Frankfort has tried to impress upon her residents the need to revitalize and renovate our downtown, and water front for the last few years. The City of Frankfort has poured millions into the river view park alone.

With the Capital Expo, the blues festival, the farmers market, the River View park, the history museum, the old capitol building, and the Grand Theater as selling points; and then converting the old railroad, and Benson Creek bridges into points of interest for downtown tourism.

If the idea is to return people to downtown, and to use the Kentucky River as a portion of Frankfort's showcase, why would you want to have the visitors to your city, sit by the water's edge, or float down the river and see this eye sore?

The residents of Bell Point have lived with the stigma of dilapidation for decades. More than once the idea has been raised to condemn the entire neighborhood. But if ever there were a case for the people of Bell Point to stand up and say "this isn't our fault, we have tried to get it removed", then this would be it.

The picture that accompanies this story is of a "house boat" (if you can call it that), owned by Doug Williams (according to the city lot permit). The boat is tied up to a "boat dock" called "Kentucky Avenue, Bell Point Boat Dock", owned by Mark and Kathy Whitaker; Please feel free to point out in the picture to me where the actual boat dock is located, I have as yet to identify it.

This monstrosity has been an eye sore for years, and the dilapidation just continues to expand. You will notice the various tarps and construction materials used to prevent roof leaks, although I am unsure how that is possible. The various structures which have literally been nailed to the cabin and wheel house to increase the size of the "boat". The various collapsed structures sitting around the boat itself, and an additional craft sitting inside the boats moorings on the port side of the craft, where you can see the structure has rotted away altogether. The starboard side of the "boat" where you can actually see some remnants of the "dock" shows it has actually collapsed, along with a structure that has fallen in on top of it.

This "house boat" is not identified by a Kentucky water craft hull number, nor does it display a valid Kentucky water craft licensing sticker. The craft has been reported to the city of Frankfort on many different levels, from code enforcement, to the building inspectors office, to the city council itself, as well as to the mayor and city managers.

The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife have been notified of this structure, and the buck was passed to the United States Coast Guard.... Whoa, wait a minute, did I say the Coast Guard? Why yes I did. How is the Coast Guard responsible you say for a structure tied up to a city lot, on an inland water way? An inland water way that is in fact no longer transversable. Kentucky fused several of the locks along the river decades ago, and you can no longer transverse the Kentucky River from inlet to outlet any longer, so how is the United States Coast Guard responsible for a water way that can not in fact be reached from a coastal environment?...good questions. No one wants to answer those questions though.

The City of Frankfort, and the building inspectors offices made great fanfare in the pages of this very paper recently, about how they were going to start forcing people to repair, clean up, and make safety upgrades to the various properties that have been allowed to deteriorate. They talked specifically about properties that have gone without paying their taxes, as being subject to seizure as well...

This "boat dock" is not only an eye sore, it is a water hazard, a safety violation looking for an accident to happen. The rotting and broken decking is infested with any number of insects especially mosquitoes in the summer, and it is a haven for water snakes, who thrive in the twisted mass of junk that surround the dock.

This "house boat" is not only an eye sore, it is unsafe to be afloat. The added weight of the building materials used to expand the wheel house make it unseaworthy. It has not been dry docked, or removed from the water in years, there is no telling what the structure is like below the water line.

If this monstrous mass of semi-floating junk were on dry land, how long would it have taken to get it removed?

Did I mention that someone lives on that "house boat" as well? No I kid you not, this thing isn't even abandoned, it is occupied.

If only a 3rd of the junk that is hanging off that "house boat" were in any front yard of any house in Frankfort, how long would it be before you received a notice in the mail, or a knock at the door?

It is time that Frankfort stepped up and made this mess go away! No matter who's desk the responsibility lands on, someone has the power to remove this death trap before it ends up getting someone hurt.

And while you are at it, you can get them to remove the debris that has been piling up against the pillar of the bridge in front of it. There must be 20 or more large tree limbs above the waterline, and no telling what has hung on them below the water line, it won't be long before the weight of that debris is going to cause structural issues against that support.

I have posted additional images of this death trap in the photo section with a link here, since I could only post one of the pictures with the story:

Semper Fi