City would be divided into sectors, replacing at-large elections

By Cindy Schroeder
Enquirer staff writer

COVINGTON - Covington City Commission is trying to decide whether it would be better to elect city commissioners by wards instead of at large.

By early next week, Commissioner Jerry Stricker said he plans to post maps of proposed wards on the city's Web site. Stricker, who has been the chief proponent of the ward system, agreed to draw up ward boundaries using suggestions from his fellow commissioners.

Stricker said incumbents who want to be re-elected spend much of their two-year term campaigning for the next election. City commissioners who have to work as a team after their election would not be forced to campaign against one another under a ward system, he said.

"That's just not a healthy situation, to be working with somebody and to be running against them at the same time," Stricker said.

The change would not affect the mayor's four-year position, which would continue to be a citywide race.

Although state law doesn't require a public vote to switch to a ward system, it does prohibit governments from creating wards within 240 days of an election. In Covington's case, city officials must approve the change by Sept. 1 if they want to do it in time for the 2006 race.

"Hopkinsville (pop. 28,000) is the only city that I know of out of the 122 cities in Kentucky that's using the ward system," said J.D. Chaney, an attorney with the Kentucky League of Cities.

However, Covington lawyer Steven J. Megerle said he's aware of at least five Kentucky cities with ward systems. Besides Hopkinsville, they are Madisonville, Somerset, Catlettsburg and Flatwoods.

Legacy, an organization of young professionals, is hosting a forum Thursday to educate Covington residents on the ward system and its implications, said Megerle, a member of Legacy's New Governance Committee.

Phillip M. Sparkes, director of the Local Government Law Center at the Salmon P. Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky University, will moderate.

Members of Hopkinsville's government are expected to participate.

Also expected are representatives from Hopkinsville's chamber of commerce.

Megerle said the forum will address issues such as how a ward system could affect the makeup of the city commission and offer perspective from people who have served under such a system. "We're not here to take a position on the issue," Megerle said. "Our goal is to educate the public."

Covington City Solicitor Jay Fossett, who will become city manager next month, has asked for an attorney general's opinion to clarify state law about the ward system.

"We're trying to clarify which voters would vote in the primary," Stricker said. "Would you only vote for the candidates in your ward in the primary, or would you vote for all four?"

On the plus side, a ward system can increase minority representation or underrepresented populations and make elected officials more accountable to voters, Chaney said.

"When you're elected at large, you can have all of your elected body from the same neighborhood, or three neighbors who live right in a row elected (to a local government)," Chaney said. He added a ward system also could lead to more diversity in terms of neighborhoods that are represented on city commission.

A ward system could prompt cumbersome redistricting to ensure that the districts that make up the wards remain nearly equal in population, Chaney said. It also could prompt some officials to lose sight of the big picture.

E-mail cschroeder@enquirer.com