GLASGOW – The Glasgow City Council has rejected a proposal to restructure and fund the Barren County Economic Development Authority.

Though the council previously approved two separate readings of an ordinance that called for a $60,000 contribution to the authority, also known as the IDEA Board, the council Monday night voted down the agreement that would enable the IDEA Board to continue existing into the next fiscal year.

Before the vote, council member Terry Bunnell listed several concerns he had with the agreement.

The first of his complaints had to do with the makeup of the board, which the measure said would be the mayor of Glasgow and two of his appointees, the county judge-executive and two of his appointees and the mayor of Cave City and his one appointee.

Bunnell said that would give Mayor Harold Armstrong and Judge-Executive Micheal Hale too much control over the IDEA Board.

“The composition of the board needs to reflect our industrial community,” he said. “It needs to reflect people that are involved in economic development.”

Bunnell also said the measure’s one-year time frame should be extended to three years and that it should include a built-in mechanism for guaranteeing that the board receives funding for operational expenses.

“If you’re on the board of the authority and you don’t know where your money’s coming from or what the minimum amount is, the contribution, how can you plan a budget?” he asked.

Council member Wendell Honeycutt, who voted for the measure, said he wanted the one-year period Bunnell opposed because the council could better monitor the IDEA Board’s progress and provide funding based on the results.

“I’d rather see some results and then renew it based on the results,” he said.

Honeycutt said he’s unsure if IDEA Board will get enough funding to hire a new executive director following the June retirement of Executive Director Dan Iaconi because the council does not have to provide the $60,000.

“I’m sure we’ll work something out and we’ll fund them, but as of right now they’re not, the mayor’s not authorized to release money to them,” he said.

In another matter, council member Marlin Witcher, who serves as the council’s representative on the Glasgow Electric Plant Board’s board of directors, spoke about the April 23 EPB board meeting at the request of council member Patrick Gaunce.

Though Gaunce asked about it, Witcher did not go into detail about a vote of confidence that was discussed but not taken at the meeting, which can be seen on the Youtube channel GlasgowEPB.

At the EPB meeting, board Chairman DT Froedge suggested a “vote of confidence” that he said would determine “whether or not this board approves the actions of the chairman or the superintendent.”

When pressed at the meeting, Froedge would not define what the vote of confidence would be or what the result would be one way or the other, though when EPB legal counsel asked if it could possibly result in EPB Superintendent Billy Ray being fired, Froedge said it could.

Froedge had previously asked Ray for his resignation.

Ray has been a controversial figure in Glasgow since the 2016 implementation of a rate structure that charges customers roughly $11 per kilowatt/hour during the hour of the month demand is highest.

After Froedge’s unsuccessful attempt to get Ray to resign, he sent emails to Witcher and Mark Biggers, who has since left his position on the board, in which he suggested putting motions to fire Ray and then-EPB legal counsel Jeff Herbert on the agenda of a future meeting.

A subsequent Glasgow Daily Times story suggested Froedge may have broken the Kentucky Open Meetings Act by sending the emails in an attempt to get items put on the agenda.

A decision from the attorney general’s office that was released Monday found that the EPB violated the Open Meetings Act by failing to “issue a timely written response” to a formal complaint from the Glasgow Daily Times that alleged violations.

However, the decision also said the AG’s office had “no basis upon which to find” that EPB violated the Open Meetings Act by reaching a consensus to fire Ray and Jeff Herbert “outside of a regularly scheduled or special called meeting.

In another matter, the council approved a measure that would allow a Kentucky League of Cities plan for strategic community development to move forward.

Tad Long, director of community development services, said the plan would first involve gathering existing data about the city as well as input from officials and the public.

“After we gather the data, then we’ll start developing the strategies and priorities,” he said.

The specifics of the development plan depend on the input and data so the tenets of the plan can’t be predicted yet, though Long said the plan would guide Glasgow forward on numerous fronts.

“It is about everything that has to do with the city going forward,” he said. “It’s quality of life, economic development, growth.”