About
Since 1969, Gateway Area Development District has been committed to the regional planning, promotion, and coordination of programs for community, infrastructure, economic, and social development of Bath, Menifee, Montgomery, Morgan, and Rowan Counties.
Our Mission & Vision
Our Goals
History & Work
The multi-county structure of the districts and the natural economy of using a regional approach was a Kentucky recommendation to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson and has been written into a number of federal acts.
The grouping of counties into development districts as they are today was determined in 1967. By executive order of the Governor, all state agencies were directed to work consistently with the fifteen designated areas in developing and implementing local area approaches to programs and projects.
The Gateway Area Development District– the partnership of Bath, Menifee, Montgomery, Morgan, and Rowan Counties, received Appalachian Regional Commission designation and funding in January, 1968 and the District was formally incorporated in 1969.
On February 10, 1972 the Kentucky General Assembly established the area development districts as special purpose units of government with enactment of Kentucky Revised Statute 147A.050 120.
The Area Development District concept originated in Kentucky under Governor Bert T. Combs Administration in 1961.
Meeting with the Governor of Kentucky. L-R: President John F. Kennedy; Governor of Kentucky, Bert T. Combs; Senator John Sherman Cooper (Kentucky). Oval Office, White House, Washington, D.C.