Judge Johnston signed a proclamation for September as Childhood Cancer awareness month. The court was joined by Rita Morphew, Brandon, Bridgett, and Brice Morphew and Tony and Shellie Shouse

Judge Johnston signed a proclamation for National Assisted Living Week, the court was joined by representative of Dogwood Estates in Beaver Dam:  Penny Denardi, Chloe Embry, Edna Lewis, Tracy Dye, Arrie Winfield, Terri Johnston, Banner Griffin, Andrea Hepner, Jamilee Griffin, Jimmy Hepner and Walker Griffin

• 8.25.2026 FCM Minutes

Motion Passed:  Approved August 25, 2026 Minutes passed with a motion by Michael McKenney and a second by Dale Beavin.

• Bills and Claims
• Bills and Claims-Late List
• Budget Transfers Journal

Motion Passed:  Bills, Claims, Payments and Transfers, including the late list stand approved as presented passed with a motion by Dale Beavin and a second by Michael McKenney.

• Appropriation Condition
• Financial Statement
• Revenue Condition

Motion Passed:  Acknowledge receipt of the Treasurer's July Financial Statement. passed with a motion by Dale Beavin and a second by Larry Morphew.

Motion Passed:  Motion to allow Treasurer to write the checks for the amounts committed by the magistrates to the Bill Monroe Foundation passed with a motion by Michael McKenney and a second by Dale Beavin.

Dennis Cook spoke about the Jerusalem Ridge Festival coming up this week.  He asked the magistrates to consider sponsoring the festival.  Larry Morphew committed $200, Dale Beavin $500, Michael McKenney $500 and Jason Bullock $500 from their discretionary funds.

Motion Passed:  Approved to enter into closed session under KRS 61.810 Chapter 1 Section C & F passed with a motion by Larry Morphew and a second by Dale Beavin.

Motion Passed:  Approved having returned from Closed Session passed with a motion by Michael McKenney and a second by Larry Morphew.

Motion Passed:  Motion to take, from emergency reserves, the $24,614.70 for the sheriff to acquire a contract with Replay, and start the service with them and to give the treasure the authority to write the check for this and for the amount from the surplus of the Humvee to go back into the emergency reserves passed with a motion by Michael McKenney and a second by Dale Beavin.

Sheriff Wright stated that he wanted to bring the court up to speed on an issue that the sheriff’s office ran into a couple weeks ago, the dispatch center we has a system that monitors all of the radio traffic, phone calls, and 911 calls so that way we can replay them in a case of emergency, homicide or cases to verify who called, when they call and what number they called from. Unfortunately this server went down and they were unaware it had gone down and had been down for quite some time and didn’t realize until they went back to try to gather information regarding one or more cases 

The company that used now is called RevCor, they contacted them and they tried to log it into the system from Texas, it was unsuccessful and that they would have to ship it to Texas for the company to look at, so they called Knights Technology they removed the server and then they UPS shipped it to Texas.  They then had to ship it somewhere else to have it worked on.  The sheriff’s office got it back, it did power up, but all data had been lost and it crashed again.  The sheriff’s office then reached out to a company called Replay, they're located in Nashville Tennessee. They explained the situation to them and out and kindness of their heart they actually drove up too a look at the server and got it halfway going what it needed to do, they brought some other equipment and told them what they had to offer, if the sheriff’s office would be willing to go to us. They are giving a 30-day free trial which is not cost anything and recording stuff for the department just to be helpful. The cost of the new equipment is going to be $24,000 and an annual fee of $5400, which is $1700 more than they are paying now. The good thing about this system is they're close to home if it goes down they come up within a couple hours. This system also does a relay check every night so basically what it says this system will contact their agency in Nashville today I'm still alive, if they don't get a response within a certain hours of time within 30 minutes they're on their way up here to see what's going on with it so that way we can make sure that we're getting very important recordings. The recordings will also be stored on a cloud storage system. Sheriff Wright then stated that they had a 1987 AMC Humvee at the impound the sheriff's department got this probably back in 2011. The sheriff then proposed to pull this out of impound and to surplus to help pay for some of this cost.

Motion Passed:  Motion to allow the sheriff to surplus the 1987, green Humvee, Serial # 027420 and sell on gov.deal, and for the proceeds from the sale to go back into the emergency reserves to help recover the cost of the new recording system passed with a motion by Michael McKenney and a second by Dale Beavin.

Judge Johnston gave a brief report on opioid funds in Ohio County.  He stated that the county had received opioid funds, which have strict guidelines on how those can be used.  He listed several places/uses that these funds had been used or have been committed to be used.

He then asked if any other committees had met. Michael McKenney said the housing study is progressing and that at the next Housing Committee meeting there will be more people participating than there has been.  The landfill committee has not met, but they are close to addressing the landfill situation.

Michael McKenney urged everyone to go out and support the Jerusalem Ridge Festival and the Ohio County Fair the next week.

Motion Passed:  Motion to authorize the treasurer to write a check for Dundee Days for $500 and Fordsville Days for $500 from his discretionary funds passed with a motion by Dale Beavin and a second by Michael McKenney.

Motion Passed:  Motion to table the proposed resolution on data center moratorium until the next meeting passed with a motion by Michael McKenney and a second by Dale Beavin.

Larry stated that he felt there was a problem with permitting for overweight trucks.  He cited Bethel Church Road where a pot hole had been fixed, but large trucks hauling over it will tear it up again.  The Judge stated that the company hauling did a pre-haul damage report and it will have to fix anything that it tears up.  He stated that he still felt the process needed to be evaluated.

He then read a proposed resolution on a moratorium concerning data centers.  He made a motion to pass it, however there were questions as the rest of the court had not seen it, he then asked if it needed to be tabled.  County Attorney Justin Keown stated that he had worked on it and can email a copy for review. 

Dennis with Republic Services stated that he had come to present the court with their monthly tonnage report.

Jody Flener announced that the Cowboy Fastdraw state competition was being held this weekend at the Beaver Dam amphitheater.

Mr. Hamilton spoke concerning Reed Cemetery Road, asking where was the court at with the matter.  Judge Johnston stated that he would try to reach out to the coal company again.