The Elizabethtown City Council held a work session on August 10, 2026, to receive updates on capital projects, discuss the Wawa fuel spill response, and consider revisions to the public comment policy. No formal votes were taken, but council provided guidance on several items.
Rita Davis, Stormwater Director, reported on the Henry Street capital project. The 90% plans are underway, and the city requires 54 easements for the stormwater pipe installation in backyards; 23 have been secured. A memorandum of understanding (MOU) is being developed to address property-specific concerns, such as fence removal and pet containment. Council discussed lawn restoration options: paying homeowners a fee per square foot versus city-conducted restoration. Rick Walters, a resident whose property is affected, expressed a preference for city-led restoration. Council indicated support for using sod (rather than seed and straw) and likely separating landscaping as a separate contract, acknowledging that this could increase project costs and require council action on the budget.
James Gray and Rita Davis provided details on a July 20, 2026, fuel spill at the Wawa site. Approximately 1,500 gallons of fuel entered a private catch basin and the site’s underground detention system; no release to public infrastructure occurred. The Kentucky Department for Environmental Protection is overseeing remediation, which will require excavation of the detention basin. The city’s fire department and stormwater staff responded. The mayor explained the city did not issue a press release initially because the spill was contained on private property and posed no public safety threat; an inquiry from the Courier Journal was later addressed. OJ Torres, in public comments, criticized the 20-day delay in public communication, urging the mayor to provide a brief initial statement to maintain public trust.
Jason Pope provided a comprehensive project update via slides. Key highlights:
Councilman Isaacs raised a concern prompted by a citizen request regarding privacy during public comment. City Attorney Judge Howard presented recommended revisions to the city’s 2020 policy. Changes include:
Welcome everyone to Lisbethtown City Council work session for August 10th, 2026. And I would like to ask Councilman Tim Isaacs if he'd lead us an invitation, please. Pray with me. Dear Lord, we thank you for your many blessings as we come together on this beautiful day. We pray for your guidance that we consider the business on the agenda. Help us to focus on what is in the best interest of the city as a whole and not any one individual or small group, including ourselves. Help us to never forget that the opportunity to serve is a gift we should never take for granted. Thank you for respectful discourse and for those who have taken the time from their day to be here in this meeting, both in person and online. Help us to never forget how blessed we are to live in a nation where opinions can be shared openly even when we don't agree with one another. Finally, Lord, protect those that dedicate themselves to protecting us. Keep our first responders safe as they do their work. Be with our educators, Lord, as we begin a new school year. Guide them as they work to help our children grow and mature and see the potential that you have instilled in each one of them. In your name we ask it. Amen. And if you join me in the Pledge of Allegiance, please. Yes, sir. Council Member Bishop. President. Here. Isaac's here. Jones. Here. Springsteen. Here. Tyler. Here. Mayor, you have a quorum. Thank you, ma'am, and good afternoon to everyone. We are glad that you are here. We have a few updates that we want to make you aware of. We're gonna start with Rita Davis, who is our stormwater director and does a great job of it. And she's gonna give us a stormwater update on Henry Street. Yeah, so we've been working hard on our Henry Street Capitol project. Uh the project runs from uh West Dixie, thereby back home up to Beach Street. And a lot of this is in the uh backyards of the homes that front North Miles and Henry Street. Um so our consultants, uh engineering consultant, OHM advisors, they are currently working on the 90% plans. So we've gone through the sixty percent review uh process, and we've also done a walkthrough on July 14th. We did a walkthrough to help them um develop the 90% plans. Um we also have a pretty extensive um easement acquisition process that we're going through. Uh we need 54 easements because this is an older part of town. It wasn't platted with the easements in the back, uh, like our current um standards would require. Um so we currently have received about 23 of those 54 easements. Um and we have about five additional property owners that we've made contact with, and um it sounds like they are amenable to uh granting easement if we um work through some uh specific details to their properties. Um to help us um address specific details uh with regards to as many properties as we've got. We've put together a memorandum of understanding uh to kind of accompany the easement document. Um and those that would be um different types of uh property specific accommodations, like um a pet that needs to uh that requires being contained uh you know, in the interim where the fences are removed for the project, um, and and those kind of things. Um so one thing with the MOU uh that we maybe are uh requesting some input on the council from lawn restoration has historically with some of these projects been a difficult um thing to achieve for specific property owners. Um so uh we've we bounced around ideas as far as um having the that can be part of the contractor's responsibility to get that lawn restored to the end or potentially doing a separate contract for a lawn restoration for specific landscaping company to come in and take care of that. Um so yeah, so we are kind of bouncing around some ideas as far as how to handle um we we've there are some pros and cons to both, but bouncing around some ideas as far as how to handle since this is entirely in the back yards of uh uh several homes that uh trying to figure out how best to restore yards, um, especially whenever you've got fences that are being um put back up and that kind of thing, where it would make it difficult to access through yards that have already been restored.