The Covington City commissioners accepted the resignation of city manager David Johnston at a meeting Tuesday evening.
No reason was given for Johnston's resignation. He served as city manager in Covington for nearly four years.
Johnston was integral in the acquisition of Covington's former IRS building for city use, which provided the city with 23 acres of new land. The $20.5 million purchase was part of the city's plan to connect Covington's MainStrasse neighborhoods to Roebling Point and the Downtown regions, while re-establishing a cohesive city grid.
Johnston also advocated for Covington's population of people living with homelessness in legislation that worked to balance safety and empathy for those in the community who lived houseless.
"We can't be the focal point of homelessness of Tri-County," then-Covington city manager David Johnston said in January 2020. "We all have a responsibility to that. By setting certain standards that are already in place, we codify them into code."
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Johnston worked to coordinate vaccination sites, despite a clear lack of availability in the community.
"Unfortunately, lots of our population don't have means to transport themselves down to those sites,” said Johnston in January 2021. “So when the state called last week, saying, ‘Could we use the IRS parking lot as a drive-thru testing site?’, it was a no-brainer yes."
