All right. Set up, all right. Is this where you talk about South Limestone, Mayor? Uh, it would be. Okay. But if you'll wait just a moment. Okay. As soon as I get a green light from our clerk, we'll proceed, so if everybody will stand by for just a moment. Some- some people didn't get a chance to sign that. I thought you were gonna sign that. Well, he grabbed it before everybody could sign. He said... I don't even know what's on it. Can you make a motion to receive the contract for the apprenticeships? Okay. Julie, second that. All right. We're ready to proceed and, um, I have four individuals who've indicated a desire to speak on the South Limestone Project. The first is Beth Hannah. So Ms. Hanna, if you'd step to the podium. You'll have three minutes. We have a little slideshow. Somebo- somebody have the clicker thing? Oh, it's there. I just found out I was doing this, so... You wanna get it? I'm the lucky one. I have the visual aids. I'm Beth Hannah on Hannah's Online. Okay. So, but something... Okay. This is just, uh, to show you all kind of what the project and the street looks like, um, on Limestone. Uh, this is one of the signs that- unfortunately, some of the signs have gotten removed and stolen and knocked over. And this is what traffic actually sees when they're coming into our area. Um, if anybody's interested, it's a really interesting, um... It's kind of a, a obstacle course today to try to get up anywhere from High Street to, uh, Maxwell Street. So, uh, there's trenches and, uh, this is in front of, beside Bombay Brazier and unfortunately, Rip couldn't be here today. But, um, he had to close his business down for a whole week because of this project. We've also lost one, one business. Underground Inc. had to relocate. And I- I do wanna... I will commend ATS and, and that group because they really are trying to work with the business owners to make i- make our businesses accessible. And it's, it's, it's not easy, um, with people trying to get in your door, and there's trenches on both sides of the street, and, uh, on your door. And, uh, so anyway, you can just see what a massive amount- Yeah. ... of equipment and material and work that is going on right now. Um, and we're living through it. Fortunately, High Street is now open. Tomorrow, Maxwell Street, the intersection closes, so that in itself will be another whole set of problems. So I think, from my point of view, I would really, really urge you all to see if there's any way that ATS and that group and the utility companies can speed this process up now. Now that we've gotten into it and we're about two months in, um, anything that can be done to hasten this will, will help us all. Because, as you can see, you can't even see some of the businesses and it's really tough. Our, our whole livelihood depends on people walking in our door. We don't get a paycheck deposited in our bank account every two weeks. We, we have to have people come in the door and, uh, when the door is not accessible and the businesses aren't seen, it's- it's just really tough to get by. So anyway, that's it. Um, so that's my- my spiel and I really appreciate y'all's support and the government center's support because they still order lunch for me every day, so thank y'all very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Lisa Betts. Hi, um, my name is Lisa Henley Betts. I'm the owner of Failte: The Irish Import Shop, and I've owned it for nearly eight years now. Um, and as I'm sure everybody here knows, it's hard enough to run a small business, um, but with the construction, it's making it really hard to make ends meet. Um, I've had a sale, done some coupons. Um, I've brought my shop to a couple of festivals to help pay the bills, and that's helped me get this far. Um, my shop is down 15%, and that's all with the extra work I've done. Um, looking ahead is just scary, trying to figure out a budget for Christmas and are people gonna come to my shop? And if so, are they gonna be able to get there? Is there any way that we can speed this up by getting a second or third crew? Can the city help us out with advertising and more signage? Our drive-by traffic no longer exi- exists, and that's how 70% of my customers had heard about me in the future. Um, people are intimidated about coming downtown anyway, and the construction is really increasing that intimidation. If you look at most of the merchants right now, you will see that most of us seem to have lost our spirit and our... and there's a sense of defeat about us. Please help us to keep our downtown businesses alive, and therefore keeping downtown Lexington alive. Thank you. Thank you. Next, I have Kathy Stein. Mayor, members of the council, um, I live in the neighborhood, not directly in the neighborhood, but on Transylvania Park. Uh, we generally have, um, a lot of extra traffic when the students come back. But this year, uh, it is the backups that have been caused by this are terrific. I was aware of it on that side. However, I was contacted by some of the business people who have businesses along here. And, um, I went on a walking tour with them and it was, it... the education that I got about the problems these businesses are having is, um, well, it's devastating. Ms. Hanna has already talked about one business relocating. Um, just on the day that we were there, there were, I believe, 10 people had been laid off. It's been about two weeks ago. I suspect more people have been laid off. Obviously, that's not good for tax revenue. Some of these businesses are hanging on by their fingernails and it's a wonderful idea to do those improvements. But I believe the frustration that these folks have, and I believe rightly so, is that they were not given enough time to prepare for this, to make alternate plans so that they could, um, avoid some of the huge problems that they have. And now, um, they need this project speeded up. I believe Mr. Gravis, who, um, is here and will speak, uh, has a number of observations about speeding up the project and how that would help all businesses concerned. It's gonna be a great project when it's finished, but it needs to be finished more quickly. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Gravis? Thank you. Uh, my name is Joe Gravis and I own the McDonald's on, uh, South Limestone. And thankfully, I have other restaurants that are helping us through this, uh, devastation of this construction, uh, by absorbing some of our crew. And, uh, thank goodness for Central Bank and a line of credit, uh, and some other restaurants to be able to help the, the negative cash flow that we're experiencing because of this issue. I understand that construction is messy. I understand that construction is disruptive, and I know that it's gonna be nice when it's over. But I hear elected officials saying all the time that they have some major roles as elected officials. And one of those roles is to provide for the safety of their constituents and the citizens. Should a citizen at any of our establishments or living in the area have a fire or a medical emergency while this is going on, they're in grave jeopardy. Another role that I hear elected officials talk about is being efficient with taxpayers' money. Is $4 million profit to the company that's leading this effort efficient use of taxpayer resources? Being efficient in performing services, is one shift for work of this depth and breadth and magnitude and devastation that you've heard a, a sampling of here today, efficient for the businesses, the residences, and the citizen, and the, and the city itself, is it, is it efficient? I would say it's not. Another role is to protect the minority, the minority of the businesses there that are losing their life savings, their kids' college educations, their leases on their buildings, their, their, or their businesses, lost sales, lost customers, relocations. People just don't want to go near the area because of the inconvenience and the, and the construction. And the minority did not get a voice. I, I don't care what anybody says, the minority did not get a voice in th- the planning of this project. Uh, so we need you all to please walk the talk of providing safety of the citizens, efficiency of taxpayers' money, and protecting minorities, and amend your contract to go to three shifts. ... the extra money can come from the four million, and that's still a great profit. I'll take four million in a year. Okay? There's a lotta wasted time in the mornings gearing up. I, I see the time, Mayor. Uh, most of our folks didn't even use 90 seconds. I make a motion we, uh, suspend the rules and give him an extra three minutes. Thank you. I have a motion and second to extend the rules to give Mr. Gravis an additional three minutes. All in favor, please say aye. Opposed, no. You have three additional minutes. Th- thank you very much for that. I hope to not have to take that long, uh, 'cause I, I wanna be respectful of, of your time. But speaking of time, there's a lot wasted in the mornings as they gear up for the workday, and then there's the breaks, there's the lunches and the breaks, and then there's the gear down at the end of the day to get ready to go home. And it would be much more efficient, uh, if, if they could work consistently. Uh, the arguments of, uh, "Well, we can't have too many people down there. They'll be tripping over each other." Uh, I'm sorry. If I can build a McDonald's in 100 days, we can put in a road in six months and replace the sewer. Uh, Vice Mayor Gray, I'm sure you've had a great experience in dealing with construction projects, and we've seen with surgical precision three shifts working and people aren't tripping over each other. The project's underway. The devastation has occurred. We understand it's messy. What we're asking for is for you to be efficient and amend your contract. I would request that you make a motion to amend your contract and go to three shifts. And please don't study it to death and cause the death of more businesses and then by the, and then the project's almost over, so then what's the point? We need emergency action- We need it. ... to go to three shifts to speed this up. We all just want it to be over. We'll be glad when it's finished so that we can get on with our lives. And that's a very efficient way to be able to provide for the safety of our citizens, because in seven months and you can't get somewhere and they can't get a firetruck or an ambulance in, we could be done by then if we go to three shifts. Thank you. Reese Reinhold. Mr. Reinhold? Mayor, council members, I'm Reese Reinhold. I'm, uh, 244 South Ashland. Um, I have a daughter who lives on South Limestone at 249 South Lime and, um, I'm interested in this project and there is no doubt that this project has greatly impacted everyone up and down the street. Um, and a few of the businesses you've heard from tonight have been impacted more than all the rest, and, um, I feel for them and I'm, um, I wish there was more we could do for 'em. I think that, um, it is, everyone will be glad when this project is over and we can, uh, get this thing completed and get South Limestone to what it will be when the project is completed. Um, and over 30 years with working with the city, contractors, and utility companies, I was skeptical as anyone about how this process was gonna unfold, and I've been shocked. It is the cooperation and the organization of this project has been amazing to me. Uh, the mayor and the council should be proud of the efforts of your commissioner Mike Webb, of George Milligan, Harold Tate, along with Harry Burchett and ATS and all the subcontractors. The attitude of this group has always been, how can we help? I've attended every task force meeting and they have gone outta their way to answer every issue that was possibly connected to the construction of this project. Um, I think this project should be a, a project of, of the way every project should be handled in the city as far as how it was completed. I think the project is, by all means, ahead of schedule. Um, some estimates of up to 30 days. Um, they completed the, uh, intersection at Avenue of Champions, uh, several days before they said they were gonna do it. Plus, they also did an additional amount of work with the water company so that we will not have to go back in that intersection to close it for another three weeks. Uh, they completed High Street a week ahe- almost a week ahead of schedule, and I think they've done just about everything they could do to make this project move along. Um, having residents on the street that live roughly 20 to 25 feet from the edge of the road, having construction going on all night is not something that I'd be in favor of, and I think we'd have a lot of complaints from the residents if we tried to do that. But anything we could do to help the businesses along there would be greatly appreciated, and I would hope that, um, when we do other projects in the city that this would serve si- kind of as a pallet project 'cause this is the way construction projects should be done. Thank you. Thank you. Does... That's the last person I have who's indicated a desire to speak on these issues. Does anyone else wish to do so? All right. Let's move along then. We have a doc- Actually, we do have one more that was not able to sign in- That's- ... before this got taken up, and I will- That- ... take 30 seconds. That's why I asked a minute ago if anybody else wished to speak. Just 30 seconds. If you'll step to the microphone, you'll have three minutes. Okay. I appreciate the comments that the last gentleman made about the positive things, and I'm sure there are some, but in relation to the businesses on Limestone, which is what I'm connected with, um, those areas he talked about his daughter's not losing her life savings, these people are struggling to keep their doors open and wonder what they're gonna do to eat and drink and have a place to live. And living on South Ashland's not directly being in the middle of this, and that's not really, you know, where the heart of this matter is, I don't believe. Ma'am, I need to get your name and address. Glory Vaught. And your address please, ma'am? I'm sorry, 357 South Limestone. Thank you very much. Anyone else? All right, we have a docket to approve this afternoon. Is there a motion to approve it? So moved. Second. Have a motion by Council Member Crosby and a second by Council Member Gordon to approve the docket. Um, I understand there are a couple of amendments. Council Member Blues? Thank you, Mayor. I move to place on the docket for Thursday, September 17, a resolution authorizing and directing the mayor on behalf of the Urban County Government to execute a location parking agreement with Fast Track Productions Inc. for parking at the LFUCG training pad for the sum of $1,500. So moved. Do I hear? Uh, have a motion by Council Member Blues and a second by Council Member Crosby. Any discussion of that proposed amendment? All then in favor of amending the, uh, docket by adding that item of business, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Council Member Lane. Uh, thank you, Mayor. I move to place on the docket for the September 17, 2009 council meeting, a resolution ratifying the Department of Law's execution on behalf of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government of a settlement agreement and any, any other necessary settlement documents in Kentucky Public Service Commission case number 2009-00141 pertaining to the rates of Columbia Gas of Kentucky Incorporated. So moved. Second. I have a motion by Council Member Lane and a second by Council Member Crosby to amend the docket by adding that resolution. Is there any discussion? Council Member Gordon? Uh, yes, Mayor. Can someone, uh, give us some detail about what this is? Uh, um, I know there was a memo distributed to the council yesterday. Mr. Askew, can you, uh, fill us in on the details of the Columbia Gas settlement? ...
Mayor, if we might defer that. Mr. Barbery is on a conference call right now till about 3:45, and he's the one that's been involved with that. All right. Go ahead. I, I will make a motion then, since it does involve rates and I think an explanation would be good- Yes. ... I move to just remove it temporarily from the new busine- or from the docket until we can... Mo- motion is to table the amendment to the docket. Of course, yes. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. It's non-debatable. Those in favor of tabling the amendment to the docket, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. We're now ready then to vote on the docket as now amended. Is there any further discussion? Those in favor then of approving the docket, please indicate by saying aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Mayor, I had a question about one of the items on the docket. I- may I make an inquiry on that at this time? Yes. Uh, it had to do with the change order on the Lyric Theatre. Let's see what the number on that is. Um, it's, uh, I guess item O. . It's new business. You're talking about a new business item? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. All right. We're getting close. Um, let's move on to item three. We do not have a summary to... We do not have a summary to approve. Ah. Tell you what, now might be a good time to go ahead and, and invite Mr. Barbery to the podium, uh, to address the settlement with Columbia Gas. I apologize. Ironically enough, I'm on a conference call right now with the rest of the group, trying to make sure the settlement goes through. Um, generally, what's being proposed is, is a little more than half of what they've asked for. Uh, the impact directly to the Urban County Government is, is frankly de minimis, because we only have about 100 different gas accounts, and most of them are commercial in nature, and essentially, the rate increase is primarily going to be a monthly flat fee on your minimum monthly bill. Uh, for those types of accounts, it's about $2 a month per account. Uh, the residential impact is approximately $3.63 per month for your typical, uh, residential account. Um, there's no differential in the, um, cost of the gas. Everything is related to a flat fee cost. The other thing that's gonna happen in this, although I can't give you an exact amount, is, um, I believe they'll get approval to, uh, to do an accelera- accelerated main replacement, which will be a additional rider on your bill, which will allow them to replace the existing system more quickly than, uh, what they have been done traditionally. They have some, some safety issues, uh, with respect to the, uh, age of their pipe system, so. Any further questions for Mr. Barbery? Yeah, I do. Um, could you just explain the -- how the charge for natural gas is, you know, added to the customer's bill? Um, well, w- well, generally most of the gas cost is, it's just a pass through and that gets approved like on a quarterly basis by the Public Service Commission outside of a rate case. Um, that's most of a gas bill. And then they have some of their administrative costs in doing that in, in what's called the, the monthly flat fee. So what's impacted as a result of this is what you would pay, um, as a monthly minimum. Council Member James. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Barbary, is there... And, you know, a lot of times in our work, we have to have hearings. We can't just add things to a docket for first reading for that week. Is... Does that prevail in this case, that we don't have to have a, any type of public hearing, discussing? No, th- our, our only relationship in, in this matter is by intervention. Um, they have a hearing process at the Public Service Commission even though this has been... It, it's scheduled for a hearing starting tomorrow. Even though there's a proposed settlement, it still has to be approved by the Public Service Commission. And the, uh, the public will still be afforded the opportunity to speak, um, about the rate increase at the Public Service Commission hearing tomorrow. So this doesn't trump any of that. What this is, is an agreement among the parties that, that have intervened, um, that they are in agreement that a stipulated recommendation for settlement should be brought forward to the Public Service Commission. So we, we make an agreement before we hear from the public about their view on the agreement that we've already made. Just doesn't seem like it's really inclusive of what the public would really want. What, what are they having the hearing about? The, th- they will... The Public Service Commission will entertain public comment. They will not treat someone speaking from the public as being a dispositive issue in the case. You have to be a party in the case to really have your viewpoints considered by the Public Service Commission. Okay. So- But they do take public comment at the case. So at what, what role did we have as far as... I, I guess it's you are the person on behalf of Irving County Government. Well, it is now, yes. It was not me at the beginning of this, but it is at this point in the case. Okay. And so what did you tell them about how we felt about the increase? I told them it would be my recommendation that the council should adopt this, this particular recommended settlement, because I think it is the best, um, deal that we could end up getting even if we had a hearing on this. Okay. That's what it's based on. It w- I have to operate... I, I do have to have y'all's approval to do this, but in this type of case we don't ha-... In a gas case particularly, we don't really have independent issues from the other parties. We are simply a gas customer along with a lot of other gas customers. And we don't sponsor testimony or anything like that, so we really don't have a position independent from, for instance, the attorney general in a case like this. So our goal is to make sure that our... Other than generally the rate not being too high, our goal is to make sure that our particular accounts that we have the most of are not inequitably treated. And in this case, the, the rate increase does not inequitably treat the types of accounts we have. And this is much less than what was being proposed as a percentage for the residential customer. Is the flat rate the same for all residential customers throughout every entity that's involved in the negotiation? So is it the same as... Is Winchester involved or- Yeah. Whatever, yeah, whatever a residential customer pays will be the same as a re-... The, the increase will be the same to them as a result of this, yes. The increase is the same? Yes. Okay. All right. Your gas bill, I mean, your gas bill fluctuates depending on how much you use and some other factors that come in as there are some things on your gas bill to actually reduce how much you pay on it. And depending on those variables, your, your gas mil-... Ga- gas bill may be more or less than somebody else. So if Lexington has le- less gas use, users than Winchester, it's still, the increase is still the same? Yes. Per... Okay. The, the rate increase is exactly the same to all of their customers- Okay. ... as far as the ty-... Ac- across the different classes. Okay. All right. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Lawless, I have you listed as desiring to speak on this issue. Is that correct? I'm actually desiring not to speak, but if Mr. Barbary I'm going to demand it. Okay. All right. Council Member Gordon. But Mr. Barbary, before you go away on this issue, so is this... Just for clarification, um, so council's approval of this is similar to when council approved increasing the water rates. There are certain parties who have to approve that before it goes forward. Is that what we're doing? Right. We, we are a party to this case, so in order to have a full settlement recommendation, we are required to also be a party to the settlement. I would have no basis or... Uh, to recommend to you all that you don't enter into this. But, but what I'm asking is different. Um, is this... And, and maybe I haven't totally understood it. Um, if, if we approve this, we are basically giving our stamp of approval to the agreed raise in rates. Is that true? That's a way of looking at it, yes. Okay. But the Public Service Commission is ultimately the one that has to approve the rates. Yes. But we would be saying that based upon the fact that this is a little more than half of what they've requested, it seems like a fair, um, resolution to this particular rate matter. Thank you. Any further questions for Mr. Barbary? Council Member Beard. Yes, um, g- generally, don't they ask for more, knowing that it's gonna get cut by the PSC? I mean, it seems, it seems like I see it all that way, whether that's intentional or not, it just happens- I think it de- I think it depends on the case, but if you're asking, um, the result, the result normally is between zero and what they asked for. How do we approve something when we really have not the authority to do so? I, it, it doesn't seem like it makes any sense. If we say no- Well- ... then what happens? If you said no, there would not be a full settlement. They would proceed with a limited rate case, which they're going to do anyway because the PSC has to be comfortable with the settlement agreement. And it would be, um, it would be a very interesting case at that point in time. I don't know that it doesn't open up the door to have a lot of other issues brought up. Um, it probably maybe going forward puts us in a bad light with respect to participating in some future rate cases, that kinda stuff, but, um... In other words, the gun's to our head. Well, I, I just can't tell you that there would be a reason we wouldn't take the settlement. We don't ha- we did not... We don't have a particularly unique position in this case. We did not sponsor any testimony in this particular case. And this is th- the, the primary driver on a case like this, there are some utility cases where we do have a unique interest. The electricity cases, we have a unique interest in the street lights for intrins- for instance, because we're the ones that are buying 99% of 'em. In a water case, we have a unique interest in the fire hydrants 'cause we're buying all of 'em, in a wa- all, all of the public fire hydrants. In a case like this, we don't have anything unique about the gas, so pretty much what the Attorney General is recommending is what we would normally go along with in a case like this. Well, I guess where I'm coming from is that, um, you know, we beat our chest and say, "No new taxes. No new taxes." But P.S., we have a sanitary sewer fee, and we've got a storm water fee coming, and we have a wa- , a water company rate increase, and now a gas, uh, rate increase. And the net result is that, uh, the, uh, public out here is getting hos pretty good i- in the aggregate. And that just c- that part concerns me. I, you know, I obviously don't, uh, know how we can vote against it, but it's, uh, it- it seems like we're just going through the motions. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Hinson. Thank you, David. When was the last increase for Columbia Gas? Do you know? I, I would have to look, but I believe the last time they... Uh, it's my recollection that the last time they asked for one, they actually didn't get it. Oh, really? Yes. It makes it more likely for them to get it if it has our blessing? Well, I think they have a much stronger case this time than they had the last time they filed one. Yeah. And, uh, just to clarify, the increase is based upon the perc- your usage? No, your usage- Is it a flat fee? No, it's, it's you pay a minimum flat fee amount to have a gas hookup. The impact of this is, is going to be that, that amount's going to go up. Your gas usage is based upon a, a factor, a multiplier factor, and they simply take the cost of gas and ju- and, and multiply it by the multiplier factor. And they have to have the... And they're just... They're all... The, the, the, the gas is... The gas cost is more or less a direct pass-through, your actual consumption of the gas. Okay. Okay, thank you. Council Member Figal. Thank you, Mayor. Um, just wanted to clarify a couple things. I, I thought I heard you say that the PSC doesn't really like the settlement agreement. No, the PSC has to go through a process to make sure they're comfortable that, that this settlement agreement makes sense. They, they have people that fully weigh the evidence themselves that are on staff. Mm-hmm. And if, for some reason, they don't think that this is what, uh, a case like this, uh, should be settled for, they won't, they won't sign off on the settlement agreement. So I mean, uh, they, um, the Columbia Gas ask, actually asked for a lot more money, and the PSC doesn't like the settlement agreement, so what are they looking for? To- So- ... to lower it even further? I, I wouldn't say they don't like settlement agreements. They have to feel like this is a result- No, I mean, this one. They don't like this one, correct? No, I didn't... I, if I... If you heard me say that, I'd, I'd stand corrected. Okay, that's what I thought I heard you say. Okay, I thought I heard you say they didn't like this settlement agreement. All right. Okay, I was just trying- All right, no. ... to see why the rate cas- case was gonna go further. No, we wi- we will have a limited rate proceeding starting tomorrow, where they will consider this stipulated recommended, recommended agreement, so. Okay, thank you. Council Member James. Thank you, Mayor. Um, Mr. Barbary, you, you said we don't really have a unique interest in this. Um, and you're speaking as... And then you mention a couple of things that were Irvin County Government expenses that, and things that we would have had a particular interest in. And I just wonder, are we there advocating on behalf of the citizens of Lexington and what they would end- To to- ... up paying? ... to some, to some extent. We, we do both. We do both. But, b- but what happens with respect to the citizen interest in a case like this is the attorney general is tasked by statute to do the same thing. So normally, we're l- in lockstep with them on the citizen issue. And then in a case like this, you actually had representative from the low income. Uh, you had, um... I'm gonna get the acronym wrong. You had Jack Birch's group as a party to the case signing off on this. Um, and you also had some, uh, some interest from the, uh, AARP and some other groups like that, that, that represent other types of, of groups that have an interest in how much the gas is, so. Okay. Um, and go back to what you talked about, about the hookup fee, that this is what this affects. So if I live in a gas, um, serviced house right now, and I move out and then somebody new comes in, that's when the gas hookup fee wou-... To explain what that is. No. They pay a minimal... If you're, if you're hooked up, you pay a minimum monthly fee just to have the gas service. Okay. That's what's going to rise as a result of this. Do you know what that amount is? I'd have to look. I, I, it's... Did you say $3 a month or something would be the increase? No, I'm gonna say it's more like $12 and it's going up to 15, is what, is what's going on. Okay. Um, and then you said that also that we didn't have... I forgot the word you used, but it was like we were, we were, we were, um, around the table talking about, but we didn't have a presenting argument or a presenting... What word is it that you used? We didn't sponsor any witnesses. We di-... Wh- what, what happens is if you have a unique position in the case and you're gonna take a position outside of the other witnesses, um, you sponsor testimony. You hire an expert witness to present your position in the case. In this case, what this case was generally about was the rate of return and how much money they're justified in getting overall. The distribution of the cost between the different rate accounts was not a huge issue, so the Attorney General hires expert witnesses that contest what the, what the gas company's doing. And we were pretty much in agreement what the positions of those expert witnesses were. Okay. We as the, as the gov- Irwin County Government? Well, hopefully, yes. Okay. But the Department of Law was, was, thought that what the attorney general's wit- witnesses were saying was, was reasonable in this case. Okay. Um, w- where do folks go for this, for the limited rate proceeding? Where... You said that they can come and talk. Um, uh, the, the rate case will open, um, tomorrow morning at 9:00 in Frankfort at the Public Service Commission. Okay. And I don't know the address. Uh, it's Sour Boulevard, which, uh, from Lexington, I'm trying to remember the... Well, the mayor knows the street. I don't know. Okay. But it's the Public... If we looked up Public Service Comm- The Public Service Commission, yes, you can- Commission, it would be there? ... 9:00, 9:00, yes. Are letters and emails admitted into- They are required, they are required to... Well, I think they'll take those things in- into consideration. Um, they, they were required to publish the notice several times in the newspaper. The gas company was, that they were gonna have the, uh, the rate case and that there would be a public hearing at it. Not everybody reads the paper, so I'm trying to give other people the opportunity that don't get The Herald-Leader, uh, to learn about it. And, and I believe at the beginning of it, although it may not have had it, the date on it exactly, they ha- they send it out in your bill as well, so. Okay. Um, thank you. I, I just, I will talk more about this probably, um, if it does get on as a docket item, but I think that i- it's quite interesting that, um... It, it'll be interesting to watch because as a lot of folks support it, um, the decrease in the Urban Services Fund, this actually increases that backup and actually probably more. So the $24 a year that some people were gonna save because of that decrease, it, um, it now you're, you're out some more money. So let's see, um, it'll be interesting to see around the horseshoe if we really wanna save constituents money if we will support this or not. Um, it's v- it's very interesting. Thank you, Mayor. Are there any more questions for Mr. Barberry? If, uh, the council is so inclined, a motion to take that item from the table would be in order. So moved. I have a motion and second to take the proposed amendment to the docket off the table. Those in favor of taking that item from the table, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. No. The motion carries with Council Member, um, uh, James dissenting. Uh, we're now ready to once again discuss the proposed amendment, which is now on the floor for discussion. Seeing none, we will proceed to vote. Those in favor of amending the docket to, uh, include a resolution ratifying, um, a settlement agreement in connection with the rate case filed by Col- Columbia Gas, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Oppose, no. No. Okay, let's vote, uh, electronically please. Those in favor of the proposed amendment, please indicate by voting aye electronically. Those opposed vote nay. Motion fails by a vote of seven to six. All right. Um, we don't have a summary to approve. We do have some budget amendments. Is there a motion to approve the budget amendments? Motion approved. Second. I have a motion by Council Member Ellinger and a second by Council Member Gordon to approve the budget amendments. Are there any discussion? Is there any discussion? Those then in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Oppose, no. No. Okay, let's vote, uh, electronically please. Those in favor of the proposed amendment, please indicate by voting aye electronically. Those oppose vote nay. Motion fails by a vote of seven to six. All right. Um, we don't have a summary to approve. We do have some budget amendments. Is there a motion to approve the budget amendments? Motion approved. Second. I have a motion by Council Member Ellinger and a second by Council Member Gordon to approve the budget amendments. Are there any discussion? Is there any discussion? Those then in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Oppose, no. Motion carries. Uh, we have some new business items to attend to. Is there a motion? Move to approve. Second. I have a motion by Council Member Stennet, second by Council Member Gordon to prove the items and new business. Any discussion? Council Member Lane? I'm sorry. I didn't... Council Member Crosby. Th- thank you, Mayor. Um, I have a question on Q, please. Uh, in the body of Q, I ju-... This may just be a typo, but might need c- clarification. It says that the... ... um, agreement for professional services is for 39,000 but if you turn back to the letter, it says the annual cost is not to -- not to exceed 36,000. I don't know if anybody wants to clarify that, which one it is? Did you say item Q? Item Q. Uh, an authorization of agreement for professional s- It says, um, 39,000 in Q but the actual cost on the letter, on page, I think it's 50, says 36,000. I'm trying to find out if there's a- Well- ... $3,000 difference and which one it is. Is it 36 or 39? Item Q doesn't deal with the lyric is my- Oh, I'm sorry, which- ... confusion. ... I'm on... Maybe I'm on the wrong thing. I'm on New Business. Right. Item Q deals with- I'm looking at Professional S- ... Wash. I'm on ... Maybe I'm looking at the wrong- Um, actually she's not asking a question about the lyric. I'm not asking about the lyric. She's asking about Simon & Company. I'm sorry. I misunderstood. Okay. Thank you. I, I believe 39,000 is accurate. If you look on page 50, um, and I just glanced at this really quickly, um, under compensation, the ... It's a, a cost not to exceed 36,000 and then if you read down a little bit more, I think it says that other expenses could be incurred up to 3,000 with, for a total of 39. So ... (11-second pause) So we pay them $3,000 a month, plus they can, an extra $3,000 for miscellaneous not to exceed, I guess ... They can go over that $3,000 if needed for miscellaneous things, correct? They could not. That's correct. Um, okay. Uh, I guess, I guess I'm just, I'm just trying to figure out the value of this. I know we get reports kind of monthly from them. I, I guess $39,000. I'm j- I'm just struggling with the value of $39,000. Um- I think I'll let Mayor Newberry answer this one. And maybe, yeah, maybe I, I, I mean, all I get, maybe from my point of view, all I get is, um, the monthly report, but I, I guess as far as following grants and what I see coming through, I don't know why our, why w- our current staff is not capable really of doing that. So there may be more to it that I'm just not understanding but, um, maybe, maybe you could enlighten me more. In addition to, uh, what's set forth in the contract, I would simply note that, uh, Mr. Simon and folks in his firm have been working with us in connection with the Recovery Act initiative, this year specifically. We currently have been on the receiving end of somewhere between 20 and 25 million in designated grants and we have competitive grants. Mr. Kelly, I guess, somewhere in the neighborhood of another 60 or 70 million on top of that. Is that ballpark? So we have a, a very significant series of issues in Washington right now. Um, I've had occasion to work with a number of people in Washington. Mr., Mr. Simon's fee is very reasonable by any Washington, uh, government affairs firm standard. And on top of that, the quality of his work has been just absolutely superb. So I, in, in my book, um, it would be of great value to our community if it were substantially in excess of this amount. I think your other question, Council Member Crosby, was, "Why can't our current staff handle this?" Um, I would answer that by saying that Mr. Simon is on the ground in, in DC on a daily area- uh, daily basis and is able to go to the various meetings. Um, Ned Sheehy is in contact with Len on a regular basis and makes trips up there with the mayor and other council members and representatives from Lexington from time to time, but Ned is able to get to Frankfurt i- within a 30 minutes drive, where getting to DC obviously will take a car ride or a, a day's, few hours plane, uh, plane flight. So- So- ... having someone on the ground there, ears and eyes and everything else, is very valuable to us. Is it, um, I guess is it ... Are governments comparable in our size and our budgets? Is it, is it, I guess, the norm for them to have, um, lobbying firms in Washington, DC, to hire lobbying firms? Which, I mean, what percentage would you say or, or is it- I don't know ... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. That's okay. No- I don't know what the percentage is- I- ... but I certainly know it's common and infact we became aware of Len Simon through Mayor Abramson's office. I believe, Mayor Newberry, you might have a little bit more information on that. That is correct. And, um, um, Lexington has a significant number of issues in Washington these days, particularly with the Recovery Act, but, um- ... outside the Recovery Act as well, that, that has, uh, made this to be some of the best money I think we spend. I- in terms of the return on our investment, I can't think of any place where we spent $40,000 and, and, um, been on the receiving end of as many positive things happening in Washington. I feel very strongly about it. That's it. I'm comfortable with your answers, but I'm still not sure that I'm comfortable with, um, us spending this money right now. Thank you very much. So, um, let's see. Um, Vice Mayor Gray wants to address this specific issue, so let me go ahead. If anybody else, uh, wants to... You, you go ahead then, you, you're up. Okay. Uh, I'm just gonna say, Mayor, I, I appreciate that you have the confidence in Mr. Simon. I've been to several meetings, and I frankly, I have to just say this, I've never heard anybody talk more and say less than that fella. I mean, I just have... You know, so, if he is doing this commendable a job, you know, my instincts do not follow that, but I've been wrong, and I accept that. Uh, Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. Um, well, um, I also had questions about this, because i- if my memory serves me correctly, the only report I get is the Washington Letter, which is about legislation in Washington DC. And I think if we, um, you mentioned return on investment, most investors get a report on their investment, and I think it would... I, I was not aware that council members have been going on trips with Mr. Simon or to see Mr. Simon. So, I would feel much more comfortable about this investment if we got a true report as to what he actually has done for this money other than besides sending the Washington Letter, which is about federal regulation. I mean, I'm, I'm really excited to know that he's gotten us all these grants, uh, for instance. So, if there would be some way that we could get a, a, a regular quarterly report or something that would, um, enumerate what, what we're getting for our money, that would be really helpful. Well, we can certainly do that. Um, and, uh, Ms. Raybold, if you would mention that to Mr. Sheehy and make arrangements for us to get something routinely from, uh, Mr. Simon, I'm sure that won't be a problem. Thank you. Council Member Blues. Are we finished with... Uh, is there any- anything else on that p- that particular issue? All right, Council Member James and Council Member Lawless, and we'll come back around then. Thank you. Um, thanks Mayor. One, one thing to mention to Mr. Sheehy as well is about two years ago, um, we met with him, and he... We were asking how we as council members could stay up-to-date with the legislation that was going on, and he mentioned, um, some kind of software that could be loaded, um, onto our computers that the commissioners had that they could give their input about legislation. And, um, he was to get that installed on our computers, and I don't think any of us have it yet. So that was kind of this way everybody was able to make notes on particular legislation. And, and that's the way he kind of... 'Cause we asked, "How do you know what to advocate for, um, in federal government, um, beyond just the mayor's office, but as council members, some particular things?" And we filled out these sheets of things that we were particularly interested about. He's responded to some of those early on, not in the past, I don't know, nine months or so. But, um, the software was something that we could have interacted with, with everybody. So, if you could check into that too. I'll be glad to. I'm not- Thank you. I'm not offhand familiar with the software that you're talking about, but we'll check on that. Okay. Ms. Raybold, if you'd follow up on that issue as well. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Lawless. Thank you, Mayor. Um, how, how were they selected? I mean, did you interview other lobbying firms? About, um, two, maybe two and a half years ago, we started exploring some way to monitor what was going on in the Washington area. Uh, we did explore some other alternatives. After, um, checking around, it appeared as though Mr. Uh, Simon's firm was, uh, one that was most effective from a, from a cost standpoint, he had a great reputation dealing with cities' issues. His practice is confined to representing cities. And, um, so it is typical that he's aware with what's going on in homeland security issues as it relates to police and fire, um, departments. He's generally familiar with the whole array of urban issues that are there. Um, he shares office space with, uh, the individual that represents the City of Louisville, and, um, they were the means by which we became, became acquainted with him, and, and, um, I think if you ask folks in Washington who've had the occasion to deal with him, they would tell you he's very well-respected. Um, I guess I have problems with, uh, no bid contract. I mean, there are enough lobbyists in DC, you can't sling a cat without hitting one. And how do we know, how is it measured that he's the reason we got these grants? Well, I don't wanna convey the impression he is the reason that we got those grants. He is e- a person who is on the ground there who can make available information to us about our eligibility for the grants and can, who, who has facilitated, um, our having, um, a- an awareness of the grant opportunities that exist. Now, clearly, a lot of work is going on by people here who actually submit the grant applications, but I think it's safe to say that he has, um, he, he's been an integral part of our efforts to obtain and receive funding from Washington on a number of different levels. Um, well, I, I share concerns, um, about, again, a no-bid contract, and without having anything but the Washington update, um, once a month. And so that's what I have to say about it. Thank you. Thank you. Anything further on that particular topic? All right, Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mayor. I have a question, questions about B, uh, and particularly the, uh, the deletion of the, uh, of the street tree fee. So perhaps, uh, Commissioner Webb or Director Crow could help me out with, uh, with that. B. B. Yes, what was the, what was the question? Well, the question is the, the, the deletion in the proposed ordinance of the required street tree fee. Uh, um, and the explanation here is that these, uh, these fees, the grading permit fee and the $100 street tree fee, uh, which developers pay for each street tree that, to be planted, uh, these fees are no longer applicable to, to the Division of Building Inspection. So I'd, I, I just wanna find out wh- where we're going here. Uh, and it's, it's a particular concern, because, uh, I have some subdivisions in my, uh, in my district where the obligation on part of developers to, uh, uh, to plant street trees has not been fulfilled. So I, I wonder what the rationale is and what the effect's gonna be. Well, first, those fees aren't, are no lo- are no longer applicable to Division of Building Inspection. The grading permit fee is now authorized to be collected by the Division of Engineering for grading permits. We no longer collect it. Therefore, it's being removed from our fee schedule. The street tree fee, that fee was last collected, I believe, in 1985 or '86. We have not collected it since, when the subdivision regs were modified about that time to remove the authorization, uh, for street tree that that fee was based on. That was replaced with language in the subdivision regs which required a $10 fee per street tree identified on the plats and collected at the time the plats for property is approved. For whatever reason, that fee just was left laying on our, uh, fee schedule since 1986 or '87 when those regs were changed, but we had not collected it since then. So it's, it has no authorization behind it. It's just there. The program that it actually supported was abolished when they changed the, again, changed the subdivision regs in, I believe, '86 or '87. So really, this is clean-up? Yes, exactly. But at the same time, it, it leaves us with an issue, and I, I think, and that is, how we are going to assure that street trees are, are planted in, in new subdivisions? And I think that's something that, uh, you know, that we do need to discuss. But I... Thank you. Well, this, this doesn't change the requirement to plant the street trees. That's still there under the current subdivision, uh, regulation requirements that require it and mandate that street trees and that they are identified on the plats as to where and what kind are planted. As I say, this fee was originally part of a program that was done away with, uh, that required $100 fee to be paid, which ostensibly was to be used to plant the trees if they weren't, uh, planted by the developer. If they were planted by the developer, then that fee was refunded. Again, that program was removed from the sub-regs, and I don't have the exact date, but I believe it was around '86 or '87. This fee portion, which is in a whole, which is in the Code of Ordinances, was simply bypassed and just left there. But there was never, it wasn't collected again. Hasn't been collected in my tenure with the Division of Building Inspection, and I've been here 20-something years. So the developer still has the obligation? Absolutely. But- The developer is still obligated to plant the street trees. The, uh- We're also -- it's now being looked at as a way to incorporate the require- the, what would be, uh, a cost of placing those trees, we're looking at with the division of engineering, including that in some of their bonding requirements for subdivisions. So the same bond that they assures that they're gonna do the final black topping and that they'll do the sidewalks, but also include money for street trees. So if they fail to plant them, then the bond money could be used to plant them. We're working on that with the division of engineering to get that incorporated into a bond, into their bonding authority. Ah, and would that require an ordinance? Uh, eh, my understanding at this point is I don't think it requires an ordinance change. It might require, ah, amendments to some texts, possibly in the subdivision regs, to actually indicate that that money would be put into that. Again, we're looking at that. I have a meeting next week with engineering to discuss this in further depth. Well, I think that's a, a, a really critical issue because, uh, you know, as, as you say, the developer still has the obligation, but the problem has been that that obligation has not been adequately enforced and, and, uh ... Well, we've run into situations certain in the last few years, we've had developers and builders go bankrupt. At that point, our ability to get that done is extremely limited. With a bond issue, the money would be there in the bond. I understand that that, you know, that that is an issue and, and you're right. Uh, it, it, it seems clear that we need to have that assurance upfront in the form of, of, uh, of, of money that can be then used if the obligation is not, is not fulfilled. Yes, I agree. I think some, some other council members have some questions on this. Th- thank you very much. Council member James. I do have a comment about this. I, I am, um, the council member sitting on the tree board and this, um, this fee came up as our tree board chair, um, Karen Andrew Lucy, I think you all know her. She's presented to us before. She was doing, we're been do- we've been doing research on how we can really utilize our urban, um, forestry division. Um, once they were given that citation ability, um, we are now, I mean, we're doing street tree inventories. You know the emerald ash bore was very important. It's a very active, um, from what members from previous years have said, it's the most active this group has ever been. So Karen went and pulled every regulation in every document she could find on our books regarding trees and street trees. And she uncovered this fee, um, that no one had ever talked about. Um, and we brought it up and mentioned it and I think the representative of building inspection was there and said, "Well, we, we don't collect it." Um, and we kinda got to the bottom of, there was a particular administration that was in and that mayor at that time decided to not collect the fee. And he gave down an order that said, "You're not gonna collect the fee. We're just, we're not gonna have developers pay this fee anymore." Um, and so the intention was that if the developer did not pay it, uh, did not plant, we would then have that money to be able to plant the tree, which we talk about our tree canopy, we know for water quality, um, and quantity, that tree canopies are very important and for air and all kinds of other things. So as we, as a tree board, started talking about this, we, um, I think building inspections, this was their solution, was to bring forward, um, just to remove the language. Well, we researched some newer data, um, henceforth, on the management depart- management partners audit, which actually gave a recommendation to create a street tree fund. And we thought, "Bingo, we have the mechanism. We've got the language already for a tree, street tree fund. Um, maybe it's not appropriate where, who's collecting the money and where that sits right now, but let's just redirect that fund to an area where we could actually support our urban forestry." And if you remember during the budget time, we were strapped for cash. Um, we, when we were handed the budget, there was nothing in there for these ancillary services for, um, forestry. We found, we, we finally all passed a budget that included some cost share programming and such, um, but we were scraping the bottom of the barrel to try to support our street trees. Um, we can, i- it has been an issue of, um, i- they're supposed to be able to plant, but our urban foresters will tell you, they don't have the manpower. Because why? Because they don't have the money. Because why? Because they don't get any of this street tree fund money, um, and we don't allocate any money to them in the budget. So, um, many of us on the tree board felt like maybe this is an opportunity. Um, I'm not gonna support this. Um, I'll ma- I'll put it on for a vote I guess, but I won't be voting in favor of it because here's the answer to management partners, um, recommendation of creation of a street tree fund. Um, and we've talked about that $100 and think, you know, we, we needed to, we need to equate it to what a planting would actually be. Can you get a tree for $100 that would be a qualified street tree? We don't know for sure, but we need an opportunity, um, to maybe, um, talk about this. I would even entertain a motion to table this, um, until we hear back from maybe this bonding thing they're talking about or whatever, or until you hear back from the tree board because we are working on a way to utilize, um, this fund for a street tree fund and to redirect that, but we all know it's easier to remove a law than it is to get something added back on. Um, so I would, I would ask council members to consider leaving this on the books at this moment. Thanks, Mayor. Council member Beard. Um, Dewey, tell me a little bit about the residential paving. What does that include? Does that include buckled sidewalks that a street tree has pushed up that, uh, might be only six feet long? Uh, no, the paving permit fee does not include sidewalks. That's done under a different type of program. The paving only includes things such as your ... there's a driveway and your required parking space or additional parking spaces that you would put in, in compliance with, uh, the zoning ordinance. The, what we're asking for there, that was on ... Those fees of reflecting of that were increased a few years ago to set minimum charges for permits. Unfortunately, the one on residential paving did not, wasn't included to get a minimum fee charge. Currently, we have to issue permits that sometimes amount to 50 cents or, or so for issuing of a paving permit. We do not, they do not even pay for the cost of administrative time for issuing that because there's no minimum. The cost per square foot is so small. I believe it's on the order of six cents per square foot, so we end up with ridiculously small two and three and four dollar permits at times. Okay, I was just curious about that, and I, I thank you for the answer. Appreciate it. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Blues. Um, thank you, Mayor. I, I understand that this is ... This is a, it, uh, can be kind of complicated because what we're trying to do is, is, uh, or what the attempt here is in, in amending this ordinance is to clean up a vestigial requirement, but, um, my inclination would be to keep the $100 fee in and then work from there to make sure it's, it's, it's collected and, and used. So, uh, I move to amend, uh, section three by restoring the, uh, the requirement of the, uh, of the $100 fee, uh, per required street tree. So moved. Second. Have a motion and second to amend section three to, uh, retain the $100 fee. And I, I suppose, Council Member Blues, I need your, uh, guidance. Are you talking about page 26 of the packet? Yes, I am, Mayor. And, and, um, I take it what we would be interested in doing is just deleting section three entirely so it stays in? Yes, I would restore the, uh, the deleted text. All right. So the motion is to mend the new business items, uh, new business item B on page 26 of the packet to delete section three entirely. And the effect of that would be to leave the $100 street fee, street tree fee in, in the, uh, code of ordinances. And that is correct. Uh, and I, I ... You, you, you know, we do need to, you know, to be able then to, uh, if, if this motion is, is, is passed and the, and the ordinance as amended is passed, then we have to be able to collect it and, uh ... And, and so do you ... Are you talking about making some change in the wording of what you proposed or is that just an issue to be addressed at a later time? Well, I was thinking of it as an, uh, a, an issue to be addressed at a later time, but, uh, but, but that's the intent here is, is, is not just to restore the language but, but to make sure that we collect this fee. All right. Any discussion on Council Member Blue's amendment? Council Member Lane. Yes, sir. Would you just, uh, restate what that is now after all that discussion so I'm not confused? On page 26 of the packet, the proposed amendment is to delete section three in its entirety and the effect of that would be to leave in place the street tree fee. The motion is to delete? Yes. The motion is to delete that part? Yeah. Well, section, section three of this, of page 26 presently contains a change in the ordinance. And so what we're doing is taking section three out entirely so the ordinance stays the way it is and the end result is the street tree fee remains at $100, correct? That's correct. In, in other words, we're restoring section 5-31? Yes. And my point is it hasn't been taken out to be restored yet. That's what this is proposing to do. So if we take out section three, I think we're in good shape. Yes. All right, everybody clear on where we are? Motion is to amend page 26 by deleting section three. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Oppose, no. Motion carries. All right, anything further? I think then we're ready to vote on the original motion to approve the new business items. Excuse me, Mayor. Council Member Lane. I'm sorry. Your ... Are we, are we ready to vote on the motion to approve the new business items? All right. Those in favor of approving the new business items, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Oppose, no. Motion carries. Um, Commissioner Askew. Uh, Council Member Skinner. Thank you, Mayor. I move that we go into close se-- closed session pursuant to KRS 61.8101C for the purpose of discussing pending litigation. Second. Are we gonna have a further presentation? Yes. Have a motion to, uh, um, go into -- . ... closed session for purposes of considering pending litigation. Any discussion? All in f-- all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Oppose, no? Motion carries. Is there a motion that we return to open session? So moved. Second. Have a motion by Council Member Blues, and a second by Council Member Ellinger that we return to open session. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Oppose, no? Motion carries. The next item on the bus-- on the agenda is the report from the Services Committee. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, the Service Committee met on September 1st. All members were present, and we were called to order at 1:00. We had two issues that we dealt with. The first issue was the slaughtering of livestock for personal consumption. This was brought forward by Council Member Hinson. There is no ordinance addressing this. Council Member Hinson looked at a possible, at a, uh, something that, permitting this, we had extensive d- discussion from council members. We asked the Law Department to bring this, bring back a draft ordinance next meeting, and the motion was presented by Council Member Hinson, and I'll move this forward. A motion by Hi- Council Member Hinson directing the Law Department to draft an amendment to the ordinance re- disallowing slaughter of livestock, not including fowl within the urban service boundary without permits. Second by Council Member Feigel, and passed without dissent. And I move this forward. Second. Have a motion and second. Any discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Oppose, no? Motion carries. And we'll bring that motion, or that draft will come to the next council meet- or next Service Committee, and we'll look at it then. And then the second item on the agenda of the Service Committee was the Sign Ordinance that we've- Uh, quorum order- May I? I don't think we have a quorum. We don't have a quorum. We just voted. Uh, it appears we're close. One, two... We, we have a... All right. Since some, some question has been raised with regard to the efficacy of the last motion, uh, Council Member Ellinger, do you wanna make that again, please? I will make that motion again. Yes, sir. I, uh, move forward the motion by Council Member Hinson directing the Law Department to draft an amendment to the ordinance disallowing slaughter of livestock, not including fowl within the urban service boundary without a permit. Second by Council Member Feigel, and passed without dissent. So moved. Second. Okay. Council Member Ellinger has, uh, made that motion. Council Member Gordon has seconded it. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All oppose, no? Motion carries. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. And as li- as I said, this will be a draft ordinance that we'll look at in the next sc- Service Committee. The next item on the agenda was the Sign Ordinance, and we've had this issue with the sign ordinance in different areas, and it's basically down to three different issues with commercial neighborhood and temporary signs. This was brought forward by Council Member Lane. And the problem with, um, his issue was with the sign ordinances that relate to commercial and neighborhood associations. The sign regulations are the responsibility of the zoning ordinances, and they're amended by either implimi- initiation by the Council or the Planning Committee. We heard from, um, Chris King, and we are also made aware that Tandy Patrick with Greenbaum Doll McDonald, um, she spoke with us, and they have filed a tax am- a text amendment on behalf of the Neighborhood Associations. She said that the text amendment is asking that the real estate signs also be held in compliance. Her proposal also include use of property as to what signs would apply and definition of current commercial real estate. Chris King recommended against amending the whole entire ordinance and to review sign regulations specific to Article 17.6. He said ultimately Council would have to vote either up or down any amendment to the ordinance and planning commission recommendations. A motion was brought forth by Council Member Martin, and I move this forward. It was directed in the Law Department to draft an amendment to Article 17.6, p- permitted signs in all zones changing, ordering from and to or second by Council Member Lane. It was passed without dissent, and also included two friendly move, uh, motions from Council Member Feigel making a friendly amendment to M- Mr. Martin's motion regarding neighborhood signs, and add to the motion shall not exceed tens, signs and change not more than ten to seven days prior, and second by Council Member Lane. Passed without dissent. And also, a friendly amendment by Council Member Beer to amend two business days instead of five days of the event. Second by Council Member Feigel. This passed without dissent. I move this forward, Mayor. Second. Have a motion by Council Member Ellinger, second by Council Member McCord. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Oppose, no? Motion carries. Thank you, Mayor. We are adjourned at 2:38. Thank you. Um, we're now down to the update on the South Lime Construction Project. Uh, Mr. Milligan and Mr. Webb, if you wanna step forward. Mayor, ladies and gentlemen of the council, my name is George Milligan. I'm the Streetscape Project Manager. I'm here to give you a, an update on where we currently are on the project. Th-... More light? That slide is a little dark. It actually shows where we closed Avenue of Champions on July 22nd to begin work on the intersection of Limestone, Winslow, and Avenue of Champions. More light there? Just to give you an oversight of what's happening in here, all of this work that you're looking at here is in that intersection. What you're seeing here is part of the duck bank, uh, matter of fact, and, and part of the storm sewer system, the work that, that was going on in that intersection. It, the Avenue of Champions, we were able to reopen that intersection on August the 13th. We were a week th-, approximately a week ahead of schedule, and we were two weeks before classes started at the University of Kentucky. This project ha- has been split into basically two sections. We have the section that runs from Avenue of Champions to Maxwell Street and the section that runs from Maxwell Street on down to Vine Street. This first part of the presentation will address the portion from Avenue of Champions to Maxwell. Uh, as of the end of last week, the storm main line construction is approximately 95% completed. The catch basins, uh, the bottom sections of those catch basins, approximately 80% of those are, have been installed. And, uh, the contractor this week has started setting some of the top sections of those catch basins. This is a design build project, and we just recently got the final elevations, which allows us to set those top sections of, of, of the structures. In that same section, the sanitary sewer main, we are, is approximately 90% complete. We are up to the Maxwell Street intersec-... interchange, uh, with the sanitary sewer. Once the street closes, we'll go ahead and, and put the last manhole in. The contractors now drop back and as we went with this project, the sanitary portion of this project was a replace, was a renew in place, which meant we literally tore out the sew-, the old sewer, put the new in the same location. At the time we did that, uh, we temporary tied back over the old service laterals from people's property lines. We are now going back in and replacing those laterals, uh, to the edge of the property. In the Maxwell Street section from there to the Avenue of Champions, we're approximately 40% complete. The duckbank section... The, the duckbank, when we refer to the duckbank, this is everything that is going to handle all of what you see above ground now. Uh, the, all of your electric, your telephone, and your, your cable. The duckbank construction has proceeded up, up past Keeneland Drive on, on this section. Uh, this project has a lot of custom-built, uh, concrete enclosures that are, that are part of this project, and they are being manufactured here locally. Uh, and so we have concentrated on getting the storm and sanitary boxes in first. We, we stopped this at, at, at Keeneland Drive and shifted to the other part of the project for a while. This week, we should be starting getting the structures back, so we'll be coming back into this area. The construction on that side is, is approximately 35% on the duckbank on the lower end. As I'm sure all of you are aware, tomorrow at 9:00 AM, we, uh, we will close Maxwell Interchange, uh, and we will eh, close that interchange for approximately four weeks. On the lower end of the project, uh, we started approximately the same time as we did at the Avenue of Champions with a, with an additional set of crews. The contract-tractor was able to bring in additional crews, so working both ways to assist in, in speeding up the project and finishing it in a, in a more timely manner. On that section, we're approximately 50% complete on the storm line. We are up, uh, we are now a little bit past Warren Court with that part of the construction. Sanitary, the sanitary is complete up through, uh, through High Street. We're complete through that intersection. Uh, we are moving... We've moved crews in here now to work on some of the storm. The way this project is designed, it is, it is unique since we have all the utilities following each other. Uh, w-, where we are now in that narrower portion of it, we're gonna have to get the duckbank in 'cause it will be the deepest portion, then come back with our, with our, uh, the rest of our s- our sanitary sewer. So we are, uh, the duckbank crew is now in that area. Down in that section, the sanitary sewer is approximately 20% complete. The sanitary is, is, has crossed the High Street intersection and right now they have stopped probably in front of the Sound Bar, uh, and Hannahs. Again, the duct bank is, is complete up to the High Street intersection. Uh, this section is going a lot slower than the other end due to the, the narrowest, narrowness of, of the streets. Uh, the duct bank on that end is approximately 15% complete. High Street intersection was closed on August 27th for approximately three weeks. We were, during that time, you can look and see, this is what the duct bank looks like in that intersection. Uh, if you'll look at the bottom right-hand picture of all those curves, that is just the communications portion. Uh, down underneath that is a layer of concrete. Down underneath that is all of the ducts for the electrical system. In some are- some places in here, we have more than 20 ducts in, in, in this duct bank. Some, some more of that intersection, um, lower left is one of KU's manholes. Uh, that manhole actually sits right across the street from Bank of the Bluegrass. Uh, that manhole, and you can kind of get an idea by th- the people working around it, that manhole is seven foot tall, six foot wide, and 12 foot long. It weighs 30,000 pounds, uh, and all the ducts come in and tie into those, the holes that you see on the side of that. We opened, uh, the High Street intersection, uh, last Saturday at approximately 11:00 a.m. uh, we were about five days, uh, ahead of schedule on, on that opening. Problems and concerns in the area. Obviously the, any time you have a construction site, dust is a problem. Uh, in order to try to mitigate that, we are washing the streets three times a day, putting over, over 12,000 gallons of water on those streets to minimize dust. Uh, to the extent possible, uh, I don't, I don't know how you'd do it any more without, if, if we water them any more, then we start putting water in the trenches and then we start having safety problems with the crews working 'cause we get it too wet. Uh, material storage. When the contract was bid, it was the intent that we would minimize, to the extent possible, the storage of materials on site. As the con- as the construction progressed, we found out that we were gonna have to keep more items on site than what we'd originally planned. What you're looking at in that bottom picture are some of the concrete structures that are on site now that will be used in the Maxwell Street interchange. Uh, when you, when you look at the duct banks that we're putting in, if you think about it, there, you will see bundles of pipe sitting out there on the site. When you put in a seven or eight-way duct bank, you're putting in seven joints of pipe at a time in a 20-foot section. So it doesn't take very long to g- start going through those bundles of it. In addition to that, it was, the contractor felt that we were better off to stockpile here than to take and bring everything in in the day with multiple tractor trailers coming in there adding to the, to the congestion in the area. Access to businesses. We have attempted at all times to maintain at least one lane of traffic open for, for local access. In the evenings, uh, I think with the exception of maybe two days, there was always one lane open on Limestone except for the time when the interchanges, uh, were, were totally shut down. Uh, this, this shows you a couple of them. The, the picture on the left is the, uh, uh, the lane opening, uh, from Maxwell looking down toward High Street. Uh, the one on the right is, is the opposite direction. One of the things that, when, once construction started, we wanted to try to make the property owners and everyone aware of where we were going. We have had weekly stakeholder meetings with, uh, with the property owners. Uh, the contractor at that time gives an update on what he plans on doing for the next week. Uh, initially, we, uh, had 20, 25 people. Now it's running t- now it varies between 10 and 20 people. In addition, at, we've added additional signage, uh, at the request of the property owners. Uh, the two signs that you're looking at are both located at Maxwell and, and Limestone, showing what businesses are going each direction. I will tell you that a few of these signs have disappeared, and I imagine they're hanging in somebody's dorm room at the present time. S- just some trivia. Uh, the report as of last week showed alm- showed 24 calls to Lexcall from July 22nd through September 9th. That does not include ph- calls that come directly to my cell phone. My cell phone probably averages five to seven calls a day. Uh, there have been, uh, 11,600 tons of rock backfilled, equaling s- 464 truck loads. Uh, 1,042 cubic yards of flowable backfill, or 104 mixer loads. Al- almost all of that backfill that that shows there is all in the Avenue of Champions interchange. We were required to use flowable backfill by the state, uh- ... in that, in that intersection. And it, it became where we literally totally, almost totally opened that, that interchange and had a big pit and started working our way back up. In addition, you can see that there have been approximately three miles of conduit installed to this point. Uh, the significant fact about that, there's three miles of, of pipe in the ground, the project is only 2,000 foot long. Uh, that basically concludes the report on it, and I'll be more than happy to answer any questions th- that the council may have. Any questions? Council member Lawless. Uh, thank you. I have a copy of the contract here with ATS and their site management plan and several things and, um, I attended the meeting where they made their presentation. Um, in the site management plan, it says, uh, they were, "Planning an orderly work site at all times. Minimizing dust and debris in the work area and daily clean up. We would not store any material on the work site than we will use on that particular day. We would anticipate u- utilizing our shop on Jaggy Fox Way as storage area for the materials and supplies, and would be transported to the work site as needed. A water truck will be available for this project at all times, and water will be used in order to control dust. Work site would be cleaned up daily. Trash receptacles would be made available on site and emptied." Um, they also in a, said that they would not store their heavy equipment on site. What can we, the city, do to get them to fulfill that? Because I go down there a lot, and ATS is not fulfilling that part of this contract. As I addressed in the, in, in my presentation, it became, uh, once we started construction, it became obvious that it was not feasible to, to not store materials on the site. Again, when they submitted that it was a plan, and, uh, uh, the plan didn't work, uh, as they proposed it, so we, we had to make some changes on the site in or- in order to accomplish that. There- So, I mean, I've been there when there were 16 to 18 pieces of heavy equipment on a normal day. I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to go back and look. I do not ever, I do not remember the section where it said that equipment would be removed from the site. It i- that it, and I will tell you f- from a construction standpoint, that is absolutely impossible to do. It, in or- So- ... in or- in order to accomplish that, it would mean that probably every n- every day, you would have to bring in eight, well, if using your number, 16, you would have to bring in 16 lowboys, tractor trailers, and load that equipment out, and then the next morning, bring it back in. And we also, we have an ordinance that only allows us to, to come into the downtown area with that type of equipment during certain hours. Since we paid a premium to them for this kind of thing, and it was decided by them it wasn't feasible, what recourse do we have as a city? I'm, I'm not the person to ask. I'm sorry. I'm the project manager. I, I, that's out of, out of the scope of my, of my responsibility. Um, the other, um, issues are they were gonna do traffic control signage and, like, when High Street intersection was closed, um, the signage wasn't very good as far as letting people know that they, like, in the evenings, they could turn left there, go up Upper and turn left on High and get to the parking lots to access those businesses. Weren't any signs to indicate that at all. And, um, you know, that was the responsibility of ATS, and the signs that did go up went up at, several days after the project started after multiple calls. And, um, again, we're paying a premium for these things, and ATS isn't doing what they said they would do. You are correct that, that that signage when up, that signage was not part of the detour plan and everything. Once the, you and I had the conversations about those, uh, those signs were ordered. Uh, it takes a while to, to, to manufacture those signs, and, uh, we're, we're adding signs today. Uh, still, as, as people in the, uh, corridor request them, we've, uh, at the last stakeholders meeting before the, uh, uh, when we talked about the Maxwell Street closure, um, we asked everyone what additional signage you thought. We do have a couple sign requests from Beth Hannah and suggestions, uh, which are very good requests and, and we're going to implement those. We will not get them implemented by tomorrow- Well, I mean- ... uh, but, but we'll get them implemented, you know, as, as fast as we can. ... the signage and the traffic control, uh, that ATS promised and that we're paying for, it's not like they didn't know that street was gonna be closed, so... The, the signage they provided is what they normally provide on a construction project, and this is not a normal construction project. Uh, once we've made the request for the additional signs, they are providing them. ... uh, there's -- well, a sign never did go up saying that you could turn left on Upper. I know, I've -- the -- I have the sign now, and, unfortunately, by the time we got it, we've opened the street back up. Um, and the barricades with the little flag guys in front of -- uh, at Martin Luther King, um, n- not letting people know that they could access the, the church parking lot, or the transit center parking lot with a big arrow pointing, "Turn left, turn left, turn left." And then, when I s- And, and we're -- and we did address that by adding additional signage there that says, "Transit Center Parking." Matter of fact, the sign is -- signage is still there. Again, we had one of those stolen over the weekend, and we're moving another one down, and we've ordered one to replace it. Well- One -- the one thing we did find on using a flagment at that intersection, we found out that it was causing more problems than it was doing -- than it was helping. Uh, once we removed the flagment and let the signage try to do its thing, uh, we found that the people -- we found that the people would work it out -- could work it out. The one problem we did have is when we got several cars with -- might be all going to the church lot, so everybody behind them thought they could come that way, too. Um, well, I think proper signage would be helpful in that instance, saying, "This is to access these businesses only." It -- the, the normal -- that is not normal signage, that -- one of Beth Hannah's requests was the fact that we add to our, uh, road closed signs that right now they say, "Road closed, local access." She has requested, uh, I think Friday, she requested that we add the signage that says, "Local businesses open." And we're gonna have those signs made and added to those signboards. And, yeah, and we had talked about that too. Yes, yeah. And, again, that's ATS's responsibility. And we have, um, like I say, we're paying -- it's not a normal project, and we're paying -- we're not paying a normal price for it. And, um, that, that concerns me. The other thing that concerns me is, uh, they talked about they would cease work at 10 o'clock, 10:00 PM. What can we do to get ATS to put an extra shift on there, um, to speed this along? Because they're clo- they're stopping sometimes at 4:30 or 5:00 o'clock. And I talked to one of the workers one day, and I said, "You know, I thought y'all were gonna work till, you know, eight, nine, 10 o'clock." And he said, "Oh, we work till seven or eight every night. This -- yesterday was the first day, but I've been down there many, many times in the evening, and they're not working until the 10 o'clock." So, can you negotiate with ATS to put extra shifts on there? I mean, I know they don't want their workers to have 14-hour days, that that might not be safe, but there's certainly a lot of people out of work right now that they could hire to do this. What, what we have found is that after approximately 5:30 or 6 o'clock, we cannot get materials. Why? They're- Every- ... piled up in the street. Everything that, everything that I have to have, all of the conduits and the duct banks are, are the main example of this. When, when I excavate, and, uh, when the contractor excavates and puts the pipe in the ground, before we can do it, before we can backfill that or anything else, we have to encase that pipe in concrete. Concrete you cannot stockpile on site, unfortunately, and the concrete plants shut down early. The other portion of that is we could be opening more trench. We don't wanna open the trench, because of the safety standpoint. Uh, some of these trenches are, are, are even too wide to plate. Uh, and if you open more than a couple hundred foot, uh, of, of, of a hundred foot of trench, I don't know if there's enough plates in Lexington, but, uh, uh, so it, it, it became that standpoint. There are some times when they have shut down at 4:30 and 5:00, and it's because of the fact that to proceed further would mean they would have trench open. They've had days -- last Friday, uh, they worked till about 7:30 or 8 o'clock with the idea of -- we, we took and started digging in front of Hannah's, uh, after she closed at two o'clock in order to, to be out of the way. In order to make that safe, because you had the soundbar opening at 4:30, in order to make that safe and backfill all of that, we worked that late, in addition to, to getting the soundbar back open. Uh, it's hard for me to understand with the amount of work that's going on and that needs to be done, that some of it couldn't be done after 4:30 or 5:00, and couldn't be done until 10 o'clock. And what I guess I'm asking from you is, can you negotiate with ATS to get extra workers there to work later? In my professional opinion, it is not gonna be beneficial to us at this time. We are better off adding additional crews during the nor- the work day that we're working. As part of that, we have already, uh, had discussions with ATS and one of their subcontractors, as when we start the Maxwell Street portion tomorrow, they will be b- be bringing in an additional crew to do that, to increase the production that way. ... part of the problem on this, and this is the duck bank, 'cause it ... Right now, that happens to be the key to everything, is all of these pieces tie into those concrete structures that, that I discussed earlier. And until we get delivery on those structures, it's not feasible to try to put pipe in to get to 'em to make it line up to get to the structures. But we are, w- there is an, uh, to answer part of your ... There, there are extra crews being added, uh, as work allows. The ... With this project, as I think we explained initially, while it's, it, it's different than anything that's ever been tried, one crew has to get so far up the street before the next crew can start, and then that crew has to get so far up the street and, before the next crew can start. If something happens to one of those crews and they get bogged down, then we're bogged down. That ... Part of that is why we're working this project from both ends at one time. Uh, also, the dust mitigation. I know that lately there have been ... They've been doing more trucks up and down, but apparently they're using a different kind of truck right now. We have a tru- the, the truck that's being used has got a problem with one of the nozzles on it, and there's a part on order to fix it. They're having to, uh, they're having to make more trips to accomplish the same thing. But squirting water into some of the businesses, like, under their doors, and that's a new problem. That's, that's, that's the first I've heard of it, of, of- I, I just found out about that- ... of, of it. ... also yesterday. That's, that's, that's the first I've heard of it. Um- One of, one of the things that we were trying to do with that, is we were really putting some pretty heavy pressure, uh, against the curbs in order to wash that, whatever dust and gravel down there. As you get into that lower section, unfortunately, uh, there are no curbs. It, it rolls right up, and we'll, we'll bring that to the attention of the contractor. Okay. And, um, then High Street is really essential, um, and it's not being done very frequently, or even daily, which means when it is done, it's just massive mud. So if you could address that with ATS, and maybe get back with the council, or get some signed documents of how they're gonna correct some of these things that they're not doing that they said they would do, that would be really helpful. Yeah. I get a daily ... I get a weekly log from ATS on what their watering schedule is and what they, what they have performed. There are, um, there are time ... Most of the time, um, either the inspector, or myself, or, or, or the engineer, uh, are on site when they do it. Uh, we are aware that at the beginning, there were some problems with the way they were washing down High Street. Uh, we're hoping that that's gonna be mitigated now that we've got the street back open. And once we get it all cleared off, uh, we, we think that'll ... that's gonna help it also. Well, the ... I mean, like I say, we're, we're, we're paying an awful lot of premium money, because they made these promises, and I was in the meeting when they did the presentation. Um, and also, it would be easier to have ... if they could store some of their equipment off s- off-site, and there's a fenced area across from Good Sam that I think they're ... Do they have access to that? That, that is, that is their fenced area. Okay, and so- And it, and it- ... they can't- And it's pretty full. Well, um, I've got a ... I haven't seen it pretty full. I've got a picture of it pretty empty, and- Yeah. The, the, the pro- ... trucks lined up. ... the pro- Sure. And so, you know, that's the expectation. It's right there on the street. That's what they promised they would do. I can't imagine it could take that much time to drive those giant bulldozers and trucks into that fenced area, and then that would help with, you know, um, trucks and fire trucks and that kinda thing getting down there if there was an emergency. But that's, that's what we paid them for. That's what they said they'd do, and we need to hold their feet to the fire and make sure it gets done. We're o- we're attempting to. We will address that with 'em and see what, what equipment we can put in that yard, we will ... We'll see to it that it's put in that yard so that yard is full every night. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. And, uh, I would like a written update, if you would please. More than happy to. If you don't mind, coun- Council Member Laws, I would like to address a couple issues. Uh, or a couple of the things that were brought up. One was the storage on the street. Uh, would just like to make it clear, you saw the number of dump trucks and gravel that were coming in there. Uh, all these structures are delivered on tractor trailers, and whenever we started balancing the issue of storing on the street plus what had to come in there on a daily basis, it seemed to make very good sense if they could maintain local traffic, a continuous lane except for when there was a complete lane closure like High Street and now Maxwell Street, that if, if they could maintain access to business and the local traffic, which they have done, that in order to mitigate as much of the traffic issues outside of the project as possible, that it made good sense to us. So- ... if, if you're looking for somebody who, who you need to speak with about the storage and the decision to let them store, it's ... it would be me. I would also, uh, want to, to address the, uh, the issues with trying to make this project go faster. This, this is not something that we haven't thought of. We began working with utilities well over a year ago now to try to build a project that once we got to the point that could be done in a compact amount of time. And we have, we have the commitment at this time of those utilities to support this. And we have thin- seen things done on this project that do not occur in a normal project. We have seen a fantastic commitment from those utilities. When you're talking about this construction, you're not only talking about trying to move our contractor faster, you're asking for more from those utilities than we're getting today. And that wo- that would be very difficult to get from those folks. There is a huge commitment by tho- that group to help us get this project done as quick as we can. Uh, I, one of my major concerns, because I don't have those utilities under contract, was, would that commitment be there after working with these folks, keeping them in lockstep for a year's time to get this project done for these people in the timeframe that was very compressed compared to other projects with this much underground construction? And we have seen that, but I have very big concerns about having our contractor go faster than the utilities can support. We have the gas company coming in and doing relocations whenever things are encountered. Sometimes th- on other projects that may take weeks or months before you wait on. They're setting poles days after we identify design issues. I- it's, it is truly amazing, and I have to commend those utilities for, for their support. But I want everybody to understand, if we try to move this faster because we think we can dig the ditches faster, we could lose that support from those utilities or be ineffective because they cannot support this project at the speed we went. And whenever we designed this project, we designed it to have the underground constructed by a certain point for the wiring of the ductwork to be, take, take a certain amount of time. We're on track to accomplish that. Uh, there will be some contracts coming in for tho- for the wiring up of that con- conduit on, and on, I, I just wanna emphasize that it's not just our contractor that's involved here. And what I see our contractor doing is managing this process and managing the utilities as we ask them to do. If, if you recall in that, that meeting, I spoke directly to the vice president of ATS and said, "I don't have a contract with these utilities. It would be my expectation for you to manage the construction that they need to do and get 'em, have a gap for 'em, and get 'em in and get 'em out." And they have done that for us. So it, I know this is, this is a very difficult project for those who live, work, and have a business on that corridor. To this point, I am very pleased with the progress. We have had to make some decisions that weren't in the original contract. Some of the designs aren't exactly the way they are, but I don't think that's unusual for a construction project of this magnitude that takes place in a road that's as old as li- South Limestone. So I just wanted to make that, those points for the council. Any, anything further, Council Member Lewis? Uh, I just wanna know if we're getting some money back since they're not doing it . Council Member Lane. Uh, thank you, Mayor. I just have a couple of really quick questions, and sort of a short answer would be fine. And I don't know whether the commissioner would like to address this or, uh, Mr. Milligan would. The, the first question is that some of the businesses along Limestone came in and asked if it would be possible to go to a 24-hour day construction process in order to expedite the construction, and I believe you've addressed that in some of the things you said earlier, but is, this is feasible to do or you don't feel like that's a good strategy for the construction? I don't feel like it's a good strategy. The, the commission may have a different opinion . I would, I would just like to say, a- as I said before, that this project can't, can't proceed at a faster rate unless it can be supported by the utilities. It's, it's not just a construction project. And w- it would, it would require, at this point, a sit down with every utility to see what they could do because you can't, you can't move forward with all but two. Uh, if they need to be on site at 3:00 in the morning to make a decision, then they have to be there before that construction can proceed. So, it, it's those types of things that can cause issues. If you run into something in the middle of the night, if you run into a piece of pipe that was not marked or whatever, you can't just cut that out of the way. The utilities have to come and investigate that. And th- those types of things are being supported very well, but would become a problem at, if we began to go into some tw- like 24-hour days. Uh, we also have residents on, from Maxwell on down, we also have Holmes Hall that is, is full of students and a hospital that's full of patients. As far as running hole rams, running equipment, backup beepers, working, there a- there are some issues with working there at night. Okay. Are, are, is there any additional effort- I'm sorry . Around the clock work or would want that, but ... I, I, I think that, uh, Council Member Laws was suggesting maybe th- not to go 24 hours, but maybe have it extend the hours for a few hours in the evening. Is that what you're suggesting too? Uh, that may be a scheduling error too. It could, uh, issue, could you maybe address that just very briefly? Again, again, that is controlled by the material availability, and i- in reality, it's controlled by concrete. All right, all right, the other question I had, is there anything that you feel like we could do to mitigate the disruption to the businesses along Limestone? 'Cause, uh, I too am concerned about them. Do you have any ideas or anything that we could do to help them out? I really don't. The one thing we have attempted to do during this project is at least maintain all the sidewalks open so, so there is access. Probably the worst case of doing that was today, uh, because of the fact of, uh, uh, we had to make a change in the design, uh, in the field and we're having to go up the sidewalk with the electric conduit and right now, we are directly in front of Sound Bar in Hanna's, as I, as I mentioned during the presentation. Uh, I know that in order to try to help these people, I know the contractors, people, they've, they've taken their, taken their trash down for them. They've carried their groceries in for 'em. Uh, we were walking people around, uh, some of the construction equipment today to get into Hanna's. Uh, but, but we're aware of it and, and to the extent possible, we're, we're trying to, to make ac- that type of access. Uh, this section of it that we're in right now is the most difficult portion of it because it i- when you saw the numbers that I gave you earlier where I was showing 80 and 90% on Mains, on, on the Maxwell Street end, uh, to Avenue Champions and 15 and 20%, the crews started at the same time, coming both ways. It's, the difficulty and, and the narrowness of the street, trying to maintain some of that access for local businesses, um, when we've had dump trucks in there where we've had a lane blockage and somebody needs to come in, you know, we've stopped and moved, moved construction equipment, uh, to do that. And, um, I, I think y'all addressed this too, but I just wanna ask this again. How would you rate the overall performance of your general contractor and your electrical contractors? We're, we're, we're very, very pleased. We, you know, we opened a- Avenue of Champions, we opened it, uh, early. We've opened High Street early. Uh, we're basically pretty well done with this section, uh, uh, from High to Vine with the exception of the water company going in down through there. Uh, performance-wise, we're, I mean, from my standpoint, I'm very pleased with it. Is there a light at the end of the tunnel for the businesses there where the, uh, most of the excavation will be done and mainly be running the underground utility lines and stuff and- The- ... there won't be that much major equipment or- The- ... stuff stored on site. How, how far out would that be? Uh... The present schedule shows with substantial completion of the underground portion of it by mid-November. Okay. Does that mean in November things will be better there for access and travel through the- It, it will still be a construction site. It, uh, it will still be signed for local access. Mm-hmm. Uh, but obviously by then, hopefully all the material better be stor- better be gone, better be in the ground, uh, and that equipment should be gone because the, at that point in time, it becomes the responsibility of the utility companies, uh, to come in and pull their cabling and, and those type of things and it's, it's different type of equipment. Okay. That's all I have. Thank you. Thanks, Mayor Gray. Thanks, Mayor. Um, I have really, George, three areas of questions. Uh, one has to do with the, um, with the sequencing of the, uh, shifts, your comments earlier about the, um, multiple shifts or- Mm-hmm. ... the, um, efficiency of that. Um, and my other question have to do with, or comments have to do with the, uh, financial side of the project. Um, first for context, I voted against this, the, uh, resolution for this contract for three reasons. I said at the time it was a process that was a design build project in an ar- in, for work that is rarely, if ever, done under a design build contract basis, uh, the priorities and the price. So the reason that I voted f- against the project then, and I said I wouldn't do this in my own business this way and I couldn't endorse it. ... for this project. So that's the context. Um, you, you said tonight that, or this afternoon, that, um, you didn't feel like it was appropriate for th- the, uh, that the, um, concrete plant was not open after 4:00. And, and, uh, and that was a reason not to accelerate or not to add multiple shifts. Um, I was told the other day that, that I've... since I've been, um, active in the construction business that I have more than 2,000 projects under my belt. I have never seen a project that could not be improved and that could not be accelerated. I wanna say that again. Understand. I have never seen a project that could not be improved or that could not be accelerated. I was reading recently the story of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge in the 1850s. And, um, that was a very complicated project. And it was a whole lot more complicated than what we have here. So I think it's really wise of us not to be extravagant in describing the difficulties of this project, because there are many companies and many people who engage very tough projects and, in fact, tougher than this one. So I still think that we can look and need to consider anything which will accelerate the project and not compromise the project. That can be done. Um, Mike, I understand the issues that you described associated with the utility companies. Um, I think utility companies have a pretty good record of hearing authority figures suggest that they need help and that they need to perhaps work a little harder. And so I'd just encourage, encourage that. We know that these businesses, I don't think that they're coming here just to demonstrate. I think that they're coming here because they are actually suffering and struggling in this environment. And hence, we said from the beginning that we did this project under this unusual model, design build, because we wanted to protect the businesses and get the project done as quickly as we could. So we still, I believe, need to hold that touchstone in mind. And if we hear the pain and the difficulty, then we need to examine how we can improve and execute more efficiently and arguably faster. Okay. So that's one thing. And I don't want to move on to that, uh, prematurely, because I think that's a very big deal, and I'm not satisfied that it can't be done. The second thing, though, I'd like to ask about is the price and the accounting on the project. We've had no update on the numbers. Is there any update on... Let's see, we've... The project's been in... underway now for a couple months. So have there been... Have y- have you received invoices from ATS? We, we have received one invoice that we have paid from ATS. Uh, it was the one that had all their mobilization, demobilization on it. And, and the first, it had the first five weeks of, of construction on it. Uh, there will be change- What was the net- What was the... Y- what was the amount of that first invoice? The, uh, after retaining should be taken out, it was 2.6... $2.4 million. You started to say something about change orders. Uh, there will be change orders coming. Uh, one of them I addressed in the presentation is the flowable fill. After this project was bid, when we asked for our permit from the state, uh, to do Avenue of Champions- You might wanna explain what flowable fill is, then fill- Flowable fill. Nor- normally, when you, you backfill a, a trench, you backfill it with gravel and compact it, uh, and then put your concrete cap on it and then your, uh, your blacktop surface. Flow- flowable fill is a self-compacting, very weak strength concrete, basically, is what it is. It's, it's a, uh, it's a, it's a sand, fly ash, and low percentage concrete mix that goes in the trench as a liquid and, and sets up and compacts- Okay. ... so that you don't have shifting, but- That was, and, and as I recall, looking at the bid documents, flowable fill was a, a unit price. It was offered as a unit price- That is correct. ... and an addition. So that will be an addition to the contract that was not- The units will be in addition to the contract. Okay. So, uh, help me if I'm wrong here, but I believe that the contract is a unit price based contract. Yes, it is. Okay. So how many... What's the method of monitoring or confirming the unit prices? I'm not sure I understand your question. Well, the... On unit price contract, the contractor will bill on a basis of units put in place. Yes. Material put in place. Yes. So what is... Do you have staff on site confirming- ... the units that are being billed? Yes. Yes, I do. Who is that? We do. There is, uh, Terry Justice, who's an inspector with the city, and myself are both there on items like flowable fill and those type items. No, I'm talking about the- the- the, um, the ma- the main contract that's a unit cost. It's a unit price-based contract. The u- the uni- units are verified daily. So that's- By- by measurement. By measurement and physical count. It's not strand, it's not... It's your doing. Yes, sir. Okay. There is a, there is a full-time- Are those, uh- There's a full-time city inspector on site in addition to myself. Okay. So are those units consistent with what was estimated? Is this 2.6 million- It- ... are we- it- it- it- ... in line or not in line? ... it right now is varying, and- and we're working. There's over 300 unit items in this sign and based out into four different categories. We're finding that there are units where we know our quantities are going to exceed. We're finding there's units that we're not gonna use at all. And, uh, that w- we're trying to evaluate that at this time to see where we actually are. Think it would be wise to consider an independent estimate for the project, and I want to recommend that we do that. Uh, so right now, just to confirm that we're not, we are not using an engineering firm to confirm the quantities. You guys are doing that- We're using- ... on a daily basis. We're using a city construction inspector- Okay. ... from the Department of Engineering. Okay. Well, what I, when, and- and what I'd said earlier was I think it would be wise for us, it would help us certainly to understand how much we are spending as we move along in the project, and it would also help us confirm that the, um, that the price that we're paying is a reasonable price. Okay, thank you. Yes, sir. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Milligan, I'll, um, w- with regard to your point that, and- and Commissioner Webb made this as well, that the u- the- the, uh, general contracting work had to be coordinated with the, uh, with the utilities' companies' work. Will there be a point, uh, you know, uh, further on in the project when that work will be done, and, or nearly completed and will permit, uh, acceleration of the, of the project, added hours or whatever might be, might be feasible? What actua- what actually, what actually is happening at this time, because of- of this being a design build, we are coordinating with the utilities almost on a weekly basis, that before we go into any major section like an interchange, we bring them all out and we physically paint what we're gonna actually do in that interchange. Then we go ahead and- and- and put that section of pipe in. The coordination between the utilities and- and our contractor up and beyond that is things that we encounter when we're excavating. Once we finish putting the underground portion of the system in, which should be sometime in mid-November, we actually turn that portion of the system over to the utilities, and as the commissioner said, you know, they've been, they've worked very great, uh, with us up to this date, but at that point in time, it becomes up to them to pull the materials and pull the conduits through and do the, do the tieovers. The general contractor during that period of time will- will be doing minor stuff, maybe doing some- some curb work and that type of thing. But, uh, to the extent, once we pass that November 15th date, the extent of being able to speed up the project will be dependent upon the utilities' ability to pull their cable and the ability of the utilities and- and the construction team and design team to work with the neighborhood, uh, to do the tieovers from the above ground to underground utilities. Because we can't take the poles down until everybody's, is crossed over to the, to the new underground system. I don't know if that answered your question. That's very helpful. At that stage, and during that stage, will there be greater accessibility to the, uh, you know, to the businesses and residences along the... There- there should be greater, but realizing the fact that a lot of it will still be, will still be gravel roads, it- it will be a, it's still gonna be a construction site. Uh, but at that point in time, then most of that major heavy equipment that Ms. Lawless talked about will leave the site. And- and that stage in the project, the- the- the pulling through of the wires and so on, what's your estimate on how long that- th- that- that will take? The schedule at the present time has that going from mid-November to the end of March. But the schedule presently shows all the poles to be down by the end of March. I see. Thank you. Yes, sir. Council Member Lawless. Thank you, Mayor. Um, I guess what I'd like to ask is, has ATS done any negotiation with the, um, utilities to see if they could accommodate a faster schedule? And secondly, Nobody's saying th- the guys aren't doing a good job seven or eight hours a day. What we're saying is, can we have more guys doing a outstanding job more hours? And I understand what you're saying about coordinating with the utilities, but ha- I would request that ATS see if they can coordinate with the utilities and if they are in fact willing to, to move faster. We'll be more than happy to pursue that. And, and we will give you a written report back on it. Thank you. Anything further for Mr. Milligan? Thank you all very much. Takes us down to council reports. Uh, if you'd like to make a report, please indicate by logging on. Council member James. Thank you, Mayor. I make a m- motion to approve the neighborhood development fund list. I have a motion by Council Member James, second by Council Member Ellinger to approve the NDF. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. The motion carries. Thank you, Mayor. Um, also, David Jarvis was gonna give, um, an update. Some of you may have heard of the, um, building collapse at 3rd and Warnock, and it closed off traffic for quite a bit. So I wanted to give an update to any travelers around that, um, 3rd Street area and, um, also just hear the update on what's going on with the building. Thank you, Council Member James. Thanks for coming. Um, as you may be aware, there was a building at, um, 524 East 3rd Street that, uh, collapsed sometime s- partially collapsed, um, sometime Sunday night, early Monday morning. We've issued an emergency demolition order on the building, um, given 24 hours to tear the building down. The owners ha- has hired a contractor. The contractor's on site now. The building should be down by the end of the, the, tonight, early in the morning. We've closed one lane of 3rd Street off, um, to accommodate, um, any rubble or debris that may come from the demolition of the building. The building had previously been condemned by code enforcement for some structural issues. Um, I think the collapse was partially caused by the roof leaks and that sort of thing. It's a very, very old building down on Warnock and, uh, East 3rd, so... Um, you mentioned that one lane will be available. Is that for the east and west traffic or what? I, I believe so. I believe the- there's traffic control down there that allow traffic, uh, east and west. Um, I was down there yesterday and, uh, traffic was flowing out, but I didn't see anything coming up 3rd from Midland. Okay. So... All right. Thank you for that update. You're welcome. Thanks. Um, Mayor, I wanted to bring that to our attention because it, you know, it's important that we acknowledge that these vacant, abandoned buildings, um, are a hazard to our city, um, hazard to our constituents. And, um, not only do they just sometimes look bad, um, but there's, there's a reason why we should be concerned about vacant buildings. So just wanted to point that out. And, um, that's all that I have. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. Just wanna give one announcement. Uh, the Eastland Parkway Neighborhood Association will be meeting their regular meeting, uh, time on next Tuesday. So just wanna... September the 22nd at 6:30 at Christ Center Church. So just wanna make вот, uh, sure those folks know about that next meeting. And then also, Mayor, um, we seem to have a change in our HR process in terms of how people are filling out, uh, the applications for employment here. Seems to be some confusion with an online version versus a written version. And are we accepting both? Can we get some type of clarification? I know a lot of council members are getting calls about this process, about what's going on and, and what we're gonna do to solve it. Are we still taking both electronic and written applications at this time? I don't know if anyone's here t- that can address that, but there's a lot of jobs that just went on the online and are posted and some people have been told, uh, according to, to what their experience has been, that we only take online applications now. I know that's not true. I'm, I'm fairly confident it isn't, but, uh, let me see if Mr. Dewariha can shed a little light on that situation for us. Nice pronunciation . Good job. That's it. Well, um, I believe we're taking both currently online and, uh, uh, forms, but I have to clarify that. Anyone who needs to come in, we have, uh, some kiosks set up down at the lobby and at different locations and even at HR to fill those forms online. All the processing is gonna happen in our new HR system through PeopleSoft, so we have to get it in and, uh, that's pretty much what's happening right now. Are there instructions as people fill out applications online how to save it on there? How to- Yes. ... transmit documents, um, such as licenses and, and other accreditations so they can save that information? I- is that easily understood on there? Yeah, I mean, uh... I don't know if you've been through the process. I've, I've been through the process. Anything you need to att- y- there, they go in as attachments. You can fill out a resume online or if you have an attachment, you can upload that. Uh, the only feature that's not available now, we're working on that, is to print your application. Um, it's, it's a customization and, uh, you know, PeopleSoft has delivered as not, you know, where you don't print it because, uh, they wanna save on printing costs. And are people having to fill out an application for each individual job or can they fill it out one time- They- ... and then check all the jobs they wanna apply for? They fill it out one time and they're able to manage it. There are records on file for about a year and they can apply for any job by checking the job. Okay. Very good. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mayor. I have a motion and a series of announcements. The motion is to schedule a confirmation hearing for Finance Commissioner Nominee Linda Rumpke for 6:00 PM October 1. That's 6:00 PM October 1. So moved. I have a motion, second to schedule confirmation hearing October 1st at 6:00 PM. Any discussion? All in favor say, "Aye." All opposed, "No." Commissioner Kelly, if you would relay that time and date to Ms. Rumpke, I'd appreciate it. And I have some announcements of, of neighborhood meetings, uh, starting with tonight's, uh, western suburb board meeting. That's at 7:00 PM at 645 West Short Street. Tomorrow night, Wednesday, September 16 is the Woodward Heights Neighborhood Association picnic. That's at 6:30 PM at 304 Madison Place. Uh, if necessary, the rain date will be September 17th. Uh, main dishes will be provided. Uh, attendees are, are encouraged to, uh, to bring side dishes. Um, I think the weather will be good. Hope to see a good crowd out for that event. Thursday night, September 17th at 7:00 PM, Spiegel Heights Neighborhood Association meets at Antioch Church on Ferguson Street. Then on Saturday, September 19th, starting at 10:00 AM, uh, the , the thevertentendy historic highway marker dedication will be, will be held at 642 Main Street. I think other, other, uh, officials will be there that, that morning. Uh, and this is, uh, this is the dedication of a highway marker for a, uh, , a celebrated African-American, uh, in, in Lexington, and hope to see a good, a good crowd out for that. At 2:00 PM that, that afternoon, the Highlands Neighborhood Association will be having their annual picnic at the Highlands Park on Mark Avenue. And then Monday, September 21st, the Winburn Neighborhood Association will meet at 6:30 PM in Martin Luther King Park Community Center. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. Three things. First, I wanna congratulate Mr. McCord on finishing his half-marathon in Chicago this weekend. He's still in one piece, looks good. Congratulations. Eh, second thing, on Saturday the 19th, there is a juvenile diabetes Walk to Cure Diabetes. I'm kinda s- near and dear to my heart because my sister's been a juvenile diabetic for 40 years. And if you'd like to come out on Saturday, the check-in's at 8:30. The walk starts at 10:00. It's a 5K and you can join along with us and it's, you can walk with us under Stacey Stompers, that's my sister. And then the third thing, next, uh, Saturday, the 25th of September, starting at 5:30, there will be a fall fling cruisin' with the springs, the McConnell Springs, um, summer, or fall spring. It's $50 per person. It's a supper, music, dancin' under the stars, live auction and raffle to raise money for McConnell Springs. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Feigl. Thank you, Mayor. Um, as many of you know, um, for the past few months, we've been experience some, experiencing some difficulties in the Chevy Chase neighborhood. Um, th- the commercial area, um, because of the parking meters, and there has been an ongoing study, and recently the study was, um, released that indicated that the, uh, old parking meters would be removed. And I know that we have some merchants who are very, still very unhappy with that, very concerned about what that is doing to their businesses. And former council member Bill Farmer is here tonight to share some of that with you, so I would ask him to come to the podium. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the council. I'm Bill Farmer of 821 Euclid Avenue. I, uh, as always, appreciate your service, and especially today, its length. Like merchants on so- on South Limestone, I'm here on behalf of the small businesses in Chevy Chase to ask for your help with the parking authority and its recent decision to remove traditional parking meters from Chevy Chase. I'm looking for the council and the government's help with the parking authority so that we might designate some areas as exempt from the new parking system, and to help local businesses and, and I think that's the important point. If you want to feel my pain, you, you watch people get out of the car in front of your place of business and look at a preexisting meter that they can put a quarter into and signage that points them down the street to a, a new parking system. And rather than walk down the street, or understand they could even put the quarter still in the meter, they get back in the car and they drive off. And I, I think there is a better answer for us in Chevy Chase. And if you look at the, uh, a- and I wanna thank Council Member Feigl for forwarding this presentation slide to me, you know, the parking authority went out of its way to put a lot of signage out there to drive people to the specific parking, um, mechanical parking machines, and as you can see from March finally through August, they finally got the, a little crossover in, in the amount of usage there. But I, I think that, as I may have said to you all once before, one size does not fit all. I know that when, when the council sets rates for certain things, they set aside a certain amount for people who can't afford those rates. I know when the council is working on a historic overlay, that part of what goes on in that process is certain properties ask to be exempted from that overlay, and the council can or cannot help in that situation. And likewise, um, there's, there's always opportunity, I think, for the people to be heard over the authority. I think most disturbing to me while I've been here today was the conversation I had with the, uh- ... Citizen's Advocate. And I asked the Citizen's Advocate could that office be of service to some merchants in Chevy Chase if they had a grievance with the Parking Authority. The Citizen's Advocate indicated to me that, uh, the understanding was that the Parking Authority was outside the purview of what the Citizen's Advocate could take action on. So I've been to the Parking Authority and wasn't really afforded the opportunity to talk about this study before they passed on it this past week. I think there's still an opportunity for the people to be heard and it's, there's no one complaining about the amount of parking fee. They're complaining about the loss of convenience and being able to walk from their car to a meter to a business and back. And that's where I ask for y'all's help. Sometimes a commission or a board needs help from the council and the mayor to help the citizens. Thus my plea for you today. Thank you very much. Council Member Figgle. Is that on? Okay. Um, a- actually what I was going to ask the council, because I do think this is a very unique situation, and I was hoping that we might be able to put this into one of our- our committees to see, to study this issue to see if there's a way that we can accommodate, uh, unusual or unique areas within the city, uh, and make some exemptions. So I'm not sure which committee that would go into. I'll leave that up, uh, to the members of the council. This one's a little bit twixed and tweened because I don't think it would fall neatly into any one of the categories. It probably doesn't go into budget and finance, but among the others, um, there's some flexibility. Services. Council Member James. I- I think- I think commiss- I think Council Member Ellinger was hatting back over here- ... to avoid that, but that's probably a good- good choice. So I- Okay. Well, I would move to, that we put this issue into the Services Committee to- to do some, uh, research and find out if there's a way that we can accommodate unique areas within the commercial area of the city. Very well. Do I hear a second? Second. Have a second by Vice Mayor Gray. Any discussion? All in fa- uh, Council Member James. Thank you, Mayor. I think this goes back to, um, our discussion about authorities and the role of particular authority, so I- I think I- I'll support putting it into committee because it obviously is an issue that needs to be talked about, but again, I think we need to clarify the term authority and we did this with, um, with DDA, the Downtown Development Authority, um, Parking Authority. There are issues that come up related to our citizens and what avenue is supposed to occur, what's supposed to be the way we voice our complaints. So I'll support it going to committee, but I do feel like we need to research that, um, the ordinance that establishes the authority and what their role is and what our role is with them. Thank you, Mayor. Any further discussion? Council Member Figgle. Uh, just one other thing. I would like to also request that, uh, the administration speak with parking and ask them to delay removing the meters until we've af- had a chance to dis- to, um, study this issue. I'll be glad to make that request. The motion on the floor right now is the motion to refer to the Services Committee. Council Member Blues. Uh, I'm- I'm wondering whether that can be moved up on the agenda then if- if, uh- . ... that would- that would be good. And I presumed that we'd have a presentation from- from Gary Means and- and the Parking Authority for that. All right. Um, those in favor then? Mr. Kelley? Uh, Mr. Means was here earlier to- to discuss this matter if- if council so desire, but he had to go to the board, uh, training session, so. All right. We have a meeting October 6th, 5:00. All right. Please- The motion- motion on the floor is to refer it to the Services Committee. Any more discussion on that? All in favor of referring it, please let it be known by saying "Ay." Ay. Those no, motion carries. Anything further Council Member Figgle? No, that's all. Thank you. Council Member Lawless. Thank you, Mayor. Um, several announcement. The Elizabeth Street, newly rejuvenated Elizabeth Street Neighborhood Association is having their meeting tonight at the church on Audubon and Forest Park at 7:00 PM. Um, and so anybody out there listening and would like to go, please do. Um, I also wanted to mention, there are a lot of things going on this week and this weekend. Uh, Gallery Hop is this Friday night and, um, uh, Mr. Seth Tuska today, um, loaned the city government an incredible sculpture by his father, John Tuska, and, uh, he is also gonna have things on display at the Kentucky Theater, um, of his- his late father's artwork. Um, also there's South Lime is, uh, a lot of the merchants on South Lime are going to have, uh, festivities and artwork and Irish dancers. Uh, there's gonna be, um... So get on the website for LexArts and, uh, look at what's going on with Gallery Hop. It's gonna be hopping. Um, on a more serious note, um, there were some very tragic murders in our community this past weekend, one of which was, um, around the corner from my house. ... um, Li Za car was brutally, brutally, savagely murdered, and it was in broad daylight on Saturday afternoon. And, um, many of the neighbors were out and about and witnessed it all. And, um, we're a very close-knit neighborhood in Mintail area, and we're not accustomed to this kind of thing. And so very, it's been very traumatic and very hard for, for a lot of folks. Um, so I want to give a update to, if any of my neighbors are watching, um, I called, there was, uh, people wanting to get together and do something, uh, to promote some healing and, uh, a memorial service of sorts to her. And I called Officer Gaines, as God love him, I do a lot, and asked him if he could do something about, uh, helping us get a permit to block off the street between, um, Walton and, uh, South Ashland, which is where the, the murder occurred. And, uh, he, and thanks to Mr. Whit in traffic engineering, I called this morning and got it today, and thank you so much. So that will be from 6:30 to 8:30, um, between Walton and South Ashland on Aurora. And, um, if anybody's interested, please come by. Uh, the street will be blocked off. And I believe that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Does any other member wish to report? I'm sorry. It's been a long day. That's Thursday. I got the permit today, so we could do it on Thursday evening from 6:30 to 8:30. There's a council meeting that night, so I won't be able to be there, but that was a, um, so I was thanking them for get, being so timely and getting the permit, rushing that through. But thank you very much, Council Member Ellinger, for reminding me. I didn't tell them when it was. Thursday night, 6:30 to 8:30. Thank you. If there's no more reports, I have, uh, just a few, uh, quick things with regard to the mayor's report. Uh, first of all, to follow up on, um, Council Member Lawless' comment about Gallery Hop, I am, uh, really pleased that one of, uh, of, uh, Seth Tusca's, uh, contributions to Gallery Hop will be in the mayor's office on this Friday evening. It is a piece of sculpture that is specifically designed for, um, visually impaired individuals or blind individuals. So if you have, uh, friends or constituents who you think might, uh, be interested in that, it is a piece of sculpture where they can come and feel of it, and, um, it's, it's a pretty remarkable piece. Uh, second, you have several, uh, boards and commissions, uh, nominations before you, as well as a bo- board vacancies report for the fourth quarter. A motion to add those to the docket, uh, would be in order. So moved. Second. Have a motion by Council Member Blues and a second by Council Member Ellinger. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no? Motion carries. Um, couple of other things. One is very short. On September 24th, from 6:30 to 9:00 PM here in the council chambers, we'll be having a neighborhood summit meeting for neighborhood associations and homeowners associations. The primary focus of that discussion will be, uh, preparing our community for H1N1. And we feel as though there's a, a, an effective role for neighborhood associations to play in that, so please encourage your neighborhood associations to, uh, send their president or some other representative to participate. They can contact Mary Ann Blodgett in my office if they need additional information. What are, what was the time again, Mayor? It's 6:30 to 9:00 on September 24th- Thank you. ... in the council chambers. And last, uh, let me yield the floor to, uh, Mr. Kelly for just a moment, who has an update on a couple of, uh, TIFF-related issues. Thank you, Mayor. Um, as you are aware and probably remember, George Krikorian, um, appeared here before the council to discuss, uh, his project that, um, is being discussed on Angliana Avenue, and it's, it's, it's evolved beyond discussion. It's now a, a project, and it would be something that the council would need to, uh, take up, uh, relative to approving of the, the TIFF application and moving the process on to, to Frankfurt. There's a couple of things that, that will need to happen. One is, is that, uh, they will go to the client commission, and, uh, they are scheduled for October the 8th, I believe, to be before the client commission, make sure that the project is compliant, uh, from the planning commission's perspective. Um, couple of things that, that you need to think about is with the first two TIFFs that we've had and we've dealt with, there was the delegation process. I remembered uh, the delegation process where certain council members participated a- a- and, and, uh, was involved in, or involved in the, uh, evaluation of those two projects. Then they came back, made a, made a recommendation to, to the, to the council on whole. There was a lot of additional discussion, uh, of course, after, after that recommendation came forward. Um, with this project, uh, y- you, we would, we would suggest that perhaps the council might want to consider, considering this project as, as a committee of the whole. Uh, this is a pretty straightforward project. Um, a- and, um, I- I think from the perspective of the council that if everyone hears the discussion at the same time, it might expedite the process, uh, and anyone who can and wants t- to participate, of course, can do that. So that's one issue, and we would like to get that scheduled as soon as possible to get the process moving. The first thing you'll be asked to do is to make a determination that you do want to pursue this project and, and, and move forward with it. At that time, we would have the, uh, principals in the project, uh, discuss the project, talk about the public infrastructure projects, talk about the, the financials and the economics of the project and, uh, so on and so forth. And, um, um, Chris Westover is with us today representing, uh, Mr. Krikourian, and John Ferris, who's providing, uh, technical assistance and, and done the economic analysis is also here today should you have questions of those folks. Let's see if we can resolve that issue. Would, would you prefer to send it back through the delegation process or would you prefer to just deal with it as Committee of the Whole? A motion either way would be appropriate. Council Member James. Can we... Can we talk a little bit about how the recommendation for it to go to COW as opposed to the same process? I mean, what, what is it that didn't work about the first- Well, let's- ... um, the first route and then maybe we could look at repairing that? Well, I'm not s- sure that the first process i- it's a matter of the first process not working. It's more a matter of we have wrestled through some of those issues of first impression that came along with the first couple of ones we did. Um, in that particular instance, we had the conversation before the delegation and then we wound up having extensive conversation before the council as well so that everybody that wasn't in the meeting could, could be brought up to speed. So the thought was maybe given the fact we've done a couple of them now, it would be, um, more expedient to simply bring it to the council and, and move forward with it on that basis. That said, i- if you have a preference to the contrary, it's, it's not a big deal. So... Council Member McCord. I... It would be my sense, and, and I'll make the motion that we hear it as Council of the Whole. I mean, ultimately we're gonna all hear it and, you know, we don't... It's not that we're taking a step away. I- I think that we're, we would expedite, so I make the motion that we hear it as the Council of the Whole. We have a motion, second, to hear it as Council of the Whole, uh, as Council of the Whole. Any further discussion on that issue? Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Okay, note Council Member, uh, James' dissent. Mr. Kelly. Thank you, Mayor. Then the next question would be when would we like to, uh, uh, schedule a meeting? If, if we could let Ms. Langston take care of that- Very good. ... we'll just let you all... Whatever works. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Um, another item that, that we need to get clarification on and some understanding about relative before we initiate this project is the fees that are associated with, with, uh, processing these projects. As we... As you recall, we had the projects, the first two projects, um, that were, uh, initiated under the new statutes. There's a fee for, uh, paying for the consultant. There's a fee for administrative costs associated with, with managing the project that's collected by the state. Um, the, the state, again, as we discussed at that time, the state has no problem with the developer paying that fee. We are the project owner, but, uh, the money can come from the, from the, the developer, uh, both for the consultant and both for the administrative fee. Um, Mr. Parsons, our outside counsel, has recommended that we, uh, ask the developers to pay this fee, that it's appropriate. It's what's being done in other communities and that the, um, the community would be putting money at risk, that it should not be putting money at risk, um, because you don't know if the project's gonna ultimately come to fruition. Um, I have a... I have a letter from Mr. Parsons that we just received, so I don't have time to pass it out to you. I don't have copies, uh, explaining why he thinks that's an appropriate thing for, for the community to do. Again, you're paying for... There has to be a consultant who verifies the original work and then assuming that, that, uh, is acceptable and the KIFDA Board approves the project in principle, then there's an additional $50,000 fee, uh, that is due immediately. We fully expect that the Phoenix Park Center Point project will, will get final approval, um, this coming Thursday, the 24th. And the Distillery District project will get its first reading before the KIFDA Board on the 24th. And we fully expect that to go well, and we expect that the distillery project hopefully and likely will be approved at the October meeting of the KIFDA Board. There's a budget amendment on -- on the docket today for your approval to authorize us to pay, um, uh, the administrative fees, which would be, for both of those projects, $100,000. The, um, Webbs have offered to pay the $50,000 administrative fee for the Phoenix Park Courthouse project. Um, and, um, I've -- I, I expect that you will want us to pay for the distillery project, unless you tell us differently. Uh, I, I was kind of assuming that, that's why we submitted the budget, um, amendment to you. Having said that, um, how are we gonna handle these going forward? Uh, and that's the question that needs to be addressed, and the developers need to know, um, before we start this next -- this next evaluation. All right. Council Member Lane and council... Council Member Ehlinger and Council Member Lawless. Um, my first question, ju- just to refresh our memory- Yes, sir. ... if the, uh, TIF is approved, and it's funded, does the $50,000 get reimbursed back to the developer of the- It- ... TIF funds? Yes, sir. If, if the TIF is approved, and is successful and generates revenue, then, then both the consultant fee and the administrative fee are both recoverable, uh, by the developer. Right. Uh, and it... You know, my thought is that when a developer comes into town and wants to do a deal, and this is a funding mechanism for them, you know, they should be at risk for the money, not the Irvin County Government, because if, you know, 20 people applied for TIFs, we'd have a million dollars worth of liability there that we have to put the money up for. And since it is refunded upon approval of the deal, and essentially the developer controls, you know, how the deal is structured and who the tenants are gonna be and what the economics are, it seems to me that the appropriate thing would be to have the developer, uh, put the money up. Now having said that, and I've recouped myself on the distillery district, and I think maybe we've already set policy on that, I'm not sure. And I know the Webbs have already paid. So maybe this would be a future-looking type of a proposition that we would ask for developers to fund it in the future. Uh- Tha- that, that's what we're asking, tha- that you make that decision going forward. Council Member Ehlinger, then Council Member Lawless. Thank you. I think... I think my questions kind of were answered. I was just trying to refresh it. On, the distillery, what was... We used the economic development money, did we not, for 47,000? Y- What was that for? You did. That was to pay for the consultant fee. Um, the, um, the Webbs had paid the consultant fee on the Phoenix Park Courthouse project. Um, um, Mr. McNeese asked that the, the, the community pick up the, the cost of that consultant fee for his project. Ms. Westover, could I ask you a question by chance? Have you m... Have you spoke to Mr. Krikorian about this issue? Uh, no, Council Member Ehlinger, I have not. Mr. Kelley and I discussed this earlier this afternoon, and, uh, I'm... I understand what the issues are. I have not had a chance to get in touch with Mr. Krikorian about this issue, and, uh, we intend to discuss it with him at our earliest opportunity. Um, th- this was a, a, a new issue that came up today. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Council Member Lawless and then James and Council Member Bolus. Ma- did you wish to speak? I, I... Actually, I was just gonna make a motion that from this day forward, anybody that wants to apply for a TIF be made aware upfront what the cost to the developer will be for applying for the TIF and the consultant. So moved. An- and, and that they be expected- And they be expected to pay for it. Yes. All right. I second that. Okay, we have a motion and second. Now we'll go ahead and, and discuss it further. Council Member James. Thank you, Mayor. I, I won't support that motion, um, because although, um, the Webbs have voluntarily said they would pay their portion, um, not everybody has, um, that opportunity and that economic resource, and sometimes that's why people are trying to develop things is to, to get, um, to improve that. Um, we do very little, um, compared to some other cities when it comes to economic development, and I think that's a little bit that we would be able to do, um, a little bit in addition to what we do right now that can show, um, our support of the project. Um, there are opportunities for us to access funding. Community Development Block Grant, um, has, um, an opportunity within that, um, to fund economic development opportunities in our city. We could apply for that, um, and allocate that, uh, a budget line item. Um, we can, through our economic development task force, have money set aside to pay these particular fees, and we probably will have TIFs coming in the future where, um, we'll need to, we'll need to help and support some groups that are applying for TIFs that don't necessarily, um, help them individually, but help our city, and help for economic development opportunities. So, um, u- unfortunately, I mean, we've got very few of our council members here, I think it's a very inopportune time to really get a full discussion of this. Um- But I, I won't support that. I, I think it, you know, ideally, I mean, we can ask these individual people as they've come forward and the people that have already applied, "Are you willing to pay it? Can you do it?" Um, that's two and three, um, but you're right. We could have more in the future. We can budget for it, um, and look forward to that. We can set a limit. We can say, "As a council, we'll support five TIFFs per year, and that's our contribution to economic development." Um, but I would ask council to, to reconsider that and just... That's the little part that we can do. The developer is putting a lot of risk out there and putting a lot of time and a lot of money in other ways. This is maybe minimal, um, on their list, or maybe it's substantial, but it's the little bit that we can do as a city. Thank you, Mayor. I've lost my list of speakers on the screen here. So, uh, Council Member Blues, I know was on there. We'll have to go with hands. I, I agree with Council Member James on, on this issue. It does seem to me, I do have a vague, vague memory of earlier discussions of of this. Uh, and I think I remember correctly that, that as stated in the, in the statute, it's the government's obligation to, to pay these fees if the government wants to go forward with a TIFF. And, and I certainly have no , uh, no objection to, to a developer stepping up and, and, and volunteering to pay. But since, uh, since- . ... a TIFF project benefits not only the developer and, in, in many cases makes the project possible, it, it also, uh, is a huge benefit to the, to the community, to our, you know, to our tax base, we get back, the public gets back, uh, money that we otherwise would not if, if the project is credible and if it's, if it's successful. So the, and the, and the fee, uh, as I, as I understand it, when it does, when it does come back, it doesn't come, go back to the developer. It comes back to, uh, to the government, I, I, I would gather, if we've, if we paid it. Well, that, that would be incorrect. Um, what we would do, uh, and what we've done with, and, and in the first instance with, with the Webbs relative to the Phoenix Park Courthouse project, we provided them with, with a letter indicating that this was a reimbursable expense to them under the TIFF, and that would be repaid to them when the TIFF is approved and when the TIFF starts to generate revenue, when the, uh, when the project is i- is showing viability, then they would be reimbursed. Right. But, but, but that's if, if they pay it. But if we pay it, it comes back to us. Is that not- Well, it would come out of our share of, of the local TIFF anyway. Right. So, um, y- y- you know, we would, we would be paying ourselves in essence, but that's correct. Well, in any event- The question, the question is, Council Member Blues, is being able to, um, front $100,000 per TIFF, um, when, when we don't have, uh, you know, budgeted dollars to do that. And, and again, as a matter of practice, as an incentive for the, for the developers, it's an additional incentive for the developers to be serious about filing for a TIFF, pursuing a TIFF, and then doing all that they can do to try to make the TIFF successful and generate revenue. And when that happens, they get their money back. Well, I appreciate that, and, and I under- I understand that, that, that reasoning, but it would, it seemed to us that, or it seemed to me rather that, that, that we would have the same obligation. If we pay that money, we want to make sure that this is a TIFF that has, you know, that has merit, that, that, that we can stand behind, that we are confident will return our investment. So. Sure. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Figel. Thank you, Mayor. Um, I would really prefer that we give this some thought, because I think what we need is some flexibility for those part- for the, for projects that are presented to, um, the city that are in particularly blighted areas, uh, projects that we feel would be more, uh, beneficial to the city. We might wanna offer some additional incentives, ah- . ... in that regard. Um, so I would still, I would like to see some flexibility as we, as we go through, uh, rather than to make a, you know, a firm decision that we will or they will. I just feel like we need that flexibility. Council Member Lane. Yeah, just a couple more thoughts is that, when the developers bring a, uh, TIFF proposal to us, you know, and if we're gonna end up voting yes or no to fund it, that means that we have to do all the due diligence. Uh, we have to evaluate their proposals. And, and in many cases there's proprietary information, like who their tenants are gonna be and what their credit is and all that. I, I feel like it puts a burden on the council to make a judgment on whether this is a viable deal or not, and we ought to let the developer take that risk. Uh, the other thing to consider is that the state could raise the fee for filing to 100,000, 150,000. I mean, the rate right now is the net rate they've set, but that could change in the future. So if you set a precedent where we're going to underwrite this fee, then we may be locked into higher fees in the future also. Any further discussion? Council Member Please. Sorry. Just one further point. It- it- it does seem to me that whatever we do, I think that- that the Krikorian Project, the- the- the developer came into it, uh, with the understanding that the government would pay these- these fees. And I... And- and it, uh... Since this is... As- as Ms. Westover just indicated, this is brand new to, you know, to her, it does seem to me that we're... Uh, that we may be on the verge of changing the, uh, the rules in the- in the, uh, you know, in the middle of the process. And- and that, uh, uh, that, uh, that doesn't sit very well with- with me on this. Mayor. Council Member James. I- I'd like to offer a substitute motion, um, which would actually, um, go towards Council Member Feigel's suggestion, which is we really need to... We need to investigate what would be the best route for this fee. I think we... It's clear that there are opportunities where there... It could be used as an incentive, um, if there's a project that council would like to support, um, and that is the barrier, um, to that application being processed, um, that we would, that we would, um, try to find a way to support that and to talk about in our budget discussions, or if we're willing to discuss in our budget, what are our economic development priorities and where could we start budgeting for that? And if this could be an opportunity, um, even if it's saying, "We'll support two TIFFs a year," or something like that. But I'd of- like to offer a motion, um, at this time to have a discussion, um, at a Committee of the Whole to... Regarding, um, the administrative fees or whatever it's called related to TIFFs. Second. The, uh, motion by Council Member James is to substitute a new motion for the one presently on the floor, and the essence of it would be to conduct a discussion of the issue of administrative fees at the Council of the Whole meeting. Is... And I heard a second from Council Member Feigel. Any discussion on that motion to substitute? Council Member Stennet. Council Member James, when you say Committee of the Whole, are we referring to our quarterly COW meetings? Because right now- It t- ... we're- we're in a full discussion of the council at a work session. Is that the same type of meeting? 'Cause that's what we're having right now. I didn't know if you meant work session or... And it, um, really just meant whatever the same meeting they're having to discuss the TIFF, whatever it is that... Whatever meeting it will be that Rebekah's scheduling, we could have it at that discussion. Is that a Committee of the Ca- Whole quarterly or is that a special called meeting? It'd be special called at that point. That would be appropriate. Oh, I'm just trying to say, I don't wanna wait next quarter to have this meeting. No, whate- whenever that meeting- Okay. I'm just telling you ... would be scheduled, we could have that discussion either before or after we have the TIFF discussion. Okay. Thank you. All right. Council Member Feigel. And I think that, um, I think that would be appropriate too, that we do it sooner rather than later. But at the same time, I would like for someone to provide for us some, um, some options on how we might be able to do this differently than, um, than to just say, "We're gonna pay or they're gonna pay." 'Cause I think we need some flexibility in that. And I'm not sure who that would be . What- what communities, other communities are doing is that if it is a community-initiated TIFF and they go out and recruit developers to come into a particularly, uh, perhaps a blighted area, then w- the word you used, and I believe you did too, um, um, was incentive. And so in that case, those communities may say is a part of the incentive is that we will cover the administrative fees and the consultant fees. But when they are approached by a developer with a project, they are requiring the developer to front the fees with the understanding they will get them back if it's successful. And the other reason I think that that might be more appropriate to take it to a Committee of the Whole is because we really don't have our- our full council here tonight. So it might- If- Pardon me? If... This is still a public meeting and, you know, when- Oh, I know it's a public meeting. ... people choose to leave, we can still make choices and votes and... If- if there's no further discussion- Got a quorum. It's public. ... on the motion to substitute, let's proceed to vote. Those in favor of substituting for Council Member Lawless' motion, a motion to conduct a discussion of this issue at the, uh, Committee of the Whole meeting, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Those who know, I believe the motion carries. Let's go ahead and vote electronically since we're into it. And the motion to substitute does carry by a vote of seven to one. Um, uh, I suppose to be parliamentar- correct parliamentarily we need... Now we need to vote on the substituted motion. Unless there's more discussion, those in favor, please indicate by voting aye. Aye. Those opposed, no. Motion carries. Believe that concludes all we've got on the mo- mayor's report today. Uh, Mayor? The last... Yes, sir. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Go ahead. There was one other item that was to be discussed today and it was relative to the inversions. But since some of the principals who were most interested- Yeah. Unless there's- ... aren't here... ... some vehement objection, I s- I s- . ... we ought to take that off. Put that off. Next time around. But- but- Same. But could we have, uh, sooner rather than later a presentation on inversion? We were originally scheduled to have one today. We were. That's correct. And it would be very helpful because I... It's a complicated and -- and at least for one council member, very confusing, and I'd like to see where we are with it. Well, let me give you two options. If you're really pressed for time for some reason, we could do it Thursday night. We could move to amend the docket now and do it then, or we could do it next Tuesday. I'll take Tuesday. Why am I not surprised? All right. We'll - we'll - we'll do that. All right. Uh, anything further for Mr. Kelley? Any public comment on issues not on the agenda? Any information on UK? Uh, yes, thank you. Uh, let me just mention to you that if you haven't already, you soon will be receiving an invitation to go over to the main building at UK for a discussion of some of the things University of Kentucky's doing in the way of economic development initiatives. Um, and one of their leading contributors to the local economy, Coach Cal- Calipari will be participating in that meeting so you ought to be receiving something shortly about the details of the time. Yeah. Does anybody have the time? I do not. Do you know? For the date? It's October the 7th at three o'clock. Thank you. Yes, sir. And that will be in the main building. The only person I have signed up to speak on issues not on the agenda was former Council Member Farmer, who's already spoken, so I think we're squared away. Does anybody else wish to address the Council? Do I hear- One issue. Council Member Allen? I think I saw that you're having a press conference tomorrow morning about UK and with the first home football game. Is this something that we'll get information about or is it something that we need to know that... Essentially, we're going to be holding a press conference tomorrow morning at Commonwealth Stadium to talk about some of the initiatives that we imp- plan, we plan to implement this year to help protect some of the neighborhoods in the area surrounding Commonwealth Stadium. We'll also have police, fire, traffic, engineering, code enforcement, building inspection, um, maybe one or two other divisions represented. Might not be. I can't remember. Thank you. Okay. Do I hear a motion to adjourn? So moved. Council Member Stennet has moved to adjourn. Council Member McCord has seconded that. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. The motion carries. Thank you.