Tag Archives: history

A Soldier’s Second Mission: Van Tran Builds a New Future in Radcliff 

17 Aug

By T.W. Shortt | TW Shortt Reports 
T.W. Shortt is the host of Focus on Finance, a local television program produced by HCEC-TV in Hardin County, Kentucky. 

A new chapter is opening in Radcliff with the arrival of General Pho Vietnamese Kitchen LLC, located at 944 N. Dixie Blvd. The restaurant is the culmination of years of work by owner Van Tran, whose journey from Vietnam to the United States, through a 20-year Army career, and into small-business ownership is a story of persistence, service, and determination. 

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Podcast Episode: Has the RSBA Abandoned Radcliff? 

16 Aug

Pip: This site covers the kind of local civic drama that actually matters — where a name on a sign stops matching what’s happening inside the building.

Mara: Today we’re looking at a pointed piece from twshortt about whether a local business alliance has drifted from its founding purpose. Let’s start with the question the post puts directly to the RSBA.

Has the RSBA Abandoned Radcliff?

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Has the RSBA Abandoned Radcliff? 

11 Aug

The Radcliff Small Business Alliance has lost its way. It must return to its founding mission, undergo serious reform, or close its doors.

TW Shortt 
Co-founder, Radcliff Small Business Alliance 

The RSBA was created after the former Radcliff Chamber of Commerce was absorbed into a countywide chamber. At the time, critics warned that Radcliff and the northern end of Hardin County would lose their local business voice. They were assured that nothing would change. 

They were wrong. 

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Radcliff Has Momentum—Now Comes the Hard Part  

9 Aug

By T.W. Shortt
Radcliff Small-Business Owner, Former Radcliff City Council Member, and Community Commentator

As new leadership approaches, Radcliff has an opportunity to build on recent progress and confront the challenges that have waited too long.  

Every community has its share of opportunities and challenges, and Radcliff is no exception. After forty years as a small-business owner here, I have watched our community grow, struggle, adjust, and reinvent itself more than once. 

With a new mayor taking office in the coming months, along with the possibility of new members joining the City Council, Radcliff is entering another important period in its history. New leadership creates an opportunity to recognize what has worked, acknowledge what has not been done, and decide where we want to go next. 

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When “Getting Along” Becomes a Threat to Good Government  

4 Aug

By T.W. Shortt, former Radcliff City Council member and local business owner

  I have a strong interest in local government, particularly the relationship between the executive branch and the legislative body. 

In smaller communities, people sometimes expect mayors and city councils—or judge-executives and magistrates—to agree on everything. When disagreements arise about spending, development, policy, or other public matters, some citizens become uncomfortable and view the conflict as evidence that government is not functioning properly. 

An eighth-grade civics lesson could clear up much of this confusion. 

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Women at the Helm: A New Era of Leadership in Hardin County

1 Aug

By T.W. Shortt, Former Radcliff City Council Member and Local Business Owner

We are now a little more than 90 days (about 3 months) from the November 3 general election that will determine who serves as Hardin County judge-executive and as mayor of Vine Grove and Radcliff. 

This election presents an unusual and important moment for our community. Both candidates for mayor of Vine Grove—Pamela Ogden and Selena Hudson—are women, guaranteeing that the city’s next mayor will be a woman. The same is true in Radcliff, where Toshie Murrell and Terry Owens will face each other in the general election. For the first time, Radcliff and Vine Grove are certain to elect women as their mayors in the same election. 

Regardless of the results, women have already become a powerful and increasingly visible force in Hardin County’s political, business, and civic leadership. 

This development reflects a broader change that has been taking place for years. Women now hold prominent positions in local banks, nonprofit organizations, educational institutions, government agencies, and civic organizations. They serve as presidents, executive directors, board chairs, elected officials, principal brokers, and senior administrators. 

The important question is not simply whether women are gaining political influence. The larger question is what this change tells us about Hardin County, its voters, and the qualities people now expect from their leaders. 

Philosopher Nel Noddings argued that caring requires attentiveness to other people, their relationships, and their circumstances (Noddings, 2013). Her ethics of care provide a useful way to consider leadership. 

Effective leadership requires more than authority, technical knowledge, and the ability to issue orders. It also requires listening, understanding competing needs, maintaining relationships, and recognizing how public decisions affect individual lives. 

These qualities are not exclusive to women. Men can be caring and cooperative leaders, just as women can be firm, demanding, and decisive. We should not assume that every woman or every man will lead in a particular way. 

Behavioral research suggests that women, on average, may sometimes be more likely to use cooperative, accommodating, or relationship-centered approaches when addressing conflict. However, those differences are modest. Leadership style is also shaped by personality, experience, culture, professional position, and circumstances. 

The advancement of women appears especially visible in public agencies, banks, schools, and nonprofit organizations. These institutions often have established procedures for hiring, promotion, board appointments, and professional advancement. 

Private business ownership can present different challenges. Starting, purchasing, or expanding a company often requires access to capital, property, professional networks, family resources, and a willingness to accept financial risk. 

Many family businesses have traditionally passed from father to son. However, succession from father to daughter is also part of Hardin County’s business story. 

One local example is Kim Shortt, principal broker and owner of T.W. Shortt Realty–Property Management. The company was established by her parents, T.W. and Andra Shortt, and later passed to their daughter. Today, it manages properties for owners and investors located throughout the United States and in other parts of the world. 

Her experience illustrates how a family business can successfully pass from one generation to the next while placing a woman in its principal ownership and leadership position. It also reminds us that women may be more prominent in Hardin County’s private business community than public attention sometimes suggests. 

The increasing number of women in leadership should not change the standards by which leaders are judged. Women should not be elected, appointed, or promoted simply because they are women, nor should they be overlooked because of their sex. 

Every leader should be judged by the same standards: integrity, competence, sound judgment, fiscal responsibility, accessibility, courage, and results. 

Hardin County will soon have an opportunity to observe this transition through city halls, public meetings, budgets, economic-development decisions, businesses, and community organizations. 

The rise of women in leadership is an important development. What matters next is how they lead. 

Reference 

Noddings, N. (2013). Caring: A relational approach to ethics and moral education (2nd ed.). University of California Press. 

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Radcliff Business Alliance to open in 2027

29 Jul

Coming to Radcliff in Early 2027 

By T.W. Shortt, Co-founder of the Radcliff Small Business Alliance 

A new Radcliff Business Alliance is being planned for launch in early 2027, with one clear purpose: to provide an independent voice focused specifically on Radcliff businesses and Radcliff’s commercial future. 

The original Radcliff Small Business Alliance was created after the Radcliff Chamber of Commerce merged with the Hardin County Chamber of Commerce. That merger left Radcliff without an organization devoted primarily to its own business community. Local business owners and community leaders, working with city leaders, helped establish the Radcliff Small Business Alliance to fill that gap thirteen years ago.  

Its mission was Radcliff. 

Over time, however, the organization’s attention appears to have shifted toward broader countywide programs, nonprofit activities, seminars, and workshops. Some of those efforts may be worthwhile, but worthwhile activity is not always mission-centered activity. 

Radcliff’s barbers, restaurant owners, shopkeepers, brokers, contractors, service providers, and entrepreneurs deserve an organization focused on the challenges they face every day—vacant storefronts, rising costs, declining traffic, business visibility, and local development. 

The proposed Radcliff Business Alliance will return to that basic purpose. It is being designed as a simple, volunteer-led network with no dues, no paid staff, no paid leadership, and no unnecessary bureaucracy. Its priorities will include promoting local businesses, encouraging residents to buy locally, supporting commercial corridors, and strengthening cooperation among people invested in Radcliff’s future. 

An organization cannot be everything to everyone without becoming little to the people who need it most. 

Radcliff does not need another countywide organization. It needs a focused local alliance that remembers why it exists. 

Please stand by for additional details concerning the mission, volunteer leadership, participation, and official launch of the Radcliff Business Alliance in early 2027. 

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From Goat Roping to Good Government: Hardin County Plans for Public Safety 

19 Jul

By T.W. Shortt,

Former Radcliff City Councilman and Local Business Owner

The primary purpose of local government, whether at the city or county level, is public safety. It is not the government’s only responsibility, but it is the first. Roads, recreation, economic development, and community events all matter, but none of them should take priority over protecting lives and property. 

In Radcliff, there is often a great deal of attention placed on what I call the four P’s: parties, picnics, parades, and pancakes. There is nothing wrong with community events. They bring people together and help build civic pride. However, those activities should never distract from the community’s basic public safety needs. Considering the level of crime being reported in Radcliff, along with concerns about police staffing, emergency response, and the demands placed on public safety personnel, it may be time to shift the focus. 

At the Hardin County level, public safety must also remain a primary concern. The proposed 2026–2030 Emergency Fire Services Strategic Plan is a move in the right direction. It recognizes growing call volumes, simultaneous emergencies, aging fire equipment, limited staffing, and the pressure created when a small group is expected to serve a large and growing community. 

One of the largest proposals is an estimated $8 million emergency services building in Glendale, with approximately $6.5 million expected to come from state funding. The plan also calls for establishing the Hardin County Fire System, adding paid weekday firefighters in key districts, beginning replacement of fire apparatus in 2028, and creating the county’s first full-time, 24-hour paid fire crew by 2029. 

The planning phase is critical. Without a plan, every incident becomes a shock and a surprise. Government then finds itself reacting from one emergency to the next instead of working from an organized system with clear priorities, staffing goals, equipment schedules, and funding needs. Without that preparation, emergency management can begin to look less like organized county government and more like goat roping—everyone moving at once, but no one certain who is in charge or where the effort is headed. 

Judge-Executive Keith Taul deserves recognition for his leadership in this area. The judge-executive serves as the county’s chief executive officer, comparable to a mayor but on a countywide scale. Working with the members of the Fiscal Court, the judge-executive plays a leading role in planning, setting priorities, coordinating departments, and preparing the county for future needs. 

Fortunately, Judge Taul brings years of professional experience in which planning, organization, and leadership were developed and tested. That background is especially valuable when county governments must look beyond the next meeting or the next emergency and prepare for what Hardin County will need five, ten, or even twenty years from now. Every member of the Fiscal Court is also responsible for studying the plan carefully, asking tough questions, and supporting the necessary public safety improvements. 

This plan is not yet final, but it gives Hardin County direction and provides a standard by which the public can measure progress. Planning does not solve every problem, but it identifies weaknesses before the next crisis exposes them. A serious county government should not wait for an emergency to reveal what it failed to prepare for. It should establish priorities, assign responsibility, and make sure the people, equipment, facilities, and funding are in place. 

Hardin County is growing, and its public-safety services must grow with it. Community events are worthwhile, but the government’s first duty remains the protection of life and property. This strategic plan is an important first step, and Judge Taul and the Fiscal Court should be encouraged to continue advancing it. 

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A New Kentucky Law May Open the Door for Church-Sponsored Senior Housing

14 Jul

By: TW Shortt, CRB 

Kentucky Real Estate Broker  

The Kentucky General Assembly was active during its most recent session, passing many new laws. One of those laws, House Bill 333, stands out as an opportunity for certain churches and religious organizations. 

There could be a reasonable argument that HB 333 was written with a particular project or influential constituent in mind. Whether that is true or not, the law now applies statewide. It may have a practical application here in Hardin County for a church that has considered developing housing for its senior members. 

HB 333 creates a special exception for qualifying religious institutions seeking to develop small affordable housing projects on certain church-owned property. In some cases, the development may be treated as a permitted use instead of going through the usual discretionary zoning process. 

In plain language, this law may help grease the wheels of local approval. 

A Possible Local Opportunity 

Many churches own more land than they currently use. Some have several acres around the church, an unused school building, excess parking areas, or other property that may be suitable for development. 

A church may also have older members who want to remain close to their church family but no longer need or can maintain a larger home. A small senior apartment development could allow those members to live near familiar friends, worship services, transportation, and community support. 

A practical project might include 12 to 24 one-bedroom apartments for income-qualified seniors. It could also include accessible entrances, a community room, laundry facilities, walking areas, and a pickup area for transportation. 

The strongest application of the law would be independent senior apartments rather than a nursing home or a full assisted-living facility. Nursing homes and assisted-living operations are subject to separate healthcare, staffing, safety, and licensing requirements. 

The Law Has Important Limits 

HB 333 does not allow every church to build housing anywhere it chooses. 

The church must be a qualifying tax-exempt religious organization. The property must also meet certain ownership, zoning, location, and development requirements. 

One of the most important limitations is that the church must have purchased the property before January 1, 2026. That means a church buying property now may not qualify for the special treatment. 

The property must also fall into one of the categories covered by the law. This may include commercially zoned property, certain residential property near a state’s primary road, and commercial or industrial land, or a former school building that will be converted into housing. 

The development must be limited in size and must consist entirely of affordable housing. The residents must meet income qualifications, and the affordability restrictions must remain in place for 15 years. 

The church would need a system to verify income, control rents, maintain records, and report compliance. 

Local Rules Do Not Completely Disappear 

The law may reduce the ability of a planning commission or local government to deny the basic land use. However, it does not eliminate building codes, fire-safety requirements, water and sewer rules, stormwater controls, accessibility standards, utility requirements, or emergency vehicle access. 

The project must still be carefully planned, financed, engineered, and constructed. 

Most churches are not experienced housing developers. A church considering this type of project should work with an attorney, an architect, an engineer, an affordable-housing developer, a lender, a real estate professional, and a property-management company. 

Worth a Serious Look 

Church-sponsored senior housing will not be right for every congregation. It creates financial obligations, management responsibilities, and long-term legal requirements. 

However, churches have traditionally helped meet both the spiritual and practical needs of their members. Providing safe, affordable housing for older residents could be a natural extension of that mission. 

HB 333 is an exception specifically designed for churches and religious organizations. For a qualifying church that already owns a large or underused property interest, it may offer a path around some local zoning obstacles. 

It is not automatic approval, but it may make a worthwhile project easier to move forward. 

For churches, developers, community leaders, and real estate professionals in Hardin County, HB 333 is worth looking at. 

This article is for general information only. Any church considering a housing development should obtain legal, tax, zoning, and development advice before acting. 

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When “Why Are You Running?” Is Not Enough 

9 Jul

By T.W. Shortt
Former Radcliff City Council Member

Hardin Local, the local podcast and media platform operated by Phil Taul, did Hardin County voters a real service leading up to the May 19, 2026, primary election. It gave candidates a place to speak directly to the public, on camera, in their own words. Hardin Local reported that it offered candidates in contested races a free interview opportunity and made the candidate videos available to voters. 

That matters. 

In local elections, voters rarely get the benefit of major televised debates, large editorial boards, or wall-to-wall newspaper coverage. More often, citizens are left with yard signs, campaign cards, Facebook posts, and word of mouth. A serious candidate interview gives voters something better: a chance to see how a candidate thinks, speaks, prepares, and responds when asked basic questions about public service. 

One of the most important races in Hardin County is the race for Mayor of Radcliff. The primary narrowed the field to two candidates, Toshie Murrell and Terry Owens. According to Hardin Local’s posted primary results, Murrell received 862 votes, and Owens received 857 votes, a five-vote difference at the top of the field. The general election is scheduled for November 3, 2026. 

That narrow result alone should get every Radcliff voter’s attention. 

During the interview process, the moderator gave the candidates the perfect opening question: tell the audience your “why” for seeking this office. 

That is a good question. It is fair, simple, and open-ended. It gives a candidate room to explain personal motivation, public service, love of community, experience, and vision. It allows voters to hear whether a candidate is running out of ambition, concern, frustration, duty, or a sincere belief that he or she has something useful to offer. 

But here is the problem: there is a difference between a personal “why” and a governing “why.” 

A candidate can love Radcliff and still not explain how Radcliff should be governed. A candidate can have years of city council experience and still owe voters a clear statement of what needs to change, what needs to be protected, and what needs to be improved. Personal affection for the city is commendable. Public service is honorable. Experience matters. But the mayor’s office requires more than good intentions, warm feelings, or a résumé. 

It requires direction. 

For a race this important, the “why” question should not be treated merely as a personal introduction. It should be the doorway into a four-year agenda. 

What has the candidate learned from serving on the city council? What areas of city government need tightening up? Is public safety adequately staffed, supported, and prioritized? Are streets, drainage, code enforcement, housing, business development, and city services moving in the right direction? Is Radcliff doing enough to present itself as a strong, orderly, business-friendly community next door to Fort Knox? 

Those are fair questions. They are not attacked. They are the ordinary questions citizens should ask anyone seeking executive leadership in city government. 

The mayor of Radcliff is not simply a ribbon-cutter or ceremonial figure. The mayor helps set the tone for the city government. The mayor works with the council, represents the city to citizens, speaks to outside investors, and helps shape the public image of Radcliff. The person elected mayor will have influence over how Radcliff is seen, how Radcliff is managed, and how Radcliff moves forward. 

That is why voters need more than “I love the city.” They need more than “this is the next step.” They need more than biographies. They need an agenda. 

Hardin Local may offer another opportunity for candidates to speak to voters before the November general election. If that opportunity comes, both candidates should take full advantage of it. They should come prepared not only to explain why they want the office, but what they intend to do with it. 

There must be some meaningful difference in how these two honorable candidates would govern. If there is no difference, voters are left to choose based on personality, name recognition, or habit. That is not enough for a city to face real decisions about growth, public safety, infrastructure, business development, and quality of life. 

There is no reason for a serious candidate to be afraid to make a clear case for herself. In fact, that is part of leadership. A candidate for mayor should be able to say: here is what I see, here is what I believe, here is what I would focus on, and here is how I would measure progress. 

Congratulations to both candidates for advancing the general election. That is an achievement. 

Now comes the harder part. 

Give the voters something solid to hang their hat on. 

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