The Ashland Department of Parks and Recreation is employing a tried and true method of raising funds to make further improvements to Central Park: Selling commemorative bricks. To date, more than $20,000 has been raised to support Central Park by selling bricks and through donations.
The bricks, which can be purchased for either $50 or $100, are being placed on the back of the first-base dugout on the main diamond in the park. To participate, call (606) 326-2046 or go to Ashlandky.org and click on the link for the brick project.
Gary Wright, who donated $125,000 to refurbish Ernie Chattin Field in Central Park two years ago, came up with the idea of having an honor wall that could help raise more money for upkeep or additions.
The brick project is hardly an original idea. Similar projects are visible throughout the city. Names of donors can be found in front of the Paramount Arts Center and the Boyd County Public Library’s main branch, at the base of the flag poles on Judd Plaza, at the Salvation Army, and at many other locations. There is a reason for this: Selling commemorative bricks and plaques are a risk-free way of raising funds for worthy causes.
Most of the people whose names are on the bricks at Central Park are not well known. They are simply people being honored because they wanted to support the project. The bricks help assure that they will not be soon forgotten.
Editorials
Tried and true — 08/31/09
Park brick sales are effective
- Editorials
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Charles Chattin
Before it merged with Ashland Community College to form Ashland Community and Technical College as a result of the 1997 Higher Education Reform Act, the Ashland Area Vocational-Technical School compiled an impressive record for teaching job skills to young adults and placing more than 85 percent in jobs for which they were trained.
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Try again
It is time for Kentucky Speaker of the House Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, and Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, to cease playing political games and redraw district lines that are compact and are based far more on population changes during the first decade of this century than on partisan politics.
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'Asset poor'
More than one in four Kentucky households are “asset poor,” meaning that they are living from paycheck to paycheck with little or no financial cushion to fall back on should they suddenly lose their jobs or have another emergency resulting in a temporary loss of or delcine in income.
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Safer mines
The head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) says coal operators throughout the country are improving their operations and, as a result, mines are becoming safer. However, MSHA chief Joe Main said too many coal operators still “don’t get it” and are continuing to cut costs by ignoring safety. That’s why MSHA plans to continue targeting mines with a history of repeated violations for additional inspections.
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Not far enough
For the past three sessions of the Kentucky General Assembly, bills that would raise the minimum dropout age from 16 to 18 have been approved by the Kentucky House of Representatives by wide bipartisan margins only to die in the Senate without even a vote.
Now the Senate Education Committee has unanimously approved a dropout bill hailed as an alternative to the House bill, but it does not go nearly far enough. It is a halfway measure that would have only a limited effect on preventing teenagers from quitting high school before graduation and virtually assuring themselves of lives on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder.
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Not their job
The local government committee of the Kentucky House of Representatives has wisely killed a bill — dubbed “Cooper’s Law” — that would have allowed the family of the Lexington toddler with cerebral palsy to have a playhouse on their property despite a deed restriction that apparently prohibits such structures.
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Keeping FADE
Despite an increase in cost to the department, Carter County Sheriff Casey Brammell told the Carter County Fiscal Court that his department will continue to be active in the FIVCO Area Development Drug Enforcement (FADE) Task Force — at least for now.
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Needed changes
The soaring enrollment that Kentucky’s community and technical colleges have experienced in recent years could come to a sudden end — or at least be slowed — as about 5,500 students in the statewide system that includes Ashalnd Community and Technical College are expected to lose their financial aid under new rules being implemented by the federal government.
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Released early
While it is disappointing that 75 of the 952 prisoners granted early release in January have violated the terms of their releases, the good news is that none of the former inmates have been charged with new felonies. That’s an early, but positive, indication that the nonviolent felons released before their sentences were up have been carefully selected and are among those least likely to return to a life of crime.
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Obese children
Almost a decade after former Gov. Ernie Fletcher called childhood obesity an “epidemic” in Kentucky, a majority of Kentucky adults still think that there are too many overweight children in the state and they place the bulk of the blame squarely on the shoulders of their parents.
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Charles Chattin








