Published: March 26, 2008 08:16 am      

Rural roads to receive repairs

Madison Fiscal Court is will receive about $935,000 from the Kentucky Department of Transportation as a part of the county’s rural secondary road program.

Stuart Goodpaster, of the transportation cabinet’s District 7 which serves Madison County, attended the court’s regular meeting Tuesday to present the roads considered to be priority in the county.

Projects to be completed with the funding this year include: the continuation of work being done to about 6.5 miles of KY 4989, estimated to cost about $541,000; 3.5 miles of KY 595 estimated at $280,000; and almost 2 miles of Cottonburg Road estimated at $134,000.

“These are really just continuation of roads that were needing improvement two or three years ago and we didn’t have funding to do the whole road, so we’re finally able to,” said Madison Judge-Executive Kent Clark.

The rural secondary road program takes 22.2 percent of the gas tax that is paid at the pump and distributes it by formula to each of the 120 counties, Goodpaster explained.

“Whatever money is allotted for Madison County can only be spent in Madison County,” Goodpaster said. “What is not spent in one fiscal year is carried over into the next fiscal year.”

Work done through last year’s rural secondary road program included a section of KY 499 from Brassfield Road to the Estill County line, a section of Red Lick Road from Wolf Gap Road to the Estill County line, a section of Dreyfuss Road and another section of KY 595.

There is approximately 120 miles of rural secondary roads in Madison County.

“The money given through the rural secondary road program depends on the number of roads in the county and the population,” Clark said. “We usually let the state make the (road) recommendations.”

In other business:

• Twenty-two county road signs were stolen and replaced last week, and most of them are gone again, said Magistrate Harold Botner.

He is encouraging community members to keep a watch out for those stealing road signs, get a description of the person(s) and/or a license plate number and report it to the Madison County Sheriff’s Office at 623-1511.

“We raised the poles to make it tougher on them, but evidently they’re getting them somehow,” he said. “People might be selling them for the aluminum.”

These stolen signs frequently are found as decorations in college dorm rooms, said Magistrate Larry Combs.

“Now would be a good time to go through some of the dorms,” he said. “We did it two years ago and got a truckload of them.”

• The court heard the final reading of a land-use change for 1.6 acres at 1762 KY 21 owned by Harold Johnson. The ordinance changes the zoning classification from agricultural use to general commercial use.

• Jason Curry and Nicholas Davidson were hired as Madison County firefighters.

Ronica Shannon can be reached at rshannon@richmondregister.com or 623-1669, Ext. 234.