Midway University growing, looking for Aug. 20 service projects for students; council OKs firearms ordinance

A growing Midway University is looking for community service work that its students can perform from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday, Aug. 20, as part of their orientation, the City Council heard Monday night.

In other business, the council passed an ordinance banning discharge of firearms in the city unless needed to protect person or property, and heard some financial reports from Mayor Grayson Vandegrift.

The council heard from Tracy Small-Spotts, the university's director of student involvement and leadership, about the community service day, which she said is designed to correct "the slight disconnect between the university and Midway."

Small-Spotts said the school is looking for seven to 10 community-service sites, most of which could accommodate 20 to 25 students. She said the school is expecting "one of our biggest enrollments," including 150 new resident students. For the first time, some will be men, and the university has also accepted students from Saint Catharine College near Springfield, which has closed.

She said the students could clean up homes, yards, parks and so on. Council members and Vandegrift offered some suggestions for work sites and groups who might be asked to help set them up.

The firearms ordinance is needed, said Asst. Chief Mike Murray of the Versailles Police Department, which patrols all of Woodford County. The council set the penalty for violation of the ordinance at $100 to $250.

Vandegrift noted that the city ended the fiscal year with a $150,000 surplus in its general fund, with lesser surpluses in other funds. The primary reason was more than $394,000 in occupational taxes, which had been budgeted at $275,000. The main reason for that was The Homeplace at Midway, the new nursing home and assisted-living facility.

Vandegrift also reported that he had consolidated the city's information-technology services with a single contractor, which he said would be more efficient and save at least $2,000 a year.

Council moves to put big water tower into service, OKs moving farmers market, discusses park issues

By Nini Edwards and Al Cross

University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

The City Council voted Monday night to spend $16,425 to start putting the Midway Station water tower, built 11 years ago, into service.

“We are going to take the Tin Man out of service,” Mayor Tom Bozarth said. The older water tower built in the 1940’s is known as the Tin Man due to its gable roof, which resembles the hat of the Tin Man in the 1939 movie, “The Wizard of Oz.”

The towers loom on the horizon on US 62 just south of Midway.

The tower, located just outside downtown on Dudley Street, will no longer hold water, but will not be torn down, Bozarth said after the meeting.

The newer, bigger tower at Midway Station has never been in service because the industrial park never attracted significant development.

The tower is now needed to serve development on the former Weems property across Interstate 64, now owned by Dennis Anderson of Lexington, who has an option to buy Midway Station and turn it into a commercial and residential development.

The initial cost to put the tower in service is for an updated telemetry system, which is used to measure the amount of water in the tower and control the water level.

Council Member Bruce Southworth obtained two proposals from potential vendors and recommended using Rawdon Myers Inc. of Milford, Ohio. Southworth, former public works director and city administrator in Versailles, said the tank would also need to be disinfected, at additional cost. 

"The Tin Man"

Council Member Grayson Vandegrift appeared hesitant to vote on the issue, saying he had not heard about it until Bozarth and Southworth brought it up.

Bozarth said he asked Southworth to handle the matter. “This is something we have to do,” he said. “It’s something we’ve been working on for 10 months, really.”

Vandegrift joined the other members (Aaron Hamilton was absent) in voting for the expense. City Clerk Phyllis Hudson said it will come out of the $32,000 line item in the water-sewer budget for capital improvements.

The council authorized Southworth to see if the circular tank at the old sewage-treatment plant on Leestown Road can be stopped from leaking, so it the plant can be an aquaculture demonstration center for Kentucky State University. 

The council gave second reading and final passage to an ordinance allowing guns in the city park, to conform with a recent state law and federal court rulings.

The ordinance amended the existing park ordinance. Council Member Sara Hicks, reading the full ordinance, asked why it prohibits horses in the park.

“We’re the horse capital of the world,” said Hicks, who has lived in Midway since 2004. “Why would we disallow horses in our park? . . . They’re on a leash, usually.” Because it is next to the Midway College horse area, she said, it would be “a logical place to go during parades and things like that.”

Others at the meeting said it would be too risky to let people ride horses in the park. If a rider fell off, the horse could endanger people, Bozarth said. City attorney Phil Moloney said, “That creates a lot of liability issues and responsibility for the city in terms of overseeing it.” Bozarth said if there a group with a specific reason for bringing a horse into the park it can ask the council for permission.

Council Member Dan Roller said that if guns are going to be allowed in the park, the ordinance should prohibit them from being fired. Moloney said another ordinance bans the discharge of firearms in the entire city.

Continuing talk about park business, the mayor said someone is allowing dogs to jump up and knock down tree branches near the pavilions.

“It is damaging the property and it needs to stop,” Bozarth said. “We need to find who is doing this so we can put it to rest.”

At the request of the Woodford County Farmers Market, the council voted to move the market back to its previous location on Main Street. Last year it was on the Darlin’ Jean’s Apple Cobbler Café parking lot at the east end of downtown.

At the end of last year’s season a market survey showed that “most of our customers’ preferred the wholesomeness of downtown Midway,” market representative Julie Morgan told the council.

This year, the market will be in front of downtown stores from The Fashion Filly to the Heirloom restaurant. Each Monday, parking will be marked off in front of these locations except for handicapped parking.

“In previous years we put the cones around 2:30,” Morgan said. “There was never really a concern.” The market will open May 6 and will be open on Mondays from 3 to 6 p.m.

The council approved a resolution authorizing Community & Economic Development Associates Inc. to be paid for preparing the application for the $500,000 grant that will be used for infrastructure to serve The Homeplace at Midway. At the last council meeting CEDA President Bryan Kirby said he could not find that the council had ever formally authorized the application and the payment, which is called for in the grant.

The council authorized the Veterans Memorial Committee to withdraw $2,500 from the trust fund for the memorial to add 42 names of Midway-area veterans whose names have surfaced through research, according to Sgt. Jeremy Emerson of the committee.

Bozarth issued a proclamation, which the council approved, making April 26 Arbor Day. It cited trees’ beauty and their ability to provide clean air and water.

Council Member Sharon Turner announced that former state Auditor Crit Luallen, a prospective candidate for governor in 2015, will speak at the Memorial Day observance.

Council debates charitable donations, OKs quarry work, and hears about job prospects and a grant hiccup

By Megan Smiddie

University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

Midway Station, missing grant paperwork, requests for charitable donations and fixing up the old quarry at the city park were among topics the Midway’s City Council discussed Monday night.

Brad McLean, the chairman of the Woodford County Economic Development Authority, reported that there have been “four or five inquiries” recently on the three available industrial lots in Midway Station.

“I wish I could say more,” said McLean. “There is progress, I promise you.” He said any resulting development on the lots would be small, totaling only five to 10 employees.

Midway Station is a failed industrial park north of Interstate 64 that currently hosts a couple of small businesses, with all other lots empty. It left Midway and the county with a $6 million debt, so they optioned the property to Dennis Anderson of Lexington, whose plans for a residential and commercial development on the site have been stopped by the recession. McLean said EDA is trying to work with Anderson and the banks that hold the debt, since Anderson has an option on the entire property.

Mayor Tom Bozarth said that he would like to see a progress report from EDA on recruitment of “small, little, green jobs” and an agreement for funding of the agency, especially since it has employed a recruiter. “There needs to be an inter-local agreement between Midway, Versailles and the fiscal court about funding for this project,” he said.

The council spent several minutes debating whether it should make a $250 donation to the American Cancer Society as part of the annual Relay for Life fundraiser. The larger question being raised was: Should people who are handling taxpayers' dollars be donating them to charities?

“I think we can all agree that cancer has affected every single one of us,” said Council Member Grayson Vandegrift, who made the motion for the donation, noting (as Bozarth did) that the City of Versailles had given likewise. “I think it is one of those causes that we can make an exception.”

Council Member Daniel Roller countered, “Where do we draw the line?” He added, “Cancer has affected a lot of people, heart disease has affected a lot of people, Alzheimer’s affects a lot of people. . . . I don’t know how we determine which ones we give to.”

Roller moved to table the request until a policy has been put in place on such donations, but his motion lost 4-2, with only Council Member Sara Hicks joining him. The motion for the donation passed 4-1, with Roller opposed and Hicks abstaining.

A citizen at the meeting later emailed Bozarth, the council and the Midway Messenger expressing concern. “This is, I am sure, a worthy cause for donation, by each individual,” Michael Ashton of Midway wrote. “I do not believe it is proper for the city to decide to spend these funds.”

Ashton, who ran for a council seat last year, pointed out that there was “no set aside for donations of this type in the budget.” He added, “It sets a bad precedent; how do you say ‘No’ to the next and other worthy requests?” Ashton requested that the council rethink its decision and that at the next budget meeting set aside a separate allocation for donations.

Near the end of its session, the council agreed to hold a special meeting at 8 a.m. Monday to start discussing the budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1. “It’s just going to be a preliminary walk-through,” Bozarth said. That meeting will be followed by a meeting of the council’s Cemetery, Ordinance and Policy Committee, which has begun looking at noise ordinances in other cites as it considers whether to enact one in Midway.

Bryan Kirby, president of Community & Economic Development Associates Inc., asked the council to pass a resolution approving preparation of the application for the $500,000 grant given to the city in 2007 for the nursing home soon to be built as The Homeplace at Midway.

Kirby said that in getting ready for the actual release of the money, he could not find that the council had ever formally authorized the application. He said paperwork may have been lost in the merger of CEDA and Will Linder and Associates, which actually prepared the application.

“An action by the council was never taken to formerly hire a firm to write the grant,” Kirby said. Bozarth said City Clerk Phyllis Hudson had been unable to find any evidence of such action. He suggested that the council simply amend its agreement with CEDA to include the authorization, and indicated that documents to that effect would be prepared.

In an update on the project, Kirby said the state Department for Local Government is giving Christian Care Communities a 90-day extension of time to award bids on the project. He said CCC technically met Monday’s deadline by hiring a construction manager instead of a using a traditional bid process, but to get the extension the city will need to submit a letter supporting it.

“It was more of a formality to the council,” Kirby explained afterward. “It grants a 90-day extension on provision of any final documentation needed to release the $500,000.”

The council unanimously to approve Bozarth’s request to spend $3,500 on cleaning up the old quarry at the park. “It will make it nice and make it something we can use in the community and enhance the park,” he said. The quarry site lies between the library on the north and the dog park on the south, and between Lee’s Branch on the west and Northside Elementary School on the east.

An ordinance revising rules for the park was given a first reading. It would remove a ban on firearms that has been invalidated by a state law passed last year. “The presence of firearms shall now be permitted,” substitute city attorney Josh Salsburey said.

Perhaps coincidentally, an unidentified man drew attention at the meeting by wearing an automatic pistol. He left before the meeting was over. Woodford Sun Correspondent John McDaniel, a former policeman, noted that the gun was not loaded: "My guess is that he was waiting for someone to challenge him after the mayor read the no-concealed weapon paragraph before the meeting began."

The council also passed a resolution designating April as Alcohol Awareness Month. “We can help provide hope for today and hope for tomorrow to people facing challenges with alcohol use and abuse,” Salsburey read from part of the resolution. “We can discourage underage drinking throughout our community by giving our young people better things to do than use.” 

Vandegrift presented recent statistics for the city’s Meet Me in Midway website. He is working with the creators of the site to redo it. “We are looking to make it more mobile friendly and add a calendar,” he said. The statistics showed that more than 70 percent of new visitors to the site viewed it on a mobile device, but the site has no special configuration for such devices.

Finally, Council Member Sharon Turner asked for help in reviving the city's monthly newsletter, Midway Matters, which has been produced mainly by volunteers.