Chenault focuses on listening and community service

Being a good lis­ten­er and being atten­tive to his con­stituents’ con­cerns are impor­tant to City Commissioner Joe Chenault, who is seek­ing a third non­con­sec­u­tive term on the Winchester Board of Commissioners.

“If you bring some­thing to the board meet­ing, I will lis­ten to what your con­cerns are, and that’s what I vote on,” he said in a can­di­date sur­vey. If it’s an issue that needs to be reopened, he said, he will ask the board to reopen it.

He also wants to be an encourager.

Chenault shared a sto­ry about some­one who was apply­ing for a firefighter’s posi­tion and was “excit­ed to be will­ing to serve our com­mu­ni­ty,” but then he “got discouraged.”

“I sug­gest­ed to him to be the best that you can be for the cit­i­zens of Winchester and Clark County,” Chenault said. “Encouragement goes a long way.”

Chenault, 70, serves on the Winchester Municipal Utilities Board and the Winchester-Clark County Parks and Recreation Board as an appointee of the city com­mis­sion. He served on the Winchester Urban Renewal and Community Development Agency Board for two decades. He is also on the board of the Winchester Little League Baseball program.

In addi­tion to being a city com­mis­sion­er, Chenault also has sev­er­al oth­er jobs. He has been a deputy sher­iff and bailiff for the Clark County Sheriff’s Office for near­ly six years, runs his own auto­mo­tive busi­ness, Joe’s Retail Shop at 48 N. Burns Ave., is employed by Chenault Brothers Funeral Home, and is a sixth-grade boys assis­tant bas­ket­ball coach for Robert D. Campbell Junior High School.

He has been a mem­ber of First Baptist Church on Highland Street since 1963.

Chenault is a 1975 grad­u­ate of George Rogers Clark High School and attend­ed Western Kentucky University, where he stud­ied health and phys­i­cal edu­ca­tion. Joe is mar­ried to Cleo and has a son and three grandchildren.

The can­di­date said his first pri­or­i­ty as a city com­mis­sion­er is to bring more activ­i­ties to Winchester for the town’s and coun­ty’s youth. He also wants to bring in more retail and food busi­ness­es to “main­tain a well-bal­anced space to sell goods” and attract more peo­ple to the community.

Chenault is also con­cerned about hous­ing afford­abil­i­ty and wants neigh­bor­hoods that will attract income from “a mix of res­i­dents seek­ing to find a great com­mu­ni­ty to raise their children.”