WULF News

Kentucky Farm Bureau is launching a new initiative aimed at helping maintain ag production on Kentucky farms.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported in their 2022 Census of Agriculture that Kentucky has lost 17,000 farms and 1.4 million acres of farmland over the last 20 years. In order to help farm families keep their farms in active production, Kentucky Farm Bureau has launched the Kentucky Farmland Transition Initiative.

KFB says the main goal of the initiative is to preserve family farm ownership and to help families navigate the farm transition process. The initiative has three main objectives:

-increase public education about farmland transition

-gather and provide technical help and local resources for families

-pursue state and federal policy development that will help keep production agriculture at the forefront of farmland transition and reduce burdens in the process

KFB plans to expand the initiative over the coming months. For more information, visit www.kyfarmlandtransition.com.

A Virgina man faces multiple charges after his arrest in Grayson County Wednesday.

The Leitchfield Police Department says officers responded to Hometown Hangout in the early morning hours of April 10 for a report of a possible burglary.

“Upon arrival, officers found that a back door had been left unlocked and multiple fridges and the walk-in cooler had been entered by someone,” said Detective Sergeant Ian Renfrow with the LPD. “Multiple cases of beer were opened and some products were found to be missing from the business.”

Officers reviewed surveillance footage, which showed a male subject enter the business through the unlocked door. He is then seen forcing open a walk-in cooler inside of the business.

“Officers then received information and responded to an apartment on Penner Drive and attempted to make contact with a suspect who had been named as Mr. Ruben Hernandez,” Renfrow said.

The resident of the apartment Hernandez was located at was outside speaking with police officers, and told the officers she left the door unlocked. Officers found the door had been locked.

“She then gave them permission to force entry into the apartment,” Renfrow said. “Once they got into the apartment, Hernandez would not comply with officer orders. He then resisted with them for just a brief moment, and they were able to get him into handcuffs and get him into custody at that point.”

Hernandez was lodged in the Grayson County Detention Center. He faces multiple charges including Burglary, Theft by Unlawful Taking, Criminal Mischief, and Resisting Arrest. Officers stated that Hernandez made multiple statements that “once he was out (of jail), we would never see him again.”

The Kentucky State Police is investigating an injury accident on Interstate 65 in Hart County Wednesday that caused significant traffic delays.

According to the KSP, the investigation indicates that Jose Gonzalez of Munfordville was operating a car near the 67 mile marker of I-65 north when the vehicle left the roadway, struck the inside barrier wall, then traveled across all three lanes of traffic. The vehicle was then struck by a commercial vehicle. Hart County EMS transported Gonzales to the University of Louisville Hospital for treatment of unknown injuries.

I-65 north was closed for several hours, and upon reopening traffic was still slow-moving through the area for some time.

The investigation into the incident is ongoing.

The first reading of the 2024-2025 county budget was held during the Hardin County Fiscal Court’s first meeting of the month Tuesday.

Hardin County Judge-Executive Keith Taul is proposing a budget that totals $59,615,729. The county’s expenses in the budget total $22,294,285, which comes in higher than the county’s revenue.

“We unfortunately only have revenue of $17.5 million of recurring sustainable taxes, fees, some interest thrown in there from some money that we have,” Taul said. “So you add all those up and it only amounts to $17.5 million.”

The proposed budget balances the deficit by using $440,000 of the county’s remaining American Rescue Plan Act funds and $4,367,634 of the $8 million pilot agreement with BlueOval SK.

“This is, in case you’re not familiar with that, it’s a one-time payout in lieu of BlueOval SK construction workers’ occupational taxes, and so this was an agreement with them that instead of trying to obtain the construction workers’ occupational taxes this was a payout to take in place of that.”

Taul said cuts have been made to the original budget presented to the county’s Finance Committee, but the budget still needs to account for high inflation over the past three years that has driven up prices for equipment and materials, as well as increases to insurance and personnel costs. The budget does not account for the county’s occupational tax as the county can’t project the revenue it will produce.

Members of the fiscal court were split on their support of the budget. Magistrate Chris Yates said he was not in favor of approving a budget that operates on a deficit two years in a row.

“I voted in favor of the budget last year, but a wise man once said, ‘if you find yourself in a hole, you need to quit digging,’” Yates said. “If we don’t put the shovel down, we’re going to find ourselves in a hole that even if we wanted to, we won’t be able to tax our way out of.”

Magistrate Kenny Saltsman said he took issue with the use of the BlueOval SK funds.

“$8 million that we’re getting from the BOSK was supposed to last us around 15 years, and this first year we’re using over half of it just to balance this budget,” Saltsman said. “We can’t continue down this road. I cannot support this budget on the words of hopeful, or even gambling as I’ve heard others state, when counting on the occupational tax to be our saving grace.”

Magistrates E.G. Thompson and Fred Clem both said the county is hampered by state regulations that take revenue streams away from county governments while permitting their use by cities. Clem said he supports the budget as the county is doing the best with what it can.

“There’s not a person on this court that’s not concerned about this budget. Not one of us,” Clem said. “We all have the same concerns, but I’m confident that we can manage our way through our fiscal issues and get back to parity.”

The first reading of the budget was approved by a 5-4 vote. The budget will go up for approval on its second reading at the fiscal court’s next meeting, which will be held April 23.

Hodgenville Police Chief James Richardson says he was disappointed with the low turnout for a presentation on sextortion the department hosted via Zoom, so after getting community feedback on how to improve the idea and reach more people the police department is hosting an in-person event on sexual assault and related issues on April 15.

“We’re going to give a presentation,” Richardson said. “It’s going to start at 6 p.m. at the Extension Office here in Larue County up on Old Elizabethtown Road, and what we will do is we’ll start out with basically what are the issues that we’re seeing here in our community and then we will talk about how HPD investigates those.”

Richardson said the event ties into April being Child Abuse Awareness Month and Sexual Assault Awareness Month. The event is an opportunity to hear from the HPD as well as the organizations that assist them.

“We are going to start out with just basically ‘this is what we’re seeing’ and then we’re going to introduce our community partners,” Richardson said. “We have some folks from Silverleaf, I’ve invited CommuniCare, Lincoln Trail BHH is coming, so we’ll have folks there to explain to the community this is what their role is in our investigations and what services they offer for the community.”

The ultimate goal of the event is to share information and connect residents with resources.

“If anybody wants to come, we encourage in-person, that way you can actually meet and see everybody,” Richardson said. “You’ll get to see some of the sexual assault investigators from the police department. You’ll get to ask questions. Any questions that we have from the community, they can email me questions. They can go on our Facebook page and message me questions that they want answered, and we’ll try to address those there in the presentation.”

The event will be recorded and made available for viewing for anybody unable to attend in person.