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Hailey Daniel and Halie St. John
Volume 31, Number 27 © 2009 The Community Recorder ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Young ‘explorers’
The appeal of a career fighting fires and saving lives draws young people into Alexandria Fire District’s explorer program where they learn from the boots-up about the profession. For ages 14 to 21, the program is in its third year. “What kid when they were little didn’t want to be a firefighter and ride on the big red trucks?” said Lt. John Seitz, adult adviser of the district’s 14 explorers. “I know I did.” LIFE, B1
The Bellevue post office, located at the corner of Taylor Avenue and Center Street, is one of four Northern Kentucky post offices that may be closing. AMANDA JOERING ALLEY/STAFF
Bellevue residents want post office By Amanda Joering Alley ajoering@nky.com
Share your photos
Whether you’re headed to the beach or the mountains this summer, we want to publish your vacation photos. To get started, go to NKY.com/Share and follow the steps there to send your photos to us. Be sure to identify everyone in the photo and which community they live in. Photos will appear on your community page and may even make it into your local newspaper, so start sharing today!
Changes at Woodfill
The grounds around Woodfill Elementary School are going to look at lot different when students return from summer break Tuesday, Aug. 18. FULL STORY, A2 For the Postmaster
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After hearing that the U.S. Postal Service is looking at closing some offices in Northern Kentucky, including the one in Bellevue, residents are speaking out. From joining Facebook groups to filling out questionnaires, Bellevue residents are doing what they can to stop the office from closing. “We just think that our community would be adversely affect-
ed if they were to close our post office,” said City Councilman Tom Ratterman, who started a group on Facebook called “Save the Bellevue, KY Post Office.” Ratterman said the group, which currently has more than 190 members, is dedicated to doing what they can to stop the closing, which he heard could be as early as September. “We have elderly people and businesses in our community that depend on that post office,” Ratterman said. “I always see people
you don’t want it to be blowing down the street.” Sharp, who has been in Bellevue most of his life, said everyone he has talked to hasn’t had anything negative to say about the post office and doesn’t want to see it close. “I don’t think they realize how much it will affect the people who live and work here,” Sharp said. Ratterman said the other city officials are also against closing the office and are looking at what they can do to stop it.
Transferring storm sewers on agendas By Chris Mayhew cmayhew@nky.com
Local governments across Campbell County are preparing to vote on whether to officially hand over control of their storm sewers to Sanitation District No. 1 of Northern Kentucky. But while Cold Spring has announced its intention to withdraw from SD1 when it comes to turning over storm sewer control, other cities are making plans to allow SD1 to continue to take the lead. SD1 is asking cities to officially turn over control of storm water sewer systems, and Campbell County Fiscal Court did so Aug. 5. “Storm water is clearly a regional issue that doesn’t follow geographic boundaries, it follows gravity,” said Campbell County Administrator Robert Horine. “And we all have a shared responsibility, we meaning all the jurisdictions, to comply with the feder-
“I don’t think we possess the financial means to go on our own on it.”
Keith Spoelker Bellevue City Manager
al regulations to deal with the storm water and compliance with those regulations.” While no cities in the county have approved the storm sewer transfer yet, they are all planning on taking up the issue soon. “My thought is we will approve it, and we will approve it as soon as we can,” said Alexandria Mayor Dan McGinley. “We’re not in a position financially, and we’re not in a position technically to do this ourselves.” McGinley said he didn’t think the city would repeat the mistake of 1994 when the city decided not to allow SD1 to take over the city’s sanitary sewers. The city had to come back later with hat in hand and $500,000 just to get SD1 to take over the sanitary sewer system, he said.
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coming in and out of there.” Jeff Sharp, owner of Sharp Technologies, Inc. in Bellevue, said closing the post office would negatively affect his business because they use it a lot to send invoices and receive payments. “Having to notify all of our clients that our post office box is closed would cost money and be a hassle,” Sharp said. “Over the years, we’ve had problems getting mail at our physical address and when you’re depending on a check to come,
Raw sewage was going into creeks, and sewage overflows were going into farm fields during heavy rains, McGinley said. “The pressure was getting so great that manhole covers would blow off and flood the area,” he said. SD1 has spent $18 million to eliminate sanitary sewer overflows in past six years since Alexandria joined SD1, he said. Currently, the city’s residents pay about $300,000 annually to SD1 in storm sewer fees. “We’ve got a lot of years before they owe us anything,” McGinley said. The storm sewer transfer will probably be on Bellevue’s September agenda, said City Manager Keith Spoelker. “I don’t think we possess the
financial means to go on our own on it,” Spoelker said. The agreement is just going along with a formality, said Southgate Mayor Jim Hamberg. “I think we’re pretty much set that we are going to vote for it the first week in September,” Hamberg said. SD1 has already helped the city before the storm sewer transfer by helping replace an 1,175 footlong sewer pipe that required digging up an area 25 feet wide in the city, Hamberg said. The city’s cost was $500,000, and SD1’s share was a little more than that, he said. “They knew this was coming, that’s why, finished project in about March 2008,” he said. While SD1 and the city don’t always agree, they work their issues out nine times out of 10, Hamberg said. “We’ll always find a way to work our issues out, and we always can.”