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.
]]>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.
]]>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.
]]>House Bill 433 aims to reduce some of the negative environmental effects waste tires have in Kentucky by keeping better track of where waste tires go and educating the public about the dangers posed by waste tires and how to properly dispose of them. When thrown in illegal dumps or left by the side of the road, waste tires become breeding grounds for mosquitoes, and not just any mosquitoes, a very dangerous breed of mosquito that carries West Nile and other human and horse diseases, Chris said. Tires also pose a fire hazard and can be very difficult to extinguish if they catch on fire.
The bill is a small step in a much larger plan to reform how the state handles waste tires, Chris told me. During next year’s longer legislative session, proponents expect to introduce further bills that could turn Kentucky’s waste tire handling process into a national model, he said.
Full story is upcoming in the Advocate, including info from Mary Dickey, the chairwoman of Solid Waste Coordinators of Kentucky.
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]]>The tests will take about four weeks to complete (April 18 is exactly four weeks from the starting date). When Mine Shields first came to Garrard County back in April 2010, it announced it would employ about 35 people initially, but that as many as 200 could be employed and a second Garrard location opened if the company was able to get its refuge chambers MSHA-certified.
No company had received MSHA certification yet when Mineshields announced its plans, and as far as I know, that’s still the case. I couldn’t find any news articles online saying otherwise.
If Mine Shields becomes the first certified mine refuge chamber producer, it means the company would have a national market and something of a monopoly until someone else is able to pass MSHA-certification muster as well. The potential market opened by certification is what Mine Shields based its estimate of at least 200 jobs in Garrard County on.
]]>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.
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.
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