Incumbent judge-executives and their challengers in four area counties are busy on the campaign trail with only three weeks left before voters decide their fates.

In Barren County, one-term Judge-Executive Davie Greer, a Republican, faces dentist Chris Steward, an independent candidate, in a race highlighted by the latter’s critical jabs.

In Butler County, six-year incumbent Judge-Executive Hugh Evans, a Democrat, and body shop owner David Fields, a Republican, are contrasting how they’d revive the county’s struggling economy.

Simpson County’s two-term Republican incumbent Jim Henderson faces Democrat Mark Sexton, chairman of the Simpson County Board of Education, and Edmonson County’s three-term Republican incumbent N.E. Reed is opposed by Democrat Malea Meredith Vincent, a former analyst in the state attorney general’s office.

Steward, 54, a magistrate from 1998 to 2002, said an inefficient county road department and a stagnant economy are holding Barren back.

&#8220We have not had a single industry open up in Barren County in four years,” Steward said. &#8220That is an embarrassment.”

He said Greer spends thousands on trips to Washington, D.C., and Frankfort to promote the Kentucky TriModal Transpark in Warren County, to the detriment of potential businesses in Barren. He said he’s fed up with talk about regional cooperation for new industries.

&#8220Regional development to Warren County means sucking out the jobs of Barren County and bringing them to Bowling Green,” Steward said. &#8220I will work with (Warren County Judge-Executive) Mike Buchanon, but I will not work for Mike Buchanon.”

Greer, 67, said she twice visited Washington, D.C., as a transpark board member and pitched Barren interests every time she visited a Kentucky state senator or representative’s office.

&#8220The transpark is not only a benefit to this region, it’s a benefit to Barren County. It has not taken any businesses from Barren County,” Greer said. &#8220The county doesn’t have a lot of problems.”

Steward said he’s also bothered by Greer’s &#8220deceptive” stance on taxation. He said she’s voted to increase county taxes during most of her tenure, but decreased property tax rates by .002 percent two months before the election.

Greer said the county raised taxes to cover expenses in past years, but this year money from grants and the state has contributed to a more than $3 million surplus.

&#8220This, along with the anticipated growth, is one of the reasons I felt like we could lower our property taxes this year,” she said.

Another &#8220tremendous issue,” Steward said, is Greer’s advocacy of a new county jail, &#8220which I am totally opposed to” because it would cost $15 million to $23 million.

The only way Steward said he’d submit to a new facility is if the state made a long-term commitment to housing state inmates at an adjustable rate for rising costs. When he was a magistrate, he said, then-Gov. Paul Patton released around 4,000 inmates when the state was short of money, sinking some county jail budgets.

Greer said the current jail was built in the early 1970s and isn’t up to code. Remodeling would &#8220put a Band-Aid” on the problem and require prisoners to be moved to another facility.

&#8220We’d have to pay to house them for no telling how long,” she said.

Greer said she’d like to see a new jail built behind the current one to house 250 to 300 inmates. She said Steward’s $23 million figure comes from a news release that she should’ve caught, but a new jail wouldn’t cost anywhere close to that.

She also said Steward’s criticism of a December 2004 purchase of a roughly $40,000 pothole patcher is unwarranted because the manufacturer is solely responsible for its out-of-commission status. She said a company representative unsuccessfully attempted to operate the machinery in cold temperatures, and further company efforts to repair the product have failed.

While the patcher probably would work in warm conditions, that’s not what it was purchased for, Greer said, noting it’ll be stored until the county can negotiate a refund.

&#8220It’s sitting under a bird roost with about an inch of bird crap on it,” Steward said.

Greer said she hasn’t had a chance to check out that contention.

In Butler County, Evans, 69, and Fields, 61, found a little more common ground.

&#8220The economic situation is not really good in this county. It’s not good in a lot of counties,” Evans said. &#8220You can’t just lasso a company and say you’re coming to Morgantown and Butler County. The choice is theirs.”

Kentucky’s 120 counties not only compete with each other for jobs, they face other countries, such as Mexico, where Sumitomo Manufacturing, an automotive-wiring-systems supplier, chose to move its plant from Morgantown a few years ago.

Fields, who’s owned Fields Body Shop Inc. for 31 years, agreed the climate for recruiting jobs is heated, but he said the county can better advertise its assets to prospective employers.

&#8220We’re between Owensboro and Bowling Green. We live in a beautiful county with a river running through it,” Fields said. &#8220I think we need a change in leadership.”

If elected, he said, he’d form a citizens’ advisory panel, composed of representatives from different organizations, such as the Morgantown-Butler County Chamber of Commerce. It would analyze industry recruiting efforts in other counties and make proposals.

Evans said he’s already &#8220touching every base,” as he has a good relationship with the Bowling Green-Warren County Chamber of Commerce, the transpark, and Morgantown’s mayor and city council.

&#8220We’re not dead in Butler County,” Evans said, citing the existence of 400 jobs at Morgantown Plastics, 200 more at Aleris International, and this year’s opening of Butler County’s Area Technical Center.

To the south, Simpson Judge-Executive Jim Henderson, 36, cited the creation of a prosperous county economy as reason for retaining his leadership. About 2,000 jobs have been added in the last eight years, along with two industrial parks, he said.

Another major accomplishment, Henderson said, was the negotiation of the sale of Franklin’s hospital to The Medical Center when he took office. It was previously losing $600,000 a year.

&#8220There’s certainly not a lot of counties around here that have had those kind of successes,” Henderson said.

Sexton, 40, said maintaining the small-town atmosphere while encouraging continued growth is a challenge for Simpson, with the planned Garvin RV attraction and the widening of Interstate 65, Ky. 100 and U.S. 31-W on the way.

He said his leadership experience, honed as a longtime school board member, coupled with a lot of common sense and willingness to work with all socioeconomic groups, can serve the county well.

&#8220I’ve owned my own businesses. I’ve been involved in some businesses,” said Sexton, who operates a third-generation family farm and owns Gold City Trenchers in Franklin, which builds ditches and performs welding and general maintenance services.

In Edmonson County, Reed, 59, listed increased funding for law enforcement, jails, road maintenance, animal control and economic development as his top priorities in a questionnaire the Daily News mailed to candidates a month ago. Reed was out of town and couldn’t be reached for comment.

He wrote that he works hard to secure funding for essential services without raising taxes. Previously, Reed said a countywide sewer project is on track and he hopes a technical and training center can be built within a year.

Vincent, 48, a certified public manager, said she’s devoted her entire life to public service, including 21 years at the Kentucky attorney general’s office and a stint at the county clerk’s office.

She said she can also improve county infrastructure without raising taxes.

&#8220I have different priorities than the present administration,” Vincent said.

She said it’s no use trying to build a new industrial park to accompany the county’s current one, which has three factories, because companies won’t want to come to Edmonson until there’s more extensive fire and law enforcement coverage.

– Sunday’s Daily News will spotlight judge-executive races in Allen and Logan counties, which will have new leaders, with the retirement of Johnny Hobdy and John Guion, respectively.