Maintaining emergency services, extending water lines, planning a new jail and tightening the budget belt will top the Lawrence County Board of Commissioners’s agenda this year.

Monday, January 03, 2000

Maintaining emergency services, extending water lines, planning a new jail and tightening the budget belt will top the Lawrence County Board of Commissioners’s agenda this year.

"We have begun the process of building three new EMS stations, and I think we’re all happy to see that," commission president Bruce Trent said.

A station in Aid will be more centrally located to rural areas, which will save time and lives, he said.

This will be Trent’s last year on the commission, but he looks forward to keeping new jail plans as a top county concern.

"We’re evaluating now which different types of correctional facilities we may want to decide on," he said. "And with additional property to what the county has already purchased, I think we would have enough room to build the facility, hopefully utilizing some funds from the Empowerment Zone."

Trent said some decisions could be forthcoming this year, but they should not come quickly and should be based upon good advice.

"We need to make sure we do it right the first time," he said.

Commissioner George Patterson looks forward to seeing final approval come on a consolidated county water project as early as this month.

"I have been told we should receive it after the first of the year," Patterson said, adding that about $550,000 to $600,000 in state grant monies will provide new water lines.

"We’re confident the grant will provide water to the Elizabeth, Decatur, Waterloo and Scottown areas that are currently not served," said commissioner Paul Herrell, who also ranks the water project and the EMS station at Aid as his top concerns in the county’s new year.

The grant is a blessing because it takes a large amount of money to run water lines, Herrell said.

"I’d say by next fall, we will be in A-1 shape," he said.

Because of the Cabletron and Ironton Iron closures in 1999, the county also must be frugal in its budget decisions, Trent said.

"We don’t know what effect it will have, but we do anticipate some effect, and we have to realize we may have to make some budget adjustments," he said.

Herrell agreed, adding that a meeting of the county’s Budget Committee and officeholders is planned Monday afternoon to address that situation.

"We see the county coming along pretty well, we just have to plan to stay within our budget, in every office," he said.

In addition to the new EMS stations, the county also is working on a helicopter landing pad project in Aid, with cooperation from the Symmes Valley Board of Education.

"We have some pretty good things happening here," Patterson said. "We need some positive things, what with the closing of the plants.

"And I think that will turn around, too, if everybody starts singing out of the same book. We have enough good people in this area and I believe we can sell not just the county but the workforce, too."