Guest Column: Transparency and better access is a goal for county judge executive
By James D. Anderson, Jr., Powell County Judge Executive
Before I took this office, I like many others was often left wondering what was going on in our county government. The only real way to get some true idea was to attend the fiscal court meetings, but for many of our citizens who have to work outside our community it can be challenging to make it to these. This leaves a large portion of our people with only limited accounts of what happened or without a chance to ask questions they may have.
One of the things I committed to when I took this office was to make our local government more transparent, accessible to the public and more accountable. In this effort, I will try to have an article each month after our regular court meetings to allow those who were unable to attend a chance to know what business was conducted, what items will be coming up in the future and a chance to ask questions they may have.
Also, in an effort, to be more accessible, we have moved our meeting time for regular meetings back to 7 p.m. In an effort to allow more people a chance to attend. One of the more exciting things to convey what’s going on in our county will be our new web-site that should be coming in the next month or soon after. This space will allow us the opportunity to relay much more information than was feasible before. Some of the items on this site will be elected officials, boards, budgets, meeting minutes, and links to other related sites.
This past meeting had a fairly small agenda. There were only five items which the court took any action. The first item that required action was a resolution for a new senior center, this item was tabled until next meeting to allow for a more information to be gathered.
The second was a resolution with Brian Kirby for phase II of the Nada Housing project. This item died because of a tied vote. The next item was a Homeland Security Grant for mobile computer units for our police forces. The court voted to allow us to move forward with the purchase of this equipment from Independence Communications.
The next item the court approved was to allow Jailer Travis Crabtree to purchase three tasers. The only other item was to make the first reading of the proposed 2012-2013 budget.
Other items that didn’t require court action was a proclamation for National Curves Day in observance of national women’s health week. The last item was a county employee coming and asking why he had not received his grievance hearing yet, an explanation was given and the meeting adjourned.
I would like to thank Mr. Cook and the Clay City Times for allowing me the opportunity and space to open a new line of communication between government and public. I would also like to thank our citizens for allowing me to serve them and our county as we move forward.
If you have any questions or comments please feel free to contact me at the
Powell County Judges Office, P.O. Box 506 Stanton, KY 40380, (606)663-2834.