A complaint from last weekend’s BLINK festival about the Devou Park Overlook in Covington is prompting the city to reconsider the hours of the Overlook.
“The complaint was that several hundred people showed up for the 8 o’clock drone show, hoping to see it from the Overlook,” City Commissioner Ron Washington said at the commission meeting this week. “And, as many people know, there’s been millions of dollars that have been put in the Overlook, and the park rangers showed up and asked the people to leave.”
City ordinance currently mandates all city parks, including Devou, close at dusk, meaning that anyone who showed up during BLINK after the sun set would have been illegally entering the park.
No official action took place at the meeting, but Washington asked City Manager Ken Smith to offer his thoughts on the situation, which led to a discussion about possibly amending hours for special events.
“We can look at that, but that’s been the city policy for a long time, and we have closed the Overlook for fireworks,” Smith said. “It’s always closed at dark, and it’s periodically an issue that a resident gets upset about or a visitor gets upset about because they want to go up there and look at the skyline or whatever is going on that particular evening.”
Smith said it could be possible to amend the ordinance, however.
“We can look at amending that,” Smith said. “We can look at putting some specific hours or hours related to daylight savings time.”
“I’ll join in and add my support for this request,” said Mayor Joe Meyer. “Things are different today, dramatically different, and especially at special events like BLINK, it’s only normal for people to want to take advantage of the view that’s available from up there.”
People can apply for special event permits to use the Overlook after hours, Smith said, but considerations for the Kenton Hills neighborhood above the park would need to be accounted for in any changes.
In any case, Smith said, “We will work on something to make that more workable.”