Recognizing service

Grayson City Council took the opportunity, during their February meeting, to announce the official retirement of Police Chief Tony Cantrell and celebrate his service to the city.

“Congratulations to you, Tony,” mayor Troy Combs told the now former police chief.

The mayor mentioned that the police department held an event for Cantrell earlier that day, but the city also wished to recognize his service and offer a heartfelt thank you.

Cantrell received several mementos of the city’s appreciation, including a gift of his service revolver. Mayor Combs also presented Cantrell with meritorious citations at the meeting. One was a citation from the Kentucky State Senate for his nearly thirty years of exemplary service and citing him as an ‘Officer of the highest caliber…’

“I would like to thank the Mayor and the Council for giving me the opportunity to be the chief of police,” Cantrell said as he received the citation.

He said he was humbled by their trust in him and wished that he had been able to remain in that position longer. Cantrell also said that he had every confidence that the incoming chief would do an amazing job and serve the City of Grayson with distinction.

Following Cantrell’s official retirement, the council voted unanimously to swear in acting chief Dean Ison, a veteran Grayson Police Officer and former assistant police chief, as the cities new chief of police.

The City of Grayson also recognized the heroic actions of two of its first responders at the February meeting. Carter County EMS Assistant Director Mike Wears and K9 Officer Justin Stone were recognized for their critical life saving measures for rescuing a Grayson resident from a burning home. Both were awarded citations from the State of Kentucky and an award for going above and beyond the call of duty by the City of Grayson.

In other business Gerald Haney, director of the Grayson Utilities Commission, presented his end of year report to the council. Haney reported on the previous year’s activities which included the number of new taps installed, new gas services, boil water advisories, and any outages. The utilities report also included other important figures such as water produced by the water treatment plant.

Haney’s report showed a reduction of water produced from the previous year by nearly eighty million.

“So, the water loss project we did really improved our ability to find leaks,” Haney said.

The project, which began in 2023, has also yielded other benefits such as a reduction of man hours and chemicals used in the treatment process. A reduction in water lost to leaks results in less water being ‘consumed’ and treated, which yields both an economic and ecological impact.

“Last January, for instance, before the downtown project,” Haney told the council, “We fixed six leaks just in that area. This year, we fixed zero because we took away about a mile of 100-year-old pipe in that area.”

In other business, Mark Denny from Pathways addressed the council. Denny told the council that Pathways Quick Response had been working closely with Boyd County, have moved into Greenup County, and would like to increase their presence in Carter County.

“What we do in the Quick Response Team is respond to overdoses through reports given to us by law enforcement and emergency management,” Denny said.

“We look at it as though every overdose we respond to is more than just a medical emergency. It is a potential turning point moment in someone’s life,” Denny said. “We meet people on their hardest day, and we also meet their families and children. We try to connect these people to treat through recovery support and mental health services.”

Denny said that he was addressing council to make them aware of a potential new program on the horizon from Pathways Quick Response.

“We plan to move forward with deflection,” Denny said. “We are trying to partner closer with law enforcement and emergency management in order to prevent overdoses.”

Denny explained that first contact is often when the substance abuser is caught for possession of narcotics and other illegal substances.

“They are put in jail and go through the courts,” Denny said. “And it becomes a cycle that is really hard for people to break.”

Denny said Quick Response is hoping to come together with cities like Grayson and Ashland and have a deflection agreement to mitigate that cycle. The proposed plan is that if a potential substance user is caught with an amount that would be considered ‘personal use,’ then Quick Response could be notified before the person is arrested. At that point they would be offered long term treatment in lieu of arrest, Denny said, facilitated by Quick Response.

“We know this would be something that would need to be worked out with individual police departments and the courts to make sure this was acceptable,” Denny said. “But in other counties and states that’s what QRT does. We keep one of our members available at all times to respond when anything like this happens. That way we can try to help people when we know it’s a substance abuse problem and not a criminal problem. That way we can get them connected with treatment, because that’s what they need.”

Denny said he wanted to make the council aware of the program so that an agreement might be made in the future. Quick Response Team, he said, is a national initiative and the goal is to bring that program into the Commonwealth while following all applicable rules and statutes.

“At the end of the day we want to be a tool for law enforcement,” Denny told the council. “We want to give them another option.”

Contact the writer at charles@cartercountytimes.com