Bell County Judge-Executive Albey Brock

Bell County Judge-Executive Albey Brock pushed back against the suggestion that the county was ignoring infrastructure and the repairing of roadways while holding a surplus of $1.8 million during Tuesday’s Fiscal Court meeting.

Brock responded to a comment on the meeting’s live stream by saying they were working every day to make needed repairs.

“We’ve got a list a mile long of things that need to be done and it’s not because we’re not doing them. We’ve had more flooding, more cloudbursts, more gully washers, whatever you want to call them, that have done damage to our ditches, to our roads, to our tiling system and we’re working on them every day,” he said. “Ultimately, if the weather will hold off and we don’t suffer more immediate emergent damage as a result of storms, we’ll get caught up and we’ll get to those things. We’re fully aware of the problems out there and I understand there is frustration.”

He said having a surplus was not related to whether those repairs are getting done.

“Most of these things aren’t about money, it’s about manpower and machines. We only have so much manpower and so many machines that we have budgeted to operate and work overtime to deal with things,” Brock said. “The surplus comes in when you have an emergency and you’ve got to spend $100,000 that you didn’t budget for. We’re really proud to have a surplus, that’s part of emergency management. In the event we end up with an emergency we won’t have to wait a year and a half for FEMA or wait on the state for six months to get some relief. We can handle our problem and then go after those sources of money to replenish our surplus.”

During last month’s meeting Randal Knuckles had asked about the issue of the road at Sam Low Branch continually getting washed out and Brock had agreed to meet him at the site to talk about the problem.

Tuesday Brock said he and Magistrate Eddie Saylor had met with the property owner.

“We actually had a hydrologist and an engineer go look at that and they wrote a letter. We met on site with the property owner,” Brock said. “The gentleman who was here didn’t participate at all, he was there on a porch but he never communicated with us at all. The property owner was very understanding, we’ve met with her before. It’s just one of those situations where there’s not a way to mitigate it. We’ve got those all over this county, it’s not an isolated anomaly.”

Saylor also asked Brock about any updates on the Boone’s Ridge wildlife center and Flash Steel.

Brock said as far as he knew things were still on track at Boone’s Ridge and that the interior concrete was being poured at Flash Steel on June 30.

Magistrates unanimously approved the adoption of a resolution authorizing the filing of a Kentucky Local Government Economic Development Fund (House Bill 6) Proiect Proposal/Grant Application for up to $3,000,000.00 in Local Government Economic Development single county funds with the Department For Local Government; authorizing and directing the Bell County Judge/Executive to execute any documents which are deemed necessary by DLG to carry out this project; and authorizing the Judge/Executive to act as the authorized correspondent for this project. Brock explained that this is the language now required to apply for the funds that used to be called Coal Severance Tax funds and that they would be used as part of the county’s operating budget.
In other business, the court:

— approved the adoption of a resolution authorizing the execution of a Memorandum of Agreement between the Bell County Fiscal Court and the Commonwealth of Kentucky, Transportation Cabinet, Department of Highways for the amount of $19,000.00 for the County Priority Projects Program;

— approved payment to Clotfelter-Samokar for the amount of $23,481.00 for Invoice # 2105-08, and Midsouth Power Services, Inc. for the amount of $117,742.80 for Invoice # 1142025 and Pay App #1 for Flash SteelWorks (to be paid when funds are available);

— hired John Asher as full-time employee at the Bell County Road Department at $13.00 per hour effective July 10;

— hired Tequilla Justice as part-time EMT at $11.50 per hour effective July10;

— hired Michael Nickels, James Ramsey, and Kayla Smith as part-time deputy jailers at $10.00 per hour effective July 10;

— hired Ashley Emert as part-time employee at the Bell County Animal Shelter at $9.00 per hour effective July 10;

— changed Terry Barlow, Matthew Halcomb, and Tyler Rice from part-time deputy jailers to full-time deputy jailers effective July 17, 2025;

— changed Kaylin Penix and Nicholas Sturgill from part-time EMTs to full-time EMTs effective July 17;

— changed rate of pay for Ryan Sams from $15.50 per hour to $16.75 per hour for completion of DOCJT Academy retroactive June 26,2025;

— accepted checks in the amount of $53,599.19 from Sheriff Mitch Williams and in the amount of $35,096.51 from County Clerk Debbie Gambrel.