By Patricia A. Scheyer
NKyTribune reporter
It was a disappointing ending to a novel and useful idea.
Walton City Council didn’t even vote down the resolution allowing Mayor Gabriel Brown to enter into negotiations with the Northern Kentucky Police Chiefs Association to possibly lease 11 acres of land to build a combined fire and police training center.
Council just let it die, refusing to give a second to councilmember Amy Long’s motion for the resolution.
The approximate 25 people, residents and non-residents, who came to the meeting seemed satisfied, even happy with the defeat of the resolution.
“I live in reality,” Mayor Brown had said before the meeting, indicating that although he thought four members of council liked the training facility idea, he had no idea how the vote would turn out.
He didn’t think there would be no vote. Only one of the four who liked the idea spoke up about it.
Councilmember Amy Long talked about how she thought it was a great idea, and that officers need the training the center could provide, especially with crime on the rise. She said the Northern Kentucky area needs a team of skilled officers.
“It is an honor to me to know that our city would be able to provide them,” she said.
Although Brown had sustained a verbal shellacking at a three hour public hearing a week ago, he acknowledged that he might have been naive in his thinking, failing to be informed enough, and he believed that no one attacked his character, just the idea.
“I really appreciate the meeting last week because it gave me an opportunity to hear the citizens’ concerns,” he said after the resolution was formally read. “I am still very much for this, I think it is a great need not only for the region but I think it is a great benefit for the city. However, I did listen, and frankly I must apologize, I was a little naive on some things, maybe the charitable side of me….. I want to be able to discuss this further. People asked for plans, costs and the benefits to the city. Those are legitimate questions and concerns. This resolution allows me to go forth and try to work on what we will agree to and what we won’t, and present this back for the information to the citizens. I love this town, I absolutely do. I was born and raised here, and I promise you I would never try to do anything that I didn’t think was good for the city. Give me a chance on this, and allow me to work something out here.”
But time after time, people stood up and offered a reason why they didn’t want the training center, because of noise, pollution, excess traffic, estimates of cost. Everyone had a reason they didn’t want it to be built, and several accused Brown of not listening to them. No one there offered a positive opinion. One man wanted to know if the land had been donated so that it could be used as a park, and Brown told him the park is well on its way to completion. One woman said Brown was sneaking around, and talking to council members secretly, which is not allowed by law, and called the project a “jackass effort” on Brown’s part.
Councilmember Terri Courtney asked how deep the city was into this idea, holding up the plans from Branstetter Carroll.
The city had no money at all in the drawings, Brown told her, and explained that the NKY Police Chiefs Association had commissioned and paid for the drawings. Courtney brought up that Brown seemed to have had meetings for the last six to eight months without council knowing, so she thought that he might have encouraged plans that were above and beyond what he should have planned without telling council.
“It’s just the cart before the horse again,” Courtney said. “You talk about working with council, please, work with council, that’s what we ask.”
“I could’ve come in here with a bar napkin and an idea, and you would have laughed me out of here,” Brown retorted. “I show up here with a concept plan, and I’m damned if I do, and dammed if I don’t in my book.”
Brown said he took what the people said last week so seriously that he spent his entire Saturday reading material provided to him about indoor gun ranges, both the decibels, and the pollution from the lead.
He talked about the traffic, but he said the traffic from the park that is being created will provide most of the increase in the traffic, especially to the residents of Church street. The park will be open all year round. He said they are going to work on infrastructure.
“In my mind, and in my heart I believe that this was an absolute gift to the city of Walton, and it is a gift from God, and we have an abundance, and I was raised that we should share with others and be charitable, and that’s the way I felt in my heart,” he said. “Maybe I didn’t see some of the other things. And I wasn’t prepared for every single question. It wouldn’t have made any sense to have engineering studies done to the fullest degree with grading, geotech, for anybody, whether its the chiefs’ association or the city of Walton for something that is not approved, at least in principle. So we’ve got an idea, we’ve got a concept. I have been putting in the work on this, and I have been trying.”
The people didn’t buy into his idea.
Brown said that was okay, the other people love their town, too. He said he will put his head down and keep working, addressing their traffic concerns, and the pedestrian bridge.
“I wanted to do something bold and positive, that would help people and make Walton stand out a bit,” he said. “I won’t bring it back up for awhile. I may have pushed a little too hard. I will focus on the positive.”