SEWER DISTRICT WOES CONTINUE

For the past couple of years the Oldham County Sewer District has often been at the front of the news. Their lack of capacity, inability to operate efficiently, and their financial status issues have been the center of discussions. Meanwhile Judge Murner has continued to promise that an audit of the district was right around the corner. At the last fiscal court meeting once again the subject of their finances was brought up by Magistrate Scott Davis.

State law requires that all districts receiving more than $750,000 per year have an annual audit. Magistrate Scott Davis has been inquiring of Judge Murner about the audit for several months. Murner has always said that the audit will be forthcoming very shortly. However, as of yet, no audit has been performed, and according to Murner the audit may not be done in the near future.

Murner said that the books of the sewer district are in such bad condition that it was necessary for Stan Clark, the county treasurer, to reconstruct the books as far back as 1998. Without question this reflects that the oversight of the sewer district was nil. There is a good likelihood that there were instances of misfeasance, malfeasance and nonfeasance of office by people in charge of the district over the years. However, nobody has chosen to try to bring those people to justice. They have chosen to sweep the dirt under the carpet.If the books have bben improperly maintained since 1998, it possible that an audit has not been conducted since then. What would you think if that were the case?

Knowing that the books of the sewer district were in horrible condition, Murner still asked the fiscal court to assume responsibility of several million dollars of debt. What is worse is that the majority of the members of fiscal court blindly followed his suggestion. I asked the fiscal court to at least wait until an audit was completed before accepting the responsibility of the debt but they refused to do so. The fact is that most of the members are totally irresponsible or stupid and neither bodes well for the citizens of Oldham County.

Magistrate Davis also asked that Murner explain why Magistrate David Voegele was denied access to the meeting of the Oldham LaGrange Development Authority (OLDA) meeting that was being conducted to discuss the contract proposal by Talmadge Hocker for the Oldham Reserve even though Murner was allowed to attend and he is not a member of OLDA. Murner stated he had nothing to do with the decision to keep Voegele out of the meeting and that he was asked to join the meeting because he had worked closely with OLDA during the negotiations. Murner may have worked closely with OLDA but he certainly has not shared his information with the fiscal court even though the court/county is paying for all of the legal bills for the negotiations. Considering that Murner prefers to operate in secrecy it should come as no surprise that he would not keep members of the court informed.

If my memory serves me correctly, I believe that Murner and other members of the Kinser court constantly complained about Mary Ellen Kinser keeping information from them. I challenge any member of that court to prove to me that she was more secretive than Judge Duane Murner. The present fiscal court needs major changes. All the public can hope for is that some of the people challenging incumbents are successful and that they are not willing to endure the secrecy that the present court has endured.