WQXE NEWS

Community members are invited to an afternoon of food, fellowship, and community spirit at the second Free Community Stone Soup Dinner, to be held Saturday from 2 to 5 p.m. at North Hardin High School.

“There’ll be spaghetti, salad, pizza, sweets, popcorn, and fried chicken on the menu, all made possible through the generosity of local businesses,” said Radcliff resident Pete Countryman at Tuesday’s Radcliff City Council meeting.

Saturday’s dinner comes a few weeks after managers at Little Charlie’s Pizza organized the first dinner in November.

Countryman said the theme for the dinner comes from the European fable of a traveller passing through a village who starts a campfire to cook a soup and other members of the community start contributing.

“The moral of the story is: when you share resources and work together in the community, you can accomplish great things,” Countryman said

The event will also feature toys for kids and photos with the Grinch, Santa and Mrs. Claus, and other fun characters. All are invited to attend. The event is free but donations will be accepted.

If you decorate your home with a live Christmas tree, you can close out the holiday season by giving Kentucky Fish and Wildlife a gift this year.

You can give your used Christmas tree another life after the holiday season and donate it to the KFW “Christmas for the Fishes” tree recycling program, through which donated evergreens are used to create underwater habitats that help fish thrive.

KFW says the donated trees are put to work in local lakes and reservoirs, where they are arranged in clusters to create dense branches and small pockets for young fish to hide. These structures attract sportfish as they offer opportunistic feeding opportunities. The donated trees help restore woody structures that have previously decayed in lakes.

The donated trees are anchored to environmentally-friendly weights and submerged at various depths in lakes and reservoirs across the commonwealth. The new habitats support local fish populations, which in turn benefits anglers heading out to fish on Kentucky waterways.

KFW will accept evergreen trees from December 26 through January 16 at 37 drop-off locations across the state. The trees must be real and should be free of lights, garland, and decorations. Visit the program page on fw.ky.gov for more information.

The Radcliff City Council met for their final meeting of 2025 Tuesday.

The council approved an ordinance updating the city’s code of ethics for city officials and employees. The council also approved an ordinance that rezones 238 Oak Drive in Vine Grove from Commercial to Residential-4, a “high-density residential and single family duplex zone”. That is the last rezoning requested by Silver Gate Properties for their development at the property.

The council approved the surplusing of the building and land at 987 North Dixie Boulevard.

“It had been many things over the years, and so it finally ended as the FFO and they tried to sell it, had it listed for well over $800,000 and didn’t have it, so that was donated to the city, and in the meantime, we ended up taking that building and trying to figure out really what we wanted to do with it,” said Radcliff Mayor JJ Duvall. “We looked at many different options, one of them was a youth center.”

Duvall said the current tenant originally signed a three-month lease, but in order to help pay utility costs the city has allowed them to remain while the city decides what happens next. Bids for the property will be opened on February 5. If interested, contact the city to set an appointment to tour the site.

The council also approved two operating procedures for the Radcliff Police Department recommended by the Kentucky League of Cities. RPD Chief Jeff Cross said one of the policies concerns the safe storage of firearms, while the other concerns emergency call location requests.

“If we have an incident that requires us to have to find the location of an individual or an individual’s phone, sometimes you can do that under exigent circumstances that doesn’t require a search warrant, and then there’s times that it does require a search warrant,” Cross said.

The council approved termite treatment for the cabins at Saunders Springs, with an initial cost of $1,875 and annual renewals for $375. The council will discuss further renovations for the cabins at a later date.

Duvall addressed a bomb threat that was called in over the weekend at the Radcliff Walmart, and thanked the first responders that quickly arrived on scene. He said nothing was found after a sweep of the property.

“They’re working through some of that, and I think we have some good leads on that, and we’re doing what we can, but just so people know, we had the same threat made against City Hall probably two or three weeks ago, and so I don’t know if this is just a fun thing people like to do but it causes real headaches for all of us that have to deal with it, and it’s a crime if you get caught, absolutely,” Duvall said.

The Radcliff City Council will next meet January 12.