McCracken County Fiscal Court opened its Sept. 8 meeting with extended tributes to Steve Doolittle, the longtime city and county official who died shortly before the court's Aug. 25 session. Court leaders said Doolittle served the city and county in planning and administrative roles for decades and credited him with leading or contributing to a number of local development projects.

Court members said Doolittle worked in many municipal and county roles after joining city staff around 1972 and later serving as county administrator and deputy judge executive. Judge Lamer and other court members described him as a long-serving planner and problem-solver whose work included early planning for the county greenway trail, negotiations and grant work for the Carson Four Rivers Center, zoning work for the county, improvements to jail and 9-1-1 operations, and planning for a regional industrial park and riverfront projects.

Speakers recalled Doolittle’s role in introducing the city’s geographic information system and his hands-on work on projects ranging from Fountain Avenue and Lower Town development to sports park and convention-center initiatives. Court members said he frequently worked across administrations and stayed in local government through many mayoral and managerial changes. The court noted press references to Doolittle dating to the early 1970s and said he was quoted in more than a thousand local stories over his career.

Remarks at the meeting also recognized Doolittle’s efforts to support staff and negotiate for employee pay and benefits, his role in emergency-management improvements, and his work on zoning and flood mitigation. Court members urged Doolittle’s family to take comfort in the breadth of his local work and the respect he commanded in the community.

The remarks were ceremonial and recorded as acknowledgments on the court record; no formal policy action or directive resulted from the memorial segment. The court proceeded to regular business after the tributes.