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During the panel’s regular March meeting, the Harlan County Fiscal Court discussed grant applications and a lease agreement.

Harlan County Judge-Executive Dan Mosley brought the topic up to the magistrates, asking retroactively for permission to apply for a Kentucky Department of Library and Archives Grant.

“This is a grant that was made available to the (County) clerk,” Mosley said.

Harlan County Clerk Ashley Sullivan brought the magistrates up to speed on the specifics of the grant.

“This is a salary grant,” Sullivan said. “This will allow me to hire somebody to come in for 50 weeks at 40 hours per week for them to scan a set of books going back to 1868. Without this grant, it would be very difficult for us to make future deadlines for us to get everything scanned and available to the public online.”

Magistrate Paul Browning expressed an opinion concerning the grant.

“I’m glad they are coming through with some help on that,” Browning said. “We had some discussions about the expense associated with that.”

Mosley explained the grant had already been applied for since there was little time to apply, and he did not expect the magistrates to have a problem applying for the grant.

“We went ahead and submitted it, so we just need a motion that’s retroactive,” Mosley said.

The court passed the motion with no opposition.

Mosley then moved on to a grant aimed at the Hope Center.

“Item 13 would be to approve the Cumberland Hope Community Recovery Kentucky Grant agreement, contract amount $200,000,” Mosley said. “This is the annual grant that we receive related to the Hope Center at Verda.”

The magistrates approved the grant application with no opposition.

The court also approved a lease agreement between the Harlan County Fiscal Court and Access Cable.

“This is something we have worked on for about three to four years, maybe even longer, to try to establish some space on a communications tower on top of Black Mountain,” Mosley said. “We had a great meeting a couple of weeks back, and we’ve reached an agreement to be able to do that. This is payable out of the 911 fund, which is for communications to help the sheriff’s office and fire departments. All of our first responders will benefit greatly from having this communications infrastructure installed up there. This is simply to allow me to sign the lease agreement.”

The magistrates unanimously approved a motion to enter into the lease agreement.

In other fiscal court activity:

• The court reflected a proposed Harlan County Solid Waste Management Plan 2023-2027 was advertised and the 30-day comment period has elapsed with no public comments.

• A resolution affirming the continuation of single county area designation status for solid waste management was approved.

• A resolution adopting the Harlan County solid waste management plan for the 2023-2027 update was approved.

• The report of the audit of the Former Harlan County Sheriff’s Settlement for 2021 taxes was accepted.