BY PATRICK CROWLEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
COVINGTON -- Candidates in a Kenton County Fiscal Court Republican primary implored the incumbent court Wednesday not to repeat mistakes in building a county jail.
Erlanger resident Don Freese and Adam Koenig of Villa Hills made their comments during a joint appearance on an InterMedia cable television program broadcast Wednesday.
The county is expected to announce shortly where the jail will be built.
The current jail, in the county courthouse in downtown Covington, is supposed to house no more than 235 adults but has routinely lodged 375 or more. County officials have said the jail is difficult to operate because of its sprawling design, with inmates occupying the basement and the eighth, ninth and 10th floors.
Mr. Freese agreed a new jail is needed, but said discussion of a site should be more open to the public.
Mr. Koenig, a former Villa Hills councilman, said a new jail is "way overdue." But he said the court should make sure it builds a jail large enough that the county is not again dealing with crowding in 10 years.
Mr. Koenig said if he is elected, he will work to make sure more outstanding criminal warrants are served. "And if that happens, the jail is going to be housing more prisoners," he said.
Unlike some other candidate appearances InterMedia has broadcast this week, the program featuring Mr. Koenig and Mr. Freese did not include any sniping between candidates.
But Mr. Koenig did say the current court "lacks integrity" because of Democratic Commissioner Steve Arlinghaus, whom the winner of the May 26 Republican primary will face in November.
Mr. Koenig hinted that Mr. Arlinghaus pressured former judge-executive Clyde Middleton to resign because of a bidding scandal involving construction of a county courthouse.
Mr. Arlinghaus has denied applying any pressure to Mr. Middleton. The fiscal court has agreed to pay $850,000 to two developers -- Carroll Properties and Wessels Construction -- who sued the county because of the way bids were handled for a $35 million county courthouse. Mr. Middleton resigned in February after saying he made a mistake in showing the bids submitted by Carroll and Wessels to Corporex Cos., the Covington-based development and construction firm that eventually won the bid.
The county is now trying to recover the $850,000 settlement from Corporex in Kenton Circuit Court.
Mr. Freese, a friend of Mr. Middleton's, said Mr. Middleton did "what all great leaders did when he made a mistake" by admitting his mistake and resigning his office.
But a way to avoid problems in the future is for the fiscal court to be more involved in the bidding and other procurement processes,Mr. Freese said.
