By Charles Romans
Carter County Times
The Carter County Fiscal Court began its regularly scheduled April meeting with a moment of silence for the county’s emergency management director Adam Stapleton, who passed away recently. Judge executive Brandon Burton said he wanted to express his gratitude and appreciation for the show of support from all those who honored Stapleton’s passing.
The first order of business was for the court to vote to accept Mockingbird Lane into the county road system. A public hearing had been held previously, and the court voted unanimously in favor. The court also voted to set a hearing on May 19, for the removal of Gimlet Creek Road from the county system. The last 1.3 miles of the road ends at the Elliot County line, and has not been maintained for over twenty years due to lack of residency on the road.
Brandon Howe from the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet gave a yearly report and spoke to the court about rural and secondary roads. Howe was there to offer recommendations for the rural secondary program for the fiscal year.
“The allocation for this upcoming year is over 1.7 million dollars,” Howe told the court. “And there is $191,000 left from last year, which brings us to a total of 1.9 million to use for this upcoming year.”
Howe broke down the numbers for the court, listing $947,000 for maintenance and traffic operations, leaving a total of $344,000 for county flex funds to resurface county roads. Howe said the Transportation Cabinet would be using $621,000 for resurfacing state roads.
Part of the Cabinet’s resurfacing projects include Ky 1704 (Mills Branch) in its entirety, and patching on KY 486. Ky 486 goes from Elliot County to Route 1, Howe said.
Projects begun last year by the Cabinet are slated to be finished this year, Howe said, adding that the completion date on certain projects had been listed as June of 2025.
“Leftover projects include 1959 and half of Three Pine,” Howe told the court. “And those will be coming up within the next month.”
The Court voted to accept the rural secondary recommendation.
The CEO of Olive Hill Trail Town, Jessie Oney, spoke to the court about the Firebrick Lake Project.
“We’re doing great things over at Firebrick Lake,” Oney told the court. “We’ve got some money coming in now. We just received $30,000 from the State Tourism Commission, and we’ve been approved for the RTV Grant.”
Oney said the RTV Grant was for $159,000 to be spent on the Firebrick Project.
“We also received $15,000 from the County Land Commissioner that could either be used in the city or on the lake.”
The project, Oney explained, includes a world class mountain bike trail, as well as numerous other trails such as bicycle, walking, and horseback.
“We’ve incorporated all of these trails so the families can come up and enjoy the city lake or the Firebrick City Park,” Oney said. “And we are going to have fishing piers that are handicap accessible.”
Oney said the connection for the county was the Ranch Road access and the Prairie Branch access, as well as the Garvin Ridge access.
“It’s a loyalty community project we are all working on,” Oney told the court. “And we hope to get people into Olive Hill through that.”
Oney told the court that he was not there to request funds, but rather to let the court know what work Trail Town was doing.
“But if you want to donate a grader every once in a while to dress a trail, we’ll take that.”
In other action the court voted to set the next regularly scheduled meeting on May 19, at 6 pm. The court also voted to hire Scott Preston as a part-time emergency dispatcher at a rate of $15.50 per hour. Jason Gillum was appointed as Interim Emergency Management Director with commensurate salary change, and Joe Lambert was appointed as Deputy Emergency Management Director, also at commensurate salary.
Contact the writer at charles@cartercountytimes.com
