A ballot measure asking Covington residents if they want to convert the city government from its current city manager form to a mayor-council form will appear on the ballot in November.
Earlier this summer, a committee of local business people and civic leaders formed to gather signatures for the measure. Chaired by local businessman Richard Dickmann, who owns the restaurant Smoke Justis, the committee calls itself Covington Forward. The Kenton County Board of Elections certified the committee’s petition late on Friday, Aug. 30, after the committee successfully gathered enough signatures.
The ballot question will pose the issue in the form of a yes-or-no question: “Are
you in favor of the proposal entitled petition for the City of Covington to adopt a Mayor-Council Plan? Yes or No?”
Learn more about how the Covington government works by reading LINK nky’s explainer below. LINK nky will report more on this issue as the election approaches.
Covington does not operate on a city commission model or on the more common mayor-council model, under which executive and legislative powers are separated in the positions of the mayor and council members, respectively. Instead, it operates on the city manager model.
Under that model, every commission member and the mayor has a vote in local laws. 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 board. Because the mayor casts votes on laws and policies, the person sitting in the mayor’s seat has no veto power, unlike mayors under the mayor-council form of government.
How does Covington’s city government work?