The JBS Swift Company will be allowed to move forward with enhancements at its meatpacking plant in Louisville’s Butchertown neighborhood, but with certain conditions.
The Louisville Metro Board of Adjustment Monday approved a request from Swift to modify its zoning permit to complete construction of an enclosure where hogs are unloaded. Swift will also be allowed to replace a boiler at the plant, but it cannot increase its production or the number of hogs it processes.
Swift had begun work on the hog enclosure last year without obtaining a permit, a mistake that company attorney Glenn Price blamed on a contractor’s oversight.
“In hindsight, would we have done it differently by making sure that the contractor got all his permits. I can tell you absolutely so, we would’ve, even though it wasn’t our responsibility. We probably would have followed up on it, because it’s caused us all this trouble,” Price told the board.
The trouble included objections from the Butchertown Neighborhood Association, which argued that the work amounts to an expansion of the plant, inconsistent with a land use plan approved by the Metro Council last year. The plan calls for Swift to eventually re-locate the facility.
The Courier-Journal reports that Swift must also spend more than $137,000 on aesthetic improvements in the area. The company attorney says that requirement may be appealed.
The University of Louisville football team is gearing up for its first game of the season Saturday. Head coach Steve Kragthorpe says the Cards are in the midst of final preparations for game day.
“It’ll be a tough night, for me. Each of these nighst coming up,” says Kragthorpe, “because you kind of lay in bed and think ‘did we cover this enough?’, ‘did we cover that enough?’, ‘did we cover this enough’, so that’s just the normal first game situation.”
The first opponent of the seasons is Indiana State. The Sycamores have lost their last 27 games, including last weeks opener against the NAIA’s Quincy University.
Louisville finished last season with a 5-7 record.
The Cards will play in-state rival Kentucky on September 19th.
The Jefferson Circuit Court of former high school football coach Jason Stinson has begun. He’s charged with reckless homicide and wanton endangerment in the heat stroke death of one of his players.
Fifteen year old linebacker Max Gilpin (pictured) collapsed during practice at Pleasure Ridge Park High School on a sweltering August afternoon in 2008.
He died three days later.
Prosecutors contend that Stinson denied his players water and forced them to run extra wind sprints that day because they weren’t practicing hard enough.
But Stinson’s defense team says there were sufficient water breaks and the prescription drug Adderall could have contributed to the teen’s heat stroke.
Many of Stinson’s former players and students are rallying behind him at his trial, including Cody Lankford.
“He’s a great guy, you know you can go to him with anything, ask him anything. He’s always had an open door policy, just a great guy, anything you need. He’d take the shirt off his back for you,” Lankford said outside the courtroom Monday.
A jury is expected to be seated Tuesday.
(Photo from www.facebook.com)
Monday, August 31, 2009
The Subversive Side of Science Fiction
It is perhaps ironic that Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury’s 1953 novel about state-sponsored censorship, is still one of the 100 most frequently challenged books on library shelves in the 21st Century. And on this list, compiled by the American Library Association, Bradbury is among peers. Science fiction novels, especially those depicting subversive ideas, have created equal amounts of illumination and dissatisfaction since their inception. Join us Monday for a fun look at this subversive side of science fiction and how sci-fi helps to lead such ideas into the mainstream. (Sturgis will be part of the 2009 McConnell Center Lecture Series on Thursday, September 11th. Call 502-852-8811 for more information.)
Related Links:
Research being conducted in Louisville received a one-point-six million dollar boost from the U.S. Department of Defense today. The money will be used to move the research from the laboratory to the clinic.
The University of Louisville’s Dr. Suzanne Ildstad has been working to make bone marrow transplant treatments safer and easier. She says the treatments are helpful in treatment diseases like multiple sclerosis and sickle cell disease, and even helps with organ or limb transplants.
“It turns out, if I transplant bone marrow from the same donor as a kidney or a hand, you’re transplanting the immune system, so instead of trying to reject the hand, it gets accepted without needing drugs,” says Ildstad.
It’s the treatment supporting limb transplants that got the interest of the Defense Department, since some soldiers who are injured in battle lose a limb. Ildstad says they haven’t yet used the treatment on a hand recipient.
Four-hundred adult volunteers are needed to help Big Brothers Big Sisters meet the needs of at-risk young people in Louisville – so the organization is holding a drive called the “400 Campaign”.
Spokesperson Kristin Milosevich says signing up that number of adult mentors would nearly clear its waiting list, so they can focus on signing new children up for the program.
“It’s a number we feel confident we can make happen. It’s a goal we feel we can reach,” says Milosevich. “And so we just felt that the 400 Campaign is something that’s memorable and impactful and will illustrate the fact that we do need more big brothers and big sisters to help the children in Kenuckiana.”
The campaign lasts until the end of the year.
Milosevich says the average time a child spends on the waiting list is six months, but some have waited up to two years.
Health, education and public safety officials will meet later this week in Frankfort for a Pandemic Influenza Summit organized by the state government.
State epidemiologist Dr. Kraig Humbaugh says the novel H1N1 flu strain hit earlier this year, and they used to track cases by getting information from each county. But now they monitor H1N1 much in the same way they do seasonal flu, by tracking cases on a state level with the use of some partners in the health field.
“Normally, they just do that during the winter season, when our traditional flu hits,” saus Humbaugh, “but this year, we asked them to extend that throughout the summer, so they’ve been doing that throughout the summer as well.”
Attendees to the summit Thursday will learn more about tracking the virus, as well as a new vaccine that should be ready in October.
