News and Music Discovery
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

McCracken County Officials Indicted in Zoning Case

http://www.kcjea.org

McCracken County Judge-Executive Van Newberry and Deputy Judge-Executive Doug Harnice face a charge of tampering with public records in connection with unauthorized zone changes affecting at least 500 pieces of property in the county.  

Commonwealth's Attorney G.L. Ovey says the investigation began after officials received complaints about the changes.

Ovey says one person purchased property zoned commercial but discovered it had changed to residential when he went to sell it. 

He says property was devalued in a majority of the cases.  Neither Newberry nor Harnice was available for comment this afternoon.  Arraignment on the felony charges is set for Thursday.  

Last year, two McCracken County residents filed complaints saying the zoning of their properties was changed without their permission, giving the properties a lower value designation.  Ovey, a prosecutor in Caldwell, Livingston, Lyon and Trigg counties, was appointed special prosecutor by the attorney general's office after the McCracken County commonwealth's attorney stepped aside due to conflict of interest.

Todd Hatton hails from Paducah, Kentucky, where he got into radio under the auspices of the late, great John Stewart of WKYX while a student at Paducah Community College. He also worked at WKMS in the reel-to-reel tape days of the early 1990s before running off first to San Francisco, then Orlando in search of something to do when he grew up. He received his MFA in Creative Writing at Murray State University. He vigorously resists adulthood and watches his wife, Angela Hatton, save the world one plastic bottle at a time.
Related Content