Midway Messenger

Committee to discuss snow removal at 9 Monday; Bozarth, Coyle, others to meet at 2 p.m.

2012-01-28T12:49:00.001-05:00

By Lauren Conrad
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

Localofficials are moving to resolve questions about snow removal in Midway.

The citycouncil’s streets committee will meet at 9 a.m. Monday at City Hall to discussthe subject, and Woodford County Judge-Executive John Coyle says he and Mayor Tom Bozarth have agreed to meet that afternoon at 2 at the courthouse.

Themeeting was scheduled after several emails between Coyle and Bozarth and willtake place in Coyle’s office. Midway Council Member Aaron Hamilton, Midway MagistrateLarry Craig and the Woodford County engineer will also be in attendance.

Coylesaid he has a list of roads in Midway that would need snow removal. The countyengineer is to bring his mileage estimate and width of the roads to the meetingto discuss appropriate snow removal action.

"We want to make sure the roads are suitable forplowing and that we [Woodford county and Midway] get off on the rightfoot," Coyle said.

At this week’s Fiscal Court meeting, there were questionsabout whether the county serviced all the streets earlier this month andwhether Bozarth had provided a complete list.

Asked about that Wednesday, Bozarth said, “There is apriority road list that was put together by a previous council and given to thecounty. It is ranked by priority. This is one of the things that needed to beworked out. If we are going to enter into an agreement all street should beclean. They have missed streets before.”

When Midway officials learned Jan. 11, as snow was forecast,that the county would no longer provide snow removal in Midway, they and Coylemade a temporary agreement that the county would continue the service and thecity would cover the county’s costs.

This week the Fiscal Court voted to forgive the initial billof $1,233 for the county’s service, but called on Coyle to quickly forge amemorandum of understanding with Bozarth, and then an interlocal agreement thatwould require state approval.

Coyle said his meeting with Midway officials should ensurethe county engineer has all of the information he needs to move forward. Hesaid it will not be open to the public. State law requires official meetings tobe open only if a quorum of a public agency is present.

The 9 a.m. Streets and Lights Committee meeting at MidwayCity Hall (see item below) will be open. Bozarth said that the meeting is todiscuss how the city moves forward with its future snow removal needs.

“We have three options,” said Bozarth: “Do it ourselves,hire an outside contractor or continue with the county.”

Information for this story was also gathered by Martha Groppo of UK.

Council will meet Monday morning to discuss filling vacancy created by Becky Moore's resignation

2012-01-26T09:47:00.003-05:00

Mayor Tom Bozarth has called a special meeting of the Midway City Council for 8:30 a.m. Monday, Jan. 30, at City Hall to discuss and take possible action on steps to fill the vacancy created by Becky Moore’s resignation from the council. All council meetings are open to the public.

Any appointee will fill the 11 months remaining in Moore's unexpired term. The meeting will be held the day before the deadline for filing for council seats in the November election. If more than 12 people file for the six council seats, a primary would be held in May to cut the number to 12. Filing papers are due to the county clerk by 4 p.m. Tuesday.

Fiscal court waives snow bill, calls for county and city to reach agreement on future removal

2012-01-24T21:58:00.012-05:00

By Martha Groppo
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

A discussion that began with the question of snow removal has snowballed into a much larger debate about the responsibilities and privileges of fourth-class cities, whose ranks Midway recently joined.

After over an hour of discussion and some heated debate with representatives from Midway, a divided Woodford County Fiscal Court voted Tuesday night to waive January snow removal fees for Midway while Judge-Executive John Coyle and Mayor Tom Bozarth come to a firm agreement for future salting and plowing by the county at the city’s expense.

Bozarth addresses Coyle and court; Midway Magistrate Larry Craig is behind lectern.

Coyle and the magistrates cited Midway’s June change to a fourth-class city as rationale for charging the city for snow removal after 30 years of providing the service.

“This winter marks the first winter in the history of Woodford County that this county contains two fourth-class cities,” Coyle said in a statement he read to the court before opening the floor for debate. He said the county’s other fourth-class city, Versailles, pays for its snow removal, and he thinks Midway should, too: “I felt—and feel, that we need to be consistent.” For a PDF of the statement, click here.

Coyle presented three options to the court, but said he opposed the third option, to provide free snow removal for the remainder of the season. The others were to bill Midway for all 2012 snow removal or waive the January cost while an agreement is worked out. “We would not harm and have not harmed the citizens of Midway,” Coyle said.

Midway representatives at the meeting argued that the county’s Dec. 15 decision to no longer provide free snow removal for Midway was unfair and left them unable to weigh their options in a timely manner.

“I didn’t know about it until the Wednesday before the snowstorm,” Bozarth said. He referred to communication delays, but did not mention that the major delay appeared to be caused by Midway Magistrate Larry Craig missing Coyle’s email about the decision. Craig acknowledged that at the last city council meeting, when the council voted to continue paying the county’s cost for snow removal in Midway for 30 days.

“Somebody dropped the ball,” Bozarth said. “All I’m saying is notify us. ... I asked for 30 days when we can look at this and explore all of our options.”

Coyle conceded in his opening statement that the late decision was regrettable, but said his initial email to the court was met by no resistance from the magistrates, so he moved ahead.

“In hindsight, perhaps we should have had this discussion we are about to have in the fall,” Coyle said. “However, it wasn’t until winter’s approach that it truly dawned on me. I felt that as judge-executive of all Woodford County that I needed to make my position known and act quickly. … I thought I had the full support of the court. I guess I’m about to find out if, in fact, I do.”

Coyle did have the support of the court, generally, except that of Craig, who said the third option, least expensive for Midway, would be “a good compromise.”

Magistrate Duncan Gardiner broached the subject of what other aspects of the county-city relationship Midway’s change in status might affect, and called on County Attorney Alan George to explain the differences between a fourth- and a fifth- class city.

“I don’t know if the differences are great or small,” George said. It would be nice to have that discussion—which we haven’t had.”

Coyle suggested, and some magistrates agreed, that Midway had sought its status change before fully weighing other changes it could bring.

“It is my sincere belief and understanding that the sole motivating factor for the change by Midway was so that the few thousand dollars Midway it raised in alcohol sales and licenses would go to the Midway city coffers and not to of the Woodford County government,” Coyle said.

“For those who raise the budget concerns, I ask was the budget effect even discussed or rationalized by the leaders who sought reclassification? ... Or was it, as I think it was, simply about getting the alcohol money as quickly as possible without a plan in place to deal with other ramifications of acquiring a fourth-class city classification?”

Magistrate Jackie Brown said, “Y’all need to look into stuff before getting into it.”

Bozarth acknowledged, "The alcohol issue was probably the root" of the classification change, which was done by the legislature at Midway's request. Coyle noted that Midway has fewer than 3,000 people, which he thought was the minimum for fourth class, and noted that another such city's new fourth-class status is being challenged in court.

For Midway citizens, however, the issue had less to do with city classification than with late notification.
“To me, it was totally an issue of timing,” Martha Heckerman told the court. “If that had been done in public, clearly it would have been in the newspaper.”

City Council Member and Mayor Pro Tem Sharon Turner questioned what her county taxes really paid for. “I might be a resident of Midway, but I’m a citizen of Woodford County,” she said.

“We can’t do it for you,” Brown replied. “We don’t’ do it for Versailles.”

On a motion to approve Coyle’s first option, billing Midway for this month’s snow removal and calling for a formal agreement for future work, the vote was 5 to 4 against, with Coyle voting in the minority. Then the court voted 6-2 for the second option, waiving the charge. UPDATE: According to The Woodford Sun, the "no" votes came from Craig and Ken Reed, who sided with Coyle on the first vote.

UPDATE, Jan. 26: To Bozarth's assertion at the meeting that the county would have stopped snow removal in Midway even if it had remained a fifth-class city, Coyle said today that he couldn't imagine that happening.

Becky Moore resigns from City Council, makes several suggestions; filing deadline is Jan. 31

2012-01-23T12:07:00.022-05:00

Becky Moore, who preceded Tom Bozarth as mayor of Midway, resigned today from the City Council seat she won in the November 2010 election. Meanwhile, one of her allies, Council Member Joy Arnold, has announced that she will not file for re-election this year. (Photo by Dick Yarmy)

Moore and Bozarth, who was elected mayor in 2006 and again in 2010, have had their difficulties, which are reflected in her resignation letter:

Mayor Bozarth and City Council Members,
I have decided to resign from Midway's City Council. This letter is to officially notify you of this decision. My approach to public service has always been to be inclusive and positive. I encourage and appreciate citizens who want to participate and volunteer in our Community. With this is in mind I make the following suggestions:
1.) Council members vote and should participate in all decisions that will make our Community the best it can be. All council members need all the information to do this. I challenge you to share all e-mails, phone calls and letters among all the Council. Simply put, what the Mayor Pro Tem knows, regarding Midway, all Council members should know.
2.) Vote to remove the city's primary, which would move the filing date to run for office, in an election year, from January to August. According to the Kentucky League of Cities, 90 percent of the fourth through fifth class cities have eliminated their primaries. (Second and third class cities are required to have a primary.) Our January deadline has always come and gone before most people ever think about running for Mayor or Council.
3.) Lighten up. The meetings are oppressive. We are all there because we should want to work together to help our community, we are not antagonists. Rearrange the room so we can see each other and be seen by visitors, reporters and speakers.
4.) Do not underestimate the desire of our citizens to volunteer. This can be a HUGE help to the City if the City appreciates and encourages it.
Respectfully,
Becky Moore

The mayor pro tem, Sharon Turner, has been generally an ally of Bozarth. She said in an email that she had not withheld information from other council members, and "I have never had a problem with a lack of communication with anyone. . . . I can't answer a question that hasn't been asked - and frankly, Becky has not asked any question that I haven't answered. Nor do I believe that to be the case with our mayor or city staff."

State law calls for Turner and the other four remaining council members to appoint a replacement to fill the 11-plus months remaining in Moore's unexpired term. Bozarth, who at his request was interviewed by email, said he had no one in mind for a replacement.

In an interview with the Messenger's Cassidy Herrington, Moore said the primary communication problem is between Bozarth and the council. She said Bozarth has not replied to some of her emails.

Asked about that, Bozarth replied, "I have answered the emails and questions. I wish I could say the same about emails from the mayor." He also said, "I have tried to share all information and encouraged ALL council members to ask questions."

Council Member Joy Arnold told reporter Kristen Vinson in an email that the meeting agendas Bozarth prepares "give us very little information about what to expect. Though we are usually given names of people that will be making presentations, we're rarely informed of the subject they will address. . . . I do often feel that the mayor and others seem to think that as long as they know something, that is sufficient." Asked to reply to that, Bozarth did not.

Arnold, who was elected last year on an informal slate with Moore and Dan Roller, said she was sad to see Moore resign, adding, "She's gotten tired and feels she's not accomplishing anything, so she'd rather look at the rest that life has to offer."

Arnold said she will not run for re-election this year, to devote her energies to another cause, and has a letter in tonight's Woodford Sun urging others to run. Council Members Aaron Hamilton and Doris Leigh have been generally aligned with Turner and Bozarth, who as mayor can vote on council issues only to break ties.

The filing deadline for nonpartisan council seats in this year's elections is 4 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 31, at the county clerk's office at the courthouse in Versailles. If more than 12 people file for the six seats, a primary would reduce the general-election ballot to 12. Last year, due to retirements and a withdrawal, only six candidates were on the November ballot.

Moore said that without a primary, there would be an August filing deadline, and "A lot more people might be interested in running." She said next Tuesday's filing deadline influenced the timing of her announcement. "I think people needed to know that I was not going to be on the ballot."

Bozarth, left, replied, "I don't think January compared to August will make a difference if you are interested in running for public office. Every candidate should do their do diligence and attend council meetings to learn the issues if they have a true interest in running. I know before I filed to run I attended council meetings."

Arnold said, "I have not found our meetings to be all that instructive to the public."

The council meeting tables were recently rearranged to put all council members in a row with Bozarth, City Attorney Phil Moloney and City Clerk Phyllis Hudson at a 90-degree angle facing the audience. (See photo in item below.) "The tables were rearranged at Mrs. Moore's request," Bozarth said in his email.

Moore's reference to volunteering reflects difficulties between Bozarth and Midway Renaissance, which have been documented in several Midway Messenger stories. Asked by email to describe his relationship with Moore, Bozarth left that question unanswered.

Efforts to reach other council members for comment were unsuccessful. Arnold said, "Tom has a very different style of communication from Becky. I was not paying much attention when Becky was mayor, but I do understand that their relationship in grounded in history."

UPDATE: In his weekly column in The Woodford Sun this evening Bozarth mentioned the resignation said, "I want to thank Becky for her public service, six years as a council member and eight years as mayor and the things that were accomplished. I wish Becky and John the best of luck in their future endeavors." Moore is married to Midway dentist John Moore.

County cites city's new fourth-class status in stopping free salting and snow removal in Midway

2012-01-18T16:25:00.005-05:00

By Cassidy Herrington, Martha Groppo, Lauren Conrad and Justin Wright
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

Midway’s recently gained status as a fourth-class city might have come at a cost it did not anticipate.

Last night the City Council discussed the startling news that Woodford County would no longer provide snow removal services in Midway, and voted to continue a temporary arrangement in which the city pays the county’s costs for the work.

County Judge-Executive John Coyle told Mayor Tom Bozarth in a Jan. 13 letter that the county made the change because Midway became a fourth-class city in July. Versailles, a fourth-class city, removes its own snow and Coyle said "the consensus of the court" is that the cities should be treated alike.

"The decision to reclassify Midway as a fourth-class city, which, quite frankly, caught me by surprise, prompted this move," Coyle said. For a copy of the letter, and the Jan. 12 letter from Bozarth that prompted it, click here.

After the meeting, Council Member Sharon Turner said she thought retribution was an underlying motive. When Midway gained more control over alcohol restrictions under its fourth-class city status, it shifted about $3,000 in alcohol fees from the county to the city, she said.

Coyle said in a telephone interview this morning, "I think they will receive close to $6,000 [in alcohol license fees] but that wasn't the reason. I wanted to treat both fourth-class cities the same." He said Midway officials should have considered the ramifications of a higher classification.

But last night, the tenor of Coyle’s reply and the nature of his decision had some council members wondering if more factors were at play in the decision than the pursuit of fairness. “There must be some other dynamic,” Council Member Becky Moore said. The population of Versailles is more than four times that of Midway, according to the 2010 census.

Dan Roller, the only council member to vote against continuing the temporary arrangement, cited Coyle’s "consensus of the court" line and suggested the council not pay for the snow removal until it could be determined whether the decision had been made by the fiscal court.

Craig was unable to cite a day or meeting at which consensus had been reached, and apologized for being several days late in reading an email that Coyle had sent the magistrates advising them of the decision. Once he read it, he said, “I fought very passionately to leave things the way they were.”

When asked if the decision may have been made in violation of the state Open Meetings Act, Craig responded, “I will refer you to Judge Coyle.” The law prohibits public agencies from reaching decisions outside open sessions. Coyle said this morning that the decision was his, and that his email to the court was advisory.

Midway became a fourth class city in July 2011. Council members questioned why the county decided to halt assisting Midway with snow removal now, as opposed to months ago. They noted that Midway residents pay county taxes that are to assist in maintaining safe roadways for citizens, including snow removal. City Attorney Phil Moloney said the county is under no legal obligation to provide the city with snow removal.

Bozarth said nothing had been mentioned about the county ending this service prior to the statement last week. Craig said he did not read email for several days during the holidays and was late in learning of the decision. He apologized for that. (Photo: Craig speaks with council)

Midway officials learned last Wednesday, Jan. 11, that the county was no longer going to provide the service to the city, the day before much of Kentucky was predicted to get several inches of snow. In an effort to protect public safety, Coyle and Bozarth agreed that the county would continue to assist the city with salt and snow removal needs at an at-cost charge to Midway.

The cost of three trips made by the county road department to Midway for salting and snow removal from 4:20 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 12 through 8:55 a.m. Friday, Jan. 13 was $1,233, according to a written statement from the county engineer.

Craig said that to protect public safety, he assisted in dedicating a county truck to the treatment of Midway roads when winter weather hits until an agreement between the city and county can be reached. He and council members questioned Midway citizens paying county taxes for a service they are no longer going to be provided.

The county decided to stop treating Midway roads during winter snow after doing the work for 30 years, Bozarth said. He said it would be difficult to find a more cost-effective option this late in the season, when salt is more expensive and private contractors already have their assignments.

Water advisories, money and vultures

Other items on last night's agenda included potential emergency alert changes, use of the city’s invested funds and a growing vulture problem.

Community member Phil Burchell attended the meeting, requesting an improved emergency notification system after he did not receive timely notification of a boil-water advisory in effect over the weekend. “It was Sunday before we knew it was out there,” he said.

Burchell’s main concern was whether the advisory meant that the water was not safe to drink. Keith Slugantz, the Woodford County emergency coordinator, said the notice was only an advisory and a preventive, and that if contamination had been found in the water, officials would have taken steps to notify every customer.

Burchell said the city needs a “one call” computerized system that will reach all phones in the city. Slugantz said his department could provide such a system, but that he would have to bill Midway if the number of minutes used exceeded his monthly allotment. The council agreed to discuss the issue further, and also compare costs with another provider.

During a discussion of financial-management issues with city auditor Bob Ryan, Roller said he would like to see the city's two certificates of deposit, totaling $711,000, "transferred into actual, usable accounts." Bozarth and Turner, who is mayor pro tem, disagreed.

"They're being carried for rainy-day funds, for any emergency," Turner said.

Turner called vultures roosting behind Midway Christian Church "a major issue. . . . It's got to be four times the amount of birds it was when we started talking about this." Some efforts were made to roust the birds last winter, but the effect was unclear because the weather soon warmed and the roost is a cold-weather phenomenon.

Council to consider alcohol and parking ordinances

2012-01-12T23:42:00.000-05:00

The agenda for Tuesday's Midway City Council meeting will be changed to include first reading of two ordinances that cleared a council committee this morning.

The Finance, City Property and Ordinance Committee approved a new alcohol ordinance to conform to Midway's new status as a fourth-class city, which gives it more authority on the subject. "Basically all those changes were just housekeeping to move us from fifth class to fourth class," Committee Chairman Sharon Turner said.

Turner proposed, and the committee agreed, to delete a section of the ordinance that would give the city the power to levy an extra tax on alcohol sales. "None of the cities around us have a tax like that," she said. "There's enough taxes and stuff on our products now . . . and I don't think it would bring in that much."

Turner proposed, and the committee agreed, to add a section requiring training for alcohol servers. She said it was borrowed from the ordinance in Manchester. "I think you;re eventually going to see the state mandate training statewide," said Turner, who works for a beer company.

The committee also approved a new ordinance on parking tickets that would mirror the ordinances of the county and Versailles, on the thinking that Versailles police patrol the whole county and the ordinances should be the same to avoid confusion.

In the other item of business, Mayor Tom Bozarth told the committee that the city's certificates of deposit haven't been broken up to get under the federal insurance limit, as recommended by a recent audit. "We could get a lower rate than we're getting now," he said. In response to a question from Council Member Dan Roller, Bozarth said one CD comes up for renewal in June or August.

Midway College pharmacy school in Paintsville would be a branch of University of Charleston

2012-01-11T19:05:00.000-05:00

Midway College and the University of Charleston announced today that the West Virginia school would establish and operate the pharmacy school that the college has planned in Paintsville.

On Dec. 28 the schools signed a letter of intent starting a 60-day "due diligence" period, during which the they will "explore the feasibility and ramifications of the expansion and seek approval from the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education," they said in a press release. "If a final agreement is reached, the University of Charleston would operate the school of pharmacy in Kentucky as a branch campus and deliver its full four-year Pharm.D. program in Paintsville beginning in January 2013."

The Charleston school is accredited and graduated its first class in 2010. Midway started moving toward a pharmacy program in Eastern Kentucky two years ago, and has renovated a 36,000-square-foot building in Paintsville and started recruiting faculty and students. The university will interview Midway faculty and staff for Paintsville positions if a final agreement is reached. Students who have been accepted by Midway will have to re-apply to the university for admission.

"The agreement between the two schools paves the way for an innovative collaboration," the press release said. "It enables Midway College to fulfill the intent of its major donors to train pharmacists in Paintsville and serve the educational needs of the area, while allowing the University of Charleston to expand its footprint and grow its already strong academic program." The campus will be known as the Perry Center for Pharmacy Education, after the late Chad Perry of Paintsville, its major donor.

"Midway College sees this as the most prudent means of bringing pharmacy education to the area and fulfilling all of our goals," Midway President William Drake Jr. said in the release. "Building a school from the ground up takes great effort, time, money and innovation. This collaboration is innovative; we are matching our turnkey facility with UC's existing curriculum to move along the process of realizing the dream of opening a school of pharmacy in Paintsville less expensively for all involved."

Council committee to review alcohol ordinance, parking-ticket policies, money in the bank

2012-01-10T13:25:00.000-05:00

The Finance, City Property and Ordinance Committee of the Midway City Council will meet Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012 at 8 a.m. at City Hall to review and make recommendations regarding necessary changes to the alcohol ordinance, review parking-ticket changes and get a certificate-of-deposit update. All meetings of council committees are open to the public.

Christian Church dinner Jan. 30 will be chili cookoff

2012-01-10T13:22:00.000-05:00

Midway Christian Church's next free, monthly community dinner will be held Monday, Jan. 30 at 6:30 p.m. as a community chili cook-off. All residents of Midway are invited to enter a pot of chili for judging. First, second and third prizes will be given. Call 846-4102 by Jan. 23 to enter your pot of chili. For more information, contact Minister Heather McColl at the same number.

City council will meet Tuesday at 5:30 p.m.

2012-01-10T09:37:00.001-05:00

The Midway City Council will meet Tuesday, Jan. 17 at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall, a day later than the usual schedule because of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. The agenda includes a certificate of support for a new business, Homeplace of Midway, and discussion of recycling issues, as a follow-up from the town meeting in May. City auditor Robert Ryan, CPA, is listed as a guest for the meeting.

Second son of Ferdinand moves to Old Friends

2011-12-29T22:36:00.003-05:00

A second son of Ferdinand, the Kentucky Derby winner that was apparently sold for slaughter in Japan, is now living at Old Friends, the Thoroughbred retirement farm in Scott County between Midway and Georgetown.

Ferdinand’s Star, a son of the 1986 Derby winner and the Dare to Command mare Rose and Betty, is a 16-year-old gelding who was retired from racing after winning one of 10 starts. He was retrained for competitive dressage, then was donated to the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation "after he was no longer able to compete due to soundness issues," said a story in The Blood-Horse.

TRF send the horse to the Maker’s Mark Secretariat Center in 2008, where he was a lightly used school horse and a mascot for the facility, "but a tendon injury ended his career for the second time," the story said. "Before retiring to Old Friends, Ferdinand’s Star was briefly part of the equine rehabilitation program at Blackburn Correctional Complex near Lexington and also spent several months being 'clicker' trained by Kentucky-based artist and equine advocate Marti McGinnis. Ferdinand’s Star will spend his remaining years at Old Friends in a paddock alongside Bull Inthe Heather, another son of Ferdinand." (Read more)

Midway native Teresa Jones James named acting head of state Dept. of Community Based Services

2011-12-19T18:38:00.002-05:00

A Midway native has been named acting commissioner of the embattled state Department for Community Based Services, which has been under fire for its handling of child abuse and neglect cases.

The challenging assignment goes to Teresa James, who has been the department's deputy commissioner since April 2008 and "has 25 years of clinical social work experience, including more than 17 years working with severely abused and neglected children and their families and four years working with vulnerable adults," a state news release said.

James is the daughter of Clyde and Carolyn Jones and the second cousin of City Council member Doris J. Leigh, according to Mayor Tom Bozarth. James received bachelor’s and master's degrees in social work from Eastern Kentucky University and the University of Kentucky, respectively, and has been a licensed clinical social worker since 1993.

“Teresa is a proud and passionate social worker who has a wide range of experiences in her field,” Health and Family Services Secretary Janie Miller said in the release. “She has worked in pediatric medical settings with the issues of abuse and neglect and has dealt with issues surrounding children with chronic illness and severe health needs. She has also performed trauma and crisis intervention work and was a domestic violence trainer, educating more than 4,000 medical professionals a year on the issues surrounding violence in families.” When she worked in Florida, James helped develop a medical foster parenting program that "became the model for many states around the country," the release said.

James replaces Patricia Wilson, who quit this month as her department and cabinet continued to lose court battles with newspapers over records relating to their handling of child abuse and neglect and Gov. Steve Beshear told the agencies to be more transparent and accountable. For background from the Lexington Herald-Leader, click here.

City council will not meet Monday

2011-12-17T10:23:00.002-05:00

The Midway City Council will not hold its regularly scheduled meeting on Monday, Dec. 19.

Rollins upbeat, Carroll cautious on Beshear's plan for constitutional amendment to expand gambling

2011-12-14T18:06:00.004-05:00

Democratic state Rep. Carl Rollins of Midway, left, sees support for a constitutional amendment to expand gambling, proposed by Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear in his second inaugural address yesterday, but Democratic Sen. Julian Carroll, whose district includes Woodford County, "says any proposal must be vetted before there’s a vote," Kevin Wheatley of the Frankfort State Journal reports today.

The issue is of particular interest around Midway, because it is pushed by the Thoroughbred industry as a way to keep racing horses and breeding stock from leaving Kentucky for states where slot machines and casino table games finance race purses and breeders' awards. The idea has been blocked in the Senate, where President David Williams has been its most powerful foe, but Williams lost to Beshear in last month's election and now says there are enough Senate to pass it, depending on its content.

Carroll indicated similar caution. “I think there are a lot of questions that need to be thought through before we start putting that on the ballot because it’s not a question of the right of the people to vote on the issue, but it is a question of once it’s voted on,” he told Wheatley. “I am deeply concerned about some of the influences that are going to come in here with a constitutional amendment issue, so I want to see the legislation itself before I make a commitment.”

If three-fifths of each chamber voted for an amendment in the legislative session that will run from January until April, the proposal would be put to voters on the November ballot.

Rollins "said he’s heard positive comments from fellow lawmakers regarding a constitutional amendment," but wants it to start in the Senate, which in 2009 killed a House-passed bill for slots at racetracks. “Once before we took a hard vote on it. It was hard for a lot of members, not for me, and then the Senate killed it in committee. Never even heard it,” he told Wheatley. (Read more)

Christmas-tree lighting brings season to town

2011-12-14T12:03:00.004-05:00

Story and photo by Dick Yarmy

While the daily news of the last three weeks may have stuffed coal in our stockings, touting political gridlock, financial institutions misplacing funds, an lack Friday violence, the city of Midway gave its residents a present –– the annual Christmas tree lighting.

Friday night, a crowd of more than 100 including families, students, friends and neighbors waited in the glow of decorated store fronts and mercury vapors for WLEX-18 weekend anchor Nikki Burdine (at left in photo) and Mayor Tom Bozarth to light the tree.

Burdine greeted the crowd and remarked how impressed she was by the city. "I'm really thrilled you asked me to be part of this,” she said. "I'm going to get out of Lexington and come down here more often ... especially for dinner.”

John McDaniel of the local business organization enlisted help from local students to pass out Christmas-carol lyrics and the crowd joined Bozarth and Burdine for a community sing.

The event might not have come up to the stereotypical Norman Rockwell or Frank Capra standards –– but was well worth witnessing.

Burdine’s dinner comment must have stuck a note with the crowd –– many went directly from the event to queue up for tables at downtown restaurants to share in the cheer.

Property maintenance panel won't meet tonight

2011-12-13T16:31:00.002-05:00

The following notice was sent by City Council Member Dan Roller, chairman of the council's Property Maintenance Committee: "We were unable to secure an official 24-hour notice to schedule an official meeting of MPMC on Tuesday, December 13, at 6:30 p.m. at the Midway Library and therefore will have no meeting . . . or recommendations on the Midway Property Maintenance Code for the City Council meeting scheduled for Monday December 19. Recommendations will be delayed until 2012. Thank you."

Midway mayor has been at the center of 'righting the ship' at the Kentucky League of Cities

2011-12-11T13:14:00.003-05:00

By Dick Yarmy
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

Five hundred days ago, news coverage of the Kentucky League of Cities depicted a listing ship, awash in staff executives’ extravagant spending and mismanagement of the organization that provides insurance and many other services to cities.

That ship has been righted, according to Midway Mayor Tom Bozarth, left, and other recently elected officers of the league.

Bozarth, the league's second vice president, said the problems that culminated in the resignation of Sylvia Lovely as executive director were a learning experience for the three new officers. “We were on the executive board when it broke,” he said. “Bottom line is, we didn’t ask enough questions.”

The transition to new leadership was difficult. “We were basically a split board,” he said, with staunch supporters of Lovely on one side and members whom Bozarth considered more objective on the other side. “We started apart,” he said. “Then over the year we came together in the middle, and in the end became a stronger board.”

“Our national search uncovered some good candidates; we decided on Jon Steiner and it’s been a good hire for the league,” Bozarth said. “The attitude of the employees has been like night and day; it’s been a good transition.”

The hiring of Steiner as CEO and an increase in transparency have restored pride to the member cities, KLC President and Paducah Mayor William Paxton said in a news release.

“The executive director hit the ground running,” Lyndon Mayor Susan Barto, the first vice president, said in a telephone interview with the Midway Messenger. “He’s been out to visit two-thirds of the cities and he’s open about everything. Anyone in the general public that wants to know how the KLC runs can go to a meeting ... our records are open and we respond to everything.”

After questions about the management of KLC and the Kentucky Association of Counties, first raised in both cases by the Lexington Herald-Leader, the legislature made them subject to state open-records and open-meetings laws.

Barto said KLC provides products and services to 382 member cities. (Kentucky has 420 cities.) “KLC does nothing but help cities,” she said. “We provide legal advice, legislative programs, lobbying, as well as financial and insurance programs.”

Bozarth said the training provided by the league is critical for small cities like Midway. “People who run for office in small cities have no political experience. They need to reach out and have someone help them learn,” he said. “That’s what the league does.”

Barto called the training “invaluable.” She said she hadn’t been an elected official before becoming mayor of her Jefferson County city, and “ I knew nothing. . . . I came in as mayor with absolutely no training. They were there to bail me out and give me all the information I needed.”

Bozarth said KLC’s services are a bargain for the dues the cities pay, in Midway’s case $495 a year. “We get that back ten-fold,” he said. “They have the support staff –– it’s like having more employees working for you.”

As examples, Bozarth cited the league’s legal help. “They answer legal questions and provide sample ordinances, cutting down on our legal fees,” he said. For example, league staff helped a recent alcohol ordinance, the insurance discounts for being a drug-free work place and the firefighter grants KLC awarded the city.

Barto also gives the League’s staff high marks. “ They have a remarkable staff,” she said. “They really do care about cities. Members of the staff will work with the individual cities to help develop a personalized master plan, a strategic plan and other concepts to encourage citizen’s involvement.”

Kentucky’s cities and towns have a wide range of sizes and demographics, but have common issues. according to Barto. “Retirement is the biggest issue,” she said. “ If you have a police or fire department you’re paying almost 39 percent in retirement benefits. You have nowhere to pass the buck at the local level –– we have to operate on a balanced budget.”

The league’s accomplishments after the reorganization appear to have been noticed by its members. The last convention had 64 percent more attendance than the previous one. Bozarth credited the increase to a good program, calling out the drug summit in particular. “We addressed problems that were common across the state,” he said.

Bozarth also called attention to KLC’s legislative accomplishments. “We got eight pieces of legislation passed for cities” in this year’s short legislative session,“ he said “We get behind any issue that will impact a city.”

One of those bills allows incentive pay for city officials who get training. Bozarth said that was a good example of legislation bubbling up from the city level: He said Carl Ellis, a Versailles council member, asked state Rep. Carl Rollins of Midway why cities didn’t have a voluntary training program similar to the mandated program offered by the counties’ association. Rollins and Bozarth presented the idea and it was placed on KLC’s legislative agenda. The bill failed to pass the first time, but passed a year later.

Midway and Versailles have passed ordinances implementing the incentive pay. The Midway ordinance was questioned by some council members, but passed. Bozarth considers the passage an accomplishment and places a high value on training. “I believe people should be compensated for getting training,” he said. “They sacrifice a lot of time for just $50 a month,” the salary of a council member.

Bozarth said KLC has “righted the ship” and is going in the right direction. “When we started asking questions and looking into things we got a real education,” he said. “We lost some trust with members, but with the changes we’ve made, we’ve regained that trust.”

Council hears new reasons for siding delay and discusses crime and Elkhorn Creek pollution

2011-12-07T00:00:00.004-05:00

By Dick Yarmy
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

Construction of the downtown railroad siding has been delayed by disagreements with CSX Corp., the big railroad that owns the right of way, R.J. Corman Corp. Chairman Fred Mudge told the Midway City Council Monday night. He said the project, slated for completion this year, has also been delayed by protracted negotiations with the state Transportation Cabinet and by unseasonal weather conditions in areas where Corman's crews do rail construction and repair

Mudge didn't specify the disagreements with CSX, which leases the rail line to Corman, but he said they were minor and said he expects the project to be completed next year.

Mudge also updated the council on Rick Corman’s struggle with cancer. Corman is commuting between home and Boston, Mass., where he is receiving experimental drug treatment for the disease. Mudge said Corman is responding well to the chemotherapy, and “We’re all hoping he continues to go in the same direction and the treatment is successful.”

Midway has enjoyed a good relationship with Corman, who has made special trains available as a centerpiece for community events, including bringing Santa Claus to town for the upcoming holiday season.

Citizens urged to report unusual behavior

Assistant Chief Fugate of the Versailles Police Department reported that incidents needing police attention are on par with last year, but warned that citizens too often fail to report unusual behavior. Afterward, Mayor Tom Bozarth said he requested the chief’s visit. “These are tough times in central Kentucky,” Bozarth said. “It’s desperate times for a lot of people and a lot of bad things are going on. I just want neighbors to look out for their neighbors and to report anything suspicious to the Versailles police dispatch so we can all look after each other.”

Council reacts to article on Elkhorn Creek pollution

In a spirited discussion, the council reacted to the Dec. 1 Messenger article regarding pollution standards for the South Elkhorn Creek watershed. Council Member Dan Roller asked Bozarth for clarification on the operation of the city's wastewater treatment plant, which a state study said puts an average of 43 fecal coliform colonies per 100 milliliters of water into Lee Branch. The state limit is 200 per ml. Roller mentioned that the study covered a period where the water was treated by the city’s old plant.

In a later interview, Roller said he was concerned about how the study could differentiate between pollution stemming from the plant and that coming from livestock farms. A former state employee, he said state agencies would most likely continue to set the bar higher toward a better environmental standard.

At the meeting, Bozarth related a conversation with sewer-plant manager Mark Roberts and assured the council the plant was operating within the present guidelines, quoting the same figures as the report. In a later interview Bozarth said, “I took a little exception to the article because it gives the impression the city is doing something wrong and the city’s not doing anything wrong. We operate the plant well within the boundaries the state requires. I was just taken aback when I first read the article.”

Bozarth noted that developments on KY 341 north of town are served by septic tanks that have drain fields approaching the creek. Those were not mentioned in the state report.

Midway Messenger Publisher Al Cross said afterward that the state report did not assert that the city was in violation, but indicated that the sewer plant might be one obstacle to making the creek swimmable if the state decided to try to achieve that standard.

Midway to light Christmas tree Friday night

Downtown Midway will hold its annual downtown Christmas tree lighting ceremony, Friday, Dec. 9, at 6:30 pm. Nikki Burdine, Channel 18 weekend news anchor, will be this year’s special guest.

Environment agency seeking comments on bacterial pollution of South Elkhorn Creek

2011-12-01T12:19:00.004-05:00

The Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet is seeking public comment until Jan. 2 on a draft report on bacterial pollution in nine stream segments and two springs in the South Elkhorn Creek watershed, including some in and near Midway.

One stream segment is the last mile of Lee Branch, which flows through Midway. It is polluted with fecal colifrm bacteria, presumably from livestock farms and the City of Midway sewage-treatment plant. Almost all of South Elkhorn Creek, which forms the northeast boundary of Woodford County, is similarly contaminated for those and similar reasons, the report says.

The Midway treatment plant's permit allows its discharge to contain 200 fecal coliform colonies for every 100 milliliters of water. The report says the plant's average from 1983 to 2003 was 43 colonies per 100 ml.

The federal Clean Water Act requires the state to identify waters where designated uses are not being met and water quality impairments exist, and to prioritize the list of impaired waters, calculate a total maximum daily load (TMDL) of pollutants for those waters and devise plans to improve the water quality. A TMDL is a calculated amount of pollutants a particular water body may contain and remain unimpaired for its designated use.

The report by the state Division of Water addresses bacterial pollution in the South Elkhorn Creek watershed at levels that makes the streams unsuitable for swimming. The report includes data and procedures used to calculate the TMDL for the stream segments. Revisions to the report may be made following the public comment period and before it is sent to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for approval.

The report may be viewed on the Division of Water website here. (It's a 277-page PDF that may take a while to load if your connection is slow.) Comments should be sent in writing to Eric Liebenauer, Division of Water, 200 Fair Oaks Lane, Frankfort, KY 40601, or by e-mail to eric.liebenauer@ky.gov.

Property Maintenance Committee to met at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the branch library

2011-11-28T14:31:00.000-05:00

The Midway Property Maintenance Committee will meet Tuesday evening, Nov. 29 at 6:30 p.m. at the Woodford County Library Midway Branch, 400 Northside Drive. The purposes of the meeting are to prepare recommendations on the inspection process and office procedures, discuss proposed legislation and citizen offers of assistance with Main Street properties. As with all City Council and Property Maintenance Committee meetings, the meeting is open to the public.

Comprehensive plan mostly approved; equine preserve remains, parkway reference deleted

2011-11-14T17:36:00.002-05:00

By Nate Courtney
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

The county planning commission voted Thursday night to adopt a new land-use plan that keeps the protection the agricultural-equine preserve in the northern part of Woodford County.

In addition to the ag-equine protection, the commission voted to delete any mention of extending the Bluegrass Parkway to Interstate 64, a project that would have to go through northeast Woodford County and some of the richest soil and horse farms in Kentucky.

But the commission did vote to include extension of Falling Springs Boulevard to U.S. 60 and Midway Road – the only issue Midway Mayor Tom Bozarth spoke about at the public hearing on the plan a week earlier.

Bozarth said then that extending Falling Springs Boulevard would “adversely affect the city of Midway, all of the farms, and anyone who travels Midway Road regularly” because it would “put more traffic on Midway Road.”

But commission Chair Brian Traugott said this road extension was in the state’s six-year road plan and “to ignore that fact was not proper planning.”

In his column in tonight's Woodford Sun, Bozarth, a bloodstock agent, said the commission "made the right decisions," and specifically mentioned the equine preserve.

Versailles Mayor Fred Siegelman, who had endorsed the entire plan at the hearing, said Thursday night that the Bluegrass Parkway extension “had been talked about for 30 years” and didn’t think it would be built “in his lifetime or the lifetime of his kids.”

Several residents at the hearing complained that the commission had not made clear its reasons for the changes and that the speakers could not engage the commissioners in direct conversation. At Thursday's meeting only the commissioners spoke; Traugott, David Floyd and Jim Boggs, read prepared statements.

After reading his statement and motion, Traugott defended the plan, saying he’s concerned about the lack of manufacturing jobs in the county and that the county’s number of people 60 and older rose 45 percent from 2000 to 2010.

“These facts do not bode well for our future,” he said.

Still, Traugott has not lost his since of humor.

He said he got “one positive email,” saying, “The revisions to the comp plan were well thought out and I loved your editorial in The Woodford Sun. Love, Mom.”

The protections for the equine preserve were the commission’s biggest obstacle in passing the land-use plan.

In a post-meeting interview Traugott said that the commission never wanted “anything bad to happen to the horse farms” and added he was “very pleased with the vote.”

For a copy of Traugott's four-page motion to approve the plan, click here.

Renaissance offers volunteers to pick up Nov. 19 cleanup-day items, pay for disposal of 100 tires

2011-11-11T14:31:00.002-05:00

The Midway Renaissance Greenspace committee is offering support to the city of Midway’s Nov. 19 trash collection day.

Citizens who are not able to deliver articles to the old sewage treatment plant can call City Hall and arrange for Greenspace volunteers to load and transport their articles.

In an effort to promote the recycling of old tires, Greenspace will pay the 8-cent-per-pound tire disposal charge for the first 100 rimless tires registered by a phone call to City Hall. Interested citizens can call and give their name, address and number of tires. The registered tires will be picked up and delivered to the recycling center by Greenspace volunteers.

Property maintenance panel sets agenda for Tue.

2011-11-11T10:25:00.002-05:00

The Midway Property Maintenance Committee will meet at the Midway Baptist Church Ministry Center, 121 S. Winter St., Tuesday evening, Nov. 15, at 6:30 p.m. The committee will hear a speaker on preventing property invasions by wildlife, review an updated property list, and discuss proposed legislation, the inspection process and a citizen offer of assistance with Main Street properties.

As with all City Council and Property Maintenance Committee meetings, the meeting is open to the public.

Midway, Woodford among places that favored Galbraith over Williams in election for governor

2011-11-09T22:52:00.002-05:00

Gatewood Galbraith

Independent gubernatorial candidate Gatewood Galbraith beat Republican nominee David Williams in four counties in Tuesday's election, including Woodford County, where Galbraith came in second in most precincts, including the City of Midway.

Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear got 3,632 votes in the county, or 51 percent, while Galbraith received 1,771 (25 percent) and Williams tallied 1,674 (24 percent).

In the Midway city precinct, the vote was Beshear 296, or 58 percent; Galbraith 123, about 24 percent; and Williams 90, just under 18 percent. (Galbraith's best precincts in the county were High School, 33 percent, and Nonesuch, 32 percent.)

In the Midway county precinct, outside the city limits, Beshear got 157 (58.6 percent), Williams 59 (22 percent) and Galbraith 52 (19.4 percent). The other Woodford precincts in which Galbraith placed third were the Depot Street Community Center and the two Huntertown School precincts.

Other counties where Galbraith placed second were Franklin, home of his running mate for lieutenant governor, Dea Riley; Nicholas, his home county; and Bourbon, between Nicholas and Fayette County, where he lives and practices law. In Fayette, he placed a close third, with 22 percent of the county's vote. For all counties' results, click here.

Interviews with voters in South Lexington suggested that much of Galbraith's vote came from Republicans who were unhappy with Williams. For that story, by University of Kentucky journalism student Lauren Forsythe, click here.

Lexington-Louisville cooperation plan is not about development along Interstate 64, Jim Host says

2011-11-06T14:42:00.004-05:00

By Al Cross
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

Efforts by Lexington and Louisville to cooperate in economic development, selling the two metropolitan areas as a "super region," might seem to raise some issues for places between them, particularly places on Interstate 64, such as Midway, and especially in light of the new comprehensive plan proposed for Woodford County.

The leader of the project is Jim Host, left, the Lexington sports entrepreneur who impressed just about everyone with his supervision of the construction of Louisville's KFC Yum Center. When Host spoke to the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council on Tuesday, he cited the Dallas-Fort Worth area as an example of a an economic super-region. He should stop that, the Lexington Herald-Leader said in an editorial.

"The image it conjures of miles of urban sprawl is an instant turnoff to many of the people whose support the regional effort will need," the newspaper said. "In fact, the committee that Host will chair should make it clear early on that preserving the rural character of the corridor between Lexington and Louisville is a priority," the editorial said. "The last thing they need is an anywhere-USA vista of glass high-rises and chain restaurants running the length of Interstate 64."

Since Midway is surrounded by some of the world's best farmland, has a white elephant of an industrial park on the other side of I-64 from the rest of the town, and may be governed by a land-use plan that could encourage traffic and road-building in its environs, we wondered what implications the Louisville-Lexington effort might have for Midway.

"This is not about us filling the gap between here and Louisville with a bunch of manufacturing plants or anything else," Host told me in an interview. "It's about teaching people how to use technology." He said Dallas and Fort Worth are connected not just by I-20 and other roads, but by education, and a major focus of his effort is to get the state's two major universities to collaborate on engineering projects and reshape the state's education system to create a more solid foundation for that.

"This doesn't have anything to do with any Woodford County industrial sites," Host said. He said the 15-member board of the Bluegrass Economic Advancement Movement will include the presidents of the two universities and the owner of a small business in Shelbyville. (Full disclosure: Host is a contributor and fund-raiser for the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, which I run.)

Beverly Fortune reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader on Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer's speech to the Lexington Rotary Club: "For too long, Lexington and Louisville have spent energy on college sports rivalries and differences that separate them, rather than looking at resources they share, Fischer said. With teamwork, the state can get ahead, he said. The goal of the economic initiative is to create high-quality jobs and to increase exports by making Kentucky a global center of excellence in advanced manufacturing." (Read more)

Big majority at public hearing object to removing Equine Preserve from county's land-use plan

2011-11-05T20:36:00.004-04:00

By Nate Courtney
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

The overwhelming majority of local residents who spoke to the Versailles-Midway-Woodford County Planning and Zoning Commission Thursday night, Nov. 3, were against removing the Agricultural-Equine Preserve district from the proposed new Comprehensive Plan.

Over and over, those at the courthouse hearing said development of the northern part of the county would destroy land that Mary Ann McCauley said has the “richest soil in the world.” (Map: limited-capability soils in dark gray; click map for larger image)

“To remove the protection from our Agricultural Equine Preserve is to set up for the destruction of one of our most valuable assets – our soil,” McCauley told the commission. “We got the goose that’s laying the golden egg. Don’t kill that goose, for if we do we’ll be left with a dirty nest.”

Community residents acknowledged that rural development might create jobs, but some asked, at what cost to the rest of the community?

Magistrate Larry Craig, who represents Midway on the Woodford County Fiscal Court, asked, “If we do away with one agricultural job to promote a new business job, what are we accomplishing?”

The elected Fiscal Court has no say over adoption of the Comprehensive Plan. That is up the commission, which is appointed by the three local governments. It could vote on it as early as Thursday, Nov. 10.

Some of speakers also objected to the plan’s suggestion that Falling Springs Boulevard be extended to the south end of Midway Road to form a southwestern bypass of Versailles, and that consideration be given to extending the Bluegrass Parkway to Interstate 64. Both could affect Midway.

The commission allowed each resident to speak for three minutes about the proposed plan but direct dialogue was not allowed between the speakers and commission members. Some speakers wanted to know why the commission would remove the Ag-Equine Preserve, in which residential subdivisions are all but banned.

Commission Chair Brian Traugott told The Woodford Sun about a month ago that removing the district “was driven by an effort to put all agriculture in Woodford County on a fair plane.” Pattie Wilson, the county planning director, said at the start of the hearing that the plan would still require residential lots in agricultural areas to be at least 30 acres.

But residents from both the northern and southern part of the county suggested a different tack: extend the preserve to the whole county, instead of removing it. (Map: County geology by rock units, with evenly bedded limestone in green; click for larger image)

“It would be just as fair to all the farmers and land owners to extend protection to the south end of the county as it would be to remove it from the northern part,” said Evan Miller, a farmer on the south end.

Hank Graddy, a Midway attorney and farm owner, agreed, reminding the commission that 20 years ago residents in the north wanted “greater protection” and “went road to road to gain 90 percent support to create the Ag-Equine Preserve.” That percentage of landowners in the district had to agree in order for it to be created.

Part of the compromise allowing the preserve was to allow cluster residential development in the southern part of the county. “I would support efforts to make it fair for north and south,” Graddy said, by making the preserve countywide.

Graddy called the proposed plan “a slap in the face of our productive farmers that wish to continue farming and thoroughbred industry,” and said, “It is out of step with the will of the overwhelming majority of people on this community.”

The crowd of about 100 gave Graddy lengthy applause after a loud buzzer signaled the end of his three minutes.

Photo by Dick Yarmy
(from city council meeting)

Midway Mayor Tom Bozarth, left, a bloodstock agent, expressed concerns only about the extension of Fallings Springs Boulevard, saying it would put more traffic on Midway Road (US 62). That would “will adversely affect the city of Midway, all the farms, and anyone who travels Midway Road,” Bozarth said. “It is a small road with little shoulders.”

Lori Garkovich, a University of Kentucky professor and Woodford County resident for 28 years, also expressed concerns regarding the future design and construction of improvements to Midway Road.

Garkovich, a rural sociologist and planning specialist speaking on behalf of the Woodford Coalition, also recommended standards in writing to the commission that she said would “preserve Midway Road’s designation as a scenic corridor and improve its safety.”

The extension of the Bluegrass Parkway to I-64 was proposed 40 years ago but dropped by the state because of the impact it would have on the Pisgah Pike Historic District and the eastern end of the Midway census tract and ZIP code.

"Why build new roads that aren't desperately needed when we desperately need when we to take care of the roads we already have?" asked former Gov. Brereton Jones, a horse breeder who lives a few miles west of Midway. "We need new roads, no question about it, but we don’t need to be destroying the prime agricultural land, the best land that exists."

Traugott said after the meeting that the commission “would absolutely consider the questions that were raised by the community residents.”

A few of the approximately 30 residents who spoke did commend the commission for shrinking the current 400-page document to about 100 pages, and endorsed it. Those included Brad McLean of Midway, chairman of the Woodford County Economic Development Authority.

McLean said the EDA gives the plan their “entire support” and thanked the Commission “for making economic development a priority.” Versailles Mayor Fred Siegelman also endorsed the plan.

Traugott said in a post-meeting interview that there were “many, many things that everybody agrees on” in the plan. “There are three or four real issues.”

The biggest issue by far was the future of the equine preserve. “The destruction of the farmland would turn Woodford County into another faceless and indistinct bedroom community,” horse farmer Richard Masson said.

He called the plan “the first step to becoming just another off ramp on a freeway instead of a famous and historic landmark and the crown jewel of the Bluegrass.” Masson received the heaviest applause of the night.

The hearing was the latest episode in a long debate between preservationists and pro-development interests in Woodford County. For background on the debate, from the current plan, click here.

Council to to name EDA member, hear from chair

2011-11-05T16:04:00.002-04:00

The agenda for the next meeting of the Midway City Council, at 5:30 p.m. Monday at City Hall, includes the proposed appointment of John Dodds to the Woodford County Economic Development Authority board and a report by Brad McLean, chairman of the EDA.

Thursday night, McLean spoke in favor of the proposed new land-use plan for the county, which is controversial because it would eliminate the equine preservation district that prohibits residential development among horse farms.

The council agenda also includes discussion of the citywide cleanup to be held Nov. 19, and continued discussion of the "full occupancy" goal first discussed at the council's town meeting on May 2. For the full agenda, click here. The agenda can be revised up to 24 hours before the meeting. All council meetings are open to the public.

Committee to meet Mon. about drainage inquiry

2011-11-04T11:56:00.003-04:00

The Midway City Council committee that handles water, street and sidewalk matters will meet Monday, Nov. 7 at 8:30 a.m. at City Hall to discuss a citizen inquiry on a drainage issue at 213 N. Winter St. All council and committee meetings are open to the public.

Property Maintenance Committee will meet next at Baptist Church; later meetings set for library

2011-10-31T16:55:00.007-04:00

The Property Maintenance Committee of the Midway City Council now plans are to meet twice a month, on Tuesdays of the weeks that follow council meetings, Chair Dan Roller advises. "Meetings will be at the library when it is available," he writes. "Alternate accessible locations will be within the city, and announced timely prior to the meetings." The next meeting will be Nov. 15 at 6:30 p.m. in the Midway Baptist Church Fellowship Hall. The Nov. 29, Dec. 13 and Dec. 27 meetings will be held at the library.

Three Chimneys Farm president says Thoroughbred industry more disciplined after 'worldwide crash'

2011-10-29T23:38:00.000-04:00

Next to the world economy, the biggest recent factor affecting the Thoroughbred breeding business that surrounds Midway was the purchase of a regional bank in Cleveland by one in Pittsburgh, Three Chimneys Farm President Chase Clay, right, told The Lane Report in an interview published in the magazine's current edition and online. But Clay says the resulting decline in breeding, also a function of the economy, wasn't entirely a bad thing, even as the industry suffered "a worldwide crash."

"PNC Bank decided to exit lending to the equine industry," Clay told Publisher Ed Lane. "National City invested an estimated $400 million in equine loans, most of which has disappeared. When less money is available for lending, there are fewer horses because bottom-end mares are not being bred. The lowest-quality mares shouldn’t have been breeding from the start. They should have been pets, in my opinion. The breeders with the lowest-quality mares didn’t have the borrowing capability or the cash to breed the horse, so they didn’t breed them. There are some positives to that. Now it’s more of a flight to quality, which is a good thing. As supply declines – 4,500 horses as opposed to 5,500 – and demand remains the same, then prices go up, which thankfully happened this year," most notably at the September yearling sales at Keeneland.

Clay, 37, said breeders, trainers and owners tell him 2009 and 2010 were "the most difficult financially for our industry" that they can remember. "If our industry can maintain the discipline that it learned over the last two years," he said, "then our future margins will be higher."

In the interview, Clay also discussed the farm's recent sales and breeding success (its top stallion, Dynaformer, is fetching a stud fee of $150,000) and how and why he returned to the family farm to manage it, and this interesting analogy: "Our business is equivalent to the oil business. Investors drill 11 holes – we have 11 stallions – and one or two will gush oil, and one or two of them won’t. But they all cost money to drill." (Read more)

Council's Property Maintenance Committee holds first meeting; next one scheduled for Nov. 15

2011-10-28T16:30:00.001-04:00

The first meeting of the Midway City Council's Property Maintenance Committee was held Wednesday night. (A notice placed in The Woodford Sun said it would be Thursday might.) Here are excerpts of an e-mailed report on the meeting by City Council Member Dan Roller, the committee chairman:

"Joy Arnold is working on minutes of the meeting and they will be sent our when finished. I have interviewed Paul Noel, P&Z Building and Zoning inspector, and as soon as Mr. Noel, Mayor Bozarth and P&Z Director Patty Wilson review and comment on the write-up, an outline of the Building Inspection process will be provided." A draft description of that process is in a PDF, availably by clicking here.

"The meeting dates for the next 2 months are Nov. 15 and 29, Dec. 13 and 27," Roller continued. "When available we will meet at Midway Branch of the Woodford County Library. Alternate accessible locations will be within the City, and announced timely prior to the meetings. The library is unavailable Nov. 15." Besides Roller and Arnold, the other member of the committee is Council Member Becky Moore.

Water lines to be flushed Monday through Thursday

2011-10-28T15:30:00.001-04:00

The Midway Water Works Department will be flushing fire hydrants Monday Oct. 31, through Thursday Nov. 3, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Several fire hydrants in an area will be opened at once to create increased water flow, to flush mineral deposits and sediment. Residents may notice cloudy tap water, but the cloudiness should pass in a short time, and the water will be safe to drink, but should be allowed to clear before doing laundry. "The City of Midway is not responsible for laundry being damaged during the hydrant-flushing period," the notice from City Hall says. "We apologize for this inconvenience and assure you it is a necessary part of our operation. If you have any questions please contact City Hall at 846-4413."

Property Maintenance Committee to hold first meeting in library at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday

2011-10-25T13:03:00.000-04:00

The newly created Property Maintenance Code Committee of the Midway City Council will hold its first meeting Wednesday, Oct. 26, at 6:30 p.m. at the Woodford County Library Midway Branch, 400 Northside Drive.

The notice from City Hall says the committee will discuss the 19 properties cited for building-inspection violations and review the city's Property Maintenance Code and any of the regulations, provisions, penalties, conditions and terms of the Building Officials and Code Administrators' National Property Maintenance Code.

All city council and committee meetings are open to the public.

Midway students collecting canned food for food banks, dollars for breast-cancer research Oct. 24

2011-10-19T16:17:00.003-04:00

The Midway College Students In Free Enterprise team is asking local residents to support their second annual Pink Hair Day food drive for local food banks and breast cancer research by bringing one canned, non-perishable food item (for food banks) and $1 (for research) to the McManis Student Center Monday, Oct. 24, between 11:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. The event is part of the international "Campbell's Let's Can Hunger Challenge" sponsored by Campbell Soup Co. For more information, contact Dr. Marla Ashe at 846-5731or SIFE@midway.edu.

City council discusses recycling, Renaissance, Francisco's Farm, scout projects, more

2011-10-19T15:25:00.010-04:00

By Dick Yarmy
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

The Midway City Council played to a standing-room only crowd Monday night in what longtime council watcher John McDaniel called “the best meeting I’ve seen in a while.”

The standing room was rectified with the arrival of extra chairs as the council discussed issues ranging from recycling a business study to Eagle Scout projects, and received updates on Midway Renaissance and planning for the 2012 Francisco’s Farm Art Festival.

Recycling: “Name me a business that can show a 53 percent increase in productivity,” Magistrate Bruce Gill said as he ran the numbers describing improvements in Woodford County’s recycling efforts.

Gill reported how grant monies were used for machinery that has all but eliminated using middlemen to sell recycled products. By bundling the materials and taking only mill-ready material to the end user, the county is receiving top prices, Gill said.

The county received $186,000 for recycled materials this year and kept 1,100 tons of material out of the landfill. By not using the landfill, Gill estimated, the county saved fees of more than $60,000. “That savings goes un-noticed,” he said. Midway residents pay county taxes.

The problem of not accepting fiberboard, which drew criticism from the city last February, was addressed by recycling resource coordinator Nola Serber. She reminded the council that in addition to household material, they are handling 204 businesses five days a week. “We take everything, but glass, and we’re working on that right now,” she said.

Renaissance: “I can see an opportunity for this community,” said Council Member Becky Moore, as she reviewed the status of the group. “It is a very well established, driven 501(c)(3) organization, and depending on who’s on the board ... it can go in whatever direction the community wants it to go.” Renaissance is recruiting volunteers and board members to fill vacancies created by three retiring board members. Moore directed interested parties to the organization’s website for more information.

The status of the Francisco’s Farm festival was covered in a report from event coordinator Marcie Christensen, right (photo from a different meeting). The event planning committee is proposing June 23-24 for the festival and recommending it remain at Equus Run Vineyards, where it was moved last year. This recommendation will be offered to the Renaissance board for approval.

The board has said it needs to know who will be responsible for the finances and momentum of the festival. Co-chairs for the festival are Equus Run owner Cynthia Bohn and Sarah Hicks. Bozarth asked, “Who is ultimately responsible for Francisco’s Farm?” Christensen replied, “Midway Rennaisance.”

Market study: “The right direction for Midway has to come at the intersection of community desire and market potential.” That’s what Josh Bloom, principal in the Community Land Use and Economics Group, said at a public meeting last March. CLUE was hired to prepare a state-funded market study of Midway’s business potential, administered by Renaissance. The completed study is now available on the Renaissance website, Christensen said.

She called attention to the retail and restaurant tip sheets, designed to help businesses improve traffic and sales. McDaniel, president of the Midway Business Association, said downtown merchants are already using some of the suggestions and added some have purchased virtual business tours to increase their online presence.

Eagle Scouts: The community projects that Boy Scouts Tim Hagan and William Borland are mounting to gain the Eagle rank continued to gain momentum. Both gave the council addenda to their proposals, filling in details needed to gain the council’s approval. The council voted to let Bozarth grant final approvals and schedules for the projects.

Hagan’s dog park project received an additional boost. Donations of resources and materials were pledged to help reduce the cost. “I called in a few favors,’ Bozarth said as he told Hagen about the contributions. (He said after the meeting that posts have been donated by Shadwell Farm and the concrete is being donated by John and Jim McDaniel in honor of their dogs Little Man and Molly.) Borland is mapping and cleaning cemeteries.

Other business: The council set Nov. 19 as the day to dispose of large items, at the old sewer plant from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and Bozarth said the city’s property maintenance code needs to be strengthened. He appointed a committee of council members to work on it: Joy Arnold, Dan Roller and Moore, his predecessor as mayor.

Francisco's Farm committee wants to keep going; Renaissance wants key questions answered

2011-10-11T15:09:00.012-04:00

By Nate Courtney
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

(This story has been revised to correct a mistaken attribution.)

The Planning Committee for the Francisco’s Farm Art Festival decided at its meeting Sept. 29 that the festival should continue in 2012 because they believe enough people have committed to raise necessary funds and do other work.

The committee, which will meet again Thursday, also decided the venue should be Equus Run Vineyard, where it was moved last year after seven years at Midway College.

After the planning committee meeting, the Midway Renaissance board voted “in favor of Francisco's Farm continuing, especially if they have enough interest for that to happen in an effective manner,” according to a report provided by Marcie Christensen of Renaissance. However, the directors won’t fully endorse it until two items are resolved: First, who will be responsible for the finances of the festival, and second, who is going to be the driving force of the festival and keep the momentum going forward?

The driving force of Francisco’s Farm has been Midway Renaissance, the future of which is in doubt.

“We will not continue to exist without people taking leadership positions,” Renaissance President Randy Thomas, said at a general Renaissance meeting on Sept. 26. Thomas has said he will be leaving the Renaissance board at the end of the year.

Three days later, at the planning committee meeting, Cynthia Bohn, right, owner of Equus Run, agreed to serve as co-chair of the festival.

“I love art,” Bohn said at the meeting. “But it will take a village to run this festival.”

~~Phil Dare, a regular volunteer for Francisco’s Farm and chair of the Greenspace Committee of Renaissance~~ Jon Maybriar, a former Renaissance member who has volunteered to help with the festival, said there are Midway residents who feel separated from the organization. “There is a mistrust,” he said. “It needs to be repaired.”

~~Dare~~ Maybriar also said that the planning committee meeting was the “first serious dialogue about including downtown Midway.” Downtown businesses were upset that the festival moved three and a half miles away.

Several committee members also wanted to have a meeting with the Midway City Council and Mayor Tom Bozarth to “bridge the gap,” as ~~Dare~~ Maybriar put it.

One way to bridge the gap is transparency of information, Bohn said. “Communication,” she said. “That will help unify Midway again.” She said the key mission of Francisco’s Farm is simple: to give back to the community.

Bohn acknowledged that the festival’s overall preparation was an issue its first year at Equus Run. Everything from the loosely kept entrance gate to toilet paper control led to some revenue loss, the committee said. Christensen said the festival account had about $1,000.

In order to counter these flaws, Bohn wants to see the creation of specific teams for parking, signs, advertising, music, production, and food vendors, which could improve revenue for the festival, which she said drew more than 11,000 visitors last year.

Bohn has offered her 16 employees to Francisco’s Farm but the festival has been heavily reliant on a larger number of volunteers.

Former Renaissance president Diana Ratliff expressed her concerns in an interview with the Midway Messenger.

She said the important point of the festival’s success is the volunteers, and it can’t replace 400 volunteers with 16 employees.

Ratliff said Francisco’s Farm should still remain a community engaged event, and there are a number of people in the community that would be willing to help.

Several steps the committee is taking include: having a downtown restaurant owner on the committee, promoting downtown at the festival, and alternating future committee meetings between Equus Run and downtown. Committee members said alternating the meetings would reinforce the understanding that the festival is a Midway event, not just an Equus Run event.

The committee’s next meeting will be Thursday, Oct. 13 at 5:30 p.m. at United Bank.

Committee members know that the longevity of Francisco’s Farm depends on the community and its volunteers, like Sara Hicks.

“I love the festival because I love the arts,” Hicks said at the meeting. “I don’t want to see it leave. I’m here to see it stay.”

Information for this story, originally published in the Midway Messenger, was also provided by Dick Yarmy.

Committee on water, streets etc. to meet Wed.

2011-10-10T22:28:00.003-04:00

The Water, Sewer and Garbage and Recycling / Street / Sidewalk Committee of the Midway City Council will meet Wednesday, Oct. 12, at 8:30 a.m. at City Hall. The purpose of the meeting, according to a notice from City Hall, is to discuss street painting on the corner of Main and Winter streets and a citizen's request for a water-bill adjustment. All council and committee meetings are open to the public.

Would-be Eagle Scout wants to build dog park

2011-10-04T15:22:00.010-04:00

By Nate Courtney
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

Tim Hagan, 14, approached the Midway City Council on Monday night with an agenda.

Distributing a manila folder to each council member, Hagan proposed building a dog park behind Northside Elementary that would cover about an acre. (Photo by Dick Yarmy)

In his folder Hagan provided a detailed cost estimate of $3,225, which would be less if some materials were donated.

Mayor Tom Bozarth suggested that Hagan mark off the area so people can see where the dog park would be and help him attract sponsors for the construction cost. A diagram Hagan prepared on an aerial photograph shows the black outlines of the park along Dudley Street in the middle, narrow part of Walter Bradley Park, which is outlined in red.

Council Member Joy Arnold encouraged Hagan to get in touch with the Woodford Humane Society, which “might have grants for these things.” Other council members suggested Hagan might be able to entice volunteers to help with the project.

With or without help, Hagan’s motives for building a dog park were simple. “I just wanted to give back to the community (of Midway),” he said in an interview.

Hagan already has some support. He told the council that Smithers Sign Company of Lexington has agreed to donate two signs: – a title sign and one that will contain the rules of the park.

Hagan showed the council signs that Smithers made for the dog park in Lexington's Masterson Station Park, which he said inspired his project.

Hagan said he will achieve the Eagle Scout rank upon completion of the dog park but the rank is not why he’s doing it. “I want to not only help out the community but also the animals that will enjoy it.”

The council voted to endorse the concept of Hagan’s project without committing financial support.

Another would-be Eagle Scout, William Borland, told the council that he wants to clean up, map and index the cemetery behind the Presbyterian Church and perhaps another. After discussion of some details of his plan, the council asked him to do more research and report back at the next meeting, Oct. 17.

Bozarth told the crowd that Midway should be proud of Boy Scout Troop 40, which has produced 36 Eagle Scouts since it was chartered in 1994, more than two per year.

Council members to inspect old sewer plant, Spring Station Road property Monday morning

2011-09-30T17:43:00.004-04:00

"Three or more Midway City Council members" will view the old wastewater treatment plant on Leestown Road and city property on Spring Station Road Monday, Oct. 3, at 9:30 a.m., says a notice this afternoon from City Hall. The notice did not say which property would be visited at that time, but listed the Spring Station site first.

The notice was necessary because a gathering of four council members is a quorum that constitutes an official meeting under the state Open Meetings Act. All such meetings are subject to public-notice requirements and are open to the public.

Tom Roach remembered as a smiling gentleman, a traditionalist and a fine Thoroughbred breeder

2011-09-29T10:34:00.006-04:00

By Nate Courtney
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

Tom Roach knew tradition.

He was the fourth generation to operate his family’s Parrish Hill Farm, co-bred a Kentucky Derby winner and Horse of the Year, and was known as a true gentleman.

At his funeral Sept. 10 at Midway Christian Church, longtime friend and Midway Mayor Tom Bozarth summed up the man he knew in a fitting sendoff.

"The definition of a gentleman is a well mannered and considerate man with high standards of proper behavior," Bozarth said. "This describes Tom."

Roach was born in Lexington on May 26, 1948, but lived in Midway for most of his adult life, working as a Thoroughbred breeder on the family farm after graduating from Duke University and attending the University of Kentucky law school.

The son of the late Ruth and Dr. Ben Roach, Tom learned his character traits from his father, who helped him breed the family’s only Derby winner, Charismatic, with Will Farish.

Virginia Glass delivered Charismatic at Parrish Hill Farm from Roach's mare, Bali Babe, and witnessed the 1999 Horse of the Year's rise to prominence.

"Charismatic raced at Keeneland and Tommy said he might run in the Derby if he won,” Glass recalled. “Coming down the stretch Charismatic was leading and Tommy was running with him to the finish line as he won."

After his victory, Glass asked Tommy if she got a raise for delivering him. "He smiled and gave me two thumbs up," Glass said.

Charismatic went on to win the Derby and the Preakness, falling just short of the Triple Crown. Roach also bred Princess Rooney, which won the first Breeders’ Cup Distaff race.

According to The Blood-Horse, Roach also bred graded stakes winners Millennium Wind, Storm Tower, Tossofthecoin, Cormorant, Lawyer Talk, Inca King and Queen of Song, and "The breeding of current millionaire and multiple grade I turf runner Get Stormy was planned by Roach for his longtime client and dear friend, Mary Sullivan. Get Stormy was born and raised at Roach’s Parrish Hill Farm until he left to be broken for racing."

Roach always used a traditional, hands-on approach with his horses. In fact, he fed them personally every night, after eating his own dinner.

"Tom would go to the barn and mix his famous concoction of who knows to his beloved race horses," Bozarth said. "It sure did stink but the horses ate it.”

There was no job too big, too small or too smelly for Roach. "He always did what needed to be done," Glass said.

Tom and his wife Robyn decided in 2008 to sell the original Parrish Hill property in Midway and move to Versailles, where they continued breeding under the Parrish Hill name. He resided at that home at the time of his death, when he lost his longtime battle against a stomach disorder.

Roach was a director of the Thoroughbred Club of America, a member of the Midway Christian Church, and a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, the Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association, the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association, and the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels.

He is survived by his wife Robyn, daughters Amanda Parrish and Hallie Thompson Lewis, ~~grandson~~ son-in-law Drew Lewis, grandson Parrish Lewis, brother Jim Roach, sisters Julia Roach and Helen Rentch, and many nieces, nephews, brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law.

Bozarth said at the funeral, “He was always smiling.”

That's a tradition that will live on through his legacy.

Policy committee to discuss several issues at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday

2011-09-26T09:37:00.001-04:00

The Ordinance, Policy and Finance Committee of the Midway City Council will meet Tuesday, Sept. 27 at 8:30 a.m. at City Hall to discuss parking tickets, the candidate filing deadline, alcohol ordinances and "CD Review," which the notice from City Hall did not define. The next council meeting will be at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 3. All council and committee meetings are open to the public.

Renaissance calls open meeting Monday night to discuss its future and recruit new leadership

2011-09-21T12:49:00.001-04:00

Midway Renaissance will conduct an open meeting Monday, Sept. 26 at 7:30 p.m. at the Midway Christian Church to discuss the organization's future. Outgoing President Randy Thomas says the group is looking for volunteers to serve as board members and other leadership positions.

In the past year, Renaissance has experienced personnel losses caused by staff resignations and members rotating to a volunteer status. In a letter notifying the city of the meeting, Thomas wrote: "We will hold this public discussion to inform our community of the opportunities that exist for this community and volunteer driven organization."

Thomas plans to leave the Renaissance board at the end of the year, "and the other board officers do not intend to run again after serving for a number of years," says a notice on the group's web page. "Change in leadership is good for an organization and both Midway Renaissance and Francisco's Farm are in need of new leadership and additional volunteers if they are to continue."

37th Fall Festival blessed with great weather

2011-09-18T18:45:00.003-04:00

The 37th annual Midway Fall Festival was blessed with perfect weather this weekend and drew big crowds downtown. The Old Smoky steam locomotive of R.J. Corman Railroad Co. was an object of curiosity, as usual. Corman was one of the major sponsors of the festival, with Christian Care Communities and Midway College. "It was one of our best festivals yet! We had lots of help from Midway residents, City Hall and fantastic support from our sponsors," said John McDaniel, president of the Midway Business Association. "It was good to see that much energy in our our downtown area."

Photos by Dick Yarmy,
University of Kentucky
School of Journalism
and Telecommunications

Community commemorates 9/11 at joint Service of Peace and Hope; to be an annual event

2011-09-14T15:17:00.003-04:00

Story and photographs by Dick Yarmy
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

“It just felt right,” said the Rev. Heather McColl of Midway Christian Church.

Sunday, nearly 200 Midway citizens gathered for the first annual Service of Peace and Hope. The event commemorated the toll of Sept. 11, 2001, was sponsored by eight local churches, and was initiated by McColl.

Seated in the Bradley Park pavilion, the worshipers were surrounded by a panorama typical of Woodford County and the Bluegrass. The view included fenced pastures, grazing horses and a steeple of Midway College.

Community members came in all ages, shapes and sizes, sporting fashions that announced membership in one of the many generations in attendence. The overall scene could be described as a collage of virtual snapshots, any one capable of inspiring a Norman Rockwell magazine cover.

There were seniors arriving with the help of walkers and golf carts; families struggling to carry toddlers; pre-schoolers clutching American flags; a father, son and grandfather attending together; and a city council member arriving in a pick-up truck carrying additional folding chairs for the overflow.

The audience was diverse. Yet, when members rose to “pass the peace” (right) and began greeting neighbors, the scene looked more like a community than a collection of individuals.

The service was simple, ecumenical and moving. Ministers and lay people representing six churches took the podium to read scripture and share their thoughts.

A cascade of concise messages flowed from the pulpit.

Phrases like: “Father give us strength,” from a reading by city council member Joy Arnold.

From the Rev. Don Johnson: “ Where there is unity there is strength.” And, “Although we worship in different buildings we should worship as one.”

At times, the worshipers reacted to message lines with a simple “Amen.”

Other messages talked of the history of 9/11 as a placeholder. “We felt a lot safer before then,” said Bud Ratliff. “ It was easy to think that peace and quiet, was the same thing.” Ratliff ended his thoughts with topical humor: “If the wolf and the lamb can lie down together, there may even be hope for the elephant and the donkey.” (Photo: Bud and Zoe Ratliff)

Between each message the audience sang well known songs like “Down by the Riverside,” and “We Shall Overcome.” The crowd’s voices were reinforced by the Community Choir and backed by keyboardist Angela Eaton and guitarist Blake Jones.

After sharing communion, the crowd was invited to prepare "peace flags," using their imaginations to express their own personal feelings. The flags were attached to lines and displayed around the pavilion.

“It was a perfect place and a perfect setting,” McColl said afterward. “They loved getting together as a community, and we’ve decided to make this an annual event.”

For more and larger photos, with another version of this story, click here.

City Council to meet one hour later than usual

2011-09-12T16:13:00.001-04:00

The next meeting of the Midway City Council has been set for one hour later than usual, at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 19, at City Hall. City Clerk Phyllis Hudson said in an email that the regularly scheduled meeting has been rescheduled for a special meeting at that hour.

Because the rescheduled meeting is being called a special meeting, its agenda will be limited to the subjects specified in the meeting notice: council questions about the audit for the 2010-11 fiscal year and an ordinance amending the budget for that year, in order to match the audit figures. The ordinance was on the agenda but was not acted on the last meeting, at which the audit was discuseed. UPDATE: The agenda has been expanded to include consideration of an adjustment request, passed on by the Water and Sewer Committee at its meeting Wednesday, Sept. 14.

Water and Sewer Task Force to meet Tuesday

2011-09-07T18:44:00.002-04:00

UPDATE: This meeting was canceled.
The Water and Sewer Task Force will meet at noon Tuesday, Sept. 13 in the Piper Dining Hall on the Midway College campus. Meetings of the task force are open to the public.

Governor's wife to speak at dedication of new Midway College center, attend school convocation

2011-09-07T14:15:00.000-04:00

Jane Beshear, the wife of Gov. Steve Beshear, will be the featured speaker at dedication of the Learning Resource Center building at Midway College tomorrow, Sept. 8, at noon. She will also attend the annual convocation starting the school year, in the Anne Hart Raymond Duthie Auditorium, and 11 a.m.

Midway College's new equine program director teaches how to train horses with body language

2011-09-01T19:36:00.002-04:00

"Avo Kiviranna understands the silent language of the horse," KyForward contributor Elizabeth Troutman writes of the new chair of Midway College's equine program. said. “The horse, because it’s a prey animal, will instinctively scrutinize you. Because he wants to know what you are thinking, and the only way you can let him know what you’re thinking is through your body language,” he told Troutman.

Kiviranna, a New York City native who Troutman writes "marveled at the draft horses that delivered blocks of ice to his family’s brownstone," attended the University of Kentucky because “that’s where all the horses were,” he said. He returned to New York and worked as an extension agent, an assistant professor of equine science at the State University of New York at Delhi, a horse trainer, executive director of the American Morgan Horse Association and consultant for a Thoroughbred farm in New York.

He trains "through the least-resistance approach," using "calculated gestures" and what he calls "natural horsemanship," Troutman writes.

City council to consider audit at Tuesday meeting

2011-08-31T11:35:00.000-04:00

The city audit for the 2010-11 fiscal year, and final changes to last year's budget to reflect actual spending, are on the agenda for the next meeting of the Midway City Council. It will be held at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 6 at City Hall, a day later than usual because of Labor Day.

Also on the agenda is a funding request from the Woodford County Economic Development Authority, to be presented by new Chair Brad McLean.

Though the meeting will be held a day later than usual, the notice from City Hall has the usual advisory that "Anyone wishing to address the council must request to be on the agenda and submit any information by ... noon the Wednesday before."

Council approves incentive pay on 3-2 vote

2011-08-21T14:25:00.003-04:00

By Dick Yarmy and Al Cross

University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

After debating the issue a second time, the Midway City Council voted last Monday night to give escalating incentive pay to council members, the mayor, the city clerk and the assistant clerk for receiving 15 hours of annual training on topics related to their official responsibilities.

The vote was 3-2, with Council Members Aaron Hamilton, Doris Leigh and Sharon Turner supporting the proposal by Mayor Tom Bozarth, and Becky Moore and Dan Roller opposing it. Member Joy Arnold, who had been skeptical of the plan at the Aug. 1 meeting, was absent due to a death in her family. If there had been a tie vote, Bozarth could have voted to break the tie.

To support his initiative, Bozarth introduced James Chaney, chief governmental affairs officer of the Kentucky League of Cities. KLC will offer the training under a bill that it and state Rep. Carl Rollins of Midway got passed in the 2011 General Assembly. Cheney mentioned Rollins’ dismay that 50 to 60 percent of the 2,600 city officials in Kentucky receive no training.

Moore said the bill appeared self-serving for KLC, but Chaney said cities can award incentives for training from other accredited sources. The bill does not mention accreditation or providers.

Moore, who preceded Bozarth as mayor, asked, “If we’re going to incentivize training of city clerks, why not water plant workers and others?” She suggested the vote be delayed while a “policy statement” is drafted to ensure future leaders administer the program consistently, but made no motion to that effect.

Roller’s objections were budget-focused. He said an annual outlay of $18,000 (which would be the total in the fourth year if all eligible officials took the training each year) was excessive, and noted that Bozarth had not taken the plan to the council's Ordinance and Policy Committee. Roller read a prepared statement for the record, and Moore asked that her request for a policy statement be included in the minutes of the meeting. For a PDF of Roller's statement, click here.

In other action, the council approved tax rates for the coming year, as described at the Aug. 1 meeting. After the meeting, just as they did two weeks earlier, Bozarth and his allies walked down East Main Street, while Roller and Moore walked up South Winter Street.

Water & Sewer Task Force meets at noon today

2011-08-09T11:02:00.000-04:00

The Midway Water and Sewer Task Force will meet at noon today in the Piper Dining Hall on the Midway College Campus. Meetings of the task force are open to the public.

We regret that this notice was not posted yesterday, when we received it. Since the task force does not have a regular meeting schedule, all its meetings are considered special meetings, which have a limited agenda. However, the only agenda item, "Water and Sewer Issues," is broad enough to allow discussion of any topic related to the task force's purview.

Council plans second and final readings Monday of ordinances on tax rates, training incentive pay

2011-08-08T10:31:00.002-04:00

The tentative agenda for the next meeting of the Midway City Council, Aug. 15, is much the same as the agenda of the last meeting, because the major business is second readings and adoption of three ordinances: two setting tax rates and the other creating pay incentives for the mayor, clerks and council members to take annual training related to city government.

The proposed tax rates are the compensating rates, those that the state says will generate the same amount of revenue being generated by current rates. The personal-property rate would remain the same, 14.5 cents per $100, while the real-estate rate would rise to 10.2 cents from 10.1 cents per $100 in order to make up for a decline in the total assessed value of real estate in the city.

See the blog item after the one below for a report on the council's discussion of the training incentive program.

The meeting notice from City Hall says anyone wishing to address the council must request to be on the agenda and submit any information by noon the Wednesday before the meeting.

Farmers Market and Midway restaurants team up to hold special event Friday evening, Aug. 19

2011-08-01T23:57:00.000-04:00

In an effort to promote more local use of local food, the Woodford County Farmers Market and six Midway restaurants are cooperating to hold a special event Friday evening, Aug. 19, from 6 to 9 p.m. The Midway City Council approved a permit for the event tonight.

The market's Stacy Westfall told the council that farmers will offer samples of their products, and provide free samples to restaurants to prepare special offierings. She said two or three wineries are interested in participating, and the event may be ticketed.

The farmers market comes to Midway each Monday from 3 to 6 p.m. For the farmers market's Facebook page, click here.

Mayor and ex-mayor turned council member are at odds over incentive pay, meetings, emails

2011-08-01T23:32:00.018-04:00

By Al Cross
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

Amid talk of such big issues as tax rates and officials' compensation, the main action at tonight's Midway City Council meeting was between Mayor Tom Bozarth and Council Member Becky Moore, who preceded him as mayor and was elected to the council last year.

The council gave first reading to three ordinances, two to set property-tax rates (only the real-estate rate would change, rising 0.1 cent per $100, to 10.2 cents producing the same revenue as last year due to declines in property values) and one to create an incentive program that would give city officials accelerated compensation for receiving 15 hours of annual training from the Kentucky League of Cities.

After the council spent some time addressing Council Member Joy Arnold's concerns that the incentive schedule needed clarification, Moore said she wanted to make clear that council members make only $50 a month ($600 a year) and would not consider raising that salary, but would be able get $5,000 apiece in incentive pay over four consecutive years of training.

The incentives would be $500 for the first year of training, $1,000 for the second and $1,500 for the third. If all six council members received training each year for four years, the total cost in the fourth year would be $12,000. The ordinance says the payments would not be considered wages; Bozarth said after the meeting that is so they would not count toward retirement benefits; he said they will be taxable. (An early version of this story said otherwise.)

Moore said the council needs to make sure the money is in the budget. Bozarth said the money for next year is in the budget, the training would be voluntary, and "This is to be an incentive . . . to be more informed. We're all volunteers." City Attorney Phil Moloney said later that trained officials are less likely to get the city into costly trouble.

Bozarth said any mayor needing to cut expenses would cut the program. The ordinance would give the mayor the authority to approve city officials for training. Moore said that approval should also be up to the council. Bozarth said, "I don't see what the problem is." Moore said her request was not aimed at him, but made out of a desire for the council to keep tabs on spending.

Arnold said she could envision some future mayor ("she or he," she said) showing favoritism, approving one council member's training but not another's. Arnold, a lawyer, said she would rather have "regulatory language" on the mayor's power than have joint mayoral-council approval. But neither Arnold nor Moore made a motion to amend the ordinance, and it was accepted for first reading. Presumably, second reading will be held at the next meeting, on Aug. 15.

At the start of the meeting, as the council prepared to approve the minutes of the last meeting, Moore asked that minutes of future meetings reflect more of the council's discussions. Bozarth told her that the minutes are only required to reflect council action, but if she wants something in them, all she has to do is ask.

Moore did just that at the end of the meeting, after saying she finds it "weird" that council committees have met infrequently since she joined the council and Bozarth reorganized them. Bozarth replied, "There are some issues that are easier to take to the whole council." Moore expressed concern about business being conducted outside the committee system. With a committee meeting on the incentive plan, she said, "I think we would have had a lot of these questions answered." She asked that her concern appear in the minutes.

The discussion prompted Council Member Doris Leigh to give an informal report about her work as chair of the Cemetery and City Property Committee, the only panel to which Bozarth appointed Moore. Moore replied to Leigh, "I don't know what you're doing, and I'm on your committee."

Last week, after getting the preliminary agenda for the meeting in an email from City Clerk Phyllis Hudson, Moore sent two replies to all recipients, asking that three items be added to the agenda: a report on Fiscal Court redistricting, an economic-development report and discussion of points made by citizens at a forum the council held in May. For more on that, click here. As last night's meeting was about to end, Moore said, "Some of my e-mails were not getting answered," and after adjournment she directed a similar comment to Bozarth. The mayor threw up his hands and said, "I'm not getting into it."

Interviewed by email, Bozarth told the Midway Messenger that he set the agenda for the meeting, and "I had already addressed her requests with the agenda that was in place." He said "everything Ms. Moore had concerns with were fully addressed." The council heard a report from Chairman Brad McLean of the Woodford County Economic Development Authority, and Bozarth and Arnold agreed during the meeting that the public's May comments would be discussed at the next meeting. Bozarth said in his email that redistricting will be discussed "when that is approved by the court."

Council set to OK tax rates Monday; Moore wants to discuss points from May forum, other topics

2011-07-26T09:59:00.005-04:00

Tax rates are on the agenda for the Midway City Council's next meeting, to be held Monday, Aug. 1, at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall.

According to a notice from the city, the meeitng agenda includes ordinances on the tax rates for real estate and personal property; an incentive program for officials to get training related to city government; and the event permit for the Woodford County Farmers' Market.

As usual, citizens' comments will be taken before the agenda items are addressed. Anyone wishing to address the council "must request to be on the agenda and submit any information" by noon on the Wednesday before the meeting, according to the notice from the city, which also notes, "The agenda can be revised up to 24 hours before the meeting."

UPDATE, July 28: Becky Moore asked her fellow council members in an email if the meeting would also include, as she said Council Member Joy Arnold requested at the last meeting, a discussion of the points raised at the council's public forum in May.

In another email, she asked if Brad McLean and Charlann Wombles of the Woodford County Economic Development Authority could be added to the agenda to give "an update on EDA business" and invite Magistrate Larry Craig of Midway to talk about redistricting of the county Fiscal Court.

The Midway Messenger and The Woodford Sun, which receive email notices of the meetings, were on the distribution list for Moore's emails. They were sent Wednesday morning; the Messenger received no replies to either of them through midnight Thursday.

City Council won't meet Monday evening

2011-07-15T13:35:00.000-04:00

The regular Midway City Council meeting set for Monday, July 18, has been canceled, according to a notice from City Hall.

Crossing work scheduled as extra track delayed again; street closing schedule changed twice

2011-07-13T23:54:00.018-04:00

When new ties and tracks began appearing in the railroad right of way last week, Midway residents may have thought that the long-discussed project to add a track through town was about to begin. It is not.

R.J. Corman Railroad is about to replace crossings on the existing track, not lay the new one. Construction of the second track has been delayed until January 2012 because Corman crews "have been sent out west to repair tracks that were damaged by the recent wildfires," Mayor Tom Bozarth said in his column in tonight's edition of The Woodford Sun.

Bozarth also announced a closing schedule for intersections during the crossing-repair project, based on information from Corman that later changed. Then it changed again, after Bozarth raised concerns about Turner and Gratz streets getting work at the same time. Here is the closing schedule as it now stands, according to a release from the Transportation Cabinet:
Turner at Main: Sunday, July 17 through Tuesday, July 19
Gratz at Main and Dudley: Tuesday, July 19 through Thursday, July 21
Winter at Main: Monday, July 25 through Wednesday, July 27
Also, the crossing at Paynes Depot Road will be out July 27-29.

"Each closure is scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. and remain closed until 8 p.m. on the date of completion," the release says. "Appropriate signage will be in place to alert and guide the traveling public. All scheduled work is subject to change depending on weather, emergencies and other factors beyond the control of the Department of Highways. The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet asks motorists to be aware of the work zone and to utilize safe driving habits when traveling near the work area."

7 students from Midway on dean's list at College

2011-07-11T17:22:00.000-04:00

Seven students from Midway were named to the dean's list at Midway College for the spring semester. In order to reach the list, a student must be classified as full time and have grade point average of at least 3.6 for the semester.

Midway students on the dean's list are Jennifer Adkins, Nicole Humphrey, Ann Locke, Cara Platz, Anne Reichenbach, Leslie Ristaneo and Cynthia Wesley. Ten other students from Woodford County made the list. For the full press release from the college click here.

Water and Sewer Task Force to meet tomorrow

2011-07-11T11:38:00.001-04:00

The Midway Water and Sewer Task Force will hold the latest in its series of special meetings at noon Tuesday, July 12, in the Piper Dining Hall at Midway College. All task force meetings are open to the public.

Francisco's Farm Art Festival, moved to Equus Run Vineyards, will be held this Saturday and Sunday

2011-06-22T22:59:00.014-04:00

The ~~ninth~~ eighth annual Francisco's Farm Art Festival will be held Saturday and Sunday, June 25-26, at Equus Run Vineyards and Winery three and a half miles east of Midway. It will feature art by scores of artists from 16 states, such as this painting by Robert Rodenberger of Marietta, Ga., which Midway Renaissance is featuring in its promotions of the nationally recognized event. The wine bottle ~~shows~~ appears to show the Weisenberger Mill in the Scott County part of "Greater Midway," but Rodenberger says he never heard of it, according to Marcie Christensen of Renaissance. (See comment below.)

The festival is named for Col. John Francisco, who sold his farm to Kentucky's first railroad so it could create Kentucky's first railroad town. Now the only evidence of the festival in town is a banner across Winter Street, US 62, and a few directional signs. UPDATE, June 24: The vineyard is on Moores Mill Road, where today workers were placing banners along the shoulder near the entrance.

Renaissance's decision to move the festival from the Midway College campus, which upset some downtown interests, was made for several reasons, event coordinator Marcie Christensen told Business Lexington recently. "The move to Equus Run will enhance our ability to attract art patrons, expand our opportunities for creative expression, and provide broader and more diverse exposure for our corporate sponsors," she said. "The opportunity to provide an evening concert and the beautiful ambience of the vineyard will continue to elevate the reputation of the festival as a show not to be missed."

Renaissance is promoting downtown on the Francisco's Farm website, but there will be no shuttle service between the city and the vineyard. The route is on the MapQuest image below.

In tonight's edition of The Woodford Sun (which is not online), correspondent and downtown promoter John McDaniel reports that downtown merchants will have sidewalk sales this weekend, and that an "Art's Fair" with 15 artists will be held in the downtown courtyard from 10 to 5 Saturday and noon to 5 on Sunday. Those are the same hours as the festival, except that the festival will run until 6 Saturday.

Historical marker at former school for African Americans to be dedicated Saturday, June 25

2011-06-14T18:41:00.000-04:00

The old Midway Colored School, at 215 E. Walnut St., will become the site of a state historical marker next week. The building started out as Pilgrim Baptist Church in 1872. In 1911, the Woodford County school board bought the property and established a school for African Americans. It sold the property to the Midway board in 1936. The school closed at the end of the 1953-54 school year, after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed segregated schools. It has since been used as a laundry, beauty shop and lodge, according to the Kentucky Historical Society, which will dedicate the marker at 1 p.m. Saturday, June 25.

City council adopts 2011-12 budget by 4-2 vote

2011-06-07T20:49:00.006-04:00

The Midway City Council approved a budget with $912,912 in spending for the fiscal year beginning July 1 by a vote of 4 to 2 last night. The "no" votes were cast by Becky Moore, who failed in her effort to give the county planning and zoning commission the extra $5,291 it wanted, and Joy Arnold, who objected to the format of the budget "as not being clear and obvious on its face."

Moore suggested that the city had the money for the planning commission, noting that the $1,127,990 budget presumes a carry-forward balance of $215,078 at the beginning and end of the year. City Clerk Phyllis Hudson said, "That's all of our assets. It's not cash." Mayor Tom Bozarth said he tried to estimate revenue low and expenses high.

While the budget calls for spending only 81 percent of the available resources, it also anticipates $60,000 in revenue from sale of the old sewage treatment plant, just as last year's budget did, to to avail. Bozarth said after the meeting that the prospective buyer remains the same but has had other priorities. To view the budget ordinance, which was passed in the format of an Excel spreadsheet, click here.

The format confounded Arnold, right, who wanted the document to reflect the extra $6,000 that the city plans to give the Versailles Police Department to cover higher fuel costs under its contracts to patrol the whole county. Because the spreadsheet lists appropriations only in general categories, not the detail seen in the draft budget the council discussed, reflecting the change would have required a new first and second reading of the ordinance, City Attorney Phil Moloney said. To view the more detailed draft budget, click here.

The extra $6,000 will come from the $15,000 "contingency" line item in the general part of the budget. Arnold said all police expense should have its own line item because it is such an important public service. Council Member Sharon Turner sympathized with her, but said listing all the line items "would take up a page in The Woodford Sun," in which the ordinance must be published. Bozarth said the monthly budget report to the council will track police expenses, but Arnold said that report "makes very little sense because of its setup."

The budget includes more than $26,000 for the planning commission, which has asked all three local governments for more money because the decline in real-estate activity has left it with less fee income. The county provided the extra money requested of it, but Versailles did not, even though it rasied taxes. Council Member Dan Roller said he was concerned that cuts at the commission would lead to fewer housing inspections and enforcement actions against substandard properties. "There are certainly more of those than there are new properties," he said. Bozarth said the council could reconsider the commission's request "if they're having trouble."

In other second and final readings, the council approved changes in the floodplain zoning ordinance and a measure establishing local hours for bars and restaurants: 10 a.m. to midnight Monday through Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday. The council gained the authority to set hours different from the rest of the county when the legislature made Midway a fourth-class city.

Water and Sewer Task Force to meet Tuesday

2011-06-03T11:09:00.002-04:00

The Midway Water and Sewer Task Force will hold a special meeting at noon Tuesday, June 7, in the Piper Dining Hall at Midway College. As usual, the agenda is water and sewer issues, such as the need for repairs to, and possible sale of, the water system. All task force meetings are open to the public.

'Old Smokey' to chug through town Sat. morning

2011-06-02T07:26:00.003-04:00

UPDATE, June 3: The engine will stay longer in Frankfort than first announced, until 11:45, so its return pass through Midway will occur about 12:05 p.m.

"Old Smokey," the steam locomotive operated by R.J. Corman Railroad Group, will pass through Midway on Saturday, to and from a special visit to Frankfort. The engine will be in Midway at 8:15 and 11:20 a.m., Mayor Tom Bozarth said in his column in today's Woodford Sun.

The locomotive is scheduled to be in Frankfort from 9 to 11:45 a.m. for "a special picture-taking opportunity," including its interior, a press release from Corman says.

2011-12 city budget, floodplain zoning and closing-hours ordinance on Monday council agenda

2011-05-31T23:41:00.001-04:00

Final adoption of the city budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 is on the agenda for the next Midway City Council meeting, set for 5:30 p.m. Monday, June 6.

Other second readings on the agenda are ordinances on closing hours and floodplain zoning. All city council meetings are open to the public.

Mayor says voters should be given options and decide the fate of Midway's water system

2011-05-17T16:59:00.001-04:00

By Dick Yarmy
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

Mayor Tom Bozarth helped shape the fact-finding efforts of the Midway Water and Sewer Task Force last week when he announced he would like to let voters decide the future of the city-owned utilities.

“It’s the proper thing to do,” Bozarth said. “We need to have a referendum, put it on the ballot. "It’s not right for seven people [the city council and mayor] to decide what will ultimately affect the citizens of Midway. They need to be the ones that make the decision.”

The task force is considering options to improve the water system, including a sale to the water supplier, Kentucky American Water Co. The sewer system could also be affected.

Consultant Mark Roberts, Council Member
Dan Roller (Photo by Dick Yarmy)

Mark Roberts, Midway’s public-works consultant, reported on work sessions with Bob Blankenship of HMB Professional Engineers to flesh out Blankenship’s original cost estimate for improvements, reported at last month’s task force meeting.

“The first time we met, I pointed out what I thought were the trouble spots,” said Roberts. “We addressed them as priority projects.” The projects were outlined to the task force and estimated at a cost of $1,423,150. To view his report, click here.

A report on work for the rest of the system, with a total cost of $1,550,000, can be viewed here.

This two-stage solution to updating the system was estimated to have a life of 50 years, Roberts said, but he cautioned that updating the system and switching to PVC pipe “doesn’t mean it’ll all be roses.” He mentioned flushing, normal maintenance and cold-weather problems as possible issues facing even an updated system.

Council Member Sharon Turner asked about benefits of improving the water and sewer systems at the same time. Roberts said there could be savings in paving costs.

“Where are we as far as money is concerned?” asked task force member Danny Smith. Bozarth took the question as an opportunity to explain his detailed vision for the task force's mission.

“This report only covers one part, the water,” the mayor said. “Then we have to tackle the sewer and find the costs for both. That’ll tell us what we need to do. We need to get all the information to know whether to take it on, have a bond issue or apply for grants –– it’s an issue that can’t be dealt with overnight.”

He added, “We need to look under every stone, find out who might be interested in our system, collect all the facts and propose a solution to the people of Midway in a town hall meeting. We hope to have option A, B and C: Sell the assets, partner with someone, or do it ourselves –– we need three clear-cut choices. We aren’t there yet.”

Council member Dan Roller was concerned about language in a letter from the city to American Water, the parent of Kentucky American. “It only talks about American acquiring our system,” he said.

Bozarth said the letter was just the beginning of a process with the company. “We can see if they have other interests, like partnering with us,’’ Bozarth said, “What we want to do as a task force is look at every option. We can talk to them about other agreements like a partnership, where we would be still be eligible for grants; that would help them also.”

Roy Mundy, task force member and former president of Kentucky American, said “I know they prefer to own the system, because it is easier for them. . “But they are flexible and willing to talk about anything within reason.” Mundy added that his opinions were based only on his past knowledge as an officer of the company.

The task force will continue to research options to present to the council; cost estimates are still to come on refurbishing the sewer system. A proposal is expected from Kentucky American, followed by a search for other interested parties to purchase or partner the systems, and exploration the viability of bond issues to finance the repairs. Bozarth said after the meeting that he had not researched how the options could be put on the ballot.

So, the task force still has several steps ahead to provide information that will help Midway make an informed decision. As Bozarth said, “This is an issue that can’t be dealt with overnight.”

Budget on Monday's city council agenda

2011-05-13T18:52:00.000-04:00

First reading of an ordinance adopting the city budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 is the major item on agenda for the Midway City Council's next meeting, at 5:30 p.m. Monday at City Hall.

Mayor Tom Bozarth gave the council a proposed budget last month, and the council met Monday to work on it. (The Midway Messenger was unable to cover the meeting because no student reporters were available; the spring semester ended last week.)

The agenda also includes first reading of a floodplain zoning ordinance and an event request from the Midway Business Association. All council meetings are open to the public.

Midway keeps city attorney Phil Moloney busy

2011-05-13T18:10:00.004-04:00

By Clark Brooks
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

When Midway Mayor Tom Bozarth took office in 2007, he had a difficult decision to make, with City Attorney Joe Hoffman set to retire.

Attorney Phil Moloney sits at the right
of the mayor during council meetings.
(Photo by Hongchul Yun)

Bozarth needed to find a replacement who could help guide and advise the city’s government on legal matters. Enter Phil Moloney, a Lexington-based lawyer who specialized in municipal and public-entity law. “I had known Phil for a very long time,” Bozarth said. “When we discussed the possibility of him being our city attorney, I knew he had a good personality for the job.”

The rest is history, as Moloney was approved by the city council to be the city’s next attorney.

“I had known a fair amount about Midway before I took the job,” Moloney said in a recent interview. “My cousin and mother’s family had lived in Midway so I knew the extent of the community’s interests.”

However, the community didn’t warm up to Moloney as he may have expected, because not only was he the city’s most expensive employee in hourly terms, at $145 per hour, he was also an out-of-towner, and figured in a seminal controversy.

Moloney and some Midway citizens found themselves at odds in 2009 over insurance for volunteer workers on city property. Volunteers who wished to help out around town and operate equipment could simply meet and perform the task they deemed necessary to be done, and if someone was hurt during volunteer work, they couldn’t be compensated by the city’s insurance.

That put the city at risk, warned its insurance carrier, the Kentucky League of Cities. Moloney advised the city council during several meetings to pass an ordinance allowing the city to require volunteers to sign liability waivers, in case an individual might be injured or harmed while volunteering about town. Though the change was subtle and made little change in how volunteers operated, some volunteers, most notably those involved in Midway Renaissance, felt the waivers still were unnecessary and arbitrarily filled the volunteer process with red tape.

“It is easy for people to criticize him,” Bozarth said of Moloney. “But he is a good person with a big heart and tries to always have the city’s best interests at heart. He doesn’t decide how to run Midway; that’s on myself and the rest of the (city) council.”

Moloney said he was prepared for a possible backlash. “I have represented small towns before and I knew the potential polarization some issues would cause,” he said. “I’m just here to advise the council and the mayor on what I feel is the best legal advice for certain situations in order to help the city.”

Moloney is on retainer for his services, meaning when the city needs legal guidance, the mayor, city clerk, or council members contact Moloney, who is then paid for the time he spends helping Midway.
“It’s similar to a cell phone bill,” Bozarth said. “We as a city have a certain amount of allotted time with him before we have to pay him for extra services.”

“I do not initiate the advice,” Moloney said. “I am here to serve as they need my services.”

Over the past few years, Midway has kept its city attorney very busy. From dealing with the such issues as zoning and the failed industrial park of Midway Station, Moloney has spent a great deal of time helping the mayor and city council.

The city has paid Moloney an average of $29,030 over the past four fiscal years for his services compared to the average $15,006 Hoffman was paid over his last two fiscal years on the job.

“He has certainly dealt with a great deal of issues in the last for year for a small town,” Bozarth said. “But, he has handled in all in stride very well.”

Moloney’s work hasn’t gone unnoticed across the state either. Since 2007, he has been named one of Kentucky’s Super Lawyers each year by superlawyers.com.

“He is certainly an asset for us,” Bozarth said. “He is very important and helpful to help guide and direct the council in legal matters.”

Moloney says he has enjoyed his time in Midway and considers it a place with a great deal of potential moving forward, being a great representation of Central Kentucky’s past, present and future. But he did acknowledge there are several challenges for the city on the horizon.

“The issues with the recycling and water system’s future are going to be addressed very soon,” Moloney said. Both have been discussed at council meetings the over the past few months. “Also, if Midway Station gets developed, along with a nursing home and new business to attract people, I feel Midway could be a really special place in the Bluegrass.”

Despite a slight pay decrease for him in the proposed city budget for next fiscal year, Moloney says he is eager to continue working with the mayor and city council.

“Helping the city’s government has absolutely been an enjoyment for me,” he said. “I feel they get along pretty well and always are trying to serve as a unit and make Midway a better place to live.”

Water and Sewer Task Force to hold special meeting at noon tomorrow at college dining hall

2011-05-09T11:13:00.001-04:00

A special meeting of the Midway Water and Sewer Task Force will be held at Tuesday, May 10, in the Piper Dining Hall on the Midway College Campus. The agenda on the notice from City Hall: "Water and Sewer Issues." Meetings of the task force are open to the public. For a report on the last meeting, click here.

Council to consider budget Monday morning; here's a look at the mayor's proposal

2011-05-04T11:24:00.004-04:00

By Clark Brooks
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

Mayor Tom Bozarth has called a special meeting of the Midway City Council for 8:30 a.m. Monday, May 9, at City Hall for a budget work session and possible action on the budget for the 2011-12 fiscal year.

The most noticeable highlight in Bozarth’s proposed budget would give Midway two newly paved streets. Johnson Street and Stephens Street will receive new blacktop next fiscal year, according to City Council Member Sharon Turner.

Midway is projected to spend $24,525 on street maintenance in the fiscal year that begins July 1, which would be $9,525 more than the $15,000 in the current budget.

The city expects to receive $36,000 from its share of the state’s motor fuels tax, $8,000 more than 2011, probably the result of the improving economy and rising gas prices. Revenue from this tax may only be used for road purposes.

Despite a 63.5 percent increase in street maintenance spending, the entire street department is expected to spend roughly $6,000 less in the next fiscal year. In the department, the city plans to cut spending on Christmas decorations, to $2,500 from $5,000, and on sidewalks and trees, to $5,000 from $10,000. Equipment expenses in the department would also be be cut in half, to $5,000 as opposed to $10,000 in the current budget.

Asked in an email interview why these cuts were being made, Bozarth said the city was “trying to be fiscally responsible.” Bozarth asked that the interview be conducted in writing, and no follow-up questions were asked.

The Rau building, which houses City Hall, will see its expenses rise $7,000, from $15,300 to $22,300, due to an increase in the building’s maintenance and repair costs.

The city’s general fund, which has the most expenses of any department, would see a rise in spending from $336,931 to $345,503 because of increased travel and utility expenses.

On the income side of the ledger, Midway expects to get $4,000 more from business licensing fees, a 45 percent increase, thanks to some increased fees and business growth in the city.

The city also plans to see a $25,000 increase in occupational taxes, its largest source of revenue, projected at $225,000 next year. The increase stems mainly from additional jobs at Midway College.

Midway is also expected to benefit from the recent Social Security tax-cut deal between President Obama and congressional Republicans, saving roughly $21,200 in payroll insurance across the board.
However, the city expects to miss out on $20,000 of insurance tax revenues, which vary from year to year and are dependent on insurance policies bought by local residents and businesses.

At the bottom line, the city expects to see a drop of about $20,000 decrease in the income line that the budget calls “contingency,” which is the money projected to be left over at the end of the year. The current year’s estimate was $47,390; at the end of the next fiscal year it is projected to be $27,378. On the appropriations side, various contingency funds total $18,000.

Amid the juggling of figures, the city’s general, non-utility budget calls for income and appropriations of $931,428, about $3,000 less than this year’s. To view the proposed budget, click here.

Community meeting generates many suggestions for achieving city council's goals

2011-05-04T10:19:00.050-04:00

Mayor Tom Bozarth addresses the meeting as moderator Tad Long stands at left. Malcolm Endicott and Magistrates Larry Craig and Bruce Gill stand near the door. (Photos by Dick Yarmy; click on image for larger version)

By Jordan Vilines
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

More than 40 citizens joined together at Midway Baptist Church Monday night to discuss city goals with council members and Mayor Tom Bozarth. The meeting was requested by new members of the council to encourage the community’s involvement in the management of city affairs and explore various ways the community can work together.

At a private retreat in February, the council generated 70 to 80 ideas to improve Midway and announced five major goals. Tad Long of the Kentucky League of Cities, who facilitated the retreat, moderated the town meeting and directed the citizens’ attention toward generating innovative ideas that would help achieve each of the five goals:

Recycling: Explore opportunities that would provide the citizens of Midway with an affordable and sustainable recycling service.
Water and Sewer: Upgrade the city’s infrastructure while taking into account the future needs of the city.
Community Events: Strengthen the citizens’ unity and cohesion by improving the quality and quantity of events.
City Park: Improving the park to make it more accessible and usable.
Full Occupancy of vacant houses or buildings, especially on Railroad Street.

These goals were discussed during five rounds of a sort of musical chairs, in which the six council members and Bozarth took moved among small groups of citizens, in order to talk about particular goals with as many citizens as possible. After the city officials met with each group for five to 10 minutes, they or another group member announced two or more of the group’s ideas that could help achieve those goals.

Long said it was important to structure the meeting this way, since improving communication with and among citizens is a factor in achieving most of the goals. He told the gathering that the primary “challenges in a community are getting people to agree on one or two things and try to make progress.”

In addition to the five major goals, the meeting agenda originally included discussion of an array of secondary goals including a pedestrian bridge, a dog park, and so on, but the 90 minutes allocated for the meeting ran out before the discussion could go beyond the top five.

Council Member Joy Arnold, right, the main advocate of the town meeting, said “The weak point of this meeting was that there was too ambitious of an agenda, but that was outweighed by the generation of ideas and opportunity to talk to elected officials.”

Recycling was the most controversial topic of the evening and included some mildly heated comments from Magistrate Larry Craig, who represents the Midway area on the Woodford County Fiscal Court.

The city recently began exploring the possibility of taking recycled materials to Lexington, where more items are accepted than at the county’s recycling center. Craig said such a move could undermine the county’s service. Magistrate Bruce Gill backed Craig's arguments.

After some back and forth between the magistrates and city officials, and discussion of what can be recycled where, Long said, “Sounds to me like there needs to be more information sharing.” For the Midway Messenger's February story about recycling issues, click here.

Ideas for improving recycling included encouraging young people to recycle, placing attractive recycling bins downtown, starting a program to recycle hazardous liquids such as paint and pesticides, finding a recycling center that will accept glass, and researching how other communities handle recycling.

The goal of updating Midway’s aging water and sewer infrastructure is being handled by the Water and Sewer Task Force. At the regular council meeting that preceded the town meeting, the council signed a confidentiality agreement with its water supplier, Kentucky American Water Co., to do a study of the current system, with an eye to buying it from the city or taking responsibility for operating it.

Suggestions from the crowd regarding such a deal were divided among support, skepticism and opposition. One suggested seeing what Stockton, Calif., had done about the issue. Council Member Aaron Hamilton, left, said Kentucky American seems to be the best option right now. Bozarth concluded the discussion of the topic by saying, “Hopefully in six months we’ll have information to talk about and to decide what will be best for Midway.”

Recommendations for the Community Events category included expanding the Christmas event, establishing a homecoming weekend, holding themed festivals, spotlighting local musicians, partnering with Midway College, starting bingo, and having a Midway family night. Council Member Becky Moore said, “We should figure out how to let people in the community know that there are events to come and enjoy.”

Ideas for achieving Full Occupancy included making rent more affordable, putting higher taxes on unoccupied buildings, marketing the city as a place to live and visit, keeping downtown beautiful, providing entertainment, and advertising Midway at the airport.

The major disagreement on priorities of the council came from Malcolm Endicott, during discussion of the park. Endicott said his small group didn’t “think that the city park ranks high enough to be a city goal. The government shouldn’t be spending money there.” Ideas for the park included building a swimming pool, providing recreational equipment, planting more trees that provide shade, and building a path so people can walk entirely around the park.

At the end of the meeting, Long said that there isn’t an overnight solution for any of the five major goals. But he said “Perseverance will pay off” and urged Midway citizens to “continue to explore all of the ways the community can work together” because “Now is the opportunity to make a difference.”

Council OKs Ky. American survey of water system

2011-05-04T00:00:00.003-04:00

By Colin Walsh
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

The Midway City Council had a brief but eventful session before its special community meeting Monday, as the mayor took steps toward solving a problem that has been troubling the city for some time.

Tom Bozarth proposed that the council vote to allow Kentucky American Water Co. to conduct a survey of the water system with an eye to its improvement and possible sale. Council member Aaron Hamilton said it would be good to “get the ball rolling” on addressing Midway’s water issues, which include High rates and aged lines that have been causing citizens problems.

The motion passed but not without resistance from the council. Member Dan Roller, the only one to vote against the proposal, said he “doesn’t see the advantage to letting them study the system.” Kentucky American is the city’s water supplier.

“There has been very little discussion about alternative solutions, such as looking into a third party” other than the city or Kentucky American, to own or operate the system, Roller said. “More research needs to be done. We should retain our assets, I mean; we don’t give away our streets when we have someone pave them.”

Representatives from One Alliance Communications, the company that runs the Midway website, were invited to give a presentation to the council..

Lauren Baxter of One Alliance outlined the growth of the Internet and social media, citing the ability of a quality website to “build and improve the credibility” of a town like Midway, while attracting tourism.

Baxter also explained how Google Analytics, a free service offered by Google that generates statistics about website visitors, can help the town with marketing and demographic research.

Lisa Davis of One Alliance explained to the council the difference between a website and other forms of marketing.

“A website is organic,” Davis said. “A website must be fed in order for it to be a viable media entity; you have to constantly keep updating it. It is not something to be looked at as an expense either... It is an investment in Midway’s future. There are people coming to this site from all over the world, there is no way to reach them without it.”

Bozarth said he believes the city’s website is a “work in progress” that is “getting better on a daily, monthly and yearly basis.”

It was also noted that the Midway website was getting more traffic than the Woodford County website.

The council heard a request from Malcolm Endicott, chairman of the Woodford County Economic Development Authority, to help fund the countywide Planning and Zoning Commission, with which the EDA would like to share some expenses, at least temporarily. Endicott said P & Z has a $48,000 budget shortfall because it is funded by fees, which have slacked off during the recession.

Some council members wondered about possible conflicts of interest between the two agencies, and no action was taken. The council will hold a special meeting at 8:30 a.m. Monday to consider the 2011-12 city budget. The proposed budget calls for paying $24,194 to support P & Z, which is asking for an additional $5,291.

Community garden starts third year; open to all

2011-05-03T16:50:00.001-04:00

By Summer Hall
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

Midway's community garden, located on the property of the Midway Presbyterian Church, is starting its third year. John Davis is a member of the church and an active leader for the garden. He explains what it is and how it works.

Davis says hundreds of pounds of produce has come from the garden over the past few years. "It’s an open garden, so anyone can come in and take what they want," he said. "And anyone can come plant what they want." For written details on the garden, click here.

Council holding meeting Monday night for citizens to discuss goals council set for the city in Feb.

2011-05-01T22:22:00.007-04:00

On Monday, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. in the Ministry Center of Midway Baptist Church, the Midway City Council will hold a special meeting to discuss with the community the five major goals set by the council at a retreat in February:

• Recycling: Continue to explore the opportunities to provide recycling services to the citizens of Midway and consider grant opportunities to help make the service affordable and sustainable;
• Water and sewer infrastructure: Explore ways to upgrade facilities and carefully consider future expansion and replacement needs;
• Community events: Several ideas were generated for improving the quality and quantity of events to build on past success and provide new opportunities for the community to come together as a “family;”
• Improve the city park;
• Full occupancy of Railroad Street and of empty and abandoned houses and buildings.

The council's secondary goals and priorities include a dog park, a pedestrian bridge, cleanup of the city and yards, focus on environmental issues, a pedestrian walkway through the park and over the creek, a
hotel or other lodging facility, improving the relationship with the community and an increase in community involvement.

Other ideas were generated under the headings of quality of life, infrastructure, jobs, environment, events and safety. Listings of those ideas can be found at http://www.meetmeinmidway.com/.

The meeting at the church at 6:30 will follow the regular council meeting at 5:30 at City Hall. All council and committee meetings are open to the public. The community meeting will be facilitated by Tad Long of the Kentucky League of Cities, who facilitated the recent meeting about the post office.

Local experts to discuss future of horse industry at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Midway College

2011-04-25T22:58:00.001-04:00

The future of the horse industry will be the topic of a panel discussion at Midway College Wednesday evening. Students from the course Economics of the Horse Industry will talk with local experts, beginning at 6 p.m. in Room 112 of the Anne Hart Raymond Center. The experts will be:

• Chris Stafford, an expert in horse media, who will discuss the role of the media in promoting equine activities to a larger audience.

• Deb Balliet, chief executive officer of the Equine Land Conservation Resource, a non-profit organization founded to promote national awareness of the importance of land and conservation for equestrian sports and activity. She will talk about equine access to land and what we need to do to keep it.

• Ginny Grulke, executive director of the Kentucky Horse Council, a non-profit organization dedicated to protection and development of the Kentucky equine community. She will speak on the role of leadership and organization in the horse industry.

Corman schedules Lexington-to-Frankfort trains for May 10 and 12; no stop in Midway

2011-04-22T19:47:00.004-04:00

By Dick Yarmy
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

Passengers aboard two dinner trains making R.J. Corman Railroad Group’s first round trips from Lexington to Frankfort and back on May 10 and 12 will get a glimpse of downtown Midway –– if they look quickly. (Corman photo of dining car)

“A special run is just what it is,” said Noel Rush, Corman vice president of strategic planning and development. “We certainly don’t want to raise speculation about any regular scheduled dinner train ... We run special trains from time to time.”

Rush said the company is running a special train from Clarksville, Tenn., to Louisville on May 11, as a treat for freight customers, and "It just makes sense to use it" for another purpose: "to raise the profile of Gil Logan, our new executive chef" for the dinner train that Corman operates from Bardstown to the main Jim Beam Distillery. For Corman's full press release, click here.

Corman will also be running its annual Kentucky Derby group train from Lexington to Churchill Downs. The train is scheduled to pass through Midway at 9:35 a.m., May 7.

History is repeating itself. According to this week's Woodford Sun, the Blue Grass Clipper reported that a train carrying former president Teddy Roosevelt failed to stop at Midway back in 1912, and the trains still aren’t stopping 99 years later.

City council discusses 2011-12 budget proposal; mayor delays public release

2011-04-19T18:24:00.005-04:00

By Clark Brooks
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

The Midway City Council discussed Mayor Tom Bozarth’s proposed budget for the 2011-12 fiscal year in an open workshop Monday night but largely in terms of percentage increases or decreases in specific items, not specific dollar figures.

Only the council members and Bozarth had copies of the proposal. The Midway Messenger asked for a copy of the proposed budget immediately after the meeting, but Bozarth required the Messenger to file an open-records request, to which the city has three days to respond. The Messenger obtained a copy of the proposal after the meeting from Council Member Becky Moore, who has said materials provided to council members before meetings should be provided to reporters covering the meetings. (Update: The city responded to the open-records request Wednesday morning.)

Bozarth began the discussion by noting percentage changes in some line items, such as a projected 29 percent increase in net profits taxes from last year. That number reflects an increase to $7,000 from $5,000, and the $2,000 difference is only two-tenths of 1 percent of the general, non-utility budget of $931,428, which is about the same as last year.

Bozarth attributed the increase to “better insight from auditors” and a small growth in local businesses. He said revenue from business license fees is projected to rise 45 percent, largely because the council recently increased the fees, and occupational taxes are expected to go up 14 percent. He said the latter increase stems from more jobs at Midway College.

On the spending side of the ledger, the budget estimates that the city will pay $21,199 less in Social Security taxes, which Bozarth attributed to the recent tax-cut deal between President Obama and congressional Republicans. The largest single increase in the draft budget would boost street maintenance by more than three-fifths, to $24,525 from $15,000 in the current budget.

With the city’s current budget coming to an end at the conclusion of the 2010-11 fiscal year on June 30, the budget is in its preliminary stages. “At this point, nothing in the budget is set in stone,” Bozarth said. “We still have to tinker around with the proposed budget over the next few city council meetings.”

The council received a budget request from the Woodford County Chamber of Commerce to help maintain the chamber website that promotes tourism.

Chamber representative Tami Vater said there has been a lot of interest in Midway businesses, according to the website’s traffic, and requested an unspecified amount to help cover the site’s $3,500 yearly expense. “Nearly a fourth of all web traffic the site had in March was solely because of Midway’s businesses,” she said. “This website helps with communication and allows the chamber to be ambassadors not only for Midway, but also Woodford County as a whole.”

Vater also mentioned the Chamber is developing Facebook and Twitter accounts, and potentially a blog, to help with communication at no cost to the community. “The chamber is trying to get more in sync with tech-savvy consumers,” she said. “Communication is key to promote this area’s businesses and tourism potential.”

There was a brief discussion about the need for a small banquet hall in Midway, and Vater said that a hotel feasibility study is currently in progress to see if Midway is a desirable location for a overnight accommodations.

Monday’s meeting included an update from Midway’s Water and Wastewater Task Force. The report said the current water-main flushing program showed that pipes in some parts of town are worse off than others. For example, pipes on the north side had more rust.

The task force is considering the need for the city to replace its water and sewage lines, perhaps by selling the system. Meanwhile, Bozarth said, Midway will apply for a rural development grant for the work.

“This is a process that is going to take awhile into the fall,” he said. “But, this doesn’t mean the city will make a switch in our water provider.”

Water and Sewer Task Force looks for (1) buyers and (2) cost estimates for repairing systems

2011-04-12T22:07:00.004-04:00

Story and photos by Dick Yarmy
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

The city of Midway’s Water and Sewer Task Force met Friday, April 8 to share fact-finding studies addressing Midway’s aging water and sewer systems. The committee decided to widen the search for potential purchasers and to expand the effort to quantify the cost of repairing the systems.

The committee is studying two options: Selling the city’s assets to an outside company, such as Kentucky American Water Co., the current supplier, which would own and operate the systems, or having the city refurbish the systems and maintain ownership.

“Whether we do this, or Kentucky American Water does this, it will be costly to the citizens of Midway either way,” Mayor Tom Bozarth said. “We are educating ourselves as to what needs to be done, or has to be done.”

The education began with a presentation by committee member Bob Blankenship of HMB Professional Engineers Inc., left. Blankenship estimated a cost of $1,423,150 to address the “trouble spots” in the water lines of the 70-year old system. The estimate covered replacing the lines in one segment of the city and showed costs based on using today’s technology. As an example, Blankenship mentioned using plastic line to replace the old cast iron sections of the system. To view a map, click here; for a breakdown of costs, here.

“I don’t want to give the false impression that this is all you have to do,” Blankenship said. The report is a good representation of the work that would be needed on the whole water system, he added. Blankenship said the estimate addressed issues like small pipes, dead-ends and hydrants connected to pipes that are too small to provide sufficient water pressure.

Based on the sample covered in the estimate, Blankenship said the cost to do the complete water system could run at least another $900,000. Adding this amount to the “trouble spots” budget yields a total estimate of $2.3 million to refurbish the system.

Blankenship said it would take at least that much, or slightly more, to repair the sewer lines, which are larger and must be laid downhill to drain naturally. A future study will examine costs for refurbishing the sewer lines.

Blankenship offered ideas to increase revenues for the system, mentioning the city’s water hauling station. “It appears you are charging only 5-10 cents more than you pay Kentucky Water,” he said. “Maybe you should raise the price to 40 or 50 cents above your costs.”

Another idea was to ask the Kentucky Rural Water Association to start looking for water loss in the system. “There’s no charge for that,” he said.

“At the end of the day, what we have to deal with is the cost of getting our infrastructure up to speed to compare with what Kentucky American Water might offer us to take the system over,” said Bozarth.

Kentucky American has been supplying water to the city of Midway for the past 25 years, based on a 40-year commitment made in 1985. Residents of Midway received notice last December of a rate hike of $2.69 per 1,000 gal. of water.

“To some people, Kentucky Water is a dirty word,” said James Johnson, task force chairman, left. He asked if there was any other company that might be interested in purchasing Midway’s assets.

Bozarth said the city would have to find someone who would want to buy the assets and be more than just a water re-seller. If an interested party was just a water supplier, he said, a separate agreement would be needed to handle the city’s sewer needs. “How many people would be willing to take over a system that would require more than $2 million to just update?” He asked.

One committee member is in a unique position to evaluate the situation: former Kentucky American president Roy Mundy, vice president of development at Midway College, “Kentucky-American looks at acquisitions like this as a five-year strategic plan,” Mundy said.

“When they are acquiring a system, it’s because of a problem and part of their commitment is to solve the problem.” They can immediately fix the serious liabilities, such as fire hydrants, and spread the cost over 118,000 customers in Central Kentucky, said Mundy, left.

“We tried to buy the system when Becky Moore was mayor,” Mundy recalled, and from recent contacts it appears the company is still interested, he added. “And they won’t do it unless the deal will take the city out of debt –– they understand that.” Mundy said, referring to bond issues and other debts related to a proposed acquisition’s water and sewer system.

Several years ago Kentucky American bought the water system in Owen County, which some members of the task force visited recently.

“When Kentucky-American bought Owenton’s system it eliminated their debt and freed up $900,000 to do other things,” said Johnson.

“Employees were taken care of,” said Aaron Hamilton, right, a member of the task force and city council. Kentucky American hired the city’s workers, who received salary raises and improved benefits, he added.

Danny Smith moved that the committee begin contacting Kentucky-American for more information on their interest to purchase the city’s water and sewer system. After a suggestion by Council Member Joy Arnold, a guest sitting in for Council Member Dan Roller, Smith amended his motion to include Kentucky-American Water and any other prospective prospects.

After the motion passed, Bozarth set goals for more fact finding. He asked Blankenship to “zero in” on cost estimates by extending the initial budget to include the city’s entire water line system. Bozarth expressed interest in arriving at a cost per resident, and exploring any grant money that might be available.

Blankenship suggested that a useable benchmark would be a 30/70 rural development grant/loan mix from the Rural Development program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Bozarth reminded the committee of the methodical approach he expects in facing this challenge. “This will take a year to gather all this information,” he said. “We’re going to take small bites, and do it a part at a time.”

The committee will meet again at noon May 10 in the dining hall at Midway College. The task force meetings are open to all citizens.

Water flush is coming; you may taste it tomorrow

2011-04-06T13:46:00.010-04:00

The water in Midway may taste different tomorrow because the city will be preparing for its annual water-main flushing program. Mains will be flushed Monday, April 18 through Friday, April 22, but tomorrow the city will start using a different form of chlorination to disinfect water, continuing through Sunday, May 8. The notice from City Hall says this temporary change is common practice and the water will still be safe to drink, though users may notice a more significant smell of chlorine, and people who must dechlorinate their water will not need to change their procedures during this period.

Starting April 18, mains will be flushed between 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day. Workers will open several fire hydrants in an area to create increased water flows and clean the distribution system of mineral deposits and sediment. During flushing it is possible that water may be discolored, but the water will clear up after it has run for a few minutes, the City Hall notice says. If any discoloration occurs, customers should run the faucet until the water is clear before washing clothes and so forth, the city advises.

"We apologize for the inconvenience and assure you it is a necessary part of our operation," the notice says. "If you have any questions, please call City Hall at 859-846-4413."

Water and Sewer Task Force to meet at noon Fri.

2011-04-05T07:54:00.000-04:00

The Midway Water and Sewer Task Force will meet at noon on Friday, April 8, at the Piper Dining Hall on the Midway College campus, to discuss water and sewer issues. The meeting is open to the public.

Last week's council meetings: A drama in 2 acts

2011-03-31T19:25:00.003-04:00

ANALYSIS By Dick Yarmy
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

The March 21 Midway City Council meetings unfolded like a drama in two acts. Act 1 was an example of city government at its best. Act 2 showed the strain and tension of two factions reaching to understand each other.

Act 1: More than a dozen citizens, including downtown merchants, joined council members and Mayor Tom Bozarth as Joe Grider of HMB Professional Engineers (at right in photo below) brought the plans for the downtown railroad improvements and the Midway streetscape to life at a special outdoor meeting.

Grider, looking like the Pied Piper, led the contingent along points he had pre-marked on the cement showing each construction phase planned by the city and R.J. Corman Railroad Group. His crisp narration was occasionally interrupted by questions from merchants, interested citizens and council members. (Photo by Dick Yarmy)

Although the basic plan has been public for some time, Bozarth called the special meeting and walkthrough to highlight the latest changes to the project, such as scrapping the original plan to demolish two walls on the north end of East Main Street.

Public notice of the special meeting was posted and the mayor telephoned merchants, potentially affected by the changes, to avoid possible misunderstandings.

Grider detailed the nine areas where existing walls, curbs and sidewalks would be removed, and described the six construction tasks involving walls and columns. Changes in parking spot dimensions, which could affect storefront businesses, were covered in detail. Accessibility to the area will be improved with the addition of sidewalk ramps allowing wheeled access to the street.

The streetscape diagram is available as JPEG photo file here.

Grider explained the project scheduling in relative terms. The city can begin its construction only after Corman has completed its work, and Corman’s schedule has yet to be announced.

As different construction tasks were detailed, questions came from the crowd, such as: “Who’s paying for that?” Grider said the city will spend $53,000 on streetscape while Corman spends $700,000 on railway improvements.

The project plan was clearly explained, the interested parties were informed and the city government achieved its goal of keeping interested parties up to date.

The curtain dropped on Act 1.

Act 2, the regular council meeting, added some drama. After routine business, the council began a lengthy debate fueled by new council members’ concerns about communication, access to information and citizens’ involvement in government.

Different understandings between the three new members and holdovers (the three other members and Bozarth) surfaced when new member Joy Arnold discussed a proposed meeting designed to share the council’s goals with the public and solicit additional goals.

Holdover member Doris Leigh questioned the need for the meeting, citing the council’s retreat at the Holly Hill Inn Feb. 12, when members and Bozarth met with a facilitator to establish goals for 2011.

“We already decided our goals at the Holly Hill meeting,” said Leigh, who suggested the council accomplish those goals before taking on new ones.

Arnold replied, “I’m not sure the public is aware of our goals.”

“We represent them,” Leigh responded. “They tell us what to do.”

As the discussion continued, the lines of communication appeared to connect, and all members agreed to the purpose, content, format, location and time of the meeting. It will be held at 6:30 p.m. May 2 at Midway Baptist Church.

But the tension built again, as Council Member Dan Roller introduced a memo with nine suggestions for holding more productive council meetings. Again, the new members and holdovers took opposite positions, and the main point of disagreement was access to information.

Roller asked for more detail to be included in the packet sent to council members to prepare them for council meetings. He also called for a document to track pending projects and proposals that have been acted on in the past year.

Bozarth, left, said any information needed would be provided when requested by a council member. “If you want something specific, just ask,” he said. (Photo, from earlier meeting, by Dick Yarmy)

Roller said information pertaining to the council’s business is “guarded” rather than open. “It’s not our business, it’s the public’s business,” he said. “Most of the suggestions we’re making are for having more productive meetings going forward.”

Roller suggested the packet information should also include the individual committee reports and scheduled meetings. When Bozarth said he saw no need to include detailed schedules and actions of the committees in the packets, Roller asked, “You’re opposed to informing the public?”

Council Member Aaron Hamilton said, “It’s all open. They can come to a committee meeting, if they want to; they don’t have to wait for a report. We send a notice out, and anybody can attend –– anybody.” By law, council committee meetings are public.

New Council Member Becky Moore, who preceded Bozarth as mayor, said a more complete and detailed agenda would serve to inform and engage more citizens, because the agenda is published on the city’s website.

Council Member Sharon Turner expressed support for the current agenda content: “It’s been the same the last four years as it was the two years before that,” she said. “You put on there what you know –– when you know it.” Bozarth was mayor the last four years.

The differing points of view between the new members and holdovers continued during a discussion about providing the news media with the council packets in advance of the meeting.

Bozarth said he saw no need for that, saying that if journalists want something, they can ask. He said the city is following the state open-records law.

Phil Moloney, the city attorney, left, said the city uses the three-day delay the law allows for a response to minimize costs and conserve city clerks’ time. (Photo, from earlier meeting, by Dick Yarmy)

Moore suggested that the reporters present be asked if they needed the packet to do their jobs. Bozarth asked this reporter’s opinion, specifically on receiving an advance copy of the complete packet.

“I would ask for what I needed,” I replied. “We’re not bashful.”

The discussions included other topics, such as operation of the council’s email system, including date stamping; the ability of city clerks to be informed of council decisions to answer citizens’ inquiries; and the possibility of developing a more comprehensive city calendar that would include holidays, city events and anything requiring a permit.

After the meeting, this reporter asked Roller for a copy of the memo he read during the meeting. He suggested I fill out an open-records request, or see the mayor. Bozarth, hearing the conversation, offered to email me one. Roller then handed me his copy, ending Act 2.

In phone interviews the next day and the day after, two council members opined on the meeting.

Moore said part of the problem is the appearance of secrecy: “We’re doing public business in a public place; having people wait for information makes you suspicious.”

Asked what changes she’d like to see, she said, “An elected official should be able to go into City Hall and get what they need immediately. I feel the information is guarded. We should review the current policy.” She added, “The new council members want to know what’s going on because people ask us.”

Turner said their constituents are well informed.

“I can’t get in or out of the grocery store without someone saying ‘What’s going on?’ . . . If you can’t answer to their satisfaction, you can be sure they’ll show up at a council meeting,” she said, adding that communication has improved.

“I’ve worked under both mayors, and I don’t know why some folks think it’s different now. It’s been more open in the last four years than in the previous six.” Moore was mayor for about six years.

“Everything I’ve wanted to know –– when I’ve asked, I’ve been provided with,” Turner said. “Everyone is doing what they can do –– we’re not in it for the money, we’re in it for the love of Midway.”

On that point, Moore agreed. “The information will come, now that we’re asking for it,” she said.

Cemetery committee to meet at 9 a.m. Friday

2011-03-31T10:10:00.001-04:00

The Cemetery and City Property Committee of the Midway City Council will meet Friday, April 1, at 9 a.m. at City Hall. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss two work days in the cemetery, get an update from city employees about work completed in the cemetery, and the observance of Arbor Day.

Midway P.O. finances still secret; USPS releases more data on offices in danger of closing

2011-03-22T08:10:00.001-04:00

The manager of post office operations in the Lexington sectional center of the U.S. Postal Service has declined to give the Midway Messenger and Mayor Tom Bozarth the same information on the Midway post office that postal officials in other areas have shared with reporters about other post offices.

Bozarth, left, and the Messenger had asked for the information to help evaluate Adkins' claim, at a town meeting on the issue, that cuts at the office would save almost $100,000 a year. Adkins saidat the meeting that the Midway post office loses money, but he said in his letter, "The Postal Service does not disclose specific financial data, not even in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. The revenues and expenses of our offices are considered proprietary business information." Bozarth told the Messenger that he received a similar letter.

However, the Postal Service appears more willing to reveal such information about the finances of smaller post offices that were being closed or in danger of closing, perhaps to justify those actions. Annual revenues and expenses of such offices were reported in this story in the Rapid City Journal in South Dakota and another in The Washington Post. The reporters who wrote those stories told the Messenger that they got their information from Postal Service officials: a regional spokesman in Minneapolis and a sectional manager in Virginia.

The USPS releases other types of specific information, as it did last week to residents of Slayden, Tenn., population 300, who got a letter warning that they may lose their post office. At a meeting there, a USPS official "said low business activity at the post office warranted an investigation into the closure. She said the Slayden post office processes 15.1 daily retail transactions, 84.4 pieces of mail, rents about 68 boxes, and dispatches about 51 letters/flats," reports Josh Arntz of the Dickson Herald. The number of retail transactions was mentioned in a letter the USPS sent residents, Arntz told the Messenger. (Read more)

Census: Midway's official population is 1,641

2011-03-17T23:01:00.006-04:00

Midway had only 21 more people on April 1, 2010 than it did 10 years earlier, according to official figures released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The city's 2010 census population is 1,641. In 2000, it was 1,620. The new population figure is contrary to an estimate made by the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, an ongoing national poll, in 2005-09. That survey estimated Midway's population at 2,019. However, the bureau's official population estimate of the city last year was only 1,627.

The census count in Versailles was 8,568, up 9 percent from 7,863. Woodford County's population was 24,939, up 6.2 percent from the 2000 figure of 23.486. Woodford's percentage gain was virtually the same as the state's, 6.1 percent, and lagged far behind Scott (up 40.7 percent, to 47,173) and Jessamine (up 22.6 percent, to 48,586). Fayette rose 11.6 percent, to 295,803, and Anderson rose 10.7 percent, to 21,421. Franklin County gained only 2.1 percent, to 49,285, and Mercer gained just 1.2 percent, to 21,331.

Council, engineer to walk through downtown and discuss streetscape changes at 4:30 p.m. Monday

2011-03-17T09:38:00.001-04:00

A special meeting of the Midway City Council has been called by the mayor and will be held at 4:30 p.m., Monday, March 21, to discuss and view changes that will be made in the downtown streetscape due to the R.J. Corman Railroad Group sidetrack project.

The council will gather first at City Hall and walk through downtown with Joe Grider of HMB Engineers, the city's engineering consultant. The council's regular meeting is scheduled for 5:30 at City Hall. All city council meetings are open to the public.

Corman moving dirt, but VP says 'a lot of pieces need to come together' for an excursion train

2011-03-15T00:11:00.008-04:00

By Dick Yarmy
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

R.J. Corman Railroad Group is almost ready to begin construction of its sidetrack in Midway, and is already moving dirt elsewhere that could lead to an excursion train serving the town.

“There is no formal plan for an excursion or dinner train to Midway at this time,” Noel Rush, vice president of strategic planning and development for Corman, said in an e-mail to the Midway Messenger. “We are optimistic we will be able to develop a plan as the excursion train becomes a viable business opportunity.”

Corman has begun excavation work in Lexington (above) to allow trains to pass under under the new Oliver Lewis Way (the Newtown Pike extension) from the railroad's yard to property it has leased from the Lexington Center Corp. that could be used for a passenger platform.

Lexington Center President Bill Owen confirmed in an e-mail that that Corman has leased sufficient area in the Cox Street parking lot to allow train access. He said all construction work on the project is under the railroad’s control, and has been slowed by complications with underground electric transmission lines and storm drains.

“I continue to be very enthusiastic about the project and feel it offers not only a nice attraction for convention attendees but also local residents,” Owen said.

While Corman says it has no formal plans for an excursion train, “Our lease with the Lexington Center is a forward thinking act in contemplation of our being able to make a business and financial case for operating an excursion train of some kind on a frequent basis,” Rush said. “There are a lot of pieces that need to come together before an excursion train becomes reality.”

Rush said the excursion-train idea has several things going for it: “Midway would be a natural destination because of its distance from Lexington, because it is such a picturesque town, and because we expect to build a siding there which will allow a shorter train, like an excursion train, to pull off the main freight line so our regular freight service is not interrupted.”

Suggestions from city officials that the sidetrack construction in Midway was related to a federal grant Corman received for various track improvements were not exactly correct, Rush said.

“It seems like a situation where over a period of time there have been a number of perspectives, and as things have changed some perspectives haven’t been kept current.” Kentucky and other states applied for economic-stimulus money to finance a package of improvements on Corman’s lines in July 2009, but the grant agreement with the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program was not executed until Dec. 1, 2010. (A PDF of the grant documents is here.)

“The Midway funding is entirely separate from the TIGER funding,” Rush said. However, “The improvements we are making on the Central Kentucky Line would be beneficial to future projects like an excursion or dinner train,” he said. “The R.J. Corman Railroad Group is interested in being a part of the economic growth of not only Midway, but downtown Lexington, as well.”

The Corman group has operated a dinner train from Bardstown for several years. (Corman photo: dinner train car) “My Old Kentucky Dinner Train has been a wonderful addition to our economic base,” said Kim Huston, president of the Nelson County Economic Development Agency. “It brings in affluent people, people that are also doing things on special occasions that might also cause them to spend the night, come to other attractions, shop in our stores.”

There has been speculation about commuter passenger service on Corman's line between Louisville and Lexington, but Rush suggested caution. “The idea of an 80- to 90-m.p.h. passenger rail service from Lexington to Frankfort does not seem viable for the immediate future; by that I mean in the next five years,” he said. Rail experts have said the tracks would need considerable improvement to accommodate commuter trains.

As far as Midway is concerned, the sidetrack is coming; the wall construction and handrails are scheduled; but the train is still around the bend.

Water and Sewer Task Force to meet at noon Fri.

2011-03-10T09:22:00.003-05:00

The Midway Water and Sewer Task Force will meet at noon on Friday, March 11, in the Piper Dining Hall at Midway College to discuss water and sewer issues.

Members of the task force are Mayor Tom Bozarth; City Council Members Dan Roller, Aaron Hamilton and Sharon Turner; and citizen members Bob Blankenship, David Duttlinger, James Johnson, Roy Mundy and Danny Smith.

The task force was created by city government, so the meeting is open to the public.

Lively audience hears from market-study consultant, has many questions and observations

2011-03-08T11:50:00.011-05:00

By Dick Yarmy
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

A lively group of about 30 citizens attended a forum last night launching the state-funded Midway Market Study. The forum featured a presentation by Joshua Bloom, right, a principal of Community Land Use and Economics Group (CLUE), a Virginia consulting firm Midway Renaissance picked to do the study.

The meeting in the Midway Christian Church fellowship hall started on a light note when Bloom, startled by a close-up flash from Woodford Sun columnist John McDaniel’s camera, recoiled like a deer caught in the headlights, pointed to McDaniel and said: “Delete that!” (Photo by Dick Yarmy)

The ice was broken, and Bloom continued with his presentation, which included: A brief history of downtowns, and how they have changed; how, according to his group’s findings, surviving downtowns need to find their own economic niche; and how downtown vacancies don’t necessarily mean something is wrong, but do signal a change in the business landscape.

“People create sales that create rent that support the buildings,” Bloom said, explaining the CLUE premise that downtowns are basically a real estate equation, and the key to success is in getting the right mix of businesses. He said downtown areas like Midway have the opportunity to offer housing, and rentals of upstairs apartments reduce pressure on business owners by adding additional income.

Bloom explained the importance of attracting a solid customer base of workers, visitors and residents. “Who’s good for Midway? And how do we attract more people?” he asked.

Bloom then outlined the study CLUE designed for Midway and what it could do for the town, by analyzing downtown consumer behavior and marrying the results with a survey of present businesses’ strategies. Analysis of the data is to produce a market strategy for Midway, defining the stakeholder roles for everyone involved.

“The right direction for Midway has to come at the intersection of community desire and market potential,” said Bloom, stressing the importance of individual desire and cooperation.

The audience, made up of downtown business people, Renaissance committee members, Midway council members and interested citizens, had several questions and observations.

“Have you seen a precipitous drop in downtown businesses in other towns?” Jim Mannis asked.

Bloom said it would be an overreach to give a definitive answer with so many factors involved, such as the mix of the businesses in other towns, changes in buying habits, and changes in marketing strategy –– antique stores moving their businesses online, for example.

Recession is a state of mind, downtown clothier Crittenden Rawlings said. “There is no recession in Midway, is an attitude,” he said. “I’ve traveled and worked all over the country and I’m very happy to have my store here in Midway,” he said.

Rawlings told of a clothier who called a meeting of his employees and announced that the word “recession” was not allowed in the shop. Crittenden said he could document the fact that the shop’s sales figures continued to remain strong and showed no signs of a recession.

City Council Member Joy Arnold asked how Midway Station, the failed industrial park that is supposed to be redeveloped commercially and residentially, would figure into the study. “I visited it today,” said Bloom, “ but that’s a whole other animal and not part of our study.”

Audience comments and questions ranged from specifics about the mechanics of the market study to ideas and strategies for existing and proposed downtown businesses.

Rawlings suggested that Midway consider certain zoning regulations and absence of conventional commercial signage like those in Middleburg, Va., heart of Virginia’s horse country, to add charm to the town.

As ideas continued to surface, a voice in the crowd said: “You never know if unless you actually try,” capturing some of the “can-do” spirit of the audience.

“You can create a vibrant economy,” said Bloom, challenging the audience. He explained that downtowns offer a different kind of service than shopping malls and shopping centers, so business owners will have to figure out how to serve and support their customer base.

Picking up on the theme of personal challenge, Midway Renaissance President Randy Thomas reminded the audience that although the survey was for downtown businesses, citizens also need to figure out their own role in the process.

Thomas suggested that everyone ask: What’s in it for me? What do we want? How can we help make it happen? His comment triggered comments about the need to support Railroad Drug and Old Time Soda Fountain, the downtown pharmacy that opened a few months ago.

“We need to buy there,” one said. “They sell medicine at the same price as Kroger, and give good customer service as well,” offered another. “And don’t forget you can get ice cream at the same time,” a comment that promoted some laughs and seemed to strike home.

“We have to change our thinking,” said Marcie Christensen, manager of Midway Renaissance. “ It’s not, ‘I’ll go shopping to get what I need.’ It has to be, ‘I’ll go downtown and see what they’ve got, so I know what I need.’” (See clarification from Christensen in comments section of this story.)

UPDATE: Railroad Drug owner and pharmacist Ken Glass said today that his store is actually a bright spot in the downtown economy. "We are ahead of where we expected to be at this time," he said in an e-mail. "My wife and I are appreciative of all the support we've received to this point, and plan be here a long, long time."

Christensen reminded the audience that the Renaissance website is a vehicle to track the progress of the study, and invited the audience to help with the consumer interviews scheduled for April.

Postal official says changes at post office are first step toward saving it; some citizens skeptical

2011-03-06T18:31:00.007-05:00

By Clark Brooks
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

For the people of Midway, the post office is more than what its name implies; it’s a benchmark of the community.

“For a place to be a town for me, it has to have a church, a bank, and a post office,” regional postal official Tom Adkins told Midway postal customers Thursday night at a meeting on the future of their office. “I’ve seen post offices close and I don’t like doing it. Believe me when I say there isn’t even a whisper to close this office.”

Despite his repeated assurances, Adkins was grilled by citizens about the fate of the office. He confirmed that it will undergo several changes March 26 as part of a nationwide plan by the U.S. Postal Service to save $2 billion over the next decade by shrinking or eliminating 20,000 post offices. Here's a video report from Summer Hall:

The changes in Midway will downsize the post office from a class 16 station to a level 15, which includes a slight reduction in the postmaster’s salary, transfer of two mail carriers to the Versailles office and reassignment of one of the two mail clerks.

Over the two-hour meeting, dozens of townspeople were given hope that their beloved post office wasn’t going anywhere any time soon. A few, however, were already anticipating the changes to be the beginning of the end.

“There is no doubt in my mind that this is the first step to closure of our branch,” Dave Johnson said. “I mean, look around the country. There are places closing left and right. Soon this switch from a level 16 to 15 will finally end up with us turning around and the office being gone.”

Adkins, however, repeatedly said there are no plans to close the office, at one point saying, “We are not looking at closing the Midway Post Office. Not gonna do it.” But he deflected questions about who above him, or after him, could make that decision.

He said the changes would benefit of the community by making the branch more efficient, protecting it from further cuts that could lead to its closure.

Adkins was straightforward in saying that the post office, though it serves a growing community, doesn’t make money – though its mail volume has declined less than the average for post offices in the Lexington area.

“Right now, this is simply not a profitable branch, and it hasn’t been any time recently,” said Adkins, who supervises small-town post offices in the Lexington area. “This is not a first step to closing it. To me and anybody who’s been working on this project, it’s the first step in saving it.”

He said the biggest savings will be in “the clerks’ salary and benefits packages, which can be absorbed in the Versailles hub. I can easily see roughly a million dollars being saved by this branch alone in the next few years.”

Besides the benefits he feels it will bring to Midway, Adkins also mentioned that the downsizing will help the USPS deal with competitors such as UPS and Federal Express.

Midway Mayor Tom Bozarth, however, was skeptical that the changes would actually save money in the long run.

“I just can’t see how this isn’t a profitable branch,” he said. “We use our office more than most communities. I want to see expenses versus the profit in black and white; show us the savings.”

Though Adkins was reluctant to release information that might reveal individuals’ compensation, he did promise to give Bozarth details of the savings plan, and revenue and expense data for the post office.

People at the meeting made it clear the post office is the most visited building in Midway, with the possible exception of the grocery, and is much more than a place to buy stamps and pick up mail. It is a place to socialize with neighbors and stay informed about them, their families and community happenings, giving it great importance.

“It’s like a rite of passage for our kids to turn that key in our own mail box,” Midway resident Shirley Wilson said. “To me, it’s the most important building in town.”

Most residents of Midway don’t have home mail delivery and instead pick up their mail at their family box at the office, which is a free service if the box is small. Some residents complained that they have paid for a larger box for years without knowing that a small one is free.

Certified mail and packages will still be held at the Midway post office, meaning Midway postal customers wouldn’t need to travel to the Versailles office.

In Kentucky, 16 post offices have already been shut down in the retooling by the USPS, but Adkins said those offices and service areas were different from Midway’s.

“The offices we have been closing are generally extremely close to other post offices or stations that are only two- or four-hour offices,” Adkins said. “I remember one such instance where there were three offices in less than of a mile from each other. It’s just a matter of cutting unnecessary spending.”

Adkins said one way to help guarantee the future of the post office is to use it. Residents suggested that the office should not close for lunch, and Adkins said he would look into that.

Market study meeting set for 7 p.m. Monday

2011-03-06T16:17:00.000-05:00

The public is invited to a meeting at 7 p.m. Monday at Midway Christian Church to discuss the Midway market study recently funded by the Kentucky Heritage Council with a grant to Midway Renaissance.

The study will include current business and consumer interests and concerns, and develop plans to address them. A similar study in 2002 reported several improvements people wanted to see downtown – sidewalk repairs, streetlights, landscaping, burial of electric lines and so on. "Many of these improvements have been achieved," Renaissance reports, inviting citizens "to learn about the scope of this project and ask questions of our consultant, Josh Bloom of CLUE Group."

The meeting will be held in the Fellowship Hall of the church at the corner of Gratz and East Bruen streets. Renaissance will provide coffee and dessert. More information on the study, such as its timeline and the consultant's contract, is available on Renaissance's Midway Market Study web page.

Bills to raise city's classification go to governor

2011-03-05T21:07:00.010-05:00

The legislature gave final passage yesterday to bills that would make Midway a fourth-class city, allowing it to enforce alcoholic-beverage laws and get related fees, among other things. Because it is a fifth-class city, those rights and responsibilities now rest with the county.

The reclassification is in two bills that were amended to include Midway: a Senate bill amended by Rep. Carl Rollins, D-Midway, left, and a House bill amended by a Senate committee. The Senate concurred in Rollins' amendment and repassed its bill 34-3, and the House concurred in the Senate amendment to the other bill and passed it 91-4, sending both to Gov. Steve Beshear for his signature or veto.

Midway lacks the 3,000 minimum population that the state constitution may require for a fourth-class city. Its population at the 2000 census was 1,620 and was recently estimated by the census to be 2,019. The official 2010 census figure has not been released.

The constitutional rules on classification are open to interpretation, and the bill Rollins amended would move at least two other cities with fewer than 3,000 people, Greensburg and Guthrie, up to fourth class. (See our previous item on the bill for the details on the legalities.) The bill would also raise to fourth class Junction City in Boyle County, which the census estimates has exceeded the 3,000 threshold in the last few years. One of the four House members voting against the other bill was Rep. Mike Harmon, R-Danville, whose district includes Junction City.

Midway is the only city in both bills. The other bill would also raise Sadieville in Scott County from sixth to fifth class, though it is far short of the 1,000 minimum for that class. It would do likewise for Wurtland in Greenup County, which meets the guidelines.

Rollins said in an interview that he thinks the constitution gives the legislature authority to classifiy cities as it wishes. The bills say "satisfactory information has been presented to the General Assembly that the population" of Midway and the other fifth-class towns "is such as to justify its being classified as a city of the fourth class."

Rollins introduced the measure, and an identical bill last year, at the request of Mayor Tom Bozarth and the city council. The main motive for the change is the city's desire to have its own alcoholic beverage administrator. That power now rests with County Judge-Executive John Coyle. Versailles is a fourth-class city and runs its own alcohol affairs.

Tornado siren test set for 10:07 a.m. Tuesday

2011-03-04T15:57:00.002-05:00

Tornado sirens are scheduled to sound at approximately 10:07 a.m. Tuesday, March 8, in a test of the state emergency warning system. Weather alert radios will activate and television and radio stations will broadcast the alert message. This will be a test.

Post-office downsizing raises concern; town meeting set for 7 p.m. Thur. with Postal Service

2011-03-02T21:44:00.004-05:00

By Colin Walsh, Summer Hall, Clark Brooks and Dick Yarmy
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

Midway’s post office, a central piece of the city’s identity, will likely be undergoing some federally mandated changes later this month, and city officials have called an "urgent town hall meeting" out of fear that the downsizing could eventually lead to its closing.

The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. in the Anne Hart Raymond Center at Midway College. A official from the U.S. Postal Service will be present to answer questions.

Although Midway customers' postal service will remain virtually unchanged, the measures have raised concerns about the changes in the shadow of the larger cuts planned by the service. Citizens are fearful the office could close –– a blow to any small town where the post office functions as a popular meeting place.

The Midway post office's two rural mail routes and one of its two clerks are to be reassigned to the Versailles office on March 26. The move is part of an effort by the postal service to save money after a $3 billion loss last year. It is reviewing the profitability of as many as 20,000 offices, and is in the process of saving $500 million by closing 2,000 offices designated Class 13 and below. The cuts at the Midway office will reduce it to Class 15 from Class 16, and the meeting-notice advertisement in tomorrow's Woodford Sun asks, "Could the next step be CLOSURE?"

City Council Member and Mayor Pro Tem Sharon Turner, left, who worked at the post office for two years about 20 years ago, told the Midway Messenger, “My gut instinct says it won’t be shut down any time soon. But, one can't help but wonder if this is the start to the gnawing at a problem to challenge the office’s profitability.”

Turner said volume reduction, along with the reduced stamp sales and package pick-ups by carriers, could reduce overall revenues, impacting profitability. Lack of profit and decreased mail volume make it easier for the Postal Service to close an office.

"I don’t think it will close," Turner said, "but what I am worried is that this is a first step." Asked what closure would mean, Turner said, "Devastation is the first word that comes to mind. We actually have a lot of business there that people don’t realize out of the city of Midway. . . . There’s a lot more there than you just actually see driving through."

She said the post office and the grocery are the most popular meeting places for the community, and residents at one point had the opportunity to have their mail delivered to their homes or continue to pick it up at the post office, and they preferred the latter. About half the Midway post office's 1,700 customers rent boxes at the office; Midway has no city delivery, except to residents who live on the sections of the rural routes inside the city.

Turner said city officials learned of the plan through “kind of a fluke. I was making simple conversation with one of the clerks and she said she might not be here next month.”

The reduction in service is not expected to change daily routines, except that postal customers on the rural routes may get their mail at a different time than they do now. Turner said customers expecting certified mail will have to travel 10 miles to the Versailles post office to get the mail if they are not home when the carrier tries to make delivery. She said those on Midway rural routes will still have Midway addresses though the carriers will be based in Versailles.

Midway has a history of defending its post office. The postal service offical at the meeting will be Tom Adkins, a veteran of the last skirmish between Midway and the postal service, 20 years ago, when the service wanted to move the office to another building but backed off in the face of public objections.

House passes bill to raise city classification

2011-03-02T15:58:00.006-05:00

The state House passed a bill this afternoon that, if the Senate approves, would make Midway a fourth-class city and let it enforce alcoholic-beverage laws and get related fees. Because it is a fifth-class city, those rights and responsibilities now rest with the county. Versailles is a fourth-class city and manages its own alcohol affairs.

The Midway measure is in a floor amendment attached to Senate Bill 82 by Rep. Carl Rollins, D-Midway. It now returns to the Senate, where its fate is uncertain, though Rollins said last night, "I'm optimistic."

The amended bill passed the House 82-16, perhaps reflecting misgivings about the amendment. Reclassification bills are usually not controversial, but Midway lacks the 3,000 minimum population that the state constitution may require for a fourth-class city. Its population at the 2000 census was 1,620 and was recently estimated to be 2,019. The 2010 census figures are not yet public.

The section of the constitution that specified population ranges for classes of cities was repealed in 1994 and replaced by a section, 156A, that allows the General Assembly to "create such classifications of cities as it deems necessary based on population, tax base, form of government, geography or any other reasonable basis." But the legislature has never set up a new system, and the 1994 constitutional amendment says "The law pertaining to the classifications in effect at the time of adoption of this section shall remain in effect until otherwise provided by law."

Some legislators argue that the amendment allows them to reclassify individual cities on the basis of the criteria it mentions, but the heading of the bill prepared by legislative staff advises, "The population requirement for the classification of cities established by the former Section 156 of the Constitution remain in effect until changed by law. Therefore, classification of a city of the fourth class requires a population of 3,000 to 7,999."

The original Senate bill applied only to the city of Guthrie in Todd County, which had a census population of 1,457 and is estimated to have had 1,760 as of 2009. Senate amendments added Greensburg in Green County, pop, 2,396, estimated to have 2,544; and Junction City in Boyle County, pop. 2,184, estimated at 3,214, making it the only city of the four with the requisite population.

"I'm pretty sure Midway probably does not meet the requirements, but at the same time there are some pretty good things going on in Midway and it would be to our benefit to be a fourth-class city," Rollins said, adding that he acted at the request of Mayor Tom Bozarth and the city council. He said he agrees with those legislators who believe the legislature has inherent authority to classifiy cities as it wishes.

He acknowledged the bill could get caught up in larger issues as the legislative session ends this week. As chairman of the House Education Committee, Rollins has been a key obstacle to charter-school legislation pushed by Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville. But Rollins said he was encouraged because one of his bills is to be heard tomorrow in the Senate State and Local Government Committee, headed by Sen. Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown, and Thayer has added Midway and another city to a reclassification bill that originated in the House.

Rollins' amendment, mirroring language in the Senate's classification bill, says "Satisfactory information has been presented to the General Assembly that the population of the City of Midway, in Woodford County, is such as to justify its being classified as a city of the fourth class." The American Community Survey of the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that Midway had a population of 2,019 in 2009.

Rollins simply told the House, "Midway meets the requirements, in my opinion," and his colleagues approved his amendment on a voice vote. The only other real discussion came from Rep. Adam Koenig, R-Erlanger, who told the House, "We need to renew our whole system of city classification. It's archaic." He called for "one set of rules for every city" and won applause.

Bozarth is chairman of the classification committee of the Kentucky League of Cities, and has said the legislature should reform the system. As the league's second vice president, in line to become president, he will be in a position to advance the issue.

Midway City Council Member Sharon Turner, the mayor pro tem, said in an interview that fourth-class status would be good for the city in other ways, but the city's immediate concern is the desire to have its own alcoholic beverage administrator. That power now rests with County Judge-Executive John Coyle. "We get no fees and we're not an administrator per se over who gets a license or who doesn't get a license," she said. Turner publishes a magazine for the state's wine and distilled spirits industry and works for the Kentucky Malt Beverage Council, which represents Anheuser-Busch distributors in the state.

Water, Sewer and Garbage Committee to meet

2011-02-17T16:15:00.001-05:00

The Water, Sewer and Garbage Committee of the Midway City Council will meet Friday, Feb. 18, at 5:30 p.m in the Community Room upstairs at City Hall to discuss citizen requests for water adjustments. All council committee meetings are open to the public.

Midway Renaissance leaving Main Street program

2011-02-16T19:04:00.000-05:00

Midway Renaissance told the city council tonight that it is withdrawing from the state Main Street program, obviating the need for the group and Mayor Tom Bozarth to agree on a survey to be submitted to the state for recertification by the program by Friday.

The Midway Messenger was unable to cover tonight's special meeting because it coincided with the class that reports and writes for the Messenger, but Renaissance submitted a press release that can be read here.

Council to meet at 5:30 Wed. to act on survey Renaissance must submit to be re-certified

2011-02-15T15:24:00.003-05:00

The Midway City Council will have a special meeting at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 16, at City Hall to act on the survey that Midway Renaissance must submit to the state by Friday, Feb. 18 to be re-certified. The survey and the city's relationship with Renaissance occupied most of the council's time at its last regular meeting. For a story on that meeting, click here.

City again seeking higher status from legislature

2011-02-11T11:00:00.004-05:00

The effort to raise Midway's city classification, which would give it more power to control matters such as alcohol licensing, has been revived in the General Assembly. Tomorrow the City Council is scheduled to pass a resolution asking the legislature to raise the city from the fifth to the fourth class "based on the population, the geography and economic condition of the city," according to the meeting notice from City Hall.

The council was already scheduled to meet at the Holly Hill Inn from 11:15 a.m. to 1 p.m. for a retreat with a facilitator in an effort to set goals for the next two years, with no action to be taken. The meeting for the reclassification resolution is set for 11 a.m. at the restaurant.

An effort to raise Midway's clasification failed in the 2010 General Assembly. For the initial story on that, click here; for the last story, go here.

Council to gather for special reasons Fri., Sat.

2011-02-10T14:45:00.001-05:00

The Midway City Council will have two unusual meetings Friday and Saturday. The first will be a 9:30 a.m. field trip to the recycling center in Lexington, as part of the city's inquiry into alternatives for recycling. (See story below.) On Saturday from 11:15 to 1, at the Holly Hill Inn, the council will have a retreat with a facilitator in an effort to set goals for the next two years. The official notice from City Hall calls it a "planning session" and says "No action will be taken." All gatherings of a quorum of a public agency are considered official meetings and open to the public.

As city looks to go greener (Lexington?), county plans improvements to recycling service

2011-02-10T14:40:00.000-05:00

By Colin Walsh
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

There is a growing demand in Midway for a more comprehensive recycling program. And as city council members prepare to explore different options, Woodford County is planning improvements to its service.

Recycling service in Midway is limited to products the county recycling center in Versailles can accept, which currently excludes glass and fiberboard (i.e. cereal boxes, beer cartons, paper plates etc.). Citizens want a more comprehensive service, Council Member Joy Arnold said.

“We want to be as green as possible,” Arnold said. “I’ll speak for myself, I even stopped putting out recycling (in Midway), I collect it all and take it to Lexington. . . . If I take my cardboard and glass there, I might as well take it all.”

Arnold and the rest of the council are taking a trip to the Lexington recycling center on Manchester Street this Friday to see how it operates. The council and the community’s desire for a better program prompted the trip.

“Sadly, I’ve been aware of people who have stopped recycling cardboard and glass altogether,” Arnold said. “Our dumps don’t need that.”

Meanwhile, the Woodford County recently received a grant from the state for a new horizontal baler that will allow the Versailles center to take fiberboard, hopefully by early March – something that doesn't appear to be common knowledge in Midway, perhaps due to lack of communication between the city and county.

County recycling director Wade Johnson said of Midway's search for alternatives, “The first thing I heard about the situation in Midway was when I read it in the paper,” The Woodford Sun. “Whatever reason, it’s their own reason and I’m not privy to any of the meetings or how they came to this conclusion.”

Johnson also said that the reason that the county can’t take glass is very simple: “We have to sort it by one of three colors, and after you sort it out you have to pay labor costs and the market is currently so flooded and the value (of glass) is so marked down that, instead of making any money, you can’t even cover the labor costs. Essentially you pay for it twice. (In my opinion) it’s not a good stewardship of taxpayers’ dollars.”

But for Johnson and the county government, there don’t seem to be any hard feelings if Midway goes to Lexington. “We will miss having their product but it certainly will won’t put us in any sort of financial bind,” he said. “We really haven’t pursued (accepting glass) for the aforementioned reasons.”