BY GREGORY A. HALL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
TAYLOR MILL -- As a Kenton County commissioner, Barbara Black will vote on using state money to transport parochial school students to school. That bus vote will bring her political career back to where it began. She ran for her first office, a member of the Edgewood City Council, after becoming upset because people were living in a bus on her street. "I attended a (city council) meeting because of that," said Mrs. Black, who won election to the Kenton Fiscal Court on Tuesday. Park planning and other issues kept her interest in city affairs and led to her first candidacy.
"I wanted to get involved," she said. "As a conservative woman, I thought I could make a difference in addressing some issues." She served in Edgewood from 1990-92, when her family moved to Taylor Mill.
She ran there in 1993 and won the commission seat she'll hold through the end of this year.
Mrs. Black said she and her family have worked in political campaigns for years.
"We tend to just get involved in races," she said. The first was Democrat Tom Kerr's 1984 run for the state House of Representatives. The families had gone to church together at Calvary Baptist.
"All of a sudden, they were involved in the campaign," Mr. Kerr said. That included then-4-year-old Kevin Black, who just completed his freshman year at the University of Kentucky, campaigning at a McDonald's.
"He got broken in early," Mr. Kerr said.
Mrs. Black and her husband Keith, a lobbyist for Cinergy, also have two daughters.
Mrs. Black also listed several Republican legislators as her political influences: Florence Rep. Charlie Walton, Villa Hills Rep. Dick Murgatroyd, Verona Sen. Gex "Jay" Williams and Fort Thomas Sen. Katie Stine.
"I think their being elected has had a really positive effect on Northern Kentucky," she said.
The 45-year-old Mrs. Black takes countywide office in January. She is unopposed in the November general election because the only Democrat in the race, Jeff Shipp, withdrew.
Getting elected might have looked easy from the result; she beat incumbent Nyoka Johnston with 58.5 percent of the vote. The campaign was bitter, with both candidates accusing the other of negative campaigning.
Mrs. Black will come to the fiscal court that is dealing with the aftermath of a bidding controversy.
Losing bidders Carroll Properties and Wessels Construction and Development Corp. settled their lawsuit against the county in February for $850,000. Judge-executive Clyde Middleton resigned at the time of the settlement and Rodney "Biz" Cain was appointed to serve out the term.
The county is suing the winning bidder, Bill Butler's Corporex Cos., to recoup the $850,000 settlement in the $35.6 million courthouse and garage construction projects.
Wessels and Carroll claimed Corporex had an upper hand in winning the $35.6 million contracts. The county accuses Mr. Butler of manipulating the process in his company's favor.
Corporex denies any wrongdoing.
Mrs. Black used the settlement and the county's lawsuit in her campaign against Mrs. Johnston.
"I'm hoping with Biz Cain's leadership over the next seven months that many of those problems are going to be dealt with in a positive manner," Mrs. Black said.
She also opposed a consolidation study, the results of which would have been placed on a countywide ballot for a binding vote. A judge invalidated the effort last year.
"It was the way in which it was carried out," she said, noting that she supports voluntary consolidation of services.
As a commissioner, she's promised not to govern the way she says the county has been in the past. She wants to extend water and sewer to rural areas before development gets ahead of it.
She has reminders of those promises all around her.
Her home is full of pictures of and references to the Noah's ark Bible story, including a couch pillow, a quilt and a doormat.
"I like Noah's ark because it talks about keeping promises," she said. "I take that very seriously."
