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Joe P. Asher

Staff Writer

During a meeting of the Benham City Council on Thursday options concerning several run down unoccupied houses in the city were discussed.

Council member George Massey brought the matter to the council’s attention.

“I know we’ve made a dent on the houses. We should follow up on that and try to get the houses torn down,” said Massey.

Massey inquired about the options that may be available for dealing with the houses.

“Is there any way possible, not taking the land or nothing like that, to get them torn down or burned down or whatever it takes to get them cleaned up with them being on the main road like that?”asked Massey.

Mayor John Dodd explained some possible remedies.

“Let me say this. We can do like we done before when we tore down Jordan’s old place. The other family there on the corner by Charlie Brown, they paid $2,800 to get theirs tore down and hauled off,” explained Dodd.

Dodd pointed out that previously the debris from tearing down such houses had been hauled off by a coal company.

“This company that’s here now is different than Black Mountain Resources. We don’t have Richard Mott over here any more either. They paid for it. The sent two dump trucks and an excavator to load that up and haul it off for us,” said Dodd.

Dodd explained that once the houses are torn down, there is still the problem of what to do with the debris.

“There’s so much brick and stuff in that, I would need somebody wanting some filler locally with the bricks and stuff to fill in,” said Dodd.

“What we can do as a council is like we done before,” said Dodd. “We went up there and took pictures. We came back and presented them and they were condemned. Since we’ve been in we’ve also condemned them. The houses that we condemned, we got rid of them.”

The council did not make a decision on the issue at this time.

In other council activity:

* Massey suggested renaming the Coal Miner’s Memorial Theater the Betty Howard Coal Miner’s Memorial Theater. After some discussion Dodd tabled the issue until it could be placed on the agenda.

* Resolutions were passed supporting the building of a new veteran’s hospital in Pikeville, and supporting Benham becoming a Kentucky Trail Town.

Reach Joe P. Asher at 606-573-4510 or jasher@heartlandpublications.com