the best

The first group honored were law enforcement agencies from within the county – specifically, the Elsmere, Park Hills and Taylor Mill police departments, who were collectively awarded just over $13 million from the state’s Office of Homeland Security.

Two payouts went to meetNKY, the region’s conventions and visitors bureau.

The first payout was for $5 million, which will help the bureau attract conventions and other large meetings to the area. The other payout was for just over $4.5 million, which will go to marketing attractions to individual tourists and families.

MeetNKY’s product development director, Josh Quinn, said the money awarded was “once in a lifetime recovery funds that will help the hardest hit industries during the pandemic.”

in the state recover from the pandemic.

The award collectively issued about $2.3 million to about 30 Kenton County nonprofits, each receiving $100,000. Awarded organizations include Samaritan Car Care Clinic, Northern Kentucky Legal Aid Society, The Ion Center of Violence Prevention and Life Learning Center among others.

Kentucky’s lieutenant governor, Jacqueline Coleman, presented state funding awards to a variety of Kenton County organizations at a special event at the Kenton County courthouse in Covington Monday, April 3.

The money will serve to augment the region with additional investment in the hopes that the selected organizations can better build out their programs, services and, in some cases, staff.

The second group to receive funding were tourist organizations, which received their money from the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, a federal program to help cities and states make up for the financial shortfall caused by the COVID pandemic lockdowns. Coleman said that the money awarded to meetNKY was drawn from a $75 million allocation to help tourist industries within Kentucky.

The final tourist organization to receive an award was the Kentucky Faith Trail, a trail of religious sites across several counties that’s still in development. The trail’s structure will resemble that of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, and the amount of money awarded to the trail was $305,000.

The next award came from the Team Kentucky Nonprofit Assistance Fund, an initiative established by the governor’s office in 2022 to help nonprofit organizations with-

The final award went to Sanitation District 1 and amounted to just over $10 million. The money will help fund the agency’s efforts to bring the state’s sewer systems up to date. Kenton County Judge/Executive Kris Knochelmann accepted the award on SD1’s behalf.

Cody Road in Independence reopens

As of Sunday, April 2, Cody Road in Independence has been reopened to traffic. Mayor Chris Reinersman announced the re-opening on the city’s Facebook page.

The road runs alongside a creek, which is prone to flooding. The city closed the road in February to repair its poorly maintained culvert, which had proved inadequate to channeling water away from the road during flooding events.

The city had applied for grant funding to address the problem in 2015, but numerous delays, some related to the pandemic, pushed the project back until this year.

Concluding his statement, Mayor Reinserman said that the number of closures on the road should decrease.

To learn more about the project, contact Independence City Hall.

Louisville-area car thefts possibly tied to recent string of NKY crimes

Surveillance video showing a group of young people breaking into unlocked cars outside Louisville has caught the attention of Erlanger detectives.

They say it’s very similar to a string of car thefts in Erlanger, Florence and Elsmere last month.

The lead detective in the local investigation said nearly a dozen teens and young adults are involved and it’s likely they could be the same ones seen in the new video captured in one Nelson County neighborhood.

The sheriff’s office shared footage of the crimes on its Facebook page. The teens spent roughly an hour rifling through cars. In the footage, you can see at least one of the thieves holding a handgun as he gains access into a pickup truck.

The group was able to walk away with several items.

Det. Tom Loos in Erlanger said that’s almost exactly how a group of nearly a dozen teens burglarized cars in his community in the early morning of March 15. That spree ended in a carjacking at an Erlanger home. A brother and sister tried to stop the teens, but they were able to get away, shooting at the siblings as they sped off.

The group made it to a gas station in Carroll County before leading authorities on a pursuit into Louisville. Kentucky State Police were able to take one girl into custody.

“The gun theme is something that I wouldn’t expect to be a common theme,” Loos said. “That gives me great pause. Obviously, the danger level is so accelerated because of that.”

Loos said while car thefts are common, they’re not typically as aggressive.

So when he saw the Nelson County footage, he suspected it could be the same thieves.

“We just don’t know whether there is a central controllance sending these groups out or if they are simply just emulating each other because they seem to have some degree of success,” Loos said.

While it’s not a positive ID, Loos said one of the thieves seen in the Nelson County video is dressed very similarly to one caught on a Florence doorbell camera on March 15, Loos said since then, his team has been able to identify a second suspect believed to be involved in the thefts. The search for others continues.

He said he is working on contacting Louisville police as well as the Nelson County Sheriff’s Office to determine if the crimes are in fact connected.

Independence considers raising building permit fees

The Independence City Council completed the first reading of a proposed ordinance this week that would raise the fees for building permits throughout the city. This is the first time the city has considered changing its permitting fees since 2015.

Kentucky statute prevents cities from making profits on building permits, so rates are set to match costs.

Michael Carpenter, Independence’s building inspector, produced the new rates by comparing costs and rate increases from other polities in the region. He claimed that even with the rate adjustments, Independence’s permit fee schedule is, on average, about 20% lower than other polities in the area.

The council will vote on the ordinance at the next city council meeting on May 1 at 7 p.m. at the Independence City Building on Madison Pike.