# Council Work Session - November 17, 2009 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Council · November 17, 2009 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/1121 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/1121?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2009-11-17 - **Body**: Council - **Last revised**: June 18, 2026 - **Length**: 26,458 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude Sonnet. Speaker labels and verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council convened for a meeting presided over by Mayor Newberry. The session featured two informational agenda items: a presentation on the Emerald Ash Borer and an update from the Airport Board. Over the course of the meeting, the Council conducted 8 motions and votes, while no public comments were heard. The meeting was primarily informational in nature, with both agenda items resulting in presentations rather than legislative action. ## Attendance The Council meeting on November 17, 2009 was well-attended, with 15 of 16 members present. **Present:** - Council Member Gorton - Council Member Ellinger - Council Member James - Council Member Meyers - Council Member Blues - Council Member Stennet - Council Member Gordon - Council Member Lane - Council Member Hinson - Council Member Lawless - Council Member Crosby - Council Member McCord - Council Member Wallace - Council Member Ehler - Vice Mayor Gray **Absent:** - Council Member Beard No members were recorded as late. ## Votes and Decisions All motions at the November 17, 2009 Council meeting passed by voice vote. No roll call votes were taken, so individual member tallies are not available. - **Approval of the Docket** [timestamp: 00:01:59]: Moved by Council Member Gorton, seconded by Council Member Ellinger. Passed by voice vote. - **Approval of the November 3rd Summary** [timestamp: 00:02:31]: Moved by Council Member James, seconded by Council Member Gorton. Passed by voice vote. - **Approval of Budget Amendments** [timestamp: 00:03:02]: Moved by Council Member Gorton, seconded by Council Member Meyers. Passed by voice vote. - **Approval of New Business Items** [timestamp: 00:03:35]: Moved by Council Member Blues, seconded by Council Member Meyers. Passed by voice vote. - **Establish an Enterprise Fund for Code Enforcement** [timestamp: 00:24:47]: Moved by Council Member Gordon, seconded by Council Member McCord. Passed by voice vote. - **Review and Revise the Hearing Ordinance for Fines** [timestamp: 00:36:54]: Moved by Council Member Gordon, seconded by Council Member James. Passed by voice vote. - **Move Recommendation Number Five to the Building Inspection Task Force** [timestamp: 00:38:04]: Moved by Council Member Gordon, seconded by Council Member Figle. Passed by voice vote. - **Create a Work Group for the Moratorium**: Moved by Council Member Gordon, seconded by Council Member Lawless. Passed by voice vote. No timestamp is available for this item. ## Contested Items - **Airport Board Audit and Reimbursements:** The Council engaged in heated discussion regarding the handling of inappropriate expenses identified in a state auditor's report, as well as the implementation of new policies in response to that report's findings. The discussion centered on how the Airport Board had addressed the audit's conclusions and what steps were being taken to prevent similar issues going forward. No additional details regarding the specific individuals involved, the dollar amounts in question, or the resolution reached are available from the meeting record. ## Emerald Ash Borer Presentation [timestamp: 1:05:01] Karen Angelussi presented to the Council on the threat posed by the Emerald Ash Borer to ash trees in Lexington. The presentation was informational in nature, focusing on the potential impact the invasive pest could have on the town's tree population and the need for the community to develop a plan to address the issue. The Emerald Ash Borer is an invasive insect species known for killing ash trees, and Angelussi's presentation highlighted the scale of potential tree loss that Lexington could face as the pest spreads. The presentation underscored the importance of proactive planning to manage and mitigate the damage to the town's ash tree population. No formal vote or decision was taken as a result of the presentation; it served as an informational briefing to make the Council aware of the issue and the need for a coordinated response going forward. ## Airport Board Update [timestamp: 1:32:18] Bobby Owens delivered an update to the Council on behalf of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Airport Board, covering recent developments in airport operations and governance. Key points of the presentation included: - **New AirTran Service:** Owens reported on the addition of AirTran service at the airport, representing an expansion of airline options available to travelers through the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Airport. - **State Auditor Recommendations:** The Airport Board has been working on implementing recommendations issued by the state auditor, indicating ongoing efforts to address findings from a prior audit and improve operational or financial practices at the airport. The update was informational in nature, with no vote or formal action taken by the Council. No specific concerns or debate were noted in the record for this agenda item. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of the docket - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of the November 3rd summary - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of budget amendments - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of new business items - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Establish an enterprise fund for Code Enforcement - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Review and revise the hearing ordinance for fines - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Move recommendation number five to the Building Inspection Task Force - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Create a work group for the moratorium --- ## Full transcript Work session agenda today is public comment on issues that are on the agenda. Does anyone wish to address the council? All right. We do have a docket to approve, is there a motion? Move approval. Second. Council member Gorton has moved to approve the docket. Council member Ellinger has seconded that motion. Is there any discussion? All in favor, please say, "Aye." Aye. All opposed, no. Motion carries. We also have an approval, uh, of a summary on the agenda for today. Is there a motion to approve? Second. Council member James has moved to approve the November 3rd summary. Council member Gorton has seconded that motion. Any discussion? All in favor, say, "Aye." Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. We also have some budget adj- amendments today. Move approval. Do I hear a second? Second. Council member Gorton has moved to approve the budget amendments. Council member Meyers has seconded that motion. Any discussion? All in favor then, please say, "Aye." Opposed, no. Motion carries. And that brings us down to the new business items, item five on the agenda. Is there a motion to approve? Motion to approve. Council member Blues has moved to approve the new business items. Council member Meyers has seconded the motion. Any discussion? Council member James. Thank you, Mayor. Um, I had question on, questions on two items, um, G and T. I can start with G, if, um, it's the, um, TIF. If... Would you like to come, Chris, come forward- ... and just have a question? Um, we have within our packet today the participation agreement, which I guess will be submitted to the State. Yes, that's correct. Okay. Assuming the council approves the TIF ordinance. Okay. Um, my question was, has Mr. Kirkorian made any changes based on the comments that any of the council members have made in the... I know we've had maybe two opportunities to ask questions. Have there been any changes made to the proposal? Uh, he... We came to work session, I suppose, about a month ago and, um, made a number of clarifications. I think you might be referring specifically to, uh, some provision for affordable housing. Is that correct? Is that what- That's one of them, yes. Um, uh, we discussed that at length, and it, he cannot commit at this time to actually doing that, because there are a number of programs and it's hard to determine exactly what an affordable housing program is. There are state regulations and federal regulations and so forth, and there are some, uh, funds that are severely depleted. But what he has committed to do, and, um, uh, he's very agreeable to do, is to see if he can enter into negotiations with the Irving County government, uh, possibly UK, any other downtown employer, to see if some sort of agreement can be worked out, similar to the Live Where You Work program. I don't know if you were on the council when this came about a few years ago or not, but it was a way to get employees who wanted to live close to where they work into, uh, uh, affordable housing in downtown Lexington. So he is willing to, um, um, uh, pursue that further. But he doesn't have any proposal to submit today in conjunction with the participation agreement? No. Towards that? No. Okay. But, um, a- as I said, he is very happy to, to discuss that. Okay. Um, what about the displacement of the residents that are in the... ... and the houses that are there. Have you worked on any relocation plans or package for those folks? The -- the footprint... I think what you're referring to is, there's a large footprint and the actual development is being proposed for an area, uh, on a little bit less property. Those residences there are not, at this moment, intended to be part of the project. But if over time they become available, then they could be incorporated into the project. So, as a result of the participation agreement, nobody is gonna be relocated. And if people continue to live there for the next 20 years, um, uh, uh, they're not affected. But in the event he can acquire an option, acquire the property, then it would be included in the TIF district and part of the, um, that could be included as part of the tax increment financing proposal. Okay. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Thanks, Mayor. And I had a question on T, but I'll come back to it if Council Member Stennet has a question on this same item. Okay. Item T is, I think, Dr. Helm? How are you? I'm fine. Good. Um, I read through the information submitted. Is it... The person that we're, that will be hired, is that... Will that person be an employee of Irving County Government? No. Of Reach? That is correct. Okay. Is this a new hire? Do you know? I believe it is. Okay. And is there a... I saw what their tasks were, but is there a job description? Reach, since the employee will be an employee of Reach, they are the ones that are, um, designing the job description, um. Okay. Can you ask that they submit that to us before this gets on for a second reading? Sure. Thank you so much. That's all I have, Mayor. Thank you. Any further, uh... Council Member Stennet. Thank you, Mayor. I have a question on A. Just want to clarify because the question was raised two weeks ago, where are the maintenance dollars for when we accept this right away? Where, where are the maintenance dollars are gonna come from? And, uh, I think we have an answer. I just want to make sure all the council members understand, um, where our future maintenance dollars will come from before we accept this piece of property. Can anyone answer that? I know, um, I see Charlie back there. I don't know if it's yours, Charlie, or engineering's. Commissioner Webb's coming around. Mayor. Mr. Martin. The, uh, the, uh... I believe the question from last time were the uses of the greenway and how it would be maintained, where the money was coming from. Uh, the greenway will be, will serve as a greenway. It will also include a, uh, sanitary sewer easement for the Leaseway Sewer Project, and the money for maintenance on the greenway will be provided through water quality. I assume the sanitary sewer user fee will pay that, if it's a sewer easement? The actual maintenance of the greenway would be for things like removal of invasive species like honeysuckle and those type of things. As you recall, in the water quality management fee, we had allocated a cost center for greenways, stream maintenance, and other maintenance. That's how the maintenance of greenways that have an environmental component will be, will be maintained. That's the funding source. Uh, the management plan, as you and I talked about last week a little bit, uh, there was a fairly extensive meeting last week on, on, on coordinating our greenway plan in such a way as that recreational type of greenways are managed in a recreational manner, where environmental ones are managed in an environmental manner, and when they fit in both that there's an appropriate sharing of costs. But we're still working on having that. I think we still need to have a ways to go with that plan, but at the same time, we're comfortable with accepting the greenway because there are dollars to maintain them. And that was from the stormwater fee, right? Yes, sir. Thank you. Mayor, on item E, just this is the agreement with, uh, Kentucky Utilities for banner light pole, uh, put, to put banners on our light poles. It says in here, "Within the urban services boundary." So is, are we opening up every light pole to a sponsor or are we, are these just the ones downtown? I think that needs to be clarified because, um, if we start putting these in residential neighborhoods, we're gonna have some issues. And maybe someone from your office can, can address where we're talking about. 'Cause I know that's been a contentious issue downtown as to who we let put on, put a banner on the light poles and this says, "Lexington Urban Family," the whole area, so. I'll let Ms. Rabul correct my understanding if it is, uh, not correct, but my thinking was we were trying to, um, draft it expansively so we could have the opportunity if there was something outside the downtown area that somebody wanted to decorate, fine, but there are no immediate plans to go beyond the ones downtown. But this would allow the whole city to put a banner on almost any light pole? Uh, theoretically, I suppose. There's some practical limitations on that. Sure. But, uh, theoretically that, that would be the case, as I understand it. Okay. Very good. And then item F, maybe, uh, Commissioner Rumpke or Mr. O'Mara can answer this, but this is another set of IRB bonds and, uh, the council's having a bond workshop Thursday night to talk about our bonding issues. Um, do we have clarification yet as to whether or not the IRB bonds are being looked at from the rating agencies and being counted against the city's bonding capacity going forward or our bonding ratings? Because we're, we're seeing more and more of these come through here, and, uh, there, there is a question as to ultimately whether or not IRBs really do count against us when m- the, uh- ... Moody's and Sanders and Poors comes to look at, um, our bonding? At this time, we don't have clarification on that, um, Council Member Stennet. Uh, it- it is a factor in our overall look at the urban county serv- uh, urban county government's, um, overall financial health, but it's not being counted against us. We do have, uh, clarification on that piece, but the overall bonding capacity, which we're gonna be obviously talking about on Thursday, we do not have a clarification on that from the rating agencies. All right. Has that already been requested from them and we're just waiting on the answer or... The- I- I have a request from bond council to talk about that. I did not go back to the bond rating agencies about that. I'm sorry, I said, "Bond council," I meant the, um, the financial provider like a Hilliard Lyons or someone like that. Those are the kinds of questions we have talked to them about, but we have not talked to, uh, the actual bond rating agencies about the IRB. I'm happy to do that. I- I think we- Well, I think with- with our current outlook and- and what's been going on with the- the bond markets, I- I think that would be something we need to have 100% clarity on as this body, 'cause this is- this is a- a third one we've had in a month come through here. Well, a- again, we have been told that it does not count against our capacity, but I know you want to have a followup on that, and I- and I'm- I'd like to talk to you about that whole rating process as part of our Budget and Finance Committee as well. That'd be great. Thank you. If that'd be all right? Thanks. I appreciate it. Thank you, Ma'am. Thanks. Council Member Gordon? Thank you, Mayor. Uh, is Commissioner Webb still in the house? Oh, I had a question about item D on new business, which is the, um, change order with the Cadentown for Sales Road Sanitary Sewer Project. And maybe Bob Baird is the person to ask? We do have Bob here to explain that, yeah. You're a tag team? Okay, very good. I just had a curiosity question. Um, this is a change order, and one of the reasons for the change order is to accommodate future development so can you... There was no detail about that future development on page 23 and 24, so can you detail that a little bit for me, what that future development is? Um, it's- on the face of it, it- it's a little misleading I think. The- the situation that we were looking at that we needed to address was at the corner of Cadent Lane and Old Liberty Road. There's a- a, uh, fairly large property of developable size, and the property is split diagonally by a drainage channel so that you have... The entire property would not be future- would not be developable in the future without, um, having a portion of their sewer run aerial. So what- what we have to do when we design these sewers is, we're not designing them to support development per se, but we need to develop the sewers at- at a location and an elevation such that they can be tied into by future developments without forcing a development to have a pump station. And how did you determine what size then? What size of pipes? Um- There's no development there yet. The property is- is just several acres, so it's- it's well within the threshold of the- of the eight-inch line that we were installing anyway, um, so that's... The one other thing I might bring into this is that we extended, um, one of our lines about 50 feet, and we lowered it slightly and by being able to do that, we were preventing Old Liberty Road, now called Cadentown Road, from being cut again in the future, and putting those people back through some of the disturbance they've already had to live through with the sewer project. That- that makes sense. Can you tell me on page 23 then, what portion of the change order is for new development? Is for that extension? Mm-hmm. Um, I really can't... We had... Because we had to adjust so many of the- the lines, the deeper the line the more it costs us to- to install it, the way this contract was configured. And this change order did a lot of shuffling because we- we hit utilities and had to adjust the elevations of our lines. I can get that number for you. So... O- okay. Because when you get this request from the construction company, do they not line out what the detail of the change order is and how much goes for the new development and how much goes for the underground utility problem? Um... Or do they just give a... It's... Actually, we're the ones that- that pull together all the items that- that comprise the change order. Uh, we work with the contractor to make sure our- our figures match his figures. I would... If you could give me that detail of what part of this is for the new development, I would really appreciate it. Be glad to. Thank you. Council Member Feigl. Thank you, Mayor. Um, Commissioner Webb, my question is for you. On the same item, I was gonna raise this issue too. Um, and I just want to try to s- make sure that I understand what, what the explanation was. Um, they are having to upsize the, the pipes in order to accommodate new development on a different piece of property, correct? If you don't mind, I would like Mr. Barrett- ... to answer that, that question. It, it has to do with making sewers accessible. Mm-hmm. I'm sorry, could you... Would you mind repeating that? I'm just trying to clarify, um, what I thought I heard you say. Okay. And my question is, that this change order is to upsize the pipe in order to accommodate new development on a different piece of property? Um, no, ma'am, it wasn't. It wasn't upsizing. The, the line that we laid was all eight-inch line and that was, that's of sufficient size to serve the entire area that was unsewered. What we did need to do, um, was to change the elevation of the line a little bit. We had to make it a little bit deeper, uh, realizing or honoring the, the topography of, of the piece of property that would, would at some point develop in the future and would need gravity service. Okay. And so then my question is for you. So- I see that confused look on your face. Let me see if I can- I understand exactly what he said. Um, my question is, is when the RFP is sent out, um, do we not anticipate future development and do we not require that? As a city, do not, do not, do we not require additional, um, equipment to accommodate future development? I think this had to do with the- ... elevation of the sewer, not- Right. ... not the size. Right. Is that, that this parcel of land- Mm-hmm. ... was sloped in two directions. In order to make, make it accessible to the sewer, after the design was done, they had to go... They realized they had to go back and lower the sewer. Now, whenever you lower it, sewers are typically put in, uh, there's depth ranges- Mm-hmm. ... and if you get into the next depth range, then that increases the cost of your sewer. Also increases the cost of your back, your backfill material. Mm-hmm. And it can increase different items. And that's really what the change order was for, is for- To lower. ... getting it lower to make another piece of property accessible. There... Anything you wanna add to that? And, and so that was not in the original bid, that, that- Not that change in depth. It was not accounted for in the original bid. And so we don't anticipate any additions to our sewer lines. We just... We don't build that into our requirements? That we en- in- anticipate a new development that's gonna require a sewer at that level? No? Yes. When we design these sewers, we do, we do try to anticipate the, the properties that, in the future, will develop and will need to contribute to that sewer. Um, the difficulty on this, this particular line that we had to extend 50 feet is that there... When the plans were prepared, they stopped at a lot that was not part of the same tract. Right. It stopped one lot short- Mm-hmm. ... basically. So we, we had to extend it in order to be able to pick up the large future service from the large lot. Okay. I guess I'm not, I'm not communicating my concern. I think that should've been in the original plan, is to be able to accommodate future development. That's, that's what I'm suggesting. And so the change order is because we didn't plan ahead, basically. The change order makes up for the construction methods that we would've needed to ultimately use had, had the anticipation been there to, to do it the first time around. Okay. And my other concern, i- if Commissioner Webb could address this, is that with this change order now, the total amount of the contract exceeds the next lowest bid amount. That's the way I'm reading this. The next lowest bid, bid amount including the, including the actual changes? Well, I'm looking at this detail in our, on page 24. Do you have this? Got it with me. This, this was the original bid. Mm-hmm. Then you add all the change orders. This is what we came up with. And this was the next lowest original bid. Mm-hmm. So it wouldn't be a matter of adding this to this one. Some, some- Yeah. Th- the, the next lowest bid, the item that's showing the next lowest bid- Mm-hmm. ... does not include the amount of the change order. So- Right. We would've done this because it would've... If they would've been the selected contractor, they had done this project, and we... After the design was done and the bid was done, we had to lower the pipe, there would've been a change order for that contract also. I understand that. Yeah. I guess my, my real concern is that it wasn't anticipated in the beginning and that we had to come back and redo it. That's my real concern. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. Motion on the floor is to approve the new business items. Is there any more discussion? Seeing none, those in favor of approving the new business items, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Oppose, no. Motion carries. Uh, we're now down to our, uh, presentations, and the first one is, uh, Special Planning Committee. Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. The Planning Committee met in special session October 27th at 9:30 AM, and we had one topic on our agenda, which was the Student Housing Task Force. And from that meeting, I have several motions, which I will move forward to the full council. Um, we had two, um, areas of motions, expanded enforcement and expanded policy. The first recommendation was to approve adequate abatement funding each budget cycle for the Division of Code Enforcement. And the motion, which I'm bringing forward today is to establish an enterprise fund to put a maximum of $200,000 per budget to Code Enforcement's budget every year. So moved. I have a motion by Council Member Gordon, a second by Council Member McCord, but I'm not sure, uh, I follow exactly what you're proposing here. Uh, this motion is the second motion on page 71, which is the amendment. The first motion was to put $200,000 in the budget for Code Enforcement for, um, abatement, and it was amended, as you see, the second motion, to establish it as an enterprise fund from the money that comes back from Code Enforcement abatement. I guess what I'm trying to ascertain is, what's the effect of this motion on the budget process, either the current budget or the, the future budgets? Because I'm not sure that short of a budget ordinance or budget amendment we can have any impact on the, on the current budget. This is meant to start with fiscal year t- uh, fiscal year 11. And, um, so it's not... It would have no impact on the current budget. All right. So, i- in effect, is this a resolution of the council expressing a preference to have a $200,000, uh, enterprise fund for Code Enforcement next year or is it something else? I'm not, I'm not clear. E- every year starting with fiscal year 11. 'Kay. And the problem is, Mayor, that Code Enforcement runs out of money. So- I, I understand. I mean- And I like the idea of having more money in Code Enforcement, so it's no disagreement about, about the substance here. It's just, I'm trying to figure out what the impact of this is, and whether it will have any bearing on, on, um, the budget next year. I mean, suppose next year, wisdom of the council is we need to put 150 or we need to put 300,000 in, what, what impact does this motion have? This was all discussed at our planning meeting, and this $200,000 was a number which David Jarvis, Division of Code Enforcement, brought forward to us as money that he felt could fund the full year for abatement. He, he runs out of money now, halfway through the year. Right. I'm just trying to figure out what impact this will have on the budget process next year. Um, because at the end of the day, the budget's gonna have to be approved by ordinance in next June. Well, what... I think basically what it does is when money comes back into the general fund, it won't go to the general fund. It'll go to Code Enforcement for the abatement. Money is recovered from abatement, and right now, it goes to the general fund. In the future, with this enterprise fund, it will go straight back to Code Enforcement with a cap of $200,000. All right. Um, well, we'll throw the floor open for discussion of that motion. Is there any... Council Member James? Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to clarify with Council Member Gordon that maybe the motion really does need to say, "The recovered funds-" Yeah. ... relate it to Code Enforcement. Because the way it reads right now, I can understand the mayor's confusion 'cau- Yeah. But I'd like to see the, it amended to say... I don't know what the right terminology is. Recovered. Recovered funds. Is good. Mm-hmm. All right. So, there's a friendly amendment that will say there are 200,000... To put a maximum of$ 200,000 in recovered funds- Mm-hmm. ... to Code Enforcement's budget each year, beginning in fiscal year 11? Mm. Yes, sir. All right. Is that acceptable, uh, Council Member McCord? I think you had the second. Council Member McCord, is that proposed friendly amendment okay, Council Member James? Is that all that you had? Okay. Council Member Lane? Uh, Council Member Gordon, uh, my question is, when you did this to your committee, did you, uh, check with our accounting department to see if this creates any internal audit issues for, um, the handling of those funds? Uh, we did not. There are several enterprise funds in our government, and, you know, the, one of the problems with the student housing issue is there are not enough funds for abating- ... the violations of code enforcement. And the committee voted for this feeling that it was a better way to be sure that funds are there. Um. Okay. So, but that didn't really answer my question. Does it create any accounting issues for the, our county department, how to handle that money? We'll let Mr. O'Mara attempt to address that. I'd have to say that my answer's gonna be inadequate. I would need to check with Mary Fister, director of accounting. Um, but to pitch hit, uh, anytime we create a separate enterprise fund, uh, there is additional administrative overhead in order to, to establish it, track it, audit it and to maintain it. Um, so there's more administrative, uh, follow-up with an enterprise fund that... Uh, but to give you more than that, uh, I'm not prepared. I, I would need the, the director of accounting to expand on that. Thank you very much. Mm-hmm. And if you could contact Ms. Fister and see- Sure. ... if she might be able to come down and join us- Right. ... that would be, that would be helpful. Um, Councilmember Hinson. Thank you, Mayor. I just had one quick question that... The 200K wouldn't be, um, allocated just for student housing, correct? It would be- No. ... for code enforcement? It, it would be for abatement of code enforcement violations, because code enforcement runs out of funding every year, and so part of it would probably be used in areas around UK, but they never have enough money through the year for their whole abatement program. Councilmember Figel. Thank you, Mayor. Um, Madam Chair, you can correct me if I am mistaken, but it... I seem to recall that code enforcement told us that they took in significantly more than 200,000 each year, but that they only keep a small portion and the rest of that goes back into the general fund. And all we're really asking to do is to increase the amount of, um, that fund, that... the recovered funds, uh, to increase the amount that they keep. That's correct. Councilmember Lawless. Thank you, Mayor. Um, I'd like to say that it's unfortunate that this is Student Housing Task Force recommendations, because it really impacts the entire community, and it came out of that task force. However, it isn't about UK students or student housing. It really is an issue in probably almost every district in the city, so thank you. Thanks. Any further discussion? Um, Councilmember Lean, we don't have Ms. Fister here yet to address the accounting issues. Um, do you want to, uh, move forward now or move to table or, um, perhaps take it up a little later on in, in the agenda? Yeah. Uh, Mayor, I think we can go ahead and vote on this. Uh, I just wanted to make sure there wasn't an accounting problem. Okay. And we'll probably get a report on that before we go to final vote. Thank you. All right. Um, any further discussion? Those then in favor of the motion to create an enterprise fund putting a maximum of $200,000 in recovered funds to code enforcement's budget every year beginning in fiscal year 11, please indicate by saying, "I." Oppose, no. Motion carries. Uh, the sec- the second, uh, recommendation to come out of the Student Housing Task Force was to lift a hiring freeze on approved additional positions in the Division of Code Enforcement, and, uh, David Jarvis informed the committee that additional staff hiring is already in process and they should have two positions filled by mid-November. The third recommendation to come out of the Student Housing Task Force was to resume and conduct regular comprehensive sweeps by code enforcement in affected neighborhoods, and, uh, David Jarvis informed the committee that if the task force recommendations are passed by council, code enforcement will conduct the housing sweeps. The fourth recommendation was to increase fines for key property violations, including up to double the current total maximum fines for maximum multiple violations within a 12-month period and following the loss of an administrative p- appeal. And, uh, Mr. Jarvis informed us that civil penalties are issued on the number of violations and re-inspections on a property, and that the nuisance abatement requires two notices, and so no action can occur until the third notice is issued. And he, uh, is working with the law department to correct some of the language in this part of the ordinance. Um, on page 73, uh- Um, the next motion to come forward was a recommendation to council to review and revise the hearing ordinance to clarify the code, to increase fines and effectively discourage payment of fines as a cost of doing business. So Mayor, this motion is basically to review and revise the ordinance for the fines. I have a motion by Council Member Gordon, second by Council Member James. Any discussion? All in favor please say aye. Aye. Oppose no. Motion carries. The third, uh, excuse me, the fifth recommendation of the Student Housing Task Force was to create a system for civil fines, abatement and placement of liens on offending property for violations of any code enforced by the Division of Building Inspection. And there was discussion about recommending that this be taken up by the Building Inspection Task Force, and, um, Council Member, uh, um, Figle had wanted to put both, uh, recommendation five and number six, um, which, um, i- into the Building Inspection Task Force, and the motion to come forward is to move recommendation number five into the Building Inspection Task Force and out of planning. Is there a second to that motion? I have a second by Council Member Figle. Any discussion? All in favor please say aye. Aye. Oppose no. Motion carries. Uh, recommendation number six had already been addressed and that's why it did not get moved forward. Recommendation number seven was to, uh, improve the system to better document violations and have sharing of information about complaints between divisions of LFUCG. And this had to do with, um, having software which links divisions such as building inspection and code enforcement so that a person i- in government can go on and look at a property and see all of the violations, whether they're from building inspection or code enforcement on that property. And the motion to come forward on this is to have an update to the planning commiss- committee, which this is not a motion for voting, Mayor, um, from IT Computer Services on the software system that links building inspection and code enforcement. And we will be having a presentation at our November 24th Planning Committee meeting on that. The recommendation number eight, was to draft and adopt a definition of fraternity house and sorority house to be added to the zoning ordinance, similar to a sample definition which was proposed by UK Associate Dean of Students, Tody- Tony Blanton. And he told the committee that we, o- one of the main reasons we need these definition updates in our ordinance is because they are referred to in the ordinance, but they're never defined. So, Tony Blanton from UK will be working with our law department to clarify definitions of sorority and fraternity house. Um, and next, on page 77, was the first recommendation in the extended policy area, and this was a motion to, excuse me, let me find the motion. Uh, the Penn State plan, which involved, uh, density of student homes, was the proposal that was discussed, and the motion brought forward from the planning commission- committee was to reject the Penn State plan. It's sort of in a, a reverse motion format. Yeah. I, I would, I, I think motions to not- To- ... do something are generally out of order. Okay. We don't need that motion. Right. The committee's already rejected it. Right, right. All right. Very good. Um, so Mayor, that concludes my report. Thank you. Any questions for Council Member Gordon? Farewell. We'll move ahead to the Budget and Finance Committee Report. Council Member Stennet. Thank you, Mayor. We met on the Budget and Finance Committee three weeks ago. As many of you know, we had a week break and then I p- appreciate, um, our staff getting the report done to us, um, given the fact that we had several meetings that week. Um, this, again, if council members will keep in mind, this report is through the month of September. We'll have our next... Because we did not have a Budget and Finance Committee meeting this month, we'll have our, our two-month recap, uh, in the first week of December. So, uh, just keep that in mind. This is through December. Unemployment rate was still flat. Uh, foreclosures were down. They were the lowest since April. As well as building and permits were down from August. And this is not an unusual trend to see those decline during the month of September. Again, we look at our top four revenue sources, payroll withholdings, net profits, insurance and franchise fees. Year, uh, uh, September, it was down negative 6.09% for the month of September, uh, in those four categories. Year to date, we were down 2.27% or $1.15 million. Overall, our budget, uh, revenue wise is down 4% or $2 million. Total revenue for all funds, not just the top four, was down 1.6 million through the first quarter of the year. Looking at expenses, our total expenses, though, were down 1.032 million to give us a net, um, loss in the first quarter of $663,000. Now, granted a lot of things could change over the next three quarters, but if that remained the same, we'd be down 2.4 million. The, the, the good news is this is com- compared to last year numbers. Uh, keep that in mind. This is compared to last year's revenue numbers. The bad news is we increased this year's budget by $13 million- ... over last year's revenue numbers. And, um, so it doesn't spell a pretty picture going forward. I know, uh, the administration's working on developing a plan to come forward to next budget and finance meeting to give us an update. But, uh, you can see we have our challenge cut out for us going forward- ... in regards to our revenues and expenses. Are there any questions on that report so far? Thank you. Uh, next we heard from Commerce Lexington at their quarterly update. Uh, this update, their first quarter activity through the month of September, uh, they had 27 prospects, uh, of companies looking to, uh, come to Lexington or expand here. Uh, 10 startups and entrepreneurial, uh, companies were looked at as well as 49 existing business visits, uh, were made during that month. Three big, uh, companies, uh, had exc- uh, announ- announcements of expansion or relocation. One was Florida Tile to the Lexington area. The other was Baker, Baker Iron and Metal, a- as well as Equine Diagnostics coming to Lexington as well. Keep in mind, Council Members, that they will also be, uh, at our Economic Development Task Force meeting this Thursday night, uh, November the 19th on the fifth floor conference room. The next item on our agenda was the fire overtime report. Uh, this was, uh, uh, item of discussion during our budget process- pro- process where there, we adopted an overtime budget of $2,078,000.00, um, using the 1.3 million towards new recruits that we removed from the budget that was proposed to the council. That 1.3 million did hire two recruit classes, one of which we saw graduate on November the 6th. The other will graduate here shortly at the first of the year. Uh, their budget is currently under budget, under their overtime budget by 310,000 through the first quarter of this year. Most of it is being covered by backfill during the, uh, for events and training as well. Any questions on the fire overtime or Commerce Lexington reports? Last but not least, again, we'll have our next budget and finance meeting, um, b- before we go on break here in the first week of December. Uh, if our link Chairs could bring a final update as to any progress made from the last budget recommendations to that, uh, budget and finance meeting. And also, we'll have our continued, uh, bond workshop this Thursday night to going through the bond list that these are items that we have already approved in a total about $115 million in the last two years and we need to make the decision on which of those items to go ahead and bond in this upcoming bond the first of the year. That'll be Thursday night at 4:00 PM again on the fifth floor conference room. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much. Um, Council Member Ehler, are you ready to give our services committee report? Thank you, Mayor. The Services Committee meeting summaries on page, can be found on page 83. We met on November 3rd. There were four items on the agenda. The first item was loading/unloading. Council Member James gave a background information regarding this issue. She stated the proposal of converting Short Street and 2nd Street. The issues of unloading and loading zone will be needed to be discussed because we'll lose a lane with the conversion. The way that ordinance is now, Ms. James said it will, uh, not help with this issue and it needs to be addressed. She stated that we need to start looking at this issue now and that there will be public meetings coming forward. The second item on the agenda was the address and fire gate identification and numbering. David Lucas, the director of en- Enhanced 911, gave a PowerPoint presentation regarding this issue. He said that, that they started citing, uh, offenses August of 2005 with assistance of code enforcement. 238 citations have been issued to date with two being appealed and resolved in prior posting and seven currently outstanding. There is approximately 24% or 40,000 addresses that are non-compliant. He said they need to attain one staff person for addressing citation duties, fill vacant administration positions to address board and require proper address posting to obtain certification of occupancy. Mr. Lucas stated that we, they have worked with some neighborhood association and will continue working on getting the information out and they will, he will send council members a statement for them to mail to the neighborhood association regarding this. Mr. Lucas stated that he'll bring revised ordinance back to the committee to review at the December meeting. The third issue on the agenda was the private solid waste providers and Council Member Gordon gave some background information on this. We had to postpone this until the December meeting because we didn't have anybody from Solid Waste present to discuss this issue. The third issue, or the fourth issue on the committee was items in committee. Three motions to remove items for the committee passed and removed from committee. We were adjourned at 1:43. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Any questions for Council Member Ehler? All right, the fourth presentation is the Lyric monthly, uh, report. That is for information purposes only. It's in your packet. If anyone has any questions, we'll be glad to try to address them. Otherwise, we'll move ahead. Um, next, we have a presentation on the rescission of, uh, federal aid in our road fund. And I'll ask Mr. Barry House from, uh, the Kent- Kentucky Transportation Center and Max Conyers from our own, uh, MPO staff to come and visit with us. Mr. House. I'm actually from the, uh, transportation cabinet rather than the transportation center. Uh, and I'll get, uh, right to the main point. Uh, at the end of September of this year, uh, with the expiration of the SAFETEA-LU, uh- ... Transportation, uh, Funding Act, uh, Lexington lost approximately 3.7 million of Federal Aid Highway Funding. You lost this essentially by it being taken back by the Federal Highway Administration. Uh, Congress built a mechanism into, uh, term-- the mechanism is termed rescission into the legislation to basically reduce apportionment that builds up over time. Now, uh, rescission is not something new. Uh, the cabinet has dealt with a dozen rescissions over the last six or seven years. This one was different though. Uh, it was different in the order of magnitude, uh, much larger than any previous rescission that we faced. Uh, this one was approximately 151 million dollars. It was also different in that we could not control, uh, the programs that were impacted, and it was different in the scope of programs that ultimately were impacted. Uh, for the first time ever, pots of money like Lexington's, uh, uh, were impacted. The funding that I'm talking about is the Surface Transportation Program Funds that are dedicated for use by the, uh, uh, Lexington, or more appropriately, the Fayette Jesamine urbanized area. Uh, the cabinet and the NPO refer to these funds as SLX Funds. Uh, now, in recent years, Lexington has gotten about 4.6 million dollars, uh, of this money each year, and over the years, a balance of about, of about 14 million dollars had built up. Uh, of course, you have projects in the works that, uh, would spend this amount of money and, and more. Uh, but after the rescission, you were left with approximately 10.3 million dollars. Now, this won't have a, a noticeable impact today or tomorrow or even over the next several months because that 10.3 million that you are left with is, is plenty to undertake project phases that are scheduled for the near term. Uh, but it will have i- an impact. Essentially, it will force a delay in projects that are, uh, are scheduled to go to construction over the next three or four years probably, or, and after. Uh, now, I should mention also that other pots of money that are used on a statewide basis and, uh, and here in Lexington too, were also significantly impacted. Uh, we lost about, uh, 10 million dollars of CMAQ, Congestion Mitigation Air Quality Funds. We lost about 11 million dollars of transportation enhancement funds. Lexington has made extensive use of both of those pots of money. Uh, on a good note, I can say that the cabinet has determined that it will be able to, uh, honor all previously announced project awards, even, even those, uh, where we have not obligated the money by contract yet. Scheduling may be delayed somewhat, but, uh, we will go forward with all, uh, previously announced projects. Uh, other noteworthy impacts were the safety program where we lost about 17 million. That was a little more than half of our balance in that category. Uh, we lost over 50 million in our bridge program, which was over two-thirds of our balance in that pot of money. Uh, so the rescission has been pretty bad news all the way around. Uh, but on another somewhat positive note, I can say that efforts are underway, uh, to restore the rescinded amounts, uh, in conjunction with the next highway funding bill. Hopefully that will happen, uh, but no one can say right now if or when it might happen. Uh, if you're interested in knowing the current balance in your SLX Fund, uh, as of last Friday, I mentioned that, uh, we start, after the rescission, we were left with, you were left with 10.3 million dollars, uh, carry over into the 2010 federal fiscal year. Uh, so far, you have received, uh, or been credited with about 600,000 of apportionments for 2010. I said you normally get about 4.6 million, but because we, uh, don't have a funding act and are operating under, uh, continuing resolutions, that money is coming in, uh, little chunks at a time. Uh, there have been, there's been about th- a little over three million dollars spent, uh, so far during fest- uh, federal fiscal year 2010, most of that on Liberty Tods, and, uh, when you do the math, it ends up that you're, currently the balance is about 7.9 million in your SLX fund. I can answer questions. I think Max is gonna- Any questions- ... talk a little more about specific project impacts. Council Member James. That was my question, specific projects, so I'll just wait for Max. Max. Thank you. Council Member Stennet. Can you get us a list of everything you spoke about in terms of the, uh, sources of funding and what they're called? Can you get us that list, the council members, the SLX list, the, the bridge funding, all those different sources that the NPO receives and from where? Well, we can work on this, uh, now the- You, you gotta need to come to a microphone please. I could, uh, work up a list. I don't have a, a list that I could hand to you today. But now the, the safety and the, and the bridge program, those are funds that are used on a statewide basis and Lexington competes for projects from those funds, you know, just like everybody else in the state. Could you just give us a list of all available funds that we do get either by formula or we could compete for? That would be helpful to us. Okay. Name several in your, in, in your comments and that would, that would be helpful to see what those, those funds are coming from. I could, uh, I could, uh, produce a list of the more s- most significant programs. That'd be great. And there's, there's literally hundreds of, uh, several hundred categories. Understand. Just the significant ones. Thank you. So I, I really didn't understand how this was gonna affect us other than it will affect us in the out-years. Uh, as Mr. House said, we're staying on track with our existing projects. This was all for un-obligated funds, so, uh, projects like Liberty Todds and so forth that we have programmed and obligated funds, those will go forward. Uh, it does give us little ability to plan in the out-years, say 2013, 2014, 'cause we just don't know what's gonna be there in those, uh, those, uh, federal apportionments coming in. Uh, hopefully we'll, you know, we'll get back on track and the state will get back on track, too. It's not just the SLX projects. You know, when you think of our apportionments, 4.6 million per year is not much, so we're talking, you know, our projects like Clays Mill, Liberty Todd, uh, Citation, uh, Polo Club, several, uh, trails and so forth. Those are our projects that we're staying on track. Uh, and then sometimes we can get more, you know, with that balance coming in if they close out projects and so forth at the state. Uh, so we look for, you know, a higher amount coming in. Um, however, what I'm worried about is, is more the state projects. You know, the state road projects fund is, is nonexistent right now. If you've seen, uh, Mr. Hancock, our Secretary of Transportation, he's been speaking that quite, uh, you know, loudly that, uh, looks pretty, pretty bad and just bare bones. He's using terms like that, you know, and, uh, but he intends to, you know, do the, do the essential, safety and so forth. Uh, we did get hit pretty hard on safety, but he wants to, you know, go hard on education with distracted driving being one of the lead- leading causes and so forth. So I don't believe, you know, this is gonna stop us, but it, it really does, I think, mostly affect our ability to plan. And as Mr. House said, we compete and we have competed quite successfully for, uh, program funds like congestion mitigation, air quality, transportation enhancement, um, safe routes to school, recreational trails. We have been, uh, very competitive in those areas. Well, those areas were hit hard. 10 million, um, 10 million when there's a fund, and one of them I think is 12 million total, so you know, that's gonna be... There's just gonna be less to compete for statewide. So I can see that hitting us in a few, in the years to come. You know, we may want to be very specific and on target with our applications, you know, be very prioritized and various, and then not to, you know, uh, forget about good projects, but just wait for a more advantaged time to, to present them. So things like that, I believe, is where it, it would hit us, uh, pretty hard. Um, but as Mr. House said, maybe we can, things can turn around and we can get some, uh, better news and we can rescind the recisions maybe. I don't know. But that's, that's about all I, I, specifics I got for you. And Barry, I think, uh, would be more qualified to talk about how it might, uh, affect from the, you know, the state projects, 'cause we get a lot of funds from, uh, state project funds, you know, from our state gas tax monies and the federal funds flow through the, the, uh, state and we work in coordination quite, quite closely with them on those, with our own rich plan and our transportation improvement program, so forth. But when they're, uh, you know, having to cut back statewide, uh, everybody's affected, so. Go ahead. Um, thank you, Mayor. Max, if you have... Is it often that we, um, match money, match federal dollars with other types of grants for projects? And are they prioritizing if you have matched funds somewhere of trying to recapture those funds or, or rescind the recision or whatever? Are they working on that? As far as our ability to match? Yeah. I mean, uh... Well, as far as giving back those federal dollars for those projects where you already have your partners lined up for matching funds. Oh. Do you have any of those? Maybe I'm just dreaming that matching funds exist, but I just kind of saw, you know, a lot of times you coordinate projects that are local, state. Mm-hmm. You know, uh, community development, that kind of thing. Right. Do you have any of those? Not really. Not that I'm aware of. Uh... Would it help? Yeah, I guess anything would help at this point. Uh, we... Our ability to match usually comes from our local, you know, tax, our MAPR, mu- municipal aid funds. We spend a lot of, a lot of funding comes out of our engineering budget, uh, for, to match, you know, these large amounts of, of, of federal funds. So 20, it's usually a 80/20, you know, match. And, um, we may want to take a look at, uh, and I work quite closely with engineering and so forth, we work, uh, to, you know, shift priorities as, as we go. You have to do this quite a lot, you know, just things come up in projects, you know, like, uh, right-of-way issues or utility issues as you've seen today and, uh, so therefore you... ... take a replacement project that you can get done quite, uh, you know, quickly and move it up and then slide the other one back while you deal with those environmental issues or whatever they may be. So there's opportunity there, I believe. There's always opportunity there and we always seize that when we can. Let us know, council, how we can help. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, Mayor. Thank you. Any other questions? Well, let me try to make sure... Uh, there, there are a couple of things. This isn't something that is peculiar to Lexington. No, Mayor. Yes, it's nationwide. Actually, uh, what Mr. House was presenting was, uh, the 151 was just, uh, Kentucky and it was 1.74%, I believe, of the total 100% of all 50, you know, states and uh... And there is the reauthorization process that's going on in Congress, or soon will be going on in Congress for the transportation bill that's coming up, I guess, in this Congress at some point, correct? Correct. We, uh, got an, uh, a continuation, I guess they call it, till December 18th right now. That's what we're working on, um. And, and so to Council Member James' point a moment ago, one thing that members of the council and we can do and citizens, to the extent they're interested, can do, is contact their senators and members of Congress in connection with that discussion- ... of the Transportation Act, to let them know that this is having significant impact on, uh, our country, our state, and our city, and whatever they can do to reinstate the funding would be most helpful. Absolutely. And one point on that order is that HPP, or Discretionary High Priority Project Funds, was exempt from the rescission. So you can... Earmarks, or whatever you, w- w- want to call 'em, are still on the table so your lobbying and, uh, influence is, uh, you know, to get our needed projects. It's, it's quite, uh, quite needed, I believe. And, and to get a plug in there, that's why our continued involvement with what's going on in Washington through the earmark process is quite significant. Mm-hmm. Particularly for the foreseeable future. All right. Council Member Stanton. Max, have you all addressed to the MPO which projects will be postponed a- and recreated that list on the six-year-old plan? We do have, uh, what... We, we have a sheet, a balance sheet, for all of our SLX projects and we're working with Mr. Howes to... We have to demonstrate fiscal balance at any time, uh, and, uh, that's done. We do this regularly. Every time there's a change in a project or so forth, uh, we try to figure that in. We've actually figured the rescission into our spreadsheet, uh, and it looks like, uh, Liberty Todd's phase two, out to I-75, which those projects come later, you know, in the, like 2014. Mm-hmm. That one we may have to push a little further, uh, hopefully, and then hopefully in the interim years we can bring that one back. But, uh, it's... Like I said, it's hard to fiscally balance things when you don't know in the next two or three years what you got co- have coming in. So I think they're even kind of suspending our, our having... You know, requiring us to demonstrate fiscal balance until Washington can get a handle on, uh, what exactly we're going to be apportioned. So, but, uh... So the MPO has made a decision to change projects and push some back? Not really. We've, we've... We're staying on track with our existing ones, uh, so the priorities remain the same. It's just, uh, the future, the out years, say 2013, 2014s, we, we don't know how soon we will be able to do those. Mm-hmm. But we haven't changed any priorities or, uh, brought up one project over ano- another or anything like that. Excuse me. Okay. Thank you. If there's nothing further, we'll move along. Thank you very much- Thank you. ... Mr. House and Mr. Conyers. Mm-hmm. Uh, our next presentation is by Karen Angelussi, who's chair of our tree board. Ms. Angelussi, thank you for being here. Turn the podium over to you. Thanks for- You have 15 minutes. Thank you for having me, uh, council members and mayor. I've got, uh, some professionals behind me if we have any questions. I've got Dr. Townsend from UK Entomology, Dr. Stringer from UK's Department of Forestry, our urban forester's here, many of the neighborhood association leaders are here, and state foresters. So bring all the questions and we'll try to answer them. Um, Have a Plan or Lose Your Ash. That is the title of my program. Uh, not to offend anyone, but it's, it's the truth, and, uh, and that's... I didn't want it to, uh, offend... Uh, one of the things I, I put on here in the second slide is what the tree board is supposed to do. This is our job. Uh, the, the ordinance says that we are to advise you in the matters of, uh, tree care, preservation, planting, removal. And, um, that's why we're here today, to inform you of what's going on, what's going to happen, uh, and not to give you the answers or propose the answers. I just want you to know what, uh, is coming your way. Um, we did a, a volunteer survey. I had over 100 volunteers from Boy Scouts to citizens to church groups and we came up with, uh, close to 8,000 trees in the city street easements. These are the str- street trees. Um, the parks were... You'll see on the few slides coming your way that the parks were also counted. Uh, this does not count residential ash trees. There are a lot of residential ash trees. A lot of folks have these in their yards. Um, we, we did not, you know, go onto private properties, so therefore we don't have, uh, that tally, which is gonna be a... pretty large considering, um, the streets were 8,000. ... uh, Fayette County Parks, there's 100 parks, 5,000 acres, 20,000 plus ash trees. These, out of the 100 parks, this is the list of the most significant, uh, parks that have the high density ash trees. We only counted, uh, approximately three of them, which were pretty high. Uh, Jacobson has over 400, Chiltow Park, 360 or more, uh, Riverhill Park, 178. This is a tiny, tiny park on corner of Crosby and Man O' War. Uh, so I wish I had a total of the park trees, but, uh, that's gonna take a couple more hundred volunteers. Uh, this is not a very good picture. Well, it's a great picture, it's just light in here. But I wanted the people that play golf to realize that the golf courses are gonna be affected, and you're not gonna have as many excuses for your balls being in the , you know ... You can't blame the trees. Um, Lexington Greenways. Uh, we have many greenways. High density of ash trees there as well. Uh, what do trees do for us? They improve our air quality. They reduce storm water runoff. They create wildlife habitat. They decrease our summer and winter energy use. They're favorable for human impact, improve property values and reduce our carbon footprint. Uh, some did you know things. Did you know that, that trees improve neighborhood appeal, attract businesses, shoppers, and homeowners? Maybe that's why, uh, Lexington Mall is empty. Um, I just had to throw that out. Uh, trees reduce levels of domestic violence and foster safer, more sociable neighborhood environments. Trees are the only infrastructure that does not depreciate. That's something to take into consideration. And if you want some statis- you know, wanna know where the sources are, it's the last page of your packet. I didn't just dream these things up. Uh, the USDA, they have given us an estimate that there's 511,000 ash trees in Fayette County alone. Um, that's a lot of trees. So this is the tree board. We tried. We thought we would come up with a campaign to try to get the citizens aware of, um, of what's going on so they'll know. And, uh, we've had a lot of people say, "Are you cutting our trees down?" But the Green Ribbon Campaign was a successful campaign, I believe, uh, especially when you see a whole row of street trees, uh, 50 on one side, 50 on the other. It's pretty, uh, impressive to see the ribbons. Uh, we're trying to inform p- uh, the citizens and business owners, things like an 18-inch diameter white ash adds $235 in property value. And you can go to treesbenefit.com and that will give you, uh, some, some more, um, information on trees. Uh, the UK Department of, um, State Entomology and USDA got together. They hung 5,659 of these purple traps. Uh, listed below are the positive counties. Fayette is one of them. Now this is just a series of some pictures I want you to watch. I don't want you to be texting or calling or talking or going to the bathroom. I want you to watch this. We're gonna also pass around the bug in a little vial, and it's dead, so it won't hurt you. Uh, the emerald ash borer destroys. And I wish the pictures would show up better. Maybe we could lower the lights, because this is a beautiful ash tree. And, uh, maybe your photos in your packet will reflect that, but uh, this is the emerald ash borer coming out and this beautiful little D-shaped hole. He's not quite this large as you'll see in the vial, but uh, he destroys this. This is another beautiful photo. Um, here he is again, leaving his markings on some ash wood, and this is what he starts to do. He creates some sucker growth and bark splitting and he's got a few other signs, uh, to, to mark where he has been. This is his larva. We have a larva pa- Are we passing the larva? You all gotta see the larva. We're gonna pass that around too. Uh, this is in summertime. This is ash trees. So this is the landscape that we are gonna be faced with if we don't try to do something. Um, this is another great photo that doesn't show up well, but this is Gunkel Park in Ohio five years after, uh, the EAB has come to Toledo. This is a summertime photo. You can see a few deciduous trees in the background, but the trees in the foreground are all ash trees. So, it makes us wonder, will we close the parks? Will this be a, uh, liability issue? This is an Ohio residential ash lined, uh, street after five years. Again, this photo doesn't show... The photo shows well, the screen doesn't. This is Lexington after one year. We look pretty good, but in four years, we're gonna look like this. And many of you may not be sitting there in four years. This won't be your decision, but it could be your decision now. You know, so look at it now, look at it what it's gonna be when you're being, uh, replaced or you're not sitting there anymore. Okay, the end resoil- end results are, loss to air quality, reduced shade, increased water runoff, danger and liability associated with dying and dead trees, and aesthetic disaster. What do we do with all this wood? The average, uh, cost to take down a tree is $750 to $1,000. Now, obviously, that's an e- a, a good size tree. Uh, it may be better and more beneficial to remove a small tree if it's brand new and, um, you know... Tha- those are things we're trying to figure out and the homeowner has, uh, to decide. And I love this photo. Uh, who's gonna carry it all? Our urban forestry program is slim. Um, so, you know, who's gonna pack it all? Do we pile it here? Where are we gonna put all this dead wood? Now that we have, uh, center court or center point is all got pretty grass, we don't wanna put it there, but we're gonna have to put it somewhere. A lot of mulch. That's gonna make a lot of mulch. Um, and hopefully we will replant. The average planting cost is between $500 and $750 per tree, that is to maintain it and to plant it, you know, the labor, uh, the plant material and you cannot replace a large mature tree. So, uh, you're gonna be... how do you mitigate that? You take down a big... a, a bug takes down a big tree, how are you gonna replace that? Save the ash for the birds. Save history. Henry Clay will want you to save these trees. I'm sure of it. Save them for your children. And what do we do? Some education would be nice. We have no money. The Tree Board has no money. Uh, what we could do is public education. We could do some PSAs to inform homeowners that it is their responsibility. Our city ordinance says that is their responsibility. They can treat it or they can pay to take it down or replace it, but it is their responsibility. They may decide to treat it if it's, uh, if they know that in two or three years, they're gonna have a 700 or $1,000 bill to take down the tree. So just public awareness would be great. Uh, prepare all the divisions of government, 'cause what I've understand, every division of government deals with trees, which is a problem. If we had a comprehensive urban forestry program, that wouldn't be a big problem. So big communication problem. Um, information campaign on the extent of the EAB and what citizens can do to help Fayette County trees. We would love to do a save the parks... not save the parks, but save the trees in the parks and we have plans for that. Funding. We have a cost-share program, uh, which is very slim. It's actually already ran out, but, uh, it'd be nice to have a cost-share program to treat these trees, uh, provide adequate funding for enforcement. Who's going to... we have, you know, the enforcement is the biggest problem. How are we gonna make these people put the trees back once they die? We're gonna have all these streets that are, uh, naked without trees. Increase funding for the current cost-share program that exists. Uh, right now, like I said, that has, has ran out. Uh, it would be nice if we had a way to, uh, help homeowners take care of this problem and get trees put back on the streets. Uh, and obviously, my big push is to fully fund a comprehensive urban forestry program. The policy, what can we do for policy? We can empower our urban forestry to lead all the forestry issues, which is back to that comprehensive forestry program. Uh, require r- registered certified pesticide applicators and tree removal specialists who agree to a minimum standard and paying pricing reviews, such as what we do to... when, uh, code ask us to remove our sidewalks. They give us a list of contractors to use and that we know that they're not going to, uh, overprice or gauge. Uh, enforce tree replacement ordinance. That's so important here. Prioritize treating or saving park legacy ash trees and historic blue ash trees. And most importantly, ban monocultures of street planting by developers. I think currently, you can plant 25 trees in a row of the same variety. That's too many, I think. Be more diverse. This is some of the volunteers in all the neighborhoods. Like I said, I had over a hundred, um, they were willing to do, it didn't cost a penny except for a few dimes out of my pocket to put this on, um, and this is some references in case you don't believe me. The end. Any questions? Thank you. Any questions for Ms. Angelusi? Council Member James. Thanks, Mayor. Karen, thank you so much. I just wanted to take this opportunity to say that you've been a wonderful leader for the Tree Board, um, and she's not lying about everything she's presented and there's been a lot of research on the Tree Board and we saw the emerald ash borers, kind of, a wake-up call to the holes, um, in our urban forestry, um, program and our relationship to it and what that means. I mean, this is something... the number of trees that will be affected, 8,000 street trees, um, that are ash. We've... this is something really important and, you know, when I drive around places like Chevy Chase and some places in the more mature areas where some of those large trees are, I realize we, we really need to get, get a full grasp of what this means for our city. If those trees die, um, and we have to replace them with tinier trees, we think about the differences that makes in that neighborhood or that corridor. So, I hope that from this that we'll, as a council, be able to figure out what to do. I don't really have a recommendation coming forward right now and will welcome, um, any specifics other than what you've presented, but we, we do have to... We do haveve have to move forward and I will be bringing something forward, some specific things in the near future that I hope that... I will remind you of this presentation, um, but I hope that you'll be keeping in mind as you drive through your neighborhoods, um, that this is something we have to support, the urban forestry program and figuring out what we're gonna do with our ash trees. Thank you so much, Karen. Thanks. Thank you, Andrea. Thank you. Council Member Wallace. Um, I know there... the treatment for these bugs. It... how successful is it and how expensive is it? Well, I would like to talk... Dr. Townsend, would you like to talk about that? Dr. Townsend is the, uh, UK Professor of Entomology, so he's gonna be able to give you better answers. I've got some information here. On the alternatives, there are several. At this point, it's all based on chemicals. It's based on the use of insecticides that are either applied around the root system of the tree or injected in, so they work as systemics. And there's a range of, uh, alternatives that are available. Many of them work for a year, so you're looking at annual applications. There's one that works for three years. So we're able to take advantage of a lot of the research from our neighbors to the north and see things that have worked. So there are some alternatives. It's a matter of setting some priorities and doing things like the census to help make some decisions with this. Uh, I guess my question was how expensive is it and how successful? The success rate is good, uh, in terms of both the annual and the long-term treatments in the neighborhood of 90% plus control or protection. The cost is something I hesitate to say. It... when you do it on a municipal basis, and you do it on a contract, you can get better prices than you may get as individual homeowners contracting with arborists. So the... you're looking in the neighborhood probably of, um, 60 to 80 cents per inch of circumference for the homeowner applications, and in the range of perhaps $10 or so per inch of diameter for trees that are receiving the long-term treatment. And, and those are sort of ballpark figures. Uh, the more expensive treatments la- do last longer. Did I understand you to say it's 60 to 80% for a homeowner treatment? 60 to 80 cents per inch of circumference. So homeowners have access to basically one product that they can apply themselves, and you can buy those at any of the, the, the discount stores or nursery stores. Uh, the ones that commercial arborists have access to are applied differently, and, and they're certified and get those through commercial distributors. And that's the $10 per- Yeah. ... inch. And that's a ballpark range that, that does vary on volume and a number of things. Other questions? Let, let me ask just a couple to follow up on that. For the homeowner application, what's involved? Do I have to have a sprayer, paintbrush, you know? You need a bucket. Bucket. Uh, you nee- you need a bucket. Got one of those. And what you do basically is measure the distance around your tree in inches, and you use an ounce of product per inch. Put that in a gallon of water and pour it around the base of the tree. So it's a fairly, fairly straightforward thing. It needs to be... uh, you need to clear the mulch away from the base of the tree. It's best to do it in the springtime. There is a limitation on how large a tree a homeowner's going to be able to protect based on the chemicals that are available to them. So 15-inch diameter is, is roughly that and less is what a homeowner can do. As you get to the larger trees, you're looking at more volume, difference in uptake, and probably commercial treatment for those. Well, as I'm thinking about our parks, I'd lot rather pay 80 cents per inch than $10 per inch. So is it fair to say that anything smaller than 15 inches you can treat for 80 cents an inch? Again, that's a... that's an estimate from me. 60 to 80 cents per inch of circumference is, is pri- and if you buy materials in volume, you may be able to do better than that. And are there any natural predators that can be injected? There are predators being investigated, but they are from Asia, from the home of the insect, and they're going through a process to determine whether they can be released here. Ideally, that's the way we would deal with this insect as a sustainable way. Now, we're looking at chemistry, and we don't have effective natural enemies here that are moving over to take the emerald ash borer on. And where does all that process stand right now? Is that years away from happening, months, weeks? In terms of natural enemies, I think it's years, because you're looking at having to produce natural enemies that need the emerald ash borer to grow on. Right. So it's a process that will, that will be slow. Anything further? Council Member Feigl. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, I just wanted to alert, um, the folks that are watching TV, um, GTV3, that Tim Quary has been on a couple of times to show how to treat your trees, and it's very informative, and I would encourage you to go out... uh, or to go watch that. And also wanted to, um, commend Karen and her volunteers for all the work they did. If you have a tree in, in front of your yard with a, a ribbon around it, then you know you need to treat that tree. Also, I wanted to -- to just mention what Karen Miner has done. I'm gonna put her on the spot here. She, uh, for the Fairway Neighborhood Association, she has given demonstrations. She's had informational exhibits, um, when they had their annual meetings or their summer picnic. And with Christmas coming on, this is a wonderful time for neighborhood associations to, uh, provide this information for, um, all of the residents that live in their neighborhoods when they get together for Christmas. Uh, I don't know, is there still enough time to get that treatment on now or is it too late to -- Well, I- ... for the -- for the season? We would recommend waiting until spring. Yeah, wait until spring- Okay. ... would be -- would be the optimum. I would like to say that if you all would give us another opportunity or another 15 minutes and another day, that we have a presentation ready to go that will give you pricing on what it would cost to arm our people with equi- you know, with the equipment and the -- the chemicals. And we, it's a PowerPoint. It's already broke down into h- uh, the tree sizes and how much it's gonna cost. And we don't, we -- we knew you wouldn't give us that kind of time today, so we're not prepared to give that today. But it is ready, and if you'll give us another spot, we would love to show that to you. I will tell you that Gardens of Heartland have s- uh, treated 260 of their trees and they've paid$ 10,500 and that is good for two years. So they've already, um, stepped up to the plate and treated their trees, but they're hoping that, uh, there will be some city assistance because, you know, this is for two years and they're looking at ma- a few more years. Council Member James. Thank you, Mayor. I wanted... Mayor, I wanted to ask you based on what you've heard today in this other present- presentation that might be available, is that something that the administration would need as you're preparing your budget? Um- We'll -- we'll look at it, but I will be the first to tell you, doing anything new next year is highly unlikely. So then what would be the liability in our parks for the harm on our... if there are any trees that are damaged- I don't know the answer to that question. Okay. Thanks, Mayor. Council Member Lane. Uh, ye- thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to say that many of those ash trees run along the edge of Seren Drive. A lot. Many of them do. Many. That was the choice of tree after the pear was banned. So, you know, what are you gonna do? Council Member Crosby. Mr. Query, um, can you, uh, could we get the pricing information, uh, via email? Is there any way that you could send us that- Yes, I can. ... via email? Uh, we can work on that. That's... John, your landscaping is using the chemical triage and they are the ones that came up with the, uh, the plan and the money statistics and the breakdown. So, uh, I would have to talk with... Yes, we can do that. I think that would be appropriate th- if we could get that information. And they broke it down into parks. They did, what, Castle Wood, uh, Woodland and Ecton Park and Shillito and showed the amount of trees and, uh, priced up what it would cost to save those trees. Thank you. Uh, if you -- if you could get that to us please via email, that would be great. Thank you. Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Karen. Uh, did you... when you, um, estimated the parks, do you know how many of the park's trees are in the 15-inch category- No. ... that maybe volunteers did too? No, we don't... we don't have that. And, uh, we didn't... the volunteers that we used were great at counting ash trees, but we did not ask them to d- d- determine size- Mm-hmm. ... and, uh- Okay. ... diameter and all that. Okay, thank you. Anything fur- Council Member Eller. Thank you, Mayor. You said to save the trees, um, if... once they're infected, is it too late or? Uh, they... the tree can be almost 50% affected and still be saved. Is that correct? If you've done a lot of pruning. A lot of pruning, but the tree can be saved and -- and we're not at the 50% mark yet. But in next spring, next fall, the spring following- That's why I was gonna ask my next question- ... that's where we're gonna be. ... is our timeframe here. So there... yeah, there's a timeframe. You saw the pictures from Ohio Streets to Lexington Streets. That was a five-year span and they're dead. So, you know, we've got... we gotta make a plan or lose your ash. Thank you, Karen. Council Member Hanson. Thank you, Mayor. I... you may have covered this, but I might have missed it, but I- I just wanted to know what is the best time to treat them. Can you treat now or wha- or what's the- The best time to treat is in the spring. It obviously has to do with uptake of the tree when the- the trees are in a more dormant stage now. Right. The tr- the leaves have fallen, they're -- they're more dormant, so their uptake's gonna be greater in the spring. Okay. So therefore, and y- you would get the most of your treatment, correct? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. And there are better, you know, treating... the methods to treat are better, you know, so there's a little bit of, um, research to be done and people should -- should plan to do one or the other. There's several types of treatment. Anything further? All right, uh, Council Member Wallace. Um, I'm sorry, is your... I mean, having gone through, you know, the water maple was the tree du jour and then the Bartlett pear and, you know, losing all those- ... and now this one is, you know, is there... eh, it sounds to me like... This is gonna be an ongoing problem- ... with these trees. Is part of your long-range goal is to try to save them for a while? No, the, the l- And then plant other kinds of trees? The long-range goal would be to save them. The, the bug will not stay here forever. Oh. The bug will eat what has not been treated and, and either die or move along. Uh, there's cities in Michigan that are treating their trees and they still have their trees. Uh, we're talking a 10 to 12-year commitment. It's not forever. Okay. But when you- So we're, we're getting, uh, Ohio's bugs that got full- Ex- ... and killed their tr- Right, well, and people are transporting- So good. ... them down here in firewood and they only can fly like a mile at a time, s- but they hitch a ride and, and that's one of the reasons we're... You, it's kind of illegal to do that. You can't transport firewood into, into Fayette- Okay. ... County right now because we're under quarantine. Okay. Thank you. I believe that's all. Thank you- Thank you. ... Karen. And, um- May I ask a question? ... we'll call to the podium Bobby Owens for a presentation on the airport board. Mr. Owens. Mayor Newberry and, um, Vice Mayor Gray and members of the Irving County Council, I wanna thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. I'm Bobby Owens, chairman of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Airport Board of Directors. And I'm here today accompanied, uh, by Tom Halbleib, who's, um, our legal counsel with Stites and Harbeson. And, uh, also, uh, we have in attendance, um, Richard Hopgood, a board member, and I recognize, um, council member, um, Ed Lane, and PG Peeples was here a little while ago, and he had to leave for another meeting. But my purpose here today is to give you an update on our, um, uh, activities and highlights since our, our last, or my last meeting with you all on June the 9th. And the most significant thing that has happened, and this really hasn't received, um, uh, adequate press, but we have added, uh, AirTran service, uh, to two cities in Florida beginning in February. Uh, we'll have direct flights to Orlando and to, uh, uh, Fort Lauderdale, and those are two of our top 10 destination cities. And the significance of this is that AirTran is a low-cost airline, uh, that flies cabin class jets. And so we're gonna add, uh, the big jets coming back into Lexington, um, uh, that they have, uh, both first class and coach seats. Um, and the most significant thing of this is that for the flyers that, that fly out of, passengers or customers that fly to Bluegrass Field, um, airline pricing models show that with AirTran coming in, that our travelers will save about $4.3 million a year in airfare going to those two destinations. Now, the big item is, uh, AirTran right now is the second-largest airline that flies into Atlanta, and they would like to get Atlanta service, uh, from Lexington, and we hope that we can get that in the near future. And that would be significant for us because Delta, uh, and their, um, um, various carriers account for about 60% of the flights out of Bluegrass Field, and, um, and the, the pricing models show that if AirTran does come into Lexington, that our, um, uh, passengers, uh, through discounted and more competitive airfares will save about $47 million a year, which is quite significant. So this is something that, uh, you know, we're gonna be advertising quite a bit, uh, over the next few months, and, uh, it's very, very significant for our airport. A few other things, uh, uh, I think you all have a packet that was distributed to you all, uh, we've completed the implemetio- implementation of the State Auditor recommendations, uh, and, uh, I would be happy to s- discuss any of those with you. Uh, we've, uh, also hired a new management team, uh, Eric Frankel, who as you recall, and I think you met on our June 9th meeting, he was our interim director, and now, uh, we have, um, through, uh, uh, a search that we conducted, uh, uh, we ended up hiring Eric. He was the, the, uh, the most qualified of all the 66 candidates that, uh, that applied for the job. And we also, uh, added Don Seaver, uh, as our, uh, new, uh, CFO, and he's done, uh, quite a bit of work for us, uh, not only with our audit that I'll talk about in a minute, but also with all of our policies and procedures. Uh, Eric would have been here with me today, but, uh, we're closing on a new bond issue that you all, uh, voted on, uh, just a couple weeks ago. Um, we converted some of our variable rate bonds to fixed rate, which will help us in the long term and help improve our cash flow, and that closing was in Cincinnati today, and Eric had to be there for that. Other things, uh, we changed auditors. Uh, we, uh, hired the firm of Crowe Chizuk. I was hoping to have... ... the audit report to give you all today. Uh, it's still, uh, it's in draft form. Uh, it's gonna be approved in our December board meeting, and then I'll have that available for the Urban County Government at that time. We've implemented many new policies, uh, including, uh, travel and entertainment, whistleblower policies, and we've even instituted a number of Sarbanes-Oxley controls, um, uh, for our airport. Our policies are now robust. Um, they, uh, address, uh, business conduct, ethics and integrity issues. Uh, our budgeting process and financial reporting is much improved. We've also reviewed our job classifications and salary structures, uh, and we made extensive changes in those. And one of the most important things that I reported to you on June the 9th, um, uh, when I assumed the chairmanship of the board, one of the things that I wanted to see was that we would complete our construction projects on time. As y'all recall, we had $66 million of construction going on, and literally that came to halt in January. Um, uh, through, uh, Fred Testa, who, uh, helped me early on and then the addition of Erica as interim, um, we've kept those projects on tr- on track. Surprisingly, we've been blessed with great weather the last, uh, month or so. Uh, uh, even our new runway, uh, we've already started paving that, and we're hoping to have that, uh, done by the games. Uh, if y'all been flying through Blue Grass Field lately, uh, the main terminal is, uh, a construction project. Um, the e- the interior, uh, is moving along. Uh, that's, uh, scheduled to be completed in February. It's gonna be, uh, very beautiful. Uh, we're gonna have the great artwork in it, and, uh, we're excited about that. We're gonna start on the exterior soon. We're gonna redo all of our roadways out front and get rid of our trees and everything. They're not ash trees, thank goodness. Uh, and the other thing is, on construction, uh, uh, Taqair, who is our fixed-based operator, we, uh, worked with them to merge, uh, the two FBOs that we had, uh, uh, Taqair and Air51, which was a two-year-old FBO there. We merged them together, and we revised their contract, um, with the airport, uh, to make their pricing more, um, beneficial towards general aviation. Uh, Taqair in, in return is, is building about $11 million general aviation terminal. And general aviation's quite significant to us, because we have over 90% of our takeoffs and landings every day is general aviation. We have a... You'd be surprised at how many net jets and citation jets, uh, charters that, that come into the Lexington area. We're now a more f- open organization. Uh, we have, uh, our focus on the community. Uh, the airport, as you know, is the gateway to the Blue Grass, and we want everybody to be proud of our facility, and confident it's being run with integrity and transparency. And, uh, and when we complete our construction projects in time for the games, we will have a brand new airport from tip to tip. And it's something that, that everybody that flies through there will be very proud of, and the citizens of Lexington should be very proud as well. We're confident that these changes we have made will accomplish all the goals that we've set out this year. And I'll be happy to take any questions. All right. Any questions for Mr. Owen? Ms. Crosby. Um, yes, I have a question. I'm looking at the audit findings and recommendation implementation schedule, and this is a pretty easy question. It looks like a lot of things that you approved as a board are being implemented, um, right away. Is there a timeline? Like I, I've just noticed some in the marketing area, and o- one with the financial, and I can't find the other one, that y'all have approved but not implemented. Well, one was just last month, so what is the timeline like? For example, when you approve something, what do you... What do you look for as far as implementation? 'Cause I think it's one thing for the board to a- approve something, but then to actually go ahead and make sure it's being done. What kind of timeline once you approve it do you expect something- We- ... to be implemented? Well, when we, when we approve it as a board, we expect it to be implemented at that point. Now, a number of these items, um, uh, and, uh, are ongoing, so that, that they're tests that we're making every month or every quarter or something like that. Um, uh, some of the policies and procedures that we've implemented, you know, we expect those to be adhered to by, uh, our board as well as the employees there, so I, I'd, I'd probably have to have a specific to maybe address that. For example, number eight, retain scan electronic images of financial records. And then you say, "Review re- records retention policy and consider creating and maintaining electronic versions of airport records." So, it looks to me as a board like you've approved the action to look into this, so I guess what kind of timeline does it... I, I mean, I would just assume that there- Right. ... would be some kind of copies of records being made right now, but what kind of timeline do you expect to be able to implement? Right. We- That's a pretty big one. The... In this particular one, we've approved the records retention policy. Uh-huh. And, uh, under that, uh, it set forth the... ... how long you have to keep certain records. Um, uh, we didn't have an adequate policy in place to begin with on that. And, and now we do, so that really, even though we've implemented it, it's an ongoing thing. You know, we expect copies of checks, bank statements, uh, uh, contracts, whatever document that's, that's generated, to be kept at a certain, for a certain length of time. Now, we are, uh, you know, certainly that creates a lot of storage requirements. Uh, we have storage facilities there at the airport for old records, but we are looking into maybe possibility of imaging those records. Uh- What did you approve for your retention records? Do you remember the timeline, like is it two years or- Oh, it varies by class. There's about- ... by class? Okay. ... probably 25 different types of records, and they have staggering, uh, dates of retention. Okay, thank you. That's all- If, if you'd like a copy, I'll be happy to provide that to you. No, I was just curious more than anything. Okay. If it was being, if it had been, I noticed it was approved, but I just didn't know, I didn't notice there was any implementation on it, and- Mm-hmm. So I was just w- making sure that it was being implemented, and then I was just more curious about the retention. Yeah, the pol- policy- But it sounds like it's different for all these different categories. It is. The pol- the policy's the main thing that we implemented and, and, you know, like I said, we expect to adhere to that policy. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Crosby. Council Member Lawless. Thank you, Mayor. Um, as I look through this, and I might have some more questions in a minute, but, um, when you talk about, um, thoroughly document all expenses for gifts and entertainment, what kind of policy do you have? What, who are you giving gifts to and what, what do, what is the policy? Well, the, the basic, uh, policy goes back to the IRS requirements, in general, who, what, why, when, and where. If you can't look at a receipt and, and see that, then it's not gonna be a reimbursable policy, or a reimbursable expense. Um, um, and I forgot the second part of your question. Well, my question is, what kind of gifts and entertainment are you all purchasing and for who's getting the gifts- Okay. ... and getting entertained? The, the- And is there a limit on how much they are getting entertained? There are, uh, there are limits set for the various meals, uh, in our policy. Uh, I can't cite those by memory, uh, but I can provide those to you. Uh, generally, when the people that we entertain are our airline partners or vendors, uh, that come in to town to visit, uh, we might take them to lunch or dinner. Uh, uh, I know several of, of the folks, uh, with the airlines were taken to Keeneland. Uh, that's the type of entertainment that we're doing currently. We've tightened that up. Um, uh, you know, we know who's being entertained and for what reason. And remember, we did away with, uh, corporate credit cards. So all these expenses that are incurred have to be incurred on a personal credit card. And then they're reimbursed. If, if we, as a staff or a board, consider that an inappropriate expense, it will not be reimbursed. And so, that's the main control that we have today that we didn't have- Well, I guess what I'd like to know is, not how you're documenting it or reimbursing it, but what limits have you set for- Uh- And I, I hear that you don't have that off the top of your head, and I can appreciate that. Okay. But I think it's a pretty important question. It, yeah, uh, like I said, I don't know the exact, uh, numbers, uh, y- it is? Okay, well, uh, but I can provide those to you. The, the, the meal expenses are very reasonable, you know, like it might be $15 or $20 for breakfast, it might be $25 for lunch and $40 for dinner per person, something like that. There, th- that's not the right number, but it's kinda in that range. Uh, so, you know, there won't be any $500 bottles of wine or anything like that. That, that's something that I would really like to see. Okay. And also, what, um, your travel policy is, and are board members still traveling at the expense of the airport? Uh, yes, uh, we can get a copy of those policies to you, that's no problem. And, uh, and we do, you know, the airport, we're in the travel business, and we do a lot of travel to see our airline partners, our vendors, we're constantly working on rates and charges and contracts, uh, so, uh, you know, we have to travel. We have to travel to run our airport. Um, we have a monthly report now that goes to the board, through our committee structure in the board, that, uh, details all the travel that's done, and it's got all the expenses broken out by the various categories that were reimbursed, uh, and then also, we're pre-planning that, or we're pre approving that travel. So that I, as chairman of the board, approves the executive director's travel and then we have, um, procedures where he approves the travel in advance of the, uh, of all of his subordinates. And so we're ensuring that our travel is for airport business. O- okay. My question was, are board members still traveling at the expense of the city? ... traveling at airport expense, or is it- I'm sorry. ... staff only? Uh, uh, to my knowledge, we've only had a couple of board members travel this year. Um, um, we may have had two board members that went to Washington to attend the, um, uh, the FAA award or the DBE, uh, Disadvantaged Business Enterprise award that was big that we won, uh, back early in the year PG Peoples went. Um, we may have had another board member, but there's been very little board travel this year. Um- Council Member Wallace, your time has expired, uh, for this round, but you can speak again after we, uh, come back around. Well, at least I haven't expired, but thank you. Thank you. Council Member Meyers. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Owens, for coming in today. Sure. Um, I just have a few questions for you. I would have been happy to just submit these to you in writing or something, but we just got the report when we came to the meeting. Um, under number one, do you have a copy of this in front of you? Uh, yes, I do. Okay. Under number one, um, it says that the policy requiring the board chair or designee to review the expenses incurred by the executive director, you just talked about that a second ago. It, it seems like, I might be incorrect, but it seems like part of the problem was that the director was approving the folks down line. Mm-hmm. And that's where a lot of the stuff happened that was hard for you guys to see. Mm-hmm. Does Sarbanes-Oxley safeguards allow you to get at that issue or did you do something else to, to safeguard against what happens down line? No, uh, uh, we, um, uh, as part of our policy now, the board, through its committees and the board, we get a monthly report, I mentioned, of our, of the travel, not only of the executive director, but everybody that's employed at the airport. So we have that to review, uh, and accept as well. Will that include all expenses incurred by other employees down line or just the travel? Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. Um, next it says that you guys are going to, um, you've adopted a new ethics policy or code of ethics policy. Um, how is that enforced? Well, uh, two, uh, two things that we're doing. Um, one is, uh, we're having an annual meeting with employees, uh, and, and to d- discuss ethics and what's required of them individually. Uh, and then also we require them to sign off on the ex- ethics policy itself. So every year at re- at review time, we're gonna have them, uh, sign a statement that they've read the ethics policy and also that they adhere to it. Um, second of all, uh, if there are issues, uh, that we should be made aware of, uh, we do have a whistleblower, uh, policy in place now to where, uh, there's a 1-800 number that's published to every employee, and it's on display out there, but... And, and really the general public could do this as well, uh, it's reported to a third party vendor, and then we have re- procedures for that to be reported back, uh, uh, to the board and, and then we have procedures fo- for follow-up with any inquiries. Okay. One of our committees here in the government is looking at who we would like to see under our purview that, um, would fall under the city's, um, ethics commission and their, and their Ethics Act. And one of the things that we found out is that boards such as yours and some of the others that are set up by state or quasi-state, um, we don't have the authority to ask them to come under, or require them to come under, our Ethics Act. Mm-hmm. Would you ask your board to take a look at that and look at voluntarily, um, just bringing your board and, and all the employees of the airport under the city's Ethics Act? I'll be happy to. Uh, I will check into that. And, and I will say, we have a very tight ethics policy, so, uh, you know, we'll be happy to compare the two and see where we, we may differ, and, and if there are any... If we can strengthen it in any way possible, uh, I'm all for that and our board's all for that. Certainly do that. Okay. Um... I'm almost done. On page, uh, two, under number four, it says create an internal audit function to report directly to the board. Right. I look over here and it doesn't look like... It says that you're gonna continue to consider this recommendation. Yeah. What's the status on that? That's, um, um, that's one that, that we've even had a number of discussions with the, uh, state auditor's office on. And, and they recognize, uh, the dilemma that we have is that, um, our airport really cannot justify not only expense, but in the time involved, to have a full-time auditor on board. Um, uh, there's just not that much for them to do. Uh, and, and it would be a waste of, of money to hire such an individual and have them sit around. So, uh, we're, we, we believe that we've solved the issue through some of our, uh, reporting, uh, procedures that we have in place, uh, for one thing. Uh, uh, second of all, we're considering maybe hiring, uh, outside, uh, vendors to help us in this. But with the documentation in place, requirements that we have in place for reimbursement right now, again, remember, we don't have credit cards, we... Every individual has to get their expenses reimbursed and approved at that reimburse time. ... uh, we feel as though that we probably satisfied that requirement. Now, we're also gonna lean upon our external auditors, our new external auditors, to pay particular attention to, uh, all these reimbursed expenses and to ensure adequately that we have everything, uh, uh, properly documented. So, you know, we believe that we've probably covered that issue, uh, without having to hire and go through the expense of hiring, uh, an individual dedicated to internal audit function. But it's something that we're still looking at. And that's, I believe, that's the only item on this list that, that, um, hasn't been implemented. Uh, we have addressed it, but we just haven't implemented anything. I think my time has expired, but I'd like to come back. Okay. ... with just a couple more questions. Thank you, Mayor. Vice Mayor Gray. Uh, thank you, Mayor. Uh, thanks, thanks for being here, Bobby, and for colleagues for being here. Um, I think I'll, in the last couple of times that you've been here, I've made it a point to say that I don't know of anybody in, anybody in this community who has, uh, a higher respect or higher integrity th- than you do. And that the issues that, um, we've had to address, all of us, and perhaps the different points of view, have not come or emerged from a absence of respect. Um ... You've often said that we need to move on. And I've, myself, have listened to that, listened to that voice, and, and tried to respect it. Um, I also recognize that the present and the future is affected by the past, and that moving on has a lot to do with our acknowledging the past, whatever mistakes, um, have been made, whatever successes. When, now it's been a year ago when this council, uh, called upon the state auditor to do an audit, to examine the airport. That came some eight months after the Herald-Leader had initiated an investigation. Um, I think my own sense is that there are still lingering doubts among the public, despite the interest in moving on. There are lingering doubts among the public the extent to which the current board, with all good intentions, current board has even innocent, perhaps ... innocently, um, protected the past. I think we need to hear some comment on the agreement that was between Mr. Gaub, where that stands today. Um, I think we can all understand whether or not you can, or we understand whether or not you can talk about it, but we're not, we don't have the privilege of, in an environment like this, in a, issues like this, we don't have the benefit of not talking about things. So I think it'd be worthwhile for us to hear where that stands today. Can y'all talk about that today? Yeah. Uh, I'll make a, make a few comments. Um, um, one is that I think there's been a misperception by the public of how much money we're really talking about. And, and if you look at the auditor's report, uh, uh, you can divide the expenses into basically four categories. And, and one is that we had expenses that were appropriate and they had the right documentation to them. We also had appropriate expenses that were not documented. Um, we also had expenses that would be deemed appropriate, but they could be appear, or appear to be excessive. And then we had inappropriate expenses. And if you go back and look at the auditor, auditor's report, um, I think that, uh, the state auditor made the distinction. She didn't break out numbers between those four categories, but those are the expenses that we, we've dealt with. We've, we've worked on those inappropriate expenses. Um, uh, to date, we have recovered about $45,000 from the individuals involved. Uh, we've recovered a lot of stuff, if you will, things, uh, that were purchased for the benefit, um, uh, of individuals. We've asked for their return. We've received those. And, um, um, and, you, you know, talk about Mr. Gaub, we, we addressed, as a board, uh, the po- ... We didn't know a couple of months ago, we had doubts whether there would be indicts, indictments in this issue. We had doubts about that. And, and so, so the board at least, uh, gave me authorization, uh, through the advice of our advisors to, you know, a possible, uh, uh, settlement with Mr. Gob. We, we had some talks. Uh, we do not have an agreement with him. We have not settled. Uh, we had some brief discussions. Uh, they weren't very significant in my opinion. And, and now that we have indictments in place, I'm unwilling to take any action to settle with him. You know, I'm hoping the legal author- legal authorities might help us in that regard. So, um, um, you know, we do have legal issues, and we have indictments in place, and I don't know how much really more I can add to that without really... I don't wanna prejudice, uh, any of the, any of the case. All right. Okay. What's the time situat- If we... Is this a... Does it have to be... I don't know how we're timed when we have Q&A. It's exp- It's expired, but, um, there's a couple of opportunities to speak and so if you'd like to- Okay. There are others that- ... come back around, we can do that. Councilmember Meyers. Thank you, Mayor. Um, you just kinda started talking about the reimbursement. Um, last time you were here, I asked you to come back with a list of, of, you know, what needed to be paid back. Um-hmm. So let me start here. Do you have a... You said there were four different categories of, of expenditures. So looking at the ones that may have been excessive and/or, um, inappropriate, I think you said maybe- Right. ... was the term. Right. Do you have a dollar amount for that? Uh, no, because what's inappropriate in our eyes may not seem to be inappropriate in another's eyes. Uh, we've debated on, on that issue. We have not come up with a formal list of, "These are inappropriate, these are not." Uh, but- Okay. ... you know. I don't, I don't wanna cut you off, but I only get four minutes, and you've taken up, you take up part of my time too. So- Uh-huh. Do you have a dollar amount that you know you want to be reimbursed? Okay. No, and, and, and I'd rather not discuss numbers like that just because we haven't finished the settlements yet. Okay. And, uh, and like I said, I don't wanna prejudice any of the, of the legal actions that are being- Sure. ... taken, you know, which may be involved in some of that negotiation. Can I remind you of one thing that you said before when you were here though? And that was when I brought up the issue of negotiation. I said, "That kinda denotes that you're gonna settle for less than." And you said you guys wanted everything back. Um-hmm. And in my view, if, if a shotgun was purchased and you got the shotgun back, but the airport doesn't have a use for a shotgun, if it's sold on eBay for 100 bucks and it cost 500, then they still owe 400 bucks. Um, I'll just, I'll move on from there. And to, to wrap things up, um, have you submitted your work, your body of work, to, um, Krit Llewellyn to see if she would review that and comment on what you guys have put together based on the recommendations she gave you? Uh, I don't know if we have yet. Would you like to respond to that? Yes. If I could address that. We, um... The airport board did give, uh, the Kentucky Auditor's Office a 60-day report that went through every single one of her recommendations and either said the airport at that... Uh, told her the status at that point. For example, the travel policy, the ethics policy, those had been adopted by that time, or laid out a set of expectations about how the airport board intended to address them. For example, um, engage a new firm of auditors. That was accomplished subsequent to that report, but, um, uh, but, but that report did say that the airport intended to do that. Uh, from that letter evolved the spreadsheet that you see in front of you, uh, which is an attempt to provide what was a 30-page response in a summary form that people could work with. Okay. When you provided that to her, did you actually give her the policies and things, or did you just give her an outline of, "We have a new policy"? So say, say the ethics policy, for example. Did she get a copy of that so she could review that? Uh, uh, to be... I, I, I don't recall. I know that, you know, it... We gave her over 30 pages of a letter, and there were some attachments. I don't remember whether that was specifically one of them. I do remember that, that where the, where provisions of, say, the ethics policy were relevant to some, a specific recommendation, the response quoted the relevant section of the ethics policy and said, you know, "The audit recommended this. The board has adopted a policy that says that, and that's how the board has responded to your recommendation." Okay. Mm-hmm. Would the board be... We'd be happy to provide you the copy, with, with a copy of the, the response that we sent to the auditor. I, I would prefer if you, if the board would vote to send the auditor the package. So, you know, all these policies that you've put in place, if you'd send her those and let her look at those. And then my time's getting run out, so quickly two more questions. Um, the second one is, I do understand that it's not cost-effective to have a division of auditing for the airport board, but would the board consider allowing the city's auditor to, to serve in that function? And, and I don't... Maybe legally... Well, no, it's already been determined by our law department that our auditor can audit outside agencies. So would the board... I'm asking the board to consider that. Oh, we can consider that, yes. And, um, again I think that, you know, some of the policies and procedures we have in place have addressed those issues and, you know, we're, as everybody is, we're on tight budget constraints, uh, today, and, you know, certainly we're, you know, we're not gonna short-circuit expense when it's required, but when it's not required and we think we have it adequately covered, uh, you know, that's just something we need to address as a board, but that's a good suggestion and certainly we'll look into it. Okay. Can I ask one final q- question? All right. I'll be damn. If you, knowing what you know now, and the indictments and all those things that happened, would you do anything different in handling this whole situation than, than the way that you did it? You didn't tell me you were gonna ask a question with a 20-minute answer. Uh, well, it, it, it's hard to, to, uh, to, to address a, a very open-ended question, but I think that in our case, uh, as has been confirmed by the, the, the state auditor, um, you know, we had a lot of these transactions hidden from the board. Where the executive director was using the credit cards of his subordinate and then approving those and not showing those to the board, you know? And then you had four people in collusion that were all attempting to hide these things from the board. When you have collusion like that, it's hard to, you know, hard to find. Uh, uh, we, we have, uh, on our board, uh, uh, attorneys, uh, two of us have had, uh, public company experience on audit boards. We have a lot of experience. Our auditors that we hired, when we asked them last year, uh, specifically if there were any procedures that were violated or anything related to expenses not being documented, their answer was no. And that was a safeguard. The CFO should have served as a safeguard. And he was in cahoots. You had, and our external auditors, like I said, should have, uh, addressed this. So I think that we had the breakdown in a lotta, a lotta systems. We had a lotta things covered up. Um, you know, looking back on it, could we have found those things? You know, crooks are tough to find, but they're found. And, you know, I think we were fortunate enough to find them in this case. Um, um, and, um, you know, whether we could do anything or not to prevent it, you know, I don't know. That's, I'd have to give that a lot of thought probably and, uh, but, um, uh, you know, if, if procedures are gonna be circumvented, there's not a lot you can do about it. Especially when you have collusion of your top four people. Thank you for coming in today. And, and will you follow up with us on the questions that I've asked you to, to address with the board? I'll be happy to, yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Council member Wallace. Um, I guess I was gonna ask, the last time you were here, I asked about what kind of process you all were gonna go through to hire the executive director, and, um, I asked if, um, how transparent that would be, and you said very, and it's been a long time since you were here, and I understand that you hired the, the, uh, interim director as your new executive director, and have also hired somebody that worked with him, uh, in his previous position, uh, at another airport, and so I have questions about that, and I also have questions about the, uh, some of the financial things, and I'll just try to put those in an email because I think they're really important. Before my time runs out and before you answer the, the question on the hiring process and how much you all have spent on consultants, um, the thing I'm most struck by is when you said I think the problem is that the general public is missing, uh, doesn't understand how, thinks it's more money than it was, or doesn't understand, and that it was broken down into appropriate, inappropriate, s- undocumented, et cetera, et cetera. And what I'm hearing is, you know, it really wasn't a big deal. I- And I don't think it was the amount of money- Yeah. ... as much as the absolutely outrageous- Mm-hmm. ... behaviors that I know that, that at least some board members knew about. Well- And, um, that scares me. And when I, I, you know, I know that you're a well-trained CPA, and, um, I've been on a lot of boards and I've worked for boards, and what you're telling us now is that you all really wouldn't have caught 'em because they were in collusion, so what policies do you have now that would catch 'em? Well, first of all, uh, absolutely not were those expenses, uh, acceptable to us. They were completely outr- outrageous. We were appalled by them, and we were disgusted. Um, and I don't wanna make light of that fact. Uh, they were completely inappropriate. Um, um... We think that our new procedures and policies that we have in place address the controls. Uh, we think that taking away the credit card issue is the most important thing here because they... ... to get -- for an individual to use their, their own personal credit card and to get reimbursed, that has to be approved. Okay? And that's approved by our staff, and then it's accepted or approved by the board. And, um, so if there's anything inappropriate there, we're gonna know about it as a board, as a policy board. And, and you know, I think, I think things go either, you know, when you have situations like this, we're probably gone overboard in tying the hands of our staff to make it hard to get these things approved unless it's done in advance. And that's what we've done. Um, so, uh, you know, I think we've addressed the issue to where it won't happen again. Now, if you have people in collusion, I'm not saying it could never happen, but it could happen. Well, when you were here, maybe when I first came on council, your first appearance, um, you talked about as being the, um, treasurer on the board, that you had questioned the CFO and hadn't gotten satisfactory answers, and then 51-91 happened, and everybody was too busy with that. Um, it's very disturbing to me to hear that, that whole issue of, well, I think the general public... That, that was a very disturbing comment to me. And, um, so I'll, I'll t- stop with that 'cause I've only got 16 seconds left. Um, I would like to know more dollar amounts about your expenses, your limits, your, what you've paid consultants, how much you paid the consultant who hired Mr. Frankel, and, um, how many, how many calls you've had on your whistleblower, um, hotline. I could address those. Uh, we- we've had one call on our whistleblower comment, and that was the test call the first month set up to see if it works. Every month we have... Our, our, uh, our policy states that our, um, uh, th- the person that receives the whis- whistleblower report reports to the, um, um, Human Resources Committee, and then the committee makes a report to the board, and then if there are any, i- if there are any calls at all, regardless of whether it's a test or not, then, then, uh, that's addressed by the board. So we know every month if that's being, being, um, being utilized. And like I said, to date, we've had one call, and that was a test call set up the first month. Um, on the hiring process, uh, we, we did hire a Guy Huguet, uh, who is well-known in the community. He is, um, a, um, a, a personnel consultant. Uh, you may know him. Uh, he, um, uh, we wanted to have an open and fair, uh, review of the candidates. Uh, we, we designed a, a, um, a, a, a way to solicit and review applicants. We had, I think it was 69. I spoke earlier, 66, but we had 69 applicants. Um, uh, they were culled down, uh, based on experience, um, and background, uh, by Guy. He presented, uh, a committee of ours, uh, with 12 candidates, Eric being the, one of them, Eric Frankel, and then, uh, the committee culled those down to six. And, and they met one day, reviewed those six, and decided to do three interviews. And three interviews were conducted. Um, and I have to say that Eric had the most comprehensive resume that he submitted. Um, he gave the best interview of the three candidates that were selected, and he's a known quantity. And I think that, that those of y'all that met him on a, on a, um, chamber trip or, you know, in just various day-to-day things, he is a quality individual. Uh, I think he's good for the community. He wanted the job. He competed hard for the job, and we told him upfront that he had to compete for the job. This wasn't a certainty, but, uh, you know, I think we are very pleased to have him emerge as the number one candidate. Uh, how much have we paid Guy? Uh, I don't know. I haven't seen his bill. But, you know, if you want, you know, any questions that you have, and I've invited any of the council members before, you can either call me, you can send me an email. We'll be happy to get you that information. Thank you. I certainly will. Okay. Vice Mayor Gray. So, so Bobby, would you say, um, sort of in a summary that, um, Lou Ellen did the right thing by conducting an audit? Well, I think the answer would be yes, because at the time, we were already deciding how we were gonna rebuild this staff. The decisions were already made to eliminate these people. I think you and I had a talk in November about that even. Um, and, um, we- I was, well, we, and I were struggling with, you know, how can we bring a third party in? ... to basically give us a third-party opinion as to what happened. And, and, you know, when the suggestion was made to have Britt come in, uh, uh, I think, looking back on it, that was a really good one. And, um, uh, we worked well with her. Uh, you know, we helped her define some of the issues that needed to be addressed. Uh, I think out of our experience, uh, came the, the publication for nonprofits boards that she presented, and a lot of that was used from the, from the policies and procedures that we developed. Uh, and I think the most important thing is that it gave us a third-party credible report, and that's what we were really looking forward to. And, uh, and so I think it accomplished that goal. And looking back on it, I think that was the right thing to do. So then would, would you say that, um, this council did the right thing by calling for the audit and going against the grain and the objections, your objections, Mr. Lovely's objections, others' objections, the mayor's objections? Did the council do the right thing by calling for the audit? Well, I don't know if there were objections at the time. I think we were struggling with trying to find, um, that third-party independent source. So, you know, looking back on it, I think it was a good decision to make. Okay, my final question. Okay. Did the Herald-Leader do the right thing by conducting an investigation and going against the grain? Well, I think that the Herald-Leader, uh, through its open records request, caused us to start drilling down and looking at some of these expenses. And, you know, I think that, you know, by the time that article came, we knew we had issues and problems and we were in the process of starting to address those. Um, so, um, you know, I... Eventually, I think these things would've been caught, you know, whether, you know, one group or another is responsible or not, I don't know. In other words, sunlight- But I think it worked out. ... sunlight is the best disinfectant, perhaps. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I think you've said a lot today, Bobby, because, um, at least myself, I felt like that there's been an absence of a willingness to acknowledge, um, to apologize for, even if it's a curveball that went past the board, or a series of curveballs that got past you. And there's a real need, maybe I'm influenced a little bit by, too much by Asian culture- Mm-hmm. ... but the symbolism of leadership when a real problem occurs is that the leadership falls on the sword and the leadership says, "This happened, this occurred on our watch." And it was bad. And today, you know, I think we have heard more at least that there is contrition, there is regret, and there are apologies for the behaviors that conduct, that occurred on your watch. Um, and I suspect that the public will also appreciate that. Thank you. Before we go any further, uh, Vice Mayor Gray, you indicated that I had objected to the auditor being a part of the mix. And to the contrary, I sent you a letter early last December in which I said, "I had no objection to the auditor or any other third party taking a look at it." So, uh, do you recall receiving that? I do recall that. I think my comment had to do with your feeling that was vigorously expressed that you felt like this was an issue that should be examined and could be examined internally by the airport board and no external, and external, uh, authorities were not required. That was never the case. That's my recollection of it. The point I, I consistently made was it was the responsibility of the members of the board to make a judgment call about whether third-party reviews were appropriate. And as I communicated to you in early December, I had no objection to that. And my sense of it was the board didn't either, but it was ultimately their call to make about how the airport gets run. All right. Councilmember Lane. Uh, thank you, Mayor. Um, just for the record, I was appointed by the mayor in January- ... of this year to be his representative on the, on the board. And I have not spoken to the council on this matter, uh, during this period of time because I felt that it was the duty of the chair to come here and speak to the council and not for me as a representative of the mayor. Uh, but just to go further on the record, I did, I have attended all, uh, board meetings. I also serve on the budget and audit committee, and I've attended all those meetings. Uh, the, the month that I was appointed, the first meeting was when the executive director and the deputies resigned, uh, from the, uh, employment of the airport. And I just wanna say that, you know, there was a contingency plan in place at that time. And we had, I think, very effective, uh, i- interim management of the airport. I think operations went very smoothly and all of the construction continued on schedule. Um, I feel that the board has worked flawlessly for an extended period of time to address every one of the issues that were brought out in the auditor's report. ... and I, I think they've done a very good job. And I'm excluding myself. Although I worked on that, I'll give the credit to the other, uh, board members. Um, s- since they put in the new policies, they've also very diligently worked to implement them and put them into place, make sure they're being effective. Uh, and I've been, uh, really amazed, um, I, I've told several people that sometimes I wish that our council worked as effectively as the airport board. And I also made a recommendation a week or so ago that we restructure our committee operations to mirror more what the airport board does because I think it would improve the efficiency of local government. Um, with regard to Eric Frankel, the new Executive Director, uh, you know, he came in as an interim director and I did vote to approve him as the new Executive Director. I felt that his qualifications were as good, if not better, than any of the other, uh, 60-some-odd people that applied. But Eric had been there on the job. I'd seen him in action, and I've seen his leadership and how he stepped with the employees at the airport, and I was very impressed with that. And I felt it would be better to, uh, take the interim director and make him the permanent director than to gamble on bringing somebody in that we had no experience with and, and his stead. So I think that was an excellent, uh, decision also. So, uh, overall, uh, and I've been on a few boards, I, I think the airport board is one of the best boards that I've served on. During this period of time, they have touched on every issue that, as I said, the auditor, um, asked to be addressed. I feel like it's on very good, uh, standing and I... Everything that I've seen in the audit and fi- uh, the finance and audit commi- committee makes me feel that, um, you know, we have very good control over the financial operations of the airport. I just wanted to throw that in on behalf of the council, uh, and I probably won't address this again unless the chairman comes back for another meeting. Uh, thank you, uh, Mayor. Thank you. Any further questions for Mr. Owen? Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I'll be- Steve- ... happy to come back anytime I'm invited. Thank you. Well, thank you for being here today and for your service and that of your, uh, fellow board members. Thank y'all. All right. It's time now for council reports. Uh, Council Member Stennet. Thank you, Mayor. Just a couple of announcements, but before I do, I have a motion to welcome a docket that I passed out, uh, to all the council members in regards to our traffic control in my district. I move to place on the docket for Thursday, November the 19th, a resolution authorizing directing the tran- division of traffic engineering to lower the speed limit to 25 miles an hour on Pleasant Ridge Drive from Aspen Street to Autumn Ridge Drive. So moved. Second. Have a motion and second. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Oppose no. Motion carries. Thank you, Mayor. Tonight, the Eastland Parkway neighborhood will be having their, uh, bi-monthly meeting at 6:30 at Christ Center Church, as well as the Building and Inspection Task Force that was mentioned earlier today will have our first meeting on December the 1st at 10:00 AM on the fifth floor conference room. Thank you, Mayor. Thanks. Council Member Gordon. Uh, thank you, Mayor. I have two motions. Um, first, and council members received a copy of this in their mailboxes, um, Council Member Beard asked me to make this motion. Um, I move to place on the docket for Thursday, November 19th, 2009, a resolution authorizing and directing the Division of Traffic Engineering pursuant to Code Ordinances sec- Section 18-46 to designate David Drive as prohibited to through trucks and to install signage appropriate to such designation pursuant to Code of Ordinances Section 18-15, 50. Have a motion by Council Member Gordon, a second by Council Member Crosby. Any discussion? All in... Uh, Council Member Lane. Uh, just a question. This was, uh, recommended by traffic engineering? Uh, yes, you received this in your box, I think, yesterday, and it... attached to it is a memo from Brad Frazier of Traffic Engineering saying that they have no objection to this installation. Okay, thank you. You have my support. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Oppose no. Motion carries. And then the second motion, uh, Mayor, has to do with the, uh, moratorium, which the council passed a month ago, a little more than a month ago. And, um, Council Member Lawless and I have, and some others have been discussing how we could organize our thoughts and actions relative to the moratorium. And so my motion is to ask the Vice Mayor to appoint a working group to address solutions which can be recommended by individual council members into this work group and then to report back to council. I have a motion by Council Member Gordon, a second by Council Member Lawless. Any discussion? All in favor- Should this be a resolution? Yes, my under- Oh. My, my understanding is it's a motion to ask the vice mayor to create a work group for purposes of dealing with moratorium. Go on. Work- And it's meant to be a work group of council members, a small working group that can rapidly work through the issues. I'm sorry, I just misunderstood- It's okay. ... one pa- part of it. That clarifies. Thank you. All right. Anything further? Those in favor of the motion, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Oppose no. Motion carries. And that completes my report. Thank you. Council Member, uh, Blues. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, on October 24th, the, uh, the, uh, McConnell's Trace Greenway Committee with, uh, a number of neighborhood volunteers planted 60 trees, uh- ... o- on the, uh, McConnell's Trace Greenway through a grant matching project with a, a sustainable, uh, neighborhood sustainability grant. And now, uh, on Saturday, November 21st, uh, the, the c- the committee wants to finish the work. Uh, volunteers are needed to put down, uh, down mats and, uh, uh, and oth- and other mechanisms to prevent, uh, prevent weeds. So at 10:00 AM on Saturday, November 21, uh, volunteers should meet at the pump station on the trail at the bottom of Long Branch Lane. Uh, and I'm hoping that there'll be a good crew out there to get that work done expeditiously. Also, I have a few other m- meeting announcements, uh, tonight, November 17th, the Coventry Homeowners Association will, will hold its annual meeting at, uh, Amanii Church at 6:00 PM. Uh, a- attendees should, uh, should enter by the side entrance to the church. And at 7:00 PM also tonight, the Muirhaven, Muirhaven Neighborhood Watch, uh, uh, meeting will take place in Masters Church. Uh, the neighborhood is anxious to get a neighborhood watch organized, a good meeting for neighbors to come out to be informed and to be involved. Thursday evening, November 19th, the Spiegel Heights neighborhood will meet at 7:00 PM. That's at Antioch Church. And then next Monday, November 23rd at 7:00 PM, two neighborhood meetings, the Radcliffe-Marlborough Neighborhood Association will meet in the neighborhood center in Marlborough Park, and the Oakwood neighborhood meeting will be at Oakwood Park. And finally, I want to, uh, send best wishes to our colleague, Council Member Beard, uh, recovering from surgery. And, and, uh, uh, we hope he, uh, he, he, he gets better soon, gets out of the hospital, and by this time next week he'll be back among us. Thank you, Mayor. That's my report. Thank you. Council Member Hinson. Thank you, Mayor. I have, um, a motion, two resolutions to bring forward. I think, um, everyone should have gotten copies of this. And, um, this, um, these two motions come out of a ad hoc committee that was, came out of planning. So, um, due to time restraints, this will need to go to Frankfurt, and they will... We only have like two or three council meetings before the first of the year and General Assembly will start back, so we wanted to move this forward. Um, I hereby move to place on the docket for November 19th, 2009 Council meeting the following two resolutions, a resolution requesting that the legislature amend KRS- KRS100991 to expressly authorize urban county governments and other local governments to issue civil fines for violating the provisions of KRS Chapter One, zoning law. And resolution two, requesting that the legislature amend KRS100991 to increase the penalties. Second to both. So moved. Have a motion to, uh, place those two resolutions on the docket for Thursday's meeting. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no? Motion carries. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Wallace. Thank you, Mayor. Um, I wanted to announce that tonight at 7:00 PM, the Elizabeth Street, uh, Neighborhood Association along with the North Elizabeth Street and Seven Parks, uh, Neighborhood Association are scheduled meeting at, uh, the First Christian Church on the corner of Audubon and Forest Park. And, um, they have extended the invitation to all the third district, um, neighborhood association members or, um, residents that would like to come. We're gonna talk some about the moratorium and, um, the, uh, smoking ban and, um, third district issues. So it's open to all the neighborhood associations, and it's at 7:00 PM tonight. Um, also, I said I would make an announcement, and I have forgotten the details of it, but there are two Christmas trees, and I think one of them is in front of either Worlds Apart or Buddies or something, and one somewhere else. Anyway, it's, uh, gift wishes from people, elderly people in the community, and they're very modest, uh, requests. So I will find out more about that and report where you can get those soon. But, uh, if you see one of those trees with one of th- one of those little gift requests for the elderly, often people that are in, uh, um, facilities and have no family or nobody around to help them out, that'd be great. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Mayor. Just, uh, a couple of things. This, this weekend was a, a pretty big weekend as far as activities. You had the, the Beastie Ball going on for the Humane Society, Big Brothers Big Sisters annual event, the Lyric Theater benefit concert. ... uh, and then on Friday night, it was, uh, the 10-year, uh, anniversary of, uh, the Jesus Prom at Southern Christian Church. Uh, it's a, uh, a prom that's put on for the physically and mentally challenged. And not only in our community, but, but surrounding counties and even, uh, other states, and, uh, uh, it's a major event. Obviously, there were, uh, 3,000 folks with special needs that, that w- attended the prom. Uh, 1,500, 2,000 volunteers, and, uh, just a, just a great night. And, uh, congratulations goes out to Brewster McLeod for, for being kind of the brainchild behind that. But I also wanted to take this opportunity, uh, Assistant Chief Newton, I know, uh, you in the room, and, and I want to pass along to Chief Baston that every year, uh, the police, a number of police officers volunteer their time, and that's organized by Officer Josh Brees. Uh, and, uh, just an absolute invaluable service to, uh, to that event with that many folks. But, uh, o- they took it up s- a step higher. They, uh, they engaged the entire recruiting class, uh, and the, the recruiting class worked it as well. And so I wanted to let you know, uh, that we are deeply appreciative to the police, uh, and their involvement along with, uh, others in public safety from, uh, from EMTs and others that volunteer their time, but, but especially to Josh Brees. And I just wanted to let you know a letter will be forthcoming with all those names, but please pass that along to the chief, if you don't mind. Thank you, Mayor. Thanks. Council Member James. Thank you, Mayor. A couple of neighborhood meetings. The North Upper Street Neighborhood Association will be meeting at the Dunbar Community Center at 6:00 on Thursday. Um, if you live from, let's say, Limestone, Upper Street, Kenton Street, Toner, Campbell, um, maybe even on the east side of Broadway, um, come and join in at that meeting. They have a guest speaker. I'm not sure who it is. I guess it's a surprise 'cause I'm not sure who it is. But they have, um... Just get to know those residents. They're, they're needing some, some new members and some energetic young folks ready to hit hard. A lot of good stuff going on in there with the Russell School revitalization. So, um, get engaged with the North Upper Street Neighborhood As- Association. Ask for Lillian Gentry when you get to the Dunbar Center and everybody will know where to find her. Also, the Northside Neighborhood Association is having their annual meeting at the Graham Cottage at the same time as the North Upper on Thursday at 6:00. Graham Cottage, I believe, is at the corner of Broadway and 5th. It's on the Transy campus there. Um, it sits up on a hill and they're gonna have their... This is their big annual meeting. Food probably provided and, um, you get to hear about the activities of the neighborhood and what they're gonna be p- planning for the next, um, upcoming year. Also wanted to talk about an event happening on Wednesday the 18th, the Therapeutic Recreation, um, th- uh, program, through our Parks and Rec is gonna be hosting. They're a kind of American Bandstand event. It's gonna be held at the Bell House, um, this Wednesday, as I mentioned, the 18th from 6:00 to 8:00. Uh, come out and support, um, those folks. Those are, uh, young people usually with some form of disability that this is kind of what they do. This is, um, they have a, they have dances, they have this, they have, um, a hockey, like a, um, a hockey game at the Dunbar Center. Um, some annual events to get them engaged and for a social hour and also for recreation at the same time. Also, y'all know I'm a huge football fan. Um, unfortunately, my son had a injury this year, so, um, we've been out for several games. But this, this weekend, we have several football teams headed out of town for tournaments, and I just wanted to, um, tell them to be safe, um, away at tournament and, um, do Lexington proud and perform well and play hard. Um, be aggressive, and remember that you're part of a team, um, no matter what, so support your team. Um, and, um, be there on the sideline cheering them on and probably dress warm, um, because, uh, wear that Underarm- Armor 'cause it'll be cold out there in Owensboro if you're going there. And Knoxville, maybe not as cold, um, but have a good time and, um, be safe and come back with some trophies so I can have you down here at council. Thanks, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Crosby. Uh, thank you, Mayor. I was just wondering if, uh, your office is still doing the board training. I know that you had a few of them, uh, back in the fall, uh, for people to learn about being on a board and the responsibilities that go along with that. And I also understood that possibly you're going to have some online training available. Uh, I was just curious as to if that's gonna be ongoing or I don't know if you can answer that or if someone else knows. It, it will be ongoing, and we will, um, have periodic updates to catch new folks as they join the boards. There will be, uh, an online feature. I don't recall offhand when the next one is scheduled, and I'm not sure that I've got that, but we can let you know about that. Can anybody who's interested, uh, they may not currently be on a board but they might, uh, potentially want to serve on a board? Sure. Or they might be on another community board? I ask this because, um, I've been involved in lots... I get lots of emails from different groups and they're doing a lot of board training now I noticed, and some of the prices on this training seem rather high- Right. ... when we offer it for free. So I guess the question is, for either potential board members or people who are on other community boards, they could also possibly participate in our training and... Oh, I see somebody. We'd, we'd be glad to have them. Just so everyone is aware, we had, um, folks from the law department, folks from our internal audit department, as well as some of the folks from the non-profit center at UK that participated in the, uh, uh, seminar that we did, I believe, in September. I don't want to hold it out as the be all and end all of, uh, board training, but it is, uh, I, I... We, we had very positive feedback from the folks who participated, and we would welcome whoever in the community might like to participate. So it's safe to say there might be another one springtime- Right. ... possibly- Right. ... and then p- perhaps online? I j- I just ask because the- the prices from what I've seen, a lot of these different organizations are charging fees, which I assume then is to pay for speakers who are coming in to help their training. And I just believe that if we have a service- service- surface that we're already providing the community, um, right now with the economy the way it is and people who are wanting to serve but may not be able to afford but wanna have the background, that this might be a good alternative for them. First of all, the next training is scheduled for February. Um, I didn't hear everything you said, but I think you were talking about if people were interested, they could contact our office. Um, we're working on the online to get that up and going. And then in terms of other boards that aren't part or- Urban County Government participating, I think that's something we'll need to discuss under our contract with Danielle Klore from University of Kentucky because the price we got w- for her was for the membership, the various boards we have. If other groups come, then, eh, essentially she's doing it for free, so we'd have to talk to her about that. Well, I guess my- my question was for people who might also potentially be interested in a board that, uh, with, uh, Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, they could, eh, they could know upfront what some of the responsibilities are versus getting on a board then being trained after the fact that... I guess maybe that might be more of the question. Council Member Crosby, even though we would have that contractual issue with the folks from the nonprofit center at UK, we could certainly work to make sure they had access to the folks in our law department and the folks in our internal audit department, which would be a significant portion of the information- Well, and if it's online too then- Right. ... that would also- Right. ... be very helpful. Okay, that's all I had. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Mayor Gray. Uh, thank you, Mayor. Um, Andrea, I was sure you would, or Council Member James, I was sure that you would mention, uh, passing of Lewis Cobb maybe before anyone else did or before I have the chance to, and I know you will probably come back to it. Um, for those who in our listening audience who, um, what I'm referring to is a, a citizen who was, um, often in our chambers, um, his name was Lewis Cobb, and he passed away last week. In fact, I think, Artie, you had a comment about Lewis on the, on the, um, on kentucky.com. I didn't see it, but I heard that you had a nice comment. And, you know, I- I think, I- I certainly know when I'd see Lewis coming into the room, I'd think, "Oh Lordy, what in the world, what in the world will he say tonight? And, uh, what, what might, what might I have done that he calls me out on?" And I think it probably, for all of us, um, Lewis's life, um, you know, often probab- often challenging and he shared that with us and he challenged us. And, uh, in fact, I think Council Member Meyers, you used a, in a e- in a text message you said, um, "Who's gonna take the place of Lewis as a- a conscience, a voice?" And, um, even if we sometimes might disagree, I think he probably illustrated that the dissenting voice is, the dissenting voice is not always destructive and the dissenting voice can have value and meaning to us even if we don't agree with it. And, um, I always remember my grandmother had a phrase that she would say, um, the, um, the speck of sand, the irritant in the oyster is what can often make the pearl. And it's that kind of irritation that is uncomfortable sometimes for us, but listening to it is valuable. So we'll miss Lewis Cobb. Um, a couple weeks ago, I think I asked the council to endorse the, um, creation of a taskforce that would, um, uh, look at our traffic management issues. Um, to some extent, um, having illuminated themselves or emerged from the amount of activity underway in the downtown today. Um, just reporting on that, I've had a work group working on, uh, developing an outline of the agenda, mission, purpose, that sort of thing, uh, including Frank Ha- Harsher, who's here in the back of the room. Frank's a former secretary or undersecretary or deputy secretary of Natural Resources and worked in the transportation cabinet for, uh, former secretary of high- or Commissioner of Highways and then Secretary of Transportation Cal Grayson who's also been helping with outlining our, um, agenda and purpose for that. And we should expect to have a report out on the, um, the issues of the, that the work group has identified and then we can move that into a task force if it's appropriate, and we should have that on December the 7th. Uh, thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Gray, uh, Lane. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, I- I too wanted to, uh, make a comment about Lewis Cobb who passed away last week. Um, it was about three weeks ago, I- I bought a shoe shine from him, uh, and I- I, you know, I paid him in advance and I told him, "Just keep the money 'cause I, um, my shoes don't need a shine right now." And while we were chatting, I mentioned to him that I felt that on several occasions he'd been inappropriate in our council meeting and said some things about some of our council members that was not right. And I just wanted to... and I said, "I- I even considered trying to censor you for that because I thought it was very inappropriate." Uh, and he said, uh, to me that he sincerely apologized for things that he had said and- ... that he would try to not ever do that again. And it would sort of touch me, so I had this little, uh, meeting with him, and we discussed some of these issues. And then a few days later, he had passed away. So I thought I would share that with the council, because I, I feel sort of like the mayor does. He, he was a little bit of a, an irritant to the council, but, uh, sometimes that makes pearls. Uh, now, now he's not here, I'm really worried that he might go the other direction. Uh, thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Hinson, you have another matter? Yeah, I've already spoke once. Can I speak again? Yeah. Yes. Thank you, Council Member Lane, for sharing that story. And I too, um, had thought a lot about Lewis Cobb since he passed, and he was a man of a lot of character, I thought. And I know a lot of times he was inappropriate, and, um, but he was a human being. So I was gonna suggest that, uh, he was also a citizen of Lexington, Kentucky. Um, maybe we would have a moment of silence at, during the, the, uh, public comment tonight. Thank you, Mayor. That'd be most, be most appropriate. Any... Council Member Wallace? Thank you. And, uh, I would like to chime in. The apology, um, he was referring to, he made to me, and, um, I appreciated it. And what I always knew about, um, Lewis, um, fondly known as Shoeshine, is regardless if I agreed with him or not, he spoke from his heart and from passion and for love of this community. And, um, I know he's shining somewhere, and I hope we have some folks that'll step up and start coming to our council meetings regularly. Thank you. That, uh, concludes our council reports. Um, although the agenda indicates there's no mayor's report, there were several, uh, board and commission recommendations, which- Move approval. ... I understand we're circulating. Council Member Crosby's moved the approval of those. Council Member Henson's seconded the motion. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Opposed, no? Motion carries. And that does, uh, take us down to public comment on, uh, issues not on the agenda. Does anyone wish to address the council? Seeing none, to follow up on Council Member Henson's suggestion, let's, uh, stand for a moment of silence in memory of Mr. Cobb. Thank you. Is there a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. I have a motion by Council Member Crosby, second of Vice Mayor Gray. All in favor, please say aye. Opposed, no? Motion carries. Thank you.