By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
The nine people elected to serve as members of the Glasgow Common Council for the next two years took their oaths of office Monday morning, as did the returning commonwealth’s attorney and his two assistant commonwealth’s attorneys.
The ceremonial processes took place in Council Chambers in Glasgow City Hall with several friends and family members of those being sworn in watching and applauding as each concluded. Circuit Judge John T. Alexander administered the oath to the council members en masse. Mayor Henry Royse then individually introduced all the members to those present, having previously said this was an important day in the city’s history.
Former Judge-Executive Woody Gardner congratulated all those being sworn in and said it was great to see the city and county working together for the betterment of our community. He was honored to be administering this third oath of office to his son, John Gardner. The younger Gardner said he was glad his father could be there for the occasion. John Gardner was elected in 2012 to the first of his six-year terms in this position of commonwealth’s attorney for Barren and Metcalfe counties, which together comprise the 43rd judicial circuit for Kentucky.
Commonwealth’s Attorney John Gardner is sworn into his third six-year term in office by his father, Woody Gardner, a former Barren County judge-executive. Melinda J. Overstreet / for Glasgow News 1
Alexander then administered the oath of office to the two assistant commonwealth’s attorneys – Resa Gardner and Krystal Cooper. Resa Gardner is John Gardner’s wife and, as he put it, his “better half.”
Council changes
One-third of the council members will be new in 2025 – Randy Wilkinson, Tommy Burris and Elizabeth Shoemaker – and Glasgow News 1 asked each about what kind of things they’d like to focus on in the next two years.
Wilkinson, though a newcomer to the council, was familiar to many in Glasgow through his decades of working for Glasgow Independent Schools, garnered the most votes in the council race among the 17 candidates. He said he thought that probably helped him a lot, but he also did a lot of canvassing – knocking on doors and listening to people’s concerns – so that probably worked in his favor as well.
“I hope it did,” he said. “I got a lot of steps in, and I met a lot of cool people, neat people.”
He said even if he hadn’t won, he would have been glad he did that because of all the connections he made. He said those individuals gave him a lot of good ideas, and he wrote down what people told him.
Wilkinson said he still has some learning to do about the degree of power he’ll have to change things, “but I’ll at least have in the back of my mind what the constituents and the voters have told me and what they see as issues.”
As for what he’d like to focus on, he said the mayor has the power, so he plans to “jump onboard with him,” although that doesn’t mean he’ll always agree with him 100 percent. Wilkinson said that he’s sure he’ll have a lot of questions about things as he goes along.
“I’m always interested in finance,” he said. “I’m wired up pretty conservatively, and I like to treat the tax dollars like my dollars. That’s what I did as a principal, and I’m probably the only principal in history in the state of Kentucky that was told he had to spend money.”
He said he understands that just throwing money at something doesn’t always mean it’s improving it.
Wilkinson said he’s also interested in learning about a lot of other things within city government and related to it. He said he attended the Kentucky League of Cities training for newly elected officials twice so he could soak it in better.
As a former coach of multiple sports, he said, he tries to find out more about things that have happened and their background and context before he forms opinions or criticizes others’ decisions, and he recognizes there’s a lot to learn about his new position.
Shoemaker said that because she’s new to this, she didn’t know what all committees and boards there are, “but I think the Plaza really interests me.”
“I would like to see us use the Plaza Theatre more, maybe so that we could update it and use it for current movies, bring more business to downtown. … Maybe the shops could stay open longer,” she said before adding more generally, “I’m really excited and I really do appreciate all the votes from the people of Barren County and I really do look so forward to serving the people.”
A full list of committees, boards, commissions, etc. on which council members have at least one seat is available at the link at the top of this page on the city’s website.
Burris had previously expressed an interest in working on parks-and-recreation matters – expanding youth opportunities, for example – and he affirmed Monday that is still one of his priorities. He said they hadn’t been asked yet about his preferences for committees and such, but he told Glasgow News 1 that serving on the council Planning and Development Committee, also known as the Parks and Recreation Committee, would definitely interest him.
“I’m just glad to get it started,” he said when asked whether there was anything else he wanted to add about his priorities.
Freddie Norris, who is the incumbent with the most experience on the council and has previously said he wouldn’t run again after this term, said one thing he would like to accomplish is finding a good way to fund the 911 dispatching service, an issue that has reached a crossroads in the past few months and that a committee he currently chairs, the council Public Safety Committee, has been asked to revisit.
He said he heard Beverly Harbison, director of the Barren-Metcalfe Emergency Communications Center to which all 911 calls from the two counties are routed, when she tasked the committee with coming up with a solution.
“I listened to that challenge she gave us,” Norris said.
Norris said he also aims to try to work with the new members of the council to encourage and mentor them in any way he can.
He also said that he now is not ruling out running for another term after this one, depending on his life circumstances at the time.
