By Ryan Clark
NKyTribune reporter
Once again, Covington Mayor Joseph U. Meyer found himself justifying why the city would transfer parking responsibilities to an authority.
And, once again, he explained — this time in response to questions from City Commissioner Nolan Nicaise — that the Authority would serve three purposes.
“One, better management of our parking assets,” Meyer said. “When they’re looked at as part of the city government overall portfolio, we have not done a very good job, and it winds up being a competition for improvement — parking assets versus other investments in the city.”
It leads to parking assets deteriorating, the Mayor said.
“So today we’re paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for repairs to the garage, for example, that should have been done years ago,” he said. “The second thing is, we have set the Parking Authority up as an enterprise activity; in other words, their job is to make money for the city.”
Thirdly, he said, the fundamental reason for the transfer of assets is to “establish the financial capability of the Parking Authority.”
Or, in other words, “give it sufficient assets, so it can go to the market to borrow money. When we’re looking at the IRS site, for example, the Parking Authority has the legal capacity to borrow the money to build the new parking garage there. That means it won’t be on the city books, and it means it will be paid for out of Parking Authority revenues.”
With that, Commissioners — who were meeting at their regularly scheduled caucus Tuesday night — moved on to another topic, placing four connected items on the regular agenda of next week’s legislative meeting.
The items, which include two amendments and two transfers, will effectively move all assets from the city to the Parking Authority.
In 2018, the city created the Parking Authority, one of just three in the state (along with Lexington and Louisville) as an enterprise fund, which means it can charge fees and generate revenue.
They also set up a memorandum of understanding that called for the city to transfer assets to the Parking Authority. This transfer, if approved next week, would satisfy that memorandum.
Short-term rentals
Last Thursday night at the Life Learning Center, the city held a public hearing to discuss short-term rentals, a topic Commissioners have been debating since December.
“I want to give a short-term rental update,” Mayor Meyer said. “We held the public hearing last week at the Life Learning Center. All of the members were present. We had eight people talk. The input from the audience was, quite frankly, professional, fair, honest and generally supportive. Where we are in the process now is that we have taken all of the input that’s been provided by e-mail, by letter, by public comments, and our staff has begun identifying what changes should be made to the existing ordinance.”
Meyer said there are really just a “handful” of changes to be made on the policy side, with “nothing of significance in terms of substance.”
“There are a number of editorial comments and language comments that we still have to work our way through,” he said. “It is the goal to have this draft ordinance revised, approved and distributed to everybody by Friday so that we can then put it on the agenda for a first reading for Tuesday of next week.”
In December, Commissioners voted to approve a temporary moratorium on the city’s acceptance, review, and processing of new license applications for short-term rental dwellings.
Citing “many hundreds” of short-term rentals in the city, City Solicitor David Davidson explained the emergency, as well as the need to legislate it.
“It’s safe to say that there are many hundreds of short-term rentals going on in the city where we have permits and licenses for maybe 20 percent of those — probably not even 20 percent — so we have a state of affairs in the city where our laws are not being adhered to that I think is a pretty significant occurrence, and by itself would be suggestive of an emergency,” Davidson said. “We also have the fact that the short-term rentals are directly impacting the availability of affordable housing. Apartment buildings that once housed two, three, four families now sit empty except on weekends.”
Back in December, Commissioners voted 4-0 and approved the temporary moratorium. Later in the meeting, Commissioner Ron Washington proposed a motion.
“I’ve received a lot of public feedback about our short-term rentals, pros and cons,” he said. “I just want to make sure that as we’re going through this process over the next six months that our public, our citizens, are heard — so I’m going to offer this amendment up to the Board of Commissioners: I make a motion to order the city manager to solicit public input on short-term rentals. The city manager shall invite the public to a hearing to discuss the pros and cons of short-term rentals. He shall generate a report of said hearing to the commissioner.”
Commissioners then approved the amendment.
Covington Academy of Heritage Trades
Commissioners heard proposals on two grant agreements with the Kentucky Tourism Arts and Heritage Cabinet and the Kentucky Heritage Council (KHC) to fund:
• The expenses related to instructor fees at the Covington Academy of Heritage Trades in the amount of $21.000. This is a reimbursement grant program, which requires matching funds in the amount of $14,000. Matching funds will be a cash match from the Covington Academy of Heritage trades through program income and fundraising.
• The expenses related to marketing at the Covington Academy of Heritage Trades in the amount of $12,000. This is a reimbursement grant program. This grant requires matching funds in the amount of $8,000.
These proposals were placed on next week’s consent agenda.
Second Reading of Ordinances
Next week, Commissioners will hear second readings (and take votes) on these ordinances:
• An ordinance amending the Covington code: chapter 92 nuisances, that will try to address noise problems in the city — especially in relation to bars. This ordinance change will “empower the ABC administrator to get involved in regulating noise if it is coming from bars and to try to deal with those issues,” said City Solicitor David Davidson.
• An ordinance amending the Covington code: chapter 112 alcoholic beverages.
• An ordinance amending the city’s 2022/2023 budget, reappropriating and reapportioning the anticipated general fund revenue and the anticipated revenue of all other funds of the city of Covington, Ky., for the fiscal year beginning on July 1, 2022, and ending June 30, 2023, among the various departments and for the general and special purposes as indicated in the “recommended all funds operating budget 2022/2023” to meet the expenses of the city of Covington, Ky., for the said fiscal year.
• An ordinance amending section 110.03 of the Covington Code of Ordinances to increase certain occupational license tax thresholds and provide for review of the occupational license tax thresholds by the city’s finance director every five years.
• An ordinance appropriating and apportioning the anticipated general fund revenue and the anticipated revenue of all other funds of the city of Covington, for the fiscal year beginning on July 1, 2023, and ending June 30, 2024, among the various departments and for the general and special purposes as indicated in the “recommended all funds operating budget 2023/2024” to meet the expenses of the city of Covington for the said fiscal year.
Essentially, these changes would: Add $1.5 million to general fund transfer revenue and expense, add a new fund, Fund 13 — National Opioid Settlement, with revenue of $800,000, and add $1.5 million to Self-Insured Employee Health Plan Fund revenue and expense
Next Meeting
The next regularly scheduled Covington Commission meeting will be a legislative meeting held at 6 p.m., June 27, 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.