Mayors and other public officials from Kenton County identified several road improvement and expansion projects to focus on and set a date to meet with state legislators during a meeting Saturday.
Erlanger Mayor Jessica Fette broke down the projects into three categories: road expansion projects already on the books, possible future road projects and the maintenance of existing roads.
The group discussed several projects including the expansion of KY 536, work at I-275 and Turkeyfoot Road, and ongoing maintenance on Madison Avenue in Covington and Dixie Highway in Lakeside Park. They also talked about potential future projects, and the attendees shared different roads in the region they’d like to see improved.
“One of the roads that really gets overlooked is River Road,” said Villa Hills Mayor Heather Jansen, as an example, “because it’s falling into the river.”
Jansen said he hoped investment into maintenance on River Road could help drive economic expansion by creating opportunities for ports and connections to Boone County.
The attendees discussed strategies for bringing their desires to the state.
They talked about a former consensus group through the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce and a municipal government league. However, many believed that such groups were too broad in their focus, at least for the issue of roads in the county.
“This is about Kenton County,” said Taylor Mill Mayor Daniel Bell, who had previously served in both groups and claimed they weren’t effective for securing local interests.
Reinserman thought so as well, and many in the group thought it would be better to have everyone on the same page regarding what they would lobby the state for.
“I like the idea of keeping this a local government initiative,” Reinersman said.
“Taylor Mill won’t get a dime out of [KY] 536,” Bell said as an example of a project he thought was worth focusing on. “I know that it will generate revenue for the county and jobs for all us.”
He also said the county needed greater east-west access, which he said would drive economic growth.
“Stevenson Road–our east-west access is terrible,” Bell said. “Traffic is horrendous. 275’s not going to get less traffic. It’s going to get more traffic, so we need alternative corridors to handle this kind of traffic that we have coming through Kenton County.”
Ultimately, the mayors agreed to meet with several state legislators at the Erlanger city building on July 28.
The meeting will be unofficial and not an open meeting. Likewise, no official action will be taken at the meeting.
The next meeting of the Kenton County Mayors Group will take place on Aug. 19 at the City of Ludlow’s General Offices on Elm Street.
