WULF News

Radcliff residents looking to tidy up can take advantage of the city’s Spring Clean Up Days, which run April 1 through April 30.

Items authorized for pick-up include no more than 10 gallons of paint in its original container, no more than 10 used tires, metal items, household appliances with freon removed by a certified tech, used motor oil, and small household items not normally picked up by waste management collectors.

Items that will not be accepted include propane containers or bottles, spray paint cans, toxic materials, fertilizers, pesticides, insecticides, gasoline, diesel, paint thinners, pipe cleaners, chemical cleaning compounds, construction materials including shingles, commercially developed refuse, and plastic bags.

Radcliff Mayor JJ Duvall said during the last city council meeting that residents should let the city know when they have placed items curbside, and keep items in a separate pile from trash, limbs, and leaves.

“If you do set something out, you can always call our Radcliff Public Works (270-351-8150) to notify them your address and what needs to be picked up,” Duvall said. “Also, limbs is coming up. For a limb pick-up, we ask you to also have those out by April 1.”

Spring clean-up is also a good time to remind residents to take care of their yards.

“It’s one of the biggest complaints, and I think our fire chief will tell you that people aren’t cutting their grass, without weedeating,” Duvall said. “Obviously, we know everybody’s not going to be pristine, but we do ask people to just try to do what’s right. If you can’t get your grass cut and you need help cutting your grass, feel free to call us.”

Contact the Radcliff Public Works Department or visit the Radcliff City Government Facebook page for more information.

The Hardin County Fiscal Court heard updates from department heads during their second meeting of the month Tuesday.

Hardin County EMS Director Mark Peterson reported on January and February activity, with 1,623 calls responded to in January. Peterson said data may change for county EMS as Baptist Health Hardin’s EMS service went live for transfers in February.

“We were kind of curious to see how that’s going to impact us,” Peterson said. “We don’t have a great picture of it, but you can see right away that our responses went down significantly in February. We made 1,213 responses in February, and only 32 of those were transfers.”

Peterson said county EMS made more than $1,004,000 in collections in February.

“As far as I know, that’s our best month in revenue ever, and there’s a lot of things to that,” Peterson said. “We had some increases to our monthly allotments for the House Bill 8 money. We had about a $34,000 increase in that money that comes into us every month, and we’ve also been working very diligently with Judge Taul on some process improvements as far as our patient care reporting and stuff like that.”

In other meeting news, Hardin County E-911 Director Mike Leo said county 911 answered 4,116 calls in February.

Hardin County Jailer Josh Lindblom said the Hardin County Detention Center took in 510 inmates in February and released 506, with the average total population for the month 580. Inmates worked 10,735 hours, including filling 2,280 bags of trash.

Hardin County Judge-Executive Keith Taul said county government is preparing for the next fiscal year.

“We are in the middle of a budget process for the next fiscal year, as painful as it is, but we will plan to present the budget at the next meeting in April, and that will be our first reading of that budget, so that’s our plan right now,” Taul said.

The Hardin County Fiscal Court will next meet April 9, and the next Town Hall Forum will be held in the fiscal courtroom at 5:30 p.m. on April 30.

Nolin RECC is accepting applications for the next round of grants from its Operation Round Up program.

The co-op says the program is a non-profit run by a local board of directors that accepts and reviews applications to determine which programs and organizations receive funding. Local dollars in the past have gone to organizations such as Family Scholar House, Helping Hand of Hope, and Shepherd’s Pie Food Pantry.

Nolin RECC Communications Manager Sarah Fellows says co-op members that participate in the program volunteer to round up their monthly electric bill to the nearest dollar.

“All those nickels and dimes and quarters for an average Nolin member only adds up to about $6 a year, but it makes such a big difference because thousands of Nolin members are choosing to do that, and since 2006 that money has turned around over $300,000 in grants to programs and organizations that are right here locally in our community,” Fellows said.

The application deadline is May 1. Applications may be picked up at the Nolin RECC office or can be found online at nolinrecc.com.

The Hardin County Schools Board of Education announced a change to the school calendar and approved dates for the district’s high school graduation ceremonies during their board meeting last week.

Friday, May 24 will be the final day of school for K-12 students. The district says ending the year on the 24th allows the school year to finish on a Friday and before Memorial Day. The board is excusing three days of school that were missed due to inclement weather. The district says they traditionally schedule more school days than required by state law.

Graduation for John Hardin High School will be held at 7 p.m. on May 24 at Bulldog Stadium.

Central Hardin High School will hold graduation at 11 a.m. on May 25 at Bruin Gym.

North Hardin High School will hold graduation at 6 p.m. on May 25 at the North Hardin football field, Ray Story Stadium.

Hardin County High School families have appointments for graduates to walk across the stage and receive their diplomas beginning at 9 a.m. on May 18.

Contact Hardin County Schools for more information.

The suspects charged in the Crystal Rogers investigation all appeared in the Nelson Circuit Court for a pre-trial conference Thursday.

Brooks Houck and Steven Lawson appeared in person and Joseph Lawson appeared via Zoom from the Kentucky State Reformatory before Judge Charles Simms III to discuss the status of several motions that have been filed in the case.

Special Prosecutor Shane Young said discovery in the case has been completed, with the final round of data consisting of about 265 gigabytes being transferred to the defense counsels. When asked by Simms about the change of venue motion filed by attorneys for Houck and joined by the attorneys for the Lawsons, Young said he agreed with the motion and said he would discuss possible venues with the counsels. The motion filed by Houck’s attorneys asks for the trial to be moved to either Boyd County or Daviess County. Simms requested that the chosen venue be large enough to accommodate members of the public and have a separate entrance for jurors.

Young told Simms the prosecution needs eight weeks to respond to the defenses’ objections to his motion to consolidate the three cases into one trial, and the defense attorneys asked for two weeks after that to respond to the prosecution’s response. Young asked for the same time frame to respond to Steven Lawson’s attorney Ted Lavit’s motion to dismiss based on immunity claims, with Lavit saying the judge may need to hear sworn testimony for his response. 

The case will reconvene for a status conference regarding the change of venue motion on May 1. The other motions will be reviewed in a pre-trial conference scheduled for June 13.