Fiscal Court Deals with TIF, 911 Issues, Website

The McCracken Fiscal Court met Monday night, and approved changes to their website. They also heard the first reading of an ordinance regarding a joint downtown TIF district with the city of Paducah, and passed a resolution that's required to keep NCIC information coming to the Sheriff's Department from 911 Dispatch.

The ordinance would establish a Downtown Riverfront Development Area and approve a local participation agreement with the city for establishing the TIF plan. It would also establish a special fund for the incremental tax that would be administered by the city finance department.

A TIF district sets a baseline tax revenue when it is established, and any future generated tax revenue that exceeds the baseline is placed in a fund that is reinvested to help defray infrastructure improvement costs for developers within the area. These include improvements like utilities, parks, roadways, or parking. (Note: when originally written, this description was incorrectly worded and has been corrected.)

The Fiscal Court approved the introduction of the ordinance, and it will get a second reading at the March 25 meeting.

The court also approved changing its website domain name from mccrackenky.com to mccrackencountyky.gov, and approved a proposal from Zebra Graphics to build a website and plug-ins that would allow county employees to better maintain the site. A one-time fee of $1,255 would cover set up and training, and annual costs for domain hosting would be $300.

The Fiscal Court passed a resolution to abolish the Paducah-McCracken County Emergency Communications Service Board along with an interlocal agreement with the city of Paducah that established the board. The resolution also assigns responsibility and authorization for the county's access to the NCIC database to the city, so that agency's 911 Operations Center can continue to operate and provide information to the Sheriff's Department.

These actions were the intent of the Fiscal Court as far back as July 2016, and current practices reflect those intentions, but formal action was required to allow the city to maintain access to the database. This action was prompted by an audit request received by Kentucky State Police, which needed official documentation. 

County Attorney Sam Clymer explained by saying, "If this does not go through tonight, then we would be subject to potentially having some pretty significant consequences on our officers' ability to communicate."

An emergency action related to this matter is also on the agenda for Tuesday's Paducah City Commission meeting, so that access to the NCIC database is not revoked.

Another resolution was passed, supporting proposed renovations on county-owned land by Lotus (formerly the Rape Crisis Center or PASAC). They also approved drafting letters in support of grant applications by Sprocket, Inc. for high-tech entrepreneurial development, and in support of the Lotus renovations for their grant writing process. 

County Commissioners Eddie Jones and Bill Bartleman gave a report on their trip to the Kentucky Commissioners' Conference. They met with Governor Matt Bevin and discussed local issues, and also attended several seminars and forums, where they got to share ideas and information with similar officials from around the state. 

Two McCracken County residents, Myron Scott and Charles Copeland, spoke to the court about their properties beyond the floodwall on the south side of Paducah, and questioned decisions by local leaders to mitigate flooding in some privately-owned areas by pumping water into areas that were already flooded, worsening conditions for those property owners. Judge-Executive Craig Clymer promised to look further into the matter.