The first item on the agenda is public comments for issues that are on the agenda. Does anyone wish to address the council? All right. I don't have a list. Do we have anyone who has signed up? All right. Um, we do have a docket to approve. Is there a motion? Move approval. Council member, uh, Gordon has moved approval of the docket. Council member Meyers has seconded that motion. Any discussion? Council member Blues. Mayor, I have a motion to, uh, add an item to the docket. I move to place on the docket for the Thursday, October 15, 2009 council meeting, a resolution authorizing the submission of an application to the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet for a continuation of the Litter Abatement Grant Funding Program. So moved. Do I hear a second? Second. Have a motion and second to amend the docket by adding that item. Um, any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Coun- excuse me, council member Martin. Would Mr. Blues r- mind r- reading that one more time? I'm not sure I caught all that. Thank you. Well, it is a complex motion, and I'd be happy to, to repeat. I move to place on the docket for the Thursday, October 15, 2009 council meeting, a resolution authorizing the submission of an application to the Kentucky Energy and Environmental Cabinet for a continuation of the Litter Abatement Grant Funding Program. All right. Any further discussion? Then those in favor of amending the docket to include, uh, that, uh, item, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Um, any further discussion on the matter of the docket approval, now as amended? Then those ... Uh, Council member Lawless. Um, I have a resolution I'd like to walk on. Do you want me to do it now or during council report? Yes, now, now would be fine. Okay. Um, and I'd like to say a little something about it. Is that okay? I move to place on the October 15th council meeting docket, a resolution declaring a moratorium, um, on ... I'm sorry, I've been running, so I'm out of breath here. Declaring a moratorium in the single family residential R1A, R1B, R1C, R1D and R1E zones, townhouse residential R1T zone, two family residential R2 zone, pla- uh, planned neighborhood residential R3 zone, and high density apartment R4 for properties located within the boundaries of the infill and redevelopment area. Um, uh, I'm sorry. There's a mistake on this. This should not be, um, R4 or R3. So ... Uh, it would not impact, uh, this ... I'm sorry. Uh, uh, let me do this at council report because the resolution isn't reading ... I just reprinted it. Okay. Any further discussion on the issue of approving the docket as now amended? All right. All in favor of approving the docket as amended, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Since, um, um, we began the meeting, I've been giving a list, and it appears as though there are two people who wish to speak, but several people who have yielded time to them. And if I am reading it correctly, it appears as though Frank Harsher and Rod Morris would be the two speakers. Mr. Morris has three, four ... Three people who have yielded time to him for a total of 12 minutes, and four people have yielded time to Mr. Harsher for a total of 15 minutes. Um, is there anyone else who wishes to speak on a matter on today's docket? Then let's go ahead and, Mr. Harsher, if you would step to the podium. You'll have time yielded by David Jones, um, is it, Mr. Kurz? Koors? All right. Hannah, Mr. Morris. I saw Mr. Morris a moment ago. There, there he is. All right. Mr. Harsher, you'll have 15 minutes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh, my name is Frank Harsher. I'm from Lexington. I live at 248 Ellis Park. Uh, my phone number is 859-293-2050. I'm a native of Lexington, but I do business in Atlanta, Georgia primarily as a transportation consultant. Um, my particular, uh, focus is in the area of urban transportation. And as a longtime, uh, resident of Lexington, I've become somewhat interested or v- very interested in the kind of what's been going on in the l- the limestone streetscape, uh, development project. Last weekend, weekend before this, I visited back, uh, in Lexington, actually came home to Lexington for a, a few days and brought with me a, uh, a colleague from Atlanta who has some, uh, business here, both in Frankfurt and in Lexington. He's a professional transportation, tra- uh, traffic engineer as well as a transportation planner and city planner. Ah, we actually went over and had dinner at a, my favorite Indian restaurant, Bombay Brasserie at the corner of Limestone and, and High Street, and were quite a bit surprised to see and to hear, uh, some of the things that were being, uh, let's say, uh, expressed with respect both to the, to the, the, the, the handling of the project in general, and more particularly, uh, the issue that we were most concerned with, and that is the, the, uh, the traffic management aspects of this particular project. Um, we obviously heard a good bit of, of, uh, let's say information and, uh, opinion from the owner of that particular restaurant, and it caused us to become somewhat interested in looking around a little bit, uh, both that evening as well as the next day. Uh, from that, we actually took a number of photos, which I'd like to share with you to try to make a couple of points, if I could, uh, this morning, or this afternoon. Um, as you can see, construction is not a beautiful, a, a beautiful, uh, site, in most cases, but we found that in, with respect to the transportation situation and the traffic management ... Am I doing this right? Um, we, we actually found ourselves a bit confused as we, as we moved around th- the city on Monday. Uh, some of the- so the signing in particular has obviously been, uh, been programmed through a, what we would p- presume would be a traffic management plan. A traffic management plan, um, normally accom- accomo- is accommodated by a, a series of, of standards and, uh, recognition of the various phasing of a, of a project. In this particular instance, we found the signing to be a little bit confusing, and we found, uh, that several of the signs were, if not, uh, difficult to view, they were also difficult to understand, and we found ourselves, uh, uh, sort of working in what we called, what we kind of found ourselves ins- uh, calling a do-loop. Uh, we, we tried to follow the signs basically as, as they were, as they were before us, and we found ourselves circling, uh, ver- thr- through various detour turns, uh, running into what i- what were indicated to be road closures, but the left-hand arrows were actually a little bit confusing and they were s- they seemingly were directional signals pointing ultimately to a road closed situation, but the detour, of course, was in another direction. I just, uh, present some of these as examples. Uh, some of the signing was, was in, in many cases a little bit not vis- was certainly not visible, maybe as to the height and so forth. But the, the, the main point I was trying to make is that the, the directional, um, intuitiveness that you normally would, uh, would, uh apply to a situation like this was very, very confusing. Um, we found ourselves, as I, as I said, finding a series of detour, uh, examples and, and lane lane, uh, alterations that were, that were very, again, very, very non-intuitive, and as we approached the, uh, as we approached the, the, uh, intersection of Li- uh, S- South Lime and Avenue of Champions, we really began to see the, the, uh, confusion that, that was existing. Um, the, the traffic backs, as w- is, is backing up, of course, on South Lime going north, and as you turn to the right, uh, we ou- we were congratulate the, uh, uh, the, the program managers and the leadership for, between last week and this week, there actually has been a left-hand turn lane that has been, uh, delineated in, onlo- along, uh, the Avenue of Champions for the detour route turning left, uh, going north on, uh, Martin Luther King. That was, that was one of the reasons for the, uh, conte- uh, the congestion that was piling up on, uh, on, uh, uh, on North Limestone as well as, th- south, excuse me, South Limestone as well as, uh, on, uh, on th- uh, the Avenue of Champions. Coming from the other direction, uh, the signing was, uh, very, very late in your, in your awareness, uh, as you got to the point where the, the, uh, the, the actual detour, again, to Martin Luther King, uh, approached, there was very little signing to indicate that that was, uh, that was your option. Most of the signing, of course, showed road closed, and one of the things we, uh, again, noticed was the, the confusion that was, that was, that obviously was there when you approach the, the main road closure at, uh, at, uh, South Lime and, and uh, Avenue of Champions. There is simply no real intuitive or clear indication as to which way you, you can go. In fact, you are led to believe you can probably go, uh, in, in both directions, but the, the natural tendency once you get to the intersection is to, to, uh, be confused. Um, again, we ou- we looked, uh, at that particular point, we looked on, uh, to the north and were a little bit, uh, concerned. We had lo- we had been in- informed that the, that the, uh, that there would be two-way, uh, uh, local traffic available on, on that section between the Avenue of Champions and, and High Street, and it looked like to us that there was a t- a potential permanent sort of obstruction to that, based on the equipment and the supplies that were, uh, the materials that were, uh, it looked like somewhat permanently, uh, in the way of at least one of those lanes. Um, unfortunately, there were several, uh, situations where some of the s- the signing looked a little bit makeshift. Uh, this was an example of, of one of the signs that now has, has come down, but it was a, a little bit, uh, I think, unacceptable in terms of its, uh, its, uh, appearance. It was a plastic bag, obviously being taped over the portion of the sign that was to be obliterated. Um- This also is another area that has been taken out since the opening of Maxwell Street inter- intersection, but again, it was a indication that there has been, um, what I would call a lack of- of management in terms of the ex- the- the so-called, excuse me, of the, of the, uh, traffic management plan. And there seems to be, uh, some lack of, uh, keeping it current with res- with respect to the changes that- that are taking place as far as the, uh, the, uh, advancement of the, uh, of the project itself. Again, that, uh, these are additional, uh, su- uh, copy of the same, or shots of the same locations. Um, I'm sorry for the duplication. I think I'm going backwards instead of forwards. Um, back to the que- back to the point of the redundancy of the so-called, uh, wha- what we call a do-loop. Uh, if you follow the signs at this particular stage, you'll find yourself circling back into- into the actual traffic congestion situation. And you get to a certain point where you- you think you've come to the end of the detour process or the end of c- of the construction limit, and then you're- you're essentially, uh, directed back into the, back into the, uh, the issue or back into the congestion. And then further north, or further south on- on Limestone, you continue down, uh, close to the- the- the un- the university at Virginia Avenue, there is another, uh, detour which is back to downtown Lexington, uh, arguably m- uh, moving over to, uh, Broadway and then back down toward- toward the city. Uh, the transportation plan that we were actually to briefly had a chance to look at indicated that the original, uh, bypass or diversion of traffic would have been across, uh, to Rose Street, uh, bringing the traffic then north to, uh, uh, to High Street and- and/or to Main Street. Uh, that seemed to be a contradiction within the difference between what was on the ground and what we had, uh, observed in the- the actual tra- uh, traffic management plan. And my closing point would be that I think the quality of the- the signage and some of the things that were observed, and there are many more examples of this, was what would not- not exactly up to the par that I think you would expect, uh, for a project, uh, of this magnitude and this importance. And I think our- our- our basic conclusion is that, uh, the management plan for traffic, the traffic main- maintenance, uh, plan probably is not being kept, uh, up to date. It probably is not current in terms of the advancement of the project and it needs a tremendous, uh, uh, let's say, a significant relook and we believe an effort to try to, uh, look at the project as it stands at this particular point, reassess what the- what the traffic management plan, uh, should be, and also focus on a couple of things that we believe must be missing in the process. Um, we sus- we have susp- suspected that there probably has been a little less, uh, public involvement in terms of the- the actual, uh, determination of what the various signage should be throughout the, uh, throughout the project. Uh, certainly that was the case with respect to the, to the, uh, uh, the signs that were attributable to- to the ver- that very, uh, sensitive section between High Street and- and- and onto, uh, uh, onto Avenue of Champions. Uh, much of the signing, uh, has been allowed to, uh, let's say, fall over, de- to deteriorate, not- not kept in- in the current condition. And we believe that that's detrimental to the, to the im- to both the image of the project as well as the efficiency of the- of the movement of traffic at this particular point. Um, what are the solutions? We- we believe that there should be, again, a- a serious look taken at the- the project- the project's, uh, traffic management plan. Uh, we believe that the oversight of that plan obviously is in serious, uh, is a matter of serious concern. Uh, the- the efforts to try to maintain currency with respect to the movement of the project and the changes, uh, in implementing various portions of the- of the traffic management plan are a serious deficiency at this particular- particular stage. Um, I guess as a, my closing point would be as a, uh, as a citizen of the- of this city and obviously someone who has a- a great interest in- in, uh, the image and so forth that we put forward, I think that- that much can be done to try to improve this particular aspect of the- of the project's, uh, operation as well as its appearance. Uh, there are examples a- around the country of- of very elaborate, uh, sim- similar circumstances, situations where a contractor actually has responsibility for the maintenance of traffic as part of their- as part of their contract, but there is more oversight, there seems to be more involvement and more, uh, real-time reaction to situations that exist. And I think that would be something that ought to be really considered at this particular juncture with respect to this project. Thank you, Mr. Harsher. All right, Mr. Morris, um, I understand that Chris Eddy, Eric Patrick, excuse me, Chris Eddy, Bob, is it Wakiss? Correct. Okay. And Laura Dawn Vaught are here to, uh, speak with Mr.... Um, and to yield time to Mr. Morris so that he'll have a total of 12 minutes. We're still working on trying to get all access. That's something that- They -- They currently don't have the file up and running, uh, on their -- on the system. I brought it in well before, but they're having trouble transferring it over. May I- Is that something that we can accommodate or not? Um, what would you propose to do? Uh, I, I don't know exactly how this process works. Well, can you go ahead without th- the, uh, overheads? It, it would, it would help if I had the, uh, slides. Well, we could, we could do it at e- or, uh, it's in conjunction with the South Limestone project, correct? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes. Could you get two different files? ... Council. Are we ready then? Sounds like we're ready. All right. We're close. Okay, good deal. All right. Um, over the past, uh, week or so, I've been, sin- since I talked with you last, um, I've been engaged in a number of conversations with fellow citizens, with fellow business owners, um, and, and wi- uh, bo- both online and in person. Um, and, uh, as part of that process, I also spent a good part of the weekend looking over the, the contract and bid documents relative to South Lime. And just to, just because I'm a masochist and I enjoy pain, I, I guess I decided to watch through a number of GTV3 archives. And, um, and, and I really, I really sympathize with you guys in terms of, of what you guys have to sit through week in and week out. I know I couldn't put up with that. So, um, uh, in the process of looking through those archives, there was kind of a seminal moment with regard to South Lime and it was kinda symbolic of, of the whole process. And it was during an exchange between Mayor Newberry and Vice Mayor Gray regarding, um, South Lime. And it, and it had to do with the fact that when, when we looked out into the audience, there really wasn't anybody around, and this is the July 7th council meeting when, when the South Lime contract was approved by the council. And, and the thing that jumped out at me immediately was, well, why wasn't- May I- ... anyone actually here for the South Lime- May I, point of order, Council Member Meyers. Yes. I just have a, I guess, really a comment to be made. I'm disturbed by the fact that you've got your, your business advertisement on all your slides. I mean, if you've got an issue with something that the city is doing, that's one thing, but to come down and present an advertisement for a half hour for your business, I think, is inappropriate. Okay. So, do you need the slides? Is that on every slide? Yep. Do you need the slides to make your, your points? Yes. 'Cause I, I just don't think that's appropriate. Uh, okay. Is that something that we wanna stop then or... Well, I, I suppose, uh, one question is, do you have the capacity to modify the slides with you today? Is it something you could do, uh, from the laptop? I, I could do it in the next half hour or so. Well, one option would be to, uh, proceed with other items on, on the busine- on the, the agenda. Um, I suppose, another option might be, as Council Member Ellinger suggested, if there's some way to just cover that up for purposes of, of, uh, this discussion, I suppose. I can, I can go in and edit the slides and take them out. All right. Why don't you- Why don't you try to do that and then we'll, um, we'll- All right. ... give you some time to speak in connection with the project. Okay. Um, I next have, uh, three individuals here to talk about signs. Is that in connection with the South Limestone project or something else? Um, is that item on the, the agenda? I'm not, I'm not familiar with the issue that you all wish to address. So, if, if I can get a little guidance from one of you. What, what is the sign issue that you wish- It's for signage. Some text and then a comm- uh, real estate sign. All right. Um, does that relate to one of the items of new business on the agenda today? Which- Mayor, Mayor, it was actually on the docket already. All right. We already put it on the docket- Okay. ... Thursday night, number 12. Um, well, I think it'd be appropriate then to go ahead and, and have that, um, those comments at this time. Mr. Smith, Mr. Miller, and Mr. Bennett, I think, are all three interested in addressing that issue. So, Mr. Smith, if you'd step to the podium. And, Mr. Miller, if you'd come around and stand by, please. Hey, how much time? How much time? Three minutes. Three minutes. Three minutes. I'm Billy Smith. I live 3217 Wellington Lane. And I'm here on behalf of CPAL, Commercial Property Association. This is a group that represents the commercial property owners of Lexington. And we have made a, uh, a text amendment, um, some weeks ago, uh, to, um- ... rectify what -- uh, a problem that had arisen with our signs. Uh, people that, um -- someone had a complaint with th- the size of some of our signs, and so we were trying to give some clarity to what the, uh, the, actually the sign ordinance, what we feel like it should be, and what is, um, we feel is good for our industry. Uh, we had recommended a 64 square foot, uh, sign, uh, for our, uh, commercial properties. Uh, not all the properties would have a big sign like that. It's not that large of a sign actually, but as you kind of step up the buildings, you need larger signs. And, um, we, I think we're happy with what came out of, uh, or came to you, as a, as a proposal, the 32 s- square feet for the signs, but our larger buildings, uh, we still feel like need to have a larger signs, uh, uh, for, uh, for graphics and things that we need to put on there. A small sign kind of gets lost on a big building. So, what we were asking you to look at, uh, would be an amendment to what was sent as a proposal, to, uh, consider our 64 square feet, uh, signs, uh, for our commercial buildings. All right, thank you. I'd be happy to take any questions, if you'd like to... All right. Really, at this stage of the game, questions wouldn't be appropriate. Um, most of the time, I'd say we could, we could take it up when the issue comes up on the, on the agenda. However, in this particular instance, it's something that's already on the docket, so I may amend my original statement and say it would be appropriate, given where we are on the docket, to, uh, go ahead and address any questions we have with Mr. Smith. Does any, any member of the council have questions? All right, thank you very much. I'm sorry, Council Member Martin. Thank you, Mayor. It, it's fairly traditional for, for signs on commercial buildings on, to, to be 64 square feet in Lexington, is that right? Some of the larger buildings, yes. How long do you think it's been i- i- in, in as far as the tradition in Lexington that, that commercial signs have been 64 square feet? 35, 40 years. It's been a long time, hasn't it? Yeah, a long... We never had an issue before, I mean, it's- Right. So this- ... it wasn't an issue. So this has been a, a, uh, sort of continuing practice with, and, and a standard practice in commercial real estate to have signs a- approximately 64 square feet, so it's a re- relatively new thing to have, uh, for, for, to be asked to sort of retool and to have all commercial signage be a different size, is that correct? Exactly. And, and not all the signs, mine... It, it, really, we, I think we've done a really good job in kind of policing ourself, if you want to say that, but, uh, if, if the building is a smaller building, you don't put a large sign on a small building. Is that we're looking for the capabilities of having a larger signs on the larger buildings, 75, 100,000 square foot. So I guess- We weren't unhappy with the 32 on the smaller buildings. Is this request, uh, basically to continue the practice that's been in place in Lexington for 30, 40 years? I would absolutely say so, yes. Thank you, Mayor. Very much so. Anything further? Council Member Stennit. I would just add a comment. Even though we can't take things off the docket since we've already approved it, this probably needs to go into the planning committee for further review, so I will make that motion Thursday night so that we can put it into... So we can have a further discussion on this issue, 'cause we're not gonna decide this today. Thank you, Mayor. Want to make a motion? Make it- You make a motion? ...
... anything up- up- up- up to the point... All right. Thank you, Mr. Smith. Mr. Miller, if you'd step forward, and Mr. Bennett, if you would, uh, stand by, please. Okay, thank you. John Paul Miller, 277 Swygric Avenue. Um, I'm also a property owner and a realtor with Fortune Business Center and Fortune Real- Realty Company, and here really to represent the other property owners, uh, like Billy, that, uh, that have tenants and have relationships with those tenants. Our job as an owner is to attract new businesses to this community, and if we have a vacancy, it is absolutely critical to our business model to be able to have the visibility that these signs are a big part of. And we want to... In our business, we have about 80 tenants and about 800,000 square feet that we own, and we are, are also representing future tenants. There are a lot of businesses that look at Lexington and also are looking to other communities, and if we miss one chance to show them a building, then we've missed a chance to bring jobs to this community. The Fortune Business Center has about a thousand, uh, employees that work out there, and we're very proud of our project, and we're very proud of the fact that, you know, that we've contributed to the community, and we would like to have some consideration on this issue. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Miller. Um, Mr. Bennett has indicated that, um, he does not wish to speak. Mr. O'Sheskey, um, you indicated a desire to speak on the moratorium, and when that issue comes up, uh, on the agenda, we'll, we'll give you a call then. That's all the individuals I have who have signed up to speak on matters that are on the agenda. Is there anyone else? Mr. Farmer? Thank you, Mayor, members of the council. I'm Bill Farmer of 821 Euclid Avenue. And, and which issue is it that you wish to- The Services Committee report that involves the parking meters in Chevy Chase. We're just here... I'm ju-... We came in late. Want to let you know the same group is here to speak if we are needed too, but we're here in support of the Services Committee action from the other day. Very well. Thank you, sir. Thank you. All right, that gets us down now to item three on the agenda, the approval of the October 6th summary. Is there a motion? Move to approve. Do I hear a second? Second. Council Member Blues has moved to approve the October 6th summary. Council Member Henson has seconded that motion. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Oppose, no. Motion carries. We have some budget amendments today. Is there a motion to approve? So moved. Second. I have a motion by Council Member Crosby and a second to Council Member Gordon to approve the budget amendments. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Oppose, no. Motion carries. Uh, the new business items are next. ...I have a motion by Council Member Beard to approve the new business items. Do I hear a second? Second. I have a second by Council Member Henson. Any discussion? Council Member Crosby. Yeah, I have a question on our place. I'm not sure who to direct this to. Mr. Askew. Oh, you did. Mr. Askew, if you could, um, just a minute, sir. He's ready to present. We'll, we'll come back in just a minute. Mr. Askew, if you'd come ahead up, please. I have a few questions on our... First, this is for half a year from November 2009 to July 2010? This is- No. June 30, 2010. It's for eight months. Okay. Okay. And then, um, do we usually pay, um, commission? I just haven't noticed that before that, that $17,500 stood out as- Yes. ... kind of high for commission. And I don't know if it's just something that- No, the last time when we did the property and workers' comp back in June, we had the commissions on there as well. Okay. That's all I have on that one. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Anything further? Council Member Lawless. Um, thank you, Mayor. Um, I asked this a couple of months ago when I first saw the, um, that we were getting insurance bids, I think, from the Kentucky League of Cities. And I asked if that had been put out to bid for other, um, insurance brokers that do that kind of work, and I was told no. So they have just automatically been given this contract without any kind of, um, bid procedure and how does that work? Well, what we... If, if you recall from back in the, um, spring, June, rather the summer when we brought the last, um, quotes to you, what we indicated is we're trying to get all of our lines of insurance on the fiscal year basis, and we're going to bid for brokerage services as well as, uh, TPA services at that time so all lines can be together with one broker. That's the idea. So at this point, um, we're going on with this until July 1, but there will be a, a bid process to other brokers to- Yes. And we have done... That had been done previously. We had a broker at one time that I think we had for- We had, uh, Marsh- Right. ... for about four or five years. And then, but it was my understanding that we switched to KLC without putting it out to bid. Is that- For the solicitation of, quote, services, that is correct. Okay, thank you. Yes, ma'am. Council Member Beard. Um, I- I'm not sure who to actually direct this to, but items B and C. I guess my question might be- Yes. ... the, um ... Not might, will be. Um, the question of the amounts, is that, uh, salary plus fringe benefits? Salary plus fringe benefits, yes, sir. Over, as I recall, a three-year period in each of those cases. And is that, um, in scale with what our police officers would get, would be paid? Well, these aren't sworn, these aren't police officer positions, as I recall. Um, one of them is in the county attorney's office, the other one is in the, is in the sheriff's office. So they are not equivalent to what we would have as police officers. Uh, the sheriff's office, I guess, would be a deputy, uh, in her case. Uh, I'm not sure what the position is the county attorney, uh, envisions, but that's what he, uh, requested that we apply for in the grant. Yeah. It didn't imply that it, it was an attorney though. I don't think it is an attorney. No, sir. I, I don't know. It just seemed, uh, maybe slightly excessive in comparison to what we know about what we, we pay internally. And I- Well, you're talking less than 50,000 a year, both salary and fringes. So I'm not... I don't think that's necessarily out of line given- I, I- ... given what, what pension costs are now and things of that nature, so- I misunderstood. I thought you were saying this was good for three years. It's ... This, this is the total amount- 3x the 144,000. No, no, no, sir. That's the three- Not, not- That's the three-year total. Okay. I'm sorry then. I'm sorry I didn't make that clear. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Anything further on the items of new business? Mayor. Council Member Ellinger. Uh, yes. Number Q, please. I'm not sure who that would be. Probably Mr. Frankel and perhaps Mr. O'Mara, so maybe if you could both- Mayor. ... come forward. I guess I just... I got two issues here, um, they're dealing with the airport here. First, I guess let's talk about the refinance. What, what's going on with that? The, uh, airport has come to us with a request to refund the, uh, uh, bonds that were issued last year. It's, um, multi-step, they can give you the details, but instead of variable, they're, um, uh, looking to the market to put part of them as fixed, part of them as variable, and to decrease the total amount by 10 million. Okay, I guess... And we want to work with the airport to do what we can to help each other out here. I guess my other question would be, and I think Mr. Myers and I were talking about this on Sidebars, what responsibility do they have to us when we want to make a, a request to them, possibly, when they're looking at a contract for an, a, an ex-employee and we don't agree with that? And I guess I, I'd like you to have a give and take on that. And I really don't feel like there's been a good give and take, and I think Mr. Meyers, you might wanna, um, go ahead and work on this m- with me on this. But I, I guess they, they want to refinance this and we want to work with them here, but I don't really feel that, that, that give on the other end there. Maybe we can have some comment here on the other side there. Thank you for the question. I'm not sure that I'm really in, in a position to answer that completely. Um, I'd suggest to you that we... You know, these are two completely separate matters, but I do understand, you know, that you're drawing them two together. Clearly, in this particular issue, we're looking for long-term best interests of moving forward. I would remind the council, however, that the board did not make a com- a final decision yet, they just simply authorized the chair. Um, so no decision has been finalized at this point in time- I guess- ... with respect to that. ... my question is- Mm-hmm. ... how do, how do we get any input on that then? If we don't agree with that, what, what's our best recourse at that point if we'd like to have some input? Oh, I think it's safe to say that the board... You know, from my perspective, the board completely understands the City Council's point of view, and your, your comments have definitely been heard by our board. Okay, thank you. Council member Lawless. Um, this is on that issue. I agree, Chuck, um... I'm sorry, Council Member Chuck . It's been a long day already. Um, I'm, I'm not feeling the give and take either, um, and certainly not seeing, um, you know, requested reports, uh, you know. They d- I'm hoping we'll hear from them soon, but I haven't seen changes that give me great confidence that there will be give and take. And certainly I'm one of support this, just like, uh, Council Member Elinger, but, um, we're told we have no authority at all over what goes on at the airport, and now they're coming to us asking us for, to bond this and that's a little bit hard to swallow. Mr. Askew. Thank you, Mayor. Just to remind everyone, last week, Council Member Meyers requested the law department for an opinion, uh, with respect to a number of boards, exactly what authority the council and the government have with respect to those boards. And we're in the process of getting that together, and the relationship between LFUCG and the airport will be addressed in that memo. So that will be forthcoming and we'll try to get that to you as soon as we can. Council Member Meyers. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Askew, do you think you'll have that to us before this would get second reading? Let me ask Mr. Merchant when this needs to be... November 5th. Yes. Mr. Merchant says November the 5th, absolutely, you'll have it before then. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Anything, uh, Council Member Lane? Uh, as a, um, member of the airport board, uh, I would just like to say that we spent a great deal of time looking at the refinding... Or, and refinancing of the bonds and reducing the debt at the airport to ensure the long term financial viability of the airport's operations. And this is not something we've done lightly. There's been a lot of man-hours invested in it. My only concern is, you know, time is of the essence. Uh, takes a great deal amount of time to do this and, um, I would encourage the council to go ahead and approve the restructuring of the bond debt. Thank you. Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Lane. I, um, simply wanted to say that, uh, since we are the bonding agent, I appreciate that the airport is trying to reduce its, uh, amount of money that it will have to pay. And so I'm fully supportive of, uh, this item Q and I don't really link it to the other issue, which I think is important, but I think they're very separate. And so I'm very supportive of this. Any further discussion? Are we then ready to vote on the matter of approving the items of new business? Seeing no further discussion, those in favor of approving the new business items, please say aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. We're now down to the, uh, presentations. The first one is from the Services Committee. Mayor, did you want to I thought we'd do, um, that we'd get Mr. Morris back up when we talk about the South Lyme stuff. Okay, sounds good. Thank you, Ma'am. The Services Committee met on October 6th, and I have included a packet for everybody along with a summary. There's gonna also be a little packet here that has the different, um, motions, um, for ordinances that I'll be referring to. We have five different items in the Services Committee. The first item was the KU EON ice storm response. Uh, David Fiber came and spoke, and also Gregg Thomas, the Vice President of Distribution of Operations gave a PowerPoint presentation regarding their findings. He stated, "Areas of improvement that were identified are customer communication, undergrounding, and system hardening. At this stage, no specific recommendations has been made to the commission." He stated that they had presented the finds to the PSC and is still under review. Mr. Thomas stated they hope to hear something by the end of the year. The 2010 plan improvements are to provide estimated restoration times during major storm events, implement real-time online outage maps and new ways to reach customers, such as texting and emails. Im-improvements beyond 2010 include streamline communications to and from field crews. They hope to hear by the end of the year, and I've asked them to come back and give a presentation a-a p- once the recommendations are back to, from the commission. The second item in the, uh, service committee was the slaughtering of livestock. Council Member Hinson stated that she had met with the law department since the last service committee, and she stated a draft proposal ordinance is in the packet, and that is included in the addendum here. And, um, Mr. Horne stated one of the issues that were raised, that we need to be extremely careful about any religious implications. A motion by Council Member Hinson to adopt the ordinances as written, second by Council Member Feigl, was passed without dissent, and I move that forward. So moved. Second. Is, ah, there any discussion? All in favor, please say, "Aye." Aye. Opposed, no? Motion carries. The next item on the agenda was the Chevy Chase parking meters, the one that Mr. Farmer had spoke of earlier. Ms. Feigl gave some history to this issue. She stated merchants in the area felt the system is, is not com-- compatible to the type, excuse me, of shopping area of Chevy Chase is. We heard from numerous citizens regarding this issue. Ms. Feigl, a-, um, had a petition that was signed, signed by a large number of people that they would like to keep the individual parking meters in the Chevy Chase. Gary Means, the Parking Authority, gave background information regarding this issue in the small area study. He said they chose these meters because of visual pleasing, solar power, less clutter, payment flexibility, and gives receipts fewer contested citations, reduced collection costs, and monter- multilingual. Mr. Means went over the six-month comparison of the meters. Ms. Lawless asked what authority the council has to step in and override the Parking Authority, and we asked, um, Keith Horne, the Department of Law, if he would give us information before this work session. We have received something from the Law Department that, regarding the authority of the council. I think, at this time, I'd like to have Mike Saner, I think you have presented a, a memo to us that's in our packet, and if you would, just give us an overview of what that states. Because we requested if, what kind of authority does the council have over the Parking Authority... Regarding the metered spaces? Yes. Right. Um, in my memo, you'll note that, as part of the scheme to transfer all, um, on street and parking facilities, including meters to the Parking Authority, there were several ordinances enacted. Uh, one was the creation of Parking Authority, which is, uh, allowed by the enabling statutes that was listed in the memo, which is KRS67A910. And pursuant to that statute, those statutes, the Parking Authority was created. In Section 2-179 of the Code of Ordinances, there were s-s-some specific powers given to the Parking Authority by the council, and that was, in a nutshell, to control and manage existing parking facilities and structures. In Section 12 of the same ordinance, the council gave the Parking Authority, ahem, the management rights, ahem, excuse me, regarding all parking meters. Along with that ordinance is 18-60 and 18-60.1, which, again, gives the Lexington & Fayette County Parking Authority authorization to install and manage all parking meters on street in, where it determines there is a need that such parking will not impede reasonable traffic flow. Based on these ordinances, ahem, a purchase of service agreement was signed between the Urban County Government and the Lexington & Fayette County Parking Authority, which, once again, Section 2C, gave the Parking Authority the management and control rights over the parking meters. So, um, based on the three ordinances and the purchase of service agreement, uh, the council has given authority for control and management of parking meters to the Parking Authority. None of the ordinances nor the purchase of service agreement retained any control over the meters for the council. Thank you, and I guess in your last sentence, it says, "Absent change in the ordinances and purchase of service agreement, any resolution by the council regarding parking meters would s- would serve as a recommendation to the Parking Authority." Right. It's not binding unless those ordinances and PSA are changed. So we have the right to send a recommendation, but, but no authority to- Correct. Okay. Thank you. Is there any questions for Mr. Saner? With that, and also the beauty of technology I received in the interim while you were there, u- unfortunately, Council Member Figgle is not here today 'cause she's home sick, but she did say that she had sent an email out to all the council members this morning, just, um, letting them know why that she was, um, making the motion. And this was the motion that was moved in the, into the Council, um, Service Committee, that I move forward, move to respectfully request with strong recommendations to retain individual parking meters with replacement smart car meter heads to meters in Chevy Chase. Second by Council Member, M- uh, Crosby. Pass without dissent. So moved. Second. I'm not clear exactly what the motion is. That, it is just to, as Mr. Saner said, we don't have any authority over 'em, but we can recommend something and, and it would be that we recommend it. They don't have to do it, but we can send a recommendation to 'em on behalf of the council. And that's what this would be. It would be re- respectfully request with a strong recommendation. I believe the appropriate thing to do would be to place a resolution on the docket for consideration on Thursday to, um, uh, convey that expression of the council's intent. I'll ...
Does anyone in the law department think otherwise? Okay. All, all right. Mr. Saner. No, I think, I think that was the intent all along. All right. Very well. Then those in favor of, let's see, we had a motion by Council Member Ehlinger and, uh, Council Member Crosby seconded the motion. Is that right? All right. Yes, that's correct. Uh, Council Member Blues. Well, I have some, some questions about this. Uh, while I appreciate the, you know, the work that, that Council Member Figgle's done and the, and the input of the Chevy Chase community, we have established a parking authority and and, and rely upon it to, uh, to do a, a, a good deal of regulation and of, and of administration over the whole parking, uh, parking places and parking fees and so on in the city. And it seems to me that asking the au- au- authority to, uh, you know, to change its, its, its views is, is opening up a kind of a, a precedent here that we, that, that any region of the city, any neighborhood, any district could come forward and s- and, and ask us to do the same thing. And I don't know what grounds we would have for refusing to, to do so. Uh, it seems to me that if the parking authority is gonna be an authority, that, that we need to stand by, we need to stand by that, uh, rely upon its, its judgment. And if we don't want to do that, then we need to dig into, to the, to the ordinances and change them. But I am not of mind to ask the parking authority to, uh, to change its policy for, uh, for one particular area. Thank you, Mayor. Thanks. Council Member Lane. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, my recollection when we, uh, set up the parking authority, the intention was to make this an independent body that would make, uh, decisions based on good business practices and not to be unduly influenced by political, uh, pressures from the council. Um, it, you know, it's hard to raise the rate and set the fees and set operating standards if the council's gonna micromanage all the decisions. So, you know, I would be, have the tendency to support the decisions of the parking authority on these types of issues come up. Thank you. Thank you. Further discussion? All right. The question on the floor is on whether to place on the docket a resolution expressing the sentiment of the council with regard to the Chevy Chase parking situation. Uh, placing that resolution on the docket for Thursday's, uh, meeting. Uh, in light of the, um, uh, apparent disagreement on this, we'll, let's vote electronically. Those in favor, please vote aye electronically. Those opposed, vote nay electronically. All members having voted, the motion fails by a vote of seven to six. Six in favor, seven against. Thank you, Mayor. The next item that we dealt with was the right away signage, uh, liability and a motion. And this is also, the motion is here in your packet. A motion by Council Member Myers to send a full council, dissent to, to the full council, so ask, request the full council that a resolution be drafted to be sent to Frankfurt delegation and other appropriate personnel to let them know the intent to change KRS 512 statute to affect it with the civil fines as well. Second by Council Member Crosby and passed without dissent. I move that forward. Second. Have a motion by Council Member Ehlinger, second by Council Member, uh, Crosby. Uh, if I understand the correct, the motion correctly, it is to place a resolution on the docket expressing that sentiment of the council. Is that correct? Yes, sir. All right. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no? Motion carries. And the, the last time on the Service Committee agenda was the animal cruelty amendment that was brought forward by Council Member Martin. And a motion by Council Member Martin to accept the draft to move it to the council, uh, for consideration for the docket, and second by Council Member Crosby. Pass without dissent. I so move, and that is also in your packet too, the, the changes for that. Second. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Oppose, no? The motion carries. Thank you, Mary. Mayor, we were adjourned at 2:46. Thank you. Um, Council Member Gordon brought to my attention earlier that the Special Planning Committee's report, which I think was included in the packet, did not make its way onto the agenda. If there's no objection, I thought we might just take that up now. I think it's a fairly short order, short matter. All right, very well. Council Member, report. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, yes, the, uh, planning committee held a special meeting on October 5th to hear from the public, comment on the Student Housing Task Force Report, and approximately 40 citizens were signed up to speak at that meeting, and there were various opinions stated, and there were no motions or actions to come out of the meeting. And the next planning committee meeting will be October 20th at 1:00 PM to continue the council's discussion of the Student Housing Task Force Report. Thank you. Thanks. Any questions? Council Member Lawless. I don't have any questions. Um, law, uh, the law department has brought the revised motion that I was gonna make for putting resolution on the docket for Thursday. All right. Could we take that up in the council reports? Well, unfortunately, I hear that this could be a very long meeting and several council members have to leave. So if somebody would- All right. ... make a motion to suspend the rules and let me bring this forward. Mayor, I make the motion that we spend the rules and hear that at this point. Second. I have a motion by Council Member Ellinger and a second by Council Member Gordon to suspend the rules for purposes of making a motion to add a matter to the docket, uh, that's not debatable. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Oppose, no? Motion carries. Council Member Lawless. Thank you very much, Mayor, and, uh, other council members. I move to place on the docket for Thursday, October 15th, 2009, a re- resolution declaring a moratorium on additions that would exceed 25% of the square footage of the existing structure and single family townhouse and two-family residential zones within the third district, excluding properties in ND1 or H1 zone and excluding additions when the final structure would not exceed 1500 square feet for six months or until the council takes final action on amendments to the zoning ordinance, whichever occurs first. So moved. I have a motion by Council Member Lawless and a second by Council Member Blues to add that item to Thursday's agenda. Is there a discussion? Council Member- Mayor. Oh, Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. Is Council Member Lane on there? We got him down first. All right, I had him as current speaker. That's from last time. All right. Okay. Um, a couple of things. Um, what's, what's the parameters? Is it just the third district now? Uh, yes, that's correct. And the timeframe on the moratorium is it's maximum of six months up to six? Up to six, or when we get the cause and cure straightened out. And also, uh, if I may, I want to talk about the variance issue, how people can get a variance. That was gonna be my next question. If, if, can they, can somebody come in front of the, I guess, the board and ask for a variance? And how does that work? The way, uh, they get a, they will get a variance is to contact their council member who can then bring it to council for first and second reading. They don't have to get an attorney. It's not like H1 or ND1 where they have to notify neighbors or, um, go to the Board of Architectural Review. It's done by the council. So in this case, since it's now the third district, it would be me that they would come to and I would bring it to council and ask for a variance. So it's, and generally when these, uh, moratoriums have gone forward, it's my understanding that the council generally follows the lead of the district council person on the variance part. So they don't have to hire an attorney. You know, it's not... They just need to contact their council person. Council member. I had Council Member Lane. Did you just... Okay, Council Member Stinnett. Thank you, Mayor. I certainly appreciate Council Member Lawless try- trying to put a, a end to the means on this issue. I know we've talked about it for about six weeks, um, in, in debate in the moratorium. Unfortunately, we haven't talked about the real problems o- of this issue and what has caused this issue. And before I make any additional comments, I'm just curious about where the 25% number came from, how we arrived at 25%. 'Cause I believe on the list you passed out, and thank you for getting that to us, over the last year, the average presidential addition in this area was about 47%. So I'm just curious of how we got 25%. Um, that was the third and the fifth district that averaged 44 or 43%. Um, I got that from, uh, planning. Um, they made that suggestion. That's what it was last time. There was a moratorium and they said 75% of the additions were 25% or less. So that's, they came up with the 25%. Again, um, getting a variance on appropriate- ... building, you know. I'm having twins, so I'm gonna build on a, a bigger addition, probably higher so I can jump off the roof, but, um, all they have to do is cou- call their council member and the council member brings it for, can do it first and second reading, asking for that variance. I guess, on those lines, Commissioner, I ask you, a- as this body considers variances on, if we pass this moratorium today, what legal rationale are we to use, or criteria, to, to approve or not approve? Because what I see that's won- that's gonna happen is, we're gonna have those set of twins, and their parents come here and wanting to put a thousand square foot addition on a 2500 square foot house, and we're probably gonna go along with that and say, "Yeah, that makes sense. Their own occupied home." But that owner that comes to us next week who has a rental property and wants to do the same thing, we're gonna say no, more than likely. And it gets to my point before you answer is, this moratorium is about structures. It's not about the use. And the use is what the problem is. This doesn't get to the use. It doesn't help you on the use. The next six months, I can go buy a house, put 12 people in it, and nothings can be d- and that can be done tomorrow. This doesn't help that. So we've been arguing this over six weeks over arbitrary moratorium. We still haven't began working a plan to fix the problem, and here we a- are once again at a council work session, debating the issue that is not going to even come close to fixing the problem, and doesn't identify in the language on how, what the plan is to fix the problem. There's no plan put before us, so I just gotta ... Caneth, um, Ed, do you wanna answer my question on what criteria we would use? Well, you, the, the cop out answer is you'll need to look at the facts of each specific case when they- when it comes before you, but that's actually the truth. And, but a large part of this'll be whether or not the purpose that this moratorium is intended to serve would be served if that exception were granted or not granted. And that would be a judgment based on the specifics of each case that you might have to consider. Ne- That might be the outside parameter related to that. And if we were to deny a no- a, a variance, what would be the next step for that petitioner? Well, they would have to take, take us to court, but in reality, if you're talking about a six-month timeframe, you're not talking about restricting their use of the property for a long period of time. You're talking about doing something while you're trying to get the problem solved. And in every case that I've looked at, that kinda thing is typically upheld by the courts, because you're trying to address a problem. You need some time to do it, and you need to maintain the status quo. So they could certainly challenge and say, "Well, I shoulda got a variance," but if they challenged it tomorrow, you'd say, "Well, wait six months." You know, so I, I don't know if that would be a practical remedy for them or not. Okay. Very good. That's all the questions I had right now. Thank you, Mayor. Council member Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, Mr. Gardner, um, I also, back on the variance issue, it seems to me on past moratoriums, the council, um, would approve a variance if there was a hardship involved. It, it was not a carte blanche approval of a variance. And I wondered if you recall, on some of those, the moratoriums that we've had over the years, it seemed to me that a homeowner had to come before the council and present a hardship reason. Well, I think certainly you could make that the cri- the criteria, because- Mm-hmm. ... as I said, I think in the final response to council member Stennet, I don't think you need to make ... If this is a legal moratorium, which, as drafted, we would defend that it is- Mm-hmm. ... then you wouldn't need to grant any variances to it. It's gonna run its course. There would ne- be no legal requirement that you grant a variance, or you shouldn't be doing the moratorium in the first place- Right. ... is one way to look at it. Well- And then if there is a hardship though, and somebody comes and proves that to you, and you want to take them out, you would be able to do it. Uh, you know, there wouldn't be anything that says you can't undo this resolution to that limited extent. Well, do you recall if we actually wrote that into a moratorium, that in order, in the past- No. ... in order to get a variance, the person had to show a hardship? I don't believe we've ever done that. I don't think we've ever written it in there. Well- I'm not saying we couldn't, but I ... My thought would be that, for what it's worth, it's, if we need a moratorium, we need a moratorium to, to figure out what the problem is. Mm-hmm. And let's have a moratorium until the time runs, and then we'll deal with the problem, not worry about letting people out during the time of the moratorium. Mm-hmm. Um, but you s- we can write it any way you want it. Mm-hmm. Okay. Thank you. Council member Martin. Thank you, Mayor. First, I wanna really commend the mayor for really dr- really trying to take a stance on this, 'cause I know the mayor has been looking at various safety and life safety issues, uh, regarding student housing, uh, and how, uh, the current, um, ordinances and current mechanisms of government can be used to, to try to, to step up enforcement of this. And, uh, it, it's, you know, other things take a while to get through council, and so I, I, I appreciate that they're looking that hard. I know we've had a lot of meetings on that. I just wanna review a couple things. First of all, there's a number of problems that has led to this issue. I mean, the first is that, the, the General Assembly has failed to get bonding authority to the University of Kentucky. Uh, because the University of Kentucky doesn't have bonding authority, it has a reduced ability to build dorms. And so I think one of the things we need to do is to encourage our legislators to try to, um, uh, to secure the bonding authority for the University of Kentucky so it can, uh, it, it can move in that direction. The second thing is UK converted to a dry campus, and so regardless of what, how man- h- how many, uh, dorms are on UK, uh, the folks are going to, to, to leave campus in order to go to the clear- the, the quickest place they can to, to go party. And so they're, that naturally is gonna gravitate to the areas surrounding UK. Um, third, beginning in the early 1980s, um, the Commissioner Law sort of took the position that, um, that the definition of family was off limits. Uh, and currently in our zoning ordinance, the definition of family is so ambiguous, everything seems to fit into it, that 12 guys living as a soccer team constitutes a family on UK, and this problem is not gonna get solved unless we as a council, and we as a city can have the guts to say, "12 guys on a soccer team living in adorn- living in a house over by UK is not a family." If we are unable to make that decision, we are gon- not gonna be able to solve this problem. That is the fundamental nature of this zoning problem, is that we cannot, uh, uh, muster the political will, uh, to, to define what a family is or is not. And when you have a single family zone, if you can't define what a family is, then you certainly aren't gonna be able to dic- you know, to say who can or cannot live in the, in the single family zone and you're gonna have 12 guys on a soccer team living in a house, and they're gonna be a family while they're renting their individual rooms there in that house. Um, and, and, you know, I think this is, I think we need to, um, propose something, uh, and to take it through the zoning process. Uh, you know, I would recommend that, that, uh, y- you would look at something like anything more than four unrelated adults in a house would not constitute a family. Um, and, uh, you know, we, we are a, a terrific town, we are an inclusive town, um, but that's gonna get a- going to be a, a rather large group of people, uh, that are, are, uh, are gonna be living in that house, and I think that covers a lot of things. You find a lot of college towns who have addressed this very issue and have tackled this very issue of defi- definition of family, and, and you can look all across the nation and find definitions of family, and I think that that is something we need to do. Last but not least, um, you know the city of Lexington has, uh, has not vigorously enforced our zoning laws, and we have underfunded our, our code enforcement and our, our building inspection. It is gonna take time to ramp those things up. It is not gonna turn on a dime, uh, and it's gonna take a while to do that. I don't support the idea of a moratorium by its nature. I think it's restrictive and I think it, uh, it questions individual property rights, but it's gonna take time to sort of get, get a grasp on this. And so I would like to move that, uh, to amend, uh, uh, uh, council member Lawless' moti- uh, motion, uh, proposed ordinance, uh, to limit it to four months. Um, and, uh, uh, the purpose of that is to keep the, the, the intensity of, of this going. I think all the anger and I think all the frustration is actually good for getting this done. The longer we p- put this moratorium, the, the, the more relaxed people are gonna feel and the more comfortable they are gonna be and this is gonna get, go further down the road. So, so moved. I have a motion and second to move, to amend the, uh, pending motion to modify the resolution being put forward to have a time limit of four months rather than six months. Um, now the, the discussions on the amendment and Council Member Blues and then Council Member Gordon. I agree with Council Member Martin that, that we need to make the process, uh, if, if indeed we, we put the moratorium on the docket, uh, and we, and we pass it, then it does have to be intense and, and it has to be concentrated. I also am aware of, of, uh, the difference between real time and government time. We, we have the holidays coming up. Uh, in effect, December is, is lost to us. Four months becomes three months and as, as, as Council Member Stennet and, and Council Member Martin both have observed, there is a lot of work to do. The question of use, the question of density, the definition of family, UK's involvement, the question of enforcement and so forth. I think we can get this done in six months, but I think that, that we're gonna need that time, so I will not support this amendment, although I understand the, uh, spirit in which it's made. Thank you, Mayor. All right. I know we have several people who have signed up to speak here, but I'm, I'm trying to focus our debate now on the amendment to go from six months to four months. Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, Council Member Blues, you expressed most of my feelings. If this, um, I appreciate what you're trying to do. It would not get second reading until November 5th, presuming council would not give it, suspend the rules and give it second reading Thursday, and, uh, we are going to be relying heavily on our planning division for any changes that are made and plus, council will be on a month-long break in, right in the middle of this four months, so I appreciate your motion, but I'm going to vote against it. Other discussion on the amendment. Council Member, Council Member Crosby, then Council Member Lawless. I would just say as far as, um, a lot of the work, just in response to what Dr. Blues had to say is, while I appreciate that four months seems rather quick and the fact that we will be off in July for four months- Also, a lot of, uh, the staff will not be off during that time. Um, a lot of this work has already been done, uh, through the student housing task force and it, e- uh, most of it is just compi- compiling a lot of the information that we already have. And as Diane would say, you know, slowing things down a little bit and compiling what we have and coming up with a solution. So I would just say that I think this can be done and it, it is a priority, obviously, to everybody up here, and there is always the option if after that timeframe, if it's, if, if we are not further along, which hopefully by then we would be, we can always extend it two more months. So I would just throw that out there. I will support the motion. Thank you. Council Member Wallace. Um, I appreciate the sentiment, um, of the amendment. I have, um, the reason we've been talking about this so long is because I have tried to accommodate, um, mostly United States and, uh, part of the Middle East and, uh, Israel to get this in a form that does exactly what we want it to, doesn't hurt anybody that we don't wanna hurt, doesn't put undue burden on anybody. I have been researching these ordinances and the enforcement of them for over two years, and I think six months, you know, is if we come up with it quicker, and trust me, there is nobody in the, the world that wants to come up with the answers quicker than I do. Um, just, we just passed a fine on building without a permit. There hadn't been one. Nobody seemed to understand that. So I'm really excited that, uh, we got that on the agenda and passed it and real proud. And I've got several other things that I'm working on. Um, the exciting thing is, uh, the Remodelers Association, the Home Builders Association, um, the Apartment Associations, many of group, many of the groups that, uh, in our community that have an enormous amount of knowledge and expertise in this area are anxious to help us along with planning, uh, and zoning. Um, and we also have to remember, so I think everybody's fired up and ready to go. Um, and if we get it done in four months, that'll be wonderful. And I don't wanna have to go through this if we're six weeks away at the end of four months. And so I would ask you please to support this, to not support the four-month, um, motion amendment, and remember that we'll also have our planning commission, who are volunteers, that will have to be very heavily involved in any zoning change. So thank you very much. Question on the floor is, uh, on the amendment to- Just a minute. ... change the resolution from six to four months. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Martin, could you just tell me what, what's the advantage of going from the six to the four? What would you see the, the big reason why you would do that? I think that government tends to get into, uh, sort of protracted discussions. Uh, my brief, uh, experience with government is sort of like Charles' Law of Gases. Government will take as much time as it's given to solve a problem. And, uh, I think if we give government four months to solve a problem, by gosh, government will probably get it done. What I like about a short timeframe is that, first of all, it reduces the potential impact on folks who have a legitimate desire to, to increase the size of their house. Increasing, building an addition in a single family residence for single families is appro- is, is, is a, is a, an allowable thing. And we're telling those folks that during this period of time, they're not gonna be allowed to do that. And that's a loss of their property rights. But also, I think it keeps the heat. I think it keeps the feet on the fire. I, I, this is about the only way I'm gonna support the moratorium 'cause I would rather not have it 'cause I think not having the moratorium is gonna keep the pressure on to get this resolved. I think the moratorium actually is gonna have the opposite effect. I think it's gonna make less likely for this problem to get solved. If, for example, we were to, to do a one-year moratorium, I think all the attention, all the interest, all of the anxiety and anger is gonna dissipate, and come another year, like we were five years ago, this problem's still gonna be here. So I wa- I want this, this to sort of, uh, simmer. I want it to be a, um, burning and, and I want people to be complaining 'cause I think it's gonna help us get this resolved. 'Cause that's what, really what we're here. We're here not to point fingers, but we're here to sort of get this problem solved. And I think, uh, the, the sh- the, the shorter amount of time, the better. Any further discussion on the amendment? Council Member Beard. Thank you. I, I, I tended, but I was, I was drifting toward the six months, but, uh, the, the eloquence of, uh, Council Member Martin has swayed me. Um, you know, if ya, if we can't do it in four months, then s- six would be, uh, in danger also, I think. Uh, and I do believe that we gotta do this thing posthaste. I'm not totally sure exactly who the we is that's gonna be doing it. Uh, that part of it needs to be resolved unless that's embedded in the, uh, uh, ordinance in some way. But, um, uh, it has to be almost like weekly meetings, in my opinion. Thank you, Mayor. Further discussion on the amendment? Councilmember Gordon. Mayor, I actually have a question for you, uh, representing the administration. Uh, my take on this is that pla- the Division of Planning will have to be heavily involved, which will mean they will need to drop other things. So I'm kind of interested in your input. I can't provide you with any meaningful insight about what their workload is over the next four months versus the next six months, which is what really the question is- Okay. ... right now. That being said, this is clearly a significant issue for the community. It needs attention and to the degrees and other things have to be slowed down in order to accommodate whatever time schedule the council establishes, we will address it. Okay, that's good. Thank you. Uh, Councilmember G- Vice Mayor Gray. Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Um, I- I, uh, I too appreciate the motivation of the, uh, amendment, uh, that- of Councilmember Martin and, um, and- and recognize that, um, sometimes an- an- a shorter- a shorter deadline an- an imposed, uh, deadline can accelerate problem-solving. Um, but in this case, I don't think anybody's stepped up to the plate and worked harder than Councilmember Lawless in examining this issue, in bringing it forward, in working it very, very hard. And for that reason, um, I'll follow her judgment on, uh, how much time it's gonna take to keep working awful hard, uh, to get- to- to get a resolution to this. Thank you. Further discussion on the amendment? All right, let's now proceed to vote on the amendment. Those in favor of Councilmember Martin's amendment, which would change the duration of moratorium from six months to four months, please indicate by voting aye. Those opposed, vote nay. The... All right, the amendment fails by a vote of five to eight, five in favor, eight opposed. We're now back to discussing Councilmember Lawless's original motion. And Mr. Oshinski, um, failed to call on you earlier. You had previously wished to speak, so now would be a good time. Yes. I- Excuse me, Mayor. Uh, don't we have some council members booted up here, uh, to speak? You're correct. I apologize. Council, we will- we will get you in a moment here. Councilmember Henson. Thank you, Mayor. And, uh, I think this is definitely an issue that needs, um, a solution. Um, I know that, uh, the Third District takes the most impact, um, from the additions and so forth. I- I am however concerned about the impact it will have on the surrounding districts while the moratorium's in place. And I did have a question as far as wi- in the winter months, um, is there a great deal of work or permits issued by building inspection for additions? Um, but I don't believe there's anyone here that could answer that question for me. But I will support the moratorium in order to give some relief to the Third District, but again, and I- I do believe that, um, they will work as quickly as possible to come up with a solution. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Uh, Councilmember Lane. Uh, thank you, Mayor. Um, I would, uh, appreciate a- a little bit of information from, uh, Councilmember Lawless, just a couple of clarifications. How many, um, permits for remodeling have been issued in the Third District so far this year? Do you have a number on that? I have a lot of paper over here. Well, first of all, it was extremely difficult to get this information, because, um, the, uh, building inspection only had the original, uh, the square foot footage addition and said they had to go through it by hand to get it to me. Then I had to go to the PVA to get the original square footage of the, um, property, um, and then, um, put it together. So f- in the Third District, I believe there were 33... Let me count. 13, 16, 17, 19, 20. Excuse me, 23 in the Third District. Some of them as large as 146% of the original square footage. And that is up, uh, a lot from 2008 and 2007, and I think part of that is the, um, mortgage and mortgage crisis and property being available. Um, that being said, um- ... if, if we, um, don't do something immediately, people will continue to get building permits even if they're not building until the spring. So, um, I can, I put all this information in all the council members' boxes on Thursday and Friday, so, um, that's what I have. Did that answer your question? Uh, yes, ma'am. I think it does. Uh, the reason I was asking if there's 23 been issued so far this year, that's about an average of two per month, and we're going to accept, uh, if I understand your, uh, moratorium, any remodeling that's less than 25% of the existing square footage of the house at this time? They can call their council member, that would be me, if they want to do more than 25% and I can bring it to the council and request a variance, which I built in there so that we didn't do anything that would harm people who wanted, uh ... The last thing I want to do is have any legitimate, good building going on stifle business, hurt homeowners, hurt property owners. It's the last thing I want to do. A moratorium to me is absolutely a last-ditch effort because I've been trying to find a cause and cure and way to, oh, to solve this for two years. I've made a lot of headway and that is not what the student housing task force addressed. So that being said, I'm working on it as hard as I can and as far as keeping the energy going, um, unless I'm on South Lime and have a heart attack and the ambulance can't get to me, I'll be here working on it really hard for six months. Thank you. Well, that's a good ... That's a fairly long answer. The, the reason I was bringing that up is that if we're gonna be in a moratorium for six months, we have effectively put a moratorium on 12 remodels if they're continuing at the same rate that we're doing, and half those remodels, uh, already are less than 25%, so we're basically gonna stop one remodel a month, uh, being over 25% over the six-month period. And one of these a month absolutely disrupts the neighborhood and has a long-term impact of 30, 40 years. That house isn't, is not gonna go away. That addition is not gonna go away, the storm water problems aren't gonna go away, the garbage problems aren't gonna go away. This isn't about students. It's about- All right. Well, this is not the point that I was going to make. Oh. The point I was gonna make- Okay. ... if it's only gonna affect six permits perhaps over a six-month period, it seems to me that we could probably go ahead and do this moratorium, whereas I'm, uh, generally totally opposed to moratorium because I think it sets a bad image for our community and, uh, and it also deprives, uh, individuals of their property rights. And I remember, uh, you know, we had another moratorium, uh, where somebody had bought a home and they were expecting a baby and they wanted to remodel and they couldn't add onto it during that period of time and, y- you know, it was a lot of- Right. ... those little stories like that which to me are, you know, we're supposed to be protecting the single family owners, uh, and maintain their rights if they wanna, uh, renovate their houses. But I think that because of the extremely limited focus of only maybe affecting six potential permits over a six-month period, you know, this would be maybe an exception where I would, uh, roll over and, uh, support a moratorium. God love you. But I, I really just say that I am not, uh, uh, in favor of extending this and, and I'm also would like to say that I think the city, uh, needs to aggressively enforce our zoning and our fire safety issues rather than try to establish moratoriums. And I think if we, uh, crack down on some of these violators who've come to these neighborhoods and essentially the people that are renovating these homes in a single family neighborhood are actually stealing the rights from the single family owners and are violating our laws and I think we need to strongly, uh, try to take action against those people and not to limit the rights of individual, uh, property owners who wanna do something to their single family home. That's, uh, my thought on that. Thank you for, uh, your time, Councilmember. Councilmember Blues. Thank you, Mayor. I view the proposed moratorium as a, a, really as a kind of a tourniquet, uh, a way of, of, of, of, of stopping arterial bleeding while we get to the issues that, uh, uh, that have been, that have been, uh, referred to. Uh, again, I agree with Councilmember Stennett that the, that the moratorium doesn't get us to the issues of, of, of use, density, licensing, whatever it may be, but it enables us to concentrate on those while at the same time that we, that we, that we stop the movement that is, uh, that is crushing and, uh, and, and debilitating and destroying of residential neighborhoods. And, and so, uh, it does seem to me that, that, that while I don't think that we should govern by moratorium as a, as a general rule, that, that this is the application of a measure that is necessary and enables us to, uh, indeed to work not only as a council, but- ... but also with the... With the... With the home building community, uh, the remodelers, hopefully with... Uh, with the university on... On a... On addressing the problem in a way that's fair and that's equitable, uh, for our entire community. Thank you, Mayor. Vice Mayor Gray. Hmm. Thank you, Mayor. Um, yeah. I... I... I love the... These conversations when we... When we move to, uh, economic development, um, because it's been a cornerstone of this council. And, uh, examining these issues, um, the different lens that we put on examining these issues is healthy for us. Um, my view of this today is that the decay and the destruction of these neighborhoods is itself a compromise to economic development. And so when I've... And when I look at the... What we're about to vote on today, um, I also am encouraged bec- that so many members of the council recognize that this really is all about economic development. It's all about preserving what we know are long-term... Represents long-term value in this community. The nature of these commun- the nature of these neighborhoods, um, the health of these neighborhoods, uh, neighborhoods that were built a long time ago where, um, respecting just like we have laws of science, laws of physics, there are laws of urban planning and urban development, and the hemorrhaging that's occurring in these neighborhoods has compromised those laws. Um, I wanna thank, though, all of those, all the council members who have worked with, um, with Councilmember Lawless, Councilmember Crosby, others, to, um, to pull this together. Councilmember Martin. 'Cause there has been a lot... This is not a casual deal. The home builders, the... The realtors, all those who are examining this issue so carefully because they recognize that, at the end of the day, this really is about the future of the city. Thank you, Mayor. Councilmember Stinnett. Thank you, Mayor. Vice Mayor, I'm glad you mentioned- Buzzer. ... working together with all the councilmembers because, you know, thi- this is not a Third District issue, this is not a Fifth District issue. This is a citywide issue. The problems that we've heard at this microphone about solid waste issues- ... code enforcement issues, police issues, th- this happens all over our city. This is not a student housing issue. This is a Lexington issue because we have adult tenants that act unappropriately in neighborhoods. We have this happening everywhere. This... And granted, Councilmember Lawless, it is amplified beyond means i- in your district, and I appreciate your hard work o- on this issue because it helps the whole city wake up and realize, we have some issues in government that we haven't addressed, and if this body wants to be the body to start addressing it, I know the mayor's put the tools in place to give us the opportunity today to debate this. I appreciate the... The press conference Thu- Friday, Mayor, on the fire code violations. But I think there's four other critical areas that we're not discussing that will lead to the plan t- to fix this problem. And if we can get these four areas m- moving forward in the next six months, this will be the way we solve the problem, not just for the Third District, but for all of this city, once and for all. The first is, and I'll ask the vice mayor to make a motion here in a... A few minutes, is to reorganize and give a comprehensive review of the Department of Building Inspection. One goal in there should be, and then, uh, hopefully, a task force can accomplish that, is to create the Administrative Hearing Board once and for all. We've been talking about for five years since I've been on council. Get away from the criminal process and let's go to the civil process, same as code enforcement. That would be one outcome. The second outcome is let's educate people on what building inspection does. First of all, they abide by the state building code. We can't change that. But what we can change is our zoning issues, and that's what Councilmember Martin allu- alluded to, and that would be my fourth point I'll get to here in a second. And then, the third is look at our makeup of building inspection. Are we the most effective... Uh, makeup that we have to put on the street? Do we have enough people in that department? Let's get together and, once and for all, look at that department. I know we did this on code enforcement several years ago, and it's ja- uh, changed that department dramatically. Second issue, and councilmember... Or Commissioner Taylor and I met with Susan Bush and Steve Feast couple months ago on this issue, well before the moratorium, talking about solid waste enforcement of our solid waste laws. We have landlords, and I'll quote, in... In Diane's district that said, "I... It's cheaper to put all my r- rental tenants' garbage on the curb because the city will pick it up rather than me go pay for a dumpster." We can't enfor-... We got... We have to enforce that or- those ordinances. And hopefully, Commissioner Taylor, I assume you're still working on that and bringing... Well, bringing that to council here very shortly. That's the second item. I know we can fix that. And third, and this is where the council's going to have to come into play and... Is that is... Is adding staff i- in support to our police and code enforcement efforts. I know we added two officers in this past budget, but we need to work with our police department, see what they need in the clearing unit, see what they need in all areas, and put it in the budget next year. I know someone's going to have to have a sacrifice in their budget to make that happen, but if these are the real issues that we keep hearing about, noise, glass breaking, we've gotta beef up those departments. We've gotta get it done. And then last is zoning, and I'll let... Councilmember Martin, uh, h- has some good ideas on that. But we need to look at the zoning issues, and as Councilmember Gordon ale- uh, alluded to, planning de- staff will have to be involved in that. That's a huge area. That one probably will take the longest of those three. But I know these are th- the areas that we keep hearing at this microphone. It sets out a path and a plan. And I'll support the moratorium as long as we can get those areas moving forward in the next six months and get a plan. Get a plan so people in the whole city know what's going on and what's gonna happen 'cause, again, it takes eight votes up here to make anything happen in any changes, not just one person. So again, I appreciate Councilmember Lawless and... And her efforts going forward, and I'll save my motion till after we vote on the moratorium. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Mayor. And, and I do appreciate Council Member Lawless's efforts in this. She has worked very, very hard at this. The-- the-- a lot of the main problem is in her district and she's been very attentive to this and, and has been working, uh, long hours and, and going to a lot of meetings in this. Uh, I cannot in good conscience support this, though. Um, I, I think it's too broad. I think it pushes it into other districts outside the third district. Uh, there's nothing that's gonna stop, stop folk, developers from going outside the third district and still doing v- big vinyl boxes. Um, and yet it, it creates the false impression that we've got another six months to fi- to fix this. And we don't. We need to fix this now. Um, this does nothing to actually solve the problem. This institutes a moratorium that we had a number of years ago that did nothing then to solve this problem. Now, we had a two-year, uh, study by this from a task force. I think we need to move expeditiously to, uh, to decide which of the recommendations of the task force we need to adopt, which apply to this issue and which apply to just student housing as a broader issue. Um, but it does not do anything to stop builders from coming over, for example, to the tenth district and doing big vinyl boxes. And so, uh, this really does not solve the problem and I think it actually is going to, to do the opposite. I think it's gonna make it harder to solve the problem by giving the false impression that, that we've got another six months to do it. And that we, you know, that we can send this down the road a bit. Uh, and I just, I don't think it's appropriate to take a victory lap on this. I don't think the moratorium really solves anything. I think that it, it allows the council to, to loo- to, to see, look like it's done something, but, uh, but the problem is still there. The fundamental issues that gave rise to this are still there. And, and I, uh, and, and I think that it, it, uh, it, it really doesn't s- solve anything. So I apologize, but I cannot support this. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Mayor. Um, and, and maybe this is a question either for you or the vice mayor. Exactly what kind of structure, wha- what, is this gonna be handled over to the planning com- uh, committee or is there a task force gonna be appointed? Um, how is that going to work? And then secondarily, I still feel, and I've mentioned this before when we've had discussions like this, that we've got to bring University of Kentucky to the table with us somehow. Now that may be difficult to do, but at the same time, th- they are quite aggressive about talking about their 8,000 additional students that they're gonna do over the next 10 years. And, um, that obviously impacts us greatly because they say they're not gonna add a bed in that same 10-year period of time. I understand about the bonding situation that, that, that, uh, uh, somewhat l- limits them. They were able, however, to, uh, um ... Their med center, I guess, uh, issued bonds up in the mid 400 millions. Um, some help in Frankfurt would, uh, be ... I was nodding at, uh, uh, our friend out there in the fourth row, I guess it is. Senator. Uh, anyway, uh, yeah, there's a whole cluge of, uh, of questions, Mayor, and, uh, but it's all part and parcel of what, what we're dealing with. Well, two, roughly two years ago, this whole issue got started when councilm- then-Council Member David Stephens brought forward a proposal to deal with some student housing issues. It went to the planning committee then and from the planning committee to the task force. Now the task force has reported back to the planning committee. Um, I would think at the end of the process, we're gonna have to come up with something that addresses, uh, the fac- the, the problem in a fashion that eight of you can agree with. And my suggestion would be that it go to the planning committee and the planning committee make that, uh, um, whole process work as best it can. And as is the case with other issues that come, um, before the planning committee, to the extent folks in planning or building inspection or other agencies of, of urban county government need to be involved in some supporting role, we can. But at the end of the day, the, the changes that are necessary are gonna have to be ones that the council's prepared to deal with. So that would be my recommendation. It's up to the council, ultimately. Okay, thank, thank you, Mayor. Uh, I don't have anyone else to speak on the question of putting the moratorium on the docket. Ah, Mr. Olszewski, thank you. No, no problem. Um, I have many comments, as you probably have learned. My name is Steve Olszewski and I live at 220 Westwood Court. This is the epicenter of the, um, conflict or, or concern as it, as it appears today. But over the last 20 years, I think it's been an issue in the broader neighborhood, um, and it's been dealt with in various different ways. And I appreciate the, the, uh, conversation that I'm hearing, uh, both from Council Member Stennet and, and from Council Member Martin and, and others, of course, uh, about th- the importance and seriousness of this, of this issue. I wanna suggest by way of an argument, um, there is a, there is a house directly in front of me which has quadrupled in size, you know, and a couple of months ago, all of the sudden, that, that's all it took to just ruin the neighborhood. That, that one house. To the left of me, there are three fraternity members who are renting a house and, and they're very, uh, hospitable with a lot of, lot of, lot of, lot of people coming over and it's a real problem. And to the right of me are three young ladies who, uh, seem to be able to fill their front yard completely with people on game day and so forth. And, and, uh, you know, this creates a lot of traffic and so forth. The house to the right of the house on my right is now for sale. And th- as I understand it, my longtime neighbors have said, "We can't take this anymore," and they put a for sale sign in their yard, for sale by owner. And I'm making the argument that this moratorium of whatever period of time it is, and whatever the actual parameters or restrictions may or may not be and in practic- hel- practically speaking and so forth, is a reasonable notice to a potential buyer of this house on the other side of the house next to me, that there will be some barrier or that there will be some objection or some legal requirement that they'll have to fulfill or something before someone says, "Oh, here's a house for sale that I can buy and do what others have done to make this problem worse, but you know, maybe make some money for the individual." And I, and these are economic pressures that I don't think we can ignore. I am looking at my house and thinking, "Can I live here comfortably or should I quadruple the size of the place and make some money?" Hmm. 'Cause if I make enough money, I can move to Louisville or Cincinnati, outside your tax range altogether. A- and I feel many, many times by the actions or inactions of this council that I am being pushed, literally pushed out of my home. And I think it's only fair, even if it's just a symbolic message, that you pass a moratorium today in recognition of the immediacy of this problem, and in that way give a reasonable notice or some notice at least to potential buyers, to potential developers that they cannot just come into the neighborhood and do what they like and then feel like it's not gonna matter. Thank you very much. Thank you for your comments and your patience. I appreciate your persevering with us. Council member Blues. I, I, I, I just wanted to, to point out for the, uh, for the speaker and as a reminder that we're not passing on a moratorium today. What we're doing is deciding on whether to put, to put the question of a moratorium on the docket for first and second readings. Thank you, mayor. Council member Myers. Thank you, Mayor. I guess, and Council Stennet has a motion, I'll be eagerly awaiting that emotion, but, of that motion. My question is, what are the next steps? If we vote for the moratorium to go onto the docket and then we pass that with two readings, what is gonna happen that's gonna trigger action to fix the problem so that we just don't wait six months and then in six months we're still back where we are today? So I know that this task force met, but it really didn't deal with this issue in the first place, 'cause it wasn't even what it was supposed to be dealing with. So I guess my question is whoever is working on the issue, what are the motions that are gonna be made to take actionable items so that we change this problem for good? Thank you. Council member Wallace. Um, I'd just like to respond to that. Um, we're graced today, um, in our audience with, uh, Senator Kathy Stein, who also lives in the third district, by the way. Um, uh, the Administrative Hearing Board for building inspection, that is a state reg that needs to be changed. I've been talking to them for, uh, quite a while, and I think we can get our, um, delegation of, our Fayette County delegation to help us with some of these things. Um, and, um, I've, I have an really long list of things that we could do immediately if we sat down and got the cooperation of the administration and the council to, that would alleviate some of these problems pretty quickly. Um, so I'm gonna be excited about, um, Council member, member Stennet's motion. Thank you. W- thank you, Mayor. What I hope we have is, um, actionable items that we can make motions to and vote on. And once we put a motion out there and start voting on it, then we start discussing and debating solutions and not just keep debating the problem. I agree- But we need to- ... and I have a whole list. Stop the commotion and start making motions. Yeah. I have no one else indicating the desire to speak, so it looks like we're ready to vote. Is it? Those... Yeah. Those in favor of approving the, um, motion to add the resolution to the docket at the next council meeting, please indicate by voting aye electronically. Those opposed vote nay electronically. Motion carries by vote of 12 to 1. Now, Council Member Stennet, I think you said you might have a motion that you- I'm gonna wait during council report, Mayor. Very well. The next item on the agenda then is the, uh, South Limestone's Streetscape Project, and I think now would be a good time for Mr. Morris to come back up. You had, uh, been talking for a little more than two and a half minute, uh, two minutes I've been advised by the clerk, so let's just call it 10 minutes and go from there. Okay. Here we go. All right. So th- there was a quote at the July 7th meeting about how folks have an obligation to show up and inquire, and there wasn't a very big audience that night. Part of the question was, well, why was that? And at the time, it was kind of taken as tacit approval that nobody really objects to South Lime, and, uh, I think the, the question was, "Well, where, where was everybody?" Um, if so many people were opposed to the notion of South Lime, w- why weren't more people here? And I think there's a two-part answer to that. One was that the process to bid and approve the, the South Lime Streetscapes was rushed. The first public notice for bids went out on May 22nd. 18 business days later, we got the bids and we opened them. Then took us 10 days to evaluate the bids, and then purchasing came back and said, "Well, we really only have one qualified bidder." Um, and that's ATS. Three days later, it was put on the docket for first reading of the ordinance. And then f- th- a- and that, as far as I can tell, is the first public discussion of the South Lime project and what, what the project actually entailed. Five days later, um, over a holiday weekend, was when we, we voted on or, or when we had the second reading and then there was approval of that ordinance. Now, the question is what, what was the hurry to, in less than a m- in less than a month and a half, to actually get this project pushed through and, and to have it go from first reading to second reading in five days? Th- part of the rationale was, well, we're getting ready to go on summer break and we have to do it. Um, the, the big rationale that I heard over and over again was we have to get it done by, by the 1st of July. And sorry, Council Member Meyers, I have the ALTEC logo here. Um, but I noticed you had it up on this clock, countdown clock, so I didn't think it'd be too big a problem. Um, now, the, the, the rationale was typically that WEG was coming and, and we have to get ready for, for the World Equestrian Games. And my point would be that WEG isn't, by itself, a sufficient reason for ripping up downtown. Um, in a prior life, in my academic life, I actually spent most of my academic career looking at sports-led economic development in cities and, in particular, the Atlanta Olympic Games. And in, in a lot of cities, you see some ham-handed responses to, "We have to get this done because this big event is coming and we have to dress ourselves up for the world at large." That, by itself, isn't a very good reason for pushing something like this through. And, and I, I would just say that we can't showcase Lexington to the world by gutting our economic vitality. Um, as Council Member Beard said back on July 7th as well, it'd be pretty silly to have these beautiful streetscapes but have a whole bunch of empty buildings along them. The second element of why people weren't here was a lack of clarity. When you go back and you actually look at the two council meetings, the seven two, the July 2nd and the July 7th Council meetings, there was no public discussion of the length and severity of the Limestone closure. And wha- while there was discussion of we're going to complete these projects by July 1st, that date was mentioned in the context of all four streetscape projects, that was not applied to South Limestone by itself. And also looking through those, those videos, there was a question of did Council really understand what they were voting on? When, when you go back and you look, you guys essentially had a week to, from the purchase approval of ATS, to figure out what, what was actually being voted on. It was one week, including a holiday weekend, to understand a complex thousand plus page, multi-million dollar contract immediately prior to your summer break. And it just raises the question of whether you really understood what you were voting on, and again, to quote Council Member Beard, "The people on South Lime couldn't stand one month of downtime, let alone four, four and a half months," whatever it was up to then. Th- the point there is that the impression that I had as a listener to that was that the streets were only gonna be closed for four and four and a half months instead of a year. So when we say folks have an obligation to show up and inquire, that's true. That's why I've been here the last couple of weeks. I don't plan on coming back any time soon. But Council and LFUCG have an equal obligation to communicate back with citizens in a transparent and timely fashion as well. With regard to compliance on the contract, this is something that I've heard a number of council members bring up recently. Um, there were three major areas of concern I've heard brought up. One was access to property, one was notice of disruption of the businesses, and the third was site cleanup. And when we look at access to property, um, in essence the, the thing that we've seen is that in, in many cases the owners haven't had sufficient access to their own property or suppliers haven't had access or customers haven't. Um, the, the notice of disruption, um, an example of the violation of this particular item would be when Hannah's on South Lime ha- Hannah's Online had two utility interruptions within the span of a week, um, without much notice and found out about it when she came in. Um, with regard to storage of materials and equipment in the roads, um, the there've been a number of kind of documented cases of equipment being left in the roads. But despite all that, with these three major areas of concern, after looking through the contract, it's kind of apparent that ATS appears to be in compliance with that contract. And the reason I say that is that there are a number of out clauses throughout the contract that basically say, "As long as LFUCG and the contractor agree, we're okay making changes to things in the field." And Project Manager Milligan has said, "We've made changes to these things in the field." But when you look at these things, these were the a- these areas of concern were things that were promised to the owners on the sites. With regard to th- another element and this was the, the work estimates, after looking through the contract, it's kind of apparent that ATS appears to be in compliance with that contract. And the reason I say that is that there are a number of out clauses throughout the contract that basically say, "As long as LFUCG and the contractor agree, we're okay making changes to things in the field." And Project Manager Milligan has said, "We've made changes to these things in the field." But when you look at these things, these were the a- these areas of concern were things that were promised to the owners on the sites. With regard to th- another element and this was the, the work estimates, we estimated that it would take or we, LFUCG estimated it would take two work seasons to do this work and at the time w- we, we said we were paying a premium of a million to a million and a half to get this done by July 1st. But then you look at what ATS has been doing, and they've been working eight hour days, and it kind of raises the question that if ATS can do this in eight hour shifts and we estimated that it took two work seasons to do, w- what exactly were we paying a premium for to accelerate the project? And when you look at the contract, we did specify that 7/1/2010 deadline, but there was no performance incentive in the contract to pull the completion date forward and in a contract where time was of the essence, one wonders why there wasn't a performance imp- performance premium included in the contract. Um, so there was a rushed bid and approval process, there was lack of clarity about the project, there was lack of compliance with the contract, there was work estimates that didn't quite match up and there were contract design issues and there were ways to ameliorate those, but ultimately all of that's looking back. It's only useful as we look, i- i- it's only useful as we look to forward projects like the, the, um, the Cheapside project or maybe you can find- Mr. Morris, you have, have about 20 seconds left. Okay. So we talked last time about the cost of traffic and the approximately 90 million dollar hit to downtown businesses, $360,000 a day. The question for you is how do we accelerate the South Limestone project from its current state? Those same out clauses give us ads where we can essentially invest in South Lime as a project and we ask that you invest in speeding up South Lime for the economic benefit of our city. Thank you, Mr. Morris. Thank you. All right, um, Mr. Milligan or Mr. Commissioner Webb, we'll proceed with the South Limestone, uh, presentation. Unfortunately I was not here last week when, uh, uh, there was some specific information requested, I believe, in the work session. Uh, did not learn about that completely until I returned back. I was able late yesterday to watch the, actually watch the work session. Uh, George Milligan who is the LFUCG's Project Manager had done some work, uh, however we didn't have a presentation. As I w- went through what occurred during the work session, I tried to, um, will try to address what we can at this point, uh, that I understood from that work session. Uh, one of the things that I would like to do, uh, you all weren't provided a, provided this, it's the, uh, the ink is still wet on it. Uh, but... I think you had that on the overhead. Uh, we had a couple requests. Uh, uh, a motion to, for, uh- ... to bring forward what the cost would be to move this project quicker. A, uh, requ- a request from Council Member Crosby for additional information. So s- she was just not looking, and the rest of the council members were just not looking at a dollar figure. And in re- in reviewing this, uh, it was pretty obvious to me and, that we, we needed to understand the project, or I need to get some information about the timelines for the project, and also, uh, to explain what the bonuses and, and the penalties are in this contract, so that you can make a good decision if you choose to enter into some additional expense to move this project faster. Uh, I have a little problem here. Uh, I'd like to start by saying that whenever we put this project together, we did this in connection with meetings that started back with all the utilities that were involved of August of 2008. We have been meeting that long on this. We began, uh, monthly meetings at that point. As we closed in on the beg- uh, uh, the kickoff date of the construction by ATS, we began to move, to meet biweekly. Since that time, the utilities have met as needed and weekly with ATS. But, and in designing the contract that we have and how we wanted this to progress, or felt it needed to progress, we looked at two main, major projects, two major projects that have been highly scrutinized. Number one was the Louden Avenue project that, from the utility phase to the final phase, took about four years. Created a lot of disruption in a corridor where it's mainly residential. We also looked at the North Limestone project. The reason for North Lime, it was a project that, from the outside, appeared to, was highly criticized for the amount of time it took to get that project done. Uh, that project included the undergrounding of utilities, and that was a key component of what we had to do, was, in, in this project, was the undergrounding of overhead utilities. So, wanted to make you aware of that. I wanted to also have you, th- these two gentlemen need to come up here. If, we've not formally introduced these folks as part of the project management team. I think it's important that we do, and you have an opportunity to question them. Uh, we have Sam Williams that is right now, I guess, officially the acting director of pu- uh, Streets, Roads and Forestry, and an engineer in the engineering department is the other half of his job. Uh, Terry Justice, who is an inspector in the engineering department, and has been the inspector on this job, and George Milligan, who is under a, an agreement with LFUCG to provide, uh, project management services that are related to streetscape. These folks ha- have been intimately a part of this. They are on site daily. Sam is there as needed, attends the, the weekly construction meetings with ATS. Uh, the reason I, I believe particularly Terry is significant here, and, and you may want an opportunity to ask him questions, Terry was the inspector on, uh, the Louden Avenue project and the North Limestone project. And he can give you a perspective of how this job has been managed differently, how the contract is operated differently than these, these other two jobs that we used to identify the issues and work around those. And one of the major things that we, we did, and this was through working with the utilities, was identify what could be done to speed up the undergrounding of the utilities. Now, we have, uh, let's see, six, six overhead companies plus a LFUCG fiber optic that it, that had to, had to go underground. In exploring this other projects, uh, it was determined that one of the biggest problems that slowed the utility phase down was we didn't have one contractor installing everybody's utilities, ev- everyone's conduit that had to go underground. And the determination was made that the way to move that part, that phase of the project faster was to, to have the government provide that contractor under the, provided with information from each of the utilities so that the conduit was all installed at one time. So that's kind of the, the preliminary, uh, what you see on the first slide, the- these are time frames that were provided. Uh, they're actually off of the Gant, Gant chart that was part of the proposal that ATS made, uh, as we questioned them concerning their contract. Uh, what you see at the, the top blue line is their estimation for completion of this project. Their estimation, based on the best information they had, was to start the project June 22nd and to complete it July 1st. What happened in actuality, when you add in approval of the contractor, moving the contract forward through the process, through the first and second readings, this c- this contract, we were not able to start. ATS did not begin construction until July 22nd. That was a full month later than they had, had estimated in their Gantt chart. Your next line is the utility conduits. These items listed below there, they're all benchmarks or milestones in this contract. That, that would represent the construction and completion of the utility conduits. And I didn't realize that till I came down here, the date on that was a beginning of 7/22, it's a completion of November 15th. That's the milestone. Completion of November 15th. The storm sewer, storm water facilities started July 22nd. Their milestone completion was November 15th. Sanitary sewer, the same thing. Uh, the communication and electrical duct banks have the same completion milestone date. If you'll notice there, uh, you have all aerial utilities removed, sub- uh, subsurface construction completed, all underground work completed. That is shaded, I apologize, you'll, you'll see there is a, it shows a beginning and ending on the same date. We took out a bar there. I wanted to highlight that area for you. That's what we have called the utility phase. That is the private utility phase. Where the private utilities, this is a time gap built into this contract, for the private utilities to come in and do the underground work that they need to, pulling the wires through the conduits, the gas company getting their work done, and the water company completing the installation of their main during this time period. During this time period, there was no actual construction work defined for ATS. This was their time to turn the, turn the construction site over to utilities to complete this. This was all worked out ahead of time. Uh, then below that, you see some additional milestones, final concrete. We put this in as a bullet point, it shows up as a start and an end date as the same time. It would be, uh, final concrete would be completed 7/1. Curb completion was 6/15. Active construction complete 7/1, and signal and lighting completed, uh, six, June 30th. Those are, those are all ATS's plan. Now, if you go to the next slide, just wanted to share what the proposed timeframe was. I wanna talk a little bit about the liquidated damages and the performance incentives, incentives already in this contract. They are included in, in addendum four, by the way. Uh, the liquidated damages are headed exactly as you see it here. "Time is of the essence. Failure to meet the approved contractors, contracts scheduled milestones will result in the assignment of penalties relating to each of the following milestones. Completion of the sanitary sewers, $25,000 pena- penalty. Completion of the storm sewer, $25,000 penalty. Completion of the electric and teleph- communications duct bank, $25,000 penalty. Completion of traffic control structural installation, $25,000 penalty. Completion of the curb installation, $25,000 penalty. Reopening of the entire affected roadway to normal traffic," this would be the completion of the project, "$1,000 a day." The, the two items just above that come towards the end of the contract. These are indicators that you are getting ready to finish. Okay, next slide please. Performance incentives. We also included performance incentives. This was a way to incent the contractor to move this along as fast as we could. They are also included in addendum four, and they are headed as shown here. "Due to the construction-related hardships incurred by corridor stakeholders and all the general public, the contractor is encouraged to accelerate the contract schedule by all practical, legal, and ethical means. Incentives will be paid for the completion of the milestones ahead of the contract schedule according to the following schedule. Advance completion of sanitary sewer, $1,000 a day. Advance completion of the storm sewer, $1,000 a day. Advance completion of the electric telecommunication duct banks, $200 per day increase to the contract price. Advance completion of traffic control structure installations, $200 per day increase to the contract price. Completion of the curb installations, $200 per day. Advance reopening of the entire effective roadway to normal traffic, $1,000 a day." Also, notes underneath that, as a note, "All proposed changes in the contractor's work plan must be appro- approve, reviewed and approved by the owner." Just very briefly, and this has to be brief 'cause there's no way you can get into all the details of this. Performance to date by ATS met or exceeded time limits for every intersection closure. In the Gantt chart they provided, it included the, the closures for each intersection. Their work plan states that the clo-- that the closures could be in three separate closures. They have been able to reduce these closures to one single closure and have met or exceeded... And I, I believe in all cases, they have exceeded the times that they estimated for the closure of Avenue of Champions, the intersection of High Street, the intersection of Maxwell Street. Commissioner Webb- We also- Commissioner Webb, you've got, you've got a little more than a minute to go. Okay. You've got a little more than a minute left- Okay. ... in the presentation. Uh, limited, uh, com-- limited complete closure of intersections to a single closure to allow Kentucky American Company, Water Company to complete their work. They are coordinating with contractors. Uh, next slide, please. Oh, performance to date, uh, the milestones for November 15th, they are opposed to meet those. We believe they're, they could potentially exceed those. We'd like to also note that they started this project a month later than they had proposed. Additional crews were added approximately a month ago in an attempt to exceed those November 15th dates. They negotiated a new schedule for delivery of electrical structures, those very big structures that have to be installed in order to do this. They identified final concrete work and started it three weeks ago. That work was not supposed to start until March 31st. While continuing, uh, we'll continue to work, they have committed that they will continue to work on any work they can do ahead of schedule as long as they... the weather cooperates and they can coordinate. And they have coordinated with ATS, I mean, coordinated with Kentucky American Water Company to get their project, their water main completed early. Commissioner Webb, your time has expired. Mayor. Uh, Council Member Blues. Since this is a very important presentation that's been requested by the council, and, and, uh, since Commissioner Webb, I think has not completed the presentation yet, and we probably will have, uh, questions for him and some of the other, uh, some of the, some of the other supervisors, uh, I move to, uh, to extend the time by 15 minutes. I second. I have a motion and second to extend the time by 15 minutes. Any discussion? Council Member Stennett? I would, you know, and I agree on extending the time, but if we can just get to what plan you would like to present on how we can speed it up. Okay. Get to the meat, thank you. We have a, we have a motion on the floor. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no? The motion carries. Commissioner Webb. Okay. One other bit of information about the contract. The contract allows Monday through Saturday construction work from 7:00 AM to 10:00 PM. The contract does not require a specific number of crews. Thus, and it does... a specification for the number of shifts that are worked during a day. That was not included in the contract. The penalties and the bonuses were placed, were put in place to control the progress of this contract and to make it beneficial to get it done earlier. Okay. What can we do? What can be done to expedite the construction? I've attached a letter from ATS. Uh, it's on the back of your packet. I won't read it. Uh, I will basically paraphrase that the contractor is moving this project ahead, feels that he is moving this project ahead in every way he can, and he sees no reason for the city to bear any additional expense. He is willing to do what he can within, in the parameters of safety and, uh, and the working conditions will allow. Um, so what can we do? The, in the next phase, we are right at the end of the first phase. This was the underground construction. Uh, the next phase, the, the largest amount of work that has to be done has to be done by KU. We asked them to build a contract that would get their work done. They are gonna do this work with a contractor, build a contract that would get it done, the work done within a specified amount of time, that would be beginning November 15th and being done by March 31st. At, uh, at our request, they have taken, have taken a look at the contract and the work, and basically we could agree to increase the Kentucky utilities contract amount to work double shifts or two shifts a day. That cost is estimated to be an additional $850,000. Now, I have to qualify that the way KU qualified that. That's considered a planning number. It was estimated internally and is based on two shifts. The number could change based on negotiations with the selected contractor. Could reduce the electrical component of the project by 44 days, or their end date would be February 23rd, 2010. However, it does not include a provision for inclement weather which can extend the work. So there is a potential to reduce that phase. Uh, when I say reduce that phase, I have been ab- I have worked for a year and a half now with the other overhead utilities. And Windstream, I have not been able to contact them since I've gotten back. Uh, my contact there, I have contacted, uh, Insight. Insight estimates their work to take 60 days and they are willing to sit down and work out their schedule concurrently with KU. So a 60-day project would be complete, everything but their final tie-ins when, before the electric was complete. I believe the situation will be similar with Windstream based on all the work we've done with 'em, but I have not confirmed that with them at this time. At this time, we are... Both of their contracts are with their legal department and we're waiting to receive those. What else can we do? Maintain local traffic only during the utili- only during the utility phase. Local traffic only during the utility phase. We had discussed with the stakeholders at the November 15th date, whenever the utilities would be pulling, most of the work will be pulling cable. There is some main underground gas and water work to be completed, but we, we had told the stakeholders along the corridor that we would open up a lane of traffic through the, through the construction site. It would still be a construction site, but we would be able to move a barricade and let traffic up through there. It would not be like a fully open road because you're gonna have utilities on both sides. That's where they'll be pulling from, is the sides of the road. We cannot open it up to full, to full traffic. However, if we close, if we maintain a local traffic situation during this time period, we can get more contract work there and ATS is committed to doing whatever work they can do to, of the final work to speed the project up. Although I do not believe it's necessary to negotiate double shifts with the other overhead utilities, we could go back and ask them to provide us with a, a cost estimate for that and then agree to those increases. And when, uh, I actually worked with Brian Markham on ATS, what we could do with ATS and was advised that the appropriate thing in this type of contract would be to add additional incentives at the end to incent the contractor to get done earlier. Um, we have a, uh, we have incentives in there that I think are adequate that they are responding to, uh, but bettor, that is one suggestion we could do. So for a plan, those are the things I have to offer at this point, that we shorten the time of the longest phase, of the utility phase, which is KU. However, even if we finish that work, uh, that would give us a finish date, potential fiden- uh, finish date of February 23rd versus March 31st. During those 44 days, they are probably some of the worst days for pouring finished concrete outdoors, so that would not guarantee that we could get done any earlier. Uh, it will be totally weather dependent on how much concrete can be poured during that time because we finish early. Uh, the, this contract, the way it was designed, very significant, that utility phase. It fell right in there with really what is the worst construction part of the year for asphalt and concrete. So, uh, and it was the time period that we had worked with all the utilities on and were advised that, uh, that they needed to get their work done. So those are the things that I, that I have to offer, uh, at this point. Uh, please understand that this has been a... this... There is a lot of coordination that has gone on in this project. Uh, and it's not easy to deal with all these utilities that we have coordinated this timeframe with to now see what we can do, uh, to shorten that period even more. Very thankful that KU could, on short notice, develop these numbers for us, because I see that as the, the one major opportunity, but still understand that there's no guarantee that we can get this done any quicker. Um, there's a... Uh, I want to, uh, I want to give you the opportunity to, to ask questions of our management team here. And because I have a letter of response that did not provide from ATS a identified items that, that they were willing to put a shortening date on, they're willing to do a lot of work, but because there's so much dependent on weather in this remaining work, uh, it's very difficult, and I understand that, for them to say that we, we can shorten. So, uh, the vice president of ATS, Mr. Harry Birchen, is also here. Uh, in, in reviewing the council meeting, there was another issue, uh, which is not in your presentation, and it had to do with contract violations. Uh, as I watched that, I understood that those contract violations were to be turned in, made a part of the work session packet, and that they would be discussed today. Uh- To my knowledge, there were ... There have been none turned in. And I respectfully request that we not be asked, the management team or the contractor, at this point, any questions concerning violations of the contractor, that we have an opportunity to receive those on paper, review them, and respond appropriately. They are a legal matter for both parties. And feel like that is very appropriate and, uh, would request that the council member, uh, accept that. Uh, with that, I would like to, uh, would like to offer- He's handed it in. ... the project management team, if you all have any questions about the project, uh, and then again, I have, uh, Mr. Harry Burchett with ATS. If you would like to ask him any questions about speeding up the project. Uh, Council Member Wallace. Wow. Um, I guess I'm kinda thumbstruck right now about the, uh, violations that it was incumbent on the council to get the violations to you all to respond to. And I understand nobody deserves a vacation more than you do, and like I told you earlier, next time you can't go without taking me. You'll have to just explain that to your wife. Um, but I'm not the project manager, and I'm not the one that's supposed to be giving oversight. And I do have questions, um, about that, and I think they're fair to ask. And I don't- Point of order. But, but- Council Member Martin. I, I, I'm just wondering whether this needs to be discussed in closed session, because it involves allegations of, of breach of contract. Well, an- and to address that point of order, one of the reasons why I asked last week for council members to let us know of specific contract provisions that you think have been violated was so we could avoid this conundrum today. Now, if, if somebody had told us last Thursday, as I requested, that we had an issue with paragraph 4C, we could have looked at paragraph 4C, we could have looked at the facts, and we could have been here today to talk to you about that. Those are entirely legitimate questions to be raised, but they are not ones that would appropriately be addressed today. I gave, I gave several of those to, um, Commissioner Askew. Last week? Uh, you know, time is, uh, hard for me to get my arms around these days. It might have been last week or two weeks or 15 years ago at this point. But, uh, when, when I ... When th- I think it was the last time, when Mr. Milligan was here, and I went through the list, and then I gave it to, um, Commissioner Askew. Well, I asked last Tuesday for a list of contract violations that you wanted to ... Us to address this week. Uh, my information, as of 2:30, was nobody ... Or excuse me, as of lunchtime, noon today, was we had received none from anybody. Um, now that said, to the degree anybody has concerns about any contract provision, put them in writing, identify the specific contract provision you think is not being honored, and we'll be glad to address those probably in the context of a, of a closed session, as we evaluate litigation issues. Um, I will be glad to put the ones I'm aware of in writing. However, again, I'm a council member. I'm not a project manager, I'm not a construction expert, and it's not my job. It's the city's job. Well, I appreciate you acknowledging those points, because I agree with you about that. You shouldn't be the person expected to do project management here. The people who are are evaluating those issues. Ne- nevertheless, to the degree you or constituents or others feel as though there is a contract violation, let us know specifically what it is, and we will evaluate those and, and get you the information in whatever setting you would like, whether it's a one-on-one visit or whether it's in the context of a, a meeting with the council. But that's, that's specifically why I mentioned that last week, and there was no objection to that request. Um, okay. And I think we need to let the people that are along that corridor know also, I'm not down there every day, but I seem to be down there a lot, and, um, I thought that I had done what was asked of me, so. Council Member Lane. Thank you. How you doing Mr. Webb? Well, really happy to be back from vacation. Well, I, I thought, let's touch on some positive aspects of this. It sounds to me, if I understand your presentation, that we're running maybe about 30 days- ... ahead of schedule for the completion of the underground conduits, et cetera, is that, or somewhere in that range. Is that what you were saying? Actually, we asked ATS to honor that milestone date. They have bo- they have managed to take 30 days off of the, of this first piece. So that means we're about at completion, right today or the next few days, is- No. November 15th is still the day. What we did, th- they had to start a month later than their plan proposed. So they have actually done all this construction in a month l- months less time. Okay. Now, they ha- they have, and they have shared with me, I meet with them since this project began, I meet every Monday with them, uh, at their construction meeting. I have missed two meetings. One, because I was on vacation, and one, I had a prior commitment, so I stay very in tune with this. On the following day, they meet with the stakeholders that choose to attend the meeting that we provide every week at, at a time that we, that they jointly selected. What the schedule for that week is, uh, Mr. Burchett pro- has his, his project management team there. He provides the majority of the information. The other utilities that are working on the site, Kentucky American was there to share their information to keep these people informed about what they can expect and th- they have... That's, that's one of the things that's very significant about this is there is an opportunity. Also, there's minutes that go out from these meetings, so that if you choose not to attend, you can get the minutes too. I'm sorry. All right. So, uh, the other aspect is that you'll be able to accelerate the underground utility phase and, if you don't have weather issues, you may pick up additional time there. Is that correct? Am I following you on this so far? There, the opportunity that I believe we have, we, we have a contractor that started, uh, one month later than their proposal allowed, yet they, they have built their construction around a completion of the first phase November 15th. They, they did not require that we move that milestone a month, because they had to start a month late. Okay? So we are on schedule, even though we started later than they had planned. In the next phase, our largest opportunity to speed that up is to ask KU for double shifts, which has the potential of shorten, shortening their part of the project by 44 days, which would end February 23rd. That being said, February is not the month you would choose to do a, this final work. Uh, it may provide days that you can pour concrete, but it will also have a lot of days that you can't because of temperatures. That's why the utility phase fit, fit well into this gap is because it's not an optimum time to perform this final work. And what ATS has done to move this, the ending date along is to start final work that they can do. They've started it three weeks ago on some of the final stuff. They're working down at the Avenue of Champions right now and they have worked on identifying any issues that as they move up, up the street from Avenue of Champions, once they get that intersection done, they've a- they are working at identifying any conflict, so that we can get that worked out ahead of time and gonna try to do as much of that work as they can. Okay. So if, if you're picking up 44 days and maybe you pick up a little bit of time when you do the final concrete work, could we sort of show maybe the worst case, best case scenario, like under the best conditions you'd be completed by a certain date? Under the worst, just sort of give us... I, I know this is a guess, not a, a guarantee, but c- could we see some light at the end of the tunnel? Can you give us something I think that's best addressed by, uh, Mr. Burchett. Okay. And a- at my request he came here, because I knew the, there would be those types of questions. Uh, I think it's best addressed by him, because he knows this work much better than I do. I, I have been involved in underground construction work before I came to the city for 27 and a half years, but my expertise is not in final concrete work, and that's what will remain at the end of this project. So if you would like to... Thank you and I appreciate the opportunity to finally get up here and maybe put some of these questions to rest. But, uh, to answer your question, um, yes, if he, if, if KU completes their work 44 days early, there is a reasonable chance that this project could be finished before the July 1st completion date. If KU does not accelerate their project, there is a reasonable chance that we can finish on, before that date. Commissioner Webb's correct. July, or, uh, February is not the month when you want to be pouring concrete. Uh, there are several days in March when you don't want to be pouring, pouring concrete. There are different schools of thought. Generally y- your specifications read that if it's below 50 degrees, there's certain things we have to do to the concrete in order to, to be able to place on that particular date. ... uh, there, there is no specific temperature b-below which you say we cannot pour concrete. Generally, uh, 35 degrees, anything below that, it's probably not a good idea to do that. Uh, I will say that, uh, I... W-Well, you haven't asked my opinion on whether or not it's worth $800,000 for you to, to, to, uh, pay, pay you to accelerate their schedule, so I wanna, I wanna address that. I will tell you that, um, you have, as, as Commissioner Webb said, incentives in my contract to complete this job before certain milestone dates and it is my intention to get every single dollar of those incentives that I can get. I can promise you that. And, uh, there's nothing... T-the question has, has been asked is, to me, uh, several times, "What can you do to accelerate this project?" And I, I don't know if you've had, had a chance, uh, to read the letter that I, that I... My reply to Mr. Milvin's request, but, uh, basically, uh, my answer and, and Vice Mayor Gray said, uh, I heard him say at one work session or council meeting, he's never seen a project yet that could not be accelerated. This project is no exception. But accelerate at what cost? And to my employees, the cost is safety. And I think I, I, I won't belabor the point, I think I have explained in that letter and I won't take any more of your time, but if I've answered your question, I'll sit down and take other questions. Well, can I just do one follow-up question? Absolutely. And is there anything that the Irvin County government can do to help you move any faster and still maintain a high level of safety? Nothing that you aren't already doing. And, and I, and you have... I have never experienced a level of cooperation from an owner or the design team that I have experienced on this project. Never. I've never had somebody at Commissioner Webb's level attend even one progress meeting, much, much less every single one of them with the exception of, of two. And, uh, if, if there was something I thought you could do to help me, uh, complete this project faster, I would absolutely tell you what it was, but, uh, right now I, I don't, don't know what that would be. But I, I appreciate the offer. Thank you for your answers on that. There may be other council members who may have a question for you. Council Member Myers. I... Mayor, thank you. I don't have any questions for him, so if you wanna... If someone else wants to question wise up, then I'll step aside. Yeah, I do. Um, Harry, I appreciate you recalling what I said and I'd... I would say it again. I've never seen a project that couldn't be improved and I've never seen a project that couldn't be accelerated within safety limitations. Absolutely. I think you know and I know what we're talking about there. I'm... I said last week, "Why is work not being undertaken on Sundays?" We've got a six-month schedule. That's one question I've got still. Uh, uh, uh, and, and that's a fair question. And, uh, my, my employees work... Presently, they work six days a week, anywhere from nine to 12 hours a day. When, uh, during the bidding process of this project, I had all your milestone dates. I knew the, the amount of work to be done. I determined that this project could be done on or before schedule without the necessity of working on Sundays. Had I determined that we had to work on Sundays in order to com- complete this project on time, I wouldn't have submitted a proposal. My people have families. They have husbands and wives and kids and they go to church and they, they... Their kids play soccer. They've got lives. It's not fair for me to, to insist that they work seven days a week, nine to 10 hours a day so that ATS can make money. I think- I, um- ... and it's not- ... I think we're talking about- ... it's not, it's not personal because I wouldn't be out there on Sunday. I may drive through for an hour. Well, yeah. I'm sorry, go ahead. No, I understand completely what you're describing because I have similar situations and been involved in a lot of projects where we had to adjust because of events that intervened between the time that we may have made a bid and we were executing the project. Like unexpected hardships on our customers like we're experiencing here. And that's when we adapt and we adjust our schedules and we bring in additional staff if we have to. Now, maybe you've got constraints there and you've only got so many people, but, you know, I, I think that still needs to be examined. I understand that- And I wanna... You know, your, your contract isn't for the utilities, so I'd ask that, but I do think it's important to clarify on this issue of the concrete, what you're talking about, I believe, Harry, is the surface work that is going to be undertaken to complete the streetscapes. That is... When you use the word concrete work, we are talking about the sidewalks- That's correct. ... right? And the curb. Correct. And the curb work, right? Correct. Okay. So in the scope of this project, that is the finished work for this project? Correct. And that... For example, we're not talking about concrete sidewalks. We may be talking about a bed for whatever the treatment is that may be concrete, that will arguably be concrete, but I'm talking about there may be brick pavers. Mm-hmm. We don't know what those materials are yet unless somebody's already made that decision. We do. So those decisions have been made? ... okay. But there are -- there are concrete sidewalks in addition to brick pavement. If I understood you correctly- So there's some concrete sidewalks, right. ... uh, quite a bit of concrete sidewalks. But we also know that we -- that there are many methods to create an environment where the concrete can be placed and can be cured, even under adverse weather conditions, especially where there is a very limited, really, amount of concrete. We're not talking about millions of square feet. We're talking about very confined amounts of concrete here. Absolutely. All right. And there, there are about three times the quantity of concrete sidewalk than there is brick pavement, so, so, so there's a substantial amount- I- ... of concrete on this job. Uh, and ma- maybe, uh, you, you, you misinterpret what I ear- I didn't say what I meant. We will pour concrete as long as your project management team will allow me to pour it. If they allow me to pour concrete when it's 20 degrees, and if they would accept the quality of the concrete as a result of having had poured it at 20 degrees, we'll be out there pouring it at 20 degrees. I'm gonna put that monkey on your back. Or, or I'm sorry, not on your back, but on your management team's back. But, u- again, uh- Well- I, I'm sorry. No, that's okay. Any more questions for him? Is ... You have a question for, for Mr. Perchik? Not right off the top of my head. He's not going a long way anyhow for the time being, so let's just go ahead who, with whomever you have, have, uh, questions for. Council member Henson. Thank you, Mayor. I've just got a question about all I wanna know simply is what was the original end date on the project, what will ... what is the end date now, and when will the street open? July 1, July 1, and July 1. So. Now- Okay. Originally, were ... the businesses were told that there would be one lane open or something like that. I, I probably should defer that to commissioner, Commissioner Webb. Thank you. We did share with the, the businesses along the corridor. And, uh, this is during that period, actually before the contract was accepted, about how we perceived this work to take place. Uh, there were meetings before we accepted the contract. Uh, we did provide information, and that information we said that at the November 15th milestone, when the underground construction was complete, we would open a single lane through the corridor during that next phase. We felt well that could be done because the majority of this wa- wire pulling will be done from the- ... actually from the curbs, and that we could get trucks in there and get a single lane through. Uh, so that, Ms. Henson, is, uh, is what we told those folks. We actually, uh, in our meeting today, uh, we had one of the people bring up can we do this work faster if we maintain local traffic? And that is actually one of the things that I had, had put in that presentation. We believe that would speed things up, but we had told these people and we felt that that was important for businesses just prior to the Chri- to Christmas to get some traffic down through there, but it can't be open to full traffic and stay on this schedule. Um, this m- ... So you said that it has already gained 30 days? It's ahead? But yet the- The project is not 30 days ahead. But what they had to do is they had to s- to start 30 days later, so they have already ... If they complete, hit their milestones by November 15th, they'll have gotten, I believe, about five months of construction done in four months, and were able f- for us to, to move to the next phase, even though they've started a month later. Okay. So the ... But the completion p- date will be the same? Right. That has not affected the end date. Okay. They are taking steps which hopefully will affect that end date. I ... The only thing I, I would like to say is that I think ... Beautifying Limestone, we all agree- Mm-hmm. ... is a very good project, and it'll be great when it's done. But if there are no businesses on Limestone when that project is done because they've gone out of business, then what was it for? Mm. So, I don't know, I guess I just get very upset- Just- ... when I think about- Just like- ... the struggling businesses. Just a ... Wh- However, I don't think that I am the person to answer that question, but I would l- like to give you the, my perspective on that. I get asked that question. It was m- not my decision to select this project. Okay. The Streetscape effort had already identified the, the area to be targeted before I got here. I simply managed through the schematic design portion of that and was a part of the projects that were selected for the first phase. But they weren't my decision. What I felt my job was, was to find a way to get the work that the council had identified done. And that has been a year and a half long project for me. Uh, as I moved from one position to another, this project has been like a tar baby. You know, you wouldn't expect the Commissioner of Public Works to be as engaged in a project and have it affecting the other things that they have to do like this. However, I was so deeply involved in- ... and the transition happened pretty close to the transition for me into this position. Uh, that it's been difficult because this is such a complex project, and I did a lot of the early work with the utilities and really felt the need, because it is so important that we meet the schedules of this project for me to stay involved in it to the level that I am. Thank you. Council Member Meyers. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, thank you, Commissioner. I just have two quick questions. One for Mr. Milligan. Um, Commissioner, I know that you said that we wanted to hold off questions regarding, um, violations. I don't want to breach what, what you asked us to do or not do, but I'm the council member that asked Mr. Milligan since he was a project manager, if he had found any violations a- as he's been managing the project. So I wanted to give you an opportunity to s- to just speak to that. At, at the present time, the team has not found any substantial violations of the contract. Okay. Thank you. And then, Mr. Justice, I think the commissioner said that you're, you've, you're working heavily on this project, but you also manage the Loudoun project and I think another project. Yes, I have North Lyme from, uh, from Vine to Barr Street. Okay. Could you speak a little bit about the way this project has gone as opposed to those other two? This job's probably double the size of what Vine to Barr was, and also on Vine to Barr, we only had businesses on one side of the road. We have a park on one block and the courthouses were under construction at that time. I think this job has gone surprisingly well due to the coordination, uh, of ATS's top management to get involved the day-to-day activities and to meet weekly with, uh, George and the other, uh, utilities to coordinate everything and keep it going, so I think this one's moving along basically the same speed as Barr to Vine. So are you saying the scope's maybe twice the size, but it's moving at about the same speed? Yes. So they're much more efficient. And in that North Lyme section from Vine to Main, we closed the road down completely while the contractor worked through the whole project till he was ready to asphalt and open it back up. And this one where we have a lot more pedestrians, uh, we do have businesses and we have, uh, a lot of people that drive through the area. Okay. Thank you. I just have one other comment for the mayor. I appreciate that when the presentation was done, we learned that... You know, we heard in the earlier presentation that there were no performance incentives in the, in the contract, but we understand now that there absolutely were and that the contractor intends to get all that he can. So I appreciate you putting those in the contract. Thank you. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, I want to thank Mike Webb and his team. They have probably the most thankless job in Lexington, and they have not been appreciated. And it, it's hard to, to, to show up at work and to, to, to continue to have the energy on a project when everybody's yelling at, at you on both sides. And so I just want to say I appreciate it, and I know most of the folks up here appreciate it as well. It's a really difficult job and there's a lot of safety issues and, and I know there's a lot of pressure and a lot of focus on this and I appreciate it, and a lot of folks do as well. Um, Commissioner Webb, I just wanted to, to clarify, you had mentioned something about meetings, uh, in your presentation. What, what meetings took place before the bidding of this? What public meetings, like, with the folks on the street and, and, and things like that? I, I don't put you on the spot, but- I didn't come here prepared with dates, but we had, we had our first meeting, uh, with folks on the corridor. Uh, they were invited by letter to a meeting at the Phoenix building. This would have been in January of 2008. I'm, I'm sorry, in, uh, uh, it was November, December of 2008. Uh, we met again, and I can recall it vividly during the ice storm, uh, we lacked a lot of turnout, we felt. We did not have a good turnout for our first meeting. So, uh, through, uh, Harold Tate, we set up a meeting at one of the businesses. CD Central was the meeting location. And again, invited everyone to that location where we actually walked the corrido- we had a discussion ahead of time. We walked the corridor, talked about improvements, talked about the project. One thing I would clarify at this time, the evaluation of the storm and sanitary was not complete. At this time, we did not know that this project was, would include storm and sanitary. They were TV cameraed, uh, around this time, but that was not complete during this meeting. Then I would, would have to go back and look in calendars for meetings in between. However, uh, I, I can recall, I believe it was at least one or more additional meetings. Then we had, we had a couple meetings during the contract period. But bef- before that we actually signed the contract to let people know what was in the contract. We actually notified the stakeholders who had come to the other meetings prior to actually signing the contract and starting it. We notified them when it was accepted, and then we notified them again when the start date was, and that's when we began our weekly meetings. And that's one thing I have to, uh, commend ATS for. They have... It, it's not just Mr. Burchett showing up. He has his lead engineering folks on the project. He has his project managers show up. He has... ... other utilities that are involved at that time period show up so they can all report to these folks, they can all respond to issues. And I have witnessed issues brought up about, "I, I need you to be away from my front door by such and such a time. I don't want you to start in front of my business." Where they did, in many cases, were able to comply with the request and worked hard to do it. Sometimes they can't, sometimes their work just dictates it. But to have that kind of commitment for management at that level to, to address these questions, w- we don't do the meeting. The first thing that takes place in the meeting is Mr. Burchett, uh, Renee Jackson runs the meeting for us. Mr. Burchett gives them what the daily, what the, what to expect for the next week and will answer any questions that they have. And some of the folks that have had complaints, I've actually requested that they try to attend the meetings, that if we're aware of their issues ahead of time, that our contractor will do whatever they can to try to address those issues. They can't all the time, but they make an earnest effort. Uh, one other thing that I would like to address that I saw in this other presentation was some trash around there. Uh, there have been some pickup problems, uh, because of local traffic issues or issues where... 'Cause there's two-way traffic now on a one-way street, makes it difficult for a garbage truck. Uh, what we have done, when we were notified, is we have worked with solid waste for special pickups. We have had the contractor pull the Herbies down to the curb. Uh, we have taken unusual steps. Just prior to my leaving, I, I heard , I helped Bank of the Bluegrass get some metal cabinets. I mean, t- to that level, we're trying to address issues on this corridor. I- is that a typical thing for most LFUCG projects? You know, I wouldn't say it was non-typical. I think we're more aware of the issues because we do those weekly meetings and we are so accessible. Uh, the, the folks on that corridor have my phone number. I rarely get a call from 'em. Uh, generally, hear something in a meeting and will call one of them back. Are, are, are weekly project meetings fairly typical on LFUCG projects? Uh, I think, uh- With, with, with local... You know, I would prefer, uh, maybe one of these gentlemen to, to speak to that because I have not been around that often. Sure. Sure. Uh, Sam Williams, I've been involved in the construction with the city for, I guess, going on five years. At my previous job, uh, before I was acting out in Streets and Roads, I was managing the capital construction projects and the project that they mentioned, Loudoun Avenue, that was one of the ones that we took care of. And the other jobs over in the first district, uh, off of Loudoun there, uh, uh, Marcellus, Darley, those streets. And mostly, the residential streets and, you know, we didn't do the, uh, level of coordination with the contractor. Generally, it was myself and the inspector. Of course, Terry was, was one of the inspectors that worked for me on those jobs and, uh, we, we dealt with it on a daily basis and it was a lot of one-on-one meetings with, uh, with the citizens and we tried to, uh... And we, we attended most of the neighborhood meetings, uh, to keep the folks informed on the progress of the construction and that. But again, dealing with the, uh, waste management folks is, is very critical to what we did. We would... Uh, of course, the, the operators knew where we were working and we would make provisions to get those, uh, those services provided and, uh... Uh, but yeah, it's, it's... This, this project, I will say, has, uh, has a level of management that we have never experienced, uh, that I've experienced here. And it's, uh, I think it reflects that in, in the, uh, the coordination, uh, uh, that we've seen. Uh, one thing that I would like to expand a little bit that, uh, a question that, uh, Councilman Myers asked, uh, Mr. Justice, uh, the... I was not involved in the, uh, North Limestone Creek project, but one thing that's significantly different, uh, it versus the one we're in now was the utility companies were given the opportunity and did, uh, relocated the utilities underground prior to the LFUCG contractor going to work. So that is, that is being included in this project so that's, that's one, one difference that, uh, that needs to be, you need to be aware of. I appreciate it. I got one more question for Commissioner Webb. It, or, and, and Sam, maybe you, you have this, but, uh, o- of the weekly meetings, are they well attended or are they sort of medium or light or... I think when the, uh, when the project first started, we were experiencing somewhere between 25 and 30 people at, at the project. Uh, as we have moved through the project, it has dwindled. However, when we, we came to key impact points, uh, whenever we shut down High Street, we had more people attending, probably back in the 20 range. Uh, whenever we had Maxwell, we were 25 or more because there are so many impacted folks that wanna know what's going on and what they can expect. Uh, this is the first meeting, uh, today since Maxwell has reopened, uh, five or six people there? About five or six people. We had more management folks there than attended. However, I still think there is a need, and what they requested, i- interesting thing was brought up that I hadn't considered, uh, ATS really steps into the background. Once they turn over the underground, the, the next piece of the, of the... ... the next phase of the project really belongs to the utilities. ATS is committed to try to get anything done during that phase that they can get done. But one of the questions we had today was, "Well, when the utilities are working their phase, will we have this same type of meeting where we can kep- keep apprised?" And I told them that, yes, we will work with the utilities. Uh, that I believe they have found when they needed to attend these meetings, that it actually facilitates their work because they know the issues up front. And it keeps people from coming out and saying, "What are you doing?" I appreciate it. I've got about 20 seconds of time left. I don't want Kevin to stop me over here, but I guess I'm a little c- confused because as many bad things has been said about this project in this room, what I'm hearing today is that you're a month ahead schedule, you... you've got an incredible and unprecedented amount of coordination that's never been seen on an LFUCG project again, so I congratulate you. Thank you. And I would like just to say that there's nobody on this team that, um, considers the people on this corridor not impacted. We all feel it incum- incumbent upon ourselves to s- to keep this project on track and complete it as quickly as we can. We realize the, the impact. However, whenever we designed this project, we also... I realized, for one, that if you lay a gas line down there, you're down to pretty much local traffic. If you lay a water line down there, you're... you know, there's such tight areas there that you're almost down to local traffic in some of those sections, with delays, that the best thing we could do for this corridor is get all the work done as quickly as we can. So get in, get everybody coordinated, get the work done, and get out, and we can... we can take what would normally be, with utilities, the type of project that takes three years or more and get it down to a year. If, if we can do this, I believe it's a major accomplishment, and if you had to make a decision about this corridor and the businesses, impacting businesses for three years is major. I'm not saying wha- what's going on now is not major, but it is extremely major. I've done a lot of work in this street in this town, and, uh, and understand and have discussed with businesses how the work that I did with the utility impacted their business, and we were... you were looking at that type... those types of impacts over a three-year period, on and off, on and off, 'til you could get to the final work. All right, um, I'm advised Council Member Crosby needs to leave a little early, so I'm gonna let you go ahead. Well, um, I was just gonna ask you, Mayor, because I have a neighborhood meeting that starts in... at 6:30, and, um, I know that there's a few others up here who have a neighborhood meeting, and we're running very low with two out sick, so I don't know if maybe you wanted to just make sure at some point that you're gonna be able to maintain a quorum. I know when I leave and Council Member Stennet leaves, you'll... you'll be losing two more. So, um, I just thought maybe you might wanna... I, I just wanted to ma- make sure that it was brought to your attention that we could be losing quorum very soon, so thank you. All right, thank you. Council Member Lawless. Um, I will, um, try to get as many of the violations I'm aware of that may or may not... alleged violations of a... alleged contract, um, to whoever, but I would like a form or a way... I was told that the proper thing to do was to give them to law, and, uh, and I just forgot about what happened last week or whenever it was, but I do have just one question. Who will be responsible for traffic management during the utility phase and the streetscape phase? It's my understanding that that's a $2 million line item. We will have to coordinate with all those utilities that have to be on the street about where they can be, how we can set up the lane of traffic through there. Uh, basically, I think the, the very best answer I can give you at this point, because at this point I'm not sure who starts first, who is still actively in there, but I believe that e- I would be looked at as the responsible person at that point, and- So you'll be doing the- ... we'll require utilities to provide the typical notifications when they do their work. I'm talking about traffic management and signage. Who, who will be responsible for that, ATS or- I believe that's still part of ATS's contract. Okay, thank you. I'm sorry. Vice Mayor Gray. Uh, I have a... one comment about the, um, about the issues that we have in this. Um, in defense of those who have presented the issues associated with this project, including the businesses on the street, you know, I, at least for three years, have been talking about deficiencies in our capacity to execute projects, and I don't think that public policy is served by praising and sanitizing problems. Nobody's saying that people aren't working hard. Nobody's ever said that. To suggest that having weekly meetings is unusual is simply ... an extraordinary exaggeration of responsible management. Anybody responsible in management of a construction project is going to have weekly meetings. I think you're nodding your head, Harry, surely. Weekly meetings, if it's an exception, then that's amazing to me. That alone tells me too much. I wanna turn though to the utility numbers, the 850,000 premium. What's the current contract with Kentucky Utilities? What's the amount of that? A million 250 thousand, approximately. So in order to shave 40 days off this schedule- 44 days. 44. Let's round it to 40. Okay. I'll, I'll be corrected. That's okay. In order to shave that many days off the schedule, they're asking for a premium of... What's that percentage? 70% premium? $850,000? I would suggest that instead of that $850,000, we prepare some kind of salvation loan package to these businesses that probably won't be alive. I think the utility company can survive, but I don't know if those businesses can. And that $850,000 premium, somebody needs to be negotiating real aggressively. That is an unconscionable number. That is a planning estimate generated by KU internally. That is- That is not an, the exact figure. This is, that is what they estimate the additional cost. They would negotiate that with the, with the contract. At your request, they would rebid their contract with those requirements in there. That price could go up and down. It was simply provided as a planning estimate. But that is an indicator, another indicator to me, of how inadequately we are managing the financial responsibilities that we have in this project. Utilities are not allowed to make a profit. They have, they cannot charge more than the project costs. And in the contract, there is a settlement at the end. If it costs more, we pay more. In some cases, we may need them to do additional work that hadn't been identified, but if their work is l- is less costly than the estimate, they open their books, we review that and w- and if we have overpaid, we get refunded. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Any further discussion? Uh, I've got... Council Member Lawless. The utility company can't make a profit, but they're using a subcontractor. I assume they can. That's all. Thanks. I got a question- Is that a question? I've got a question about the, um, signage issues that we heard about earlier today. Have... I, I think one of the points that was made is that there hadn't been an opportunity for the stakeholders, the people along the corridor to have some input about the location of signs. Is that accurate? You want to... The, the maintenance of, of traffic plan for th- for this project, uh, was submitted by the contractor. That, through his engineering firm, that plan was submitted and ref- and reviewed by the Kentucky Department of Highways, uh, when the plan was originally set up. After the signage had been installed, they came back and reviewed it again and drove the routes and approved those plans. The signage on this project changes almost on a daily basis. Uh, it changed when we, uh, closed an intersection. It changes again when we open it. It, we find that it changes on Monday after a weekend, uh, because it becomes a replacement, uh, opportunity because I think there's a lot of dorm rooms that have a lot, awful lot of construction signs on them at the present time. So it, there is a, there is a traffic management individual assigned by ATS who monitors the route also. Do we have in place a mechanism by which stakeholder concerns about the signage can be discussed with a contractor and, and resolved? It's, the signage at the stakeholders' request has, it's been discussed at the Tuesday meetings. That's, uh, the business signs that you see at the intersections and those type of things are a result of those discussions. All right- Uh, the one sign that was, that had fallen over is a s- is, is one of those signs that, uh, uh, came out of that discussion. What that sign happened to be is the sign directing people to the parking structure- All right. ... where, where they can have free parking. All right. Council Member Lawless. Are we allowed to talk about the, uh, traffic management part of the contract or not? Just you and... Sure. I mean, that's... Well, that -- that being said. Then there's -- we've been talking about whether or not there's going to be one lane open or two lanes, early- That's an o- uh, could be an alleged violation of the contract, so I didn't know if we could talk about that or not. Well, um, I don't think anybody's talking about violations of the contract. It's talking about what is being done out there consistent with the contract. Right. That's my point. Okay. Well, I mean, to that degree, if, if you wanna say anything about the contract is open for debate, then there's no point in us having spent the last hour here, because we've been talking about the contract continuously for the last hour or more. O- oh, oh, okay. So, um- Hold on, Mayor. Point of order, I think we've all exceeded our speaking time. Hate to cut you off, Councilwoman Lawless, but this'll be your fourth time. Yeah. I'm sorry to all the council members for all my speaking, but seems like a lot of big things happen in the third district. Point, point is well taken. Any further discussion? All right. Thank you very much. Uh, Ms. Westover, thank- Thank you very much for your patience. I won't be very long at all. It will be mainly in response to any questions that, that you may have. With me today, I, I'm Chris Westover, I represent the developer, and with me is John Farris, who has done the economic analysis, and Sarah Tuttle is here. She can address any issues you might have, maybe about the, the actual design of the project. Uh, based on the conversation last week, some of you all had some questions, some specific questions to which you had asked for some responses, and I can briefly go over those now. Um, uh, one of the questions was whether this developer has ever used increment financing in the past, and the answer to that is no, he has not. However, he has partnered with, uh, local governmental entities at various levels. For example, there was a parking structure that needed to be built, and he paid for a portion of the parking structure, uh, that the city built, but then the development was, uh, received a certain number of dedicated spaces. So he's done things like that. In addition, um, eh, some of the local governments where he has built projects have, uh, offered incentives in the form of density bonuses, uh, reduction in required parking, and so forth that, uh, he has taken advantage of. Uh, whether a local contractor or minority contractor would be considered, the answer is of course these, uh, types of contractors would be considered, uh, for materials as well as for labor. Uh, the developer would put out for bids and everybody locally, all minority contractors as well, would be certainly encouraged to apply, but the best bids will be selected, and the best bids may not necessarily be the lowest bids or from local contractors, but the best bid will be the most cost-effective, highest-quality bid. Uh, in terms of energy conservation and green technology, uh, a number of options are being considered but will not be definitely, um, selected until later in the final design process. Um, uh, some of the, the techniques or the technologies he's considering are use, eh, it's, uh, using waste water from the air conditioning system that would then be channeled to water the plantings in the landscaped areas. He apparently, uh, has in the past successfully used waterless urinals to, uh, conserve water. In addition, he's looking at permeable paving in concrete, um, and, uh, uh, it depends though on whether here in the Bluegrass, some of these technologies can readily be adapted, because what might work fine in one geographical area may not work well in another. Um, eh, solar energy is something else that he's looking at, but, uh, he is, he is open to all of these possibilities, but the final selection will be later. Affordable housing came up. The developer is very sensitive to the importance of affordable housing in downtown Lexington. At this time though, he cannot commit to supplying affordable housing. This is a mixed-use development. The residential component is a relatively small part of the larger mixed-use project. There are under 60 units currently being proposed for about 66,000 square feet in a project that, if you include the parking structure, is closer to 700,000 square feet. The residential portion would be built in a later phase, not the first phase. So the, the important issue here is that he will not know until closer in time what the costs are, the, the, the land acquisition cost, that's, uh, we know what that is, but the, uh, the, the building cost, we won't know what the market is for housing until much closer in time. So, um, we need to wait and just see what the market is closer in time. However, having said that- He is very open to exploring the possibility of maybe discussing with the Irvin County government, with University of Kentucky, other downtown employers some means to facilitate employees to live close to where they work. As you all probably know, most of you anyway, there has been in the past a Live Where You Work program, and that was in the early 2000s, something like that, and in part it was based on some federal funding that is no longer available. I don't know if the UK, if UK still is operating its program, because I think it had a, a supplemental infusion of money. But the point is that the developer is very open to exploring other means to, um, uh, make sure that those who need housing can get housing downtown. Um, if you have any questions for me, I'll be happy to answer them, and if not, I will turn it over to John Farris who can talk to you more about the economic impact of the development. I think Council Member Blues may have a question. Chris, I just want o- one, one short question. Uh, y- y- you said that Mr. Kracorian can't sort of predict the, the market for housing, um, but he, he has, I, I think projected a marking, market for the theater, for the- Yes. ... bowling, the retail, restaurants, and so on, so why not the housing all as a piece of it? Well, I think that he's got some general projections, but in order to predict with sufficient certainty of what the market will be when the housing itself is built is a little different, um, issue. The, the theater and that, that portion will be built first, and so those costs are closer in time in, i- in the scheme of, of predicting just what's going on. Also, there are other issues going on here in Lexington. As you may know, the, um, the, the Urban Village Project on the other side of the railroad tracks, uh, they're, the, the housing that will be built on the land trust, uh, there is some other housing, the student housing. So, um, maybe there's a little bit more flux in the housing market as well. Thank you. Mr. Farris, go right ahead. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. I'll just be very brief. I, I understood there were some questions. Everyone should have a copy of the analysis. Several more copies, if, uh, anyone did not receive it, uh, they were passed out. But briefly, uh, the analysis that our firm conducted, um, this is preliminary, of course. The state will follow on with their own outside counsel, but, uh, just looking at the project, uh, the way tax increment financing works, as you're familiar with it, look at a baseline level of revenues over a 20-year period then look at the increase and see what the difference would be, use that to help support the public infrastructure. The site remained as, as it is. It's currently collecting about $23,000 in tax, annual tax revenue. Um, going forward, uh, that would remount, uh, amount to an as-is amount of about 719,000 over the, uh, 20-year period. Um, the incremental amount that we've generated from this project is estimated to be about 176 million. After 20% is retained by both the local government and the state government to, which we're projecting through the TIF program, um, an estimated 127 million would be available from the state's program and about 13 million for local participation. It's about a ten to one match money coming from Frankfurt for this project. Um, any questions on the analysis? There's lots of charts and tables. Happy to meet with anyone one-on-one or answer any questions, um, at this time about the, about the analysis. Any questions for Mr. Farris? All right. We appreciate your coming. Thank you. Thank you very much. Takes us down to council reports. Council Member Stennit. Thank you, Mayor. Just had one housekeeping question. I noticed on the council, uh, scheduled meetings for the week, that we're supposed to have the public safety me- um, radio communications workshop Thursday night, but I understand some council members have one that says it's postponed, but the one that was printed says it's for five o'clock. Do we know when that workshop is? Commissioner Ben- It's been postponed. Do we know why? Because we, this is an int- Commissioner Bennett postponed it. Okay. I said, oh, do we wanna find out? 'Cause we need to have it, and we need to have it soon, and if we can still do it Thursday night like it was on the, the printed agenda ... I think we need to radio. I'll radio, yeah, I'll radio you to let you know. Which, which date did you say it was going to be? I think it was already printed. Theirs was already printed. Well, actually, we got a call from council. Actually, we, we did not cancel it. We received a call from council office, um, advising us that there was a conflict particularly due to the fact that you have, uh, the confirmation hearing Thursday, nine to four. Not till six, though. Oh, that's, I, wasn't that when we had this scheduled? Five to five. To five. Okay, we'd be glad to still have it. Uh, we were just advised that with everything going on, it needed to be canceled, so. Well, I mean- If you still want to have it, we'd be happy to do it. Do we have an alternative date you can do it? Uh, I think an alternative date right now, the target date was November 5th, uh, which is still before your next meeting after this Thursday, if you want to do it then. I'm just trying to understand the urgency. Two weeks ago, this was an urgent matter, and now we're pushing off a month. Well, as I said, we didn't can- we weren't the ones who canceled it, so... Well- November f- November 5th. Yeah, that's fine. Just as long we're not gonna have any other presentations before then. That'll be our first opportunity to discuss this again. Okay. Or we'll be glad to meet. If, if council prefers, we can meet between now and then. It's just a matter of getting everybody's scheduled, uh, schedules- I think we'll work on that. I won't... Yeah, I understand the issue now. Okay. And then also want to, um, thank, uh, the University of Kentucky and President Todd for hi- inviting the council over and the mayor last week. Uh, it was an excellent opportunity for those of you that have issues with UK, with the economic development efforts to be able to, to talk to the people in charge and to understand what's going on at the university, and, um, I know it was, it was time well spent over there, and I look forward to getting Lynn Heller's presentation here before this body because I think you need to understand exactly how, what critical role they play in our economic development efforts. And just, uh, uh, a note to that. Keep in mind, when UK Hospital is finished, it'll employ more people than Toyota. And that's a huge undertaking for this community, and, uh, they, they brought us over there to bring us to the table on that issue and several others, so I appreciate the time over there, uh, on Wednesday, last Wednesday. Also, Mr. O'Mara circulated the bond list. Uh, what I'd like to do is be able to schedule a, uh, not necessarily do it waiting 'til budget and finance, but have a workshop on the fourth or fifth floor like we did on the capital projects list. So I'll email everyone out, if that's okay. Um, handle it the same way we did the previous bond list, and that way, we can kinda go through this whole thing rather than sitting here in a work session and do it. I'll have some time on the fifth floor to do a workshop. Councilmember Gordon. Can you s- uh, solicit input from councilmembers about a date? Yes, I'm going to send that out. Okay, thank you. That way, we can do it and kinda work through the details- Thank you. ... before we actually formally look at this. And then last but not least, and I'll make a motion to, uh, approve the NDF for the week. Second. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Opposed, no? Motion carries. And sorry, Mayor, I have one more motion. Um, based on the discussion with the moratorium, I wanna make the first motion to, uh, ask the vice mayor to create a task force to give a comprehensive review of the Department of Building Inspection. Second. So moved. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Opposed, no? Motion carries. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Councilmember Meyers. Thank you, Mayor. We've got, um, Neighborhood Association Meeting for Gainesway tonight at 7:00. I will be in attendance. It's at the apartment at, uh, Page Creek, uh, Golf Course. And then Center Parkway Neighborhood Association will also be meeting down in the Police Roll Call Center at 7:00 this evening. Thank you. Thanks. Councilmember Blues. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, I have, uh, several announcements, but I have a question first. I, I thought that we were due for a, a presentation on, on inversions. Am I, uh, am I wrong on that? I, uh, uh, answer some of our, our questions about the whole inversion process and, and the question of how we include, you know, promoted, uh, present employees when others are promoted, and we haven't had that, and, and I'm anxious to, uh, to have that discussion. Councilm- uh, Commissioner Michael O'Mara. Um, I'm sorry, I didn't hear the complete question, but I think you were asking if we made a presentation on inversions. I can look in my office. I, I made one, and I thought that I covered the issues, so I wasn't preparing anything at this time. As I, as I understand it, that, that, that covered the inv- inversions with reference to new employees, but I'm interested in the whole question of, of how we, how we bring equity to current employees. So... Um, I tried to cover both in that presentation, but I'll be glad to come back and, and, uh, go over that component again if, if it's your desire. Well, why don't you and I talk about it? Okay. For... And, and then maybe go from there if others are interested too. Right? Right. It's an exciting topic. Thank you. It is indeed. I, I do... As I said, I have a few announcements. Uh, the Meadowthorpe Neighborhood Association will meet tonight in about 27 minutes. That's at 7:00 in the community center in, uh, in Meadowthorpe's Louie Mack Park. On Thursday evening, October 15th, two neighborhood association meetings. Spiegel Heights will meet at 7:00 PM in Antioch Church on Ferguson Street. And the Joyland Neighborhood, uh, Association, its semi-annual meeting, also 7:00 PM at 505 Kingston Road, First Church of God. On Saturday, October 17th, uh, that's at 3:00 PM, the Brookfield Chase Homeowners Association meets in the conference room at the Northside Library. And next Monday, October 19th, at 6:30 PM, the Winburn Neighborhood Association will hold a monthly meeting in Martin Luther King Park's Community Center. Thank you, Mayor. That's my report. Thank you. Councilmember Martin. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, the Beaumont Neighborhood Association, uh, is meeting three minutes ago, no, four minutes ago, at the Beaumont Center Clubhouse. If you're not there, get down quick. Uh, the Palomar Hills Townhome Association, uh, is met 35 minutes ago. And so if you're not there, please get down quick. Uh, the Firebrook Homeowners Association will meet next Tuesday, October 20th, at 7:00 PM at the clubhouse. Uh, and I saw Crumb- ... across the news feed that, according to Josh Fre- Fener of Commerce Lexington, CNNMoney has rated Lexington as the number six mid-sized metropolitan area to launch a small business. Yeah. Uh, finally, uh, Council Member Myers made a motion last week to, uh, um, to reconstitute economic development, monthly economic development meetings. I think he has left. And I guess I would make a motion that our monthly economic development meetings be held here in the council chamber so that the public can participate and watch our proceedings. So moved. Do I hear a second? Council Member Lane has seconded that motion. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion- No. Motion carries- Thank you, Mayor. ... with the dissent by Council Member Beard. Council Member Lane. Uh, thank you. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to advise the council that I'm recusing myself from any council votes on actions, uh, pertaining to recommendations of the Planning Commission with regard to the modification of commercial real estate signs. Thank you. I'm sorry, with regard to- Commercial real estate. I'm sorry, Mayor? You said, "With regard to commercial real estate signs?" Commercial real estate signs. I think it's item 11, uh, on the agenda. All right. Thank you. Council Member Lane, uh, Gray. Thank you, sir. Thanks, Mayor. Uh, thankfully, Council Member Peggy Henson has agreed to, uh, co-chair the Affordable Housing Trust task force with, uh, Council Member Lawlis. And, uh, I'm able to, uh, announce the appointment of the task force, including, um, and all council, these council members have agreed to participate, Council Member Blues, Council Member Beard, Council Member Ellinger, Council Member Andrea James. And we're also go, asking David Christensen, who was involved in the, um, earlier work, uh, to join that task force. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. A concern I have coming up here with Halloween this year, and I wanted to know what we were planning on doing with... I think the UK football game, as scheduled right now, is probably about the same time as Trick-or-Treat is on the 31st. And I didn't know what our schedule was, if we were gonna have, uh, Trick-or-Treat on the 31st or on the 30th so we don't, um, cause a confusion with all the kids on the street with the football game. That's, that is a good question. Uh, and the plan is to continue with Halloween at the fi- traditional time of 6:00 to 8:00 PM on October 31st. That does run the prospect of interfering with the, um, uh, football game that is scheduled for that evening, but we won't know about the schedule, the football schedule until probably ten days to two weeks prior to the game. And even if it were to conflict, um, my understanding from experienced people who have dealt with it in the past is it creates more problems to move it than it does to leave it where it is, uh, traditionally. So we will anticipate 6:00 to 8:00 PM on October 31st. Mississippi State. Mis- Mississippi State. Uh, and Ms. Raybill, Ms. Raybill, would you work with Ms. Drab to try to get, uh, some information out through the Public Information Office on Halloween observance? Thank you. So the public will be aware of that. I know some people are trying to schedule their plans. Anything further? Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Lawlis. Thank you. I got a call about that yesterday also and, uh, was wondering the same thing. Um, well, I was gonna announce a neighborhood association meeting that starts at, started at 6:00. So I'll just, uh, I've already talked too much anyway. Thank you. Anything further? We have some, uh, appointments. Motion to approve those would be in order. Move that we approve. Second. Have a motion by Council Member Lane, second by Vice Mayor Gray to approve the recommendations on the boards and commissions. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. That concludes the mayor's report. We have two individuals who've indicated a desire to speak this evening. First is Mr. Cobb. Thank you, Mayor. First, given honor to the most high. Just wanted to encourage the council, we got a big job ahead of us. The change that's taking place in Lexington is starting with me. I'm changing. I said before, I'm like that fiber optic cable. You don't know when it changed, but you just know it's definitely changing. And I'm just thanking God for the changes in my life. I'm finding compassion that I didn't know I had inside of me. I'm finding patience, I'm finding dreams. I'm just encouraged about the 2010 mandate that Pierce Lyons gave me to put Lexington on the map. We got to change people. We can reconstruct roads and things of that nature, which is good for geographical reason, but we need to, uh, reconstruct our hearts so we can be patient with one another, so we can love and put our hands around each other, and we can walk this walk as well as talk the talk. I thank y'all for what y'all doing. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Cobb. Mr. Farmer? And while he's coming up, let me mention one thing. Mr. O'Mara was prepared to talk about the capital improvement plan today, but I understood that's what, um, uh- Council Member Stennett talked about scheduling at a different time, so if you have any questions in the meantime, feel free to ask them. Council Member... . Well, that's a problem we should have had today. Former, Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Mayor, members of the council. Bill Farmer, 821 Euclid Avenue. First, I wanted to, uh, comment that in preparing for the meeting today, I've, uh, relied on your all's online packet, and your online packet did not have the services supplement that would have been very important for me to have read or to comment on in my estimation for you all- ... and your time of, uh, report and vote on the issue as it pertains to, uh, the parking authority in Chevy Chase. To that issue, I would just say, in, in my mind, working with the council and working with the authority, the differences are right in the names. In council, to me, you work together. You have conversation back and forth and, and you all are the public face of the government. You all are the government in, in many people's mind, eye, and thought. And the word authority sounds real top down. And the way I believe that they're running it right now, it is real top down, in terms of not being as transparent, not being as open to input, not being as open to change, or to admit potential mistakes. And lastly, it's a very tough business climate, and I'm glad we're ranked sixth in terms of starting small businesses. I just hope we can rank that high in retaining them, because the pain index in Lexington right now is pretty high, especially as it relates to traffic and other issues that come right back to getting people out, out of their car, and into your store. Today before I left t- to come down here, I watched people furiously try to use one of the machines in Chevy Chase, which did not work, and then on the way back, I watched an elderly couple who were so happy to feed a regular meter in Chevy Chase and walk away from it, because in some instances, this is almost a digital divide at your parking meter space, because people don't understand how it works or how it affects them until they drive away. Thank you for your work today, and I appreciate your service. Thank you. Uh, if there's anyone else who wishes to speak- I move that the motion be approved. ... to the council, now's the time. Have a motion by Council Member Ellinger- Second. ... to adjourn. Second by Council Member Lane. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Oppose, no. Motion carries.