County plans to negotiate for some property, approves voting and other equipment

BY MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
GLASGOW NEWS 1
After a closed session of roughly 10 minutes at its first of two back-to-back special meetings Friday afternoon, the Barren County Fiscal Court agreed unanimously to appoint Judge-Executive Jamie Bewley Byrd and Magistrate Jeff Botts to negotiate a purchase discussed during the closed session.
That was the last item on the agenda for the first of those meetings, and it was adjourned immediately after that vote.
With all members present, the items previously discussed were all unanimously approved after brief discussion and/or questions on some. They include:
— monthly financial statement – February 2023, subject to audit;
— payment of claims, as presented;
— bank account transfer;
— Resolution 2023-3-31 (Economic Development Fund application for development of South Cooper Industrial Park);
— authorization to file a petition to dissolve perpetual trust and transfer funds, in relation to Hiseville Cemetery;
— Parks and Recreation Committee report, including these three items:
A) proposed purchase of Trufinish 1220 Field Groomer ($30,000),
B) proposed purchase of TX Gator John Deer ($14,000), and
C) proposed spraying and mowing contract for Jackie Browning Park (April – November $37,166.16); and
— purchase of new truck for Road Department.
Some of those purchases will come out of the next fiscal year’s budget but need to be ordered before then due to supply chain circumstances.
Notice had been distributed at 11:14 a.m. Thursday for that first meeting, which was scheduled for 2:30 p.m. in the Fiscal Court Chambers, third floor of the Barren County Government Center, 117 N. Public Square.
The second notice was distributed at 3:12 p.m. Thursday, and it announced a meeting at 3:15 p.m. Friday, with essentially the only agenda item as consideration of the purchase of 22 Verity Print Bundles.
To be in compliance with the Kentucky Open Meetings Act, the item for the second meeting could not simply be added to the agenda for the first meeting if the notice was not distributed before 2:30 p.m., because the law requires that meeting notices and agendas must be distributed at least 24 hours in advance of a special meeting. Any time, location or agenda changes may not be made once within the 24 hours before the meeting, per the law, and only the items on those agendas provided at least 24 hours in advance may be discussed.
The print bundles were requested by County Clerk Helena Chase Birdwell, who explained that they would be covered by a grant, the money from which should be received before the bill comes for the equipment.
What this set of products will allow is for election poll workers to print ballots one at time as each voter comes to them with the bar-coded “receipt” they obtained after they were checked in with the electronic voter rolls, she said.
This should be a faster process that has less or no human error than the check-in workers’ looking at the information on the tablet screen and writing down the code that is given to the voter, who then takes it to the next station and provides it to another worker who looks through all the already-printed ballots to find the correct one for that particular voter, Birdwell said. The new way, the worker at the second station will use a scanner to read the code and then print the correct ballot.