Representatives from FEMA, the federal emergency management agency, visited Bell County to assess the damage done from recent flooding. At Tuesday’s Fiscal Court meeting, District 1 Magistrate Eddie Saylor asked about any updates on the situation including Balkan Road.

Judge-Executive Albey Brock said the repairs to Balkan Road were estimated to be $1 million.

“To my knowledge that will get approved. It’s not yet so I don’t want to get too far over my skis,” Brock said. “We’re real hopeful. We’ve submitted (the projects), estimated them and I hope they’ll let us know soon that we’re good to go.”

Saylor asked if there was any kind of timeline for the project to start.

“FEMA is moving faster than it has in the past. President Trump has rightly rang the bell on FEMA and how slow they are and how long it takes to get help from them,” Brock said. “We’ll see, but I am absolutely not going to take a guess on when it will be.”

District 5 Magistrate Joe Hammontree said he had quite a few FEMA claims in his area he would like to help get turned in.

Rob Lincks said that preliminary assessments had been done but there would be another wave later to follow up in case any were missed.

“Just because FEMA has said they’re going to do something, don’t tell somebody it’s going to be done in any kind of timeframe whatsoever,” Brock said. “They are incredibly slow. Sometimes it takes up to a year to get a project done and sometimes it takes up to three years to get paid for it. . . I’m not going to get my hopes up until I see a fundamental change in FEMA.”

He added that Bell County was lucky that most of the damage here was to roads and not to humans and their houses.

Hammontree also gave a shoutout to the Road Department for the work they did in Ambleside during the flooding to keep that road open.

Sayor also asked for any updates on Boone’s Ridge and Flash Steel during audience participation.

Brock said work is still being done on the sewer system at Boone’s Ridge and that Flash Steel founder Gary Cola will be coming to the April Fiscal Court meeting to answer any questions about that project.

The court approved Emergency Budget Amendment #2 which reflects $1.3 million from a line item in the state budget to finish the Flash Steelworks building. Brock said if any of those funds are left over they would be used to take dirt from the Whitmer Industrial Park to fill in next to Flash Steel to prepare the site for the next phase of construction. They also approved payment to DakotasAmerica for the amount of $45,700.41 for Invoice #12 and Community Ventures for the amount of $15.955.00 for Invoice #QI (to be paid when funds are available from New Market Tax Credits) for work done at Flash Steelworks

Judge Brock was also given permission to advertise for bids for concrete work at Flash Steelworks. Saylor asked why that portion of the project was being bid separately.

“We always knew we were going to have to do this because there were some unknowns in the beginning as far as some of the weights and load requirements for some of the equipment,” Brock said. “We were a little ahead of them at the time and we didn’t want to wait (to start working on the building). So we did the concrete as an addendum. It’s all part of the same project, but this pit that we call it is where this enormous equipment will sit. We just got it finalized so it wasn’t in the original contract.”

Funding for that concrete work will come out of the $1.3 million line item from the state.

Saylor also asked if he and the other magistrates could sit in on a work session on the county’s budget before the first reading comes up. Treasurer Irma Brooks said she had time marked off during the last week of March for reviewing the budget and would let the magistrates know a good time that week to go over it.

Saylor said he was hoping they could find some money for the county to blacktop more of the county’s roads.

It was also asked if Judge Brock had considered instituting a burn ban in the county due to higher risks of wildfires last week. The Division of Forestry had a burn ban between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. last week due to low humidity and the potential for high winds.

Brock said local governments have the option to institute a complete ban on any burning.

“Years ago I would put those burn bans in and this place would get set on fire. Arsonsists would start fires all over this county because what we did was say, ‘Guess what, conditions are perfect for you to go out there and start a fire,’” he said. “I trust the people that live in this community to do things responsibly. If you’ve got somebody who has been cutting limbs and they want to clean up their property and they pick an evening after 6 p.m. and the wind is not blowing to burn, they ought to be able to burn. Conditions could become so severe that I might change from that, but I haven’t issued a burn ban countywide in over eight years.”

In other business, the court:

— accepted Kenny’s Lane into the Bell County Road System in District 1;

— was presented with the proposed 2025-2026 Bell County Detention Center budget (no action was necessary);

— hired James Rice as part-time employee at the Bell County Animal Shelter at $9.00 per hour effective March 13;

— hired Jonathan Collins as full-time employee at the Bell County Road Department at $13.00 per hour effectiveMarch 13;

— hired Jonathan Branson as part-time EMT at $11.50 per hour and Michael Smith as part-time Advanced EMT at $13.50 per hour effective March 13;

— changed Lindsay Wilcox from part-time employee to full-time employee at the Bell County Animal Shelter effective March 13;

— changed Tammy Frederick and Robert Young from part-time deputy jailers to full-time deputy jailers effective March 13;

— changed Alexandra Baker and Jonah Smith from full-time EMTs to part-time EMTs retroactive effective to January 30;

— changed James Tomlinson from Advanced EMT to Paramedic at $17.00 per hour effective March 13;

— approved payment to JMT for the amount of$16,890.70 for Don Green Road Extension Project;

— approved payment to Kentucky State Treasurer for the amount of $33,500.00 for the purchase of two trucks for the Road Department;

— approved the payment of bills and any necessary transfers;

— accepted the treasurer’s financial statement and sheriff’s claim sheet for fee account for last month (see attached copy);

— accepted the 2024 Annual Settlement and Excess Fees in the amount of $68,000.00 from County Clerk Debbie Gambrel (subject to audit)

— accepted checks in the amount of $151,463.28 from Sheriff Mitch Williams and in the amount of $23,077.41 from County Clerk Debbie Gambrel.