# Special Inter Governmental Committee - December 1, 2009 > Auto-transcribed civic record · December 1, 2009 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/1139 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/1139?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2009-12-01 - **Last revised**: July 17, 2026 - **Length**: 13,701 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Special Inter-Governmental Committee met on December 1, 2009, at 9:00 a.m. at the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government Center. The meeting was presided over by Jiin Gray. The committee addressed 11 agenda items, including informational presentations on council standing committees and streamlining the council role, as well as updates on committee items. The body took 4 votes and heard 5 public comments during the session. The committee approved several items related to property and project execution, including deeds and easements for bike trail and sewer projects, closing statements for property transactions, and the execution of easement releases and encroachment agreements. The committee also approved the grant application process, extensions of existing grant agreements, execution of contracts not exceeding $50,000, professional services contracts, and execution of change orders. One agenda item—the acceptance of donations of goods or services—failed to pass. ## Attendance **Present:** Jiin Gray, Linda Gorton, Chuck Elfinger, Aadrea James, Tom Blues, Diane Lawless, Julian Beard, Cheryl Feigel, Kevin Stinnett, K.C. Croshie, George Myers, Jay McChord, Doug Martin, Pegey Henson, Ed Lane, Logan Askew, Susan Lamb, Glenda George, and Brian Markham. **Absent:** Temple Jewlett. **Late:** None. ## Votes and Decisions Four motions were voted on during the meeting, with three passing and one failing. **Motion to Approve Items A, B, D, I, and K** [timestamp: 01:03:50] George Myers moved to approve items A, B, D, I, and K for inclusion in the resolution, seconded by Tom Blues. The motion passed by voice vote. Nineteen members voted in favor, including Jiin Gray, Linda Gorton, Chuck Elfinger, Aadrea James, Tom Blues, Diane Lawless, Julian Beard, Chery! Feigel, Kevin Stinnett, K.C. Croshie, George Myers, Jay McChord, Doug Martin, Pegey Henson, Ed Lane, Logan Askew, Susan Lamb, Glenda George, and Brian Markham. Jiin Gray voted against the motion. **Motion to Amend Items G and H** [timestamp: 01:26:25] George Myers moved to amend items G and H to lower the threshold from $50,000 to $25,000, seconded by Ed Lane. The motion passed by voice vote with all nineteen members voting in favor: Jiin Gray, Linda Gorton, Chuck Elfinger, Aadrea James, Tom Blues, Diane Lawless, Julian Beard, Chery! Feigel, Kevin Stinnett, K.C. Croshie, George Myers, Jay McChord, Doug Martin, Pegey Henson, Ed Lane, Logan Askew, Susan Lamb, Glenda George, and Brian Markham. No votes were cast against the motion. **Motion to Strike Phrase from Item L** [timestamp: 01:32:37] George Myers moved to strike the phrase "and any amendments thereto" from item L. The motion passed by voice vote with all nineteen members voting in favor: Jiin Gray, Linda Gorton, Chuck Elfinger, Aadrea James, Tom Blues, Diane Lawless, Julian Beard, Chery! Feigel, Kevin Stinnett, K.C. Croshie, George Myers, Jay McChord, Doug Martin, Pegey Henson, Ed Lane, Logan Askew, Susan Lamb, Glenda George, and Brian Markham. No votes were cast against the motion. **Motion to Approve Item F** [timestamp: 01:40:11] George Myers moved to approve item F (acceptance of donations of goods or services) for inclusion in the resolution, seconded by Ed Lane. The motion failed by voice vote. Fourteen members voted in favor, while two votes were cast against the motion by Jiin Gray. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting included discussion of estimated savings totaling $74,000 from reduced publication costs and administrative time. This amendment reflected operational efficiencies identified during the budget period. ## Public Comment Several speakers addressed transparency, public access, and government efficiency during the meeting. **Transparency and Notification Process** Ed Lane suggested that the mayor should communicate all planned actions to the council before execution, with a three-day window for reconsideration to ensure transparency and accountability [timestamp: 01:36:44]. **Transparency and Public Access** Council Member Stennett expressed concern that eliminating council votes on many items reduces public transparency. Stennett noted that the public currently has three opportunities to view items via television, newspaper, and web [timestamp: 01:00:37]. Council Member Lawless countered that moving to digital access improves transparency for citizens who may not have newspaper access, and that the public can still access information through the website and public libraries [timestamp: 01:00:02]. **Efficiency and Perfunctory Items** Council Member Myers suggested that items like deed executions and grant acceptances are low-risk and perfunctory, and should be approved without formal council vote to improve efficiency [timestamp: 01:01:43]. **Sole Source Contracts** Council Member Lawless raised concern about sole source contracts and suggested that they should be included in council review, especially when only one bidder exists or the lowest bid is not accepted [timestamp: 01:05:12]. ## Contested Items The December 1, 2009 meeting included three significant areas of disagreement among council members. **Council Approval of Employee Appointments** Council Member Stennett and others argued that council approval of employee appointments is essential for payroll oversight and fiscal responsibility. They contended that maintaining a voting requirement ensures proper checks on administrative hiring decisions. Other council members supported eliminating the approval vote, citing statutory hiring processes and the minimal administrative discretion involved in routine appointments. This split vote reflected differing views on the appropriate balance between council oversight and streamlined administrative operations. **Transparency of Administrative Actions** A heated discussion emerged regarding whether eliminating council votes on routine items would reduce public transparency. Some members argued that removing votes on administrative matters would diminish public access to decision-making processes and expressed concern about relying solely on digital access and mayoral reports. They insisted on maintaining traditional transparency mechanisms, including public access through newspaper publication and multiple council readings of items. Other members countered that digital access and regular mayor's reports provide sufficient transparency without requiring formal council votes on every administrative action. **Sole Source and Single-Bid Contracts** A procedural dispute arose over whether sole source contracts or single-bid contracts should be exempt from council approval requirements. Disagreement centered on accountability mechanisms and concerns about potential conflicts of interest when contracts are awarded without competitive bidding processes. Council members differed on whether such contracts required the same level of council scrutiny as competitively bid contracts, with implications for oversight of municipal spending and vendor selection practices. ## Council Standing Committees & Streamlining Council Role [timestamp: 00:07:09] The council discussed proposals to restructure standing committees with the goal of improving operational efficiency. Aadrea James presented the discussion on this agenda item. The restructuring proposal included several key components: * Reducing the frequency of standing committee meetings * Aligning committees more closely with government departments * Replacing work sessions with a Council Oversight Workshop (COW) This restructuring initiative had been previously considered but was not adopted in December 2008. The council revisited the proposal during this meeting to reconsider its potential benefits and implementation. The outcome of this discussion was informational in nature, meaning the council received and reviewed the information without taking formal action to adopt or reject the proposal at this time. ## Update on Committee Items [timestamp: 00:08:13] The committee reviewed proposed changes designed to streamline council processes and improve operational efficiency. The discussion focused on eliminating the requirement for council approval on several routine administrative actions, including employee appointments, deed executions, grant applications, and low-value contracts. **Key Speakers** Logan Askew and Susan Lamb led the discussion on this agenda item. **Proposal Overview** The proposed changes aim to reduce costs and improve efficiency by removing unnecessary approval steps for administrative matters that do not require full council review. By delegating authority for routine actions, the council would be able to focus its time and resources on more significant policy and governance matters. **Outcome** This item was presented as informational, with no formal action taken during this meeting. ## Execution of deeds and easements for bike trail and sewer projects [timestamp: 00:15:48] The council discussed a proposal to streamline the approval process for deeds and easements related to bike trail and sewer projects. The discussion centered on eliminating the requirement for council approval on these documents for projects that had already been approved by council and included in the budget. **Key speakers:** Logan Askew and Glenda George presented on this matter. **Main argument:** The proposal characterized deeds and easements for already-approved and budgeted projects as routine administrative matters that could be handled without requiring full council approval at the execution stage. This approach would allow the administration to move forward with these documents more efficiently once the underlying projects had already received council authorization and funding. **Outcome:** The agenda item was approved. ## Closing statements for property transactions This agenda item proposed removing the requirement for council approval of internal closing statements used in property transactions. [timestamp: 00:18:38] **Presentation and Rationale** Logan Askew presented the proposal, explaining that internal closing statements are not official records but rather documents used solely for financial tracking purposes. The proposal sought to eliminate the need for council approval of these statements, streamlining the administrative process. **Outcome** The item was approved. ## Grant application process The council discussed a recommendation to streamline the grant application process by eliminating the requirement for council approval before submitting grant applications. Under the proposed change, council approval would only be required upon acceptance of a grant, rather than at the submission stage. Logan Askew presented this agenda item. The recommendation aimed to reduce administrative delays and expedite the grant application process. The council approved this proposal. ## Execution of easement releases and encroachment agreements [timestamp: 00:27:14] **Summary** This agenda item proposed removing the requirement for council approval on routine easement releases and encroachment agreements. The proposal was based on the premise that these agreements are legally required actions that do not necessitate legislative oversight. **Presentation** Logan Askew presented this item to the council. The proposal sought to streamline the approval process for easement releases and encroachment agreements by eliminating the need for council authorization on routine matters. **Rationale** The underlying rationale for the proposal was that easement releases and encroachment agreements are legally mandated actions that do not require council-level legislative review. By removing this approval requirement, the process would be simplified for routine cases. **Outcome** The item was approved by the council. ## Extensions of existing grant agreements [timestamp: 00:28:35] **Summary** The council considered a recommendation to eliminate the requirement for council approval when extending existing grant agreements that do not involve additional funding. The proposal characterized such extensions as routine administrative actions. **Key Speaker** Logan Askew presented this agenda item. **Outcome** The item was approved. ## Execution of contracts not exceeding $50,000 [timestamp: 00:24:57] The council discussed modifications to the contract approval process for agreements not exceeding $50,000. The primary proposal involved lowering the threshold for council review from $50,000 to $25,000, meaning that only contracts exceeding $25,000 would require full council approval, while those below that amount would be handled through an alternative process. Key speakers George Myers and Logan Askew led the discussion on this agenda item. The proposal aimed to streamline the contract approval process by reducing the number of smaller contracts that required full council review and action. The council approved this ordinance. ## Professional services contracts The council considered a proposal to lower the threshold for council approval of professional services contracts from $50,000 to $25,000, with all contracts exceeding $25,000 to be reported to the council. [timestamp: 00:25:28] George Myers and Logan Askew were the key speakers on this agenda item. The discussion centered on adjusting the financial threshold at which professional services contracts would require council approval and notification. The proposed change would increase council oversight by requiring notification of contracts at the lower $25,000 threshold, rather than the existing $50,000 level. This modification would ensure the council had visibility into a broader range of professional services spending. The item was approved by the council. ## Execution of change orders This agenda item addressed procedures for executing change orders on contracts. The discussion focused on contract language designed to prevent circumvention of established thresholds. **Key Recommendation** The recommended action involved removing the phrase "and any amendments thereto" from contract language. This modification was intended to ensure that the original contract price remains the benchmark for evaluating change orders, preventing parties from using amendments to circumvent the 10% threshold limit. **Key Speakers** Logan Askew and Council Member Blues participated in the discussion of this item. **Outcome** The item was approved. ## Acceptance of donations of goods or services [timestamp: 00:22:54] The council debated a proposal regarding the acceptance of donations of goods or services, specifically whether to eliminate the requirement for council approval for donations that do not require budget amendments. **Key Speakers and Discussion** George Myers, Council Member Stennett, and Council Member Lawless participated in the debate on this agenda item. **Issues Raised** The discussion centered on concerns about transparency and public awareness of donor contributions. Council members expressed concerns that removing the council approval requirement could reduce transparency regarding who was donating goods or services to the city and under what circumstances. The debate reflected tension between streamlining the approval process for routine donations and maintaining adequate public oversight of such contributions. **Outcome** The proposal failed. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve items A, B, D, I, and K for inclusion in the resolution - **Motion** — passed: Motion to amend items G and H to lower the threshold from $50,000 to $25,000 - **Motion** — passed: Motion to strike the phrase 'and any amendments thereto' from item L - **Motion** — failed: Motion to approve item F (acceptance of donations of goods or services) for inclusion in the resolution --- ## Full transcript Music Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, we don't have our quorum, so we'll get started in just a moment. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. If we can include, if you don't mind, Council Member Stenet and Council Member Lane, we'll recognize you and get started. This is a special intergovernmental committee meeting and a continuation of a previous meeting on November 17th, which where we discussed council standing committees and took action on several items on that day. And for committee members and for anybody else interested in today's work session packet, the 3 o'clock work session are the minutes of that last intergovernmental committee. And please, if you have an opportunity before 3 o'clock, try to review those and make sure that from your perspective that it's accurate. I will be presenting that in the report out today at work session. So today we have at least two items, and if time, more. But we want to hear from the law department because they had a proposal. They worked with Council Member Lawless and Council Member Feigel to discuss some streamlining of the docket process and the items that come to our docket. And then the other item we had was a proposal from the council clerk. and the council clerk had a legislative system, computer system, that she wanted to present in conjunction with our new process because the presentation will probably show us that this will help us to expedite and in conjunction with the restructuring we're doing would be a good time to introduce that. So we wanted to give her that opportunity. Some of us have seen that presentation before, but I thought this group dealing with the streamlining and the restructuring would be a good time to hear it again. And we've not taken any legislative action to move that forward, so maybe today would be that day. So we'll first hear from Commissioner of Law, Logan Askew, and we'll hear from him on that committee that worked with him on the docket process, and then we'll hear from Susan Lamb. Thanks, Logan. Thank you. As you all recall, back in the retreat, the administration council retreat in February, I believe it was, there was some discussion about streamlining processes. And from that discussion, Councilmembers Feigl and Lawless and I have worked a bit trying to put together a proposed revision, which would allow for a number of items that you're currently approving to simply be handled administratively, and as they are handled, they would become a part of the mayor's report to the council. There was a memo that I sent out on August the 21st, which is included in your intergovernmental packet. attached to it was a proposed resolution that addressed those items that the group thought we could do administratively. What is not included in the packet is an ordinance revision that would be necessary for one item. But, Madam Chair, I can go down this list if you would like and we can discuss those. Sure. Are you talking about the list that has the ABC? Actually, I was. The memo itself? The memo itself. Okay. But we can go down this list if you would like. Well, what I thought, because it helped me when we were talking about this, Okay. is talking about in groups the sections that have to do with that would affect, that wouldn't affect the council clerk's process and then the ones that would, because I think that's what we need to be clear about, the ones that wouldn't take anything additional from any additional work from the clerk. And if the memo, is my mic okay? Because I feel like I can't hear it. If the memo, I'm trying to find it here. It's on page four of the packet. I think if we could use, if you don't mind, the sheet. It says page, it's the one that has the A, B, C, D. It might be after the memo because those are the actual. That's on the draft ordinance. I mean the resolution. Okay. Right. And so if we could use that because that would be the basis of how we make our motions. Page 10 of our packet. All right. We're trying to get that list that we discussed the other day, and it will be here momentarily. Okay, thank you. Let me start, if I can, because one of the things that's on here that would require an ordinance change, and the ordinance itself is not included, the draft ordinance. and that is the approval of appointment of permanent and probationary employee appointments. Currently, by ordinance, those are required to be approved by the council, and from time to time you all will see a number of those, and they will have included the employees, the position, the proposed salary. The reason that this was included on the list is because, as you know, under KRS 67A, there is a process that is laid out for the hiring of civil service employees, both classified and unclassified. and the process involves HR and it involves the Civil Service Commission to where there's a screening that takes place of candidates and the top five candidates are presented to the supervisor who will be involved in the making of the decision. So essentially you have a process that the statute dictates And once that process is followed, then a selection is made. And so there's not a whole lot of discretion from the administrative standpoint because of the statutory scheme. And so that was one of the reasons that we thought that could be something that could be eliminated as an item that you actually approve. Now, that doesn't mean that you won't have that information in the mayor's report. It just means that the council wouldn't actually vote to approve it because those seem to just go on through without any real question. So that's one, and there would be an ordinance change because currently under ordinance, the council is required to approve those. Okay. Let me just update the folks that just strolled in. Page 10 of your packet, committee members. Good morning, Council Member Myers, Council Member Henson. Page 10 of your packet is where we are right now, and we're just having Logan go through those. He just added what he was talking about was an additional item, which has to do with approval of appointments of permanent employees, which is a statutory process. So he's asking us also to consider that as a change. That's actually item C, Madam Chair. It's mentioned here, but it would require an ordinance change. And remember, any salary that's established would be established by the council that range. As you all know, you, by ordinance, establish the position, the authorized strength, and also the pay grade for all of those. So the council has that role, and then the statute says exactly how you would go through the process to actually hire somebody. Okay. Thank you. Okay, item A, execution of deeds and easements for bike trail projects, dorm and sanitary sewer projects, when the projects have already received council approval. Now, those deeds and easements would be documents that would have to be, the originals would have to be in the council clerk's office. Can you go into detail? When you say the originals would have to be in the council clerk's office, go into detail with that about what you mean, and I guess for this first one, and then we'll know subsequently. When we, and I'll let Susan and Don jump in here, but the council clerk is required to be the custodian of all official records of the government. So if we acquire some property and we have a deed, For if we acquire an easement on property, those are official documents of the government that would have to be the originals, once recorded, would be retained in Susan's office. And so those documents would be something that she would have to actually index and maintain. Now, the reason it is on this list is because, as you recall from our discussion in February, a lot of times these projects, when they are initially presented to the council, receive approval. You all approve a budget. And so we have a number of documents that need to be executed that essentially fulfill the wishes of the council and the administration on these projects. And so what we have been doing is we've been coming to the council on every individual deed, every individual easement, and that kind of thing. And so we're trying to avoid all of that and streamline this process. Again, this would only include projects that the council has approved and has actually budgeted money for. We have already streamlined this process a bit, and I think, Glenda, do you want to address that? Glenda George in our office. What we've started doing this fiscal year, I think when you've seen projects such as Clay's Mill and Georgetown, town, those showed up on the council docket address by address. But recently we've changed that and just approved the execution of deeds for an entire project so you won't see them address by address anymore. It will just authorize the mayor to execute all of the documents. And that's a change that we've recently done. Thank you, Glenda. Okay, we ready for the next item? Any questions about that item? I think we'll go through each one of them, and we'll come back with questions. Okay. Thank you. The next item is a closing statement, which is a document that's executed at the time we acquire or sell property. That is a document that is not recorded in the council clerk's office. That's more of an internal document that's used. It will have those of you that have been involved in the purchase of a home or any real estate are familiar with what a closing document looks like, but it basically outlines the financial aspects of the transaction on the seller's side and on the buyer's side. Item C, we've already discussed. item D is the grant application process where community development will be involved. And I noticed that Paula was here just a minute ago, but currently what we're doing is we are coming to the council, asking the council for authorization to approve a grant application. Then if the grant is accepted, we're coming back to the council and saying, you know, we want to accept this grant under these terms and so on and so forth. So the idea here is that the actual submission of a grant application would not require council approval, but council approval would be required on the tail end of the transaction. So it eliminates a step where the council's involved. Item E, acceptance of bids. Currently, under the council rules, there are two matters that go directly onto the docket that do not go through the blue sheet process. This is one of them. When purchasing has bid in, they have solicited bids, and those bids have come back, and there is a recommendation that goes directly on the docket from purchasing. The other is planning and planning matters. So if there's a zoning amendment, those will come directly onto the docket without going through the blue sheet process either. The reason that this has been suggested is because there is a process that we thought had been adopted by council. Brian Markham tells me that the process has been used at least for 10 years. And we thought the process had been adopted by council, but Susan checked the records and we can't find where it was officially adopted by the council. but I think most of you are familiar with the process that is used. The idea here is similar to the approval of appointments of employees. That is, the process is either outlined in the statute or it's directed by the council, and then purchasing would go out and follow that process. Now, there's one revision here to this item that has been proposed by Councilmembers Fiegel, Lawless, and James before this meeting. And that is when we were looking back over this, refreshing ourselves with all of the work that had been done here, we discussed going ahead and having council approve any bids where there was only one bidder or the lowest bid was not being accepted. And so that has been suggested by that work group as an amendment to this. So the council would not be involved under this proposal where the bid process has been followed by purchasing and the lowest bid is accepted. Once those bids are accepted for a contract, which becomes part of a contract, those documents would be maintained by Susan's office, the council clerk's office. Item F, acceptance of donation of goods or services that do not require a budget amendment. There's rarely a meeting that goes by that there's not a donation of some kind that's made to the government. Most of the time it's in the social services area, but there are other instances. Public safety from time to time will receive donations of property. I think there was one I recall that we kind of joked about when we were working on this. We accepted a load of dirt from somebody. I can't recall what that was. But anyway, the council actually acted on that. Well, the idea here is that if we're just simply accepting a donation, council doesn't necessarily need to approve that. There was a question that was raised when this was being discussed. Well, donors may want to have the recognition of having made a contribution to the government. Again, all that information would be part of a report and could be posted on the website. There's one caveat, and that is in instances where there would have to be a budget amendment to actually accept funds and then allow those funds to be expended. To the extent that there is a budget amendment that's necessary, the Council would have to approve it, because the Council must approve budget amendments. One of the things that has been suggested is with those divisions that routinely receive donations, a family care center I think is a good example, we could actually put in a budget item in the budget that says donations, set up a donations account so you wouldn't have to do a budget amendment every time something came in. The next item is execution of contracts in an amount not to exceed $50,000 for which Council has budgeted funds. Again, Council Members Figo, Wallace, and James and I discussed this, and the suggested change from the work group is $25,000. Now, again, these would be on contracts where money is already budgeted. You already appropriated the money. Again, any contracts that are executed, the council would be made aware of that, as would the public through the mayor's report or posting on the website. And that's a record kept in the county clerk? Absolutely. Susan's office keeps all contracts, an original of all contracts that the government enters into. Thank you. Item H, professional services contracts. As you all are aware, professional services are not required to be bid. We do have a CAO policy which outlines how we are to proceed in hiring professional services. And it requires that the council will be made aware, I believe, of any amount over $25,000 and would have to approve any amount over $50,000 to any firm in one year. What has been suggested here is another amendment in our most recent meeting from the group to change the $49,999 to $25,000. To what was that? $25,000. Okay. Now, again, no contract would be approved like any other contract unless funds have already been budgeted by the council. I can't speak for other departments, but in my department, we have a line item for professional services where we will pay outside costs for legal services. And what we have been doing is just bringing those contracts to you because sometimes on the front end, we don't know whether it's going to reach that threshold or not. So anyway, the idea here would be that the Council would not be involved in that unless it exceeded $25,000. Next item, item I, execution of easement releases and encroachment agreements. As you all are aware, the Council is currently approving releases of easements. Typically, we will have an obligation to, a legal obligation to release an easement according to the terms of the document. So it's kind of a step that we're required to take, but currently we're having the council approve those. And it just seems to be something that the council doesn't really need to be involved in. Item J, execution of equipment maintenance contracts for which council has appropriated funds. An example of this would be printer maintenance or a copier maintenance or things like that. Currently, you all are approving those kinds of maintenance contracts. and usually they're not a high dollar value, but they are funds that are appropriated by the council and they appear as line items in each division's budget. Item K, extensions of existing grant agreements which you have previously approved, which do not involve any additional appropriation of revenue. From time to time, you will be presented with a grant contract extension or some sort of amendment, usually to allow a little additional time under the grant amendment, but no additional funds are required on our part. It seems to be something pretty basic that could just be handled administratively as opposed to the council approving it. The next item is the change orders. Execution of change orders on any contracts which do not exceed the lesser of 10% of the original contract price, and any amendments thereto are $25,000. The work group suggested a change to this one as well to eliminate and any amendments thereto. What that means is that the original contract price would be the baseline. And so if you exceeded 10% of the original contract price, then the council would have to approve it. By having the amendments in it, and the reason that got revised was because if you have amendments, you could actually get those amendments up to where you could be under 10% on one change order, and that would be your new benchmark, then you could have another change order. It could be under 10% of that new benchmark and continue to go up. So the proposal would be to eliminate that language about amendments and use the original contract price as the benchmark. I think we discussed the last paragraph about all of these transactions would be noted in the mayor's report and also included on the website. So members of the council would know which of these transactions you are no longer approving had been conducted, and the public would be aware of it as well. Okay. Thank you. And real briefly, you and I have talked very briefly about, in your opinion, of how this is effective, how these changes are effective, not just streamlining the process, but is there financial implications as well? There are. And Susan can speak to the publication cost, but it could be pretty significant. In fact, I think we had in the memo, and Susan was attempting to estimate this, but this is on page six at the bottom. could save a minimum of about $74,000. Okay. So that could be pretty significant in the publication area, but that's only part of the cost that we're incurring. The other part of the cost is the staff time that's involved in processing all of this. For instance, the law department prepares all the ordinances and resolutions. Well, if we cut these back, it would save a lot of time just in the law department. But it would also save other administrative time. As you all know, currently, in the blue sheet process, budgeting and community development and HR and the council office, there are a number of folks that review all of these documents to make sure in their particular area all the bases are covered. So if you reduce the amount of things that they're actually having to get council approval on, it could save some time there. Okay. Of the list that you just gave us, can you tell us which of the letters are the ones that would not affect the clerk's office? Yes. Yes. B. item B B as in boy yes item C hang on one second manager okay I'll make sure I'm right on this. I believe item D. These are the items he's listing would not constitute a change as far as the way the council clerk. Right. These would not be documents that the council clerk would have to retain. if I believe that's it. I understand K also. Okay. So we have items B, C, F, and K. B C F and K those are the items that would that information would not go to the council clerk so we could consider those consider changing that legislatively and it would not change another process, it wouldn't affect negatively another process Madam Chair, item D also I just confirmed with Susan that Susan would have a grant agreement once the grant is adopted and we actually have a contract, but not the application itself. I think Paul would keep those. And the significance of that is that the documentation of those items listed, of those letters, is kept somewhere, but it's not for permanent record, an official permanent record that we have to document here. Okay. All right. We will, at this time, if it's okay with you, take some questions from the committee members regarding these items and anything that relates to the clerk process, if you could hold off if Susan needs to respond to that. So we'll have her do her presentation. One of the things Susan just reminded me, the reason that the council clerk's office has these documents now, the letters that you just mentioned, is because the council has passed a resolution, which means that she now has those documents that she would not otherwise have. Okay. Thank you. If you'd like to speak, please push your button. Council Member Lane is first. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you for your comments and information. I just had a couple of questions I'd like to ask. Down at the bottom here it says, the mayor shall include a description of above documents executed or approved since the previous such communication for which council received notification. I wasn't sure exactly what that meant, but does that mean that the mayor actually could execute some of these documents before we were notified of it, or we get notification before the mayor would execute documents? No, you would not. Okay. What it would be is it would be a continual update of documents that are executed since the last report. That's what you would get. Well, what would be, let's just say some rare situation came up where some members of the council were not in agreement with something that had been executed by the mayor. What would be the recourse to bring that back up for reconsideration if it's already been executed? Well, I think once it's executed, unless if the contract has already been executed and performance has started, it's going to be, you're not going to be able to unring the bell, I don't believe. It would be pretty difficult once the contract was executed. Well, I very much support this approach, but I think, you know, from my perspective, that maybe initially it's starting the process out is that we would get a communication from the mayor with all of the basically everything that he intended to do after it was presented at the meeting and then there's no objection or any sort of reconsideration of any of those items, then they would be essentially, you know, the mayor could move forward with execution, thereby, you know, giving some comfort to the council members that, you know, somebody got a pay raise or one of the change orders was higher. I realize we have some, you know, levels in there, but we'd at least be able to call that back up. I don't envision there would be that many items that would be coming back up for reconsideration, but I think that would be one recommendation that I would suggest. And I think we could have, you know, a three-day, three work days after the communications received by the mayor, two work days to then he could sign all those documents at that time. Something like that I think would be a good change. Okay. I think the other question I've got is would every item in here would be fully described in the communications from the mayor, so every council member would be fully advised of the actions that he was planning to take, as well as it could be, I guess, posted on the web and would be transparent to all other parties out there. I think those are the only two thoughts I had. Other than that, I'm in total agreement. Actually, the only thing I'm not in total agreement with is perhaps providing for the information to be submitted to Council before execution by the Mayor. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, Council Member Lane. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Logan, on I, just a clarification. You said that the working group recommended deleting and any amendments thereto? And? L? That's on, I'm sorry, that's L. L, I'm sorry. Council Member Blues, I'm sorry. No, it's on item L and any amendments thereto. And any amendments there, too? But the more $25,000 is retained. Is that? Let me, I'm sorry, we were trying to get those records from our office and we don't have them, but I'll ask Council Member Lawless, James, and Figo. My recollection was the only change was taken out in any amendments, and the $25,000 would be, my recollection is we'd have $25,000 on contracts, $25,000 on change orders, and $25,000 on professional services agreements. That is what I remember as well, because we had that flat dollar amount threshold and then we had the 10% of the original contract. By the way, so you will know, what was suggested was that we ask the folks that do most of these change orders. It's mostly at Mike Webb's shop and Cheryl Taylor's shop. And so we asked them what they thought about. And so that's where we came up with the 10% or the 25,000. So, you know, that was just a suggestion. I just wanted to make sure that was still there. Yes, it is. Thank you. Council Member Hinton. Thank you, Chair. I've got a few questions just for clarification on item E. There is currently a process that's been adopted by Council for purchasing, correct? Council Member Henson, that's where we thought there had been one. Purchasing advised that, and Brian was pretty certain that it happened because this process had been used for a number of years. Susan checked, and we couldn't find where the council had actually approved it. But what Brian believes and I believe needs to happen is you all need to approve the process. And Brian actually has some changes that he wants to suggest to the current process. So I think he will bring that forward. But the idea is here, as it is in most of these, you all would have approved, whether it's a project or a contract, that you all would have adopted a process that would be followed to get us to the point where it's time to go ahead and actually sign the documents. And so the same would be true with the bid process. And then on item F, when we accept donations of goods or services, that would not include land or – because I know many times there's a maintenance cost involved when we get donations. Actually, I don't believe... Glenda abandoned me, I guess. I don't know that we... I wouldn't think that we do a budget amendment when we accept land, but I'm not. I don't believe that we do, but that's a good point, Council Member Henson. And we could, if we needed to tweak that a bit, we could to the extent that we are, some property is donated to LFUCG that would require some ongoing maintenance. We might want to tweak this a little bit. I mean, the idea here is that we'd be getting something and there's no cost to the government. But if there is some cost to the government, then we might want to get everything. Right. And maybe that wording should be put in there. Okay. Council Member Henson, did you have more questions? I've got a couple more. Okay. I guess it's J, where it says the execution of equipment maintenance contracts, and those would be minor contracts. And we're not talking about like a fire truck being overhauled or anything like that. I don't know what kind of contracts they have. I just think it's kind of vague, I guess. Okay. And maybe it should have a cap on it as well. All righty. Let me go back, if I might, Council Member Henson, to the donations. if there was a donation of land, there would have to be a deed executed. So I don't know. We can make that clear to where it's, I understand your concern about any donation where there may be some obligation of the government going forward to maintain property. Okay. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Henson. Council Member Myers? Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Askew, for coming in today. I have just a couple questions. These amendments really help me on G and H, dropping those down from 49 or 50,000 down to 25. That really helps me on those two. But on E, a sole source contract, how would that fit into – it may be a little different because it's not necessarily a bid, but would those still be reported out? Or if you had a sole source, so you had a supplier that only that supplier could do what we needed done, would that be reported out or would that be one that would not have to come before us? That is one of the suggested changes of the work group, that if there is only one bidder, or if the lowest bid is not accepted, that it would come to the council for approval. So if you had that, excuse me, the instance you're describing, you would have to look at it. You all would have to approve it. I think, though, there might be a little bit of difference between a single bidder. That might be a situation where there's 10 companies out there that could do the work, but only one decided to bid on it. So I understand that would come before us. But a sole source would be different because it wouldn't necessarily be a bid because there's only one company that can actually provide that good or service. So I'd defer to the council on that, how you'd want to do it. Because there are certain things like fire trucks, for instance. I know we had a repair on a fire truck one time, and there was only one company that could do it. If I may, because this was one of my concerns that I had, and I mentioned one particular instance when we were in our little group. I don't know if you remember that or not. It was one provider of something only. But the deal is that we RFP it out anyway. So we don't know for sure if they're sole source. We're RFPing it out, and then people are responding. If they're the only entity that does that, we don't go out and seek that one entity. We RFP it and receive in the responses. So there shouldn't ever be where the government is just going out and soliciting from one single source, but instead we RFP it and we get responses back. I tell you, we probably need to ask Brian how that works because I'm not that – I understand what you're saying, and I think you're right. But if we know on the front end that there's only one provider, I'm not sure how we do that under purchasing. I'm not sure. Yeah. A quick example. Voting machines, there's only one vendor in the state that we can use. We're about to buy 10 sets. So that's an example of what Council Member Myers is talking about. We did RFP it. There's exactly one response. She's right. You can't tell if it's a sole source for just a single response. But that does occur. Yep. Okay. If we could get a clarification from purchasing, though, that they do not sole source anything. I'm thinking of an example in my head where they... We'll see if we can get somebody from purchasing up here. Okay. So just a clarification on that one. And then on F, I know that there are some donations that the government receives that are kind of mundane. There's one company that gives a printer, I think, every year to the government. But I'm not sure that that one shouldn't stay on here just for the sake of transparency so that the citizens understand and know who's donating what to the government and at what types of levels and maybe, you know, cumulatively over a year. So I would be in favor of keeping F on here so that whenever someone donates something to the government that all the citizens get to understand who that is and what they donated. And that may save us some trouble on the back end if a contract goes someplace and that person or that entity had donated some things in the past and people try to cross those two together. If it's transparent, I think that will help us out. Well, let me mention that all this does is it allows for these things to happen without official council action in the form of a resolution. So it will be transparent from the standpoint that it will be a part of a report, and it can also be posted on the website so people can see what contracts are being entered into, what property is being donated, who the donor is, the value of the donation, and so on and so forth. So I think from a transparency standpoint, that's still going to happen, Council Member Myers. What's not going to happen is you won't be hearing the council clerk reading off a resolution to accept it at a meeting. That's the difference. But, I mean, it's up to the council. Again, these are council rules, and you can, you know. So I think if we make all these changes, but that one, we've gone a long way to streamline the process and to eliminate some of the cost of advertising in the newspaper. But the transparency piece that we would miss if we do it this way on this particular item is that it wouldn't be in the newspaper. It would be harder for citizens to easily obtain that information. I mean, they could go to our website if they knew what they were looking for. Susan looks like she has something she wants to add. The system, and I know I'm not supposed to speak of this yet, but I just wanted to clarify that for the transparency issue, the system that I'm proposing will take care of that, and it will be accessible by the public. Well, let me just ask you, we don't want to get too far into that yet, but is that a system where they would have to go in and access it, or is it a system like currently that would be printed in a newspaper where if they just pick up the newspaper, it's going to be there? It can be, it will be set up to where they have to go in and search it, but I think there are other avenues that we can put in place with the system that would help make it more transparent. Okay. Then I'll move forward on this. I'll move away from this, but can you do me a favor? Can you hold that place set for that, and then when you get to the part where you're going to talk about the new system, talk about how you can incorporate that in? Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think that's it. You're welcome. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Chair. I don't want to repeat too much of what's been said, but I think the issue here, Logan, or Commissioner Askew, is that transparency is important, and a lot of times the reason why these things are on our dockets is for people to give as many opportunities to see it, read it, understand it. Specifically on C, when you were approving appointments, you mentioned it's basically controlled by the civil service system. There's very little control the administration has. But we have disapproved appointments in the past, as body has. I think council should be approving those appointments regardless, because ultimately payroll was one of our biggest expenses here in government, and seeing who's on that payroll is very important. A and B, the deed executions are good. I'm not necessarily concerned about seeing those every time. But some of these contracts, as Councilman Myers pointed out, there are political implications of some of these contracts, whether we like it or not. and donations that we receive, things like that, they need to be put into local media somehow. Not everyone has Internet access, but having them printed in the newspaper, I know, is a big cost. But it's a cost that a lot of people read and a lot of people understand. Giving people an opportunity to see it as many times as possible, whether they have Internet or not, is something good. So there's a couple of these things that I would support ultimately, but the hiring and the appointments for probationary people, they need to come before this body. that it's an important part of our government as well as these contracts. You know, we've had this council alone has had three or four of these contracts become controversial that we need to discuss and debate, that we want to make sure our processes are in place to handle. So those I think we need to have more thought and discussion. And I'm glad to see the amendment to reduce it down to $25,000 at least. That's definitely good. So those are just my thoughts and comments on most of this. I understand I'd like to have a shorter meeting, too, but I don't think it's too hard to ask someone to read it publicly and to give us two weeks to have the public be able to comment on it. I think the two-week period is valuable, and I think we underestimate that a lot of times because we do see it as counsel many times, but some people are just seeing it for the first time, the first reading. So I think it's a good opportunity for two weeks to be able to read it. And I don't mind voting on these. That's what we're here for, and I take every vote we make as being a privilege. So I don't want to shorten that process at all. Thank you. Thanks, Council Member Stenet. Council Member Lawless is next. Yes, I wanted on the sole source, I too have concerns about that. And I can think of a couple of examples where RFPs were not sent out, but a sole source was sought by the administration or division or whatever. And those are, so I think one bidder or lowest bid and sole source could be put in there, because I want to know about those, and I think that those are important for council members to be able to look at and discuss. And so I haven't even been here about a year, or maybe it's 20 years, I don't know. But I can think of two that have happened since I've been here. So I agree with Council Member Myers that those are important for us to look at. I think one of the purposes on the transparency, that one of the major purposes of this was to go to more transparency. Council Member Myers and Stenet, I'm speaking to your all's issues, was to go to more transparency because I subscribe to the newspaper, but because of my eyes, I read it online, but I feel guilty not paying for it, so I also pay for a newspaper to come to my house. So I think a lot of people, more and more people, especially these tiny seven-point ads that we put in, only people under maybe 25 can read those without a magnifying glass. And so I think the purpose of this being having easy access to it on the Internet, and while not everybody has Internet at their home, we even talked about putting one in the lobby downstairs that citizens could come to and even somebody could show them how to access it. They're at the public libraries. And my experience is that the people that really want to read these and know about these will go to the trouble to find them. And not everybody has access to the newspaper. You know, it's more and more expensive all the time. So anyway, I think the purpose of this for me and for the committee as a whole that worked on this, the work group, and I don't want to speak for them, but was to move to more transparency and to update our council rules to fit with the technology and the times rather than the same old way and for efficiency on staff time and et cetera. And on the permanent and probationary appointments, I agree that Council Member Stenet, that those are important for us to hear about. But if we have this information before the council meeting, wouldn't we be able to bring it up for debate? Is there anything in here that if it's, and maybe that's something we need to add, is if a council member has issue with any of these things that are automatically being done, and we know about it before the council meeting, that there's a time set aside in our council meetings where we can debate those that bring those issues up for concern. Council Member Lawless, I think there would be a way to do that, but I think that it's kind of what Council Member Lane was suggesting by having things submitted to the council, and then unless somebody had some objection within three days, it was on some of these items that just got done without the formality of having a resolution. We could look into that. That may be a way to. And you may decide that there are certain items that you'd like to handle that way and certain items on this list that you'd like to just not deal with. Yeah, I just thought that might be an important thing for us to do, is if we see this beforehand and want to have conversation or debate about it or bring up concerns, that we have an opportunity to do that in council meetings. Thank you, Council Member Lawless. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Chair. I just want to make clear about my statements earlier. The whole point of what I said was everything on this list means we do not get a vote going forward on these items. It means they're just informational only presented to this body, and I'm not willing to give up our privilege of being able to vote on each one of these things. So that's what that entirely means. I'm not saying you use the Herald-Leader or a newspaper as a sole source. I'm not saying we still even need to use them. I agree. But if you take away the three opportunities the public gets to see on TV, that's another medium they get to see, transparency, down to one with being an informational meeting. Because right now we see it in new business and two council meetings. That's three opportunities for people to view via TV or web or newspaper. So that's transparency. There's three different opportunities. If we limit that just to the web and then shorten the meetings down to just one opportunity for information during a work session or whatever we call it in the future, then that's limiting transparency is the way I see it. And last but not least, again, we do not get to vote on these things. I think it's important that we do, as a council, see these things and get an opportunity to vote. And that's, I just want to clarify what I said earlier. Councilmember Myers. Councilmember Myers. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to agree with everything that Councilman's Senate said, and that way I can keep it brief. So what I'd like to do to that end is make a motion to separate out A, B, D, I, and K. Can you repeat those, please? A, B, D, I, and K. And I think maybe we can all agree that those are kind of perfunctory. They're not as big a concern if we don't get to vote on those things. So I'd like to separate those out and move that we approve those items. So moved. Is there a second? Got a motion by Council Member Myers and a second by Council Member Blues to separate items A, B, D, I, and K of page 9 of the packet and to move those items forward. Any discussion? I'm sorry, page 10. A question. Yes, Council Member Feinle. Is that to approve those items or is that to separate them out and handle them separately? It's both to separate them and approve them. And approve them. Okay. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Any further discussion? Council Member Martin? Thank you. Just as clarification, are we approving this resolution with those items? but deleting the other items from the resolution? At this point, the motion would not be excluding those other items. It would only be to approve these particular items. So we'd actually have to move, we'd have to have a vote on the other items individually. But we're approving this resolution to send forward, or is this an ordinance? So essentially the motion is to approve this resolution at this time with items A, B, D, I, and K with the reservation that we can add other items later. Is that what the motion is? That'll work. Yes. Yeah, because they've got to go in there somewhere. Right. So it's to approve items A, B, D, I, and K for inclusion in the resolution. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Council Member Gray. I'm sorry. Vice Mayor Gray. It's Council Member. Mr. Stenet was just reminding me we all got the same vote. I was actually going to just listen to the discussion. I didn't know if I could add anything to it. However, I was tempted to say one thing, I guess. I've had several conversations over the past couple of three years with Logan, and I don't know if you said this or not, or I may have missed it, about just comparing to your tenure on the Hopkinsville Council, and did you mention that or not? You did? Okay, well then if you did, you don't need to again. You already mentioned it, right? Okay. I wasn't here. I guess my perspective on this now after three years is, well, I'll admit that before when I would watch council meetings, I had no clue as to what the clerk's readings, and I thought it was sort of bizarre. And then you get on the council, and you realize that there's a reason that these resolutions are read once and then again, and the ordinances are read once and then again. And then as I was watching the clock, especially in council meetings, I've realized that it really doesn't take that long, I guess, to go through it. And there are some people that, if they're citizens or if they're council members, that will dig into these really deeply. I myself have on occasion. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I understand better the process now, the reasoning and the rationale behind it. And there may be some that could be adjusted. my inclination is to endorse what Council Member Stennett had to say and stay with it as it is. Thank you. Is that all you got? Yes, ma'am. Council Member Blues. Just a request for clarification, Madam Chair. As I understand it, what we're actually undertaking here is to approve A, B, D, I, and K, if I read the I chart correctly, to be included in the resolution. But we're not, a yes vote here is not a vote to approve the resolution itself. Well, the committee doesn't, we don't enact legislation from here. But we're not in this vote saying we're ready to send this resolution to the council. We're just approving these particular items that Council Member Myers listed. Well, Council Member Myers, can you clarify your, because I think I am taking it that way, that we would be saying that we are agreeing to include these in the resolution that would move forward to the full council. Can you clarify whether that's your motion or not? Yes, because you can't make a motion in a negative. So you can't make a motion to take something out. You make a motion to include. So that's why I separated out those to start with. But my intent is to go back and discuss the rest of these. It wasn't just to do these and then move on. Right. Okay. But at this point, if the rest of the items were not included, would you want these items to move forward to the full council? The final resolution will still need to be voted on. Okay. So inclusion into, you're absolutely right, Council Member Blouse, it's inclusion into the resolution, which we will then in turn need to vote on to move forward. Council Member Feigl. Thank you, Chair. Just a couple of comments I wanted to make. As a member of the committee that worked with the Law Department on this, I would just mention that when we had our retreat in January, One of the directives that came out of that retreat from the council, at least the way that I heard it, was that we really needed to try and take a look at everything that we publish and make sure that we aren't spending the taxpayers' money unnecessarily where there are redundant processes. And I believe that's what we had attempted to do. And, you know, in an effort to address the transparency issues, we actually spent a good bit of time talking about how we can make all of these things more transparent. I'm sorry, husband Feigl, what's your point of order? I don't want to cut off your debate, but the debate's to the motion, and you're getting back on the whole transparency issue where we're actually just talking about sitting on these out and voting yes or no on them. and then when we come back to the other, then we can bring that discussion back in. Point taken. Thank you. Thank you. Did you have anything additional, Council Member Feigl? Did you have anything additional to the motion? Okay, thank you. Council Member Gray. I don't know if this is to the motion or not. It has to do with the operational costs. if there's anything that we haven't considered that's behind the, that's in terms of administrative costs for these issues. I think Commissioner Araskew actually said that it had a positive effect on our budget. You mean by removing? Yeah, it would actually decrease our expense. Right. The context of that had to do with earlier my comments were saying that I've come to appreciate why all of this is presented to the council, and it may seem not redundant but excessive. So the context of my question was, is there anything that we're missing other than what we see at the council meetings themselves? But I don't know if that's, again, that may not be to the motion, so we can pick that up later if you want to. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Chair. I have, I guess, some sympathy for Council Member Meyer's position in this. There are things that we have to vote on which seem fairly perfunctory as we go. We have to accept, for example, a grant of a load of dirt and things of that nature. So I think there are some things that we as the legislative branch don't particularly need to supervise the executive branch on, in making of grants and accepting of grants and things like that. I think the purpose of the Council's review of so many things is to provide a fairly significant amount of supervision over the executive branch, and that's developed over a course of years, I think. But there are things which I don't feel that we particularly need to supervise the executive branch on, particularly if they are set out in other ways for our review, such as the accepting of grants and accepting execution of deeds and easements for projects which we have previously approved. So I'm going to support Council Member Meyer's motion in this. Some of the other items relate to expenditures of funds and employment issues, which are closer to the line and which, as a first-year councilman, I don't think I have one to presume to weigh in on at this point. But I do think that items which are fairly low risk as an administrative issue, such as accepting a grant and things like that, are satisfactorily taken care of through publications and through the mayor's report and by having us review them in that instance. So I will support Council Member Meyer's motion. Thank you, Council Member Martin. Just an update of our time. There is another meeting that begins at 1030. So show of hands for anybody that's leaving for that meeting so we know what happens to our quorum. Okay. And it's Councilman of Senate. Okay. And he's not on the committee. Okay. So just know that we, and we do have another event going on, I guess, at 11 or 1130. So keep in mind time a little bit. maybe if there's redundancy in what your comments would be. If someone's already said them, maybe defer from making those comments and bring us something fresh and new. Council Member Lane. Thank you, Chairwoman. You know, I haven't been to many of these meetings. I've been, you know, reading the correspondence on it. I think my question here is the motion that's being made by Council Member Myers is just to modify the document that we have in front of us. Will we then get to review the revised document before we would enact it? Would that be our approach on that? Thank you, Madam Chair. It is to include these items into the resolution that's on the previous page. So that time permitting or the next meeting, whenever we get a chance, we'll continue to discuss the other ones. But this is just that it seemed like these were perfunctory, that we could all agree on those and get them off the table and move them forward. Okay. All right. Well, you know, my only thought is that delays at all levels of government, it's costly to the administrative cost of government. It's costly to the taxpayers. And I think we need to be more efficient in the way we're doing things. I also think that we could take a little bit of a gamble from the standpoint we could enact legislation and try it out. And if we have some issues in that legislation that are not working the way we anticipate they would work, then we could always make a revision to the ordinance to streamline or improve the efficiencies of what we're doing. And not to consider this to be the final plan, but so the foundation of where we're heading into the future. So I just wanted to suggest we have some of an open mind and, you know, try some things, be a little bit experimental. because if we keep gravitating back to what we've been doing, we'll just be doing the same thing we were doing before. And I think we need to take a little bit of initiative and a little bit of risk to, you know, be creative in our approach. So, I mean, I'm very open to all the suggestions here, and I think it's been a very valuable experience. And it's going to be good for the government once we get this worked out. Thank you. Thanks, Council Member Lane. So right now we have a motion and a second on the floor, and we're discussing items A, B, D, I, and K. Is there any further discussion before I call for a vote? All right. All in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? And one no. Vice Mayor was a no. Thank you very much for that. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Madam Chair. The next motion I'd like to make is to take item G and H, which we, this document doesn't reflect that, but the work group looked at moving those dollar amounts from $50,000 down to $25,000. And so I move to go ahead and accept that amendment. There's a motion and a second to take items G and H and to amend those to reflect the $25,000 that's been discussed and agreed upon by the work group. And I'm guessing on H it would say $24,999, I guess. So execution of professional services contracts as defined in CAO Policy 1 and amounts not to exceed $24,999? That's correct. Okay. And is that to include in the resolution as well to move forward to include in the resolution, or are you just making the motion to amend? I just want to make the motion to amend right now. Okay. So there's a motion to amend those. And a second. Any discussion? Who was the second on that for Ed Lane was the second? Okay. Council Member Lawless. I'm wondering if on those we also need to include the... Madam Chair, just a point of order. Unfortunately, Mr. Lane's not on the committee, so he can't make the second. Oh, Farfick Nugent. Okay. So even if I recognized him in the beginning of the meeting? I think it was a point of order here. There was not a quorum here, and I formed the quorum, therefore I'm entitled to vote today. I'm sorry. I stand corrected. I apologize. Thank you. All right. Council Member Lawless, back to you. I'd like to suggest maybe an amendment to, and I can't read the tiny G and H, that those professional service contracts and that if they're one bid sole source or not the lowest, that those also be there for us to review. And I don't know if you would accept that as a friendly amendment. Can somebody from the law department help us with the wording on that one? Are you saying it for G and for H? Yes. It's my understanding that Mr. Markham will be here at 1030. So it would help. So what I say will be subject to his from a purchasing standpoint. One of the things that we have discussed, he and I, is going ahead and including professional services as part of this purchasing manual that you all approve. Currently, professional services is not part of it. I can only speak from the Department of Law on how we do it. We have an RFP that goes out that he helps us with, and we have an approved list that we choose from if we're going to hire somebody outside. I'm not sure how other folks are doing that. Again, it's not required to be bid. And I can't speak to how other divisions are handling that. So I do know what CAO Policy 1 says, and that is if it's going to be over $50,000 in a particular year for one person or firm, the council has to approve it. I believe if it's over 25,000, the council is to be notified. So that's the way it is right now. But I think what Council Member Lawless is suggesting we can work through, if there hasn't been an RFP that's been sent out like we would do in the law, again, I can't speak to other divisions, but quotes are solicited. If it's not the lowest, yeah, we could, there would be a way to modify this to, I know Council Member Lawless is going with that, and I think there's a way to do it. But, again, I think Brian needs to weigh in on that, too, so he can tell you what other divisions are doing. Okay. Do you, Council Member Lawless, would you mind holding off on your amendment at this point, and we can address the $25,000 issue right now? Okay, so there's a motion and a second on the amendment for GNH to change it to $25,000 and to $24,999. Any further discussion, Vice Mayor Gray? I just want to understand. So we are lowering, what we're doing is lowering the threshold, but we would still be, so anything over $25,000, if you voted for this, anything over $25,000 would still come before the council, right? Okay, I guess my point or the observation I'd like to make is my observations have been that the sclerosis in the process and the calcification in the process does not occur with the council's gratification or endorsement. It occurs in the purchasing process itself. That's where our sclerosis lies and not in the council's endorsement or approval. So I think we're chasing the wrong rabbit here is what I'm getting at, or at least we could be. I'm not saying that for a certain, but, you know, I know that let's just say hypothetically that we're looking at the retail consulting assignment that we've had to get in twice, okay? Now, the next time we bring it up, it's going to be, okay, what kind of purchasing process do we have to go through? What's the minimum threshold? How many bidders do we have to get? And meantime, the economy continues to crack on us. So my inclination is to try to free up the purchasing process. If our ratification process is part of that calcification or sclerosis, then we ought to address it. Okay. And let me clarify the discussion around these items, which was to completely separate what the legislative process was from the administrative process. And what you just talked about is an administrative process. So that probably does need to be dealt with, but we're talking about from the legislative process, what are we in control of and what are we not in control of. So that's what these are addressing, not necessarily what's happening on the administration side. Okay. And the reason I'm saying that is that I think we're chasing, we arguably could be chasing the wrong rabbit, that we are voting to eliminate a ratification process here and how much that slows up the actual real issue is the question. The hypothesis here is that by eliminating this ratification, we're going to ease the flow and the gears of government. And I don't know that that's true is the reason I'm saying that. Well, I think that's an assumption that's not necessarily read through this. And I think, just to clarify, it's, I don't know, and maybe I'm speaking out of turn, and someone can point of order me if they want to, but I think this is about what our process is, and we're not necessarily chasing a rabbit. We're not hunting. We're not hunting. We're saying what our responsibilities are, And if there's a responsibility in the administration side to take care of that, then that would need to happen. But this is not – it's separation of those powers. And I'll just – Vice Mayor, if you have more, you still have your turn. I hear what you're saying as well. Thank you. Councilman Myers. I'm sorry. Excuse me, Madam Chair, if I might make one comment. To the extent that the comments the Vice Mayor is making about professional services, what this provision does is it actually requires more council involvement than less. This is one of the items that does. Currently, under CAO Policy 1, because these matters are not required to be bid, the council has to approve if it's over 50. So what you're doing here is you're actually lowering that threshold, see. So on this particular one, this one's different. Now, that's what you're saying on some of the other things, Vice Mayor, that you may be correct, but with respect to professional services, we're actually having the council more involved rather than less involved with this amendment. Okay, point taken. Thank you. Council Member Myers? I guess I'm, well, I guess that's a good point that you make. What I was going to do was clarify to the Vice Mayor that if you vote in the affirmative for this motion that I've made, we're not, you're not voting to take this away from the Council's approval. All we're doing is voting to lower the threshold. Okay, so that's a different vote down the road that you're thinking about. Thank you, Council Member Myers. Council Member Lane is next. Yeah, I'd just like to add another thought, too, is that all this information will be in the communication from the mayor, and the council would have the right to pull any item up and discuss it, debate it, ask for additional information, put it into committee. But the idea is to expedite things that don't need to be more deeply reviewed. So I feel like we're having to do diligence over this. We can look at it in more detail if there's an issue we're concerned about. But I agree with what you're saying, Vice Mayor. You know, our process in bidding could probably be better, but we do have change orders, and we need to expedite them because there's a cost there, too. As you know, every day we delay approving a change order that may delay the progress of the construction, which in turn runs the cost up. Point of order? Yes, your point? Could we? what's on the floor and where you're ticking and we're doing a lot of redundancy. Yeah. Okay. So point well taken. Items G and H are the issue at hand. Councilman Relain, did you have anything additional regarding items G and H? Thank you very much. Councilman Requisby. Well, since we just got point of order, I'm not so sure that maybe my comment relates so much, but I was going to just say that I understand what the vice mayor is saying, and it seems to me like they are two separate issues, and that perhaps maybe in Council Report or something this afternoon, we could put the process into committee so we can look at what you're saying is flawed and go ahead and move forward with this right now. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Crosby. There's a motion and a second. We've had some discussion. Any additional discussion points? Anybody need me to repeat the motion? All right. All in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? All right. That passes unanimously. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Madam Chair. On item J, I think it was brought up earlier that we should have some type of dollar cap on that. are you going to get back with purchasing and find out what they recommend, or do you just want to do the $25,000 and kind of stay consistent? I don't know how that would affect that. That would be up to the council. Let me, do you have any idea of $25,000? You say Brian's going to be here at 1030? Yeah, he may have a better idea of what we're talking. I've got to believe a lot of these are going to be well under that $25,000, but Council Member Henson suggested that, and to be consistent, and we could do that where you all approve over 25. Okay. If Mr. Markham gets here, he may be able to tell you what we're. Okay. I'll wait to hear from him then on that one. I think I'm done. I'll go ahead. Well, I'm done. Okay. Thank you, Council Member Myers. Council Member Lawless. Unfortunately, I'm on that other committee, and I would just like to make a comment on this as a whole, if that's okay, before I have to leave. On what as a whole? There isn't a motion on the floor. No, there's not. Okay. Vice Mayor Gray and Council Member Crosby, one of the things we looked at is we have the purchasing process, which having been on some of those committees, I understand how it makes you want to, you know, tear your teeth out. But what happens after that is, for instance, we pass a budget for each department, and they have X number amount of money that we have budgeted in a line item for printing, say, or whatever. They go through the purchase. Computers is a perfect example. They go through the purchasing process and the RFPs to buy computers. Then it has to get on the approve for the docket. It has to go through the blue sheet process, which takes a lot of administrative time and staff time, and sometimes more than one week, as I understand. Then it goes to be put on the agenda. It gets two readings, so that can take up to a month more. And by the time we pay for those computers, five months has passed since we got the RFP, and we buy computers that five months later cost less and you get more. So that's our responsibility, and it just jams up when we've already done a line item that that department can buy computers. So that's why I think these kinds of things are important. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Lawless, for your explanation of that. I'm just going to say I've got to go to this building inspection meeting too, But I wanted to say hearing that is very persuasive, and getting at that kind of issue is where I'm glad we're going. Okay. Thank you. I'm going to do an evaluation of who we're going to have left here, because I guess we were losing one, two. Are you leaving? No, I was asking if you were leaving. Okay. You have another meeting? Okay. Are you on that? Okay. So we're going to lose our quorum. And one, what's our quorum, Paul? So we'll have one, two, three, you stay in? Four, five. we're going to lose our quorum Doug's leaving I don't but not the people that have to go to the other meeting I mean that are on the committee you're on the committee okay okay okay if you stay Vice Mayor, we'll have enough to continue a discussion for a few minutes. Thank you very much for agreeing to do that. Thank you. So for those of you that need to leave, go ahead. Councilman Myers. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have two motions I want to make. The first one, and I realize we've got to vote on them separately, but the first one is going to be to go ahead and accept the change that we discussed in J so that we strike that language that says, and any amendments thereto? So moved. Are you talking about L? I'm sorry, yes. Yes. Okay, so there's a motion and a second to strike the language, any amendments thereto? Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, that passes. And then my second motion is to, I'm not quite sure how to do this correctly. What I want to do is move to approve the resolution that we have on page 8. To include A, B, D, I, and K. Okay, wait a minute, let me restate that. I move to approve the resolution on page 8 and exclude C, E, F, G, H, J, and L. A, I'm sorry, Cusper Myers, C, D, I'm sorry, C, E, F, G, I, H, was H in there? Yes. Okay, H, J, and L. Correct. Okay. Is there a second? And there's a second by Council Member Crosby to approve the resolution with exclusion of the items mentioned. Any discussion? Council Member Martin. Madam Chair, I believe the appropriate motion to be made here is to accept the items we've previously voted on and forwarded to the council for approval because we have not accepted these items as if we've made amendments to them. And so I think that the motion that we probably want to make is to forward our recommendation to the council of the items that we've already approved here today because otherwise you won't be including the amendments that you've made. Okay. So you're saying to do it in the affirmative so that we'll be able to address those items? Because you want to include the amendments that we've made to these because we've made changes and included dollar limits. So I think that's what our motion should be. I understand what you're saying. Let me clarify what I was trying to do, and I may not have done it correctly. What I wanted to do, the reason I separated those others that had the dollar amendments that we limited, The reason I did those separately was because I wanted – currently those are CAO policies, so I wanted those policies amended. But I don't want those to be included in this resolution because if they are, then they're things that the council won't vote on any longer. Does that make sense? So I want those amendments to stand. So I want those to go on to the full council. That would be the next motion to go ahead and move those amendments to the CAO policy to the full council for approval. Does that make sense? I'm not sure I follow, but I think the motion that we're making is to forward items A, B, D, F, G, H, I, and K, unless I missed one, as amended to the council for approval. Is that correct? No. It's really to send to the full council A, B, D, I, and K. If we bring L, see, the confusing part is that I amended those because I want those amendments to stand. But if we include them in this resolution, then we no longer vote on them as a council. Right. We just did the amendment to those. I don't want that to happen. I still want to be able to vote on L. So the only ones we've passed previously for acceptance is A, B, D, I, and K. Correct. Okay. And so that's the motion I really want to make, is that we send a recommendation to the full council to adopt this resolution to only include A, B, D, I, and K. Okay. Then separately, I want to make the motion that these ones that we amended, G, H, and L, also are sent to the council for their approval as amended, but not a part of this resolution, because I still want to be able to vote on those. If I might, I'll finish and then I'll let you take over or continue your comments. I think we, did we not approve F? No. So F did not? No, we did not. Council Member Lane, then Council Member Feigl. Thank you, Chairman. I was just going to suggest there have been so many changes made in this document today that to me would be more appropriate to refer it back to the legal department, have them incorporate those changes, submit a new draft for us to review, because I would not vote in favor of it because I don't know what I'm voting for. Thank you. Okay. Council Member Feigl. I concur with Council Member Lane. I just feel like we've made so many changes that we aren't sure what we're voting on, and we're trying to hurry through this, and I don't think this is something that really we should hurry through. Okay. So I will not support the motion. Okay. We had a motion and a second and some discussion. Does your motion still stand and the second still stand? Okay, why don't we do this? Why don't we go ahead and take what we've already done and create a document out of that? Okay. And then we'll come back to the next meeting and look at it again. Okay. Are you withdrawing your motion then? I'm withdrawing my motion. Okay. Madam Chair, I'd like to move to add item F for approval. This is acceptance of donation of goods or services that do not require a budget amendment. This is the truckload of dirt that, you know, this is a very perfunctory item. I'd like to add this for approval. So moved. There's a motion and a second to approve item F and a second. Any discussion? Is that you for discussion? Go ahead. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would just say that that's a great example to use the load of dirt. When we come back to the next meeting, we can bring examples of much more substantial donations that organizations or companies make to the government that I believe we'd want that to be on the docket, as Councilman Stenet said, in the three meetings so that the public can understand who's contributing to government and what they're contributing. and that way if things come out of that, if that particular company gets a contract later on down the road, people aren't making inferences that because of that donation that most people didn't know about, this is why they maybe got that contract or got a favorable look. So I would vote again. I understand what you're saying about the load of dirt, but I think there are much more substantial items that are donated to the government that the citizens ought to be able to hear about and not just have to read the newspaper or go online to read the newspaper to get it. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Feigl. I would maybe ask for the staff to try to put together a list of some of the items that have been donated to the council over a period of time so that we actually can talk about facts rather than just speculation. Okay. That's a good suggestion. I've given that to Paul. So you want to keep your motion, Council Member Martin? All right, there's a motion and a second. Who seconded that? Okay, Council Member Lane. To go ahead and approve item F, no further discussion. All in favor, say aye. Any opposed? There's three no's and two a's. Council Member, I'm a no. Are you on there? Are you voting? Yeah. All in favor, raise your hand. And all opposed. And that fails. So it sounds like the law department has a charge to prepare a document for us as we've revised today. And I just wanted to acknowledge Temple Jewlett, KLC. I apologize that we weren't able to get to you. I hope you learned something. And at our next meeting, I hope that you'll be available to be here and give some feedback to us. Council Clerk, Susan, we need to talk about how we can get your information brought forward because I know that you've done some RFP stuff, and we probably want to know about that before we see the RFP in the packet. So we'll try to figure out. I'm not sure how we can do that through a council report or a report out. I'm not sure how to do that, but we'll research a way to get your information out to the group because we've lost our quorum. Well, I just want to say, though, if this is not passed in its entirety, that changes the whole scope and venue as far as the financial goes. Okay. So we'll have to revisit everything. Okay. All right. Thank you. We'll work it out. Thank you. It looks like we're adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. You can't always get what you want You can't always get what you want You can't always get what you want But if you try sometime, it's just my fine You get what you need Oh yeah Woo! you