Members of Harlan City Council examine paperwork at a recent meeting (Photo by Joe Asher)

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The Harlan City Council addressed a variety of city business during the regular meeting for June, including the paving of city streets and the purchase of a dump truck.

Mayor Joe Meadors updated the council on when they can expect paving to be done on city streets.

“We didn’t do any paving within the city limits last year,” Meadors said. “Mountain Enterprises left without doing one ounce of work for the city. They’ve already left Harlan County this year, they’re in other counties working. I’ve contacted them and they’re not going to be back in Harlan County until at least mid-July.”

According to Meadors, Harlan County will not have any paving work done during this time.

“That’s not just the city of Harlan, that’s Harlan County,” Meadors said. “You take all the roads that are going to be paved and patched, none of those will be done until at least mid-July. Whether they can get everything finished before they quit for the fall in early November, I don’t know.”

Meadors told the council he has made the city’s paving needs known.

“I told them they left us out last year, we need some roads paved and we need some patching done,” Meadors said. “We can do some spot patching ourselves, but these major patching jobs, we don’t have the expertise to do that, nor do we have the equipment.”

Meadors then moved on to an issue with one of the county’s vehicles.

“The truck that we purchased about three years ago from the State Highway Department in Frankfort…we were tearing the house down on Ivy Hill and got the first load to the dump, came back and got the second load and the motor blew…it’s shot,” Meadors said.

The vehicle was on the meeting’s agenda to be declared surplus property.

Meadors said a replacement vehicle has been acquired. The replacement truck is a 1995 model.

“The problem with new vehicles is they are all computerized,” Meadors said. “Most people can’t work on them. To even find out what’s wrong with them, you have to hook them up to a computer and that can be $300 or $400.”

Meadors explained the 1995 truck is low mileage, with 45,000 miles on the odometer.

“It’s a truck we can work on,” Meadors said. “We can replace the spark plugs, or any other thing, our guys can work on it. We won’t have to send it down to London.”

He noted the cost to tow a truck to London to be repaired is approximately $500.

“Then, you’re on the hook for whatever they want to charge you,” Meadors said. “So, we decided to just go ahead and get this old truck.”

Meadors also asked Harlan City Attorney Scott Lisenbee to update the council concerning ongoing legal proceedings involving the city.

“There were two lawsuits that came in, just foreclosures, I filed answers on those to protect our tax interests,” Lisenbee said. “It’s nothing out of the ordinary, its two adjacent pieces by the same owner on Cumberland Avenue.”