BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT B1
COMMUNITY RECORDER
Your Community Recorder newspaper serving Bellevue, Cold Spring, Highland Heights, Newport, Southgate E-mail: kynews@communitypress.com T h u r s d a y, A u g u s t 1 2 , 2 0 1 0
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Newport business taking off
Mark Gold, car broker
Volume 14, Number 25 © 2010 The Community Recorder ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Summer vacation photo contest
Share your vacation photo and you could have the chance to win a Sony Cyber-shot DSCW120 digital still camera and a $25 Best Buy gift card. Submit your best shot by visiting the Contests page on www. CincinnatiMomsLikeMe.com and uploading your photo to the “Summer Vacation Photo Contest.” The deadline for entries is Monday, Aug. 16.
By Amanda Joering Alley ajoering@nky.com
Community members line up to get dinner at the Highland Heights National Night Out event Tuesday, Aug. 3.
AMANDA JOERING ALLEY/STAFF
Residents come together for ‘Night Out’ By Amanda Joering Alley ajoering@nky.com
Taking the plunge
For the third year parents will bring their children to toss softballs at dunk tank targets to sink their favorite principal during the “Dunk the Principal” Special Olympics athletes fundraiser. The event will be in the shopping center’s parking lot, 8109 Alexandria Pike, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 28. The cost is $1 for three tries at hitting the dunk tank target. SCHOOLS, A8
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Residents of Highland Heights, Southgate and other local cities joined people from across the country in celebration of National Night Out Tuesday, Aug. 3. For the 27th year, the national event brought residents together with their city’s police, firefighters and government officials. “This is basically a chance for the residents to get to know us in a different way,” said Officer Nick Love, event organizer. “Usually when residents deal with the police and fire departments it’s not on the best terms.” The event brought together the Highland Heights Southgate Police Authority, the Southgate Volunteer Fire Department and the Central Campbell Fire Department. Along with a cookout and meet and greet, the event also included demonstrations by the police K-9 unit and martial arts teacher Charlie Fry as well as a taser demonstration and visit from the local AirCare helicopter and crime scene van. A representative from the Ken-
AMANDA JOERING ALLEY/STAFF
Jeff Goshorn (right), a firefighter and paramedic with the Central Campbell County Fire Department, gives a firefighter’s hat to 3-year-old Joseph Mueller at the event. tucky Elks Association also came to the event to give out information about drug awareness. “We want residents to see and understand the stuff we do every day,” Love said. Police Chief Carl Mullen said the event usually brings about
400 people out and is always a good time. This year’s event took place at the recently opened Highland Heights City Building. “This area is nice and roomy, and having this large shelter is definitely a plus,” Mullen said.
Question about government change on ballot By Chris Mayhew cmayhew@nky.com
Campbell County voters will vote in the November general election on whether to switch the type of representation they have at the county level. The petition organizers gathered enough signatures, which were certified by County Clerk Jack Snodgrass, to dictate under state law the placing of the issue on the November ballot. Campbell County Judge-executive Steve Pendery ordered at the Aug. 3 Fiscal Court meeting that the issue be placed on the ballot. Voters will now decide the ballot question of “Are you in favor of a return to a fiscal court composed of the county judge-executive and eight justices of the peace who shall represent specific districts within the county?” The organizers of the petition included Lloyd Rogers, a member of city council in Alexandria and a long-time political foe of Pendery and Commissioner Dave Otto. Tim Nolan of Alexandria, who is suing
the county over the right of the county to have offices in Newport and not in the county seat of Alexandria, also helped with the petition drive. Other petition supporters included Ken Moellman Jr., president of the Kentucky Libertarian Party and J.R. Roth, a resident of the unincorporated county near Cold Spring, who said at the Aug. 3 Fiscal Court meeting he had asked people to sign the petition. Rogers had to go out and get at least 38 more signatures to reach the 1,200 registered voters required to put the petition on the ballot after the clerk’s office did not certify almost a third of the signatures gathered on the petition initially turned in. Snodgrass said about 539 of the 1,700 signatures turned in on the petition were either unreadable or were from people who weren’t registered to vote or lived outside of the county. Snodgrass said his office is required by law to go by the signature of the voters and an Attorney General’s opinion states the
signatures must be legible. The law recommends petitioners also have a space for voters to print their name, which the magistrate petition did not have. Rogers said at the Aug. 3 meeting he was going to inform the voters whose signatures weren’t allowed to be counted on the petition by Snodgrass. “I just think that’s an insult to those 539 people who signed the petition,” Rogers said. Snodgrass said he followed the law, and his job depends on following the law, so there’s no reason he would have not counted signatures except that the names couldn’t be read. The law doesn’t allow for checking the signatures against date of births or addresses, he said. “I don’t make this stuff up, some people do, but not me,” Snodgrass said. The petitioner was notified they were 39 signatures short, and now they have the signatures and it’s on the ballot, Snodgrass said.
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Visitors to Newport’s riverfront now have another option for entertainment that will give them a different view of the area, a view from the sky. Local business Stratus Helicopters, which offers aerial tours of the Cincinnati area, has opened a new location in Newport next to B&B Riverboats. The company started about a year ago out of Lunken Airport offering flight training, aerial photography and aerial tours, mainly at major events and festivals, said co-owner Jonathon James, who started this business with his friend Chuck Dedden, who he knew from flight school. “We were talking one day a realized that there is kind of a niche for doing helicopter rides in the area,” James said. “For us, this is a job and a way to feed our habit of flying.” Once they formed the company, James said they wanted to find a place with lots of foot traffic that was easy for people to get to, and Newport’s riverfront seemed like the perfect place. “We needed a spot that gave us lots of exposure and being by the Levee, B&B Riverboats and all the events that happen here, this is perfect,” James said. “More and more, people are hearing about us and we’re getting busier and busier.” Stratus offers five different tours, ranging in length and price, for passengers of all ages. James said they plan to run the tours through December, offering fall foliage tours and Christmas light tours, before closing from January until late April or May, once flood season has passed. The location currently has one helicopter on-site, but will bring in more if the demand increases, James said. Patrons can make reservations for tours, but walk-ups are welcomed. For more information about Stratus and the tours, visit www.stratushelicopters.com or call 513-533-4354.
AMANDA JOERING ALLEY/STAFF
Pilot Frank Ortega, an employee of Stratus Helicopters, sits on the landing spot at the company’s riverfront location in Newport, where they give aerial tours.