COVINGTON, Ky. — After eight years as Covington mayor, Joe Meyer will leave office on Dec. 31 with the hopes his successor has more opportunities and power to make change than he did.
“Most people think that the mayor has already got a lot of power to do stuff,” he said while sitting in the city commission chambers. “Most people do not understand the city manager form of government as it's actually applied (in the city).”
Meyer is joined by about a dozen current and former Covington officials in advocating for voters to pass the “Covington Forward” ballot measure this November.
The initiative looks to change how the city government is structured. As of now, Kentucky’s fifth largest city is run by a city manager, who is appointed by the city commission and mayor.
If the ballot measure passes this November, the newly-elected mayor and a newly formed city council will run the city.
The measure will appear in the form of a yes or no question on the ballot: “Are you in favor of the proposal entitled petition for the City of Covington to adopt a Mayor-Council Plan? Yes or No?”
Simply put, a “yes” vote means you’d like to change Covington’s government structure, while a “no” vote means you’d like to keep things as they are.
“The first thing we're doing is aligning the form of government with people's expectations of the government,” Meyer said.
Under the current government model, every commission member and the mayor has a vote in shaping local policies.
Mayors are responsible for running meetings, signing contracts and acting as the public face of the city. They share executive and legislative power with the board but have no veto power.
That means every staff vacancy, every contract, every budget change, every street naming, every equipment purchase and every public project is subject to a commission vote. City operations, meanwhile, fall to the city manager and other professional city workers.
“It's the most common form of local government in the state,” Meyer said. “And our big cities like Louisville and Lexington have it.”
Meyer isn’t alone in his thinking. C-Forward CEO Brent Cooper sees retooling how the city functions as a way to boost economic prospects and ditch a sluggish style of government.
“I've been in Covington since 2003, and a lot of wonderful things have happened,” Cooper said. “We think this kind of initiative could accelerate things even faster.”
There is some opposition to the idea of change. In a September op-ed for WCPO's news partner, LINKnky, guest author Robert Horine said, "The general electorate of Covington has not asked to change the form of government ... I trust the combined judgment of a majority of the City Commission, advised by a professional city manager, over the judgment of one person whose only qualification is the ability to get elected."
If voters approve converting the government, the four commissioner positions would be abolished and replaced with anywhere from six to 12 city council seats.
The commissioners elected in November would write ordinances outlining details of the new government — including how many council seats the city would have — by the end of their two-year terms. Residents would vote to fill the new council seats in 2026.
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