BY GREGORY A. HALL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
COVINGTON -- Covington officials are hoping a revised plan to put three new ball fields in a Latonia park will be a hit with Kenton Fiscal Court members.
Assistant City Manager Tom Steidel made the pitch to the fiscal court for a contribution of $150,000 toward the $653,000 project at 43rd and Decoursey Pike during Tuesday's county meeting.
Negotiations between the city and county on the Covington Youth Sports Complex date back to 1994, when the fiscal court agreed to add $150,000 to a loan to build Mills Road Park in Independence. The Latonia park has three baseball fields and one of seven soccer fields that are in a flood plain. The new plan would reconfigure the park to add three baseball fields outside the flood plain and 500 parking spaces.
"We really want to establish this as a quality facility," Mr. Steidel said.
The city renewed its request a year ago, but commissioners decided to cut the offer back to $75,000 because at that time the city was only going to spend $180,000.
"We've scrapped that whole idea and come up with something we can live with and get built quickly," said city architect Bob Issenmann.
If funded, the project should be finished in two years, he said. Mr. Steidel said the city plans to put restrooms in two existing buildings on the land. The city cannot build on the land, which was a landfill, Mr. Steidel said. The site provided the soil in the 1940s that built Covington's floodwall. The site was used as a solid-waste landfill, later capped and turned into playing fields.
