The Northern Kentucky Tribune has offered a thoughtful debate.
Col Owens argues that with 400,000 people spread across dozens of cities, we waste money duplicating services and weaken our clout. Jim Dady counters that our “big collection of small towns” is a strength, especially when we already cooperate regionally on things like transit, water, sanitation, BE NKY, and the airport.
They’re both circling the same truth: our problem isn’t the number of cities. It’s the lack of consistent accountability inside and out.
Mr. Dady says our communities are “doing pretty well.” I’d ask: who is doing well? The tax base? The consumer of services? Or the myriad of elected, appointed, and public servants who benefit from the current structure?
Small government can be nimble, responsive, and close to the people. It can also be a perfect place for bad habits to hide.
In Bromley, the State Police served search warrants for City Records, and the mayor and building inspector immediately resigned. A few years later, MeetNKY’s finance director stole over $4,000,000 via wire fraud. Last month, the City of Florence discovered “revenue diversion activities within a specific revenue stream” and asked the FBI to investigate.
These are not just “local quirks.” They mean real money, from real people, went somewhere it shouldn’t have.
Five practical steps we can take now without erasing a single city limit sign:
• Put working families at the center of the conversation. Every time we talk about “unity” or “small is beautiful,” we should be asking one simple follow-up: Does this structure lower costs or raise them for renters, first-time homebuyers, and small businesses? If your system protects a few insiders and shifts the bill to everyone else, that’s not local pride. That’s feudalism with better branding.
• Regional standards for transparency. Every city in Boone, Kenton, and Campbell counties should meet the same minimum bar using OpenGOV.com.
• Consolidate back-office, not identities. Owens is right: we don’t need 15 flavors of everything. We could centralize some shared services (IT, payroll, HR, financial controls, police, and fire standards) at the county or regional level while preserving each city’s elected leadership and local flavor.
• Tie dollars to clean books. The federal and state governments have leverage. If a city wants big grants, bonds, or special incentives, it should meet higher standards. Example: Ludlow never repaid the Community Development Block Grant for the new Grocery store, pharmacy, and doctor’s office. Today, only the grocery store is open, and Ludlow can’t qualify for CDBG opportunities.
• Ethics for appointments. Conflict disclosures, recusal rules, and plain-language decisions for zoning/code boards.
The Northern Kentucky Area Planning Commission had to change its name in 1982 when Campbell County’s “Ax the Tax” movement left the agency, leaving only Kenton on the “commission.” In 2011, election officials decided against allowing a referendum on what clearly looks like taxation without representation. In 2012, I started selling beer at the Ludlow Theatre under the name Gourmet Renee LLC, eventually Bircus. In 2013, I read the book Kenton County Together: A Call to Action – Our Report to the Public, a series of essays by prominent local figures, sharing how we got here and what needed to change. Too much of it still hasn’t.
The appointed are those who have the real power. Here in Kenton County, seven people appointed to make zoning decisions hold enormous sway over land use and economic development. The last time we attempted to seek a zoning change (we withdrew it before the vote), the deciding seats came from Bromley (pop. 717), Elsmere (9,144), Ryland Heights (936), Kenton Vale (103), unincorporated Kenton County (population unpublished), and Ludlow (4,332) – where the seat was vacant when we applied. I believe this is taxation without representation in practice. Where do Property Rights fit into Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?
Nearly 250 years old, the USA appointed the world’s richest man from South Africa to implement sweeping changes that reverberate globally. March 6, 2025, I met Tyler Hacking, principal commercial officer at the US Consulate in Cape Town, and two of his staff from USAID came in to say goodbye on their last day of work. I was there funded via a Federal Export Program Grant, exporting our beer and circus project. Trying to cheer them up, I was able to balance a chair on my chin.
I agree with Mr. Dady, who writes, “In multifariousness lies diversity.” I had to look that word up. It’s a fancy way to say what we now call D.E.I. Our community is certainly stronger with many voices. Our companies have legally hosted artists from 50 nations in Ludlow, creating a resilient community.
In this time of political tension, my goal has been to share the story of the Estonian Singing Revolution, where the entire country came together between 1987 and 1991 to sing. In one voice, the chorus forced the flailing Soviet Union to leave without a single person killed. I toured Tallinn’s Festival Grounds in 2016. This story never got the attention that Tiananmen Square did, but the Estonians achieved independence.
We kid ourselves if we think we can keep marketing our region as “booming” while shrugging off local scandals as one-offs. The fiefdoms of Northern Kentucky are many, and accountability and oversight are challenging. We see a diffusion of responsibility by design, taking from the serfs to feed the barons and kings.
We can find ways of working together, like the singers in Estonia who changed their country not by shouting each other down, but by standing side by side in song.
Paul Hallinan Miller is a clown, father, social entrepreneur, author, and mayoral candidate in 2026.