ASHLAND — U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers made a stop in Boyd County on Monday as a part of his “get-acquainted” tour of areas recently added to his district.

Rogers, R-Somerset, was the guest speaker at a meeting of the Ashland Rotary Club. He brought with him the directors of the agencies he helped launch to address various social, economic and environmental issues in southern and eastern Kentucky.

He also pledged the resources of those organizations would be available throughout the whole of Boyd County, even in parts that won’t be part of his Fifth Congressional District.

The rural areas of Boyd County were moved from the Fourth to the Fifth District under redistricting legislation passed in February by the Kentucky House of Representatives. Ashland, Catlettsburg and Westwood will remain in the Fourth District, which was, until his resignation last week, represented in Congress by Geoff Davis. Carter, Elliott and Lincoln counties also were added to Rogers’ district.

Rogers, who chairs the powerful House Appropriations Committee, began his tour of the new areas in his district on Saturday with a fish fry in Elliott County. He’s scheduled to spend today in Carter County, beginning with breakfast with Grayson officials.

In his speech to the Rotary Club on Monday, Rogers said his only disappointment in having Boyd County added to his district was “that they didn’t put all of Boyd County in my district.”

Rogers, the longest-serving Republican elected from Kentucky, also pledged to continue his fight against “wasteful, duplicative” federal spending if voters return him to office in November. He is being challenged in the general election by Democrat Kenneth Stepp of Manchester.

Rogers said in the fiscal year just ended, federal discretionary spending declined for the second consecutive year since World War II. However, he said the problem was that discretionary spending only comprises one-third of the federal budget, with the remaining two-thirds being spent on entitlements.

“I think we’re going to have to make some adult decisions in this country about how we handle our fiscal affairs,” he said.

Among those accompanying Rogers at Monday’s luncheon was Karen Kelly, CEO of Operation UNITE, an organization formed to combat the region’s drug problem though a multipronged approach utilizing law enforcement, treatment and education. According to Kelly, the UNITE board of directors recently voted to expand its operations to the new areas in the Fifth, and, following the luncheon, a signing ceremony was at the Boyd County Courthouse to formally initiate the work of UNITE into the county.

Among the resources UNITE brings to the table, Kelly said, are 16 undercover narcotics detectives that work throughout the agency’s service area, various education programs and options for matching those who are addicted to drugs with treatment programs.

In response to a query from Ashland City Manager Steve Corbitt, Rogers said the work of UNITE and the other organizations — which he referred to as “critters” — would not be limited to the portions of Boyd County in the Fifth District.

“All of the programs will be available to all of Boyd County,” he said.

The other organizations represented at the luncheon were Kentucky PRIDE, which was formed to promote environmental cleanup and education; the Southeast Kentucky Economic Development Corp., which was created to address economic development and job creation; TOUR Southern and Eastern Kentucky, formed to promote the region’s natural beauty for tourism purposes; and the Center for Rural Development in Somerset, which houses the other agencies and also serves as a regional clearinghouse for innovation, technology, arts and education.

KENNETH HART can be reached at khart@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2654.