Tuesday, May 18, 1999
Public views sought on jail
Kenton Co. weighs sites
BY CINDY SCHROEDER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
CRESTVIEW HILLS — After months of debate, tonight the public will get its chance to suggest where a new Kenton County Jail should be built.
The first of two public hearings on four leading jail sites will be at 7:30 tonight at the Connor Convocation Center on the Thomas More College campus in Crestview Hills.
A second hearing will be at 7:30 p.m. next Tuesday at the Erlanger Lions Club.
“Once we have the two hearings, then the (fiscal) court's going to have to sit down, and assemble all the information we have, and determine where the best site is,” Kenton Judge-executive Dick Murgatroyd said Monday.
Mr. Murgatroyd said Kenton County officials hope to announce by July 1 where a new jail will be built.
“A lot's going to depend on what we hear from the folks,” Mr. Murgatroyd said. For more than a decade, various Kenton County administrations have wrestled with problems stemming from the crowded, inefficient jail near Covington's riverfront.
In December, the outgoing Kenton Fiscal Court endorsed a 52-acre jail site southeast of Interstate 275 and Ky. 17, or the 3L Highway. Total project cost would be $25.4 million.
While in Covington, the 3L site has generated opposition from residents of nearby cities, who say they are concerned about everything from their personal safety and property values to the type of businesses they fear a jail would attract.
City officials in Edgewood, Fort Wright and Taylor Mill have gone on record opposing the 3L site, while those in Erlanger and Elsmere general ly have supported building a jail there.
At 6 tonight, opponents of the 3L site will hold a rally in Edgewood's Presidents Park.
Last week, the fiscal court that took office in January added three other potential jail sites to their list. They are:
• 21.28 acres within the Northern Kentucky Industrial Park, west of Foundation Road in Elsmere. Project cost: $23.7 million.
• 31.4 acres of a vacant Erlanger farm northwest of the Ky. 17 and Richardson Road intersection. Project cost: $23.9 million.
• An undeveloped 30-acre parcel at the southern end of the DeCoursey freight yards in Taylor Mill. Project cost of the site unanimously endorsed by Taylor Mill City Commission last week: $25.8 million.
“It has to be in somebody's back yard,” said Elsmere Council member Bonnie Sage. “But if it has to go somewhere, they need to pick the best site, and in my opinion, that's 3L.”
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