CITY COUNCIL CELEBRATES ELDRED ADAMS’ 40 YEARS, NAMES HIM ‘GEM OF THE CITY’

FIRST LOUISA CITY COUNCIL MEETING IN OVER TWO MONTHS TURNS OUT TO BE ‘CELEBRATION DAY’ FOR ATTORNEY FOR THE CITY ELDRED ‘BUD’ ADAMS’ LONG CAREER IN POSITION

JANUARY 20, 2022 – written by WADE QUEEN 

The first Louisa city council meeting of 2022 which was also the first city council meeting in just over two months, last held on November 9, 2021, turned out to be a much different than expectations, as yours truly reporter was arriving, I saw a very large amount of people inside Louisa City Hall, way more than normal than for a usual city council meeting.

After Louisa city Mayor Harold Slone opened the city council meeting with the pledge of allegiance and also a prayer that was given by council member Tom Parsons, mayor Slone unfurled an unexpected surprise at the beginning of the meeting, albeit most of the people who were inside City Hall for the meeting knew what was about to take place, with the rest of us there not knowing what was coming up especially the main person who was about to be imminently the main center of the attention, totally clueless until he saw a couple of his former assistants come into the start of the meeting, catching his attention that something was adrift, when Mayor Slone then announced to everyone that a tribute celebration was at hand for the longest current city employee attending: Louisa Attorney Eldred “Bud” Adams.

Adams was recognized by current and former city officials during the Louisa City Council regular meeting on Tuesday, January 11, which was planned without his knowledge after Mayor Harold Slone recently went through minutes of past Louisa council meetings, including those for the January 13, 1981, session in which Eldred Adams was sworn-in to the non-elective office.

Calling the minutes of the 1981 meeting “interesting reading,” Mayor Harold Slone read parts of the record at last week’s Tuesday session and noted how much prices have changed over the last 41 years.

During the January 13, 1981 meeting, in addition to Mr. Adams becoming city attorney, council members approved a $23,508 bid for a new garbage truck.

“We just purchased one for a hundred and fifty-fix thousand and eighty dollars,” Mayor Slone said.

Mayor Slone then proceeded with “a little celebration” of Mr. Adams’ anniversary (Mayor Slone stated he thought Mr. Adams had been city attorney 40 years this year, but it turned out he it be his 41st year); Mr. Adams was honored for his career with that included gifts from and remembrances by several current officials, including Louisa Police Chief Greg Fugitt and Louisa Fire Chief Eddie Preston, and three former mayors (a fourth former mayor, Bill Jackson, was also invited but did not attend). 

Another honor was a proclamation by Mayor Slone and the former mayors declaring last Thursday, January 13, as “Bud Adams Day” in the city. Mayor Slone also presented Mr. Adams with the first Gem of the Big Sandy award, which the mayor said he planned to give to “people of Louisa for when they do things that need to be recognized.”

“We can sign an executive order and declare them a Gem of the Big Sandy,” Mayor Slone said. “So, Bud Adams is going to be the first.”

Lawrence County Clerk Chris Jobe was on hand to present a certificate from his office and read a letter from Kentucky Secretary of State Mike Adams, making Bud Adams an official Commonwealth Ambassador. The award is the “highest honor this office can bestow” and is given to individuals who “demonstrate exceptional character and citizenship through the contributions of the communities of our commonwealth,” the secretary of state’s letter said.

Throughout the presentations, Mr. Adams repeatedly joked that it felt like he was “coming to my funeral and this is the eulogy.”

Former Mayors Mike Sullivan, Mike Armstrong and Teddy Preston also attended the meeting and spoke briefly about their experiences with the city attorney.

“Unfortunately, I was the mayor when we received a package of information one day from the Sierra Club, which, at first, I thought was a complete joke, because I had never heard of the American Canoe Association,” Mike Sullivan said.

Former mayor Sullivan, who came all the way from Lexington for the honor event, was referring to a federal lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club and the American Canoe Association against the city and the city’s water and sewer commission alleging violations of the federal Clean Water Act. The lawsuit claimed the city failed to comply with the terms of a permit that authorized the discharge of a specified level of effluents into the Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy River.

Mr. Sullivan said he took the packet of information to Bud Adams, even though his “gut instinct” was to “write ‘nuts’ on it and send it back,” but Mr. Adams talked him out of it.

Mike Sullivan thanked Bud Adams for “all the time I rushed into his office unannounced and kind of interrupted him, and he was always receptive to that.”

“My biggest thing, I think, when I was mayor, I wanted to stay off the front page of the Lexington Herald-Leader newspaper,” Mike Sullivan said. “Because if you’re an elected official or politician and end up on the front page of the Lexington newspaper, it usually was not good, and I thank Bud for keeping me off that paper.”

“The Sierra Club got you pretty close, though,” Mayor Slone said jokingly.

Former mayor Mike Armstrong, who served as mayor prior to Sullivan, and also came from far away for the celebratory event, also said Bud Adams was very accessible as city attorney.

“I lost track of the number of times I would tear out and go heading to Bud’s office, and he never said, ‘I’m too busy.’ He never said, ‘I don’t have time.’ He never said, ‘Come back later.’ He always said, ‘Come in, and sit down, take a deep breath. Let’s think about this before you make this phone call or you write that letter.’”

Like Michael Sullivan, former mayor Teddy Preston mentioned the Sierra Club litigation, by saying Bud Adams “worked night and day to get us out of that thing.”

“I appreciate Bud very much for what he did for us all,” Teddy Preston said. “Bud, you’re a good man and a good city attorney, the best I ever saw in my life.”

The celebration for Bud Adams, followed by Mayor Slone showing again the check the city was awarded last month by the state at an honoring event in Ashland, KY., made up for half of the city council meeting; running for just over 25 minutes of the 50 minutes total the city council meeting lasted, as only ten minutes was needed to carryover on the agenda listed for the meeting.

The council unanimously proceeded to approving the minutes for the November 9, 2021 city Council meeting and unanimously approving the appointments with the Louisa Utility Board (no names given), and also unanimously approving appointments for the City Code Enforcement Board.

(Four of the six Louisa city council members were present for the meeting with councilman Gary Robinson not attending due to illness and councilwoman Lisa Schaefer unable to attend the meeting due to needed commitment to her job).

Later in the meeting mayor Slone asked if there were any comments from the audience or from city Council members which led to a brief statement by council member Tom Parsons who wants again gave statement honoring long the career of Bud Adams service to city.

Mayor Slone then announced that the council would be going into a closed-door executive session, in which mayor Slone said would only last about five minutes but ended up lasting about 15 minutes with everybody else waiting in city hall grabbing up homemade cookies provided by Louisa city clerk Kathy Compton that she made herself for Bud Adams (and the rest of us) to snack on.

After the council returned to regular session, Bud Adams stated that they had discussed a potential future real estate matter, but no action was taken during the closed-door meeting. With that statement Mayor Slone gave a final notice of if anyone had to say anything before the meeting ended, with no one saying anything, mayor Sloan adjourned the council meeting.

The main city council meeting can be watched HERE; and the brief video of the conclusion of the city council meeting can be viewed HERE.

• Mayor Slone nominated current city utility board member Jeff Kinzer for another two-year term on the Louisa Utility Board, with that motion was passed unanimously by the city Council members. Mayor Slone nominated Neil Wilson for one year term for the vacancy that was left open by the resignation of Heath Preston. Neil Wilson is an engineer who previously worked at the Big Sandy Power Plant.
• Mayor Slone Announced that with the passed legislation by the city council last fall the new Louisa City Code Ordinance Board was ready to start and all that was needed was three people that the mayor would nominate for the board to be approved by the city council. Mayor Slone then announced his first two nominations for the code enforcement board, in which all three members would have to be residents living within city limits; the first person who nominated was Greg Endicott, followed by the second person being nominated was Larry Riffe. The council then voted separately on both nominees, And both Mr. Endicott and Mr. Riffe were approved unanimously by the city Council to become members of the code enforcement board. Mayor Slone then stated that he had reached out to the third person to see if they would be interested in being a member of the city code board, but he had yet to heard back from this person in time before the meeting, so that last seat is still up in the air.
• Mayor Slone stated to the council that since there was no city Council meeting last month, a situation involving the extra hazard pay that city employees who are not elected have been getting since the start of the pandemic via the CARES ACT and the “hero hardship” pay, for an extra $350. Mayor Slone said that he wanted that again for city employees this year and that there was enough money set aside in the budget to continue the extra hourly pay he did state that this would be the last year for the extra hazard pay after a brief discussion of the mayor and council member portions and Matt Brown, Council member, made the motion and the council unanimously voted to keep giving the extra hazard pay to non-elected city employees for one year.
• Finally in a brief moment, mayor Slone introduced a lady who was present at the city council meeting, whom the mayor did not know about her new position, even though Mayor Slone is the executive officer of the FIVCO board, until when she introduced herself to Mayor Slone earlier in the day, who  identified herself to the city council as the newest member of the FIVCO economic planning team, Mary Branham-Clark, who lives in Catlettsburg, she is a relative kin member of the large and well know Branham family in Lawrence County Ms. Branham-Clark is a former state representative for the 100th District, which Lawrence County will be a part of due to the recently passed redistributing by the state legislature. She said that she wanted to introduce herself to Louisa city government leaders and she will be a person that they can contact regarding any FIVCO economic initiatives in the future.