City name: Bromley
City size: 324 acres
Population: 925
Median income: $45,376
Median home value: $97,838
Mayor: Mike Denham Incorporated: 1890
If you’ve never been to Bromley, the first thing you notice are the stunning views of the Ohio River.
When you do finally pull your eyes to the opposite direction to where the city sits, you see modest homes with well-manicured lawns; neighbors who have settled into conversation in a way only those acquainted for decades seem to do; high-school age boys playing basketball in a park surrounded by homes on three sides and Pike Street on the fourth – beyond that, the river.
Mayor Mike Denham decided to run for mayor in 2016. He was on the volunteer fire department, and admittedly didn’t agree with the then-mayor/fire chief’s leadership of the city.
“I saw some things I didn’t like,” Denham said. “I thought if I could help, maybe correct some things I felt were going wrong, then that’s the thing to do.”
That mayor was Donald Lee Jobe. He was elected in 2014, and was indicted in 2019 for theft of city funds.
Between late 2015 and early 2017, Jobe allegedly siphoned $8,485.88 from public funds for his personal use, the River City News reported at the time. Over the span of his tenure as mayor, he allegedly made many purchases for which he was reimbursed by the city, and made several unauthorized charges to his city credit card.
Kenton County Police executed search warrants on the Bromley City Building and Jobe’s personal residence in Feb. 2017, and Jobe subsequently resigned as mayor in Aug. 2017, RCN reported. He continued to serve as the fire chief for Bromley until he was arrested in October 2018.
The case was set to go to trial, but Jobe was killed in a motorcycle accident in July 2021.
“It’s a real touchy subject,” Denham said.
Denham is still mayor, and Mike Kendall is on city council. They don’t regret asking the hard questions that got Jobe removed from office.
Gail Smith was on city council at the time. She was elected in 1999. Denham and Kendall said Smith is a large part of why they were able to get the answers they were looking for.
“[Smith] was pretty key in getting things addressed, too,” Kendall said. “If it weren’t for her and what she knew about what was going on, we wouldn’t have been able to find out what we did find out.”
Bromley’s history can be traced to 1784, when Prettyman Merry received a land grant of 2,000 acres from the U.S. government, according to The Encyclopedia of Northern Kentucky. The family constructed a home on the property that they called the Landmark. It is still there on Shelby Street today.
In 1848, Charles Collins acquired a portion of the Merry estate, according to the encyclopedia, and commissioned plans for a small town which he named Bromley after his hometown in England.
Since they took over leadership in Bromley, Denham, Kendall, Smith and many others have been dedicated to breathing life back into their 324-acre city, which now has a population of about 925.
They’ve repaved sidewalks. They’ve installed new city signs and street lights. They’re currently working on a project to improve the park in the center of the city, where the basketball courts are. There will be soccer fields, a pickleball court, a covered picnic area for birthday parties and real bathrooms (replacing the port-o-let that’s there now).
The men say they work with homeowners to help pay for things like sidewalks and trees, which the homeowners are responsible for but which all work together to make the city a good place to live.
But improving the city also comes with hard decisions. One of those was dismantling the fire department, which had been in operation since 1900. Kendall and Denham were both members at the time.
“The hardest thing that me and him did was dismantle the fire department,” Denham said. “That took a piece of me. It was a tough, tough decision.”
The Ludlow fire department now services Bromley, and Denham said they have been great. The response time is greatly improved.
“This is a great place to live,” Denham said. “But the biggest thing this city is losing is families. It used to be where everybody knew everybody else.”
Smith agreed. She said everyone doesn’t know everyone like they used to.
“It seems most of our younger residents are moving away to the suburbs, which is understandable,” Smith said. “There’s not much as far as businesses in the community anymore.”
And that, she said, is why she is running for city council again.
“It’s a small, quiet river city,” Smith said. “We don’t have a whole lot happening. It’s not like it used to be – I’m a lifelong resident. It has changed over the course of the years. It used to be that everyone knew their neighbors. Not so much anymore.”
Kendall said the concept of the park is to try to turn the city around and bring the family atmosphere back.
“The goal is to hopefully entice people to want to live here,” Kendall said. “To try and go back to the old ways of families over here in this little town.”
