Meeting of July 22, 2025

afternoon. Um, just a quick check of your cell phones to see if they're if they're turned off would be good. And so we'll go ahead and get started. This is the July 22nd, 2025 Harden County Fiscal Court regular voting meeting. Let's begin and call this meeting to order. — The roll call, please. — Square Clim — here. — Square Hicks — here. — Square Muse — here. — Square Pennington — here. — Square Saltzman — here. — Square Thompson — here. — Square Whitehead — here. — Square Yates — here. — Judge Tall — here. Uh, next we'll have our invocation. Magistrate Pennington and pledge of allegiance by Magistrate Whitehead. — Please bow your heads with me. Father God, we just thank you for today. We just thank you for the opportunity to gather and do uh the county's business. But Father, we just ultimately pray that it would be uh pleasing to you. And Jesus, we just ask that u you would continue to be with all those u first responders that are um uh dealing with the flooding and um Father, just all our all of our first responders all over the entire nation. God, we just ask that you would continue to protect us, protect our nation, continue to heal us. And

it's your son's name we pray. Amen. Amen. Please join me in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. — All right. Well, thanks again for joining today. Um, it's great to see all of you here. We do have uh the mayor Sesi of West Point, still part of Harden County, — and uh Maria Bell uh have a council woman in Radcliffe here with us today. So, thank you for being with us. — All right. Uh let's let's review the agenda. Um next, we'll have approval of last fiscal court uh minutes and then we'll move into someformational items. um some department office reports. Uh we'll have a a time of any citizens concerns or comments. Uh we'll move into a close session after that. After we return from that, then we have uh a resolution

uh to vote on and then we have u a few items in our consent agenda to vote on and then our typical uh comments at the end. So that's the agenda. Uh just a real quick note that as far as the April flooding um they FEMA is still their office is still open but it's it's only till Friday. I believe it's the last day. And it's not to say that people can't still get some some help after that. They just won't have the office to go to. So, just a reminder if if you're going to do that in person, um Friday's the last day. Also, I uh requested an update on the public assistance side of FEMA and uh so sadly there is no change to that report. Uh the request is still pending with the administration in DC. It's not been denied. It is still under consideration. And of course, there's been congressional interest in this issue and hopefully things will change soon and we'll be able to get that public assistance that we need to pay pay for

um significant amount of repairs primarily for roads uh that that we need to repair. So, so we have that. Um okay, I think that's it. We'll move on into uh approval of Harden County Fiscal Court July 8th, 2025 minutes. I need a motion to approve. — So move. — Moved. — Second. — Seconded. Uh any discussion. — Okay. Roll call, please. — Square Clim, — yes. — Square Hicks, — yes. — Square Muse, — yes. — Square Pennington, — yes. — Square Saltzman, — yes. — Square Thompson, — yes. — Square Whitehead, — yes. Square Yates. — Yes. — Judge Tall. — Yes. Motion passes. — Still pretty handy. — All right. All right. Uh we'll move on to some uhformational items. And our first item is um a very positive thing. We've uh for the um the website re-imagine project, we had uh our first uh and I already showed this at another another court meeting and we're going to

uh give this to u the main person that worked on this Aaron Miller here in just a moment. And so this was the best application serving the public Harden County uh gov re-imagine and uh so this is from best of Kentucky awards 2025 government technology. So that's what this one was and we'll hand that off. He wasn't here the day that we had this. And then the second award we have received is a 2025 achievement award winner and this is from the national not the state but the national association of counties and awarding uh Harden County Kentucky uh 2025 achievement award for its program titled best IT collaboration among organizations. So, uh, pretty big deal and I, uh, just think it's, you know, we need to celebrate these things, right? So, uh, uh, I was hoping that everybody else could join me down here in front and I can just present both of these to Aaron as a representative of the team that worked on this and, uh, get a picture or so. All right. So, congratulations, Aaron.

And uh I know you represent a team that worked hard on this for a long time. So, thanks again for all your work. All right. We'll move on to the next item. Uh and that is the Kentucky Ohio River Regional Recreational Recreation Authority or KORA as it's known. And this is an update that uh Mayor Sesi is going to provide for us today. Thank you. — Good evening all. — Thank you, Judge Court. Good to see everyone. Uh I'll make this brief. Um, I just recently attended the third core meeting up in May's uh, no, this time we were in Northern Kentucky. Uh, the organizations moving forward. Judge Owen McNeel of Mason County is the chairman and we're struggling, but we're getting there. Uh, the PowerPoint is really for me, not for you guys because I can't remember what I'm talking about when I'm in these things. So, uh, just a Corora update. Kentucky Ohio regional recreation authority. Try to say that three times real quick. You won't get through it. I guarantee it. Created by House Bill 712. The purpose of the authority is to establish, maintain, promote a recreational trail system throughout re recreational areas designated by Kora to increase economic

development, tourism, and outdoor recreation for residents and visitors. I think they could have got recreation there more than once, but you know, that's just your legislature. CORE is modeled after the KMR, which is a Kentucky Mountain Regional Recreational Authority. It's been in business a few years now, and what they've done is they have tied the trails together in Eastern Kentucky uh to make ATV trails, and it's become a huge tourist attraction, and they're pretty well funded, and they're making uh they're making real progress and and taking areas that were previous coal mines and wasted farmlands and making it useful to the public. Uh and as you all know trails particularly trails in this part of the country need all the help they can get as far as funding. So um okay then Harden County became a participant in the formation and governance imagine that of the authority by your resolution 2024 pass July 30th 2024 due to the 2.9 mile shoreline on the Ohio River in West Point. Uh we have the shortest shoreline of all 25 participating counties. If that doesn't surprise you, half the people in Kentucky, most the people in

Harden County do not realize that Harden County touches the Ohio River until it comes into our back door. Uh, Judge Tall made me the design for the county, so I get to go to all the meetings. So, he took my help and gave me another job. So, I don't know which one of those came out of the writing in that, but so it goes. Um, the real benefit for us is this very short shoreline. Although we don't so we're not looking at big investments but we will get the benefit of this overall regional it it goes it's the all 25 counties that touch the Ohio River in Kentucky. So it's a it's a major undertaking and we're almost right in the middle. Kora will be seeking funding in the coming state budget to achieve its statute stated obligation to employ an executive director. It's just like your your government to do give you a mandate not give you any money to do so. But uh in all honesty, the when they when the legislature formed this organization, it required at least 11 of the 25 counties sign on and do the resolution before they would act before it could actually be created. So funding's on its way. uh and we may charge fees, establish a sinking fund, and seek grants to meet the mission of construction, financing, maintaining recreational facilities on