fs of Judge-Executive Ralph Drees
For immediate release: January 24, 2007 @ 5:00 p.m. EST
Drees Clarifies Timeline on Detention Center Decision
Covington- Kenton County Judge-Executive Ralph Drees today said he was frustrated by the actions of some, particularly Independence attorney Eric Deters at the Public Forum held on Tuesday evening. Judge Drees said, "At our last meeting Mr. Deters said, and I quote, I am going to keep my rhetoric and oratory civil…I will keep it professional.' Last night he was anything but civil. I set the ground rules to provide for direct interaction between the citizens of Kenton County and their elected officials. This is a public hearing format that has long passed the test of time in gathering citizen input by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet and Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport. In fact it is the same public forum process used in evaluating two Covington sites by Southbank Partners working with the previous Fiscal Court."
Judge Drees continued, "Last week I directed my staff to take the measure of putting the attorney of record on notice of the format so that there could be no mistake concerning the process and he was the first to create greater consternation by this ranting. I am disappointed that he chose to turn the meeting into theatrics rather than focus on moving the process forward for the welfare of the citizens."
Judge Drees went on, "I have expressed repeatedly the Fiscal Court will consider alternate sites submitted by citizen groups that have been formed to evaluate options. During our last meeting of the Fiscal Court Mr. Deters told the court in open session they could have alternate sites to us by the end of the month. I expressed to them this would work because the only thing we would be doing in the next 6 months was hiring an architect. Now he is trying to twist what I said to say that I agreed to give them 6 months to present sites and that's just not true."
Judge Drees concluded, "The fact is I extended the time their attorney said would be sufficient to get their information to us by setting the February 14th date. After that we will evaluate their submissions over a 30 to 45 day period against the criteria we have established and try to make a final decision by early summer. In the meantime, we are going to proceed in hiring an architectural team as was noted at our meeting. Simultaneous to looking at the submissions they come up with, if another site surfaces I am certainly open to considering it, but this issue has been getting kicked around for over a decade because of the NIMBY syndrome and it's time for closure. We are going to get this project underway on one site or another consistent with the timeline established by the Fiscal Court I provided to the Federal Judge last fall."
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