# Inter Governmental Committee - November 17, 2009 > Auto-transcribed civic record · November 17, 2009 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/1120 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/1120?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2009-11-17 - **Last revised**: July 17, 2026 - **Length**: 15,562 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Inter-Governmental Committee met on November 17, 2009, at 1:00 p.m. at the Lexington-Fayette Government Center, located at 200 East Main Street in Lexington, Kentucky 40507. Andrea James presided over the meeting, which included consideration of two agenda items. The committee approved a proposal regarding Council Standing Committees and Streamlining Council Role, and received an informational update on Committee Items. During the meeting, the committee took 21 votes and heard 5 public comments. The meeting also included 2 agenda items for discussion and action. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the meeting on November 17, 2009: * Andrea James * Jim Gray * Linda Gerton * Chuck Elbinger * Tom Blues * Diane Lawless * Julian Beard * Cheryl Feigel * Kevin Stinnett * K. C. Crosbie * George Myers * Jay McChord * Doug Martin * Peggy Henson * Ed Lane No absences or late arrivals were recorded. ## Votes and Decisions The meeting included 21 voice votes, all conducted without recorded roll call tallies. The following motions passed: **Committee Structure and Terms** [timestamp: 00:11:43] Andrea James moved to change appointment terms of committees from the vice mayor's term to two years, aligning with district council member terms. The motion passed. **Standing Committees Established** [timestamp: 00:27:08] Andrea James moved to establish standing committees including Planning, Social Services, General Government, Public Safety, Public Works, Environmental Quality, and Budget and Finance. The motion passed. **Committee Size and Membership** [timestamp: 00:48:00] George Myers moved to adopt five-member standing committees with the Budget and Finance Committee retaining 10 members. The motion passed. [timestamp: 01:07:59] Diane Lawless moved to require each council member to serve on at least two standing committees. The motion passed. **Failed and Withdrawn Motions** Tom Blues, seconded by George Myers, moved to increase the quorum of five-member standing committees from three to four [timestamp: 00:27:38]. This motion failed. Diane Lawless moved to increase standing committee membership to six members and maintain 10 on Budget and Finance [timestamp: 00:36:21]. This motion was withdrawn. **Committee Additions and Jurisdictions** Tom Blues, seconded by George Myers, moved to add Economic Development as a standing committee [timestamp: 00:43:42]. The motion passed. Subsequent motions approving jurisdictions for Planning and Zoning, General Government, Budget and Finance, Public Safety, Public Works, and Environmental Quality committees all passed. [timestamp: 01:34:58] Cheryl Feigel, seconded by K. C. Crosbie, moved to approve the Economic Development Committee's jurisdiction with broad language including partner agencies and all economic development matters. The motion passed. **Procedural Changes** Tom Blues moved to change "Work Session" to "Committee of the Whole" in Section 2.204 [timestamp: 01:55:59]. The motion passed. [timestamp: 01:57:04] Diane Lawless, seconded by K. C. Crosbie, moved to replace "mayor" with "vice mayor" as the referring authority in Section 2.204. The motion passed. **Additional Amendments** Linda Gerton moved to amend Section 2.202 to specify that standing committee meetings are held in the Council Chamber or Fifth Floor Conference Room [timestamp: 01:38:21]. The motion passed. Tom Blues moved to change "removed" to "deferred" for items requested by council members in Section 4.104 [timestamp: 02:00:51]. The motion passed. **Adjournment** Diane Lawless moved to adjourn the meeting [timestamp: 02:04:17]. The motion passed. ## Public Comment Five members of the public provided comments on proposed committee structure changes during the meeting. **George Myers** [timestamp: 00:20:32] advocated for smaller committees, arguing that five-member committees would increase focus and accountability. He cited the effectiveness of LINC committees, which operate with only three members. **K. C. Crosbie** [timestamp: 01:03:22] raised concerns about the proposed Economic Development Committee structure, suggesting that including all 15 council members would be counterproductive. Crosbie argued that such a large committee would undermine the stated goal of achieving sharper focus. **Diane Lawless** [timestamp: 01:05:48] addressed concerns about council member workload, acknowledging that serving on three committees could be overwhelming. However, Lawless argued that the time saved by eliminating work sessions would offset this burden and urged council members to commit fully to their roles. **Linda Gerton** [timestamp: 01:37:13] suggested a logistical change, recommending that standing committees be held in the Council Chamber rather than the Fifth Floor Conference Room to allow for better television coverage. **Tom Blues** [timestamp: 01:40:06] expressed concern about terminology, noting that renaming "Work Session" to "Committee of the Whole" could create confusion. Blues pointed out that "Committee of the Whole" is traditionally used for quarterly meetings, and changing this terminology could be misleading. ## Contested Items The November 17, 2009 meeting included three significant areas of disagreement among council members. **Standing Committee Membership** Council members were divided over whether five members per standing committee was an adequate size. The primary concerns centered on quorum requirements and workload distribution. A motion to increase the quorum threshold to four members failed to pass. Subsequently, a motion to expand committee membership to six members was introduced but ultimately withdrawn, leaving the five-member structure in place. **Economic Development Committee Structure** A heated discussion emerged regarding how the Economic Development Committee should be organized. One faction argued that the committee should be a standing committee with all 15 council members participating, ensuring broad representation and involvement across the full council. The opposing view held that a focused committee with fewer members would better serve the goal of efficient, targeted governance. The debate reflected differing philosophies about inclusivity versus operational efficiency, though the outcome of this dispute is not specified in the available records. **Meeting Terminology** A procedural dispute arose over whether to rename "Work Session" to "Committee of the Whole." Council members disagreed about this terminology change due to confusion with existing quarterly meetings and the different procedural rules that would apply under the new name. This disagreement highlighted concerns about clarity in meeting designations and their associated governance procedures. ## Council Standing Committees & Streamlining Council Role [timestamp: 00:06:34] The council discussed a proposal to restructure the city's standing committee system to improve alignment with government operations and streamline the council's role. **Proposal Overview** The restructuring plan included several key changes: * Reducing committee size to five members, with the exception of the Budget and Finance Committee * Realigning standing committees to better correspond with government departments * Establishing a new Committee of the Whole meeting to replace Work Sessions * Adding an Economic Development Committee * Revising referral procedures for council matters **Key Participants** The discussion involved Andrea James, George Myers, Tom Blues, and Diane Lawless, who contributed to the deliberation on the proposed changes. **Outcome** The council approved the proposal to restructure the standing committees and streamline the council's role. The approval moved forward the plan to implement the new committee structure, establish the Committee of the Whole, and add the Economic Development Committee as part of the reorganization effort. ## Update on Committee Items This agenda item was included on the November 17, 2009 meeting agenda but did not receive substantive discussion. It served as a placeholder for the main agenda item and was not addressed in detail during the meeting. No key speakers were identified as presenting on this item, and no specific concerns or debate points were raised. The item remained informational in nature without generating discussion or action items. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed: Change appointment term of committees from vice mayor's term to two years, aligning with district council member terms - **Motion** — passed: Change standing committees to include Planning, Social Services, General Government, Public Safety, Public Works, Environmental Quality, and Budget and Finance - **Motion** — failed: Motion to increase quorum of five-member standing committees from three to four - **Motion** — withdrawn: Motion to increase number of members per standing committee to six and maintain 10 on Budget and Finance - **Motion** — passed: Motion to add Economic Development as a standing committee - **Motion** — passed: Motion to adopt five-member standing committees with Budget and Finance retaining 10 members - **Motion** — passed: Motion to revise language to require each council member to serve on at least two standing committees - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve the Planning and Zoning Committee's jurisdiction as defined in the resolution - **Motion** — passed: Motion to remove non-social service partner agencies from the Social Services Committee and assign them to appropriate standing committees - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve the General Government Committee's jurisdiction - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve the Budget and Finance Committee's jurisdiction - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve the Public Safety Committee's jurisdiction - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve the Public Works Committee's jurisdiction - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve the Environmental Quality Committee's jurisdiction - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve the Economic Development Committee's jurisdiction with broad language including partner agencies and all economic development matters - **Motion** — passed: Motion to amend Section 2.202 to specify that standing committee meetings are held at locations in the Council Chamber or Fifth Floor Conference Room - **Motion** — passed: Motion to change the name of 'Work Session' to 'Committee of the Whole' in Section 2.204 - **Motion** — passed: Motion to strike the word 'mayor' from Section 2.204 and replace with 'vice mayor' as the referring authority - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve Section 4.104, which replaces 'Work Session' with 'Committee of the Whole' throughout the rules - **Motion** — passed: Motion to amend language in Section 4.104 to change 'removed' to 'deferred' for items requested by council members - **Motion** — passed: Motion to adjourn the meeting --- ## Full transcript Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I will I will Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Look! Good afternoon, committee members. We'll get started if you want to get to your seats. I'll give you a minute to get here. Welcome to the Intergovernmental Committee for November 17th. today's agenda has one item, and that is the council standing committees and streamlining council roles. There is a packet. There's information in the packet. We may have some additional information coming from folks that are here today, maybe from administration or council clerk if there's additional information, and we just ask if you have information you want to share with us, Just hand it up to Vicki, and we'll get it passed out. At this time, since I put the item into committee and I was on the initial standing committee subcommittee, I'm going to hand the chair over to my co-chair or my vice chair, I guess it's called, and give the report out of the actual subcommittee, and then I'll re-chair at that point and then direct today's conversation. Council Member Feigl. Thank you. In your packet, I included the information that I submitted was a memo. It's a two-page memo that talks about the work of the subcommittee. I hope you've had an opportunity to review that memo. It is a synopsis of the PowerPoint presentation that was presented at, I believe it was a committee of the whole, maybe at about November of last year. And so we wanted to kind of give you a brief, put that in visual for you to give you a background, especially for those council members that weren't on at that time. And I'd be happy to answer any questions you have about that particular memo. But I also included some other things that I thought would be helpful in giving you background, and that was on page three of the packet, the proposed recommendations of the standing committee. And this is just kind of in a bullet point format for you. Also included the KLC research. Many of you may not know this, but Joe Ewalt with Kentucky League of Cities came in and did that research for us, for the comparable cities, and we chose cities that were of similar size and were merged government or of similar size, and also that were within traveling range just in case we needed to go and kind of see how things worked. So that information is included there for you. The top part of that sheet talks about their demographic data, and the second part of that sheet on page four is actually about their government and their population, their number of council members, what type of government they have, their numbers of standing committees, and who chairs what meetings. So we thought that was helpful, and it was helpful as we looked at our, as we've heard it before, our unicorn system of government here and how we do things a little bit different, kind of looking at how other municipalities do their legislative work. And then included in the packet is the resolution that the subcommittee came up with, and that is included in here, and that will be the basis of our conversation today, at least as I chair the meeting. I like the format that Council Member Gordon used when we were dealing with the student housing issues, which we kind of took it issue by issue, and that way we could figure out if there was agreement, we could go ahead and move on from that issue. if there were things that needed to be dealt with more in depth, we could spend that time on that or know that we need to come back later and do that. So that's the format that I'll be pursuing as a chair. Does anybody have any questions regarding the memo? And I'll step out of that role if no one has any questions and then go back into the chair of Intergovernmental Committee. Okay. Give it back to me. I'd like to pass the gavel back to you. Thank you very much. Okay. So if it's okay with everyone, we'll go through. On page five of our packet begins the resolution. And if you, everything that is new is in bold and underlined, and everything that's crossed out is the old language. So I'm just going to go through, and if I skip one over, please just kind of yell out at me. but I thought I would just deal with it section by section. Everybody okay with that? Okay. So on page six is the first change. Section 2.101 has to do with appointments of committees. The change is from the term of the vice mayor making the appointment to a term of two years to coincide with the terms of the district council members. And if you have questions, concerns, or anything about this, or I don't know at this point, and I'll take a recommendation from the committee, if this is something, if we'd like to move approval for this particular change, I would even open the floor for motions to accept that particular change of the resolution. Second. We've got a motion and a second to accept the change of the appointments of committees to coincide with the terms of the district council members. Is there any discussion? Please push your button if you'd like to weigh in. All right. No discussion? All in favor of that change, please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Okay. That's good. All right. The next change is in Section 2102, and this is where we talk about the, well, I'll read it. This actually changes the standing committees from the four standing committees that we have right now to the standing committees that are listed here. And for the sake of the public watching, I'm going to read these standing committees out. This changes, let's see, as soon as possible after the election of the vice mayor, the vice mayor should make appointments, and actually we need to change that because that won't be based on the change we just made. We'll need to make that change as well. But based on the term, oh, no, the appointments are still made. I'm sorry. So the vice mayor shall make appointments to the standing committees as required by these rules. The planning, social services, general government, public safety, public works, and environmental quality committees shall consist of five council members. And I'm going to stop at that particular change because we have other changes in that section. Is there any discussion or motion on that, Council Member Blues? Thank you. On the question of the number, are we talking about the number of council members per committee or the committees themselves? We're talking about the number of council members on the committee. Okay, and the question would be whether that is going to be adequate. We had, back when this issue was, and the whole question of reorganization was brought up, we had a good list of points to discuss from former Council Member Blevins, And he made the observation that five might be a difficult number for us always to have a quorum and to get the business of the committees done. Now, I don't have a motion to make on that, but I think it's something that we should discuss, whether five-member committees are adequate. And so we might go back to the rationale for that number. Okay. Is there anybody from that committee that would like to respond since I'm the chair of the Intergov? Viz. George, did you want to, you participated in that? I guess I was, I guess I'd say that we looked at the research on a lot of other cities and what they were doing. You know, almost all of our meetings are on Tuesdays, so it shouldn't be hard to reach a quorum on Tuesday because we're all expected to be here on Tuesdays anyway. So I don't think that that would be – when the committee looked at it, we didn't think that was going to be an issue. But we also looked at what other cities were doing. And one of the things we found that was the biggest problem was that most cities don't have two-thirds of their council on a committee. And we also looked at the fact that we have our links committees, and they have three members, and they do adequate research that the whole council depends on to make its recommendation and then vote on their recommendation for the budget each year. So we looked at it in-depthly and didn't see any reason why five would be problematic. But we also found reasons why five would work good, and that was because of the number of committees that we had and how it worked out. Thank you. I'm not remembering what the quorum would be. Quorum would be three. Three. Also, just for your reference, and maybe you've already seen this, but on page four, we did on that chart that has the comparable cities, if you look at the total number of council members versus the number of council members on each of the standing committees, it kind of puts in perspective their percentages. Council Member Gorton. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to speak as I'm not a member of this committee. And I'm not sure exactly how I feel about the number five, so I'm glad that Councilmember Blues brought it up for discussion. When our subcommittee met, I remember having a few concerns that 10 council members would not have necessarily been involved in the committee work. And I thought that was a lot of council members who wouldn't have had input to bring the issues forward. I'm not sure 10 is the right number, but I'm feeling like 5 is very few. and so that raised the question as to whether we would get to the full council with a lot of issues and have the work being done by the standing committees and because a lot of council members hadn't had input, the issues went down. So I don't know how important that is. I think it's not important in my mind to consider how many committees we have to serve on. I think that should be a low priority, and maybe a number like seven would be enough to get a critical balance, but not too many. So that's just my comment. Thank you, Council Member Gorton. Council Member Feigl. Thank you, Chair. My question really was, I actually had two things. So this is the intergovernmental committee that you're going to rename that committee? No, it's actually they're abolishing. Yeah, the names of intergovernmental and services will be gone, and we'll have the new names of social services, general government, public safety, public works, environmental quality, planning, and budget and finance. All in one committee. No, those are all separate. Oh, I got you now. Okay, those will be the individual. Yes. Got you. Yeah, it's just a renaming. I got you. Did you want to weigh in on the number issue? Well, the other thing I wanted to ask is, since I wasn't here when this discussion took place, I'm just trying to figure out what was the motivation for decreasing the number of people on a committee. Just to reiterate what Council Member Meyers said, we looked at the comparable cities and the way in which they legislated. And when you look, we had a very high percentage of people on our standing committees. It also helped, in reference to what Councilman Gordon said, it helped to keep the involvement on standing committees similar to what it is now. So you would still serve on two or three, as opposed to if you had seven committee members, you would probably have to serve on three or four. So that was, we took that into account. So workload. Yes, that too. Yes. Councilman Myers. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd also say that we also discussed the fact that all these meetings are open, and just like even when we have 10 members on committees, we have council members that attend different meetings, even though they're not a member of that committee, it would still be the same, that any council member would come to the meeting if they chose to. Also, we also thought that it would focus the group more, and that, quite frankly, with less people on the committee, everybody would be more focused and more accountable for doing the work that the committee was supposed to do because there's fewer people there to get it done. I think you referenced the links committee before, and that was the same kind of thing with thought processes. Where is the effectiveness of the committees? Where do we see it working well? And how many numbers are on that? We came up with three for the LINC committees and upped it to five for standing. Right, and really looked at the fact that when we come back at budget time, the council, the full council really does take a strong consideration and recommendation from those LINC committees, even though there's only three of them, and that means 12 members weren't a part of that discussion. So, again, we think that five will work out really well. Thank you. Task Member Blues. Thank you. I think that if a quorum in a five-person committee is going to be three, I'm a little uneasy about one-fifth of the council vetting an issue and then presenting it to the full council. I think that we all would recognize that as we increase the number of standing committees, council members are going to have to step up and be present. So I move that we make the quorum four. Is there a second? Is there a second on that? Okay. There's a motion and a second. and if you'd like to discuss, please hit your button. Councilman Myers. I seconded it for discussion more than that I would be in favor of the motion. And I guess my question would be, if you have a quorum of four and four are present, who breaks the tie? Or what do you do in that case? Well, that's a good point. I would say that if, how do we do it now if there is a tie, we could say that any motion that doesn't get a majority would fail. Period. Council Member Lawless? Maybe we could split the difference and make the committee six. The four being a quorum. My concern is that, you know, in the last few weeks we've had several council members who have had either personal or health issues and haven't been able to be here. So if we have a committee of five and two people are sick, that's a big deal. That means no business can be done. So maybe we could, instead of, you know, half the people are suggesting a five-member committee and some of the people are suggesting a seven-member committee, maybe we could split the difference and make it six with four being a quorum. Four is open for motions. Council Member Meyers? I guess my question would be we all recognize that the links have three people on them, and we all recognize that those links do their work every year. The council takes into consideration what they say when they report out. So those who want to change the number from five to any other number, I guess my question to you would be, what is different about the links and the fact that we take the recommendation from a link committee of three that creates a problem when we have five? Council Member Gordon. I have just a quick comment about the number six. I think that it becomes difficult when we make a committee have an even number of people. That's why most committees have an odd number. I mean, well, 10 is an even number, but the quorum is six. But I think if you have six, you're more likely to have more tie votes. I'm not really, you know, I think whatever we work out will work well. I do have a response about the links. The links are short-term. they're totally focused on the budget and they're not focused on bringing a variety of legislation forward that needs input in many different ways. So I think there is a pretty big difference in the links and the standing committees. But, I mean, it seems to me three people as a quorum is pretty low for bringing something forward to 15 people. but maybe it will work. Thank you. Council Member Blues. I would just underline what Council Member Gorton said, that links committees are narrowly focused and short-term, and our standing committees will be more wide-ranging than that. So I'm perfectly content with the number five, but I would like to see the quorum at four, so I'm ready to vote on that. Is there a motion? No, if others are. Okay. I have a recommendation. One of the things I think that we agree on is that we agree on increasing the standing committees. And so let me bring forward the reading of this in this manner, that we create the standing committees would be as such, the planning committee, social services, general government, public safety, public works, and environmental quality and budget and finance, and offer that as an opportunity for a motion to accept that change. Oh, I'm sorry. The motion is still. I'm sorry. There is a motion still on the floor. I apologize. Is there any more discussion on that motion? This is the one that's the quorum of four. Right? All in favor of the motion to change the quorum to four. Say aye. Any opposed? No. Okay. It fails. Any other motions? Are there any other motions regarding the standing committees and or the number of council members per standing committee? Vice Mayor. Just a point of clarification, a question. Would environmental quality take the place of today's water quality? Committee? I can't remember. It would be included. There would be an opportunity to include water quality under environmental quality. And Council Member Blues and I have had that discussion. Council Member Blues? The assumption, I think, is that the Water Resources Oversight Committee would be, as it were, folded in to or subsumed by the Environmental Quality Committee. Yes. Okay. So the essence is in that we would be moving from four standing committees. If you include water resources today, it's very active, meets once a month, routinely, same as committee meetings. So you could actually say that we've got five effectively today standing committees, at least, right? At least, if you're wanting to call. Because we have plenty of, yeah, we have lots of committees. And if we're going to be effective, I would say that will continue, that we will have more working committees. So, but we would be going then from today five active committees at this level to seven? Yes. That's correct. Yes. Budget and finance. Budget and finance. Well, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Seven with budget and finance. Planning, social services, general government, public safety, public works, environmental quality, and budget. There should be a comma after public works then because that public works is separate. Oh, okay. I see what you're saying. Yeah. You're right. Sorry about that. Okay. Seventh is budget and finance. The planning, social services, general government, public safety, public works, environmental quality, and budget and finance. Council Member Henson. I'm sorry. Just a parenthetical observation. Just from the experience of making these appointments, which actually becomes not so much making appointments, but encouraging and getting, you know, finding the willingness of members to serve on multiple committees. This is my experience, you know, as Vice Mayor, in having made the appointments, that I'm just trying to work this through. Is it going to be more or less difficult to get the willing agreement to serve on the committees? We're still just talking about an average of two committees per council member? Two and three for some, yes, the same as it is now. Which is what it is now, right. Okay. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Chair. I was just curious what would happen with outside agencies. Would that committee remain, or would it also be included? It's recommended to go under social services. Okay. And I know some of the outside agencies are not all social service. That's correct. So, but it would still go under that? That's correct. Okay. Have we looked at items in committee currently and determined, like, how many items would be under each of these committees? Paul, do you want to comment on that? Not really at present, no. Because I was just curious, I was thinking very rarely do we, of course, with outside agencies included, but rarely would we have something in committee related to social services, none that I can think of. Before you came on council, we had several, a couple of items at least, but they weren't ever able to be heard because of the planning issues took precedent. Okay. Okay. But I would just be curious to see how many items would or would there be items in committee currently that would not fall into one of these committees? Councilman Myers can respond to you on that one. Thank you, Madam Chair. One of the things that when I actually put this in the committee the very first time, the mayor had said when he came into office that he would like to see these standing committees sort of mirror the divisions of government. And that's kind of where we started when we looked at, you know, what issues are out there, what issues the council deals with on a regular basis, and then how is our government set up. And the exact example that you're bringing up is social services was problematic because Social Services, for some reason, was supposed to report to planning, which makes no sense. And with planning and all the issues that they deal with and the importance of those issues, it just never made it on the docket. For example, the Social Services Commissioner is supposed to report to that committee on a regular basis, and that has almost never happened, except I think Councilman Stennett asked one time for her to come in and report, but it's just never happened because there's not time. And so the impetus of this was partially because the administration thought it would be good to mirror the government. I thought that as well, and that's kind of why we moved in that direction. And I would agree. I think this is a great idea that our standing committees mirror the structure of our government. And I like that part of it, but I was just curious of maybe some items that we currently have in committee to make sure that they are addressed and that they would fall into one of these committees. And just to put my two cents worth in on the number, I think five is too low. So four or five would be a good quorum if the number were seven or eight. So that's my two cents. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Lawless? I'm wondering if some of these, and I don't know, I know that planning and serving on the planning committee, we deal with so many issues. And I guess some of the issues we deal with would then be in, like, public safety or public works rather than in planning. Like, I can't think of anything right now, but. Yeah. Right. You know, code enforcement issues would be in public safety like that. And building inspectors. So I'd like to make a motion that we adopt this with six members on each committee and ten on budget and finance. There's a motion. Is there a second? Motion and a second. Any discussion? I have names here on my screen, so just raise your hand if you want to discuss this particular one. Council Member Gorton. I think Council Member Blues? I think I was next on the list. Is this on this motion? Well, I'm a little confused. We're now talking about the number of members of each committee. Council Member Lawless made a motion to accept the naming of the new standing committees and make six members with a quorum of, did you specify a quorum, Diane? No quorum specified? Four. With a quorum of four. I think that's kind of an arbitrary number. I, you know, I kind of agree that five will work. I was worried about the quorum question, but that's been rejected by the committee. So I'm perfectly content to stay with the five number. I will want to address next, I think, a thornier question. That is the number of standing committees that we should have. Okay. That probably needs to be addressed at this point because we are part of our motion is accepting the standing committees as presented in the proposal. Oh, then I'll continue. Okay. I'm sorry. Well, and this is a question, and that is since as a council, we've been increasingly concerned with economic development. Economic development is not a, as proposed, a standing committee. And since we are anxious, I gather, to be more focused in our committee work, whether an economic development standing committee should not be added to the mix. I'm sure you've probably considered this, and maybe you can give me a bit of background on how economic development would fit into the proposed new structure. I can respond, or Council Member Myers, or Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I would say that in light of the changes that we've made in putting together that task force and the different things that we've tried to do and to focus on economic development, it makes perfect sense to go ahead and put economic development standing committee in place. Do you have a comment back on that at all? So you would be amenable to having a... Absolutely. Amenable. Amendable. Amenable, amenable. I'm amenable to the amenable part of that. Okay. In that case, then, we'll have a little problem here. Voting on council members, council member Lawless's motion is made because it compounds and combines the number of committees with the number of members of committees. You're welcome at any point to make an amendment or any other committee member at this time could do that. I move that we add an additional standing committee, which would be economic development. Second. All right. We've got a motion and a second, which I'm not sure how that works. Could it not have just been an amendment to? Okay. Any discussion about the amendment? Council Member Feigl? Just to clarify things for me, I thought that we had recently decided that the entire council would be the Economic Development Task Force. Is that not correct? At this point, that's the way it's always been. It wasn't a near recent decision. It's just always been that way. But that the Economic Development Task Force had not been meeting for quite some time and that we have just recently resumed those meetings? That's correct. So this is another change then that we're going to talk about with economic development because I feel pretty strongly that the entire council needs to be involved in the economic development, and I'm afraid that if it gets sent to a committee, we won't prioritize it in the same way. Okay. Thank you for that suggestion. And Councilman Blues? I think the entire council should be involved in every issue that comes before it. And what we're proposing here is sharp focus by smaller standing committees before bringing them to the entire council. So if we try to prioritize, if we try to gauge the importance of committee by the number of people on it, I think we get into trouble here. I think that what we're discussing is a new mechanism to do more work, more sharply focused, more attuned to the Council's priorities, and economic development has been one. So it doesn't seem to me out of keeping to suggest that an eighth standing committee be added. So that's the rationale behind this motion or this amendment. Now, I do have a question about the amendment, where if it, well, whether or not it passes, it does seem to me that the number of persons on the committee is another issue and ought to be split out from the coming vote. I would recommend that we do split this. I don't know if we need to do, maybe we'll vote on the amendment first, and then once we get back to the initial motion, we can discuss, Council Member Lawless, whether or not it needs to be split because the number might be something that committee members want to discuss a little bit more, or it seems like we're reaching consensus maybe with the standing committee names. Is there anyone else that has discussion on the amendment? Okay. Council Member Myers go. Okay. Do you have any more discussion on the amendment, Council Member Myers? Okay. We'll vote at this time. All in favor of Council, I'm sorry. No, this is the amendment that was offered by Council Member Blues, seconded by Council Member Myers to add economic development as a standing committee. All in favor of the motion, please say aye. Any opposed? That passes. Back to the original motion, well, amended motion, Council Member Lawless. Council Member Blues recommended that maybe it be split so that we could address the standing committees themselves and then address the number of committee members. Is that okay with you? Okay, so we'll go with that. So the motion on the floor at this time is to adopt the standing committees as such, planning, social services, general government, public safety, public works, environmental quality, economic development, and budget and finance. Any more discussion on that motion? Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just, because there were questions and comments about issues in committee, it's serendipitous that Paul included on the last page the planning committee, issues outstanding. And just a quick cursory look at this, The first three issues would go to public works. The fence regulations would go to public safety, probably. The management audit would probably go to budget and finance. Down toward the bottom, the parks master plan would go to general services. And the mobile food vendor permits, I'm not sure where that would go. And I'm not sure where permitting of yard sales would go. but I think those are clearly issues that would move to more appropriate standing committees, and I really like the realignment of the standing committees with the departments of government. Thank you. Thank you for pointing that out because that does help put it in perspective for us. Council Member Feigl, you're on to speak. Did you have a comment about the motion? The only other comment is having served on the planning committee, I think this is a good move, too, because many times when we don't know where to put things, it kind of gets sent to planning. So this will kind of help us to identify where things are more logically placed. Thank you. I'm just chuckling because that's good. Yeah. I just told her nobody's ever said that out loud before. Okay, so the motion right now is to accept the proposed standing committees as recommended. Is there any more discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? Okay. Now back to the issue of the number of committee members. Any comments, please just weigh in, even if it's, well, any recommendations, Any thoughts at all on that number or a motion? Council Member Myers. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move to adopt the five-person committee. There's a motion. Is there a second? A motion and a second. Any discussion? Council Member Blues. I thought that Council Member Lawless' motion was still on the floor regarding the number six. She pulled it out. Oh, she did? Yes, she did. She agreed to pull that out. Oh, okay. We separated it. Thank you. You're welcome. And if I could clarify, we had a question over here, that the motion would be to adopt the number of committee members as written, and that will allow budget and finance to stay the way that we have in here. That would be great. Thank you. Do you accept that second? Did you understand what he just said, Council Member Feigl? Instead of just specifying the number five, it's all included. Committee members? Yes. Okay. Any discussion on the motion? All in favor of the motion, please say aye. Any opposed? None opposed. Great. Now it moves forward. The other, Council Member Myers, was your intention with that last motion to, or maybe I should ask the committee, is there a need for us to have a vote on the makeup of the Budget and Finance Committee? It does state there are some changes to the makeup. It specifies that there will be, it will consist of 10 council members, which we just approved, the three at-large council members, the chairman of the standing committees, and one district council member appointed in accordance with the Rule 2.101, which is where vice mayor appoints. The only problem with that now, you've added an extra committee. You've added economic development. Oh, true. So I don't know where you want to pull that from. Let's see. Let's think about that. I guess we can take out the district. We'll remove the district council member. So moved. Okay. You'll probably want a provision, though, that if a chair of one of the committees is also an at-large, that the vice mayor would pick a district councilman. That's how it reads now, I believe. I'm looking to see if it's already included. Yes, it is included, and that language would not change. So the motion on the floor at this time is that we would have three at-large council members and the chairman of all the standing committees. Maybe that's the same as it is right now, so that doesn't have to be. Okay. All right. So we don't need a motion on that one. We don't need one on that. On page 7, there's some language. I'm sorry, Council Member Lawless. Excuse me. On page six, it says each council member shall be appointed to serve on two of these committees. We're going to have to change that to three. Is there a motion? That's the motion. Is there a second on the motion? How does, if there are, are there 40 total slots divided by 15? Is that, or how does this work? Council Member, there's 45 now with economic development. Okay. Oh, gotcha. Thank you. Thank you, Paul. We've got a motion and a second. All in favor, or any discussion? Yes. So you're saying that every council member would have to serve on three committees instead of two or three? That's correct. There would be a total of 45 slots. So everybody has to do three instead of what you said a few minutes ago of two or three? I'm just trying to clarify because a few minutes ago. Wait a minute. I don't know how you get that because the chairs, I mean, the committees elect their chair. So it means the committee's kind of, I don't know how everyone has to be on three, because some won't be on three if they're not the chair of a committee. I mean, you might be appointed to three, and then you're elected a chair of one of the three, which means you're on four committees. Okay, let's think through this. Okay, where I got the number is there are now seven standing committees with five members each. Plus 10. Okay, so that's 35. I don't believe you count the budget and finance. In the language here, if you read the language, it says we'll serve on two of these committees. It's not referring to budget and finance. So maybe that's throwing us off a bit. Yeah. So how does that help? Let's process through that. It's saying of the aforementioned committees, you have to serve on two of those. you should be appointed to two of those. There's an opportunity that you'll be at a third, but since we have added a standing committee. You might want to, if I can offer, you might want to suggest you'll be on at least two because there are 35 appointments now for 15 council members. So the language should say she'll serve on at least two. She'll be appointed to at least two. Yes, Council Member Gordon. I'll ask the question out loud, which I believe the vice mayor is familiar with. If the council member refuses, which some have in the past, is that then up to the discretion of the vice mayor? Is what up to the discretion? How many committees a council member serves on. What do you do, yeah. Vice mayor, what do you do now or when that's happened? if it's happening. Well, because, you know, it's worked out pretty well, actually, because, you know, you've got, I mean, we need to remember that by design, the council role was designed, you know, as a citizen model, citizen participation where people can have other jobs and be a council member. And it's part-time for some. For others, it's full-time. But there shouldn't, you know, I don't feel like there should be a penalty on those who are trying to work this role part-time. So I, you know, in encouraging participation, I certainly haven't been insistent, you know. And it's worked out pretty well because the number of committees and the available council members has worked. So I admit to anxiety on these numbers and where they're going and the requirement for three members, the requirement that each council member would have to serve on at least three committees. At least two, but you can't get the numbers without going to more being on three. We think we have. Especially budget finance, right? Do we have council members now that don't serve on two? No, I think everybody serves on at least two. Okay. But several serve on three, and four and five if you count water resources, and then once you go to special task forces or special subcommittees, then you've got a whole lot more. This is just a question. Was there any consideration of a convenient consolidation of a couple of these? I mean, when I think, for example, public safety, how often do we get issues routinely, regularly, that we process in committee related to public safety? Okay, you're talking about a couple of different things. So let's go back to the number, because that's kind of where we're focused, is the number of folks on there. And then we could talk about... Okay. I'm just trying to find a solution that might help. The one thing is if it has to do with time, if the full plan goes through, we're eliminating a work session, two work sessions a month. So that actually frees some time that would have been occupied previously if the full plan goes through. So there are opportunities for efficiency and potential free time on that Tuesday if that's a concern, if you're thinking about the time for folks. But I think we have to look at the number of people we're going to need to, that we know we're going to need to appoint to the committees. And so we're basically, we're looking at the bare minimums right now. If somebody wants to do five, that would be great for them if it works. but we need to find a minimum of involvement and engagement from these citizen representatives for the standing committee, I think. So do you have anything else about the number of standing committees? I don't see, or I see that being a problem is what I'm saying. At least two, if we said at least two. But it's going to require a number to be on three for it to work, isn't it, Paul? With budget and finance? Okay. Yeah, with budget and finance. Okay. And that's if you're a chair, right? So, yeah. Budget and finance if you're a chair of a standing committee. That's the reason I was asking earlier. We're going from the move from five, or effectively five, including water resources, to seven. Seemed like not a big stretch to me in terms of the permutations and the combinations of council members willing and able to serve on seven. Now we added economic development, which gives eight. Okay. I have a list of folks, and I don't know if it's towards this particular issue or not. I can take Council Member Gordon off, I guess. Council Member Lawless? No. Council Member Myers has a potential solution. Thank you, Madam Chair. If we went with, everybody would serve on at least two of those first six committees. Okay. The first six committees. and then we've got economic development. If we put all 15 members on there, then the six would give us 30, and then that would give us the other 15, so everybody would serve on three. And if you look at budget and finance, half the year everybody's on there anyway. Half the year we're looking at the budget. And so it goes into budget committee as a whole. That's true. Okay. Did everybody understand that? So we have 15 on economic development, 10 on budget and finance, as it currently is, and then you said six? Well, there's six committees left. Okay. Out of the eight. And we'd have five people on each of those. Five people on each, okay. That would put everybody on two of the six, and then economic development. Everybody would be on. And then you might as well say everybody's on budget and finance anyway, because six months out of the year, we all are. Okay. Thank you. And most of the time people come to those meetings anyway because they're interested in what's going on. Okay. All right. Council Member Lawless, did you have a comment about that? Well, I thought we just voted to make economic development one of these. We did, but now we ran into another issue, so that's just a solution for working that out. Okay. So. And we do have the purview to designate a number per the standing committee. So we could say we want five on one committee, 15 on another, even if it's a standing committee. So you can have a standing committee with 15 members. Okay. I don't see how that solves the concern that some people would have to serve on three committees because everybody. Okay. Well, I thought it had to do with appointments. Just clarification, because if the 15 all served, there's no appointment. So the appointments that come from Vice Mayor could be for the two. Correct. Okay? So that actually does solve it. Council Member Blues. I still need to be clear on what Council Member Myers is recommending. Are we moving up from 45 now to 55? committee positions? And that's solving the problem? It's actually moving it to 60, isn't it? You're right, 60. So I think we're I don't think we're getting toward a kind of coherent solution here at all. I think we're just trying to balance out numbers in some arbitrary way, and we're distorting the original premise, which is, you know, which is, in this case now, eight sharply focused, more sharply focused committees. So I'm not following this path very well, but I don't think I want to support this suggestion. Thank you, Council Member Blues. Any other discussion? Can I respond to that? Yep. Push your button next time. Thank you. Council Member Blues, I would agree with you on everything you said, except that if you take into consideration the fact that the full council voted earlier this year to have the full council on economic development, and that came after we did all of our research for this. So I don't think it moves away from our premise here. I just think that that was a different priority that the council set, was that everybody be on economic development, and all we're doing is maintaining that. Any other comments? I agree with that. It's just that it seems to me that given this proposed structure, a focused Economic Development Committee bringing recommendations to the full council works just fine, or it should work just fine. If it doesn't, it calls into question the entire new structure. So that's why I'm not in accord with this motion, although I understand the purpose. Council Member Crosby? I agree with Dr. Blues. Just based on, I think, when we voted to make everybody on economic development, that we were doing it because there was such an interest to serve, but now that we're going to more committees and trying to be more focused, like you said, I think that perhaps trying to get a few people to be able to make recommendations and be more focused on it versus 15 people who are coming and going might be a better option, although I do like the fact that then it helps with the numbers on the committees. I think we can figure that out another way. Just a point as the chair, just wrapping up some of the conversation, Council Member Gordon talked earlier about engagement, involvement of committee members as things come forward to the full council. And I think where it seems as we've heard from Vice Mayor that maybe it's a little bit tough to ask people to serve on three committees, that really the committees are going to be the focus of our work right now. So just take that into consideration. That's kind of what I'm hearing as the chair. We want responsibility in the committees, but we're saying let's make it to where we have an option to do less work as council members. So as we're moving forward, just keep that in mind. Council Member Lawless. Okay. So what we're talking about now is six standing committees or seven standing committees. So eight, but that's made up. So there will be each council member will have to serve on at least two, and I guess five would have to serve on three. But we also are, like you said, taking out two. We're having the Cal meeting twice a month instead of work session every week. And I know that these meetings could all be on Tuesdays when we plan to be here. And while some people have jobs and devote less time, you know, then you can take Tuesdays off. You're going to have to take Tuesdays off to be here, and it's time for people just to roll up their sleeves and man up, because some of us are on a lot of committees and task force, et cetera, and I think that people shouldn't be allowed to refuse. If they refuse, they get their name in the paper on the front page in 12-point type. Thank you, Council Member Lawless. And I'll pay the extra for the big tie. Any other discussion, Council Member Blues? Well, we could have public stocks right up here in front of the horseshoe. Did you have a real comment? No, I think that's all. Okay. Is there a motion on the table? Because I'm not aware of one, but I think we've had some really good discussion. Is there any motion regarding the motion that George said in the second was to have the 15 and 10, right? The 15 and 5. Can you restate the motion? Actually, I think I'm going to withdraw the motion. Okay. It was just a solution to try to equal out the numbers. Sure. But I do understand that I do like the focused economic development committee, and that is what we're trying to do here. So I think I'll just withdraw the motion, and we'll try to come up with another way to have parity. Okay. Thank you. Any – Okay. Thank you. Are there then any recommendations, since we've withdrawn that, that will get us to the parity? None? Oh, Council Member Lawless. All we have to say is serve on at least two committees. Okay. Is that a motion? Because there's quite a few of us that already serve on three committees. Is that a motion? Serve on at least two committees. A motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. Thank you. That passes. Pages 7 and 8 talk about each of the committees, and I'm thinking we're going to need an additional description for economic development. I think we did. Is Joe going back upstairs? Okay. We're working on, we're looking for the language to define the role of economic development committee, the standing committee. So we'll have Joe work on that, and then we'll start going through each one of these. That way, if there's anything we're missing or any changes we need to make, we can do that at this time. The first one is planning. So number one on page seven says, Planning and Zoning Committee, to which shall be referred matters relating to the divisions of planning and including, but not limited to, matters related to housing, infill and redevelopment, PDR, purchase of development rights, and historic preservation. Is there a motion to accept that language? There's a motion to accept that language? Is there a second? Okay. Okay. Motion in a second. Council Member Gordon. I just had a comment. One of the things that traditionally a planning committee has done that's not listed in here is the goals and objectives of the comprehensive plan, which is every five years. So I don't know if you want to add that. Do you think that's covered in matters relating to the Division of Planning? I believe it is. Okay. All right. Thank you. Councilman Rolalis. It seems like we're kind of aligning these with the different commissioners and divisions of government. So wouldn't building inspection be in there also? I believe you're right. I think when, let's see. Number six on the next page, public works includes everything in public works except for planning, PDR, and historic preservation, including public, including building inspection. Oh, do you see that? Okay, so they've coupled building inspection under the Public Works Committee and pulled planning out, basically, from that division of government, given it its own committee. But we can discuss if we feel like it needs to be. I was just confused because it seemed like we were trying to do it with each commissioner. It probably has to do with the amount of items that are dealing with planning. Are you okay with it the way it is? Okay. It just kind of. Okay. Any other discussion about number one? I'm sorry. I do feel like it should be the things that go with that commissioner. In other words. So you want to move everything over to. Well, I mean, that particular division of government has so much stuff, maybe it doesn't make sense, but. Okay. Okay, I'm fine. I mean, I'm open for a motion, if anyone wants to say. I would also ask for Council Member Gorton to maybe weigh in as chair of the planning for a while. How do you feel as far as the workload? Well, I guess my question would be the reason for placing it where it is, since the original premise was to align standing committees with government departments. I believe that, as Councilman Meyer said earlier, that was the basis of it, but that wasn't everything consistently that way. So some have been selectively placed in committees that don't realign it. Like planning. Uh-huh. Planning was both separate. So it's not true, yeah. I think for every standing committee, it will be somewhat more efficient to deal with all those things in that department. but, you know, I don't have any strong feelings one way or another. Were there other things pulled out individually? No, see, the thing that was pulled out was planning because of the planning committee workload. So visualize, and maybe we can talk about this, to visualize the planning and public works together, how do you feel about those items to be addressed? That is too much. That is too much, is my opinion. Council Member, I'm sorry. We'll hear from Paul from the research first. Council Member, it's been a while since we've looked at this originally, but I believe this was somewhat your, not insistence, but your recommendation that we pull planning issues out, just because in the planning committee most of the issues relate to, yeah. Actual planning. Right. Yes. I think combining it with public works would be way too much for one standing committee. So that's how we got to where we are. It's because you were saying that in planning there was too much. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Crosby. I was just going to say, too, it's being changed to planning and zoning committee, so you're still going to have so much to deal with, I think, within that. So based on what Paul said, I would definitely think these two should be separate. Okay. Thank you. No. No. Okay, so we've got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? If not, we'll take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Going down to number two, this says the Social Services Committee, to which shall be referred matters relating to partner agencies and the Department of Social Services and its divisions. Is there a motion to accept that recommendation? There's a motion and a second. Any discussion? Councilman Rolales. I would like to take out partner agencies that are not related to social services, such as DDA, Commerce Lexington, maybe LexArts. I'm just trying to think off the top of my head, that really are more about economic development than they are about social services? Is that a motion? Yes, I guess. I move that any non-social service outside partner agency be put into the economic development committee. There's a motion to remove the partner agencies not related to social services. Is there a second on that? And a second. Any discussion? Council Member Myers. Probably need a little more clarification on that. Sorry about that. Probably need a little more clarification on that because there are some partner agencies that don't relate to social services, but they also don't relate necessarily to economic development. So maybe what we, could we maybe amend that to say, because each partner agency has somebody in this government under the administration to which it reports, whether it's a commissioner or someone appointed by the commissioner. So maybe the best thing to do would be to look at where that report is and put it under that specific committee. Does that make sense? Instead of just moving them all to economic development. that we look at who that partner agency reports to inside the administration and whoever that person in the administration reports to, they would fall under that standing committee. Go ahead. That's fine. It just doesn't make sense to me to have LexArts and Commerce Lexington in the Social Services Committee. I was just trying to think off the top of my head what the outside partner agencies were or so. So I'm fine with that. So your motion? My motion is that partner agencies that are not related to social services be placed in the appropriate standing committee. Okay. Council Member Crosby. Oh, I'll keep my second. I was just going to ask her if she would amend her motion. Sorry. Okay. Any more discussion on that? Everyone clear on the motion? All in favor of the motion, please say aye. Any opposed? Okay. Page 8, number 3, this is the General Government Committee to which shall be referred matters relating to the general administration of government, the Department of Law, the Department of General Services, and each department's respective divisions. Is there a motion? A motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? Number four on page eight, this just goes, I guess there needed to be some clarification on the budget and finance, and this is added here, the budget and finance committee to which shall be referred matters relating to the Department of Finance and Administration and the divisions of the urban county courts and constitutional officers. Is there a motion? A motion and a second. Is there any discussion? All in favor, we say aye. Any opposed? Number five is Public Safety Committee to which shall be referred matters relating to the Department of Public Safety and its divisions. Is there a motion? A motion and a second. Is there a discussion on the Public Safety Committee? All in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? That passes. Number six is the Public Works Committee, to which shall be referred matters relating to capital improvement projects, divisions of streets, roads, and forestry, engineering, building inspection, and traffic engineering. Is there a motion? A motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Any opposed? That passes. Number seven is the Environmental Quality Committee, to which shall be referred matters relating to the Department of Environmental Quality and its divisions. Motion? A motion and a second. Is there any discussion on this? Environmental quality. All in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? Do we have any language on economic development yet? You want to ad lib it? Anybody want to take a stab at an environmental quality motion? I mean, I'm sorry, environmental quality, economic development. I would guess this would be a committee to which would be referred matters relating to the Office of the Director of Economic Development. Well, I might start with, I'm sorry, I didn't ask for that. No, go right ahead. Thank you, Chair. I would guess this would be a committee to which would be referred matters relating to the Office of the Director of Economic Development. It would seem to me that that committee would be the first to review TIF applications and proposals or to initiate them. It would also, the Commerce Lexington's partner agency would come under the aegis of that committee. and so there are other things, but I'm not thinking of them right at the moment, but I think that's certainly some content. Okay. Do we want to get specific with, okay, so is it Economic Development Committee to which shall be referred matters referred from the Office of, did you say referred from the Office of Economic Development? Related to the Office of the Director of Economic Development. Okay. And maybe you need to start another sentence. To the Economic Development Committee will be referred all matters related to TIF applications. Commerce Lexington. I'm sorry. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah, we haven't decided on DDA yet. Well, I think I'd put it in, and then we can talk about taking it out. I mean, if that... Well, we're already talking about that in the partner agency, so we'll have to decide through the partner agency where it should go anyway. So would you also say in all other matters related to economic development? Okay. Okay. So there's a, we have a motion. Is there a second on that? Before we finalize that. Yeah. Can we add some language in there to say including but not limited to? Okay. Where do you want that to go? Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. The Economic Development Committee, to which shall be referred matters related to the Office of Economic Development, including but not limited to... Office of the Director of... the Office of the Director of Economic Development, including but not limited to TIF projects, Commerce Lexington, and all matters related to economic development. Okay? Hope somebody got that. At this point, because it's being dealt with under the recommendation of the partner agency, it's included as a partner agency, so we're going to have to decide. Right. We have the recommendation that said that all be removed, all partner agencies, not under social services, would need to be placed under. And I'm thinking, is Anthony right, the contact for DDA? Okay. So it probably will fall under this. Do we want to specify DDA? Well, my only, I'm sorry, Madam Chair. Okay. If we specify Commerce Lexington, then I think we should specify DDA. If we don't want to specify one, we shouldn't specify the other. Okay. Council Member Crosby? I was just, why are we making this more difficult? Why can't we just say, like, what number seven says and say economic development committee, committee to which shall be referred matters from the director of economic development and all and all other related economic development i don't know how you put it but i mean i don't think we need to be specific because you're with the different partner agencies like commerce like sinton and dda because you're already going to put them under these you know we're not we're not doing it for the other partner agencies listing them specifically so i don't see why we're doing it with this one. And I think listing TIF as well, I mean, I would assume that would be an economic development function, so they would automatically fall in this committee. It doesn't need to be defined. It's already a function of economic development. Are you offering a motion that amends a motion? Yes, I guess I don't see. Or then if you do have a project, for example, a TIF project that needs to be somewhere else, like budget and finance first, because we go back and forth between those committees of where it needs to go, you're not limiting yourself to that one area, that one standing committee. What's your substitute motion or your amended motion? My substitute motion is to keep it simple, to say. Unfortunately, I don't know what it says, but I would remove the language. Okay. Do you want to read that? Why don't you have Council Member Feigel read what I'm trying to say because she has it written down? Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I think what she's trying to say is economic development issues related to the Office of the Director of Economic Development and all other matters related to economic development. Okay. Is there a second on that one? Second. Okay. Okay. And Council Member Myers. Thank you, Madam Chair. My concern would be that with this particular one, there is not a division of government to align it to. And so I'm okay with the way the original language read without this amendment. Council Member Crosby. So I guess educate me as to where does economic development fall now? It's with the administration, right? That's who Anthony Wright. Yeah, so I would say then that it does have a direct link to one of the areas. I think he was just referring to, like, say, budget and finance, public works, those divisions. See, these are agencies outside of the government. All these other ones, you know, water quality and all these are parts of government, and they fall into that division of government. These are outside of the government, and there is no division that's over that. I don't exactly get what you're saying. There's no division with economic development that falls under. So, I mean, I guess my point is, does economic development, who does Anthony currently report to? Directly to the mayor. There is no division of government that does economic development. I understand that, but it's still, I mean, there's still a direct link with the administration. So I guess my point is there is a link somewhere. It's with the administration versus the different divisions within. Does that make sense? I think the difference, just for clarity, is that there's no commissioner. There's no commissioner of economic development. So there's not a lead. I understand. So then maybe this shouldn't be a standing committee if that's exactly what you're trying to do. If that is your point, that it has to be tied into a commissioner, then maybe this doesn't need to be a standing committee and put it under budget and finance. Council Member Henson. I was going to suggest that we word it like, just like the Social Services Committee, where, and it talks, the Economic Development Committee to which will be referred economic matters and relating to partner agencies within economic development. That's basically what it says. And I would also like, well, that's not on the motion. I'll bring that up later. But I think partner agencies should be in there, but not a specific agency. Okay. So we could make what you're recommending is saying including the partner agencies related to economic development. Exactly, yeah. Okay. Well, it would have to be an amendment to the motion that's already out. And that was made by Council Member Crosby and seconded by Council Member Feigl. This is the one that I second. Actually, I might just withdraw. Well, I mean, I'll keep my motion on the table. I guess you can vote on it. But I'm starting to even rethink whether or not economic development is legitimately a standing committee or whether it should not be part of budget and finance, because everything we do in almost a majority of these committees is economic development. And so, I mean, it's vital, but yet I guess I just don't know how it fits in as a separate standing committee, and that's what I think the vice mayor was saying before he had to step out. So I'll keep my motion, and maybe it's something that if it passes, we'll just bring up with full counsel. Okay. The motion as it stands right now is that Economic Development Committee, to which shall be related matters related to the Office of the Director of Economic Development, including but not limited to, and what it says now is DDA. DDA, no, it says Commerce Lexington and all other matters related to economic development. Council Member Henson just suggested that instead of specifying an agency name that we say matters related to economic development, including partner agencies focused on economic development. Council Member Lawless. I agree with that because also I would think TIF would come in under that. And so. Do you agree with the amendment or with the original motion? I agree with what, without naming them, the partner agencies or issues having to do with economic development. Just to leave it bland. Okay. So was that a motion, Council Member Henson, when you suggested that to amend it? Okay, you've got your second. I second. Any discussion on the amendment? Are you going to discuss the amendment? The amendment is to put in partner agencies, right? Yes. And leave out the specifics. The amendment is to leave out the specific word TIF and the specific word DDA and the specific word Commerce Lexington. Yeah, I want to speak to that. Okay, Council Member Feigl. Well, because the TIF projects are a relatively new animal for us to deal with, so far we haven't been bombarded with them. But I think that it might be helpful to us at some point in the future to have this designated to at least be introduced the first time to a committee. And from that committee, then it can be determined whether it goes to budget and finance or if it goes on to the full council. But at least as a way of introducing the TIF projects, I think it would be helpful to have it designated to a specific committee. Okay. Thank you for that. Any other comments? We've got a motion on the floor. The motion, if anybody needs to be restated, I will. If not, we'll call for a vote. All in favor of the motion, please say aye. I was just going to ask if you could please restate it. I'm sorry, I took my name. The Economic Development Committee, to which shall be referred matters related to the Office of the Director of Economic Development. Comma. Partner agencies related to economic development and all other matters related to economic development. That's it. All right. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. Okay. One opposition and that passes. Two oppositions. We can decide. We can decide. Councillor Myers, do you have a comment? Excuse me. We have a question over here. Where does the TIF, how is that going to be defined, and where does it end up going? That's a matter related to economic development. Okay. So that would fall under this committee. We just took it out? We didn't take it out. We said in all matters related to economic development. We just didn't name any of them. And, you know, we can change it if it isn't working. Right. Well, we didn't, is everybody clear that partner agencies was separate, and then it was in all other matters related to economic development? Okay. Is everybody good? Okay. All right. Page nine. I'm on the right page. This is under the section related to rules and procedures related to meetings, and I'll read it, and then we can have discussion on it. the regular meetings of all standing committees shall be held on the dates, times, and locations specified in a schedule of meetings adopted annually by the Council by ordinance. Second. There is a movement and a second. Any discussion? Council Member Gorton. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just had a comment about location because on page three of the packet, one of the comments is that standing committees will generally be held in the fifth floor conference room. And then at the bottom, all cows and committees of the whole and standing committees will be televised. I know that Commissioner Rama has said he can televise in the fifth floor conference room, but personally I think it does not lend itself to good coverage of meetings. So I'm wondering if standing committees wouldn't be more appropriate in the Council Chamber. It's a question to be discussed, I think. It is, and just unless I'm missing it, the location is not mentioned in this resolution. It's only specified, right? Those are the recommendations, but that's not the resolution that we're passing today. So the location would actually be part of the council calendar of where we specify that meeting, but that's not denoted by the resolution. Okay, thank you. Unless, as a committee, we want to specify a location. Well, this page 3 says these are proposed recommendations from the subcommittee. So I would just simply make that comment to be discussed at some point in the future. Okay. Probably at the time when we're passing the calendar and discussing location would be good. Okay. There's a motion and a second. Any more discussion on Section 2.202? All in favor of the motion, please say aye. Any opposed? And that passes. Section 2.204, this is the section that talks about, is reference of the matters to committee, and I'll read it in its entirety. The mayor or vice mayor may refer any item directly to committee. Any council member may request the vice mayor to refer items to committee. Otherwise, items shall be referred to committee at a committee of the whole meeting or an official session by a majority vote. All items which are sent directly to committee through the vice mayor shall be included as information in the packet and notice given the committee of the whole meeting. Is there a motion? There's a motion and a second, and I see some discussion. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a little problem with changing the nomenclature here, the body of the council from the work session to committee of the whole. And assuming that we would still have quarterly meetings of the committee of the whole to discuss various issues, not related to any of this in particular, it seems to me that that's going to be kind of confusing. So it strikes me that we could leave the term work session or if there's some more apt identification. But work session seems to me to aptly describe what we would be doing. We'd be putting the docket together. So I make a motion to leave the name as it is, that rather than committee of the whole here, the meetings preceding every council meeting will be work sessions. So moved. There's a motion and a second to amend to change from the suggested a committee of the whole meeting to work session. It would actually leave it the same. So actually what you would do is we would just eliminate the whole thing. So you would just be withdrawing. Yeah. You would just be voting down. In other words, it's a motion to retain the original language of 2204. Okay. Council Member Lawless? It seems to me that Committee of the Whole is a more appropriate name or Council, the Urban County Council meeting rather than a work session. Committee of the Whole meeting. Okay. And this is discussion on the amendment. Well, I need some clarification because if we're making, if the item at hand is to amend the existing language, the motion that came forward was to accept the language as written and then your amendment is to go back. So do we really need your amendment? You would just be voting up or down on the committee of the whole language. Okay, so we don't need that amendment. Sure. Okay. I think everybody's speaking on this. So that anybody I was previously asking to vote yes on changing it to work session should now vote no on making any change. That's correct. Just ask a point of order. You've got a point of order. her question regarding his motion before I with the meetings the way you have them set up is it not going to be committee of the whole now that's what it's called twice a month and then council workshop that's what I'm looking at is this little so committee of the whole instead of having one quarterly based on this calendar we'd now be having two and then to a month and then council workshops. So there would not just be one quarterly meeting, correct? The council workshop is a plug-in. That's not a regular meeting. But the committee of the whole is a regular meeting, and that's what's basically taking place of work session. That's correct. So we wouldn't want to. Okay, well, my question. Okay, thank you. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Chair. I agree with Council Member Blues that I think it should remain work session. and the Committee of the Whole should be used to meet quarterly and address other issues related to the council. So I would vote against changing this from work session, even though I know the work sessions would take place twice a month, but just instead of the name of the Committee of the Whole, it would remain work session. Thank you, Council Member Henson. Thank you, Chair. There are a couple of differences, I think, that we need to point out. I think according to our council rules, the work session, the committee of the whole will be chaired by the vice mayor. Is that not correct? Committee of the whole is chaired by the vice mayor. The work session at this point is chaired by the mayor. The other thing that, and I wish Logan was here from the law department, but Glenda, you might be able to comment on this, that the work session in our council rules is kind of ambivalent on some council rules. I mean, at least not clear about some of the rules. At least that's been my discussion with Logan, is that because it is an unusual animal. and that the council rules are not clear about how this should be done or how different situations are handled. And I don't have an example. I wish I had an example, but. Did you want someone to respond to try to, or did you just want to? No, I think she's texting Logan to come in. But that's one of the things that we certainly need to be aware of if that is the case, because there would be a couple of differences here, because the committee of the whole would maybe follow different rules and procedures in our council rules than a work session might. Okay. We'll go ahead and take other comments and then come back to you when we get a response from law. Council Member Myers? I'm going to support this motion and the main reason is because of what's coming next in section 4.104 and I think we'll see that when we move through this document it's a complete package and that section 2.204 needs to be changed in order to work with the rest of the change that we have coming down the pipe. Thank you. Okay, good point. We should have pointed that out earlier. Council Member Lawless. Yes, I'd like some clarification on this. The way I'm reading this, it says the mayor or vice mayor may refer any item directly to committee. Any council member may request the vice mayor to refer items to the committee. Otherwise, items shall be referred to committee at a committee of the whole. So we can still refer, okay, all items which are sent directly to committee through the vice mayor should be included as information in the packet and notice given at the work session, I mean at the committee of the whole. So I think we're moving, one of the things that this is doing is moving us more toward being a legislative body. And I would like to take out the word mayor may refer any item directly to the committee of the whole. the mayor can ask a council person who's the legislator to make that referral or walk it on. But it seems to me that that doesn't follow the kind of direction we're going, which most other communities, states, and of checks and balances, where we have a legislative body and an administrative body. Okay. So I guess my motion would be, is there a motion on the floor? There is a motion on the floor, and I was going to ask if that, what the motion does, it changes the name, basically it changes the name of work session to committee of the whole. I was going to ask that if we could deal with that as a separate issue. Okay. Okay. So we'll keep the motion on the floor right now. We'll be changing the item. We'll deal with the other issue later, but right now replacing the word work session. with a committee of the whole meeting. Okay. And do we want to hear, do you want to say something before Logan speaks? Okay. Logan, did you know the question we have for you? I don't. I just, I heard my name mentioned and I started down that I got a couple of messages to get on down here, so I'm sorry I didn't hear the question. Council Member Feigl had a question. Okay. The discussion is related to whether or not to change the name of the committee for work session to committee of the whole rather than work session. And what I was trying to share is some conversations that you and I have had about council rules and how they apply to work session and how they apply to committee of the whole. And my understanding of our conversation was that sometimes council rules are not as clear about work session issues. as they need to be. I don't know if I'm... I think I understand what you're saying. I don't think I'm probably reflecting your comments accurately, but at least that is my perception. Well, I'm trying to recall the conversation. It's not coming to mind, but I do recall we discussed rules that apply at council meetings and rules that apply at work sessions, and I believe that the council rules address both in some fashion, but whether the rules apply at a committee of the whole meeting, I'm not sure about that. Was that part of your question, too? No, not necessarily. I think my question was, is there some reservation in, maybe that's not the right word, is there some reservation in your mind about how council rules apply to work sessions? I'm not aware of any. I'm sorry, Council Member Feigl. I'm just not recalling that conversation. It seems like we did have an issue come up one day in a meeting, and I believe Council Member Ellinger asked for a ruling on something, and I can't recall the issue. And the issue was whether that particular rule, I think, applied during a work session maybe. I'm not sure, but we concluded that it did, and I think Council Member Stenet was involved in looking at that as well. But I can't recall what it was. I remember what it was. It had to do, if the vice mayor were the chair, could he also vote? So if the vice mayor was sitting in at a work session for the mayor, was he considered a chair and a non-voting member at that time, or was he part of the voting group? So that was what that was. I know there are sometimes procedural issues that come up. For instance, if something's already on the docket, you all have approved something to go to the docket for a regular meeting. Can you do a motion to table, for instance, at a work session? You know, we've had issues, procedural issues like that come up, and that might be what we were discussing. But the broader question about can you do away with work sessions, the answer is yes. I mean, that's clearly a creature of council rule. The only thing the charter requires is that you have two council meetings a month. And so however you set up whatever other meetings you want to have, what you call them, the committee structure and all of that, it's all council rule and up to you how you want to do that. And I will tell you that the committee of the whole is specifically referenced in the council rules and how that operates. But I don't know that there would be anything there that would conflict with what I think you all are talking about. Council Member James' work from last year. There's nothing that would conflict with what is being proposed here today? Well, I have not heard all the discussion here today. I do remember we have a resolution on the council rule revisions that you and Councilmember Lawless and I worked on, and then the ones that Councilmember James advanced last year, and I'm not as familiar with those. I think Glenda may be. Did you have anything else for Commissioner? No. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Meyers. Okay. Council Member Blues. Thank you. My only concern here is to keep things straight and separate. I know that there are issues that we take up at quarterly committee of the home meetings, citizens advocate report, we're currently taking up the core staff administration in the council office and so on, that aren't fitting into this scheme. So it does seem to me that that heading should be reserved for those quarterly meetings and that there's no real reason to, no compelling reason, to change the terminology here to describe what will be the bi-monthly meetings to establish the docket for council meetings. Councilmember Feigel. Just in response to the quarterly meetings, I don't really believe that this would preclude us from dealing with any kind of issues that have previously come to us on a quarterly basis. In fact, it might expedite some of those issues if we are meeting more frequently than quarterly. So I see this as a benefit to us in dealing with extra issues because we're meeting more frequently. Okay, thank you. One thing that I will point out, which is maybe neither here nor there, but with our current Committee of the Whole, we do have quarterly, but we also have them as we need to call them as well. So right now we do have varied Committee of the Whole meetings, And we can also offer agenda items for that. So kind of the process we've laid out for this, we can give those items to Vice Mayor Gray. As Kelly, who's coming to talk about retail, that was something that came out of a discussion that council talked about. So we do, I think that committee of the whole structure leads to that sort of recommendation ability of the council members to initiate that, which maybe could happen with a different name too, but that's just the way it works now. So the item on the table now is a change of the name from work session to committee of the whole. Is there any further discussion? All in favor of the change, please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? No. Got two against. Wow. Okay. That passes. Okay, committee, let's take a look at, we only have little ways to go. I don't know how much detailed information. Let's just try it. We've got nine minutes. We were going to separate out the mayor thing. Would you like to make a motion? Yes. I would like to move that we strike the mayor. Oh, that doesn't sound nice. Nothing personal. It's just policy and procedure and process. The word mayor? Yes, that it be, that that paragraph start with the vice mayor may refer. Okay. Okay. There's a motion that the language of mayor or be stricken from the section 2.204. Is there a second? Second. There's a motion and a second. Council Member Crosby. Would you then add in the next sentence the mayor or any council member may request the vice mayor to refer items to committee? Would you accept that? Okay. Yes, please. All right. Any further discussion? Vice Mayor? Yeah. I'm just curious as to the procedurally, what does this help me? I'm trying to think since I've got that role right now. What would that represent in terms of just, yeah, Council Member Gorton. She hit her button quickly. You're good at this procedure stuff, so help me. Yes, ma'am, I did. Well, it happens right now. when either the administration asks a council member to walk on an issue or you are asked to place something in a committee. I think it's not really that much different from what we do now. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Other discussion? All right. We'll take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? All right. That passes. unanimously. Section 4 deals with rules and procedures and used to be work session is now replaced with the word committee of the whole. And here you go. Here would be the format of the committee of the whole agenda. So as you talk about where would things go and how it would be placed, this is how that would fill in. I can read I can read all of this. It really is a replacement of Committee of the Whole everywhere where it said work session. Nothing changes. Of course, if you look at the agenda items, you can see the process there. There's a public comment, the approval of the summary, the same process, docket approval. There's some things that are stricken there, but the new business items, continuous business is there, Council report is there, public comment, and again, a replacement of work session with committee of the whole. We've got a motion and a second to approve the entirety of Section 104, which would take us through the rest of the packet. Any discussion? Councilman Blues. Thank you, Chair. I have a concern about item F at the top of page 12, which reads, Before acting on a motion to approve the docket, any individual item listed for first reading shall be removed upon the request of any Council member. Items so requested shall be removed and added to new business as separate agenda items. It seems to me it would be that the transaction involved here would be clearer if we said that any individual item listed for first reading shall be deferred upon the request of any council members. Items so deferred shall be added to new business as separate agenda items. Okay. We're not really removing them. We're simply deferring them, removing them for further discussion. So that's my motion. There's a motion and a second to change the language in F. Any discussion on that amendment to that language? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, good. Any further discussion on the Section 104 amendment? or motion? If not, all in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? Passes. Thank you all very much. We did it from top to bottom, didn't we? Council Member Lawless? I have a question. Will the council clerk still be staffing the council of the whole meetings? The committee of the whole meetings? Yeah, whatever. The cows. the council clerk, is that who you meant to say? Yeah, I mean, is that, and did we clarify if the vice mayor was, as chair, would be voting? Oh, yeah, that was only in that case before. We actually have in this committee, there's a recommendation from Susan Lamb's office and Commissioner Askew that we're going to need to discuss, that we'd like to discuss. We don't have time at this point to do that. That's fine. I just wanted to clarify. But I'm thinking about calling a special meeting of Intergovernmental before we break. This issue, I just heard something about the presiding officer, a committee of the whole meeting, and there may be an issue with that. Okay. So I don't know. I'm not. We can research it. Yeah, because in committee of the whole right now, I believe he votes. No, I think the issue is who presides over a meeting where there's docket approval done. Okay. Which is a different issue than what we've got right now. So I'm not sure, but I can get you some information about that. And I am going to look for a meeting date for a special meeting before we break. It will be tough to do. Council Member Gordon. I had a quick procedural question. Okay, you'll be reporting this out to Council. Yes. and is the hope that this will be worked into enough detail that it will take effect January, or are you hoping to take some time to work out all the detail? My goal would be January as far as a calendar is concerned. We know that Susan is going to panic about some of the clerk issues, but we will need to work some of those things out. but there are certain processes that can go ahead and be enacted as we phase other things in. So we need to ask the council, if this passes council with first and second reading, then we need to pass a calendar before we go on break, which will need to be redone. Yes. Okay. Susan, is there something urgent that you need? I was just wanting to make sure that it was understood that the council clerk's office does not staff the committee of the whole. Oh, she meant to say council administrator. Sorry. I'll make sure. All right. Okay, be looking at your calendars for any free dates because we're going to probably need to meet again. A motion? Motion to adjourn. All right, motion and a second. On favor, aye. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.