By Ryan Clark
NKyTribune reporter
Not quite yet. That’s the message on the IRS site demolition.
Ken Smith, Covington’s City Manager, told Commissioners last week that the city was close to coming to an agreement with O’Rourke Wrecking Company for demolition of the IRS site. After releasing a request for proposals in late November, the city considered four proposals for the eight-month project, Smith said.
They were expecting to see the deal Tuesday night at their regularly scheduled legislative meeting.
Instead, Smith told Commissioners Tuesday he was not able to finish up the deal, but Mayor Joseph U. Meyer suggested that maybe they could finish it up by next week’s caucus meeting.
The scenario would go like this: They would have to take action on the one item during the meeting (where they would otherwise only discuss possible orders and resolutions) then they’d come back to the caucus, and continue their discussions.
“Could we maybe do that, so we don’t have to wait another two weeks?” Mayor Meyer asked.
Smith said he would try to get it done.
City Finds Irregularities in Audit
There was good news and bad news when the city heard this year’s audit report.
The good? There was really only one area of improvement, as compared to previous years when there were as many as five.
The bad? It’s been an area of concern since 2013. It involves the city’s transfers — they’re not adding up and it’s something Mayor Meyer admitted must be fixed.
Still, there were other oddities in the audit report. Mayor Meyer wondered about three in particular:
• A $500,000 discrepancy in the finance budget (which may have been because the IT department was placed there in the audit report instead of in administration where it belonged),
• A report of $9.5 million in assets located in the Parking Authority account – where the Mayor says there should be none,
• and the appearance of more than $5 million in insurance premiums from the Medical Health Insurance account.
The city agreed to work with its independent auditors to remedy the situation and continue to sort through the irregularities in the report.
Skillbridge Military Program
Commissioners approved a new agreement between the city, the state, the Department of Criminal Justice Training, and the Kentucky Law Enforcement Council to participate in the Skillbridge Military to Law Enforcement Program.
Skillbridge assists active-duty military members to transition from military service to civilian careers, as military members in their last six months of active service can participate in attending the police training academy.
City officials said Covington will save up to six months training time and $18,000 per officer.
Streetscape project extensions
Commissioners approved Steetscape project extensions for:
• 7th Street project
• Madison Ave. project
New hires/resignations/appointments
Commissioners approved:
• The hiring of Patrick Duffy, Business Retention and Expansion Specialist
• The resignation of Jeri Asher, Code Enforcement Inspector
• The resignation of Kelly Olszewski, Housing Choice Voucher Representative
• The appointment of Alicia Revely, Telecommunication Board of Northern Kentucky
Read Ready Covington
Winners of the Mayor’s Holiday Reading Challenge were announced.
The five Grand Prize Winners are:
Melita Valle
Jaqueli Temaj Aguilar
Miguel Garcia Manon
Akeem Thompson
Angelica Gomez Cordova
The students earned a prize pack that included a personalized iPad. Participants in the contest read 16,798 books between Nov. 21 and Dec. 31.
Executive Session
After the meeting, the Commissioners went into an Executive Session to discuss what the Mayor called “an economic development project.”
He said no further action would be taken.
Next Meeting
The next regularly scheduled Covington Commission meeting will be a caucus meeting held at 6 p.m., Feb. 1, at the City Building at 20 W. Pike St. in Covington. The meetings can be followed live on Fioptics channel 815, Spectrum channel 203, the Telecommunications Board of Northern Kentucky (TBNK) website, the TBNK Facebook page @TBNKonline, and the TBNK Roku channels.
