Two Pulaski County sites on table for major beef processing plant

Local News

February 17, 2011

by Bill Mardis Commonwealth Journal The Commonwealth Journal Thu Feb 17, 2011, 02:25 PM EST

Somerset —

Two unidentified sites in Pulaski County have been proposed for location of a beef processing plant that would process 5,000 cows and hogs each week and employ 750 people. However, up to now there has not been a response from the committee implementing a recently completed business plan for the facility, according to Martin Shearer, executive director of Somerset-Pulaski County Development Foun-dation.

Bill McCloskey, director of financial services for the Governor’s Office of Agriculture Policy, said the business plan calls for utilizing all available technology in processing livestock, and private investors are being sought to build and operate the plant. The completed plan was presented to the Kentucky Agriculture Development Board at a meeting in Bowling Green.

McCloskey said no specific location for the plant was mentioned during the presentation at Bowling Green. “There are lots of variables. Much of it depends on incentives offered for building infrastructure to a facility that size,” McCloskey noted. Also, he indicated investors will have a voice in locating the plant.

Involvement of the Somerset-Pulaski County Development Foun-dation in the beef processing plant’s plans is not far enough along to deal with incentives; it has to do with site possibilities, Shearer said.

“They (committee) have well-defined perimeters for a site,” Shearer noted. “We offered our (two) best locations ... neither of which meets their perimeters 100 percent,” Shearer revealed. He said he is not at liberty to identify the sites.

The application for planning funds said the plant would be designed to utilize cull-cow processing of up to 1,000 head a day, three days a week, and 1,000 head of hogs a day, two days a week. It would produce beef jerky, beef snack foods and pork rinds. The facility would be the first of its kind to kill the animal and produce the final product in the same plant.

Somerset, one of the more affluent third-class cities in Kentucky, may be the only governmental unit in the Lake Cumberland Area Development District financially able to supply needed infrastructure for a beef processing plant. A person familiar with this type of facility said processing of beef and pork into jerky and rinds requires large ovens fired with natural gas, a source of energy in plentiful supply from Somerset Gas Service. Also, a beef processing plant would use large quantities of water and would need wastewater disposal facilities.

Somerset’s water and sewage treatment plants should have sufficient capacity to handle the proposed beef processing facility. An upgrading of the city’s Waitsboro water plant to treat 10 million gallons a day is in design stage, and nearing completion is a $15 million expansion of the city’s Pitman Creek sewerage plant that will treat 4.4 million gallons of sewage a day.

Preparation of the business plan for the beef processing plant was paid with a $130,000 grant from the Governor’s Office of Agricultural Policy with matching $65,000 contributions from both South Kentucky RECC and the McCreary County Industrial Development Authority.

The only firm statement about the plant’s location is in an application for planning funds. It says the processing facility will be located within the Lake Cumberland Area Development District. The district includes Adair, Casey, Clinton, Cumberland, Green, McCreary, Pulaski, Russell, Taylor and Wayne counties.

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Pulaski carries Girdler to win

In the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s primary election, it was impossible to miss the colorful signs dotting nearly every Pulaski roadway. The names in the race for the 15th State Senatorial District seat popped out: A.C. Donahue. Chris Girdler. Mark Polston.

Once citizens hit the ballots, however, the results mirrored the dimensions of the signs themselves: Chris Girdler stood the tallest.

Girdler, deputy district director for Congressman Harold “Hal” Rogers, ran away with the votes inside Pulaski County’s borders, earning 3,926 votes for 62.05 percent of the total number cast.

That number more than doubled the next highest vote-getter, businessman Mark Polston, who raked in 1,624 votes for 25.67 percent.

However, Polston — who owns Classic Carpet, a home-flooring business located just off the southern 914 bypass — can claim a moral victory ... three of them, in fact. In all three counties in the district other than Pulaski — those being Adair, Casey, and Russell Counties — Polston actually edged out Girdler.

In Adair, Polston beat Girdler 629 to 394. In Casey County, it was 538 to 417, and in Russell, it was 1,862 to 1,038.

Polston said he just “couldn’t pull it out with the numbers” and that “the machine worked for” Girdler in Pulaski County.

“I think that was their strategy — I think they had a Pulaski County strategy all along,” said Polston. “They played the political game well.”

Polston said the difference between his and Girdler’s campaigns was that “mine was a very, very grass roots campaign,” he said. “I did not have a political machine behind me. I understand how this process works, and in this instance, he prevailed.”

As for why Girdler didn’t take three of four counties, the winning candidate — since there are no Democrats in the race, winning the Republican primary was effectively a final victory for Girdler — said he didn’t have an answer for that.

However, “I believe things happen for a reason and I hope the long and strenuous campaign will only heighten my desire to move beyond the bitterness and partisanship of the recent past,” said Girdler.

“Regionalism is a goal of mine, and I look forward to helping all four counties,” he added, noting that he campaigned heavily in each of them.

Sen. Vernie McGaha, the long-time state senator whose seat the candidates were vying for, actually supported Polston after Liberty’s Todd Hoskins dropped out of the race earlier this month.

Donahue, a local attorney, got 556 votes in Pulaski County, 8.79 percent of the vote. He only received 145 votes in Russell County, 74 in Adair County, and 75 in Casey County, where hometown candidate Hoskins almost matched him with 71 votes despite no longer being officially in the race.

Polston said he’s “still digesting” what happened, and though “the process has been a very good experience for me,” he wouldn’t commit to running again in the future. “I wouldn’t shut the door to anything, but I’m not opening any doors either.”

Still, “I think I got a lot of people involved in the process that had not been involved before and would not have been otherwise,” he said. “A lot of people got out and worked really hard, got motivated to talk to friends and neighbors. I think a lot of people became involved through this campaign that are going to be involved for a long time.”

Girdler stressed his “positive message” and said that Rogers is a “mentor and good friend” that he would turn to for advice in dealing with a frequently combative legislative body in Frankfort, one for which Girdler hopes to help change the culture.

Girdler said that he was “confident and optimistic” during the day Tuesday because he’d “worked extremely hard.” Nevertheless, the realization that he’d won gave him “chill bumps,” he said.

“I’m absolutely honored,” said Girdler. “The position of state senator is more than an honor, more than an office. It’s a charge to keep, and I will give it my all.

“I pledge to be the people’s state senator,” he added. “I look forward to working with everyone to move this region forward.”

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