Members of Covington’s committee on government transition held their first meeting this week, where they established the overall goals and expectations of the committee.
“State law does not really give much guidance to the transition committee, other than that the new form of government needs to pick the number of council people, and also part of that will be to understand your compensation,” said Mayor Ron Washington, who serves as the chair of the committee. “However, the city commissioners, in their wisdom, have created an order that [the members] have a copy of, and that discusses the things that they want to look at.”
The commission voted to establish the committee in December, following a vote from Covington residents in November to transition the government from its current city manager form to a mayor-council form, which is more common in Kentucky. About 7,500 Covington voters, roughly 61% of the votes cast, voted in favor of the transition.
Members of the committee submitted applications to the mayor, who then made appointments. The commission voted to confirm the appointments at the legislative meeting on Tuesday.
Much of the meeting was spent on member introductions, discussing the overall structure of the committee meetings, the main goals of the committee and hammering out times for the remaining meetings throughout the next two years.
“The goals of this committee are to – through public engagement and the research of best practices and other case studies, looking to other cities, looking to industry research – to create a final comprehensive report to the city, ultimately making recommendations on how to structure the government,” said Covington’s Director of External Affairs Sebastian Torres.
Torres also serves as the committee’s administrator, and he provided the committee members with a basic overview of the responsibilities of the committee and what they need to accomplish in the two years the commission has to restructure the government.
Torres said he’d be independently reaching out to other cities in the region to examine how they operate and consulting with professional organizations like the Kentucky League of Cities to inform the committee’s recommendations. Experts and representatives from other jurisdictions will occasionally speak in front of the committee, as well.
The committee has eight voting members besides the mayor. City attorney Frank Schultz, city manager Ken Smith, and city clerk Susan Ellis, plus the newly-elected city commissioners, will also staff the committee as non-voting members. Torres, as well, serves in a non-voting capacity.
Recommendations made by the committee will be passed onto the city commission members, who will be responsible for creating ordinances that will determine the number of seats on the new city council. Powers, duties and expectations of the council members will also be established by the new commission following recommendations from the committee.
The primary goals of the committee include the following:
- Establishing the number of city council seats; Kentucky law allows anywhere from 6 to 12 members
- Establishing compensation, both in terms of wages and benefits, of the new council members and the mayor
- Establishing term limits, if any, of the new council members
- Considering whether the position of vice mayor should be formalized
- Assessing the city’s current boards and if they should be restructured or abolished
- Determining if the council members would be elected at-large (i.e. representing the city as a whole), if they would represent specific wards or districts within the city or if the council would be a hybrid of the two systems
- Considering the establishment of either a single city administrator position or multiple administrators
- Determining how to restructure city departments in consultation with existing city staff members
- Updating the city legal code to reflect the new government structure
Updating the city code will be especially time-consuming, said Schultz, as it will require the code to clearly separate out the legislative powers of the new city council and the executive powers of the mayor, which are currently shared under the city manager model. Torres and Schultz recommended updating the codes on a rolling basis as the changes will have to go through the normal legislative process, which includes two readings and a vote, rather than trying to do it all at once.
“Over the next three or four months, the legal department is going to do a full analysis of the code and identify spots where there are serious material changes as to legislative, executive authority and bring those changes to to this committee for input,” Schultz said. He said he hoped to have all of those recommended changes ready by the end of April.
The committee must deliver an initial summary of its progress to the city commission by June 30.
Additionally, the committee discussed ways the public could weigh in on the changes. City staff members are working on an electronic contact form where people can submit feedback, and there are two public fora scheduled tentatively for March 6 at Covington City Hall and March 13 at the American Legion in Latonia, respectively. Meeting arrangements had not been finalized at the time of the meeting.
Besides introductions, discussion among the committee focused largely on procedural matters. By the end of the meeting, the committee had cast votes to schedule the remainder of their meetings at 5:30 p.m. on the fourth Thursday of every month at Covington City Hall, with some exceptions for holidays. The committee also voted to confirm the rules of the committee as presented by Torres.
The committee will meet again on Thursday, Feb. 27, at 5:30 p.m. at Covington City Hall on Pike Street. All committee meetings are open to the public.