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Local Arts Council receives government grant...

See Page 12

Rep. Danny Ford requests citizen's viewpoint .'..

New and old members of the Mt. Vernon City Council held their first scneauledrneeting since being sworn in Monday night, January 6 by District Judge Walt Maguire. Front row, from left, Tom Welch, Jackie Renner, Jerry Pensol and Mayor Roland Mullins. Back row, left to right, Larry Burdette. Les Harris and Joe Martin.

council of any f water rates in

a critical time due to a lack of ground, moisture and windy wea-ther and that Tio burning should be d<m..' until some precipitation falls. Some landowners have been fined

system.

Brush fires burn 18 acres in Rockcastle

Steve Bullen. Forest Ranger with the Kentucky Division of Forestry, said Tuesday that there have been eight brush fires irrthe county since the first of the year, burning oyer 18 acres.

"We've, been lucky." Bullen said, "and it 's mainly been due to the Mt Vernon and Brodhead Fire Departments " Bullen went on to say that the two departments have

' been quick to respond to the brush fire calls, usually within "10 to 15 minutes " He said the depart- , ments have also made several runs to small fifes in the county which kept them from becoming big fires.

Most of the eight fires can be attributed to people burning gar-bage and letting it get out of control or cigarettes being thrown down carelessly Bullen said there was one ity"—'•««. fire near Modison County'and one which was caused by a -transformer blowing and shooting sparks out

The largest of. the fires occurred near Brodhead and burned over 10 acres '

• Bullen cautioned that it Is stil l

for illegal burning (letting fires out of control). Bullen said, and the indendiary fire is still under investigation

Bullen has been called to help out in Whitley County, where quite a few fires have been caused by arsonists.

In addition to assisting with brush fires, the Mt Vernon Fire Department was called out last Wednesday to a fuel oil stove fire in Mt .Vernon, and a trailer was destroyed by fire at Flat Gap about 1:30 a m Monday

Judge Aker resigns position

' Kentucky Supreme Court Justice J Calvin Aker of Somerset has announced he will resign Mat. 1. leaving nine months on his eight-year term He will teturn to private law practice with the firm of Doug- •

• las Reece and John Lang in London.

Somerset Attorney Norma Adams reportedly plans to seek Akers' seat on the court- repre-senting the 28-county Third Supreme Court District of which Rockcastle is a part. Adams, a Republican, is a partner in the Adams and Adams. law f i rm in Somerset.

Aker. 46. has hinted he might be a candidate for U.S. Senator next year, opposing incumbent Senator Wendell Ford. v

Up goes the price

New truck plazr ^sunder construction on the 1-75 Renfro Valley interchange. The picture above shows the old Valley Drive-fn They're projection booth and snack bar. that has been torn down. Owner Ron Jones is standing at right in the picture. The lower picture shows the amazing progress of the plaza five days later.

Truck Plaza under way i By: Ray McClure

A diesel discount service station for trucks, named Daniel Bonne Truck Plaza, is under construction on the site of the former Valley DriyeTn Theater at Renfrp Valley.

Owned by Derby City Oil Co. of Louisville, which has a plaza on 1-71. lite plaza is to be operated by owner. Ron Jones, a native "of Will iamsburff

The plaza will have a 24-hour full service restaurant that will seat over 100. mostly catering to truckers. It will have eight pump lanes that can service 45 trucks in line, and with a fuel dispensing

. rate of 34 qallims a minute. In addition to the restaurant,

the two-s'lory building will have offices on the second floor; The first floor has 2.276 square feet of space.

Jones said he will hire 51 employees at the plaza. He added

1985 Headlines In January snow and bicier cold came to Rockcastle

County as expected. By the end of January, more than ten candidates had filed

for the May Primary. In March, the first suit against the ..School Board was

filed by Mrs. Sue Hamm. Filing deadline for Mayor a t Mt. Vernon and Brodhead

"slipped up" on incumbent's in March. Also in March, a half-million dollar housing project for

Livingston was announced. State Representative Danny Ford attended a White

House briefing in March. Late in March, the Cumberland Valley Area Development

District helped reorganize County Tourist Association. In early April, the state shocked the Rockcastle County

Fiscal Court by giving the court until Dec. 81 to come up with a garbage plan.

The local Development Association asked for changes in parking in Mt. Vernon.

(Pont. to 3)

there'wil l be no repair work or gasoline. The diesel distributor is Sun Oil (Sunoco).

"This is-strictly a quick stop operation." Jones' slated. " W e are iiot in competition with other restaurants or service stations.

He said he hoped to open the plaza as soon as possible. He said -he has a 20-year lease on the property owned by Bill Norton of Mt. Vernon and Bud Hughes and family of Jackson County.

General' contractor tor the project is Jimmy Dooley of Con-wav Frank Mason is jn charge of mechanical work.

Jones, who is the nephew of retired Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Pleas Jones of Williams-burg. is 43. and retired from

»the Army He is married, with a son who is a red-sh'irted quarter-back at the University of Notre Dame." and a daughter in Purdue

Mt. Vernon goals set by council

Objectives and goals for the city in the coming years were suggested by councilmen at a meeting of the Mt. Vernon-City Council Monday night".

A total of 14 goals were listed and included several that are already in sight. The suggestions were:

Further development at the parking lot "opposite the court-house on Main Street:

(fooperate with the fire de-partment on the new fire station to be constructed on East Main

• Si reel: Construction of additional

sewer lines: Expansion and renovation of

the citv sewer plant: Water

University. I l ie Valley Drive-In has been

closed for several years. The site 'has 7*/2 acres.

Tlie new plaza is the first major business to be constructed on the north side of the Renfro Valley Interchange of 1-75 in several's/ears..

Jones said the- plaza will "be well lit at night.- and he will not allow any'solicitation of any Uind.

Banks closed Cit izens Bank of Brodhead

and The Bank of Mt. Vernon will be closed Monday. Jan. 20. in observance of Martin Luther Kinq Dav.

City Council raises Northern water rate

The Northern Rockcastle Water District. reportedly strapped for money to meet operations Snd maintenance ex-penses, received another financial jolt Monday night. '

The Mt. Vernon City Council voted to double the price the district pays the city for water, increasing its current 42 cents a 1.000 gallons to 84 cents, match-ing the rate already paid by the Western Rockcastle Water District and the City of Brodhead.

The rate will be effective Feb. 1 when the contract between the. city and the district expires.

The increase will be tentative, pending an audit review.

Currently, the water bill for the. Northern District averages about $1,100 a month. Brodhead's •bill is about S2.100 a month, and the Western District about $3,200 a month., -T>- amount fluctuates from montn to month.

No mention was made by the further increases in

the Westerh Dis-trict. Brodhead. and Mt. Vernon. Livingston Jias its own wafer

n a recent report, a survey by Mountain Association for

Community Development (MACED). a Berea based regional development group, found that the -Northern Districl^was placed in "systems that were able to meet

their ordinary operation and main-tenance expenses and service their debts. But most of the systems (in the groups surveyed), were not able to contribute to capital replacement costs covering their depreciation expenses." It also found the district has a water loss rate of 32 percent.

That survey by MACED was made in 1983.

Incidentally, af Mt. Vernon, the city plans \ $290,000 improve-ment project and has hired Crawford & Crawford, engineers, of Burnside. to oversee the project' which includes a rebuilt filter: installiog another chlorinator: re-building the filter table: flow controllers and restore plant to automatic control; construct a 766.000-gallon concrete ground-water storage tank, and install a 12-inch'water line from city hall to •tank site on.Ku..1249.

In >sr^ . •'•"^ij^ommittees were appointed by the"mayor and' approved by the council for the coming year. Jhey are:

Police-Jackie Renner. Jerry Pensol. Tom Welch. Larry Bur-dette and Les Harris. .

Recreation--Joe Martin. Jack-ie Renner. Jerry Pensol and Larry Burdette. \

Water/Sewer--Jerry Pensol. Les Harris and Joe Martin.

Street-Tom Welch. Les Har-ris and Jackie Renner.

Citizens committee named * to get views on sewer rates

By;'Ray McClure

Faced with a possible loss of about $1.1 million in grant money to expand and upgrade' the city sewer plant, the Mt. Vernon City Council has called on a citizens committee to consider all financial options and give its views to the council.

The committee met with the council for the first time Monday niqht and the consensus, as expected, was that a sewer rate increase seems to be the only alternative.

How.much of an increase was left to further discussion by the council, committee and engineers for the project.

As reported earlier, the city needs an additional $264,000 to come up with the 25 percent (S484.102) it needs to get the

$1,137,643 grant. The low bid for the project came from Titus Construction of Dayton. Ohio, at $1,621,745.

Mayor Roland Mullins told the commitjge the city has "re-sisted" and "danced around" a rate increase for 10 to 12 years.

"There"3eems to be no other way out . " the mayor stated. "Government money is drying up. so the city can't risk losing this grant money."

He said the city is operating the sewer plant as it always has. but in recent times the state has made the guidelines more strin-gent. The state now demands effluent coming out of the plant be treated to insure against pollution of Town Branch which runs into Renfro Creek and the Rockcastle River.-

(Cont. to 3)'

left.

0tml Dtrtixw "Rockcastle County"s Newspaper'

MOUNT VERNON. KENTUCKY 40456 Thursday, January 16.1986