February 2nd, we have five items on the agenda. The first two are residential parking permit districts. Um, uh, the first one is, um, Beaumont Avenue to 700 block of Melrose, and the second one is Eldemere Avenue. Ms. Lawless, um, put this in committee, and I believe she was on the elevator on her way down. She might be coming in the door as we speak. And we also have, um, the parking authority, Gary Means... There's Ms. Lawless now. And I think if, um, Mr. Means, if you would come up, um, to the microphone and just give this, um, your synopsis. I think we have a couple memos in here of both of these, if you would. And then Ms. Lawless, if you have anything you'd like to start with, or we'll go ahead and let Mr. Mean speak, and then you can jump in if you'd like. Good afternoon. Um, the, the two different, um, residential permit districts that we're discussing today, uh, are both in the third district. And, um, because of a fairly well-wri- written ordinance, the criteria are pretty much in place. So all, all we did is responded to a, uh, request, which is a petition. Um, in the past, traffic engineering has requested that any petition have 65% of the residences, uh, listed. And in both of these cases that occurred. And we went out and did a two-week study at various times of the day and found the situation to be what these residents said it was. Um, in the Eldemere, uh, scenario, it's probably, uh, BCTC, uh, is that it? Students, uh, encroaching out into that area. And, and then on the, uh, other one is t- the same as well. Um, and so really that's what's causing the, the issues, the student population kind of merging out into the, uh, neighborhoods. So, our findings were that they met the criteria and we recommend that both of these, uh, streets be converted to a residential permit parking district. Thank you. Ms. Lawless, did you wanna follow up with any of that? Give some background on... Y- yes, the... Oh, wow, that's loud. Maybe it's just me that's loud. Anyway, um, these have been going on for quite some time, and there was a lot of confusion about through law and et cetera about how to move these forward. So I'd like to get them moved forward as quickly as possible. And it's not students necessarily, it's also staff and professors, et cetera. And, um, on one of these streets there was somebody that would park their car, drive there, park their car. They had a bike chained to a utility pole in the right-of-way in front of somebody's house, and they'd ride the bike to UK. And then they would come back and chain their bike, and they would leave it there over holidays, and even o- all the way over the summer. So anyway, it is a problem. So, thank you, and thank you, Mr. Means, for all your hard work on this. But it is something that's been in the works, so as, if we could push it forward as soon as possible, the neighborhoods there would appreciate it. Thank you. Did you want to make a motion then at, with that, um, with their recommendation then? Yes. Uh, I move that the 700 block of, uh, I move that those two, number one and number two, be placed on the docket. Let's, let's do 'em separately, if we could. Okay. Let's do the first one. Um, that residential parking permit district Beaumont Avenue and 700 block of Melrose Avenue be forwarded to council. Second. We have motion and a second. Do we have any discussion? Are there any residents that wanted to s- to talk on this? I see none. All those in favor say, "Aye." Aye. All those oppose? That passes. The second motion I'd like to make is residential parking permit district Eldemere Avenue, um, be passed out of committee and sent to the council. We have a motion. Second. And a second. Any discussion? Any residents that'd like to speak on this? Seeing none, all those in favor say, "Aye." Aye. All those oppose? That passes. Thank you, Mr. Means. And now the third issue on our agenda was the snow plan. And Mr. Meyers put this in, um, committee. I don't see, um, Mr. Meyers at this time. He was here. There, here he comes walking in. He just came from another meeting, so- Gotcha. Yeah. Moving from meeting to meetings. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I guess we wanna start... A few weeks ago, I put into committee the snow removal plan, and had a few different questions. Some of the questions centered around when streets, roads, and, and forestry looks at the priority streets, what happens when they're done with the priority streets? Do they just go back to the shop when they're done with the snow event, or do they continue on down through streets to a certain point? And so, if someone could come up and speak to that issue. Um, but also, one of the things that I want to, to try to get resolved today, I'm not sure if we can get that done, what I'd like to get resolved today is this issue of having cul-de-sacs that are either at the bottom of a hill or top of a hill. And first, I wanna make it clear that we're not talking about all cul-de-sacs in, in Lexington, Fayette County. We're only talking about the one on through either the top of a hill or bottom of a hill. What I would like to see is that those are addressed in the snow removal plan. And maybe a place to do that is, on the page... And I left my plan upstairs. There's a, there's a page 10, I believe, in the plan. ... that talks about hills. And maybe the best thing I, um- It's on page 26. Commissioner? It's on 26 of the packet. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Commissioner, could you come up for a second? And we, I think we have Sam Williams and also we have Commissioner Webb here. And this is kind of apropos since we've been dealing with the snow- ... venture this last couple of days. Commissioner, I wonder if maybe the best place to deal with these... Because my question was, if you're, if you're rolling down a street, it's a primary. And off of that, you have a cul-de-sac that's on a hill, say the top of a hill. Mm-hmm. And the, and the committee and then the full council decides to add into the plan all those cul-de-sacs that are such, top or bottom of hill. Would it be cost-effective and, and more efficient to address that cul-de-sac when you're driving by doing the priority street? Or... But I realize in doing that, you really made that cul-de-sac a priority. I think what, what, what we need to start with was how, what are some of the main points of the, the design of the plan. And if you could start from the end and work back to the front. Yeah, why don't you give us an overview and then since we've had this weather event, might just tell us what, what we've done in the last few days and kind of give us an update. And then we can get more specific in what I think Mr. Myers is asking about. Okay. Uh, the plan has ba- four priorities, priority one, two, three and four. Priority one being the highest priority, four being the lowest. Whenever, uh- Can, can I interrupt just a second? Can you explain to everyone listening what makes it a priority one, two, three, four? Uh, there actually is a definition in the snow plan of each priority. Uh, Kevin, would you mind doing that real quick- Yeah. Can we put that, actually, we can put that probably on the Elmo here and put over, on the overhead if we could. It's on page 25. I think it has the different priorities, which you can go through them if you like. Was that in page 25 of the packet? Okay. Because I didn't remember- I think page nine on yours, I believe. ... having the definitions outlined in the... I don't think we included that in the packet per se. Now, I have the definitions in the, in the plan itself. Kevin, in the second paragraph of the page nine, it says, "Priority one streets are the primary streets." And then priori- two, "Priority two streets are the major connecting streets such as Red Mile Road and Loudoun Avenue." And then follows priority three and four, the second paragraph from page nine. Thank you. And I mean, I'd be happy to read this if you'd like. Do you want me to go through that, Councilman Myers? Just real quickly so people at home understand what a priority is. Okay. Priority streets are defined as follows. Priority one streets are the primary arteries in and out of the city, such as Main Street, Nicholasville Road, Richmond Road, et cetera. Priority two streets are the major connecting streets such as Red Mile and Loudoun Avenue. Priority threes are, uh, school bus routes. Now, I'm, I'm gonna amend that. It's actually, we don't follow school bus routes per se. We will direct where we have connectivity and use the bus routes in the past. This is how we've done that, um, as a means to, to maintain that connectivity. But it's not directly along bus route. So I'd need to amend that statement. Priority fours are the primary arteries and subdivisions which get residents to the main roads. So that in a nutshell would be a, a quick overview of, of priorities one through four. Um, in, in the GIS, we actually have eight categorized street priorities, one through four primarily for streets... And well, excuse me, it's actually one through five. Five being that, that we address outside of the urban service area. And then six through eight are those that are state maintained. So just as for clarification. Thank you. I think Commissioner Snee. You can stay close. Kevin, Kevin's actually been instrumental in putting the plan together each year, working with streets, roads and forestry, public school system and, and the state, number of folks that get together to work on this. But if... One of the main focuses of the plan is, is to have the streets within our priorities to com- completed within 24 hours of the end of the snow. And this is, this is something that people will be confused by at times. If it snows for two days, it'll be 24 hours from the time it quits that, that our target is to have all the priorities cleared. So, uh, a main component of our plan by priority is the how they're routed. And typically, you don't find any dead-end streets or cul-de-sacs on those, those snow removal, uh, routes. The reason you don't is because that snow plow is very difficult to turn around. So they're routed, so they continuously move, they turn left and turn right, but they never get it in a place where they have to back up or turn around. Uh, a cul-de-sac is... A typical cul-de-sac is not large enough for a snowplow to turn around. So, uh, in order to accomplish... And really we're staffed to accomplish our target of having the four priorities cleared within 24 hours. Uh, what... Right now, we're manning every available plow, and it's taking us right at 24 hours. Took us a little bit longer Sunday, because of the extreme cold temperatures and the salt not working very effectively. So, uh, but on-- in a typical snow that we have here within 24 hours of the time that the snow quits, we'll have the roads plowed. That's not just in the urban services district, also includes the, the county routes that LFUCG is responsible for. So within that, wha- what, I believe it's about, what, 35 miles per truck, we figure? About, uh, each truck would be responsible for about 35 miles of r- of road to clear. Uh, now, that's road miles, not lane miles. So you, that's back and forth on a two-lane s- uh, neighborhood street. Uh, sometimes it, some of the wider ones you could have a couple of additional trips on there to clean those off, but if you take Harrisburg Road, Man O War Boulevard, all those wide streets, um, Man Bo- Man O War, I think takes five snowplows, a pass of five snowplows in each direction, uh, to get that cleared off properly and get the turn lanes. So those priority one streets are typically made of those type of roads, multi-lane roads. So whenever you look at the 40, uh, I think we have about 40 plows available to us. Um, whenever you look at, at that number, typically 30 of 'em, about 30 of 'em operating at any one time, when you're doing the priority ones, you're not seeing a whole lot of miles being opened up because it takes so many plows. As the priority ones, uh, are completed, then they'll move through the priorities and you're getting to smaller and smaller streets. But you have to remember, y- it's not just a pass in one direction. Th- There, again, those routes are set up for continuous movement, no stop and turn around. Uh, stop and turn around is something that is dangerous for a snowplow and for the traveling public. To go down a, a dead-end street or a cul-de-sac, pull into a cul-de-sac will either require backing out or backing in. Uh, dangerous during snow, uh, dangerous for the driver, and, and really potentially impactful to our, our snow plan because any damage to, to public property, a parked vehicle that happens to be in an area where you have to back or have difficulty in turning around, its damage is gonna shut that plow down if it hits anything. Uh, the police are gonna have to respond if, if the vehicle requires support to get out of there. Uh, then we tie up another vehicle to get them out and a supervisor to get 'em out. Uh, and just this past weekend, we had a plow go off the road on Jacks Creek Pike. It took another plow to get that, that plow out. Uh, while, while that was taking place, that's one plow you don't have on the road there. So there, and the amount of time is very impactful. If you chose to do cul-de-sacs, to pull up, do whatever you need to do to turn around whenever you figure that we're, our 24-hour plan is, uh, is based on each truck doing 35 miles of the plan, that if you're pulling into cul-de-sacs and then backing out, uh, depending on the length of the cul-de-sac, uh, you're, you're wasting, I won't say wasting because you're, you're clearing and salting, but you're taking a lot of time away that will have to be replaced by additional, uh, equipment, salt, and labor in order to complete that plan in 24 hours. Thank you, Commissioner. I, I like the way you presented this 'cause basically what you presented is, this is why we can't do this, instead of, this is why we can do this. I, I like the way that you talked about the danger of the snowplow going down there, getting stuck, not being able to get out, all those things. Because here's the bottom line. We have a snow plan for a reason and that's to clear the roads so that everybody can drive safely. Mm-hmm. What you haven't talked about is, I guess two things. One, you talked last week or last time we talked about this, that the snowplows once they get through with the party streets, I forgot what term you used, but they do something that has to do with emergency maintenance so that if a police need, need to get into a street or an ambulance or a firetruck or something like that, then they go out and assist with that. Uh- Here, here's the bottom line for me. Whether you take that snowplow down there to open the road up so the police department can head down there or the fire department can head down there, the snowplow needs to go down there. If you have to call a snowplow to clean the road so that police, fire, and emergency can get down there to somebody, that tells me the road needed to be cleaned before police, fire, or emergency needed to get down there. If you've got a grandmother that's having a heart attack at a home, on a cul-de-sac, on a hill, and you have to wait until a snowplow comes from wherever, to cle- to get up that road so that, so the ambulance can get up there to help them, we've missed it. That's why I want to find out how many cul-de-sacs we have at the bottom of the hill or top of the hill and add those into the street, into the snow plan. I'm not sure that... How many different size trucks do you have? I'm sorry, I didn't understand what you said. How many different size trucks do you have that have plows on them? How many... Different size trucks. All your trucks aren't the same size. We have three different sizes. Okay. So maybe the biggest truck we have may have to back down a cul-de-sac and back, back out. But probably the smaller truck wouldn't have to. So I don't know how, I'm not an expert on whether or not it would make more sense for that truck that's going down the primary road to go ahead and go up that cul-de-sac while they're there. ... or reroute another truck at somewhere else in time, which seems to me to be less efficient because you've got more fuel and all that. Basically, you've got sort of scattered trucks that are going out and hitting, missing cul-de-sacs as they pop up. So I don't know which way is the most effective way to do that cost-wise. But maybe it is that you use the smaller truck to do the cul-de-sacs. One of disinformation we asked for was how many cul-de-sacs were on the top of the hill or bottom of the hill. We didn't get that information yet. So- I... Council Member Meyers, to go... We'll have to visit each one, every cul-de-sac in the field to be able to tell you what's at the top of the hill and what's at the bottom of the hill. I can't tell from a flat map, uh, which we can do that if that's what this committee wishes us to do. Well, here, I got an idea for that. Solid waste drives these streets every day. I'm sure that solid waste drivers can tell you which cul-de-sacs are the top of the hill or bottom of the hill, because that's what they do every day. If that doesn't work, then I'm sure the council members wouldn't have a problem driving their districts and locating those for you. So I understand if you can't figure that out using a map or whatever. I understand that part. We can get that information together. I have no idea how many it's going to be. Um, I think I only have two in my entire district. But I just don't think there's going to be this huge number of cul-de-sacs that fit this description that are going to throw the snow plan completely out of whack. I think one of the things we're going to have to define too is how much people consider a hill. Right. You're going to have to get some type of grade, estimate of the grade at the top or bottom of the cul-de-sac for people, for if councilmen are going to do that survey, council members are going to do that survey, they're going to need that information so that we're looking at these in a standard way. You know, honestly, I don't think that we have to get that technical with it. The issue is whether or not people can get out of their street. Mm-hmm. I don't think we have to go to, if the cul-de-sac has this grade, we do it. If it's a 3% grade less than that, then we're not going to do it. Um, I don't think this is rocket science. I think we just need to figure out how many of them there are and what it would mean to your 24-hour period and how best to do it, whether it's that the truck that's going by that major street in front of it, does it at that point in time, or if- The truck that would be going by these cul-de-sacs are the large trucks or the ones that... Probably shouldn't do it? No, we're just asking for trouble if we try to put those, those trucks up in cul-de-sacs. Okay. Well, then I guess let's figure out how many streets we have, figure out how many smaller trucks you have, and then try to figure out what a plan would look like to address those streets. I think also what we can do, we have streets on, on, uh, we have signs on Snow Routes, right? Saying that they can't be parked on. There are snow emergency routes and they're signed, but you have to call a snow emergency in order for there to be no parking. Okay. This particular snow that we had, we didn't feel like it was necessary to have vehicles towed in order to take care of this. However, if we feel there is an issue, uh, the mayor is generally in contact with us all through the, the occurrence on what, whether we're going to need one or not. Sure. Stay very close in contact on those. I think I can speak to the two cul-de-sacs I know of in my district. If you said to people, if the forecast is snow tomorrow or ice, then you can't park on the street, won't have any problem, everybody park in the driveway. I don't think you'd have a problem. I think most cases it would be that way. And maybe on the cul-de-sac, it's a case where if you've, rather than towing vehicles out, I don't know, depending on what it takes to get this done, if you want to make a policy that says if there's cars parked, then we can't go down the cul-de-sac, maybe that's something we have to look at. So as we finish up, what I'd like to be clear on is what piece of the information is going to be provided by the council members and the pieces of information that I need to provide through Streets and Roads. And what I've heard so far is the council members are going to provide me with the cul-de-sacs in their district that are on a slope. First, I said that solid waste that drives these roads every day would be probably the easiest person. I know I can check with Commissioner Taylor, but I would suspect that they can provide that information pretty readily. So I will start with Commissioner Taylor on that today. If they can't provide that, then I will talk to my colleagues on the council and see if they would be willing to do that. And then we're going to provide a amount of hours it takes to do a number of cul-de-sacs. Is that correct? And we'll compare it to the equipment that we have on hand and let you know what the impact would be for what we need in labor, vehicles, and material. Material being salt, calcium chloride. Actually, no, I'm not interested in all that because you can end up shooting me a hundred thousand dollar bill to say if we're going to include cul-de-sacs, it's going to be a hundred thousand dollars. That's not what I'm looking for. What I'm looking for is how many cul-de-sacs there are and then working them into the plan. And obviously, it's going to take more salt to do cul-de-sacs because you're doing a street that you weren't doing it before. But that's what we do as a government. Just like if police and fire called you to go down to that street, you'd take salt down there and you'd salt the street. So no, I'm not looking for a hundred thousand dollar price tag from you saying, "This is what it's going to cost to do this." What I'm looking for is the number of cul-de-sacs that fit this bill and then a plan for working them into the plan, whether it is to add them to the bridges, hills, and intersections list, or if you think it's more effective to do it some other way. But- I'm not really interested in how much it's gonna cost to do this. I'm interested in getting it done. A, a, I respectfully would submit, a plan to get it done would include the cost of labor, materials, and equipment. Uh, but if you don't feel you need that, that's fine. Well, I think we probably can pr- probably address the first issue- That's fine. ... is just how many different incidents there's gonna be. Mm-hmm. And I think, um, Mr. Seaniger and I were talking on the sidebar here that he thinks GIS might be able to do this just by their, their mapping and they're look at the grade and the topography of the, the maps. They might be able to look at those and determine which ones actually we need to add in. Then we can see if there's gonna be... how big a issue this actually is gonna be to address. And I think eventually we're gonna have to look at the cost, obviously, that are associated with this. We can, with GIS, we can incorporate a slope analysis with, with the topography that we have. Now, mind you, that's, that's, uh, topography that dates back to 1998. No, excuse me, 2000, so roughly 10 years old. So there's gonna be some change to that based on development within that 10-year span. Um, and then in addition to that, you can look at, you know, calculations of length and, and width of that. So there, there could be some assessment, as the commissioners pointed out, to, to materials for that given intersection. We do that similar to what we would do for resurfacing to determine what our costs are gonna be for repavement of a given length of street. We could give an estimate for materials necessary. But, uh, that, that's gonna take me a little bit of time to, to compute, but I can, I can get that together. What do you mean by a little bit of time? What, what are you thinking? I could have it by the, the next time you all meet, or even prior to that. I, I... Since we are in a wintertime kind of issue, this would be probably something we'd like to have sooner than later in case we do have a, an issue that we need addressing. And I guess from council members, also, I think we, if you wanna give them to me that I can pass on any issues that you've had from citizens on certain areas that they find that are difficult that need to be addressed, then we can pass that on too. Gotcha. Okay. But any, if you can get that to us as quick as possible and then get it- Gotcha. ... to Paul and Paul and I can pass that on to the rest of the committee and then we'll, we'll keep this in committee for next, for the, um, next meeting. Here, I wanna, I wanna do a follow up on the needs, on the, on the cost as- assessment. The reason why I said it's not that important is simply this. If we had a snow event and it snowed for four straight days, we would be out cleaning the streets for four straight days, correct? That's correct. So that's why it's irrelevant. However much snow we have is how much snow we have. If we have a snow event that is concurrent for four or five days, we're gonna keep hitting those same streets over and over and over. So we wouldn't suggest, well, we're only gonna do these major streets one time or we're gonna do them every other day, even though it continues to snow for four days. We're gonna hit them every single day. So if you add 20 more streets in there, then it's no different than looking at it where you had snow hit for two days instead of one and you're out there continuously clearing the streets. So while it will take more salt, while it will take, um more man-hours, but that's also another reason why I asked the question, as to whether or not when you get the priority one, two, three, four done, you just go back to the shop and call it a snow event complete? Uh- Or do you continue on to other roads? Because if you continue on to other roads, which is the way the plan reads to me, then once again, it's no different than adding those however many cul-de-sacs in there. Our practice has been that once we complete the priorities and the snow has quit, we get through the, through the county roads and all the priorities that, that the majority of our folks are released. We keep a crew, I think per area, to address any slick calls that we get or any issues with police, fire and, uh, uh, Fay County Schools, Solid Waste. So we'll address internal or external folks that would... Is there a time at which you take citizen calls? And if citizens call about a certain street, um, when you get through priority one through six and you're doing the police, fire and public schools and solid waste, you would hit streets that the citizens have? We'll, we'll re- we'll receive calls from Lex call, uh, concerning whether, um, our street is on the snow plan or is not on the snow plan. Uh, a lot of those get forwarded to us through Lex call. Kevin Wente usually fields those questions. Some of them do get out to streets and roads. But if somebody has an emergency, they're referred to, uh, the proper responder. And if they have a problem, then we support that responder. But what if it's not an emergency? What is- What, what if it's not an emergency? We, we have responded to those- Sam, could you go to the, go to the mic please? We, we have responded to those cases. As a matter of fact, uh, we're doing that today in, in areas that, uh, that we get calls in and, and you know, one of the supervisors then goes and, and evaluates it. One of our, uh, supervisors, and we, we respond to it. You know, it may just be a, a, the hill part on, on a street, or it may be the intersection or whatever, but uh, you know, we don't wholesale treat those areas. But like if folks are having trouble up a hill, we'll go treat that, you know, on a, on an as-requested basis and evaluate those. And that, and that's really what we do during that period after, after we see the, you know, after we've met the priorities, uh, and that. And, uh, you know, and we, we gear up and, and power down, uh, not, uh, as drastically as, as, as, uh, as one would think. You know, when the snow stops, we don't say, "Go home." We, we keep, uh, staff on to, uh, to respond to those, those, you know, those issues. So it may be a situation where... So, so it sounds like this could... I mean, I don't know how many there are gonna be, but it sounds like these could get worked in without, without a major- I think, I think a lot of them are, uh, Councilman Myers, uh, you know, it's, uh, it, it's... We have a lot of, uh, of streets that, that are not on the plan that we don't address. And, uh... But we, we look at each, each request and, and, and if it's... If it looks like... You know, if it's one person complaining, you know, it may not get as much priority as two or three folks that live down there, you know, having a problem up the street. And Albert, basically, uh, uh, and I somewhat spend a lot of time patrolling the roads and looking where we are and, and looking at those calls and, and making those judgment calls to, uh, try to get the, uh, you know, the efficient use of our equipment and, and allowing our citizens to travel like they, they, uh, they need to. You bring up a great point. If the supervisors go out and they're looking at roads, um, if you get certain streets that every snow event or every ice event you get multiple calls from, from that street, is there ever a time which when you look at the snow plan for the next year, because it's amended every year, right? Or at least it's looked at every year with new roads coming on, with new construction and things. Do you take into consideration the number of complaints, or not complaints, but, but requests- Requests. ... for service on a certain particular street? Matter of fact, we do. And, and our, our owner of corporate knowledge is Albert Miller. And, uh, I know Albert. Uh, uh, Albert's very integral in, in, uh, in revising the snow plan each, each fall. And matter of fact, that's, uh, one of the, the criteria is, as Albert said, "Well, we've got a lot of calls on that one last year. We, you know, uh, we may need to revise the plan in that area." And, and matter of fact, uh, our, uh, you know, our guy, our guy Hager, that's got the white hair has got a lot of corporate knowledge in that regard. And, and we, we intend to do that. And, you know, it's a, it's the type of thing that, uh, that we want to be prudent in the management of, of, of our resources and, and, and also good stewards for the, uh, the citizens. And, and, and I think that's, that's something we've, we've incorporated over the years. I know we have in the last couple of years I've been involved with it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Mr. Stennet, I had you on to speak next. Thank you, Chair. Just had a question on the update on the snow plan. Did we get all the new neighborhoods on there this year? How often are you putting the new, new areas on there? Because I know last year we had an issue, we had an issue with Hamburg, was, it wasn't even on the, the plowing plan, which it's been there for six or seven years now. And over the weekend, we had a problem with Starshoot Parkway because it's right by an elementary school that wasn't plowed for Monday morning. So I have a feeling it's still not on the plan somewhere, because Starshoot should be a party three road at the very least. It is on the plan. Well, it wasn't touched. Um... So somebody missed it. But how often are we updating these new neighborhoods? It's done every year. So we do it on a yearly basis. We don't do it as they are opening the street with residents on them? Typically, this time of year, usually I have to resurface, they have the final surfaces put on. Okay. That's when we will bring it in. And that's usually done in the fall of the year. But is that... That's not your department though, that would be somewhere in public works, like an engineering or somewhere when the neighborhood development- As far as... Oh, as far as the final surface? Well, as far as the road being turned over to the city. That would be engineering, that's correct, but- So do they notify you? Is that the process? That's what... Yes. And we send an email, we send a master list once a year? I mean... I think we've been requesting lists since Sam has been on board. We've been reques- requesting lists from them for what is anticipated to happen through the fall, fall season of the resurf- Okay. Or not resurfacing, but asphalt plants open. Because, no, it wasn't your fault because you weren't getting the communication that these roads were being opened or these residents were living there now. So that is happening now that we are getting good communication and cooperation amongst divisions? That is correct. And plus, through the year, I'll drive these roads because I'm out quite a bit. And I'll drive these roads and subdivisions, new subdivisions, and make notes as I go through them. And that's where we get a lot of these, these roads that we added, that's how we get them. It's just from me driving the roads and, and taking notes of what's going on. Okay, so there is a process in place. I just want to make sure because in, in the past it's been an, an iffy process at best. Yeah, it... There is a process in place. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Chair. Then how would his star shoot get, um, overlooked then? Um, I'm not sure, but we certainly will find out. Okay. Mr. Beard? Thank you, Chair. Um, once upon a time, and I don't know whether you're still doing this or not, um, where a cul-de-sac has a downslope to a stop sign, there used to be a process where they would salt, let's say just the first 100 or 150 feet so that the person doesn't come down the hill and go out into a collector and get T-boned. That's correct. That's still... Are you still doing that? Yeah. We, we assess the situation when we get there. We may not do a quarter mile of road, but if it does have any type of incline or to a stop sign or intersection, we will treat that 150, 200 feet, whatever it happens to be. Does somebody have to complain or do you have those on a list? That's usually by some type of, uh, complaint. Okay. And obviously in our snow plan- Why would that be? I guess if, if we'd known we've done it for the last five years, why wouldn't we put it on the list? That I, I, I don't, I don't know. That, that could be answered. Well, let's, let's make a request then that you put it on the list, I guess is- I think that's what Councilmember Myers was- I mean, yeah. ... getting at. ... um, I have a street that, uh, it isn't too far from me, and they have one of these, uh, Bellah , uh, Greenbriar into Bellefonte. The other end of Greenbriar, it's a flat cul-de-sac. And if we do anything for the hilly cull-, cul-de-sac, the people down at the other end, uh, which is only three blocks away, is gonna wanna know why. They don't, they don't get served. And, uh, I personally live in a, uh, an area that has three cul-de-sacs off of it, and, um, there's a hill involved there on Glendover. And please don't plow or salt that, because I'll look up and there'll be people out in my front yard with torches and a rope. So, um, I, thi- this thing of setting precedents and making ad hoc decisions is somewhat of a problem, to me anyway, um, in trying to be fair to everybody. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Ms. Hinton? Thank you, Chair. I have a few questions about ha-, if you have a particular street that's a problem, like I know Sam, I contacted you about a street where either way you go, you have a pretty steep incline and it's very difficult for the folks that live at the bottom of the hills to get out. Um, how ... do I just need to call you every time? I think once, once you make a couple 'cause, we understand that that's the case, and we will, we will, uh, convey to our folks to, we need to look at that as we, as we do our, our, our work out there. You know, if it's, if it's like intersections to our priority streets, we, we need to, uh, we need to in, uh, address those as we, as we work those areas. Okay. And also, in a subdivision where there's only, you know, there's no outlet. One way in, one way out. Um, and I know that Mr. Hart's here from the colony, and they have speed humps. Mm-hmm. But it was addressed bef-, from what they tell me, this was addressed before the speed humps went in. And now they have a real problem. They don't have speeders any longer, but they can't get their streets plowed. The, uh, the, you know, the, the speed hump, speed control, uh, situation is something we've, we've talked a lot about. And, uh, the, uh, the main issue with those, uh, uh, Council Member Hinton, is they do not do well when we hit 'em with snowplows. Exactly. And, uh, m- and the other, the other thing that, that hurts us too is, uh, the condition of the manhole lids. You know, if they're, if they're stickin' up, uh, above the pavement, that's another issue that causes us mechanical problems. Right. And, uh, uh, one thing that, that really causes a lot of problems is we got a lot of construction going on in town now, as you know. And these steel plates, if, if we don't know they're there, we can hit those and, and, and then shear off almost telephone poles. Right. So, uh, but anyway, uh, it's, it is a situation where, uh ... And that's, and that's a key part of the availability of our equipment. Uh, on Saturday morning, in fact, uh, we had had, uh, had some encounters with, with obstructions in the pavement. And I think at one time, we had, uh, seven plows that, that had, that had damage that we had to re- repair the cutting edges on 'em. And, and so it's, it's- understand. ... more of a situation where we wanna have- I see. ... get the most value- Right now. ... and the most benefit from our equipment. And, and if we deal with those issues, it becomes a, it becomes a very, uh, uh, inefficient, uh, uh, deal. And, and we'll probably end up plowing the, uh, the speed hump out, and it'll be in somebody's driveway is what, what and what normally would happen. If, um, if they were, I know they had talked about putting up reflectors- Mm-hmm. ... like on each side of the speed hump, that would be tall enough that ... They're, they're pretty far apart. They're not really, you know, the speed humps are not real close together. What, what, what you would end up doing is you would end up creating a mound of snow that would compound the speed hump. So basically what would happen, uh, you know, our plows, if you ever seen one operate, they, they, they, they windrow it off the side of the road. Well, what would happen if, if you, if you did accommodate those speed humps, raise the plow up, you would actually dump that, what snow is on the plow right there at the speed hump, drop it down. And so what, what you're gonna end up with is a speed hump that may be four to six inches high. It's gonna be a pile of snow, maybe a foot, foot and a half high at each of the speed humps. Okay. Okay. That, that's, that was what we, you would end up seeing. Okay. Thank you. Sam, while you're there, could you, uh, follow-up question then, what about if we don't, um, go with a blade, if you just go and salt it, can you do that? Y- you know, and, uh, uh, Council Manellinger, uh, I think that's, uh, uh, that one would think that if, if you're dealing with a, uh, a minor amount of snow, maybe a halfe inch, inch, you know, the salting may allow us to do, uh, do some good. But, you know, like the snow we had with four, five inches, you know, it's, it's really, uh, uh, not a very effective way to, to treat these situations. Gotta scrape it before you can put the salt down? That's, that, that's generally the, the, uh, the mode of operation. We scrape and we salt. And if it's still snowing, a lot of times we scrape and do not salt until we see a, a ... we see the snow start slacking off. What about when you pre-treat them? 'Cause I know you'll go through if, if it's, uh, if it's over 25 degrees, I think isn't that kind of the key number? If it's over 25, you're in good shape after that. The salt doesn't really, isn't near as effective. Yeah. Yeah. But I know that you're out there. S- is it spray or what is it that you're out pre-treating with? Well, uh, the pre-treatment is, uh, y- you know, it'll, it basically what it does is it breaks the bond between the pavement and the ice or snow or whatever, whatever is to come. And, and it just makes it easier to remove the, the snow. I know, uh, a matter of fact, when, when I was, uh, working with Leo, uh, uh, before he left last, before Christmas last year, we went out one evening and we pre-treated one side of, uh, Man o' War and the other side we didn't. And we come back the next morning and plowed it, and it was very obvious the, the side that we, that we pre-treated it plowed off very clean. And the other side had, had a, you know, it didn't, the, the, the bond didn't break as easy. And you had a kind of a skim of, of a, of, uh, s- slush and, and that that was stuck on the road that was, you know, which basically came off after you, you've treated with salt. You know, a- and we use basically three different chemical agents. Uh, of course, the, the bulk of what we use is, uh, is sodium chloride, uh, which is rock salt. We use some calcium chloride liquid that we add to that when we put it down on, uh, our, our trick trucks are equipped with that, which reduces the, uh, uh, the, the melting point of the, the ice. And then we've got, uh, we've been, uh, using some, uh, the trade name I guess is, is Magic Salt, but it's a magnesium chloride blend. And we've been using some of that on our pre-treatment and it operates at a, an, and again, a, a l- even lower temperature than, than the calcium chloride. So, you know, we've, we've got different tools that we, we, we've been using th- during these events. What would you recommend for the, the neighborhoods or areas that have the speed humps to, for their snow removal? Uh, you know what? I guess, uh, they're, um, most of them have a neighborhood association. You know, they could, maybe they could work with, uh, you know, a contractor that would, would look at that for them. Uh, you know, I, you know, I don't know what, what other, other alternatives. You know, the, the best thing, you know, as far as, uh, streets and roads goes and forestry is to, uh, uh, you know, eliminate the speed humps and, and we'll just, you know, if it's on a priority ri- route, we'll, we'll take care of it as such. Thank you. Any other questions from the council members? I think we do have a ge- gentleman in the audience who would like to address this. If you would just give your name and your, your address for the committee, please. My name is Mike Hart, and I'm here on behalf of The Colony. And we are a cul-de-sac that's at the bottom of the hill off of Versailles Road. I think we'd be treat- we would be treated better. But anyway, we, uh, I'm one of the younger members of The Colony. Uh, we have, uh, quite a few elderly residents. We have quite a few people that live in there 'cause it's actually two neighborhood associations, the co- The Old Colony and The New Colony. Uh, we do have two speed humps in this neighborhood. I find it totally unacceptable that because of a snow blade, we're not being plowed. And I can appreciate the deal, whatever, and I think there w- we can carry this fur- forth 'cause I think it could get comical, uh, carried forth. But there's gotta be a solution 'cause our neighborhood, uh, I would assume that some of y'all would be very familiar with it. It's, um, uh, I personally live on a ski slope. Uh, there are no sidewalks. Uh, there's some tremendous drop-offs. And we did have two emergencies last time and the people were kind enough in four-wheel vehicles to take the people out. So I think the best shot I have learned here today, I've learned a lot, that we will call the police department next time. And that seems to be one way of getting, uh, service. But this has gotta be something that has to be addressed. Also, I was not a resident there when the speed humps were put in. I came right at that time. I was actually, uh, not in favor of the speed humps because I thought, "These are gonna be a nuisance." Over time, they've really worked. They've been a, uh, uh, there's no street lights in The Colony. Uh, uh, we have a lot of walkers, especially during the summer at night. It slows traffic down. So we've, uh, also, we have people in there that keep great notes, great minutes. And this was, uh, uh, addressed when the speed humps were put in. And I will see, uh, that I'll get Mr. Webb, who's been extremely responsive to my calls, and Kevin went the expre- uh, we've, we've had some good conversations. I'm one of the nice guys in this, uh, 'cause I, my phone has been absolutely rung off the, uh, I got into a no pay job here that's been crazy. And it doesn't take much snow. And when I hear about the no pre-treatment, we are on no priority because we've been eliminated with these speed humps. And it, it creates a very dangerous situation. I think something, uh, eventually will happen. Uh, we, we do have cars that have been off. We've had, I think, uh, not this last one, but the time before last, we did have two wreckers in there. Uh, we're probably not making enough noise. So I think the noise will be louder and I think we need to pursue more through the police department because it is a very dangerous situation it's created. And anybody, I don't know if, are you familiar with The Colony, it's a, um, uh, it's a, a unique situation as far as the streets back there. We also, so you know, we are the front part. You talked about neighborhood associations. Uh, it's interesting that we are getting ready to come back before the council here in a couple of months 'cause we're trying to do the ND1 designation. We have, uh, at this point, all, uh, restrictions.duha have expired, but we will never gain the opportunity to, uh, bill or what is it, deed restrictions for us, anybody paying dues. So there's really a select number of colony residents that pay for the whole as far as we also maintain our, uh, uh, common areas, as far as mowing for the city, which we're not supposed to, but we do that for the beauty part of it. But behind us is The New Colony that is deeded restrictions. And those are the people you're gonna hear from 'cause I guess they're bigger taxpayers. Uh, I actually live in, uh, that part, but they can, uh, say that you have to pay a certain amount. ... the front colony does not have that. They're very dependent upon, uh, city services. And literally right now, far as I'm concerned, we just, uh, they, they've been marked off the list because these two speed humps, you off, uh, you offset one safety factor with another one. But I think the factor that we're sitting in right now is real expensive. I talked to Mike. To take those speed humps out or, I think to put them in was expensive, to take them out is expensive. And to take them out actually makes that neighborhood even, um, now you got another danger deal. That's, it was an extensive process put in. And the city was advised at the time about snow removal. Those notes do. And I'll, I'll see that we, uh, Peggy will get those notes 'cause she's seen them with the people in the neighborhood association, far as minutes that was held. That was an extensive process to put those in. And that seems to be ignored at this point. Of course, there was a different administration, different people, da, da, whatever, but snow removal was definitely, uh, talked about in those meetings. And that was, "Oh, no, not a problem." So we're all talking about the value of the blade. Far as what, uh, Mr. Webb just said, we would definitely take the hump at the, uh, snow plow. I, I, we'd have people out there shoveling. Uh, that would be a one... There's all sorts of alternatives. I've seen, uh, my son lives in Cincinnati in an old neighborhood. They got speed humps, it's no problem. If you want reflectors, whatever, if you have to do this, there's gotta be a solution as opposed to just say, "You don't get city services." Thank you, Shard. But I'm not gonna question- I think we have some questions. Uh, Ms. Henson, did you, were you here or is that from last time? Mr. Myers? M- Mr. Hart? Mr. Hart, I think there is a question for you from one of the council members. If you would, come back to the microphone, please. D- d- did you say you, the street is on a cul-de-sac, on a hill? I'm sorry, I was joking. I said we live on a cul-de-sac at the bottom of the hill. I thought we would get service that way in your new plan. No, no. No, we, we are though, a lot of things have been mentioned here. We have only one entrance and one exit. There's a lot of safety issues. And again, we have very narrow streets with drop-offs. I mean, you name everything, we've got all of the above as far as safety issues. No street lights, da, da, whatever. And the other problem we've got, the longer it exists, the worse it gets. If we don't get some service for us, pretreatment or whatever, it becomes a lockout. Okay. So you don't live on a cul-de-sac, it's not a cul-de-sac? You know, you could almost call it a cul-de-sac. It is. So- One street that goes all the way around, and then it's a network of cul-de-sacs. With one e- with one entrance. With one entrance, there you go. Okay, so were you joke, were you joking or were you serious about the part where you said that there were a couple of emergencies and you had to have some people use four-wheel drives to get- Oh, yeah, we took care of that ourself. We're pretty self-sufficient. Can you, can you explain to us what happened with that? Well, we had one person that, well, was actually across the street. Again, like I said, I'm, I'm one of the younger residents. And we had one person that definitely had just trouble breathing, da, da, whatever, so we took her to the hospital. The other person was, I doubt if we'd wanna talk about it. Probably had too much fun. Is that, was it a situation- There we go. ... where the emergency vehicles could not get back there to you? You wouldn't even wanna call an emergency vehicle back there, seriously. And you can check with fire and police there. I think they would back that up 100%. It's that bad. I... Thank you, sir. I guess my question is, I'm, I'm thinking about the snow removal plan and I'm thinking about the street repaving plan that we have. The street repaving plan, I know that we just voted to change that process a little bit, but it was set up where before the council members would, and I guess it's still gonna be that way to an extent, the council members would look at the streets that are rated for, uh, needing repair in their district and then they would rate, they would pick which ones they wanted done first with the limited amount of money that we have. I know we changed the funding scheme going forward. It, it, it seems to me that if you have, in my district an example of the two cul-de-sacs that every snow event, every ice event, the phone's ringing off the hook for those same two streets. Don't get any... I'm pretty sure I don't get any complaints about any other streets except for those two. Um, Councilman Beard had a street where he's got a cul-de-sac that comes down to the bottom of the hill and it only gets, um, salted if enough people call and get a complaint and to go out and salt it. It, it seems to me that we should have the same process. Maybe that's the easiest way to deal with this is the council members that have recurring issues on certain streets in their district, we just add those streets to the list. Every year it's the same issue, every snow event, ice event, it's the same issue at the same streets. Um, I think you talked about driving streets and some of the ones that are added are because you drive it and you see that this is, this is a recurring issue or you can look at it and see that if we have ano- a snow event or ice event, it's gonna be an issue, so it's added to the list. Is that an easier way to do this than to... I mean, maybe every cul-de-sac at the top or bottom of a hill is not a big enough grade that people complain or maybe they have and just quit complaining. Um, I, I'm trying to find the most efficient, effective way to get these streets that are event after event after event complaint, complaint, complaint-driven, it's almost like we have complaint-driven snow removal service in some respects on certain types of streets. How do we get that eliminated and mitigated by just adding those streets to the plan instead of it being a big federal case? Uh, Councilman Myers, I, I think, uh, uh, to address that question, and, and I may, uh, ask, uh, Kevin Wentey to chime in here, but, uh, that is the procedure I think that we, we go through each, each fall in the preparation. I know, uh, last year, uh, Kevin had a list of, of streets that I think a lot of them had, had- What is the procedure? You said that it... what, what is the procedure? Uh, basically, we, we, we announce the, uh, the development, uh... Kevin may be best to answer that, that type of question. And typically -- well, I shouldn't say typically. I've only been doing this for the last three years. But what I've done is per any request that comes from either yourself or one of your aides, I'll just make note of that, present it to our committee when we meet at the end of September for review that way. 'Cause I don't know specifically if they're, you know, whereas in times past if that was a development that ended or terminated a cul-de-sac, if it had speed humps, if it or did not have final surface. So that's the value of having that committee. We have- Sure. ... you know, Fayette County Public Schools, police, fire, str- obviously streets and roads, traffic engineering. You know, we have a whole host of people, as well as state representatives that are there to meet and discuss those issues. So by taking, you know, for example, the, the two cul-de-sacs that you have, you know, a list of that, I don't believe I even had a, a, a list from... There was only three council districts last year where there was a number of streets, but it was only among three council districts. But that's, you know, that's the value of having that committee meet and renew and, you know, evaluate and then update at the... So that, that committee has representation from school board or from Fayette County all the- Correct. Do they vote on what streets get added or do you just take the information from that committee and then someone in streets and roads or someone in our government determines which ones are added based on the input? It's a fluid process. If they have concerns from the year past, then we will address that, you know, and make a determination as to how best to route our vehicles to accommodate their, their needs. Uh, there was a meeting this morning among, uh, our representatives and the Fayette County Schools whereby what was determined is they have a, a pseudo GIS for their routing system. It's primarily just a device for their routing system. I'm gonna coordinate with their folks to get a download that would be able to incorporate into our system and see where we may have some deficiencies based on, I think they had 14 points that they felt needed to be addressed, of which we will do that. So it's, it's a fluid process in which we're gonna be continuously revising, updating. I met with, uh, Council Member Martins, uh, neighborhoods, one of his neighborhood associations, uh, to discuss their issues, one of which was a steep slope issue, um, as well as some additional areas of concern. So we take that into consideration. We revise and accommodate accordingly. So if I showed up to that meeting and I brought my two cul-de-sacs, then you'd, I just present my case to the committee? No, we actually just give you a bag of salt and then we'll tell you- ... where they go. Yeah. Okay. Can you give me some keys to one of those trucks too? Now, that, that, that would be, that would be a, a means to which, that, that would probably be the most effective way for us to evaluate and then, you know, incorporate. Okay. So would you recommend I do that or you wanna do all the cul-de-sacs that have, you wanna just do them all at once? What was most effective last year was I was just receiving email after email and then I just kept that cataloged and then I had a file sorted, had it electronically. So it was also a historic reference though if there were questions as to why, for example, Council Member Senate's request, you know, along Star Shoot, I know for a fact that we incorporated that, you know, some time ago. There are other streets around Hamburg to which we've had a number of complaints for a couple of years, but that's the result of it not having final surface. Now it's hard to convey that to the residents, but it's something that, you know, we, we have to adhere to just, you know, from the standpoint- Sure. ... of, of the road surface as well as our own equipment. But, uh, we can certainly, certainly take that into account. S- because we had these same complaints last year, but they didn't get added. So are you saying with the number of complaints we got this year, um, that you guys would add those two, you would automatically add those two to the plan next year? I, I'm not gonna say for myself. That's a committee decision, you know, that would... But yeah, I mean, if there was, there was wavelength to that from, from that standpoint, I think is what we discussed today, that would be something that we could, we could address. L- last question. Last question. The committee, is it that committee with all those folks in it, or is it, or is that the input committee and then there's a committee of employees inside of government that make the decision? That's an excellent point. Actually last year, excuse me, this, this time passed, it was a full committee meeting and then we felt that I think it's more effective if prior to the full committee meeting, we have an inherent group of just Irwin County government employees that could be members of, you know, your aides, yourself perhaps, for issues that were not addressed, because we came back after the fact, after we'd met with the full committee. I think it would be better to have that meeting prior to a full committee meeting to address those issues as opposed to addressing it after the fact, so that the school board and what have you... Although I stay in pretty good touch with Fayette County Public Schools and the state in order to relay anything that was adopted or changed after we've had that initial snow plan evaluation. But, uh, I think it would be good to have that discussion prior to our full, full committee meeting. Is that a regularly scheduled each year or how would our- We have it at the end of September each year, but that's not a specific date, but it's, that's typically the, when we plan that event. Will you send out an email to us and our staffs- Sure. ... letting us know when that date is so that- Certainly. ... either myself or my staff member can attend? Sure. I'd be happy to. Great. Thank you. Okay. One last question before you go. Ho- how are we doing with salt and everything after the last couple of snow events we've had? How are we doing? Are, are we prepared throughout the rest of the year? Are we short? Are we on schedule? For this last event, I think we used about 1700 tons of salt. Uh- And we had 10,000. Is it- We, uh, actually on at the beginning of the season, uh, I think our snow plan, we indicate we have like 6,000 tons on hand. Uh, we went in, into, uh, the winter about that level. We've, uh, of course have used, uh, a substantial amount, but we've also purchased, uh, in accordin- you know, under we have a contract with Cargill to supply us, uh, uh, 10,000 tons of salt. Uh, I think our, our price is around just a shade less than $67 a ton. ... um, we've, we had a line item in the budget for, uh, half a million dollars specifically to use on salt. I think, uh, we're to the point now, uh, that we need to, uh, we're, we're probably sitting right now, Albert, probably close to 5,000 on the ground. So, uh, we've got about 4,000 after the last event. We still have a little bit to be delivered under our last purchase. Probably with what we've got on the ground, what we've got d- delivered to us, we're probably close to 5,000 p- uh, tons that- So that gives us maybe three big snowfalls? That, uh, yeah. And of course, we're, we're, here, here we are on Groundhog Day and, and the groundhog saw, saw his, saw his shadow this morning, so, uh, we got six more weeks of, of bad weather, so. Yeah, but he's only, I think, only right 40% of the time. So, uh, that's a, that's a- ... statistic that I saw yesterday, so maybe that's a good thing. So, we, we continue to monitor that situation and, uh, I know, uh, the administration is very, uh, uh, very, uh, aware of our inventories of materials to, to handle snow events and we communicate that. So, uh, today, uh, I feel we're in, in, uh, in reasonable condition. Uh, but as we go forward, if we, we get stuck with a couple more pretty good events, we may have to revisit what we're doing. Thank you. And if you all could take some time, I know you have been working, Mr. Hart, and see if we can come up with some kind of resolution. And not him, but, uh, we're gonna look into other areas too that need to be addressed there too. So, if you can come up some ideas that might work with us, we're always willing to listen. We, we, we could probably get us a good, uh, ice plow and, and get rid of those speed humps and that would, that would fix it all. Well, thank you. The next item on our agenda is the fourth one is the- Mr. Chairman? Oh, I'm sorry, Mr., uh, Mr. Beard. I'm sorry. Don't leave yet. Um, don't we have the option to raise and lower the blade on these, uh, these trucks? And can we raise them high enough to clear the top of a speed bump? Hump? Pardon me. Yeah. Uh, I think, uh, we, we discussed a little bit about that, uh, earlier there, uh, Councilman Beard. What would, it would, it would take, uh, it would be, we, we may create a bigger, bigger problem, uh, by raising the blade and, and because we would end up depositing snow right there where the speed hump area is. And, and it may be, uh, you know, deeper than most, uh, passenger cars could, could go through. That would be, uh, the b- the biggest issue I would see there. Uh, you know, and, and, uh, and if we had, say if we plowed them like that, raised the plow, deposited that material there, and then we had, uh, you know, sub-zero or sub-freezing temperatures that, uh, we, we, we'd end up with basically a, a, an ice barrier that would, may cause us more problems than that. Uh, you know, as far as plowing over, uh, you know, those traffic control devices like speed humps, traffic tables, whatever, uh, they've, we have not had, had good experience with that in the past, and I think that's the reason we've, we're, we, we are where we are with that. Okay. Not the answer I, I was looking for, but, uh, um... And it's all degrees of, of, of things. I've, I've plowed through, uh, plenty of, uh, drifts and, and such in my day and I hadn't, hadn't hurt anything in my car at all. But, um, and I go looking for, um, snow and ice so I can, uh, push my, uh, wheels down there and help get it out, to spread it out so that it'll melt. Um, but again, you know your business, so thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Are there any other questions? The next item on the agenda... Thank you, gentlemen. The next item on the agenda is the fourth one is the graffiti removal that was put in by Council Member Feigl. And Ms. Feigl, I'll let you go ahead and begin. I think we have Keith Gaines here from the, the police department. And we've dealt with this issue before, and we've actually passed an ordinance, I think in '08 deal- dealing with this. But, uh, you had some, uh, different issues you wanted to address, so. Well, actually, it's probably a continuation of the same issue. Um, actually, I think what is on the agenda is graffiti removal, but that really wasn't what I was hoping to address. I just wanted us to take a look at, um, the graffiti problem as it is today and, uh, and see what we can do to, uh, help us deal with this situation even more. Uh, I just got, um, called from the, um, people in Ashland, uh, Ashland Park Neighborhood Association, and this is how bold, uh, the taggers have gotten now. They're, they're painting on private, in, in neighborhoods on, on private, uh, property. I mean, I, I realize that commercial properties are also private properties, but this is going into neighborhoods. I don't know if you can see it or not, but. Um, so I went over there this morning to take a picture of that and then as I drove downtown for our meetings, I kind of took pictures of the graffiti all along the way. This is, uh, an architectural firm right there at the corner of Woodland and, uh, High and Maxwell and it's on both sides. This is where they've had to paint over it recently and, uh, this is on the other side of the building. And, you know, there's some talk about whether this is art or whether it's vandalism, and I think that we can clearly see at least from, from this particular, um, tagging that this is, uh, it's not truly art. I mean, it's, uh, they are there with the intent to vandalize the building. And, um, if you wanna go, that's just another shot of it. And we're accustomed to seeing it on the sides of, of, uh- Excuse me, of boxes like this, or on the backside of a stop sign, or, um, actually on newspaper, um, the things that they sell newspapers from. We're accustomed to that, but I think they've gone beyond that now, and they're, you know, beginning to go into private neighborhoods, and that is a real concern to me. Is that the last one? Yeah. And I, I know you've all seen this one, and the reason I put this one on here too is that I did some research online, and when they do... when they put the graffiti on an historic building like this, it is a real expensive process to take it off. You can't really use the same process to remove the graffiti from old masonry as you do with, uh, other places, as you do other areas. So, so this is a real problem for the business owners, because as I looked through the ordinance, it looked like that the ordinance that, that was worked on last year before I came on council, it looked like that there is even a, a requirement for the property owner to remove that graffiti within, what, 24 hours, or something like that? And so obviously in this particular case, this is a pretty expensive proposition for these folks to have to remove this. So, um, I, I had asked Keith to come here today so that he could give us a, a little better idea of how pervasive this problem is all over town, and what we might do, how we might take that ordinance that, um, that the council worked on last year and do something to strengthen it, because obviously it isn't what it needs to be if we are continuing to see this graffiti. And I, you know, I started thinking about what, um, when people coming to the, to, to the World Games, uh, at the end of this year, and I realized that graffiti is in every city, but we're spending a lot of money trying to dress our city up and make it look great. And I, I just feel like that graffiti is something that, uh, is, is not being dealt with, uh, as effectively as it needs to be. And so that's my primary reason for putting it on the agenda today. I wish I had solutions to offer, but, um, you know, I just feel like that we've got to put our heads together and try to come up with a way to deter this behavior. Uh, not so much remove it, but... because I think that's pretty well under control, uh, but to deter it. So I've asked, um, Keith if he would come and talk to us about what, what they are doing and, and how pervasive this problem is, and thank you so much for coming today. As far as the graffiti goes, um, for me, it goes back to about 2006 when I first started researching graffiti. Uh, I was in the process of, uh, for about six months of research on it when initially it was, uh, Council Member Maloney that, uh, got with this graffiti ordinance. Um, and when I told him that I already had some, uh, about six months of research into it, he just kind of let me take it over, and then working with, uh, Peggy Henson to kind of continue on and get a graffiti ordinance on our books. Uh, we were a little bit behind the curve on the ordinances when I did all the research on it, and I did about a year and a half of research as I was going through and, and working on the ordinance, and I think the ordinance itself is pretty strong. Uh, it's, it's based on kind of the research I did nationwide on what other places are doing, how they're handling it, but in the research, um, and I don't know if that's in there or not, but when I originally proposed the ordinance to, um, the council, it was a three-step process that was kind of what I, I recommended as long term. The first one was the ordinance which dealt with the laws and the criminal aspect of it, which, um, we have used the ordinance. Um, it, it's... Graffiti is kind of a hard thing. It's one of those crimes that, uh, it, it's quick. It's... Most of it's done at night. The... And the majority of it is, is tagger-type graffiti that's vandalism. Um, but the first step was with the ordinance, or, or putting laws into place that we were kind of lacking from my perspective on a national standpoint, and, um, the second step was the removal part of it. All the studies that I looked at as far as how to prevent graffiti came back to, and then the removal of it. If you do a quick abatement program, which is within 24 to 48 hours, on a continuous basis, that from national research shows that that was the best way to prevent it, because the majority of it is done for notoriety. It's kind of put up there as a tag. Um, what you saw in the pictures is a moniker, somebody's, um, name that they're putting there, s- not their real name, but what they use in kind of the, the tagger world, and they look at it for, for getting notoriety. The more you do it, the higher profile places, um, the more notoriety that you get. So, um, the sheriff's department handles the majority of our removal process on public property. They are called, and, um, they are really good, and they've really stepped up in the last couple of years since I've been working with them. We have an excellent relationship as far as getting it removed. I think that it's, um, maybe still an issue that, uh, the resources are not enough to keep up with what's actually occurring. Not really sure, you know, whether... Uh, I've looked at other places. Some places, actually, the cities have an abatement program that they operate themselves. Some of it's a m- kind of a, a joint program. The way we currently do it now, the sheriff's department primarily handles everything that's done on private property or... ... you know, businesses, private residents, uh, like the stuff on the, the wall there. The parks department handles everything that happens within the parks. They have been really, um, outstanding in taking care of everything within the parks and keeping up with that. And kind of the, the odd parts of it i- is traffic engineering kinda handles the traffic boxes and street signs and that type of it, primarily because on stop signs and, and certain signs and things that they use, uh, specific graffiti coating to make it actually easier to clean the stop signs. And if you use the wrong chemicals or something on it, uh, it can actually take that coating off of it. Uh, so as far as the removal of it, some of the other ideas that was, um, being worked on, uh, a year or so ago and, and being thrown around to maybe assist with this program, is really getting involvement from the neighborhoods and maybe having an adopt-a-block or have the neighborhoods adopt their, their own areas and provide some education on how to clean it so that if it's a material that they can clean off of, they can do it pretty much immediately with the right education of what to use and provide a bucket or, or some type of, um, supplies for them to use to clean, um, you know, kinda like the litter in an adopt-a-block-type thing, and you clean it as it comes up and, and, uh, keep it that way, uh, is one part of it. Um, another component on the three parts of it was the laws, the removal, and then an education component when you look nationally at how it's being dealt with. Uh, several months ago, I kinda fell into a, I think, what could be a prime opportunity for us as an educational component. I was at a meeting with the parks department, and we were kind of discussing some other things, uh, but it turned to some of the graffiti removal. And we got into the discussion that they actually, um, run the ESP program, after school program, and they have about a thousand captive, um, kids there that they could maybe put in some of the programming, um, educational component to that. They have, um, uh, about a thousand of them between 2:00 and 6:00 PM. They run six summer camps, and they were very excited about kinda getting on board and adding possibly an educational component to that group of it. And, um, so I'm still in contact with, uh, Brian Rogers to work on maybe some programming that they could do through their ESP program, and it, it's... we don't have anything in concrete or anything to that extent. Now one of the other things that, uh, some of the other cities do is, um, they will use the commercial coatings on some of the buildings or walls that are commonly hit with graffiti to, uh, basically, it's like a coating, like a Teflon spray coating. You, you know, they try to spray paint on it, and it just kinda runs, makes it very easy for cleanup. Uh, pretty much it's just water that'll wash it off. They, uh, there's two different types. One of them is a permanent, put it on, it lasts for a certain period of time, several years. Um, and then there's a, a type that once you clean it off, it has to be reapplied, and, um, so there, there's some, you know, ways of doing it, I think, that maybe a coordinated effort of, of a little bit of everything to go into working on this is kinda where most places go to have successful programs. Um, it may be worth looking into, some of the cities that are having what would be considered successful programs and seeing what they're doing with the city and taking a look at it and what they're using. Couple questions, if that's okay. Sure, certainly. Ms. Fagermeier? Um, I was kinda reading through the ordinance, and, uh, I, I, one thought occurred to me. Most, uh, fairly recently, we just passed an ordinance that increased the fines for, um, folks who violated the, uh, uh, nuisance, uh, ordinance or the, the building codes, ordinances. And, and one of the things that we talked about doing there was to try and track those who were, uh, frequent, um, who, who frequently violated the ordinances. So I wondered if there was any way that you could develop a registry of these taggers. Do you have a, like a list of the folks... I mean, well, first I should ask, how often are you able to catch these folks? Not as often as we would like, uh, obviously, but w- we, um, we have had success with it. Uh, WT Young Warehouse got hit, I think it's been a w- last spring or something, about $50,000 worth of damage. That was a big one. I think that actually, case is still going on, and, uh, they're, they're still working on prosecuting the people that was re- responsible for that. We've had a lot of smaller, um, type successes. One of the, the things that we're finding out now is part of it with this ordinance as well as just in general, um, and we've had success with probably, um, changing people's minds. A lot of, of... when they do these taggers, uh, it's very common for them to photograph their work and keep, uh, meticulous records of where they do it, what it is that they're doing. And, um, uh, some of the ones that we've caught, we've confiscated their cameras, part of the, the crime that was being committed, and they, they're using $1,000 cameras to, um, record this, and, and we're taking those. Mm-hmm. And, um, but as far as the amount, I don't know, you know, as far as, uh, a number. Well, I guess a- my thought was, is that, uh, these are probably this, the same group of people over and over again. And if we could develop a list of those folks, and then track what, w- when we catch 'em, and, and track how often they've done it, that the fines or the penalties would, uh, would elevate the more times that they were caught. We- Is this something that's already done? Well, we do, um, we do have some tracking of it. Uh, several people actually in m- my unit, the CLEAR unit, um, work on doing that, identifying the people and what their tags are. And what specific names they use. Um, and most of the time- It's, it's kind of like a unique signature when they do it. Um, some of 'em will use the same names a- and, and some of what you see is what's called a crew. They will, um, have a group of people who use their crew name. It's kinda like, um, you know, a basketball team or whatever, somebody that uses a common name, and then you'll see their s- unique signature down with that. So they're actually tagging for their crew. Um, which is totally different than anything that's gang related. This is strictly a, a- Right. ... tagging type thing. But, um, we do have a lot of photos of it an- and try to document it. There are some commercial, um, companies that do something very similar to that. But it's on a more high tech level. Uh, there's a company, I believe, out of California that actually sells, um, governments, uh, they'll sell a camera that's GPS capable, and when you take a picture, it gives you coordinates of it. And then you download the pictures. It goes to them and they will catalog, track it. And then when you make an arrest on it, you can actually go back and charge them with each individual count as long as you can pretty much show that that's their unique individual tag. Um, so- Do you think there's value in, in our city participating in that? Um, I don't know. I'd have to do more research on it. That was just one of the, the items that I researched, and it was a fairly new technology. And, and the company that was doin' it, um ... And I, I don't know what any of the, um ... Okay. The other question I had, I mean, you mentioned trying to work with the after school, um, program through the Parks Department. Has there been any effort to try and work with the Fayette County Schools to see if they could cooperate with us in an educational program? Not as far as I know through public schools. I know that we run, you know, the DARE program, great program now through public schools. But as far as something that's, um, graffiti related, I don't think that we've done anything like that. 'Cause I know we, I think we cooperate with the school district in terms of trying to, um, um, promote anti-littering campaigns and that type thing. And I just wondered if there was a way that we could incorporate this maybe into the same campaign. This would be somethin' that would be very similar. And a lot of places do tie it together with, um, u- vandalism and, and littering. Is that somethin' that, that you could follow up on to see if, if that's feasible for us to participate with Fayette County Schools in that way? I'll start researching that and see what I can find out for you. Okay. Okay. Um, I'd, I'd really wish that, um, I had more ideas on how to address this problem. Um, and certainly, you know, I know that it's been around for a long time, and you all have dealt with it before at this council. But, uh, uh, it just is somethin' that's very troubling to me, because e- when it gets into the residential neighborhoods and begins to, um, deface, you know, personal property, I just feel like it's something that we need to, to, um, take another look at. So I know that, um, Bonnie Atkinson is here too from the Ashland Park Neighborhood Association. And thank you for coming, Bonnie. And, um, if you would like to say anything, you're welcome to. But, uh, f- I tell you what, why don't we let the, the council members ask questions and we'll, we'll open it up to the audience after that. Okay. That's great. Thanks. And I think, at this time, we have Mr. Beard. Did- Okay. Are you on here? Or is it ... Okay. I'm not sure I'm next however. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. They got it. I got it on here twice. Okay. Let's go to Miss Lawless, Crosby then Mr. Beard. I'm sorry. Miss Lawless? Um, thank you, and, um, kudos to you, Officer Gaines. You know you're one of my heroes. Um, one of, one question I have, well, I have two real quick questions. It seems to me that, like, on the side of, uh, of historic buildings, that that would bump that to a felony, because of the price or the cost of repair. I don't know. That's, maybe law can answer that. Secondly, um, I, I really appreciate all the work you've done, and Parks and Lisa Johnson and a shout-out to a lot of people. And I've been in some of those meetings a year or so ago, when we talked about also looking at the artistic endeavor that, for some of these kids, it isn't maybe gang related, but it is something that they excel at. And kids that don't excel at anything else, and they're not in school or whatever. Um, and also, I would like some information on the coatings that you can put on stop signs, et cetera. I didn't realize until recently when I ventured out of my district, that graffiti wasn't part of a normal stop sign. So, um, you know, that might be somethin' some of the neighborhood associations wanna look into is coating some of their signs or whatever. So if you could get me that information. And, um, again, um- ... have -- I know at one point there was talk on a reward, kind of, if somebody turned somebody in, et cetera they, there would be a reward, like Crime Stoppers. Er, whatever happened to that? Did they decide not to, or they couldn't, or? Um, well let me start from the beginning with, with through your, kinda your questions there. Yeah, the historic part of it, um, depending on how much it costs for repair, would elevate it to possibly a felony. Um, one of the problems that there is with some of the graffiti, i- is calculating how much it costs for removal and, and some places have done a per square foot calculation and they use that no matter what it's on. Um, but that is correct with like the historic buildings, that that does per, kinda make a unique situation because you can't use the standard ways of removal which is sandblasting or pressure washing to remove that off of there. There are some chemicals that can be used that are designed for those type of materials. I don't know what the cost of them are, and I don't think we really use them all that often if it's on a historic building. But it may be something that, um, if we kinda look more into for removal, uh, being able to provide that service, being able to do that but it does, um, you know, it, it follows the actual graffiti itself, um, falls under criminal mischief. It's not actually the graffiti that makes it illegal, it's the damage that it does. So that's under, prosecuted under criminal mischief, um, statute. And, and the possession of it, which is what the ordinance mostly covers, and the some of the sale of it, um, is under the ordinance, under that part of it. Um, the, er, the reward part of it, um, rewards work really well. We've used it, er, on prosecuting some people over off of Southland Drive. The businesses actually put up, um, a thousand dollar reward and it took about two or three days to find out who did it, get the, and there was a, a couple, three kids that were responsible. And, um, it was worked out between the person who put up the reward on how they were gonna handle it and what they were gonna do as far as removal and, and handle that. The ordinance itself has a small, um, fee that goes to Parks and Rec to administer, um, money. This is being fairly new and like a lot of the prosecution on some of the stuff, it's, it's been an ongoing, like the WT Young, it's um, th- that one's not been through prosecution yet. And I'm not sure, um, what happened with the courts on some of the other ones that are prosecuted, if that money's coming through or if they're just taking that in, and, um, merging that into the fines and not bringing that back. So, I don't know, but I think if we had a system like that, that you might start to get more people, um, coming forward with information on who's responsible for it and getting some more prosecution. It did work on Southland Drive and has worked some other times in the past. Okay, thank you. And if you could get me, email me those materials, uh, you know, how you get 'em, blah, blah, blah about the stop signs stuff. I think with the stop signs, uh, we actually, uh, streets and roads, or, um, traffic engineering actually is the one that is- Has that information? With the, with the stop signs. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Crosby? Thank you, Chair. Um, through, through your work with, um, the graffiti, have you been able to identify, since it seems to, to have increased, I know since we first did this ordinance, or at least it appears that it's increased. Um, have you been able to identify if it's gang related or, like you said, you know, tagging like a particular, um, group they belong to, or as Council Member Lawless mentioned, is it art? Are they, um, doing it for the sake of art? They don't have another outlet, so, um, it's more of an entertainment value. C- are you able to somehow identify that and then w- if so, what are you seeing more of? I think the majority of it kind of follows the national average. Um, and if you look at, once again, the research on it, the majority of it is what's considered tagger graffiti, which is, they're tagging for the notoriety of either a group or a crew and using their kind of separate name. Um, and that's the majority that you see all over the city. Um, the, the least amount that is around is probably the gang graffiti and that's not meant for general public to see. That's meant more for, um, the, between the gangs. So you don't see as much of that and that's, you know, I think 5% of it was nationally was gang graffiti when you go to a city and look at it. Um, the majority of it is not actually artistic as in doing the art, um, it's just the, the flowing style of their tag or the, I mean, it looks artistic with their signatures or their bubble letters and those type of things, but it's not done as much for art as it is just for the notoriety of it. There are some programs that other places have used with, um, merging with art leagues and things like that to get at-risk youth involved with art programs, which could possibly, you know, take some of that, um, group of people who actually do it for an art value. But most of that you'll see is, um, there's some, um, places that you look around town and it's not the, the tagging th- type stuff, but it's actually an artistic picture or, or something that actually looks like art. ... um, but you might be able to do that. The other kinda misconception is, is it's, it's younger children that are doing it, but the age range is usually between, um, on average between 12 to, like, 28. And about 28 years old is when they start to come out of tagging. So, you do have a lot of people that are in an older age range that are responsible for a lot of the, the stuff around. And I thought, um, you brought up a good point earlier, or somebody did, it may have been Council Member Feigl, vers- the public versus private. You know, obviously, we saw when we first did this ordinance too, and I think it's good that we're revisiting this, because initially, we were seeing it in more public places, our parks, our stop signs, um, where as a government, we were able to handle it more effectively. We had staff who could go out and go sandblast it, and it was gone within 24 hours. But when we're asking the side of a coffee shop, you know, on a historic building, it, it is very expensive for these business owners. Per- personally, I know we have a building, or not me, but, um, my husband does downtown that has, um, i- four times it's been removed. I know, from reading about it. Yeah. A- and every time it's removed, they, they come back and they do it. So, I, I guess my question would be, how do you deter the behavior? Do y- do you revisit the ordinance and try and make it stiffer with the fines, or like you said, have, you know, have some kind of incentive program, um, where you can actually deter the behavior? Because, um, as Council Member Feigl said, we have, our, our city's gonna be on showcase, and I'm not sure that some of the things we're seeing, um, in our neighborhoods and on our buildings and stop signs and things are exactly, um, um, what I would c- consider, uh, c- beautification projects that we wanna showcase to the world. So, um, it doesn't seem like our, our fines are, are that stiff. I, I mean, I don't know the answer either, um, and I know you've done a lot of research on this. And, but we also did this back when it didn't seem as significant perhaps. I mean, I was even looking through our courthouse area design review meeting later, and they were sh- they were showing these beautiful projects that, um, before and after, and it, when you're looking at it you see one of them and there's a big tag on one of their beautiful pictures. You can see a building in the background with a t- with a tag on it, and it's something that they're showcasing as a before and after, and then there's a, you know, big spray paint on the side of one of the buildings. So, I'm not sure. How are we gonna- One of the things that, that, on the ones that are common places, I mean, there are different technologies that's used to kinda combat it. There's, um, uh, cameras. There's a, a company, I think it's called Flash Cam, that's known for kind of their camera designs for graffiti. It's kinda motion activated. And, of course, that only works in areas where you don't have a constant flow of traffic or people coming through on a regular basis. Another thing is, if it's a constant brick area or something that's a wall, of doing one of the commercial coatings that really doesn't make it, um, worth them putting it on, because it kinda just runs. It's like a, you know, it's like spraying something on a Teflon coating or a pan, it just starts to smear. You can't, it's not of value to em, because it's not giving them recognition and then it's also easily removed. Well, I guess we have to look at how we take the value away from them in many different aspects, because again, you're asking private business owners. As government, you know, we have the ability to go in when it's a public place and get rid of it within 24 hours. But, um, when you're asking private business owners or homeowners to put special coatings on, and when we see it going into areas like Council Member Feigl's district and, um, I'm, I feel certain that it's in, um, Council Member Henson's district and some of the other areas around town, um, I don't think she would have brought it before council initially if she wasn't seeing it when it's on their fences. And you're, you're asking the homeowner to take on a tremendous burden when maybe we need to revisit. I, and I don't know what the answer is. O- obviously, you've done so much research on this and I don't know if it's just, I, I don't even know if the fines would, increasing the fines would be effective, because we can't seem to catch them- It, I mean- ... a lot of the time. ... yeah. This is a, a nation, well, actually it's a international problem. Um, Auckland, New Zealand is one of the heaviest hit places in the world with graffiti. And, um, you know, the bigger cities, New York, Chicago, um, you know, LA, they've been battling this for years also, and nobody's come up with, with a, a, you know, perfect answer. I think that it's kind of a, a culmination of ways of combating it is, at this moment, the best thing that I've seen out there, which is, you know, working with neighborhood associations or whatever in, in, with education on how to remove it with the proper materials maybe that could be provided, um, to them. And then, um, you know, the, the cost of removal on private property, the, the sheriff's department, if they're called, they will remove it at no cost. Oh, that's good. Um- Well, maybe, uh, maybe this is the opportunity for us to, since we're just, it's just becoming a, more of a problem out in, um, some of our, uh, neighborhoods and things, that maybe it's an opportunity for us to be the, the model for everyone else. Thank you. Thank you. Now, Mr. Beer. Fine. Thank you, Chair. Uh, just so, um, Council Member, uh, Crosby stole some of my thunder concerning, um, tagging and, and originally tagging was to delineate, I believe, a, um, physical area where a gang would operate, historically now. It -- it's -- it -- it kind of grew together. Um, the -- the designation of a -- a area with gangs kinda grew in with the tagging, but they are actually two separate things. And historically, um, from my research, it -- it kind of came out together that, um, and I can't remember exactly how it came about, but there was one person who actually kind of got the whole craze started of tagging. And I think that that kind of grew the same with the gangs, of using that to delineate their, um, areas. Um, you had said there was a 5%, um, I think you said anyways, that a 5% of serious tagging versus 95% of copycat or whatever. Is that -- is that correct? Is it- I think, uh, I don't have my s- exact statistics in front of me, but about 5% of it would be, like, gang related tagging. Right. And the other, um, then you would have like 85% of it would be just what's considered tagging and that's -- that's a tagging when I s- when I talk about tagging, um, that is not gang related at all. This is just strictly somebody going out, um, to get notoriety for putting their name on the side of a building, or a sign, or wherever. And they get notoriety within their own community- ... of -- of taggers, uh, for doing that. And the higher risk areas and the more out in the open it is, kind of the more notoriety they get and the more they do it. So it's -- it's almost like a competition. Of course, what, um, some citizens when they see this in their neighborhoods, they feel that maybe they're being inundated by a gang. And, um, n- n- n- not that there's any real solution to that, but that, um, that is an issue as far as I'm concerned. And, uh, and I'm sure any of the council's concerned and that, um, w- w- we wouldn't want, um, I- I guess, I don't know how you differentiate at any given point if there is an expansion of a- of a gang, um, and you catch them and they run, it's, um, benign and if they turn around and shoot you, it's, uh, it's serious stuff , I guess. Um- Most of it, we can tell by looking at it. We can- we can differentiate by looking at what the tag is, so- So, and- and does that change over time? Uh, do g- do gangs get innovative with their tagging if it looks like it's been copycatted? No, because it- it's a whole different style. It's a- it's, um, gangs actually have like a, uh, a set of letters, alphabet, numbers that they use to represent things. The taggers that go out to tag for notoriety is totally separate and it's- it's, once you get looking at it, it's- it's fairly, um, easy to- to tell the difference. The hard part that we have is if somebody's trying to emulate a gang, but that's not, um, uh, or, you know, somebody's emulating gang graffiti, but that's not usually the case with the taggers. They have a whole different style than what you would see with gang type graffiti. Mm-hmm, okay. That- that's all I have, Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Henson? Thank you, Chair. Keith, real quick- ... I do appreciate so much the work you and Officer Gehefer do with the CLEAR unit, but, um, I know, you know, it's very important that it's removed f- quickly. So can you just tell folks that are maybe watching and- and the council members here, uh, exactly what they need to do to get it removed? At- at this point right now, the- the best, um, practice that I can see is for private property, the Sheriff's department is- has been for the last couple of years very receptive and very quick to getting, um, the graffiti removed off of private property. They've got, um, several ways they do it. One is they've got a sandblaster that they use on certain materials. They've got the- the pressure washer that they use. They have, um, different, uh, colors of paint that they try to match as close as possible. And then they have the chemicals also. They actually have, um, Ron Watson from the Sheriff's department is over that, and they actually take inmates out and use inmates to assist in cleaning up the city. And I've found in the last, um, several years, they've been very responsive to assisting and helping out with cleaning that up on private property or, um, you know, businesses. So should they call 311 to report? Uh, I would call 311. I think that, uh, uh, my understanding that 311 will then put it over to the Sheriff's department. Okay. And they will actually, that way it's tracked and it's- it's easier. So if we've s- been seeing graffiti and it's been there for quite a while, the best thing to do is write down the address or the intersection if it's on a stop sign, wherever, the exact location, call 311 and report it. Correct, because it- it will go to different places. If it's a stop sign, it's done by our own- Okay. ... traffic engineering. So and 311 would direct to- to the right person? I believe they take care of that. I'll have to double check, but I- I think that's the way it goes. Thank you. Ms. Fagle? Uh, thank you, Chair. And- and again, Officer Gaines, we- we really appreciate your coming today and addressing this issue for us. But I'm still not satisfied that we've done as much as we can do. Um, I realize that this council passed an or- or actually probably amended the ordinance in 2008, but I think, uh, there- there does seem to be an increase in the amount of graffiti that we're seeing, so obviously this ordinance is not as effective as it needs to be. So Chair, I would like to make a motion that, uh, that we put together a task force to take a look at this ordinance and s- and- and see if we can't come up with a strategic campaign for not only removing graffiti, but deterring the activity. So moved. We have a motion to second. Any discussion? All those in favor, say, "Aye." Aye. All those opposed? And I will pass this on to the vice mayor to get a task force. Do you have anything further? Uh, no. Thank you, Your Honor. I, I, I know we have some people in the audience who'd like to speak. Yes. I think, uh, Ms. Atkinson would like to either ask some questions or... Would you, like, to come forward to the podium? ... and the, and we'll definitely keep Mr. Gains on the task force as... if you would, just give your name and your address please. Bonnie Adkisson, 1000 Richmond Road. Thank you. Uh, thank you all so much for considering this question. Cheryl, thanks for getting it on the agenda. Sure. Appreciate it very much. Um, yeah, people in our neighborhood are kind of scared. I'm the neighborhood watch coordinator. We have email, and we just click out to folks when things happen, and you've answered quite a few of my questions. I was interested in who is doing the graffiti. I think we kind of heard that a few folks have been pinpointed for that, but that's not a... we don't have a definitive answer there. Um, perhaps the community, the folks don't know what the difference is between a tagger and a gang. I don't think most people would. Uh, Officer Gains is telling us it looks different. I think I probably need to educate myself more about what that is, so I can calm the fears of the folks in our neighborhood association. Um, thank you for telling us that it needs to get off quickly. Um, one of my concerns is, you know, you have someone that has it on their fence, how far can we as a neighborhood association lean on them without getting, you know, meddling in their business, like, "You need to get this off." I think those are some delicate questions that we need to work with. Folks in our neighborhood, somebody's had it on there for, right now, today would be 90 days that they've actually had that on there. And they've talked to the sheriff's department, and they promised them they would come, so I know it's been at least 60 days that the sheriff's department hasn't been to her home to take it off. Um, I talked to Debbie Stevens over there myself, and she said they just cannot keep up with the requests that they get to get that graffiti off of there. So, uh, according to what Debbie told me, what Officer Gains says is exactly the correct procedure, evidently, that you do call and they tell the sheriff's department, but then they're just inundated. They can't get them all off is my understanding. Um, you know, we've got it on mailboxes. Is the federal government responsible for getting that off of a United States post box? Right there on Euclid, the Blue Moon has it all on the side of their building. They've had it up there for months. Um, and then, of course, the window was shot out at the New Additions Gallery on Euclid. And so everybody in our neighborhood's getting really scared because they're seeing all the graffiti coming our way and then somebody shooting at a window and everybody's getting kind of stirred up. Although I'm representing and I don't see a lot of people here that are as concerned as we are, but we want to make sure that we're not inundated with a gang. And I think you were saying that some people are afraid of that. So I would echo that too. Um, and I guess this, c- calling the sheriff's department is the best way to get it off. I don't know. But those are just some of my concerns and I would like to thank you all for seriously looking at this. It's a very scary topic. Are you interested in serving on the task force by any chance? Oh, I'd be happy to- Okay, thank you. ... for whatever I can do. Thank you. I think Ms. Crosby had a question. Oh, uh, I just had a comment. So maybe your lucky t- day, the chief of police, walked in, so he's hearing your concerns and probably... I know, all, all kidding aside, um, I'm sure Council Member Feigl, um, d- do, the police work very closely with a lot of the neighborhoods through their council members, and I'm sure she can set up a meeting with you all and they can come in and explain some of those different fears that they have and w- what they can do to address them and some of the differences we've heard today that we, we weren't really aware of as well, um, to the residents in your neighborhood to maybe alleviate some of those fears and explain the differences so that they know, um, what they're dealing with and then also explain some of the different patrol situations that they do when certain things happen within neighborhoods, um, just to alleviate some of those fears. Thank you. Thank you. Officer Gains, did you have a follow-up by chance? I did. I was just gonna mention, um, her concern with, like, the delicate nature of getting somebody to remove it off of their own property. That's actually covered under, um, a different part of the ordinance under the building part of it, the, the code enforcement can take care of if somebody's not getting it taken care of. Good. But just a comment, I think. Oh. Oh, I think David wanted to say something. If I may, um, we actually will cite property owners for graffiti and they're given a timeframe to comply. If they don't remove it, then they can be fined for it. And what we do though, we do, um, we make a request to the sheriff's department and we mention that in the notice when we send them, that they can get some help from the sheriff's department to get it removed and some people just don't take advantage of it and that's when we come into play and, you know, we'll issue civil penalties for property owners. So if, uh, this wall, the one in Ashland, where is that? Um, it's on the corner of Fincastle and, uh, Hanover. Okay. South Hanover. Thank you. Oh, I, and I think, um, actually, I, I, I, and I didn't talk to the homeowner personally, but I believe that, that part of the delay has been working with an insurance company. Sure. Um, so that's part of the delay, but I'm not sure it's explains all of it. Anything else- Thank you. ... Ms. Crosby, like one follow-up? Well, I was just gonna ask you if, if you, um, if you are called in and what if they are working, um, say there's a holdup with the sheriff's department and they can't get over there, but they've made good faith effort, you're not- Right. ... you won't cite them- No, no. ... if they've g- ... Okay. Right. That's- We, you know, we, we may issue the citation not knowing they are working with the sheriff's department, but once we find that out, then we're gonna work with the homeowner, absolutely. 'Cause I mean, we know we, they didn't do it, so. Okay. Thank you. Right. Thank you, and we'll keep this in, and I'll pass this onto the vice mayor and get the task force set up. The last item on the agenda is the pan handling ordinance that Dr. Blues put in. Dr. Blues, if you would give a quick overview, and I think we have law here with, um, Mike Sayner's here too that has, has some additions or subtractions for the ordinance that we have. Dr. Blues. We do. Thank you, Chair. Uh, under our present ordinance, the, uh, street vendors and peddlers are allowed to sell merchandise on the street so long as they stop only for the time it takes to, uh, , to make the transaction. We do not permit the, uh, vendors to set up business in any sort of permanent or semi-permanent location on a street. Under our current ordinance however, uh, it's the interpretation of the, uh, of the division of, of the police in enforcing it, is to first, uh, ask the vendor to move on if, uh, the vendor is, uh, has set up business in a, in a particular place. And, and then if, uh, the vendor has to be asked to move on again within a 24-hour period, uh, we'll, uh, we'll issue a, we'll issue a citation. Uh, and this, this simply discourages, uh, uh, prompt enforcement. Also, uh, the fine is ridiculously low, minimum of $5, maximum $25. So under the change proposed here in the, uh, in the ordinance, uh, as, as, uh, revised by M- by Mike Sayner, the, at hi- his or her discretion, police officer can arrest or cite a vendor who has set up business on the street, and the fine is increased to a realistic level, minimum $25, maximum $100. Thank you. So I would, uh, I would like to see this move forward, uh, by the committee. I'm not a member of the committee, but I would certainly appreciate it if a, a committee member would move to move it to the full council. Thank you, Chair. And , as you see, Mr. Sayner's here to add- Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. ... some additional questions. Mr. Sayner, unless somebody wants to make a motion at this point. Okay, Ms. Henson. I'd like to motion that we, um, amend ordinance ... Well, there's no number. But Section 15-1, um, regarding street vendors, as revised by our law department. We have a motion. Second. And a second, and now for discussion, I think Mr. Sayner, if you would just give a quick brief overview of what changes you have, they ... It looks like the underlined and the lined through is what the changes are, but if you could just give a brief overview of what ... Uh, the changes suggested by Council Member Blues are twofold. One was to increase the fines, and was two, to tighten up the ordinance a little bit, uh, to be a little more enforceable so that, uh, police officers wouldn't say to a vendor, "Move along," so he moves five feet, and so now you start all over again. Okay. Is that the extent of it? That's the extent of it. Okay. Do we have discussion at this point? Ms. Crosby? I have a question. The only reason why I had this question is because we met, a few of us met yesterday with the, um, DDA, and we were just wondering, um, they were talking about revising, uh, some of the ordinance we have, ordinances we have downtown regarding our businesses, that they can't do sidewalk sales because of our, uh, street vendor ordinance, and that they're not allowed out on the sidewalk to actually set up for, like, sidewalk sales and so forth, because, uh, and, and I'm not sure if this is the same one, so I'm just trying to get clarification because it was my understanding yesterday during this meeting that they may be coming back to us to revise, to try and make some revisions to that, and I was just wondering how it's ... Is, is that the sidewalk ca- ... I, I'm aware of a sidewalk- Not the café. Okay. No, this is specifically- Okay. ... dealing with that they cannot, um, have, like, sidewalk sales outside because of the way our ordinances are, are set up. I was ... I'm not aware of that, that meeting. ...
That's what Harold Tate- ... or ... ... told us yesterday in a meeting. I, it was myself, Council Member Feigel, and ... So nobody knows the answer? So would this not affect that? Potentially, it could. I mean, I understand what the intent of, and the spirit of what we're trying to do with this, but then I'm wondering how it might affect, 'cause I, I would not have thought of that until yesterday. Potentially it could. The definition is any vendor of any article of merchandise to stop in any place on the street, sidewalk, or alley. If, if Council Member Blues wouldn't mind, if we could get some clarification before we move this forward, because it's my understanding that they're gonna bring s- they're trying to revise the ordinance and bring something forward to us so that it doesn't ... Evid- evidently, our downtown vendors are not allowed to, to do business, like, like- ... uh, during spring and fall when they -- a lot of businesses throughout town, you'll hear of sidewalk sales at the mall, whether it be outside in the mall, doing actual sidewalk sales that they're not allowed to do that because of our ordinances. And they're trying to, um, come to us with a revision. If we could get some clarification for our next meeting. If they had a spec- if they had a specific provision regarding sidewalk sales, is that what they're working on? That's what... I don't know enough about it. He just said that they were gonna- If they do that, you could s- you could have this section, "And notwithstanding," you know, exempt that specific section. Yeah, or if they have... That's fine. That's what you could do. So you're saying that's a way that we could go ahead and move this forward and then... Well, you'd have to... I'd have... We'd have to have your ordinance so that we could exempt it in this order. Well, it's not my ordinance. It's- Well, whoever's- Their... Yeah. Whoever's working on it. We have to have that ordinance number so that we could ex- exempt it in this ordinance. Mr. Martin? Thank you, Chair. Um, c- Council Member Blues and I have not had a chance to talk with... About this, but I did wanna second the motion so that we can have a, an opportunity to discuss it. Um, I guess I would be in favor of perhaps amending the motion r- rather than approve the ordinance, which we can't really do here anyway. We could recommend it onto the council, but if we could maybe have it, uh, put in committee so that we could talk about it and, and sort of understand more about it. I had one of these issues come up myself, uh, with, with street vendors. And, um, there are some difficult things that, that... In the state statute that prevent us from, uh, uh, allowing folks to, uh, uh, to, to be, I guess, adequately licensed. Uh, there's some... They have to jump through a bunch of hoops and there are some ways that, that folks have to, uh, to sort of get around the, the, uh, the... I guess the, uh, some of the outdoor licenses. If they have more than one cart, for example, they can just change carts from place to place and things like that. So, uh, I think this would be a good, a good opportunity to, to talk about this and to learn more about this and try to figure out what we can do. Well, we can keep this committee. What I might suggest is that you maybe withdraw your motion, we'll keep in committee, and then in the interim we can try to get some of these answers and then we can bring it up next committee, if that would be appropriate. I think it definitely needs to be withdrawn and stay in committee, um, because Council Member Martin and I, I've been working on this for a long time, but I don't believe this ordinance will cover prepared food vendors. Uh, we need someone from the health department here. Um, there are... What we discovered is there's different types of permits, different lengths of permit, and it gets very, very complicated. Okay, I think... Um, I, I think you can just withdraw it and then I'll put it on as a first item on the agenda for next month and we can discuss it then. And if there's any other issues that you all wanna bring up about this, go ahead and give them to Paul and we'll be ready for this at the first motion. Dr. Blues. Okay? Thank you. Seeing the other, do I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. Um, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed, we are adjourned. Passed.