Park Hills resident files complaint due to council vote after walkout

Park Hills resident Gretchen Stephenson has filed a complaint with the Kentucky Attorney General after the council cast votes on a resolution on Monday, despite City Council Member Sarah Froelich walking out of the meeting in protest, thereby denying the body the minimum number of officials legally necessary to conduct business.

“I believe this resolution is being brought forward prematurely without sufficient information or council participation,” Froelich said before walking out. “As an elected representative, I have a duty to act in the best interest of the community, and I do not believe that this process honors that responsibility.”

Park Hills has a six-member city council, headed up by a mayoral executive, in this case Kathy Zembrodt. In order to openly discuss and legally cast votes on city business, the council requires something called a quorum, which is the presence of a majority of the members (i.e, four out of the six, besides the mayor). The mayor does not vote on legislation.

The meeting in which Froelich walked out was a special meeting on Monday evening. Two of the council members, Laura Cardosi and Emily Sayers, did not attend the meeting at all. Froelich was present at the beginning of the meeting but left before the rest of the members cast their votes, leaving the body with only three members.

In spite of this, City Attorney Daniel Braun, who also serves as the city attorney of Newport, advised the body to vote.

“Call the roll,” Zembrodt instructed the city clerk. “He said call the roll.”

The members then cast their 3-to-0 vote in favor of the resolution.

Parliamentary procedures

The resolution on which the council voted focused on revising the city’s zoning ordinance to bring it more in line with county planning. This process is referred to as the Z21 process in Kenton County, and Park Hills is somewhat of a latecomer to this process; many major cities in the county have already revised their zoning to be more in line with the county’s recommendations.

The resolution revoked an earlier resolution that was voted on in August. The August resolution would have advanced the Z21 zoning for Parks Hills to the Kenton County Planning Commission and would have affected zoning throughout the city, most notably for this case parts of the land where the old Szechuan Garden building sits.

The site’s zoning is unusual, with a commercial zone in the front of the land, where the Szechuan Garden building itself is located, as well as a residential zone for single and two-family homes in the back, which is currently vacant. The August resolution would have converted the back land to an urban residential zone.

In August, Council Member Cardosi had made a motion to “approve the resolution to move forward with the Z21 package to the Kenton County Planning Commission for review, with the exception of the proposed changes dated 7/29, [20]25.”

The exception Cardosi mentioned was in reference to a memo dated July 29, which laid out the exceptions to the Z21 proposal, one of which was zoning for the Szechuan site. The resolution voted on Monday effectively repealed the exceptions Cardosi called for in August. This would have the effect of turning the back portion of the Szechuan Garden site to a mixed residential zone.

The August resolution was set to go before the Kenton County Planning Commission Thursday night, but Zembrodt said Monday that the new vote meant the issue would be tabled. Correspondence from Kenton County Planning and Development Services, the professional wing of the planning commission, that LINK nky obtained confirms this.

The restaurant site is currently eyed for development by Greg Berling, Mark Zimmerman and Joe Nienaber, the latter of whom is the proprietor of Granite World, which is found near the Szechuan Garden building on Dixie Highway, and an elected member of the Kenton County Fiscal Court.

The three held an impromptu community meeting last month to inform neighbors of their plans for the site. They spent much of the meeting sharing their early plans for the site and fielding questions from the packed showroom of Granite World, where the meeting took place. The plans they presented were not final but represented a general overview of what they hoped to accomplish at the site.

Additionally, they’re seeking funding to help the city and state rework the roads around the property.

The hope is to widen Arlington Road, where it currently takes a steep vertical curve past the city building, before terminating onto Dixie Highway.

In addition to the widening, they’d like to create a new intersection that would connect Dixie Highway, Arlington and the road leading into the development, eliminating the vertical curve. A portion of the land where they’re calling for a new intersection is owned by the city.

Conceivably, this would enable the state, which manages Dixie Highway, to reduce the number of stop lights on the highway from two to one.

The road work is contingent upon securing funding from the state through the Kenton County Site Development Fund. The funding could help bankroll the road project, which the developers put at about $1 million in cost. The city would be responsible for matching 10% of the county’s contribution, or $100,000.

Comments during the meeting indicate that the mayor and others wanted to keep the process moving and secure funding for the road work before the money from the Site Development Fund dried up. Cities throughout the county can apply for funding, but it must be tied to specific projects, such as a development. The city has already applied for funding.

“The developers have timing on the contract, and all this was up in the air,” Zembrodt said. “So, this is about timing.”

Critics of this move characterized the action as hasty. Stephenson, who would later make the complaint to the attorney general, told the council at the meeting that “it seemed secretive to me.”

Zembrodt said she had been fielding criticisms from residents in the lead-up to the meeting, especially on social media. She took time at the beginning of the meeting to address “miscommunications.”

“I love serving the city, and the social media critics make it undesirable for others that want to step up to serve for fear of slander and defamation of character,” Zembrodt said.

But what about the vote?

LINK nky reached out to several legal experts to determine if Froelich’s walk out did, in fact, nullify any vote that followed. We got mixed responses.

At the meeting, Braun said the resolution “still passed because you have the majority of the quorum present.”

The Kentucky law that lays out when a city government can vote states that “unless otherwise provided by statute, a majority of a legislative body shall constitute a quorum and a vote of a majority of a quorum shall be sufficient to take action.”

Note the language: “a majority of a legislative body” is required for a quorum, but “a majority of a quorum” is required for action.

The statute only focuses on the discussion of ordinances, rather than resolutions. Abstaining from voting, meanwhile, usually counts with however the majority of the body voted, but it’s not clear if Froelich’s actions were equivalent to an abstention.

This issue has come before the Attorney General before. A case similar to this in 1984, in which a four members of a seven-member council left a meeting but the remaining three continued to vote, served as the basis for one opinion that challenges Braun’s assertion.

“The meeting that you describe above where four members of a seven-man council left the meeting before any business was transacted, became null and void because a quorum did not exist where only three members remained during which business was transacted,” the 1984 opinion reads. “KRS 83A.060(6) provides in effect that unless otherwise provided by statute, a majority of a legislative body shall constitute a quorum and a vote of a majority of a quorum shall be sufficient for the council to take action on any matter before it.”

Matt Smith, the attorney for the Kenton County Planning Commission, told LINK nky that the commission, not being an adjudicative body, would defer to the opinion of the city attorney.

The AG’s office has yet to rule on Stephenson’s complaint.