Former City Commissioner Book seeks another term

Kenny Book has been a city com­mis­sion­er for Winchester for more than half of his adult life, and after two years out of office, he wants to return to fin­ish what he helped begin.

With near­ly three decades of expe­ri­ence on the Board of Commissioners, deal­ing with city bud­gets and projects, he believes he can contribute.

“There is a lot of things that need to be done,” he said.

One of those things is fin­ish­ing the Seventh Street project to get heavy truck traf­fic out of res­i­den­tial neigh­bor­hoods on the north­east side of town, includ­ing Magnolia, Elm, and Seventh streets.

“We have some mon­ey from the state to do the Seventh Street project, we just have to get it done,” he said.

The mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar project, planned sev­er­al years ago, extends Seventh Street to Ky. 627 and Veterans Memorial Parkway near Interstate 64 to avoid hav­ing heavy trucks trav­el­ing through the res­i­den­tial area.

The project was orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed to avoid truck traf­fic on Seventh Street to Gates Precast, but Book said the project would also cur­tail oth­er truck traf­fic. He said the state gave the city mon­ey to do the project and extend­ed the dead­line until next year.

Another pri­or­i­ty for Book is fin­ish­ing the Depot Street project by includ­ing restrooms for the Winchester-Clark County Farmers Market and oth­er events.

He wants to restore an old rail­way pas­sen­ger car for the restrooms to reflect the his­to­ry of the rail­road line and the for­mer train depot, which was demol­ished in the ear­ly 1980s.

The area is rich in his­to­ry. North Main Street near the rail­way depot was one of the loca­tions for the 1967 com­e­dy film “The Flim Flam Man,” and the train stop was part of President Harry S Truman’s 1948 whis­tle-stop tour.

Several years ago, the city restored the street’s orig­i­nal brick sur­face and lat­er added a canopy for the farm­ers market.

“They have talked about putting in restrooms on Depot Street for years,” Book said. “By putting in an old pas­sen­ger train car, it would save the city money.”

“I was the one to bring up putting Winchester on the west end of the canopy to help iden­ti­fy the old train depot,” he mentioned.

Book, 75, served 28 years on the Winchester Board of Commissioners until he lost a re-elec­tion bid a cou­ple of years ago.

For 41 years, he was mar­ried to Betty L. Book, who died in 2022.

He has two step­daugh­ters, Michelle Edge and Marie Dunn, six grand­chil­dren, nine great-grand­chil­dren, and anoth­er one on the way.

Book earned an associate’s degree in high­er account­ing and busi­ness admin­is­tra­tion from Kentucky Business College in Lexington in 1974. From 1978 until 2016, when he retired, he owned Book’s Bookkeeping and Tax Service.

According to the archives of The Winchester Sun, Book has served on sev­er­al gov­ern­ment boards and been involved in sev­er­al orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing the Generations Center, the city commission’s pub­lic works and insur­ance com­mit­tees, the Winchester-Clark County Parks and Recreation Board, the Clark County GIS Consortium, the Strodes Creek Conservancy, and the Kentucky Waterways Alliance.