If you live in Covington, you’ve probably received mailers advocating both for and against a ballot question asking residents if they’d like to convert Covington’s municipal government from its current city manager form to a mayor-council form, which is more common in the state of Kentucky.
But where are they coming from?
Debate over the question has been going on since a committee calling itself Covington Forward formed over the summer. Chaired by local restaurateur Richard Dickmann, who owns the restaurant Smoke Justis, the committee has spent about $65,000 on gathering petition signatures and campaigning, about $1,500 of which went toward producing door knocker cards advocating for the change, according to the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance. The mailers in favor of the conversion come from Covington Forward.
The mailers against the change, on the other hand, come from three Covington residents: JT Spence of the Wallace Woods neighborhood, Robert Horine of Latonia and Dan Burr of Mutter Gottes. Spence told LINK nky that he spent about $4,534 producing the mailers. The three men will be meeting with the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance on Monday to see if they need to form a committee and declare their spending. Spence is a professor of political science at Thomas More University and has been critical of the ballot measure, fearing that it might serve as a vehicle for special interests to capture the local government.
You can read more about the mechanics of Covington’s current government structure, the arguments for and against the conversion and financial figures for Covington Forward by reading LINK nky’s previous coverage of the issue linked below.
- What’s a city commissioner good for, anyway? How Covington’s city government works
- Committee forms to convert Covington’s city government
- Covington mayor advocates for government conversion to Latonia Business Association
- Should Covington switch to a strong mayor government?
- Debate over Covington government conversion intensifies