![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/City-of-Burgin.jpg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
File image.<\/p>\n
Robert Moore UPDATE: The Burgin City Council has canceled the special-called meeting originally scheduled for Monday, July 20, at Burgin Independent School, according to the city\u2019s Facebook page.<\/a> The announcement was made an hour before this post went live on the website. Here is a text of the announcement, which includes their reasoning for canceling the meeting:<\/p>\n \u201cI hope this will help for No Data Centers for the City of Burgin. It has come to our attention that the meeting is not legally accurate as we have not had a first reading of the ordinance.<\/p>\n \u201cTherefore the council cannot legally have a second reading of the ordinance. AS SUCH the Special Meeting Schedule for 7\/20 will not Occur.\u201d<\/p>\n ORIGINAL POST: Despite objections from the community and city council members, the Burgin City Council is proceeding with the annexation of 10 properties into the city limits, linked to a possible data center project.<\/p>\n At a special-called meeting held at the Burgin Independent School cafeteria on Thursday, July 9, the council gave first reading to an ordinance annexing the properties, which contain nearly a thousand acres of real estate along Shakertown Road, Handy Pike, Maude Lane and Bailey Pike. The city council also set a date for another special-called meeting to give the annexation a second reading on Monday, July 20, at 6:30 p.m. at the same location.<\/p>\n The city council canceled its regular meeting on Tuesday, July 14, at 6:30 p.m. at Burgin City Hall.<\/p>\n A previous special-called meeting on the annexation in June was canceled \u201cdue to legal issues,\u201d according to a City of Burgin Facebook post.<\/p>\n While the agenda of last week\u2019s special-called meeting specified that no public comments would be taken, it did not prevent city council members from voicing their own objections.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m speaking for the people who elected me,\u201d said Burgin City Councilwoman Melinda Wofford, who voted against the annexation. \u201cI am sure my constituents do not want to move forward with a data center.\u201d<\/p>\n Wofford urged the rest of the council not to give the annexation a second reading.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t understand the rush to get this done,\u201d Wofford said.<\/p>\n Longtime Burgin City Councilman Sindicat \u201cSid\u201d Dunn also voted against the annexation. Dunn advocated for holding a town hall meeting to gather public input before proceeding.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy so soon?\u201d Dunn asked after the council voted to hold the second special-called meeting.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy not two weeks?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n Dunn later told the Harrodsburg Herald that he would like to put forward a moratorium on data centers at the upcoming regular city council meeting. Dunn said he was prevented from introducing the motion because it was not on the agenda. Kentucky state law generally limits legislative bodies from taking action on items not on the posted agenda.<\/p>\n Wofford and Dunn voted against the annexation and holding another special-called meeting so soon after the first one.<\/p>\n The crowd was so large at last week\u2019s meeting that school officials had to turn people away, citing fire regulations.<\/p>\n Those who managed to attend the meeting, many of them wearing blue \u201cWe Are Mercer County\u201d T-shirts, watched as the city council voted to accept the resignation of Burgin Mayor Jamie Keebortz, which was on the agenda that night.<\/p>\n In his letter of resignation, Keebortz, who had served on the city council since 2016, did not give a reason for stepping down.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe it is in the best interest of both myself and the city at this time,\u201d Keebortz wrote in his resignation. \u201cI have full confidence in the capable leadership of the council and city administration to continue serving our citizens with integrity and commitment.\u201d<\/p>\n While Keebortz may have expressed confidence in the city government, that confidence did not appear to be shared by many in the crowd at the special-called meeting or online, where someone posted a poll asking how many would vote to dissolve Burgin\u2019s city government in a referendum.<\/p>\n After voting to accept Keebort\u2019s resignation, the council voted unanimously to elect Councilman George Hensley as the presiding council member to run the meeting. They then voted to give the annexation ordinance first reading.<\/p>\n Hensley, along with Councilman Scott McCoy\u2014who was appointed by the city council to fill out Councilwoman Sarah Moran\u2019s unexpired term in May\u2014and Councilman Kevin Wallace\u2014who was appointed to fill out Keebortz\u2019s unexpired term in August of last year after the elected mayor, Joe Monroe, resigned\u2014voted yes. Councilman Travis Irvin recused himself from all further votes, and the annexation\u2019s first reading passed, three to two.<\/p>\n Hensley, McCoy and Wallace then voted to hold the next special-called meeting despite Wofford\u2019s and Dunn\u2019s requests to give it more time. The council voted to adjourn to a chorus of boos. The entire meeting had taken approximately 19 minutes.<\/p>\n \u201cWe put you all in the office to vote for us!\u201d screamed one frustrated attendee at the meeting.<\/p>\n The Burgin City Council has 30 days from the date of Keebort\u2019s resignation to pick a new mayor.<\/p>\n The Harrodsburg-Mercer County Joint Planning and Zoning Commission has released the second draft of a proposed ordinance dealing with data centers. The commission set a date for the public meeting on the proposed data center ordinance at 5 p.m. on Thursday, July 23, at the Campbellsville University Harrodsburg Campus gymnasium.<\/p>\n Readers can find the draft online at harrodsburgherald.com<\/a> and on the Mercer County Fiscal Court\u2019s website.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"File image. Robert MooreHerald Staff[email\u00a0protected] UPDATE: The Burgin City Council has canceled the special-called meeting originally scheduled for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":["post-268508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Herald Staff
[email\u00a0protected]<\/a> <\/p>\n