Archive for the ‘Breaking News’ Category

The Advocate-Messenger has decided to move me into a new position, where I will be designing pages for the Advocate and Jessamine Journal papers full-time, which means I will no longer be the Garrard County reporter.

I will greatly miss covering Garrard. You all have been very welcoming and open with me, an outsider, and made me feel right at home. I’m glad I could serve the people of the county for close to two years, providing as much accurate info as I could on important and interesting events and happenings. I hope if you were a regular reader of the paper or this blog, you were satisfied with the coverage I provided.

Advocate-Messenger reporter Mandy Simpson will be taking over as Garrard County reporter as I step down. She is a recent graduate of Western Kentucky University who came to the Advocate in January. She has some serious reporting chops and I have no doubt she’ll be great at covering Garrard.

Sources: You can still contact me with any story ideas or information you have, and I will be more than happy to get it into the paper or pass it along to the appropriate person. You can also contact Mandy at msimpson@amnews.com.

Once again, thanks to everyone in Garrard County for letting me cover your news.

Crit Luallen now has the audit (pdf) of the Garrard County Court Clerk’s office available on its Web site, along with a press release about the audit:

Auditors became aware that in calendar year 2009 an employee of the clerk’s office was able to conduct transactions and then void all or part of the transaction – resulting in 170 transactions totaling $3,247 being altered during the year and deposits being reduced to match altered records.

Auditors also identified that this same activity took place during the beginning of 2010 until it was discovered in June. For 2010, approximately 717 transactions totaling $16,714 were altered.

Total amount of missing funds auditors identified is $19,961.

Full story will be in tomorrow’s Advocate.

According to a report from the Lexington Herald-Leader, State Auditor Crit Luallen found that $19,961 went missing during 2009 and 2010. Elizabeth Lane, a former employee who was charged in October with knowingly entering false information into the vehicle registration system, isn’t mentioned by name in the report, but the audit details how an employee inappropriately voided all or part of vehicle registrations, according to the Herald-Leader article.

I’m getting my hands on the audit and I’ll talk with Court Clerk Stacy May tomorrow morning, then I’ll have more on this.

UPDATED: This boil water advisory has ended.

From the Herald-Leader:

The Garrard County Water Association in Lancaster has issued a boil-water advisory for all customers living along and off of High Bridge Road in northern Garrard County.

The advisory is due to a water-line leak, which is being repaired.

Customers are advised that water for human consumption must be boiled at a rolling boil for three minutes to be safe for drinking or food preparation.

The advisory is in effect until further notice.

Byron Teater with the Battle of Lancaster folks has proposed that Lancaster and Garrard County allow a reenactment of a confederate takeover of the courthouse, Judge-Exec John Wilson told me today. Details from Teater are still to come, but apparently the reenactors would enter the courthouse and stage taking the tax roll — the list of all the taxpayers. This was a strategy of confederate soldiers during the civil war to make it harder for local union governments to collect taxes.

The reenactors would then raise a flag representing the confederacy on the flagpole outside the courthouse, underneath the American flag. The fiscal court basically tabled any motion on the suggestion today, telling Teater it wanted a month to think about it.

It also told him he needed to confer with the Lancaster City Council concerning additional outdoor events on the square, since most of the responsibility for allowing those events would rest on its shoulders, John told me.

Stay tuned for details when I get them.
UPDATE: I just got some details from Byron on what he hopes will be an extra preliminary event before the main Battle of Lancaster event.

Battle of Lancaster folks would put together a leather journal with fake names and records that would represent the county’s tax roll. By stealing this from a courthouse, confederate soldiers made it difficult for union forces to know who had and had not already paid their taxes.

Four or five confederate reenactors would come into the courthouse with guns and powder but no ammunition and “demand the tax roll,” which would be located in John Wilson’s office. That would be about it.

There would also hopefully be a reenactment of a skirmish on the town square, similar to several battles but not modeled after any particular one, and a flag-raising ceremony, where reenactors would raise the “Confederate First National” flag, which was the real confederate flag for the first two years of the war, Byron told me.

Congratulations to the Garrard County boys’ basketball team, which had a record 13 3-pointers in their 102-51 win over Lynn Camp on seniors night tonight.

Garrard County School Board Member Joe Brown has been honored by the State School Board with the Proudfoot Award for outstanding school board member.

From the Herald-Leader article:

Brown has served 24 years on the Garrard school board, the past decade as chairman. During his tenure, the district built new middle and high schools and three elementary schools. He also led the board through three superintendent searches.

Congratulations Joe!

A departing message from Amy Cloud for Garrard County:

I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with the Garrard County Chamber. It was truly with a heavy heart that I accepted this new position. The folks in Garrard County welcomed me with open arms from day one and I loved every minute of it. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity in Jessamine County and for that reason only, would I leave my friends in Garrard County.

Amy Cloud, who has worked part-time for the Garrard County Chamber of Commerce, is going to take over as the Jessamine County Chamber of Commerce director. The move was announced recently at the Jessamine County chamber’s annual awards banquet. I’ll be talking to Amy for some more info soon. In the meantime, the Jessamine Journal has a story about Amy’s appointment here.

UPDATE: Just got the following info from Natasha Lacy with the Department of Transportation. The slide was on the northbound side of U.S. 27 this time — the opposite side from last time. The slide was approximately the size of a pickup truck bed. A Transportation Cabinet road crew finished cleaning up the slide this morning, after Camp Dick firefighters cleared the road last night. Natasha said the slides occurred well outside the limits of the U.S. 27 widening project, so construction is probably not to blame.

Ronnie Wardrip just confirmed there was another rockslide on U.S. 27 last night, and several vehicles were damaged. There was a rock slide on U.S. 27 on Jan. 18, 12 days before this one. I have a call in with the state department of transportation office in Lexington and I’m waiting to find out more details, including whether construction on the new U.S. 27 is causing these slides.

Bluegrass 911 dispatch confirmed rocks fell last night and hit at least one truck, causing unspecified damage. Deputies and Camp Dick Fire Department responded to the scene. It looks like Camp Dick probably moved the rocks out of the roadway since the road cleanup crew couldn’t get there until the morning.