Saturday, December 04, 1999
Residents to seek hearing on jail site
They say special input was allowed
BY JANE PRENDERGAST
The Cincinnati Enquirer
COVINGTON — Opponents of the Elsmere site for a new Kenton County jail think a county commissioner may have allowed two Edgewood officials special input into choosing a site that would not be near their city.
If a judge agrees, Commissioner Barb Black and Edgewood council members Dale Henson and Bill Grady will be quizzed under oath about the alleged private meeting.
The deposition request was filed Friday by lawyer Steve Franzen, who represents residents living near the Elsmere land chosen for a new Kenton County Jail. The site was chosen over one off 3L Highway in Covington, which would have been close to Edgewood.
Mr. Franzen declined to say how he learned of the alleged meeting but said he heard about it only recently.
“We believe that there may have been a meeting at which they discussed putting the jail anywhere but near or in Edgewood,” he said. “I think it's an indication of arbitrariness. We'll put them under oath, and we'll see.”
Mrs. Black called the deposition request more harassment from disgruntled Elsmere residents.
“I've met with a lot of constituents in different cities,” she said. “It's my job. It's a silly action to suggest that a county commissioner met with her constituents and somehow violated the rules by doing so.”
Mr. Franzen will ask next week for a special hearing on the request for depositions. The officials would need to be deposed quickly, he said, so the testimony can be used in a Dec. 13 hearing. He wants the information then so Kenton Circuit Judge Douglas Stephens, who is hearing a growing lawsuit against the jail site, can factor it into his thinking that day about whether Mr. Franzen's clients and others can intervene in the lawsuit over the jail site.
The lawsuit was originally filed by County Attorney Garry Edmondson to clarify whether the fiscal court has the sole authority to decide where to build its new jail. Since, the cities of Erlanger and Elsmere have filed motions to join the suit, as have an Elsmere couple and three groups of citizens who live near the site off New Buffington Road in the Northern Kentucky Industrial Park. Independence also has voted to join and lawyers expect support also from Florence and possibly Covington.
Judge Stephens will decide whether they can join. Mr. Franzen hopes information about the alleged meeting will help convince the judge the Elsmere residents should be involved.
“This commissioner is a Kenton County commissioner representing all the people of Kenton County,” he said. “We just think (the meeting was) an exclusionary act.”
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