Meeting in regular session last week the Library Board of the Helen H. Rayburn Public Library of Lewis County entertained the construction consultant for the Kentucky Department of Libraries and Archives, Chris Bischoff.

Bischoff came to Vanceburg to look at the roof of the library to determine the cost of repairing a leak. He checked the roof after the meeting was over.

He also presented the board members with information about constructing a new building from start to finish including recommendations for a grand opening once a new library is completed.

The library board has made no plans to build a new edifice but is in the talking stage of doing so. A site would have to be located outside the city’s plain flood area in order to file for any construction grants that might be available.

Bischoff estimated a new library for the population of Lewis County would need a minimum of 9,860 square feet.

The board amended the new budget to adjust the increase in the Library Director’s salary to equal the amount of the raises given to other employees and then approved the amended budget.

Helen Rayburn told the board that the audit was supposed to be done the last of October although she hasn’t heard anything from the auditor since last month’s meeting.

Whether they're fueled by an intense presidential election, a proposed constitutional election prohibiting gay marriages or something else, more of our citizens are registered to vote now than ever, Grayson said.

And, many of them are expected to vote, he said. An estimated 65 percent of the state's registered voters could show up at the polls in November, he said.

"During the summer months and into the fall there have been a lot of groups -- campaigns, churches, communities -- to push voter registration," Grayson said. "The president and the constitutional amendment, those are the two big factors motivating the groups."

It's typical in presidential election years to see more voters register in the months leading up to the contest, Grayson said. But, this year's increase in voter registration since the primary eclipsed what happened before the 2000 election, when there was a 2.09 percent boost. That year, 61 percent of Kentucky's registered voters actually cast ballots.

Lewis County Clerk Shirley A. Hinton said that Lewis County has 9,852 registered voters. Of those, 7,238 are registered Republican, 2,320 are Democrat and the remaining 292 have registered under something else.

While the buyout legislation itself will be worth billions to American tobacco farmers, most were also counting on receiving the last of a series of annual payments from cigarette makers this year.

Those payments, negotiated when the four major cigarette makers settled the states' tobacco lawsuits in 1998, were intended to compensate growers over 12 years for any losses they might have suffered as a result of higher cigarette prices. The latest checks are scheduled to go out December 30.

From the beginning, farmers have known that any tobacco buyout would probably end the payments. And now that just such a buyout is set for next years, some officials are concerned that cigarette companies might try to end the settlement payments, known as Phase II payments, this year.

"It's still an open question about 2004," said Michael Plumley, an assistant attorney general in Kentucky. Plumley said he thinks big tobacco companies will attempt to challenge this year's payments.

The tobacco companies and several tobacco states, including Kentucky, will probably take the question to a judge in North Carolina who is handling arbitration of the Phase II payments.

Judge Ben F. Tennille has asked the parties to submit reports by November 11 on issues that need to be dealt with as a result of the buyout. A hearing is scheduled for November 16.

Three-fourths of this year's Phase II money -- about $300 million -- sits in Chase Manhattan Bank in New York, but Plumley said he thinks the cigarette companies might try to get all the money back. "We're planning to argue that the buyout will be effective next year and the Phase II money should be continued until then," he said. Plumley said it is unknown what would happen to farmers and the state is cigarette companies win a refund.

Kentucky legislators established a guarantee in law for tobacco farmers that if Phase II payments ever fell below a certain threshold, the state would make up the difference from tobacco settlement money paid directly to the state.