HOW MUCH GOOD COULD A GOOD CHUCK CHUCK

by Michael Monks

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(CORRECTION 11:15PM - Commissioner Steve Casper was elected as a resident of Licking Riverside but no longer lives there. He now lives in Seminary Square.)

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We are less than twenty-four hours from having a new mayor in Covington and business leader Chuck Scheper will get the nod at a 4:00PM special legislative meeting of the city commission. Here's what Covington's leadership would look like made up of Scheper and the four current commissioners.

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THE ALLIANCE

After a long series of 4 - 1 votes on the commission (with ex-Mayor Bowman always cast as the 1), it will be interesting to see how long the unity lasts. Without Dick Nixon to kick around anymore, will it be 5 - 0 or will the lines be drawn in a more partisan manner. Here's an interesting thought: most of Scheper's campaign contributions have been to Republicans and we know that Commissioners Steve Casper & Steve Frank are Republicans (and recipients of contributions from Scheper). This makes a majority Republican commission in Kenton County's only true Democratic stronghold with Commissioners Sherry Carran and Shawn Masters as the minority Democrats. True, the commission is technically nonpartisan but this would still be an historic lineup of officeholders in Covington.

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THE 1% BECOMES 40%

That's right. Members of the wealthy 1% of Americans would make up 40% of Covington's City Commission. Steve Frank is a declared millionaire and Scheper, who was Chief Operating Officer at Great American Financial Resources and is now Chairman Bexion Pharmaceuticals, isn't hurting either. Two out of five members on the commission would rank among the wealthiest percentage of Americans, in a city in which more than a quarter of children live below the poverty line, where nearly every public school student is on free or reduced lunch and in which nearly 20% of the entire population live below the poverty line. As for the other three members of the commission, they are not one-percenters, but they are at the very least upper middle-class if not higher than that.

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Also, this commission would not have one member that lives south of 12th Street/Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Three of them would have their roots in Licking Riverside or the neighboring Ascent (CORRECTION 11:15PM - Commissioner Steve Casper was elected as a resident of Licking Riverside but now lives in Seminary Square).

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There are no racial minorities on this commission, or any commission since Pam Mullins in the late 1990s, even though African-Americans make up ten percent of the population. At ten percent, with the number of people that have served on the commission since 2000, mathematically there would be an African-American at some point. Sherry Carran is the sole female even though women outnumber men in the city. In the last campaign, including the primary, Carran was the only female in the race and there were no racial minorities.

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CAN A COMMISSION THAT IS NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF COVINGTON, EFFECTIVELY REPRESENT COVINGTON?

That's the most important part of any discussion concerning City Hall and its elected leaders. It would appear that the new commission with Chuck Scheper at the helm moves even further away from being a body truly representative of the city as a whole. Geographically and economically, these folks are far apart from the average Covingtonian.

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REGARDLESS, THERE IS MUCH WORK TO BE DONE

But this is the team we have now until the next election (Scheper indicates to the commissioners that he will not seek to be elected to the office in 2012) and they have giant tasks ahead of them. I look forward to meeting Mr. Scheper tomorrow and hope that he, along with the commissioners, can help move this city forward. The River City News will be at City Hall tomorrow and as always will have comprehensive coverage of this new government and along with you, will watch every move it makes.