By Ryan Clark
NKyTribune reporter
COVINGTON – The demo is a go.
Ken Smith, Covington’s City Manager, told Commissioners last week that the city was close to coming to an agreement with O’Rourke Wrecking Company for demolition of the IRS site. After releasing a request for proposals in late November, the city interviewed three companies for the eight-month project, Smith said.
The deal is finished and has now moved to the city approval phase. Tuesday night, Commissioners got legislative for the first part of their regularly scheduled caucus meeting.
Smith told Commissioners that the $1,293,759 deal was complete.
O’Rourke Wrecking Company (the lowest by far of the three finalists) will handle the demolition of the site.
It was not certain when the demolition would begin, but the project is supposed to last eight months, and involve:
• Removing environmental hazards.
• Salvaging the site.
• Demolition.
• Site regrading and backfill.
The city will then begin the process of selecting an engineering firm to draw up designs for the “horizontal infrastructure” on the site, including streets, sidewalks, and utilities.
The agreement passed 5-0, and afterward, Commissioners went back to their caucus meeting.
Police cars
Commissioners heard a proposed budget amendment to transfer $500,000 and purchase 10 police cars for the city.
Chief Robert Nader explained that five out of the last 10 years, the department had purchased no cars, and that he’d “been able to band-aid it together” by buying older vehicles from other area departments and only running half the normal time.
In January, Commissioner Ron Washington asked the City Manager if he could come up with a plan to purchase 10 new fully equipped police cars for the fleet.
Commissioners made a motion for this action, which was approved unanimously.
The proposed amendment will get a first reading next week.
VS Engineering
Public Works Director Chris Warneford asked Commissioners to enter into an agreement with VS Engineering for an additional $69,900 to complete new tasks necessary to implement the city’s Stormwater Management Program.
Warneford said their investigation actually discovered triple the number of complaints and Mayor Meyer explained that VS Engineering will actually have a report in about 4-6 weeks to try and identify the “systemic cause” of the flooding in the city, including all findings and recommendations.
The agreement was placed on next week’s consent agenda.
Contract Renewals
The Police Department asked for contract renewals for:
• James Donaldson
• Corey Warner
The renewals were placed on next week’s consent agenda.
ARPA Stipends
Because the FOP declined to approve their latest contract agreement, Mayor Joseph U. Meyer said that ARPA (America Rescue Plan Act) funding could actually take several months to come through — because it can only come through when there is an agreement.
That is, unless a change is made. Meyer suggested they do just that.
“Tying the ARPA funding to the contract negotiations was an error,” he said. “We shouldn’t have done it.”
Instead, he directed the city manager to use a model based on one used by Lexington/Fayette County to disperse $5,000 stipend payments to police officers and $3,500 stipends to other city workers.
Mayor Meyer suggested it should be on the agenda for next week, and City Manager Smith agreed.
Reassess Priorities
Commissioner Tim Downing said he would like the group to reassess the commission’s priorities and update and reorder them, if necessary.
The Mayor agreed.
Next Meeting
The next regularly scheduled Covington Commission meeting will be a legislative meeting held at 6 p.m., Feb. 8, at the City Building at 20 W. Pike St. in Covington. The meetings can be followed live on Fioptics channel 815, Spectrum channel 203, the Telecommunications Board of Northern Kentucky (TBNK) website, the TBNK Facebook page @TBNKonline, and the TBNK Roku channels.