# Council Work Session - March 16, 2010 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Council · March 16, 2010 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/1268 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/1268?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2010-03-16 - **Body**: Council - **Last revised**: June 18, 2026 - **Length**: 14,646 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude Sonnet. Speaker labels and verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council held a meeting on March 16, 2010, presided over by the Mayor. The meeting addressed three agenda items spanning land use regulation, social services planning, and technology infrastructure. A total of 6 votes were taken during the session, and 1 public comment was heard. Two of the agenda items — the Social Services Needs Assessment and the Enterprise Resource Planning Update — were presented as informational items, while the Zoning Ordinance Text Amendments were brought to a vote and approved. ## Attendance All 14 council members were present at the March 16, 2010 Council meeting. No members were recorded as absent or late. **Members Present:** - Council Member Gordon - Council Member Lawless - Council Member Crosby - Council Member Beard - Council Member James - Council Member Ellinger - Council Member Henson - Council Member McCord - Council Member Martin - Council Member Feigel - Council Member Stennett - Council Member Blues - Council Member Lane - Council Member Wallace ## Votes and Decisions All votes at the March 16, 2010 Council meeting were taken by voice vote. Six motions were considered and all passed. - **Approval of the March 9th Summary** [timestamp: 0:13:05]: Moved by Council Member Beard, seconded by Council Member Crosby. The motion passed by voice vote. - **Postponement of Item F** [timestamp: 0:14:10]: Council Member James moved, and Council Member Crosby seconded, to postpone Item F until the following Tuesday. The motion passed by voice vote. - **Approval of New Business Items A–E, G, and H** [timestamp: 0:17:31]: Council Member Ellinger moved, and Council Member Blues seconded, approval of new business items A through E, G, and H as a group. The motion passed by voice vote. - **Resolution Referring Items to the Planning Commission** [timestamp: 0:24:20]: Council Member Gordon moved, and Vice Mayor Gray seconded, to place on the docket a resolution referring items one, two, six, and seven to the Planning Commission. The motion passed by voice vote. - **Administrative Officer Position for the Division of Youth Services** [timestamp: 0:28:34]: Council Member James moved to place back on the docket for approval the position of administrative officer of the Division of Youth Services. No seconder was recorded. The motion passed by voice vote. - **Approval of the NDF for the Week** [timestamp: 1:30:29]: Council Member Beard moved, and Council Member Ellinger seconded, approval of the NDF for the week. The motion passed by voice vote. No roll call votes were recorded at this meeting, so individual member votes for or against are not available for any of the above items. ## Public Comment One member of the public addressed the Council during the public comment period at this meeting. - **Jack Birch** spoke at approximately [timestamp: 1:17:50] on the topic of **Census 2010**. Birch emphasized the importance of the 2010 Census, specifically highlighting its role in determining federal funding allocation. He encouraged community members to participate in the census process to help ensure an accurate count. ## Contested Items - **Zoning Ordinance Text Amendments** [timestamp: N/A] The most contentious discussion at the March 16, 2010 Council meeting centered on agenda items three, four, and five, all related to proposed zoning ordinance text amendments. Council members engaged in significant debate over whether to proceed with these items or postpone them for additional review. The core concerns raised involved questions about definitions within the proposed amendments and whether the language had received sufficient legal scrutiny before being brought to a vote. Members indicated that further legal review was necessary before the Council could act responsibly on the measures. The outcome of the discussion was a decision to postpone items three, four, and five, allowing additional time for the definitional and legal concerns to be addressed before the amendments would be reconsidered by the Council. ## Zoning Ordinance Text Amendments [timestamp: 24:20] The Council took up a discussion on proposed zoning ordinance text amendments. The session focused specifically on items one, two, six, and seven of the amendments, while items three, four, and five were set aside and postponed for further review before any action would be taken on them. Council Member Gordon and Council Member Martin were the key participants in the discussion. The debate centered on the substance of the amendments under consideration, with the Council working through the specific provisions of the four active items while deferring the remaining three to allow additional time for examination. The amendments that were addressed — items one, two, six, and seven — were ultimately approved by the Council. Items three, four, and five remain pending, with no action taken on those portions at this meeting. ## Social Services Needs Assessment [timestamp: 25:22] Commissioner Helm presented key findings and recommendations from the Social Services Needs Assessment to the Council. **Key Recommendations Presented:** - Establishment of a **youth czar** — a dedicated position focused on coordinating youth-related services and initiatives - Creation of a **centralized rental assistance program** to streamline access to housing support services for residents in need The presentation was informational in nature, providing the Council with an overview of the assessment's conclusions. No vote or formal action was taken on the recommendations at this meeting. ## Enterprise Resource Planning Update [timestamp: 36:25] Rama Dewaraha and Aldona Valicenti presented an update to the Council on the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) project. The presentation covered the current status of the project, including modules that have been completed, plans for future phases, and the financial implications associated with the initiative. The update was informational in nature, providing Council members with a progress report on where the ERP implementation stands and what steps are anticipated going forward. No vote or formal action was taken as a result of the presentation. *Note: Additional details regarding specific completed modules, cost figures, timelines, and any questions or concerns raised during discussion are not available in the source data for this agenda item.* --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of the March 9th summary - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of new business items A through E, G, and H - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Postpone item F until next Tuesday - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Place back on the docket for approval the position of administrative officer of the Division of Youth Services - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Place on the docket a resolution referring items one, two, six and seven to the Planning Commission - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of NDF for the week --- ## Full transcript ... family and some other related amendments, uh, that was postponed from last week. Uh, there has been a fair bit of discussion that you all are aware about, um, through, uh, a group that the mayor has organized. Um, and there's been a lot of good discussion about this to try to encourage discussion among all the stakeholders. Uh, Mr. Ted Cowen and Mr. Mike Moizer have been involved in those discussions, uh, on behalf of some neighborhood, uh, neighborhood residents. And, uh, Mr. Dick Murphy has been involved in those discussions on behalf of, uh, the Landlord Association. And through some discussions today, uh, it's, we believe that, and I'm gonna let these gentlemen speak here to the council just momentarily, but we believe that, uh, we have a tentative agreement under which all of the definitions that you have before you, except items three, four, and five, which are the definition of family and related items, would go ahead and be passed, uh, approved to be put on the docket a week from Thursday. Um, we have started meeting today. Meetings will go on the rest of the day, and some tomorrow among the lawyers to try to do some wordsmithing, uh, with the hope that by next Tuesday's meeting that there will be some proposed amendments. No guarantee that there will be any. The amendments might not be just to those items that, uh, we're recommending not be put on the docket, that's items three, four, and five, but also the items that are being put on the docket. Everything will remain on the table. Uh, the parties understand that there's no, um, nobody's waiving their right to object at the appropriate time to the council about any of the text amendments. Uh, but there's a feeling that at this point we need to have, uh, some legal writing and, uh, consideration of some of the, uh, these definitions and some of the related issues which are frankly pretty complicated. Uh, Chris King will be involved in those meetings to provide staff support. He has been in meetings today and will continue. So, uh, at, that is going to be the recommendation that, uh, we would like to pr- make to the council. And I'd like to ask Mr. Moizer and Mr. Murphy if they'd come forward and maybe add, if you have anything to add or speak to that. I think once we got into discussions, um, this morning we realized that there were some common areas relative to the goals we're trying to achieve here, that the lawyers certainly recognized. And we're already getting into the details of how we might pull that off. So I think this will be, uh, fruitful, hopefully fruitful at the end. So. And of course, I'm Dick Murphy on behalf of the Greater Lexington Apartment Association and the University Area Housing Association. I, um, was called about noon today and have been scrambling around, uh, talking to people in my, our organizations. And, uh, we're agreeable with this proposal, especially with the going forward with the deletion of three, four, and five. Um, we were agreeing, we, we had some issues with things like locks on doors and grandfathering. We've been assured that those are items that can be discussed and will be discussed. Uh, we will report back to you a week from today. You know, maybe we will have a proposal we all agree on, maybe we will have nothing that we agree on, in which case we'd report that to you too. But, uh, we've agreed that everything is on the table for discussion and the lawyers will try to get together and discuss these, uh, issues and hopefully be able to come up with some language to present to you. Mayor, one other thing I would add. One of the things that we've discussed that it's very important that we keep the timetable in place. The earliest the council could act on the, uh, on the resolution would be a week from Thursday. So it is our intent to try to have all of this worked through hopefully by the end of this week, have something in your hands where the council can be thinking about it, these folks can discuss it with their constituencies. Um, so that's what we recommend. I would also add that, uh, Council Member Gordon is the chairperson of this committee and she graciously, uh, excused herself from another meeting going on this morning so we could advise her what was going on. Council Member Lawless agreed to come up and discuss this as well, just to see if this was something that maybe the council might have some interest in. So hopefully the council will go forward with this. I think it's a good opportunity maybe to, to do a little more work here without delaying the timetable to get something passed by the council. Mr. Count, I see you're on the, uh, in the back part of the room here. Is there anything you'd care to add? No. No, that's it, sir. All right. Well, first of all, let me express my appreciation to Mr. Moizer and, and Mr. Murphy and to your clients for your willingness to try to identify some common ground here, and to, uh, Commissioner Askew for trying to facilitate those conversations. Um, my, my sense after, uh, having worked with a lot of parties in a lot of different contexts is that if you all can work it out, you're probably gonna wind up with a better solution than what you may get if you don't. And, um, so I, I'm very appreciative of the efforts you all have put forward and wish you the best of luck as those discussions continue. Council Member Gordon? Uh, thank you, Mayor. Um, I also wanted to thank, um, Mr. Murphy and Mr. Moizer and Mr. Cowen as long, as well as our Commissioner of Law and Chris King, our Director of Planning, in, uh, the conversations that we had this morning. Um- I do, uh, think this is a good, uh, move, a good solution, and so when the, uh, piece in our agenda comes to the Planning Commis- Committee Report, I will be making this very motion to move everything except for three, four, and five forward. So, um, just a little heads-up. Council Member Wallace. Thank you, Mayor. Um, I too would like to thank everybody, uh, that was involved today and over the weekend and over the last few weeks. Um, and I'd also like to thank, um, everybody, especially the volunteers, Mr. Moizer, uh, Mr. Cowan, and residents, and, um, home builders, and apartment people that volunteered their ta- time, uh, Remodelers Association, and I think that, um, excited that we can move something forward that will be good for the community and solve problems. Thank you. Council Member Crosby. Thank you, Mayor. Commissioner Askew, I just had a quick question. Will this be a recommendation coming from law rather than planning? Uh, wh- I guess, who's ironing this out? Is it, is it coming from... Law will be involved with these folks. So, y- so you all will be making the recommendation on clarifying these definitions to us? I mean, you... Yes. Okay. And it may not be just definitions, Council Member Crosby, there's some related issues that I think we might try to delve into. Now, I, I don't know that we've gotten that far to discuss whether the Planning Committee would meet again before the meeting next Tuesday to discuss this. I, I, we may not have the time to do that if we wanna stay on the timetable, but the idea, what we tried to commit to was to have something to you by the end of the week- Just by Friday. ... or the beginning of next week. I want it Friday. So you would be prepared next Tuesday to discuss some possible amendments. And again, we might not have any. I mean... I was just wondering, because the committee brought up, I guess, a lot of this forward, so I was wondering if it, it was going to be from that task force or committee with your help and input, or if law was actually making the recommendations to us with the other attorneys' input. Uh, I think... Well, I ... Mayor, if I might. Um, what might, what I envision that might happen and council members may have a different idea, is that, um, depending on what it is that's crafted, that there might be a motion which would be from Planning Committee to bring forth three, four, and five, and then that would get amended at the work session, is what I'm ... and anything else could be amended. Because I think three, four, and five, um, in my motion later on in Planning Committee report out, will be, uh, postponed. Does that... I mean, I, it would seem like that would make sense since the three, four, and five are actual recommendations from Planning Committee, they would need to come forward and be voted up, voted down or be amended. And I don't know that there would be another... would be up to the chair, but whether there would be an opportunity for another Planning Committee meeting, I'm not sure, but Council Member Crosby, you will have a recommendation from the law department about- I do. ... whatever is crafted in terms of... I think that was more my question was... Absolutely. ... that, in fact, law is just going to tweak with input from- We will be involved. ... all the people. We will be involved within the discussions. I guess, and now I'm confused. You'll be involved or you will be making the recommendations? Both. They will be coming from law? That's what I'm trying to clarify. Yes. So it won't be the same process or the same group or the sa- I'm, I'm just trying to figure out who's making the recommendations to change, to tweak this language. Okay. Currently, you've got the Planning Committee has already recommended those changes. Three, four, and five are still a recommendation of the Planning Committee, and I think is what, as Council Member Gordon just said, that's still the recommendation of the Planning Committee. This group wants to discuss some more, the stakeholders wish to discuss some more, an opportunity maybe to amend all of those a bit and propose those to the full council, but law will be involved in that. And certainly from our perspective, we will tell you our position with respect to any amendments that might be crafted. Thank you. Okay. Vice Mayor Gray. Thank you, Mayor. Well, I, I'll just, uh, confirm also this sounds like good news. Um, and, and I heard you, uh, Mr. Murphy say without raising false expectations. I think it's worth observing that, um, that, that this, again confirms that the path toward, uh, progressive change sometimes occurs with conflict and tension as well as, uh, just a general harmony, and that, um, the neighborhoods that we're all valuing today, um, are neighborhoods that are... have the potential now to be reclaimed and recovered for genuinely positive economic value for our city, all across our city, and for, truly, generations to come. Thank you, Mayor. Anything further from members of the council on this particular issue? I would note the only other person who has indicated, uh, on the signup sheets that they wish to comment on issues on today's agenda is, uh, Dwight Carpenter. Mr. Carpenter, are you here? The Council also care about . Well, if it doesn't, we'll come back to you here in just a little bit. How about that? All right, if there's nothing further, we'll proceed with item two on the agenda, requested, uh, uh, the docket approval. We don't have, uh, one to address today, so we can move along to item three, the approval of the March 9th summary. Is there a motion? Second. Have a motion by Council Member Beard, seconded by Council Member Crosby to approve the March 9th summary. Any discussion? All in favor, please say, "Aye." Aye. Opposed, "No." The motion carries. We have no budget amendments. We do have a few new business items. Is there- Move to approve. Seconded. Have a motion by Council Member Ellinger to approve the new business items. Council Member Blues has seconded that. Any discussion? Council Member James. Thank you, Mayor. Um, I need to, um, I need to make a... I don't know if it's a motion or not, but I need to remove, um, item F until... Just to postpone it until next Tuesday for discussion. Can I make a motion to remove item F at this time or postpone until next Tuesday? Motion to table until next Tuesday? Yes, sir. All right. Who... So we have a second by Council Member Crosby that motion is debatable only insofar as it goes to the, uh, time at which it's being tabled. Is there any discussion on that issue? Council Member James? Just one point. It, um, it would just be up to whoever is putting together the, the new business items to just go ahead and automatically put that on for next Tuesday. I'm not expecting for any of that to change. Just to roll to next Tuesday. All right. Thank you. If there's no further discussion, we'll proceed to vote. All in favor of, uh, tabling item F until, um, next Tuesday, at which time it will automatically be put back on the docket, please indicate by saying, "Aye." Aye. Opposed, "No." Motion carries. Thank you, Mayor. I also had, um, item H I wanted to ask about. Um, it has to do with the concrete planters. If someone from... I see Commissioner Cole coming down. I apologize for not calling you in advance of this. I forgot to do so. On item H, did... Will there be any type of plaque or anything that's, um... Was there any type of naming? Um, I don't know, a plaque to indicate who donated the planters? No, they're... Uh, as far as I know, there is not. They're just replacing the ones that are currently in front of their business with ones that are of the same similar type and size, just will look newer and better. Okay. Thank you. That's all I have, Mayor. Thanks. Thank you. Coun- Council Member Figal, I had you on the list a moment ago, but... All right. I, I would like to ask a question about G, and I think maybe Commissioner Webb might know the answer. Um, I just... I understand that, um, we have an extension on the deadline, but my concern is, is there a delay in this project, and what has caused the delay, if there is? Please? Uh, my question is, is there a delay in the project that prompted us to ask for more time, and what has caused the delay? Are you talking about item F? G. G. I'm sorry. G. I, I didn't have this put on here. Okay. Uh, do you know anything about that? Hold on. I believe this is the dry-s- laid stone wall that was put in because of the roundabout- Mm-hmm. ... and they just finished the roundabout- Mm-hmm. ... and they haven't had a chance to do the construction. So we were approaching the deadline, and we just asked for an extension, and they extended it all the way to 2011, so- It's a- usually a year's extension. Okay, but do we have an anticipated completion date? The district, uh, transportation cabinet's in charge of the project. I don't know what their schedule is, but they do plan on adding it to the project. But we don't anticipate that it's gonna be until this deadline, do we? All indications are they should finish before 2011. Okay. I can follow up. I, I need to check on that. Okay. Thank you. Any further discussion? If not, we'll proceed to vote. Those in favor of approving, uh, the new business items A through E, G, and H, please indicate by saying, "Aye." Aye. Opposed, "No." Motion carries. Um, we're now down to our presentations, and that gets us back to Council Member Gordon now. Thank you very much, Mayor. Um, uh, as we, uh, go through this for just a few minutes, it, uh... In response to Council Member Crosby's concern, um, we could, um, if planning committee members wanted to meet at 9:30 on Tuesday morning and hear what it is that, uh- ... is crafted to come forward, so I'm just gonna kinda throw that out and then we'll -- if, if planning committee members wanna do that, that might work. So, um, based on the information, and the text amendments are starting on page 23 of the packet today, um, and I had a conversation with, uh, Commissioner Askew, and I think just technically, because we probably wanna be technically correct, um, all of these motions are coming forward, and I will, um, move that they, uh, at the time that they all come forward, and then I would ask, perhaps my vice-chair or someone to, uh, amend the motion to remove three, four and five. So, um, but since planning committee has voted all of these forwards. So with that, um, I will move that we advance, um, all of the zoning ordinance text amendments forward to the docket for first reading to go to the Planning Commission. And we can get a second amendment in. Yeah. Do I hear a second? Second. Yeah. All right. I have a motion and a second to add a resolution, uh, referring the items listed on pages 23 through 25 of the packet to the Planning Commission, uh, to, uh, next Thursday's docket. Council Member Gordon? Um, well, I pr- Are, are you thinking I could amend my own motion? Well, that would be lovely. I move to amend my own motion. Since, since you, since you know what's going on, you seem like a logical person. Okay. I like this. I move to amend the motion to postpone three, four and five, uh, and for them not to go forward, um, until, um, they are brought up again in the future, and we hear on Tuesday from the folks who are meeting to craft through this. Second. Second. Okay. I have a motion by Council Member Gordon, second by Vice Mayor Gray to now amend her original motion by deleting items three, four and five from, uh, consideration at this, uh ... Any discussion on the amendment? All in favor of the amendment, please indicate by saying, "Aye." Aye. Opposed, "No." The motion carries. We're now ready to discuss the motion as amended, which in effect would be to place on the docket a resolution referring items one, two, six and seven on pages 23 through 25 on the docket for referral to the Planning Commission at the, uh, uh, council meeting a week from Thursday. Any discussion? Council member ... Excuse me, excuse me, here. I just lost my screen. Um, can we bring it back up? Should be Crosby. Okay, Council Member Crosby. Actually, I had put my name up there. When Council Member Gordon started speaking, my comment's not to the motion, so I'll wait. All right. Um, I don't have the screen, so if you wish to speak on this motion, just raise your hand. We'll go from there. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Mayor. I, I'm very pleased that, uh, uh, the parties are getting together and trying to work some of these issues out. It, this is, uh, just an incredibly complex area of law. One of the most litigated areas of, of law across the country. There's just, uh, there's no real bright lines, there's no really, uh, straight answers to ... And everybody has to sort of craft their own solution. Um, that, that said, uh, uh, I, I'm hoping, uh, I guess I will support this motion, um, uh, Council Member Gordon, but, but I'm, I'm hoping that they will continue to work on, uh, o- the, the remaining items that we're sending forward, one, two, six and seven. Uh, particularly the se- second item, congregate living facility, makes absolutely no sense. A congregate living facility is defined as, "A building or part thereof that contains sleeping units where residents share bathrooms or kitchen facilities." Now I assure you that with my wife and my two kids, that's us. And so, to have a, a, a definition of our zoning code that's not supposed to be residential, but that is, uh, you know, that, that has a definition of congregate living facility like that, it, i- i- it, it, it's not there yet. I think much, much more work needs to be done on this, uh, in order to, to have it make sense so that we can have it in place, uh, for generations to come, as, as the vice-mayor indicated. Uh, we, we owe it to, uh, the, our neighborhoods and we owe it to our citizens to, to try to finally get this right. And so, I hope that the, the lawyers and the, the city and everybody continues to work on this, because, uh, that, that definition of congregate living facility includes everybody's house who lives here. And that's not a congre- You know, I, I know what they're, they're trying to get to, to some definition of something that involves not single family, uh, but, but that's just not there yet. And so, I hope much, much more work goes into, to putting this together. I had a sidebar with some of the, uh, uh, uh, of, of the, of the attorneys who are working on this, and there's a, uh, a, a broad agreement that that, that, that definition needs a substantial amount of work. Uh, so, uh, I, I will vote to, to, to move this forward so that we can keep it on the docket, but, uh, I, it, it needs to get fixed. So, thank you, Mayor. Any further discussion? Seeing none, let's vote. Those in favor of adding a new, um, uh, resolution to the docket for the council meeting a week from Thursday that would in effect refer items ... ... one, two, six and seven to the Planning Commission for their consideration, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Oppose no? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Crosby. Yeah, I -- What I was gonna say, not to the motion, but when, um, I asked my question earlier- ... I wasn't so much concerned that you would have to have another planning committee, I was just trying to understand the process that would be coming back to us prior- ... to the meeting, so I know you guys have met a lot. Th- that might... I don't have a concern, I was just trying to understand the process. Thank you. Thank you. Our next, uh, report is from the Intergovernmental Committee. Uh, Council Member James. Thank you, Mayor. Um, InterGov met on March the 9th for a monthly meeting. Um, we dealt with three issues. First issue being the Social Services Needs Assessment. Commissioner Helm, um, was the presenter in this case. Um, the Social Services Needs Assessment was originally- ... to be presented in the Planning Committee, um, but due to the magnitude of issues, um, that the Planning Committee was dealing with, um, there was a motion to place this into the InterGov for discussion so that that could, um, be presented to the council members and we could know what our role in that, um, Soc- ... Social Service Needs Assessment was. Um, out of that, the key recommendations from the Social Services Needs Assessment were the establishment of a youth czar or someone to oversee youth services. Um, number two was a one-stop social services model. Number three was a centralized rental assistance program. Number four was ser- service provider summit. Number five, independent living programs and services. Number six, mental health and, uh, substance abuse services. Number seven was a navigator concept, um, slash enhanced case management. Number eight, um, was the establishment of a u- unity council. And number nine was affordable housing trust fund and the land bank. Um, these were... Dr. Helm gave more detailed information about each one of these key recommendations, talked about things that they had done, um, to try to meet some of those recommendations, and talked about how to move forward with some of those that had not been implemented yet. Um, there was quite a bit of discussion regarding those r- regarding those recommendations and other social services needs. Um, there wasn't really a recommendation that came out... Uh, there wasn't a motion that came out of that discussion, um, but it was asked of Dr. Helm how could the council, uh, see these, h- help with this assessment, um, make sure that the recommendations are moving forward. Um, and she pretty much just expressed that, um, council could just be aware, um, to know the social service... to review their social services needs report, the assessment, um, and be... and to support, um, meeting these recommendations to fulfill the social services needs, um, moving forward as a whole. Um, Doc- or e- Council Member Meyers did, uh, talk about wanting to see an actual plan regarding the needs assessment recommendations instead of the presentation, and, and Dr. Helm, um, acknowledged that, and so we'll look forward to something coming forward. There was an official motion, but we'll look forward to some official plan to come forward. The second item we talked about, um, had originally... This was placed in a committee by Council Member Meyers, and at one point there was, um, um, a new business item to create a position of administrative officer for the divisions of... Division of Youth Services. There were some questions about that. That item was placed into committee. Um, we were able to ask questions of Dr. Helm regarding that position, um, and there was a motion, um, that I will bring forw- to you today and then allow you to ask questions if you have any. Um, but there was a motion to, um, place back onto the docket for approval the position of administrative officer of the Division of Youth Services, and I'd ask for a second on that. We have a motion and second to, uh, place back on the docket for approval, uh, a motion to, uh, create the position of administrative officer in the Division of Youth Serv- Services. That's correct. Any, uh, discussion? All in favor of the motion, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Oppose no? Motion carries. Thank you, Mayor. The last item was, um, a continual- a continue of the discussion of the E91 Call, Call Center Management. Uh, this was a report back from Director Lucas. Um, we had asked that he go back and review org chart and some... get some management... uh, some remanagement recommendations to come to us about how the division could work more efficiently. Um, he presented some information to us. Um, we had se- uh, quite a bit of discussion. It's all there for your review. It was quite a bit of discussion, but the end result was, um, there were council members that felt, committee members that felt as if more review was needed. Um, the committee itself did not take that on, um, but Council Member Lawless did indicate her intention to ask f- internal audit to review the E91 management procedure. Um, and I don't know if you've already initiat- initiated that letter or not. That was not a motion at that time, um, but we kind of left it up to Council Member Lawless, and I think Council Member Crosby was interested in, in doing that as well, um, so we look forward to hearing back from that audit. Um, that's all that we had, Mayor, and that's all that I have to present. Thank you. Any further questions or comments for Council Member James? All right, we'll move along. Um, Corridors Commission is next. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Mayor. Um, in the absence of, uh, chairman, chairperson Feigel, I was asked to be the, um, meeting expediter and see if we couldn't get through in some reasonable length of time, which we were able to attain. Um, obviously we reviewed the summary of February 9th. We have funding in place right now, but not allocated. Some of these items are placeholding items. Uh, with, um, a little bit more study, uh, we aren't sure that all these numbers in these various categories are correct, but I'm gonna read all of them to you as they are today. The emerald ash borer treatment, uh, in our parks, $6,000. A wildflower demonstration, which, uh, is to dress up, uh, some of the, uh, new circle road, uh, interchanges, uh, $5,000. Tates Creek tree replacement. We've had, um, some attrition out there on the trees that were placed out there two and a half years ago, and we'd like to get those back up and, and going again. Chevy Chase redesign and engineering, $25,000. That involves, um, um, a discussion about, um, the intersection of Fontaine, High, Tates Creek, and Euclid Avenue. Um, Versailles Road mowing. It's one of our, um, most beautiful corridors coming into Lexington and from the airport and, uh, we wanna be sure that that's all, uh, well done before the World Equestrian Games. The FLAG project, um, I'm not sure exactly where we stand on that. We put $10,000 into that. Uh, it's to expand, what, um, the FLAG project, which I think everybody has seen, um, to expand that somewhat and complement it. Newtown Pike art shelter, which is in the area, uh, of Eastern State Hospital and, uh, the health department. I believe that's correct, isn't it, uh, Council Member James? Yes, it's right across from the health department. Yeah. Um, and North Broadway planting, and I might say, uh, c- cleaning up, um, probably m- more than the planting is needed. Uh, we then had a presentation from Steve Austin concerning the redesign of the Tates Creek, uh, High Street, Euclid, Fontaine intersection and what, uh, h- he sees as, as one of the, uh, ways to do that, making it, uh, more attractive and at the same time, uh, a safer, uh, uh, intersection for both v- vehicles and bicycle and pedestrians. Kenzie Gleason gave a monthly bicycle/pedestrian report, but, uh, there really wasn't anything earth-shattering that, uh, that she was able to share with us at, uh, at that point anyway. And then it was announced that the mayor's office is holding a board training session, uh, on Monday, March 22nd, and we wanted to, uh, be sure everybody that, uh, is not internal, uh, is aware of that. The meeting was adjourned at 12:05 and the next meeting is scheduled for April 13th at 11:00 AM. Thank you, Mayor. Any questions for Council Member Beard? Council Member James. Thank you, Mayor. It's not really a question, it's just a, a comment and a thank you, um, to the members of the Corridor, uh, Commission. Um, you all always seem to do, your projects, uh, make a huge difference and I just, the corridors are very important and I really do appreciate, especially, um, the emerald ash borer treatment. Um, that's something the Tree Board has really been struggling with, how do we get funding for that, um, and your, your investment goes a long way because we can, w- we'll now be able to say that the Corridors Commission is helping with that, um, and we really do appreciate that. On behalf of the Tree Board, I extend that thanks, that gratitude, um, as well as the art shelter. I mean, it's, um, every little bit helps with them and they, um, Yvette Hurt does a really good job of going around and really trying to get support for these amazing, amazing not only it's art, but it's also transit shelter for folks who need shelter, um, from the, from the weather and the sun. Um, it's opportunities for art to be displayed by our local artists, um, and it really does support a public transit system, which we, we really desperately need to tap into as parking and, and our roads and infrastructure really do need that. So I just wanna say, I can't thank, uh, Corridors Committee enough for all that you do to enhance our corridors and I really do appreciate your work. Thank you. Anything further? All right, we're ready for the update on the enterprise resource planning and, uh, invite Mr. Dewaraha to the podium. Good afternoon. I believe, uh, when I was here last week, we primarily wanted to, uh, address the, uh, the- ... funding expenses and the balances and the future operational cost of that, so I've put the same, uh, presentation in terms of what you had in content last week, but you're gonna see some additional slides that deal with, uh, uh, with what you're talking, what you wanted to see here. So, I'll, I won't go through the timelines again, but, uh, we've seen that twice, unless any of you want, want me to go through it, then I'll be glad to do that again. Um ... so ... these are the completed modules. I'd addressed them in the last presentation. Um, so in terms of what did we get for what we paid, that's pretty much what you're looking at, and I'll get right to it at this point. So, the project itself, initially, um, in, in '06, I believe, ten and a half million dollars was set aside for it. Uh, you're looking at the additional bonds that were sold there and, uh, to date what the expenses were in, in terms of payments. So I believe Mr. All- uh, Ellinger, that you specifically had questions related to this, so I hope, uh, this addresses some of that. And, uh, a cost breakdown of what, uh, what you saw in the last slide basically gets down to, I mean, the implementation is the biggest expense in any ERP project. Uh, the first project that you saw was called Project STARS. This is before 2007. Project Synergy started in '08, which addressed the project's, grants, contracts, and the HR piece of the implementation. So 20% of the cost was spent on hardware and software. Project STARS had consumed, uh, 45%. That primarily is due to the re-implementation of finance. Anytime you have a project that fails in, in a re-implementation process, it's gonna cost you three to five times the cost. Uh, these are industry numbers. It doesn't matter where you are. Once you've moved over, if you're in a production system and you need to also implement at the same time, the cost is gonna go up because you no longer have a system that's working for you and one you can implement on and then move that into production at some point. So the luxury for that did not exist, and, uh, I believe in the project timeline, if you went through that, you would've seen the termination of the project manager in early '07. The termination of the earlier implementer was in '07 and the re-implementation by then had, had started also sometime around early '07. Uh, these are the resolutions. Uh, I wanna thank Susan Lamb who helped me put this together in a short time. I had to go through and research, uh, how many had been, uh, done. Some of them, I believe, are ordinances. Susan was kind enough to update me on that. So I've broken them down in the next few slides in terms of what, uh, council resolutions had passed. As you can see, it started back in '05 and then it goes all the way through, uh, 2010. And, uh, we do have printouts of those, so if you want us to hand over each one of the resolutions, I have brought them with me at this point and would be glad to do so after the, uh, presentation. What are the future modules? We talked about this at the last, uh, presentation and the previous one. I believe if we continue to work on this in, in, with a three to five year strategy here, we'd be able to, um, gain more efficiencies, uh, in, in the operations side for LFUCG and our employees will be more productive once they start using these modules because they'll be integrated into finance. And the other ones we have here, we, we get better costing figures at that point. Uh, in terms of operational ongoing cost, once you paid for a software, typically the software cost, ongoing maintenance is gonna cost you anywhere from 18 to 20% yearly. And in this case, it's 22%. And if we go on to license future modules, there will be an ongoing cost after that. And, uh, uh, council was, uh, kind enough to approve the formation of division of enterprise solutions. Primarily, there's a relocation of the resources in terms of the positions. Uh, so in the future PeopleSoft can be, uh, maintained and every three to five months you'll probably see patch releases and maintain- maintenance updates that have to be done. And then four to five years, you're looking at a complete upgrade in terms of your finance, HR and your budget system. So, uh, it, it's, it's critical to have the enterprise solutions team in place so they can address the lifestyle, uh, life cycle strategy for PeopleSoft, uh, which is gonna be our enterprise solutions product here. And that strategy will be, uh, is to be determined by the Enterprise Solutions Group once they're fully in place. So coming out of the previous implementation, we had to move the HR implementation to, to become stable on the financial side. I had to get our financial positions to the point where we're able to get reliable statements. You have that today, and, um, I think it's important to keep in mind... When this project started, um, you know, the GFOA had reminded everybody that, uh, there's a 50% chance that these projects end up in failures. So unless you put everything in place to address the risks that they were talking about, you know, the end result is you're going to have a failed implementation. Um, I don't want to get into a lot of the details. If you want me to, I'd be glad to address as to why it failed, why we're here today talking about it, why it took us this long to get out of it. Uh, the question today is, have we gained the efficiencies we were looking for when we set out to do this project in '05? And I believe the answer is yes. So I would go with the most conservative estimate on this slide and say we have a $500 million budget. Over the course of the next 10 years, let's assume zero growth. I believe even the revenue office and Bill O'Mara wouldn't agree with me on that one, but I'll go even more conservative than them. That's $5 billion over 10 years. Let's j- let's assume in that you spend a million years every year. That's 10 million added on to what the cost is today. It'll still be around 25 to 30 thou- $30 million. At 1% efficiency over 10 years, you'll have $50 million in efficiency gains alone. If we continue to implement and capture the efficiencies, you're going to increase that 1%. So that's the basic, uh, in, in terms of return on investment without getting into the... My last slide last time talked about on the benefits end we captured this much. If you did online enrollment for this, it was X amount. Let's round it up to the lowest, most conservative figure, and, uh, I believe this is a very conservative estimate that I put out there. Further, we've created a site that any council member wants, uh, that highlights all the documentation that went into this project. There are about 31,000 files associated with this. So we figured it's best not to print it, and if you're interested, we can give you access to it, and my enterprise solutions team will be glad to sit with you and go through and explain some of the, some of the processes and the, and the methodology that was involved in, uh, uh, you know, turning the ship here, and obviously successfully delivering a product at the end of it. I'll be glad to take any questions. Thank you. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you. ...Th- that was from the last time, I think. That was from... Okay. Thank you, Rama, for the additional information. I guess starting... When you made that first statement about the funding, expenses and balances, you said 10.5 million was originally budgeted for? That's correct. That's the figure I could find from, uh, the documents in the past. So would that be... Going over to the resolutions, would that be the 6.4 and the 4.3? Is that the numbers you're referring to? That's correct. I- i- initially there was about four million and change and the 6.4 that was in, in the bond account, that's what ended up in, in, in the documents that I saw. Okay. I'm trying to figure, what's the total expense that we have, we have paid for all this at this point? So far- Is that the 16-5 or would that be- ... that's- ... additional to the 16-5? 16, 16,576,551- That, that's- ... is what we've made in payments so far. And our original budget was for 10.5? You're- That's correct. Okay. And then when you went to future PeopleSoft modules, you said three to five years? Yes. What, what expenses are we looking for the next three to five years then? Well, again, that depends. Typically? Typically, if you look at an implementation, you're looking at 20 to 30% of the cost ongoing future. So, uh, you do have the cost of the resources that'll be reallocated for the division of enterprise solutions. And in the licensing cost, right now, I believe it's about 303,000 is... The, your software cost was about $1.8 million. So the 20% figure that I showed you in terms of the breakdown of where the money was spent, hardware and software, that includes that amount, and I, I, I have a detailed spreadsheet if you would like to see that later on. We can pass that down in terms of the payments made. Um, and when you implement a new module, for example, I only have prices on, uh, real estate management will cost about, uh, I believe 275,000 aprox- approximately. So if you decide to implement that, that's a cost for the next year. So what I'm saying is when... The, the enterprise solutions team will come up with a strategy on what do we want to do every year and then present it to council and you can adjust it, agree with it. If you sh- choose not to do it, and I'm, I'm... I mean, if you have your reasons not to do it, then that's fine. We'd, we'd be glad to follow, uh, the guidance from the legislative side. So these 10 future PeopleSoft modules that you have here, this is something that you're going to be coming to us and giving us a price down the road on what they will cost to do? That's correct. And I think some of these are primarily focused on gaining the efficiencies. Strategic sourcing, for example, would help purchasing tremendously. Now, these are coming from finance and the other groups that will basically guide us to what is going to help them. And if we choose, uh, we will get, you know, real impact from implementing strategic sourcing. That's the direction I would advocate we go on that front. To get the gold medal plan, the top... Or platinum or however you wanna say is the top one. Yeah. What would, what do you, what do you foresee is the cost for the next three to five years then? Can you give a number on that? I, I believe it'll cost you approximately 800,000, uh, ongoing yearly. 800,000 for the next three to five years? Five years. That's right. For the next five years? Mm-hmm. Could it be even more than that? That's correct. So $4 million what you're talking about. Is that correct? That's correct. That's all I have question right now. Thank you, Rahm, for the information. Council Member Lawless. Um, I have several questions, but since I just got this and had a chance to look at it, I may have more later. Um, so we, you said payments of 16,576,000 and change. Mm-hmm. Um, and 3,345,000 has not been bonded. Are there more? No, tha- that, that hasn't been bonded, but the money was allocated back in '06 from other funds. Okay. '05, '06, when... A- and then ongoing there was some, um, money that was either transferred or allocated as a proc- a, a, as a result of the budget process. Um, how much of this total is, uh, personnel? Are you talking a- i- in terms of the implementation? Right. The 16,576,500. Well. Close to 70% of it is in personnel, because when you're talking an implementation team, um, i- it's getting the implementers on site with our folks and coming up with a process to design and start writing the code. Its... Personnel cost is the biggest. And did, did all that go through RFP process? That's correct. And the resolutions I put up there pretty much address most of those. Um, hardware, I believe, uh, from what I heard from Computer Services, they were on price contracts that they had bought, and if they didn't, if they weren't there, they went through RFP process. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Mayor. Um, Rahm, a, a couple of things. On the future PeopleSoft modules, explain to me, what is Parks time collection? It's actually a... We have time collection in PeopleSoft right now. It's not electronic for some of the parks employees, so that piece is getting the time clocks in place and automating their process. That's what that is. So it's not limited to the parks. Parks is just the first target? It could be enterprise-wise. Why? That's correct. The next question involves bank reconciliation. Why not let the bank, our bank of record do the reconciliation? We send them a tape and, or some type of media and, uh, they can do it and turn it around, and they do it for free. Well, um, I would let a finance person speak to that. The reconciliation on our part internally has to take place from the money we're moving around. I'm sorry. W- And if we automate that... I'm sorry? I'm sorry. I, I didn't, I didn't catch what you said. Well, after we implemented treasury and cash management and all that, if you want to automate that whole process, my understanding is bank res- reconciliation has to be in place. Now, let me defer to, is, if Bill can address some of that in more detail, because that's his area of expertise. And I, I did misspeak. Nothing is for free. There's... We're either paying for it with balances or some other way, but, uh, we don't have to go through an implementation this way. I, I appreciate Rahm's kind words. I'm, I'm... This is not my expertise, but I will give a shout, shout at, uh, answering your question. There's two parts to an automated bank recon, in my simple way of looking at it, and we are availing ourselves of the automatic, uh, services by the bank, uh, making sure that we give them the file every time a check is written, they know what's a live check, what is not, so that bad things don't happen with forged documents. Right. And that file is coordinated with the bank. But what we're talking about is integrating all of the systems, so when payroll is run, when payables is run, when, uh, grants are, are, are granted, all of that is coordinated and then is set up so that we have all activity in the enterprise then to match with the activity from the bank. So it's two sides working together with electronic data. So it's the, it's the electronic pieces that- Bringing it all together. ... that we're trying to reconcile also? That's the way I look at it, yes. Okay. That makes some sense. I... Being away from banking for as long as I've been away, you know, most everything or is oriented toward paper and, uh, that, um, you write the check and it, uh, you can reconcile, uh, the check, but, uh, obviously if you're electronic, uh- It's, uh -- Y- and you got to put that into the mix also. It gets a little bit more complex. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you, Rama. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Hinson. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Rama, for being here. I -- I've got a couple questions also about the future PeopleSoft modules. I -- I was just curious how you determine the needs for each. Um, did -- I know that the city has many, many needs, and there are some that I'm aware of that aren't on the list. So, how can you make the list? If -- if what you have, is it related to PeopleSoft? Because we'd like to hear if it is. I have no idea. Okay. So what we have is we have a few steering committees now that evaluate it and then get it on, and primarily Enterprise Solution Team is -- been on this for a few years, and they know what added modules deliver those additional benefits. And we can bring it up to you, and you can decide if, uh, that adds value or not, but- Okay. ... that's pretty much the process. So -- so there's an ongoing process, and this list could actually get longer, correct? It could li- get longer. It could get shorter. It could get, uh, where you decide, well, next year, you know, um- Okay. ... due to the concerns, you might not do many. You would -- you know, there are some we feel like we have to do, and then there's the life cycle issue you gotta deal with, where the upgrades have to be done. Uh, the day we invested in this, that was a reality. Right. That's- I- I- ... a fact of ERP systems. I just know that in -- in trying to do things, um, just trying to get things implemented, sometimes you run into roadblocks because you don't have the technology that you need to do what needs t- to be done efficiently really. It could probably be done, but not economically, you know... But -- so I was just curious if we could add to that list, and then maybe I can talk to you later about the individual additions. Sure. Thank you. Be glad to. Council Member Crosby. Thank you, Mayor. Um, thank you, Rama. I was wondering, how much is the annual upkeep for what we already have implemented? Well, you have, um -- right now, you have the maintenance cost, which we have to pay yearly. And, uh, if we decide -- I mean, if we don't implement modules, then yearly, you have the year-end closing and those types of things that we have to get some additional help. And the reason is, an ERP team, it takes a few years for it to mature internally and to get all the skillsets we need to do that. So your cost obviously goes down a little bit at that point if you decide you're just gonna maintain it and take it. Um, but adding the additional modules would give you the real return on investment. I'm assuming at that point you're cutting the, uh, $800,000 figure probably by half. Okay, thank you. And then, um, can you tell us -- and you may not know this off the top of your head. Um, you might have to get back to us. But can you, uh, get us information on professional service contracts that have not been approved by council that have gone towards working, um, on this project or any issues associated with this project and the totals for that? Well, I can, uh... Andy, do you have a list that we can hand out? No. I can get A list of things. Yeah. Okay. We can pass out the entire expenses that were in there, if you would like. I'll have to, um, I mean, to go through and see. Are you talking about what didn't go, what went through, for example, uh, a price contract? Is that what you're talking about? I'm looking for professional service, um, agreements that you have with contractors that have not been approved by council that are 24999 that have not had to come through us. How many of those have there been that have worked towards this project, and what are the total dollar amounts for those? Do you want, um... I'm assuming since '04. Because my point is, those would be additional costs associated with this program that we're not even necessarily seeing. No, all -- all the contracts that went through for this project, whether, uh, it was on a price contract, everything is in here. There were two budgets to manage this. The accounts were 2514 and 2518. So- Primary Project Synergy and Project Stars. That's what you had on this project. So, for example, when we had the meltdown with our email that was- Okay. ... we didn't have to bring in anybody to take care of that, and did we approve? The -- that I had already emailed that to you, which was in computer services. I- yeah. It wasn't part of, uh, the st- uh, the PeopleSoft project. So we have not had any additional expenses besides what's on here with PeopleSoft or Stars? No, this is what you've had with Stars and Project Synergy. The additional information you're talking about, I- I did send that. I'm not sure if you got that or not. Did you get a spreadsheet? I- I have it, but I was hoping you'd be able to share it with the council members and with the, um... I- I asked for it directly, but- Sure. ... it was unrelated to today's presentation. I'll be happy to make copies for my colleague if- colleagues, um, regarding- I- I'll be glad to email that out to them. Uh, what I believe, uh, Councilwoman Crosby's talking about is in '07, we had, um, a storage upgrade that didn't go well. And as a result of that, uh, '07, '08, I'm not sure on the dates yet, uh, we had some downtime on our emails, and we had to bring in, uh- ... uh, DMD Solutions from outside, who were on the approved contractor list, and we did use them to fix the problem. So, with that storage update, none of that was related, I guess what you're saying, to this process, or it didn't, um, affect this process with the implementation of STARS or PeopleSoft, whatever we were calling it at that time? Sure. Uh, that was a separate project and, uh, the implementation was completely different, was in a different system altogether. Okay. Thank you. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, thank you, Rama, for coming forward. Um, y- I wanna go back, g- kinda get out of the weeds for a second, and I wanna go back to 2005, when we were struggling as a council with, "What do we do here?" And, uh, a conversation th- that we had, uh, a little while ago, it really was ... it was good to hear from, from your expert, uh, opinion, that, you know, the council was really working off of numbers that were probably three months old at best. And if anybody watching, uh, thinks about that for a second, try and balance your own checkbook on three-month-old numbers. Um, and that's what we were trying to work with as a government. Uh, this, this process g- uh, came before us, whether we should, uh, try and upgrade and, and go with this system, or should we just build internally. Would you speak about that fork in the road and the decision we made to go down this path, uh, you know, in your opinion, w- was the right, right way, but why so? What if we had gone the other direction? Sure. Um, you were at the crossroads where the existing system was outdated. I mean, your GFOA sys- uh, folks who did the study clearly stated that. And, and I agree with them. The decision was, were you gonna invest more money into the legacy system you had, or are we gonna go with something like an ERP solution off the shelf? And ... I- I'm not here to say one is better than the other, but in my opinion, the ERP solution is the right decision. Because you have ongoing people cost, in terms of keeping the skills up to date, managing everything internally. You have liabilities if you don't translate the IRS rules properly. Right now, all that belongs to the company we license with, so there's a huge added cost if we do- if we didn't have that. And I think you set out to address a few issues, such as, uh, aging technology, standardized station, operational efficiency and effectiveness, um, integrating the processes and some of the standalone, you know, solutions you had. And you wanted improved information. I mean, access to it instantly, if possible. And ... a- and I think you have all of that with this solution, and that's why I believe you, you made the right decision at that point. Now, in terms of implementations, you know, that's where the challenge was. So, uh, you know, I hope that answers the question. And, and I have Aldona here. I mean, she's the former CIO for the state of Kentucky, has been involved in a number of implementations, and if you would like to add something to that? Good afternoon. My name's Aldona Valicenti. I'm actually a resident of Lexington. I've lived here for 12 years, and so it's ... I'm absolutely delighted to have a few minutes in front of you. I've been the CIO for the Commonwealth of Kentucky for six years, and during my six years, I've had t- actually had no involvement with the city where I live. So, uh, hopefully, uh, I'll be able to do that in the future. Now, let me tell you what my role is. My role is ... By the way, I work for Oracle. Oracle bought PeopleSoft. I've worked for Oracle for six years. I worked for Oracle all around North America. I do business development, I do executive meetings, I represent Oracle with the Governor's Association and many, many other state organizations. I help people reorganize their offices, I make recommendations about the CIO position, and almost anything else that they ask me to do. My role in Lexington is the following. I actually volunteered with Oracle, and I said, "Let me be the executive sponsor for my city, so that if there are issues about the software, and if something needs to be escalated, or something is beyond what can happen through the normal support channels, I want to be that voice." I serve in that capacity for a number of states around the country. I serve in that capacity for a number of cities. And when things sometimes don't go right, they actually call me, and I can escalate to the highest levels to make sure that they get resolved. So now that you know my role, let me see if I can answer a couple of the questions that you've had. Traditionally, ERP implementations are always difficult. They're difficult for a number of reasons. Number one, is there a good match between the function that is provided in the software and the needs of the government organization? Two, is there commitment at the highest level of the organization to make changes if you need? Three, are you actually getting people, consultants to work on them who have the skillset to do it? And four, maybe the most important one of them all, is there a desire in the organization to change? And why is that most important? Well, over the years, as governments have implemented systems, they did it like Baskin and Robbins, 33 flavors. One of this and one of that, one of this, because you did it over time. None of them worked together. The data was not delivered together. And so what happened is they grew up like a patchwork. And when they grow up in a patchwork, one system doesn't hand off very well to another system. You know that. I see some heads that are shaking positively. What happens? When that happens, people do that integration. They run back and forth with spreadsheets, they run back and forth with all kinds of, sometimes with, uh, just sending files back and forth, sometimes they provide a CD, and that's the way the integration occurred. That no longer is required. Our integration now can... Systems can do that. But in order for systems to do that, you need to go through the hard steps of implementing. And that implementation is really the change, not only from an information technology perspective, but is from the processes that the people have used over the years. Processes don't go away very quickly. People are very, very concerned that the job, the way I do it, and the person that I interact with stays the same. We're comfortable in that zone. It affects all of us. I had an engineer who told me that, "You know, process change is like the following. Turn off the lights in your house, and when you turn off the lights, you know where the chair is, you know where the waste paper basket is, and you can navigate around because you've been doing it for years. Now, change the furniture and turn off the lights, and you'll be bumping in all over the place." And that's what happens sometimes. So my role is to help. I will help Rama if he needs my help. Secondly, I will be very happy to come back and talk to you about what's going on on a national level, on a city level, 'cause I do that every day. Thank you very much. Thank you, Alderman. Council Member Lane. Uh, good afternoon, Rama. How are you? Good afternoon. Uh, I, I wanted to ask a couple of questions that help put our, um, accounting system, our ERP system into perspective, you know, based over the last six or seven years. Uh, when I came onto council, I was selected in 2004, um, do you know what type of accounting system, what software we were using? Could you sort of describe that generally? Uh, I know you weren't here then, but could you give us an idea? Sure. From the information, uh, I have, you ran, uh, a mainframe system. It was homegrown, and we had, uh, application developers and programmers in-house who worked on it and put the system together, and that's pretty much what you had, a legacy system. Okay. When the council, uh, voted in 2005, as Council Member, uh, McCord said, to put in the PeopleSoft, uh, do you know when the implementation of the PeopleSoft, uh, program started up? I believe the implementation... Uh, you voted in '05. I believe the implementation started in, uh, in January of '06, and you went live with finance in July of '06, I think, when the fiscal year started. Mm-hmm. And- Okay. Now, the, um, so I guess Mayor Newberry was elected in November of '06. Then when you came on board, what, what year w- were you engaged? I, I came on board in October of '07. Okay. Now, at that, at the time you came in, what was the status of our implementation at that time? Well, uh, I think you spent, um, vast majority of the year basically recovering from the financial implementation at that point. And what you had was, uh, wh- when you're in a production system, you're working on it, trying to fix the problems. And when you fix something, it breaks something else. So then you're again fixing that. Mm-hmm. You didn't have the luxury or the team didn't have the luxury of working in a test environment or in a development, testing it, making sure everything is okay, and then implementing it. So it's a constant... You know, you, you're, you're in a fixing mode, and you're in a survival mode, trying to keep the financial and accounting systems up and running. And that's the situation when I came in. I, I mean, things had improved a little bit towards October, but, you know, it, it took us a while to get out of it. We had, uh, a member during that period of time, we had trouble printing any financial statements for the government. Mm-hmm. Because we had... We were not running parallel on the pre- previous accounting system, so, um, we just had to take what income and expense information we had pretty much. Is that... Maybe Bill O'Mara would be one to address that question. Uh, I wasn't prepared to answer that question. Was that a fun time? I don't go- think I'll get away with that today. Um, we lost the integrity of our financial system when the implementation failed between, uh, July and December of '06. Uh, in calendar year '07, we actually rebuilt transactions based on, uh, deposit slips, and then grew backwards to what expense caused us to, uh, make the deposit or write the check. Uh, at the same time... So basically, we, we were operating off of a huge spreadsheet, uh, in lieu of a financial s- system. At the same time, new implementers came in, um- ... evaluated, uh, the failed components of our implementation, and we proceeded to both try to fix historical information as well as write, test, and implement PeopleSoft, uh, in, in a live environment. Do you feel that our accounting system today is at the level it should be and we have good financial information to work off of? Well, um, it is much improved. I'm not satisfied until we get to where I like to push a button and everything happens. Um, we've come light years. We now have integrity in our financial system. We have produced, uh, audited financial statements the last two years. I didn't. The accounting department did a huge amount of, of effort in order to get to that place. We now have integration, uh, with payables, payroll, into the general ledger. Um, and, and now we're working to expand that to, through the projects, uh, and grants side. And so, uh, we're light years from where we were in, in 2006. Do you feel the, uh, PeopleSoft technology is going to be able to help us reduce the number of personnel needed to crunch numbers? It'll be more, more of an automated system and, uh, it'll save us money in the long term? Is that a, something you see, uh, Ben, particularly in the finance area? Yeah. I, I, I... The value added is, is the information that we will be able to furnish for management decisions. And, and that's what PeopleSoft and the integrated systems is, is designed to do. Okay. I think that's all I've got. I think my time has expired. Uh, let me just say thank you to both of you, uh, gentlemen, because I know you put a lot of effort during that implementation period to get us up and running. And, you know, I'm real happy to see the quality of the financials we're getting. And I don't have to push the button, so, uh, maybe when you get there, let me know, okay? Thank you. Any further questions? All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. Now ready for council reports. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. Just wanted to, um, announce two announcements. One, we had the Building Inspection Task Force, um, last Thursday, and our next scheduled meeting will be April the 8th for the Economic Development, uh, Meeting, once again, at 3:00 PM in the afternoon in the fif- fifth floor conference room. We've narrowed it down to seven items we will, uh, be looking at, uh, more, a little more in depth. Uh, I can give you those by email, but I'll go ahead and, and tell it to, uh, the viewing public right now. We'll be looking at temporary structure ordinance and possible changes to that. We're looking at going to the civil hearing process in lieu of the criminal, uh, process. We'll be looking at using, uh, the, um, administrative search warrant process for all zoning violations. Uh, we'll be looking at the grave... well, the gravel ordinance is already before, uh, council. We'll be looking at software implementation. We talked about it earlier today at the, uh, planning committee meeting, uh, to integrate building inspection, fire department, other departments, so they can all see, uh, what actions have been taken against properties. And, uh, I'm missing one, I believe, my committee members, but those are generally what we're gonna be bringing back to council. Oh, the last thing is looking at, uh, building inspection makeup. Do we keep it as one group, or do we separate out between zoning and building inspection as separate functions? So we'll be looking at all those things and hopefully bringing recommendations back to council within the next 30 to 60 days, uh, so that we can start, um, going through the process of making some, uh, good changes. Second announcement is Eastland, uh, Neighborhood Association will meet next Tuesday, March the 23rd at 6:30 PM at Christ Center Church, uh, there off Eastland Parkway. Thank you, Mayor. Thanks. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, tonight at seven o'clock, there will be a poverty forum community session at First Baptist Church, Bragtown. Uh, the, the, uh, title of that session is Creating the Underrepresented in the 2010 Census. A very timely topic. A sponsor of, of, of this event is, uh, Community Action Council and Executive Director Jack Birch is here. Um, perhaps he'd be willing to come to the podium and say a few words about, uh, about this forum tonight. Thank you, member, Council Member Blues. In the next 10 years, the federal government will spend $4 trillion based solely on census data. All the... Those funds will solely be allocated on the basis of the census, whether it's energy assistance money, the money we're using right now to pay utility bills, or roads money that come through the state and then eventually come to communities like this. We have a traditional undercount problem in Lexington. It tends to be, uh, older people. It tends to be persons with disabilities. It tends to be low income people. And recently, in the last few years, it tends to be, uh, recent immigrants into the community, primarily, uh, people whose primary language is Spanish. Our hope tonight is to raise the awareness of a whole lot of people on why this count is critical and important and get people to use their personal, business, and social networks to promote people filling out that form and getting it in. We will have Reverend Akins from First Baptist Bragtown speaking, PG Peoples from the Urban League, and Andre Cruz with as our primary speakers. And it's basically a motivational exercise. If you can come, we'd love to have you. Thank you, Jack. And I do encourage, uh, everyone in, uh, who, who hears that announcement to, uh, plan to, plan to attend this forum and also, uh, to, to promote the census and, and encourage, uh, an accurate count so that we can stand up and, and be counted. A couple of announcements. ... on next Tuesday or, or, or Thursday, I'm sorry, March 18th, the Spiegel Heights Neighborhood Association will meet at Antioch Baptist Church in Spiegel Heights neighborhood. That's at 7:00 PM, and then Monday night, March 22nd, Radcliff-Marlborough Neighborhood Association will meet at the community center in Marlborough Park. That's at 7:00 PM, and at the same time, the Oakwood Neighborhood Association will hold its monthly meeting in the community center in Oakwood Park. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member McCord. Thank you, May- Thank you, Mayor. Uh, first off, I wanna thank you, Mayor, uh, for, uh, coming by Clays Mill Elementary today to speak to, uh, uh, Mrs. Sowers' kindergarten class. Uh, uh, when they were talking about community jobs, my daughter came home and told me that, uh, she was going as the mayor, uh, today. And, uh, so, uh, she had the idea that it might be good to invite the real mayor, so, uh, I appreciate you making time in your schedule. I'm sure it'll work out to major extra credit for us, so thank you. Uh, I wanna also, uh, make folks aware that tonight at seven o'clock at, uh, Stonewall Elementary is the Stonewall Neighborhood Association meeting. Uh, I appreciate other council members at large being able to come and, uh, folks from the administration. Uh, that's at Stonewall Elementary, seven o'clock. Um, couple of announcements or a couple things to, to look forward to starting tomorrow. Again, the Sweet 16, uh, begins here in Lexington, and would encourage, um, everyone to, uh, to at least take in a session because this is something very unique to Kentucky. Uh, it is something, uh, unique to our city, uh, and it's a very special event. And I welcome those, uh, 16 teams that, that made it here. Um, also, a week from this, uh, Sunday, Lexington hosts its first half-marathon. And, uh, again, for folks, uh, there's a number of folks that'll be running in that, but, uh, please go and find out information about it and go see this. Uh, for years and years and years, many have wanted to see an event like this, uh, in Lexington, and I applaud the folks, uh, who have put together this first, uh, this first half-marathon. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Mayor. I, I'm so sorry that folks won't be at the Stonewall meeting because they will all be at the Southland Association meeting. The Southland Association Neighborhood, uh, uh, Community Meeting will be tonight at the Aleka Shrine Temple. Uh, the vigil start at 6:00 PM and the, uh, program will start at 6:30 PM. Uh, the Southland Association has just d-done some terrific things on renovating and, uh, rejuvenating Southland Drive, and I hope to see folks there. Thank you. Council Member Feigel. Thank you, Mayor. Um, just wanted to, uh, a-announce that, uh, I, um, and express some gratitude to Christ is King Cathedral. They are, uh, considering a, uh, renovation or a, an addition to their building, and they have been very gracious about involving the community in that discussion, uh, in the design of that, um, of those changes. And I just wanted to express appreciation for that. There was a meeting last night for the Chevy Chase Neighborhood Association, and the plans were presented, and, uh, there will be an ongoing dialogue, so just wanted to let, um, let our folks know that, uh, we are being involved in that process. Also, I wanted to mention that, uh, I believe this, um, Wednesday morning will be, uh, uh, or excuse me, 11:45 will be a Boy Scout luncheon, uh, celebrating the 100th anniversary of scouting, and, uh, that will be at the Keeneland Barn. And, um, also wanted to recognize that last week, we had International Converen- Con- Congress of Little Leagues, uh, meet in Lexington. It's the first time they've ever come to Lexington before. And, uh, I attended that conference, and it was just very, very, um, enjoyable. Um, the, the Little League boys were all carried in flags and presented 'em up on the stage, and it was just, it was just a grand, um, meeting, and I really enjoyed it thoroughly and wanted to, uh, just congratulate, uh, the Little League. Thank you. Oh, um- Ne- Um, I'd like to move to place in the planning committee, a, uh, review of the ND1 overlay zoning and get a status report, um, from those that are already in place and evaluate this as a tool to help protect the character and the integrity of neighborhoods in Lexington. So- Have a motion by Council Member Feigel and a second by Council Member James. Uh, any discussion? All in favor- I have- I was just gonna ask her if she could restate her motion. It- The motion is to refer the ND1 process to the services committee? No, to planning. Pla-planning committee. Planning committee. I stand corrected. And to solicit input about the ones that are in existence to see how they're working. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no? Motion carries. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to, um, also put in a pitch for the census count 2010 and just make sure that everyone's aware of how important it is to get these counts in. It's important to our community, and, uh, the dollars that come in, if we don't have a complete count, um, the money that our community receives could be reduced, and it would be reduced for 10 years. This only happens every 10 years. So, um, I appreciate the work that Jack Birch has done, Community Action, the Complete Count Committee has been working really hard on this, and just wanna make sure ever- everyone's aware. Thank you. Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, two items I wanted to, uh- ... uh, remind council members that we have a confirmation hearing of an ethics commission nominee on March 25th at 6:30. Um, and then, um, as to the, uh, zoning ordinance text amendments, it's my understanding that the attorneys who came before us earlier today are currently working to, um, find a time on Monday or Tuesday when they might come before the planning committee with any potential amendments. So, as soon as we can get that information, I think it might be a good idea for the planning committee to have a meeting. And so I'm hoping we get that soon. Thank you. Hopefully before we adjourn. Yes, thank you. Council member Crosby. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, I just wanted to publicly thank traffic engineering and, uh, the division of police for helping out, uh, with the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, uh, traffic flow issues that we're working on for their festival that'll be coming up. Um, as you know, sometimes when these, uh, churches, schools and, and other organizations do, uh, major festivals in neighborhoods, there can be quite an impact, um, on traffic and pedestrian flow, and they have been very helpful. Um, I know the church greatly appreciates it, and I just also wanted to extend my thanks to those two divisions. Also, I was gonna mention the Little League World Congress that has been in town, uh, this week. They are having a conference, and it's my understanding, um, I wasn't as lucky as, um, council member Feigl to attend. I got to help decorate and was covered with sticky glue from head to toe, uh, from decorating tables for their big dinner. But, um, it's my understanding that over 1800 people from all over the world, uh, were in for this conference, and it was really, at least from the backside, something to see. And, um, uh, lastly, I just wanted to congratulate UK, uh, the men's and women's basketball teams for, uh, their bids to the NCAA tournament. I thought maybe, uh, Council Member McCord was gonna do that with his UK background as well, but I just wanna say it's really exceptional, um, with what they've done, and it should be an exciting weekend here to watch. Thank you. Council member Wallace. Uh, thank you. I actually have a question for Jack, uh, if you don't mind, about the census and the poverty forum tonight. Um, I'm sorry, Mr. Birch. Jack, Jack is just fine. Um, is there a- an organized movement of training volunteers to help with some of the more difficult populations to get to? Yes. Uh, as you, as you know, the mayor appointed the Complete Count Committee, good representation on the committee. The member organizations are doing lots of different things. The forum tonight is just something we're doing, a community action council, but there's a lot going on. There are a lot of volunteers. Uh, w- we now have some maps of particular parts of the community that have historically been undercounted and, uh, gonna be able to put those in the hands of different groups and organizations in the community. The main thing we found is, uh, you're most effective if you work within your own networks. Uh, thank you very, I'm sorry, I got ... I don't ... Anyway, uh, so people could, how do they co- who do they contact if they'd like to be a volunteer to help? Mary Anne Blodgett here in the c- in Irwin County government is serving as key staff person and, and, and knows who all's doing what, and that's the person I would talk to. Okay. Well, I hope, uh, anybody out there that's looking for a way to do some volunteer work that's different and time limited will contact their council member or Mary Anne Blodgett, or- Or if they call 211, United Way- Call 211, yeah. ... is a part of this effort or if they called us at Community Action Council, there, there are lots of- So there are a lot of- ... entry, a lot of entry points. Okay. Well, I think that's great, and I think it is so critical that we do get a count. I got mine, uh, in the mail a couple of days ago and, uh- Have you sent it in yet? I haven't filled it out yet, but I'm going to. Thank you. Council member Beard. Council member Beard. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, first I'd like to move, uh, approval of the, uh, NDF for this week. Second. We have a motion by Council Member Beard, second by Council Member Ehler to approve the NDF. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Secondly, uh, as I remember, the University of Kentucky is on a Thursday, Saturday schedule, which would mean that it might be right in the middle of, uh, of council meeting. I'm looking around to see where the TV set might go in here, but... And we can use ear- earphones and, and the public won't even hardly know that it's happening. Thank you, Mayor. We'll, we'll see what we can do. Council Member Stennet. Thank you, Mayor. Just, I forgot to add one thing is, Saturday or Friday morning at 8:30 at the Bluegrass Ballroom, uh, all the council members have been invited to attend a meeting with Kentucky High School Athletic Association in, um, conjunction with the Sweet 16. The reason why this is important is because Louisville, our colleagues in Louisville, are busy trying to get this event there. So we have, we have it secured through 2014, but we need our council members to show up and talk to the board about ways we can keep that event here in Lexington 'cause with a new arena being built in Louisville, they're going to campaign hard another year or so to, to take this event from us. So- It's at 8:30, uh, Friday morning at the Bluegrass Ballroom down at the, uh, Hudson Center. This Friday, this Friday, during the Sweet 16. So it'll be an opportunity to meet with the board and talk to them. Thank you. That is vitally important. You are exactly right. And make no mistake about it, there will be serious competition from our friends to the, uh, west and any, any good words you can share with the folks at the KHSAAA, we'll appreciate. Council Member Gordon. Uh, thank you, Mayor. Um, I was just informed by Commissioner Askew that, uh, the attorneys who are upstairs, uh, meeting on these, uh, zoning text amendments, um, would want to meet with the planning committee, uh, Tuesday the 23rd at 9:30. And so I'm putting that forth as a, a potential date for planning committee members. And, um, with that, I will go ahead and move that the planning committee hold a special meeting Tuesday, March 23rd at 9:30 to consider the zoning ordinance text amendments. So adapted. We have a motion by Council Member Gordon and a second by Council Member Beard to schedule a special planning committee meeting for next Tuesday at 9:30 to consider the text amendments. Tuesday, the 23rd. Yes. Yes. Council Member James. Thank you, Mayor. Um, Council Member Gordon, is there any way that could begin at nine? I think that would work. Okay, that would help. It'd be two hours. That would help me out. What would, uh, uh, well, I'll go ahead and move to amend the motion to say nine o'clock. I have a motion, second. Any objection? All right, motion carries, the amendment carries. Now we're to the motion as amended to schedule a special planning committee meeting on Tuesday morning, nine o'clock. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no? Motion carries. Council Member Lane. Uh, I'm sitting next to Council Member Gordon today, and she's got on her green outfit. I looked over and saw the shamrocks on her ears. So I thought that maybe I should say, on behalf of my great granddaddy, uh, William McMurray Hogan, uh, Happy Saint Patrick's Day. Thank you. Thank you. Any other council member wish to report? I have no report today, so that takes us down to item nine, public comment on issues not on the agenda. Does anyone wish to address the council? Seeing none, Council Member McCord. Thank you, Mayor. I move we go into closed session pursuant to KRS 61.8101C, to discuss a matter involving pending litigation. So moved. Second. We have a motion by Council Member McCord, second by Council Member Henson to go into closed session. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no? Motion, motion carries.