County To Get One Call Now
May 15,2008 00:00 by Lawrence Harris
The Adair County Fiscal Court met for their regular scheduled meeting on Tuesday night and approved the process for the One Call Now emergency alert system.
One Call Now is a telephone based emergency call service that can place 1,000-2,000 calls per minute sending a recorded message to households in an area threatened by severe weather or any emergency situation.
The program will cost the county $19,400.50 up front but according to Adair County Emergency Management Director Greg Thomas will be completely reimbursed by a Homeland Security grant.
Larry Cave of WonWay Communications out of Frankfort submitted the proposal for the One Call system, which according to Thomas will be operational in approximately six weeks.
Thomas also spoke to the court regarding emergency manage-ment informing the members that a grant has been approved in the amount of $45,000.00 to purchase 2 more sirens for the county and to retrofit the siren on the courthouse.
Thomas also stated that he is currently working on another grant in the amount of $68,000.00 to purchase additional warning sirens and has another grant which is due in June.
Thomas then updated the court on the recent installation of the weather station, which had originally been schedule for operation at the end of April but has been pushed back to the end of this month because of an illness with the equipment tech.
However State Climatologist Dr. Stuart Foster of Western Kentucky University and the Kentucky Mesonet System stated that the weather station went online yesterday and is fully operational.
“We are very excited about getting the Adair County location online because it is one of the best sites for climate monitoring for that part of the state,” said Foster.
According to Foster the data collected at the Adair County site will be sent to the National Weather Service office in Louisville.
“The data will be sent to the NWS in Louisville and will be used by the climatologists to make better forecast concerning severe weather for the region,” commented Foster.
With the new weather station online residents can now log onto the Kentucky Mesonet website and see live weather updates at www.kymesonet.org.
Thomas closed by informing the court of an upcoming risk and threat assessment course sponsored by the Lake Cumberland District that will be taught by instructors from Texas Tech University.
Adair County Judge Executive Ann Melton asked the court for approval of the appointment of members for the newly formed Adair County Economic Development Authority that were submitted and approved last week by the Columbia City Council.
Two of the seven members were members of the old industrial authority board including Barry Corbin for 4-years and Monica Rodgers for 3-years.
The five new members will be president of Majestic Yachts Jim Hadley for 4-years; Adair County FSA director Tony Corbin for 4-years; Roger Drake from Lindsey Wilson College for 3-years; McCammish Manufacturing Columbia Site Manager Doug McCammish for 3-years; and Kaye Bowman for 2-years.
Columbia Mayor Pat Bell and Judge Melton will also serve on the authority board while Sue Stivers will serve as the authority’s executive director.
The court also approved the first reading of the 2009 budget with a grand total of $4,790,006.66.
The budget includes $1,398,003.66 in the general fund, $1,340,802.28 in the road fund, $1,214,200.02 in the jail fund, $276,700.00 in the L.G.E.A. fund, $2,586.00 in the forest fire protection fund, $414,684.70 in the 911 fund and $143,030.00 in the Green River Animal Shelter fund.
John Rarey, chairman of the Columbia-Adair County Airport Board, also addressed the court about the Columbia/Adair County Airport and money that had been promised by the state to help pay for the ongoing hanger expansion.
According to Rarey, “We talked to Paul Steely, the former commissioner of the Department of Aviation, about building a hanger and he asked if we could complete a 10-plane hangar instead of the proposed six-plane hanger for $240,000, which we told him we could, and he said that the state would give us $65,000.”
Rarey said they went ahead and ordered the 10-plane hangar to be built.
“Everything was good until two weeks ago, when Paul Steely lost his job,” stated Rarey. “Now the state is saying they don’t have the extra money to give us, and we have the hangar ordered and on the way.”
Rarey also said the state told them that they can’t find all the paperwork that was originally submitted to receive the money.
Rarey asked the court to help put pressure on the state in any way they could to help get them money that was originally promised and Judge Melton stated that the court would write letters in support of the Columbia-Adair County Airport Board’s position.
Adair County Sheriff Ralph Curry informed the court that the Sheriff’s Office had collected $47,920.22 in taxes for the month of April, which included $7,600 from the tax sale.
In the jail report Adair County Jailer William ‘Bug’ Knight told the court the jail billed out $76,577,51 and received approval to reinstate deputy jailer Marshal Bunch as a part-time jailer at a rate of $8.00.
The court also approved the second reading of the jail policy amendments, which included the non-smoking policy for inmates and the non-dating stipulation between inmates and employees.
Judge Melton also received approval to issue a check in the amount of $1,000.00 to Lake Cumberland Community Action Agency for the aging program through the Senior Citizens Support.
Melton also received approval to hire Casey Wilson at a rate of $7.50 per hour to help in the judge’s office.
Melton then informed the court that FEMA has completed their assessment of the county and out of the 96 roads they inspected the county would receive aid for repairing 54 of them.
Melton stated that a check for $11,000 would be in next week as part of the first installment.
Melton then informed the court about several calls and thank you cards that have been received by the judge’s office concerning the county road department and the work they have completed and are currently working on.
Magistrate Wid Harris gave the court an update on the nuisance committee saying that the committee has not yet drafted a nuisance order because they wanted and order that was fair to all residents.
PRIDE and Solid Waste Coordinator A.L. Sinclair informed the court that the new reporting system was still not operational but the crews had currently finished with KY-55 north, KY-206, KY-80 east, New Concord Road and have a little over a mile left on KY-61 south to complete.
The court also announced that Lindsey Wilson College was chosen as the Recycler of the Month but was unable to attend the meeting.