🎶 Let's go ahead and call the work session to order, please. The first item on today's agenda is public comment on issues that are on today's agenda. Does any member of the public wish to address the council? All right, we'll move along. We don't have a docket to approve. We do have a couple of summaries to approve. Is there a motion to approve those two? Council Member Ellinger has moved the approval of the two summaries. Council Member Myers has seconded that motion. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Since we don't have any budget amendments, the next item are new business items. Is there a motion to approve? We have a motion by Council Member Beard and a second by Council Member Myers to approve the new business items. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Opposed, no. Mayor, I had a question. I'm sorry. I guess you didn't see me. I missed you. Council Member Feigl. I'd like to ask a question on A. Possibly Mike Webb, I guess. Hi, Commissioner Webb. Pretty good. How are you doing? I just had a question about the usage of the water quality management fee for this particular item. This is purely maintenance of a green space, is that correct? That is. That is for the maintenance. I believe in the memo it states how much the annual maintenance is. We are getting those approved in environmental quality before they come to you. Is this one of the first items relative to maintenance that we're going to be taking from the water quality fee, or have we been doing this ongoing? Go ahead. We actually have money programmed in the water quality fee for maintenance mowing of greenways, as well as some of the properties that we've purchased and torn down as part of the flood mitigation, and it's programmed in. This is one of the first ones I've seen this fiscal year, though. Yeah. This is one of the first ones that I've noticed. Do we have an estimate on how much will be, how much is budgeted for maintenance out of that fee? It's in the budget, and I believe, and I'm going from memory and round figures, it's around $125,000 to $130,000 annually. Annually? Okay. I know that one of the things we're trying to do with that fee is to allow it to accrue so that we have a basis for bonding in the future. And so I'm concerned about spending down those funds. Well, this was one of the items that was programmed by the task force and decided that that would be a portion spent on that. And as far as I know, water quality has been true to that apportionment. Okay. I would just like to have a better handle on how much of those funds, what percentage of those funds we are actually spending, as opposed to allowing them to accrue. Okay. I can get you that number. Okay. I appreciate that. Sure. Thank you. Council Member Gordon. Well, and in relation to that question, one of the things that I requested in the Water Resources Oversight Committee was that we have a look at not only what's being spent, what's being accrued, but how that tracks with the financial model that was recommended on which the council based its vote for the water quality fee. So we will be getting a look at it in relation to the financial model, which I think might help in that regard too. Any further discussion on the new business items? Then all in favor of approving those, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Council Member Gordon, do you have our planning committee report? Yes. Thank you, Mayor. The planning committee met on September 21st, and the first issue on our agenda was fencing regulations, which was being heard for the second time in committee. And Chris King, our director of planning, brought forth some requested changes. And there was discussion about orientation of facing the side of fences. And research across the country, which he had done, said there's no right or wrong way which side of a fence to put out. And the discussions all revolved around fences facing public property. And so the motion coming forward to the council is a motion to forward to the full council to initiate a text amendment, which, as you know, means that if this initiation of a text amendment passes, it will go to the planning commission and then come back to the council. So the motion is to put on the docket a request to initiate a text amendment incorporating option two, which says fence orientation abutting public property in all zones other than agricultural zones where fencing is located adjacent to a public street, part or other publicly owned property. The fencing shall be installed with the structural members or framing directed inward toward the property. And the fence height guidelines, which can be seen on our website or on the last page of the planning report, this was seconded by Councilmember Feigl and the committee approved it without dissent. And I move that forward to the full council. Second. I have a motion by Councilmember Gorton, second by Councilmember Blues. Any discussion? All in favor, please indicate by saying Aye. Aye. Opposed, No. Motion carries. And I might add for anyone watching, this would apply only to new fencing. Any current fencing would be grandfathered in. The second item on our agenda was Secure by Design. And with apologies to Chief Bastin, B-A-S-T-I-N, if you can correct, I guess Vicki isn't here, correct the spelling of his name. Secure by Design is a program which originally started in England and covered eight focus areas which are designed to make communities safer. And so we heard from the chief and we heard from Greg Jones from the police department and had a lively discussion about secure by design as a way to reduce crime within our own community. If this is adopted, it's my understanding from Chief Bastin, we would be the first city in the country to adopt this community wide. And it involves a number of things, including design of windows, design of doors, many items that ensure safety of homes and the community. There is a number which the public can call. It's 859-258-3600, which is the police administrative number if you have questions about the Secure by Design program. And after discussion, which involved the question of whether if the council approves this, there would be only certain vendors of doors and windows, et cetera, as sole source vendors to which Chief Bastin said no, that would not be the case. So the motion coming forward to the council, which was made by Dr. Blues and committee, is to move this resolution for Secure by Design program forward to the full council and the motion passed in committee without dissent. So moved. I have a motion by Council Member Gordon and a second by Council Member Crosby. Any discussion? Council Member James. Thank you, Mayor. Council Members, you may remember or you may recall that the resolution came to council, a work session prior to being placed into council committee, and some of the work that happened between that work session and the time that was in committee involved me working with public safety to check the wording for the resolution. And the wording was critical because some of the language there was, a lot of the language was just really from a public safety, in my opinion, it was from a public safety standpoint, not necessarily planning, and didn't necessarily reflect the sentiment of some of the detailed small area plans that I've worked on with my district, central sector and East End specifically. I worked on the language and was good with the language that we changed and felt pretty confident with it. And then on the Thursday when the packet was released that this was to be dealt with in the planning committee, I received some additional information, which caused me a little bit of concern. It was some more detailed information regarding the secure by design, pretty detailed information. Some in-depth research had been done. And I had some concerns about things, some of the things Council Member Gorton mentioned that were addressed at the meeting, such as if a product had to be certified specifically by the U.K., someone, not U.K., University of Kentucky, but over in England, because this is a program that's based from there, that was the practice that they used. What they did, which I think was really innovative, is any product that was certified by them, they were able to work with the manufacturers and they used the funding from the manufacturers to fund the program. So their government was not out additional funding. It was being funded by the things which allowed for the safety or the security on its own, which I think is a really innovative way to fund, rather than tapping into existing coffers and, you know, hiring more people and such that come out of funding that wouldn't be for voluntary programs, which is what this would be, a voluntary program. So after those concerns, plus some additional ones, which had to do with why haven't other police departments developed this method, and knowing that we have a lot of cities that have a lot higher crime rate than Lexington, and if this were so effective, why wouldn't other cities adopt this? I just think there's still some unanswered questions. And I know that there's been a presentation here and that it appears that, you know, again, presentation sounds really great, but this additional information that I received really kind of triggered some things in me that made me think we need to ask some more questions about funding, about manpower or womanpower for the program. Are there different organizations or associations involved with developing home building and planning before we move forward with this? I just think a little bit more research and maybe we could even place it into a council. We could have an ad hoc group where the council could work with public safety. I'd be willing to offer those suggestions, but I won't be able to support the motion today. I think it sounds great, but everything that glimmers is not gold, I think. So I just want to delve a little bit more into it, and I'd be willing to work on that. If anyone would vote no on this motion, I'd be willing to lead a group to have a further discussion about this. Thanks, Mayor. Any further discussion on Councilmember Gordon's motion? Councilmember Martin? Councilmember Gordon, could you read your motion again for us? Yes, the motion was to move forward to the full council a resolution supporting the Secure by Design program. Kind of a simple motion. Councilmember Crosby? Councilmember James, do you have a timeline for when you would like to see your work, if you did like an ad hoc committee or something, to review the Secure by Design? I know they did a study in one of my neighborhoods, and I found the study to be effective. Of course, it was on an existing neighborhood, but if there's things that you see as a committee member that need to be tweaked, do you have a timeline that you might look at to bringing it forward to the council? It would have to be by December. So, you know, I can make it a priority to have it brought forward by the time I leave council. Thank you. Thanks. Anything further? Vice Mayor Gray? Thank you, Mayor. Councilmember James, in the discussions about this, and I think in my conversations, I know I've been acquainted with Derek Paulson, who has advanced this, and you have, too, and I know that you have a genuine interest in these issues, and so I'm inclined to listen more carefully to your concerns about this, and I appreciate the spirit of your inquiry and your asking councilmembers if they'd be willing to participate with you, and in that spirit, I would support a motion that would encourage the action that you're taking, and I would be willing to participate, because I do think that this is really important and that it get off on the right foot with a full understanding of its implications and impacts and opportunities is really valuable. Any further discussion? Councilmember Cross? Councilmember James, was Dr. Paulson part of the presentation, I guess last week, when you all discussed this? No. Thank you. All right. It looks like we're ready to vote. Those in favor of bringing that item to the full council, please indicate by voting aye electronically. Those opposed, vote nay electronically. Motion carries. All right. Just a moment. Clerk has requested that councilmembers re-vote, please. It appears as though 12 councilmembers have voted. So, Councilmember Beard, do you wish to vote, or have you? Okay. All right. And Councilmember Myers? We're re-voting now. All right. Now we have 14 votes. The motion carries by a vote of 10 to 4. The third item on our agenda was the Parks Master Plan funding, and Councilmember Feigl has been chairing a committee to investigate parks funding and this committee has found a model in Louisville, which is a parks conservancy, which seems to be very effective for Louisville, and it does require setting up a 501C organization, a nonprofit. We had Jerry Hancock, Director of Parks and Recreation, talk a little bit about the current setup with our parks, which has a fund within the Bluegrass Community Foundation to which funds can be given for the parks. And the conservancy in Louisville is an advocacy group as well as a fundraising group and has raised considerable funds over the years to go back into the Louisville parks. This conservancy group, if it were formed here in Fayette County, Mr. Hancock did not see it replacing the existing nonprofit groups which work for our parks. And so from this discussion, a motion was made by Councilmember Feigl, which I bring forward to ask the Vice Mayor to appoint a task force made up of members of the Parks Advisory Board, the Planning Committee, and the University of Kentucky Center for Nonprofits to pursue setting up a 501C nonprofit parks foundation and report back to the Planning Committee. So I bring forward this motion, which passed without dissent in the committee. Second. I have a motion by Councilmember Gorton and a second by Councilmember Feigl to request the appointment of a task force to evaluate the creation of a foundation for parks. Yes, with those three specific groups involved. Any discussion on that motion? I have. Councilmember Feigl. We did quite a bit of investigating in this, about this conservancy, and it would not only be a 501C3 that could accept contributions to parks, but also would be an advocacy group. And the reason that this needs to be sent to a task force specifically for this reason is there are about 11 steps that have to be taken in order to set up this tax-exempt organization. And part of that is determining what your bylaws are, what your mission is, creating a board of directors. It's a very complex task, and I offered, you know, the Planning Committee, if they would like for it to come back to our task force, or if they would like for us to continue exploring other options for creative funding. And I think the consensus of the Planning Committee was that they would like to go ahead and assign this to a small group that would begin to work on the bylaws and the description of the board of directors, et cetera. So that's the reason that we're setting up a separate task force, just to focus on this one item. Anything further? Seeing no further discussion, we'll proceed to vote. Those in favor of Council Member Gorton's motion, please indicate by saying aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. The fourth item on our agenda was tree-related regulations. And President of the Tree Board, Ms. Karen Angelucci, came before our committee with some suggested changes to the ordinance, specifically some which involve corridors around Fayette County, and how these changes might help with enforcement and maintaining of landscape, particularly in corridor situations. We heard a little bit from our law department via Ed Gardner, and we heard from Todd Johnson from the Home Builders Association, who expressed that their organization still had some questions about any proposed changes. So this item will be kept in committee and will be discussed again at our next Planning Committee meeting on October 19th. The Liberty Road project was not heard because there was no report available, and the Newtown Pike extension status was not heard because there was no report available. And with that, our meeting was adjourned. So that completes my report. Any questions for Council Member Gorton? Thank you very much. Council Member Myers has made what I think is a pretty good suggestion, and that is that we go ahead and proceed with the presentation on general fund budget position eliminations prior to hearing from the Internal Audit Board. Is there any objection to adjusting the agenda in that fashion? All right, let's go ahead. And Ms. Jarvis, if you would please come on up. I'm going to let you proceed. Good afternoon, Mayor and Vice Mayor and members of the Council. I'm here at the request of Council Member Henson to do a brief update on the FY11 general fund budget position or positions that were proposed for elimination in the FY11 budget. In the budget, it was proposed that 25 part-time or seasonal positions would be eliminated, as well as 17 permanent employees. Of those 17, one was due to a closure of the Avon golf course. One was from reprogramming of Winburn Community Center. So both of those were with the Division of Parks and Recreation. Five were through the food service from Day Treatment and Family Care Center being sent to the Fayette County Public Schools. And then 10 were from workflow realignments. And those 10 were from the Division of Human Resources and the Division of Risk Management. In the timeline, when the mayor's budget was delivered on April the 13th, divisions where those employees were working, the division director and or commissioner met with those employees to let them know that their position had been slated for elimination. At the same time, on 4-28, a letter was sent from Human Resources to all the impacted employees. What that letter did was basically offer the employees the opportunity to come in, meet with someone in Human Resources to go over what their opportunities were as far as applying for other positions, to discuss with them the opportunity for employee assistance and answer any other questions that they may have. On May the 3rd, we sent an invitation to training to them, and then we also sent a termination information packet to each of those employees. The termination packet basically was outlining anything involving their vacation, their sick leave accruals, their retirement benefits, COBRA, and what was available to them if their position is eliminated. The invitation to training on 5-3, that training occurred on 5-7. We invited all of those employees to a training in-house in our computer lab to show them how to go online and complete an application through Urban County Government self-service. On 5-20, we had a representative from the Kentucky Retirement System come in. We invited all of them to that meeting to meet as a group to understand what happens through the retirement process and how you go about applying for retirement, and then that representative stayed on staff or stayed there to meet with them individually if they chose to. A couple of other things that we did on May the 17th, there was a resolution that allowed us to advertise internally for one week all the vacancies that we had, and that went through June the 30th. And then on 7-1 of 10, a second resolution came forward, and we were advertising all positions for two weeks internally before we post them externally, and that will be in effect through the remainder of this calendar year. We started sending e-mails to all LLF UCG employees, advising them of all opportunities that were available in-house and how to apply for those jobs. And since then, in April, we've had 49 positions. That excludes the police and fire promotionals that we've advertised. So we've had 49 positions that we've advertised internally since that time. And we've also had 91 training workshops, 27 of those being computer-related, where people could get the computer skills if it was so needed to apply for one of those vacancies. You should have been provided a copy of these slides as well as a chart, because I know you can't see that chart on the PowerPoint, but it's just updating you on where those positions stand. Of the 17 positions on the chart you were provided, what I've started with here is below the dark line on the chart to let you know the people that have received positions. The top three on that chart have received internal. One of them is taking a demotion to another area of government. Two of them received lateral transfers to other divisions. The fourth one down on the list, she retired. The next four on the list were in the food services area, and their positions were eliminated at the end of the last fiscal year. And then the last person on that list resigned from her position. So that leaves us with a total of six people in government and their status of where they stand as far as looking for positions, the remaining individuals. Now on this list, as you see, there are 15 individuals listed, and we said there were 17 positions slotted for layoffs. There were additional two positions in human resources that were slotted for layoffs, but they worked themselves out in the process. One person was applying for a promotion during that process, so it fixed itself, and another person retired. So there would have been six as opposed to the four in human resources. So that's why you have 15 on your chart, but the information said 17. Just bringing this information forward to you to let you know that these positions have were budgeted just through the remainder of this calendar year, so the funding for the positions that are left, these six individuals, that funding will end on December the 31st. Thank you. Any questions for Ms. Jarvis? All right. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Leslie, for coming and giving us this update. I know I met with you probably about a month ago because I was concerned that these folks' jobs would end and they wouldn't be prepared, but it looks to me that human resources has definitely taken some responsibility to help place these folks in other employment. I know that this is an inter-gov committee, and I would like to, I'm not sure there was some confusion about what was put in committee, but I would like to look at those ordinances relating to position of the elimination and layoff of employees and that process that's used. I don't think this is something that's happened very often at all in government. And as we become more efficient, of course, our economy certainly hasn't helped, but I would certainly like to look at that process. But thank you for giving us this update. Okay? You're welcome. Thank you. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. Leslie, did you verify the retirement benefit timeframes? I know we heard 20 years you've got to be here to get retirement. We heard 27. What is it for health insurance and for full retirement? How long does an employee have to be here? Did we look at that? For full retirement, the person has to work, and I have that information in my office. There is a difference in years of service with urban county government and retiring. You have to contribute into retirement for the full 20 years, and that will impact being able to retire with full medical benefits. You don't start paying into the retirement until you've been here for six or seven months. So there would be a difference in you may be able to resign with 20 years of service with urban county government, but still not be maybe six or seven months short of being able to retire with full benefits. Now, the thing to keep in mind with retiring through the state with full benefits, you have to be eligible by your age in order to retire. So that would mean if a person left today at age 45, they would have to leave that sitting there until they're eligible to retire due to their age or join another job where they were paying into that. Okay. And what is that age, eligible age? Sixty-five, I believe. It is 65. Okay. Well, it depends on the age has changed, so it depends on when you came in, were hired. There was a change of when the age changed within the past couple of years. Right. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Mayor. I just had a quick follow-up question. Are any of the folks left on this list close to that retirement to where it would impact them considerably? Or, you know, like for instance, is there someone that has been here 19-plus years that it would affect their retirement and being able to get the full benefit? You know, they're very close to reaching that obligation. The only thing that we can provide information to is what people have paid into retirement. We cannot access their personal retirement accounts. So a person could possibly have been here 19-and-a-half years, but if they've chosen to, if they've had breaks in service that we're not aware of, or if they haven't been paying or bought time into retirement, they may be eligible for things that we're not aware of. We can't call the Kentucky retirement and ask them the status of these individuals. These individuals have to allow us to do that on their behalf and give us permission to. And no one has come to you with any issue about losing their retirement? There's only one person on this list, and he said that he was eligible to retire. But that was him bringing that forward and saying that that was the path he was taking. Okay. But I cannot verify that as factual. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Wallace. I don't want to say the name, but it says one of the individuals in HR was forced to resign. Yes. Was that the employee that had 19-and-a-half years in? No, ma'am. Thank you. Anything further? Mayor. Sorry. Council Member Gordon. Just one other follow-up question. Leslie, on the bottom half of the chart, on the two individuals who applied internally, is there any change to their status, or do you anticipate any change to their status at the bottom of the chart, the two yeses? I'm sorry. That may put you on the spot. We have not been asked to calculate salaries or been told that there has been an offer for a position. Okay. All right. Thank you. If there's no further discussion, thank you very much for the presentation. And now we'll turn to Ms. Burke, who's the chair of the Internal Audit Board. You'll have 15 minutes, and then we'll go to questions. Thank you. I am Jennifer Burke. I am acting on behalf of the Internal Audit Board today, and we have been asked to come and present to the working session an update on a number of things that have occurred over the last few months. So let me put in front of you our agenda today. What we'd like to do is introduce and provide a little bit of background on the Internal Audit Board, also a little bit of history for the Internal Audit Board. I'd also like to present to you a history of the investigation that many of us are familiar with, but this will give us an opportunity to present that from a linear position, talk a little bit about how the investigation started and where it has subsequently gone. I'd also like to bring to you some fundamental internal audit principles and standards that I think are relevant to the conversation. And then lastly, we do have embedded in the presentation that you received the response that was put together to the Special Investigations Committee's report that's been prepared by the Director of Internal Audit, and I'll walk through that as well. What I'd like to suggest, because this presentation does build upon itself, I'd like to suggest that I walk through the details of the presentation, and then at the end I'd like to open for comments and questions at that time. We do have a number of our board members here, as well as the Director of Internal Audit and others that can help to address any questions that you may have. To start out, the Internal Audit Board, the current chair position, many of you are aware, is currently open, so I am today acting as the acting chair. I was the vice chair up to that point. I've been on the board since 2009. My background and the reason that I was asked to serve on this board is I do have 20-plus years of internal audit experience. I'm a partner in a local CPA firm, Crow Horwath. We're the eighth largest in the country, and I'm based here in Lexington. As far as certifications are concerned, I am a CPA, a certified public accountant. I do and have practiced on the external audit side, but substantially all of my 20-plus year career has been on the internal audit side, and that is generally where I practice. I'm also a certified risk professional, meaning that I'm involved in enterprise-wide risk management, those types of things for organizations, helping to manage risk, particularly with financial institutions. That's where I tend to spend that time. And then I'm also a certified fraud specialist, as well. As many of you may know when you talked about my resume in the appointment process, I'm also a speaker on these topics. So this is the speaking portion of what I'm doing today is actually what I do for a living. I would like to tell you that normally it's a little more dynamic and a little more exciting. Our topic today is pretty straightforward in dealing with a substantial amount of technical information. So on my behalf, I do apologize that we will have a lot of technical information to talk about today. Other members of the committee, Ed Lane is a council member on the board. He was appointed in 2009, same time I was. Linda Rumke, as Commissioner of Finance, serves on the board and has been on the board since October of 2009. George Myers serves on the board, as well. He was appointed back in 2007, I believe March of 2007. Rebecca Langston, as Council Administrator, is a non-voting member of the board since September of 2007. And then Joe Kelly, Senior Advisor for Management, is also a non-voting member and has been on the committee since 2008. What you may notice there is the dates tell you that all of us have been on the committee no longer than 2007. So you'll see on the next slide, Dr. David Stevens is here with us today, as well. And we've asked Dr. Stevens to be here with us because he served on the Intergovernmental Committee that formed the subcommittee that actually advised the 2002 Council on how to set up the internal audit function, as well as the Internal Audit Board. So in anticipation of any questions that you might have regarding the structure, original formation, et cetera, Dr. Stevens has been gracious enough to join us today and will help to answer any questions you might have there. Sorry, point of order. As far as I remember, the motion that came forward was to have someone from the internal audit come with their responses regarding the investigative committee. And I don't know if some of this is appropriate. And with a 15-minute presentation, I don't know if we'll get to that point if we're going back through the history of internal audit. Maybe I'm wrong about the motion, but that was the understanding. Council Member Lane, did you make that motion? I feel that the history of the Internal Audit Board and the way it was set up in 2002 has a bearing on how it's been operating at the current time. So I think it is relevant to the presentation. And given the public interest in this particular topic, I'm not going to try to unduly constrain the members of the board from having the opportunity to speak to this issue. Another point of order. I mean, again, it's about the motion. It's not about feelings. Well, I am making a ruling from the chair that Ms. Burke's presentation is in order. If you wish to appeal the decision of the chair, Council Member James, you're welcome to do so. But my ruling as chair is it is in order. I urge a thanks. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. Since the significance of this issue, I'm not sure 15 minutes is going to be appropriate. So I was going to make the motion if she was running low on time to extend it up to 30 minutes. So I'll go ahead and make that motion so it will give us some more time if needed. So I'll make a motion to give her up to 30 minutes. So moved. Second. I have a motion by Council Member Ellinger, seconded by Council Member Myers. Any discussion on that motion? Council Member Lawless. I'd like to add a friendly amendment that we also extend the time for any questions and answers. There is no limit on questions and answers, so it's not necessary. Thank you. Any discussion on the motion to extend that? Can we just clarify the council is not going to be limited to asking two sets of questions? For example, if I ask one set of questions and then somebody else speaks and I ask another one and then I think of another question, in the past we've been told that we've already asked. So it's my understanding that. Well, we have individual council member limits. We don't have any limits on the total amount of time that the council takes other than, I guess, 15 times five. And I would also maybe ask if we give her, Ms. Burke, the 15 minutes and evaluate where we are in the presentation and then extend it at that point. I think that that's probably more reasonable. All right. The motion on the floor is to extend the 30 minutes amount of time for the presentation. Any further discussion? Up to 30 minutes. Council Member Myers. Just for clarification, are you saying then that when council members begin to ask questions, we are going to be limited to the number of times we can ask questions? Yeah, those are the rules. Now, if the council wishes to suspend those rules as far as individual council members are concerned, that's fine. Well, I would move that if we're going to extend the time for the presentation, that we just remove all the rules so that council members have an opportunity to ask the questions they want to ask. Okay. We have a motion to amend Council Member Ellinger's motion to permit unlimited discussion, questions, and answers by council members. Do I hear a second? Second. I have a second by Council Member Crosby. Any discussion on that amendment? All right. Council Member Feigl. I do have somewhere I have to be at 6 o'clock, so if it goes beyond 6, I'll have to excuse myself. Thank you. All right. Any further discussion? Those in favor of Council Member Meyer's amendment, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. And let's see, who were the, well, let's just do an electronic vote. Those in favor, please vote aye electronically. Those opposed to the amendment, please vote no. Crosby. Council Member Crosby. Mayor, excuse me. I don't have a voting screen that will pop up. All right. The question on the floor is on the amendment to eliminate time constraints on council members' questions. That amendment is approved by a vote of 9 to 5. We're now ready to consider the motion as amended, which is to extend Ms. Burke's time up to 30 minutes and to eliminate time constraints on council members. Any discussion? Seeing none, let's move to vote on that. Those in favor of approving that motion, please indicate by voting aye electronically. Those opposed, vote nay. Madam Clerk, if you could reset the screen for us, please. Mayor, could you repeat the motion that we're voting on, please? The motion is to extend Ms. Burke's time up to a total of 30 minutes and to eliminate any time constraints on council members' questions and answers. That motion is approved by a vote of 9 to 4, with Council Member James abstaining. Mayor, I have a point of order question regarding the slide and the history. It's my understanding, with all due respect, and I know Dr. Stephens has a wealth of knowledge, but it's my understanding that Ms. Burke's time up to a total of 30 minutes I know Dr. Stephens has a wealth of knowledge, but it's my understanding that the committee that was formed that made the recommendations to the internal audit was actually chaired by Council Member Mitchell at the time. I was just curious, before we start hearing history, if Mr. Mitchell was invited as well to come to this meeting and present. I don't know the answer to that. Mr. Mitchell was not invited. Dr. Stephens served on the internal audit board for four years. He was part of the intergovernmental committee that voted to form the subcommittee. He served on the subcommittee. We asked him to come here to provide history and background information to the council. So I guess to answer my question is Mr. Mitchell was not invited as chair of the committee. Okay. Thank you. All right. I can't remember where we were on the timing. My recollection was it was about 10 minutes. So we'll start and you'll have I guess until about 4.15. 4.15 it is. Being a speaker, I tend to be an amoeba. I can fill whatever time you will allow me to have. So I'll talk relatively quickly and answer any questions, so bear with me as I do. LFUCG established the internal audit function in 1976. At that time, they chose to then fill two positions in 1979 to perform the internal audit services. The function actually moved to the council in 1982. In January of 2001, the intergovernmental committee that we've been discussing voted without dissent to set up a subcommittee to examine the development of the function as well as how that should be structured, reporting, et cetera. The council members that were involved in that were Mr. Mitchell, Scott Crosby, David Stevens, George Brown, and Bill Farmer. The committee met five times. We did take a look at the minutes of the meeting, and basically one of the most important points, and this I hope is relevant to the conversation a little bit later, is that maintaining independence was a primary concern of both the committee and the subcommittee. Based on the results of that subcommittee's decision and deliberation, the Urban County Council formed the internal audit board and its functions based on the Ordinance 63-2002. The ordinance does state that the authority to determine the board's charter resides with the audit board and not with the council. That also will be a point we'll talk about when we get to the Special Investigative Committee response, and it also obligates the Urban County government to provide the staffing to the internal audit board as it's needed. A couple of pieces of information that I think are relevant with regard to the history of the board, and the first one is governance. Certified internal auditors, and your director of internal audit is a certified internal auditor. They're bound by the Institute of Internal Auditors Code of Ethics and international standards for the professional practice of internal auditing. For my benefit as well as yours, we'll call that standards going forward. A charter is required by the IAEA standards to determine the purpose, the authority, and the responsibility of the internal audit activity. There was a charter approved by the board in March 2003. The Institute subsequently updated their recommendations and standards with regard to charters, and because of that, an amended charter in compliance with those updated standards was actually approved by the IAEA board in March of 2009. The history of the investigation, and I'll go through this relatively quickly, but again I do think it's relevant to the response that you'll see right after this. The LFUCG employee made fraud allegations in both 2008 and 2009 when he completed a fraud risk assessment questionnaire. I'll refer to that as the questionnaire going forward. That was supplied to the external auditor during the annual financial audit. For those of you that are familiar with external audit practices, you will know that SAS 99 requires external auditors to do questionnaires and talk to a number of executives within the organization for which they're providing an audit. It also requires a sampling of others as well, and so this was a standard operating procedure from an audit perspective. In August of 2009, the external auditors brought to the director of internal audit the allegations of fraud made by the employee based on his response to the 2009 questionnaire. The Office of Internal Audit then did a preliminary review to examine those specific fraud allegations, and they used the standards of fraud predication, and I will walk through this with you. Predication is defined by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. You can tell as auditors we like standards, we like processes. The governing guidance that auditors use with regard to fraud investigations is the governance from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, and based on predications of fraud, determined there was no credible evidence of fraud. In order to make sure that we're on the same page with this, if you'll bear with me, I'd like to read to you the definition of predication, and this does come into play in a moment as well. Would the totality of the circumstances lead a reasonable, prudent, and professionally trained person to believe that a fraud has occurred, is occurring, or will occur? The standards clearly articulate that if the answer to this predication question is no, then the fraud investigator must discontinue the examination, and that's specifically cited from the standards. And that's important because when we talk about the Special Investigative Committee's report, there's certainly questions around that, and I want to make sure that you understand that definition of predication and why the process that was followed was followed. Predication is very important. I am a certified fraud specialist. I have been involved in a number of these in the past. It's very particular that you follow standards simply because when you get into the legalities of fraud, when you get into the court side of it and testifying and all of that, it's very important that you have a process that you consistently follow in order to say how you have investigated the fraud. So it's certainly important enough that the predication standards require you to assess that throughout the process. If at any point it's determined that predication can't be supported, then the work must stop. So that's pretty clear. The director of internal audit then discussed the fraud investigation and the resolution with the current chairman. At that time, that was DeWitt Heisel. Board members Heisel, the acting finance director, O'Mara, and Kelly were involved in vetting those allegations. Board chair Heisel did make a determination that the board would not be included in these discussions. And the three points that are important here in that decision were, the first was concerns with regard to the employee's confidentiality requests. It was certainly complicated as well from the external auditor's direct statement that they had made in writing to the employee that his questionnaire responses would be confidential and only used for audit analysis. So that was point number one. The second point was a reluctance to potentially damage the reputation or defame a person against whom the allegations were leveled against. And certainly that comes into play as well when you're in fraud investigations. ACFE clearly articulates how and when communications are to happen in those cases. And then the third piece, which I think is very relevant to this discussion, is advisement from the Department of Law that the KRS governing opening meetings, didn't provide the board the option of going into closed session. So that was the determination by the Department of Law, and so therefore if it had been discussed, the thought was that it would be subject to open records. And so that's why that conclusion was made at that time. The results of the preliminary review that indicated no credible evidence was issued back to the employee via a memo in September of 2009. An open records request was made by the Commissioner of Law in September of 2009 as well, and the Director of Internal Audit complied with the open records request as he was required to do by law. A council member requested copies of the questionnaire in May, and the Director of Internal Audit at that time said he would not release the documents to the council member. Ms. Burke, I apologize for interrupting. Sure. My hearing has called to my attention that my math was faulty, which is why I'm not an auditor, but the vote was 9-4 with one abstention. We do not have the two-thirds vote necessary to suspend the rules, therefore you'll have 15 minutes and all the council members will have to abide by their allotted time. So your time will expire in about four or five minutes. Fabulous. Then I will finish the history of the review. The Director of Internal Audit advised that he would not release the document to the council member, and we talked about that. Because of the conflict of interest, an attorney, Terry Sellers, was asked to advise whether Internal Audit was obligated to release the document, and Sellers released his opinion that basically concluded that no one other than the members of the IA board could receive that document. This became public. We're familiar with that piece of it. The State Auditor was asked by the Director of Internal Audit on May 29th to review the handling of this to determine the adequacy of the review that was performed, and the State Auditor announced that review on June 3rd, the same day that the Special Investigative Committee members were named. The Special Investigative Committee was established on May 25th, and there was a request at that time and a comment by Council Member Crosby asking for that, and it was unanimously established. In June, Chairman resigned based on a council vote to forcibly remove him. It did fail. He chose to resign. There was a subpoena issued on July 15th asking for work papers, and I think we're relatively familiar with that story. Given that I have three minutes, we'll talk about the charter. One of the most important standards, I think, to consider is internal audit has clearly defined a professional obligation to protect the confidentiality of audit work papers and to guard against any actual or perceived impairment to independence and objectivities. And based on that, that's the reason that the audit work papers were not released to the Special Investigative Committee based on the subpoena. Mayor, point of order. Ms. Burke just stated in her comments that I made the motion to form the Special Investigative Committee. Just point of order. It was not Council Member Crosby who made that motion. It was Council Member Beard. Thank you. Well, that's not a point of order. That is just a statement about the presentation by Ms. Burke, and that would be appropriate when we have time to question her about it. So we can take that up at that time. Ms. Burke? I guess, Mayor, respectfully, I question why that wouldn't be a point of order, because it's during her presentation and it's simply false. Thank you. It has nothing to do with a procedural issue. Therefore, it is not a point of order. It is a comment about the substance of her presentation, and that's why it is not a point of order that is appropriate. I will clarify that. My bullet point says in response to allegations by Council Member Crosby, it is not a point of order. In response to allegations by Council Member Crosby, the Council voted unanimously to establish a Special Investigative Committee. In the interest of time, I'm hurrying, and I'm done. That's my time. I'm sorry, Ms. Burke. I think my time is up. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Ms. Burke, for coming in with your report, and I'm sorry that you couldn't finish it. I just have one question for you, or a question, maybe ask some follow-up. It's my understanding that you now have a copy of the draft state auditor's report. Are you going to write the response? If I may, to answer your question, I'd like to cite the letter, because we did receive a draft copy of the report yesterday, actually about 5.30 last night from Auditor Brian Likens with the State Auditor's Office. He left here, as did I, about 7.30 last night, and I read the 123 pages last night. I am not allowed to have any comment to you other than this, so I will read to you what the letter is instructing me on how to handle this. Ms. Burke, as a part of our examination process, we are submitting this draft report to you for review and to offer an opportunity to provide a written response, typically in the form of a letter that will be included in this report. A draft report was also given to the Lexington-Fayette-Urban County Government Mayor to provide a response. Since this is currently a draft report and is still part of the examination process, it is not yet a public document. It is only appropriate to share or discuss the draft document with those involved in preparing the response to the examination. It then goes on to talk about questions, et cetera. So it is my intent to work with the Board to address the response that is needed to answer this. Okay. Thank you. And have you shared with the Board that you have the report yet? That is what I am now officially doing right this minute. I received it at 730 last night. Okay. So are you going to, I know that you can't do it in a public meeting because then it makes it a public document. That's correct. Do you intend to show the report to the different Board members so that they can have input? Any Board members that would like a copy of the report, it is being copied as we speak upstairs in the Internal Audit Department. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, sir. And we are, I would like to stress again, we are bound by confidentiality until the report comes out in final. And Mayor, I think you had a similar meeting prior to our meeting yesterday in case you would like to comment on that. We are subject to the same rules. Any further questions? I would appreciate it if you would discuss the issues of the independence of the Internal Audit Board and how they should operate in relationship to the administration and the council. The, and to answer that, I would like to give you the standards that we're required to follow from an Institute of Internal Audit perspective. One of the things that an auditor has to deal with is the issue of independence. And it's always challenging whether you're an external auditor working outside or you're an in-house internal audit individual. It's very difficult. And because of that, there are very specific standards that auditors are required to follow. The internal audit activity, and this is an IA standards, the internal audit activity must be independent. The interpretation of this standard talks about objectivity. And objectivity requires that internal auditors do not subordinate their judgment on audit matters to others. Threats to that objectivity must be managed at the individual auditor engagement functional and organizational levels. And then the third point here in this slide I think directly addresses your question. And that is that the ordinance that was used to establish the IA board, 63-2002, says the powers, duties of the board include supervising, coordinating, evaluating and implementing the internal audit function of the urban county government. The reason that the Office of Internal Audit reports to the internal audit board versus reporting to either the administration or council is consistent with the requirement to have that independence. It also is consistent, I believe, with the intent of the ordinance. And that provides the internal auditor the ability to remain independent of both the administration and the council and to be objective in making those decisions and through those processes. So that would be my answer to that question. And I will say, any other board members that are in attendance, you are more than welcome to assist in answering questions as you would like. Council Member Crosby. Thank you, Mayor. Ms. Burke, you mentioned independence and how things flow with the organizational chart. And I'm going to take this kind of twofold with our Department of Law and our Division of Internal Audit. I'm assuming you understand or have seen the organizational chart of the Department of Law. But for the public, as we know, we've got a Commissioner of Law at the top, Mr. Askew. Then we've got Keith Horn, who is an attorney who reports to Commissioner Askew. On our LFECG website, it states that the division provides legal advice and assistance to the mayor. And I would assume then all divisions of government. So last year, Commissioner Askew made an open records request after being tipped off that he was subject of an investigation. So we still have this Commissioner, Mr. Askew, as Commissioner of Law. The Director of Internal Audit approaches Mr. Horn, who is under Mr. Askew in the Division of Law. Mr. Horn is also the attorney for the Internal Audit Board, correct? He's the staff attorney who sits in on the Internal Audit Board. Yes, that's correct. So he's a subordinate lawyer to Mr. Askew. Mr. Horn is not on the Internal Audit Board. Mr. Horn has provided open record, open meeting information and advice, legal advice, to me and to the Internal Audit Office for several years because open records is an expertise of his. Okay, so Mr. Horn, who reports to Mr. Askew, gives legal advice to the Internal Audit Board regarding confidential documents. So our subordinate lawyer, Mr. Horn, sees no conflict in rendering advice to the Internal Audit Board that he also has represented and given legal advice to. Based on the advice of Mr. Horn, the subordinate lawyer who works under the Commissioner who is subject of the investigation, he gives advice to turn over the 2009 fraud risk assessment questionnaire redacted, but he does not suggest that the person whose confidentiality has been assured by the Internal Audit Board and the standards that have been cited, he does not make the recommendation that confidentiality be maintained and that the name not be redacted of the person who filed this report. Correct? Put the slides back up, please. This is addressed in detail in part of the slide presentation, and I would submit to the Council that this would be the answer to this question. There's a lot of information, but I will read it, not just for you, but for the public's dissemination. On page 10 of the Special Investigative Committee report, it states the report was handled by the fact that the relevant portions of the 2009 questionnaire were communicated to Commissioner of Law, Patrick Johnson, supervisor, after an open records request was filed the day after review was completed. The 2009 questionnaire with a few redactions was delivered without apparent restriction, without notification to Patrick Johnson and without information to Commissioner of Law. The director of internal audit received open records requests from Commissioner of Law, Logan Askew, for any and all documents relating in any way to any investigation by internal audit or external auditors of LFUCG's placement of insurance in 2008 and 2009. In conjunction with LFUCG attorney Keith Horne, he is the attorney who advises internal audit on all open record requests received by the office. Mr. Horne advised the director of internal audit should provide Mr. Askew the September 22 internal memorandum that was sent to Mr. Johnson. Mr. Horne agreed that the questionnaire completed by Mr. Johnson was a revised at pursuant to KRS 61-878-3, because the questionnaire related to Logan Askew, who is a public agency employee, and because Mr. Askew was the one who had made a specific request, internal audit had to provide the document. The director of internal audit was told he could redact any portion that did not relate to Mr. Askew, and he did so. Okay. So I guess that's all. The time has expired for Ms. Crosby's questions, so if you could wrap up your answer pretty quickly. I was informed, I'll drill down a little bit, we can all read this, and I encourage the public to read this as well, because this is very germane to the whole question. I was notified of Mr. Horne's legal counsel. In an e-mail Mr. Johnson sent to me on August 21st, he stated, I would like to concur with the sharing of the information with anyone outside your office. I did not seek his concurrence regarding the release of the documents to Mr. Askew, because Mr. Horne's interpretation of state law clearly indicated Mr. Askew had a legal right to examine the documents, and state law clearly superseded Mr. Johnson's request for concurrence. I asked Mr. Horne if he if I should say I asked Mr. Horne if I could redact Mr. Johnson's name from the September 22nd internal memorandum addressed to Mr. Johnson before giving it to Mr. Askew. Mr. Horne advised I could not. I understood this to mean that Mr. Johnson's name could not be redacted from the 2009 questionnaire as well. And I would like to point out that the report says that there were a few redactions. About 40% of that questionnaire was actually redacted before it was given to Mr. Askew. All right. Thank you. I would like to make a motion that we extend counsel's time from five minutes to ten minutes for each time they ask. So moved. Second. I have a motion and a second to suspend the rules to allow each council member ten minutes rather than the normal five. And you'd have two opportunities. All right. Motion to suspend the rules is not debatable. So we'll proceed to vote. It requires a two-thirds vote. All in favor of suspending the rules to extend the council member's time from five to ten minutes, please indicate by voting aye electronically and those opposed vote nay electronically. It would appear as though that motion fails by a vote of nine to five. It is, it requires two-thirds of the total membership. If the parliamentarian will confirm that. If council member sees that the question that they asked is not being answered and I tried respectfully to I don't want to say interrupt, but Mr. Salih wasn't I didn't have a chance to ask my question because there was a ten minute response that wasn't the answer to the question I was trying to ask. And so I was trying to be respectful, but yet my question didn't get asked. So I will just say that on the record. I don't know how besides just to be downright rude and interrupt somebody, which is I don't think anybody's nature up here. So thank you. Well, the chair will ask the council members to ask direct questions and the folks who are making direct answers. And I think that's probably as much guidance as I can provide. But I don't think it's appropriate for anybody to be interrupting either the question or the answer. Council member Beard. Thank you, Mayor. I'm not sure exactly who to address this to. Probably to Mr. Salih. The information concerning Mr. Horne's ruling about the redaction. Is that in writing or was that verbal or an email or most of it is in writing? Pardon me? Most of it is in writing. Okay. Might that be shared with the council? I will tell you it has been shared with the state auditor. Pardon me? It has been shared with the state auditor. I didn't ask you that. I understand that, sir. I have no problem sharing that with you. Okay, fine. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. That was it. Thank you. Any further questions? Council member Lawless. Whose responsibility is it for notifying an employee that they are a subject of an investigation? And I don't want a history, I just want a straight answer. I do not know of any specific that requires an employee to be notified that they are subject to an investigation. But I think this is a question for human resources because it relates to a human resource type issue. In this particular case, I believe during the interviews, Mr. Joe Kelly advised Mr. Askew that he was the subject of the investigation last fall. And I just wondered whose responsibility, if anybody's, it was to do that. It's also my understanding that the external auditors were not the ones that gave the fraud assessment questionnaire to you, Mr. Sully, but it was Patrick Johnson who brought it to you at their request. That is correct. And that was communicated to the council. And Terry Sellers, June 20, May 21, which I'm answering the question. No, it was just a yes or no. Both stop. There is no reason for us to engage in this back and forth like this. I don't know what happened in the investigative committee. I don't know what the course of conduct was there. But as long as I'm chairing the meeting, I don't want people interrupting answers or interrupting questions. I have asked both parties, the council members and the folks who are giving the presentations, to try to ask and answer directly. Excuse me. And I'm not going to limit people's answers to simply yes or no. They have the prerogative to control their answer, just like you have the prerogative to control your question. Okay. It is my time. But apparently you're, you have the prerogative to limit to allow them to give more than the answer to the direct question I ask. And so I certainly wasn't trying to be rude, but you know, this is the first time we've been able to ask Mr. Sully any questions. And it was, I think, a pretty clear and direct question. And I was just trying to simply let him know he had answered it. And I have very limited time in which to ask questions. But if there's concern that, you know, if they need to not answer and continue talking during my time and you feel that's okay as chair and mayor, that is what it is. Thank you. And Madam Clerk, if you would allot Ms. Lawless another three and a half minutes, because I think that's approximately where it was when Mr. Sully completed his answer. I'm done for now. Thank you, Mayor. I don't have a question for anybody. I just have a comment that I wanted to make. I'm not going to ask any questions. And the reason is because when we put this committee together, the internal auditor had the opportunity to submit documents to the committee, just like everybody else did, to substantiate that he had done a credible investigation and he chose not to. He was also asked to come before the committee and answer questions like other people were, and he chose not to. He also made the decision not to share this with his board when he had that opportunity, and he chose not to. So as far as I'm concerned, the time to provide all this information and he walked in today additionally with another document that none of us have had a chance to read. My estimation that the time for you to have responded to the questions and provide information on your investigation and those things was when the committee was formed and asked you to do so. So I'm not going to ask any questions. I had questions for the chair regarding the state auditor's report, and that's all I have. So that's a comment. It's not a question. May I ask the chair if I am allowed to comment? Not in response to that. Council Member Wayne. As you all know, I serve on the board, and I feel that the number one issue that came before the board was the independence of the internal audit board. It needs to maintain its integrity and the confidentiality of the information that it had. And when we set up a situation where, you know, a special committee of the council can subpoena confidential records, and that power of that subpoena has not even been certified by the court, we don't even know if that's a valid power. I think that the council has overstepped its bounds. You know, threatening to withdraw the legal support provided by the government for the internal audit council was an intimidation to try to take away their legal support, and there was some comment about going into the personnel department and trying to take some type of personal action against Mr. Shelley when he was performing his duties under the charter of the internal audit board. I know that Chairman Burke spent a lot of time putting this information together. I think not only would it have been valuable information for each and every council member to have about how the internal audit board functions, but also the general public who, you know, doesn't have any information at all to go on. And, you know, the vote to not allow 30 minutes for the presentation, I've been on the council for six years. I don't ever remember us denying the right to extend somebody's presentation. I can't recall that happening. And, you know, this is a very important issue. So what it appears to me is that politics have overridden, you know, the good judgment of our council and not allowing this information to be given to our members and to the general public. So I'm very, very disappointed in the way this has come off today. Thank you. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. I just had a couple of questions for Mr. Shelley. I appreciate your written responses to several questions in the investigative committee's report. I just have two for you today. One, are you currently still being represented by Terry Sellers? And why do you choose and the board choose to continue this lawsuit against the now Chairman Myers or former Chairman Myers when the committee has been disbanded? I would like Mr. Sellers to address the legal questions. Thank you. The committee has been disbanded, but the question as to whether the council has subpoena authority isn't gone. It's still there. And it's going to be there in the future. I know the internal audit board wants to know, and the auditor does, whether you have that power or not. The lawsuit that was filed is a petition for a declaration of rights. And you file that when you're between a rock and a hard place. And Mr. Sellers was between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, his professional standards prohibited him from turning over the documents the council was requesting. And on the other hand, if the council has subpoena power, he's obligated to turn it over. I advised him that I thought the council did not have that power. And so we've asked the court to tell us. And if the committee had not instructed its attorney to prevent the court from reaching that question by arguing the case is moot, we would have already had an answer. So you respond to a subpoena that the committee issued? Yes, Mr. Sully was issued a subpoena. So there was a subpoena delivered to Mr. Sully. Mr. Sully, also. Excuse me. Is there any doubt among the council members about that? No, I'm just. Mr. Sully, if you have a subpoena before the committee and in your response you base it on the subpoena of a document, why would you not want to appear before the committee to answer any other questions outside of that document? Just generally responding to the committee's question about other issues about the internal audit board. It was his understanding that he was told, along with a number of others, that he was to appear voluntarily before the committee. And if he failed to do that, a subpoena would be issued for him. That's not the issue. Is he being compelled by the council to give information or not? And if he is, then he doesn't have and the board doesn't have the independence that it was supposed to have and it was set up to have in 2002. And if you doubt that it's supposed to have that, read the ordinance that sets it up. Well, again, a subpoena was never issued. And I just asked you, was a subpoena issued to appear before the committee? Let me ask him, why wouldn't you voluntarily come to the committee then, outside of the document that everyone was trying to get, just to answer questions? Mr. Sellers, go ahead. I advised him not to. So here we are in a predicament of how do we view that? As a council, how do you view that when this body puts together an investigative committee just to ask questions? Ethics and all that. But why wouldn't you just want to come and answer questions about the internal audit process and the board to help the committee better understand that? He is here today to do exactly that. He's not here under threat of subpoena. You've invited him to appear voluntarily and he's here voluntarily. You've got the mayor having the ability to say, Bruce, give me this document or that. Or a council member saying, give me this document or that. Or a committee of the council saying, you've got to appear before us and tell us about how you did an investigation. Bruce wants to cooperate, he intends to cooperate. He's here to answer your questions today and we had a big slideshow for you that went into most of that and we didn't get to do that. We didn't have an independent audit function in the government or not. Until 2002, you didn't have it. It was in the council office and you could tell the auditors what to do and what not to do. You decided, you didn't decide, maybe, but Dr. Stephens and others decided in 2002 that the government is better served by an independent audit function. That's what this is all about. There's also, everybody, council member Beard. I guess one of my concerns, there's been reference to the internal audit board, yet certain communications from Mr. Sally to the internal audit board were confined to do it ISIL only or not the whole board, but selected people on the board. And I don't see the justification in that. Let the chips fall where they may and if you wish to answer, Mr. Sellers, that's fine. Well, on May 27th, I was at a links committee meeting and Chairman Myers looked at me and said, no one told me about this. And I said, well, you're a member of the board. Get two other board members to go along with you and make the rule you want to make. I mean, if you want to do it differently, then that would have been the way to do it, through the board, make the rules that you think you want him to follow. The reason he didn't do that, he tried to explain and the slide would have explained is, we couldn't go before the board and lay it out and say, here it is, because then it's a public document. You can't go into closed session to discuss that document. He reported it to the chair. I think Bill O'Meara knew it also. I think it's important to report to each individual member that there was no fraud and have the board make that rule. Don't leave Bruce out here by himself. Make the rule and tell him what you want him to do. Don't form a special investigating committee and that's another point that I've never understood in all this. Mr. Myers at any time could have gone to Bruce and said, I want to see your file. But instead of going that route and conferring with Ed Lane and reporting to the council, he forms a special investigative committee and attempts to destroy the independence of the board and the auditor by issuing subpoenas. That's an inaccuracy, Mr. Sellers. I made the motion to form the investigative committee and this council voted unanimously 15 to zero to do so. It wasn't Mr. Myers. I don't know who made the motion. I know that he had the opportunity to look at the file any time he wanted. He had the opportunity to talk to Bruce and tell me what you did and when you did it because he's a member of the board. And the May 21st opinion that I issued said expressly that. That Bruce could give his file and could report to any member of the board, to the internal audit board. It's not the council, it's not the mayor, it's not a committee of the council. So that's where this went wrong. Instead of focusing on the board and what rules the board needed and discussing the matter among board members, you go off and form a council committee and investigate for 14 weeks. Something that took Bruce a few days to determine that there was no fraud. We've never come to grips with the fact that that's not cherry picking. Thank you. Council Member Myers. I wasn't going to get drawn into this, but now you sit and make accusations against me. First of all, Mr. Sellers, at the point at which Mr. Sali decided he wasn't going to tell his board about the survey, so there was no opportunity for us to go to him and ask him any questions. So, you know, I've got a ton of questions for you and for him. But as I said, he could have done his job and brought it to the board. He could have come to the committee. You've mischaracterized a whole lot of things when you talked to Councilman Stenett about why he did it and didn't come to the board. It's interesting to me that the external auditor provided the exact information that we asked for under subpoena and didn't have a problem with that. I'm not going to ask you the questions because I'm not going to ask any questions, but what's interesting to me is that if the external auditor can provide those documents under subpoena, why can't our employee do the same thing? Also, we have a commissioner of law who was subpoenaed for documents. He merely said, I don't think you have subpoena power. We put into a letter that Mr. Salih could have responded the same way. So you don't have to respond. You can if you want to, but I'm not asking the questions. There's nothing to respond to. I'm just simply saying you made accusations against me and you said instead of just talking to Mr. Salih, I went out and formed this committee. If you'll recall, someone else made the motion to form the committee and the Council voted unanimously to do so. So I don't think that was me that went out and formed a committee and investigated 14 weeks. I correct what you said about me. Thank you, sir. You did ask a question about why the external auditors could produce the documents and the internal auditors could not. I said that was interesting to me. I'm not going to ask the question, but I said it was interesting to me that the external audit did do that, but yet the internal auditor couldn't do that. And then also the commissioner of law said, I don't think that you have subpoena power. Nonetheless, here are the documents because you're entitled to them. And we talked about the subpoenas. The chair said, why don't we just respond to the subpoena as if it is a valid subpoena because we don't know otherwise. And then the board voted against that to go ahead and really what you voted to do originally was ignore the subpoena. And then you came back and filed a lawsuit. But I think that our report is final. Nothing you've said today, nothing you've presented today changes anything in that report. And so I'm simply not going to argue with you and go toe-to-toe on things. Council Member Crosby. Thank you, Mayor. My questions would probably take way too long and the answers would take up all my time. So I'll save most of them for a later date. But I did want to at least make a comment based on the presentation that we had heard. A lot of it was history and background of internal audit board. And I should disclose that I did contact Al Mitchell regarding the intent of setting up this independent board. And I found his response to be very different than the history that we were actually presented today. So I would encourage council members to call him. He would have been happy to have come today. But he wasn't aware that this was being discussed and that it was going through the history of why that happened. So I just wanted to make that point. And then also on the report that we just got today, a few minutes before meeting, I just wanted to state that when I had asked questions, I spoke to many different members of senior management. I spoke verbally also to our internal auditor. And it was my understanding at that time, because I was told that this issue had been brought to the board. So I assume that the entire board, when I heard the board, that the entire board was involved with the decision process of whether or not they were going to be looking at something or not. And so the second to the last paragraph is a little concerning to me, because had I thought that the board had had the opportunity to look at it, the entire board, it may have been a very different situation. Thank you. Can I ask a question of the chair now? Let's hold off. Council Member Allender. Thank you, Mayor. I guess my question goes to the lawsuit. And I have trouble when we're paying for both sides and when are we going to come up with a resolution on this and how far do we go, because as a representative of the taxpayers, I know they look at it as we're paying for both sides when it looks like it's a moot point from our standpoint and it has to come from the council, because we're going to have to agree to pay the bills. And where do we stop? Do we go to an appeal and then you all don't like that appeal, then it goes to the Supreme Court, and when do we stop paying bills, because I don't feel like I have any control. And as you said, we don't govern the internal audit board and we wanted the independence, but I'm confused on when we can say enough is enough and I want to stop. Let me answer that. With regard to fees, if Judge Crittenden will agree to put the question to the judge as to whether or not the council has subpoena power, I will from this day forward or from that day forward provide my representation at no charge, pro bono, if he'll do the same. I'm not in this for the money. I really am in this because I'm interested in the independence of the audit board and the audit office. I think it's important when I was with the government 20 years ago, it wasn't that way, and it's important that that independence be upheld and it's important that we get a determination as to whether the council does or does not have subpoena power. If it does, fine. Then in the future, Bruce will give you anything you ask when you give him a subpoena. And if you don't have that power, he'll know that you don't. So my offer is to provide representation going forward at no charge. If we'll put the question to the judge and let him decide it and if Judge Crittenden will do the same. What are our bills thus far? I don't know what my total is. It's been put together. It is substantially less than I have heard Judge Crittenden's is, and I've been working a month longer than he has. Can I have a ballpark? I think it's around 17 total. 17,000 total? That's a ballpark. Did you say 17? 17. And when will we be receiving that bill? Do you know? It has to be put together. In the next week, two weeks, a month? If you want it in the next week, I'll get it to you in the next week if it's important. But I can tell you it will be zero going forward if you take me up on my offer. And I guess the next question, Mr. Askew, where are we coming up the money? Because I think we have run out of money up to 25,000. I think that was what we had, or up to 50. And I think we probably extended that. Based on the council's past action, the 25,000 that the council has budgeted this fiscal year for the special investigative committee has been exhausted. And Council Member Myers directed me last week, in accordance with the council's previous direction, to go ahead and pay out of law department professional funds the balance, which is close to 10. And I think Judge Crinton is at 34-something, I think, so far. The last bill that we received from Mr. Sellers is through the end of the last fiscal year, 5900. So I'm not aware of this other bill. Would that 17 be total or would that be a new total? That's ballpark. Could you come to the microphone, I'm sorry, so the audience could hear, please? That is ballpark because the final bill hasn't been done. But that's ballpark. And then if you do not get the result that your client wants, does that then mean you're going to appeal it then and take it to a higher court? Or are you then going to say enough is enough? Or where do we stop? Because if we have an appeal, then we still have more costs that are going to be associated. I'm going to do what I'm told to do by the Internal Audit Board. And I haven't been told what to do, so. The council still has to make those payments, do they not? We're going to have to make an amendment to the budget to do that, will we not? Because we've extended our amount. Council Member Ellinger, once the $50,000 in the FY11 budget is exhausted for law, then there would have to be another budget from which to get the money. Now, whether that would be a budget amendment or how that would work, I'm not sure I'd have to talk to budgeting. It's my understanding that we have approximately $22,000 left in this fiscal year budget of the $50,000. And you'll recall there's some other things that are coming out of there that you're aware of like the TIF. Thank you. I've got eight more seconds. I've got one more question. It's my understanding that depending on the ruling, you'll continue to take this to the Supreme Court. Is that not accurate so you can get the ruling? That is inaccurate because the board will tell me what to do and the board has made no discussion about that, no decision about it. In fact, hasn't even discussed it. So until this first is resolved, you'll go back to the board and have them determine where you want to proceed from that? If the board becomes unhappy with the way things are going, it can call me. It can tell me to do what it wants me to do at any time. In the meantime, we've got a scheduling order from the judge and circuit court. We're looking for a hearing on October 20th, I think. Your time has expired, but I guess the only thing I'd ask is from this time forward, we'll be receiving no more bills from you, is that my understanding? My offer is if Judge Crittenden will agree to put the issue of the subpoena to the judge and stop all this stuff about whether it's moot or not. It's causing me to run up a lot of time that I don't want to run up. We'll just put the question to the judge, does the council have subpoena power or not? It's a simple legal issue. There are no facts involved. I wouldn't charge anything going forward if Judge Crittenden will agree to do the same. Thank you. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Mayor. Can the council vote to withdraw a subpoena? Well, probably, Logan. You should answer that instead of me. I suppose you can. Can we do that? Article 4 says that you can form a committee. Right. I don't have it before me that the committee can issue subpoenas, and it says that the council can assess penalties. I don't know whether the council can do that. But the source of authority for any committee of the council is the council itself. Right, yes. And I make a motion that the council withdraw the subpoena issued by the internal, excuse me, by the Special Investigative Committee to Mr. Salih, in the interest of resolving the existing lawsuit that exists regarding the subpoena. So moved. Do I hear a second? Point of order. Well, the motion dies for lack of a second. State your point. My point of order was going to be that that committee, and actually, Council Member Martin is the one who drove home the point that the committee had an end date to it. You cannot reconvene that committee. The committee is done. The committee's work is done. The report is final. It can't be altered. The subpoena cannot be withdrawn, and it also cannot go to court to be, the committee can't go to court to enforce the subpoena, nor can the committee withdraw the subpoena. All right. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Mayor. Ms. Burke, it seems to me that the major flaw in the process is that the Kentucky open meetings laws does not allow an internal auditor to meet with an oversight audit board without rendering the subject of the audit to be an open record. Is that correct? That was the legal opinion that was given to the board, yes. Having written part of our open, I guess, records acts, I'm fairly sure I agree with that. It seems to me that we as a city should use our influence in Frankfurt to try to create an exception to the open meetings act, which would allow the internal auditor to meet with the internal audit board to discuss confidential matters that come up during the audit process. That is really one of the fundamental problems that happened here. Had the internal auditor been able to have a full airing of the issues, I think a lot of this probably could have been avoided. And that's not anybody's fault. That is a fallacy or a shortcoming of the open meetings laws. And so, Mayor, I guess I would encourage the Administration to perhaps pursue that in the upcoming meeting of the General Assembly. Because I think that is, in all the things that I've seen written, I mean, this is basically we all agree that there's no fraud there. We're just arguing over how it was done. And so, and this is a lot of money to be spending on form, in my opinion. That's a lot of money. And so I hope that we can maybe find a way to, contrary to Council Member Myers' opinion about it, to vote as a council to withdraw that. Because I think that is something that would kind of put this to rest. But I guess in closing, is there anything that you want to sort of address? I can give you my last minute and 16 seconds. I will be very happy when the council and others have resolution to this. We've certainly had the state auditors come in. I am looking forward to the conclusions and the publicity of that report. I think that will answer a lot of the questions that were addressed today that I did not have the time to address. So I'll leave it at that. Vice Mayor Gray. Thank you, Mayor. My comments actually go back to Terry, to Mr. Sellers' comments. And I think it's worthwhile because I hear what you're saying. I think the council hears what you're saying in terms of the timing of questions. And what I interpreted you as saying was that this issue, the issues of the Special Investigative Committee, had to do almost exclusively with questions related to the appropriateness of the internal auditor's actions. And that that could have been handled easily. And what I think we need to remember is, in reflecting on this, is the questions were not specifically that. That was a tributary. The original questions arose when the Department of Risk Management was presented to the council links committee to be eliminated. We relied on the information presented by the administration for that decision. It affected our budget. But more importantly, it affected policy, significant policy decisions and issues made by this government over a period of a quarter of a century, the establishment of the Risk Management Department. We heard later, in fact, Council Member Myers introduced this information and this data, shared it with us, that the trends today in jurisdictions like ours have shown that departments and functions of risk management in governments like ours have been increased, not diminished. All of that is to say that the questions related to whistleblower and the effect of the whistleblower in terms of decision making in our government, those were relevant questions undertaken and issues undertaken by this committee, which were not ones that would have been easily answered by a conversation, in my view, between Council Member Myers and Mr. Sali. Those were issues that had broad context, decisions that were made in multiple departments by many people, and they were influencing public policy in a significant way. It's really not a question. I'm just responding to what you had to say, Terry. And let me say, the whole question about risk management is not something that I've been involved in or I've spoken to or that I know anything about because it doesn't really overlap with anything I've done. I understand, and that's why I said your focus has been the Internal Audit Office. The focus and the issues of the Council have been significantly broader than that. And I haven't spoken to that at all. All right. My listing is perhaps not accurate, but I believe it is that four Council Members have now spoken twice to this issue, Crosby, Lawless, Myers, Beard. Three Council Members have spoken once, Senate Vice Mayor Gray and Council Member Martin. Does anybody take exception with that? I believe I've only spoken once. All right. If that's consistent with everybody else's recollection, then I'll put you in the one category. In the absence of some suspension of the rules, we're limited to twice on an issue. Does anybody who's not spoken twice wish to speak to the issue? Council Member Feigl. Thank you, Mayor. I think this is probably an unprecedented situation in our city, one that's been very difficult to handle. But I think that it's one that we probably need to take a hard look at and go back and review. If the previous Council set up this special or this Internal Audit Board and chose for it to be independent, then perhaps we need to go back and review that and see if we can do some things to improve that relationship between the Council and the Internal Audit Board. I just have a couple of questions for Mr. Salih. I think I heard you say, and correct me if I'm wrong, I think I heard you say that if Council Member Myers had come to you as a committee member, that that information would have been available to him? That is correct. Can I elaborate on the answer? Yes, sir. Thank you. For example, in the July 21st Internal Audit Board meeting, in which the Internal Audit Board directed me not to comply with the subpoena by an unanimous vote with Council Member Myers present, but recusing himself from the discussion and the vote. Vice Chair Burke stated three times in that meeting to all present that all Internal Audit Board members had the right to examine audit work papers related to this or any other audit or investigation. Then my next question is, did Council Member Myers ever come to you personally and ask to review those papers? He did not. And if he had, would you have shared those with him? Yes, I would, because he is a member of the Internal Audit Board and I report to the Internal Audit Board. Do you have any recommendations on how this situation could have been averted? I hearken back to May 25th when Council Member Crosby stated the Internal Auditor knew, the Internal Audit Board knew that there was some type of fraud and that we didn't do anything about it, but because the external auditors thought there was no fraud, we didn't look into it. That statement was not true. We did look into it. We did a preliminary review, which is exactly what we were going to explain to you and to the public. That was the proper process under the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. You do a preliminary review. If predication, which means is there a reason to move forward, says there is not, then you stop. And that is what we did. We examined the allegations, not just for financial fraud, but for all the different types of fraud as defined by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. We found each one of those to come up short. There was no basis. There was no credible evidence of a fraud. That is why we stopped the investigation. If there had been fraud, we would have taken the next step to do a full investigation. If necessary, we would have contacted law enforcement officials. We would have taken whatever steps were necessary. But it wasn't necessary. And the reasons why we didn't tell the board, the whole board, have been spelled out. And it's regrettable, and I want to say for the public, that with the board's permission, I will put our response to the Special Investigative Committee report on our web page so that the public can read our response, which we have not been allowed for time restraints to be able to do today. But it tells a different story. Here's what I wanted to tell for a long time. If Council Member Crosby had come to me or to the board before May 25th, instead of making the allegations and saying that we were part of the cover-up, you could have come to the board. You could have come to any of those people and said, I think there's a concern here. My understanding is there may have been a fraud. We know that Marisa's shop supposedly looked into it, but I'm not convinced they looked into it well enough. She could have brought that to the board. There are two board members on the council, Ed Lane and George Myers. She could have brought that to either one of these gentlemen. This whole thing didn't have to happen. Okay. Rather than get into those kinds of issues, I think we'll stop right now. All right. I had one other question, and I think I've forgotten it, but I'll chime in later now. I'll chime in a little bit later when I think of it. Do any other council members who have not spoken to the issue twice wish to address the matter? And I have you down as having spoken twice. Is that correct, Judy? Council Member Beard. I'm sorry. All right. Council Member Martin, this will be your second time. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Given that both Mr. Sellers and Mr. Askew indicated that they thought that a vote by the council would help to resolve the existing lawsuit, I made the motion and died for a lack of a second, so maybe I implore one of my other council members. I think it could only help try to resolve that existing litigation in a way that's going to save a lot of taxpayer money, and so I would ask one of my other council members to make the motion that I made previously to withdraw the subpoena that was issued to Mr. Selley and see if that helps us at all, because there's a lot of money being spent. At this point, I'm not sure what's going to come out of it that's going to affect or help any single taxpayer who's listening to the council at this point. And beyond that, I guess since I have Beyond that, I guess, since I have four minutes left, I would like to allow, I guess, Ms. Burke to finish any part of her presentation. In particular, I think that it is important for folks to understand that there are international and national rules governing the audit process, and particularly the confidentiality of the audit process. And that is sort of what is at play here, because had there been an ability for the auditor to go talk to the audit board, you wouldn't have violated these rules of confidentiality. Can you help us understand that? I can. To Councilman Myers' point earlier that why can the external auditors choose to do this and the internal audit board choose not to, or the director of internal audit choose not to, we are all bound by standards. I cannot elaborate for you why the external auditors chose to do what they did, but I think that it is clear from the presentation that there was a basis for how all things were handled. There's a basis in standards. The difference in this presentation and the normal presentations, like the one I'll give in Dallas tomorrow, this one is sheer fact. Everything in here is stated and addressed, and I agree with Mr. Salih. I cannot, as acting chair of the board, make a determination, but I can assure the Council that we will, at our Monday meeting, have a discussion on whether we can publish the responses, because I think the responses and the presentation very clearly articulate why things happened the way they did, how they were handled, and the options that we had there. And again, I strongly encourage when the final report comes out from the state auditor, I believe it will clarify a number of points as well. Thank you, Mayor. Next member, Feigl. I just recalled my question, and you can certainly answer this, I'm sure. You kind of emphasized the fact that there was a preliminary investigation when the charges were made, and that I think what I understood you to say, if there was no, if you can see no cause to go on, I've forgotten now what the term is. Predication. There is no predication that you had to stop. Now, define for me what that stop means. Is that something you're obligated to do, and if so, why? The reason that, and I am a certified fraud specialist, so I can address that a little bit as to why the ACFE has defined the standards the way that they have. The standards from a fraud investigation perspective are very clear in the terminology with regard to predication and the detail of if then. It's really almost a diagram of you answer this question, and if it's yes, you go here. It's a decision tree process, and it's very clear, and the reason for that is that when a case is determined to have fraud attached to it, obviously the next steps are litigious in nature, and so it's very important that fraud examiners be consistent in their approach with regard to how individual investigations are handled. And so the determination and the definition of predication is very clear on if you get to this step, and the answer is there's no credible evidence, and it talks about the prudent person and all of that. If there's no credible evidence, then at that point you must stop, and it's very clear on that. That is because it's much easier when you get into a litigious situation to have that basis upon which you stop the investigation. So that's the basis behind the standard. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Anything further from someone who has not spoken twice? All right. Thank you. Ms. Lawless. Thank you. First of all, I'd like to make a statement. The reason that this all came up was not because Councilmember Myers did not see the fraud assessment survey. It was because Councilmember Crosby requested it, and she did go to Councilmember Myers and ask him, and he didn't know anything about it. So I'd just like to clear that up, and that's not a question. The second thing is the purpose of today was initiated by Councilmember Lane because he felt that you all had not had an opportunity to publicly address or address with the committee your response to the Special Investigative Committee's report. So that was the purpose of today, and I'm sorry that I'm still not clear, and we just got your written document when we sat down here. So the third thing is I think we need to make it clear that the this assertion that we have to be politically independent and nothing would make me happier, because clearly this situation should not have happened in the way it did for all concerned. I'm not blaming you or you or anybody else. I'm just saying obviously the system didn't work. But when I found out that how it was determined that there was no reason to go forward was a meeting with the Internal Audit Board chair, Dwight Heisel, Mr. Salih, Senior Advisor to the Mayor, Joe Kelly, the Acting Commissioner of Finance, and the external auditors. And no one from the Internal Audit Board questioned, as far as I can understand, other employees. Didn't question the person who made the allegations. And that after that meeting, Mr. Kelly told Mr. Askew he was subject, the subject of some of the assertions in that broad assessment survey. Who are you trying to protect? And then Mr. Askew was given a copy of the survey with Mr. Johnston's name on it back in September of 2009. It's hard for me to understand who you were trying to protect. It certainly doesn't seem like it was the person who this whole system is intended to protect, and that is the person making the allegation. And that wasn't a question, that was just a statement, but I do have a question. And you can respond after I get finished for however long I may ever like for you to. Who gave the opinion that there could be no closed session to discuss this particular allegation or assertion or however we want to? On behalf of Bruce, I'll answer that. Keith Horn did. So Mr. Horn is the one that advised you that when his boss was the subject of the investigation, advised you that you couldn't go into closed session, and therefore the decision was made by I'm assuming Mr. Heisel and Mr. Sully, not to inform the internal audit board, is that correct? You are correct. Okay. So given how this was, and certainly I've heard it's been investigated three times, it's been, that is not true. The external auditors explicitly said this was not in their scope of practice, that they did not investigate it from the standpoint of financial fraud, and that advised that the internal audit board take a look at it. And so with that, I'll stop because my time's up. I can't speak on behalf of the external auditors. I can speak to the standard that they are required to abide by, which is SAS 99, and they would have to follow up on any items that are in the fraud investigation questionnaires. What they did with that, again, not my firm, so I can't address that. To your point, I would be remiss if I, your second point, and then I'll address your third point. Your second point was that it's unfortunate that we weren't able to get into the Special Investigative Committee response. I completely agree with that. I did put together the presentation, so I'm responsible for that. I also did know that there was precedent to ask for additional time, so, again, my fault. I'll take the responsibility for that. I truly thought that the council, under the circumstances and with everything that has been written on this, would allow me additional time, so my mistake. The third point there is who are we trying to protect, I think, is the question you asked. And I think that it is very clear, very clear, if you read this, that it had nothing to do with any type of personal situation. It very much has to do with the order of priority in which you follow an investigation and the open records. To Councilman Martin's point, the biggest issue that we have here is the open meeting situation. Had there not been a question on open meeting, it would have been much easier, and I was not chair at that time, but I feel strongly that the chair would have clearly brought this to the Internal Audit Board's attention. That's standard operating procedure. We talk about all of those types of things. I think because it was an allegation, and particularly an allegation that was unsubstantiated after the review, that it would have been detrimental both to the person that brought that forward as well as to the person upon whom those allegations were directed. So that was the decision. It's outlined in the response. I stand firm that that's a good basis for the decision, and it wasn't who are we trying to protect. It was protocol that was being followed. Are there any further questions from anyone who hasn't spoken twice? Thank you, Ms. Burke and everyone else. We're now ready for Council reports. If you wish to provide a report, please indicate. Councilmember Stennett was there. I think I hit you by mistake. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to, again, give a couple of announcements on neighborhood meetings tonight. There are three neighborhood meetings in my district. One is the 630 is the Eastland Parkway neighborhood, which will meet at their normal place at Christ Center Church on Eastland Drive. The second one would be North Point Neighborhood Association, which will meet at 7 p.m. at Brown Station High School. And the third one, which is Andover Forest, will meet at 7 p.m. at the United Methodist Church out on Todd's Road. Thank you, Mayor. Councilmember Wayne. Thank you, Mayor. I'd just like to make a closing comment. Jennifer Burke has been the acting chair of the Internal Audit Board, and unfortunately she came in at a very tough time, and I think she's done a very good job. And I just wanted to remind everybody that she is a volunteer, a community volunteer serving on one of our boards, and we need to be appreciative of her efforts in a volunteer capacity. Thank you. Councilmember James. Thank you, Mayor. A couple of announcements. The kickoff registration and wellness fair for the Biggest Loser Weight Loss Challenge, which is held at William Wells Brown each year, that kickoff is tonight from 6 to 8. That is located at the William Wells Brown Community Center, which is located at 548 East 6th Street. It's for everyone 18 and older. The cost is free. The challenge, this is a challenge that goes for a couple months. It runs every Tuesday and every Thursday from 6 to 8. They have things like low-impact aerobics and specialty classes and nutritional workshops. You go over there, there are so many people participating and a lot of people trying to get fit, so please go out if you are interested in working out with others and learning more about nutritional health. I also wanted to announce a first district candidate forum, which is hosted by Community Action, which will be held this Thursday, September 30th, from 7 to about 8.30. It's going to be held at Douglas Park. I believe it's going to be outdoors, weather permitting. Again, it's at 7 o'clock at Douglas Park, and it's hosted by Community Action. It will be the two first district council candidates presenting. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Mayor. I have two motions for items for committee. I move to place in the planning committee to amend the zoning ordinances to define circuses and carnivals and further restrict their use in the B zones. So moved. Do I hear a second? Council Member James. I have a motion by Council Member Henson and a second by Council Member James. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. And then I move to place in the services committee to amend code of ordinances pertaining to itinerant merchants and peddlers to require a license and permit to operate and establish standards to operate on private and public property. So moved. Second. I have a motion by Council Member Henson, second by Council Member Blues. Any discussion? Yes. Can you repeat the motion, please? To place itinerant merchant and peddlers in the services committee. Okay. That clarifies it. Is that good? Yeah. Second. Any discussion? All in favor, say aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. And then I have a couple of announcements, Mayor. I just wanted to congratulate Cardinal Valley School. I know that they've struggled for years with trying to get their test scores up, and they were recognized by the superintendent of Fayette County Schools this year when the scores came out that their reading actually improved 20 points and math incredibly improved 34 points. So it was a huge improvement. Everyone, they released balloons and celebrated, so it was very exciting for them. Also, Cardinal Valley Neighborhood Association meeting is next Tuesday, October 5th, at 7 o'clock at Harvest Worship Center. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mayor. On Thursday, September 30th, I am hosting a candidate forum for the at-large council candidates. This forum will take place at the Masterson Station Clubhouse on Masterson Station Drive at the corner of Jacqueline Lane. I've sent the word out to community leaders, neighborhood leaders throughout northwest Lexington. I think it's extremely important that we get to know these candidates and to make an informed choice on Election Day, November 2nd. So once again, an at-large candidate forum at the Masterson Station Clubhouse, 7 p.m., Thursday, September 30th. All of the at-large candidates have accepted the invitation to participate. Look forward to an interesting and informative evening. On Monday, October 4th, two Neighborhood Association meetings, Georgetown Neighborhood will meet at 6 p.m. in the O'Rear Center in Douglas Park, and at 7 p.m., Green Acres Hollow Creek Breckenridge Neighborhood will hold its meeting at 7 p.m. in the Community Center in Green Acres Park. Thank you, Mayor. That's my report. Thanks. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Mayor. First, I would like to move the acceptance of the NDF for this week. I have a motion to approve the NDF by Council Member Beard, seconded by Council Member Ellinger. Any discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. The second thing is I got in in the middle of this, but it was an interview with an individual from Money Magazine talking about good places to retire. And as we all know, Money Magazine picked us as third in the nation. She went on further to say what fantastic downtown we have with all the various entertainment venues and restaurants, and then within a 10-minute drive could be out in the horse country and looking at the beautiful horse country. I wish, by the way, that we could have greened up a little bit more before the world came to visit us, but maybe that will happen before they leave. The last thing, I probably have known Jennifer Burke at least for 11 years. I don't know whether anybody else can top that, at least on the Council. She is an excellent, excellent CPA, high in integrity and knowledge and intelligence, and I would not want, as Mr. Lane mentioned, Council Member Lane, I would not want us to think because she was put in this position that she's anything but that. Thank you, Mayor. Thanks. Council Member Myers is not here, I see, so we'll put him at the bottom of the list for the moment. Council Member Wallace. Thank you. I, too, would like to recognize that Ms. Burke was not the chair when all this was going on, and I certainly, none of my questions or comments were meant to in any way suggest that she's anything but. Everything you said she was, Mr. Beard, Council Member Beard, and I appreciate anybody who volunteers or works for our community, so thank you. The Ellsford Neighborhood Association will meet on October 5th at Woodland Christian Church. That's next Tuesday night at 7 p.m. Also, the Goodrich Neighborhood Association Great Cleanup is this Saturday, October 2nd, at 10 a.m. in Goodrich Park, which is at the end of Goodrich, and people will be removing trash and brush from the park in order to plant native trees. Please join them if you'd like to help or get dirty, and you can bring, please bring any tools you think might be helpful to come and participate with or without tools. And also, Goodrich Neighborhood Association will be meeting on Thursday, September 30th at 7 p.m. And I also want to continue to remind people that go to the Spotlight Lexington website and or Facebook page. There are updates on events. We've had some rain that we had no control over. Probably ought to put that into services committee for planning for controlling rainfall. But anyway, people are having a good time, but be prepared. You know, look at the maps. If you're going to the World Equestrian Games, there's great public transportation, so you can get all that information on the website. But come down and enjoy the fun, and please don't throw your trash on the ground. Thank you. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. I was not going to talk on this, but I'll be brief on the games. I went to the opening ceremonies, transportation. You got right in. It was very easy. I was very impressed, very happy to see that. And I hope it continues for the next few days through the 10th. And I also went downtown for the different festivities, and I have enjoyed that, too. So I hope people are getting down there and enjoying it, because we have a lot to offer. Now, on a different note, Logan, could you possibly answer this question? And it's one that I tried to address in the last presentation, is how do we get this lawsuit stopped? I just really don't like to be the plaintiff and the defendant and pain on both sides and don't see an end in sight. What would be your recommendation that we could do that we could get this thing resolved? Well, I think there are a couple of things you could do. One is you could direct that no further funds be expended on either side of the lawsuit. I think you could do, as Council Member Martin suggested, it was my understanding that the committee, I may be wrong, but it was my understanding the committee indicated they weren't going to enforce the subpoena, but they wouldn't withdraw it. Is that right, Council Member Myers? The fact is that the committee sent a letter to Mr. Sellers before they filed a lawsuit saying we weren't going to do that, so there's no point in filing a lawsuit to start with. Secondly, I made it clear in a work session that we weren't going to do that. And thirdly, the committee passed a resolution unanimously saying it wasn't going to do that. You mean so the subpoena was withdrawn? No. So the subpoena was not withdrawn, but you weren't going to enforce it. Right. And two things. Actually, it was that if you look at the facts, if you look at their PowerPoint presentation, they say the reason they filed the lawsuit is because I made a public statement that I was going to look to go to ask the full council to exact a penalty against Mr. Saleh. The fact is their attorney had a letter from our attorney before they filed the lawsuit stating that would not happen. I don't know. I was just trying to respond to Council Member Ellinger. It was my understanding that the subpoena had not been withdrawn. There was a move. I think it was Council Member James that one night suggested that there not be more money expended on either side. So it seems like to me the withdrawal of the subpoena. Can we do that without reconvening the committee? Could I make a motion to? It seems like to me that any committee of the council would be subservient to the full council. Now, that's just me not. They're a product of the full council. Well, sure. You all appointed, recommended the appointment of the committee. The vice mayor selected the members and the committee, and Council Member Myers is correct and Council Member Martin is correct that the rules are pretty specific. And I think the charter, too, that when that date passes and the committee's work is done, the reports presented, then the committee is no more. So some sort of, I don't know why, if the issue is whether the subpoena is still out there, it seems like to me the council could vote to withdraw the subpoena and then go ahead and direct that no further fees be paid. I'd like to make that motion that we withdraw the subpoena for Mr. Sally and direct no further payment for him. Well, now, Council Member Ellinger, as you know, I don't know. As I said the other day, we've gotten a bill. A bill was presented to me through August for Mr. Crittenden. The last bill I received, our office received from Mr. Sellers was the end of May. So to the extent that they've done other work, I know that we can't say we're going to not pay for services already rendered. That may create a bit of an issue. I was going to say no further after today. I would say today would be the last day that we would allow them to bill any fees to the government. I will second that motion. Is that to put on the next agenda? That would be put on for the October 14th council meeting. Now, it was my understanding that there was a scheduling order that the parties were supposed to file briefs. I think there's one other filing that's supposed to be made, and then there's a hearing at the end of October. And hence my exception with it is because our meeting is still running then. Yeah, but what I'm saying is you've still got a court order, Council Member Ellinger, I don't know who's supposed to respond to whom, but it seems like to me that clock is ticking, and I don't know when that's done. But we could certainly indicate or try to get some additional time. Again, you all, Mr. Myers has counsel. Internal Audit has counsel. It would seem like to me the judge would be more than happy to delay this thing so this motion could get through. That's my guess. I think you would agree that's what judges would be happy to do. Well, that's the motion. Thank you. Just for clarity's sake, would you mind restating it, please? Certainly, that I withdraw the subpoena for Mr. Salley, and that no further funds would be allocated after today or any that's been accrued up to this point. I have a second by Council Member Feigl, so that motion's on the floor for discussion. And I just lost my screen here, so I'll take a show of hands. Council Member Martin and Council Member Lawless. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Ellinger, just to clarify, is it for time accrued for services provided after today, or are we voting to not pay the bills that they accrued in May, for example? I would say it's stopping today. We'd pay up until the point of today. For services accrued through today but not after today. We would not further have any money be paid for the lawsuit after today. Would you consider that a friendly amendment, then, to the extent needed? I thought that was part of the motion. Okay. I believe it was. All right. Council Member Lawless, then Gorton, then Myers. I would support this if there was some way we could stop the lawsuit. But if we just suspend funding either side, what we are likely to end up with is Council Member Myers not having an attorney because Mr. Sellers said he would do it pro bono if Mr. Crittenden would agree to it. Mr. Crittenden doesn't even live in our community. And so that being said, Mr. Sellers could decide to take it on pro bono, and then Council Member Myers would have no attorney. So that's my huge concern. If I might, Mayor, Council Member Lawless raises a very good point, and maybe what needs to be included, Council Member Ellinger, something to the effect that the council wishes that both sides would go ahead and stop the litigation. I can accept that as a friendly amendment if that's what Ms. Lawless would like to add. Excuse me. I'm sorry. Procedurally, of course, this isn't going to be on the docket for action until October 14th. I suspect in the meantime we can get a pretty clear sense as to where everybody is, assuming the resolution is adopted. I hope so. Sure. All right. Council Member Gorton. Mayor, I have a question regarding oh, I'm sorry. Okay. Council Member Gorton, then Myers, then Crittenden. Thank you, Mayor. Well, I have a little bit of a conflict on this because, and I certainly am supportive of not spending more money on either side. However, I think that the motion is short-sighted because at some point in the future we're going to again need to determine if the council has the right of subpoena power. So I would prefer, and I'm not an attorney so I don't know if this is possible, I think it's really important in the big picture that the question of subpoena power be resolved. It's a bigger issue than paying out money. If we could somehow find a way to have this go forward by someone who's willing to represent the question in court as opposed to the lawsuit, but the question of whether the council has true subpoena power, because we need to know that. That's a bigger issue than simply the issue of money. So how could we go forward to answer the bigger question for the future? One of the things you suggested was there a way to present it to the court in the absence of a lawsuit, and I think the answer is no. Now, we could ask for an attorney general's opinion, which of course is not legally binding, and would ultimately be up to a court, but you can't just ask a judge to make a decision on something where there's not a suit. Okay, so having said that, Councilmember Gordon, I think what Mr. Sellers suggested today, it could be that Mr. Crittenden would be agreeable with that. I don't know, because it sounds to me as if what they've done is they've kind of done whatever research they're going to do. It's a matter of presenting it to the court. There's a hearing date, and maybe the amount of work that needs to be done in this case has pretty much already been done, and it's a matter of getting it before the court. But, you know, perhaps Mr. Crittenden would agree, as Mr. Sellers has indicated he would agree, and that would resolve that issue. You could go forward and get an answer and then not expend any more money. Well, I think on a different level, a higher plane, it's important that since we've gone this far with this issue, that we get the court to resolve the question, because it is in our charter, and no one seems to know for sure whether the council has the right to issue a subpoena. And I think to drop it right now is short-sighted on our part. So I'm not exactly sure what the proper motion would be. I think I heard Mr. Ellinger's motion to say to stop the lawsuit. It sounds like we would need to have a lawsuit go forward to get to the answer, but maybe if we could ask both parties whether they would consider finishing it pro bono would be the way to go. And just to respond to that, this is not until the 14th of October, and in the interim, if we could talk to them and see if they'd be willing to do that, I'd be all for that myself. But I think we have to try to have some kind of finality if we can, because if they're not going to do that, I understand it's an important issue that needs to be resolved, but we're also going to be running up a tab the whole time. And if they do go to the Supreme Court, the costs will keep accumulating. Council Member Ellinger, what you just suggested I think is a good suggestion, and that is I don't know why both sides, and of course they'd have to talk to their clients, but why they couldn't agree to just delay whatever deadlines and suspend current work if they would agree to do that and let this kind of decide whether they're agreeable to going forward, and if so, under what terms, and those kinds of things so we could get the question answered that Council Member Gorton's answering, or raising before you vote to just withdraw the subpoena, cut off the money, and that kind of thing. Well, and I would ask Council Member Ellinger, given that we have a work session on October 5th and one on October 12th, whether you would consider withdrawing the motion today, knowing that you could bring it up either next week or the next week, and we could have some conversation with the two attorneys before then. Because I would hate to see us go forward with the motion knowing that maybe we could get them to move forward with the lawsuit. I understand where you're coming from. I think I'll probably keep the motion there and just go ahead and vote it, and if we have to, we can raise it again. I guess one issue that we have to, depending on which side, and once again, we're paying for both sides, whoever doesn't get the answer that they want is probably going to appeal it. So we're going to continue with this issue regardless if the judge initially makes a ruling, and if they don't get what they want, I'm sure we will appeal it, and if they don't get what they want, they're going to appeal it. So we've just got to be ready to continue this lawsuit if we want to go down that road, because it could be a long, expensive, arduous process that we're going to be getting involved in. Well, given that, then I'll need to vote no, because I think we have at least two weeks' time to consider this motion, and I'd like to know if there can be some discussion before the motion gets passed with the two attorneys. And I guess the only thing I would say to that is I agree with that, but I think this gets us fast-tracked. This lets them know that we are serious and we want to move this to some kind of finality. If we don't, we're going to continue to keep pushing it. If we say we've got this date specific, we want you all to make a determination, and that way they know that we're wanting something done and done sooner than later. Mayor, if I might make another comment. Again, I know there's some deadlines that have been imposed by the court. I believe that was done by agreed order, so we have the judge that's expecting certain things. But I don't know if the parties can agree that it's that significant an issue to delay all of those deadlines and try to sort some of this out in advance, if that's the will of the council. I don't know what they're going to say, but I think they're both pretty reasonable people. I don't know why we couldn't do that if it's the will of the council to try to explore that with them before. Going down my list, I have Councilmember Myers followed by Councilmembers Crosby, Beard and Blues. Thank you, Mayor. I guess I want to say a couple of things. I was trying to stay out of this conversation, because I'm the one named in this suit. But when we talk about cutting off my counsel, which leaves me out there by myself, I have to get involved in the conversation. I mean, I've always thought that this was a frivolous lawsuit to start with, and that if we want to decide the issue of whether or not the council has subpoena power, maybe we should take that up in times when budgets are much more fat than lean. So everybody keeps asking about why don't we withdraw a subpoena. That cannot be done now, because that committee is no longer, and that committee cannot be reconvened, according to council rule. So my question would be, why not ask the side who filed the lawsuit to start with to drop the lawsuit? Because that would end the need for me to have a council, and that would end the reason that the city is paying the other side as well. Absent of that, I, too, would like to see this issue decided. But I would ask the council to continue to be mindful of the fact that they sued me in my official capacity, well, I guess really it's going to be the responsibility of the city to provide counsel regardless of what happens. So we can vote to do what we want to do. The city is still going to have to defend me because I've been enjoined in a lawsuit that wasn't any of my doing. So I guess taking that into consideration, I would say that the more prudent thing to do is to amend this to ask the board to drop the lawsuit, and that I think would take care of everything. Thank you. Council Member Crosby. Mayor, since you brought my name up, could I just have one comment to that, please? The only thing I would say is what Mr. Askew said is that we can ask for Attorney General's opinion, which would give us some kind of clarity. It's not going to have the rule of law that a judge would, but at least it would give us some clarity of where this issue rests. So I think that's something we should follow up with. And I think we can do that. Council Member Meyers. If I could make one other point, too, and I tried to say it earlier when Commissioner Askew was up at the podium. If you read their PowerPoint presentation, they say that they filed this lawsuit, and Council Member Lane was in the newspaper saying that they filed this lawsuit because I said publicly that I think that the committee ought to look at asking the council to exact a penalty against Mr. Salih. And, again, I want that not to be lost on the council. When Mr. Salih sent the threatening letter that I read to the council that said in the last line that elected officials or officials of the government, however it's said, that knowingly and willingly try to take authority that they don't have, which he was referring to me, when they do that and they know they're doing that, then they can themselves be held liable for whatever. And the response from the council, the committee, was that Mr. Salih could appear before the committee or provide those documents in the same way that Commissioner Law did and say that we don't think you have subpoena power, but you're entitled to the documents, so here you go. The reason I make that point is because we made it clear in a letter to Mr. Sellers that neither I nor the committee was going to ask for a penalty to be exacted against Mr. Salih. My question would be, and it's always been, on what grounds do they have to file a lawsuit if they're saying that they filed a lawsuit because he was under jeopardy when he was not under jeopardy? And it was in writing that he was not under jeopardy. I said it again in a public meeting in a work session, and then the committee voted and passed unanimously a resolution stating that the committee, nor its chair, would ask the full council to exact a penalty, nor would we go to court to enforce a subpoena. So the questions that keep being asked of me, why don't we withdraw a subpoena, when really there was no reason to file a lawsuit in the first place, and I would ask the council at some point to take up that issue. Thank you. Council Member Crosby. Thank you, Mayor. I'll be brief because I know Council Member Feigl has a meeting at 6 and we lose our quorum. But I agree with Council Member Myers in many respects. I think we need to talk to Judge Crichton first. We heard one opinion today of what one attorney would do, but I think it's only fair that we go ahead and talk to Judge Crichton before we do this type of motion. So I understand the spirit of the motion, but I think tonight I'll have to vote no, and then perhaps if it comes up next week after, I'm not sure who would be responsible for talking to both attorneys, but at that time if they're able to get some of these questions answered, then that might consider me to vote another way. Thank you. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Mayor. Comments and responses keep on piling up as long as you sit here. This question about subpoena power, the framers of the charter seem to think that an investigative committee had to have some teeth. Otherwise, the investigative committee could go around in circles and not get anywhere. So if we do away with or it's done away for us by the court, we ought to do away with investigative committees also. Obviously, if we're investigating, we're going to be at some odds with whomever we're investigating, and we have no power to force anything, so it's kind of a common-sense maneuver. Secondly, there is a possibility, I don't know whether it's true or not, but you have to ask the question, or I do, about whether Mr. Sellers has another agenda, whatever that may be, but he has another agenda because he talks like he wants to go further and this specific situation that we have as relates to, at least I understand he said, that he will go ahead without our paying him and initiating anything, that he wants to take this to as far as he can take it. And that's a sad situation, I guess. Excuse me for just a second, Councilmember Beard. I think Councilmember Ellinger may have a way of shortening this conversation just a little bit. In deference to the conversations, and since we don't have a Councilmember meeting until October 14th, and what Ms. Gorton had said, I will withdraw the motion, give you an opportunity to speak with both Councils, and see if we can have something come up between now and the 14th, or the 12th, and if something's not resolved by the 12th of that work session, I'll bring this matter back up. Councilmember Ellinger, I'm happy to talk to both Councils, but am I asking them about Mr. Sellers' offer, or is that what we're? I think so. Okay. I think that would be the prudent thing to do first, if we can get them both to say they'd do it pro bono, get it resolved. And no further charges. Then we have to make a determination at that point, though, if we're going to want to appeal. And we've just got to keep that in consideration. But if it's the sense of the Council that the Council would really like to see the litigation at the end, I can express that as well. Right. I think we also should probably follow the line of possibly an AG opinion down the road, too, as a possibility. One little piece, and that is that I see no reason whatsoever why Judge Crittenden would want to do pro bono work. He has no ax to grind in Fayette County. He's a retired judge. And why we would ask him to go pro bono on this makes no sense whatsoever. And I don't think any other attorneys in this room would do the same, to tell you the truth. Council Member Beard, I don't. I think because of what has been said here about financial times and expenditure of money and things like that, I don't know that he wouldn't. But, I mean, all we can do is ask him and see what he says. I think in light of the withdrawal of the motion, we're now back to the completion of Council Member Ellinger's Council report, if there be one. I think I have exceeded my five minutes. That's all, Mayor. Thank you. All right. Are there any other Council members that wish to make a report who have not here before done so? I've lost my list. Council Member Lane, Martin, Crosby, Myers. Thank you, Mayor. I'd just like to make a short comment, which may be helpful to the Council, why the Internal Audit Board felt that, you know, taking the issue of the subpoena, you know, to get the court to rule on it was important. And it was sort of a combination of issues. There was the issue of the quote in the Herald-Leader that one of the Council members said they were going to try to get penalties against the Internal Auditor. There was a suggestion to support, take the legal support from the Internal Audit Committee away. There was also possible punitive personnel action against Mr. Chalet. And the subpoena basically would break the independence of the Internal Audit Board. So I think that's the issues that are at hand. And I think it would be, I do support what Council Member Gorton said. I feel that, you know, clearing this up would be worth it if we could work out an economical way to get that approved. And Mr. Sellers submitted a letter to Judge Crittenton, and I believe that he cited a Supreme Court's case where the alderman of Louisville tried to subpoena the mayor and the Supreme Court ruled that they don't have that right. And, you know, and based upon further review of the state statutes, there's no power to subpoena given to the urban county government. And Mr. Sellers' interpretation is you must have a statute authorizing a power before the city can have one. You can't just take a power without state statute. So I feel, you know, these would be worth reconciling. And I do agree, I don't like to spend money on wasted legal fees. I think there would be some way that we could have a friendly agreement to go before the judge and get a ruling on this. But the legal fees would be appropriate. Rebuttal. Thank you. Short. Council Member Beard. Mr. Lang, actually the General Assembly did because they approved the charter. And this was in the charter. So I would guess that they didn't take exception to it. Well, look, we're getting into the discussion of the litigation that probably really doesn't serve any useful purpose at this stage of the game. So let's try to finish out the council reports and then let's come back and deal with it within the next couple of weeks, as Council Member Ellinger suggested. Council Member Martin. Mayor, I do have one follow-up comment, though. A very brief one. And since this is an ongoing matter, I think it is relevant. And this is part of my council report, I guess, is that Council Member Myers is not personally named in this lawsuit. He is named in his representative capacity as a chairman of a public body. Well, you could talk during your council report. But you're named in a representative capacity, and that's what's important here. You're named as a representative of this council. And so because of that, it's important that Judge Crittenden report to us. I haven't heard any discussion about what's going on in your lawsuit, because this is an issue that affects all of us. It affects a fundamental issue to this city, and that's whether or not we have a subpoena power. And that should not be just between Council Member Myers and Judge Crittenden. This involves the entire council. So I would like Judge Crittenden to come and to update us as members of this council about what's going on and take his instructions from us. Because Council Member Myers is just simply there in a representative capacity, but you do not speak on behalf of the Urban County Council or the government. And so I think we need to be more involved in what goes on, because that affects the policy and what we do here as a council. And I apologize, Mayor, but I thought that's an important point to make, because Council Member Myers, if you're sued in your individual capacity, I would agree with you. But you don't have anything in jeopardy here. What's in jeopardy is the subpoena power of the City of Lexington. And that involves all of us. And that is important for all of us to be briefed on, to be informed of, and for Judge Crittenden to be responsive to this council. Because you and Judge Crittenden just, and I know you're proceeding in good faith, but we're just not included in that. I think we need to be. So I just wanted to make that statement. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Crosby. And Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to thank Roger Damon with the MPO. He has been very active at sending out messages about road closures and things going on around town to try and help people get around a little easier during the World Equestrian Games. And I think oftentimes employees go the extra step to get things out and make sure people understand what's going on and sometimes don't get recognized for their individual efforts. I know a lot of people are involved with this, but I've noticed specifically that I've gotten several messages from him. So I just wanted to commend him for his work. And like Council Member Lawless said, it appears that it's changing. I know I was out Friday night and they were going to close down one road, but they didn't need to. So it's important that the public gets on and checks out the websites and tries to be educated on how to get downtown and where to go and what streets are closed, if any, because it appeared to me, at least through my experience coming downtown over the weekend, was that that was kind of a changing dynamic based on the amount of people who were attending events. And then also I believe that possibly Council Member Martin might be singing during some of these events, so I would encourage people to take a look at the Spotlight Lexington. He's on sabbatical. We'll come out and support his group. Jokingly, I was just going to make sure everybody gets their Spotlight Lexington guides and checks out what's going on in our community and takes advantage because there is so much free entertainment right now. And it's really exciting to come down and get to see some of the things going on. Thank you. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mayor. I hate to go back, but I do have to clarify a couple of things, if I may. The lawsuit in Louisville was mischaracterized. The Louisville Council does not have in their charter subpoena power. What the Louisville Council tried to do was just create a committee and then give that committee subpoena power, and they weren't subpoenaing the mayor. They were subpoenaing the mayor's date book. And so that's a complete different situation than what we have here today. I have to stop there. It's this personal date book. Secondly, you're incorrect when you say that I'm not the one being sued. Originally, Mr. Sellers filed a lawsuit and named me in my official capacity as the chair of the committee. When he realized the committee was going to go away soon, in order to continue his lawsuit, he changed it to just me as a council member. But my name is the one on there. The council is not being sued. I am being sued as a member of the council. So I want to make that clarification. Now, whether or not the judge needs to come in and talk to the full council, I wouldn't have any problem with that. I suppose that would need to be done in closed session, and I suppose that one member of the council who is also suing me probably should not be in that room. And to that effect, I would say I'm not even sure that that would be wise of me to have my council come in here and talk to the full council about their side of the case, and then you lose attorney-applying privilege and all that kind of stuff. I don't know. All I know is I'm getting sued, and I didn't start it. And so that's that. If we want to have a discussion about that, and the mayor can weigh in on how the government ought to proceed in that, I'm fine with whatever people think needs to be done. I didn't sue anybody. I'm being sued. Well, I think the extent of my weighing in will be is Council Member Ellinger's suggestion we hold this off long enough for there to be a conversation makes a lot of sense to me. Okay. And let's see what that yields. If that's productive, then we may not have to worry about it. If it's not productive, then we can figure out how we go from there. There are some significant issues, and I know a lot of folks have a difficult time understanding the significance of this particular question of law, but it is a real one. It's one that reasonable people can disagree about, and that's why they build courthouses to resolve those things. Let's see if we can get it resolved in the meantime, though. Okay. Council report. The council saw a pass-around. Tate Creek Middle School has earned its International Baccalaureate status, and Lexington Tate Creek Middle School has been named an International Baccalaureate School, completing a five-year drive to become the first Kentucky middle school to win designation from the International Baccalaureate program based in Geneva, Switzerland. The school began the process in 2006. Principal Kunin began looking at the IB program soon after he became principal in 2006, and he said we contemplated different things we could do to put Tate Creek Middle School back on the map. He said we felt we really had to have an identity. What was the school going to be about? Once we started looking at the IB, it really made sense. And then also you already know that Tate Creek High School has the same International Baccalaureate program and the elementary school is working on that as well. So I'm very proud of my alma mater's Tate Creek High School, very proud of them. The pass-around went around on Tuesday, October 5th at 2 p.m. at Tate Creek High School gym. There's going to be a special demonstration for our students and community, and all the council has been invited, the mayor has been invited to attend that. I hope that all of you can. We have a work session, obviously, at 3 o'clock, but hope that you can be there. And I just wanted to say congratulations to Tate Creek Middle School. Thank you, Mayor. That's the last council report I've got. Let me give you just one very brief thing in the way of the mayor's report this afternoon. As you may have heard, tickets for events at the World Equestrian Games for the next day's events are being sold in Cheapside Park, actually on the old courthouse patio near Main Street, Cheapside Park, that corner. It's in a booth called Late Tickets. They are available in limited quantities for the next day's events only. They are generally at about a 50% discount. If you've ever been to New York and bought tickets on Times Square for Broadway plays that day, it's the same sort of concept. But from 4 until 11 p.m. on the night before the event, you may have some friends or constituents who would be interested in going, and it's a great place to get some inexpensive late tickets. That's all I have. Is there any public comment on issues not on the agenda? I have a motion by Council Member Ellinger and a second by Council Member Crosby to adjourn. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries.