Fiscal court honors school food workers

Lawrence County Judge- Executive Phillip Carter signed a proclamation proclaiming Aug. 24-28 as Lawrence County School Heroes Week. BSN photo/Lilly Adkins

By Lilly Adkins

BSN Associate Editor

LOUISA — The Lawrence County Fiscal Court met in regular session on Tuesday, Aug. 18, and signed a proclamation declaring Aug. 24-28 Lawrence County School Heroes Week.Lawrence County Judge-Executive Phil Carter made a point of telling Lawrence County School Superintendent Dr. Robbie Fletcher that the school district and its personnel did a “great job” delivering meals to children when the pandemic started and that he was declaring it Heroes Week for all they have done.Fletcher told the fiscal court that they had delivered 280,000 meals through June 30 and that they will begin delivering again the following week, but it would only be to students in the school district.“The board has tasked me with trying to figure out how we can provide meals to the two- and three-year-olds who don’t attend school,” Fletcher said. “I want to thank you on behalf of the school system, and Mr. Blackburn organized a lot of this. We will start school virtually on August 26. Pre-school is the same.”Fletcher was referring to Magistrate Rick Blackburn, who works in transportation with the school district.Also during the meeting, resident Sara Jude addressed the court to point out that the Chapman Community Park on Rt. 2037, just off Rt. 1690, was in need of some repair. She also let the court know that people in the area of Chapman and in Cherryville would like to see the park be usable so that they can take their children outside to play.Jude said the park has a baseball diamond, and basketball and tennis courts, but that they hadn’t been resurfaced in years.“If we could just get some running water and a bathroom or a porta potty for people to use, it would help a lot for now and then maybe later do some of the other stuff,” Jude told the court.Carter told Jude that the court owns adjacent property and that they have plans to put in a boat ramp.“We just need to fix what we have,” Jude said.After the meeting, Jude met with Deputy Judge-Executive Vince Doty so that she could share the information with him that she had found which shows grant funding available for community parks.“We have a lot of plans for that park,” Carter said. “It takes a lot of money and it’s going to take time but we will do what we can.”Carter also announced some bad news.“Our funds have been cut by 50 percent. We lost our severance money and it’s really going to be tight,” Carter said. “We’re going to have to look at some cuts. We encourage the office and their staff to figure out where they can make cuts. If we can get through this year, maybe things will straighten up. We are going to continue to blacktop with the money we received last year.”In other business, the court opened two bids for gravel, one from Hanson and one from Buffalo Valley.Upon Carter’s recommendation, court members voted to go with both, just in case one broke down or was unable to produce an item they needed.Blackburn made a motion to approve to purchase from the cheapest of the two quarries, and if they don’t have what they need or they are broken down, they go with the other. The motion was seconded by Magistrate Dave Pinson, with all in favor.