McCoy resigns from NCEDA board after Thrasher questions his appointment
By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette / WBRT Radio
Friday, June 21, 2019 (Updated 7:25 p.m.) — State Rep. Chad McCoy submitted his resignation as a member of the Nelson County Economic Development Agency (NCEDA) on Thursday following a complaint lodged by Nelson County GOP chairman Don Thrasher.
At the end of Tuesday’s Nelson Fiscal Court meeting, Thrasher advised Judge Executive Dean Watts and the magistrates that NCEDA was operating in violation of its own bylaws.
Thrasher said the NCEDA board — for the past 12 years — had not followed its own rules regarding the appointment of its board members. The board meeting minutes actually had no record of the board voting for its own members.
Thrasher took issue that the NCEDA board included state Rep. Chad McCoy as a member because, as he explained, the board’s
Thrasher said the county’s economic development
“I think it says a lot about how this county is being perceived in terms of fairness, and I don’t think its right,” he said.
Judge Executive Dean Watts said he had already taken up the issue with NCEDA president Kim Huston, and the issue will be addressed at fiscal court’s July meeting.
But on Thursday, Thrasher asked County Attorney Matthew Hite to investigate NCEDA’s failure to properly appoint and vote on adding McCoy to the board in early 2017.
Thrasher included copies of NCEDA meeting minutes that show former state Rep. David Floyd was no longer a board member at its Feb. 22, 2017 meeting, and that McCoy would be invited to see if he wanted to be on the NCEDA board.
McCoy was listed as a member of the board in the minutes of the next board member. Thrasher noted that the minutes don’t show any vote or approval on McCoy’s membership on the board.
In his email to Hite, Thrasher says the board’s failure to vote on its members “borders on criminal neglect of the fiduciary dute the Board of Directors have to abide by its own bylaws.”
“The NCEDA and BIDC boards affect millions of dollars of property transactions within Nelson County, these two boards not abiding by proper procedure
HITE’S RESPONSE. In a reply to Thrasher’s email late Friday afternoon, County Attorney Matthew Hite said that to his knowledge, his office had no statutory authority to conduct the type of investigation Thrasher was requesting.
“The County Attorney is permitted by statute to investigate a few things (election law violations (KRS 15.242) and applications for places of “entertainment” (KRS 231.020)), but nothing else that I am aware of,” Hite wrote in his response.
“Without some type of authorization, I would be acting outside of my duties as County Attorney.”
WATTS: ERROR AN ‘OVERSIGHT’ BY THE BOARD. Thrasher’s email to Hite was copied to members of Fiscal Court as well as the Bardstown mayor and city council.
In an email response to Thrasher, Watts said the issue was “purely an oversight” by the NCEDA board, and the board assumed that the state representative’s place on the board was as necessary as the county judge executive and the mayor of Bardstown.
Watts defended NCEDA and its agencies, adding that the county’s economic development success is the envy of other counties across the state.
“You have taken your personal grudge with Chad over the top!”, Watts added.
As chair of the Republican Party of Nelson County, Thrasher — and the county committee — has taken McCoy to task for his support earlier this year for legislation that eliminated the bank franchise fee, and for his support of a measure that would have raised the gas tax had it been approved.
Despite his political disagreements with McCoy, Thrasher denied having a grudge against him.
“I have a grudge … against all officials who don’t follow the law, don’t act as promised during their elections, don’t act in the best interest of the citizens they represent,” Thrasher wrote in his response.
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