By Ryan Clark
NKyTribune reporter
Mayor Joseph U. Meyer put it bluntly: If the Northern Kentucky Port Authority won’t follow the rules, then Covington won’t do business with them.
Near the end of the city’s regularly scheduled legislative meeting Tuesday night, Mayor Meyer noted that he had a few comments to make. One was about the ongoing issues with the Northern Kentucky Port Authority.
“We’ve talked about this off and on for several months now, and recently, the Port Authority has said in a definitive way that they will simply not agree to commit to follow the city’s zoning, our neighborhood development code, our historic preservation code, our design standards or our infrastructure rules,” he said. “In other words, they want to be free agents and come into Covington and do whatever they want and impose their values and their views on Covington and ignore the values that Covington and its elected officials have established.”
Meyer pointed out that the Port Authority members come from three different counties, and none are from Covington.
“None of them have any experience in economic development in our community, and why they think that their opinions are more important than our opinions … is beyond me,” he said.
He noted how this summer, he gave a speech to the Covington Business Council in which he talked about the need for a “dispute resolution mechanism.”
“When you have regional bodies that want to come in and impose external standards on our cities in particular, this is evidence of the need for that sort of dispute resolution mechanism,” he said.
Meyer then requested that the Commission prepare a resolution for consideration at next week’s caucus meeting.
“We let the folks at the Port Authority know how serious we are about their compliance with our rules,” Meyer said. “And if they are not willing to give us a written commitment to comply with our rules, (then) they will simply not be welcome to do business in Covington — and they should not expect to get any cooperation from the city of Covington for any project that they may want to bring into our city.”
Both Commissioners Ron Washington and Steve Hayden agreed with the sentiments.
Also Tuesday
KYTC Road Transfers
Commissioners approved an agreement with the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet for the roadway ownership transfer of Madison Avenue (from 20th to 12th Street) from the city of Covington to KYTC; and Scott and Greenup Streets from KY 1120 (12th Street/11th Street) to 20th Street from KYTC to the city of Covington; and 20th Street from Madison Avenue to Greenup Street from KYTC to the city of Covington.
The transfers are part of the long-awaited conversion of Scott and Greenup from one-way to two-way between 12th and 20th.
“Our goal is for a lot of the final engineering work to be completed by the city’s consultants and submitted to the cabinet before the end of December with the goal of working through the process so that the project can be bid next spring,” Mayor Meyer said last week.
Southbank RAISE Grant
Commissioners approved the allocation of $49,742.60 (over two years) as the City of Covington’s portion of the local match for the $3,774,940 Riverfront Commons RAISE Grant, which adds another phase to the riverfront hike and bike trail.
Rule Change
The Mayor suggested that Commissioners consider a rule change that will allow the City Manager to offer his updates at their regular meetings each week.
“For both the caucus meeting and the legislative meeting, in which the City Manager gives a report on activities undertaken by his office and issues that he thinks are important to bring to the Commission’s attention,” Mayor Meyer said.
The proposed weekly report would start after the first of the year.
Israeli/Hamas Resolution
About 15 residents attended the meeting to discuss a proposed resolution regarding the Israeli/Hamas conflict. During the comments phase of Tuesday night’s meeting, residents said they thought the city should adopt the resolution, while others disagreed.
“Fostering peace and stability requires addressing the root causes of this conflict and acknowledging the rights and dignity of both Israelis and Palestinians, whereas hundreds of thousands of lives are in intimate risk if a permanent ceasefire is not achieved and humanitarian aid is not delivered without delay,” the resolution stated, in part.
However, other residents felt the resolution needed to be reworked.
“I have to ask, first of all, that the city deeply consider whether it’s appropriate to take up this proclamation right now,” stated attorney Rob Craig. “I just don’t think that it’s appropriate for the city to be taking a position on this, but if you choose that you want to start weighing in on international issues like this, this proclamation is entirely one-sided and it would need to be substantially reworked.”
Craig’s comments were met with a round of boos, causing the Mayor to call for order and remind the audience that everyone’s opinion should be respected. He also reminded the crowd that the Board of Commissioners do not respond or act on public comments.
“The Board of Commissioners will take this request under consideration, and I’ll thank everybody for their presentations tonight and for bringing these issues to our attention,” Mayor Meyer said. “With that, we’ll move on with the next item.”
JS Held extension
Commissioners approved an extension of the city’s contract with JS Held for two more years of expertise concerning the Covington Central Riverfront development for $490,000.
JS Held has been under contract with the city since October 2021 as owner’s agent of Covington Central Riverfront development, throughout the process of IRS facility demolition and site preparation for redevelopment.
“The owner’s agent is responsible for on-the-ground oversight of the project,” city documents say. “As this project enters a complex phase of infrastructure build-out, transfer of parcel ownership and assistance to developers of requisite permits, access, timing of activity, etc., it is in the interest of the City to continue a contractual relationship with JS Held, as they are well-qualified, knowledgeable and intimately involved in the varied complexities of this large development project; working with multiple developers, the City, regulatory agencies, utility companies and other stakeholders to complete this project timely and responsibly.”
Resignations
Commissioners approved these resignations:
Sheena Switzer, Parks and Recreation Administrative Assistant
Sarah Allan, Assistant Director of Economic Development
Absent
Commissioners Tim Downing and Shannon Smith were absent Tuesday night.
Next Meeting
The next regularly scheduled Covington Commission meeting will be a caucus meeting held at 6 p.m., Dec. 12, 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.
