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Hardin County Fiscal Court approves recovery residences ordinance, hears water district reports

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The Hardin County Fiscal Court met for their second meeting of the month Tuesday.

The court approved on second reading the county’s ordinance for the certification of recovery residences in the county, which is modeled after the ordinance recently approved by the City of Elizabethtown.

“This ordinance will go into effect, if we approve it today, go into effect July 1, 2024,” said Hardin County Judge-Executive Keith Taul. “We also, at the last meeting, approved an inter-local agreement with Elizabethtown for the enforcement of that.”

That’s Hardin County Judge-Executive Keith Taul.

Hardin County Coroner Pat Elmore gave his office’s annual report for 2023. The coroner’s office handled 1,066 total cases, which included 962 deaths due to natural causes, 70 accidents, and 8 homicides. Elmore said there was at least one positive note in the data.

“Our overdoses were actually down from 55 to 37,” Elmore said. “We’re looking at some things about that. We feel like there may be some early interventions with NARCAN being available more readily. That’s going to help. We hear it a lot here in our office, we’ll hear where they’re going out on that response, and we feel like those are being revived, so that’s one positive thing we had there.”

The court heard annual reports from Hardin County Water Districts Number One and Two, with both utilities discussing revenue status and projects for the past and coming year. Water District One General Manager Justin Metz said estimated consolidated revenue for 2024 totals more than $21.8 million. Water District Number Two General Manager Shaun Youravich said water revenue for 2023 came in at about $17 million, which was $1.9 million higher than budgeted, but the sewer numbers show a negative net income, which was anticipated.

“Our revenues do cover expenses, we’re just not fully funding depreciation,” Youravich said. “Of course, we have a very young sewer division. In fact, it was $16 million worth of infrastructure and 47 customers. So I don’t expect to cover, fully, depreciation until we start to grow our customer base, which we’ll do, or until we begin collecting sewer waste from the battery facilities in Glendale.”

Water District Number Two is working with the Kentucky Public Service Commission on a rate increase to cover depreciation, which would see the average customer’s monthly fee increase from $28.88 to $34.32. Youravich said the water district has not instituted a full rate increase since 2007.

The Hardin County Fiscal Court will next meet March 12.

One person dead after vehicle crash in Upton

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One person is dead following a crash in Hardin County.

The Hardin County Sheriff’s Office says at approximately 7:20 a.m. Tuesday deputies responded to the 1600 block of North Pleasant Hill Road following a reported multi-vehicle accident.

The preliminary investigation indicates that a vehicle driven by Destiny McClawley of Upton was traveling west on Pleasant Hill Road when the vehicle went left of center, striking an eastbound vehicle operated by Taylor Riggs of Upton.

McClawley was pronounced dead at the scene. Riggs and two juvenile passengers in McClawley’s vehicle were transported to Baptist Health Hardin for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries.

State Senator Deneen pleased with progress of legislative session so far

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Kentucky Tenth District Senator Matt Deneen says he feels good about the progress that has been made as the Kentucky General Assembly’s 2024 session is now past the halfway point.

“I think the session has moved at a steady pace,” Deneen said. “We are actually picking the pace up here in this week and the coming weeks, of course, as we now have the budget from the House, and we are working through the budget issues systematically, one part of the budget at a time, so in the next few weeks we hope to have some of those things ironed out.”

Among the bills that the senate has taken action on is Senate Bill 20, for which Deneen was a primary sponsor.

“After working with our commonwealth attorney and our county attorney, and gaining the endorsements of several law enforcement associations that have unfortunately had to deal with this issue, we believe that Senate Bill 20 past the floor of the Senate and is now over into the House, and it will try those juveniles 15 and up that do commit violent gun crimes, it will transfer them to circuit court where they’ll be tried as adults.”

As the legislative session heads into its final weeks, Deneen says setting the state’s budget is the lead objective, while also focusing on developing projects.

“Infrastructure is a major point of contention here in our county and in several of the counties that have seen economic development lately, so we will be focusing on infrastructure spending needs,” Deneen said. “We will be looking at, of course, all budget issues, but our roads and our road plans we’ll be getting into as well.”

Deneen encourages anybody with concerns to contact his office, contact information for which can be found on the Legislative Research Commission’s website or the senator’s Facebook page.

E-Town council hears presentation from Silverleaf, discusses Fire Station No. 4 design plans

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The Elizabethtown City Council heard two presentations during their work session Tuesday.

Silverleaf Sexual Trauma Recovery Services Executive Director Dr. Jillian Carden provided an update on some of the organization’s activities in 2023. Carden discussed the results of the Alcohol, Smoking, and Substance Abuse Involvement Test which received 66 responses from adult participants in the organization’s services. Carden said the organization did not previously have strong data on substance abuse.

“We know intuitively, and we know by research, that substance abuse and trauma go hand in hand,” Carden said. “They are co-occurring at a very high rate, and when you drill down even to sexual assault and substance abuse those numbers are incredibly high.”

While Silverleaf is not a substance use treatment facility, the data gives the organization a better idea on what it is dealing with.

“We recognize that if we’re going to say that trauma and substance abuse co-occur, we need to be intentional about assessing for that to make sure that if our clients and our survivors are working on their trauma, but they also have a substance abuse history, we need to be making sure that they’re getting referred to the place that they need to work on their sobriety as well,” Carden said.

Elizabethtown and Hardin County are its most frequent subject areas, but Silverleaf provides services for all of the Lincoln Trail District.

Meanwhile, RBS Design Group Architecture presented design plans for Elizabethtown Fire Station No. Four to the council. RBS President Craig Thomas said the design is largely based on that of Fire Station No. Two, with some changes based on feedback from E-Town firefighters.

“One of the things that we have done, when you look at Fire Station 2, we reduced the height for this portion of the building so it’s not going to be as tall,” Thomas said. “Another thing that we’ve done, we’ve added a baby drop box here on the western corner on the building.”

The estimated total cost of construction is $6.9 million, which City Administrator Ed Poppe said comes in under the $7.5 million budgeted by the city. The plan is to get the project out to bid in April, begin construction in May, and complete construction by April 2025.

The Elizabethtown City Council will next meet March 4.