COMMUNITY RECORDER
BEST FRIENDS FOREVER B1
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, O c t o b e r 2 2 , 2 0 0 9
Steve and Terry Heather
Volume 13, Number 35 © 2009 The Community Recorder ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Campbell ‘Beauty’
Behind the beauty of the princess Belle in the Children’s Theatre of Cincinnati’s production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast Jr. is Campbell County native Jen Meyers Scott. Meyers Scott, 29, of Taylor Mill, is a 1998 graduate of Campbell County High School and a 2003 graduate of Northern Kentucky University playing her 13th role with the theatre company. SCHOOLS, A6
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UK alumni supports Hosea House
Campbell’s tricks and treats Campbell County has an array of Halloween events suited to fit the littlest and biggest monsters. • In Alexandria, leave the littlest children at home for the city’s annual Haunted Walk in the Park around the Alexandria Community Park’s lake (3925 Alexandria Drive), from dusk to 9:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 24. Area high school students make many of the scenes along the trail and provide most of the ghastly frights. Admission is $1 or two canned goods. For something you can bring the younger ghosts and goblins to, try the Halloween Family Fun Fest at the Alexandria Shopping Center with “ghoulish games, freaky fun and frightening food” from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 25. There will be a donation of $3 per person for all the games including an inflatable bounce house and the video game Guitar Hero. There will be a costume contest. The event will support the Campbell County Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 10’s Christmas Cops ’N’ Kids shopping program and The Southern Campbell County Coalition for Drug Free Kids. • In Fort Thomas, the Fort Thomas Recreation Department is offering an alternative Halloween event suited for young children, or the easily scared. The Fort Thomas Jack-O-Lantern Walk and Contest featuring a walk through Tower Park’s nature trail will be
By Amanda Joering Alley ajoering@nky.com
CHRIS MAYHEW/STAFF
Alexandria residents Emily Nolan, 4, left, in an Elmo costume plays at the Discovery Toys booth with her sister Erin Nolan, 7, who is wearing a Scooby Doo costume, during the “HelloWeeOnes” children’s Halloween event at the Alexandria Village Green shopping center Sunday, Oct. 18.
Trick or treat times
Alexandria: Oct. 31, 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Bellevue: Oct. 31, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Dayton: Oct. 31, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Fort Thomas: Oct. 31, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Highland Heights:Oct.31,6 p.m.to 7:30 p.m. Newport: Oct. 31, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Silver Grove: Oct. 31, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Southgate: Oct. 31, 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 29. The walk features more than 1,000 luminaries and hundreds of Jack-O-Lanterns carved by residents. For information call 781-1700 or visit www.ft thomas.org and click the recreation department tab. • Highland Heights will have a Halloween Party at the old elementary school building at the corner of Main and Renshaw
from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 25. • Newport’s annual Monsters on Monmouth parade will start from A.D. Owens Elementary School at 1 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 25. Parade participants will assemble at the school at 12:30 p.m. Trickor-treating for costumed children ages 12 and younger will also be from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 25. The parade will travel north on Monmouth Street, turn left onto Fourth Street, then turn right onto Columbia Street and head to the riverfront. Parade participants will get to go through the USS Nightmare for free. • The USS Nightmare is open from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. at BB Riverboats on the Newport Land. For information call 261-8500 or visit www.ussnightmare.com.
Silver Grove police to serve Melbourne
Letters to Santa
Hey kids! It’s time to start writing your letters to Santa and send them in to the Community Recorder, where they will be published on Wednesday, Nov. 26. Please send your brief letter to Santa to Melissa Hayden, Santa’s Helper, 394 Wards Corner Road, Loveland, OH 45140 or via e-mail to mhayden@communitypress.co m. Be sure to include your child’s name, age, the community you live in and the Community Press paper you read, as well as a telephone number we can use to contact you if we require additional information. You may also include a non-returnable photogaph (or JPG image) that may appear with your letter. Letters and photos are due no later than Friday, Nov. 13.
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By Chris Mayhew cmayhew@nky.com
Silver Grove police officers could be patrolling the streets of Melbourne before the year is out if an agreement between the two cities is approved. The two small Ohio River towns are close to a contract for the Silver Grove Police Department to service the neighboring city to the east on Ky. 8. Melbourne Commission is working on finalizing a fifth draft of a contract that could possibly be approved by Silver Grove City Council at their next meeting Nov. 3. “I’d like to get this thing started as soon as we can,” said Melbourne Mayor Ed C. Fischer. Campbell County Police Department officers currently service Melbourne. Most of the residents want the switch to Silver Grove and keep asking and asking about it, Fischer said. The city has been asked by the county to pay more than $20,000 annually for police service, and the city has declined, saying residents pay their taxes, he said. The estimated amount the city is expecting to pay Silver Grove
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annually is about $20,000. “We are looking to increase patrols,” said Thomas M. Miller, city attorney for Melbourne. But the city has been happy with the county’s service, Miller said. Silver Grove Mayor Neal Bedel said Melbourne approached the city about patrolling their city’s streets on a part-time basis. Melbourne commissioners proposed a change in the contract at the Monday, Oct. 19 meeting requiring 12 months notice for either city to terminate the contract and not 18 months as had previously been considered. Under the agreement, the cities could only immediately terminate the contract if both city governments agreed to it. Bedel said he did not think his city’s council would have an issue with the proposed change to the contract, and that it could be signed as soon as the next council meeting Nov. 3. After that, the state has to certify the contract, he said. “Hopefully we’ll be down here soon,” Bedel said. Since this spring, Silver Grove has added two part-time police officers in addition to having a
new chief, Doug Holt. Holt, a former officer in Dayton, was hired this year in hopes of expanding the police department from a one-man operation. After Holt was hired, John Sayers, the city’s chief for 50 years who had been on medical leave for almost a year, resigned April 1. Mayor Neal Bedel said at that point, council decided to hire two part-time officers and spread the hours out that they work more. “When we hired Doug Holt, we were planning on him working alongside Chief Sayers,” Bedel said. “We knew we wanted at least two guys there. We had already made up our minds that we were going to have two workers.” The city has some juvenile issues, petty vandalism and minor thefts that its police typically need to deal with, Bedel said. “It’s just stuff that was getting out of control, or was out of control, and we just wanted to curb it a little bit,” he said. What the city didn’t want to do was move the issues to another community, Bedel said. “We’ve got issues that every other community has, and we’re just doing our best to put a stop to them,” he said.
Homeless who rely on the Henry Hosea House in Newport will be a little warmer this winter. Through a partnership with members of the Northern Kentucky/Greater Cincinnati University of Kentucky Alumni group who participated in Cats for a Cause, a week-long community service week, the organization has dozens of blankets to give to those in need. “We were looking for things to do and picked what we feel is one of the most needy causes,” said Jim Lokesak, president of the local alumni “The timing group. “We of this wanted to supdonation is port a place that isn’t already really supported by a perfect.” lot of other organizations.” Karen Yates D o n n a Executive Brautigan, chair director, of the group’s community Hosea House involvement, said when someone recommended the Hosea House, it seemed like a good fit. “We heard that they were in dire need of blankets for the homeless and elderly people they serve and we wanted to help,” Brautigan said. Karen Yates, the executive director of the Hosea House, said the groups donation helps out a lot with the weather starting to get cold. “We are a very small operation here, and there aren’t a lot of people who know about us and give donations,” Yates said. “The timing of this donation is really perfect.” Yates said the blankets are given out to those who need them at the organization’s soup kitchen, which serves about 150 people a night, seven nights a week at 901 York St. Lokesak said the blankets are just the beginning of the group’s donations to the Hosea House. The group plans to donate socks to the organization in November and various soaps, lotions and toiletries in December. Anyone interested in donating items or money to the Hosea House can call 261-5857.
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AMANDA JOERING ALLEY/STAFF
Members of the University of Kentucky Alumni Group who participated in Cats for a Cause present donated blankets to Karen Yates, executive director of the Henry Hosea House in Newport.