Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The Harlan County Fiscal Court recently held their regular meeting for February, covering a variety of topics including a lease agreement at the Lynch Depot, an agreement for salt with a neighboring county, and a contribution to the Red Cross.

During the meeting, the court took action on a lease agreement involving the Lynch Depot.

“The Backroads of Appalachia group had been utilizing an area in the Lynch Depot for a period of time,” Harlan County Judge-Executive Dan Mosley told the magistrates. “They had a lease in place on that.”

The Backroads of Appalachia website at https://backroadsofappalachia.org states Backroads of Appalachia is a non-profit organization based in Lynch. The organization works to create economic development, job training and other opportunities via motorsports tourism.

Magistrate Paul Browning mentioned the lease agreement with Backroads of Appalachia had been put in place approximately two years ago.

“I believe it may have expired,” Mosley said. “They’ve asked to use that area continually until the Welcome Center – They’ve started moving forward with a grant on that particular project – They would like to continue to use it. It would be my recommendation that we give them the same lease agreement that we had in place before.”

Mosley explained the previous lease was for a year with an option to renew for another year.

“We’re at the end of that,” Mosley said. “I would request we implement a one year lease effective now that has the same terms as the previous lease with Backroads of Appalachia.”

Browning made a motion to enter into a new lease with Backroads of Appalachia, seconded by Magistrate James Howard. The motion passed with no objection.

The Court’s attention then turned to an agreement with neighboring Leslie County.

“Leslie County had reached out, they acquire their salt from the state, but the state had told them they didn’t have any salt to sell them,” Mosley said. “They asked if they could buy some from us. They ended up not needing to do that, but we thought it would be good to have (an agreement) in place to be able to sell them some in the future.”

Magistrate James Howard made a motion to approve the agreement to sell salt to Leslie County, seconded by Magistrate Bill Moore,

The magistrates approved the agreement with no opposition.

A Red Cross Disaster Relief proposal was also discussed.

“The last few years, the American Red Cross has been very good to us,” Mosley said. “They were here just the other night helping with the shelter up at Louellen when the shelter was set up there when people needed services due to the evacuation because of the lake leak. They’ve been here time and time again through many disasters.”

Mosley said the Red Cross had requested a contribution of $2,500. He pointed out the county had made similar contributions to the Red Cross previously.

“It’s something we’ve included in our budget to do every year,” Mosley said. “I would recommend we continue that. They’ve asked all counties and cities to contribute to the disaster efforts they do locally. I think it’s a good investment.”

Moore made a motion approving a $2,500 contribution to the Red Cross, seconded by Howard. The motion passed unanimously.