(ANGLEA BRIGGS/WCLU NEWS)
Months back, the AOC had done a state wide assessment and then ranked counties based on how much they needed a judicial center. Barren County ranked high on that list. When State Representative Riley found out there was an opening in the budget for a judicial center, he went to work and got our project put in the budget years ahead of schedule.
Riley told WCLU that state funded projects should have local input, that is why the fiscal court is involved and the project committee. He said the current courthouse has a laundry list of issues, including some structural and safety related. The new judicial center will remedy these problems.
Absolutely zero dollars in local tax money will go toward this project. Zero dollars. However, if you are a state tax payer, you have been paying for these judicial centers all across the Commonwealth, because general fund dollars are used to build them. Riley said it was time to bring some of that money back home.
“Your money goes into the state budget and it pays for a lot of things,” he says. “One of those things our state taxes paid for were Judicial Centers. So the citizens of Barren County were paying for Judicial Centers throughout the state. Now this is the opportunity for the other 119 counties to contribute their tax money to Barren County, through a Judicial Center.”
If the project doesn’t come here, it will go somewhere and other state representatives would take it from Barren County if they were given half a chance. Riley said matter of fact, the money is going to be spent by the state.
“That $32 million is going to be spent by the state,” he says. “We have to decide if it’s going to be spent in Barren County or some other county.”
There are three options for what happens next. First, the state takes over control of the process and they have all the power when it comes to decision making and ownership of the building. Second, is the AOC steps in and that group can take whatever land they want through eminent domain, build whatever they want with zero local input. The third option is described by Riley as the ideal situation.
“The local entities give approval and they, at some point in time, take over complete control of the courthouse,” Riley said. “That’s ideal because the people of Barren County will make the decisions that involve Barren County.”
Representative Riley represents Kentucky’s 23rd District in the state house, which includes all of Barren County and a sliver of Warren County.
