Northern Kentucky Jobs

Northern Kentucky chamber names top priorities for 2012

The Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce's Consensus Committee has named its top 10 priorities for 2012, which include $366.2 million in improvements.

The projects focus on creating jobs, increasing local construction projects and improve public safety.

“Recognizing that funding is tight in the current economic times, these projects will go a long way in enhancing economic vitality and quality of life, not just in Northern Kentucky, but the entire state,” said Consensus Committee Chairman Gary Beatrice , in a news release. “Investing in these projects will have a return on investment that is magnified across Kentucky.”

The committee voted that building a bridge parallel to the current Brent Spence Bridge was the region's top regional priority.

Other projects listed as “top priority capital projects” include:

• Expanding the Northern Kentucky Convention Center for $30 million to $35 million.

• Replacing aging water lines in Bromley, Ludlow, Covington, Newport, Bellevue and Dayton. The committee requested $69 million.

• Designing and erecting a urban campus for Gateway Community and Technical College. The project has a $52.8 million price tag.

• Building a Health Innovations Center and renovating the Old Science Building on Northern Kentucky University’s campus for $92.5 million.

• Creating a pedestrian pathway along the Ohio River and addressing riverbank erosion problems as well as constructing hiking and walking trails along the Licking River — a cost of $12.9 million.

• Constructing a new Carrollton campus for Jefferson Community and Technical College — the only priority that was no also on last year’s list — for $15 million.

Other projects listed are realigning Route 16 for $15 million to 20 million, buiding an underpass at US 25 and KY 338 for $20 million and reconstructing Mt. Zion Road for $49 million.

Northern Kentucky Legislative Caucus started the 70-person committee in 1989. Its sole purpose is to make annual capital project recommendations.

Duck Soup: M, Northern Kentucky

M is a journalist in Kentucky who went through a nasty divorce a few years back. She was drinking white wine in those days and coping with an abusive ex-husband but she pulled herself together, went through rehab, and raised two kids who adore her. The kids are out of the house now, and M is six years sober. She lives alone in a small town along the I-75 corridor just south of Cincinnati. During the recent recession, jobs went away for journalists in the rural part of northern Kentucky where she lives. M found a job tutoring kids in English that paid $13 per hour, but a new Republican governor was elected and the program was cut. M strung some freelance work together, found some other part-time work. But none of her three jobs come with benefits or health care. She has some help from her family and her house is paid off. Of the nineteen million Americans classified as “the working poor,” she is better off than most. Still, in 2009 she made $20,000. In 2010 she made $10,000, well below the poverty line. I went to see M just before Christmas. She’d just had some teeth pulled at the free clinic. Her mouth looked swollen and puffy. She’d been dreading the oral surgery for weeks, she told me on the phone. Every time she went to the “free clinic,” it cost $30 to be seen. Plus, getting there was a major pain in the ass. The clinic told her she wouldn’t be able to drive after the surgery, so a friend drove her, a sixty mile round trip. I was there to provide consolation, M said when I walked through the door. In the Catholic sense, she added, presenting her tender mouth for a kiss. M had a Catholic girlhood, eight years of private Catholic schools, and could quote Julian of Norwich from memory, but these days she refers to herself as a pagan and is more likely to invoke the Goddess. She is mad at Jesus, who spoke so glowingly of the poor. There is nothing fucking virtuous about poverty, she groused. I stayed with her two nights. It snowed both nights. The snow fell faintly through the air and she took my arm as we walked to my car. The first night I took her to Olive Garden. Her little house is across the street from the railroad tracks, and as we backed out of her gravel driveway we watched the headlamps play across the tracks. She ordered minestrone and I was able to get her to eat some pasta. You always loved to feed me, she said. It was true. The next morning two men showed up in a pickup. One of them was named Tommy.

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