Construction

A construction worker in Nicholasville lost his foot in an accident at the site of the future Copper River Grill Monday morning. “There’s a young man that was working on a piece of machinery, and evidently, he either fell off it or got his foot caught in it somehow and severed his foot,” said Charbel Joseph, founder of The Joseph Group, which is developing the property along with the nearby Keene Centre project. The incident occurred around 7:45 a.m., according to Jessamine County EMS Chief Jerry Domidion.

With funding available for design and right-of-way acquisition, members of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet made a presentation on the proposed eastern bypass to the Nicholasville Planning and Zoning Commission Monday night. “It’s back on track so to speak,” Robert W. Nunley, branch manager with the cabinet, said. “It’s been around — we had a public hearing back in 2003, and there has not been any major activity since then. Now we’re starting back up again; we have some funding in place.

Recently, a new and beautiful arched bridge was opened across the gorge one-quarter mile downstream from the Hoover Dam. Construction of the bridge occurred from January 2005 until October 2010. It spans 1,060 feet. Construction lasted two years longer than contracted for and was over budget. Now, compare this “wondrous” event with some of its forebears. Excavation for the Empire State Building began on Jan. 22, 1930 (in the depth of the Depression). Four hundred ten days later, on May 1, 1931, the building was completed.

Dear Editor, I think it is essential that the facts about several issues important to our community be stated openly and honestly. Messrs. Hunstad and Coomer have, on several occasions, misstated the facts on these important issues. First, there was no overrun on the construction of the new police headquarters and city building. In fact, the construction of this facility came in more than $150,000 below the original budget. Planning for this facility was begun in 2002, more than six years before our country banged up against the recession.

STANFORD — A small group gathered Tuesday night at the Lincoln County Courthouse for a public forum to discuss the construction of a new regional jail. Elected officials, law enforcement officers and members of the public spoke plainly about the need for a new facility, prefaced by Jailer David Gooch flatly stating, “Guys, if we don’t decide on a plan to move forward, this jail is going to be closed.” The existing regional jail has been nursed along for several years under the constant scrutiny of the state Department of Corrections.

HERRINGTON LAKE — Garrard County is taking the lead in a recent effort to begin fixing Styrofoam problems on Herrington Lake, and officials hope other counties along the lake will follow suit. In late September, the Fiscal Court added construction requirements for docks to the county’s building code ordinance. The goal is to halt the continual flow of Styrofoam into the lake by regulating how new docks — the source of the Styrofoam — are built. “Most of the manmade debris on that lake comes from deteriorating docks and Styrofoam,” Judge-Executive John Wilson said.

Jessamine County will receive a $150,000 grant for construction of a new animal shelter, from the Kentucky Department of Agriculture. Because so many Kentucky counties applied for the grant, the animal control advisory board set a cap of $150,000 for the amount each qualified county could receive. Of 44 grant applicants for funding from the board, only Jessamine County and one other county received the maximum amount. The current Jessamine County Animal shelter was constructed in 1975 and is 2,000 square feet.

It was early one recent weekday morning and workers with Blevins Painting Co. of Harrodsburg were busy painting the exterior walls of the addition at Danville First Church of God on Harrodsburg Road. But they weren’t the only ones wielding a paintbrush that morning. Inside the new structure was Ron Pennington. If you didn’t know, you would have assumed he was a Blevins employee as well. After all, he not only had a paintbrush in his hand but he also was wearing white work pants and white T-shirt, the unofficial uniform of many painters.

To the editor: As a resident who has traveled U.S. 68 from the county line to Ky. 29, ferrying my children back and forth to school for the past 16 years, let me thank everyone involved from funding to construction for providing a safe and attractive highway to navigate after years of treacherous trips on the old road. While I am a cautious driver, I don’t understand the need for the extremely conservative 45 mph speed limit. That seems excessively slow for such long expanses of highway with few intersections.

Work is set to begin later this month on infrastructure for an area of Boyle and Lincoln counties that has been in need of sewer service for more than a quarter century. The $3.2-million project will bring service to about 170 customers in Phylben Village and other streets east of the airport, with about the same number of homes being split between Boyle and Lincoln counties. Because the sewer system will tie in to Danville’s existing waste treatment infrastructure, the city is taking the lead in administering the contracts.