How should the Kenton County Airport Board be structured? The central issue from the 2014 Republican primary for Kenton County Judge-Executive is now the central issue for regional leaders.
At Tuesday morning’s State of Northern Kentucky presentation hosted in Erlanger by the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, all three Judges-Executive took turns discussing the important issues facing the region.
When the question arose about the airport board, things turned tense and the packed room fell silent as Kenton County Judge-Executive Steve Arlinghaus laid into Governor Steve Beshear’s appointment to the airport’s advisory board.
“It’s a subject I could probably talk about for two hours,” Arlinghaus told the crowd gathered at Receptions. The airport board and its travel and food & alcoholic drink expenditures were not only the focus of County Commissioner Kris Knochelmann’s successful campaign against Arlinghaus’s reelection, but also of a special examination by Kentucky Auditor Adam Edelen’s office. That report was critical of the amount of money the board spent on travel to conferences and specifically named Arlinghaus in an accusation of perceived nepotism following the hiring of his daughter at the Greater Cincinnati & Northern Kentucky International Airport.
The media reports, originally and mostly produced by The Cincinnati Enquirer, preceded the eventual resignations of three members of the board.
“None of the board members criticized the past couple years were my appointments,” Arlinghaus said. He pointed to his appointments of corporate leaders from Ohio companies to voting roles on the board. An advisory board also meets with the Airport Board, but can only vote in committees.
A member of that committee is appointed by the Kentucky governor and is currently Ft. Mitchell businessman Nathan Smith whom Arlinghaus alluded to without directly naming.
“There is one board member who has made this board classified as dysfunctional,” Arlinghaus said. “One board member asked to be a voting member rather than advisory and I refused to do that. He asked again a year later. I said no and explained why. He vowed to blow up the airport board at that time.”
“He vowed to blow up the airport board,” Arlinghaus reiterated, “and he’s followed through with his promise.”
Smith, when reached Tuesday by The River City News, said that he never asked Arlinghaus to be appointed as a voting member. “Steve Arlinghaus must be suffering again from jet lag and memory loss, because none of that is true,” Smith said. Smith was vocal at the Airport Board’s meeting just prior to the release of Edelen’s report, arguing that he should not be forced to remain silent if approached by the media. He is a prominent supporter of Kentucky Democrats, recently hosted Senator Elizabeth Warren at an Alison Grimes senate campaign event at his home, and is chairman of Attorney General Jack Conway’s gubernatorial bid in 2015.
“Republican primary voters spoke and I hardly think I have any control over a Republican primary,” Smith said.
Arlinghaus also took the chance to criticize the Enquirer for its coverage of the airport board where it often alluded to the board’s use of taxpayer dollars. The board does not use taxpayer dollars and the paper never retracted that claim despite Aringhaus’s repeaed requests, he said, just as he said at the most recent Kenton County Fiscal Court meeting where he blamed the paper’s coverage, at least in part, for his loss to Knochelmann in May.
“That’s a big part of the problem we have,” Arlinghaus said, “misrepresenting facts to the public and stirring up a lot of emotions.”
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