Police

Police need the public’s help in identifying the driver of a vehicle that drove the wrong way on Taft Highway, struck two other vehicles, ran off the road and left the scene before police arrived.

The incident occurred at 7 a.m. on Friday, April 20 at the intersection of Taft Highway and Warsaw Road.

Dry Ridge Police Chief Rick Kells said witnesses described the car as a maroon Pontiac.

“The suspect was driving south in the north bound lane,” Kells said.

Laura Webster sat on a white wooden kitchen chair across the road from her Corinth home.

She watched firefighters from Corinth, Williamstown and Dry Ridge, climb the roof and peel back the blackened tin roof to shoot streams of water inside.

Williamstown Fire Chief Les Whalen ran in and out of the frame home grabbing personal items, including a motorized wheelchair, a metal cane and family photos, laying them on the grass in Webster’s front yard.

Magistrate Brian Linder called it “a step in the right direction” to providing much-needed funding to the county’s five fire departments.

The Grant County Fiscal Court unanimously approved a first reading April 16 of an ordinance for subscriber fees for fire departments.

The cost of the dues, which residents of Dry Ridge and Williamstown would be exempt from, would be $25 for the first year.

A property owner who owns multiple real estate parcels will only have to pay fire dues on three of those for a total of $75.

Is $25,000 adequate funding provided by the Grant County Fiscal Court each year to the five fire departments?
Depends on who you ask.

The fire chiefs say the money only helps pay for fuel in a time that expenditures are rising and revenue is not increasing.

However, the county gives more money to its fire departments than most in the state, according Judge-Executive Darrell Link.