Staff Reporter

The Perry County Fiscal Court is waiting to approve two resolutions authorizing the payment of expenses for waterline projects after the Court met yesterday in the old Perry County Courthouse for its regular meeting.

Among the items on the agenda included the resolutions for payments for the Right and Middle Forks of Maces Creek and the Hiner-Bulan projects. After reviewing the resolutions, Judge Executive Denny Ray Noble said he would like permission from the court to review the projects before authorizing the payments.

The City of Hazard is currently in the midst of a gas line project that runs through a portion of Maces Creek, and to save money plans were drawn up to lay the waterline at the same time as the gas line. Consultant Bryan Kirby noted that constructing the line in this manner would save time and be easier as well. "Once you put the gas line in and then revisit and put the waterline in it would be difficult," he said. Kirby noted that had the gas line been constructed first, workers would have to dig in basically the same place where the gas line is located and also have to "disrupt residents" again in order to lay the waterline.

The resolution for the Maces Creek project was for the amount of $71,914, which Kirby said represented 85 percent of the design phase. Noble noted that the original project for Maces Creek was already designed and that any additional design should not cost the county, but instead the gas company. He was given permission from the Court to research the project and approve the payment at a later date, saying that the project should have been brought before the Court to approve before work had begun.

Noble said the project was "supposed to be negotiated and save money by putting in the gas line and the water line together.

The second resolution for the Hiner-Bulan project represented 98 percent completion, Kirby said, but Noble noted that the contractor bonded to complete the project was contracted for 100 percent of the job, and that the workers had left the area and one road had not been complete.

Lovins Lane near Duane Mountain is not complete, Noble said, even though the workers are no longer laying the waterline. "I'm not agreeable with paying them until they finish it," he said.

Kirby noted during the meeting that there is $31,000 that will not be released to the company until the job in completed, but sometimes contractors will forgo that money and not finish the job and that another contractor would have to be brought in.

Again, the magistrates gave Noble permission to delay the payment in order to further research the project.