Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The Harlan City Council recently discussed various topics, such as an ongoing city sidewalk project, road funding and winter preparations.

During the city engineer’s report, Harlan Mayor Joe Meadors updated the council on projects within the city.

“Basically, we’re still progressing up south Main Street with the new sidewalks,” Meadors said. “I’m very impressed with the quality of work we’re getting.”

Meadors pointed out the area where the sidewalk work is being done has the potential of being dangerous.

“That’s a terrible place to be working,” Meadors said. “It’s dangerous as can be. But, they seem to be doing well. We’ve had pretty good weather, and they’re making good progress.”

Meadors asked City Attorney Karen Davenport for a progress report on a building the city is working to declare condemned.

“We are just about ready to file that,” Davenport said. “Right now, it looks like there are four owners.”

Davenport explained the more owners a property has, the more difficult such proceedings can be.

Meadors also updated the council concerning some funding from the state for road repair.

“I informed you at the last meeting the Governor (Andy Beshear) had given us some more discretionary road money,” Meadors said. “We’ve got the contract here; it’s in the amount of $63,725, that is for north First Street, west Mound Street from Cumberland Avenue to the bypass, and two streets on Ivy Hill.”

Meadors explained the city would receive the money as reimbursement.

“We’ll get this money back after we pay,” Meadors said. “They don’t give you the money up front, we’ve got the money awarded to us, be we will actually have to have the work performed…the asphalt will have to be laid, then we’ll have to ask for reimbursements. We’ll actually probably not get this money back until July or August of next year.”

Meadors also provided information on the city’s tax collection.

“We have collected 57.65 percent of our 2023 taxes,” Meadors told the council. “That should probably be close to 75 or 80 percent by the end of the month. Maybe even a little bit more than that, so we’re doing well.”

He mentioned the city is readying for the impact of winter weather on the city’s streets.

“We’ve got our salt in, I hope we don’t have to use it often,” Meadors said. “I think we’re as prepared as we can be. We’re ready to go, we’ve got our equipment ready.”