By Patricia A. Scheyer
NKyTribune reporter
Newly elected Lakeside Park council member Cassi Schabell had several city residents come to the council meeting this week to support their new council member and advocate that she be fully included in the machinations of the city of Lakeside Park.
When the residents stood up to speak, many were identified as living on the same street as Schabell, and their comments included statements that Schabell went door to door during the campaign and listened to what the residents had to say while sharing her vision for the city.
One was Schabell’s husband.
Some of the comments were about the condition of the sidewalks on Arcadia, a topic that Schabell had spoken to council many times about before she was elected and was one of the reasons that she said she decided to run for council.
Jeff Schabell stood up and asked council once again who paid for the sidewalks on North Ashbrook. Mayor Paul Markgraf said they were replaced by the city as part of the total street reconstruction.
Schabell read the ordinance of the city regarding replacement of sidewalks, emphasizing the qualifying part about the street abutting the sidewalks or running parallel to the sidewalks.
He then compared North Ashbrook and its sidewalk repair to Arcadia, where the sidewalks are in need of repair, and the residents are expected to pay for repairs themselves, which is expensive. He said the taxpayers, including himself, paid $108,000 for the sidewalks on North Ashbrook and nothing for the sidewalks on Arcadia.
“There is a big equality issue here,” he stated. “You mismanaged the money, in my opinion. I would like an investigation into the mismanagement of taxpayer funds .My question is will my request be addressed?”
“First of all, I don’t believe there was any mismanagement of funds,” Mayor Markgraf stated. “The sidewalk on Arcadia is not immediately abutting the street—–”
“It’s parallel,” Schabell interrupted. He re-read the ordinance that specified the sidewalks had to be parallel and/or abutting the street. He challenged the mayor to investigate the problem, and Markgraf said he would talk to the city attorney about it.
Cassi Schabell stepped into the conversation and asked if she could make a motion for a special council meeting to discuss specific sidewalk issues and all of the council members agreed. She already had an agenda for the special meeting, with four points to discuss: A, the sidewalk assessment project, B, sidewalk ordinances; C, road reconstruction and project involving city funds for sidewalks; and D, establishing a sidewalk task force.
But when it came to scheduling that meeting, Mayor Markgraf said they would have to get everyone’s schedule together, and they would have it before the next council meeting, and Cassi Schabell didn’t like that, because she felt it would be pushed off and consequently would not happen. Markgraf told her they would send out notices the next morning to schedule the meeting.
Meanwhile, Council member Brian Waite challenged Jeff Schabell on the mismanaged money claim, asking him if he thinks the money shouldn’t have been spent on North Ashbrook, then why would the city pay for the sidewalks on Arcadia?
Schabell agreed, saying that was his point. If the city felt that the money spent on the sidewalks on North Ashbrook was legitimate, then he thinks Arcadia should qualify for the same repair on the sidewalks. If not, he thought that the citizens of North Ashbrook should pay for his sidewalk.
Waite said he didn’t have the same view of the problem and he thought the attorneys should sort the problem out, and Schabell replied that he thought the worst solution would be to get a lot of attorneys involved.
Craig Carlson got up to talk about the Council’s committee assignments, and asked how the top vote getter in the election was relegated only to the recreation committee, while some of the other council members had three and four committee assignments.
Markgraf said it is the Mayor’s prerogative as to committee assignments, and whether a person puts out a lot of election signs and goes door to door does not mean that that person is qualified for committee assignments. He said he has five other council members who have experience in those committees. He also said that committees consider and recommend, but they don’t make final decisions.
Carlson stated that Cassi is a good person, with organizational and communication skills, and he would like to see the right people in the right seats for his city.
“And mayor, no offense to you, but you didn’t really win an election, you walked in, you backed in, no one ran against you,” Carlson stated. “And if we don’t see progress I will make sure we get a candidate who will win. I don’t know if you will want the job the next time around. You may not want it. But if you do want it, I want to see progress made on all the important things besides the sleigh rides and the Great American Ballpark night. Just keep that in mind, if you don’t get these things together.”
He exhorted the council members to get out and talk to the residents, like Cassi did, to see what is important to them.
Adam Perkins stood up and seconded a lot of what Carlson said. He told council that he doesn’t come up to council a lot, but when he looked at the committee assignments, he immediately thought of a good old boy network, and he doesn’t think that’s who this council is. He felt that it was important enough to make an effort and come up to talk to council about the issue.
Later in the meeting Mayor Markgraf explained that he will sign an executive order reappointing Council memberTom Bernheimer to the Telecommunications Board of Northern Kentucky, because the board requested that he remain on the committee due to the training involved. He added that he will sign another executive order reappointing council member Brian Waite as the primary representative to the Planning and Development services with Council member Dennis Landwehr as the alternate.
Cassi Schabell asked if regular people could be appointed as representatives, because people in the community would like to have ways to be involved with the city. It was determined that these representatives have to be city officials.
She also suggested she could be of service to the city by being added to the Public Relations committee, since she felt like she had experience in that field and Council member Mary Ann Thaman was the only person on that committee.
Mayor Markgraf said that the request was noted.
Schabell brought up that she thought the assignments were unequal, and she didn’t appreciate people questioning her competence to be on the committees. She said she had offered to help in any way she could and that invitation was ignored.
Markgraf argued heatedly that that invitation was made last February and was not repeated. He said he has offered to sit down with her, in person or on the phone, in every email he has sent to her.
Council member Waite stepped in and noted that they seemed to be spinning their wheels. He thought if he were the new member, he wouldn’t have taken the assignments personally.
Council member Dennis Landwehr said he happened to have four committees, but being an alternate to PDS only required reading a few emails. He didn’t serve as an alternate even once last term.
Council member Thaman said she would really appreciate Schabell’s help on the Public Relations committee, and Schabell said she would help on any committee if anyone needs it, and that received a good response from council.
Council member David Wolfer said he wouldn’t be offended at the assignments because he has been on council the longest, and he only ever has had one committee assignment.
“It was my decision to put you on recreation, and we will see how it goes,” said Markgraf. “The assignments can be changed.”