Jackson Mayor Mike Miller announced the restoring of that project during last Thursday’s regular meeting of the Jackson City Council. The meeting also revealed public hearings will be held on three topics on Thursday, May 15th at 4:30 p.m. at City Hall. Those three topics are: (1) The amendment to the city’s Occupational License Tax Ordinance, (2) The hiring of a Recreation Superintendent, and (3) The amending to the Police Policy to let retiring officers keep their weapon given to them by the city upon their hiring.

The restoring of the “Safe Route to Schools Program” gift of $208,000 from the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet was a shot in the arm to the city, said Jackson Mayor Mike Miller. “You may recall when state highway and school officials came here to present the city with that oversized check back in September of last year. We’ll, it’s not been cut after all. And just in time, too.”

The money is budgeted for five areas, Miller said to Vice-Mayor Rose Wolfe, and Councilmembers Jason Hall, Alfred Turner, Steve Bowling, Wayne Morgan and Patrick O’Neill. Of the total of $208,000 for the entire project, $76,000 will go to rebuild sidewalks along Jetts Drive, near both LBJ and Sebastian Middle Schools. $60,000 is now allocated for sidewalk rebuilding along Court Street at Breathitt High School, with $40,000 for Elm Street and $31,000 for sidewalk reconstruction along Elm Street. Finally, a total of $1,000 would be used for educational material which would be used by BHS, LBJ and SMS. The project is expected to be completed within 18 months, and after a reading on receiving a Memorandum of Agreement, the motion to accept the resolution for the “Safe Route to Schools” program was passed unanimously.

As for the public hearings in a couple of weeks, the Mayor reminded the Council that the city would have to advertise of the hearing for the second reading and adoption of the amending of the Occupational License Tax Ordinance. “There has to be an ordinance to rescind the present ordinance that was dated back in 1982.”

The second public hearing deals with a discussion Miller had with Jackson Parks and Recreation Director Tony Turner. “We both agree that Tony’s gonna need help, so we’ll need to create the new position of Recreation Superintendent. Along with the hearing, we’ll need to amend the personnel policy manual to create the position.”

The third public hearing will deal with letting retired police officers keep the weapon they’re given when they first join the force. “Right now, when they retire, they can’t take their weapon with them when they retire. We bought those weapons with grant money, so they should at least keep it,” said the Mayor. Miller said they’d need to amend the Police Policy and make it into an ordinance.

The council approved the Municipal Road Aid Agreement with the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet for 2008-09. The new agreement means funds to the city will be up 20 percent from last year. The Mayor mentioned that “CDP Engineers will have rate analysis and when and how we can fix the lift station…on the Quicksand lift station, our time has run on getting that fixed.” He told Council that he’d contact CDP on the problems, “and they’ll fuss at us, but I think we’ll have an 180-day extension.”

Towards the end of the meeting, it was learned that some changes could be coming in the city’s cable television franchise with Time Warner Cable. Both Mayor Miller and Vice-Mayor Wolfe mentioned that two new channels could become available to the city - CW KYT, and Fox Sports Ohio. CW KYT is one of WKYT’s (Channel 27 in Lexington) digital channels, and carries programs from the CW Television Network, as well as UK Women’s Basketball, Baseball and Volleyball, plus high school basketball and repeats of WKYT’s newscasts. Fox Sports Ohio primarily covers professional and college sports teams from the Buckeye State, and is best known for carring the bulk of the Cincinnati Reds baseball telecasts.

Both Miller and Wolfe noted that Time Warner is wanting to extend the present agreement for 36 months, which could help the company prepare for an important transition - and a possible takeover. “There is an outside chance that Insight Communications will buy out Time Warner, which will be a great help to the City of Jackson,” Miller added. “This will also help with the transition it digital television service, and equipping the cable system for high-definition broadcasting.” He did note that TVS Cable of Hindman and Frank Howard TV Cable of Salyersville - who expressed interest in buying the cable franchise for the city last year -are no longer interested.

In other highlights, it was learned that the city has received $100,000 for Phase 2 funding for the new fire station at the corner of Broadway and College Avenue. Council also learned that over 1,300 of the new “Radio-Read” water meters have been installed, at the rate of 30 meters a day. The city’s Municipal Water Works was commended for being one of 32 systems in Kentucky being awarded by the state Environmental Protection Cabinet for their high quality drinking water. And everyone was reminded that the re-dedication of Kiwanis Park would be this Saturday at 10 a.m.