Dan Francis is one of seven candidates running for a spot on the new Covington City Council, set to take effect next year. There are six spots on the new council.
Francis is well-known in the city, especially in the Latonia neighborhood where he served as pastor at Latonia Baptist Church. He retired from pastoral work two years ago. While some ministers prefer to be more inwardly focused while leading a congregation, “that has never been my desire,” Francis said.
“When I retired two years ago, I found myself wondering about how I could serve in the community and ultimately, after going through the Mayor’s Academy this past year, I realized that the role of a city councilman appealed to me,” Francis also said.
Besides learning the basics of city government and understanding the budget, Francis said affordable housing would be among his priorities if elected.
“As I have said on many occasions, our city is doing extremely well, but we must be careful to understand the adage, ‘we must do well in order to do good,'” said Francis. “Financial prosperity is a worthy goal for all organizations and cities, and even churches, but when the doing ‘well’ drowns out the doing ‘good’ for our neighbors, we become nothing more than hollow creatures of greed.”
Francis emphasized that weathering the city’s stresses due to the bridge closures was something that would require “collaboration. It will not simply take talking (or complaining), it will take listening (and cooperating). So, let’s face this ‘mess’ together!”