J-E News Editor
Clay City Council invited Sheriff Frankie Springfield to it’s most recent meeting to discuss the future of law enforcement in their area. Lonnie Rogers, one of the town’s two police officers, recently announced that he was leaving to take a position with the Christian County School system, leaving the police department short handed.
Roger’s departed the Clay Police Department two weeks ago.
“At this time we have no plans to replace Lonnie,” said Mayor Rick Householder. “We will look into that at a later date. For now we’ve asked if Sheriff Frankie Springfield and his deputies could help out on days when Police Chief Chris Evitts is off.”
The Webster County Sheriff’s Department will be stepping up patrols in the Clay area to assist.
In other business, although the new Clay Fire Department building is progressing according to schedule, Fire Chief Jeremy Moore secured extensions to the grants that are paying for the $249,000 project. Like many grants from the state, these came with a set completion date which will be up later this year.
“We are looking good on time,” said Householder. “We plan to have it done by the original deadline, but we were worried that if something was to happen and we weren’t done on time, we’d lose our funding.”
For the last several years, Fire Chief Jeremy Moore has been saving extra funds to help the department purchase a new fire truck. At the meeting council members were told that State Representative Jim Gooch would soon be presenting a proposal in Frankfort to help Clay pay the remainder of the cost.