Outgoing Covington Public Works Director Chris Warneford, dressed up for a staff portrait. (Photo taken by Katie Woodring).

Leadership praised for making ‘customer service a watchword’

COVINGTON, Ky. – Chris Warneford stepped into the interim role as the City of Covington’s Public Works director in fall 2019 fully intending to stay only long enough for the City to find a new director.

“My time is limited here,” he insisted then.

Three years later, Warneford is finally stepping out of the director’s role, having shepherded the department and the City through an array of large projects and drilling a customer-service attitude into a department whose work is critical to well-being, appearance, and functioning of Northern Kentucky’s largest city.

Now 70 and long known for an old-school, gruff demeanor, Warneford concedes he’s not getting any more mellow and may even be going in the opposite direction.

“The older I get, the less patient I’m becoming,” he said. “It’s time for a younger person to take over.”

He leaves proud of the department’s work under his leadership amid plenty of praise for that leadership.

But Warneford says the credit belongs to the almost 70 full-time and seasonal workers who serve under him.

“There’s a saying around Public Works: ‘Make it go away!’ ” he said, referring to the potholes, slipping hillsides, fallen trees, and other infrastructure problems that seem to pop up on a continuous basis. “Well I have people here who made ‘it’ go away. They made me look good. I can’t say enough about all the guys and women who work here.”

Customer service: The watchword

In formally voting to accept his resignation on Aug. 23, the five members of the Board of Commissioners lavished praise on Warneford’s work ethic, leadership, take-charge attitude, and focus on helping the public. Among their comments:

 

• Commissioner Tim Downing: “… One of the strengths you’ve really brought to this role is your dedication to customer service leadership, and I cannot tell you how much I appreciate that and how much the citizens appreciate that.”

 

• Commissioner Michelle Williams: “You know you’ve done a lot of things for me. You’ve shown me around, you’ve taken care of a lot of things for Covington, and I appreciate every single one of them. …  Thank you for all your help.”

 

• Commissioner Ron Washington: “… one thing that I really appreciate is you taught me how to be a good commissioner. You taught me ‘this is what’s going on, this is the reasons that we do the things we do, you can’t just snap your finger and get it done, this is a state route, this is a City street, this is the history behind all of this’ – all of those issues are so, so important and I’m so grateful because you didn’t have to do that. You took the time to do that and the reason you did that is because you love our City.”

 

• Commissioner Shannon Smith: “I have to echo the sentiments of the other commissioners and say thank you very much and thank you for your patience as I pepper you with questions sometimes and you’ve been very gracious with them.”

 

• Mayor Joe Meyer: “… Public Works is one of those departments that you know sort of in the background – you think about Police, you think about Fire, you think about Economic Development, but you know, it’s Public Works who lays the groundwork for those departments to be successful … the guys who are there doing a job quietly mostly behind the scenes, not getting a lot of credit but doing their job well and reflecting the commitment of their department’s leadership. Chris, we have certainly enjoyed the three years you’ve spent with us. You’ve changed the department.”

Warneford in turn took the mic at the meeting to give short but gracious remarks and specifically thanked Bill Matteoli, who was recently promoted to the new position of assistant director.

“I want to thank the Mayor and Commission for giving me the opportunity to work in the City I was born and raised/grew up in. I want to make sure you understand that we have one of the best Public Works departments,” he said. “We have a great city. I have lived here most of my life, and I can say it is only getting better.”

Bales is new director

Also at the Aug. 23 meeting, the Commission voted to hire Keith Bales to replace Warneford.

Bales is currently deputy director of Neighborhood Services at the City. He also previously served as head of the Code Enforcement Department and is known in the community as the founder and former owner of the immensely popular Moonrise Doughnuts. He also has over a decade of experience working at various levels for the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice, including almost five years as head of the regional juvenile justice detention center in Campbell County.

Warneford’s legacy

Among the major projects/initiatives Warneford has been involved with in Covington:

• Moving Public Works from its Boron Drive campus to a new complex at 1730 Russell St., which involved redesigning warehouse space there.
• Creating an entirely new Storm Water Management Division as the City took over oversight of the MS4 program (Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System).
• Finishing the Covington Plaza portion of Riverfront Commons and starting and completely phase III of the riverfront hiking and biking trail system.
• Fixing slippage on Devou Drive leading into Devou Park.
• Working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the ongoing repair of the levee along the Licking River.
• Improving the “look” and “feel” of the Central Business District through various streetscape projects.
• Ramping up the improvement of street and alley driving surfaces in Covington with the purchase of a new mini-paver and a planer.

“There are many different facets to Public Works,” he said. “These projects were part of that, but so was raising the level of service to our constituents.”

Before coming to the City, Warneford ran the Public Works departments in the City of Bellevue and for Kenton County.

In fact, he began his Public Works career in Kenton County, where he worked on the bridge crew under then-foreman (and later director) Don Graven. Then-Judge-Executive James Dressman wanted to replace all wooden bridges in the county with concrete ones, and among Warneford’s first job sites was the 26th Street bridge over the railroad tracks.

It was 1972.

For those counting, that’s 50 years of making Northern Kentucky look and operate better.

 

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