Industrial Board Says No to Stave Mill Offer

By PJ Martin

Editor, The Herald-News

 

The Edmonton Metcalfe Industrial Development Authority met in regular session on Monday, October 19, at City Hall.

Those in attendance were Lisa Boswell, Josh Devore, Matt Gallagher, Jerry Garmon, Mayor Doug Smith, J/E Larry Wilson, Attorney Holly Coleman, Treasurer Alley Bragg, and PJ Martin for the Herald-News.

Chairperson Boswell opened the meeting and asked for a motion to accept the minutes from August 17^th. The motion to approve was made by Garmon, seconded by Gallagher, and approved.

The minutes of the August 31^st meeting were approved after motions by Gallagher and Garmon.

The treasurer’s report was presented by Bragg, “Okay, we’re gonna start at August the 28th. We paid the appraisal company $5,000. On August the 31st, we added the ESB interest at $3.47. September the 16th, we received the Pennington Stave Company payment of $6,866.75. September the 21st, we paid myself for bookkeeping for $148.75. September 30th, we added the ESB interest of $3.76. October 15th, we added Pennington Stave Company’s insurance reimbursement for fiscal years 22, 23, and then 23, 24, and then on the same date they paid their lease payment of $6,966.75. And that gives us the $62,381.24 (balance).”

The financial report was approved after motions by Garmon and Devore.

“In keeping with the Treasurer’s report, are we gonna make an ESB payment? We need a motion to do it? said Boswell.

The motions were made by Devore and Gallagher to begin payment on the loan again. It was asked if that would be done on a month-by-month basis, to which Boswell replied, “Let’s just pick it up again.”

Next, the board voted to go into executive session per KRS 61.810(1)(g) to discuss the sale offer on Pennington Stave Company.

Upon returning to open session about ten minutes later, Gallagher made the motion to “Turn down the offer.” The motion was seconded by Garmon and approved.

Boswell was asked if she had requested the RDAPP money from fiscal court yet, and she replied she had not. Gallagher made the motion for Boswell to request the RDAPP money from the fiscal court. Devore seconded the motion, which was approved. 

J/E Wilson stated, “You can request it, but we have plans for it. Fiscal court will decide.”

Mayor Smith spoke up, “Chad’s not here, but on his behalf, it’s hard to come up with an investor to spend money. Here, you can see, obviously, that, you know, that we’re slowly drying up industry and so on. And to come up with two is almost like a miracle.”

“I told Terry Garrett on his deathbed,” Terry asked me about it. He said, “I sure hope that that works out.” I said, Terry, I’ll do everything I can to try to make sure that it does work out. He said, “I had a lot of things I wanted to say that I didn’t say,” but he said, “Please promise me that you’ll get that worked out.” I told him I would… getting the mill working, the jobs… “I know this guy. He’s gonna put something in there that’s gonna make some money, which would generate at least some tax money for us,” added Smith.

At that, Boswell asked for a motion to adjourn.