Bardstown City Council approves needed funding for third police K-9 unit

By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette / WBRT Radio

Tuesday, April 14, 2015, 11:48 p.m. — The Bardstown City Council approved adding a third K-9 officer to the Bardstown Police Department at its meeting Tuesday night.

Councilman Bill Buckman speaks to members of the council at Tuesday night’s meeting.

Council Bill Buckman — a retired city police officer — said Bardstown’s K-9 program began in 1991 with support from the community. Buckman was the city’s first K-9 officer and praised the program’s benefits.

The city’s K-9 program has been self-supporting due to the ability of the dogs to help locate drugs. “I accumulated more than $140,000 in forfeiture money to the city with my K-9,” he said.

Buckman introduced Reece Riley, a city police officer who took the initiative — with Chief Rick McCubbin’s approval — to purchase a K-9, which will be the department’s third K-9 unit.

Riley, responding to a request from a local businessman, raised $5,300 from private individuals and businesses to go toward the $8,950 that is needed to purchase a trained K-9.

“It’s a small investment by the council to acquire a piece of equipment to fight the drug problem we have here in Nelson County,” Buckman explained.

Councilman Francis Lydian looks over an ordinance during Tuesday’s Bardstown City Council meeting.

With two-thirds of the money raised, Buckman asked the council to fund the remainder of the money to purchase the K-9, plus the equipment need for his police cruiser and pay for two weeks of training for the Riley and the dog — a total of about $5,700.

McCubbin said credited Riley for his initiative, and told the council the community responded generously, with some businesses writing $500 and $1,000 checks to help fight drugs in the community.

“When the business community speaks I think that resonates with us all because we know there’s a problem and its our community asking us to do something,” McCubbin said. “We need the tools to do it.”

The trained K-9s can track individuals and objects in addition to locating drugs and improve officer safety, McCubbin said.

Buckman noted that a city K-9 helped locate a handgun thrown out of a vehicle in a shots fired incident last week in downtown.

CITY UTILITY BILLING CYCLE CHANGES. The council approved amendments to ordinances that deal with the billing cycles of the city’s garbage, water, sewer, electric and cable TV services.

Public Works Director Larry Hamilton answers a question during Tuesday’s Bardstown City Council meeting.

The changes add an additional billing cycle to city utilities for a total of three. Instead of bills going out only on the 1st and 15th of each month, some customers will now be billed on the 7th of the month.

Mike Abell, the city’s former chief financial officer, explained at an earlier council meeting that the move will spread the billing work load more evenly through the month. The ordinance also allows for a fourth billing cycle in the event it is needed.

The amended electric and water utility ordinances also raises the fee assessed individuals who attempt to bypass, connect or disconnect a city electric meter or water meter from $100 to $150.

In other business, the council:

— approved changing the city’s street standards and construction guidelines to adopt the changes recently approved by Nelson Fiscal Court that require half or more of the homes in a development to be built prior to taking over maintenance of the streets. The city’s version of the street guidelines will also include storm water requirements.

— approved a municipal order designating the City Hall parking a “public place” in order to meet the city’s requirements for mobile food vendors. The order will allow the Kona Ice mobile food vendor to visit City Hall on April 21 from noon to 2 p.m. and serve the staff in honor of Mayor John Royalty.

— approved a request for a five-year tax moratorium for the former Demaree & Hubbard/Eugene Wilson Insurance building at 602 Bloomfield Road. The property is being renovated and expanded in order to house County Attorney Matthew Hite’s law practice.

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