PINEVILLE — The Bell County Board of Elections filed two motions against the Bell County Volunteer Fire Department (BCVFD) on Tuesday. The board filed a motion for a temporary restraining order and a motion to compel.
The motion would restrain the BCVFD from denying the designation of the fire stations at Clear Creek, Colmar, Calloway and Brownies Creek as voting places for the May 22 primary election without charge or cost.
In the restraining order motion it states that the Bell County Board of Elections has a statutory duty to administer the primary election, and in order to be able to provide sufficient voting places that meet all legal requirements (handicap accessibility being a big issue) they need to use the fire stations.
The motion also stated that the BCVFD would not suffer any irreplaceable harm if the motion is granted.
The second motion that was made by the board of election was a motion to compel. This motion was made in an attempt to get the BCVFD to produce responses to outstanding interrogatories and to produce requested documents that were requested.
The motion stated that on February 6, 2012 the board of elections served a set of interrogatories and requests for production of documents from the BCVFD.
The election board request six interrogatories. These interrogatories included the BCVFD to identify all persons with knowledge of the facts related to the allegations asserted, identify the person(s) providing answers to the interrogatories and identify all BCVFD properties (real or personal), purchased in whole or in part by local, state or federal grant monies.
The election board also requested the BCVFD to identify all sources of revenue (including the amount received by the BCVFD since 1979) along with a couple other interrogatory.
The election board requested four documents. The board also requested that the BCVFD provide a copy of all video-taped meetings of the BCVFD, provide a copy of all documents related to the construction of all the BCVFD fire stations, produce all documents upon which BCVFD rely on to support allegations that the fire departments were not constructed in whole or in part by tax revenue, and produce all documents which the BCVFD rely on in responding to the discovery requests.
The BCVFD responded to the request for the board with objections to each request, according to the motion document. The BCVFD objected to the request because they were premature and unnecessary at the time they were requested, according to the motion document.
The motion document also states that the parties are currently awaiting a ruling as to jurisdiction for the case and the requests are, at this time, premature and improper.
The motion document states that currently the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky has before it a Motion to Enforce an Agreed Permanent Injunction and Confidential Settlement Agreement that affects the issues in the State Court action.
According to the document, the BCVFD also stated that the requests are unnecessary to resolve the case. The BCVFD also stated that the requests are ambiguous, vague, and susceptible to more than one interpretation. The BCVFD also labeled the request as unduly burdensome.
Both motions will be heard on May 14 at 9:00 p.m. before Bell Circuit Court Judge Robert Costanzo.
What's wrong with using service stations or County school buildings or other government places to vote? I should think a sudden fire alarm could upset the whole voting apple cart and seriously delay response, which could be disastrous in the heavily wooded areas where the fire departments are located. And remembering how politicians and other interested parties used to throw money around to bring voters into the voting places, I should think it would take little effort to find a ride to wherever the Election Board chooses to set up voting machines or ballot boxes.
And another question: Why is the Judge Executive so stingy about paying a reasonable fee for the use of the fire halls for one day out of the year? So what if the County contributes to the overall operation of the stations? That doesn't nearly cover all the aggravation of allowing hundreds of voters to traipse through the working areas and clean up after them. A full day of visitors has to disrupt even the most placid of work environments, much less a sometimes dangerous one like a fire department. Just because previous experiences have been incident-free doesn't guarantee the next one will be the same.
A few weeks or months ago Judge Brock brought up the question of monies totaling $5 million contributed to the volunteer fire department in the past years since its formation, and opining that this was excessive. Just think how much it would've cost had the volunteers not volunteered. Think of the "perks" the County would've had to pay for Social Security, Workers' Compensation, uniforms, legal holidays, and hospital insurance for hazardous pay. The list goes on and on. Compare $5 million over a few years to what the city of Middlesboro is paying its firemen (no more fire ladies there)for ONE YEAR's overtime pay - $250,000. That's a quarter of a million. Of course, that's Middlesboro's problem to work out.
It just seems to me that Judge Brock gags at a gnat when it comes to expenses other areas of the County encounter, and swallows a camel when it comes to running his private domain.
"Albey Brock Orchestrates Fishing Expedition"