Estill United meets to discuss merger of three governments

A meeting was held Tuesday evening in the courthouse to discuss a plan to study the feasibility of combining Irvine, Ravenna and county governments.
Ralph Martin moderated the meeting and said that by discussing the pros and cons of merging, he means no disrespect to any of the councils or mayors.
“We just want to see if it’s good for Estill County or not,” he said.
Beverly Thompson, former mayor of Ravenna , spoke at the meeting and said she had grown up in Irvine and Ravenna, and she has seen them both “deteriorate,” with the closing of many stores.
“People are building in the county, so they don’t have to pay double (city and county) taxes,” said Thompson.
“I love Irvine, Ravenna and Estill County,” she went on to say.
Both Martin and Thompson emphasized attrition and said they want to make sure no one loses their job.
The goal of Estill United is to study the effectiveness of combining local governments and services such as law enforcement, emergency services and garbage pick-up.
“Change scares a lot of people, but sometimes it is the smarter choice,” said Thompson.
Irvine Mayor Ernest Farmer said the problem of doing away with double taxation, is that the revenue cannot go away.
“If the tax goes away, services go away,” he said.
According to KRS 67.832, the process to begin a formal study is for five qualified voters to form a committee by signing an affidavit before the county clerk, then the committee circulates a petition.
If enough signatures are collected, based on certain percentages of voters in the county and in the city, the issue of the feasibility study would go to ballot and the public can vote on whether or not they want the study done.
If the vote were to pass, the county judge would have to appoint a commission to do the study.  The commission would be chosen based on the populations of the county and both cities, in this case, 55 percent of those on the commission would be from the county, and the other 45 percent would come from Irvine and Ravenna.
The commission would have four years to search out the pros and cons of merging the governments.
Rodney Davis, who said he was speaking as a citizen and not as county or city attorney, said Estill County isn’t the only community which has looked into mergers.
He suggested the group conduct an informal study first, or a pre-study, of the counties and cities who have already looked at the issue.
He pointed out that several cities who looked into merging governments did not find the idea feasible.
The meeting ended with Davis being unofficially appointed to find some of those studies for interested citizens to peruse.
A second meeting will be announced in about a month.