Covington Mayor Joe Meyer spoke before the Latonia Business Association on Monday, marking the final time he would speak before the association as mayor.
Meyer took the time to go over what he viewed as his biggest successes while in office and make the case for a ballot measure asking Covington residents if they would be in favor of converting the Covington municipal government from its current city manager form to a mayor-council form.
Meyer grew up in Latonia and still has connections there, and much of what he discussed in the early part of his remarks focused on the neighborhood’s economic prospects, especially as it related to the businesses that had come to the Latonia Commerce Center.
He also discussed what he viewed as successes during his tenure as mayor: successfully advocating for accommodations related to the Brent Spence Bridge project, generally shoring up city government operations and getting the city’s finances in a manageable state, among other things.
“Latonia is on the move again,” Meyer said. “Your future is very very bright.”
The latter parts of his speech, on the other hand, were devoted to advocating for a recently filed ballot measure asking voters about converting the city government to a mayor-council form. Chaired by local businessman Richard Dickmann, who owns Covington restaurant Smoke Justis, the committee for the ballot measure is calling itself Covington Forward. It has already received official support from several local business leaders, former commissioners, the current city commissioner and unopposed mayoral candidate Ron Washington, who also attended Monday’s meeting.
Covington’s current government is a city manager form of government, and consists of four elected city commissioners, an elected mayor and a city manager, who is appointed by the commission and who manages most of the city’s day-to-day business.
Under the city manager model, every commission member and the mayor has a vote in local policies. Mayors are responsible for running meetings, signing contracts and acting as the public face of the city, but they share executive and legislative power with the commission. Because the mayor casts votes on laws and policies, the person sitting in the mayor’s seat has no veto power.
Covington is holding a primary election for the city’s board of commissioners, with 10 candidates vying for the four seats. The city operates on the city manager model, where the commission members and mayor share executive and legislative power, and the city manager is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the city. The city manager is a sworn office, but does not have voting power. The commission’s duties include setting the city’s budget, passing ordinances and other policies, making board appointments, and acting as representatives for the city’s public interest. Read more.
What’s a city commissioner good for, anyway? How Covington’s city government works
If the government converts, power would be redistributed between the legislators (i.e. the newly created city council positions) and the mayor. Under the current form, power is comparatively decentralized, spread evenly between the commission members and the mayor.
Since everyone casts a vote, no one has veto power or any other kind of unilateral power: The commission can only exercise power as a group. This means that any change related to the city government—every hire and fire, every budget adjustment, every economic development agreement and every equipment purchase—requires a commission vote.
In contrast, the mayor-council form of government invests executive power into the mayor’s seat. In doing so, it strips the officeholder of their vote on legislation (except to break a tie) but grants them the power to veto, although city councils have the power to override a mayor’s veto with enough votes. The council can also remove mayors who break the law or otherwise overstep their authority.
Furthermore, it grants the mayor’s office more direct control over the hiring and firing of city workers, including police and fire, and governing the day-to-day operations of the city. As a result, this model of government is sometimes referred to as the strong mayor form of government.
“The mayor as the executive really runs the city,” Kentucky League of Cities Director of Municipal Law told LINK nky in a phone call after the meeting, “and the council’s ability to impact policy is when they are seated as a body as a whole.”
Like many other advocates for the measure, Meyer viewed the city manager form as sluggish, inaccessible and incapable of keeping up with economic trends he viewed as beneficial for the city’s residents.
He related his experience with the city government after becoming elected, saying that when he first entered city hall to start working, city staff had been instructed by the city manager at the time not to speak to him. Moreover, the fact that power was split evenly between the five commission members made organizational and disciplinary structures within the city government opaque and slow to redress resident concerns.
“It means that five people really do get individually involved in many decisions big and little,” Meyer said. “The result is confusion, uncertainty [and] delayed decision making. With the change to the mayor-council form of government, there will be one boss for the executive function, not five. It’s clear and simple.”
He noted that many of the region’s other major population centers—Independence, Florence and Erlanger, for instance—all use the mayor-council form of government. According to the Kentucky League of Cities, about 53% of the cities in Kentucky use this form.
One attendee, local business owner Rick Kennedy, asked if Covington’s current government form impeded the ability of other cities to do business in Covington. Meyer said that other mayors seemed to support the potential for changing the government.
“Every mayor I’ve talked to in Kenton County said, ‘Thank God, it’s about time,'” Meyer said.
Kennedy had another question, though, one that perhaps spoke to the specifics of the mayor-council form as compared to the current system.
“Say you get a bad mayor,” Kennedy asked. What would be the council’s recourse be if that occurred, he wanted to know.
“The council will have more effective oversight of the executive branch in the mayor-council than it does in the current city commission form,” Meyer replied, pointing to a recent instance in Walton where the council alleged that former Mayor Gabe Brown had used public funds for personal gain.
City commissioner terms are two years, so even if the ballot measure succeeds in November, the city will continue to operate under its current form until it establishes the number of council seats the city should have. Upon the conclusion of that two-year term, the subsequent election would then see new races for the open council positions.