Mold Remediation in Independence, KY

INDEPENDENCE, Ky. — The Kenton County Fiscal Court has tabbed the City of Independence as the first recipient of its newly formed Community Development Fund.

The Community Development Fund provides financial support to cities across Kenton County for redevelopment projects that have the potential to impact local businesses and generate job growth. Kenton County guidelines dictate that eligible projects should be focused on property development — like acquisition, renovation, site preparation — or right-of-way improvements.

The City of Independence will receive $900,000 from the fund and is expected to use $100,000 of its own money as part of a matching contribution. Independence has 36 months to utilize the financial resources, with any unused funds returned to the county. The fund is financed by a $5 million budgetary allocation from the Kentucky General Assembly.

Proposals for fund money must be submitted by a city’s mayor in consultation with its legislative body. The city is required to prove it can match 10% of any funding awarded.

If certain projects do not fall under the county’s eligibility criteria, they will be vetted by the Planning and Development Services of Kenton County’s Community Development Department for potential adjustments.

Independence Mayor Chris Reinersmann touted the funds as a way for the city to revitalize its older commercial districts. Since Independence has experienced a boom in population growth, increasing from 14,982 people at the turn of the century to 28,676 in 2020, according to US Census Data.

"We've talked about putting together a facade grant program," he said. "We've also talked about public improvement, streetscaping, things like that, to make it a more appealing area to attract the kind of businesses we're looking for."

Reinersmann said the city would prefer to attract businesses like coffee shops, boutiques or neighborhood cafes.

WATCH: An Independence business weighs in on what development would mean for their prospects

Tentative plans slate the redevelopment for two parts of town: downtown and the Cherokee Plaza shopping center on the east side.

"Here in downtown, it's crucial. This is what sets us apart," Reinersmann said. "Over there (near Cherokee Plaza), there's not a lot of opportunity for new development to serve that need, so we need to make the most of what we have right there."

During the meeting, the fiscal court inked a partnership with The Catalytic Fund — a private sector not-for-profit organization that provides non-traditional financing and property development advisory services in Northern Kentucky.

Kenton County Administration Joe Shriver said the county wanted to establish the right guidelines to distribute the funds properly.

“The natural next step was to ask Jeanne (The Catalytic Fund CEO Jeanne Schroer) if she would be willing to help us and maybe even partner with us to really try and maximize the impact of these dollars,” he said.

The Catalytic Fund has been involved with over 100 redevelopment projects throughout Northern Kentucky, with a focus on revitalizing properties in Northern Kentucky’s river cities, including Ludlow, Covington, Dayton, Bellevue and Newport. Since its 2013 inception, The Catalytic Fund has invested over $450 million throughout the region, leading to the creation of the preservation of 91 historic buildings and the creation of 1,061 new residential units.

Some of the fund’s most notable projects include Hotel Covington, the Kent Lofts in Bellevue, Skypoint in Newport and the Life Learning Center in Covington among others.

As part of the partnership agreement, the organization will develop selection criteria for project proposals, create a uniform application process, develop quarterly status reports and work alongside the county on proposal evaluations and monetary allocation.

“The idea behind these funds is redevelopment of sites that need help in the cities,” Judge/Executive Kris Knochelmann said during the meeting. “We’ve got great ideas and sometimes you need financial support behind it.”

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Community Christian Academy (CCA) of Independence, KY dealt with unthinkable tragedy in 2023, losing boys basketball head coach Ryan Smith at the young age of 38 following a hard-fought battle with cancer. He led the program for over a decade with three state championship wins in 2012, 2014 and 2017 before being diagnosed with a rare form of the disease known as Undifferentiated Pleomorphic Sarcoma (UPS) in August of ’23.

Smith stepped away from coaching to focus on his fight and began his first cycle of chemo in September. By December, he had passed, leaving behind a beautiful family that included his wife of five years, Noelle, and two children, Calum and Chloe.

“We were all just stunned and devastated,” said Adam Jump, Smith’s assistant coach at the time. “We lost our leader, mentor and friend midseason. The school lost an icon and cornerstone of the community.”

Jump played for Smith in high school before getting his start in coaching in 2022-23. Just a year later, he was thrust into an unexpected interim head coaching role in the middle of the season, the Crusaders going on to finish with a 22-7 record while earning a spot in the state semifinals.

Rather than quitting at the team’s lowest point, CCA responded against all odds to make a postseason run in Smith’s honor.

“We leaned on each other, we leaned on God and our faith, and we knew Coach would have wanted us to keep playing,” Jump said. “We knew coming together as brothers in our darkest moment is exactly what he taught us to do. That’s what that group did in order to finish the season and make the run they made.”

The immediate inspiration would lead to adversity the following offseason with the program losing 14 players. Not having enough kids to field a team at the start of the school year, there was real concern the 2024-25 season was in jeopardy. Thanks to some late transfers and trust in the process with those remaining, they were able to rally in the form of a banner-hanging campaign with the late Coach Smith on their hearts.

For the first time since 2017, Community Christian Academy claimed the KCAA State Championship, defeating Galilean in the title game by a final score of 72-59.

It wrapped up a 24-4 season that saw just seven players in the game-by-game rotation, senior Chayse Lambert earning State Tournament MVP honors while freshman Maximus Hays and junior Trey Casper were also named to the All-Tournament Team.

“We truly believe that this victory was a tribute to Coach Smith,” Jump said. “His leadership, heart, and passion for the game will always be a part of this program. This championship is for him, and we know he would be incredibly proud of these players and coaches.”

Casper led the team with 17.9 points per game on the year, followed by Lambert with 13.9, Hayes with 13.0, Kyle Berkemeier with 11.4, Cooper Lambert with 7.1, Rhyder Lovins with 6.8 and Aiden Odom with 4.9.

“We came together as a family. This season was about more than basketball; it was about honoring Coach Smith’s legacy and showing what we can do when we put our trust in God,” Chayse Lambert said.

One year after the program was met with tragedy, the Crusaders responded with a state championship in Coach Smith’s honor.

It doesn’t get any better than that, folks.

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Commentary

Shortsighted and unconstitutional

March 5, 2025 5:19 am

Pending before the House Licensing and Occupations Committee is a bill that seeks to tell Kentucky courts their business.

Senate Bill 84 would dictate to Kentucky courts what level of scrutiny to apply to questions of law. It would prohibit the courts from giving any consideration to the views of the agencies that implement those laws on a day-to-day and year-to-year basis. It would mandate that the courts, after using all tools to parse what an ambiguous law or regulation meant, choose the meaning that works to minimize the power of the agencies entrusted to apply that law.

Why should you care?

Because the independence of the judiciary — and the judicial function as a check and balance to the power of both the legislature and executive branch — has never been more important. The judiciary should be free from encroachment by a Kentucky legislature that has tended in recent years to invade that province and cross that street to skew the process and outcome of some cases. And where protection of workers in the workplace, public health, safety and quality of life are concerned, the interference reflected in SB 84 could tip the scales of justice against worker, public and environmental protection.

Kentucky has what is known as a “hard” separation of powers in our state Constitution. We have three branches of government intended to be coequal. The construction of statutes, regulations and agency orders, and the rules governing that task, are firmly entrusted to the judiciary by our commonwealth’s Constitution.

The General Assembly cannot dictate to the courts the scope of review of questions of fact or of law in an appeal from agency action.

Since the de novo standard for review of matters of law in SB 84 is the standard already applied by Kentucky courts, this unconstitutional intrusion may be tolerated by the courts as a matter of comity, since it adds and removes nothing from current court decisions and practice. Yet there is neither reason nor need to provoke a constitutional conflict for no effect.

By seeking to prohibit the court from giving any consideration to an agency interpretation of any statute, regulation or order, SB 84 intrudes yet again on the judicial function. While some claim that giving no deference to the views of those agencies that have been entrusted to implement the laws is consistent with recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, it is not. In the 2024 case of Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected its prior Chevron doctrine that had accorded controlling deference to any reasonable construction of an ambiguous law by an agency. The Loper Bright court returned to an earlier standard, known as the Skidmore standard, that recognizes that agency expertise and experience can provide important guidance in construction of statutes and regulations, but that courts should not abdicate responsibility for determining what the law requires.

In Kentucky, the courts have never considered themselves bound by an administrative body’s interpretation of a statute. Long before Chevron and after, Kentucky law has been that in matters of statutory construction, the courts have the ultimate responsibility. Yet Kentucky courts acknowledge that agency interpretations of laws and their own regulations do constitute a body of experience and informed judgment to which courts and litigants may properly resort for guidance. Prohibiting any deference to agency interpretations of law or its own or other agency regulations, and of agency orders, as proposed in SB 84, is inconsistent both with Loper Bright, and with Kentucky court decisions. The bill intrudes on the judicial function by barring use of one of many tools for judicial construction of laws and regulations.

While a certain tension among coequal branches of state government is inevitable and healthy, encroachment into essential functions of the judiciary born out of a hostility towards the agencies created by the General Assembly to implement the laws and the programs it enacts is not. And where public and workplace health, safety and environmental quality are concerned, mandating that courts ignore the expertise and viewpoint of agencies who toil daily at short pay and with little appreciation to implement those protections is shortsighted as well as unconstitutional. The courts and the public who are legislators’ constituents all benefit from the experience and expertise of those who implement the laws and regulations.

Finally, SB 84 tells the courts how to resolve ambiguities, reaching back in time to direct that in any case where the intent of a law is still unclear, after applying the usual tools to interpret it, the choice should always be that which leans against agency authority. The judicial function is always to give full effect to laws as enacted, unvarnished by some later broad recasting of the history, intent and purpose of such laws when an agency’s actions are at issue.

The independence of the judiciary has never been more essential than in our troubled times, and it should be free of encroachment into the judicial function of interpreting laws, regulations and executive branch orders. That judicial function should be guided by the expertise and viewpoint of those charged daily with implementing those laws, and mindful of the purposes of those laws as announced by the General Assembly when the laws are passed.

The General Assembly has plenty of work to do on its own side of the street. The legislature should not cross the street in order to hamstring the courts in their independent role, nor the agencies charged with implementing public, worker and environmental protection goals the General Assembly set in years past.

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