Local sports with A.J. Brammer.
Send your team’s schedule and stats to sports@wqxe.com!
Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:13 — 5.1MB)
QUICKSIE98.3
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.
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.
A multi-state law enforcement effort contributed to the arrest of a LaRue County man.
Alan “Brent” French of Upton was arrested Friday on an outstanding warrant for first degree Incest, first degree Sodomy, and first degree Sexual Abuse.
The Hodgenville Police Department says their officers were made aware of allegations of a possible abuse case in January involving the 59-year-old French and two juvenile females, a 15-year-old and a 5-year-old. Charges were filed against French after it was determined one of the victims was assaulted in LaRue county.
“We received a complaint of a possible sexual assault of a child,” said Hodgenville Police Chief James Richardson. “When we looked into it, there were actually four victims, two of which have since moved to Caldwell, Idaho, so what we did was we contacted the Caldwell Police Department and they were gracious enough to assist us in that investigation, interviewed the children out there. We interviewed the two children that still live here in Kentucky.”
The HPD determined that one incident happened in LaRue County and believe three more occurred in Hardin County.
“So we reached out to Kentucky State Police, and we are working with them in order to take care of the issues that happened in Hardin County, and we’re taking care of the issues that happened in LaRue,” Richardson said.
French was lodged in the LaRue County Detention Center, and is scheduled to make an initial appearance in District Court on February 28.
Local sports with A.J. Brammer.
Send your teams schedule and stats to sports@wqxe.com!
Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:33 — 5.9MB)