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Covington Mayor Joseph Meyer provides overview of first months in office at July LBA luncheon


By Mark Hansel
NKyTribune managing editor

Covington Mayor Joseph U. Meyer was the featured speaker at the July meeting of the Latonia Business Association (LBA), and talked about a busy first 200 days in office.

“We are working to bring new values to City Hall,” Meyer said. “The work of our city government achieves its value only when it improves the quality of life for the people that live in our city and everything else is sort of driven by that view.”

Meyer, who defeated former Mayor Sherry Carran in November, said he views the city as having a different role than that of the previous administration.

“We’re not the guys who make it happen, you are the ones who make it happen and the City’s job is to play a support role,” Meyer said. “To plow the ground and to unleash the energy and the talent of the people who live here, who invest here, who work here. I ran on a platform of culture change in Covington city government, a focus on customer service and the reduction, if not the outright elimination of drama, to the extent possible.”

Meyer spoke on a number of topics and admitted he would get a bit “wonky” in discussing city government but touched on many issues that were a focus during the campaign.

He talked about the changes to the way in which the City Commission operates that have been implemented since January.

“You think change of rules may not be such a big deal, it was a big deal because government had not operated with rules of procedure for quite some time,” Meyer said. “We focused on the authority of the commissioners. All of the city’s legislative and executive authority by law is in the five people who make up the board of commissioners, not the city manager.”

Covington Mayor Joe Meyer addresses the crowd at the Covington Business Association Luncheon (photos by Mark Hansel).

He explained that while the city manager is the chief administrative officer of the city, it is the responsibility of the mayor and board of commissioners to set the policy. They make the executive branch decisions and delegate authority to the city manager.

“Now, this is a new role for some of our commissioners and the effect of it is to make us more responsible and more accountable for the decisions that are being made in our city government,” Meyer said. “It’s not somebody sitting over here, it’s the five people you elected and we have direct accountability to you, as voters. It’s our job to respond to your needs as a community and direct the staff to help meet the needs of the people.”

The commission sets the agenda for the legislative meetings now and all items are required to be submitted through a caucus meeting, before they can be voted on in a public meeting.

Items to be considered are presented to the caucus and the commission votes to put the items on the agenda. A consent calendar has also been adopted, which allows a group of routine business items to be approved with one vote.

The City Commission has also taken an official position against the Brent Spence Bridge Corridor project.

“In a word, it’s a disaster for Covington,” Meyer said. “We’ve communicated with all of the appropriate parties that when you are making these kind of decisions, think about the impact on us and do what needs to be done to abate, or to lessen that impact on our community.”

“The work of our city government achieves its value only when it improves the quality of life for the people that live in our city and everything else is sort of driven by that view,” Covington Mayor Joseph Meyer

The City Commission also adopted a no demolition policy.

“The city isn’t going out and demolishing lots of buildings any more unless there is a specific commission approval,” Meyer said.

For the first time in a few years, the city has signed contracts with its three unions. Covington Professional Firefighters,Local Union No. 38,  the Fraternal Order of Police and AFSCME have all signed agreements, although the FOP contract expires at the end of the year.

Meyer also talked about some of the residential developments also underway, or in the planning stages.

The Views started a new development of 18 town homes, with an average beginning selling price of $835,000 each, with zero incentives from the city, which Meyer described as “just market-rate housing at its best.” He also mentioned the planned redevelopment of the Bradford at Fourth and Scott and recent approval from Kenton County planning and zoning for a zone change incentive to the city that will allow Henry Fischer to continue the development of the Tuscany project. The developer plans to add more than 1,000 condominium units in the next decade.

“So, I think I can stand here today and say the days of Covington’s population decline look like they are in the rear-view mirror,” Meyer said.

The MainStrasse parking situation, which Meyer described as a total mess, was straightened out by reverting to where it was and working with consultants on a new strategy.

“The businesses are overwhelmingly satisfied with the changes,” Meyer said. “Now we are in the process of two new developments in that area, the construction of two new parking garages,” Meyer said. “We have temporary changes that will go into effect once the construction starts and once the construction is completed we’ll have a new parking plan for the MainStrasse area.”

Meyer also spoke about issues that were important to his target audience, including Latonia business incentives.

“We’ve done quite a bit already to expand the focus of the City’s economic development activities to this area,” Meyer said. “The façade program, we’ve changed the rules so that they work here and as a result we have had two businesses that have already taken advantage of it, Emerson’s Bakery and the Latonia Barber Shop.”

Latonia Business Association members listen to Mayor Joseph Meyer talk about his first months in office.

The City has doubled the size of the budget for the façade program, so it will have more resources for next year.

“We are involved with the LBA and the Latonia Revitalization Partnership program, to target vacant properties and to advertise the available spaces and help make prospective tenants more aware of the opportunities that are here,” Meyer said.

After speaking to the LBA group, Meyer provided details about the recent hiring of David Johnston as city manager.

“There was a deep consensus that all four of the candidates that made the final cut were well qualified,” Meyer said. “Johnston has 19 years of experience as a city administrator. He’s dealt with all types of issues, he’s dealt with the various development issues that we are dealing with, but he’s also very familiar with this region. He’s a Midwest guy, a lot of experience in Indiana and worked with the sate there, which will help in terms of our working relationship with the state government.”

With that key position filled and an organizational structure established, Meyer said the City can move forward with other hirings.

“We’ve already identified some of the jobs that we want to have filled,” Meyer said. “Some of them, we will have the city manager participate in the selection process, even before he is here full time. These things are all happening in a very organized and systemic way.”

Contact Mark Hansel at mark.hansel@nkytrib.com


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