Welcome!
It has been my distinct pleasure to serve as your County Judge/Executive since taking office on January 6, 2003!
During the last seven plus years we have made significant strides in fulfilling our vision of being the Commonwealth's premier county in which to live, work, and raise our families.
Over these years county government tirelessly worked to fulfill our mission of maximizing all available resources to provide well-planned, adequately resourced, and professionally executed public programs, infrastructure, and services to the citizens of Hardin County.
On my watch as your Judge/Executive we stopped the pending financial train wreck handed us in January 2003. No longer does your annual county budget deplete the general fund savings to meet county annual operational spending.
Hardin County continues to grow as our region's economic engine. The Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process ongoing at Fort Knox is bringing an additional 7,000+ full time positions to our region. To plan for and accommodate this regional growth, our local Mayors, the Meade County Judge/Executive, and I joined together to form the One Knox Policy Council. This organization coordinates the efforts from state and local agencies, business entities and associations, as well as other community organizations to prepare our region for the significant influx of employees and rapid growth within our region.
Hardin County is also poised for a large manufacturer to locate at the Glendale industrial site resulting in potentially 3,000 additional employment opportunities for our region. The Elizabethtown – Hardin County Industrial Foundation is diligently working with the Kentucky Economic Development Cabinet to market this site to all potential prospects. Many business entities have expressed interest over the last seven years. Several have seriously considered the site with some actually developing conceptual plans and proposals. One potential prospect recently obtained national visibility for their proposed use of the property. While these economic times provide challenges to attracting viable prospects, the Industrial Foundation and local government will continue improving the marketability of the site while working with the Economic Development Cabinet to increase our exposure to likely industry.
Also during the last seven years we have focused on the infrastructure improvements necessary to serve the needs of our citizens as well as to attract new economic development to our community.
- Water line expansion throughout the county now provides opportunities for more than 98% of our citizens to access safe drinking water. With approximately $20 million of BRAC funding from the state, water supply and distribution projects are planned or underway to ensure volume demands for our industrial base (present and future) as well as water service for our rapidly growing population can be met in a timely manner. Most of these projects will be completed by 2013. Also, early in my tenure, the Lincoln Trail Regional Water Commission was established to build a collaborative effort between water suppliers within Hardin County and to make certain water supply decisions remain within the control of Hardin Countians.
- Plans for collecting and treating sewage from densely populated unincorporated areas of the county are underway. With funding I requested through Senator Mitch McConnell, a Regional Wastewater Facilities Plan was developed to establish our county sewer and wastewater needs and to set the priorities for addressing those needs over the next twenty years and beyond. This planning justified the State's recent commitments to over $54 million in sewage collection and treatment facility improvements and construction for Hardin County from 2010 to 2013.
- Our region's Metropolitan Planning Organization, of which I serve as Chairman, established the Area's first ever Urbanized Transportation Plan in 2005 to identify our highway needs for the next twenty years. This year we completed the first 5 year revision of this document to ensure our planning matches the growing needs and changing priorities for transportation in our region. This is the primary document used by the Kentucky Department of Transportation and Kentucky General Assembly for funding the state's Six Year Road Plan. Many of our top priorities are now being addressed and others are in the final planning and preparation stages for construction to begin in the next two years. These include approximately $162 million of new highway construction to support our rapid growth resulting from BRAC.
This is just a brief introduction of the progress within Hardin County. The pages of this web site are intended to provide you more detail and insight to these and other accomplishments occurring during the last seven years. I'm very excited about our accomplishments and our future in Hardin County!
