By Patricia Scheyer
NKyTribune reporter
Kentucky Senator Chris McDaniel was given the Kentucky League of Cities ‘Friend of the Cities’ award Saturday morning at the regular Kenton County Mayors meeting held at the Crescent Springs Fire Department.
The “Friend of the City” award goes to the legislators who most uphold the KLC standards of shaping the future of the Commonwealth. This is the sixth time that Senator McDaniel has won the award, having won it in 2014, 2017, 2018, 2022, 2023, and 2025.
Some of the issues he has succeeded in helping to advance are the reduction in the state income tax, taking it down incrementally, and in the 2025 session, House Bill 1 reduced the state income tax from 4 percent to 3.5 percent, effective January 1, 2026.
McDaniel worked on the criminalization of child sized sex dolls and AI-based child exploitation images in 2024.
He presented a bill on the Senate floor making it a class D felony to own or or sell a child sized sex doll. That same bill also makes using artificial intelligence to create child pornography criminal.
McDaniel was influential in passing Kentucky’s two year state budget, a document that included a good amount of investments in workforce, education, economic development and childcare funding.
He also filed Senate Bill 10, legislation which proposes a constitutional amendment to move elections for governor, attorney general and other state constitutional officers to even numbered years, which would align them with presidential elections, and this would start after 2027.
McDaniel sponsored Senate Bill 126, which would amend the constitution of Kentucky so that it limits the governor’s pardon and commutation ability 30 days before a gubernatorial election through the next inauguration.
Just recently, he sponsored a bill that would prohibit hormone treatment or elective surgery for gender reassignment, and another bill which would create an emergency volunteer corps within the Kentucky State Defense Force. He also sponsored a resolution honoring the life of Patrick J Crowley, a popular NKY journalist.
He is currently helping with the short term rental problem.
McDaniel has served as state senator in district 23 since 2013, and he is very accessible to the cities that he serves, being on a first name basis with mayors and council members in his district. Many of the constituents praise him for being accessible, and for listening,
He received the award from KLC Director of Government Affairs, Gracie Kelly.
Another topic in the mayors’ meeting was again the e-bikes and e-scooters that kids are riding around the city streets and on the sidewalk. Villa Hills Mayor Heather Jansen asked the mayors who attended the KLC meetings last month if the KLC had any answers, but they said people in the KLC listened but had no answers, although they are looking at how to identify the e-bikes and e-scooters.
Kentucky State Representative Kim Banta was at the meeting and she told the group that if they have something solid she can help with at the state level, she would be glad to take it up at the legislative session. She did suggest getting information out to the public to help them be aware of the problem.
Elsmere council member Joanne Barnett-Smith said that the topic was discussed at their meeting and Mayor Marty Lenhof is going to consult with their police chief and try to come up with some sort of an ordinance to regulate the vehicles.
Taylor Mill Mayor Dan Bell said that in his city, students that go to Scott High School ride the e vehicles on both sides of the street on the sidewalks and in the bike lane in the street.
The problem, most of them agree about, is that the kids ride so fast and don’t always look where they are going, so they are a hazard to drivers and to pedestrians on the sidewalks.
But regulating the vehicles is not going to be easy.
“I mentioned weight, some of these bikes don’t have pedals now, so is it a bicycle?” said Fort Mitchell Mayor Jude Hehman. “I have a few people that work at Krogers, they have been there a long time. They live down in your fine city. They ride all the way here on bikes with a motor, and that’s how they get to work.”
He said they have to identify first what they are, to classify them, and they will need help to put them into some kind of category.
“It used to be skateboards in the expressway plaza,” said Emergency Management Director Steve Hensley. “Now it’s motorized scooters!”
Hehman said and they don’t know what is in the future—possibly hoverboards, which aren’t too futuristic now.
Mayor Jansen said right now people are just buying these things for their kids, and turning them loose. She agreed with others that the schools might have to get involved and do safety seminars for the kids, and possibly their parents.
As Mayor Hehman said, the problem is a large one, and it is difficult to know where to start to try and regulate it.
“The way I see it, it’s going to get worse before it gets better,” said Mayor Bell.