Government

 Hodgenville Mayor Terry Cruse, left, presented retiring City Council member Eudell Stearman with a plaque of appreciation Monday night. Stearman, a long-time council member decided against running for another term.

 LaRue Fiscal Court and Hodgenville City Council held first readings of an ordinance that controls the kinds of signs that can be placed in the viewshed area.

 The maximum homestead exemption on real estate owned by qualified persons has been set at $36,000 for the 2013 and 2014 tax periods. The 2013-14 exemption reflects a $2,000 increase over the 2011-12 exemption of $34,000.

The amount of the homestead exemption is adjusted every two years in accordance with KRS 132.810 to compensate for changes in the purchasing power of the dollar. The exemption provided state and local property tax savings of about $171 million for more than 416,000 elderly or disabled Kentuckians during the 2012 tax year.

 At the same time that LaRue County Fiscal Court received a thank you card from some residents of Cissal Hill for the recent paving done there, second district magistrate Ricky Whitlock received a complaint that some teens and young adults had stopped traffic on the steep, winding hill to race Hot Wheels down it.

“They were evidently going down it in those toy Hot Wheel cycles,” Whitlock told magistrates meeting at the courthouse in Hodgenville Nov. 27. “I called dispatch about it and didn’t hear any more about them.”