LINK Kenton Reader - Volume 1, Issue 23 - April 28, 2023

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NKY grapples with smoking bans: ‘Everyone’s going to have to do it’

BY EMMA

No part of this publication may be used without permission of the publisher. Every effort is made to avoid errors, misspellings, and omissions. If, however, an error comes to your attention, please let us know and accept our sincere apologies in advance.

Mandy Kaplan, who co-owns 859 Taproom in Florence with her husband, Jeff, has never allowed smoking at her bar.

When Kaplan, 45, was young, she remembers that people would smoke in houses like “it was nothing, it didn’t matter,” she said.

But over time, Kaplan – and much of the nation – learned of the adverse effects smoking could have not only on the health of the smoker but on the people in its vicinity.

“In the ’80s it was cool to smoke,” Kaplan said, “and now we know it kills you, and it’s going to give you cancer.”

When Kaplan and her husband opened 859 Taproom in fall 2021, they knew they wanted to keep it smoke-free for the health and safety of themselves and their customers.

“It’s all about not killing each other,” she said.

Smoking is part of Kentucky’s culture, said several smoking ban advocates at a Highland Heights City Council meeting in April. This has contributed to the lag in the Northern Kentucky region – and the state –in passing smoking bans.

Kentucky is one of 12 states with no restrictions on smoking indoors, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also known as the CDC. This leaves the decision for smoke-free ordinances up to individual cities and counties within the state.

Members of a local coalition meant to raise awareness of the dangers of smoking have been working with local cities to pass indoor smoking bans city by city in Northern Kentucky, where comprehensive countywide bans are not in place. Dayton was the

first NKY city to pass a ban, followed by Bellevue. Now, Highland Heights is considering an ordinance that would largely ban smoking inside businesses and on cityowned property.

Breathe Easy NKY, an organization dedicated to passing smoking bans in the region, brought members to speak to Highland Heights council members April 18, encouraging them to pass an ordinance.

“The question for me is why not do it?” asked Brent Cooper, president and CEO of the NKY Chamber of Commerce.

Representatives from Breathe Easy will now meet with the Highland Heights mayor, Greg Meyers, and other members of council to discuss the model ordinance and answer questions.

After the ordinance is created, the pro-

Continues on page 4

An ashtray sits outside Molly Malone’s in Covington. Photo by Sydney Asher | Special to LINK nky

on the cover

BALCOM AND ZACH JARRELL | SPECIAL TO LINK nky

Jeff and Mandy Kaplan, owners of 859 Taproom, pictured in front of their Florence restaurant.

Photo by Stephanie Scarbrough | Special to LINK nky

Continued from page 3 posed ban would get a first and second reading and a vote. The process could take up to a few months, said Meyers.

“It’s important for us to stand up and set the example for other municipalities,” said Dr. Michael Gieske, a doctor of family medicine at St. Elizabeth Physicians, in his presentation with Breathe Easy at the April meeting.

Over a decade ago, Kenton County passed a partial smoking ban, which prohibits smoking in most businesses and workplaces but allows some private clubs and drinking establishments to file for an exemption if they serve alcohol and don’t allow patrons under age 18.

A 2022 study published in the National Library of Medicine – analyzing smoking bans in Argentina – found that partial bans “do not significantly impact smoking prev-

alence, and are found to increase smoking intensity among individuals who smoke every day.”

Full bans, on the other hand, reduce national smoking prevalence over time, according to the study – especially among younger people.

Campbell does not have a ban in place, but Dayton, Bellevue and Highland Heights are all in that county.

Boone County does not currently have a smoking ban, and there is not any discussion to have one county-wide, according to Boone County Fiscal Court Clerk Shona Schulkers.

However, there have been efforts in some cities to push for one. At a recent Florence City Council meeting, for example, several organizations spoke in favor of anti-smoking legislation.

Great auto rates for any budget.

“I believe momentum is building in the Northern Kentucky area for smoke-free policy,” said Tom Cahill of LiveWell Florence, a group that advocates for building healthy environments, systems and behaviors in the city. “I encourage Florence and other communities to help stand up for cleaner air.”

Additionally, some cities and municipalities in Northern Kentucky have taken matters to limit indoor smoking into their own hands. Dayton and Bellevue are the only two Northern Kentucky cities to have passed a citywide indoor smoking ban.

Charlie Cleves is the mayor of Bellevue, which passed a city-wide smoke free ordinance in early February. It will be enforced starting May 15.

“To get our kids hooked on [nicotine] when we’re trying to get the adults off of it is just a crime to me, to be having people do something that can kill them,” Cleves said.

But not all Kentuckians are in agreement. Some business owners in Northern Kentucky told LINK nky they fear smoking bans will lower revenues and push customers away.

‘We’re lucky if we’re making one dollar a drink’

After Dayton began enforcing its smokefree ordinance in November 2022, Lisa Mills – the manager of Rose Room, one of only two bars in the city – said the dive bar lost more than half of their customers.

“It kind of got shut out,” she said. “Everyone went to Bellevue and Newport.”

To make up for the drop in revenue, Mills said the bar has had to cut the cost of beer to $2.75 to draw customers back in.

“Everybody else is $3.50,” she said. “We’re lucky if we’re making one dollar a drink.”

But research – including that from the National Cancer Institute and the CDC – often shows that smoking bans do not adversely affect economic outcomes for businesses. The same has been true for the parts of Kentucky that restrict smoking, according to Breathe Easy – in fact, the group said the bans can end up having a positive economic effect.

Additionally, according to Breathe Easy presentation, tobacco smoking exposure causes $2.79 billion in lost productivity costs every year. Kentucky has spent $1.92 billion every year on healthcare due to tobacco smoke exposure, Cooper said. Each household in the state pays $1,158 in taxes to cover healthcare costs due to smoking.

But Dayton is small, Mills contends, and customers can easily travel to nearby cities that don’t have smoking bans instead.

“I mean statewide it wouldn’t be that bad because people don’t have no choice but to come out,” she said. “Don’t just do one little city that’s so tiny with two little bars that don’t even serve food.”

Some patrons haven’t adapted to the change either.

“We have people that might sneak and smoke… they’re sticking their cigarette butts up on the counters,” Mills said. “They sneak and smoke in [the bathroom], so when you gotta close the bar, the girls gotta stick their hands in the urinals to get those cigarette butts out because people don’t listen.”

Dayton Mayor Ben Baker has publicly touted his city’s decision as a result of a “discussion on healthy workplaces” for employees.

Charlie Cleves, mayor of Bellevue, Kentucky, is pictured inside the Callahan Community Center where monthly city council meetings are held. Photo by Stephanie Scarbrough | Special to LINK nky

Baker has also said that the city surveyed Northern Kentucky residents and found 85% of voters supported a smoking ban. But at a Dayton City Council meeting on Sept. 6 of last year, attendees seemed to be split on the issue – with eight speakers showing support for the smoke-free ordinance and seven raising concerns.

Jacoba Wells, a Dayton resident, said she opposed the ban “for many reasons” but, most of all, voiced concerns about the origins of the proposal – which she said “did not originate from Dayton.” The law, like the Highland Heights proposal, is based on a model ordinance submitted by Breathe Easy.

She was also worried about how it might affect the city’s businesses, echoing Mills’ sentiment by arguing that residents will bring their business to nearby smoking-friendly cities.

“This is going to be bad for Dayton businesses and Dayton citizens,” she said. “They are going to lose their jobs.”

Others at the September meeting pushed Dayton’s city council to vote in favor of the ordinance, – saying it would improve public health and increase foot traffic.

Julie Kirkpatrick, the president and CEO of Meet NKY – Northern Kentucky’s official tourism and convention services bureau – said the ordinance is personally important to her because of her now 19-year-old daughter, who developed a vaping addiction when she was 14 that resulted in her almost “losing her life.”

theirs. After the Health Department presented Cleves with statistics on how smoking contributed to heart attack and cancer rates, he was inspired to make the decision to protect Bellevue residents’ health.

“Everyone’s going to have to do it sooner or later. The health benefits are way too much to ignore,” Cleves said, adding that some residents’ health “doesn’t allow for them to be in an atmosphere where [they] feel like [they’ve] smoked two cigarettes when [they’ve] been in there for an hour.”

The ordinance was a popular decision for most Bellevue residents, as well.

“There was only a total of 14 people that were against it and that actually spoke to me,” Cleves said. “The people that came up to me and shook my hand and said, ‘This is great’ – there was 100.”

Although Bellevue’s smoke-free ordinance won’t be enforced until May 15, the ban has already gained traction in the city.

“There was only about five places in Bellevue that allowed smoking to begin with,” Cleves said. “[Most] places have all come on board and enforce [the rules] already.”

Although most have been quick to hop on board, Cleves said that the Bellevue Vets Club has yet to prohibit smoking out of fear of losing business. Anticipating that businesses would have such concerns, Cleves said he observed the state of smoking bans in other nearby cities, speaking with mayors on how they made their decision and local business owners on how the bans impacted their sales.

there was people in there ordering more expensive drinks and families come in and it just made it so the places all do more business now,” Cleves said. “The Bellevue Veterans Club is very important to the city, and we do not want to harm them. They’re going to find out there’s a whole lot of people that would like to go there that don’t because they don’t want the smoking.”

Patrons at bars in other cities have echoed Cleves’ sentiments that they would continue showing support to their favorite businesses, even if they went smoke-free.

“I don’t need to smoke wherever I go, but I like to smoke and it makes doing things more fun for me, so it definitely is a reason I come here instead of other places,” said Schultz.

While Peterson and Schultz don’t agree with a smoking ban and feel that the decision to allow smoking should be left for businesses to decide, they said they would still return to KJ’s Pub even if a ban were put in place.

‘Everyone’s going to have to do it

sooner or later’

The smoking ban in Bellevue was introduced shortly after Dayton began enforcing

“The facts were that once [businesses] cleared out the few people that hung around there all day and drank beer and smoked cigarettes for a long time, then

Jacquelyn Peterson and Mark Schultz have been regulars at KJ’s Pub in Crescent Springs, a smoke-friendly business, for a few years. They say they like coming to the bar to smoke, listen to live music and hang out with friends.

“I know the people that work here and I know some of the people that come here every weekend and I would come back for them,” Peterson said.

Some business owners in Northern Kentucky have made the decision to ban smok-

Continues on page 8

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Sue, Ft. Thomas, KY

Lauren Castellini Oncology

A patron at KJ’s throws darts. Photo by Hunter Kaesemeyer | Special to LINK nky

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On a cool Kentucky Monday in April, an Axiom Strategies staffer stood outside Mokka on Monmouth Street in Newport, waiting to usher Kentucky Gubernatorial Candidate Kelly Craft and former University of Kentucky Swimmer Riley Gaines to their next two campaign events, one in Louisville and one in Bowling Green.

Craft, a former United Nations Ambassador in the Trump administration, has so far forked out more than $5.3 million to Axiom Strategies — a Missouri-based political consulting agency — and its media buying division, AxMedia, to help bolster her gubernatorial hopes ahead of the May 16 Republican primary.

Of the $5.3 million, more than $3.7 million went to AxMedia for “media placement.” Just under $1 million went to Axiom Strategies for printing, direct mail, equipment, airfare, and other services. Just a bit more than $150,000 went to Axiom Strategies for consulting.

Craft and Gaines traveled the state that day campaigning on an “anti-trans” message, or what their campaign calls a “pro-women” message.

The new rhetoric and messaging around education and transgender issues are what some Democrats are calling a new “culture war” rallying cry for conservatives in the wake of their major win when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

Northern Kentucky Rep. Rachel Roberts (D-Newport) said recently the new “an-

BY MARK PAYNE | LINK nky REPORTER

ti-trans” legislation in Kentucky is a political move in a gubernatorial election year as Republicans try to oust Beshear from the governor’s office.

“I think the push for this is coming from a purely political vantage point,” Roberts said. “It’s a calculated messaging strategy on the majority party side that they think is going to help them win elections this year and the constitutional seats that are up for election, and that will be part of their messaging.”

Roberts further argued that the “anti-trans” message is the one that will replace the abortion message — after the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022 triggered a law that banned the procedure in Kentucky.

“They needed the latest shiny penny thing that they could try and rally voters around, and tragically that seems to be them targeting some of the most vulnerable children in our community,” Roberts said.

Another rhetorical strategy around the “anti-trans” message is what the GOP calls “parental rights” — a messaging strategy used by Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin when he scored an upset victory in 2021.

The group that worked on Youngkin’s campaign? Axiom Strategies.

Kristin Davison, vice president and general consultant for Axiom Strategies, said they are a large firm, and that campaigns across the country — not just their firm — are tapping into the organic movement of education and parental rights that started as a

result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the start of 2021, the Virginia governor’s race had just begun, parents were attending school board meetings for the first time, and this movement started to gain steam, according to Davison.

“They were actually sitting with their kids in their living rooms, participating in their everyday class, and so it awoke an entire generation of parents from what was happening in their schools,” Davison said, noting that Democrats were slow to the punch and didn’t realize the movement that was happening.

“This was bigger than just Virginia,” Davison said. “This spread to Texas. It spread to Florida. It spread to Connecticut. It spread to Michigan. It spread to Nevada.”

The issue also isn’t monolithic, according to Davison.

“It’s not just school choice. It’s not just teacher pay,” Davison said. “It’s all the above, and so it all really was able to umbrella around this philosophy that parents should be involved in their child’s school.”

Now the movement, messaging, and strategy are in Kentucky.

The culture war strategy is one that University of Kentucky Political Science Professor Dr. Stephen Voss thinks works in the Commonwealth because Kentuckians lean conservative on social and cultural issues compared to voters nationwide.

“Republican campaigns benefit when Kentucky voters think nationally about the progressive cultural agenda that Democratic politicians embrace, whereas Democratic campaigns profit from pivoting the election toward family financial struggles or community health,” Voss said. “Craft’s aggressive Culture War campaign might keep Gov. Beshear against the ropes, as he fends off claims that he caters to ‘woke’ cultural progressives.”

Axiom’s first foray in Kentucky politics came in 2022 while working on Northern Kentucky Sen. Gex Williams’ (R-Verona)

Kentucky Republican gubernatorial candidate Kelly Craft listens to a question from one of her supporters during a campaign stop in Elizabethtown, Ky., in April. Photo by Timothy D. Easley | Associated Press

campaign — Davison said it wasn’t the firm testing the waters of Kentucky politics. Instead, it was Williams’ connections.

Williams’ campaign spent over $25,500 on the Kansas City, Mo. political consultant. His campaign manager was Matt Wolking, who worked on the 2020 Trump campaign and is now the strategic communications director for the super PAC Never Back Down, which is supporting the presidential hopes of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — an outspoken governor when it comes to messaging around transgender women in women’s sports and education.

In the Kentucky state Senate, Williams played a key role in helping move through “anti-trans” legislation — Williams calls it “parental rights”— after introducing amendments similar to a law in South Dakota that bans puberty blockers, gender-affirming surgery, and cross-sex hormones.

The bill — Senate Bill 150 — that ultimately passed during the 2023 Kentucky General Assembly also prohibits schools from teaching sexual orientation or gender identity in classrooms and forces transgender students to use the bathroom that aligns with the gender assigned at birth.

Craft’s running mate, Sen. Max Wise (R-Campbellsville), sponsored SB150 and, upon its introduction, gave an impassioned speech on the Senate floor attacking the “woke ideologies” of the Kentucky Department of Education — the speech set the tone of the legislative session, with Kentucky’s Republican legislature now mirroring the rhetoric of Youngkin in Virginia and DeSantis in Florida.

On the campaign trail in April, Craft appeared with Gaines, who tied with transgender woman Lia Thomas during an NCAA swim meet. Thomas, a former boys swimmer, placed above girls that Gaines argued

worked their whole life to be usurped by a “man” competing in girls’ sports.

Gaines has gained notoriety for being outspoken in favor of banning transgender women from women’s sports, often appearing on conservative news networks and supporting legislation to ban transgender women from women’s sports.

“I can wholeheartedly attest to the extreme discomfort in the locker room when you turn around, and there’s a six-foot-four male dropping his pants, fully equipped with and exposing male genitalia and watching other girls undress,” Gaines said in Newport.

Craft spoke in favor of Kentucky’s newly enacted law.

“What I’m really concerned about as a mother and grandmother, I can’t imagine one of my granddaughters being in the girls’ bathroom in school and having a junior high or high school male coming into their bathroom or into their locker room,” Craft said.

Craft’s statewide message has also hit on education — another winning formula for Virginia Gov. Youngkin.

Craft said she would “dismantle” the Department of Education and remove “wokeness” from Kentucky’s schools, which mirrors similar messaging used by Youngkin.

Davison argues this messaging is used across the country, and the similarities between Youngkin’s and Craft’s campaigns are coincidental.

Craft’s and Youngkin’s campaign also used the “Kitchen Table” theme that hits on the nerve of issues average Americans discuss at their kitchen tables. Davison said this similarity between the two campaigns is

unrelated.

“I think Republicans are becoming the party of America’s kitchen tables,” Davison said. “It’s not singular to one person, and even Joe Biden has tried stealing some of that verbiage.”

A few days after appearing in Newport, Craft’s campaign released a TV ad that featured “woke bureaucrats” parachuting into a school to teach critical race theory. Further, a teacher with a nose ring requests a student to use her pronouns.

“Our schools are under attack,” Craft says in the ad. “Woke bureaucrats parachuting in to hijack our children’s future, forcing woke ideology into the classroom — it’s immoral. I’m Kelly Craft, and as governor, I’ll dismantle the Department of Education and start fresh.”

The strategy could be working, with Craft gaining significant ground on Republican frontrunner Attorney General Daniel Cameron in the latest public poll.

Craft now sits just six points behind Cameron, who polled at 30%, and Craft at 24%. In a previous public poll conducted by Mason-Dixon, Cameron led the Republican pack at 39%, with Craft sitting second at 13%.

Voss said the Emerson poll findings show Craft likely improved her name recognition and consequently softened Cameron’s support, and the poll probably caught some of that expected drift.

“This Emerson poll does not inspire the same confidence that it represents actual change from the Mason-Dixon poll, rather than just the normal noise that comes from different samples collected using different approaches,” Voss said.

When it comes to the ideological blows

from Craft’s campaign, Voss said the biggest issue is that she’s employing it in a Republican primary where her leading opponent, Cameron, has strong conservative credentials that includes an endorsement from former President Donald Trump.

“Craft has little basis for ideological attacks on her rivals, which leaves her stuck arguing that she’d be a better right-wing warrior later on,” Voss said. “Craft’s stuck selling herself in the primary based on personal traits — claims of competence or toughness — which is a messaging approach that rarely succeeds and does not appear to be hurting the favorability of her opponents.”

In the general election, if Craft were to win the Republican nomination and face Beshear, the incumbent Democrat would have an advantage, Voss said, because of the legislation passed by the Republican-dominated legislature.

“Beshear would have an advantage fending off Craft’s ideological blows, compared to Democrats in earlier elections, because of the slew of right-wing policies that Kentucky and other conservative states have marched into the legal code, especially in the wake of Roe v. Wade being overturned,” Voss said.

An example would be Kentucky voters’ rejection of the anti-abortion constitutional amendment in the fall of 2022.

“Nothing hurts a movement more than success because their opponents mobilize enthusiastically, their supporters grow complacent, and independents tilt against them to counterbalance their excesses,” Voss said. “Kentucky’s rejection of an anti-abortion constitutional amendment embodies the blue undertow that has followed Kentucky’s red wave, and Gov. Beshear appears likely to benefit from that leftward tug as well.”

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Paul Shanley, the owner of Molly Malone’s Irish Pub and Restaurant in Covington, said that he began to consider instituting a smoking ban in his business even before Kenton county's partial ban was enacted.

“It made more sense with kids coming in,” he said. “I think a lot of restaurants were already nonsmoking before the ban. It was getting to that point where things change.”

Just across the river in nearby Cincinnati, restaurants were making such changes. After Ohio approved a ban on indoor smoking, all businesses went smoke-free, putting pressure on Northern Kentucky to decide if they would do the same.

Will Kentucky ever follow Ohio’s footsteps?

When Addyson Stansel worked as a bartender at Saddle Club in Fort Mitchell, some patrons were unaware that the bar had instituted a smoking ban more than a decade ago.

“I had people show up who hadn’t been there for 10 or 20 years, and they would pull out a pack of cigarettes and try to light one,” she said.

So Stansel – who worked at Saddle Club in 2022 – had to intervene.

“There were definitely complaints,” she said.

She told patrons to take their smoking outside before their cigarette was lit. And, more often than not, those customers would be “surprised.”

“Oh really,” she recalled hearing, “it didn’t used to be like that.” And when Stansel would inform the patron that the smoking policy had been in place for years, she would hear: “Oh whatever, that’s just stupid.”

But “worst case, they would just sit outside and take their drinks outside,” she said.

Stansel now works at The Post in Fort Thomas, which also doesn’t allow customers to smoke indoors. And she said if that were to change, she would likely leave and work someplace where smoking isn’t allowed – like nearby Ohio.

In November 2006, Ohio voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure banning smoking in indoor public spaces and places of employment, providing a standard of protection from the health hazards associated with secondhand smoke exposure. Nearly 60% of Ohio residents voted in favor of the ban.

Ohio’s law does include exemptions: Nursing homes can allow smoking in individual patient rooms and in designated areas that meet certain criteria; hotels, motels and lodging facilities may designate as many as 20% of sleeping rooms for smoking; family business can allow smoking indoors as long as all employees are relatives of the owner, enclosed areas are not open to the public, smoke cannot migrate into no-smoking areas and its the only business located in a free-standing structure; and retail tobacco stores can annually request exemptions.

But enacting a statewide ban in Kentucky is more complicated.

In 2015, Kentucky Democrats introduced a bill that would have banned smoking in workplaces and indoor public places. It

passed the House 51-46, with the support of some Republicans, after the addition of an amendment exempting cigar bars and private clubs. But the legislation would eventually die in the Senate.

“I deplore smoking,” former state Rep. Brian Linder, (R - Dry Ridge), who voted against the legislation in 2015, told the Louisville Courier Journal. “But my love for liberty is greater.”

Similar legislation has been introduced in recent years but hasn’t picked up steam.

Smoking status is protected from workplace discrimination in Kentucky, along with race, religion, sex, age and disability, among other things.

In 1990, the tobacco industry pushed for anti-discrimination laws that would protect smokers in the workplace, and Kentucky became one of the first out of 29 states to make smoking a civil right.

“Kentucky bourbon drinkers aren’t in a protected class,” said Sen. John Schickel (R-Union). “Someone with diabetes isn’t in a protected class. Why in the world would we have smokers in a protected class?”

Kentucky is one of the country’s top tobacco producers, with products used in cigarettes and cigars for its nicotine. Its production has been intertwined with Kentucky history for decades, acting as a pillar for the agriculture economy – it provided nearly 50% of farm income in 1964, and continues to contribute high numbers today – tobacco sales brought in an estimated $258 million in 2021.

And it has come at a cost. As of 2019, the state of Kentucky had the highest cancer rate – and lung cancer rate – in the country.

“Northern Kentucky has one of the higher rates of smoking in the region,” Stephanie Vogel, who works with the Northern Kentucky Health Department, told Spectrum News.

According to Breathe Easy, 24% of adults in the Northern Kentucky region are smokers, compared to 19% in Greater Cincinnati and 14% nationally.

“Tobacco use is deeply rooted in Kentucky culture and so we believe that continues to play a part in our higher rates,” Vogel added.

What’s next?

Still, polls show that Northern Kentuckians overwhelmingly support smoking bans. According to Live Well Florence, 81% of registered voters in Boone, Campbell and Kenton counties support passing smokefree laws in cities and counties in Kentucky.

Kaplan, for one, went as far as to say that “if you’re a bar only, and you want to allow people to smoke, I’m still not coming to your bar.”

Kaplan thinks “most people are going to be OK” with a smoking ban, especially with the prevalence of families in Northern Kentucky.

“I would be mad if I brought my child somewhere and they allowed smoking,” she said. “I mean, we already know it kills you.”

This story was done in collaboration with the University of Cincinnati. Students Andrea Oberto, Brianna Connock, Brooke Bethel, Hayley Garr, Hunter Kaesemeyer, Jared Dettmer, Maeve Hamlet, Maria Osnaya, Stephanie Scarbrough, and Sydney Asher contributed to this report.

Covington grapples with short-term rentals: ‘It will be a balancing act’

BY NATHAN GRANGER | LINK nky REPORTER

“If you’re here thinking that this is a debate about whether we should regulate shortterm rentals, you’re in the wrong place,” said Covington City Solicitor David Davidson at a public hearing at The Carnegie on April 12.

“We already regulated short-term rentals, and the question is, how are we going to change what we’re doing now?” Davidson added.

A short-term rental is a piece of privately-owned property rented out to tenants for short stays. They’re often called Airbnbs, after the web service where landlords can advertise their properties, although there are now multiple websites for booking short-term rentals.

This was Covington’s first public hearing on the matter, although this is not the first time members of the public have attended city meetings in large numbers to voice their opinions on regulation.

People on both sides of the issue attended Wednesday’s hearing. Speakers included short-term property owners and a variety of other community residents.

“I think I can speak for the entire commission when I say we do not plan to ban shortterm rentals in Covington,” said Mayor Joe Meyer. “But we do want, and what our goal is, is a regulatory scheme that protects the quality of life in our neighborhoods while allowing the continued use of STRs [shortterm rentals] at some level, and it will be a balancing act.”

The hearing followed the passage of an ordinance in March, which escalated penalties for short-term landlords who have failed to meet municipal licensing requirements. Current penalties for delinquent landlords include fines of up to $1,000 per day of operating without proper licensing, tax audits, prohibitions against applying for rental licenses, and liens and foreclosures.

Covington began regulating short-term rentals in 2021 when city staff noticed their increased proliferation. It seemed Covington offered a cheap place to stay for big events across the river in Cincinnati, like football games and conventions.

Covington isn’t alone in considering the issue; several other cities in the region have deployed varying degrees of regulation on short-term rentals. Although short-term rentals can be an economic boon for property owners and even municipalities, there are questions about how they affect city zoning practices, housing cost and access, and neighborhood safety.

To legally advertise and operate a shortterm rental in Covington, landlords must obtain a conditional zoning permit from the local architectural board, then obtain a $50 business license and an annual shortterm rental license from the city, which range in price from $30 to $150, depending on the size of the property. Lastly, they must submit to a building inspection to check for safety hazards.

“Only 43 short-term rental licenses have been sought and issued,” as of February,

according to a press release from the city. A quick search on the Airbnb website for stays over the coming weekend displays about 230 advertised rentals operating in the city.

The city declared a moratorium on new licenses in December. Property owners who had already obtained proper licensing can still operate their properties legally but cannot apply for new licenses for new properties until the freeze is lifted in June.

Numerous property owners spoke at the meeting, sharing their frustrations with the application moratorium and the city’s measures against short-term rentals generally, many saying that their businesses have been derailed due to the moratorium.

Noah Brauer, who owns several rental properties in town, expressed what many property owners were feeling.

“I’m here to start earning money in the city of Covington doing this, and I’m eager to continue to invest in the city of Covington,” Brauer said. “I mean, I have invested a considerable amount of money in these buildings, and I feel like what I’ve done has been good for the community.”

Several other property owners said that communications surrounding the licensing requirements had been poor, and many felt blindsided by the moratorium.

“What I’ve seen inside of Covington is that we have had an immense amount of properties that have been blighted and have been cited by Covington for decades that I

live literally right next door to,” said Douglas Thorton, who’s lived with his wife in Covington since 1994, and who has rented out a portion of his home on both a longterm and a short-term basis.

“What had changed that directly was the idea of short term rental that allowed that property to now shine again. It allowed Covington to shine again,” Thorton added. People who were in favor of more regulation spoke, too.

Daniel Burr, who said that he’d lived in Covington for 31 years, expressed worries about the density of rentals within certain neighborhoods, a concern that many shared.

“If every property owner who has applied to operate or expressed an interest in operating a short-term rental in this area were granted a license, that number would increase to 10, almost a third of the residential properties on these two blocks. This is too many,” Burr said. “My neighborhood has been inundated with short-term rentals.”

He recommended limiting the number of licenses that could be issued for residential areas.

He also recommended establishing a public database to keep track of legally-operating rentals.

Covington residents who wish to submit written comments to the city commission can send an email to the city clerk at cityclerk@covingtonky.gov.

St. Vincent de Paul leads region-wide food drive

conditioner, cereal, and other breakfast items.

Items can be dropped off at any of the following locations: Covington Police Department at 20th Street & Madison Avenue in Covington, Kenton County Police Department at 11777 Madison Pike in Independence.

Book Benches made by local artists coming to Covington

people to sit and read.

The city of Covington offered funds from the American Rescue Plan Act to help fund the project. Local movers Two Men & A Truck assisted with the program by moving benches and will assist on the day of installation.

and identity theft after making $180,000 in personal purchases on a company credit card, Attorney General Daniel Cameron announced April 14.

Donaldson was the administrative manager for the city’s public works department and made the plea on April 5, Cameron announced in a press release.

St. Vincent de Paul of Northern Kentucky, local law enforcement, and the FedEx Ground Hub in Independence have partnered to collect food donations throughout Boone, Kenton, and Campbell counties, according to a press release from St. Vincent de Paul.

Donors may drop any of the requested items: peanut butter and jelly, soup, mac & cheese, instant potatoes, canned meats, pork and beans, baked beans, chili beans, canned fruit, laundry detergent, shampoo,

Local artists and a Campbell County High School art teacher are giving back to the community through art service projects.

Teacher Leslie Hagen and the artists were selected to participate in the Kenton County Public Library Foundation’s Book Bench Project, which brings literacy and artistic expression together. Six local artists painted their interpretation of books on a fiberglass bench in the shape of an open book.

In May, the Book Benches will be placed in neighborhoods throughout Covington for

Former Covington city employee pleads guilty to wire fraud, identity theft

Former City of Covington employee Allison Donaldson pleaded guilty to wire fraud

In September, a federal grand jury indicted Donaldson, noting that between October 2020 and February 2022, she used city credit cards to make over $180,000 in personal purchases.

As part of the agreement, Donaldson waived her right to appeal the guilty plea. She faces up to 22 years in prison and a fine of up to $500,000.

NKY schools unlikely to be affected by Senate Bill 150 guidelines

The Kentucky Department of Education released its guidelines for schools to im-

Soup is one of the items requested in the St. Vincent de Paul food drive. Photo by Calle Macarone | Unsplash

Campbell County High School students painting Snowy Day. Photo provided | Kenton County Public Library

plement the new Kentucky law that bans teaching sexual identity in the classroom and gives guidelines on how transgender students can use bathrooms in schools.

The new law prohibits schools from teaching sexual orientation or gender identity in classrooms, forces transgender students to use the bathroom that aligns with the gender assigned at birth and allows teachers to deadname transgender students.

The law also bans puberty blockers, gender-affirming surgery, or hormones for those under the age of 18 — this part of the bill will take effect later this summer.

But, schools in Northern Kentucky are already in compliance, according to Dr. Randy Poe, executive director of the Northern Kentucky Education Council and former superintendent in Boone County.

“In talking with the majority of the districts in Northern Kentucky, most of them have already been in compliance with most of, if not all, the guidelines within Senate Bill 150,” Poe said. “So I don’t see that it’s going to be much of a difference for how districts in Northern Kentucky are operating.”

The guidelines released by the Education Department say schools should be “prepared to provide comprehensive notice of the health services and mental health services available to students upon enrollment. Additionally, schools should develop procedures for notifying families of referrals to health services or mental health services by a teacher.”

Ohio River named secondmost endangered river in US

The Ohio River was listed as the second-most endangered river in the U.S. in a recent report by American Rivers.

According to the nonprofit formed to protect and restore rivers, pollution is the biggest problem impacting the Ohio River. Mining, manufacturing and chemical production are threatening the river, which stretches nearly 1,000 miles and is a source of drinking water for around 5 million people.

In a release, Kentucky Waterways Alliance executive director Michael Washburn said the report is not surprising.

“The East Palestine disaster is only the most recent high profile incident of abuse endured by the Ohio River and the people and animals that rely on it,” Washburn said in the release. “Despite being one of our nation’s most important waterways, the Ohio River and its basin have long been neglected. Restoring and protecting the Ohio River is not merely the environmentally responsible thing to do, but it is a critical imperative for the health and well-being of our communities and our economies.”

Tri-State residents gathered at Cincinnati City Hall Tuesday to ring the alarm bell and call for change.

“Who speaks for nature? Who protects nature? The government agencies don’t anymore,” said Lynn Hamamoto, a member of Citizens for Rights of the Ohio River Watershed. “We need to put the P, protection, back in the EPA because it’s been taken away, it’s been co-opted. We recognize that. We see that. We are not gonna stand for it anymore.”

Another member echoed Hamamoto’s sentiments, saying she feels as if the citizens’ voices are being drowned out.

“I’m very concerned that citizens have no voice, it’s the corporate voice … that are drowning the citizen’s voice out from protecting our own environment,” said Jean Nightingale.

Ohio River Way, a regional coalition of more than 100 communities and organizations along the river, is calling on Congress to designate the river as a federally-protected water system and fund a basin-wide restoration plan. Advocates say they want a plan similar to the plans that helped improve conditions in the Great Lakes.

“It’s a fight for nature — it’s a fight for life and death,” Hamamoto said.

LGBTQ protestors gather behind the Kentucky capitol on March 29 to speak out against Senate Bill 150 — a bill that bans gender affirming care.

Photo by Mark Payne | LINK nky

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Churchill Downs announces plans for 150th Kentucky Derby

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) – Churchill Downs is planning a series of celebrations and fan experiences leading up to the milestone 150th Kentucky Derby in May 2024.

The track rolled out a new website on Wednesday that included the official Kentucky Derby 150 logo.

Horse racing’s marquee event for 3-yearold thoroughbreds is the first jewel of the Triple Crown, as well as the United States’ longest continually run sporting event since 1875. The COVID-19 pandemic postponed the 2020 Derby from its traditional spot on the first Saturday in May for the first time since 1945; instead, it was run on Sept. 5, 2020, without spectators.

In May 2021, attendance was limited to 52,000 but by last spring, 147,294 watched in person as 81-1 long shot Rich Strike pulled off a stunning upset.

The track expects another huge crowd for the 149th Derby on May 6.

Churchill Downs president Mike Anderson said in a statement he is excited about the track’s subsequent plans to mark the race’s landmark anniversary and rich history of “tradition, hospitality and the best horse racing in the world.”

The events will unfold with the track undergoing major improvements.

A $200 million renovation of the paddock behind the main grandstand began after last spring’s race, with completion expected by the 2024 Derby. The project will more than double the size of the horses’ walking ring and add 3,600 seats and 3,250 standing-room spaces.

Other changes to the track include premium club spaces, dining tables and rail boxes, plus new viewing areas.

Abortion, drug trafficking discussed at Kentucky GOP debate

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) – Republican gubernatorial hopeful Kelly Craft pressed for the death penalty for drug traffickers connected to fatal overdoses in Kentucky, while rival Ryan Quarles defended the state’s abortion ban during a free-wheeling GOP

primary debate Wednesday on a popular sports radio program.

Craft, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during Donald Trump’s presidency, continued her tough talk on combating illegal drugs flowing into the Bluegrass State, blaming it on the nation’s “wide open” Southern border. Quarles, the state agriculture commissioner, didn’t budge from Kentucky’s current abortion law, which includes prohibiting abortions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest.

They joined two other GOP gubernatorial candidates — state Auditor Mike Harmon and Somerset Mayor Alan Keck — for the debate on Kentucky Sports Radio, coming less than a month before the May 16 primary. State Attorney General Daniel Cameron, a leading candidate in the GOP contest, did not participate in the debate. Craft skipped two earlier debates that Cameron attended.

Twelve candidates in all are competing for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. The Kentucky campaign is drawing national attention to see if Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear can win reelection to a second term despite his party’s struggles in the GOP-trending state.

At Wednesday’s debate, the participating candidates offered contrasting answers when asked for a policy that could immediately help Kentucky the most. Quarles pointed to public safety in a response focused on Louisville. The state’s largest city has been plagued by gun violence, including the deaths of five people at a downtown bank last week when a man opened fire with an assault-style rifle.

“We have a great city in Louisville,” Quarles said. “When Louisville is safe and secure, Kentucky is safe and secure.”

Harmon selected school choice as his preference while voicing support for public money going to private schools. Keck listed welfare reform, saying the state needs a system “where we take care of the working poor instead of those who are unwilling to work.” Craft pointed to removing a “woke” agenda from public schools, continuing another of her campaign themes.

Nonprofits scramble for help amid dearth of volunteers

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) – CASA of Lexington has tried just about everything to find vol-

unteers to serve as advocates for abused and neglected children with the Kentucky nonprofit.

Since 2020, it has hired someone to focus on recruiting volunteers, added in-person and virtual outreach events and options to complete the required 30-hour training, and printed information on fans to hand out in churches, Melynda Milburn Jamison, its executive director, said. She even visited a men’s-only barbecue to make a quick 10-minute pitch.

The result? In 2022, CASA of Lexington had 62 new volunteers complete training, short of its target of 80. Only two came from the group’s recruitment events, with the rest mostly via word of mouth, Jamison said.

“We’ve been able to retain keeping the number of children we serve fairly consistent,” she said, “but we should have been increasing because we’ve taken on new counties and we’ve added additional staff.”

Jamison is not alone in her frustration. Her experience reflects the latest twist in a decadeslong trend of declining volunteer participation. As pandemic-related government aid programs end and inflation rises, nonprofits of all kinds are looking everywhere and trying everything to get volunteers. According to a recent U.S. Census Bureau and AmeriCorps survey, formal volunteer participation was 23.2%, dropping 7 percentage points between 2019 and 2021 — the largest decrease the survey has recorded since a version of it started in 2002.

It’s reached the point where the lack of volunteers strains the safety net that nonprofits provide to many of society’s most vulnerable.

“This is a wake-up call for the social sector, which depends on volunteers, especially as needs for services remain high,” said Michael D. Smith, CEO of AmeriCorps, which has opened its yearly grant program to award $8 million to help nonprofits recruit and retain volunteers.

The largest drop between 2019 and 2021 in any state was Colorado at 16.1 percentage points. Hawaii, Wisconsin and Ohio also saw double-digit drops. Utah, with its highest-in-the-nation participation rate of 40.7% in 2021, the most recent figures available, saw an 8.8 percentage-point drop.

Spring clean-up time in Campbell County

A countywide clean-up for residents is scheduled for Friday and Saturday, April 28-29, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Furniture (including mattresses), trash, debris and yard waste will be collected at the Campbell County Police Department (8774 Constable Drive, Alexandria), Frederick’s Landing (KY 9-AA Highway, Wilder) and Pendery Park (4113 Williams Lane, Melbourne).

You can bring any of the items plus appliances (freon ok), batteries (vehicle and rechargeable), electronics (1 tv/vehicle), scrap metal (remove fluids) and tires (8 tires, rims ok). A photo ID or proof of residency is required. Items NOT accepted include paint, liquids, hazardous waste, fluorescent bulbs, rocks, concrete or dirt. Participants must unload their own vehicles.

For info: 859-547-1866 or solidwaste@ campbellcountyky.gov. Also, see campbellcountyky.gov.

Beechwood Band Director receives Excellence in Education award

Viva Voices concert at Carnegie features music from youth choirs

Beechwood Director of Bands Austin Bralley received an Excellence in Education award from The Cincinnatus Foundation for his leadership in the nationally recognized Beechwood music program for students grades 6 through 12. In his six years at Beechwood, Bralley has led the bands to multiple State Marching Bands Championships and to earn Exemplary Performance Awards for concert band performance for both middle and high school. He also established a popular and affordable private lesson program.

The Viva Voices Choral Organization will showcase its Viva Voices Children’s Choir and Viva Voices Youth Chorus at a special concert Sunday, April 30, at Covington’s historic Carnegie Theater, located at 1028 Scott Street. The performance starts at 6 p.m. The children’s choir offers a singing opportunity for students in grades four through seven. Older students, grades 8 through 12, perform in the youth chorus. For more info, go to vivavoices.net/performances.

Enzweiler Building Institute names Student of the Year

The Enzweiler Building Institute of the Building Industry Association of Northern Kentucky (BIA) conferred certificates to 37 skilled tradespeople who graduated from the Institute this school year. At a ceremony held on April 13, Eddie Luckey

was named Student of the Year by the institute. A second-year heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning student, Luckey was selected for his perfect attendance, enthusiasm for the industry, and his desire to introduce others to the skilled trades. For more about Enzweiler Building Institute go to buildinginstitute.com.

Joel Ford recognized as Outstanding High School Counselor

Conner High School Counselor Joel Ford was recently recognized by the Kentucky Community & Technical College System (KCTCS) with a 2023 Pathfinder Award. The award recognizes high school teachers and counselors for their outstanding efforts in assisting students with their future college-going plans. Ford received his honor from Gateway Community & Technical College, a KCTCS college. Nearly 250 nominations were submitted for the award, and only one teacher or counselor is selected from each of the 16 KCTCS colleges.

Beechwood Director of Bands Austin Bralley with his wife, Kelli. Photo provided | Austin Bralley

Stylish custom remodel in Ludlow shows attention to detail

Address: 413 Hooper St.,

Price: $314,900

Beds: Three bedrooms

Bath: Two bathrooms

Square feet: 1,400

Ludlow

School district: Ludlow Independent County: Kenton

Special features:

Thoughtful custom design features can be found throughout with this three-bedroom two-bathroom home in the heart of Ludlow within walking distance to popular downtown businesses like Bircus Brewing, Second Sight Spirits, and Taqueria Domingo. Kitchen features custom cabinetry and countertops make for a fun backdrop for shoot. First floor full bath shows attention to detail with custom tile and all new fixtures. Rustic wood beam detail and extra loft space provide attractive flexibility and storage space in two of the second-floor bedrooms, one of which also includes a deck overlooking the back yard. Plenty of room for outdoor activities and cooking out, and the full privacy fence makes it a good home for pets.

Recent NKY Home Sale Data

Front of custom Ludlow remodel shows thoughtful attention to detail including red entry door and stamped concrete driveway. Photo provided | Matt Brock with Resource Realty Partners

View shows wood beam detail in second floor bedroom of custom Ludlow home and a floating staircase to an above loft area. Photo provided | Matt Brock with Resource Realty Partners

Well-appointed commercial elements in the open kitchen including the utility-depth sink and overhead vent complement the custom countertops and wood details throughout. Photo provided | Matt Brock with Resource Realty Partners

On Your Street: Lindsey Drive in Edgewood

STORY AND PHOTOS BY ANN MORT | LINK NKY CONTRIBUTOR

On Your Street is a regular feature in which readers take a tour of one street in Northern Kentucky to the stories of the people who live there.

Lindsey Drive in the Dudley Village subdivision in Edgewood runs a half mile from Dudley Road, leading to a cul-de-sac where the obligatory basketball hoop invites neighborhood kids to hone their skills.

Hermann Krallman brought his family to the United States from Germany, which led his son, Ted, to meet a man named Dreese, who sponsored them for their citizenship tests. Ted married a young woman named Jan and they started building a family— which eventually numbered 14 children.

By 1966, the Krallmans had five children and needed a bigger home. George Kreutzjans, also from a German immigrant family, was building Dudley Village on what was then the Kahman family farm. Several members of the Kahman family had already built homes on Lindsey Drive.

“Lindsey Drive got its name from a prior owner of the property and a little street that was already there when construction began,” said George Kreutzjans, grandson of the Dudley subdivision builder.

According to Jan Krallman, her husband, Ted, wasn’t satisfied with other builders’ work, so he decided to build the family a home himself.

“Our house is where the former chicken coop had been,” Theresa said.

It was a lively household and there was “never a dull moment,” said Theresa, number 10 in the lineup. “And there was always a playmate available.”

A large bell still stands in the backyard and when it rang while Theresa was young, all the kids knew it was time to come home for dinner. She said they could hear it for miles.

“You never got seconds at our dinner table,” she said. “We had a big table with benches on the sides, mom at one end and dad at the other.“

Everybody still gets together on Sundays for family dinner. Those dinners stopped during COVID, but they’re picking up again.

A family tree on the wall reminds Jan of her huge family and their birth dates. She is planning to add two more names to that decorative reminder when new grandchildren arrive.

Even with such a large brood to care for, Jan volunteered in the school cafeterias as her children grew up. She also worked for 23 years as a registered nurse in the Alzheimer’s unit of Florence Park Care and Rehab Center. She retired 15 years ago and now occasionally travels to places like Europe. Last year she went to Disney with 15 members of the family.

Theresa works from home for PNC Bank in the Commercial Lending department and still plays volleyball with her high school friends. Her children all are involved in three sports each.

As might be expected, the household is never empty and often active. They’ve even got a German Shepherd named Lucy.

Shirley and Greg Krull spent the first year of their marriage looking for a home in the area so Greg could be close enough to coparent his three children, who attended Dixie High School.

After visiting dozens of houses, they discovered their little beauty about halfway down Lindsey Drive and decided before they’d reached the bottom of the hill that this was their new home.

Twenty-two years later, the kids are grown and have produced six grandchildren. Only Cuffin, the 16-year-old dog, (named by a son in police work – hand cuffs) lives with them.

Shirley and Greg met while working in IT. Both now work from home for different companies.

Shirley was born in Pakistan and moved to the US to have access to a better education and a better life.

“There were not many opportunities in Pakistan for women and it is safer here,” she said.

Born in Cincinnati, Greg is one of five children.

He played softball and volleyball, and as a kid, he sang in the Cincinnati Boys Choir. Now, he plays trombone and both he and Shirley sing in the Trio Service choir at First

Church of Christ in Burlington.

After 30 years in the IT field, Greg went back to Cincinnati Christian University to study musical performance.

“Kentucky, however, will always be our home,” Greg said.

Lindsey Drive and Dudley Road in Edgewood.

Family runs to shine light on son’s rare disease

BY MARC HARDIN | LINK nky CONTRIBUTOR

When Jenna Neduchal won 14 high school state championships in cross country and track and field at St. Henry, the Class of 2006 distance runner didn’t foresee herself running something like a half-marathon.

“I did trade running for sport for running after toddlers,” said the 35-year-old mother of two, who also ran at Northern Kentucky University. “I’m here to report that both are challenging and rewarding all at once.”

Running anything more than a couple miles was a nonstarter for Justin Neduchal, who played basketball, volleyball and tennis in high school, but never ran competitively.

“To be perfectly honest,” said Justin , 39, “I am not a huge fan of running.”

The Walton residents are both running half-marathons during annual Flying Pig events May 7 in Cincinnati.

So, what happened?

Well, they met.

In St. Augustine, Florida, of all places. At Flagler College by chance encounter.

“One of my roommates, Patrick Tierney, was friends with Jenna’s family. The Siemers were visiting the Tierneys in St. Augustine,” said Justin, a human resources senior manager at Lockheed Martin. “We met in 2003 and dated for a short time in 2006. Then we reconnected five years later and ended up getting married.”

They have two children, daughter Jovie, 7, and son Jace, 6. Jace was diagnosed with SHINE Syndrome in December 2021. SHINE Syndrome is an extremely rare neurodevelopmental disorder with 104 known cases in the world. Jace was the 54th known case. There are a handful of cases in Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky. Another is 10-year-old Nolan Palmer, son of Nate and Laura Palmer of suburban Cincinnati. He was diagnosed with SHINE Syndrome in October 2017. Laura Palmer is founder and president of SHINE Syndrome Foundation.

Ideally, all of them would be participating at the Flying Pig to help raise awareness about the disability, but Jace isn’t quite ready.

“I would love for Jace to be able to participate,” Jenna said. “They have an event called PigAbilities which is a movement for inclusion that supports families and individuals with a disability.”

It’s a one-mile race that participants and their supporters can run or walk.

“It would be so amazing if Jace could participate in that one day,” Jenna said. “He has extreme sensitivity to loud noises, so we obviously want him to be able to enjoy himself. Our goal for Jace is to have a meaningful and fulfilling life, so we will always focus on what brings him the most joy.”

SHINE Syndrome, also known as DLG4-related synaptopathy, is characterized predominantly by what doctors call global developmental delay and intellectual disability of varying severity, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorder, epilepsy and hypotonia. Many individuals with SHINE syndrome also experience sleep disturbances, and skeletal and structural brain abnormalities.

It’s caused by changes in the gene DLG4, located on chromosome 17. DLG4 encodes the protein PSD-95, which plays a big role in brain development and function, which when altered can induce susceptibility to SHINE Syndrome. A single copy of the disease-associated mutation is enough to

cause it. Most with SHINE Syndrome are found to have new variants in DLG4, which means the variant occurs for the first time in them and is not inherited from a parent.

“Jace did not stand until he was almost 2 years old. He never crawled,” Justin said. “He’s been in multiple therapies since he was 6 months old. He used to wear braces on his ankles to build strength, and now at 6 years old he’s running around with other kids.”

When the Palmers found out Nolan had it, it led to the creation of the SHINE Syndrome Foundation. Laura Palmer communicates with rare disease organizations and researchers, creates peer-to-peer connections with other rare disease nonprofits, writes grant applications and is active with fundraising. The board works to organize medical resources and plans with researchers, develops patient registries, raises funding for research and drives awareness of SHINE Syndrome among the medical community and in the general public. Justin Neduchal is on the board. He’s the director of fundraising.

“We will all be wearing neon pink shirts with our SHINE logo on it. And Nolan’s stroller will be wrapped in the logos of some of the local companies that have donated to SHINE through our Flying Pig fundraising effort,” Justin said. “The fact that Laura is pushing Nolan for 26.2 miles in one of the hilliest marathon courses in the country is a testament to her dedication to her son, this foundation, and her goal of raising awareness about SHINE Syndrome. My wife and I are running the half-marathon as part of a way to support Laura and Nolan. We’re part of the group starting the race together to help push him where we can before we break off to the half-marathon.”

Jenna ran the Flying Pig half-marathon for the first time last year.

“She is the backbone of our family, the main caregiver for our son. I was just inspired watching her train and then cross the finish line,” Justin said. “I rode a bike to find her during multiple spots, and I just bought into it and decided I’d run this year. That’s how it started. Then, when Laura had the idea to push Nolan, it sparked an idea in us to also do this in support of SHINE Syndrome awareness and fundraising.

SHINE Syndrome is an extremely rare neurodevelopmental disorder with 104 known cases in the world. Photo provided

Sallee takes over WaltonVerona volleyball program

After taking the 2022 season off from coaching, Katelyn Sallee has returned to the sidelines as the new Walton-Verona head volleyball coach.

Sallee coached at Highlands from 201421, guiding the Bluebirds to five straight 36th District championships and a 172-99 record. She won the Northern Kentucky Volleyball Coaches Association Coach of the Year three times during her tenure in Fort Thomas.

Sallee met with her new team on April 14 at the high school, listing her expectations such as constant communication, no gossiping, hustle, heart and an effort to attend every event. She said she believes it is imperative to fix issues as a team.

Sallee comes into a similar situation she found the Highlands program when she took it over in 2014. Walton-Verona has struggled the last two seasons, going a combined 15-42 including an 8-22 mark last year and has made the Eighth Region Tournament just once in the past four seasons.

Fort Thomas native Ordonez gets Guatemalan National team nod

FC Cincinnati soccer player Arquimides Ordonez has been called up to the Guatemalan under-20 national team as the country begins training for the 2023 U-20 World Cup that starts in May.

Ordonez is a Fort Thomas native who played club soccer throughout high school with Kings Ham-

mer Academy and Cincinnati United Premier. His older brother Elias led Highlands in scoring his senior season in 2014.

Arquimides has been on FC Cincinnati’s roster since 2021, appearing in 13 games. He’s stood out on FC Cincinnati’s MLS Next Pro team, scoring four goals in two games this season and four goals in 13 games during the 2022 season.

He joined the FC Cincinnati Academy in the program’s inaugural 2019-20 season. He made a combined eight starts for the U-19 roster during the 2021 MLS NEXT season with three of those coming during the recent MLS NEXT Cup Playoffs. He was a big part in helping Guatemala qualify for the U-20 World Cup, scoring five goals in six appearances and was the only player in the competition to score in all three groupstage matches.

Five from NKY make Tom Leach All-Resilient Team

The Tom Leach All-Resilient-Team honors student-athletes from Kentucky high schools who have had to overcome some form of adversity to compete and often excel in sports, within the previous calendar year.

Tom Leach is the “Voice of the Wildcats” for the UK Radio Network, and the play-byplay announcer for football and basketball games.

Each year, Leach releases the student-athletes selected for the All-Resilient team. This year five NKY student-athletes made the list: Lloyd Memorial’s Jeremiah Israel, Scott’s Ava Coleman, Covington Catholic’s Blake Folke, Newport Central Catholic’s Vinny Petroze, and Bishop Brossart’s Robbie Verst.

Shortly after Israel was born, he and his siblings were sent to live with his grandmother because of drug issues with their parents. Israel eventually had to take on various jobs to help support his siblings, two of whom were diagnosed with autism. Through all this, Israel became a household name in Erlanger and he received a basketball scholarship to Northern Kentucky University.

After Coleman had two ACL tears during

her high school career the doctor told her she may never play sports again. She would go on to earn All-10th region honors and all-37th district in both soccer and basketball. Not only that, but in the classroom Coleman was honored with Governor’s Scholars.

Between the seventh grade and his senior year, Folke underwent 11 major injuries. There were torn knee ligaments, two hip fractures, three broken clavicles, two wrist fractures, and torn labrum and a separated AC joint. Through all of those injuries, Folke maintained his positive attitude and supported his teammates–and achieved a GPA of 3.7 in the classroom. Folke is headed to the University of Alabama on an academic scholarship.

A simple cut on a leg suffered in a soccer match rocked Petroze’s world, after it was infected with a flesh-eating bacteria that put his life in jeopardy. His condition deteriorated quickly and there were multiple, daily surgeries needed to save his leg and his life. At one point, he was on a ventilator for two days but he recovered and endured

one final operation to reconstruct the leg. Just 12 weeks later, he was back on the court with the basketball team at Newport Central Catholic, followed by baseball and soccer the next fall. In his first two years as a varsity starter in soccer, Petroze started every game and won a “more than a match” award along the way.

As a freshman, Verst suffered a broken back that sidelined him for that entire school year. As a sophomore, broken bones in both feet derailed his return to the basketball team and just after making it back for baseball season, he suffered a season-ending wrist injury. As a junior, torn ligaments in a knee ended his high school basketball career. As a senior, Verst decided to try and make the golf team despite never having played the sport. He succeeded, shot several rounds in the low 40’s, and helped his team win a 10th Region All ‘A’ title. Verst then developed a herniated disc, but he overcame that, too, and returned to the baseball diamond and got a hit and stole a base in his first game back.

Katelyn Sallee was named the new Walton-Verona head volleyball coach on Friday, April 14. G. Michael Graham | LINK nky contributor

Arquimides Ordonez was called up to the Guatemalan under-20 national team. Photo provided | FC Cincinnati

Samaritan Car Care Clinic unveils new Covington garage

BY KENTON HORNBECK | LINK nky REPORTER

Years ago, Amanda Mills was driving her kids to football practice when her car broke down on the side of the road. As a mother putting herself through nursing school, bad car luck was the last thing she needed.

“My car broke down on the side of the highway and I was in tears,” Mills said. “I didn’t know what I was going to do.”

Luckily for Mills, her friend Mia Potter recommended that she visit Samaritan Car Care Clinic in Covington, a nonprofit specializing in providing low-income Northern Kentucky residents with routine car maintenance.

Last April, Samaritan Car Care broke ground on new, permanent location at the corner of Martin Street and Madison Avenue. Today, they unveiled their new garage to the public.

“What we at the Samaritan Car Care Clinic do is actually pretty straightforward,” said Samaritan founder and director Bruce Kinter. “What we do is we address transportation barriers that low income families face on their path to self sufficiency.”

The land to build the facility was donated by Corporex, a real estate development company based in Covington, while the construction was financed by The Catalytic Fund.

Kinter founded the nonprofit in 2007 as an all-volunteer program that offered basic maintenance to low income families and individuals. Since the clinic’s founding,

they have completed over 1,000 oil changes. In 2022 alone, they served 315 families.

He got the idea from his church minister, Chinna Simon, who preaches at Madison Avenue Christian Church. Simon mentioned to Kinter that he routinely encountered single mothers who attended the church’s community dinners who couldn’t get to work due to being unable to afford general car maintenance.

“We have these low income single moms who are coming out to the church’s community meals,” said Kinter, paraphrasing what Simon told him in the past. “Now most of them don’t have cars, but many do. The ones who do come they are trying to choose between rent and groceries. They don’t even have money for an oil change.”

Wanting to help, Kinter contacted David

EACH WEEK, NORTHERN KENTUCKY SELECTS

Brownfield, the owner of Walther Autobody. Brownfield allowed Kinter to operate Samaritan out of his garage which it has done for the past 16 years.

Local nonprofits such as the Women’s Crisis Center, Life Learning Center, Brighton Center, ion Center and Welcome House got involved by spreading the word.

Samaritan offers services like changing engine oil, replacing air filters, wiper blades, lightbulbs, topping off fluids, inflating tires and other general car repairs. In addition to offering low cost maintenance services, Samaritan partnered with Gateway Community and Technical College to create a co-op for students.

In 2019, the Butler Foundation asked Kinter if Samaritan could increase their scope of service. Up for the challenge, Kinter took

them up on their offer.

“The Butler Foundation asked Bruce Kinter in 2019 if Samaritan Car Care would consider ramping up the scope of its services in order to help stabilize the lives of his clients by providing dependable transportation on their road to self sufficiency and the means to get to and from their jobs,” said Marty Butler, board director of Samaritan.

Car service for low income families and individuals is a critical service. Oftentimes, having a reliable vehicle can be a critical variable on whether an individual can make it to work or not. Besides the TANK bussing system, there is no other form of cheap public transpiration in Northern Kentucky.

17.33% of working adults in the 41011 zip code, where the garage is located, have no access to a vehicle, according to the Northern Kentucky Atlas. In contrast, 70.67% of workers in the same zip code drive alone to work.

The problem was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic as laid off workers in the local hospitality industry were forced to take up different jobs to make ends meet. Those who turned to gig economy jobs such as DoorDash put more wear and tear on their vehicles. As an effect, the demand for Samaritan’s services increased.

“We all need transportation. Not everybody can catch the bus. Not everybody can walk to the bus stop,” Mills said. “It’s such a blessing that we have people that have out of the box thinking.”

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Ludlow baseball team

Photo provided | Ludlow Panthers Baseball Facebook

The Samaritan Car Care ribbon cutting ceremony. Photo by Kenton Hornbeck | LINK nky