Rowan Review - May 2026
And just like that, it’s June. This spring has felt like something of a drought at times, but now we’re pretty certain we’ve gotten caught up on rainfall in a week’s time.
In this month’s Review, we’re going to provide you with an update on this week’s storm cleanup, and beg you to sign up for the county’s severe weather alert system. We’ll go over different improvements and repairs being made at county facilities and tell you about the good time everyone had at Sunday Funday – and lots of important information in between including a synopsis of the new budget.
Last but not least, we would like to thank you again for taking the time to read this and stay informed about the happenings in Rowan County. We’ve all got a vested interest in it.
Thank you,
Dylan Lambert, Director of Operations
THE FLOODING
As we touched on at the beginning, and this probably goes without saying, but we’ve received an inordinate amount of rainfall this past week. With that, the fallen timber and debris that’s built up since the last flooding event has washed off the hillsides and into many inconvenient places, causing a lot of problems across Rowan County. It’s not been a devastating event by any means, but it’s a big mess nonetheless, and the Road Crew has been working hard to clear debris from the roadways, unstop culverts, and removing larger blockages around bridges.
We thank everyone for their patience as we work to get everything back into shape. Our Road Department and the Fiscal Court have been out taking stock of the situation and the cleanup projects, but if you think we may have missed one, please call our Office Manager Morgan at the Road Department. Call her at (606) 784-4492 or email at morgan.mitchell@rcky.us.
Help us help you, and don’t let severe weather catch you off guard again. The easiest, best thing you can do is to enroll in the county’s new emergency alert system. We will ONLY trigger this system in the event of severe weather information being passed through by the National Weather Service for Rowan County specifically.
The same goes for the tornado sirens. We have installed 7 across the county over the last few years. As of right now, when a tornado alert is issued in one part of the county, the sirens across the rest of the county sound as well. We have allocated enough in the budget this year to remedy that, and we will be able to send out more localized alerts with a control module we will be incorporating into our system.
It’s important to know that not every bad weather situation warrants an alert. However, if you receive our alert, please heed it, as we are being judicious about not “crying wolf,” so to speak. If you get an alert from us, we mean it.
Sign up online by visiting our Rowan County Emergency Management page on our website, but if you do not have time to create a full account right now, you can still receive limited updates by texting:
• ROWANWEATHER to 888777 for weather alerts
• ROWANROADS to 888777 for road alerts
Note: During severe weather events after business hours, if you find a tree down across your road or other conditions have made it impassible, we ask you to please call the Morehead Dispatch non-emergency line at (606) 784-7511, and they will relay it to us immediately.
FACILITIES IMPROVEMENTS
On a brighter note, we’re also making major (and much needed) improvements across county facilities.
The Tri-County Animal Shelter was built some years ago with 30 runs for dogs. Unfortunately, those typically stay pretty full with the strays we pick up every week and the owner surrenders that we have room to accept. This summer, we will be extending the roof on the back of the animal shelter to cover all of the runs in their entirety. Right now, the roof only extends out over about half of the length of the runs. It isn’t exactly the most exciting or groundbreaking project we’ve ever took on, but it’ll certainly improve the quality of life of the dogs while they’re with us at the shelter, and it should make things much more efficient when we’re sanitizing and caring for these animals. We thank Kim, Bobbi and Pandora for all their work down there, it’s a constant battle and they do a fantastic job with just a few hands.
In addition, we’re dressing up and putting the finishing touches on two of our newer facilities. At the brand-new Senior Center at 740 Clearfield Street (which we’re happy to report is seeing a lot of use already) we will be installing a privacy fence to protect the neighborhood from additional traffic impacts, as well as a dumpster corral to keep everything nice and sightly at the new gathering place for our county’s senior community. We will also be constructing a walking path in the center’s backyard for daily exercise and fresh air, and will likely be able to share more on that next month.
The other major improvement we’re moving forward with is paving the new Road Department parking lot. We got by this past winter on the gravel, but the salt we had trucked in was fairly devastating to it and we got buried up a few times. This should be the last finishing touch on that facility, which has worked out for the Department tremendously.
THE PARK
Now, on to recreation. With new improvements like the playground and court complex, and with things finally warming up, we came to the realization that we didn’t have enough parking spaces at the park. To remedy this, Road Foreman Steve Kelsey and his crew laid out a great secondary parking lot near the front gate, which is ready to accommodate you and your family for your next outing. It came in handy for the Sunday Funday we held on May 17, which was a great success. Watch our Facebook for dates, as we plan to have a couple more of these events this year.
We’ve noticed a lot of people walking for exercise along the road out there and we’re really glad to see it. Many folks have asked when the rest of the park loop will be paved. We’re holding off on that as long as we can, until much of the major construction out there is finished. People are more than welcome to walk the gravel loop or the pavement on Community Way, on the grass, or anywhere they like at the park, but our goal is to be good stewards of your tax dollars, and we fear that heavy construction out there would almost immediately deteriorate the condition of any pavement we lay on that loop.
However: one of our mowing crews has taken it upon themselves to scout a very nice woodland walking/hiking trail around the perimeter of the park. They’re still in the process of finalizing the layout, but we believe it’ll be well in excess of a mile of walking with several points to enter and exit. Before we turn people loose on it, we’re going to be clearing a path wide enough to get a UTV down there in the event of a medical emergency. We will have more to report on that in the coming months – but an exciting development for nature lovers, nonetheless.
Moreover, an exciting development for music and performing arts afficionados is also in process. In the May meeting of the Fiscal Court, an architectural firm was selected to help guide us through the design and construction process of the new Amphitheatre. Upon committee recommendation and Fiscal Court confirmation, that firm was determined to be Sherman, Carter, & Barnhart Architects. This firm is no stranger to Rowan County, having designed both the Courthouse and Judicial Center for us back in the early 2010’s.
The County has in its employ several individuals who worked professionally as construction project managers prior to coming to work with us, and so we will be acting as the General Contractor on this project. This approach will allow us to stretch the funds as far as we can and make the most of the grant we have been awarded. We’re looking forward to getting this amphitheater project rolling, and we’ll be sure to share conceptual drawings once those come out.
Finally, if your kids frequent the new playground at the Harry T. Clark Community Park, you will be glad to know that the County has applied for and received a grant from the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet to install a smooth rubberized play surface at the playground. The grant was for $88,896, which greatly helped to offset the total cost of $122,000, allowing us to extend your local tax dollars that much further. The project will require some heavy equipment in the area, and so we are planning to close the playground from June 22 to July 3. During that time, please feel free to enjoy the other amenities offered at the park – but if a playground is a must for your family that week, we encourage you to check out the City’s new playground at Rodburn Hollow Park!
COUNTY BUDGET PASSES
It’s no secret that County governments are directly affected by the condition of the economy, and this is without doubt a trying period of uncertainty for all of us. This year, we’ve presented and passed a conservative budget that falls much in line with last year’s. We were met with the unfortunate news that our county road aid we rely on from the state will see a reduction, but still yet we’re confident that we will be laying more blacktop than we did even last year.
In this year’s legislative session, though there was widespread support across the Commonwealth, counties did not receive the relief they sought from the burden of rising jail costs. For perspective, this year’s total county budget bottom-line, encompassing every dollar we have available to spend in order to provide services, is just north of $22 million dollars.
It sounds like a whole lot, and we in Rowan County are fortunate to have the economy that provides for that, but when you consider the size of our county and the level of services provided, and then take $6.5 million (about 30%) off the top for the jail, it sets a stage for frustration, where we could be allocating those funds into other areas you care about, where we know there are great needs, like in roads, emergency services and recreation.
On the more positive side, as we touched on last month there are a few standout changes we think that you will appreciate. The chief one being that over $350,000 additional dollars have been allocated to the county volunteer fire departments in order to provide for manned operations across the county. Our goal is to have two paid firemen on duty during the day in each fire department, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
We’ve been working closely with your community fire chiefs, and the first responder community is putting in the work to make this program a success. Our goal is to start this slowly over the summer, but we need more people on these volunteer rosters. If you’ve ever held an interest in volunteering, we would strongly encourage you to speak to your community’s fire chief to see if you would be a fit. We are very excited about this development.
On a related note, the Morehead Fire Department is coming right along across from the Courthouse, where we have a front-row seat to the action. We’re glad to see this needed improvement come to life and look forward to seeing this facility open its doors and help strengthen our first responder community.
Lastly, we continue to invest in the proud men and women that we rely on to show up for you on your darkest days. This year we will be putting at least three EMT’s with the County through a paramedic program being taught by our own medics in our own facility. Not every county has the ability to do things like that, but we are committed to growing the next generation of public service in Rowan County. We do it because it’s the right thing to do, and because it’s the only way we will maintain the level of service and professionalism you are deserving of.
There’s big things happening in Rowan County, but we know you can’t sit around reading this all day – and we’ve got to get back to work!