Government power structure changes may be coming to Covington

COVINGTON, Ky. — A group of business leaders is pushing for a change in the city of Covington’s power structure. It could be on the November ballot if a petition is successful.

Covington’s current form of government is rare among other Kentucky cities. It consists of four elected city commissioners, an elected mayor and a city manager appointed by the commission.

Richard Dickmann, owner of Covington restaurant Smoke Justis, said the current system is not conducive to business.

“One of the concerns I’ve had since I’ve been here is the amount of time it takes to get anything done,” he said. “It takes four meetings a month to run the city because everything has to be done in a public forum. If a company wanted to relocate their business, and they were looking at three different cities, it may take a longer time for the city of Covington to give them the nod.”

Dickmann is the chair of a committee of local business and political leaders, Covington Forward. It’s trying to get enough signatures to place an initiative on the November ballot that would change Covington’s government to the more common mayor-council form.

City councils can have up to 12 members. In contrast to the current form in which the mayor has equal voting power to commissioners, the mayor acts as more of the city’s CEO in the mayor-council format. That includes the power to veto and hiring city workers.

Dickmann said under this format, council members would have less on their plate than the current commissioners.

“You can be more focused on the needs of the community and not the everyday running of the government,” he said. “It’s obvious to a lot of cities that the mayor-council is a better form of government.”

Joe Meyer, Covington’s current mayor who will be leaving office by the time this would go into effect, supports the new model. Before it can go into effect, the group needs to get enough signatures on its petition. At that point, it would be up to the voters.

Covington is the only city in Kenton County with a city manager form of municipal government.