BUSINESS SPOTLIGHTB1
Crescent Springs Ameristop owner Steve Brauch.
RECORDER
Your Community Recorder newspaper serving Northern Kenton County E-mail: kynews@communitypress.com
Volume 15 Issue 20 © 2011 The Community Recorder ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Author’s visit
Author and columnist Kate Klise visited Villa Madonna Academy elementary school students for a week to discuss what she does and to spark the creative process for students. Park of Klise’s visit included a luncheon with students and an evening with parents and their children at the school. Read more about what the school did through its Fine Arts department this week. SCHOOLS, A4
Baseball exhibit
The Behringer-Crawford Museum in Covington, 1600 Montague Road, will debut its new exhibit, “In a League of Our Own: Play Ball! Knothole Baseball in Northern Kentucky” March 18. The show will run through June 5. Call 491-4003 or visit bcmuseum.org for details.
A community affair
Friers are warming up as churches and civic organizations prepare for the annual fish fry season, a time when communities gather for batter-coated goodness and hush puppies. Get a run down of the big places for good food this season in life and make plans now for Friday nights. LIFE, B1
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B E C A U S E C O M M U N I T Y M AT T E R S
Old KY 17 may get new name Too many names make locations hard to pin down Jason Brubaker jbrubaker@nky.com
The Northern Kentucky Area Planning Commission has put together a committee of local city officials to look into changing the name of Old Ky. 17 to eliminate confusion for 911 dispatchers and responders. At the Edgewood city council meeting on March 7, city administrator Doug Beckham said the planning commission may consider name changes that would help identify specific areas of Ky. 17, which runs from Covington through the southern end of the county, and is known as Ky. 17, Old Ky. 17, 3L Highway and Madison Pike, depending on the location. The stretch of the road most commonly referred to as Old Ky. 17 is in between Covington and Independence, and runs through Fort Wright, southern Covington and Edgewood. “Unfortunately, there’s been some issues with 911 calls when people just say they’re on Ky. 17, and that doesn’t narrow it down for the dispatcher,” said Beckham. “Plus, cell phones don’t give a location the way that land lines do, so it’s a situation that the planning commission is looking into to see what can be done.” Beckham said the committee will likely include representatives from all of the cities along the road, although most of Edgewood’s council members said they had no strong feelings about a potential name change. “It can be confusing for people, especially if they’re not from here, so I think it’s a valid point,” said council member Nancy Atkinson. “I don’t have a problem with them doing something about that.” Beckham said there is no timetable to make any decisions. “I think we’re just trying to get some input right now and see where it goes,” he said. For more information about the planning commission, visit www. nkapc.org.
JAMES WEBER/STAFF
Big win
Dixie Heights head coach Ken Chevalier and the team celebrates the end of the Ninth Region boys basketball final March 6. The team won its first championship since 1957 after a hard-fought battle with Newport Central Catholic. Read more about the game, and a recap of regional play, on page A5.
Fiscal Court charting goals By Regan Coomer rcoomer@nky.com
Kenton County officials discussed what could be the focus of their next four years in office at a special meeting March 1. Commissioners and Judgeexecutive Steve Arlinghaus put together a list of possible goals the fiscal court could try to accomplish in the next few years. Goals suggested include a formal personnel evaluation process, the future location of the county’s administrative building, educating the public on the role of the fiscal court and putting a city representative on the fiscal court; voting or non-voting. “The purpose of the planning session was to see what commissioners felt were the important issues facing the county and see if we couldn’t all be on the same page on what we felt were the
highest priorities versus the next lowest down,” Arlinghaus said. Commissioners identified the most important issues using stickers with a different level of importance assigned to each sticker’s color. The three issues that received the most “most important” stickers were the consolidation of Northern Kentucky’s dispatch services, updating the county IT department and utilizing a structurally balanced budget in which department heads start off with zero dollars and must justify each dollar transferred from the general fund. “The most desirable thing is to see a merger of 911 dispatch across all three counties,” Arlinghaus said. “That was clearly something on the radar screen for all of us - it’s a good measure that we should actively pursue.” The goals will be recorded in a
notebook format for commissioners, who will have a chance to review and revise before the goals are printed up, Arlinghaus said. “It creates a road map for the next three and a half to four years.” Commissioner Beth Sewell said she’d like to see a committee made up of citizens, business owners and technology experts that would “review our technology usage in the county and begin to suggest improvements.” Another goal discussed was budgeting creatively and working within a structurally-balanced budget; Commissioner Jon Draud said it’s important to approach budget reductions as a “team.” “Let’s work together and we should communicate that concept to all employees and we’ll get some people on board who are going to be genuine instead of defensive,” Draud said.
Academic team ready to take on state By Jason Brubaker jbrubaker@nky.com
Parker Kenney has the right mindset as the Turkey Foot Middle School academic team prepares for the state competition March 12 in Lexington. “There’s going to be some tough teams down there, but we’re just going to go in there, do our best and see what happens,” he said. “We’ve got a really good team, so I’m pretty confident that we can do a good job.”
See ACADEMIC TEAM on page A2
JASON BRUBAKER/STAFF
The Turkey Foot Middle School academic team is headed to the state competition in Lexington on March 12. The team is coached by John Warford, and is comprised of Matthe Pugh, Jeremy Rone, Brandon Ackley, Benjamin Kuhlman, Grayson Duncan, Margo McGehee, Michael Lloyd, Parker Kenney, Trey Zimmerman, Dillon McCormick and Cole Weirich.
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