's a clause in there that um I can approve up to 10,000 um depending on what the training and we're we're getting ready to hire some officers and stuff like that. So I think that's a really great u thing to have. Great. And plus, it partners with the career center, which you know that's and Judge Bson's on our board, so she gets all the updates and stuff. So, sorry for that. [laughter] All right. So, we have a motion and a second. Any other discussion on approving the contract? All right. All those in favor signify by saying I.

Any oppose? Nay. Motion carries. Yay. All right. You all have a great day. Thank Yeah. Yeah. Happy Thanksgiving. Yes. Yeah. Thank you all. Mike Rogers is coming in.

Oh, okay. Hello. All right. How are you all great? We'll let you introduce everybody. Yeah. So, um, thanks for the time this morning. Uh we wanted to the judge had an idea of having our billing team come and let you have face to face interaction with them. We've [snorts] been using them since 2019. They're going to talk a lot about all that stuff. I'll let them go ahead and introduce themselves and then let them talk and then I'll catch up with you. Okay. Thank you.

My name is Dana Evans. I'm the managing director of A&B Mars. Um we're building company out of Kentucky. Um we've been doing uh like you said, you're all building since 2019. We've been in the business for uh 20 years, but we're our parent company is a 72year-old um family-owned business and um we've done position anything from physician billing to up to the ambulance and fire billing now. So um we've got a little bit of presentation for you just kind of go over what we've been able to do um over these past four or five years, last five years.

Hi, I'm Heather Jefferson. director of client [clears throat] engagement, compliance and training. So I work closely with mom. We go and do their um annual trainings for the services and keep them up to date on all the compliance issues. Okay. My name is uh Philip Sanderson. I'm the senior director for business development. Um we've got five copies. Wasn't sure exactly how many is going to be here. So if y'all want to share them around

the uh cover [clears throat] there is kind of a a cover letter. If y'all would just take a minute maybe just to kind of read through that and then we'll uh take a few minutes. I understand we don't have all day so we won't be here longer than we need to but then we'll kind of go through here and just kind of point out some of the the highlights of the of the presentation. All right. So, uh, if everybody's Yeah, if everybody's had a chance to kind of read through that, we first of all want to thank y'all. Thank Bo County for allowing us to partner with you and your ambulance service. Uh, I I want to say this, and I'm not just saying this because we're here uh with with you guys and Chief Rogers, but we work with a lot of EMS services across the country, right? Uh, myself, I come from the industry. I've been in EMS for 40 34 years and come from, you know, administration and so forth. I want to tell you guys and I think it speaks even why we're here that you have someone to be very proud of for your leading your EMS service. Uh Chief Rogers is probably I would put him at one of the the top five 10% uh of all EMS directors and chiefs across the country we deal with. uh he he goes above and beyond. And again, I'm I'm saying this because I want you guys to know this. He goes be above and beyond. That's why he's asked us to come here to talk to you guys, make sure we're doing a good job for you. But we have something uh in our organization where we we do monthly calls with all of our services. Some opt out. He goes above. He wants a weekly call. So that means a lot. So I want I want everybody uh here to know that. So, one of the things that uh the first page here, I

want to just kind of point out this page here, we started working with Bo County in 2019. Um, if you remember, if you were here, I think you had to pay back a considerable amount of money back to the federal government. Uh, we can say that in all of our services across the country we work with and in the history of our company, we've never had a situation like that go that extreme. And actually in some cases we get them out of that situation. But if you see here when we first started taking you over um we've increased your your collections uh from you were doing 1.58 million. Now you're at uh annual payments of 2.1 million. So definitely good job. Again contribute that to Chief Rogers and his team. There are some more data points here. happy to discuss those, but for the sake of time, I wanted to kind of jump over to this page here where it starts talking about deficiencies. Um,

before we move on, Yes, sir. [clears throat] an issue that Mike and I have talked about for several years and my background is in what you do.

Um, it appears we've done a whole lot better on uncompensated care. [cough] um anything innovative down the road that's going to help us more on that because it's always been a very very significant portion of our losses uh on the most important first service that we give to people in emergency crisis. Uh I I know I'm asking a question. It's very hard to answer, but but uncompensated care uh is something the public doesn't understand until they see their insurance bill go up, especially on healthcare. And they don't realize how much that is in there for physicians, for hospitals, [clears throat] uh for emergency s everything. Uh it's in the multi multihundreds of millions in Kentucky. Yes sir. Good question. And it's the same way in every state. Uncompensated care is exactly what what that is, right? So the way

we make up for it,

right? Exactly. You have to make up for it. So we do everything we can to to try to ensure that there are compensation mo means, insuranceances, you know, other means, facility pay, whatever. We we do everything we can to make sure that's happen before it becomes uncompensated. But truthfully, we're uncompensated and and we work with, as a matter of fact, we were just out in the hallway talking about a meeting today. We work with the your your local state government and legislative. That's where that has to change. So, we get involved with your legislators, your representatives. We get involved with your state associations. Again, right now, we're actually working uh on a bill with the state legislation to try to help mitigate some of that. And that's where this really probably has to go.

That's interesting because several of us have been here seven and a half years and I don't think we've ever had judge a seminar on uncompensated care and I' I'd bet when we're in there with hundreds of other colleagues from across the state, they've never had a presentation on it either. So, anything we can do to help you with our two major associations to be on the agenda, substantively on the agenda, not just 15 minutes and gone. um let us know. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, cuz we need all the help we can get. Uh and we could we could talk a long time about that. So, definitely Thank you. We'll definitely our spring conferences are, you know, they're probably not even starting to contact people. So,

Okay. Well, I'll certainly get with Mike and find out when that is. Well, you Mike Mike will get with me, you know. Absolutely. I've been keeping the judge up to date on the bill that he's talking about. It's about the commercial payers in our committee. uh had human is Anthem's only paying 25 cents for every dollar we're charging effectively pushing a private pay insurance company back on the county government to make up that difference. So, we it's it's it's something that uh going forward I'll keep you up to date on and we will definitely need you to help push that with our state legislators. more than

and I'll just take it one step further and again we could talk a long time about this very subject but just the matter of at the at the federal level whenever you talk to a legislative [cough] person most of 90 time 99% of the time they don't understand that that a patient has to be transported in an ambulance to a hospital for us to be able to bill this is Medicare we're talking about for be able to bill they're like you mean you can't just bill them if you don't transport them? The answer to that is no. Currently, there's been years and years and years and years of trying to get that changed. Why does that matter? Well, there's a there's a certain amount of those uncompensated transports that don't need to go by ambulance that if we could just simply bill Medicare or Medicaid or some Medicaid do or other commercials, then we're talking cost would go here and revenue would go here. So, those are the conversations that we need to need help on. [snorts] And there's a lot of it going on.

So it's not to inconvenience you all. Where do you come from? You're not here in Bo County, I'm sure. We're in McCracken. Yeah. Well, I love to go down. That's why my wife was born there. So yeah. Well, I'm a crack. Yeah. Don't hold it against me. I actually live in Tennessee. [laughter] Uh oh. But it kind of works to our advantage a bit because we can look at and see what the other states are doing and then we can kind of bring that bring that expertise over into Kentucky and vice versa. So that that does help us on some of these legislatores that we're going to and trying to get more reimbursement. Right. Appreciate it.

Yeah. Thank you. Good question. We definitely need all the help we can get. Uh I wanted to just kind of point uh point our attention over to this page here where he's talking about deficiencies because this is where uh this is where uh Bo County Chief Roberts and Rogers and his team really can helps make a difference. So in 2022 uh we started noticing what we call deficiencies. Deficiencies and simply means uh claims are not able to be paid for for a lot of different reasons. So uh at that point in time there was 348 runs. There's a lot of reasons why this this could happen. Totaling uh $295,000, lots and lots of money. So, we started trying to dig in. Now, we already prior to this time uh contract with a third party uh compliance company that comes in and does audits and also training with uh [cough] Chief Rogers and his team. So, we're looking at this uh 2023. we see um we see that that percentage rate uh increases. Uh so, you know, we're like, "Okay, we got to figure out what's going on because obviously we're not going in the right direction. What's happening here? What where is this money not coming in at?" So, what we did um Heather and her team, she's works with compliance. So we started uh double teaming training with the staff, the the EMS staff, double teaming all the compliance stuff along with our third party team, along with our internal team. And as you can see, and again proactive with with your chief, uh in 2024, uh we reduced that down to 3.36%. Now, uh, we're talking over $100,000 gained right there. Um, you know, just by being proactive. And also, I want to add that again, us working together with you guys, the we do this external audit with a third party company that would prevent

you guys from ever having to do what you did in 2019, pay money back. Uh, this year, that audit was a 0% error rate. That's fantastic. That's that's fantastic. Uh so the next page here and unless you have any questions we'll we'll move out of the way. Uh kind of gives a summary of all pages here looking back over the last four years. Uh your annual payments went from 1.7 uh9 to 2 million. Your increased rail per run went from 341 to 359. That's a huge jump right there. Uh and then your deficiencies uh went down from uh went down seven by 71%. Again, all of those add up to, you know, pennies and dollars, which makes a lot of money, saves your taxpayers money as well. The other thing about um the the work that we've done in the training and everything um not only did it decrease the deficienc deficiencies by going in and and teaching them how to document um more detail and better, we've been able to raise that service level up of what they're doing and actually get reimbursed better for all the services that they're providing. And we'll continue to do on that. We'll continue to do annual even by annual trainings, whatever is needed. um as we see the problems coming come out.

All right. Does anybody have any questions or any thing we didn't address or answer or

No, but you're [clears throat] 100% accurate on on Director Rogers and his team. We know how very lucky we are to have him and his whole squad and the fact that he's been able to grow that squad uh and still keep that high level, that high bar uh to really, you know, give top-notch care to uh every P County citizen. We're we're very fortunate for for all of them. Director Rogers was also the one that brought you guys to us because at the time when [clears throat] we took office, you know, that for for our first term, we were lucky to get back, I think, was it. to 4% uh of of this and and now we're we're looking at getting back about half, you know, which doesn't seem fair or a lot, but you know, considering where we were and the the amount of tax dollars we were happy to spend to [clears throat] recuperate the differences. Uh this is this is night and day. This just yeah, Mike's leadership and along with Tim and and everyone else that they have under them is just just shows how much they care about whole county and we are grateful to have them. Yeah, I want to just like Jason said, our supervisors and our providers are the ones that are diligent. I mean, we have to send them runs back and you know, they're doing 20 or 30 runs a day per average. And um it's a lot of work on them and those are the real people behind the scenes that are making a difference not [clears throat] only people's lives, but our in our in our billing and our culture of uh you know, trying to get as much as we can, maximizing [clears throat] our revenue. So, I want to really thank all of our providers, our supervisors, uh, all all of them do. Michael, Mangley, Kimberly, Brad, um, Tim, everybody does a really good job following follow.

It's really rare for us sometimes to have a service that will accept our feedback and actually put those put that feedback into action [clears throat] in order to get the results that we've been able to get.

Right. Mike and I talk about that a lot. we meet every week and so [clears throat] you know there's sometimes that um that's all we discuss you know is is the numbers and the percentages and uh the amount of savings that we're getting. So um we really appreciate you all for being there to help with our team and then our team can you know take those numbers and and uh reflect back to you all what needs to be changed or you know coding or whatever. But yeah, so we really appreciate Mike and his team. Yeah. Say the 0% error rate on an audit. That just doesn't happen. That does not happen.

In in my career with AMV, I think I've seen that maybe two or three times. So, that is a phenomenal job that the crews are doing and and making sure their documentation is compliant. So, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Any other questions, comments? No. Thank you all very much. Thank you all so much. Safe travels. Happy Thanksgiving. Appreciate you all being here. Thank you. [clears throat] And then Mike, do you have a ambulance bid? Got so excited. Yeah.

Yep. Thanks for reminding me. So on the agenda today, we uh have permission to bid an ambulance for a 2027 delivery. Um we just received our two that we ordered back in April of 22. the the backlog is still it's not quite as significant, but there's still no guarantees that we'll get it in 2027. So, I would ask permission to go ahead and start that bid process. So, move second. I have a motion by Minister Ellis, a second by Minister Gay. Any discussion on advertising to bid for a new ambulance? What's that? What's that projected cost on that ambulance going to run? Are we still at 275 or Yeah, I would say 275 300.

Okay. All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. I. Any oppose? Nay. Motion carries. One thing like speaking of ambulance he's kind of brought up that's piqu my interest is possibly looking at this may require us to purchase more often. But um [clears throat] looking to sell our ambulances sooner instead of running them into the ground and get nothing for them. kind of selling them and and getting keeping better equipment say once we're in the new building is probably where we should be they're all covered.

Yeah, I think we'll have an opportunity to try that um next uh or this next year or next calendar year or the next fiscal year. Uh I think we'll have an ambulance that is around that target date. hoping that we can we can try just if we can identify same thing with the enterprises if we can identify that moment to where they're you know we've used them but they're at the most but now they're going to start having problems we've got the mileage it's between 120 and 150 they definitely start having issues then even being diesel [clears throat] but if we can if we can sell them for those engine hours it's

they idle a lot of time it does have a smart idling system to where if it's idle a long time, it shuts off and then turns back on. They're smart ambulances, but they still we make a lot of runs. So, [clears throat] thank you, sir. Thank you all. All right. Have a good day. Okay. What everyone's been waiting for next on the agenda [laughter] is Hannah Gray playing on director and she is going to uh discuss the text amendment. And let me put you on pause one minute. Will you have the sheriff come in? He wants to introduce that new guy and I forgot.

One minute. Did you take a breath while you [clears throat] come on in? Sorry, I forgot. All right. Sorry. Earlier I was reading the elementary kids at Junction. They had a really cool thing for a bunch of police officers and deputies and stuff. And then I believe he was upstairs getting HR stuff and then he's got about 6 minutes to get to a strict fingerprint appointment. Okay. All right. I saw him walking down the hall this morning. Good morning, you all. This is Jacob Atwood. Um he is our newest deputy. Um as of today, as today's first day here, all right. He has about 5 years experience. Um he's originally from Casey County.

I knew with that wood name. He had to be um he is a uh he's married. He has four children under five. Yes. Um he is a Marine Corps veteran and uh All right.

He he's you know in in Casey County's um he's I'm sure he it's a rural county. [clears throat] He's worked by himself but he's a very experienced and um he's a uh good narcotics unit and loves his job and we just luckily he saw that we had this is one of our three positions you guys gave us. Um, and we're very fortunate to uh have your own support, continue support, but this is Jake Atwood and we're very very happy to to have him on our team. So, all right. Well, welcome to the team. We love having veterans employed. So, and another Marine is leaving a bonus. So,

Oh, yeah. [laughter] Interviews. Brian Cwell and Kyle of course were Marines and and Brian was in our interview and they got to go. How about got up and walked out because they were all [laughter] Marines and stuff. But uh can you work on their uniforms and getting them a little tidier? Parks have been working on them for years trying to get [laughter] uniform straightened up. See what we have. But thank you all again. Welcome. I'll be I'll be out in the hall. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Now, Miss Hannah, come on up. So Hannah is going to present uh the text amendment and then when she is finished presenting what I would like to do is just go around the table to anybody that wants to comment and um be called upon to comment and uh kind of keep this in an orderly fashion that that's agreeable with everybody. Okay. I did print out the amendment if that's okay if everybody wants look at it. You have it already. Okay. Perfect. Just wanted to make sure you all had it in front of you.

All right. So, the Danville County Planning and Zoning Commission met in a regular session on October 22nd, 2025 with eight members present. Um the commission's vote was four days, three naysay and one extension to um approve the proposed zoning amendment text or uh proposed zoning ordinance text amendment to increase the minimum lot size from 1acre to 5 acres in the agricultural zone and amending section by amending section 4.3.5 which brings us consistent with state regulations and also is consistent with the objectives of the adopted 2025 comprehensive plan.

Okay, Mr. Kell. So, [clears throat] I I just want to kind of cut to the chase. Um, yesterday, myself, Master Gay, Judge had a a good conversation with with a member that's in the audience right now and and uh we had a very good constructive conversation kind of how this should go. Um, you know, we we've had issues out in the county with uncontrolled growth and and the point of this was never to tell farmers what to do or not to do with their land or what tell people what to do with their land. It's try to figure out how do we help those that say we've got too much traffic on these small roads. We want the county to come in and and you know fix all these roads when traditionally that would be done through the people that are doing the developing or whatever. So, you know, we're trying to figure out where how this started, when it started, and why we've seen such an increase. And during the conversation yesterday, and actually came up during the judges meeting on Monday, you know, back in 2018 when we kind of went away from this um minor plat final plat option. Um it seemed like that's where all this snowballed. And so, um, after the conversation yesterday and I've spoken to a lot of people and, you know, just making sure they understood the actual facts instead of the stuff that was being spewed out there. But, um, I I would like to make a motion that we actually push this back to planning and zoning to regroup and come up with possibly looking at going back to the minor final plat option. Um, and and possibly getting together a couple uh, individuals to help guide that. We we realize that you're new. You're very intelligent. We're lucky to have you, but maybe getting together with a few people and kind of figuring out and getting this done right.

Judge, I'll second that motion. Okay. I have a motion by Mad Collins, a second by Mist. Do you have suggestions on what you would like to see in the Yeah, I do. We do. I do, but I I definitely think that having some [snorts] input from maybe a few people [clears throat] come back and almost have like a slight committee of of individuals, many of uh developers, farmers,

uh land owners, individuals that really can carve this out and they have an understanding of the of the objective is that, you know, the county is in no way able to widen, fix, provide all the services that are that come about because of this. You know, our roads are deteriorating quicker, you know, and and we just don't have the tax base off property taxes to be able to compensate for all that. So, um so [clears throat] if we can kind of figure out a way to not we're never wanting to just stop growth. We just want to, you know, we have planning and zoning. We need to utilize planning and zoning to make sure that um everybody is is protected, you know, out there and we're just not seeing this crazy growth and problems. You know, we've our our EMS, you know, we want to make sure that they reach everybody and they got to be able to fit on some of these roads back there. But if there's there's not possibility, we're we're setting them up for failure.

Master Gay. Yes. Thank you again. You do a good job of drawing a crowd, by the way. [laughter]

No, I appreciate the the the motion and I do think this keeps us at the at the 50,000 square foot. I don't know why it isn't just an acre. Probably should just be an acre, but that's something that can be looked at as well when we send it back. I do think it's important though that and I feel like we have I think it's important that we give the proper amount of weight and study to an issue that has been recommended by our planning and zoning commission because this is a group of our citizens that we task with overseeing [snorts] our planning and zoning within this community. And there's a lot of that's a very legal um position and decision making process that's set out in KRS 100. So it's important that we give due weight and consideration to a recommendation that comes from that body and and I feel like we we owe it to them to do that and I feel like we have in looking at this this issue. Um, and I I talked yesterday about how I've been looking for the why. And the why really and and you alluded to this, and I think it's important that those in the audience and and everywhere um really make sure to understand and familiarize yourself with the comprehensive plan that actually after a two-year process was just just enacted. Um maybe even at this same meeting.

Yes. At the October 22nd meeting. At the same meeting. And so this is our our community's document that is the blueprint for the future of our community. And a lot of people often times are critical of planning and zoning for not doing enough planning. This is the community's plan. This is the document that is required by KRS to be set every 5 years, updated every 5 years and it usually takes multi-year to get it updated. The previous one was done in 2018 2017 I believe. So

2017 of course we had CO and some other u things that occurred in that interim. So it was not necessarily a 5-year plan. became a little

longer plan, but it has now been updated and there are a lot of great answers to questions in this document. It's it's online. You you can find it on the planning and zoning's website. So, I would encourage everybody to become familiar with that, especially if you're um interested in developing your property within this community. Um same thing with the future land use map, which is part of that, known as the Flume. So, I'd encourage you to become familiar with that. But one of the points in the plan that I believe this is the why. So I'm that's my long soap box here is to get to the why. One of the things in the plan is to set standards of development for agricultural land division to minimize the impact on farming activities and to preserve the rural character outside of the urban service area. And the action plan is to review and update subdivision regulations to include minimum lot sizes, shared access, and clustering requirements that limit fragmentation of productive farmland. So that's where that's the that's the part of the plan that I think we're now saying planning and zoning. Let's find a better way to get to that position that accomplishes that goal. Because if you look at the maps that are in the comprehensive plan, our available amount of good farmland is limited in this community. And you know, that doesn't mean we want to tell anybody what to do with their farmland. I just think it's important to recognize the reality that we have a limited resource of farmland in this community. And I hope everybody in this room agrees that that's an important resource that we do want to um allow the land owners to do what they

want with their land, but hopefully well into the future, farming of that land will be something that will be an important component of what happens on that good farmland. To Magistrate Cullen's point and his motion, I do think that in sending this back, um I'm we're asking that the uh planning and zoning commission um revisit the minor plat final plat um of the past, which it seems like we're wanting to go back to the past in this effort. let's scratch this and go back to the past and in and revisiting the minor plat final plat approach. And I think at that time it was three per year. Three plats could be done per year. Three minor plats.

It's still that way until it turns into a major. So Okay. Yeah. And that's really getting down in the weeds of of we all need to but that's where I think we need to be in the weeds on this to to accomplish today.

Right. Not today. this needs to get sent back. But with those type of things considered and what kind of road fun frontage needs to be in place, what kind of uh width of the roads, all those things. But that's where that's to the committee point that Mistress Cullen was making. But I'll I'll stop there. That's that's enough of my soap box. But I do feel like we can get back to where we've been with the 50,000 square ft and send it back to plan and zoning for more consideration.

Thank you, Master G. Master Boner, I love Bull County. I love living here. I've raised my kids. A lot of my grandkids are here and I think we've done a lot of good things and our farmers that are utilizing their land in a really good way. And I don't mind kicking the can down the road like this seems to be kicking it down till we can talk about it some more. But I want it well advertised so that these group of people, it doesn't bypass them. I want to make sure we have advertised what the new plan is, you know, not just kick it down and then come back in. So, I want it so well advertised that everybody knows to come back if they're that involved, you know, if they're because uh I agree that this is a major decision for these people. And I agree that they they need the input and I feel like some nobody did it intentionally. I don't think anybody intentionally left this group of people out, but I feel like they were kind of left out. Even though we had the I went to two of the meetings for the comprehensive plate and you know, I was doing all that. I enjoyed it. It was really fun, but I didn't still, you know, I [snorts] didn't comprehend how big these changes could be. So, I just want to make sure that it's well advertised and everybody knows what's being proposed. This is off the table. We've got a new proposition and I want everybody to know that.

Thank you, Mr. Boner. Master Ellis,

I'm echoing a good bit that match Boner has said here. Um, it is so very difficult to get information out to the public in a timely fashion to get to meetings like we have today. and we have a full room and that almost never happens. But as I characterized it a couple meetings back, um, this hit everybody like stepping on a a rake in tall grass and the handle comes right up and smacks you in the forehead because we had people in very responsible courtappointed positions who had no idea that this was coming up. We had people on this court who said it is in the plan to have a five acre changeover. No, there's very broad language which I'm now going to echo with Paula that you can sit in these meetings and you read an entire paragraph and there's no specific information there even down to a 100 foot frontage or anything like that. and it's when we all go home and with the greatest respect to the newspaper, people are busy. They miss it in the newspaper. Um, remarkably, um, I did a little bit of work on this and I did a second piece of work less than 24 hours ago because I sent I think I sent it out at 11:05 yesterday and I have well over a hundred responses and over a hundred of those people shared it with their Facebook list. And it's that kind of communication that we as a court perhaps with with our own Facebook with with planning and zoning.

We've got to push it out to the public. Uh three or four spots on the radio don't necessarily work when these folks are on tractors or these folks are just raising their families and uh uh have nothing but woodlands but want to pass that land on one acre at a time. uh as one person uh said very eloquently in many cases this is the 401k of a farm family and uh it's that communication that Paul mentioned that we need every time uh it should go out to uh enforcement it should go out to the court uh not just into the newspaper where six of our seven members were very surprised uh three weeks or three meetings ago uh when we heard that this was a potential problem. So, communication on the front end anytime there's going to be a significant meeting.

So, how do you do it, Tom? How do you tell everybody in the community that they need uh Facebook worked uh 24 23 and 50 minutes ago?

So, how you got 30,000 people to look at your Facebook profile? I mean, that's I'm sorry. I I understand the issue here. And to be honest with you, I only found out about the meeting and planning and zoning cuz I was already at the city of Danville with a meeting for parks and wreck talking about the skate park and I saw that the meeting was happening. So I walked in, sat down and started listening. So this idea that I had all this extra knowledge is is ridiculous. The only thing I the only reason I knew it was actually something was on on the back burner was a constituent of mine called and said, "Hey, I saw on the agenda that's posted on websites that this was happening." And so I said, "Oh, that's interesting." And so then I was there. So you can't force everybody to to read something. We don't live in that kind of society.

We can make the extra effort. And interestingly, um, you're confirming something that happened 21 years ago when a road diet, how many people remember the term road diet? [clears throat] How many people have any concept of what road diet means? It means that we put because it was so well advertised, we put bicycle lanes all across uh the city of Danville uh almost in the dark of night that came and one woman happened to be one very prominent woman downtown happened to be in Frankfurt and walked past a door and did a double take when she heard Danville road diet. She said, "What is a road diet?" and she found out that they were going to stripe all our roads. People need more communication. That's all I'll say. Judge,

one one last comment. Hannah, how long have you been on this job? Um, what day is it? [laughter] November 25th. [clears throat] Uh, about five months. Okay. Yeah. And you come in and you come into something that's so emotional and so we appreciate you listening to us and you're trying to and we're not attacking you. We're uh wanting these people as well as whoever's listening to understand that we want them to be a part of this decision. We're not going to take it over and decide for them. We're going to see if we can't work with and we're not attacking.

No, [laughter] no, I understand. And on the on the topic of communication, it I hear that completely. And um so like if anybody wants to be on the agenda mailing list, I put I put you on the agenda mailing list. Um, so if anybody wants to get that, but I am open to like adding a step in the process because I understand the advocate messenger is not being seen as much lately. But feel free to like, you know, I open to suggestions about like how to communicate that better with the public. How does one get on the agenda mailing list? Um, I can write your email down or you can just call, but I can write your email down and I can just add you. I think that's great. Yeah. And we have the extension office. We have our ECC. Uh we we have several entities that um if they receive communication uh then

you will have large attendance in the future and I'm open to your suggestions as well. Managed slavery. Yeah. First of all, I want to thank Mr. Ellis for defining and clarifying what road diet means because I when he said that term, I was thinking of a diet made up of roadkill [laughter]

in my district. Yeah. So, but anyway, uh you know, there's always a tension between private property rights and planning and zoning and uh um there's always that tension and uh I strongly believe in private property rights 100%. And uh but you balance that with responsible development and such. That tension is not necessarily bad because it creates counterweights. It keeps us from going off too far in one edge or the other. So, but I do like the idea of the minor final platform what I've learned about in the last few days. Um, there's probably maybe some other solutions as well that are better than the one that was on the amendment. Um, so and I've heard of buffer zones and things like that, but I do think we need to to look at other options and um I would be in favor of a committee being formed out of, you know, important stakeholders that uh would determine what the best solution is. So,

okay. That would be up to Hannah to help coordinate that. And we we basically talked about that because there's you're being new and there's a lot of history out there, people that understand why it was, you know, the way it was before before we had somebody that came in and just completely switched stuff around on us and

and you know, and for my two cents, I mean, my biggest problem here is that I see the implications of what's happening. I hate the property tax. I wish we didn't have it all, but if the way we're growing keeps going, I sat on the local planning committee for the uh for B County schools and the amount of money they're going to have to spend very soon to start rehabbing Junction City Parable and then they're talking about expanding and building a bigger high school. That's only going to come one way that they're going to have to jack up our taxes more, which which everybody, you know, doesn't want. You know, like I said, I would love no taxes on property. It's my property. So, uh, but that's that's kind of the way my mind works. It's all the finance based things. It's like, okay, we're growing. We don't have a plan for this growth. Next thing you know, you know, our tax bills double because, you know, we've got to pay for much larger schools and we've got a great school system that, you know, it's a that's an issue we have where we have something that's so fantastic that people want to move here and be part of it and uh and uh and so it's like, you know, how do you how do you figure all that out, you know? So that that's where my mind went with this when we're talking about okay how do we kind of slow this so we can kind of grow it some Harmon do you have any comments

or grow it more respons I don't know how many years but my granddaddy he farmed living in road a minor farm which was just 3500 acres

president of bank a farmer's bank he was the owner of that land. He told my granddaddy said, "Here's some money. You go up and get what equipment you need to buy and order. Get it all here and you start farming it." I grew up with pigs. He only had about 400 of them. I grew up with sheep. He'd keep about 150 to 200. blew up grew up with cattle. Had had about 6 to 700 cattle that he farmed out there. Grew up with tobacco around. He had 50 acres. My granddaddy was no scientist. He wasn't no millionaire, but he lived on a piece of property and worked for a man that wanted to see that farmland [laughter] produce. And I think we are coming back to a time that you're in position to produce in America. You're going to get that opportunity. [snorts] And I know that there's a lot of memories out there for me as a kid and I was just old enough to get in the way. You know, go to the house to your grandmother and stay with her. My granddaddy didn't say he ran Gigi one time. I was a thie dropping tobaca stick cuz he was putting tobaca sticks up under the tractor breaking them and he come off the tractor with a tobaca stick [laughter] and GI flatfooted the fence and run to the house and granddad got the fence and threw the tobaca stick at him and came back and they continued on. So I know what it is as a child to see your grandparents, [snorts] your parents, your uncles and aunts. Everybody worked on the farm. Our

grandmother, all she did was make butter. She'd sell about 10 pounds, 12 pounds a week, and she'd sell eggs and hens. Kept about 2,000. I mean, these folks were back before we had a lot of the modernization stuff we have today. But where would we be in America if we didn't have our farmers? Amen. What are you going to eat tonight? Uh, we got this stuff coming in from Korea. It's pretty good stuff. We don't know what it is, but it'd be good. We got to protect our farmland.

Call a question, judge. All right, question has been called. Is there a second? You don't you don't need to have call. All right, we we've already done that. Um, okay. So the motion I'm going to repeat is to deny the amendment as presented send back to planning and zoning to consider other options including a minor final plat option enacting that as part of a compromise. Okay, that sound right to you all? Okay, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Is there any opposed?

Motion carries. go back to planning and zoning and we'll look forward to what come up with with a committee. Thank you. All right. Thank you. I'd like to say to tack on to what Manchester Harmon said, I grew up on a farm that wasn't the best producing farm. My dad wasn't the best farmer, but he always said it was a good place to raise crop of kids.

Okay. Um, okay. So, I was going to comment, but we got called for the question, so I'll just comment now. I just think there uh because of the the timeliness that we've received this comp plan. We need more research. We need to have more conversations. We need to think about what we're doing because we need to get this right. This doesn't need to be something that we put in and we vote on and and we do that and then it not serve the people as it should. So, I just wanted to make that comment. And you know, unless Kelly Griffin comes out there on my road and start to build on the subdivision, then I might have to eat my words, but [laughter] I'm just picking on Kelly. No worries. [clears throat]

All right. So, thank you, Hannah. We appreciate you being here and look forward to what comes next. All right. Thank you. Um, okay. Uh, last on the agenda is our treasurer, Shannon Green. I'll just stay back here. I just want to present the monthly settlement for October. It was in your packets. Okay. Appreciate it. Anything we need to know specifically? All's good. All's good. All right. Any questions? Okay. All right. We will go into magistrate reports and Minister Gay, you get to start us off.

All right. I'll start us off. U the uh Martin Luther King Day committee, which is a city committee that I serve on, has been uh working hard getting ready for Martin Luther King Day, which is coming fast after the holidays um January 19th. And um we will by the next meeting um we'll have not yeah by the next meeting the first meeting in December should have um a budget request for the county for sponsorship which should be similar to uh last year's request. We're going to once again partner with center college. So it's kind of a um combination of Danville Bull County and Center College. um right now the tentative schedule is for the march to begin at 11:30 um to the Norton Center with the program beginning at noon. And one of the things that is a little bit different this year is is and this is part that we're still working on so it's still tentative is is in having lunch in the dining commons at center college with um if if it works out with some a very reduced lunch that would be provided and that's where we're kind of working on some sponsorship and other things for that. Um and then following that there would be a a service day for the the center college students and they're actually looking for service projects. If anybody knows of any projects, it would be they could use some uh extra hands on that day. It's a a day where they're not in school on that day. And so they're going to hopefully coordinate some service projects that afternoon after lunch for mainly the students to take on, but

obviously any of us, any [clears throat] community members could join in. We also this year are going back to a joint um youth choir made up of Danville and Bo County High School students to uh perform during the event along with a uh a community choir that will be performing during the event. So that's that update and I think that's all I all I have. Just want to wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving and happy and safe Thanksgiving. All right. Thank you, Mr. Gay. Master Sleeper.

Yes. Just like to say it was an honor, a privilege to be a part of the program for the memorial for our vets on Monday the uh November 10th and uh privilege to help honor them and KO conference we all went to, I believe. Uh impressed with some of the presentations especially on artificial intelligence and crisis communication. Uh the EDA met on November 17th and uh a lot of things in progress still. Nothing new to report really. We're waiting on attorneys and things like that. So um and Judge Bob and I attended the Whitaker Bank ribbon cutting open house, their new facil, their new u location uh on the 18th. And I also would like to wish everyone a happy and safe Thanksgiving.

All right. Thank you, sir. Me.

Thank you, Judge. First, I'd just like to thank folks who came out today. Um, all the folks and I received input uh of concern from every one of our districts. Uh, and and what we've achieved today and making sure that the public in the future will be fully aware. Uh, we all have to pay attention, but sometimes I have to be hit in the head to understand that something out there is really critical and I need um to uh to take a look. But um back in the 30s um on the US Supreme Court, Brandeise made a comment something [cough and clears throat] to the effect that sunlight is the best disinfectant. And that says a lot to me in, you know, what we're responsible for as a court in making sure that 32,000 plus people in Boil County are aware of the actions that are going on around us. Uh, and in this one, we're we're directly responsible ultimately for the decision that was made today. And I'm just grateful to everyone who got involved so that we can exercise reason, rational, logic uh as as we move forward. I am thrilled and I have no connection to this, trust me, but I am thrilled that I learned on Facebook that wonderful tool that the quick recall team of Boil County High School, I believe, has an opportunity to go to nationals this year. uh don't want to overstate that, but but I think uh that's exactly what I read and I've already been in contact with the superintendent um uh Wade to to find out more about that. Uh that that's just really really

exciting. Uh before I forget, I have to pull out a report here. uh judge in my district and I'm sure uh in in perhaps all the rural [clears throat] districts with the state's new law on side by sides where my goodness you might already spend uh $18 to $30,000 on a good side by side. But the new state law for safety purposes has you equip it even more for uh daylight to dark and even uh in the dark uh to qualify to ever be on a county road. We have not yet acted on that provision of the new state law. But, uh, one kind of interesting contact that I got, I've had several others, but a gentleman's just bought farmland and he had joins us with another county. Um, and he came from that other county where he's been driving his county roads anyway all his life. And now that he has a piece in Boil County, he went to register it next door and they said, "Well, yeah, we'll be glad to take your money on that." Um, but you know, you got to stay off the county roads. So, so, um, I'd like for us sometime after the new year to revisit that. Almost too cold. Measure checking your to, uh, your your cattle, but but, uh, for entertainment, uh, sometime early before spring if we could get that back on.

We can get that on. I think a lot of folks would appreciate that that as an opportunity. Okay. Um, thank you. I do have a public works committee [snorts] report.

Okay. And uh we met at 102 in the judge's office on u November 11 and the issues included year-end black topping. Um these and I don't even need to invite you because I always hear from you that if you've got potholes, we're getting toward that uh diminishing point where they can be be repaired. um road paving in the spring that's under consideration to be acted on by the court is uh route 300 uh which is a state road but we're negotiating with them Baker Lane which is in the county Godby West Webster uh Chamber uh Dryfork Ball Hollow and Reynolds Roads uh we've had a tremendous issue with dead trees especially with ash trees so please never hesitate hesitate to call your magistrate because um one Sunday evening, fortunately this was in the summer, I got a phone call very remote in my district and our guys had to work on up into the dark for about an hour and a half, but they will come night or day if there's a crisis situation. And this was one of the county roads where the school buses and everything would be running. Um we work with the uh developers. he he's left, but we work with the developers of land and individuals who are building homes uh to install culverts. The owner pays for the culvert, but we help out in that process. Um, a new 5,500 Dodge truck has been approved by fiscal court and uh judge, I haven't checked, but since November, have we got that uh uh in it? Yeah. Yep. It's here. Thanks.

Yeah. Good. Okay. Um, public works completed extensive work on the Fred Kaine buildings and and the property. Uh, discussions are are underway and uh, Julie, you might know more about this at this point because this is almost a month. Well, it's over a month uh, for the state approval of the refurbished sprinkler system. Any news on that? It was approved. It was approved. Wonderful. I know that was that was a process. Uh and in a similar project requiring state approval, an architect will be consulted regarding roof reconstruction. Key focus being the stability and weightbearing capacity that passed it.

These are the primary issues and we adjourned on 1111 at 141. Thank you judge. That's all I have. And that's your motion. I make a motion second by me public works committee signify saying I. All I Any opposed? Name? Motion carries. All right, that all you have, Mr. Ellis. Yes. Thank you, Judge. Thank you, Mr. Ber.

Yes. Uh December the 13th at 6 p.m. we'll have the Junction City Christmas parade. That's always a fun time. Of course, I'm excited to be going to the Parable and the Damble. And also, uh Junction City Matters meets December 1st at 5:30 at uh City Hall. And that's always a that's a history harvest night, too. So, anyone that has har uh history in Junction City, uh they can come in and the library will take that information and put it compile it together. Uh one other thing, have we determined if we're going to take that bail down out of the tower or is Well, it's still working. We have process.

Yeah, we have code on the agenda to come at the next meeting. Okay. Tell us. I hadn't heard anything forever, so I thought I'd ask. Okay. Um, I'm very thankful to have all of my family in Bole County because I have the uh uh the people at Fort Meyers and my family down there at their end. So, I'm really thankful. So, I hope everybody has a really thankful great Thanksgiving day and that's all I have. All right. Thank you, Major Hart.

Wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving. Hope you can meet a family you have left like myself. It'll be my niece and our children, our daughter, grandchildren. They're in Chicago. We'll be going there Christmas. They've been to Chicago and fly over land and leave. All you want to do I hear it's a little bit different. [laughter] Jacket, be with your families. Make time to be there. Enjoy them [clears throat] while you have them. All right. Thank you, Commissioner Co. [snorts]

Um, [clears throat] Old County Sheriff's Office, uh, committee met this morning. It was myself, uh, Steve Sleeper, uh, Sheriff Bottom was here for a little bit. Um, but then he had to go out to to do some community service. Um, and then, uh, Kyle Lions wrapped it up with us. Uh, he said, um, tax collection is going very well. And uh staff is working very hard to keep it smooth. Uh which is code for Janice is in up to our neck in tax bill. [laughter] So uh we have one deputy coming in which we met today and three in the pipeline. We did discuss uh possibly trying to uh really push uh more drug intervention, finding officers with a lot of experience in drug intervention and really kind of putting that back um on the forefront to we're starting to see a little more a little more drug uh activity happening in in in the county. We ate that because I know worked pretty hard on it for a while and I know they're still working hard on it but it just needs needs more attention. Um he [clears throat] said cars are all running very well and a no known problem. Um, and then we uh had discussed trying to figure out how we can help uh this is next year, but [clears throat] uh extra staffing at the 250 uh celebration, especially for the the free concert with Eddie Montgomery. So, uh Jack Hendricks and I spoke about that and he was concerned and wants to make sure we figure that one out, you know, sooner rather than later. So, and I had I had actually made the recommendation that instead of looking for volunteers, the Junction City Matters uh when they did the uh balloon race, they actually hired a an outside parking group and

they did a great job. So, I I said maybe that's probably the route route you all want to go. And so, so yo, I [laughter] getting there again. My grandmother My grandmother was born in Louisville, grew up in Crab Orchard. Yeah, he he likes to go way back. So, although it was funny cuz when uh we were in New York for work this last week and uh and I I was talking and the my guy I work with, he said, "Man, you're you're in this city for like 20 minutes and I can start hearing that norththeastern accent come out." I'm like, "Oh, please take me back." [laughter]

So anyway, so so that's our uh that's our report from this morning. I'll go ahead and uh put that as a motion to accept. Okay. Second. Second by Mr. Sleeper. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any oppose? Nay. Motion carries. Attorney. [clears throat] Hey judge, if I could jump back in one other thing I forgot to finish. Oh yeah. Were you finished? [laughter] Uh yeah, if something comes up on you said it like you were wrapping it up, that's making a motion. Okay, my apologies. Whatever.

I didn't want I forgot a couple things, small little things happening in my downtown district here. Uh the tree lighting is Friday the 28th, 6:30. 6:30. I think it's 6:30. The tree lighting is 6:30. Um Friday night the 28th. And the Christmas parade is December the 6, as well as all the other Christmas festivities that are going on that day in downtown Danville. So, I want to encourage everybody to come out and enjoy the festivities. [snorts] All right. Thank you, Attorney.

Yes. I got to attend the KCO event with with everyone this past year or past couple weeks, and it was really nice. Um, and uh, one of the events I attended was it was talking about open records and there's a few things we need to to change in our our rules as to open record. So, want to get with Julie on that. And, uh, other than that, it was good to see everybody and just kind of hang out with our our magisters. I really like that. Just get to know you all better on a personal level. I think that's important. And um as far as the side by side um you know you want to revisit that I mean I think that's fine to do. We did have a town meeting um at inner county a while back. Farmers and everyone else attended and we had a raise of hands who wanted to do it who didn't and it was kind of overwhelming who did not want to opt into the adopting allowing sideby sides on the road but if things have changed then so be it. And I I think I I don't know if I heard it correctly, but there is a farm exemption [snorts] for farmers to be able to utilize theirs on road going from property to property. So that's still there. This would just entail people recreationally to be driving them on the roads.

I think some farmers were worried that that was going to be implemented and there these random people were going to be driving their sideby sides on their farms, you know, and they would have to be policing that. So I mean that was one thing that was voiced at that meeting. Judge U since the KO conference was mentioned point of parliamentary procedure privilege. Uh did you maintain your winning streak at the KO conference? Absolutely. Absolutely. Not once. It's actuarially impossible. She is standing there saying I want to win and I don't I want to win and I she had already won. I want

and they [laughter] call her name and she she promises them a lot. It was awesome. [laughter] All right. Anything else, attorney Harry? No, no, ma'am. [laughter] M. Okay. Kind of exciting news. The bike park uh construction company will mobilize their equipment on December 15th, which means uh that's kind of an exciting thing for that area. Santa's bringing Paula Bike Park. All right. Yes. Um, the groundbreaking ceremony. Please check your calendars. Uh, 1:00 on January 12th. I think there's a little cruelty in that groundbreaking January 12th, but we're going to try. And you never know. You never know.

You never know. Yeah. Is that for the bike park? Yes. And I will be sending out invitations, but just pencil it in so you don't um have something else. It's the day before fiscal court.

Yes. um working with the ethics still to to bring that ordinance back to you. We're working with Junction City in Parville on an interlocal agreement and um [clears throat] Parable has asked the ethics commission to present the suggested changes to their council so they're aware of what what's being proposed. So that's in process and continues to be in process. Um, I met with animal control last Friday about getting the spay and neuter program back, get that going because we have money to spend on spaying some of these community cats. Um, it's kind of exciting to listen to the ball game Friday night. I have to say that was that was exciting. And go Rebels. And that was that was such a win. Uh Fred King, uh Magistrate Ellis, the uh structural engineer has determined that the roof is is good. We don't need any additional support.

Excellent. So that is uh that gets us one step closer. And uh the public safety building the next meeting is see next week. Is it next week? Is the 11th at 10:30. 12:11. Yeah. Yeah. At 10:30. Okay. really good.

All right. Thank you, Shannon. You have anything extra? Okay, I'll close this out. Um, okay. So, Thanksgiving holiday is this week. We'll be closed. Courthouse will be closed on the 27th and 28th, which is Thursday and Friday. Um, as been mentioned about all the different parades the uh public works department has worked on and is building and will have finished by tomorrow a float uh for the county uh to use. So, anybody, any magistrate or any department head uh that wants to come and ride on the float, it is going to be really neat. So, you need to to come see it. First opportunity for that is in Parl on the 29th at 6:00 be at Parville Elementary uh no later than 5:30. Um Jamie's mentioned the Daml parade. December 10th is the BFW city county lunch out at the showroom uh for all city and county employees. Uh December 13th, Miss Paul's mentioned junk city parade again with the float. Um December the 18th is the courthouse Christmas lunch from 11 to 1:30 and that will be out at the showroom as well for all courthouse employees um county and state. And I believe that's all I have as far as calendar events. I just want to wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving. There's nothing more important than family. And if you can spend time with family uh this week during the Thanksgiving holiday and just share good times and stories and laughs and uh make good memories with your family, then um you know that's that's what we need to to do is just be with our families. Yes. Master,

did did you mention um that the convenience centers will also be closed on Thursday and Friday or is that just the courthouse? Do we know? uh convenience centers as well. Okay. Yeah. So, they'll be back open on Saturday Saturday. Saturday. Yeah. All right. If there's nothing else, I ask for a motion to adjurnn. Make that motion. Measure Cullen. Second. Measure Sleeper. All those in favor signify by saying I. Any opposed? Name. Motion carries. We're journ. All right. Thank you'all for being