By Ryan Clark
NKyTribune reporter
Exactly 17 people showed up to speak at the city’s regularly scheduled legislative meeting Tuesday night, and most were there to discuss the Commission’s proposed amendment to an ordinance on short-term rentals.
The amendment would include a one-year prohibition on any operator of a short-term rental without a license from applying for a license for one year.
While those who came out for the meeting got to say their piece, it turns out they’ll have to wait one week more for a resolution, as the Commission passed the amendment over until next Tuesday’s caucus meeting, due to “changes” that needed to be made, according to the city’s legal department.
Once the changes are made, the new amendment should be decided during a special vote at the caucus, Mayor Joseph U. Meyer said.
“We got a request from the city attorney late this afternoon that he would like to suggest some changes to it,” Meyer said. “We will pass this over and we will keep it on the agenda, but we will ask the city attorney to give us the amendment so that we can consider it at the caucus meeting next week.”
“The city is experiencing a glut of unlicensed short-term rentals operating in certain areas of the city,” Covington documents read. “This addition to the short-term rental ordinance would prohibit an operator of a short-term rental from applying for a license for one year from the date they are notified that they are operating without a license … this is an addition to the ‘Penalties’ section of the Short-Term Rental Ordinance and leaves the remainder of the Ordinance unchanged.”
More than a dozen citizens came out to show their opposition to the proposal.
“I want to first of all, just start off by saying I’m a collaborator — I want to work with you guys,” said Alden Ashby. “I have several Airbnbs and this kind of just snuck up on me and I feel like it snuck up on me right at the holidays, right when I’m busy with family. And I feel like it’s not a fair way to go about changing things, especially something like this, which will not only change trajectory for me, but also all working for me. I have three cleaners and I think it’s really important to say that their livelihoods have dramatically changed because of the amount of money that they’ve made off of cleaning all these units.”
The Mayor once again reiterated why the city had come to this point.
“There were a large number of complaints,” he said, regarding the behavior of tenants in rental facilities, while people were not getting their licenses. “We’re in a situation where I think as today, we have 40 people who are licensed — and we have over 400 others who are advertising on various rental sites.”
“So, it’s only people who aren’t licensed who have been affected by this,” he continued, while noting that in the future, the city “wants to come up with a plan that is equitable and fair to the neighborhoods and to the residents of our community and to the investors.”
The amendment is expected to be voted on next week.
Auditing and Finances
Commissioners approved a proposal to enter into an agreement for Municipal Advisory Services with RSA Advisors LLC, a Kentucky Limited Liability Company from Lexington.
“The city issued an RFP for those services in October, and we received four proposals in December including RSA,” City Manager Ken Smith said last week. “RSA’s proposed fee cap ($4 per $1,000 bond issuance) was the most aggressive of all the proposals and they displayed their robust capacity and creativity by reviewing the city’s current debt.”
They also heard approved proposal to hire Barnes Dennig — a Certified Public Accounting and consulting firm serving Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky — for audit services for $79,000.
“The city issued an RFP for Audit Services in October,” city documents say. “No proposals were received. The city reached out to a number of firms in the area to assess the lack of interest. During the course of those follow up conversations Barnes Dennig expressed interest in providing the service. This engagement can be renewed for up to three additional years on an annual basis.”
City Hall Architecture
Commissioners approved a contract for the architectural services for a new City Hall.
In January, Commissioners authorized the city to enter into negotiations with Brandstetter Carroll, Inc. and Elevar Design Group to develop a contract to design a new city building at 620-622 Scott Blvd.
The two firms have more than 50 years of experience in the region, designing nearly 200 public buildings, city officials said.
While officials are not yet sure what the official cost of this phase will be, this proposal calls for a price tag of 6.5 percent of the total project cost, negotiated down from 7 percent.
Streetscape Projects
Commissioners approved two proposed memorandums of agreement for:
KYTC, Seventh Street Streetscape Project — Accepting up to $2,987,000 for the utilities and construction phases of the Seventh Street Streetscape Project from Washington to Greenup Streets.
KYTC, Madison Avenue Streetscape Project — Accepting up to $2,107,000 for the utilities and construction phases of the Madison Avenue Streetscape Project from 8th to 11th Streets.
Parks and Rec Leagues
Commissioners approved $50,000 in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding for expenses associated with supplies, equipment and fees to support the various sports leagues and after-school programming.
Water Park Roof
Commissioners approved a contract with Ace Exteriors for a new pool house roof at the Bill Cappel Water Park for $72,240 from American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding.
Ambulances
Commissioners approved the purchases of two Horton ambulances from Specialty Truck Sales and Service for $682,000.
Reappointments and Removal
Commissioners approved the reappointments and removal of:
Reappointment – Teri Meyer, Human Rights Commission
Reappointment – Brandon Mims, Human Rights Commission
Removal – Nichole Benning, Urban Forestry Board
New Hires and Promotions
Commissioners approved the hirings and promotions of:
Promotion – Alvis Barber, Light Equipment Operator
Promotion – Ryan Gribble, Light Equipment Operator
Promotion – Ryan Rickey, Light Equipment Operator
New Hire – Ryan Reder – Grade 1 Firefighter
New Hire – Jacob Moore – Grade 1 Firefighter
New Hire – Tanner Dickman – Grade 1 Firefighter
Resignation
Commissioners approved the resignation of:
Daniel Sims, Police Recruit, Police Department
Absent
Commissioner Tim Downing was absent Tuesday night.
Next Meeting
The next regularly scheduled Covington Commission meeting will be a caucus meeting held at 6 p.m., March 7, 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.