By Charles Romans
Carter County Times
The Grayson city council voted in their regularly scheduled meeting in November to donate $20,000 to the Tourism Commission to help fund the purchase of a synthetic ice-skating rink. The money donated was taken from the city’s opioid grant, and Rene Parsons of the Business Cultivation Foundation (BCF) spoke to the council and explained how the new purchase fell under the state guidance for the use of those funds. BCF has been hired by the county to write grants and help manage the opioid funds, and Parsons works with the state opioid commission.
“The way it falls under Kentucky Statute 28.291, Section 5, is that it talks about prevention,” Parsons said.
“Kentucky has adopted the Icelandic Prevention Model,” Parsons told the council. “That model states that you give children an alternative to drugs. And it really encourages things like relationship building.”
Parsons explained to council that the way the new ice rink falls under the opioid funds is that it is a new activity that hasn’t been available before.
“It’s not a normalized activity where you might only be appealing to the same substrate of families,” she said.
Parson said that current activities such as soccer and baseball for instance do work as prevention strategies as well, but the new rink will basically appeal to a different group of people.
“Secondly, we are going to give free passes,” Parsons said.
The Opioid Abatement money in the county has already funded the DARE Program in the high school and middle school, Parsons explained, and kids who complete that program will get free passes to the rink to encourage their parents to participate.
“Also, individuals in recovery who are reuniting with their kids are also going to get free passes,” she said.
There is also a future economic benefit to the rink, in that it will draw people in from neighboring counties and states and boost tourism, Parsons told the council. It will also give local schools an outlet in the future to consider creating hockey teams, or any other activity based around the availability of an ice rink. The rink, Parsons said, weas approved by Kentucky Association of Counties (KACo) as well as unanimously approved by the Carter County fiscal court.
Based on audio recording and meeting minutes of the December meeting, which reporters were unable to attend due to insufficient notice of a changed date, council reviewed and discussed the proposed Ordinance 52010 that dealt with compensation for the mayor and council members. This ordinance was discussed in the November meeting as well, with the council doing its due diligence to ensure that proper legislative procedures were followed. The council approved the second reading of the ordinance concerning compensation and decided to move forward with the reading of a leash ordinance.
A Kentucky League of Cities (KLC) survey indicated that the current compensation rate for both the mayor and council members places Grayson in the 75-percentile compared to similar cities. The new compensation rate for the mayor and city council members would be set at $32,000 for the mayor and $6,300 for council members annually. The last review of the mayor’s compensation rate was ten years prior.
(Editor’s note: Due to an unintentional violation of sunshine laws, Grayson city council have communicated their intention to invalidate all new business voted on in the previous December meeting. They will meet again this evening, Wednesday, December 18, to reconsider those items. This includes second-readings of the proposed compensation ordinances, based on the agenda received Monday.)
Contact the writer at charles@cartercountytimes.com
