By Patrick Crowley
The Cincinnati Enquirer

FORT WRIGHT - The Kenton County prosecutor Thursday raised questions about the legal bills for Northern Kentucky's 48-year-old regional sewer district.

County Attorney Garry Edmondson confirmed that he wants to review the last five years of legal bills paid by Sanitation District No.1 of Northern Kentucky. Mr. Edmondson is using the state's open records law, and not a subpoena, to request the records.

The district, which operates nearly all of the sanitary and storm water sewer lines in Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties, is complying with the request and expects to have records to Mr. Edmondson's office by next week, said district General Manager Jeff Eger.

The operation of the district has been under scrutiny since summer, when questions about contract awards were raised by a series of Enquirer stories, other media reports and political candidates seeking office in Kenton County.

Mr. Edmondson would not say why he is seeking the bills and offered little when pressed on what he was looking for in the records.

"It's an open records request for (legal) billing, billing procedures, practices over an historical period of time," Mr. Edmondson said after attending a district board meeting that lasted nearly four hours.

Mr. Edmondson alleged no impropriety and would not comment further.

While Mr. Edmondson did not characterize his interest as an investigation, that is how the sanitation district is treating it.

"When I asked (Mr. Edmondson) what's going on ... and why he wanted the records he said, `This is an official investigation of the Office of the Kenton County Attorney,'" Mr. Eger said.

Mr. Eger said the district paid an estimated $450,000 in legal bills last year, the bulk of it - $311,000 - to Greenbaum Doll & McDonald. Erlanger lawyer Bill Robinson, the district's legal counsel for 26 years, is a partner at the firm.

Mr. Robinson bills at $149 an hour. His annual yearly contract will be reviewed and voted on at the board's December meeting.

Mr. Robinson said the bills submitted to the sanitation district cover the work of an estimated 20 lawyers at his firm who provide legal work in a number of areas, including human resources and bond work.

Another $110,000 was paid to Florence lawyer Gerald Dusing, who is representing the district in a lawsuit filed by a landowner fighting construction of a sewage treatment plant in western Boone County.

The district is bound by law to hire outside legal counsel when it is sued, Mr. Dusing said.

The Northern Kentucky Water District, which also serves much of the region, had legal bills of approximately $90,000 last year and is expected to have a similar amount of fees this year, Ron Lovan, the water district's president and CEO, said late Thursday night.

Board Chairman Rick Kennedy said in the 16 years he has been on the board - the last 11 as chairman - the district has grown from 100 miles of sewer lines, 50,000 customers in two counties and 65 employees to 1,400 miles of sewer lines, more than 90,000 customers in three counties and 200 employees.

Also during the meeting - and in response to questions raised earlier this year by the media and the political candidates - the board passed its first set of bylaws since the district was founded in 1954.

Among the provisions is that the chairmanship will rotate among the eight board members - who represent the region's three counties - every year, though a chairman can serve two consecutive one-year terms before relinquishing the chair.

The board is also working on a procurement policy used by other major boards in the area, including the Kenton County Airport Board, which oversees the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.

E-mail pcrowley@enquirer.com.