Livingston Kentucky

The town of Livingston is a small little town in Rockcastle County Kentucky that was founded in the late 1800's as a railroad town, when the old L&N railroad was buildt. It ws never a large town, I don't think it ever went past a thousand person population, but it was at one time a thriving little community. Hey, it had a whore house at one time, if that's not thriving nothing is. Of course, as time went on, and the railroads became of less and less importance, the town declined, until now it looks like something that never quite crawled it's way out of the Great Depression. I blame it to begin with on being another example of the evils of the anti- alcohol fanatics, which has infested so many rural Bible belt towns like a malignant cnacer, and utterly wasted their economies. But Livingston's problems go deeper than that.

The people of Livingston have quite a bit of community pride, and rightly so, and every year there is a Homecoming in the town, which draws present and former residents from far and wide, despite the fact that the towns old school has been closed now for going on thirty years, due to county school consolidation. Yet, despite this apparrent hometown pride, the school was in a shambles, falling in, windows broken, graffiti eeverywhere, etc., until funds were established to renovate the school. This was to be done using prisoners of the Rockcastle County jail in a work release program. It had been tentatively decided to use the school as extra space for the jail, for certain types of offenders, the non-violent ones though.

It looked as though Livingston, which had become almost a ghost town, the only business being a restaurant and a garage, was about to undergo a renaissance, as the renovation of the school would have provided additional employees for the city, and extra revenues, etc. Then, just the other day, the shit hit the fan. The mayor, J.C. Griffin, resigned amid charges that he was being hampered in his efforts to improve the city's finances, by none other than the Livingston City Commission itself. They fought him tooth and nail in his efforts to "change things" as one member put it (saying he would fight the mayor tooth and nail to keep him from doing so).

Among their alleged wrondoings:

*they have reneged on paying federal taxes on taxes they had collected. When arrangements were made to pay off the interest of the debt they had accrued, and to further pay off the back taxes themselves, in a very fair manner which had been arranged by Republican Fifth District Congressman Hal Rogers-they reneged on that as well.

*They had reneged on paying the bill to the city's water supplier, and were far behind on that as well, to the point they were threatened with having the city's water paid off.

*Documentation of former elected officials paying themselves high salaries and bonuses, and of hiring a full time clerk that was not needed, in addition to the one legitimate employee.

*Cancelled Livingstons insurance with the state, on the false grounds of the mayor's illegal use of city vehicles to transport prisoners to work release, when the mayor actually had used his own vehicle.

*When given a 4000 dollar grant for a fire truck, they paid two thousand of it, but renenged on paying the other two thousand, which now can not be accounted for. This has resulted in the County Judges decision to no longer grant any municipality money for fire equipment, and presumably any other purpose.

*Numerous city employees were paid high salaries to pretty much comeand go as they pleased.

*Commissioners voted themselves free water. When the mayor informed them they would have to start paying like everybody else, they balked, on the grounds that they are "friends of Livingston".

Yeah, some motherfucking friends. After all is said and done (including the destruction of innummerable city records in a blatant attempt to prevent no telling what else from being found out) Livingston is now a town in the grips of foreclosure. All the assets of the town had at one point been seized.

The good news in all this turmoil, that puts me in mind of the shenanigans you would expect to see in a Third World nation along ther lines of the Sudan, is that there is a perfect opportunity here for somebody to step in and take over, and I'm talking here about a consortium of business developers who might recognize the potential of the city of Livington. Livingston is a beautiful place, surrounded by thick, lush, green rollinghills,and it has an interesting history as a one time vital railroad town of the late eighteen hundreds. It has resort town written all over it. The development of a good sized lakeis foreseeable, in additon to hunting lodges, fishing cabins, a good hotel.

Before anything like this can come about, however, which would be good not only for Livingston but the entirety of Rockcastle County, sombody is going to have to break the stranglehold of the mind-set that has kept Livingston, like the rest of Rockcastle County, mired in the nineteen thirties. And if someone were going to invest their money, time, and resources in the area, then they certainly have a right to expect cooperation in this regard. Otherwise, they should simply invest elsewhere.

Unfortunately, I don't expect to see many changes.