The London-Laurel Inquirer

02/06/2025

Please stay safe and aware.

Severe weather continues to move through southern Kentucky this morning with thunderstorms and the chance of tornadoes. Stay weather aware and stay safe, Kentucky!

02/03/2025

With all that is going on within our community here in London-Laurel County one can’t help but be curious about local government transparency. From a previous article we have wrote, will the Laurel County Fiscal Court begin to livestream the Fiscal Court meetings? It is a new year, maybe a needed and good change will be in order? As of now, no mention has been made to do so.

It appears that the court has stuck to the same pattern of early morning meetings. Although, that would be fine if there were an alternate method to view these meetings. But with many residents working during these hours there’s no real way for taxpayers to see how their tax dollars are being spent or the arguments being made in decision making that may affect their day to day lives.

Does the Fiscal Court not want its boss, the taxpayers, to see how things are done? Does the court feel as if they are ‘above’ its constituents? Or is it plainly those over a multimillion dollar budget are not able to figure out how to stream the meetings? Regardless of the reasoning good, bad, or ugly the taxpayers have a right to know.

As stated in our previous article, anyone with a simple internet connnection and camera can livestream a meeting with ease. Even the city with its vast range of problems currently can still manage to offer this service to the people. As mentioned before the Fiscal Court does have a paid person managing their media. We never see any hesitation to have a video or post produced when it’s something the court wants us to see that looks good. So why don’t we have more access to see these meetings?

Tell us your thoughts. We would love to know!

02/01/2025

A public records request was made by Elijah Jarvis in regard to the leaked 911 call between Laurel County Judge-Executive David Westerfield and Officer Hale of the London PD. Jarvis stated he made the request just to see who may have leaked the recorded call that was recorded by Laurel County Dispatch.

Laurel Dispatch has claimed that only dispatch supervisors, the police chief and assistant police chief would have regular access to these recordings. Upon arrival to pick up the requested records via FedEx Jarvis was told that his package was not available and that the Dispatch Director and Assistant Director were there altering the open records request documents. The documents had already been sent out via FedEx and the package was intercepted by reccomendation of Laurel Dispatch board member, David Williams. Williams has previously served as magistrate of Laurel County’s first district after being appointed to fill the remainder of a term of the late Roy Crawford. Williams has also previously served with the Laurel County CSEPP.

The documents being altered that were requested by Jarvis were being altered by the two directors due to “private information of Laurel County Residents.” But at the time the documents were being altered they had already been shipped to Mr. Jarvis. Something that should have been done before they were shipped and should have explanation of why the document were to be altered upfront. Upon Jarvis confronting the two 911 directors they advised Jarvis that they were sent by the city.

The fact of the matter is the county and the city are both in shambles here in our community. We have county officials who have lied about the situation in the death of Doug Harless claiming to have no ties to the stolen property, shown zero sympathy urging police to continue on to find their items without even a mention of how tragic the shooting was, and attempted to cast full blame to the city. On the other hand you have the city government who has allowed a police task force to go full blown rogue, redacted documents that were already sent out, and left the community in the dark for weeks when Doug Harless was first killed. The simple truth is the city and county will fued and fight each other over political differences but at the end of the day they will band together to save face and live to fight each other another day.

It is time the community demands answers, truth, and transparency. If that can’t be accomplished it may be time for city and county government to be deep cleaned and a chance for fresh faces to try and serve our community. Tell us how you feel about our community’s current state. We would love to know!

01/25/2025

Today a second march and rally were held for Laurel County resident Douglas Harless, who was shot and killed in his home. The peaceful demonstration ended in front of the London City Police Department.

Harless was shot and killed by officers with the London Police Department while officers were attempting to recover stolen lawn equipment. The stolen equipment had been stolen from a residence owned by the Laurel County Judge-Executive. The stolen equipment had been stolen by Hobert Buttery.

Harless who lived on VanZant Road in the Lily community lived at an address a few homes away from the address where the stolen equipment allegedly was. Buttery had been arrested in Clay County earlier before Harless was fatally shot in his residence.

The London-Laurel Inquirer hopes and prays for justice and answers for the death of Douglas Harless.

01/22/2025

With one member down with the London City Council the question is, who will fill the position? There is now a vacancy on the London City Council from Mr. Kip Jervis’s resignation that took effect immediately on January 22nd, 2025 due to health concerns.

Some may say it’s insane for the thought of who may step next in the ring of London City politics so soon. The fact is that conversation is already well in play. In Kentucky the legislative body, in this case the remaining council has (30) thirty days to select a candidate, vote for a majority decision on said candidate, and fill the vacant position.

As most can see there is obvious tension between the mayor and majority of the remaining council now. Will the side of the mayor or the council come out on top of this power grab? Simply put there is strength in numbers and any shift can attribute to a tilt in political power and favor.

If the legislative body within the city cannot or does not fill this vacancy within (30) thirty days the responsibility of this decision then shifts to the Governor. With all of the chaos currently engulfing our city we hope as many of you, that the position is filled with someone who will only strive to advance and guide our city positively. Concern of the shift in the city’s political balance has already been voiced. What will the outcome be?

We will continue to follow up on updates on this story. We would love to hear your thoughts on this topic!

01/21/2025

SNOW DAY- Tuesday, January 21, 2025, will be a traditional Snow Day.

01/15/2025

Article Two of Tax Dollar Waste

Here at the London-Laurel Inquirer we had planned on an alternate article for our second installment of Tax Dollar Waste right here in London and Laurel County. However, we have noticed something and now have a question. Why does the Laurel County Fiscal Court not live stream their meetings to the public?

Multiple other fiscal courts and cities do. For reference, as you can see attached below our neighbors in Pulaski County live stream their meetings. Even the City of London with the chaotic shape it is in manages to livestream their meetings. But why can’t the Laurel County Fiscal Court do the same? In this day and age even a child with a tablet or cell phone would have the ability and knowledge to video a simple meeting.

The Fiscal Court here in Laurel County does have a paid person to “manage” and “run” their page. That person is long-time news person, Willie Sawyers. No fault to Mr. Sawyers, as he is probably only posting what is requested by the court but still, why is there no livestream? With as simple as it is to livestream why does the public not have access to watch these meetings?

But as many things that contribute to the wasted taxes here in London and Laurel County our tax dollars are being spent with no initiative to provide transparency. If we can’t even have a simple livestream of our elected officials deciding how our hard earned tax dollars are spent yet pay a person to be a media person that is simply wasteful. There is no reason to spend our tax dollars on a dedicated person to manage a simple page.

Many politicians from the local level to the world stage preach transparency. Yet, we see no transparency here. In a previous post of our Tax Dollar Waste series comments were made in reference to the Fiscal Court not streaming these meetings. Is it to keep us in the dark? Is it to hide deals they want no one to know of? We may never know.

Tell us how you feel about local government live-streaming their meetings. We would love to know!

01/15/2025

NTI DAY- Wednesday, January 15, 2025
Laurel County Public Schools will have an NTI Day on Wednesday, January 15, 2025. Students will stay home and access their classes and assignments remotely. For detailed information, continue to check school websites, FB pages, and other communication tools like Remind and Class Dojo.
💻Chromebooks are available if needed. Please contact your child's school for information on how to check out one. If you have questions regarding NTI procedures, please contact your child's school or teacher. All Laurel County Schools staff will report to work at school.

01/14/2025

Stay tuned as we will be releasing Article Two of our Tax Dollar Waste series later this week.