Judge-Executive Albey Brock took a moment to recognize County Clerk Debbie Gambrel and Kayla Carnes from the Clerk’s Office for their work on last week’s election during Tuesday’s Fiscal Court meeting.

“It was an outstanding election in some very trying times. The number of write-ins that you guys had to deal with — normally the write-ins candidates are not serious and you don’t end up having a lot of them —but you had over 3,000 write-in ballots this time,” Brock said. Debbie, Kayla and the Election Commission: Rob Lincks, Sheriff Mitch Williams, and Bill Blackburn, had to physically look at every single one of them. That’s not a small feat when you’re dealing with a state senate race, which is very important, and to do it all in a timely fashion and to pull it off without a hitch. I think they deserve a round of applause.”

Magistrate Eddie Saylor asked if there were any updates on the Boone’s Ridge Wildlife Center.

Brock said everything was going forward with the sewage treatment plant at Boone’s Ridge and they were hosting a group from Bell County Tourism on Wednesday. He said he knew that all the contracts were signed for the sewage treatment but wasn’t sure if work had started on it yet.

Saylor also asked about Flash Steel. Brock said there were no issues and everything was moving along on that project, including the electrical work.

“He’ll soft open before the end of the year, hopefully,” Brock said. “It’s not like a retail store. There’s equipment that’s got to be set and tested before they can start producing. It’s highly technical.”

He said plans are still for a second building to go up on the Flash Steel property, but there’s not a timeline for that yet.

The court approved several payments for work on the Flash Steelworks project on Tuesday. Those include payment to Green Construction Co. in the amount of $171.477.94 for Invoice #18, Chu-Con, Inc. in the amount of $228,385.05 for Invoice #1, Allen & Hoshall in the amount of $3,968.75 for Invoice #318767, Community Ventures in the amount of $15,955.00 for Invoice #04, and DakotasAmerica in the amount of $45,700.41 for Invoice #11 (to be paid when funds are available).

Solid Waste Coordinator Jackie Hoskins was asked by Saylor if there was an enforcement officer to check into dumping. Hoskins said she was currently acting as the enforcement officer.

Saylor told her there were two dumps, one on Brownies Creek and one in Blackmont.

She said neither of those was on her list but if those areas were accessible she would have the 109 Board’s claw truck to clean them out the next time it was in the area to pick up white goods.

Saylor also pointed out some issues he had with taxes in the county after looking at the tax receipts.

“It’s just something to think about, we pay too much tax,” he said. “Our tax as the county that we charge the taxpayers of Bell County is roughly $1,095,000. Our Library Board — and we’ve got two libraries here in Bell County, one in Middlesboro and one in Pineville — they’re taxing district takes in $707,000. Those board members need to think about that. . . I don’t know that the people of Bell County need to be paying over $700,000 in tax to the library board.”

Saylor added that he knew all the Fiscal Court does is record those tax rates and approve the members who are appointed to the board.

“But that is something to think about. $1,095,000 is something for us to think about next year, if we can lower that tax bill we need to do it,” he said.

Brock said Saylor was preaching to the choir and that he had made that same argument in Frankfort.

“I’ve went so far as to say fold them under us and we can efficiently run them. It’s nothing against libraries and nothing against the people who use them, they serve a purpose,” Brock said. “But I agree with Eddie. That’s too much money. At a minimum, the board members we’ve appointed over the last eight to ten years have not raised the tax. There was a time that Frankfort would tell them every year to raise their rate by the .04 and then get in debt and sell bonds to improve their facilities. We’ve got two of the nieces libraries around.”

Saylor said the people from the areas of the county he represents don’t benefit at all from the libraries. He also pointed out that the City of Middlesboro operates on $401,000 per year from property taxes.
A resident from the Sam Low Branch area of Hances Creek attended the meeting to see if the County Road Department would be repairing the road to their home that was washed out.

“We’re not going to forget about you, I promise you that,” Brock told her. “We’ve got your road in the system right and we’re through the period now. Right now the road department is trying to patch as many pot holes in as many places as we can before they shut the asphalt plant down and that could happen any day.”

Once that happens, the department has a list of roads to take care of as best they can and the roads in question (Dorton and Delmar) on that list.

She joked that the flooding only happens every two years so they have time.

Brock said they would be there before the end of the year.

The court also heard from Paul Dengel from USDA Rural Development. He said his goal was to bring as many federal dollars into the  Bell, Whitley, McCreary and Clay counties as he could and asked the county to let him know of any project they can help with through grant funds.

In a separate matter, the court approved an emergency budget amendment. Brock explained that the court had co-signed a lease on what is now the SEKRI building in Middlesboro and the amendment shows funds coming in to pay that lease off.

“When the hatchery went out and SEKRI took that lease over, they opted to pay it off early,” he said. “Those were funds we didn’t know we were going to get in and now we’re paying off the not and that will be cleared up.”

In other business, the court:

— hired Roy Baker as part-time employee at the Bell County Animal Shelter at $9.00 per hour effective Nov. 14;

— hired Jerry Barlow and Tyler Hammons as part-time deputy jailers at $9.00 per hour effective Nov. 14;

— changed Colton Partin from part-time dispatcher to full-time dispatcher effective Nov. 21;

— changed Jessica Wagers from Advanced EMT to Paramedic at $17.00 per hour upon completion of licensure;

— accepted the Sheriff’s claim sheet for fee account for last month, 2021 Unmined Coal Quietus, 2024 Official Receipt for Property Tax Bills, and 2023 Fee Audit;

— accepted checks in the amount of $56,462.89 from Sheriff Mitch Williams and in the amount of $45,184.87 from County Clerk Debbie Gambrel, and in the amount of $882.73 from Gambrel for the month of July 2023 Delinquent Tax underpayment.