By ANNE JACKSON | August 10, 2022

The Prescott city council meeting for Monday, August 8th opened with the Pledge of Allegiance.

City Attorney Burton Harding was unable to attend.

Mayor Kevin Wood stated they would conduct the budget meeting first. He said it looked like the city is going into the hole by about $4,000 every year on the sewer fund. This is, in part, because the whole of the city insurance is paid out of the sewer fund. As it turns out, the city just received a check from insurance reimbursement for $2,300. A short discussion ensued about some of the costs related to controlling sewage and the question was raised whether more money should be allocated to the general fund so the insurance could be paid from there, but in the end, no changes were made. Council member Rolland Grigsby made the motion to accept the budget as written, council member Ron Roberts seconded it and the motion passed unanimously and everyone signed the paperwork.

Then a motion was made and passed to adjourn the budget meeting and continue with the regular meeting.

A motion was immediately made and passed to accept the minutes from the July 11th meeting.

Before continuing, Mayor Wood wanted to know if the council members wanted the insurance refund to go into the sewer, or general fund.

Grigsby made a motion that council member John Maloney seconded and everyone passed that it be put into the general fund. Then the motion was made and passed to approve the bills that had been paid last month.

Karen Springer was unavailable to make the food pantry report, so it was given by City Clerk Kathy Wood; 275 households were served last month representing 690 total people. New people continue to come asking for help. A donation of 123 pounds of food given by three different families was valuable in serving all these people. The city maintenance men put in a new air conditioning unit for the food pantry because it became clear the old one was no longer working.

In old business, council member Zach Gillis said that in his opinion the city would not be able to afford to purchase a new uni-loader costing over $40,000. On the other hand, he thinks $30,000 should be enough to do everything the city needs to have done. He gave the map that Grigsby made of the city roads and their needs to his supervisor who would be helped by seeing the actual ground to make more accurate decisions. Council member Fritz Norbury made a motion that Grigsby seconded to ask the supervisor Max Rieke to come and look at the streets and make a bid. Gillis abstained from voting, but the four remaining members all passed the motion.

In reference to the roads Vince Brothers worked on months ago, a short discussion led to a decision to make a phone call to city attorney Harding for his input. After hearing the explanation that they have not responded to the letters written to them, he agreed with the council members that they did not need to be paid at this time, but he suggested writing yet another letter outlining the complaints, but this time send it by certified mail to ensure they received it and to give Prescott city a receipt.

Since Harding was on the phone, his opinion was also asked about the property at the west end of Elm Street. A discussion with everyone over the phone was rather awkward, but council members have been given more complaints, yet have seen no progress in the clean-up. Harding said he would send a letter instructing the property owner of the necessity of appearing in court. Then the judge would have the authority to demand a larger one time fine, or to ask for smaller, daily amounts to be paid until the mess is cleaned up.

Mayor Wood reminded the council that, like everything else, the price of the new water meters is scheduled to increase in September. He said he would bring the suggested contract next month and the council could deal with it then.

Coal Center Day had a heading of its own; a theme of "Prescott's evening of fun" was suggested. Everyone liked the idea of a parade. Since help has been found to organize it, some ideas were generated. A popular idea was to have the parade start at 4 p.m. and go from east (lining up on East Front Street) to west, ending at city hall where the chicken feed is to start at 5 p.m. Another popular idea was to have not just $25, $15, $10 prizes for the floats, but to have the same prizes for kids for the best decorated bicycle.

There is hope to have a corn hole tournament and possibly also karaoke. The D. J. Brown and the Bourbon County Revival band has been booked to provide music for the dancing between 8 p.m. and midnight.

None of the council members had anything else to report, so the meeting was adjourned.