Ewing, KY makes the NY Times

[groovedaddy]

EWING, Ky. — Leaders of this town in the bluegrass country of northeast Kentucky are facing a problem any mayor would envy: how to spend a windfall.

Well, a small-town windfall at least. Ewing, population 300, has limped along for decades with no independent revenues, and its residents are fed up enough with having to pay county property taxes. But later this year, it will start collecting a grand total of $12,000 a year or more from a new tax that came about through quirks of fate and law.

For a place with dreams of recovering its former bustle, or at least staying on the map, the revenue opens enthralling new vistas.

“We hope it will be $18,000, but we’ll take $12,000, since we’re not used to having anything,” said Elzie Price, 53, the town treasurer, who works for a farm supply company by day and raises tobacco, hay and cattle on evenings and weekends — and now will be happily busier in his city job, too.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/us/13ewing.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin