Pasley seeks second term as magistrate

Ernest Pasley is run­ning again for mag­is­trate to fin­ish what he started.

The incum­bent Republican, one of three can­di­dates in his party’s pri­ma­ry for the 2^nd District seat on the Fiscal Court, believes his first term has been pro­duc­tive, and he would like to keep those gains on track.

He cites sev­er­al projects he has played an impor­tant part in, includ­ing a new water line on Irvine Road, paving grav­el roads and oth­ers that hadn’t been resur­faced in decades, expand­ing broad­band access, help­ing place the first fire hydrants in District 2, sup­port­ing a new fire sta­tion on Rockwell Road, pur­chas­ing a new fire truck, and secur­ing rais­es for firefighters.

During his three years on the East Clark County Water District Board and four years as a mag­is­trate, he said, he has helped secure near­ly $1.5 mil­lion to mod­ern­ize a pump sta­tion and aging water lines through­out East Clark County.

Pasley said one rea­son he ran for mag­is­trate was to ensure the east­ern part of the coun­ty gets its fair share from state and local gov­ern­ment, which he believes hasn’t always been the case.

“In my career and in my ser­vice to the com­mu­ni­ty, I’d built a lot of rela­tion­ships, and I felt like I could bring some atten­tion to that area,” he said.

Pasley, an eighth-gen­er­a­tion Clark Countian whose grand­par­ents were from Kiddville, was born in Winchester and now lives in the coun­try. He grad­u­at­ed from George Rogers Clark in 1989, became inter­est­ed in com­put­ers, and lat­er took cours­es at the University of Kentucky and Lexington Community College.

He began his career with Haydon Brothers con­struc­tion when it was build­ing the Paris Walmart and learned about gov­ern­ment by work­ing with the Transportation Cabinet on road projects. He even­tu­al­ly became gen­er­al super­in­ten­dent, man­ag­ing 225 employ­ees and a $40 mil­lion budget.

After leav­ing Haydon, Pasley worked in the tire indus­try, first for Bob Sumerel Tire and now for U.S. AutoForce, where he is Mid-Atlantic Region sales man­ag­er over­see­ing more than $2 bil­lion in annu­al sales and a work­force of over 30 employ­ees. He also oper­ates a beef cat­tle farm in Clark County.

Pasley, 54, a for­mer Democrat, has been active in Republican pol­i­tics for 12 years and serves on the coun­ty party’s exec­u­tive board. He has vol­un­teered with the Salvation Army and FFA and coached YMCA T‑ball. He and his fam­i­ly are active mem­bers of Grace Baptist Church.

Pasley and his wife, Jenny, have a son, Morgan, a daugh­ter, Alissa, and four grand­chil­dren, includ­ing one born last month.

He was first elect­ed mag­is­trate in 2022 and is seek­ing a sec­ond term.

Pasley said for­mer County Judge-Executive Les Yates “paint­ed a pic­ture of the coun­ty that it was broke and in per­il and all was lost. That’s not true.” He said the coun­ty has $3.2 mil­lion in the bank, “so we’re not broke,” but added that it does have “a spend­ing dis­ci­pline problem.”

He also crit­i­cized the lack of grant appli­ca­tions com­ing from the judge-executive’s office, say­ing that must change because most fund­ing for roads and major projects comes from state and fed­er­al sources.

“You have to have rela­tion­ships with peo­ple at that lev­el to get that mon­ey,” he said, adding that he believes he has those relationships.

Pasley said the coun­ty needs busi­ness and job growth to expand the tax base, but he doesn’t want sprawl­ing devel­op­ment. Residential growth alone, he said, doesn’t gen­er­ate enough rev­enue to cov­er services.

He point­ed to the planned truck stop at I‑64 and Paris Road as the kind of devel­op­ment that would sig­nif­i­cant­ly ben­e­fit the county.

For the 2^nd District, the Republican pri­ma­ry will effec­tive­ly decide the race unless a Democrat files as a write-in.

Pasley said he hopes vot­ers will stay the course.

“I’m not run­ning to grow our gov­ern­ment, I’m run­ning to help the peo­ple who are already pay­ing for it,” he said.

“I believe in faith, fam­i­ly, and free­dom, and I will con­tin­ue to car­ry those val­ues in every deci­sion I make.”