# Council Work Session - April 6, 2010 > Auto-transcribed civic record · April 6, 2010 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/1323 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/1323?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2010-04-06 - **Last revised**: July 17, 2026 - **Length**: 22,047 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Lexington Fayette Urban County Government City Council met on April 6, 2010, under the presiding officer of the Mayor. During the meeting, the Council addressed 15 agenda items, taking 9 motions and votes on various matters. The Council heard 8 public comments from residents and community members. The meeting included several informational presentations and reports, including updates from the Special Planning Committee, Budget and Finance Committee, and Water Resources Oversight Committee. The Council also received an Intelex presentation and a 2010 Census update. Council members provided their own reports during the meeting. On substantive matters, the Council approved the Summary and Budget Amendments, as well as New Business Items. The Council approved a Resolution on Kentucky American Water Rate Increase, voted to reduce the speed limit on Berea Road, approved an E-911 Street Numbering Report, and approved the NDF. The Council also reviewed and approved the Street Paving List. Additionally, the Council approved a motion to enter Closed Session. ## Attendance The following council members were present at the meeting on April 6, 2010: * Council Member Gorton * Council Member Myers * Council Member Beard * Council Member Ellinger * Council Member James * Council Member Martin * Council Member Wallace * Council Member Stennett * Council Member Blues * Council Member Henson * Council Member Lane * Council Member Feigl * Council Member Lawless * Council Member McCoy * Council Member McCord * Council Member Lulles * Vice Mayor Gray No council members were absent or late. ## Votes and Decisions **Approval of the Summary** [timestamp: 0:00:00] Motion by Council Member Gorton, seconded by Council Member Myers. Passed by voice vote. **Approval of Budget Amendments** [timestamp: 0:00:34] Motion by Council Member Beard, seconded by Council Member Myers. Passed by voice vote. **Approval of New Business Items** [timestamp: 0:17:24] Motion by Council Member Gorton, seconded by Council Member Ellinger. Passed by voice vote. **Motion to Place the Resolution Regarding Kentucky American Water's Rate Increase on the Docket** [timestamp: 2:05:49] Motion by Vice Mayor Gray, seconded by Council Member Beard. Passed by roll call vote, 9-5. Voted in favor (9): - Council Member Gorton - Council Member Myers - Council Member Beard - Council Member Ellinger - Council Member James - Council Member Martin - Council Member Wallace - Council Member Stennett - Council Member Blues Voted against (5): - Council Member Henson - Council Member Lane - Council Member Feigl - Council Member Lawless - Council Member McCoy **Motion to Place the Berea Road Speed Limit Reduction Recommendation on the Docket** [timestamp: 1:33:38] Motion by Council Member Lane, seconded by Council Member Gordon. Passed by voice vote. **Motion to Request a Progress Report from E-911 on Street Numbering** [timestamp: 1:34:17] Motion by Council Member Lane, seconded by Council Member Feigel. Passed by voice vote. **Motion to Approve the NDF** [timestamp: 1:34:56] Motion by Council Member Beard. Passed by voice vote. **Motion to Go into Closed Session for Pending Litigation** [timestamp: 2:22:46] Motion by Council Member Stennett, seconded by Council Member Blues. Passed by voice vote. **Motion to Review the Street Paving List with the Services Committee** [timestamp: 2:14:48] Motion by Council Member Lawless, seconded by Council Member Beard. Passed by voice vote. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting included consideration of a bond amendment totaling $35.8 million for police and fire pension unfunded liability. This financial action addressed obligations related to unfunded liabilities in the pension systems for police and fire personnel. ## Public Comment Council members addressed a range of topics during the meeting, including diversity and inclusion initiatives, pension funding concerns, and utility accountability. **Diversity and Inclusion** Council Member James [timestamp: 0:52:15] emphasized the importance of acknowledging historical disparities and fostering ongoing dialogue between long-term residents and newcomers to address cultural gaps and promote true inclusivity in Lexington. Council Member Martin [timestamp: 0:57:49] discussed the lack of ethnic diversity in Lexington's restaurants and cultural offerings, calling for long-term community dialogue to embrace education and diversity. Council Member Myers [timestamp: 1:01:53] shared personal experiences of racial profiling and highlighted the importance of cultural representation, urging deeper examination of issues related to culture and career vitality beyond surface-level perceptions. **Infrastructure and Economic Development** Council Member McCord [timestamp: 0:43:58] praised the city's infrastructure projects and urged the private sector group to maintain ongoing dialogue with the council to identify future policy and infrastructure needs. **Pension Funding** Council Member Beard [timestamp: 0:12:28] expressed concern about accelerating pension liability and requested a second set of eyes on the funding method, suggesting a review by independent actuarial firms. Council Member Wallace [timestamp: 0:11:25] supported bonding over long-term employer contributions, citing a prior analysis showing it would be significantly less expensive. **Utility Accountability** Council Member Blues [timestamp: 1:50:30] emphasized the legal obligation under the franchise agreement for Kentucky American Water to respond to council inquiries and supported the resolution to compel their appearance. Council Member Lawless [timestamp: 2:03:38] defended the resolution as reasonable and not politically motivated, noting the PSC had previously urged the council to weigh in on the water project. ## Contested Items The April 6, 2010 meeting included three areas of significant disagreement among council members. **Kentucky American Water Rate Increase Resolution** Council members debated a resolution to compel Kentucky American Water to appear before the council. The dispute centered on legal authority, political motives, and fairness to other utilities. The resolution passed on a split vote of 9-5, indicating substantial division on the council over whether the action was appropriate and whether it set a precedent for how the city would treat utility companies. **Pension Funding Method** Council members engaged in heated discussion about the most cost-effective approach to pension funding. The debate focused on two strategies: bonding versus long-term employer contributions. Key concerns included rising pension liabilities and the need for independent actuarial review to inform the decision. The disagreement reflected differing views on financial risk management and long-term fiscal responsibility. **Diversity and Inclusion in City Planning** Council members clashed over the role of race and historical disparities in city planning and recruitment efforts. Some members argued for deeper cultural engagement in recruitment strategies, while others emphasized lifestyle and career factors as the primary considerations. This disagreement reflected broader questions about how the city should address historical inequities in its planning and hiring processes. ## Approval of Summary The council approved the meeting summary via voice vote at the beginning of the meeting [timestamp: 00:00]. Council Members Gorton and Myers were present during this agenda item. The summary was approved without discussion or objections raised by council members. **Outcome:** The meeting summary was approved. ## Budget Amendments The council considered budget amendments during this agenda item [timestamp: 00:34]. Council Members Beard and Myers participated in the discussion. The council approved the budget amendments by voice vote. No further discussion or objections were raised during the consideration of this item. **Outcome:** The budget amendments were approved. ## New Business Items [timestamp: 00:01:05] The council approved new business items during this portion of the meeting. **Items Discussed** The council addressed a vacant street sales drug enforcement position and considered the reallocation of grant funds to police overtime. **Key Speakers and Concerns** Council Member James raised concerns about the vacancy in the street sales drug enforcement position. Council Member Martin questioned aspects of the proposal, specifically raising concerns about the unfunded pension liability and future bond plans. Council Members Wallace and Beard also participated in the discussion. **Outcome** The new business items were approved by the council. ## Special Planning Committee Report Council Member Gorton presented a report on the special planning committee meeting [timestamp: 0:18:00]. The report was informational in nature. Council Member Gorton noted that the agenda items that would have been discussed at the special planning committee meeting had already been moved forward during the previous week's session. As a result, there were no new items requiring discussion or action at this time. ## Budget and Finance Committee Report Council Member Stennett presented the Budget and Finance Committee Report [timestamp: 00:18:33], providing an overview of current financial trends and the city's fiscal position. **Financial Trends Presented** The report covered several key economic indicators affecting the city: - Unemployment figures - Foreclosure data - Building permits - Revenue performance **Bond Ratings and Capital Spending** Council Member Stennett discussed the city's bond ratings and reviewed capital spending plans as part of the broader financial assessment. **Library Budget** A significant portion of the presentation focused on the library budget, which showed: - A 5.4% reduction in spending - A $3 million surplus **Outcome** This agenda item was presented as informational, with no formal action or debate recorded. The report provided the council with an update on the city's financial status and performance metrics during a period of economic challenge. ## Water Resources Oversight Committee Report [timestamp: 23:27] Council Member Blues presented a report on the Water Resources Oversight Committee's March 16 meeting. The presentation covered several key topics affecting water management and resource oversight. **Topics Discussed:** - Water quality management fee - Landfill fund updates - Conservation easements - Property acquisition procedures - EPA's consent decree - Upcoming appeals board hearings The committee addressed current water quality management initiatives and reviewed the status of landfill funding. Additionally, the committee examined conservation easement agreements and the procedures governing property acquisitions related to water resources management. The presentation included discussion of the EPA's consent decree and its implications for the jurisdiction's water resources operations. The committee also prepared for upcoming appeals board hearings related to water resources matters. **Outcome:** This agenda item was informational in nature, providing the council with an update on the Water Resources Oversight Committee's activities and findings from their March meeting. ## Intelex Presentation Ben Askren from Intelex presented the city's strategic initiatives aimed at improving its image as a destination for creative and technical professionals [timestamp: 0:28:48]. **Key Topics Discussed** The presentation covered several major initiatives: * April is — a program designed to attract and retain creative talent * The Creative Cities Summit — an event focused on positioning the city as a hub for creative industries * Long-term cultural and infrastructure development needs to support these goals **Focus Areas** The discussion emphasized the importance of sustained investment in both cultural amenities and physical infrastructure to make the city competitive for attracting creative and technical professionals. The presentation highlighted that these efforts require coordinated, long-term planning rather than short-term initiatives. **Outcome** This agenda item was informational in nature, with the presentation serving to update the group on Intelex's work in this area. ## 2010 Census Update Michelle Ellison from the U.S. Census Bureau provided an update on the 2010 Census [timestamp: 1:09:08]. **Key Information Presented** Ellison highlighted that Fayette County had achieved a 62% response rate for the 2010 Census. She promoted the upcoming March to the Mailbox event scheduled for April 10, which aimed to encourage continued census participation. Ellison clarified an important point regarding census forms, noting that households receiving a second form do not need to submit a second response. This clarification was intended to address potential confusion among residents who may have received multiple forms. **Outcome** This agenda item was informational in nature, with no formal action or debate recorded. ## Council Reports Council members provided updates on several ongoing initiatives and upcoming events during this informational segment of the meeting. **Arts Donations and Payroll Deductions** Council members discussed payroll deductions for arts donations, though specific details about implementation or outcomes were not provided in the available information. **ZODA Public Hearing** An update was provided regarding the ZODA public hearing as part of the council's regular reporting on municipal matters. **Single Best Town in America Contest** Council members reported on the municipality's participation in the Single Best Town in America contest. **Upcoming Events** Council Member Gorton announced two significant upcoming events: - **Creative Cities Summit** — An upcoming summit focused on creative cities initiatives - **Legacy Trail Groundbreaking** — A groundbreaking event for the Legacy Trail project **Key Speakers** The reports were delivered by: - Council Member Gorton - Council Member Stennett - Council Member McCord This agenda item was informational in nature, with council members sharing updates rather than debating policy or taking formal action. The reports highlighted the council's involvement in arts support, community development projects, and regional recognition efforts. [timestamp: 1:29:24] ## Resolution on Kentucky American Water Rate Increase Vice Mayor Gray introduced a resolution requesting that Kentucky American Water appear before the council to explain their proposed 38% rate increase. [timestamp: 1:34:56] The resolution prompted debate among council members regarding several concerns. Discussion centered on the council's legal authority to compel the utility to appear, the appropriateness of the council's involvement in rate-setting matters, and questions about whether similar requests had been or should be made of other utilities. Council members raised concerns about the fairness and consistency of singling out Kentucky American Water. Some questioned whether the council had the legal standing to demand an appearance from a regulated utility, while others debated the political motivations behind the resolution. Key speakers in the discussion included Vice Mayor Gray, who introduced the measure, along with Council Members Stennett, Martin, Blues, and Lawless, who participated in the debate. Despite the concerns raised during discussion, the resolution passed with a vote of 9-5, indicating divided opinion among the council on the matter. ## Berea Road Speed Limit Reduction Council Member Lane moved to place a recommendation on the docket to reduce the speed limit on Berea Road to 35 mph and add reflective signage to the roadway. [timestamp: 1:33:08] Council Member Gordon participated in the discussion of this agenda item. The motion passed unanimously. ## E-911 Street Numbering Report Council Member Lane requested a report from E-911 on street numbering progress during this agenda item. The request was made with emphasis on the urgency of completing this work before the World Games. [timestamp: 1:34:17] Council Member Feigel participated in the discussion of this matter. The motion to approve the request for the E-911 street numbering report passed unanimously. ## NDF Approval Council Member Beard moved to approve the NDF. The motion passed via voice vote with no discussion. [timestamp: 1:34:56] ## Closed Session Council Member Stennett moved to enter closed session to discuss pending litigation. Council Member Blues was also present during this agenda item. The motion passed via voice vote. [timestamp: 2:22:46] ## Street Paving List Review [timestamp: 2:14:48] Council Member Lawless moved to refer the street paving list to the Services Committee for review of calculation methods. Council Member Beard participated in the discussion of this agenda item. The motion passed unanimously. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed: Approval of the summary - **Motion** — passed: Approval of budget amendments - **Motion** — passed: Approval of new business items - **Motion** — passed (9-5): Motion to place the resolution regarding Kentucky American Water's rate increase on the docket - **Motion** — passed: Motion to place the Berea Road speed limit reduction recommendation on the docket - **Motion** — passed: Motion to request a progress report from E-911 on street numbering - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve the NDF - **Motion** — passed: Motion to go into closed session for pending litigation - **Motion** — passed: Motion to review the street paving list with the Services Committee --- ## Full transcript Motion carries. We also have a summary to approve. Is there a motion? Move approval. Second. I have a motion by Council Member Gorton and a second by Council Member Myers to approve the summary. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. We also have some budget amendments for your consideration. Move approval. Second. I have a motion by Council Member Beard and a second by Council Member Myers to approve the budget amendments. Any other budget amendments? Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. Motion carries. Moving along, we have some new business items this afternoon as well. Move approval. Thank you. I have a motion by Council Member Gorton and a second by Council Member Ellinger to approve the new business items. Any discussion? Council Member James. Thank you, Mayor. My question is on item M. It has Commissioner Bennett and Paula King. I see Commissioner Bennett stepping down. Commissioner, this item is talking about the position that deals with the street sales drug enforcement. Do you know what the deal is with the vacancy and why it's been vacant? I don't know why it's been vacant. I just know that Mr. Larson has had a vacancy for about six months. So what we're doing is recouping the revenue or the portion of the grant that would have gone to his office, reallocating it to overtime for police here. But I don't know what the circumstances of the vacancy are. What would be the difference of what? Will the money, if we're recouping it, will the money go towards specifically drug enforcement? It should, yes. Okay. That's the purpose of the grant. Okay. Okay, I was having difficulty understanding. Do you think you could follow up before first and second reading on why that vacancy is existing there? I mean, obviously we have drug enforcement issues in the city. Okay, thank you. That's all I have, Mayor. Thanks. Any further discussion on the new business items? Council Member Martin. Thank you, Mayor. Commissioner Bennett. It's a two for day. Get a reserve seat up here. I have a question about item B. That's the $35.8 million bond for the police and fire pension. Do we have any current estimate of the unfunded liability to the police and fire pension? The most recent one I recall, I don't recall the exact numbers, but it was in the neighborhood of $252 million, $253 million as of July of 2009. And so when will the next estimate, I guess, review that fund be made? It will be made in the second half of this calendar year, and it will review the fund as of June 30 or July 1 of 2010. Okay. Okay. Is there any sort of idea about the future issues, bond issues made for the fund? Or how far in advance have we planned for paying down this fund? The plan we put together, I guess, two years ago roughly, would have done it over about, I want to say, a six-year period. That was the point at which the unfunded liability was about $240 million. You'll recall we did $70 million last year. There's a plan to do, I think, in the neighborhood of $35 million now, which is actually on as the new business item. And then regular issues in successive years, to the extent they're necessary, to the extent the fund performs better than it has been, then obviously it will shorten the duration over which we need to issue the bonds and less on the amount we'll have to issue. But there's a plan to do it over about a six-year period. And that's in the form of borrowing money? Yes, sir. For the fund? And so then we'll pay off that debt service, and we've looked at that debt service over the bonds. Correct. Will that actually resolve the issue, or are the city's obligations to the fund expanding? Are they continuing to grow? The most recent actuarial analysis, if you set aside the unfunded liability, which is basically the past service piece of it, on a current or what they call normal contribution basis, the required contribution is a hair under 17 percent of salary. We're currently contributing 17 percent. So we would have some unfunded liability. We're currently on track to stay current with the fund. And I guess it's hard to say we're current if we're $260 million in the hole. Well, there are two pieces to the actuarial analysis. One is what they call the current contribution, which is basically if you were fully funded, what would it take to continue the fund being funded moving forward? That's the 17% of salary piece. As far as the employer contribution plus the 11% employee contribution that's currently going in. The separate issue and the one we've been trying to deal with and come up with the best solution for, obviously, is the unfunded liability challenge. Well, this is something we absolutely have to do, and I fully support bonding this and having the city fulfill its obligations to the fund. But I am very concerned about the continued increases in the fund liability and what efforts are being made to move, for example, new recruits into the CRS fund? That has been discussed, and actually I'm not sure that's one of our better options, because when you move the new recruits directly into another fund, you cut off the cash flow into your existing fund. Now, what has been discussed over the past probably year and a half is tailoring the benefits for new hires in our fund to be the same as those in CERS, rather than sending all the new employees to the CERS fund. But because all of our – because Lexington, I understand, has the only private police and fire fund in the state of Kentucky. Is that correct? To my knowledge, yes. And as I understand, that no other police and fire officer in the state of Kentucky can come to Lexington because their pension doesn't work here. Is that correct? Well, I can't say that absolutely. I mean, they would have to do the analysis of withdrawing their contributions from the state system and buying into ours if they wanted to buy service credit. But that's an evaluation they would have to make on a case-by-case basis. Does that ever happen? It's not happened to my knowledge. and so all our recruits have to be new recruits, I guess, or have been new recruits. Yes. And typically that's the way our system operates anyway on recruiting. We don't have what a lot of places have what you call lateral transfers, where a sergeant in another jurisdiction wouldn't transfer here as a sergeant or a lieutenant. Basically all of our recruits start as new recruits, regardless of the fact that they may have had some past experience elsewhere. Is this currently in a council committee? Not to my knowledge. I guess I'll wait until later and make a motion to move this issue into a council committee. Just to provide a little more background, two years ago, I guess, we had a pension task force that took an extensive look at this. All of our pension benefits are a matter of state statute. So to modify any of those benefits requires an act of the General Assembly. The recommendation that was made, as I recall, by that task force at the time was that we seek to modify our benefits for new recruits to reflect CERS benefits. We had conversations with folks in the legislature, and frankly, they went nowhere. and the police and firefighters who were present were adamantly opposed any changes to the system, and so as a political matter, the changes to the system will require an enormous amount of work. But that's kind of the history, and it has been studied extensively. The problem is the requirement that the benefits be modified by the General Assembly. And, of course, not many of the members of the General Assembly have any particular motivation to vote against something that is opposed by police officers and firefighters. $330 million is a tremendous amount of money. No question. And the fact that it has accelerated beyond 700 percent since like 1998 is enormously troubling. And so I'm not sure that I have a great grasp, and I've actually read up a lot about it, but about how much our commitment and our expenses in the fund are increasing and accelerating from year to year. And it's a, in addition to just the, you know, we do budget and we know how much we pay in salaries and things like that, but this is a sort of a hidden cost in some ways that I'm afraid it's going to sneak up on us and it's going to not let go. So I guess I'd like to look at this closer. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Wallace is next. Did you wish to address that particular issue? And I know Council Member Beard does this well. So, Council Member Wallace. Actually, I believe we were required to meet our obligations so it wouldn't grow further, and that's what's been happening. And I'm completely supportive of firefighters and police officers and their pensions. But it's my understanding that part of that settlement where we paid the correct employer match was that we also could spread the underfunded amount over a 25-year period, which would have been much less costly than bonding and taxing our bond credit issue as well as paying on those bonds more than we would have been paying into the fund. That's not exactly accurate. The analysis we conducted, as I said, about two years ago, two and a half years ago probably now, is it's much less expensive. at that time projected to be hundreds of millions of dollars less expensive to fund it through debt obligations than it was to do the employer contribution over a 25-, 30-year period. Because the borrowing costs are lower than the projected return on investment for the fund. So the quicker we get money into the fund and it can start earning a return on that money, the better off we are versus paying an escalating percentage every year as salaries go up over a, at that time I think it was a 23-year period. Has that been analyzed again given this economic? Yeah, because actually interest rates have gone down since we did the analysis. If I could get a copy of that information, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Rumke, could I ask you a question? You and I had a conversation a few weeks ago concerning alternate second eyes on the valuation situation that we have. If you remember, you can please nod your head. I remember us having a conversation. Okay, I wasn't sure you were going to get one. So I think I would like to see a subset of the Budget and Finance Committee. Now I ask Chairman Stenet if he could possibly do this, is to maybe invite one of these individual entities to come up and visit us and talk about their techniques for, they seem to think pretty conclusively that the 35, 38 million, whatever it is, is too much to have to put in as far as we're concerned, and the bonding would be less. And, of course, if we can do that, that would be fine. But we can get them up here probably sometime about 9 o'clock tonight, if we were to call them soon and meet with this subgroup and of course you be involved and for that matter, Commissioner, you could be involved also. Anybody in Albany, you know, all who wish to come. I just think that it doesn't seem we're catching up. The market's within a hair of being $11,000 right now. And when did we do our last valuation? Did we do it? The last valuation, and I have it here in front of me, as far as the actuarial valuation was prepared as of July 1, 2009. All right. Okay. So as Commissioner Bennett was discussing, we'll have one that will get started shortly, but obviously we have to close our books, and it takes a while to get it. We actually just got it just not too long ago. Okay. Well, I would request Chairman Stenet to do so if he would. I'm a little confused, but are you asking for a new evaluation or a new funding method to solve the gap? because those are two different animals. Whatever they have to offer, I haven't gotten all the details. The company I think you're referring to, which there are several that would love to have our business, one says to make up the gap using a different method other than bonding. They have nothing to do with the actual evaluation of what our gap is. Well, maybe this isn't the same because about two or three of their principals are actuaries. Well, they can give their estimates, but it's not our true actuarial estimate about what our gap is. I mean, they can give their opinion, of course, because they want to earn our business on funding that gap. I understand that, too. I'd just like to have another set of eyes on the situation. I guess that's my point. They're not really another set of true eyes. I mean, if they're going to audit it and do a true evaluation of actuarial study, that's one thing. But just to say, well, we think you have this, and we can help you make it up this way, rather than bonding, is a different animal. But I'll be glad to form any. Well, I just think we owe it to our constituents. our group of constituents, to take every step and, you know, to hire another actuarial firm to do it is going to cost money, and this is for free. Well, again, the reason why it's for free is so they can get our business on how to make up it. Nothing's free. Yeah, and we have bond counsel also who gets paid for giving his advice too. If we want to have the three, there's actually three different groups that have contacted government to provide this service. So we can have all three of them do a small presentation. There's some issues we'll have to deal with internally on how to apply it, but I'd be glad to do it. Well, let's try anyway, or you and I can get offline and discuss it further. I'd be glad to. It just doesn't seem like we're ever catching up. And it's quite interesting to see what our CERS population and where its funding is compared to the police and fire. Great. Thank you anyway. You're welcome. We'll see. Any further discussion on the new business items? Seeing none, those in favor of approving the new business items, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. The motion carries. Council Member Gorton, do you have a report on the special planning committee meeting? Thank you, Mayor. The report is on pages 43 through 45 for information only since we actually moved this all forward last week. Thank you. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. We had our last budget and finance meeting on March the 23rd, The numbers I'm reporting now are through the month of February. As usual, we start off with economic trends in our local market, and through January, the unemployment rate was up to 8.5 percent, and it was 7.7. I'll remind my colleagues and those watching that Kentucky is still at 10.7 percent, and that was through January, of course. Foreclosures for the month of February were up 48 to 48 from 25. Building permits were down from $874 to $798 through February. And then the last bit of actually good news is home sales were upward following the national trend. They were up to $468 through the month of February compared to January of $384. On the revenue side, again, talking about our top four revenue streams, employee withholdings as compared to actual budget were down $1.1 million or 5.6 percent for the month of February alone. Net profits were actually up for the month of February 6%, or $34,392. Insurance premium tax was actually up 25.4% for the month of February, or $857,000. And then last, our franchise fees were actually down 10.3% for the month of February, or $348,000. Now, year-to-date, catching us up against the year-to-date approved budget. And the big four, once again, our employer withholdings are still down 4.6 percent or $4.8 million. Net profits are still down 7.8 percent or $1 million. Insurance is still up at 3.6 percent or $585,000. And then last but not least, franchise fees are still down 12.2% or $1.5 million. For a total year to date on the revenue streams, down 4.7% through the month of February. A couple other numbers to put out there. Total revenue is down $5.3 million overall. Overall, total expenses are $163 million versus the $175 million we budgeted, and then that leaves us a net of $3.7 million ahead of budget in terms on the plus side. Our debt service was $19.1 million. We budgeted $19 million, so we're about $100,000 ahead of that number. Any questions on the financial numbers before I move on? Next, we had a presentation with Bond Council and our bond underwriters from Hiller Alliance here in town. Again, the two rating agencies that we take a look at when we look at our bond rating were Moody's and Standard & Poor's. Both were in the top, or actually the second from top rate tier, which is AA2 for Moody's and AA Plus for Standard & Poor's. This allows us, and the reason why we talk about this, the importance of it is we can borrow money today at 3.84% as compared to 6.45% back in 1999. That's just a difference in rates over the last 10 years and what we're able to borrow when we issue debt. They also showed us a scenario of a 15% debt ratio, which is where we're approaching, where we're hovering here at LFUCG. I know many of us have also looked at a 10% ratio over the last several years. And the big thing we need to take from that is we need to watch our capital spending in the next several years. Given the pension bond discussion, that's going to have a big impact on what we're able to bond going forward and also the importance of keeping our bond ratings and looking at those different things, such as our cash reserves and what we're actually bonding. And this upcoming budget will be big as we move forward. The third item on our agenda was discussion on the library budget. Their budget for this year is $14.1 million, $13 million of which comes from your local property taxes. They actually have a 5.4 percent budget reduction, as was reported by their chairman. They do show an increase, a wide increase in our city in usage of the library. They operate under a 6 percent bond ratio compared to R15 I just mentioned, and they do not anticipate any employee raises in this upcoming budget. There are employee raises built into the current budget. and they also have a $3 million surplus that is reserved for emergency operating expenditures as reported during the discussion. No action was taken on the budget either way for the library. And the last item on our agenda was the calendar for the Committee of the Whole. There have been a couple changes. Hopefully, Councilman, as you've received those changes, Councilman Gordon pointed out a couple changes we've made to that calendar. And once the mayor next Tuesday delivers his budget address, we'll be going to the Committee of the Whole. We'll still try to have our April budget and finance meeting. A piece of that meeting will be dedicated to the business occupational license fee that we've had a lot of discussion on. We'll try to bring that topic up during the budget and finance meeting for April, which is actually the Cal meeting for the budget. So we'll try to do two things at once during that meeting just to keep on task with the items in our committee. Thank you, Mayor. Any questions for Council Member Stenet? All right. Council Member Blues has asked if he might give the Water Resources Oversight Committee report, and now would be the appropriate time for that. If there's no objection, Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mayor. This is a report on the Water Resources Oversight Committee meeting of March 16th. And, Council Members, you've received, I believe, a packet of documents from that meeting, plus the as yet unapproved minutes from the meeting. Document 7 is the six-month budget for the water quality management fee that Director Martin presented to us. Among other items, there is a $400,000 billing fee to Kentucky American Water for handling the collection of that fee on a monthly basis. Their $300,000 has been allocated to the incentives fund, and that will be carried over to the FY11 budget. Revenue Director Bill O'Mara presented a financial report on the sanitary sewer and landfill fund. There were some questions about the 1.7 million landfill line item. Commissioner Taylor explained that the old Frankfurt Pike landfill is not yet officially closed because of water quality issues, which will probably be ongoing for some time. And she also informed the committee that several improvements have been made at the Haley Park landfill, including some road improvements, a new scale house, a new pump station. From the Law Department, Ed Gardner gave a presentation on conservation easements, which are provided for in Kentucky revised statutes and available for various purposes. They may become very useful to us in the future. These easements can provide for protection of natural resources and to maintain or enhance air or water quality. There is a memo in your packet on that item as well. Daryl Bennett from Engineering walked us through a document. This is number 14 in your packet. It's Property Acquisition, Maintenance, and Long-Term Use, which details the step-by-step procedure from appraisal to purchase to demolition of properties to abate flooding. Accompanying that presentation, Director Martin introduced a draft document, Identification Validation Procedures, for capital construction projects that involve property acquisition. And this document is designated to make sure that that procedure of purchase of properties is completely transparent and that potential sellers of property are informed of all of the options that are on the table and that are available to them. You might want to read through that document. It's handout number 17. It will be brought up for consideration on our April 20th agenda. The committee was informed that the Environmental Protection Agency has filed a motion to enter the consent decree. That was on March 16th. Currently, the LFUCG has completed 19 deliverables from the consent decree, And so far we're meeting all of our deadlines. In the Director's Report, the first hearing for the Water Quality Fee Appeals Board will be this week, April 8th. There has been one formal appeal as of March 16th. He informed us, too, that the incentive program information is available on the website. Class A residential grants, the application for those deadline, that's April 30th of this year. And for Class B grants, commercial and industrial, the deadline is May 28th. Those are the highlights of the meeting, Mayor. And as I say, our next meeting is April 20th. Thank you. Any questions for Council Member Blues? All right. We'll move on to our next presentation, which is by Intelex. And understand that although Mr. Duwaraha is here, that it will actually be Ben Askren that will be making the presentation today. So welcome. Come right ahead. You'll have 15 minutes. Mary Newberry, Vice Mayor Gray, the City Council. I want to thank you all for taking the time to listen to me speak about Interlex and the history behind Interlex. I appreciate your attention, and I want to say that there's a lot of people who have put a lot of hard work into what you're about to see. Some of the things you see up here are statistics that mention our city. Top ten with regard to quality of life. We've got a green city. It's very well recognized. And so we've been working with the faculty and staff, and we've been working with the faculty and staff. And so we've been working with the faculty and staff and staff. And so we've been working with the faculty and staff and staff. And so we've been working with the faculty and staff. And so we've been working with the faculty and staff. And so we've been working with the faculty and staff. And so we've been working with the faculty and staff. And so we've been working with the faculty and staff. Our premise was that two things. One, Lexington is a tough sell for minorities. Historically, we've had a problem with that. That was our first premise. Our second premise was that we're not alone in this, that it wasn't a Lexmark thing. It was a community thing. So we went to other people. Jim Gray, you were on our committee, Artie Green. We had Toyota involved, and we put together a task force on minority recruiting and retention. And in that task force, we spoke to young professionals, people we were targeting who were minorities, asking the question, what is it that is making it difficult for you to stay in Lexington? That was a very insightful study because it sort of changed our perspective. Again, this premise of it's our region, it's not welcoming to minorities, wasn't reflected. Not one participant cited race as a factor as to why they found this is not where they wanted to live. What they did cite was two factors, lifestyle and career vitality. When I say lifestyle, what I mean is that they're interested in nightlife, entertainment, affordable and appropriate housing downtown, restaurants and bars, a place to intermingle, And then the first thing is that they want to be a part of the career. And then the first thing is that they want to be a part of the career. And then the first thing is that they want to be a part of the career. And then the first thing is that they want to be a part of the career. And then the first thing is that they want to be a part of the career. And then the first thing is that they want to be a part of the career. If they moved to a city like Lexington and it didn't work out for them, they would have other options. They wouldn't have to change, root up, and go someplace else. Now, career vitality is something that Lexmark knew we could embrace and make that our mission. But with regard to the other factors, the employer of choice and the career fluidity issues, the nightlife and the lifestyle issues, we knew that that was something beyond the scope of what we could do. So with that in mind, Linda Hollenbeck, who's one of our vice presidents of supply chain, came to the city council, I believe, about two years ago and presented the results of the study and spoke about how the work that was going on in developing our downtown was congruent with what we felt were our business needs. In turn, I think the city council has responded wonderfully, and we're seeing still more progress on that front. In addition to that, after that speech happened, Jenna Grayhouse from Commerce Lexington came out for a quarterly visit to speak to us with regard to what Lexmark might need from the Chamber of Commerce. And as a result, the Chamber was able to listen to the results of this study, and we asked, as Lexmark, what the Chamber could do to help us with this mission. And I want to say that I'm very happy with the results. The chamber listened to us, and then they went back to their other constituents, and they asked the same question. Are you having trouble with recruiting or retention? And the answer was, yes, we are. We're having these problems. We cannot draw and qualify candidates when we're talking about creative and technical positions. So the chamber formed a group. We met about two years ago out at Extreme Software. I think it just became HP. We kicked off our first group meeting. representatives from the largest technical companies here in Lexington, as well as some of the smallest ones. So, of course, HP and Lexmark, Belcan was there, Extreme Software, all the way down to one or two person man shops. And the first thing we ask ourselves is, do we recognize, oh, I'm sorry, this chart here also talks about the significant participation from the private and the public sector and the private-public partnerships. So we have participants from the mayor office, Rama and Anthony, who have been involved ever since. UK is involved. From the state, we've got the KSTC. We've got a couple technology incubators here for Lexington, like Awesome Inc. and The Collection. Kentucky Space is involved. STSM programs of various sorts, like Newton's Attic and with Dr. Walcott's doing with UK and STSM. And, of course, the private sector, as I mentioned, some names there. We asked ourselves, do we have the same problem? And we said, this is it. We're having artists, engineers, scientists, creative types. They're not staying. And if they have left, we can't get them to come back. So what are we going to do about it? We spoke at length, and we realized that really the city itself has significant things to offer, that we felt like it wasn't so much an issue of substance as it was an issue of perception. Thank you very much. Can we have a beer after this? I'm going to need one. So with that perception issue, we sat down and we started talking about what do we need to fix it. And we realized that we had a mission at hand. Our mission was to change the perception by promoting what we really had already today. Promote Lexington as a career, a lifestyle, an education destination for professionals in creative and technical businesses. And in turn, also, in order to make that really happen, we wanted to be a catalyst where those communities come together as well as the entrepreneurial communities. So creative class, bringing these people in here, it means a lot to our community. We've found it means to us as employers. We realize it's more than just that. We're going to have to be targeting three groups of people to be successful. In addition to the creative class, we want to be looking at entrepreneurs in order to address the issues of career fluidity that I talked about earlier. earlier. And then we need a third leg in that stool. And that third leg is what we call boomerangs. And those are people who have left our community who have developed experience, whether it be technical experience or managerial experience, leadership forms in one form or the other, and they can bring that experience back to our community to help with the entrepreneurial aspects. So we've targeted those three groups with regard to our messages. And before I go on a little bit further about what we're actually accomplishing, I want to talk a little about philosophy that we realized. Among philosophy we had two major points. The first one is that we realized that this is not something we're going to change overnight. That it isn't going to be one event or a series of events that's going to make it happen. That we're playing for the long term here. And in order to be a game changer, we're going to have to continuously look at are we making our goals, are we making the right metrics, are we making the things happen. So with that being said, you're going to hear some stuff about events from me. That's not our philosophy. philosophy, that's part of something else, our project management. What we also need to realize real quickly is that we are having to work within the community. I talked a lot about how we knew there was a lot here to offer already. As a group, we philosophically realized that if we were the ones trying to do all these things ourselves to make this happen, that it wouldn't be authentic. We would be astroturfing the results that we're trying to achieve, which wouldn't be appropriate. Rather, And part of what we wanted to do was be here to be able to bring parties together who already were doing the kind of things that we knew would demonstrate our lifestyle and our career by telling our community and give them the visibility on a larger stage beyond the scope of our city. In addition to that, we knew that we were going to have to find other people to be able to bring them to the table to help them get to the next level with regard to what they wanted to do. So the last thing I wanted to say is that with all these creative and technical folks in the team, it was a matter of trying to hurt a bunch of cats. And so by bringing this together, we had to bring in two fundamental principles of project management. The first principle, of course, is who does what by when. That's pretty simple. The second one was is that we did need, even though we were process-oriented, we still needed to have a point to rally on to get things done. And that point, of course, is April is. I think you've seen a couple of the banners downtown. You've heard a little bit in the press about that. What April is is 34 events that's been pulled together. Most of the events are things we're already doing in Lexington, just a few are things we created to add more to it. They're creative, technical, entrepreneurial, social. They're about digital lifestyle. They're all about the new life that Lexington has with regard to the creative and young class that makes a difference with regard to what we're trying to do here. So the anchor events are TEDx and the Creative Cities Summit. You've probably heard a lot about those. In addition, then we've got several other great events. We want to recognize that each one of these events has an individual behind them who's working extra hard to be able to go the extra mile. They've moved their schedules around to put the events in April. They've worked with us to be able to help promote the events and really make things happen. And so the last thing I want to talk about is what's next. With regard to what we're trying to accomplish in a Lex, again we feel like it's a process. We have an executive committee that we've formed. They have members from IBM, Lexmark, HP, Versailles Technologies, all of which we're trying to come up with a five-year plan. It's a foregone conclusion that we'll be doing something like this again next year and the year after. And we want to be able to expand this to the point where we're getting national recognition. It is something very unique what we're doing. In the process of trying to figure out how to do this, we realized that there wasn't a prototype we could go by. There wasn't another city doing anything like this at this magnitude or this scale. We've had a chance to travel around the country and talk to people out in California and Colorado, New York, Texas, Florida. It's not happening anywhere else. This is unique. We have a unique opportunity here. We want to embrace it. And that means that I also want the opportunity to hear from the Council with regard to what the Council wants a group like ourselves to be doing, just as we're asking businesses the same question. Thank you very much, and I'm sorry to do a terrible job in this presentation, but thank you for your patience. Thanks, Ben. Any questions? You must have answered them all. Just comments, maybe. Quickly being, yeah, it's very encouraging to hear what's been going on. And I know when I was involved with Artie around the coffee shop talking about this issue about two and a half, three years ago, and then we talked about going out and talking, then Patrick Brewer came in to a conversation. and then called up some folks at Toyota and said, what do you guys think about this? And the lens then was on what was arguably not the unexpected outcome or the root cause of these issues, which was the sense of Lexington being a conservative place and perhaps the root cause was still a problem, oppression and discrimination and prejudice. But those focus groups were just remarkable. And so it's really great to see what has been done in the last year and a half by you guys. And I love the way you're talking about process and project and the real focus in that way in an intentional way on this effort. Thank you, Vice Mayor. For the same reason I'm such a lousy public speaker, I'm actually a pretty good engineer. And those engineering qualities I think we've applied really well to with regard to trying to make things happen with this group. It's made a big difference, and I think we're really proud of what the Chamber of Commerce has been able to accomplish. what people like Anthony and Rama have been able to do with us. I do want to make one other point, because it was, and it would be remiss of me not to, actually. When I looked at the slides and I noticed that on the list of magazines and so forth that had named Lexington top among cities, there was one that was missing, And that was done in early 2007, the Advocate magazine. The Advocate magazine named Lexington as top ten for cities for gays and lesbians. And it was my understanding at the time that the chamber decided that it wasn't appropriate to include that. And when we're talking about minorities, I think we need to recognize that inclusiveness goes beyond just color and gender. And it's a big deal when we're talking about these sorts of issues in our city today, moving it forward, to be truly inclusive and truly reaching out. So I hope that when you all go back and you maybe possibly amend that slide, you'll recognize that there are other attributes in this city, and it will help this recruiting effort, in my view at least. Thank you, Ben. Thank you. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you very much for coming. You mentioned when Ms. Hollenbeck came in in November of 2008, and it was a real defining moment for this city, and I think that you can certainly go back and tell her but also be proud that Toyota and Lexmark stood up in front of us and said, hey, we just don't feel like you're doing enough to help our cause. And it's interesting because a number of the projects that are happening right now, the physical tangible products of Streetscape and Legacy Trail and some other things like that, have taken some abuse in some quarters from folks, especially because of stimulus money. And, well, how does this lead to jobs? But for me, you know, it's kind of an easy defense, I would think, that when your two largest employers stand up and tell you that they want their city government to step up and put in infrastructure that is there for that creative class, for the types of folks that you're trying to recruit and retain, and the city goes and leverages those dollars in that way, I think that speaks volumes for our level of commitment, our willingness to see the bigger picture and to walk with you. And I think you asked the question, you know, well, you want to hear from us. What can you do? I think one of the key things is that government moves slow, and that's set up by design so that certain things don't happen very quickly and there's a lot of time to process. But I sometimes believe that we use that as an excuse not to move forward in some areas that we could. And having a group made up of the type of talent that sits in this room that every single day looks at what is coming next and how can we use that to better our city, I would love to see an open dialogue with you and with this group to us because you have a number of council members here that are ready, willing, and able to move policy forward, to change our city as a result of, like I say, just someone standing at that mic saying, hey, this is what we need done. So, one, I would ask you to recognize the willingness of this government, the administration, this council, to say, you know, how can we interface? But also I would answer your question is what is it that you see that is next? What are the infrastructure opportunities that we can put in place? What are the policy opportunities that we can put in place that help you in what you're trying to accomplish? Because I think that we're starting to see some incredible momentum, and people are going to get tired of me saying this, but this is Lexington's year. Because everything we've talked about for a decade is now physically showing up, as evidenced today by the jackhammering of sidewalks that six years ago we were talking about just replacing some concrete. And now we're talking about a streetscape and building it in a way that would accommodate two-way or one-way streets, whatever our future holds. I mean, that's visionary infrastructure building that can only be done from this body. So I would encourage you all individually, collectively, to start interfacing with us on an ongoing basis. Tell us what is coming next. What is the technology that we need to be aware of that we can incorporate into this government to increase greater efficiencies and transparencies and all the things that constituents want? But I applaud everything you're doing, and I love the fact that you say it's a foregone conclusion that this will happen next year and the year after and the year after. And I think that from where I sit, from a third-generation Lexingtonian, I found it really frustrating that there is talent in this town, immense talent, And there's opportunity. They just don't find each other very often. And I think that where your group really fits in, in my opinion, is bridging that gap of talent and opportunity. And I think it can go exponential from even what we see today. So, again, I thank all of you all for everything that you've done. Appreciate it, Ben. Thank you. And, Jay, I look forward to the opportunity to have that dialogue. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Mayor. I don't intend this to be point and counterpoint, But something that happened, oh, I think it was early fall of 2008, Vice Mayor Gray and I went to Greenville, South Carolina. And that has been one of the bellwether hotspots that we've heard about for some time. And we wanted to go down and see exactly what was happening. And they have done a lot in Greenville. It's very, very attractive along their main drag where they've got, it seems like, hundreds of restaurants, but a bunch anyway, and entertainment venues. But our host, in discussing this, at that time we were about 7% unemployment, maybe just a little bit over that. They were 11.3%. and they said, you know, we have a lot of high tech here, and they're the first ones to start paring down their staff when bad times come along and bad times that just about started coming along. And I was wondering what your reaction to that might be. I think it's a very interesting point you make. I personally am sensitive to that. I know a lot of other people who are here in Lexington. As you know, if you watch the paper, you see that companies like Lexmark go through these cycles. Lexmark, I've studied this, and we go through this five-year cycle where we have two years of very, very cold, and two years, two and a half years of really hot, so hot that we can't hire within our region. One of the reasons why I was motivated, and I'm changing the subject a little bit here, is that when we go through those hot spells, we're looking for the best talent. I don't care what race, religion, creed they are. We want the best engineers, the best scientists, the best technical and creative people we can find, and we can't find them in our region. It's those periods of time that I really see that we're missing the boat, that those periods of time that the young people look around and they go, every town is looking for somebody. Every town wants to have somebody. I'm going to go work exactly where I want to work. And I'm sensitive to that. Having been a manager at Luxmark for 11 years, and I competed against other managers from other companies, and I saw what the young employees were attracted to, it really hurt knowing that other communities had more to offer. I had a better job. I had more career vitality, but I couldn't compete on a completely level playing field. So your question is about when the academic times are not good, and I don't have an answer to that. That's an experience that I think everyone's lived, and it's not a good place to be. The flip side of the coin is when times are good and you're trying to compete, that's when I know for sure we can be doing better. I do know that Lexmark maybe pared their staff down, but not necessarily in the R&D area. They were ramping that up during one of those iterations, which I kind of applauded, actually, because I thought probably the average payroll might be a little higher. Anyway. Which, going back to your point, that's also kind of a double-edged sword. In good times, the creative class, engineers, scientists, creative people, their per capita income is higher. For the city's standpoint, me as a taxpayer, I like that. That means better services, a more beautiful community, a better quality of life. But when economic times are so good, you're more sensitive to that as well, too, because you lose that base occasionally. I think we've got a consensus on this group here, this body, that we've made a lot of strides. We've got more to go, and we'll cure that part of it anyway. It seems it takes a little while to do the bricks and mortars and the streetscapes and things of that sort. But it's all on the drawing board, and it's coming to fruition. So we'll be proud of it, and we'll probably be looking around for other things to do down the pike. Anyway, thank you for coming. I appreciate your input. Thank you, Councilman. Councilmember James. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. I forgot. What's your first name? Ben. Thank you, Ben. Appreciate you being here. I do want to commend all that have worked on the previous work group or task force, whatever it was. And I remember the report out and the work that had gone into that. And I'm thankful for our city that of some of the things that were reported out, it sparked a lot of things that benefited everyone in the entire city. So that was great. So we've got a lot of improvements in our streetscapes and arts venues. probably in the minds of a lot of folks due to the report out from some of the larger employers. So I do appreciate that. I take a little bit of a contrary view. You talked about that. You mentioned that you're looking for good employees and you're looking for good people that want to work and that the race is not really you don't necessarily consider the race. And as a mother of two children, and I'm black and my children are black, it's important that we have diversity in all different areas because our children look for examples of what they can be in order to realize that they can be that. That's why when we're advertising for colleges or university here, that we've got to show diversity in the pages. That's why Vice Mayor talks about, and Diane has mentioned this, about diversity in our commerce area. We've got to show diversity on the pages so when visitors are here, when people are looking, they're seeing themselves potentially in that picture. It's extremely important to have that. So race is important when there's disparities. So I do hope that the group will continue to acknowledge that historically disparities continue, have existed and continue in Lexington. I think it's pleasing that new fresh eyes of people that are here feel a sense of hope that they don't need to identify race. and I wish that could be a conversation somehow we could have that with the folks that have been born and bred here that feel that deeply and that disparity hits them hard every single day so where a couple years ago when it was presented and there was nearly a joyful celebration that it wasn't identified as a council representative of a very diverse district I still am in dismay I'm still in dismay about it because, to me, it shows a complete disparity between the existing residents of our city, potentially some, those that are vocal, and the folks that are coming in. So there's something happening there culturally that's not allowing the crossover to occur. And it shows in our education numbers, and it shows in management positions, and it shows in CEO positions. it shows around this council right here before you today. So I do hope that there's not a, well, let's push the issue of race to the side because it's not really an issue. But when it's different for folks that are new here as opposed to the folks that have been born and raised here and are struggling to stay here, I think that that would be, I'd love to see us work together on making that happen, maybe a conversation with newbies, with old folks, older folks, or longer-term residents, and let's see what they're experiencing. So I look forward to maybe getting with the focus group or getting with the group and combining those efforts. Is that something you think you may be interested in doing or helping with? I really would be. I would love to sit down and talk to you more about that because I see the same thing, and I'm glad you appreciate the difference here in that, like you said, we had these premises based on our notions and our history, the same ones that you recognize as well. And it was very surprising to see that people who are new to our community don't have that perspective. And after having a chance to live here and experience our life, they see things that everyone else wants as well, which is these lifestyle issues. To me, that's a sense. He does give me a hope because it's a sense that we are making progress. And I'm really excited about that. But that doesn't mean we've come to where we need to be, and I recognize that as well, too. Yeah, well, it'll take us working together on that. There's a report. I don't know if you've seen it. I don't think it's been in the newspaper, not in the local large newspaper, but it was in the black newspaper in Lexington, the Key News Journal. And it was a report out of the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights, and it talks about the state of African Americans or blacks here in the state of Kentucky. It's pretty shocking. And I'd be interested to get the professional's response to that commission report, and maybe we can use that as a working document moving forward of how we can deal with the issues, the disparity that truly exist here in the city of Lexington. Thank you. Thanks for being here. Thanks, Mayor. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for coming down. I've heard about this issue all my life in Lexington, And I was on the board of Lexington Philharmonic for six years. And one of the things that folks want to know when they come to town is, do we have an orchestra here? And when they were interviewing for presidents and folks at the medical school and things like that, they want to know, what do we have here? It's a tough thing. It's a cultural thing, I think. I spent two years getting my master's in Ann Arbor. And you look at a town which has enormous diversity. Ethnic restaurants in Ann Arbor are just on every block. You can get anything from anywhere in the world in Ann Arbor. But in Lexington, although there's been some great new restaurants that have been doing well, but typically a lot of ethnic restaurants have not done as well in Lexington. And we're used to our brass and fern restaurants and don't embrace new things as much. So we're surrounded, we're in a state that typically doesn't value education typically well. And when I was general counsel of the Economic Development Cabinet, education is the most determinative factor for economic development. And so how do we as a community embrace education? How do we embrace our diversities? And this is something that we need to have a long, continuing dialogue on. And we can do things with infrastructure and with trying to sort of give a poke and a prod and things like that. But groups like yours is just terrific for helping get ideas about how do we sort of get this jump started. And it's kind of a long, slow process. but we have to sort of celebrate our best and brightest and really want to have a community that has interesting people in it. So I appreciate all your efforts and those in your group, and just let us know what we can do to help. Thank you. Others? All right. Vice Mayor Gray. I was disinclined to speak again because I know we've got tight schedule today, but what you all have done is really commendable, and we've been chasing this for a long time. And I want to piggyback a little bit on what Council Member James was saying because I think there really is the opportunity here in the dynamic that you described, Ben, and the process, I think, that you described and where the – I think you said you've looked across the country and you've not found similar projects being driven this way. And I think there's a lot to be said for that. And then because it's driven from the private sector, because it's driven from those who are creating jobs and who recognize that their businesses may be jeopardized when they cannot create those jobs in a compelling place. It also allows you to dig at this and peel the onion in ways that I think Council Member James was getting at in a way that I, too, was trying to get at. that while we discovered early on that the root cause for some of this problem may not be what has been viewed as traditional sources of the problem, it doesn't mean at all that those sources don't exist and that we need to dig at that as well. And I'm really hopeful about, you know, because you started it in a typical engineer fashion and model, you won't quit digging, you know, but that the process will continue. So thanks a lot. Thank you. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for coming in today and presenting. I guess I have a little different take on this. And the vice mayor actually asked me to be a part of this group when this group first got started. And there were some emails exchanged, and there were some PowerPoint presentations exchanged. And there were going to be some meetings, and then they decided to hold some interior meetings first instead of having people from the exterior involved. And it never did evolve back around to having people like me that were invited to be on the group from the exterior involved. And I guess the frustration that I have is that when you start the presentation and you say that you had this group together and not one of them said that race was an issue, the difficulty in that to me is that if you were to put me in a room and ask me if my living in Lexington, however you phrase the question, if you talk about race being the issue for me, I would say race is not the issue for me. However, when you talked about employment vitality or career vitality and you talk about the cultural aspects, then I would say those are very much important to me because I can separate out, you know, when I was at UK in social work, here's a really interesting dynamic that always took place. They would talk about diversity, and there was this big push to get sexual orientation on the map. And we'd have these debates in class about whether or not that was the same type of an issue for people as race. and I would make the argument always that I could be gay or lesbian and go about my life and no one necessarily know that. And the reason that's important, I think, is because I can also be heterosexual and go about my life and nobody knows that. I mean, that's not important to me. My sexual orientation is not who I am. But I am black. I can't go into an employer's office and fill out an application and not be black. and I was in the mall the other day, and people seemed to follow me around but never asked me if I needed any help. And I left one store, and I actually made a comment to the manager about that and went and spent my money someplace else. Those are things that, being black, I can't put that in a closet or on the shelf when I go out and deal with things. A lot of times I make phone calls to businesses on the phone and get answers to things before I go in to head off some of that kind of stuff. But I guess for me, going back to the cultural side of it, and for me in terms of culture, it's not just about my culture, it's about everybody's culture that I'm interested in. And I'll give you an example. My wife and I went to Louisville a couple weekends ago. And we went to Cheesecake Factory and ate. That's kind of traditional. We went to the mall. While we were in the mall, we saw an advertisement for this, and I'm not going to pronounce it right, but it was like Sin Jun Chinese Theater. and it was going to be in Louisville on Sunday. We were there Friday night. We went Friday, stayed all night, and my wife had a wedding to go to on Saturday. So we couldn't stay over all the way to Sunday to watch that event. But while we were in the mall, we found out that they were also going to be in Cincinnati. So we went to the wedding the next day on Saturday, went to the reception for a while, left Louisville and drove to Cincinnati to go to that theater, and then drove back home to Lexington that night. and when I came out of there when it was over I talked to some of the management if you will for the performance and they've been performing for 27 years internationally as well as all over this country and I asked them because I always want to know this question why do you go to Louisville, skip Lexington and go to Cincinnati and they said to me because in those two communities we had someone that worked with us to bring us there and that there is nobody in Lexington that would do that And so I gave him my counsel card, and I said, if you'll call me, I can get you in touch with the arts community because this is something that we need to have in our community too so that my wife and I don't have to drive to Cincinnati or Louisville to see it. So I hope – I don't have any criticism of what you guys have done so far, and I won't in the future. But I hope that as you move forward, it's one thing to say that that group of people, not one of them said that race was an issue. That's a good thing. but to dig deeper than that, to say, but they did acknowledge that culture was an issue, they did acknowledge that career vitality was an issue, to look at how you can ferret out those two issues and dig deeper into those. And I would suspect if you looked at the number of, as Council Member James said, CEOs and folks in management that are of color, that the numbers wouldn't be very high here. And I know some other people here that are African American and other minorities that are in the business of entrepreneurship and providing jobs and high-paying jobs. And it would be also, I think, good if you could expand, besides just a couple of our largest employers, to some of those smaller employers also and get them in that mix as we move forward. And I know my time's up. So thank you for being patient with me. And thank you very much for your presentation, and I hope you just keep those kind of things in mind. Thank you very much for your comments. And thank you for your interest. Thank you. I want to mention just a couple of things. In Saturday's paper, there were a couple of articles, actually, about some things that are going on in the downtown area to try to generate a lot more of the types of activities that I think would be appealing to members of your group and members of your peer group. That end result was years in the making. I mean, folks here recall in 2007 when we hired KKG to come in and do the design work on our streetscapes, public input in 2008, contracts being let in 2009, dirt flying, utilities being buried, statues being moved, all that kind of stuff in 2009. And it takes a long concerted effort, and a number of people who have been here have helped to make those things happen. And I think downtown is going to be more appealing as a result of that. So we're working on it, and we appreciate you all's encouragement. And I would encourage you all to help us maintain that momentum, because it's not easy. There are a lot of competing, very legitimate competing demands for limited resources out there. and stay after us. Also, I'd like everybody in your group who's here today, because I know there are a number of them, if you would just stand so we can see who all's here with intellects. Great group. Thank you all very much for your help, and we appreciate all that you've done. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thanks, Ben. All right. Our next presentation is on the census, and Michelle Eliason is here. Michelle, if you'll step forward. Good afternoon. I'd like to thank you guys for allowing me to come and talk to you today about the progress that we've made in Fayette County with the 2010 Census. My name is Michelle Ellison, and I am a partnership specialist with the U.S. Census Bureau. I work directly under Ben Johnson, who I believe came here and addressed your counsel previously. I am actually responsible for 13 counties in Kentucky, including Fayette County. So I've got 25 cities, including Lexington, that I'm responsible for. And my job over the last 15 months has been to meet with the government officials, meet with the faith-based organizations, community-based organizations, and try to form partnerships to help increase awareness about the 2010 census and also to encourage participation. And, you know, we've had a lot of success out there. So we're kind of winding things down now, but one of the reasons that I really wanted to come and address you is because there's been a bit of confusion about April 1st, which was Census Day. A lot of people in the community thought that April 1st was actually the deadline to get their census forms returned, and that's not the case. There are actually about two more weeks that people have where they can return their census form by mail and avoid being put on the non-response follow-up list where they're pretty much guaranteed to have a census worker visit them at their house. So just this week, we actually sent out a second form to most households. We've done a lot of research and determined that by sending out that second mailing, we actually are able to increase the mail-back response rate by about 5 to 7 percentage points. So this week, people are receiving their second form in the mail. And for people that have maybe misplaced their form, lost their form, or forgot to fill it out, this will serve as a reminder of how important this is for people to participate in the 2010 Census. So what I want to do is give you just a little bit of information as to where we stand now as a nation, as a state, and as a county. The nation as a whole right now, 60% of the population, or 60% of households that receive their form by mail have returned them. So that's just a great number. An interesting statistic that I'm sure you've heard before, but for every 1% increase in that mail-back response rate, we save over $85 million. So we're really trying to get that number up to maybe 80 or 90% of the population returning their form by mail. And Kentucky, Kentucky actually is doing pretty good. We are now at 66% of the population has returned their forms by mail. which I think puts us at about the sixth state in the country as far as having the highest mailback response rate. Fayette County, however, is at 62 percent. So although we are above the national average, we're below the state average, and we're also still considerably lower than the counties that are surrounding Fayette County. Now, on our website, and we weren't actually able to pull it up on the computers here, But there's a great map, I think many of you have utilized it, where you can go and actually zoom in to Fayette County and to the individual tracks and see what the percentage rate is in the areas and the districts that you represent. And I actually went in there and wrote the percentage rates on the form. But that's where we're looking. It's kind of hard to tell because the color's not showing up, so I'm glad I wrote the numbers in. But on the map, the areas that are still in blue are the ones that are showing that they need the most effort, the most work to get people to participate in the 2010 Census. One thing that we have coming up is on April 10th, and it's an event called March to the Mailbox. It is a nationwide event where we are actually trying to mobilize over one million volunteers to come out on that day in cities and towns across the nation and help encourage people who have still not returned their census form that it's not too late and it's time to get that form in the mail. In central Kentucky, in most of the counties that I'm responsible for, they have identified 12 tracks that have historically low response rates and need a bit of an extra push. So in all of central Kentucky, one of those tracks was identified in Mercer County near Bergen. One of those tracks was identified in Richmond. And then 10 tracks were identified right here in Fayette County. So what we're trying to do is encourage people in those tracks to come out, to help us get the word out this weekend that it's still not too late. And most of those tracks are inside the circle. Most of them are on the north or towards the east end. And there's also a lot of areas around UK. UK poses some challenges because of the student housing. It's just difficult a lot of times to capture all the students that live off campus. So we've been really focusing on that area. What I really want to do just briefly is just update you on some of the activities and the events that we have planned already for this Saturday, for April 10th. We've been working very closely with the Catholic Action Center. They've been a very big supporter of our 2010 census efforts. And they, in conjunction with the Street Voice Council, are actually going to be hosting a cookout on Saturday, and they're going to have people that are at their new office on Winchester Road. They're going to be holding up signs, encouraging people as they drive by on Winchester Road to fill out their forms. We've also been working with different neighborhood associations, like the William Wells Brown Neighborhood Association. They have a group of volunteers that are actually going to go out on Saturday and canvas the area and knock on people's doors and ask them, have you filled out your census form yet? If not, you know, please do. If you have, thank you. We've also been working with the Great American Cleanup efforts. Some groups are actually going to be hitting the streets on April 10th. So we are going to be providing those volunteers with T-shirts and with hats and with information that they can take with them as they're out cleaning the streets. It's just another visible way for people to see that we're trying to encourage participation. The UK Office of International Affairs is actually having an event. I think it's a town and gown event at Woodland Park on April 10th. And we've partnered with them, and we're going to be, you know, we'll have a table set up, and we'll be trying to capture a lot of the students at that event. We've also been working very closely with the Community Action Council. And two of their locations, the Winburn location and also the Georgetown Street location, have received supplies and banners. And they have been distributing this to all their program participants. Also, UK has been great. UK has actually created a website, a 2010 Census website. And they are going to have student volunteers going out and putting flyers on people's cars in the parking lots. is another way to try to capture some of that off-campus, the off-campus students. The Farmer's Market actually opens on April 10th, so we've talked to them about providing their vendors with T-shirts and hats and also providing them with information sheets that they can pass out to customers as they go through the Farmer's Market. And finally, Parks and Recreation has agreed to let us use their Dunbar Community Center as a staging ground on Saturday, and we are calling for as many volunteers as we can get on that day to meet at 9.30 to kind of organize, gather some supplies, and then, again, just hit the streets, knocking on doors, talking to people as they're out, and asking people, you know, have you filled out your form, and encouraging them to do that. So that's what we've been working on. We've also been out in the area trying to get these yard signs up. which we'll remove by the 19th. But, you know, we've really been trying to make an effort and let people in Lexington know and understand how important this is. But basically, we need your help. So I'm here to ask for your help. And, you know, talk to your constituents. Let them know that it's not too late to fill out their forms if they haven't. If you can send out e-mails or if you can help us find volunteers to participate in any of these events on Saturday, or if you know any organization that might want to sponsor its own event on Saturday, please encourage that. And that's basically it. I just wanted to update you guys on what we've been doing and then see if you have any questions for me about the census or anything. Thank you very much. Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much, Michelle, for being here. And this is important. We won't do it again for 10 more years. And I know that council will be, based on the initial numbers, will be redrawing district council lines. And that's a big effort in itself. I did want to say that I've passed out to Council members the proclamation that you folks provided and have asked that it be on the agenda for Thursday night to declare April 10, March to the Mailbox Day. And so we'll be having that. And I know that you or someone from the Census will be here to receive it Thursday night at 7. So I appreciate your hard work on this and for being here. Well, thank you. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mayor. Ms. Allison, I really appreciate your efforts and your support of council members with materials and literature and so on. and I, along with my colleagues, have been taking those to neighborhood meetings and so on. One question that has come up at my neighborhoods is that some people are saying that although they've sent their form back, they've received a second form and are a little bit confused by this. Now, my ad hoc advice was just ignore the second form, but maybe you could comment on why that has happened. Are they crossing in the mail? No, no, absolutely. People only need to turn in one form. So if they have already sent in their census form, they can disregard the second form that came. The second form is not being sent out to everybody, but it's being sent out to especially targeted areas that in 2000 had low response rates. So in some areas, if you have not mailed back your census form, you'll receive a second one. But in some areas, regardless if you mailed it back or not, you're going to receive a second one just because your entire area had such a low response rate in 2000. And we've done a lot of research to determine, you know, that by sending out that second form, we actually are able to increase the response rate by five to seven percentage points. And, you know, that more than pays for the mailing of sending out the second form. So that's the reason. But, yeah, there is a lot of confusion about that. And people just need to understand as long as they've turned in one form, they're good to go. If they lost that first form, they can turn in that second form, though, too. and it will be counted in the right place. Well, thank you for that information. I think that it's good to know that that's not a mistake and was an attempt to boost the responses. But from what I've heard, people are telling me that I sent this in, And so the news is good in that regard. Thank you. Council Member Marks. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Ms. Ellison, for coming in. As I've talked to different people about filling out this form and returning it, I've gotten some questions. And the main question is, why are there so many questions on there? And what are they required to complete? Is it just that they need to say there's X number of people in the house? There's questions on there about, you know, is the place you're living in under a mortgage? Is it rented? Is it those kind of questions? People have apprehensive about some of these questions on there. So I guess my question is, what do people have to fill out by law when they submit the form? Well, by law, they need to answer every question on the form. If they don't, we do, I think the third question asks for a phone number. So if something is left off or an answer is missing, we will at first just try to pick up the phone and call and collect that information that way. But if there are answers missing on the form, then they will be added to the non-response follow-up list, and we'll have to send someone to their house to collect that information. So all the questions on there are required. It is actually the shortest census form that we've had since 1790. So it's only since the first census we ever did. So it is only 10 questions. Shouldn't take too long to fill out. We've tried to, you know, make it as small as we can because we capture a lot of the other information now in an ongoing survey called the American Community Survey. But, yeah, if you could please encourage people to answer all questions on the form. It will avoid having to send someone out to their house to get that follow-up information. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Lawless. Council Member Lawless. Council Member Lawless. Thank you. I had to step out. My son had surgery this morning, and so I had to check on him. So I may have missed it, but several people have said to me, I've lost my form. And I can't see from the slide, it says, didn't receive a form. So what do they do? And as people are going door to door or, you know, encouraging people? Well, to answer that, people, first of all, people are receiving a second form. They'll be sent to their households this week. Most people, I shouldn't say everybody, but most people will receive a second form. There are also locations throughout the city where people feel like that they were missed, They did not receive a form. They weren't counted on someone else's form. They can actually go and pick up a blank form. I think some of those locations, the public library, the Lexington Public Library has some of those forms. There's locations on UK's campus. And they can actually go online, the same place where you would check out this map. You can go and click on your state and find out exactly where. They're called be counted sites or questionnaire assistance sites. and you can find out exactly where they're located. Can my district includes UK, and we've been working with UK, and a fusion group of students are going to go. Could they take forms with them? I mean, if you're going to a door and somebody says, I don't have my form, they're not likely to go to the library to get one. Right. Also, is there any problem with people who are doing the March to the Mailbox having forms available? Sort of a gray area, I would say. We really want to encourage people to turn back the form that they have. Okay? So we don't want to be walking around passing out these blank forms just because they're barcoded. However, you know, anybody could go to one of these locations and pick up a number of forms. So if someone wanted to do that and have them on hand for that situation, I think that's okay. Okay. It's just not really what we're encouraging. Sure. And also in my district, because there is a lot of transit people there, students that move in and out, you know, they may not have gotten one because they weren't there three months ago. So thank you. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Mayor. Michelle, I had the same question, actually, as Council Member Lawless, other than I heard that if your address is a post office box, you will not get one. Is that correct? That's right. We don't mail forms to PO boxes because the main reason is we want to make sure that we're counting the people in the right place. So we can't count them at the PO box location. For people that have P.O. boxes, either they have already been visited by a census employee in an operation we call update leave, where we actually updated their address at the same time we left a census form at their house, or else they will be visited by a census worker starting May 1st when we begin our non-response follow-up operation. Okay. All right. Thank you. Any further questions? All right. Thank you, Michelle. We appreciate you coming. Thank you. Now ready for council reports. Council Member Gorton. Thank you, Mayor. I have a couple of items. First one, I wanted to give kudos to the administration because I learned that we've spoken some about the arts today. And I think it's really a terrific thing that we now have the ability for urban county government employees to donate to the arts through payroll deduction. I think that's a first for the arts. So I appreciate that, and I know that yesterday at the LexArts board meeting, there was quite a bit of discussion about this after the meeting, about how people were very happy that we have done that. So I encourage our employees to, you know, take advantage of this. The arts certainly make our community better. So secondly, I wanted to just mention that the ZODA, which came out of Planning Committee, went to Planning Commission, and they have already scheduled the public hearing on that. It's going to be April 22nd, and I believe April the 8th this week, the Planning Commission will be working in their work session to start work on the ZODA that they have been given. So the process is in full swing. And then finally, at different times today, it was mentioned about different ratings for Lexington. And I know that it came across our desks recently that one of our citizens has entered Lexington in the Single Best Town in America competition. And so Lexington's been chosen one of the ten finalists for Single Best Town in America. And if you want to put your vote in, it's all by citizen vote. You can go to www.familyfund.com slash best town contest and vote for Lexington. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Stennett. There we go. All right. Just a couple of general announcements. One, at the request of several task force members, the Building Inspection Task Force will meet this Thursday, but we'll have a time change from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. So we won't begin until 4 p.m. due to the cancellation of the Economic Development Task Force meeting. Also, a couple of things of note, the Bryan Station High School 5K is this Saturday. Once again, it's the, I think, 7th annual 5K. I know Councilman McCord and I have run in it a few times. I've been in it there every year, so maybe he'll show up this year. Maybe the mayor will show up and vice mayor and everybody else that has a good election to help the kids this year and get a good race in Saturday morning at 830 at Brown Station High School. And anyone in the public, there's still time to get in on the 5K, and there will be a pancake breakfast to follow. So hopefully we'll see you out there. And then also, you know, it's not too often that two students from a single high school get the top awarded scholarships, the number one scholarships at our local universities. But at Brown Station this year, there are two students that got the number one scholarships at UK and Transy. Those are Lucy Arthur Paratelli. She got the number one scholarship at the University of Kentucky. And then at Transylvania, Zoe Snyder got the top scholarship awarded there. So that's pretty remarkable coming from a single high school here locally for our two local universities. So I just want to pass along congratulations to both of those students from Bryan Station. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Lane. Thank you, Mayor. I've provided a copy of the Department of Public Works and Development Traffic Engineering Report regarding the speed limit on Berea Road. And I am making a motion to accept the recommendation of traffic engineering that recommends reducing the speed limit to 35 miles an hour along Berea Road in adding reflective sign panels to the existing warning signs near 1700 Breer Road and new speed limit signs with red reflective borders to emphasize the speed limit. I move to place this item on the docket for the April 8th council meeting. So move. Second. I have a motion by Council Member Lane and a second by Council Member Gordon to add that item to the docket for Thursday evening. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. I've got one more item, Mayor. I make a motion that E-911 provide a progress report to the work session on April 27th regarding placing street numbers on residential and commercial properties. I do not currently have numbers. We discussed this previously, and I feel this is a high priority to get the numbers on before the World Games. So move. Second. I have a motion by Council Member Lane and a second by Council Member Feigel to request a report from E-911 at the April 27th meeting. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Opposed, no. The motion carries. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Mayor. I would like to move approval of this week's NDF. Second. I have a motion and second to approve the NDF. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. That's all. Thank you. Vice Mayor Gray. Thank you, Mayor. Earlier today I distributed a draft of a resolution regarding our request to ask Kentucky American Water to appear before the council and answer questions related to the proposed rate increase. I'd like to read that quickly, if I may. If anybody needs a copy of it, I have a paper copy. Whereas the citizens and businesses of Fayette County are experiencing unprecedented economic adversity and distress, and whereas the responsibility of our government and elected representatives is to represent our citizens in matters related to the cost of all public services, including utility services, and whereas the Kentucky American Water has requested a rate increase of almost 38 percent, which is in addition to an 18 percent increase requested and approved by the PSC last year, and whereas this requested rate increase is based entirely, almost entirely, upon the capital cost of a new $160 million water treatment plant and pipeline, and whereas on March 11, 2010, the Council passed Resolution 135-2010, under which the Council requested that representatives of Kentucky American appear before the Council to explain the requested rate increase and other matters related to its rate increase, and whereas on March 16, 2010, by letter from Lindsey Graham III, representing Kentucky American, to Meredith Nelson, Deputy Council Clerk, Kentucky American Water Company refused to appear before the Council, and whereas on April 21, 2007, Kentucky American appeared before the Council to explain the benefits of its capital construction plan over a competing plan in an effort to obtain the acquiescence of the Council to its capital construction plan. And whereas Kentucky American conducts its operations in Fayette County under a franchise agreement between Kentucky American and the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government dated May 16, 1995, that is the franchise agreement. And whereas the franchise agreement creates reciprocal rights and obligations between Kentucky American and the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government, including under Section 13C, an obligation on the part of each party to designate representatives who are responsible for responding to requests for information related to water service in Fayette County, and whereas the refusal of Kentucky American to respond to the Council's request is a violation of its duty to respond to requests for information both explicit in the franchise agreement and implied as a part of each party's legal obligation of good faith and fair dealing, and whereas Kentucky Americans' obligation to respond is particularly compelling in light of the appearance of Kentucky American representatives in August of 2007 to discuss the very capital project that is now the subject of the requested rate increase. And whereas the Council has legitimate questions relating to Kentucky Americans' request for a rate increase, including questions about the capital project, information provided by Kentucky American at the August 21, 2007 Council work session, the progress of Kentucky American to successfully market water produced by the new plant to the neighboring municipalities and other related matters. So the resolution goes on to ask for the council, that the Urban County Council requests the mayor to take all appropriate action, including legal action, to compel representatives of Kentucky American Water Company to appear before the council as soon as practical to explain its rate increase, request for a rate increase, under the PSC rate case number 2010-00036, to respond to questions relating to the rate increase, questions relating to its appearance before the Council in August of 2007, and to respond to questions about other related matters. So I move that this resolution be placed on the docket for Thursday. I have a motion by Vice Mayor Gray and a second from Council Member Beard to place that item on the docket. Any discussion? All in favor, Council Member Stent. Thank you, Mayor. Vice Mayor, just to be clear, in the resolution, it asked that the mayor take all appropriate action, including legal action. I don't think the mayor can take a legal action on our behalf, but I think the request could be for our law department to impose a legal action on our behalf. Is that what you're asking, to file suit against Kentucky American? It's asking for any, take legal action to compel them to appear before, to compel Kentucky American to appear before the council. Commissioner, I ask you, can you come help me clarify this? I'm not sure the mayor can take legal action on his own. I think that's what the wording says. But at our direction, you can take a legal action. I don't know what it would be to compel them to come here. I think we've already taken a legal action to intervene in the rate case. Am I not mistaken on that? That's correct. Mr. Barbary is here and can update on that. So we've already taken some type of legal action on this case. That is correct. In the right case, that is correct. Let me... That's not what I'm asking for here, clearly. I'm glad that we're doing that. Yeah. That's great. We have to do that. Right. Yes, if the council wishes for us to take legal action on behalf of the government, which you have done previously in other matters, we can do that. And what would be our stance on getting them here? What would we cite as legal? Well, let me make this suggestion. We saw this earlier today, and I think probably what we need to do is analyze that. If we're going to be discussing pending legal action, I'd rather not be. I think we need to investigate that first before we commit to do that. But I assume that if this goes on the docket for Thursday night, we would be ready to discuss that Thursday evening. You'll be ready Thursday evening to discuss that if we do put this on the docket? Well. In closed session, I assume? Yes. You were asking the question, the legal basis for legal action, and I think that would be the appropriate topic. Okay. in a closed session if that's right. And I assume that we're only applying this to Kentucky American Water Company, and I think we have another utility that's before the PSC now, Kentucky Utilities, for an electric rate increase, which would actually be three times the dollar amount of what Kentucky Americans would actually be to our rate players, but don't see us bringing them before council and asking us to take a look at what they're doing and why they're asking for their rate increase when it means more out of people's pocketbooks than this one actually does. So, again, I said it last time, it stinks of politics. We have an opportunity to intervene at the PSC hearing once and for all. We can go up there as a group. We can send a resolution to the PSC. But it's not this body that should be taking legal action to get someone to appear in front of us. It's a bad precedent if we're not going to have the same standard to every utility out there because Kentucky Utilities rate increases a lot more than this one. Thank you, Mayor. Is that everything, Council Member Stenet? Okay, the motion on the floor is to add this item to the docket for Thursday week's council meeting. Council Member Gordon. I just had a clarity question, Vice Mayor. Is the, and I don't know if this is true or not, maybe you can answer it. Is the heart of your, what you're wanting it based on this next to last whereas on the first page, the joint agreement? Yes, there is a franchise agreement provides for, has provisions for inquiries, and that's referring to this. And what is being expressed here is very simple. Kentucky American appeared before this council to advocate for the building of the plant. We have asked them to come before the Council and update us on the plant and the requested increase and their marketing plan. Okay. They appeared before us to advocate for it. Why can't they appear before us to update us on it? Okay. Thank you. Question? All right. Council Member Lane and Council Member Martin. Well, you know, Vice Mayor, I hate to say this, but I believe your efforts are to turn this into a political issue. And I think because you're doing that, you've discouraged the Kentucky American border from even coming down here and speaking to council because it's going to turn into a political showcase or whatever down here. And, you know, I'm very discouraged about that because, you know, I think Kentucky American's been a good community citizen, and they've come down here all the time to talk to us. But the fact that they're already appearing before the Public Service Commission, and now we're trying to get them down here and make it into a political thing. I mean, I'm not happy with the amount of the rate increase. I don't think anybody is. And I'm disappointed, as I said last time, that the president of Kentucky American decided not to come down here. But on the other hand, if we're going to make it into a political showcase, I really have a little bit of empathy for him not coming down. Well, I'd like to respond to that. Sure. With a smile. Two years ago, I wish you all had endorsed the examination of these numbers and these costs at that time. This is not politics. This is about policy. This is about what the people of this city are going to pay for this water. And this is about asking about the business plan. Where does Kentucky American stand today in the execution of a business plan? That's real simple. And asking that question is a responsibility, in my view, of this council, just like it was our responsibility two years ago to ask about the cost of the plan and the business plan then. Thank you. I'd like to respond to that. Certainly. That's what the Public Service Commission's responsibility is. It's not our job to review their rate plan. That's why it goes to Frankfort and it's analyzed over there. So I feel like it's inappropriate for us to try and analyze this. And I think this came up previously when this matter was before the Council. You know, as I said, I'm not happy that we have any rate increases. I don't like the fact that, you know, I just got an increase from Insight on their cable charges. We're going to get increases, but I think if we're going to have one utility come down here and explain their marketing plan and their cost plan, we should have them all come down. And I feel that the way we've approached this with Kentucky American is not the appropriate way. Thank you. Well, I'd be happy for others to come too. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Mayor. I agree that I, too, am disappointed that Kentucky American Water didn't come down to talk with us. I think it would be they have a good relationship with the city and have been down here a number of times. and Dr. Blues and I took a trip with some of their folks out to see the water plant, and they're very accommodating. I, too, am not happy about the water increase and am concerned about it, and I think a lot of folks have questions about it. But I agree with Council Member Stennett that, you know, the Kentucky utilities request is so much higher than this one from a dollar standpoint, and why we have this concern about Kentucky American Water, which is a valid concern, but we have no concern about Kentucky utilities. And I think that this concern relates to election year politics, because otherwise why wouldn't we have a concern about Kentucky utilities? And I think they're all concerning. I mean, I think we need to be good stewards and to take a good look at all these things. One of the questions I have for Commissioner Askew is, and Dave, maybe this question for you, but the language of the franchise agreement says that they'll have a representative who can, I guess, respond to information requests. Have we made an information request in your opinion? I don't believe the franchise clearly identifies specifically what the request is. I would assume that we've always had someone of record identified under the franchises who the appropriate respondent for questions would be. I don't personally know who that would be. We are getting ready to file in the rate case informational requests that are due this Friday. And I understand. And we've got the whole rate case, but I'm trying to understand, do we have the ability to haul them down here, or do we send them questions under the franchise agreement and they send us written responses back? I don't think the franchise does not specify the manner in which they have to respond. The franchise simply indicates, and I can read it verbatim if you all would like, the franchise indicates that both of us, we're the purchaser, they're the purchaser and we're the urban county government, shall designate in writing representatives who are responsible for responding to requests for information related to water service in Fayette County made by each. That's all it says. So I guess my concern, and I'll be done here, but is that if we file a lawsuit, a judge may very well say, well, we have to send written questions, they can respond in writing back to us, and that satisfies it. So I'm not sure that we have what ability we have to haul them down. I would really like them to come down, but I don't know whether we have a legal basis to haul them down here. Thank you, Mayor. I'm sorry. Any further discussion on the motion? I'm sorry, Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mayor. It does seem to me that if it says in the franchise agreement that somebody in the water company is responsible for responding to questions from Fayette County, that there's a responsibility for responding to questions from Fayette County. So we may want to hear more on the legal opinion of this if this resolution is moved forward to the docket on Thursday night, but it does seem to me that there's some reason to believe that there's some obligation here on the part of KAW to respond. It also seems to me that raising the issue of Kentucky utilities is not quite apples and oranges, but to say that we haven't talked about the Kentucky utility rate increase doesn't mean that we're not concerned about it or that nobody's interested in it and that we're only concerned with this rate increase. We do have a definite history with our relationship with Kentucky American Water. This council has been quite cooperative with Kentucky American Water. It does not seem to me out of line to, let's put it this way, to insist that they come to us and explain a 38% rate increase. So it does happen to be an election year, but it also happens to be a rate increase year. And it's unfortunate perhaps that these two things coincide, as planets and moons and satellites sometimes do. But it's also important that we get some answers to our questions. So I'll support this motion. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. Just had a follow-up question for David Barbary. When does this agreement expire? The franchise agreement? Yeah. Is that what you're – yes, sir. Looks like April of 2015. And in the agreement, it doesn't say how they can respond. It doesn't say that they have to respond in person. It doesn't say – What I read you all is all there is in the agreement regarding the particular issue you all are discussing. And I assume all of our other agreements, they have a definite end date with our other utilities as well, I would say, on their franchise agreements with most of them. I believe most of the other ones, specifically the gas agreements and the electric company agreement, are actually coterminous, I think, all in the same month, which, if memory serves, it's not nearly as far out as this. It's probably like 2011. So there would be opportunity in future agreements. If we are truly concerned about having people come before this body physically to put into those agreements that they must provide before a rate increase, a presentation to council, we can add that in there, correct? That's correct. Going forward. And let me, if you'd let me, we are getting ready to file information requests, so if there are specific questions that any of you all would like us to put in there, please let us know. But I need to know that by no later than Friday so that I can get them in in time. But that would be another manner, perhaps, where you could have your questions answered by the company. You would actually need to know by noon on Friday so you can get them processed. Well, I'd like to know by Thursday so I can give myself the time to file them. Yes, sir. Mayor, I just have one follow-up question on legal. Hold on. I'm not done. I'm sorry. Excuse me, Councilman. So in light of that, I think we don't have control over the PSC. I think until we want to go to Frankfort and ask for a changing of the PSC, I think we do have control over our franchise agreements and what requirements we can put in there. So if we really feel strong and we want our utilities to present to us before rate increases, those are the opportune times to add that language to get them here. If that's truly what we really all want to do and know what their business plans offer, for all of them, not just the water company, but all of them, and not to pick on Kentucky Utility either today. I'm just saying whatever precedent we want to set, we need to make it fair to everybody because any rate increase anybody wants to do affects all of us and our citizens. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Lange. Commissioner, Commissioner, I ask you, this particular resolution, was this prepared by our legal department? No. So you haven't reviewed it then? Well, when it was sent to our office today, we have tried to review it prior to the meeting, but I think what the local rules, your council rules require is that we're supposed to be provided a copy before the first reading, which certainly has happened here, and we will review it and have something to you by Thursday evening if you choose to put it on the docket. So this was prepared by outside council? I don't know who it was prepared by. All right. Thank you. Anything further? All right. Question on the floor is whether to add the proposed resolution to Monday evening's docket. If you would, Councilman Beard. I lit up the thing over here, but I can't seem to get back to the screen. So it may have been erased somehow. I just wanted to clarify one thing. At the time Kentucky American came here and visited us, They represented several things about why their proposal was better than Louisville Water Company. And one was the sale of water to surrounding communities that would help lower the cost to LFUCG. And to my best knowledge, I'm not sure they sold anything to anybody. Maybe Owen County, but, you know, all 12 people in Owen County maybe have signed up for it. And, you know, maybe it's just curiosity. The methodology that they arrive at to decide it's going to be a 38 percent rather than a 28 percent or a 48 percent rate increase, It would be nice to know how they arrive at that, especially when they haven't completed the plant or the pipeline yet. And I guess it's possible they say, sorry, this isn't quite our cup of tea now, and walk away from it, and we've already paid for part of it. So hopefully, if for nothing else than cooling everybody's ardor, that someone would come from Kentucky America, and they sure were here a lot when Louisville was talking to us, I promise you that. And you know, we aren't going to, it's not going to be an ugly situation, it's just a matter of trying to find out the information that we don't have at this point. And generally, you know, even though I'm sure our law department is doing a good job in planning how they're going to respond in dealing with the PSC, it's not exactly an apples under apples type of communication. And as far as KU is concerned, I'm not real happy with that either, because most of the costs of the ice storm that they're trying to recapture is ex-LG&E territory, west of Kentucky, that took the biggest hit on the ice storm, and we're going to end up having to pay for it. So maybe we ought to invite them down, too. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member James. Thanks, Mayor. Vice Mayor, I don't have a copy of the resolution in front of me. Is it asking for someone to come and present directly or just for them to respond in whatever method is appropriate for them? The resolution is asking for them to come in to the council. And that's the only way that you would move this forward is with that in there? So if the issue were them coming versus them responding in writing or whatever? Council Member James, my view on this is that as a vendor to the city, as a contractor to the city, They came and they advocated to this council for support for this plant and for the pipeline. And now they're asking for, cumulatively, a 62% increase, and it's based 91% on the new plant, the $161 million plant. And it is appropriate within any contractual environment that I'm aware of that you would be able to ask questions of the vendor. Where are you on your plan? Right. And give us an update. Just exactly what Council Member Beard was saying. Yeah, I'm not disputing the asking of the question and the response. I'm just talking about the method in which you receive the response and whether you're dead set on having a person standing at the mic versus getting a response from someone. And I'm not saying one way or the other. I'm just saying if that's a reason, if anyone around the council were thinking, well, maybe we just, the issue is we want a response. We want to ask a question and we want to get a response. would it have to do with someone being here or whether it would be a list of questions where people respond? That's all I'm saying. I'm thinking that this is the appropriate venue because it's the same venue in which the project was presented. That's it. Any further discussion? Council Member McCoy. Just a question for you, actually. When you did ask them to come and appear, didn't you? I did, and the council clerk's office also sent them a letter. Okay, so I think there's some misrepresentation as to that you didn't ask them to even come or anything like that, but you did ask them to come. Was their only response the Lindsey Ingram letter, was that how they chose to respond, or what was their response to you? My conversation was to extend the invitation sometime prior to the receipt of the letter, and then I took the letter as their response both to the letter from the council clerk's office and my own telephone conversation. Okay. I just wanted to make sure that, you know, it was for the record that the mayor has asked them to come and that they chose not to, and I think the reasons stated were that they didn't want to, you know, corrupt or taint the process of the PSC or whatever that language was, but it has been asked from the administration for them to come. And, you know, as I have said before, I'm, you know, glad that we are intervening, and I don't appreciate this rate increase, but as I read the franchise agreement, Dave, that you just read to us, you know, the obligation to stand at the mic and to stand up here and field questions and so forth like that from there is not necessarily something that's spelled out that they have to do, but if we do have questions, very specific questions, there's nothing stopping us from sending them to them to that designee and saying we want that response back. Now, with what they do with that, you know, we go from there. If they choose not to respond to those questions, then that's another matter. But I don't know if we've actually sat down and said, these are our concerns or I want to see your marketing plan or those types of things in that format. But it certainly sounds like to me in the franchise agreement that we have the right to do that as council members or as a council proper. But I just wanted to make sure I remember that correctly. Thank you, Mayor. Any further discussion? Question on the floor then, Council Member Lawless. As I recall, the council passed a resolution asking the mayor to invite them to come here, and they refused. And I really appreciate Council Member Blue's comments about, and Council Member Beard, I think, also about this may be an election year, but it's also a rate increase year. And it saddens me that anything and everything that any of us do, people are going to accuse us of doing it for political reasons. We're not going to get any business done that way. And I think this is a very reasonable request. And as I recall, and I wasn't on the council then, but I was following it very closely, the PSC came back to the council, I believe, on Christmas Eve and said, you all need to look at this closer before you just let them do what they want to do. And that there was... And so, Mayor, you're laughing at me, so correct me if I'm wrong, but... That was a gross mischaracterization of what the PSC said. The PSC did come back to us and say they had not heard from us. They invited us to make some comment, take some position with regard to whether the proposal from Kentucky American or the Louisville Water Pipeline proposal was preferable from our perspective, but it was not as characterized. In other words, the PSC came back to the council and said, you all need to weigh in and make a decision. and that there was a person at the University of Kentucky that was going to examine that for a contract of $15,000, and the council, almost in a tied vote, decided not to pay that $15,000 for a consulting service. Excuse me. Go ahead. So all those things being said, I'm going to support this, and I would urge everyone else to also. But thank you. Any further discussion? All right. Those in favor of adding the resolution to Thursday night's docket, please indicate by voting aye electronically. Those opposed vote nay electronically. Appears as though the motion carries by vote of 9 to 5. Anything further on the council report, Vice Mayor Gray? All right. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Mayor. I just had a couple of announcements. There is, on Thursday, I'm doing a pass around for the back to school rally. And I just wanted to kind of give everyone a heads up that they are looking to get some funds this year. And I appreciate the support in any way you can. And they're looking for $1,000, so if we could come up with that, I would certainly appreciate it. On Monday evening at 6.30 at the Village Branch Library, there's a Cardinal Valley Neighborhood Association board meeting. And this Saturday, from 10 until 2 p.m., there's a Gainesway Pond Stormwater Celebration. Council Member Myers might have something to say. I don't see him, but I wanted to invite everyone. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Mayor. Just a couple of things. Just, again, wanted to reiterate that tomorrow starts the Creative Cities Summit and an opportunity for folks not only here in Lexington to hear from and meet with and interface with some of the premier thinkers of our time, but also for them to see Lexington and see it anew. And with that said, you know, we are embarking on the physical construction of downtown, being jackhammered up and a whole lot of inconvenience for the next few months for folks coming through town. And I do think, Mayor, it would be appropriate if there are renderings of what's coming next that we make sure that those are available on the website and out there on the street so people can see what this is rather than just for jackhammering up sidewalks and so forth. That's a valid point. Commissioner Webb, I know we've had some drawings from the architects that show something of what the streetscape may look like going forward. Would it be possible for us to add those to an appropriate spot on our website? Yes. I'll work with Susan Straub and see what we can get together to put on there. And it might also be helpful in that vein if we could do something in the way of a sign downtown that would actually show those drawings as well. I think there's one at Cheapside that shows a Cheapside development, but it might be worthwhile to do one on Vine and one on Main as well. I'll look into this. I appreciate it. Like I say, I think folks are going to love the end product. I think going through it is going to be not so much fun, And if folks can keep their eye on their prize and recognize what it is and why we're doing it, that that might help alleviate some of the frustration that we're bound to feel. But it is great to see projects that we put in the pipe almost a decade ago, and we've certainly been talking about in earnest for the last five to six years, actually come to light. And I know we're doing the groundbreaking for the Legacy Trail at the Creative City Summit, And the Shiltoe Park Trail is now being cleared right now, which was given money back, gosh, in 2005. And so now you're starting to see evidence of a lot of hard work that people have put in. And I'm just very appreciative to all those folks that have worked so diligently for the last few years to make some of this happen, to put our city in a position to win. So thank you, Mayor. Councilmember Beard, you had a follow-up on that? Just a quick one, and maybe Jay or Council Member McCord can help me on it. Are there booths or tables down there that various entities, and I mean down there, I'm talking about at the Civic Center, that we might be able to put up something where we could put up? I'm certain that we can find some space if, you know, we can work with the administration to get some pictures of what we're doing downtown, putting them at the Creative Cities Summit kind of in the concourse area and that type of thing would probably be beneficial, even on Creative Cities' website. Yeah, because they probably aren't going to, once they're here, they're probably not going to be looking at the website. Exactly. This gives them time to sit and look and, you know, give it a little bit more in-depth, because it is important. Absolutely. Commissioner Webb, I think the question is whether or not those drawings might be displayed at the Creative Cities conference. Is that a possibility? All right. Okay. All right. We'll see if we can make that happen logistically. Mayor, one other thing I failed to mention. How could I forget? We're starting the second Sunday's monthly, starting in April. And it's an escorted, police-escorted bike ride from downtown 10 to 12 miles to an area in Lexington to see the trails that we already have and what's coming. And so this Sunday from 2 to 5 is that opportunity for folks to bring their bike, come meet at the courthouse downtown and have a police-escorted ride. It's not designed for the hardcore crowd or the gearheads or the folks like Council Member Ellinger that don't have any problem doing 40 miles on a bike. It's designed for folks that are just wanting to exercise and to be out, like Council Member Stenet. It's about 10 miles an hour. Anyway, but certainly invite them to come down at 2 o'clock. Thank you, Mayor. Can I ask, Mayor, did you say the court is at Cheapside Park? Okay, good. Thanks. Oh, Cordes. Thanks. Council Member Feigl. Thank you, Mayor. I just have a couple of quick announcements. I'd like to just announce that on Friday at 1 o'clock we'll have a ribbon cutting for a new business in the 5th District. It's Stephen Lawrence Limited Consignment Shop in the Idle Hour Shopping Center. So I'd like to welcome them to the 5th District. And also wanted to announce that on Tuesday the 13th, Lansdowne Merrick Neighborhood Association will be meeting at 730 at Emanuel Baptist Church. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Lawless. Yes, the Ellsford Neighborhood Association monthly meeting will be tonight at 7 p.m. at the Woodland Christian Church, and everybody's welcome to attend. I want to remind people that the Elizabeth Street Neighborhood Association will host a mayor's forum on Thursday, April 15th, at the First Christian Church at the corner of Audubon and Forest. And that meeting will be from 6 to 9. And everybody, it's for the entire 3rd District, but anybody else that would like to attend may also. And I was going to say something about the census, but we've already covered that. The Student Fusion Cleanup Day for Columbia Heights is scheduled for April 17th, and we encourage everybody in the area to join in the fun. They do a great job. And I would also like to refer to, I guess, services, the street paving list review, review the street paving list and how that calculation came up. I still am unclear because I had a list with poor streets, and then they had a list with a lot of streets, and I'm still very unclear. So if we could put that into Services Committee and have a report on exactly how those calculations were arrived, I'd appreciate that. That's a motion. Do I hear a second? I have a motion by Council Member Lawless and a second by Council Member Beard to put the street paving list into the Services Committee. We'll review any discussion. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. The motion carries. And the other thing is I would like to request a report. I understand the paychecks were out, messed up, for lack of a better word. That's the accountant in me, messed up. And if we could have a report about how that happened, how it's being resolved, I would appreciate it. Thank you. There was an audit report circulated some time ago about that. Have you hit it? I don't know if you want something more than what was in there. I read the audit report, and it didn't say anything about this last episode of the paychecks. All right. This was this past Friday, paychecks. were off $20 to $30, $40, somewhere in that neighborhood. And the audit report didn't have anything to do with that. It did not address anything last week. I'll ask Commissioner Rumpke to get together with you and figure out how best to do that. Okay. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mayor. Saturday, Council Member Henson, I think she stepped out, I announced earlier that we're having this celebration of the Gainesway Pond revitalization project, I guess we'll call it. And it's been a culmination of probably about eight years' worth of work. I want to thank the mayor for putting in the funding that was needed to finish the project. Greatly appreciative of that. It's going to be Saturday, this coming Saturday, from 10 o'clock to 2 o'clock on Gainesway Pond. It's right down below Tate's Creek High School. And I don't think the fountain will be in yet that soon. But it's an awesome project. It really turned out, it's just incredible, really, the transformation that we're making over that neighborhood and the community. So I really invite not only the East District, but everybody to come out and hope we see some council members, administration members out just celebrating what we've done over there and the change we've made. So, again, it's Saturday, 10 o'clock in the morning until 2 o'clock p.m., Gaines Way Pond, right below Tate Creek High School. Thank you. Thank you. Does any other council member wish to make a report? I have just a couple of things quickly. As you may be aware, we have solicited folks to sign a petition in regard to the Kentucky American rate increase. We have about 4,000 folks who have signed that petition now, and if you know of others who would like to participate, encourage them to go to the website, and they can click on that pretty easily and get to it. The other thing that I wanted to mention was there was a letter to the editor on Friday, as I recall, I recall indicating that the mayor's office had directed a traffic or parking enforcement effort in a bail court neighborhood in the middle of the night. That allegation was wrong on a number of different counts. First of all, we had a request from a citizen at Masterson Station that we step up our enforcement of people parking on the wrong direction some several months ago, And so we forwarded that to the police department. They found, in fact, there were people doing that in the Masterson Station area, and I think they issued some citations in connection with that. I gather they then decided to expand their evaluation of improper parking in the community, but we did not direct them to be ticketing people in the middle of the night in Belcourt or anyplace else. that I don't make it a habit of telling the police how to do their job, where to do it, when to do it. And so I just wanted to clarify that. And Council Member Lulles, to the extent you hear similar allegations from constituents in the future, I would appreciate you giving us a call so we can clarify that. But let me finish. The author of that particular letter indicated there were people who were illegally parked, and if that ordinance needs to be revised in some fashion or another, I hope you'll take it up and revise it. But since the job of the Council is to make the rules and the job of the executive branch is to enforce them, we'll continue to enforce the laws as they are written until such time as they're changed. Council Member Wallace. Excuse me, Mayor. Just for clarification, I was called by a lot of constituents in Belcourt, and we called the parking authority, and then we called the police and the police department, and I have the email. I said, well, it must have been a rookie because we don't know that. Now, the reason they were calling me is several years ago, apparently, the same thing happened, and a council member of DeCamp got their tickets taken care of, and they wanted me to do so also. So we contacted the police department, and they said, must have been a rookie, we don't do that. And then they sent another email and said it was, I don't have the, but we were instructed by the mayor's office to ticket cars going the wrong way in Belcourt, and I do have that email from the police department. So that being said, they may have been mistaken, but, you know. That information is not correct, and I'd appreciate you sharing the email with me so we can rectify it. I'll be glad to. And Lieutenant Sergeant Pape, Lieutenant Pape, is aware that that happened. I mean, he called us and talked to us about it. Thank you. And that's Council Member Feigler. I'd just like to add that this must be something they're doing community-wide because it has also happened in the 5th District on a lot of streets where historically people have parked on the wrong side of the road. And they started ticketing there about two months ago. So this must be something that's going on community-wide. I suspect it is community-wide because there's no, you can't have selective enforcement. If you're going to enforce the rules, you need to enforce the rules. But again, to the extent that is a bad rule and we want to let people part as they are wishing to do, that's fine. We can change the rules. Council Member Lawless. I'm sorry. I also want to clarify that the reason I told the constituents that is because they were expecting me to fix it. And I said, I can't fix it. The police department doesn't work for the council. They work for the mayor. So I wasn't doing it in any way to, but I was getting pressure because Council Member DeCamp had fixed it before. Well, lest there be any confusion, I don't fix parking tickets either. So that's no point in calling on that front. All right. Anything further? Any comment from the public? That takes us down to the last item on the agenda, which Councilmember Stenet has a motion about. Thank you, Mayor. I move that we go into closed session pursuant to CalRS 61.8101C for the purpose of discussing pending litigation. I have a motion by Council Member Stenet and a second by Council Member Blues to go into closed session. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. To find out, according to age, where that child is. Some of the things people might have heard is if you are over 85%, then you're in the overweight category. If you're over 95%, then you're in the obese category. So it's a really good tool for us. It helps us gauge where our children are and what type of intervention we need to make as far as diet and exercise or changes in their lifestyle. Okay. So how is this different than years ago? ago? Well, it's interesting that the percent of children from the ages of 6 to 11 in this category of overweight and obese has gone up dramatically in the last four decades from about 4% to about 17%. And these are amazing numbers if you think about that. They've quadrupled. But if you think about where we were four decades ago, we were in the 1970s. Things were a little more simple. There were no home computers. There weren't home gaming systems. Most homes had just one television, a lot less channels, a lot less access.