Government is the manifestation of the social contract between communities and community members. They use their shared agreement and power to provide for their Common Good. The American understanding of this can be captured in the phrases of "No taxation without representation", and Lincoln's "Government of the people, by the people, for the people".
The community selects from among themselves, individiuals who they entrust to work in the best interests of their community. The community elects them for only limited periods to ensure they are held accountable by the community.
In addition to elected offices, there are appointed roles done by those who were elected. These roles are the majority of lived expereience of citizens. In order to scale action, decisions, and bring a multitude of services to the common good of the citizens, levels of governments rely on these appointed professions to execute their tasks as directed by the elected officials. In Kentucky many of these are collected into the term "Special Purpose Government Entities (SPGE)", of which there are two types: taxing, non-taxing.
There are many layers to government which correspond to their scope and scale. When all the layeres are combined, the sheer size and complexity of it all can be daunting to navigate.
Important
The best way to hold the government to work for the Common Good, is to identify their pressure points.
These "pressure points" are at the convergence of
- "how does this government officials get their power and authority" and
- "what domain or topics does this government offical get to make decisions and take action"
Talking to a government official, body, or SPGE is only effective if they can actually take direct action on the topic, and you are one of their constituants who could cast a vote for them in the next election.
In the current situation regarding Southern Kenton County, Federal level of involvement is not present or relevant.
While involvement of I-75 would possibly be a point of involvement, the interstate is ACTUALLY owned and managed by the States, and so it would be a State Transportation Department issue.
- Voter Information Center: https://vrsws.sos.ky.gov/vic/
- Voter Registration Process: https://vrsws.sos.ky.gov/ovrweb/
- House Representative by District: https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/Legislators/hmembers_district.html
- State Senators by District: https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/Legislators/smembers_district.html
County Government is the "smallest" piece of KY State / KY Constitution powered government.
Cities are not a KY State / KY Constitution powered government. The majority of constitutionally placed power rests at the State or County.
That all politics is local is a saying that, while reduced in today's word of social media and national storylines, still holds weight. The main premise is that order to weild power, one must first win elections by local voters choosing them over someone else.