BY MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
GLASGOW NEWS 1
With all but one member present, the 911 governing board for the Barren-Metcalfe Emergency Communications Center had its first meeting of the year Tuesday – a special-called one – with half of its members new.
The judge-executives – Jamie Bewley Byrd, Barren County; Larry Wilson, Metcalfe County – were chosen as the chair and vice chair. Linda Wells, resident representative for Barren County, is remaining as treasurer, and Glasgow Mayor Henry Royse was elected secretary.
The group also decided unanimously to continue with Campbell, Myers & Rutledge as its auditing firm.
Per the governing board’s bylaws, the group must review on an annual basis at the beginning of the year the amount of financial “support” provided to each of the two cities that house the emergency communications centers – Glasgow and Edmonton.
Cave City Mayor Dwayne Hatcher, who has chaired the 911 governing board for the Barren-Metcalfe Emergency Communications Center the past two years, speaks during Tuesday’s special meeting. The newly elected chair, Barren County Judge-Executive Jamie Bewley Byrd is to his right, and Beverly Harbison, director of the ECC, sits to his left. MELINDA J. OVERSTREET / GLASGOW NEWS 1
Beverly Harbison, director of the ECC in Glasgow, said that Edmonton receives $1,000 monthly and Glasgow receives $2,400. She said the Glasgow center pays no utility bills directly, as it occupies space in the Glasgow Fire Department, and all of those bills come out of that budget. The payments are essentially meant to offset the costs like those associated with the use of space and such. She said she couldn’t speak to the arrangement in Edmonton, where the dispatch center is housed in the police department.
Curt Estes, an Edmonton City Council member who serves on the governing board as the designee of the Edmonton mayor, said it’s essentially for the same thing there – toward the upkeep of the building.
After several minutes of discussion, including the fact that the interlocal agreement among the local government entities that serve the two counties and each of the incorporated cities within them is under review and that process could change circumstances significantly, the board eventually agreed to stay with the same amounts.
Discussion also took place on establishing the date and time of regular meetings, which are typically at 5:30 p.m. on the fourth Tuesdays of odd-numbered months. Byrd asked about the possibility of moving them to regular daytime business hours, but some had conflicts with their job schedules, and it was also proposed to just move the time up a little bit to 4 or 4:30. Ultimately, they determined that the decision could be postponed until this month’s regular meeting on Jan. 24, which would provide the opportunity to check with Ronnie Stinson, the Barren County magistrate representative on the board, who could not attend the special meeting due to a work conflict, and for everyone to check their schedules for possible times that would work with everyone.
Harbison said the main reason they needed to go ahead and have a special meeting early in the month was because two people need to be designated as check signatories, and they’ve typically had three in case one is out of town. She said it didn’t matter to her who it was, but it was helpful to have someone in Glasgow just for the sake of convenience, and the former Barren County judge-executive and Glasgow mayor had been one of them. Byrd and Royse agreed to take over.
Park City Mayor Larry Poteet pointed out that the item was not on the agenda.
Harbison, who had tried to bring up the subject at one of the special-called meetings toward the end of 2022, said, “We’ve got bills to pay.” She said she didn’t know that they’d ever voted on it before, “but this board needs to have knowledge of who’s signing checks.”
Poteet said he was fine with that as long as they weren’t making a motion or voting on anything.
Harbison asked that the two new signatories go to South Central Bank to sign the cards, but then the question arose and discussion ensued as to what documentation is necessary for the bank to allow it, so that was going to require some research.
The Kentucky Open Meetings Act states that for special meetings, “Discussions and action at the meeting shall be limited to items listed on the agenda in the notice.”
Other than those already noted, the other members of the board are Dwayne Hatcher, mayor of Cave City; Max Marion, Glasgow council member; Gary Fancher, resident appointee for Metcalfe County. The emergency management directors for each county – Garland Gilliam for Barren and Emory Kidd for Metcalfe — also serve but are nonvoting members.
Byrd, Wilson, Royse, Stinson, Marion and Gilliam are new.
The Glasgow police and fire chiefs, Jennifer Arbogast and William Rock Jr., respectively, were also in attendance at the meeting.
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