Bardstown to benefit from telecom tax lawsuit; city council closes out 2011
By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette
Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2011, 10:30 p.m. — The Bardstown City Council closed out 2011 with a council meeting that featured mostly regular business.
Jeff Mills, city electrical engineer, discusses the bid tab for the city's cable TV and Internet installation services.
The council unanimously approved a single bid for cable TV and Internet installation work by Ken Gray’s Elizabethtown-based company. Gray’s sole bid of $29.502 comes in under budget, city electrical engineer Jeff Mills said. The bid was approved 5-0, with Councilman Joe Buckman absent.
TELECOM TAX SUIT SETTLED. Mike Abell, the city’s chief financial officer, told the council the city stands to gain some additional revenue as the result of a lawsuit that’s been settled challenging the state telecom tax.
The lawsuit was filed by Lexington-Fayette Urban Government and others in order to challenge the 2005 Multichannel Video Programming and Communications Services Tax, a law that promised to streamline the tax structure for telecom providers, satellite and cable company providers. Under previous rules, cities collected franchise fees from cable companies who wished to serve their area.
The telecom tax did away with franchise fees and promised to give cities and local governments the same amount of tax revenue they had been receiving from the franchise fees. Cities that owned their cable TV system like Bardstown and had no franchise fee were given the chance to create one. In the end, many of the local governments – including Bardstown – who supported the measure found themselves receiving significantly less revenue than they were anticipating.
Councilman Francis Lydian reads the quarterly report detailing the Bardstown Police Department's activity.
The city now is getting about $2,200 a month as its share of the telecom tax, Abell said. “We think we should be getting about $12,000 more a month,” he said.
The city will not receive compensation for the thousands of dollars in tax revenue it should have collected since the legislation became law more six years ago, Abell said. The final amount of money the city will receive per month won’t be known until early next year.
SMOKING BAN. The council gave final approval to an amendment to the city’s smoking ban that changes one of the maximum fines from $1,000 to $500 to bring the ordinance into compliance with state law. Councilman Francis Lydian cast the single vote against the ordinance. He voted against the measure at its first reading on Dec. 13th.
In other business, the council:
- Approved second reading of an ordinance amending the city’s budget to reflect some money the city saved on insurance premiums, and to properly account for grant money received;
Councilman Fred Hagan closely examines some documents during Tuesday's city council meeting.
- Approved reappointing Austin Weller to the Joint Ethics Board, Wes Parrish to the Development Review Board, and Tim Hockensmith to the Recreating Advisory Board;
- Approved the recommendations of the Historical Review Board regarding signs for two downtown businesses;
- Approved a Development Review board recommendation on a color change for the Murphy USA awning so it better matches the colors of the Walmart building;
- Approved a Development Review Board recommendation to allow Lowe’s to move its garden center area closer to Filiatreau Lane.
The council meets next at its 5 p.m. monthly working session Jan. 3, 2012, at the council chambers in the City Hall Annex building.
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