The Cumberland City Council hopes to expand by annexing Cumberland Elementary School.

City attorney Parker Boggs explained to the council the city just needed to ask the Harlan County Board of Education to let the city annex the school and bring it in officially as part of the city.

Cumberland Mayor Loretta Cornett said it would be nice to have the school that carries the city’s name be part of the city.

Boggs explained if the board of education did allow the school to become annexed as part of Cumberland then they would be listed under tax free status.

Cornett said that the city could provide the school with city water and hopefully by January the school would be part of the city officially.

Boggs told the Cumberland City Council the city had been served with an order from the Kentucky Division of Water to immediately begin removal of contaminated rocks and soil from a piece of property owned by the city.

“They actually filed on us about a year ago. They were waiting until we had w could transport it,” Boggs said. “They had been holding off until we could get a bridge, they want the mercury removed that is in the medium.”

Council member Jerry Gilliam wondered if would be possible for the city to get an extension, because currently the city could not afford to pay for the contamination removal.

Boggs said that since they had been filed on once before and there was now a temporary bridge in place it would have to be completed very soon and was doubtful for an extension.

Carl Hatfield, Cumberland City Council member, said a member of Representative Hal Rogers staff had sent the city a letter which said they would help the city with removal of the contamination with money from the superfunds.

“It is in a file back there, where he promised to do this. There is a letter back there, it says whenever we got ready to do move it across the river he would help us fund it,” said Hatfield.

One of the biggest topics skipped over by the shortened meeting was the amending of the ordinance for fire response outside of city limits. In October the council voted on a temporary amendment allowing the Cumberland City Fire Department to respond to fires outside of the city limits. The ordinance was to be reviewed during the November meeting, but never was.

Members of the Cumberland City Council who did not immediately were asked if this meant the Fire Department was not responding to fires outside of the city since the temporary amendment was not longer in effect.

The council member said the city would still respond to fires outside of the city and they hoped to have a special called meeting later this month to discuss this and several other pieces of important business that was passed over during the short council meeting.