The Hardin County Fiscal Court met for their first meeting of the month Tuesday.
The court held the first reading of an ordinance that adopts a certification process for recovery residences in unincorporated Hardin County. Judge-Executive Keith Taul said the ordinance is modeled after the one recently adopted by the City of Elizabethtown, and came about after conversations with E-Town Mayor Jeff Gregory to help prepare for possible outcomes of E-Town’s new ordinance.
“If there’s some of the recovery residences that don’t want to become certified or they aren’t doing the right things, if they get shut down in Elizabethtown, there might be some tendency for them to move someplace else.” Taul said. “Hardin County can be one of those places along with some of the other cities in the county. So we wanted to get ahead of this thing and make sure that that doesn’t happen.”
The council also approved an inter-local agreement with the city to use E-Town Recovery Residence Enforcement Officer David Neary for county facilities, as at this time only one county facility is known of.
The first reading was also held on an ordinance approving about $2 million in unplanned budget expenses. An inter-local agreement with the Lincoln Trail Area Development District for a county Safe Streets and Roads for All grant application was approved, as was an $187,500 disbursement of county American Rescue Plan Act funds for Hardin County Water District No. 2 to conduct a study of wastewater improvements in the Glendale/South Hardin County area.
In other meeting news, Fort Knox Garrison Commander Colonel Chris Ricci presented on the Digital Air-Ground Integration Range which was added at Fort Knox’s Yano Range. Ricci said the $56 million improvement project should be completed in May, and Fort Knox wants residents to be aware of the expanded activity they can expect to hear.
“While we do anticipate more aviation use, the range will have similar types of training as before, so we’re talking virtually all types of tracked and wheeled vehicles, utility and attack helicopters, fixed wing aircraft, artillery and mortars, and dismounted training,” Ricci said. “Put simply, DAGIR is the largest and most complex live fire range that the Army utilizes at a home station.”
Emergency Management Deputy Director Richard DeWitt said a recent consultation with OSHA revealed only about $100 in expenses needed to fix potential violations. DeWitt credited the county’s preparedness to strong leadership.
“You don’t prepare for an OSHA visit the week or the day of,” DeWitt said. “It’s what you do every day, and it’s the support that all of you (magistrates) and the judge have put into our safety program that made this consultation come out the way it did.”
The Hardin County Fiscal Court will next meet February 27.
