COMMISSION RECAP: 21 AUGUST PART ONE

THE RIVER CITY NEWS MORE COVINGTON NEWS THAN ANY OTHER SOURCE

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by Michael Monks 

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Cincinnati Enquirer reporter
Mike Rutledge

As the Covington City Commission meeting got underway, a reporter from the Cincinnati Enquirer moved from his seat to the podium and interrupted the proceedings. "Excuse me, Mayor," Mike Rutledge said, before introducing himself for the record. "The commission is not authorized to consider this." Rutledge, the Enquirer reporter assigned to covering Covington city government, took issue with a late addition to the commission's agenda, item number four under "new business", an ordinance abolishing positions in the fire department. Though the ordinance was only up for a first reading and not a vote, Rutledge argued that the public should have been given a twenty-four notice that the item would appear on the agenda. 

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City Solicitor Frank Warnock disagreed, explaining to the reporter that a schedule for commission meetings is approved at the beginning of each year and that items can be added at will to the agendas for regularly scheduled meetings. Warnock contended that Rutledge had confused a regular meeting with a special legislative meeting that does require the public notice. "This is not a special meeting, you are not quoting the law accurately," Warnock said. The solicitor was also filling in for the city clerk and his own assistant, both of whom are in Lexington for certification and that because of their absence he had been doing the work of three employees. 

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Covington City Solicitor
Frank Warnock

Typically, city clerk Maggie Nyhan sends out the city commission's agenda via email on Friday afternoons to the press and the public. By the time Tuesday's meeting started, the fire department issue was added while a few issues related to the city arborist's position were removed. At the end of the meeting, Warnock, sitting in Nyhan's seat instead of his usual spot next to the commissioners on the dais, asked if yet another item should be added, one that was typed out on a separate piece of paper on the clerk's table. The mayor decided to table it. (After the meeting Warnock told The River City News that that item dealt with the elimination of dispatcher positions as the city prepares to become part of the county emergency dispatch center.)

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At one point in the roughly five-minute exchange, Rutledge, who has published stories critical of how he perceives the city commission to operate behind closed doors particularly regarding the issues of personnel changes, became agitated, arguing that he had requested documents since late October that had still not been furnished. City Commissioner Shawn Masters urged the mayor to end the discussion and threatened to have Rutledge removed from the meeting. "If you're trying to suggest that there is an underhanded approach here, I take great offense to that," Mayor Chuck Scheper said to the reporter.

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"I take offense to your discussing personnel matters behind closes doors," Rutledge shot back. 

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As the meeting regained its regular order, acting fire chief Dan Mathew took to the podium to explain the item that suggests that positions in the fire department would be abolished. Mathew explained that nine positions would be affected, though no layoffs were likely to occur and that all the changes would be handled through attrition. Three captain positions, three lieutenant positions, and three engineer positions are on the table for changes while the department will consider hiring a full-time fire marshal. That new position would handle fire inspections while working a regularly scheduled 8-hour shift as opposed to a regular firefighter's shift of twenty-four hours on and forty-eight hours off with a "kelly day" every three weeks. 

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Mathew expects retirements and promotions to free up the affected positions at which point they will not be filled. The entire process would run its course over the next two years, Mathew said. The acting chief expects that the daily staffing of the department would remain at twenty-seven, though that decision rests solely with the city commission and its agreement with the firefighters union.