On behalf of the mayor, who's out of town on city business. First on our agenda for the work session today is a public comment regarding issues on the agenda. Is there anyone here who has a public comment about issues on the agenda? Okay, hearing none, then we move on to item, Roman numeral number two, which is a requested rezonings and the approval of the docket. There's a motion by Council Member Beard to approve the docket. Is there a second? Motion second. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, please say aye and vote electronically. All in favor, please say aye. All opposed, no. See, this electronic stuff is a lot slower than the just regular one. Yes, ma'am. Just a minute. Just one second. I'm going to log on here, too. So, Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I couldn't get my electronic request to speak to work. Oh, sorry. Now, did we request it with the zone change on it? Because we didn't make a motion to put it on without a hearing. Would you like a motion to put it on without a hearing? There aren't any on this particular docket, so you don't need to make that motion. Oh, okay. I thought we got one last week that came to us. There aren't any that we've gotten from the law department for this work docket, so whatever you receive will go on the next one. No problem. Thank you. Good. Okay. So we're okay, then, to go ahead and vote. We have a motion second. So, do I have to get, as chair, I vote? I still must vote, right? I have no option. Okay. Okay. The motion carries. So we can move on to Roman numeral three, which is approval of the summary. September 18th. I move approval. There's a motion and a second. Discussion? No discussion? Okay. Ready for a vote? All in favor of the motion, please indicate by saying aye and voting aye. Aye. All opposed, no. Motion carries to approve the summary. Roman numeral four on our agenda today is budget amendments. I move approval. Hold the motion for just a minute. Council Member Gordon. I have been asked to make a motion to remove some budget amendments, which are going to be brought forward with the blue sheet for the construction contract. So could I go ahead and do that before we approve the other budget amendments? Unless there's objections, I don't see a reason not to. Go ahead. And Mr. Bob Baird is here if there are any questions about this. So I move to remove budget amendment journal entries 13-105, 13-106, and 13-107. These all relate to Starshoot Parkway, and they will be coming forward accompanying the blue sheet for the construction award. So moved. Second. Motion and a second to remove the identified journal entries. The clerk did we got that right? We're clear on the journal entries that Council Member Gordon's motion? Okay, good. So the motion and a second to remove those. So we'll vote on that first, then we'll vote on the budget amendments, right? Is there any discussion regarding the motion? Hearing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. And vote electronically. All opposed, no. The motion carries. Now we need to vote on the budget amendments pages 10-16. There's a motion and a second. All right. Okay, now discussion. It's good for discussion. Okay. It relates to these, right, George? Okay. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I have a question. I'm not sure who to ask of it, but it's budget amendment 12-948. It involves streets and roads and forestry. Yes, good afternoon. Hi, Bill. My question is, there's a $10,000 budget amendment here for continued education and certification, and I was wondering, was this not budgeted for? No, sir. It was put in budget, but it was cut. We need it for our certification for our urban foresters and our ice and snow removal training. Okay. I know the mayor put extra money in the budget for professional development. Could it be covered out of there? No, sir. It's coming out of one of our maintenance accounts. Which is your rent-lease account? Yes. That was going to be my next question is, what happens to your rent-lease account if you take this $10,000 out? It should be okay. Well, it should be okay. It would depend on what winter does to us, but it should be okay. We did the same thing last year, and it worked out all right for us. So, it sounds like we have too much money in our rent-lease account every year. Depends on the amount of snow, Councilman Myers. What does that account use for? Do we use it for equipment that we don't have on our hands? Sometimes it could be a track loader. We have rubber tire loaders. We may need a track loader to get into a creek or where there's a lot of mud. We'll use it for that. We'll use it to hire contractors in the winter for snow removal if we need to go into a lot of snow removal. Okay. Thank you. Anything else? Mr. Vice Mayor, I have a question. Mr. Lane. Yes. I'm just curious, what's the total on item for lease in that particular column? I don't have it in front of me, but I'll be glad to get it for you. Okay. I would like to know how much we have budgeted in there, if you don't mind. Thank you. I'll be glad to get it for you. I have a follow-up question for him also. Let me mention this. I apologize, Councilmember James, I didn't recognize the instrument panel over here. I'm still thinking everybody's going to hold their hand up. Thank you, Vice Mayor. My question was actually for Leo as well, or at least in regards to this budget amendment, and I just had a question just to answer Councilmember Lane. The budgeted line item amount is $40,000. Councilmember Lane, the adopted budget was $40,000 for rental lease charges, and we only allocated $100 for business training and travel, so I just had a question as to how much had you requested for training and certification, and is the certification a requirement for continuance of employment? It's top for employment, no ma'am, but it is continuing education, especially for urban foresters to keep their certification up to date. The other question was on the amount. We asked for approximately $10,000 in travel that was not granted to us. Okay. Thank you very much. That answers my question. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Councilmember Lane, was that good enough for what Councilmember James gave you? No, I'm sorry, sir. The total amount in the lease was $40,000. Okay. Thank you, sir. That's all I need to know. Thank you. Councilmember Myers. Could I ask one more question? I think we probably need to look at this issue. If every year you put in for this, the certification, is that required every year to be updated every year? It's continuing education, certification, and training. I think we need to look at this. If we're not going to put that in the budget every year, and every year you have to find another place to take it from, I think we need to address that issue. So could you help us out by giving us maybe the last five years of what your request needs to be to fulfill those requirements, and then also where you've taken that money from each year to get it done, and if it's always come out of rent-lease account? The only time we've done that, Councilmember Myers, is this year and last year. Okay. So that's two years, and that's where it came from. Each year was lease charges. Okay. Well, could you also show us how much you've got in your rent-lease account the last five years and whether or not you've had a surplus in there? Sure. And maybe it's just a matter of reallocating. It all depends on the amount of weather that we have on rent-lease charges. I'd be glad to. You need that for the last five years? A question was asked to me. You said that you put this in your budget as a request, but it got cut, right? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Thank you, Mr. McMillan. It's always good to see you right before the winter starts. We have a motion and a second on the table. We're in discussion now on the budget amendments. Is there any more discussion? Okay. Hearing none, then we can vote. All in favor, please indicate with aye and voting electronically. I'll oppose. No. Motion carries. We can move into new business on pages 19 through 42. And there's a motion and a second to approve new business discussion. Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I don't know if anyone's here to talk about Item A. Maybe Mr. Kelly, Commissioner Kelly, or Charlie Martin. I had a question. Charlie, this will probably be your question. This item is authorizing the agreement with the Jessamine South Elkhorn Water District and Ashley Properties on taking 80,400 gallons of sewage to the West Hickman Treatment Plant. And I wondered if you could tell me, or maybe you can e-mail me later, about where we are in the amount of sewage we're taking from Jessamine County in relation to the two million gallons that were required by the state or that our agreement says we will take. Are we close to two million? Are we halfway there? It would be good to know where we are since we're taking on more. I can e-mail you that, and I'll provide that to the council administrator as well so she can share it with other interested council members. We keep track of that with each one of these site-specific agreements and also the memorandum of understanding which proceeds these. So we're pretty well aware of that, and I understand that the trailer parks, which was one of the driving forces of this, is getting ready to happen. And so we've always been very cognizant that we needed to make sure that a portion of this two million gallons a day that we had committed to Jessamine County, that there was still that amount available for the trailer parks because that was always one of the big initiatives in doing this in the first place. Can you, since you keep good track of it, when you send that information, can you spell out how much is coming from which developments? Like we know this 80,400 is for this particular area. Yes, we can do that. The only caveat to that is that each one of these things has an expiration date associated with them. And I'm not exactly sure whether we've kept track of the expiration dates. If we don't build it in 365 days, we're not obligated to it anymore, and we do need to go back and do an audit on some of those since we're a couple years. But I can give you a list of what we have truly committed to now, and that would be the worst case scenario. Okay. And I'm also interested, I mean, not necessarily today, but what is our plan down the road when we're capped out and we've taken two million gallons from Jessamine County and that agreement is fulfilled? Do we have a plan down the road to go back? Will the state ask us to take more? Or what are we thinking? I think that it would be a matter of negotiation between Irving County Government and the Jessamine South Elkhorn Water District, who we have a contract with. We have told them on numerous occasions through some of our planning meetings is that they need to be cognizant of that. That's why every one of these site-specific agreements and also the MOUs list that running total because when they start running out, if they want more, they better start talking now and not later. Right. And it's important to us that they start talking now. So, okay, I appreciate that you'll send it out. Thank you, Council Member Gordon. Any further questions? On the same line there, are we close to that two million now or do you think we're okay? Council Member Maloney, I don't know the number exactly, but I think that we're somewhere in the realm of 40 to 50 percent. I don't think we're close yet. Okay, thank you. So we have a motion and a second. If there's no further discussion, we can vote. All in favor, please say aye and vote electronically. Aye. All opposed, no. Motion carries. We're now moving to continuing business and presentations. Hour from numeral six. And first on the agenda today is a planning committee report. Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Good evening, Council Members. The planning committee met September the 18th, 2007, and the report starts on page 43 of your packet. The first item of business was the I-64 Louisville Water Pipeline proposal. And we heard for the first time the proposal from RWBEC, which was the consulting group hired by the Louisville Water Company to look at a comparison of the Louisville Pipeline proposal and the Kentucky American Water Company Pool 3 option. And there was no motion to come out of this discussion, although there were a couple pieces of information, one of which is that on October the 15th, the Louisville Water Company is scheduled to have a meeting with the state to explore exactly the answer to the question of whether the pipeline could be run along the I-64 corridor. The hearing for the proposals was delayed to November 26th before the Public Service Commission. The second item of business was a presentation on the Loudoun Avenue Phase 1 from Mr. Lacar of Engineering. And third, we heard a Liberty Road update. And finally, we heard an update on the Newtown Pike status. And there were no motions to come out of committee. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Gordon. Thank you. Any questions? Mr. Maloney. Council Member Gordon, in your committee on the water issue, have you all decided on a regulation to support both plans to make this thing go a lot quicker and smoother? Do you want the Public Service Commission to look at both plans? Because this is the third drought that I've sat through, 1988, 1998, and this one. And this one's breaking all kinds of records, I believe. Has anybody said that we need to get this on a fast track, that we want the Public Service Commission to look at both of these and go ahead and make the best recommendation for what lessons it is so we can get on forward with this? Well, the committee did not bring that exact item forward, but I do have a motion during my council report which several committee members and council members have expressed interest in, and that is that we hear from the PSC and the Attorney General about the actual process and how they will be looking at both proposals and making a comparison. So I had intended to bring that motion during my council report so that they could come before the council and give that information, which might satisfy some of the questions that council members have. Okay. I mean, I'm just the third one I've sat through. And I just, I think we need to, I mean, we need to get on, and we need to send a message to the Public Service Commission. We're giving you both plans. You just make sure that we can't continue to go on. And I'd just like to see you support both, whatever the Public Service Commission recommends the best to go on. Well, they will be having the hearing on November 26th. Do we want them to? They will be. They have gotten both plans, both proposals, and they will be going through information from both proposals. Okay. So I'm hoping we can hear from them maybe next week. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I think Council Member Maloney, to your question, because Louisville Water has become an official intervener in the case and filed that petition, that that will happen as a course of action, that they have to put their plan out there with their real numbers so that they're not all over the map like they've been with their numbers to this point. At that November date, they will, the POC will look at both plans. So as an intervener, that's the best reason why they, by being an intervener, that helps us tremendously by looking at both those plans side by side. Thank you. Okay. If there are no further questions, we can move on to Item Number B. I'm sorry. Sorry, Mr. Lane. You came on there suddenly and on the edge of my panel. Well, I just wanted to echo what Council Member Maloney and Council Member McCord said. You know, my concern is we do not have people that work for the Edmond County Government that are competent to evaluate the long-term costs to develop and operate the water system, and I think we do have to rely on the people that work in the Public Service Commission to do that workforce, unless we want to go out and hire some outside firm at a fairly expensive price. You know, I am extremely concerned about the water supply. This has been a problem that's been going on for over two decades, you know, while I've been, you know, real active in the Lexington area, and it's a problem that needs to be resolved. Even if, you know, one plan is a little bit less expensive than another, if there's a delay of two or three more years, they're just an inflationary cost of substituting the plan and the risk involved that, you know, for example, we can't get easements or there's some other technical issue that won't allow us to build the system, then we run the cost up for the rate payers and we delay the availability of water for our community. So I would encourage us to, you know, rely on the PSC and get the process moving forward. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Milne. And we can move on now to Item B on our agenda, Community Corrections, the attrition issue with respect to community corrections. And I believe Director Bishop is here. Yes, sir. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Yes, sir. I appreciate having the opportunity to speak to the council regarding the attrition and turnover efforts that we're making out at the correction center. Hopefully today I can just give you a very, very brief overview of where we are, a little information and a few numbers, a little bit of history, and then hopefully I'll put this all in perspective. You see there years 2003 up through September of 2007, and you can see the total separations, and while those numbers have been fairly steady, this year up to this point we've had a total of 52 separations. Based on the number of separations so far this year, this could be the fewest number of separations in the past four years. And this was our statistics when we generated this report. Ms. Walters and I went back and looked at a couple of years back to the beginning of when the jail first opened out there, and I don't have this on your handout or on the presentation, but we looked at 2001 and 2002. And in 2001 we had 83 separations, and in 2002 we had 75 separations, but the number of officers that were there were much lower, 265 in 2001, 278 in 2002. So that gave in 2001 a turnover rate of 32 percent. Through September of 2007, where you see the 52, we are on schedule. Right now we're at 17.5 percent, and we are on schedule. If those numbers hold, or if we don't go up very much more, it will be the lowest turnover ever since the new jail opened in 2001. So we are working very hard to try and make sure that we keep that down. Those numbers are still high. We would like to see them somewhere stabilized below 20 percent, and that's our goal. But right now we are still making, I think, very solid progress in that regard. The next slide you see is voluntary resignations, and again the same time frame, 2003 through September of 2007. You see total separations and then voluntary resignations. And if you look at those numbers, the difference, those will be coming down also of separations so that this year 80.8 percent of the resignations have been voluntary. The reasons are varied, as you can see. Most people leaving are going to new jobs. And we do an exit survey, a face-to-face exit survey with every single individual who's leaving, and I see every one of those and I read them because it helps me keep a feel for why people are leaving. This pretty much confirms that they are leaving for other jobs. The new jobs in public safety, that's generally people that we lose to the police department, and those are always some of our very best officers who are interested in a law enforcement career and move on. You see the rest of the categories there, the military, some people don't give any reason, family reasons, injury, relocation, return to school, and forced. A breakdown of that information shows that under new job other, that number went up from 06 to 07 rather significantly. But if you look down a little bit further under no reason given, it dropped significantly from 06 to 07, and we believe that those numbers under no reason given in 07 went into new jobs. We are asking a little bit more probing questions as we talk with people and we think we've gotten a little bit more accurate information. So some of those in 06 where it just said no reason, we think that those are folks who got other jobs. And also under shift work, we believe that those numbers, while they dropped from 06 to 07, probably were cited as new jobs in other. Because we're a 24-7 operation, of the 52 individuals who separated, this year 63.5% left from either the second or the third shift. Our second shift is from 4 p.m. to midnight, and our third shift is from midnight to 8 a.m. And of the 80 individuals who separated in 06, 52.5% left from those two shifts. So again, the shift work is an issue that we constantly deal with. Under pay, in 05, you can see the range there from 25.4 to 39.8 for officers. In 06, a 2.4% increase brought it up from 26,000 to 40,700. And then currently, under the conditions of collective bargaining, it's now 27.8, and the range goes up to 44, and that became effective in July 1. A couple years ago, we did a survey of comparable-sized cities around this region and the jails that were operating within those cities, and based on the salaries that we determined at that point, we were at the lower end of the pay scale. This agreement that we're operating under now puts us pretty squarely in the middle of that range. So we think we're far more competitive than we were a couple years ago. And in conclusion, I want to go back and say that if you look at the numbers through September, this could be our best year as far as holding down turnover. If you add 01 and 02, those numbers that I gave you, show that we had a 32% turnover in 01, and we're on track right now for it to be the lowest turnover ever. One indicator that we're very proud of that we've been following is the number of recruit academies that we do every year. In 2004, we had six recruit academies. In 2005, we had five. In 2006, we had three. And in 2007, we will only have two recruit academies. Of course, our goal to get to two a year, that's a goal that we're hoping to be able to stick with, but we've had two recruit academies this year, and I think that's an indicator of the progress that we've made. Shift work is still a contributing factor. This oftentimes affects people's personal lives, their childcare, their ability to carpool. That's an issue that we are constantly working with and are cognizant of, that a large percentage of our people leave due to shift work. And then lastly, I think that we are kind of in a transition period, if you will, with regard to collective bargaining. It's a fairly new concept for many of our employees working under a contract versus working in the merit system, getting used to the idea of the bidding process and seniority driving the ability to get some of those days off and those shifts. We had some people who I think were fairly junior, but who had worked their way up to having a first shift with days off. I think there was some anxiety there about those individuals being able to, when compared to more senior officers, hang on to those. So we have had a very, very good working relationship with CWA. It has been a very productive negotiation. I think we have a good contract, one that's good for the employees, one that's good for management and the government. And while I think it's too early to tell how this will all shake out, we are hopeful that with the various aspects of that contract in there, that it will continue to help stabilize our turnover and that we can get that to go down even more. And if you have any questions, I'll be glad to. Thank you, Mr. Bishop. I should have put this in context earlier, especially for a viewing audience. This issue was really introduced in the last two council meetings by Council Member Ellinger, who had observed that in the attrition or the terminations active, and there were voluntary and involuntary terminations that we review at each council meeting, that the numbers for corrections seemed to be a higher percentage of the total. And that's what then generated our inquiry. And Council Member Ellinger has comments, and then Council Member Beard and James. Thank you, Director Bishop. Like the Vice Mayor said, I just noticed when we looked at our resignations that they, compared to the rest of them, it looked like it was pretty high. And I think we've, over the times that we've been here, it's always been pretty high, the turnover in community corrections. So I'm glad to see that they're going down. I hope with the increase in pay that that should help to keep it from our turnover. And I guess another issue, and that was one that we always talked about, was morale. And I think probably as the pay goes up, the morale probably is much better too. I would hope that that's been a. . . Well, we think certainly that will help. And it's one of those things that we have to take a real comprehensive approach to, not only the salary but the work environment and the feedback that we get from the employees. So we try to look at all of those things. And then when we look at the voluntary resignations, those are the raw numbers. What is the total workforce then? Because actually I would think that number would be going up. So as a percentage, there are less, and it also would probably be a less percentage than also, would it not? Were you asking what our total number of employees? Exactly, from 03 to 07. I have in 01 265 officers, and right now we have 350. So actually we've gone up and the numbers have gone down. Yes. So that's a good sign that we are being able to lower percentage-wise our turnover. How does this compare to other, you know, you talked about that with areas in our demographics. How would that compare with the turnover in this particular, because I have to think in community corrections it is a high turnover occupation. It is. It's a high turnover nationwide. It's one that anyone in the business that I'm in struggles with. I think we are in fairly good shape compared to any national averages with last year, which was a complete year of 26.9. I think we're kind of on the lower end of the turnover scale, and I think as we get closer to 20 percent and under, I think we're going to move into the upper echelons of the nation. But it is a business where anywhere from 25 to 35 to 40 percent is not unheard of, depending on the jurisdiction. And it's usually, I think when we talk about this in years past, it usually is the first couple, two or three years, and after that then we do a lot better on retention as you get in the first few years. Absolutely. If we can get people to stay with us for a couple years, then they kind of settled in and gotten comfortable and become familiar with the duties, and we have a much better chance if we can get them. And so we've put some emphasis on that front end. We've revamped the academy curriculum. We have revamped the training academy curriculum for sergeants, which are our first-line supervisors. We have put officers with FTOs for training officers for two weeks after they graduate. I'm sorry, during the period of time before graduation so they become comfortable. So we're putting a lot of emphasis on the front end to try and get those individuals as equipped as possible to do the job and hopefully get through that 18 to 24-month period. Can you tell us what we're doing because it seems like the first shift we're not having near as much trouble as the second and third on retention. I think in the collective bargain we actually added some incentives and all. What did we do? We did. We did. Our first shift officers are usually more our veteran officers. They're usually the people who kind of settled in, oftentimes have decided to either make this a career or they've been here for a while and have gotten the better post and the better days off. Our new officers right out of the academy usually go to the third shift. That's where our vacancies are. And then with the new contract in October will be the first bid period. And this will be the first time under this contract where officers will bid for shifts and days off based on their seniority. So we have that to go through, and that will be kind of a new experience for us. But we in the contract added shift differentials for the second and the third shift because, as you saw from the statistics, that's where our turnover is and that's where we put that money. And we're hoping that that will be kind of an inducement for people to, that it's a recognition of those hours that are a little different. Well, I'm glad to see the trend, and hopefully it will continue. That will be towards the right way. I guess kind of an issue off the base of why I have you here, how are we doing on the crowding issue? We're getting crowded. Our population is hovering now around 1,300. The summer months are always heavy months. We have a number of efforts going on. I've been down here and talked with the council about electronic monitoring and how we try to use that for low-level individuals that we believe can be monitored in the community. We are working with the court system on a day reporting effort with the Commonwealth attorney and the county attorney, again, for individuals who might be supervising the community to do work projects, to go to GED classes, to go to anger management, individuals who, again, don't present a risk. We are working in that regard. And we are working with the judges on individuals who have significant medical issues that sometimes they will release those individuals if they present no threat to the community. So we have a number of initiatives going on that we are trying to help manage that population. But, again, we are at around 1,300. We're in communication with the state because we have close to 200 people that are ready to go to the Department of Corrections. As of Monday, 113 who were sentenced, who are ready to be moved out, about 68 parole violators who could be moved out, and probation violators out of circuit court. So we have a good number of beds that are tied up by state inmates, if you will. And so we've been in discussion with them about trying to get them moved out. That's the highest it's been since I've been here. I was going to say, because I think when we built this jail, what was supposed to be the maximum at that time? It wasn't 1,300. So design capacity was 1,088, and then with some waivers that we got from the state, it took it to about 1,200. So we're getting there now. We've doubled up. We've increased some units on the outer ring, about four units, and we now have to put two officers in there because we have increased that bed population. It's really higher than the state jail standards are supposed to be, but it's just an issue that we're having to deal with. Is that something that we need to be concerned about, that we need to look at? I think that if the state can move their people out, we would be okay, but I think there is just a slow, gradual increase that seems to be just a part of this business that we've got to keep an eye on down the road. Well, please keep us informed if there's something we need to do. Thank you. We appreciate the information. Certainly. Counselor Beard. Director Bishop, a question about the statistic you threw up there, 63.x percentage of terminations came on second and third shift. You know, if you had equal staffing levels at each one, that should be 66 percent. So I assume, and maybe you could tell us, what are the staffing levels roughly for each shift? And that's a good question, Counselor Beard. The first shift is your heaviest staff because you've got court transports, you've got doctor's appointments and clinic appointments, and just a lot of activity going on. Your third shift is your lightest staff, so you're absolutely right. It would be 33.3 percent per shift if it were equal. It's not. So by the third shift being the lightly staffed shift because of the less activity, you have fewer numbers so that you have a higher percentage coming out of there. Right. Do you have a formal written exit interview process that you go through? Yes, we do. I assume that's how some of those statistics you were throwing up, where that came from. Yes. Are we losing anybody to more and more corrections in other cities, nearby cities? We lose people to the police, both locally and some surrounding. We lose people to FMC, the Federal Medical Center out there, because their starting salaries are much higher than ours. Beyond that, they generally jump clear out of this business. We don't lose them to Louisville Corrections or Woodford County. Occasionally, very rarely, and we don't lose them much to the state, which has a facility at Blackburn. It's usually a policing agency or the federal facility. Okay. Well, thank you very much. That's all I have. Thank you, sir. Council Member James and then Council Member McCord. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Hi, Mr. Bishop. Hello, Council Member. While you're here, I wanted to say to the council members to go out, be sure to go out and visit some of your constituents out there at the jail. I've taken a tour around the jail with Mr. Bishop and another staff member there, and it really gave me a whole nother insight as far as just their process, what they go through, what working is there like. Hopefully that's the only perspective of being an inmate there that I will ever see, the Hope Center program that runs from out of that facility, and I was extremely impressed. As I am with your presentation today, every time we ask something of you, you come absolutely full force, every detail, nothing untouched, and it's like you know community corrections like the back of your hand. Again, as your previous presentations, I just appreciate your attention to detail, the fact that you know what's happening at your facility, and I hope that other council members have received that bit of confidence from you today as I have from this presentation. I appreciate you coming. Thank you. Thank you very much. Director Bishop, my question is really what can we do for you? You know, I know that as Council Member James has just said, you know, every time you come here you've always got some creative idea on how we can keep population down. The inmate cleanup program, you know, was something you've seen in other communities and said, hey, we could do this. But is there something, I know now that it's in collective bargaining, it's a little bit different animal, but is there anything that you see that this body can do to help you or that we need to be mindful of over the next few weeks or few months? Well, Council Member McCord, I certainly appreciate that, and I think that there are some things that we certainly have to keep an eye on and keep this body advised of as we move down the road. Again, I think that we are in a good position with collective bargaining. We've sort of got that behind us now, and hopefully that will stabilize some things, and that's one big thing that we can check off of our list. For those of you who are on the Council, when I came in 2004, I said that there were three major things that I really needed to focus on, and one was recruiting and retention, population management, and overtime. Those were the three big issues. I think we've made significant progress on overtime. I think we have made significant progress, hopefully as witnessed by this report today, on recruiting and retention. Population management is going to be the issue that we will have to keep an eye on for the next six to 12 to 18 months. I also said that we would do everything that we could internally before we came forward with anything that might cause any kind of capital outlay, and that's why we've talked about electronic monitoring and day reporting. And when the time comes, we may have to talk about what's the next step bed-wise. We're exploring options right now, but we're going to do everything that we possibly can to keep that option open, but as a last resort. Okay. I know that in some of our discussions offline, one of the things that you had said really is a cost that we all need to be aware of that is almost uncontrollable, or there's very little that can be done as your health care costs, and that that is really the elephant under the rug, so to speak, that there's just so much there. And if you would maybe take two minutes to speak to that, and then I'm going to close with a comment. It is probably the area, I think you're right, Councilmember McCord, that we have probably the least amount of control over. We have a population that's coming in that is unhealthy. They have not had good health care in the past. Many of them have not taken care of themselves based on their lifestyles of either alcohol or drugs or being homeless or bad diet or any number of things, and we have to address that. We had 32 people last year that cost us nearly half a million dollars, and that's from dialysis and serious heart conditions to complications from pregnancy. A couple of things are happening, though, that we are making some progress even in that area. One, our staff is working very closely with the judges, and they are a lot of help to us, on those very, very serious individuals with significant health problems who present no real risk to the public. They help us try to get those individuals back into the community and off of our tab, if you will. The state, through House Bill 191, has come up with funding for catastrophic illnesses, and we are, for the first time ever, being able to move some of those individuals to LaGrange, to their hospital facility, and basically the way that legislation works is if an individual has a very, very serious illness, they can go there for treatment until that illness either subsides or they're released or they pass away. And so we've been able to get some individuals into that program through the Department of Corrections. They've really stepped up and helped us with females who have complications from pregnancy, serious heart issues. That's helping us, and we've seen our medical costs stabilize more this year than in the three previous years. And the last thing is we have a great physician who does more on-site, and that's where our costs are when we have to go out off-site. So because of that, he is treating more people on-site, so that's less staff time, less transporting, and more done on our own facility. So a combination of those things is helping. But again, that is always a very, very high-dollar item, as you know. I think as the Council is hearing this, one of the things that we need to understand is that the coming crisis is the population size, and what do we do with that as far as putting a roof over the head, so to speak. But what is on us right now is this health care issue, and that we do have an unhealthy community just in general, not just this population, but it's interesting how it trickles down into this population. And I think that those of us that have medical backgrounds or are in the medical field or have connection in the medical world, probably it would bode us really well to look creatively at trying to partner our hospitals, partner our colleges with Director Bishop in that facility, so that we can lower that cost down, because that's the one that we really don't have any kind of direct control over. So I would encourage all of us at an individual level but also as a collective body to start looking creatively there, and especially with those of us that some of us up on this Council have a medical background or are involved in the medical world. I think that that would be an opportunity for us. So thank you again for your presentation. Thank you. Thank you. I believe that's all the questions and comments today. Director Bishop, thank you very much for joining us. Next on our agenda is an update on the town branch sewage discharge and our air and quality division. Is that Mr. Martin? Charlie Martin is now what's the new division? The language to describe it is Department of Air and Water Quality? Division. Division. Thank you, sir. Okay. Thanks, Charlie. Thank you. Charlie Martin is director. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, what I understood I was going to provide an update on was the Cox Street release that's going on right now. The Manchester Street I think is how it's titled in there. Apologize, I would have had a map here to help illustrate things here, but I didn't become aware that I was going to do this until this morning as I was printing off my docket. So I'll just try to describe where we're at here is that on September the 11th, I got a report from a private citizen that they saw something in the creek in the Manchester Street area, and this is roughly bounded by it. You would be able to access this from the lower parking lot of the arena and Heritage Hall area. This would be the arena on the south side, Main Street on the north side, and High Street on the south side where it comes. The creek actually goes under Rupp Arena in a box culvert, and then it daylights just on the other side of Cox Street. The citizen that contacted me on the evening of September 11th, they were out walking the creek looking for something else. They were there for some other business, and they let me know that there was something in the creek, and so I notified our crews, and we mobilized. We notified HAZMAT, we notified DEEM, and we also notified the Division of Water, and everyone mobilized at the site to try to figure out what this is. What this is is that some type of liquid is actually coming up from the bottom of the creek. There's no pipe associated to it. There's no relationship on where it's coming from. You have to almost stand along the creek and actually look at it fairly closely to see where it's coming up. It's also coming out of the rock ledge that would be on the south side of the creek as well. On the 11th, we didn't have the ability to take any samples or anything because typically samples have to be analyzed at a lab, and at that hour everybody was closed. But it was determined at that time universally that it was most likely not sewage because there wasn't any paper. There wasn't any of the solids that are characteristics of sewage. So I originally had notified Commissioner Kelly about this, and then the next morning when I found out that they had determined it wasn't sewage, I let him know that. Well, our people continued to follow up on it, and the sampling did indicate that it had characteristics of sewage, and by characteristics I mean just that, is that it shows a biochemical oxygen demand. It shows that there is some level of bacteria there, so it's clearly something that doesn't belong in the creek. But what we don't know right now is whether it is domestic sewage, is it industrial discharge, where it's coming from, and really what the origin of it is, whether it be public and or private. During the course of the next day on the 12th, our crews had mobilized to introduce dye into the sanitary sewer system in the pipe that was adjacent to the creek and in the surrounding area of that creek. At last count, we had dumped probably 2,000 gallons worth of dye in at various locations, and it never comes out in the creek. So we're a little bit at a loss at this point in time as far as where it is coming from and what the origin of it is. In the meantime, though, we recognized that we needed to do something to be able to control it in the stream. As some of you may have seen on the news, we set up a temporary aeration system roughly where Manchester Street crosses the creek at the railroad overpass that goes over your head as you're headed towards Forbes Road. We're pumping water out of the creek and then pumping it back in and spraying it out through this kind of homemade aerator thing. The thought is that we'll be able to treat and keep the DO levels or the dissolved oxygen levels in the creek up high enough by spraying it out and letting it interface with the air, and there's an air-water interface there. We've had an in-stream sampling protocol as well. We find not good results in the area where the leak is occurring. Further downstream, we find better results. The DO levels are high enough to where aquatic life is not distressed. Further downstream, we have also sampled for E. coli. We find that the numbers are not elevated beyond what you would expect for an urban stream. Let me characterize that a little bit. Our discharge permit for the town branch treatment plant would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 colonies per 100 milliliter on a weekly average, 200 on a monthly average. The samples we had conducted downstream of our outfall found colonies in the range of 250. It's fairly consistent in the stream downstream from where our outfall is of what you'd see coming out of our outfall. We don't feel like that there is a significant danger, but let me make clear that people shouldn't fish and they should not swim in town branch. Town branch in itself has a history as far as being an impaired stream. It is impaired for nutrients and pathogens and has been on impaired streams list for as long as I can remember. I've been here since 1999, and so people should use caution as far as entering the stream in any location, but particularly in this location, and there are signs posted there warning the public of that. I mentioned the systematic inspection of the pipe network. We're continuing that operation, and that operation may take a long time. As we spread our investigation out further and further in a radius away from where this is, we may or may not necessarily find that, and so it became very apparent to us that we need to find a way to be able to control it and not let it get into the stream, so there's a two-pronged approach in dealing with that. First of all, we've proposed a mechanism in which we would be able to isolate the segment of the stream where this is coming in, bypassing the rest of it around it and allowing flow to go on downstream. We presented a conceptual plan to the Division of Water. They thought that had some promise to it, gave us the information that we needed as far as to be able to get the appropriate permits from the Division of Water and the Army Corps of Engineers, and we have a consultant that is assisting us in fast-tracking approvals for that. Also, we have selected a consultant that has an environmental background specifically in geology because what I anticipate is going to have to happen is that we're going to have to use some reasonable methodology to start doing exploratory boreholes away from the stream and see whether or not the groundwater shows that we have a hit. In the perfect world, what I'd like to find is us to be able to sink a hole and intercept this seam where it's coming into the creek, then be able to install some type of pumping thing to where I can pump it out of that hole and put it into the sanitary sewer system instead of it staying in the stream. That in itself, though, like I said, it's a needle in the haystack, I guess, in some ways. The dual-purpose plan as far as isolating the stream and getting it out of the stream, that has to have as much emphasis to it as finding the source because the source may be very difficult to find. That's really what I have as far as an update on it. I guess I can take whatever questions. Charlie, the question I had, I think we discussed it earlier this morning, that we have no idea how long this leak has been going on until a citizen happened to see it. How often do we check the creek for any kind of, do we have some kind of, somebody go by, check the area of the creek to see if there's any chemicals or anything in there? The stormwater program, which, as you know, I've taken over as of July 1st, I've been orienting myself very well with what they do. They have a dry weather screening program. They have other screening programs as well. Obviously, we're doing a lot of work in that area to try to coordinate those efforts better than what had been done in the past. As far as from our old sanitary sewers aspect, we had hired someone and created a position a year ago for them to do in-stream sampling at different locations. Obviously, with the miles and miles of stream that we have right here, more often than not, things are complaint-driven for us. We monitor the creek ourselves. We have two monitors, one that's called A Creek and another one that's called B Creek. Those are up and downstream from our outfall. As I said before, we wouldn't necessarily pick that up if it was a leak. Then you had a dilution factor that went on with it. It may be so dilute by the time it reached A Creek that we wouldn't necessarily pick it up as being anything unusual. If this person would have never found it, do you think we could have found it pretty quick or somebody would have come by? Is it obvious enough, other than the citizen, that that person would have never been down there? Would it have been far enough down that somebody could have seen it downstream or is it just that area that's the only place you can really see it? In my opinion, it was sheer luck that someone reported it because it is not in a location where the average person would be accessing the creek. Essentially, you have to drive right alongside the railroad switch yard to be able to even get to it. The gate is locked typically during off hours and stuff. By the time it moves downstream, there at the Manchester Street crossing, there is a large box culvert that comes from the UK area. You've got an additional introduction of flow at that point in time which serves to dilute whatever might be there. Then you're still going through what is generally an industrial area for quite a ways until you get to the plant. At the plant, we're introducing anywhere between 10 to 20 million gallons a day of additional flow into it that's fully treated. In certain circumstances, we would find these things because a citizen would. Our long-term plan as far as monitoring plan is a more aggressive dry weather and wet weather screening that leads to not only the identification of problems but also a procedure that responds to them, deals with them, and brings closure to them. The other thing that concerns me is a lot of infield redevelopment going on. With this kind of deposit going into a creek, is this something like that much waste coming out? Could it be from a house or could it be from an apartment complex or could it be for a size of that much coming out? Can you really tell if it's a small house or if it's some large industrial or something like that? What Ron has reported to me, he's been at the site essentially the whole time since this thing's been going as he's been the one who's coordinated it. He says that you'll see it diminish during the course of the evening and overnight and then it picks back up during the daytime. We've spent a lot of time trying to theorize with various geologists and folks because once it gets introduced underground, a lot of different things could be happening. It could be more than one source. This could have been going on for a long time and just pooling up in a particular location and now that the groundwater levels have dropped so much because of the drought, it now is able to release itself. The medium at which water travels underground is extremely nonlinear. So trying to be able to characterize it in a simple way is very, very difficult. I appreciate what you all are doing and I know it's going to be hard to find, but it just concerns me and I think it's great to have MPL redevelopment, but it's just where these new developments are going on and we've got these old sewer lines. Are we making sure that they're being tapped into the right ones or do we have somebody to make sure that who oversees these projects, when the projects are finished or when the ground's opened up, do we have an inspector that goes out there and looks and says, did this sewer line hook up to the correct sewer line? We do. We have a tampon inspector that is actually in the Division of Engineering. It's not in the Division of Water and Air Quality, but those things are inspected not only by that individual but also by the state plumbing folks as well and both of them have to provide a stamp in order for it to be considered to be acceptable. Do those things happen erroneously? Yeah, unfortunately they do. We found a downtown restaurant a year ago that had been connected to the storm sewer and it probably has been for 20 or 30 years. The reason why it became apparent is before it wasn't a restaurant, it was something else, which had a very low flow to it. We eliminate those things when we find them, but what's gone on over the last 30 and 40 years in downtown locations, as things correct themselves or the things change, they'll reveal themselves. Those are easier ones when they reveal themselves because if we're connected to a pipe, we can deal with that. We have a very ready and able way to be able to make those corrections. This thing that's going on underground has left us scratching our head a lot because there's not an obvious source to it. It could be simply somebody's floor drain that's in a commercial or industrial thing that was never properly connected and it's falling into a localized sinkhole or karst area and getting in that way. It may not even be something that's directly connected to anything to start with. It could be a lot of things. Okay, thank you. Council Member Blevins, then Council Member Beard. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Charlie, I want to help folks understand how complicated this problem is for your division. To me, it's a lot. Would you say this is roughly equivalent to a roof leak at your house where you have the water show up in the kitchen area, but the source of the leak could be way on the other side of the house and the water has a way of traveling along the house to find its final place in the kitchen? Is it equivalent in complexity to that? It's more complex than that. More so. Yeah, I was just trying to translate it into something most of our citizens understand because a lot of us don't understand the geology underneath Lexington is pretty complicated. I would characterize that if your roof was more than a couple of square miles in this area. Okay. The other question I have for you is, have you guys tested the treatment plant itself? The treatment plant is downstream from this location. Right. Is it downhill, though, in terms of the karst? What I'm getting to is what made me think of this is you described the flow as not being completely sewage but having sewage-like qualities, and it occurred to me it might be partially treated sewage. That's why I was asking. That's a good question. Like I said, I'm open to all suggestions and all that. Part of this analysis of being able to determine what direction that we need to begin to evaluate, that's part of what they're going to do is determine the surface flow is in the direction to where this is upstream from the sewer, and you're right that the layer of rock may be entirely different, and that's what they're supposed to tell us. Which way is this coming from most likely so then we can begin this series of boreholes to be able to try to hopefully hit the vein at which this thing is traveling through and be able to get it under control. I'll make note of that. That's a good point. I mean, we've looked at it. Everything is on the table right now, everything. All right, so you know once an engineer, always an engineer. Last question, are we still doing lab work on the flow as it enters the creek to try and maybe get more clues in that direction, or are we done with our lab work? No, we're continuing to do the sampling protocol. The difficulty that I've had right now as well is that we're not able to collect a sample that is independent of the stream itself. As I said before, it's coming up in the stream. Without having gone down there and what they were describing to me, I kept saying sample for fluoride, sample for fluoride, because if it's a water main leak, that's a good way to be able to tell. Most people say chlorine, but after it's tribaled underground, usually the chlorine residual has been consumed. That's the other part of this analysis that the environmental firm is going to do for us, is how can we create a scenario where we can collect samples and then start analyzing it for particular constituents outside of our normal laboratories that might give us an indication of who might be the contributor, such as if it's industrial and if it's something that fire has, as far as on their list of hazardous materials that are used at different locations, that might narrow down the investigation. It's almost like a CEI type of investigation. Okay. You're clearly on top of it. Thank you. Okay. Councilman Beard. Amateur engineers and geologists, Council Member Blevins. You said that the outcropping at the side of the creek was also losing this material? Right at the water surface level. You have to look really close, but you can see the little ripples. On the south side, did you say? Yeah, it would be on the Manchester Street side, yes. What would you estimate the flow of town branch at that point is as a percentage of normal? I don't know if I can characterize it as far as a percentage of normal. Our A creek meter, if I remember correctly, the information I gave to the division of water last Thursday was we're roughly about 1,400 GPM coming by the A creek. We are, you know, the outfall that comes, step back a second, town branch is considered to be a zero flow stream, and it's about as close to zero flow as you can get right now, is that water that is staying in different pools and all that, there's not a lot of movement based on what I've seen. The how much percentage of this stuff that's coming into the creek, we can't characterize that as far as a volume-to-volume ratio because you've got no way to really measure it. And so that's why we're really focusing on the in-stream water quality as a measurement. The total coliform at that particular location is too numerous to count and too numerous to count is just that, it's too numerous to count. And so whether there's X or Y GPM in my mind is not as relevant as that the bacterial levels are off the charts. And so that's why we're focusing on providing that treatment, or at least a modified treatment mechanism downstream, but also we've got to isolate this segment of the creek and get it out of there. Where I was headed actually on this was that as dry as it's been, is it a possibility that this has existed all along, but it's been covered over by more deeper water and moving water that dilutes it to such a point that you would never know it? That thought has occurred to me, and I think there is some likelihood to it. As I mentioned earlier in my discussion, that Town Branch has been an impaired stream for nutrients and pathogens for a while, and that this may be one of several contributors that we're not even completely aware of yet. But there is that potential that exists, yes. Okay, I just wanted to get in there and play geologist for a few minutes. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Beard. Any other questions for Mr. Martin? You may want to start the dial here in New York County Government Building and tip it down there. Okay. Well, I will at the earliest opportunity when the conditions change make sure that we apprise the Council of things developed because I know everyone is concerned. Thank you, Mr. Martin. Thank you. You're going to pick up too quickly on Council Member Maloney's suggestion and let us know when you're going to start the testing. Next on the agenda is the Lyric Theater. And Mr. Bowen, Charlie, you have some guests with you today, I believe, right? I do. Thank you very much. I have with me today the chair of the Lyric Theater Task Force, Miss Juanita Metz-Peterson, and also the project architect, Susan Hill of Tate Hill Jacobs, both here today. We'd be happy, I'm sure, if you had any questions for them. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to give you an update on what I consider to be a very important project for this community. It's a project that has a tremendous amount of significance that I think we'll lay out. I think that we've had some questions that were raised at a recent council meeting and have had some discussions with council members and others about this. And so what I'd like to do today is to provide you an update on the project and in so doing attempt to address those questions, at which time we then will open it up for any other questions council members may have. I think the basic message of this presentation, though, is that the Lyric Theater is a project with which we are moving forward, and it's a project that was required by the state. It's a project that has been approved by the council, and it's a project that's been shaped by the community. And as the community shaped that project through many public input sessions, the desire was expressed that we have a multipurpose facility, that that encompass a broad range of complementary type uses, and that this facility would be one that would be available for use by the entire community. And I think the task force has worked diligently to accomplish that and put forth in the concept that was approved almost one year ago today. I think we're two weeks shy of when we actually brought this recommendation forward. A little bit of background, and I'm going to try to be brief with this, but we have a memorandum of understanding with the state for cultural facilities. I think most of you are aware of that. Most of you know the background of that. The Lyric Theater, though, is one of the facilities that we are required to renovate as a community and to provide that as a cultural facility here in such a way that commemorates the African-American heritage of our city. We are under a definite timeline that has been established under that memorandum of agreement. We acquired the theater on July the 27th of 2005, and that set into motion a clock that has been ticking since, a two-year window to go ahead and complete design of the facility, which we're in the process of doing that, and to submit a report to the state, which was submitted in early August of this year. We then have a window to complete the actual construction, going to bid, trying to get that piece of the project nailed down to begin construction by January of 2008, and then to complete construction two years later by January of 2010. And that is the timeline based on when we acquired the property that's been set into motion and then under which we operate. Just once we acquired the property, one of the first things that was done was the establishment of the Lyric Theater Task Force. This facility had been the subject of a tremendous amount of community discussion, but the task force went about its work, and in summary, we met for a year. There were about 15 open meetings. We have done, since that time, six public forums. We've had four open house events that have generated over 1,900 visitors in and out of that facility, even in the condition that it is, but there's a tremendous amount of interest there. We've had four technical studies and reports of the facility completed, and it's been covered, to my knowledge, in at least ten newspaper articles and an editorial or two along the way, including today's newspaper. It's been a project where public input was given preeminence, and that is why I say that this is a project that has been shaped by the community. We've done a tremendous amount of diligence as a task force to accomplish that. The result of that was the presentation of a concept here in 2006, October of 2006, that was approved unanimously by the council. The project that was presented went through the renovation of that facility. It included the expansion of the facility to include a new museum space. It also included the $6 million price tag that has been discussed of late. The result of that unanimous approval was then that the architectural design contract was advertised and awarded to Tate Hill Jacobs based on that concept, and this is for a design that is now nearing completion. Under our timeline, again, we have to look at beginning construction early next year and anticipate completion of the design fully this fall and being able to go to bid for the facility. The only significant modification that has been made to the facility design in that time is the addition of a second floor area over the new museum space. That added an additional about 6,000 square feet to the space, and the reason for that was because the museum space, as it was projected, was very tight and didn't provide the areas that you need to fully do a good job with that space, and we were already putting the footings foundations in anyway. It's easy to add second story space above a space that you're already going to build. That's the only modification that could result in some additional cost, but we are trying to honor that $6 million figure, actually. Throughout, we've taken some pretty serious hard looks at different aspects of the facility as we've gone along with our work through the design process. One of the most important decisions that we've made through the process was the separation of the museum space from the theater space and also the inclusion of community space. Again, this was supposed to be a multi-purpose facility, something that would have a large number of users there for different reasons. In addition to the arts, they would be able to use that facility. There were different reasons for that, the first of which was simply that by doing that, you have a greater chance in terms of the economics of the facility to make it viable. Stand-alone museums are pretty tough, and we've seen really some good examples of some really high-profile museums that struggle, such as the Freedom Center in Cincinnati for the Underground Railroad Museum, the Ali Center in Louisville that struggles. Our own basketball museum had a difficult start. Stand-alone museums do struggle. We are required by our memorandum of understanding with the state, though, to do a museum in this complex. The task force came to the realization that you could also commemorate this facility's heritage, though, by restoring that theater to being a permanent theater with permanent seating because that was the historic use of it, and that was the reason for the decision for separating the museum from the theater. We also included community space so that there would be a certain type of flow to the building so that you could host a variety of community events in this facility that could at times use the theater space or at times use the museum space as part of an event. We also visited different complexes as part of our work and found that those that had the multi-use format were those that had the best chance for having some success. One example of that that we visited was the Matt Walker Theater in Indianapolis, and when we visited these theaters, we have not only just taken a look around, but we've also talked with the staff, talked to professional staff that are operating and managing these facilities to understand their models so that we can try to draw the best practices out of that and utilize here in this situation. That sort of segues into my next point, which is about the theater management model. That is one of the subcommittees of the task force currently that's looking at that, but the likelihood is that it's going to be based largely similar to what we see at the Kentucky Theater. That's really a good on-point example for what we have. Kentucky Theater is in a building that's owned by the government, that is maintained by the government, yet we don't want to be in the theater business, so we hire a professional management team to operate the theater in the hopes that it breaks even on the operating side. In fact, they do, and generate about $6,000 a month into the city coffers based on the management agreement that we have with those. I think that's probably a model similar to what we're going to have with this facility. So bottom line, we have to do the facility, and we want to do the facility, so it will be LFUCG owned and maintained, and that will be a permanent feature on our books. However, by a professional management team, and doing a good job of having people that know this business that can operate it, you can have a lot of entertainment going on there. You can have a number of facility rentals that help to support operations and schedule the use of many different types of interest groups in and out of the facilities. So that's the working model as it exists at this point. Other facets of ongoing work that the task force is working on are subcommittees on the museum itself, and collection of artifacts, private sponsorship opportunities that's being headed up, and also a subcommittee that's looking specifically with Susan at the building renovation. Another exercise that we're doing as a full task force is the continuation of meetings with other professionals in this field. We had gone about some of that early on to try to understand what models would work, and we're meeting, matter of fact, this Thursday with the two or three other folks who operate similar facilities that we're trying to show our concept to, have them react to it, and learn what we can from them. I'm aware, too, that LexArts would like to meet with us, and we've already scheduled a meeting for next week with the president of LexArts, and we'll be inviting them also to help us to scope out this facility so that it can be done in the best possible way. There were, I believe, some questions with regard to the annual operating and maintenance costs. Right now, in terms of a rule of thumb, if you look at a facility like this and try to encompass all the utilities, custodial, routine repairs, that sort of cost, and if you also take into account that this is going to be a green building that will have some energy efficiencies about it, that calculates out at about $2.60 a square foot for this building, or about, in this case, $75,000 a year toward this building. Now, the government doesn't look at our buildings this way yet. This is the model, actually, we're trying to go to so that we understand the cost of operating our different facilities. Right now, much of this is lumped together into categories, but we do have an understanding of about what it will be for this facility. In terms of any LFUCG staff, if we hire a professional management team, I think the maximum staff we may actually have on our payroll may be one person that could coordinate the community aspects of the facility and work with that management group, which may cost as much as $35,000, $40,000 a year of additional staff should that be needed. That decision has not been made. I've mentioned earlier that we are, at this point, really focusing on also the inclusion and the input of other groups who do this type of work. I also want to emphasize that all of our meetings in the past have been open, and that we've had many, many opportunities for people to be involved and to know about and understand this project. And the focus of the theater, again, is broad. That came through loud and clear, and I feel that our task force has been very faithful to try to be responsive to the community input that we've gotten along the way about how the facility would benefit the neighborhood and the community, but also doing it in a way that has a chance to succeed operationally, since it's well known that theaters and museum complexes probably struggle in that regard. Finally, I would just conclude by, again, stating that I think there's tremendous significance to this project. I think it has significance in its own right, just as its own facility. We've witnessed that by the interest that's been generated by as many visitors as we've had from the community and as much input as we've had in shaping what that facility is going to be. I think also it's part of a larger picture that we really can't afford to lose sight of for that particular part of our community. That was the subject of an editorial today even in the Herald-Leader, but our focus on the 3rd Street corridor in that area is critical. I think we were counting it up a couple of weeks ago, somewhere over $40 million of investment going into that community currently On the end of 3rd Street where it intersects with Midland, you have a new school going in. You have Bluegrass Aspendale being redeveloped. You have a couple of other areas of focus that are going on there with the garden, the Isaac Murphy Garden, I think it is, and other things that are helping that end of the corridor. The Lyric sits at the other end of that stretch of 3rd Street at Elm Tree Lane. We've seen some good housing development going in there, but with the provision of this facility, it's sort of like getting both ends of a vice on this particular piece of our community through some public investment to spur and leverage a lot of private investment on the area between as you put some positive economic pressure to see that area of the community perhaps continue to turn a corner that is badly needed and long overdue. I would also say that this is a very symbolic effort in a way that this captures an element of our past that was really good. It also acknowledges a part of our heritage that had been somewhat overlooked and was in danger of being forgotten, and I think that's an important thing to not lose sight of. And the fact that what was once an African-American only theater, we've passed those days, and we now have a theater and a complex that will be able to be used for a million number of uses and available to the entire community. That's what I had for you today, and I appreciate, again, the opportunity to give you this update and be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you, Charlie. Juanita or Susan, they're not part of the presentation yet, but they're available for questions. Right, absolutely. Thank you all so much. Okay. And then Council Member DeKalb and Council Member Gordon have comments. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'd like to start off by saying, yes, this is a very important project, and I know there's been a lot of hard work put into it. Recently, an article in the newspaper brought up some figures which I think a lot of people had not seen before, maybe it was their own fault they hadn't seen it because the meetings have been open, but all of a sudden it popped out $6 million. And I got several calls, and I think Mr. Graves, who is here today, came down and asked some questions. And it is a lot of money, and I think we need to assure the taxpayers. I mean, it's money that we will pay off. The taxpayers' money will pay off. I can assure you that. I spent 10 years on the LexArts board, and it's tough making money. I've been involved with several museums, and I understand this museum won't cost anything. Even if it does, you don't even pay the electricity. So, you know, let's call it like it is. And, you know, we've gone from 13,000, 29,000 square feet, and I think that it's our responsibility to get more information before we even look at a bond issue in annual operating and maintenance costs. And I think this can be done, and I'm interested in seeing that this is determined for lots of reasons. You know, we talk about a theater. I've been involved with the facility across the street from here, and a 500-seat theater is not going to generate a lot of money because, you know, you compare it to the Kentucky Theater. You want to do the Kentucky Theater showing movies on a daily basis. They do do some other things which have been very successful, but it's taken time to reach that successful point. I'm looking at ways that money can be generated to cover operating and maintenance costs, or we're going to be coming back on a monthly basis to this council to operate and maintain this facility. And, you know, you talk about the Madame Walker Museum and Theater in Indianapolis. It's been successful, but it's been successful because it's required massive subsidies into that project. What I want to do is I'm not trying to put any halt on anything. I just think that we as a council and we as a community need more transparency. We need – and I realize it's been open to the public, but you know how that is. The public doesn't show until, you know, these kind of – reaches a point when we really begin talking about the hard dollars. It would seem to me on the theater it's going to be tough. There's no question about it. We've had tough times across the street. We finally, after several years, are doing a lot better. But I think programming needs – we need – you know, I don't think – and Susan, I kind of ask this of you with just a nod maybe, but I don't know how you can design a theater unless you know what the programming needs are because that will determine how the theater is actually designed. So I guess what I'm saying is, you know, to benefit the architect, we need to know what kind of theater productions we're talking about. Are we talking about jazz concerts? Are we talking about legitimate theater? Are we talking about – and this can all be done in one venue, but it's going to make the design of the theater, I would think – I don't know how the architect could design without knowing what the programming needs are so that the architect can design accordingly. And I know you said next week you're going to be talking to some other models that will come in, but it seems to me that if we're going to do this right, we're going to really need to have some sort of theater consultant come in and tell us so that we can begin to get as much as possible figures on operating and maintenance costs. I think it's – you know, as Charlie just said, it was the desire of the committee to have a multipurpose building. I think that's fine, but I think we also need to know how this will fit into our existing cultural facilities. So I think there are a lot of unanswered questions. I think it's a great project, and the only reason I bring these up, and I think Mr. Gray's brought them up, and I and some other citizens in the community have brought them up, we want to be sure that it's a project that succeeds. And I think we need more information. I think this council needs more information. I think the general public needs more information because I want it to succeed as a center. I want it to succeed as a theater. I want it to succeed as a museum. And – but at the same time, I want it to be in a position to be able to support itself and not have to come back to this community every six months or annually and say, you know, we're $150,000 in arrears on managing this facility. I mean, I think we need – I know it's a very emotional situation. I also know that it's very important. But important as it may be, we have got to be practical about this because at a certain point we will be asked to approve a $6 million bond issue, and I assume that it will be paid out of tax revenue that comes into this community. So I think there are certain things that need to be done. We need to look at the larger picture of this total community of how it will fit in, and I hope that as this goes along that we will be working to refine these aspects of this project so that we as a council and citizens of this community can have a better handle on some of the expense items, which I think we just simply don't have enough information on at this point. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Camp. Council Member Gordon and Council Member Lane. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you for your presentation, Charlie. And first I wanted to thank Juanita Betz-Peterson and her committee for all your hard work and Susan Hill, and I am happy to know that the facility is going to have a green roof of some kind, maybe a rooftop garden. I'm not sure what form it's going to take, but with all of our new environmental possibilities, I think that's a good thing. My questions really, Dick, was kind of a segue into the question I had about operation and maintenance. We own the building which houses the downtown arts center, and we own the old courthouse, which is the history museum, and we have certain agreements with those. and we give a portion of money to the annual LexArts fundraising campaign, and I wondered if it's the perception of you or the group that this would operate in the same way, that the city would give some funding and then the entity would fundraise like the arts do and the other entities do, or is there a different model for that? That is, we'll model. The one that we have probably focused on the most is that of the Kentucky Theater, which, again, is a facility that is used for a multiple number of types of uses. I think that group has done a good job of promoting that as something much more than just a movie theater, and they have entered into a management agreement where they have to make the project go, and there's a certain percentage of those box office proceeds that come back to the city under that management agreement. To use that model in looking through that lens to view this project, they generate enough money back into the city coffers to take care of most of their maintenance and operating budget, and they do it in a way that profits the management group. They have the expertise and the knowledge of how to do that and have been able to make that facility work in that way. The other facilities you mentioned go back to my point about standalone museums. They're very difficult to make work year in and year out because of the degree of complexity with which you have to change exhibits and keep them fresh and new and exciting to give people a reason to come back once they've been. You don't have that type of an issue here in that the museum is important in and of itself, but it also enhances that you have all these other things that are possible to go on there. Mr. DeCamp mentioned programming. There's a tremendous amount of programming attention given throughout the task force year of work, and the resulting design and the concept that Susan is putting on the paper does encompass that multi-use type facility so that you can have theatrical productions. You can have live music. You could have a graduation ceremony. You could have any number of sorts of things go on in that facility, and it could accommodate all of them with the support space that will be added that it currently does not have in order to make it function in that way. So we've given a lot of thought to programming, and that is the basis of the design that's being done now, and we've had a lot of those conversations. I'm here to say, though, that we're here to talk to anybody that wants to learn more about this project and understand the work that we've already put into it, and we're open to suggestions about how to move forward as well if we would like to incorporate other professional people to help us understand certain aspects of running this facility. We're open to doing that. Well, if I might tag on to what you said. Now, I think in your presentation you said there might be an employee or two needed there, but if I recall, doesn't the Kentucky Theater management contract pay their employees, the city doesn't, they're not employees of the city per se. That's correct. So a management agreement could be written that says you will take care of the full facility. But this is all still in the thinking stages. I know we don't have the full building yet. We've done a lot of exploration and have some of our thinking solidified but are still in the process of doing that. That's why we're continuing to talk to different groups that are in this business. And I think well in advance of the facility ever being open, we'll have that in place. We'll understand what that is, I mean, including everybody on that, and perhaps advertise for the management team to be in place and select them so that from day one the facility is operating under the best possible set of circumstances. Well, I do think that it will be a wonderful facility for our arts community as well as for the neighborhood. So I really do fully believe that. I just think when we get down to the nuts and bolts of, you know, the economies of operating it, that will be the real test. And so I look forward to that. Thank you. Council Member Lane and then Council Member James. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You know, I had the pleasure of serving on the Arts and Cultural Council, the next Arts Board, for a number of years. And, you know, I think this is a good, you know, project, you know, renovating the theater. However, you know, my concern is that if you're not addressing this specific project but all the projects that the urban county government does, I think we have a tendency to see whether or not we can afford the bond payment and we can have the money available to bond the project. But we do not do the due diligence to look at the long-term impact of purchasing property on our budget. And you could talk to Commissioner Cole. I'm sure she would verify this, that we do not put enough money in the budget for repairs and maintenance. The building we're in right now needs $2 million in maintenance, as I understand it. And, you know, our garage is having some problems out here, so it's not even open to us to use. So that's the issue that I want to bring to the Council's attention, is we need to, you know, use good business practices. When you build a building, you know, you need to have a plan of how you're going to use it, what type of estimated revenues you're going to have, what are our operating expenses, salaries, replacement reserves, so that we know that we can operate over time and what the cost to the taxpayer would be. And so I would like, and I've said this multiple times, I'd like to see us have some type of an operating budget whenever we acquire a piece of property to look at the expenses and the income and the net cost to the taxpayers. So I would very much appreciate, you know, some type of a budget, a five-year estimate on it that we would have to look as a guideline on this. As I said, I am not against this project. I'm against the idea that we buy things without really evaluating the long-term impact on the budget for the urban county government. And I can also say, being on the Budget and Finance Committee, that we do have a structural imbalance in our budget for the urban county government now, and being able to look at this over a five-year period I think would be beneficial to our budget process. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. We'll try to accommodate that request. Council Member James. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Actually, I think Council Member Lane's idea is a really good idea, and I sit on the task force, and that would actually creating an operational budget, maybe, you know, projected out for years, would be a really good way for us to, when we're discussing our programming, that the community had their input of creating, which was the basis of design. We can really make sure that this project is very sustainable. So thank you for offering that idea. I think that's great. I also wanted to add that we, the community, when I say we, I'm meaning the community, because I was actually part of this project before being a council member, because I drive by the Lyric Theater every single day, and my husband's part of that community as he was growing up. So there is an extreme excitement. I don't know that it's emotional. Council Member DeCamp said it's emotional. I don't know if it's emotional, but there's an excitement about what's happening in the East End area. And actually, this area is considered downtown as well. The Downtown Development Authority extends to 3rd Street, and I believe 4th, depending on who you're talking to. So this is a downtown development as well as an East End development. So that excitement, as we hear all the time about downtown development, is very lively. So this is a great project of connecting Main on Rose, the Ellerslie project that we just approved, the Blue Breath-Askindale area, as well as all of the exciting development that's happening downtown Main Street. It's, you know, two blocks from there. So as we get really excited about these great condos that are being built on Main Street, let's look at the types of entertainment and resources that will be available for those young professionals on Main Street, and what can they walk to and enjoy. So I'm looking forward to that. But in the excitement of this, I think there was a lot of practicum that came with this. And what we did, what the task force was actually able to do before I actually took my feet on the task force about four or five months ago, about four months ago, is they were able to talk to a community and teach them about if this is really important to you, how can we make this plan and how can we make this design something that is sustainable, longevity, and practical. And Susan's design has done that expertly. I mean, it's absolutely amazing how congruent with the hundreds of people that have had their input, as far as what's going to happen there at the Lyric Theater, and thousands that have visited and had just verbal communication with those members of the task force, how those ideas have been implemented into the design. So as we move forward with a potential operating budget and these programs that the community at large, and the turnout has been very diverse and very, very open to everyone in the community. I'm sorry that some people have really missed that opportunity. But again, like Charlie said, the task force meetings are open to everyone in the public. I'll be sure to make those announcements at my council report, just to remind everyone, because they're very open and we're ready to receive some input. Any advice anyone can give right now, we're ready to move forward with this wonderful project. So I just wanted to harp on the facts of that a little bit, that practical was used. Creativity will be key as we move forward, as we look at ways to generate income. Some things that don't happen in our immediate community are things like acting lessons, singing lessons, instrument lessons that are right there in the community, things like a theater that you can walk to right there in the immediate area that maybe will, hopefully will be open on a daily basis, just as the Kentucky Theater is. Events, one of the things we heard at the public meetings is that there's no place for large gatherings to happen in that immediate area, and people are looking for things like that. So instead of having to travel away to the south side of town or even further out towards Newtown Pike, we'll be able to have events right there in the area and generate the excitement that that building should, as amazing as that building will be. We also are talking with, we have someone on the task force who's going to help us with finding some private investors, some people that want to donate to this to keep the funds generated. And we all know when there's, you know, you can get your name put on a chair or get your name put on a room or something, that means a lot, especially if you're leaving a legacy, if you have a family member that has something to leave. So I'm really excited about this, and I appreciate the opportunity, as Charlie does, and I'm sure Ms. Juanita and Susan Hill, to present to the council today. I'm glad that you had the opportunity. I encourage you to participate with the Lyric Task Force meetings, and feel free, as this is in my district, to ask me any questions at any time regarding this project, and I'd be happy to answer those at any time. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Council Member James. I believe that's all the questions or comments from council members. Thank you, Charlie. Thank you for the opportunity. And we've heard you, and we'll be responsive. Thank you. Thank you, sir. All right. Item E on the agenda was the Fayette County Neighborhood Council was invited, I believe, at the suggestion of Council Member McCord. And it's my understanding that they're not available today. Sorry. No, this is David Cooper with Elizabeth Street. So the Neighborhood Council is not available today for presentation. Council Member McCord. And I just wanted to make a point that this kind of, I guess, came up from about three weeks ago. There was some confusion between the Mayor's Neighborhood Summit, which comes up on October 6th, and apparently a Neighborhood Summit that was being done independently by the Fayette County Neighborhood Council. And so I just asked the Mayor and his staff if they would make contact with them and ask them to come down and present. And as I understand, there were some problems with that in getting them down here. And so I know that they meet on October 2nd as their next meeting. And I would just ask Artie and the folks from the administration, if you could reschedule them for a presentation on October 9th, which is the week after their meeting. That would be great. I'd appreciate it. Council Member McCord. That's okay. I think, in fairness, we would, of course, want to know what it is we want to know from them. I don't know what it is people want to know from them. I'd be happy to address that. I think there's a couple things, Council Member Gordon. One is there's a number of new council members here that don't know who they are, exactly what they do. And they've heard of them. They don't know what connection they really have to us. I know that we see Mr. Gaffield down here doing zone changes and things. I think there's some questions about representation. I think on their website there's certain things about representing 130 neighborhoods. And I know there's some folks that have some issues with that. I just want some clarity. I think some folks really want to know what it is they're doing these days and the positive impacts they have on the city, as well as what all happened at their neighborhood summit. So I think those are the types of things that we're looking for and very hopeful to see them on the 9th. All right. Thank you, Council Member Gordon. Any further? My only comment is has anyone asked them what they do and written a letter or anything? I know this has been going on since before I was absent the first time the request was made. And I think sometimes, you know, if there's a problem with someone coming before us, then it would be a courtesy to write them a letter or an e-mail and ask some questions of them. So maybe you can take that under advice. All right. Well, maybe we can. I think it's useful to put before them what the expectations may be of a presentation. Council Member Myers. Hey, Vice Mayor. I just think we ought to have them come in and do a presentation on who they are and what they do and what they provide for our city. I don't think it's really necessary that we put together any kind of bullet points or anything and a letter to them. Just have them come in, explain who they are, what they do, what they offer to our city. They had a summit last week that is sort of separate from the mayor's summit on neighborhoods, and it would be a great time for them to come in and tell us who they are and what they do. Okay. Let's take these suggestions, and I'd be happy to write a letter asking exactly what Council Member Myers suggested, and let's address it that way. I think what Council Member Gordon is saying is just be courteous and respectful of them in asking for it, and there was some conversation that I heard that maybe there was a telephone message left on the answering machine, and it may have been interpreted wrongly or misinterpreted as being casual and cavalier. That's not what we want to do, and I think that's what Council Member Gordon suggested, and I'm sure that's what Council Member Myers and McCord are encouraging as well. Yes, sir. Council Member Maloney. My question is, the summit that they had last week, weren't Council Members invited to that? I know I was. I couldn't make it, but I got an e-mail. They leave. Council Member Gordon has more information. The other question is, every year they have meetings where they invite Council Members to come to talk about what's going on. I know I've been invited to a lot of them. I know some of them I can't make, and I always tell them why, but they do have some good meetings. They were the very first ones that did the voter's registration, I mean, the new voting system out there, and I believe every new Council Member and everyone who ran last year were there. I mean, the majority of them were there, and to me, I just, this question is, I mean, they do a good, I mean, I was wondering where everybody's coming from, why, what do they need, what do they want? I mean, that's my question. Council Member Gordon. I'll make this brief. The Fayette County Neighborhood Council always asks a Council Member to serve as their liaison, and I am currently doing that for them. Council Member Misati did that before, and they've had a Council Member previous. What they had Saturday was not a summit. It was one of their workshops, which they have about twice a year. They've been having workshops for years, and they always invite presenters who can give information to the neighborhood associations. It was attended by, I would say, approximately 60 to 65 neighborhood leaders. It was, you know, I mean, if you wanted more detail about what they said and who they had there, that would be available, but this is not unusual for them. As Richard said, they are the group that brought out the new voting machines and had a presentation for neighborhoods. They do the Lexington Beautiful. They had a workshop. They do a lot of workshops. This was not a neighborhood summit. It was a workshop which had been planned to put forth information. Perhaps it might be appropriate, then, Council Member Gordon, as the liaison for the Council, that you get with the neighborhood association perhaps and help them with a presentation that might be appropriate, that they think would be appropriate to the Council. I actually would prefer they decide what they want to present. I'm not a member of the Fayette County Neighborhood Council. I just simply attend meetings as a liaison. But, you know, I think a letter from you would certainly be a respectful way to invite them. And then allow them the opportunity for even selecting the venue. I mean, it could be a more casual venue than the presentation here before the Council, perhaps. Okay. If I could say something real quick. I would encourage you to have the venue be here because part of the purpose of this is to bring them in so that the community can find out what they do and who they are. And the best way to do that is to have it on GTV3 so everybody can see. As soon as I said that, I suspected that it might be better to have it in the chambers and with GTV3. So we'll ask them and see if they're able to do that. Okay. Next on our agenda is the Elizabeth Street issues, Elizabeth University State. And, David, I understood that you weren't going to be able to be here, but you all are able to be here. Right? I'm here. Right. You are here. Right. Yeah. Thanks, Vice Mayor. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you all again. Thanks to all of you for your interest in this issue. I think we've got it up to – it's on the radar screen now for sure. I'd like to specifically thank Council Member McCord for thinking outside the box. That's what we need. We need some new ideas, and your aide, Laurie Henry, has been very helpful, too. I'm going to speak for myself. I've got a little packet. I will get through it, hopefully, in ten minutes. And then I want to turn it over to Anne-Marie Stamatiatis, who's the president of the Seven Parks Neighborhood Association. I live in this neighborhood. I'm going to speak for myself based on my experience. So there's a letter to the editor in the paper this weekend. It says, The people complaining about students partying after the UK-UofL game should be shouted down by the city and, for that matter, by the whole state. They've made a decision to live next to campus, so putting up with partying is something they have to live with. And I thought, well, maybe a lot of people think that way and that we are getting what we deserve because we live next to the stadium. When I moved to the Elizabeth Street neighborhood in 91, game days were not really a big problem. It's changed. And if we could go to the next slide, here's what I see has happened. They added 10,000 seats to Commonwealth Stadium. Can we go to the next slide? I'm going to go through these pretty quick. Here's an article. 10,000 seats added, but no extra parking. It used to be you could park for free in the grass by the stadium. They eliminated that. They paved some of the gravel parking lots. That increased the flooding. Can we go to the next slide? More flooding has caused some tragedies in this area. They went to a dry campus. And we can go to the next slide. This is an editorial from 1998, and the headline, Drinking at UK, Schools New Policy Just Pushed the Problem Off Campus. And that's what's happened. Can we go to the next slide? That's going to be really hard to read. I'm sorry about that. This is a letter from a former jailer, Raymond Sabatini. Is that right? About halfway down in the letter, he says, Then UK began to erode its on-campus drinking policy. The university drove its liability off campus and into the community. Beginning in the 1990s, hundreds of UK students were arrested each year at off-campus drinking events. UK's policy is totally self-serving to avoid liability. UK has placed students at great risk and destroyed the nearby neighborhoods. Can we go to the next slide? Here's some of the photos taken this weekend. I'm sorry, two weekends ago. The first one, this is Westwood Drive, which is the street directly across Nicholasville Road from the football stadium. And then this is the aftermath on Sunday morning. This was one of the worst properties as far as trash. And then we can just flip through the next few slides. A lot of you all have seen these pictures already. I've been e-mailing them out to everybody. It was quite an event. Okay, let's go to the next one. The bottom photo on this page, if we can move it up. Yeah, see the big construction crane. UK is doing a lot of construction work on the next street over, which is Con Terrace. And if you go down Con Terrace, you'll see that they've demolished really a whole neighborhood block of homes, including the Dutch Mill restaurant. And then the next picture is a couple of the bonfires, and the bottom picture is one of the burned couches. I hope we never have to deal with this again. I don't want to hear any more about burned couches. This is embarrassing. So I have been involved in this for a while. I started going to the town gown meetings, if we can go to the next slide, in 98 or 99. And up there at the top, this is a letter that was written by Dr. Jack Blanton, dated February 10, 1999. He was the UK senior vice president for administration. Quote, enrollment numbers are level. Enrollment numbers for UK have basically been stable since the 1970s at about 21,000 to 24,000 students. No significant enrollment increases are seen in the near future, thereby indicating that UK housing supply is adequate. So that's what we were told at the town gown meetings over and over and over again. UK is not going to increase their enrollment. Now we find out that UK is, in fact, planning to increase enrollment by 7,000 students, which is going to make the problems that we have now. The problems are just beginning. Where are these students going to go? OK, the next slide. This was presented at the town gown meeting by Mr. George Dubin, vice president at UK, on April 7, 1999. The university has worked with the Greek community in determining the appropriate number of beds to fit the requirements. Additionally, the no alcohol policy of the university has increased the attractiveness of fraternity housing students. OK, this is the kind of thing that we were told at these town gown meetings. This is why I got so frustrated with the town gown meetings. Next slide. Actually, what's happening with the fraternity houses now is they're renting party houses in the neighborhoods so that they can have their parties. And then that's where they're doing their parties. So, again, UK is just pushing their problems off campus. This was today's editorial. I hope you all saw it. It's excellent. It was very well written. It was exactly right on point. The ruin of a perfectly good neighborhood. The next few pages, just some historical documents, and we don't really have to go through those. But maybe for some of the new council members, these might be helpful information. The party plan, I think, helped a lot, but it hasn't been the final answer to the problem. There's an article in here when I was working on the vinyl box addition problem. If we could go to the slide that has Newsweek, the Newsweek article. It's about five pages down. This is an article in the magazine Newsweek about, was written after the lacrosse team incident at Duke University. Beginning in the 1990s, university administration at Duke began pushing the partying off campus in part because of their legal liability. The fund just moved to the quiet tree-lined neighborhoods near the East Campus. The frats and the athletic teams began renting houses. Neighbors were not thrilled to be awakened at 2 a.m. by loud rock music and drunken students. The Durham police, da-da-da-da-da. Town gang tension ratcheted out so much so that the university recently bought up 12 houses that had been used for student parties with the intention of selling them to professors and quiet homeowners. Well, that's a great idea. Let's do it. The last page is my recommendations. And again, these are just my thoughts. The first one is something that I have asked for since 1999. I want UK to help clean up these neighborhoods after the football games. That's not asking too much. Maybe we could even have some of the students doing community service, cleaning up. The inmates from the detention center is a great idea also. I don't care who does it. I think it would be better if UK did it. How about public address announcements during the football games? Please pick up your trash. Be a good neighbor. One of the things that I learned during the walk-arounds that we've been doing in the Elizabeth Street neighborhood is that the way the code enforcement rules are written is that for litter, they can be written up twice, and then on the third write-up is the first time that a fine can be assessed. And then it's only $100. That's not enough to address this problem. That rule needs to be changed. There needs to be more aggressive standards for dealing with the litter problems. There are still building vinyl boxes in the North Elizabeth Street neighborhood. I think we need another moratorium on it. The next one is one that I'm sure will be real popular with the students, more tests on Friday mornings. UT Austin offers free taxi cab rides for intoxicated students. I recently went on a community garden tour that was organized by Jim Embry and other people, and I don't know who all the other people are. I thought that was great. Maybe some of the UK students in art and landscape architecture and so on could do some projects in the neighborhood. That would be great. Game day, put trash cans on the street corners. I think UK should do that. Just a 55-gallon barrel on all the street corners would help out a lot. That's not asking a whole lot either. And the Herbie problems, which we all know about. This last website here is the Promising Practices sourcebook. If you're real interested, you can check that out. Okay. The last page is going to get me in trouble. It's interesting, after the Virginia Tech tragedy, reading about the situation there, and there were all these warning signs, and reading about it afterwards, it was really easy to say, this person was crying out for help. Why weren't the warning signs recognized? But I'm here to say that these are warning signs that we have here at UK right now. I feel that there's going to be a tragedy. There have already been tragedies. We've had too many crimes, sexual assaults. We've had drownings. And I don't want to see any more tragedies in this neighborhood. There's something that really needs to be done. I'm going to turn it over to Ann Murray, who's president of the Neighborhood Association. Hello. I basically came this afternoon because I really wanted to give my support to Dave Cooper, because he has been involved in this much longer than I have. And I knew that he would have something very organized and powerful to offer today. And I was very pleased with his collection of articles and his list of recommendations, which I support. And I would like to add tests on Saturdays too, because obviously if students have things to study for, that gives them less of an incentive to go off partying and drinking. So I appreciate the work he's done for this section of Lexington. And it's good to have somebody who's so knowledgeable and who has lots of good ideas working hard. And even though he doesn't live in the neighborhood, he cares so much about it that he keeps working on it. And, of course, I'm also pleased that in the short span of time since we've had the meeting with the mayor, that there has been a task force put together to work on the issues of game day and the long-term issues too. But I agree heartily with his recommendations. And, of course, I think that if these recommendations come from the city council to UK, I think that's powerful. So let's hope that that's what will happen. Thank you. Thank you, Anne-Marie. Thank you, David. The council member comments are in this order. Councilman McCord and Gordon Maloney-Stevens. We'll go that far and then we'll call it right there. Eight, so. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Three things. One is I want to thank Director Bishop. He had to leave earlier. He was here earlier for his ideas. And it just happened to be that we were talking about you a couple weeks ago, and he just happened to be in the audience and caused me to think, well, maybe we could use this inmate labor program that he's used in other cities. And I just want to pass along to everybody that the way that's set up now is on game days, inmates will be out there actually on Mondays and Tuesdays cleaning up. And so just for that to be expected, it's a great way to utilize some of the things that we have already at our disposal. Two other things. Two years ago, my fraternity, Sigma Pi fraternity, there were two young men that were very creative and very aggressive about trying to lend the Greek system's weight to certain problems. And we had the Great American Cleanup, which is a day where we kind of beautify the city and so forth, and they organized, along with another sorority, an entire Greek army to go out on a very cold day to clean up in all these neighborhoods and do some good stuff. I was a bit disappointed with the town gown because these two young men showed up, very excited, here's what we're doing. They wanted to turn this into an ongoing, almost adopt-a-street type situation, and the town gown basically just sort of blew that off and moved on with the program. And I was in that meeting, so I can speak to that. I think that there's an opportunity to go back to the Greek community through Panhellenic and throughout the IFC and speak with the leadership there, sit down with the presidents of all the fraternities and the sororities together, show them this slide presentation, minus a couple of slides of suggestions that they might not find attractive, but sit down with them and show them exactly what's going on and how they can be involved and take a leadership role in this. That is what they're there to do. And I believe that in a lot of situations, students don't have the opportunity to work on some real-life problems. And, you know, we have a lot of mock projects in college and a lot of things that have no real life to them. This is real life, and this is something that is very tangible. And I think if you go back to the Greek community and you ask for a meeting with all the presidents of the sororities and fraternities, I would tell you to start there and use that as an opportunity to assemble a workforce that can go to work for you and that you can help guide and mold. And you will have that. Those pledge classes of fraternities basically are involuntary labor that can do anything that they're told to do. And so there's a lot of opportunity there. The third thing I would tell you is U.K. under House Bill 1 has a mandate to be a top 20 research institution. I keep coming back to whatever you do with U.K., tie it to the top 20 research component. I believe there's an opportunity for it on the recycling side, on the green side. I would point you to the Leadership Lexington class through Commerce Lexington. You can call Linda Stamps at 226-1600, who is charged with the Leadership Lexington classes. Every Leadership Lexington class takes on a project over the course of a year that they're going to do. This Leadership Lexington class is made up of 42 individuals. One set is working on one project to Wi-Fi the city, but the other set is looking to turn Lexington to a recycled city by the year 2010, recycling literally everything. I would go and speak to that group and show them exactly what you have going on here and get them involved, because that is the leadership of this town, and that is what they're going to be working on for the next eight months. This fits perfectly into it. Tie it to the top 20 research component. And those are three ideas that may move you a little bit closer. And what you need to think about is we only have, what, five more home games or whatever it amounts to. So really there's a five-week crisis type thing. But recognize what comes after football season and how do we work this into the ongoing issues, because what I will tell you is that for the folks that are under the age of 40 in this town, they are looking for a way to get into the game and be involved and see tangible work done. This is a perfect opportunity for that. So I would encourage you to go to those folks. If you need anything else from me, I will be happy to be the R&D department for this project. And I appreciate you coming down here, Dave, and being so passionate about it. Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Dave Cooper, thank you very much. You are a long, I guess I would say long-suffering in this department, because I can remember nine, ten years ago when you were pleading for the same kinds of things. And I just first want to thank you for your steadfastness in not giving up. I wonder if Alden would put up the picture of 116 Westwood Drive. The fall of this neighborhood is very personal to me. Do you have that picture again? Back in the 1970s, Westwood Drive was probably, I would say, 90% owner-occupied. It had UK professors. It had folks who just worked in our community. This house in particular was the first house that my husband and I ever owned. We bought it in 1979, and this, I cannot tell you how sad this is to me. This is truly the fall of the neighborhood, and I think it's just the beginning shot. This, will you show the other picture, please, Alden? This is the home where my second child was born. This was a very respectable neighborhood, and it has fallen totally, and we the city and the university have let it happen. That is what I will say. This is a shame. It is a pity. It makes me sick to look at this. It's happening on Big Bear Lane out in the 4th District, which isn't even close to the university, but it's packed with students who, on game days, have zero respect for their neighborhood. Two and 300 students roam Big Bear Lane after a game. They're drunk. They park eight and ten vehicles in the front yards, which are now totally cement because they're all paved over, and this is how our neighborhoods are falling, one by one. Big Bear Lane used to be inhabited by young professionals. They've almost all moved out. It is almost totally rental to people who do not respect the property or the neighbors who live near them. I personally am very mad. This is a shame, and I served on the first town gown committee that was the predecessor to the town gown commission, and we have been working a long time to try to fix this kind of problem. Look at this. This is a front yard. This is the front yard where my family and I used to go sit and enjoy neighbors and come and go from our business, and that's pitiful. And if it weren't for people like Dave, this wouldn't even be brought to us, and so I'm going to be very strongly supportive of getting UK and the city on board to do whatever we can to fix this problem. It's not going to stop with this neighborhood or Big Bear Lane. It will not stop unless we stop it with policies and new ways of dealing with things. So thank you all for being here. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I've been on the town again for a long time, and I want to commend Dr. Stephens and Mr. Gray. Dr. Stephens brought a nonprofit in from Cincinnati to look in and try to redo this neighborhood to bring home ownership back in there, but it's going to be hard to do that without the help of the city and with the university. We couldn't get it done, but I just want to commend Dr. Stephens. He's always been on top of that, this area especially. The one thing that pauses me, and me and Dick, we got a lot of heat on this, is when we were on the town again with the party ordinance. The first two years, the police come up to me and said, this thing's working. We didn't have this kind of problem. And Dick would tell you, and I'd tell you, the numbers went down. He's not the only one. My district is bad too, and I'm going to hit on a little bit here in a minute. But then as time went by, the chief got up and said, we don't have any more police officers that can enforce this. We don't have the manpower to do this. Well, in the last three years, we've hired more police officers than we've ever hired before, and our numbers have gone way up. And to me, to see this kind of activity going on in somebody's backyard and not being enforced and have that party ordinance, I guarantee you if we'd have had the party ordinance the way we had it two years, three, four years ago, you wouldn't have this. Because I really think, and I think Dr. Stevens and Dick will probably verify, the first two years of this party ordinance, it worked. And there were council members up here that thought it was a ridiculous thing what we did. But the police told me that it was a good thing because it was working. And I want to ask the police why we're not forcing this anymore, and is there somebody out there from the police department that can give us where we are with the party ordinance, and now with the police, we've hired a lot of additional police officers, and we've got the clear unit going back and why we're not enforcing these party ordinances. Is there somebody that can answer that? Well, Mr. Maloney, I can't give you any specific numbers, and I will have to talk to the Bureau of Operations about it. But as far as I do know, we are enforcing the party ordinance. I don't know to what extent that we are responding to these and issuing the citations at this point in time. However, I do know on that particular night with Warble, it was pretty overwhelming as far as the amount of activity that we had to respond to. So I don't think it's an issue that we're totally not enforcing the party ordinance and haven't been. But I can't give you specific numbers at this time as far as what actually was done in the first two years and what has been done in the last three. All right. What I was going to bring also up, and I know this is a Louisville game with a unique game, but in my personal view, if we'd have kept enforcing these party ordinances for the last two or three years, I think we wouldn't have had this situation. I really think those, especially those who do party like this, have already been cited a year ago because this is not just a Louisville game that we're having problems with. In my district, on American Avenue, Burley Avenue, in Addison, and in Gardenside, and in Cardinal Valley, there are students that are starting to rent that far away from the University of Kentucky that are starting to be humped, that are starting to take over these neighborhoods because of this kind of party. And every time I get the call, I tell them to call the police for party ordinance. And then what the response back is, the police said we can't enforce that right now. To me, that's what I have a problem with, and I think we can't enforce this. And if we start citing these neighbors and start hitting these parties, I think it will clean up a little bit. I'm not going to say it's going to be perfect, but I think it will be a start that this government can actually do something to stop some of these problems. And I just want to say to Elizabeth Street, I know I've been there many times, and it's a tragedy, and I do want to commend Dr. Stevens on what he has tried to do. But without the help of the city passing the stricter ordinances, and without the University of Kentucky being on board to bring these homes back to be what Linda has described as where people can be homeowners, live close to work. And we've tried everything. We've had programs where we worked with Fannie Mae, where we had down payment and closure. We had University of Kentucky do match. If you lived so far from UK, walking distance, you could get down payment forgivable and not have to pay it back. And to me, there are options out there, but I think we just can't do it alone. And I think this city and university need to take it, and we need to follow our laws that we have. But I think we can beat this one way or another. Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Mr. Maloney. Dr. Stevens. Thank you for the kind words, Richard. We do appreciate your service on the Town and Gown Commission. And this all began, I think, the Town and Gown Commission began with the walk I took through North Elizabeth Street with David Cooper, who then lived in the South Elizabeth Street neighborhood, and with some of the other people there. And we looked at all the vinyl boxes that had already been constructed, and that was kind of the genesis of a concern that led to the Town and Gown meetings that you attended, Linda, and then subsequently the Town and Gown Commission. I'm no longer on the Town and Gown Commission because my Office of Fifth District Councilperson is not assigned to that committee or commission. However, I've been frustrated and disappointed that we haven't been able to accomplish more through that. I might say in spite of the party plan and in spite of the infill and redevelopment new regs, which have slowed down the vinyl boxes, in spite of the Live Where You Work program, which was designed to put permanent residents in houses around the university and around the city, and in spite of the demonstrated U.K. concern for the neighborhoods, the present administration of the university is interested in this problem and would like to do something about it also, I believe. They built dormitories, which Dr. Blanton told us, as David may remember, at the Town and Gown Commission, they wouldn't do anymore, but they found a way to do that. That has helped, and you'll notice a lot more vacancy signs around that neighborhood, and I think some of the pressure is off. The university also has started a Department of Community Engagement and appointed personnel to work on that, so they have done a lot of things. None of these things, however, have solved the problem. I visited up at State College of a girl next to Pennsylvania State University in the last year with Lisa Higgins Ford and Bob Wiseman, and they have two things going on up there that I think would be appropriate for us here in Lexington. One is buying back houses, putting them in a land trust, rehabilitating the house, and selling it to a citizen who will live in it and occupy it. Their housing prices are about the same in Borough State Colleges as our neighborhoods around the U.K., and by putting the property in a land trust, by putting the land in a land trust and selling the house, they can create them at affordable prices so they have a market, and that has worked there. But I think another thing that we could do, and I intend to make a motion when I get around to the council report, if we finish in time, and I might make the motion right now, and that's to refer to the planning committee of the council a student home licensure permit. And what this would require, if you wanted to rent to students, and I've distributed a sample of this document to the council, and you should all have a copy. If you rent to students, you get a permit to do so, and that permit would have certain requirements on it. For example, one trouble with the party plan, we've had trouble making the penalty stick. It costs $500 if you get cited as a party house, and you get down to the court, district court, and I think they reduce the fine to $5. Well, there aren't many students that can't come up with $5 to pay off a fine like that. So we need to have better ways of enforcing. If code violations persist, if party plan persists, if parking violations persist, then that permit can be revoked, and that's what they do in the Borough of State College. And it has really changed the complexion, and they think this is the ordinance, and there it's made the most difference. They also have another requirement that reduces the concentration of students in a neighborhood, and that every third house, student residents can't be any closer together than every third house, so that they're dispersed, and this would apply across our community out in the neighborhood. You were talking about, what's the name of that street? Big Bear Lane. Big Bear Lane, or Big Wildcat Lane now, and all across the community, but it would only apply to those residences which are rented to students. It's called the student home, and that's been affected. So I refer this to the planning committee. Now, this is going to invoke a very strong reaction from landlords. They are really nervous about this, but I think if we put it in the committee and discuss it, go over the various options which may be applicable to Lexington and may not be applicable to Lexington, there might be some things we want to do that they don't do there or some things they do that we may not want to do. So I'm going to make that motion, and I'm happy to talk. Mr. DeCamp is already seconding it. Motion is seconded. Discussion. Mr. Maloney. I appreciate you putting that in there, but I have a concern that I have a population in my district that's just not student. It's another population, and I'm having the same problem that universities have, where you have 30 cars in a park in front of a house, and they're not akin, like you said here, and it's not just one house, but it's a whole street that's starting to happen, and this trend is starting to happen in my district, and it's starting to happen in other districts too. So to save a neighborhood, the Elizabeth Street, I mean, needs it, and I think they're setting the standards, but also I think we need to look at all the whole area of Lexington because I have the same problem, but a different class that are not students, that have the same exact problems that Elizabeth Street has. And if I put this and not put this, my district will be coming down to me saying, why are you just helping out college students and not helping out the problem that we talk about, that I get complaints on every day? Well, that's something we can talk about when it gets to the planning committee. I'd like to amend that we put all the whole area, not just students, but I don't know how you would say anybody that seems like me to not akin in this, that we look at all kind of housing issues and all the certain problems we have in the district too. I think the floor will be open for all comments when it becomes time to discuss this in the planning committee. So is that satisfied? Mr. Maloney, is that okay? All right. Council Member? James. Council Member James, excuse me. I knew it was going to hit me today. I knew I was going to lose somebody. Council Member Stephens, I just have a question. Is there currently a nuisance ordinance that would be appropriate for this as well already on the books, that if a property is cited for loud partying, drug trafficking, parking on the grass, that kind of thing, and it's a repeated offense, that the police can already issue a nuisance citation and that something has to be done at that moment that would deal with the same kind of issue? I believe so, but I don't know for sure about that particular ordinance. The problem we've had is when you cite somebody for that, it ends up in district court, and it's very slow and laborious. Mr. Jarvis might be able to respond to the question of enforcing these ordinances. That's one of the problems we've had. And the threat, if it is finally gets to district court, the penalties are not so great. If the landlord is faced with revocation of his license to rent to students, they might be more attentive. Right, and I think, and I'll let you address this, and my concern is that we do have some policies that are Lexington-wide that have flaws in them, and I'm just fearful of creating new policies that are specific towards whatever the issue is without really dealing with a faulty policy that's in existence. So if something's going on with a nuisance that is not, it doesn't seem to be working in a neighborhood, that maybe we should look at the root of the problem so that it covers all grounds, and I'll give you an opportunity to address that. Well, in code enforcement, we address just the nuisance issue of the trash and the parking. We don't have anything to do with a party plan or a nuisance property for crime or drug activity or anything like that. I think that's a police issue. And what we have in code enforcement, we have a graduated fine. After the second notice, you can be fined on the third occurrence, and then those fines double each time. Right now, we're working on changing Chapter 12 of the Code of Ordinances to make that on a second offense. So on your second offense, you'd be fined. It would be a graduated fine system. That was just an oversight back, gosh, in 98, I think, when we adopted that part of Chapter 12 that was on the third offense, because I think really the dynamics have changed over the years since 98. So, again, in code enforcement, we just deal with the trash and debris and the junk car issue. The police may be able to address the criminal activity, whether a building's declared a nuisance building or nuisance property, but that doesn't fall under us. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, and I think that's where I'm going, because I think there's an officer whose particular purpose is that. But I think that would be something that we wouldn't have to address specifically for student housing or university. But citywide, if we see that that's something we can, you know, add to an existing ordinance that says once you've been cited so many times, then we'll be able to do some more definitive things. And if the court process is not working, we need to look at why it's not. So I hope that we do have an opportunity to discuss that. I will support discussing this in committee. But, again, I'm like Councilman Maloney, I want it to be as broad as possible when we discuss it, so that all the issues that we're having can be addressed at the same time. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember James. Just as a point of information, Dr. Stephens and I were just mentioning that this broader issue is one of the topics within the task force, the infill and redevelopment task force, I believe, quality of life task force that will be engaged. Okay. Is there any more discussion regarding that motion, regarding this motion? Councilmember James. The definition of family is also being addressed in infill and redevelopment. Right. So it would not be appropriate to really address this. You know, I think my own sense is, in responding to that, that, you know, there's nothing preventing it being discussed at both times. You know, this has become now a more current acute issue, and that's why, in my view at least, it's being deposited into the planning committee. And the infill and redevelopment is still going to be discussing it, but I see nothing that prevents it being deposited also as a conversation in this planning committee. I think you've got, you know, we've got two dual initiatives actually going on, but it's now more acute, it's more focused, and that's why it's being, the issue is being channeled into the planning committee right here at council. Infill and redevelopment is still processing a lot of these issues at, you know, essentially a subcommittee level. I understand, and I appreciate you saying that. And the only reason that I mention that is I had previously mentioned some issues of affordable housing that I wanted to be able to address in planning, and I was referred to that this was something that infill and redevelopment would be looking at very thoroughly and that it would be advisable to wait on a recommendation from the infill and redevelopment committee for this to proceed. So I respect that, and it's a vote of council, but I just wanted to give reference that there had been things that had been deferred pending a report out from infill and redevelopment. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. So we can vote now. All in favor of the motion. Is this more discussion relating to the motion? Sorry about that. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Please state the motion. We're still in discussion. The commissioner asked me, can you come up for him, please? He just had a question if you might want to take a gander at this to see if this is even constitutional. I mean, you know, today it's students. Next month it's bald people. We don't want living next door. I'm with you. And I'm not far behind. So, you know, to think that we can limit where a person can live based on whether or not they are a student or not doesn't seem to be too constitutional. I think it raises some interesting questions, but we'll take a look at it. I assume what Dr. Stevens passed out was some information that he had gathered from some other cities. Is that right? Yes, from Pennsylvania, another commonwealth, and it has gone through the Supreme Court in Pennsylvania and was approved as being constitutional. All right. Well, we'd be happy to take a look at it as part of the committee's work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. So now we can vote. No, Council Member James. I have one last thing. I just would like to ask that we have, I would like to request that we have full committee discussion regarding this issue and have an opportunity to really work through the details and ask for patience of the Elizabeth Street neighborhood and anyone that is negatively affected, but understand that due diligence should be done. And I would request that Council Members please join with me in that effort to do due diligence. Thank you. And I won't say any more. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member James. All in favor of the motion to place the, Council Member Stevens, the ordinance from State College Pennsylvania and that process in the planning committee, please indicate by saying aye and voting aye. I'll oppose. No. Motion carries. All right. Thank you. All right. Now we're back on the Elizabeth Street. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Mr. Cooper, thank you for your presentation. Seeing this all in one place at one time is very powerful with the exception of the last page, which somewhat taints the rest of what you had to say. It just popped out of me that a deranged individual in Blacksburg, Virginia, has anything to do with what's going on here. I have several comments. The Big Bear Lane situation that Council Member Gordon mentioned, even to the point of creating density by converting garages to housing for students and the inability one way or another of being able to control that rampant partying that goes on there and other places, apartment complexes also, where there are lots of students who are living relatively densely. I think density has a lot to do with it. I think density is somewhat what Council Member Maloney was mentioning. Also, I guess I can't come to grips with what has happened to the student population. You know, in 1996 and 1998, when we won the NCAA basketball championships, the students thought it would be fun to go to Euclid and Woodland Avenue and tip cars over and set them on fire, which is even more severe than setting the sofa on fire. Again, I don't get the relationship. I guess maybe it's a different generation than what I'm used to. When we would run into situations like that, our solution might be let's go find another keg and tap it, and that would be about it. But I guess they want something a bit more extreme. The mention about the landlord situation. Landlords are somewhat in control of helping us police their situation. They can evict people. And I see no reason why we couldn't see if they – this has to be costing them, as far as how their residences are being treated on the inside, the babies out of the sight of our eyes. And if we could somewhat elicit their help in solving the problem, that would go a long way, because they'd be a bit more on the spot probably than we can be at all times. Those are all the comments. Somewhat disjointed, but at the same time, hopefully all of them pertinent. Thank you. Council Member DeCamp. Thank you, and thanks, Dave, as usual. You've done a good job of bringing a lot of attention to a lot of issues in the third district, which I've been dealing with for 11 years. I would like to clarify the definition of family. I brought that up 11 years ago, and students marched down here, and I got burned in effigy at the University of Kentucky, and that was the start of the Town Gown Commission. I'm afraid David had his facts a little wrong on that, but that's what really started it. And it did serve a purpose, but we've got to remember, neighborhoods near universities and every city in this country and probably throughout the world take some hits, but I think what's happened almost to an extreme because we have a winning season, I think people are sick and tired in this community of the hits that we've been taking, and the hits have come mighty hard the last few games. Thank goodness we have an administration that's listening. I've brought this to administration after administration and haven't gotten anywhere, and this administration has already had one very important meeting with all the people in this government that can do something on the short term and also has challenged the town gown to begin to tackle those long-term issues that can improve this dreadful situation that we've gotten ourselves into, that we haven't gotten ourselves into. We have the University of Kentucky. So I think we are, I looked at your recommendations, Dave, and I think over half or even more than that have been directly addressed last week at the meeting which the mayor held as far as stop demolition in neighborhood homes. I'm sorry to say that we as a council turned down an H1 in Hollywood, which certainly would have helped save that neighborhood, which is right next to UK. We have good students living in many of the neighborhoods. I mean, in my neighborhood we have three or four houses. It's when the critical mass reaches a point, and that's when we get in trouble. But I think we are for the first time really looking at this, and the administration is looking at it very seriously jointly with the university. That's good news. The bad news is that the University of Kentucky has publicly stated that to become a top 20 university, they're going in the next seven to eight years recruit really high, 7,000 to 8,000 more undergraduate students. And I said to them publicly, you recruit 7,000 or 8,000, where are they going to live? Where are they going to park their cars? You know, and I think that the university is going to have to be really much more proactive. This is the hardest thing I deal with is, you know, the neighborhoods where they're loaded with cars. You can't even get a street cleaner down the street. It's a really terrible situation, and yet the university talks about 7,000 or 8,000 more students. And I think we all as a community along with the university have to begin to address these problems. I think Mayor Newberry has made a big step in the last week, and it will continue. There's another meeting next week, and David Jarvis brought up that we discussed last week of changing some of the ordinance in reference to code enforcement so there can be quicker action. And we can hopefully do these things that were recommended to get some immediate results. And hopefully the town gown has broken down in some committees to tackle some of the long range. So for the first time, I'm beginning to see some action. And it's because I think the university has made some changes and are listening at least, which they didn't used to do. And we have an administration who is determined to see that this city makes some very positive changes in the near future. Thanks. Thank you, Council Member DeCamp. Council Member Crosby. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I actually have a question for Mr. Jarvis. I think it's a pretty easy one. Okay. Council Member DeCamp just mentioned this about the ticketing issue where you have to do it now two times, and the third time they get a fine, and then you are looking at changing that. My question is how much time in between the tickets to fine? Is there a certain time period? Like can you give them a ticket one night and then go back the next day and fine them? No, currently the way the ordinance is written is 14 days. Fourteen days? If we issue a citation, we give you 14 days to comply. We come back in 14 days and do a re-inspection. If you're still in violation, you get a second notice, 14 days, and then we can issue a civil penalty. We have the ability to abate the property. If we issue a notice at the end of the 14 days and you haven't complied, we can abate the nuisance. But now that's at city cost, and then we have to go through the law department to do the liens on the properties and that sort of thing. You know, that's an issue that we'll be bringing to you pretty shortly about the nuisance abatement budget. We've expended all the funds in the abatement budget this year, and we're in September, so we're going to be asking for more funds to abate these properties. But currently it's a 14-day turnaround on a nuisance, if that's any help. And I would suggest maybe while you're also looking at the time frame between going from, you know, one ticket to a fine on the second warning or whatever, instead of going to a fine on the third, maybe you also look at the time period in which you're allowed to actually, you know, give the fines, because obviously if they're having to pay more fines, and as you said, as it increases as they go along with more. Once they get the fine and they get another violation, then it increases, as I understand from what you said earlier, that maybe if it's a shorter turnaround time. And two weeks during football season is a pretty long time, and then you have to go through that every two weeks. So I would make that suggestion. I think that's something also the law department will have to look at as far as, you know, legally if we can shorten that time frame. Because I know there were reasons before that we had to use a 14-day for, I'm sure, a reason. We'll give them one more thing to do tonight, I think. Council Member Mowers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'd just like to say that I agree with everything that Councilman DeCamp said, and also Councilman McCord. And I think that we've got an administration within our government that's working hard on this issue. We've got a council that's behind that, and we've got an administration with the university that's behind that same thing, working along with the neighborhoods. And I think that it's obvious that with 24,000 or so students on campus, there's a lot more students that weren't acting out like the things in this report than there were that were acting that way. And I think that now is the time to take all the cooperation that you have from the city and the administration and the university and bring in the students that are acting right and allow them to put pressure on the students that are acting wrong, and then also to put pressure on the landlords. And I think those two pressure points, the students that are doing things right and the landlords that are doing things wrong, are the two pressure points that need to begin to be applied that will really make the difference in this process. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Okay. I believe that everyone's had a chance to speak on that. Mr. Cooper, thank you very much for joining us today. Yes, sir. Next on our agenda is council reports. If you all would just indicate, as you are, those who have council reports. I have Council Member Gordon, Blevins, and Ellinger. Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I have several items. First is to move approval of the Neighborhood Development Fund List. Second. There's a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor. Please indicate by saying aye and voting aye. Aye. All opposed, no. Motion carries. Second is, Council Members, I passed around a poll sheet. We have a really nice opportunity to tour the Home of Excellence, which is a green home. And the home builders are going to show us around this green home. And that is on October 16th at 9 a.m. I'll be getting you more information about that. And if you weren't able to sign up today on the poll sheet because you didn't know your schedule, just let me know or let my legislative aide know and we'll get you on the list. Next is some really wonderful news, which both Council Member Stephens and I were passed a note. As you know, many of you know, the mayor and our parks friends are in Indianapolis, have been in Indianapolis, and have learned this afternoon that our Parks and Recreation Division has been successful in attaining accreditation. And here he is. Congratulations. Straight from the Indiana Hoosier Territory. That's right. And I really don't deserve any congratulations here other than just going along and offering a little moral support today. This is the result of an awful lot of hard effort that's gone on for the last couple of years by a lot of career employees in parks and recreation, and I'm very, very pleased for them. Well, it's a wonderful thing for our Division of Parks. It really sets us up a notch to know that we are now accredited by the national organization, and I think a lot of kudos can go to our parks folks who have worked really hard on this effort. So, congratulations. Next, I have a motion, and this is going back to our discussion on the water issue in the planning committee report. And the motion is to move that the council request representatives from the Public Service Commission and the Attorney General's Office to make a brief presentation at a work session, preferably within the next two weeks, about the process they will go through to vet both of the proposals before them for water supply, the Louisville Pipeline and the Kentucky American Water proposal. And so, so moved. Motion is second. Is there any discussion? No discussion. All in favor of the motion, please indicate saying aye and voting aye. Aye. All opposed, no. Motion carries. If the Mayor's return, I'll happily yield the chair. Yes, sir. Thank you. I appreciate you filling in for me today. My last item is in regards to the Mayor's report. There was some confusion, and I think maybe there still is some confusion, about terms of office. And I just wanted to ask Mr. Artie Green if he can clarify that, in particular, the terms of my office on the Lexington Center Board. But even more important than that, I know that on that particular board, there are people whose terms expired a year ago, and they're still seated. And just to help us understand the process and how long it takes to get someone to sit in those seats, if you can add some clarity to that. And I know that some people we approved in June for boards, and they're not yet seated. So I don't know what the communication is between the city and the boards. I've asked the council to come up also. They're in the process of reviewing a lot of the terms, and some of the terms have to be looked at and have been incorrect, and we've been correcting them as we go. But I won't say any more unless Commissioner Askew wants to comment on the terms and the things that we've looked at. In terms of the process, when we do get nominees, we look at the ordinances and make sure that the terms from the ordinances that we do have match up with the people that have been nominated. What is the process when the council approves people to serve on a board and commission? How does that board or that entity know they're supposed to be seated? For instance, the ones that we approved in June, what's the process to let that entity know they have new board members? Well, we do talk back and forth with those boards, but we wait until the council's confirmation notices come out, and then we make sure that they get those and let them know that a new people have been appointed. Sometimes we hear from them, and they ask. Okay. If you and I could have a conversation, I would like to bring to light several people that we approved in the summer, in June and July, who are not yet seated on their boards, and I would just like to talk with you about that, if we could have that conversation. Sure. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Council Member Ender. Thank you, Mayor. Welcome back. Very briefly, I think Mr. McCord, after I speak, is going to talk about the bike summit, so I'll just want to congratulate you on that. That was held last Friday. It was a very well-attended event, and we learned a lot and look forward to seeing what's going to come out of that. And one thing I'd like to do, and Mr. Green, if you would put down for presentations October 9th, I would appreciate it. One of the gentlemen that was there was Joe Bowen, and I've ridden with Joe, and he's crisscrossed this country on his bike, and I asked him, and I've talked to him on different rides about coming here, and he said he would bring different slides and give us a presentation of what other communities have done throughout the country, and I think it would be a good start to show what potential we have here. And he said he would do it, so if you would put it down on the 9th of October, I'd appreciate it. I think it would be something really exciting because it's amazing on some of the things that other communities are doing, and I think we have a real challenge in front of us, but I think we can do it. We can do it, and by seeing the representation at your first bike summit, it looks like there's a lot of desire out there to do it. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much, and I appreciate your being there as well as Councilmember Gordon and Councilmember McCord and Councilmember Blues. All four of you were there at different times during the day, and several of you had your aides present, so thanks for your kind words there. I might mention, while we're on that topic, that we also received the Bike Friendly City Award from the American League of Bicyclists, and so that, together with the recognition we received today, is a couple of national recognitions in the last four or five days, and the Bronze Award. That's right, that's right. So we've got room to grow. Councilmember McCord. Thank you, Mayor. Just along those lines, I want to say my congratulations to all those who put the bike summit together, especially Kenzie Gleason. She did a phenomenal job, and some of the folks she had to come in and speak were incredible. The gentleman we had at the keynote lunch, what's really important that he said to me, as it relates to some of the things we're talking about today, is that in the year 2037, the United States will have 100 million more people than it has today, and that we have to plan for a city that's going to be able to address that kind of influx. And here we're talking about, over the next seven, eight years, the University of Kentucky is going to grow by 7,000. And we keep sitting here talking about what we're going to do and so forth. The bottom line is we better become a bike-friendly city. We better find other ways to get around in this town besides just a car, and having every student have a car and everybody having a car. We've got to figure out a way to start doing those things, and I think that's part of the great thing about the bike summit on Friday, is it started that dialogue, and I look forward to doing some of the things that were talked about there. And one of his comments that really stuck with me was that he said, you know, we've built, for the last number of decades, we've built cities around the car to the detriment of our kids. And that's Lexington. I mean, let's call it what it is. We've planned poorly in this town. We've built neighborhoods that are all about the car and ways to get around by the car, and we've got to go in and be aggressive about changing that dynamic. Another great thing that happened this weekend was the Urban Life and Style Tour. My congratulations to Harold Tate and to Diane Bonifer and the DDA for putting that together. We had probably 500 to 1,000 folks touring the facilities in downtown. The new units, both residential and commercial, and we're just, it's an exciting time. My applause goes out to them. Council Member Stinnick could not be here today. He's celebrating his anniversary, so I'm making this announcement for him. The DOG Task Force will be hosting a public hearing next Tuesday, October 2nd, from 6 to 8 p.m. in these chambers. The Task Force will be hearing comments and suggestions from the public in regard to the ordinances pertaining to lease laws, barking dog and kennel issues. They'll also take comments on animal care and control staffing issues. But the vicious dog issue has been put into the Services Committee and is a separate issue. They will not hear comments about the vicious dog on that night. A couple other things just real quickly. There's the Fire Parade coming up on Monday, October 8th at 7 o'clock, and also the Mayor's Neighborhood Summit on Saturday, April 6th, excuse me, October 6th, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. here at the Government Center. And if you need any kind of information on that, please call Mary Ann Blodgett at 258-3117. The last thing I'll say is my congratulations to Bill Carman, another long-time employee of LGCG that is retiring this week, and certainly my best wishes go out to him and his family. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mayor. Just two quick announcements. Two events on Saturday, the 29th at the Martin Luther King Park in the Windburn neighborhood. There will be the Windburn Book Fair that starts at 10 a.m. and goes until 6 p.m. that evening. For further information, call Rosetta Lucas-Quisenberry at 299-7258. The same day, Saturday, September 29th, 11 a.m., at First Baptist Church in Bracktown, there will be a gang awareness seminar for the local community, and I encourage everyone who's concerned about gang issues and the kinds of threats and the things we need to be aware of with reference to gang activity to attend this event. I think it will be informative and helpful and give us some direction in this regard. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much. Council Member Crosby. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to say that the explanation regarding the board appointments and the unexpired or expired terms was about as clear as mud to me. I don't quite understand. I guess my question is maybe to Mr. Green. In previous administrations, were they appointing people longer than what the ordinance called for because you stated you were checking ordinances? I guess I'm just we have one example of where one term hasn't expired and we're stating that a term expired and then filling them with somebody else. And so I guess maybe we just as a council, and you don't have to come up if maybe you can't explain it or we need legal to explain it, but I think in the future maybe we have an instance like this that maybe we should have some sort of explanation beforehand when clearly the documentation from a previous administration doesn't match up with what we're getting. Let me speak to that issue just a little bit. There was no useful database on the boards and appointments. There was one, but the information contained in it was dated and in many cases inaccurate, so we have essentially had to rebuild the database from scratch. It is still not to the point at which it is as useful as I would like for it to be, and there may well be errors in the information that are contained in there. But at the end of the day, the ordinances dictate whose terms come up and when, and irrespective of the information that may be in the database, the ordinances are going to trump whatever may be erroneous information in the database. So it is something a lot short of a perfect situation at present. A lot of effort has gone into trying to rebuild some reliable data so that we can figure out what are all the boards and commissions, who's currently there, who may have died, who's moved out of town, who no longer is accessible because we can't find a phone number for them, whose terms expire when, all those types of issues, and it's been an ordeal trying to reconstruct that. Now, one of the committees, I can't remember if it's intergovernmental or another one, but I believe it's intergovernmental, has undertaken the task of trying to assess which of those boards and commissions need to continue and which ones may need to be just taken off the books. I'm sure some need to continue, I'm sure some need to go, and there are probably some with question marks in between, but to the degree that you all identify some that you think need to be eliminated, the sooner the better because it will save us trying to track them down, and I think Mr. Schoeninger requested some information from us within the last week or so to move that process along. I don't know if he's gotten it yet, but we certainly intend to get it to him if he hasn't already received it. Thank you. Answer my question. Okay. Council Member Lane. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to congratulate the Downtown Lexington Development Authority and Harold Tate on the Urban Lifestyles event on Sunday. There was a huge turnout, and I think it pretty much demonstrates there is a high interest in the downtown area. So just my comment. Thank you. Thank you. Does any other council member have anything to report? That brings us now to the news report, a copy of which was previously circulated. Are there any questions that you want to raise with regard to that? Entertain a motion to approve. So moved. Thank you. Thank you. Any discussion? Those in favor, please, I guess, vote electronically. We're off? All right. Let's do it. Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. The motion is approved unanimously. Thank you. That's all I have. We're now to the point for public comment on any issues not on the agenda. Mr. Dalton, if you'll step to the podium, give us your address, and you'll have three minutes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Robert Dalton, 520 Douglas Avenue. This actually is on the agenda. I thought I would be able to speak during the council meeting, but unfortunately, the portion concerning the Neighborhood Council was canceled at this time. But I talked to Mr. McCord two weeks ago when he first announced this, and I told him my problems. I know that the council or this council may not be having problems with the Neighborhood Council, but I myself in previous have. Mr. Maloney, I was at the meeting he alluded to last year when the council had put out the voting boxes, and at that time I had asked them who the representative was for the Georgetown Street Neighborhood Association and was told I could not be told that, that this was confidential information. I told them at that time that I was a board member and officer of the Georgetown Street Neighborhood Association. I was still told the same thing. I wanted to find out because I wanted to make sure that our Neighborhood Association is being represented on this Neighborhood Council and that whoever is on the council as a representative is also authorized by our Neighborhood Association because we've been having problems earlier this year with members who have put themselves as authorized members, and they really aren't. There's questions that need to be answered, and they're just being too secretive for my purposes. We have a valid reason for wanting to find out. We aren't being able to be told whether we have membership on this council or not, and I think these are some questions when the Neighborhood Council does come here before you, it needs to be asked and also needs to be answered, especially if they're going to be representing us during the negotiations with the EPA. Thank you. Thank you very much. Does anyone else wish to speak? Seeing none, we'll entertain a motion to adjourn. I hear a second and a motion. Those in favor, please say aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Thank you.