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Elizabethtown driver licensing office open at new location

The Elizabethtown Driver Licensing Regional Office is set to open at its new permanent location Monday.

The office will be moving from its current location at 1055 North Mulberry Street to 916 North Mulberry Street, which is connected to the Cabinet of Health and Family Services office next door to Dewster’s.

“While it’s a very short distance of a move, we think it’s gonna be far superior and leaps and bounds to what we currently are able to offer,” said Kentucky Real ID Project Manager Sarah Jackson. 

She said the new office space has many benefits.

“It can handle more volume, and more importantly the volume that has been coming will be handled more efficiently, more comfortably,” Jackson said. “It provides a larger reception area. Currently there is hardly any indoor waiting space, and it will include increased parking.”

The new office also allows for better logistical options.

“The people who are attending for testing, which is conducted by the Kentucky State Police, will actually use a different entrance,” Jackson said. “There won’t be as much of a bottleneck, etc. We’re very hopeful and we’re very excited about it. We’re hopeful for what it brings in terms of improved service to Kentuckians.”

All Kentucky licensing services will be available at the new office, and Jackson said now is a good time to upgrade your license.

“I do want to urge Kentuckians to give consideration to getting a Real ID because the Real ID deadline for enforcement set by the federal government and TSA is May of 2025,” Jackson said.

The office will be open Mondays through Fridays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., and as with any of the regional offices any Kentuckian from any county will be able to use the Elizabethtown location.

Draft of new Hardin County Comprehensive Plan now available for review

After a multi-year, multi-meeting process, Hardin County Planning officials are ready to share the draft plan of the county’s updated comprehensive plan, and the plan went live at an open house Tuesday.

“State law requires a comprehensive plan in order to have zoning, so the county’s first comprehensive plan was developed and written in 1979 when the Planning Commission was adopted by fiscal court,” said Hardin County Planning Director and Building Official Adam King.

Tuesday’s open house provided the first opportunity for feedback on the draft plan.

We had a really great event,” King said. “Almost 100 people signed in. We got some good feedback. The draft plan is available on the comp. plan website (www.hardincountyplan.org) or it’s available on the Planning Commission’s website (www.hcpdc.com).” 

The plan is an update from the last comprehensive plan drafted in 2019.

“We’ve got revised and reorganized goals and objectives, a revised future land use map and a revised planning area map,” King said. “For the first time we’ve got a chapter dedicated to agriculture.”

The new plan refines some of the existing planning areas in the county, and the anticipated impact of BlueOval SK can be seen in those plans.

“We’ve increased the size of the Glendale Rural Village, we’ve increased the urban area between Elizabethtown, Cecilia, and Glendale,” King said. “That’s where we are predominantly seeing builders wanting to build new homes. We kind of fine-tuned the Interstate Commercial Area and the industrial area at the I-65 exit in Glendale, and then we’ve got a totally new area we call the South Urban Area that runs south from Glendale to Sonora and Upton along I-65 and U.S. 31W.” 

The plan will go up for an adoption vote before the county’s Planning Commission, then will be submitted to the Hardin County Fiscal Court for final adoption. Residents can still provide feedback at www.hardincountyplan.org.

LaRue County man gets prison time for participation in Jan. 6 Capitol attack

A LaRue County man has been sentenced for his actions during the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Clayton Ray Mullins of Magnolia will serve 30 months in prison followed by 36 months of supervised release after pleading guilty to a felony charge of Assaulting, Resisting, or Impeding Certain Officers. Mullins will also pay about $32,000 in restitution and about $50,000 in fines. 

Mullins was arrested in February of 2021 in Mayfield after an investigation by the FBI’s Washington and Louisville field offices. He was identified through photos taken during the Capitol attack.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia says Mullins was actively involved with other rioters in pushing against the barricade and officers outside the Capitol on January 6. Mullins later waved other rioters into the tunnel at the Lower West Terrace entrance to the Capitol and joined other rioters in attempting to push into the building.

Later, when positioned on the Capitol steps, Mullins began attempting to grab the leg of a Metropolitan Police Department officer who had been knocked to the ground. He eventually succeeded and the officer was dragged down the Capitol steps. Mullins pushed another officer who attempted to get back to the Capitol archway down the steps and into the crowd of rioters.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office says more than 1,200 individuals have been charged for their involvement in the attack on the Capitol. Anybody with information can still send tips to the FBI.

County unemployment rates in December trending higher than a year ago

Unemployment rates across the Lincoln Trail District continue to trend a little higher than they did a year prior.

The Kentucky Center for Statistics says unemployment rates rose in 115 counties from December 2022 to December 2023, with the state unemployment average for December 2023 reported at 3.8 percent.

All eight counties in the Lincoln Trail District did see unemployment rates come down a bit from November to December 2023, but all eight counties saw increases from rates reported in December 2022.

The unemployment rate for Hardin County in December 2023 was reported at 3.9 percent. That’s down from the 4 percent rate reported the month prior, but up from the 3.4 percent rate reported in December 2022.

Marion and Washington counties tied for the lowest rates in the region at 3 percent, while Breckinridge County posted the highest unemployment rate in the region at 4.6 percent.

The national unemployment average for December 2023 was 3.5 percent.

Visit the Kentucky Education and Labor Cabinet online for more information.

KYTC District Four working to fill potholes

Kentucky Transportation Cabinet District Four is actively working on repairing potholes that sprung open after the recent bout with winter weather.

The KYTC says frigid temperatures and precipitation followed by freezing and thawing cycles, and combined with traffic and snow removal operations, can turn small cracks in the pavement into potholes.

KYTC District Four Public Information Officer Chris Jessie says crews are doing their best, but road repair options are limited during winter.

“Pothole repair is one of the toughest actions our maintenance crews have to perform,” Jessie said. “We can go out and put cold mix in the hole, but we’re really limited to anything else that we can do. Asphalt plants are not open this time of the year, so we’re really dependent upon what we can tamp down as we put that cold mix in there and then traffic kind of compacting it.”

Pothole repair will be a battle throughout the season, so drivers should keep an eye out for them when hitting the roadways.

“With additional winter weather, potentially, by the end of the season, and certainly heavy rain as we’re experiencing here in this forecast stretch, many pothole fills will come back out, and it’s kind of a ‘chasing our tail’ kind of thing,” Jessie said. “We’re doing the best we can.”

Anybody that wants to report a pothole can do so by visiting transportation.ky.gov, go to the “Contact Us” link on the website, and click on “Report Hazard” on the dropdown menu.

You can get updates from KYTC District Four by following the office on social media.