What I heard at Covington's August 25 legislative meeting

What I heard

I attended the Covington Board of Commissioners legislative meeting on August 25, 2026, start to finish. The meeting opened with the Pledge of Allegiance, roll call, and a presentation from the Kentucky League of Cities (KLC), which named State Rep. Stephanie Dietz a “Friend of the Cities” for sponsoring a First Responders/firefighters initiative and House Bill 495 on occupational taxes. The Board then formally accepted the retirement of J. Kyle Snyder, executive director of the Covington Motor Vehicle Parking Authority for the past four and a half years, and presented him with a retired coin-operated parking meter.

Public comment is where the meeting’s real weight sat. Seven residents spoke. The first was a domestic-violence survivor and advocate; the other six split between concerns about a proposed 10-year Axon public-safety technology contract and a separate objection to a proposed land sale on Western Avenue.

Domestic violence. The first speaker described applying for two Emergency Protective Orders in her own life. The first, she said, was denied by a judge despite a binder of supporting evidence, and the person she sought protection from later showed up at her house — an incident she described as nearly fatal. She said she has also been trying to help a family member in an abusive relationship, and that police and the courts have repeatedly turned victims away. She told the Board that Kentucky and the region have low EPO/DVO approval rates, that most domestic violence homicide victims had no protective order, that the region ranks second-highest in the country for domestic violence, and that Covington has no mandated lethality-assessment or on-scene training program to identify high-risk victims and connect them to advocates. She asked the Board to use its voice to find out why.

The Vice Mayor, who is also a practicing attorney, responded that the city actively supports the Ion Center for Violence Prevention and participates in a bystander-intervention program, and noted that Rep. Dietz — recognized earlier that evening — had sponsored legislation making protection easier to obtain. She asked the speaker to leave contact information with the city manager so the city could follow up directly, and said the concern “has never fallen on deaf ears” during her time in office. No other commissioner or the mayor spoke to this topic.

The Axon contract. Five speakers — Muhammad Ahmed, Dr. Aaron Masters, Ann Mitchell, Bradley Harris, and Paul Long — raised concerns about the same 10-year, roughly $6 million Axon agreement discussed at the August 18 caucus (covering body cameras, tasers, AI-assisted report writing, vehicle-mounted license-plate readers, and a drone). Their concerns included: Axon’s recent acquisition of the 911-technology company Carbyne, whose CEO served in Israeli military intelligence unit 8200 (Ahmed connected this to a specific AI targeting program; I did not find independent confirmation of that specific connection, so I’m attributing it to the speaker, not stating it as fact); the ACLU’s public position against AI-assisted police report drafting; the $743,000 autonomous drone component and its liability implications; whether the required ALPR audit is truly independent; and whether locking in a 10-year term serves three future boards rather than the current one. Several speakers asked the Board to pull the item from the consent agenda for full discussion, which it did.

City Manager and Police Chief Justin Wietholter then addressed the concerns directly, followed by extended questions from Commissioners Acri, Downing, and Smith (Vice Mayor), and the city solicitor. Commissioner Downing then moved (with the Vice Mayor seconding) to table the mayor’s own proposed oversight amendment — not the underlying Axon item — specifically to give the public more time before the next legislative meeting. The motion to table passed 4–1 (Acri, Smith, Toebbe, and Washington in favor; Downing opposed), after some floor confusion about whether “tabling” meant a one-year deferral (it does not) versus continuing the item to the next legislative meeting, which commissioners clarified is September 8, 2026.

Western Avenue land sale. Separately, resident Stephen Hill objected to a proposed sale of three city lots on Western Avenue for three-story apartment towers (agenda item 9), arguing the proposal’s lot-size and adjacency data don’t match the city’s own GIS records, and citing a history of hillside slippage in that area that has previously required over a million dollars in retaining-wall repairs. The mayor also moved this item to the regular agenda in response. The meeting record I have doesn’t show its final disposition that evening — I’ll check the official minutes.

What the documents show

The Axon contract — Per the official August 18 caucus packet, the agreement is valued at $6,025,083.04 over 10 years (October 2026–September 2036), replacing a five-year agreement expiring September 30, 2026. At the legislative meeting, Chief Wietholter said the bulk of that cost is continuing and expanding the existing body-camera program against rising technology costs, that the contract is funded through drug-related asset forfeiture proceeds rather than the general fund, that the ALPR component only replaces 15-year-old mobile readers on four existing marked cruisers (not a new fixed camera network), that ALPR data is department-owned and deleted after 90 days by default, that the drone requires a human dispatcher’s approval before every flight and cannot loiter continuously, that AI-assisted report drafts must be reviewed and can be corrected by the officer before filing, and that the city can cancel the contract at any time with 30 days’ notice and no penalty if it isn’t funded in a future budget.

The mayor’s proposed amendment would have limited ALPR use to legitimate law-enforcement purposes, barred routine sharing of Covington’s data with outside agencies or national databases absent legal process, required auto-deletion of non-case data after 90 days, prohibited routine or indiscriminate drone surveillance of residences or lawful gatherings, required a public report to the Board every six months on ALPR searches and drone deployments, and reserved a narrow, documented emergency exception to the police chief personally. That amendment is what got tabled to September 8 — the underlying Axon agreement itself was not voted on, approved, or rejected on August 25.

Routine consent-agenda items, all approved unanimously: several personnel actions (an officer’s resignation, a new hire, a promotion to Director of Economic Development, a new Assistant City Manager), and the same public-works vehicle purchases ($506,711.72 total) and FY2027 Southbank Partners membership contribution ($82,750) discussed at the August 18 caucus.

What stood out to me

The contrast in the room was hard to miss — one woman describing having nearly been killed after a court denied her protective order, followed immediately by an extended, technical debate over license-plate readers and AI report-writing. Both are real civic issues. But it was a reminder that a single three-minute public-comment slot has to carry a lot of very different kinds of weight, and that the Board’s attention — understandably — followed the topic with five speakers and a contract vote attached to it, not the topic with one speaker and no vote attached.

My view

I can relate to what the first speaker described. I recently went through Kentucky’s EPO/DVO process myself, so I wasn’t hearing her account as an abstract policy question — it resonated with me directly. I also think she’s right that this isn’t a niche problem. Since living in Covington, I’ve noticed a number of things that concern me about safety in this city, and domestic violence is one of them. I don’t have Covington-specific data to back that impression yet, and I want to be honest that it’s an impression, not a verified trend — but it’s the impression that made this particular public comment land differently for me than the rest of the meeting.

I also want to be fair to the Vice Mayor here. I believe she genuinely means what she said about supporting the Ion Center and bystander-intervention work, and I think her office really is pushing for change. My concern isn’t with her or her intentions — it’s that I don’t think that commitment is consistently reaching the ground level. That’s not just about domestic-violence response. I’ve had my own frustrating experience with how Covington police handled a personal safety concern after I first moved here, and separately, I’ve noticed how officers tend to treat unhoused residents in this city — often as a nuisance to be moved along rather than a person to help. If the Board and the Vice Mayor’s office are serious about the change they describe, I think the honest next question is whether that intention is actually landing in day-to-day patrol and dispatch — because that gap, wherever it exists, is part of what pushed me toward getting involved in local public service in the first place.

On Axon: my view from the caucus entry still holds. Capability and accountability should grow together, and a 10-year commitment deserves the kind of scrutiny five residents gave it here. I was glad to see the Board pull the item rather than let it pass on consent.

Questions I’m following

Domestic violence — Does Covington have, or plan to adopt, a lethality-assessment protocol for on-scene officers? What does the city’s “bystander-intervention program” actually involve in practice, and how is it evaluated? What is Covington’s actual EPO/DVO approval rate, and where does that figure come from? I also intend to reach out to the speaker directly to see whether she already works with an organization on this, and whether there’s something concrete I can help with.

Policing beyond domestic violence — Is there a documented CPD policy or training standard for interactions with unhoused residents? Is there any public data on how those calls are handled?

Axon and ALPR — Carried forward from the caucus entry: final vote outcome and contract value; how many ALPR and drone systems are actually active; which outside agencies, if any, can reach Covington’s data; whether the city will publish non-sensitive audit summaries; what the September 8 version of the oversight amendment looks like compared to what the mayor proposed on August 25.

Western Avenue land sale — What was the item’s final disposition after being moved to the regular agenda? Does the city’s own GIS data match the lot configuration described in the proposal?

What happens next

The Axon item — specifically the mayor’s proposed oversight amendment — is continued to the September 8, 2026 legislative meeting, not deferred for a year. I’ll cover that meeting when it happens and update this entry or add a new one, cross-linked to both this post and the August 18 caucus entry. I plan to reach out to the first public-comment speaker to see whether she’s already connected to an advocacy group on this issue and whether there’s anything useful I can do to help.

Sources and recording

• Official video — not yet published as of this writing. Covington posts meeting video through TBNK and its YouTube channel; I’ll link the specific recording once it’s up.
• Official August 25 legislative agenda
• Official draft orders
• Ion Center for Violence Prevention
• Rep. Stephanie Dietz, KY House District 65
• Covington Police Chief Justin Wietholter announcement
• Axon to Acquire Carbyne (Axon newsroom)
• My earlier entry: What I heard at Covington’s August 18 caucus

Update history

• August 29, 2026 — Initial entry published, based on my own recording of the full meeting, cross-checked against the official agenda/draft orders and independent verification of names and facts (see the August 18 caucus entry for the Axon contract’s dollar figures).