Lewisport getting ready for big event; discusses property violations ordinance
The Lewisport City Council meets on the third Thursday of every month. This month’s meeting was Thursday, May 18th, and it was approved to use the remainder of the city’s water fund monies to move forward with the water plant pilot program.
“At last month’s meeting, Matt Curtis (with Bluegrass Engineering) was in attendance,” Lewisport Mayor Chad Gregory said, “discussing the pilot program for the water plant. It’s the first phase to basically see what we need. It’s going to be a little bit of a lengthy process to pinpoint what we need. It had about a $175K price tag to get it started.
We do have some grant money that is out there. It is approved; it’s ours. Matt has been in contact with GRADD. What that originally was, is the inner connect between Lewisport and Hawesville, $520K. They are going to back that out and gear it toward this project. We have plenty of money in capital improvement in the water fund, so that is where we are on that.
Property Violations
“We have filed a summary,” City Attorney Charles Kamuf said, “of ordinance No. 2303, an ordinance that the City of Lewisport, KY, established a code enforcement board. The ordinance creates a 3-member code enforcement board pursuant to KRS65-8801 and KRS65-8839.”
Kamuf read the summary of the 12-page ordinance, and the council discussed what the fines will be and other details concerning unkempt properties in Lewisport. This will be enforced by a 3-member enforcement board, made up of non council members, but the decisions made will also be reviewed by the council, it was stated at last month’s meeting.
Gregory said the numbers in the summary were just ones that he had “plugged in” and asked council members what they thought those should be. The discussion will continue, and it will be a process.
Here is a sample of what these may look like: a violation of an unfit, unsafe structure-1st offense $100, 2nd offense $200, third & all others $300. A violation of weeds & uncut grass-1st offense $75, 2nd $150, and all others $200. There were also violations of garbage & rubbish, junk, wrecked or inoperative vehicle machine, scrap or salvage, and so on.
Gas Prices
Beginning July 1st, 2023, gas prices in Lewisport will raise by 4 percent. “I think that’s a testament to the board here and employees,” Gregory said, “that we’ve lived on that for 6 years and we’ve not raised it; 2017 was the first time we’ve ever increased tax rates.”
Budget
Kamuf made the first reading of ordinance 23-5, adopting the City of Lewisport’s annual budget for the fiscal year 7-1-2023 through 6-30-2024, with modifications made. All of the city’s assets totaled $4,953,280, with the general fund at $612,975. The City is in a good financial position.
Heritage Fest
City Administrator Jason Roberts said they are getting ready for the Lewisport Heritage Festival coming up very soon on June 1st-3rd. “We’ve been getting services together to clean up the town for the festival,” he said. “They’ve done a really good job down there at Chapman Park. We had all those shrubs replaced. The cold snap had killed 37 of them.”
By Jennifer Wimmer
