An Open Letter to Covington Police Chief Lee Russo

Dear Police Chief Russo:

Congratulations on your new job. Covington is a beautiful city that keeps growing and changing to the delight of all who live here or just stop over to attend the many festivals, the Covington arts district and Mainstrasse.

A few things we’d like you to consider:

The Suspension Bridge

• Pre-construction, when we walked over the suspension bridge, we were amazed at how many people congregated behind the concrete abutments (read: the area not seen when you’re driving over the bridge) and at the aggressive panhandling activity.
• One fed-up blogger actually e-mailed the Covington police department and explained that she didn’t feel safe crossing the suspension bridge. For a couple of halcyon days, a Covington police officer rode up and down the sidewalks of the suspension bridge on his bicycle. That was enough to scatter the hangers-on and was one of a few days where everyone crossing the bridge seemed cheery. It didn’t last.
• Last week a Covington riverside district neighbor was mugged while walking over the suspension bridge. The mugger was pretty nice about it. He walked up behind her, tapped her on the arm and requested her purse. Mugger etiquette aside, she still could have done without being robbed.
  
  

Chief Russo, we’ve heard over and over again on the news that the Covington police are going to clean up the suspension bridge, figuratively and literally (it’s a disgusting mess). As one Covington police officer told aforementioned blogger, “I don’t want visitors who walk to our hotels after a Reds game to have this be their first impression of our city.”

The Covington Riverside District

• The late night revelry gets old when it’s 4:00 a.m. on a Tuesday. Last week it was a drunken homeless man and a well-dressed man (we don’t ask and we don’t tell) reeling around the Garrard Church parking lot.
  
  

the girlie bars

• If they weren’t so close to the library and the middle school maybe the folks seen stumbling out into the light on 5th street at any hour of the day wouldn’t seem quite so bothersome.
  
  

The Jail

• So in someone’s infinite wisdom, they planted the jail right smack in the middle of the growth area, just off the river. Maybe both the jail and the girlie bars could move to the Ashland oil property in south Covington.
  
  

As you already know, in 2005, Covington ranked 4th overall for highest crime rate in Kentucky, comprising almost half of the crimes committed in Kenton County.

We have high hopes for you, Chief Russo. Your references are touted as “impeccable,” and you ran a large force back in Baltimore. We’re glad to see that you bucked the good old boy system and found the outsiders way in. We hope you’ll jump right into the community and become a visible, recognizable force to be reckoned with.

Sincerely,

The Citizens of Covington