Pikeville meeting becomes heated
By Joey Pitchford
Published in News on September 7, 2016 1:46 PM
PIKEVILLE -- The Pikeville community center was unusually crowded Tuesday evening during the monthly town board meeting, where the board discussed funding options for a new town hall building project.
The gathered Pikeville citizens were split in their opinions on the project, with some questioning the need for a new building and others expressing support. The bulk of the discussion did not come during the actual public hearing section of the agenda, as members of the audience were allowed to speak during the middle of proceedings. This led on multiple occasions to the discussion moving almost entirely away from the topics at hand.
The topic in question was a public hearing to discuss potential USDA funding for the new town hall project, which has been being discussed for months. At a meeting on July 7, the board chose Daniels & Daniels Construction Company as the contractors for the design-build project, but now needs to secure funding or financing for the project before contract negotiations can begin. Kim B. Miller, a rural specialist with the USDA, explained the funding process for the project as a low-interest, 30- to 40-year loan which would finance a new building within the town's financial means.
Former Pikeville commissioner Ward Kellun raised his hand to speak, and was allowed to question the board's judgment on building a new town hall, and he asked why it needed to happen at all. He also said he was unaware that the town had chosen a builder, even though the discussion had taken place at a regularly scheduled board meeting open to the public.
Commissioner Charles Hooks took the opportunity to bring up Kellun's support of a new town hall during his time on the board, which Kellun said would have been a restoration of the old building instead of a new facility. The conversation soon devolved into a he-said-she-said spree of accusations, which culminated with Kellun accusing the commission of holding illegal meetings months ago.
Commissioner Lyman Galloway said that the town hall project was partly intended to give Pikeville something to identify itself with.
"If you're going to grow, if you're going to maintain, you've got to have something you can be proud of," he said.
Pikeville resident Kelly Wilson, who had lived in Pikeville just over a year, said that she was worried about how the new project might affect taxes on homeowners.
"I understand that it's nice to have a pretty building that you can take pictures in front of, but I just don't know what that's actually doing for us," she said. Ms. Wilson also said that high cost of living was keeping young people from moving to Pikeville and that this project could compound that issue.
Another woman, who refused to give her name, got into a lengthy and sometimes heated argument with Galloway, saying that she felt betrayed by unspecified members of the board over unspecified issues. When Galloway asked why neither he nor other members of the board had heard of these concerns any earlier, the woman responded that she felt she would be "backstabbed" if she brought her concerns to the commissioners.
With the board meeting still on just the second of 10 issues to discuss, the conversation drifted entirely away from town hall funding and towards issues ranging from town board meeting times to the availability of meeting agendas ahead of meetings.
By the time order was returned to the room, it seemed as though everyone had spoken their minds thoroughly and the remaining items flew by without comment. Even when the actual public forum section came around, no one had anything to say.
After the meeting adjourned, Pikeville resident Jerry Bailey asked to go on record to state his support for the new project. He said that those who were so loud during the meeting do not represent all of Pikeville and said that trying to renovate the old building, which is condemned, would not be financially viable.
A regular presence at Pikeville board meetings, Bailey said that those who showed up at this meeting had not ever been to previous meetings and did not have a firm grasp on how things in the town worked.