By Patricia A. Scheyer
NKyTribune reporter
Boone County Judge Executive Gary Moore was the keynote speaker at the Florence Business Council meeting sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce and held at Florence Baptist Church this week.
The luncheon meeting was for members of the Florence Business Council, but also for members of the Chamber of Commerce and they were permitted to bring a friend to see if the organization is something they would like to join.
Judge Moore started by hailing the partnerships that the Fiscal Court has with the cities like Union, Florence, and Hebron, and the other organizations that the court works with, mentioning that communication is the key to making things happen.
“Citizens want to be heard, but they also want to be informed,” he said. “Fiscal management is such a nucleus.”
Moore said that the county has the highest credit rating in the area, and basically no debt, depending on rainy day funds for smaller projects. He touted the fact that the property tax has been lowered to 8.5 percent, 24 percent lower than when he took office in 1998.
“We are good stewards of the people’s money,” he stated. “We attribute that to good fiscal management. And crime is fairly low in the county.”
He went on to mention that the county was one of the initiators of having School Resource Officers in the county, and the fact that the grand opening for the very first WAWA station in the area will be next week.
Another new thing in the last few years is the addition of Police Social Workers. The need for Police Social workers came about with the Opioid settlement, when it was discovered that families needed counselors, for various reasons that might have been discounted before.
“Having a trained social worker is a service we are offering now that we have professionals to work with communities,” he said.
Moore talked about the rural water program, and said in the next 3 to 4 years they hope to have water service to rural areas and western Boone County.
“This has been expensive, but it is something we need to do,” Moore said.
He announced that the county will break ground for a new, free standing dispatch center, on Conrad Road, which is their next capital project.
Another project is the creation of a Transportation Improvement District, and Moore said the first project of the TID has been turn lanes by the new Walton Verona school.
Moore pulled up side by side maps of Boone County, which are 2024 and 2025 future land use maps, and he explained how if one map were superimposed on the other map they would fit together like a hand in a glove. The 2024 land use map was created in 2000, and the 2025 map was created in 2024. The difference in the greenspace and land use is just 3 percent, and Moore said they have kept it true to the plan, even though the county has grown by tens of thousands of people, added new industry, added more job creation, and so on.
“There is a plan, and the plan works,” he stated. “The map is the evidence.”
Moore said that the legislature is in session, and some of the bills tend to challenge the picture of local government which is more of the blueprint that Northern Kentucky would like.
“The government closest to the people tends to be the best,” he said. “But I will tell you, we are not finished yet. We still have a lot to do.”
The next meeting of the Florence business council will be on March 19 at the Florence Nature Center.