# Urban County Council Work Session - October 2, 2007 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Council · October 2, 2007 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/172 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/172?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2007-10-02 - **Body**: Council - **Last revised**: February 1, 2026 - **Length**: 13,861 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1, with speaker labels folded in from Granicus closed-captioning. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude Sonnet. Speaker labels and verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council convened on October 2, 2007, at 3:00 PM with Mayor Newberry presiding. The meeting focused primarily on informational presentations and updates, with three main agenda items covering budget matters, domestic violence services, and community planning initiatives. The Council heard a Budget & Finance Committee Update, received a presentation from Bluegrass Domestic Violence, and participated in a Community Vision Exercise, all of which were informational in nature rather than requiring formal action. During the session, the Council conducted five motions and votes, though no public comments were recorded. The meeting served as an opportunity for Council members to receive updates on key municipal matters and engage in strategic planning discussions about the community's future direction. ## Attendance The October 2, 2007 Council meeting had strong attendance with 14 members present and only one absence. **Present:** • Mayor Newberry • CM Gorton • CM Ellinger • CM Stevens • CM Stinnett • CM McChord • CM DeCamp • CM Blevins • CM Lane • CM Blues • CM James • CM Beard • CM Gordon • CM Maloney **Absent:** • VM Gray No members arrived late to the meeting. With 14 of 15 council members in attendance, the meeting had a quorum to conduct official business. ## Votes and Decisions The Council conducted five unanimous votes during the October 2, 2007 meeting, with all motions passing without opposition. **Docket Approval** CM Gorton motioned to approve the meeting docket, seconded by CM Ellinger. The motion passed unanimously. **Meeting Summary Approval** CM Gorton motioned to approve the summary from the September 25, 2007 meeting, with CM Stevens providing the second. The motion passed unanimously. **Budget Amendments** The Council voted on budget amendments as amended, with CM Gorton making the motion and CM Ellinger seconding. The motion passed unanimously. **New Business Items** CM DeCamp motioned to approve new business items A through J, seconded by CM Gorton. All items were approved unanimously in a single vote. **Closed Session** CM Blevins motioned to enter closed session to discuss pending litigation, with CM Beard seconding the motion. The Council unanimously approved entering executive session. All five votes were conducted as voice votes with unanimous consent, with no recorded individual vote tallies or dissenting votes. The Council demonstrated consensus on all agenda items presented for formal action during this meeting. ## Budget and Financial Actions The Council approved several financial agreements and contracts during the October 2, 2007 meeting, totaling over $866,000 in authorized expenditures and accepted funds. **Facility and Service Contracts** Resolution 503-07 authorized a Facility Usage Contract with the Fayette County Board of Education for use of Winburn Middle School in the amount of $23,467. The Council also approved Resolution 505-07, authorizing a Purchase of Service Agreement with Lexington-Fayette Animal Care and Control, LLC for $830,680, representing the largest financial commitment of the meeting. Additionally, Resolution 504-07 authorized a Purchase of Service Agreement with the Lexington Humane Society for the Spay and Neuter Grant Fund Program, though no specific dollar amount was specified in the resolution. **Grant Acceptance and Amendments** The Council approved Resolution 510-07 to accept federal funds from the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet totaling $12,800 for the design of a bike lane on Rose Street. This represents federal transportation funding coming to the city for bicycle infrastructure improvements. Resolution 507-07 authorized an amendment to Resolution No. 287-2007 regarding Arts Power, Inc., though the specific financial impact of this amendment was not detailed in the resolution. **Financial Impact Summary** The combined value of specified financial actions totaled $866,947, with the animal care and control service agreement representing the majority of authorized spending. The acceptance of federal transportation funds provides additional resources for bicycle infrastructure development without impacting the city's general fund budget. ## Budget & Finance Committee Update CM Stevens provided an update on the Budget & Finance Committee activities during the meeting. The primary focus of the committee's recent work centered on budget considerations and funding priorities for various city departments and offices. The most significant action discussed was a motion made by the Budget & Finance Committee to place the County Attorney's Office on a list for possible funding consideration. This motion represents the committee's ongoing evaluation of departmental funding needs and priorities as part of the broader budget planning process. Stevens presented this information as part of the committee's regular reporting to the full Council, keeping all members informed of the committee's deliberations and recommendations. The update served an informational purpose, providing transparency about the committee's work and ensuring that all Council members were aware of potential funding considerations being evaluated. The inclusion of the County Attorney's Office on the possible funding list suggests that the committee has identified potential budget needs or expansion requirements for legal services. However, the specific details regarding the scope of funding being considered or the rationale behind the committee's decision were not elaborated upon during this brief update. This agenda item functioned as a standard committee report, allowing the Budget & Finance Committee to communicate its ongoing work to the full Council and maintain coordination between the committee's specialized focus and the broader Council's oversight responsibilities. ## Bluegrass Domestic Violence Presentation Darlene Thomas, Director of the Bluegrass Domestic Violence Program, delivered a presentation to the Council highlighting the organization's work and services. The presentation was particularly timely as October is recognized as Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Thomas provided program statistics and information about the services offered by the Bluegrass Domestic Violence Program to the community. The presentation served an informational purpose, educating Council members about the scope and impact of domestic violence issues in the area and the resources available to address them. This was an informational presentation with no action items or decisions required from the Council. The presentation helped raise awareness about domestic violence issues during the designated awareness month and informed Council members about local resources and support services available to victims of domestic violence. ## Community Vision Exercise Charlie Boland presented information about a community visioning exercise during the October 2, 2007 Council meeting. The presentation outlined the process and goals for developing a shared community vision for the city. Boland discussed the framework for conducting the visioning exercise, which would engage community members in identifying common goals and priorities for the city's future development. The presentation covered the methodology that would be used to gather input from residents and stakeholders throughout the community. The discussion focused on establishing a structured approach to collect community feedback and translate that input into actionable vision statements. Boland explained how the exercise would help create a roadmap for future city planning and policy decisions based on resident priorities and values. This was an informational presentation designed to introduce the concept and process to the Council. No formal action was taken during this agenda item, as the purpose was to familiarize Council members with the upcoming community engagement initiative and the methods that would be employed to gather public input. The community vision exercise represents part of the city's broader planning efforts to ensure that future development and municipal decisions align with resident expectations and community values. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of the docket - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of summary from September 25, 2007 - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of budget amendments as amended - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of new business items A-J - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Motion to go into closed session to discuss pending litigation --- ## Full transcript that are on the agenda. Seeing none, we'll move on down the docket. We have a docket for approval. Hear a motion? Motion to approve. Is there a second? Second. Motion second. We're rolling now. Any discussion? And those in favor? Council Member Beard. Second reading of Resolutions Number 27, I see in there a whole laundry list of things that we may need to do, referencing renovation, remodeling, repair of certain police and fire facilities, the Downtown Arts Center, the Government Center, and the Opera House. I happen to be aware of a situation as far as the Downtown Arts Center is concerned, where an arts group who teach young people music wanted to occupy the third floor, which has been unoccupied since the building was built. And there were two gentlemen within the city that were going to pay to have it remodeled, the third floor. And the Arts Council turned them down on their request a couple of times. So I would be kind of interested in seeing if that third floor remodeling is in this number right here, or this proposal. Commissioner Coe, if you can speak to that particular issue. Yes, what you have in front of you is the reimbursement resolution for all of the projects that you already approved during the budget. So this was, and I'm sorry, I don't know exactly what remodeling is supposed to be done there, but it was whatever they presented to that particular link committee during the budget process. So this is nothing new. These are only the things that have already been acted on. Okay, thank you. Are there questions or discussion? The question now is on the approval of the docket. Please indicate your vote electronically. It appears as though the docket is approved. We're now down to the approval of the summary for September 25th. Is there a motion? Move approval. I have a motion and a second to approve the September 25th summary. Any discussion? Those in favor, please indicate by voting aye electronically. Those opposed, vote nay electronically. How about those in favor, vote aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. We'll go back to the old-fashioned way and move on with it here. I do, too. I'm kind of a fan of that. It's approved unanimously. We're now down to budget amendments. Move approval. Second. I have a motion and a second. Motion by Councilmember Gordon and a second by Councilmember Ellinger. Any discussion? Councilmember Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. I do have a question on amendment number 13349 in regards to the 2008 bond fund impact. I'm not exactly sure what that bond fund is. Have we already bonded the road money we put into the budget? So, how are we going ahead and doing this change? Where is that money coming from? I mean, I agree with what we're trying to use it for. I'm just not sure where the money is coming from because I don't know if that's a typo. We haven't even seen the list or the bid for the $3 million of our budget money yet. So, I'll make a motion to table that one until we get a further explanation on it. We have a motion to table. It appears as though the budget director may have some information to pass along. If we could hold off on motion to table for just a second. We may have an explanation and then we'll figure out where we go. In the memo that is associated with this one, normally under a bond issue when we're setting up the budget, we allocate one and a half percent of the total of that to traffic engineering for replacement of the traffic control devices. And what this is, this is setting up the budget. We're taking the amount of money that would go into paving and we're moving a little bit of it down into the budget line item for traffic control. Once we issue the bonds and the actual money comes in, then it will be in place. So, we're preparing to do this. You're right. We haven't issued the bonds at this point. But we're setting up the budget so that when it happens, we have it in the right place. It's a normal procedure. We just didn't get it done when it wasn't quite allocated correctly when we adopted the budget. So, none of those funds will be spent until we bond? Right. We'll have a reimbursement resolution that's covering this. And as they go forward and they start grinding and they tear up the thing and so on and so forth, they have to have a way to put it back in. Very good. Mayor, I'll resend my motion to table. Very well. We have a motion and a second to approve the budget amendments. Is there any further discussion? Those in favor, please vote aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries unanimously. We're now down to the items of new business. Make a motion for approval. Second. We have a motion by Council Member DeCamp and a second by Council Member Gordon. Any discussion? Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. On item number J, I have a motion to amend. It's on page 3. I move to amend the information contained in item J to reflect that the money for the senior advisor position in the Office of Policy and Budget is fully budgeted and the funds will not be taken from fund balance. So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Those in favor of the motion to amend item J as specified, please let it be known by voting electronically. Aye. Those opposed, vote nay. All right. It appears as though the amendment is approved. Thank you very much. I appreciate your persistence, Council Member Maloney. We're ready now to vote on the items of new business as amended. Any further discussion? Those in favor, please vote aye electronically. Those opposed, vote nay electronically. Thank you very much. The motion carries. It brings us down to our various presentations. The first one is the Budget and Finance Committee update. Council Member Stevens. Thank you. The Budget and Finance Committee met in its regular session on September 25th at 1 o'clock. All council members were present except Mr. Stennett. The first item of business was a conversation with the county attorney and his requests for additional funding during this fiscal year. After a discussion, a motion was made by Mr. Maloney that the county attorney's office be placed on the list for possible funding pursuant to the LFUCG audit report usually in November. This was seconded and passed unanimously and I offer that, and I so move on behalf of the committee, the same motion for the council. If I understood correctly, you wish to make the same motion as was approved by the committee? Yes. I think this is a motion that was made in the committee that would be carried forward to the full council that Mr. Roberts' county attorney's office be placed on the list for consideration if a budget surplus should be detected by the audit. Very well. We have a second from Council Member Ellinger. Any discussion? Those wishing to cast a vote, please do so electronically. Well, why don't we figure it out? Here we go. Thank you very much. The motion is approved. Incidentally, that money was in the neighborhood of $200,000, though the exact number was not determined. The second item of business on the committee's docket was a general uptake on the debriefing topics as determined during the budget preparation for fiscal year 2008. Commissioner Cole reported to us the progress that had been made on these items and some of the problems associated with this progress. The third item was reports, financial reports for fiscal year 2008 up to now, and that is related to revenue and expenses. These are not available until the books have been closed for fiscal 2007, but Commissioner Cole said that we could expect this information this week, and I presume that still is on the schedule. I see a general nod in our direction, so we're looking forward to those reports, and that completes our committee report. Thank you very much. The next item on the agenda is a presentation by the Bluegrass Domestic Violence folks. Darlene. Thank you, Mayor Newberry and members of the council. I wanted to take the opportunity to inform you of a couple of things. First of all, to acknowledge that October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, so we'll be providing a whole host of events throughout this community over the coming month. I also would say thank you to Brad White and GTV3 for doing a story that will run this month to acknowledge domestic violence and kind of where we are as a community. I would also like to tell you kind of what we've been working on this past year. I promised that I would come once a year and inform you of how your vision and support allows us to do the work that we do. And there's a couple of things that were to note. I've given you a packet before you, and there's statistics for our program, program-wide, and also strictly for Fayette County. But to give you an idea, this past year we did about 18 crisis calls per day. That means a family is calling us almost on an hourly basis that's in immediate need of services from our program. That last year we did 22,000 counseling sessions for our community members that were dealing with domestic violence. That means that we provided one year and three months of solid counseling, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in order to meet the needs and demand. And this did not include crisis calls. We provided over 7,000 transportation services, which is a very expensive venture for us to be able to help families get to court and to the community and to work in services, and have been working with Councilperson Blevins and Commissioner Helm to gain guidance as we strategize options to capitalize the best way to provide transportation to our families. We provided over 2,800 legal services and 2,500 training and education sessions to participants in order to continue to educate our community about the impact of family violence. Currently we are leading the state for housing advocacy services. We provided over 120 families permanent housing, financial literacy, and currently have 10 families working on an asset building savings account so that they'll be able to go to college or purchase a home in the next two years. Last year, with the support of Councilman Lane, the City Council had set aside $8,500 as a capital improvement to repair our driveway and expand our parking lot at our facility. I wanted to report to you today that with that seed money, you might say, the repair work has been secured and we were able to leverage an additional $23,500 in in-kind donation to get this project completed with your help, and I wanted to give you that feedback. Also to acknowledge Mr. Larry Hay, who's been our champion on this project. Take a little time to say that on behalf of the Blue Grass Domestic Violence Program, thank you for helping us, for believing in our mission, and for understanding that families who live in safe homes create safe families for us all. If you have any questions about our vision and where we're going or how you can benefit that, I would be more than happy to do that at this time. Thank you very much, Darlene. I just want to tell all the members of the Council, we've got a lot of outstanding partner agencies out there that we're working with from time to time, but Darlene and all of the folks involved in this one in particular have really been good to work with and have been very responsive to the whole idea of trying to develop a set of criteria by which we can evaluate the progress that they're making, and I really appreciate that. So any questions of anyone? Council Member James. Thank you, Mayor. I don't really have a question. I just have a comment. I don't think we've met face-to-face before, but I've seen you at plenty of events, and I just want to thank your organization for having a presence. I've been able to refer a couple of constituents your way when they've asked me where do I go for help, and I just appreciate you being an advocate and being there to support the constituents that are in need and will be in need of your services. Thank you. Well, thank you very much. We were able to get up a website, and currently we're getting about two requests for services per week on our website. So we're trying to be multi-accessible to our community wherever they're best accessed to reach us or the most comfortable way to reach us. On those statistics, too, you would note that over 400 people we were not able to house. We were able to house less people last year than we had to send to other programs, either across the state or other homeless shelters because the demand is so great. Would you describe your facility just in general terms for everybody so they might have some idea of the kinds of services you provide there? You have an investor, I'm sure, that would kind of explain all that to you, We currently are leasing an 18,000-square-foot facility that sits on 40 acres in rural Fayette County. We hope to purchase that facility by the end of December of this year to make it a permanent home and provide permanency for families throughout our service region. We provide individual counseling, children's services, including Montessori-style interactions for moms and children, and a co-op daycare on site where families kind of barter time so that they can go out and work case planning while other mothers help watch the children. And we just kind of learn to help each other, so families, as they work towards self-sufficiency. We provide legal advocacy throughout our services. We have non-residential support groups for families who don't need. The majority of who we serve will be non-residentials, and that's important. We need to keep families safely in their homes. And for those families who absolutely need safe shelter, we have to be able to provide that service as well. So we've done a great deal of outreach now with your support, as well as we were able to secure federal dollars. We now have Robin Brock, who just got married, and I can't tell you, it was just last weekend, or we can tell her what her new last name is, if she's even changing it at this moment. Robin is actually the primary advocate for Fayette County, who came over today, who's in every civil courtroom for protective orders so that domestic violence victims have access to services before they go in that courtroom. So next year, I think our numbers will be greater. The facility is wonderful. We have a vision to expand that facility to try to meet the needs and demand. So part of the invest brochures that you have in front of you includes an expansion of 12 to 14 more units that allows us to do transitional housing. That way families can move from crisis to transition, and we're hoping to partner with KHC to provide permanent housing, additional permanent housing beyond what we're already doing, back in the communities, and take families from that crisis to self-sufficiency. That's the vision, long term, so that they really get a hand up through the process. And all of our families that go through housing must do financial literacy in order to qualify for our housing services. So that they're able to maintain on their own and understand what it means to budget and invest. And if they choose, they can join our IDA program where they could purchase a home or pay for college education. They're able to save two to one. And we partner with other agencies as well. It's not just us. We're doing those services for Hope Center and for Chrysalis House. Because we all have to work together. There's not enough to go around, it doesn't seem. Any further questions? Council Member Beard. I'm going to get a big tackle here from everyone. But thank you so much for the presentation first and these very crisp statistics. I'm curious though, do you ever have calls from males who are being abused by their spouses, their wives? Yes. And I wouldn't cackle at that, honestly. Males can be victims of domestic violence as well and are. Our agency serves men, women, and children as lined in all of our information and brochures. We even will provide emergency housing and safe housing for male victims of domestic violence. It's only about one and a half to two percent of our total population that we serve. But we take those issues as seriously as any other issue. I'm wondering, is that because no male would want to complain? More of it goes on just because of that reason alone? The macho factor, whatever you want to call it. Some of it could be that. But statistically, men who find themselves in abusive verbally, emotionally, mentally, or physically abusive relationships have a tendency to get out very early. They don't seem to stay longer term. They don't feel as trapped or immersed in the power and control of a female perpetrator. So they move out on average within six to eight months once the abuse begins, where a female victim of domestic violence finds themselves trapped financially, emotionally, mentally with children and then fear of potential death or further harm to themselves and their children. And the average time that women kind of move in and out of those relationships is around six years. So there's a big difference in male victimization versus female. Although males probably absolutely under-report, we think females under-report. And when men do report, it's usually through the court system and through the legal justice system. So that's the majority where we serve. But last year we served three men in shelter. Thank you very much. Sorry if that was a long answer. Council Member James. I just have one last question. What percentage, if you know, and if you don't know right now, please follow up with me, what's the percentage of your clients that are there where the violence has resulted because of some type of substance abuse? Well, I can tell you statistically. I can't tell you specifically to my program, but we've done those numbers across the state multiple times and nationally. And it's around 70 to 75 percent of families. And most women coming to shelter may not themselves have substance abuse issues, but substance abuse has been a part of the violence that's occurred within the family dynamics. It's not causal, but it's definitely related. Okay. Thank you. Anything further? Darlene, glad you're there. Thank you. Thank you all very much. Thanks for coming. The next presentation was from the Downtown Entertainment Task Force. Vice Mayor Gray was interested in participating in that presentation. He is traveling today and unexpectedly was delayed, so we have postponed that presentation at his request, but we'll try to get that back on track soon. That brings us down to the community visioning exercise, and I'll call Charlie Boland to the podium. As many of you may recall, when we visited at Shokertown back in January, we identified development of a community vision as being a very high priority for this year, and Charlie has agreed to kind of be the point person on this exercise. So I'm pleased to turn the podium over to Charlie. Thank you, Mayor, and good afternoon, council members, and privileged to be here with you today to talk about this exercise. Visioning conjures up a lot of different ideas and images in people's minds when you talk about it, and we've done a bit of that in this community. We've looked at several other communities and how they've gone about their projects as well, and I think we have a good approach to present to you today, and we've completed the initial phase of the project, which has sort of quietly gone on beneath the surface, and almost all of you have participated in that. I just thought it would be important today to bring you up to date on where we are in the process and how we are with regard to moving forward. A lot of different ways to define visioning, but for this project, we wanted to define it as a shared plan to move a community forward toward a consciously chosen destination, developed through citizen engagement, fueled by consensus, activated with clear and specific objectives, and accomplished through sustained effort and committed community leadership over a defined period of time. All those elements will come into play with regard to this project, and we'll talk about those further as we go. To shape the discussion, though, we wanted to find a way to put into context the fact that we need to have a specific conversation as a community. Every community can be divided up into predictable elements, but every community is also unique, and none more so than Lexington. We have a unique people and citizenry. We have a unique place and time that we occupy, set of circumstances, assets and attributes, all that are unique to us. And what that adds up to is the fact that we need a unique conversation here for Lexington and Fayette County that addresses the real issues that we're confronted with as a community and tries to identify the forward-looking steps that we can take toward a consciously chosen destination. I mentioned that communities can be divided up into predictable elements. We've chosen these four aspects of community because we started out earlier this year on this course, and most other elements of a community, if you broke this down finer, would fit beneath one of these four umbrellas of human needs, physical growth, cultural creativity, or economic expansion. And we'll use those divisions in terms of how we approach the community to have some discussions about specific aspects of community life. All of that, hopefully, though, being bound together by a shared sense of purpose and vision. That, by the way, is one of the things that the preliminary exercise shows that we do not yet have. The project approach, you can approach a visioning project a number of ways. We could have hired a consultant that would have come in here and used our pictures and our name and put it on the same report they wrote a lot of other places and sold it to us, and we just felt that we didn't want to do that and instead wanted to engage the community and develop our vision from the inside out through a local effort. We would utilize the assistance of our local professional and university resources in doing that and also a lot of grassroots and community volunteerism along the way. We need to determine the right community conversation parameters, what I talked about a minute ago, so that we have the right conversation for this time. We want to involve a large number of citizens directly through the project and in the end deliver a living, breathing, actionable document that will survive the test of time so that as people change seats and move along to different responsibilities, hopefully the actions that come out of this will be timeless enough to transcend that. There's a phased process that we've begun, first being preliminary interviews and design of a discussion template for the visioning project, what kind of a discussion we want to have. There will be a multifaceted exercise to follow, preparation and delivery of a visioning document, implementation teams that follow through on the action items, and then regular progress reports. We'll talk about each one of those just a little bit further. Phase one description of that is basically we identified a broad and inclusive cross-section of community members who have paid attention, have been involved in civic engagement and activities in this community on a number of different levels, a number of different fronts, and have approached them with a standard set of questions. And we'll use those responses really to draw out the common themes and threads and principles from that with which then we need to engage in a community conversation. The process here, I'm just going to walk through this quickly, was to develop a standard set of questions that really identifies the key topics and unearths the root issues that we really need to do. Another purpose of doing it this way, too, though, is that we're talking to people who would be community influencers who hopefully will buy into the project and become advocates for it as we move forward. Again, we identified the goal of 30 to 50 interviewees. I think I've talked to 42 at this point. And these were the criteria that we used. Again, strong civic involvement. We wanted a breadth of community viewpoints represented in community demographics to be proportionate and really to have people there from various walks of life and spheres of influence. And that was the basis upon which we tried to choose some people to talk to. We did one-on-one interviews, scheduled meetings, and went through the interview process. The most average time of that was a one-hour discussion and tracking those responses. Again, I mentioned 42 to date that had been completed. And right now we're in the phase of assessing those responses. I'm going to go ahead and give you some feedback on that today to draw out those common themes and principles so that we can determine the areas of specific focus and different community elements that we need to talk about, any root questions that we need to discuss, and go ahead and use that as the basis to form the discussion template. Now I've got to tell you, I've worked here for 22 years, a little over. This has been one of the most fascinating projects, frankly, that I've ever done, to sit down across the table one-on-one with so many of our community leaders and have a discussion like this. It's not often that you have a discussion about deep things with people. And particularly folks who have paid attention and been a part of the community life, like the folks that we talk to and hear their gut-level honest reactions to some of the questions that we put to them. It's really been an interesting process, and it's left me very impressed with our community in the terms of the people who are engaged, who are passionate about it, who want to see it do well and to move forward, and who have very well thought out and definitive ideas about what those things should be. And the process worked. We did come up with some very common themes and principles out of that with which to shape this discussion. But it's been interesting. I told some folks I wish I could do the whole project this way, but I don't think there's time for that. But it's been a very, very valuable and instructive process, and I've appreciated being able to participate in it. Again, a multifaceted visioning exercise will follow. The prep work of that is, as you see here, we'll develop and validate some question sets, recruit and train people to serve as volunteers, and also to provide settings where we can go and engage at group meetings in ways we'll talk about in a minute. We will determine some specific focus group areas under those four community aspects we talked about earlier. We need to promote it and advertise and do all the things we can to get the word out. And then the engagement process itself will utilize at least these methods of engaging citizens. We'll do focus groups per community elements that we decide. It might be health care. It might be commerce. It might be retaining our best and brightest or creating economic opportunity, any number of different areas that we may need to focus on. We will also use what I think is the most valuable way to get a cross-section, naturally occurring citizen groups. You know, down there you see town hall meetings further down. Well, we can do that, but that typically doesn't generate a true cross-section of the community. It's people who have already some agendas or ideas. The way we feel that it's important to embrace the community and get that true cross-section is find where they're going to meet anyway. University classes, business staff meetings, ball leagues, neighborhood associations, church groups, any number of ways in which there are set meetings that our average citizenry folk have on their calendar to attend. And then we would like to recruit those opportunities to send a trained set of volunteers to lead them through the discussion so we can, in effect, horn in on their meetings and probably do hopefully a few hundred of those over a period of time and engage many, many citizens in that process. Our goal is 5,000 direct citizen touches for this by use of all of these devices combined up here. We'll also do some of the more traditional survey instruments by use of phone, mail, or web. And we'll do some public meetings as well and see how the turnout is. But however we do it, we just want, as one of our key goals, to engage a tremendous number of citizens. And that's what we'll do. The next phase is, again, I'll just briefly run through the document itself. We want really the key point out of this is that objective strategies and tactics. One of the main things we found is that a visioning exercise is all well and good, but if nothing comes out the back side of it, then what's the point? And to do that, you really need a well-defined implementation plan that has the big goals and that also has the definite specific actions that can be taken on the end and strategies to connect those two things and put them together. So that really is, I think, one of the key things that we need to come out of this visioning document. And then also to circulate it broadly and have a lot of awareness of the vision as it moves forward. We'll have implementation teams with subject matter experts and natural advocates for team membership based on which area of community life is under that particular umbrella for that team and follow through by assigning team leaders and having those specific action plans at a set timetable. And we'll also ask for, in the end, for some regular progress reporting back, not only to the whole community, but regular meetings of the implementation leaders, too, to provide some accountability and encouragement. Phase one, again, which is basically just completed this week, findings, we've had some interesting conversations along the way. And a couple of key things here with regard to our vision and our destination, where we want to go, we don't yet have a commonly understood shared vision that serves as a roadmap for our future direction for this community. There are a lot of ideas out there, but there are not any that are commonly understood and shared. Secondly, we need to consciously choose our destination through this exercise. I think that will be one of the key things. When you're taking steps toward a destination, you need to be sure that it's where you want to go. We really need to determine what that destination is for our community. For most cities, that's a pretty easy answer, bigger, better, grow. They have some basic elements and resources and assets that they can bring to bear, but the bottom line equation is more, better. We just want to grow and get more folks involved and create more job opportunity, recruit everybody in here that we can get. For Lexington, we have a more complicated choice because we have this element that poses both a blessing and a riddle. We have a signature landscape that has to be preserved, and that's very clearly articulated through this first phase. But we also know that the remainder of our community has to continue some growth. Stagnation is not an option. There has to be some method of growth provided for, and what that basically gets us to is this root question that I think really is one of the key questions of the whole exercise. How do we grow without harming our signature landscape? You hear this bubble up in a lot of different ways in the debate. It's always the things you see there on the board, growth or no growth. We need more innovative planning. Do we build infrastructure or not, or expand the boundary or not? Basically, all those are winner-loser scenarios that don't contemplate both possibilities of growing and not harming our signature landscape. They're divisive. They polarize people. We've seen it on any number of fronts from school redistricting to our water supply question to comp plan update processes that have been particularly difficult. And we've seen the use of some of these arguments, particularly that revolve around infrastructure, as ways to try to limit growth, which, as one of the interviewees said, what it results out of that is that we grow anyway and we end up with poor infrastructure. And we can't basically continue to do that. Just to emphasize this, again, the question, that root question is how. How do we grow, not do we grow? All of those other arguments relate to the question, do we grow? It's a growth or no growth. Our root question, one that we really need to get at, is how do we grow? Because that really is not an option to say no growth. We've got to figure that out. You know, our riddle, just to flesh that out a little bit here, is we've got a great brand. We have a God-given landscape. It's the horse capital of the world. It's one that's natural and actually works and is easily understood and internationally recognized. In my line of work, it's been interesting to me to watch some other cities flail around and try to come up with a brand that works. And it's a really difficult thing to do. We've got one that works here and that everybody understands. And it's not something to take lightly at all. And I don't think anybody here does. And our brand also, in the sense of being its own major economic engine in and of itself, it's also an economic development tool that helps promote our community for other types of economic development. Because when U.K. brings in folks and they attempt to grow their medical center expansion, one of the first things they do is take them out for a ride to old Frankfort Pike and say, Hey, how about this quality of life here? This is something special. And it enhances and helps our other economic development tools and strategies. So we have a great brand that works, but we also have a need to grow. And the reality is that our growth will have some limitations in order to protect the brand's footprint. An acre is an acre, you know, and a horse is a horse. Of course, of course, I guess I didn't think about that. But there's, you know, while technology makes things smaller and nets things down, the footprint of our brand is not something that you can shrink without actually diminishing the brand. So we have to protect that footprint. And that means growth will take on certain types of characteristics so that they can happen simultaneously. These other things here to flesh that out really are key things that came out of these preliminary interviews too in terms of our hub for this part of Kentucky for medical, educational, retail, and economic center, providing more employment opportunities for our graduates and trying to base things on the future economy. There were other root issues, and this really gets, what I'm doing here in effect is working through the question set that we put these people through that were interviewed. The other root issues are that education is key to everything. We need a well-educated citizenry. And it really took into account all levels of education. People love to focus through the universities, but also had a, for instance, interesting conversation with Council Member Blevins about what happens before kindergarten in terms of our educational system. We have all of those other things that you see there on the screen that are at stake with having a well-educated citizenry. The other thing, not surprisingly, that came up a lot was inadequate community infrastructure. But when the interviewees talked about community infrastructure, it wasn't just pipes in the ground. It was all of the systems because the infrastructure is a school system. It's a road system. It's trails that we talk about doing. It's an entire system of networks that all interface and work together that need to work together well. And, frankly, you know, some of which, many of which have been neglected. And so there are past maintenance issues. But we also know that we want to make good progress in the future and, in so doing, address the environmental impacts that we face, some directly with issues like the EPA, but others that are broader than that. The next question that we talked about were some of the top issues to resolve. And you can see them here. I'm not going to walk through them one by one. I'll highlight some of them. For instance, public transportation efficiency. We have a lot of people talking about light rail and what we can do in terms of a regional approach to connect these communities without eating up the green space between them. One of our six pillars, as you remember, too, was innovative planning, the third or fourth bullet there. And what that really seems to be getting at is creative ways to do planning that get at this how question, how do we grow so that we don't use the same set of rules and end up with the same set of results. It's not that they're bad. It's just that we need to adjust those. We need to figure out how to do those. There's an infill and redevelopment activity going on in any number of plans where we're starting down that path, but we really need to talk about that. The regional cooperation is another thing that was hit pretty strong throughout all of this. Other things that were mentioned was our racial divide, the way that we can really mutually benefit by engaging our universities and a better relationship with the community or stronger. There's been progress there. We need to improve it and so forth. I'm not going to. You can see those. The next question revolved around what we don't have that we need to be able to succeed in the future. The first thing a lot of people thought of was that we don't have a vision. We really don't have anything in common that we all look at as a compass or a landmark or an anchor to hang on to so that we have a direction. You see, again, one of the things that keeps showing up here is a new economy and more opportunity for our graduates. Our best and brightest are a lot of different ways that people say that. That really relates, I think, to the sense of entrepreneurship and innovation that you see there as well. We need to work on those areas. We need to restore our infrastructure. We need to continue to make the downtown core what it will be to attract young professionals and that sort of thing. Diversity was an issue that came up repeatedly as well and that it's an asset but one that needs attention and that we need it at every table and to move forward with respect to how we relate to one another within our community. The next question had to do with what do we have, what can we capitalize on, what do we absolutely need to continue to have to be able to move the community forward? You see there several things, the equine base and the natural beauty and the agriculture obviously is a strong number one there. One thing that many people mentioned, though, was the next to last bullet there, the alignment of strong quality local leadership. There's a lot of good feeling in the community right now about the group of folks that are sitting in front of me right now. And the fact that this relationship is better than it's been in years and there's a sense that we're on the right track and that we're able to actually make progress and make decisions and pull some things together and accomplish some goals right now. And also the fact that that's a nonpartisan kind of leadership is important to a lot of people. The next question had to do with lessons to be learned. And there were a lot of ideas about that, not the least of which had, again, to do with planning processes that need to be adapted or neglected infrastructure. One that kept coming up was we talk about everything, but we don't resolve anything. We need to learn to bring issues to resolution and to be more confident in what we have. You could really sum it all up, though, in that licensing needs to learn to stay in a continuous improvement mode. One of the quotes from one of my interviewees I thought was really hit the nail on the head. We don't ever want to let ourselves get this far behind again. There is some recognition that we've let that happen to ourselves. And we don't want to do that again. And we want to make that ground up and get to where we need to go. The next question was a question in terms of what is our legacy. Obviously, the horse capital, natural beauty, the university, both sports and as an academic institution. We have good, friendly, hospitable people, and that this is a beautiful place to live with a great quality of life. But our legacy potentially right now is that we're a community that did not do what was necessary to fully achieve its potential. We can do more. We don't want to leave anything on the table. You know, we want to be sure that we're doing everything we can to be the city that we want to be. And the next question had to do with courage, you know, that we can be a great community if only we will do certain things. A lot of people talked about the political courage of the elected leaders. That relates back to my earlier comment about the feeling about this current elected body. We've got to do what it takes to accomplish all of these things, and we've got to follow through on the implementation plans that come out of the visioning process and work together. And we've got to think beyond our county borders to become more regional and even global-minded in how we go about that. The last question had to do with imagining what it will be like here 25 to 30 years in the future, what people would want to see if they could suddenly be transported there. They still want it green. They want the brand intact. They want it beautiful and a good center city with continuation of cutting-edge leadership. A lot of people talked about real pragmatic sort of things, cleanest, hardest working, healthiest, best educated. That's who we want to be and that we've grown in our prominence so that really, you know, this is looked at now as the central Kentucky region, not just Lexington and our neighbors. They want to see a community where the have-nots have become the haves and that we've closed that economic gap between a lot of people and that we've done that by providing opportunities for them and good education and that we have a dramatically improved infrastructure. So that's some of the initial feedback that we've got that we will use to shape the discussion template as we move forward. And so you've seen the next phases of the process. I'll be happy to provide updates along the way as you look at what I really want is your involvement in this as we move ahead in the next weeks and months. I like this quote of Jim Collins and talks about real transformation and the good, the great. When they looked at different companies in this case, there is a lot of application to governmental entities too, and I've heard him address that particular shift from private sector to public sector. And the fact is that when they talked to companies that had actually done this good, the great transformation, there was no miracle moment. There was just a down-to-earth, pragmatic, committed to excellence process, which is a framework or a vision in this case maybe that kept each company or its leaders on track for the long haul. That's what a visioning process is all about if you go back to our definition here. It's just a shared plan. It's a framework that we can refer to that's been developed by the community that's pragmatic in its approach and has definite specific steps that can be taken, and then the sustained effort of the community leadership over a defined period of time. That's what we want to accomplish, and I appreciate your time and attention today and be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. And Charlie, thank you. I appreciate you taking on this initiative. I know we talked a lot about it at Shaker Town and a lot of other times in our retreats, but this is finally coming to reality. And I guess my next big question is what is your actual next step? Are you still meeting with people within LFUCG? Are you ready to take this out and look to different organizations to get in front of to get their input? What's our timeline at this point? Our timeline on this will be we're wrapping up that initial phase really this week and getting together our professional consultants here locally to talk about the framework for the discussion. Simultaneously, while we're doing that and developing the question sets that derive out of this, we'll begin a public process of promotion and recruitment within the next month or so to begin to invite people to participate, to come and receive training. We will also be recruiting meeting sites where people will allow us to come and talk to their employees or the groups that gather there and put them on the schedule and move forward. I think we'll probably spend a good two to three months in the midst of that process to try to reach as many people as we want to reach so that by sometime in late winter, we'll be able to be thinking in terms of bringing forward a draft of what that visioning report will be for the community and also all of those implementation steps. We've got a lot of leadership to try to engage in the process. I like a lot of the things that Fayette County's 2020 vision used in terms of how they set up their groups for implementation. I think that might be a good model for that piece of this discussion. But, again, this has been the sort of quiet part of the rollout where we're really trying to shape the discussion. I think you're going to see in the very near future more public rollout where we promote this. We've got a name for it. We've got timelines and schedules and that sort of thing pretty much all put together. That won't take much. Our initial meeting with our consultants is Wednesday to begin to map all of that out. So are we doing every bit of this in-house? No. Okay, so we'll be using some of the budget money to go outside. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, we'll probably engage three or four local firms in different ways to help collect data and analyze data and prepare reports and that sort of thing. Yes. Okay. Thank you, sir. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Charlie, for doing this. And it's absolutely imperative we do it because I think that line is probably the best thing I've seen is we don't ever want to get this far behind again. And I think that one of the encouragements I'd offer you is that as we're working through the process of civic engagement and pulling lots and lots of groups together, let's recognize maybe some low fruit opportunities that lend themselves to where we're going. If we have a sense that, as your presentation points out, here's where generally we're going with this, and there is a collective hue and cry for these types of things, if we see that there is an opportunity staring us in the face to jump on something that lines up with that, I think that only turbocharges our efforts towards that common vision. I think sometimes envisioning, as I've seen it around the country in the corporate structure, you spend a lot of time on this and a lot of process and feel like, okay, we're really doing this, and then something changes, you miss that window. So just not letting anything slide by us just because we're waiting for everybody to have a seat at the table and talk about this. There's some things that can be jumped on now in helping moving us and creating that excitement. So I applaud your effort to this point and just encourage you, when those opportunities come up, just to look for them. One point I forgot to make, too, when you think about the different community elements, that some of these are already underway. I mentioned 2020. We don't need to go reinvent what Stu did with that group. There were thousands of folks involved in that, and we just need to push it and cheerlead it and say, yeah, that part of K through 12 is done. Commissioner Helm did a tremendous social services summit and has worked with the United Way. That piece is probably already covered. We don't need to revisit that. We need to look at the plan, say that's the right plan, go for it, so that we can do just what you're saying. We're not going to let things slide by. Any other questions for Mr. Bowen? I want to commend you all for getting this issue on the agenda back in January because a lot of things we do around here, truth be known, is 100 years from now, no one will know the difference. 100 years from now, people will know the difference if we do this right. They really will. And this is enormously important in terms of developing some common sense of direction for our community. If we develop that and people buy into it, as I hope they will after being involved in the whole exercise, a lot of our acrimony stays out of the picture entirely, and we can really start to build a lot of momentum as a community. So this is enormously important, and I appreciate Charlie taking this bull by the horns. He's done an excellent job. Council Member McCoy. Along those lines, Council Member Stennett mentioned this as we were going through it. Charlie, would you mind just putting something together that does have the six pillars of that visioning session we did in January where we said, hey, these are the six things, and let's look for opportunities to put those up and around and in this room so that as we're here interfacing, you know, we don't miss it. Because, again, vision tends to leak sometimes, and you have to cast that vision every 30 days or so or people forget why they're doing what they're doing. And I think that would be very helpful for us. Will do. Thank you. Unless there's anything further, we'll proceed to council reports. Council Member McCoy. I thought Council Member Stennett. It was. Okay, all right. Council Member McCoy. Just one announcement. I want to say congratulations to our police department, but in particular, Officer Debbie Wagner. Officer Wagner does a phenomenal job with the Citizens Police Academy, as many of us know. But you may or may not know that on Wednesday, September 26th, she was honored in Denver, Colorado, with the International Community Service Award by the International Association of Women Police. And this is a lady that is a true asset to our community and just one of the finest people I've ever met personally as well as professionally. And I just want to say thank you for all that she does and congratulations. Well said. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. You know, as Council Member McCoy was talking about the vision, maybe we can get each of the six commissioners to wear a hat with their own pillar on it, and we can all have them walking around billboard. Just a thought. I want to give a couple of announcements. One earlier, the Services Committee was talking about the traffic management options that we have here in Fayette County. One thing I don't think you discussed in the meeting earlier was the actual Neighborhood Traffic Management Program book. It's dated March 2000, and there is a two mayors in there ago letter, as well as people that no longer work in traffic engineering. So if we can get this updated and get some real current information, because this is what we're handing out to people, and it just doesn't make a lot of sense with some of the information that needs to be updated. So if we could do that as part of that discussion today, that would be great. I think Commissioner Kelly is just outside the door here someplace. I don't think he was backing you, but if you could give him just a real quick rundown. I can catch him in the back and give him a copy. But while you're here, the road money that we put in the budget of $3 million, are we any closer to getting that to this council so we can get on with that? Because I think we only have about 60 days left to pay, and there's a lot of roads on there to be spent. So hopefully that will be in the next week or so coming to council, and we can get that ball rolling, so to speak. Okay, thank you, sir. On Saturday night, October the 6th, this upcoming Saturday evening, the Brown Station Alumni Association is hosting their 2007 Hall of Distinction induction. I think all the council members got an invitation to that. There's nine members from our community who are former Brown Station alumni who will be inducted into the Hall of Fame or Hall of Distinction, and it will start at 7 p.m. there at the high school, and I welcome all the other council members to attend if you'd like to have a good evening and support one of our local high schools. And then last but not least, I know you all had fun with me today on this topic, but the Dog Task Force is hosting our public forum tonight from 6 to 8 p.m., and I hope all council members can attend and listen to the public input. If not, we'll be glad to get you a CD copy of everything that was said and use that in our report out. In fact, we look forward to it tonight so members of the community can attend and express their true issues as it pertains to the leash law, the kennel law, the barking dog law, as well as the staffing at Animal Care and Control because those are four important issues. I know we are addressing the vicious dog issue separately in the services committee, so we won't be discussing that this evening, but we look forward to those frank discussions this evening from 6 to 8 here in council chambers. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Blevins. Thank you, Mayor. A couple of things for fellow council members. If you look in your packet on pages 8 and 9 and then just flip a few pages beyond that, you're going to notice a change in the packet today, and I would like to send out a big thank you to our new council administrator, who is not so new now, Ms. Langston, for helping us get to this point. As you may recall, previous packets, it was a little bit limited in the budget change items, and we've asked for an interim solution where we can have a little bit more background information behind each budget change. I believe you worked with Mr. Deaton in the budget office, and together they put together an interim solution for us. I understand that this may change for the better, hopefully, when the budget module goes into STARS, but this will help us understand budget changes a bit better. So thanks again, Ms. Langston. Wonderful job. Second thing I have for council is in the 10th District, we've had a recent problem in a few areas where large vehicles, specifically in most cases buses, are going down residential streets, and I haven't come to a good resolution on this problem with our agency, LexTran. So what I'd like to do is find a way that accommodates both LexTran and the residents by looking at, in the services committee, perhaps a way of restricting bus routes from residential streets and looking at more collector streets, but I don't have enough information. So I'd like to move that into the services committee, a review of possibly restricting bus routes on residential roads. So moved. Is there a second? I need a second. Council Member Stephens seconds the motion. Any discussion? Those in favor, please vote electronically aye. Those opposed, vote nay electronically. I didn't get to do my movement. I think we need a fresh grain here. Well, those in favor, please vote aye. Aye. Those opposed, vote nay. The motion carries unanimously. Thank you, Mayor. That's all I had. Council Member Wayne. Thank you, Mayor. We have an ordinance in place requiring each property to have a street number clearly posted and even a minimum size for the numbers. I don't believe that we've been enforcing that ordinance very effectively. I think that it would be in the convenience to residents and visitors to the city to be able to find business residential locations a lot better. It's also a safety issue and increasing the response times in an emergency. And I think it also would maybe reduce traffic because it would be easier and more efficient to find a location. So I'd like to request that Commissioner Tim Bennett perhaps bring a short report to the council to advise us exactly what the ordinance provides and how well it's being, you know, enforced. And I think that it touches police, fire, 911, code enforcement, and emergency management are all affected by this. So do I need to make a motion or can I just make that request that you put on the agenda? We'll be glad to do that. As a matter of fact, I had a conversation with him about it last week, and it is something that merits some attention. Mr. Curtis, would you be sure to relay that information to Commissioner Bennett? Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. That's all I have. Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. First, I'd like to move approval of the September 28th Neighborhood or, excuse me, the October 2nd Neighborhood Development Fund List. Second. I have a second by Council Member Blevins. Motion is to approve the NDF funds for October 2nd. Any discussion? Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Secondly, I wanted to thank our budgeting folks for the budget and brief, which we got today. This, over my term in council, is one of the things I carry with me a lot, and I've also shared copies along the way with neighborhood presidents, and they find it really a helpful tool so that they can begin understanding our budget. So I wanted to thank budgeting for this. I really appreciate it and will use it. And then finally, I wanted to mention the Bluegrass Energy Expo on Green Living. This year, the Bluegrass Home Show is partnering with the Bluegrass Energy and Green Living Expo, and so this coming weekend, October 6th and 7th, Saturday and Sunday, I wanted to encourage our residents to go, especially to see some of the energy-saving exhibits and products that are going to be at this Bluegrass Expo. This is at Heritage Hall at the Lexington Center on Saturday from 10 to 6 and Sunday from 12 to 6. It does have an admission of $5 for adults. And as our community gets more and more environmentally friendly in the types of building and construction and products that we're using, I think that our citizens can get some really good ideas from this expo. Thank you very much. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mayor. It looks like Saturday is going to be a pretty busy day with the Neighborhood Summit starting at 8 o'clock in the morning here in Government Center, and I'm looking forward to a productive and informative event. I'm hoping that representatives from neighborhoods throughout the city will be here and involved. I think it's going to be very useful for our neighborhoods to get the kind of information and to exchange the kind of ideas and information that will be possible on Saturday morning. Then at 2 o'clock on Saturday afternoon, the Meadowthorpe neighborhood will begin its fall festival, and that will extend to 7 p.m. The highlight of the day, in addition to plenty of food and all kinds of games for kids and the general neighborly exchange among neighbors, will be around 5 to 5.15 when we dedicate the renovated community center. It's been completely redone entirely by neighborhood volunteer efforts, and we're happy that Mayor Newberry will join us. Council members have been invited. Free food and other refreshments for all the council members, of course, and we hope to see representatives from other neighborhoods in the 2nd District there as well. So Neighborhood Summit in the morning, the Meadowthorpe Fall Festival in the afternoon, and the Bryan Station installation that evening. That's a full day. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member James. Thank you, Mayor. Real quick, I'll announce a couple of neighborhood events going on. Wednesday, the North Limestone Neighborhood Association will meet at Al's Bar. This is the North Limestone Corridor neighborhood. It runs all the way from Maine all the way to Loudoun, or actually all the way to New Circle in some instances. So be sure to check that meeting out Wednesday at Al's Bar at 6.30. It's a very well-attended and extremely informative Neighborhood Association meeting. Also, at the Kentucky Theater on October 4th, there's going to be an Earth Jam concert. This is the Bluegrass Collective. It's the Bluegrass Jam Band. The quote on here is, the Bluegrass Jam Band will rock your green socks off. Sponsored by GreenLex.org, UK's Green Thumb, Trancy's Terra, The Healthways, LexingtonCoolCities.org, SustainLexington.org, Pride, Bluegrass Energy and Green Living Expo, EarthSave.org, and other local green groups. Sounds like a great event. One of my neighbors is actually emceeing the event. It's $5, and it is during the UK game. So if you're not going to be watching the game and want to listen to some great music, check that out at the Kentucky Theater. And also, Mayor, I'd like to ask for your help on something. A few, or probably a month or so ago, I talked about some state roads I was needing some help with. I haven't heard anything back on those. I've had some serious traffic issues at Broadway and Forth, Broadway and Loudon, Winchester Road and Brown Avenue, Russell Cave Road and Hollow Creek Road. These still continue to be traffic issues, and I've had no help and no response. I don't know if other council members have issues or difficulties getting any help with traffic signaling on state roads that connect with city roads, but I really need some help and need some guidance to help these residents and help the travelers that are traveling through these intersections. Commissioner Kelly, could you get with Council Member James right after the meeting and maybe brainstorm about how to move the ball forward? And if that doesn't work, then let me know tomorrow, and we'll see what we can do. Okay, that's the end of my report. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Mayor. I didn't think it would make it this far, but I want to be the first, I guess, to congratulate Stu Silberman and all of his team and the school board on the startling improvement in scores that the newspaper printed this morning. I really didn't have time to dig into them a whole lot, but I picked out a few that I knew about, and it's just amazing, and they're definitely on the right track, and they need to be congratulated again and again so that they can keep that up. Second thing, I was wondering if I could ask Commissioner Cole to kind of give us a very, very brief update on what's going on with the garage and what's going on with the side door and being fenced off and a few things like that. Yes, Councilman Beard. The garage that is attached to the government center has been closed down. We've been working. We're going to, in the next couple days, reopen the loading dock so that we can accept deliveries on the first floor, but the rest of the garage will remain closed. We have put together a path for access on the third level to get from the government center building to the Soweto building for foot traffic only so that we can conduct business in the two buildings. At this point, there are not any plans to move forward with fixing the garage. We are exploring what the options are. And the prognosis on the timeline for that is that I'm thinking about wintertime now. Well, the government center garage will not be available for this winter. We're exploring options for the first floor as far as netting, which could possibly open up the first floor, but we have not received any cost estimates at this time for that project. Okay. And the side door being blocked? The side door being, the temporary being blocked because of the building, the work that they're doing outside on the building? I guess so. I don't, nobody told me what exactly it was. And it wasn't real clear. There was no sign that said don't do or whatever. Because some of the council members just went ahead and went that way anyway. They confessed to me that. I won't name their names. Okay. We'll be, no one should be accessing this building through the garage. At times, because of the work that's being done on the exterior of the building, that's the sidewalk that leads between here and the Phoenix garage will have to be blocked. That is on an as-needed basis as they're doing that work. And if the sidewalk is blocked, I would request that everyone not try to go through there. If there's safety reasons why it's blocked, and walk through the annex garage or the library to get over to this building. It wasn't clearly blocked today. It was the half of the sidewalk was blocked, and there was no indication that what I did was just skirt it and go ahead to Main Street. But there was no instructions whatsoever. Okay. If it's not obstructed, you can go through there. If we do, if we need it for safety reasons to be blocked, we will clearly block it with some tape or with a fence. One last question. A year ago, after the Chase Bank parking garage tragedy, we did an assessment of all of our garages, and it was fair to poor, but it wasn't shut it down. Was that a poor assessment, inaccurate assessment, or had things changed? The assessment on this garage was fair to poor, but it did say it could still be operable. The further assessment that we've done over the past month determined that certain areas of the garage, we were concerned about loose pieces of concrete falling, and we made the decision to go ahead and shut down the garage for safety reasons. I understand. I was curious about the old one, actually, if we got a bum deal on whoever did the assessment. No. If we decide to go ahead and go through with fixing up this garage, that will be the basis for the repairs with the additional information that we've gained. So the status, the study itself is a good study. Okay. Thank you. Okay. General Beard, let me speak to the garage issue in just a little more detail, because we're going to have to make some difficult decisions here in the near future. That report that you just alluded to was very useful, and it was actually done prior to the time at which the accident occurred at Chase Bank. It indicated that both the garage at the government center and the garage at the annex had significant problems. The ones at the annex were identified as being more significant than the ones here, and so the annex garage was designed, well, the annex garage repairs were scheduled to occur first, and then we were going to come here and do some repairs on this garage. What happened, you may recall, during the summer, was we had some concrete fall in the government center garage. That led to the inspection that has precipitated this garage now being closed. In the meantime, our garage across the street still has all the problems it had when we were talking about this earlier, and so we're going to be coming to you very soon seeking authorization to spend close to a couple hundred thousand dollars to stabilize the helix over at the annex garage. I wish we could find a way to avoid the necessity of sinking more money into that garage facility over there, but I've asked people who have given it an awful lot of thought to come up with alternative scenarios for dealing with it, and all of them have been bad. All of them have been expensive. All of them, with the exception of doing what we're going to propose, create a great deal of turmoil in terms of the whole parking situation downtown, not just for us but for a lot of other folks as well. So the end of all this is we're going to be looking for your authorization to go forward with spending a little less than $200,000 on the courthouse annex in addition to whatever garage, in addition to whatever we wind up doing after we get all of the assessments back on this garage. So not good news, but I think it's probably the best we can do with a bad situation. And if anybody has additional questions about all that, I'll be glad to try to tell you what little I know about it and get Commissioner Cole and others to answer your questions in greater detail. I know you alluded at one point to moving the whole government center somewhere, and obviously you wouldn't want to pump $2 or $3 million into a dead horse. And I think that's a very legitimate possibility. One of the things that, you know, has been kicked around is constructing a new facility on the location of the annex garage and the courthouse annex. So I cannot tell you how much it pains me to contemplate putting a couple hundred thousand dollars in, but I certainly agree with you, the idea of putting $2 or $3 million into those facilities just, it's making less and less sense all the time to me. Council Member Maloney. So we're going to be shutting down the annex building pretty soon, then? I'm not prepared to say that yet. But, you know, as you kind of brainstorm around what some of the options are, that's one that has been kicked around. And we're a long way, please understand, we're a long way from making that decision. But, you know, I talked during the budget address about the fact that we need to evaluate what our real estate needs are here, and that will be one of the things we'll be looking at then. Well, I mean, hopefully if you do have to shut this down, maybe we can, is there any option if you all are looking at rental property, like some place, especially for the county corridor? Right. Well, yeah. I mean, with the license and all that, that they have a place to move their computers so they can at least have that work done. You're exactly right about that. We're just a long way from making that decision just yet. But that's a major concern, it sure is. Council Member Thornton. I want to just throw one more thing in the mix. As the folks brainstorm and go down the road on this, I would like to maybe ask you to consider, if we do end up closing the annex parking, I think we need to look to some sort of system for our employees and maybe other folks downtown for bus passes and make that part of the discussion. I don't know if we could strike any kind of deal with cost. Urban county government employees used to be able to get a bus pass at a little bit less cost, but as we go down the road and lose more and more parking places, it might be good to throw the bus discussion into this. I think it's a really good opportunity for lots more of us to get on the bus but also to utilize it while we're under stress. That's a good point. Thank you. Any other questions? All right. Let me hit two or three points kind of quickly in the Mayor's Report. Miriam Blodgett, if you'd be coming to the podium, I want her to speak about the Neighborhood Summit and just a little more detail. While she's doing that, let me mention the fact that the September 11th Tribute Exhibition is going to be downtown tomorrow. It will start at 10.30 tomorrow morning. This will be the only time it will be in Kentucky, and so if you or any of your constituents might be able to join us tomorrow at Cheapside, I hope you will do so. And Ms. Blodgett, if you'd tell us just a little more detail about the logistics for the Neighborhood Summit, I think that might be of some interest. Sure. Thank you very much, and thank you, Council Member Blues, for bringing it up earlier. We need as much promotion on this as possible. Although I will report we're going to have a really nice representation of various neighborhood associations and homeowners associations throughout Lexington. We had GIS plot those on the map, and it's a nice disbursement, so we're really excited about that. We certainly want to throw the invitation out there to more neighborhood associations and homeowners associations to please come down. At this point, you do not need to preregister. Please come on Saturday, October the 6th, from 8 a.m. to 1. Registration check-in is from 8 to 9, so we'd love to have them. We also want to extend an invitation to people who are not involved in their neighborhood association but are just really interested in how their local government works and how they can perhaps get involved in their local government. So the invitation is for anyone in the community who would like to come. We have a very minimal registration fee of $5. We're offering you a continental breakfast and sack lunch, and we have lots of wonderful information. As I mentioned, between 8 and 9 is check-in. We also have a resource fair that will be available in the ballroom, where we'll have 25 to 30 different displays of folks within government and their services, as well as some outside agencies who will be here. So that's a great opportunity to pick up information, to visit with some of the leadership in the divisions, and ask some of your questions there. We're hoping that council members who are available will be here during that time also, where neighborhood folks and citizens can visit with you for a few minutes. Then at 9 o'clock, we're going to move to the State Theater. Mayor Jim Newberry will make a presentation, and we're going to open it up for questions for either council members who are present and or commissioners who are present and the mayor. At 10 o'clock, we will move to breakout sessions. We'll quickly through those so you'll know what is available, and this might interest some folks. One of the sessions is public works and environmental quality. This panel will involve traffic engineering, streets, roads, and forestry, water and air quality, waste management, and the division of engineering. That will be a panel discussion, and people in attendance can ask their burning questions and hopefully get the answers they need. The second panel is a healthier Lexington through parks, trails, and recreation. This will feature the division of parks and recreation and the division of planning, and they will talk about some of the exciting things coming up in those areas. Keeping Lexington safe and clean is another panel. This will involve code enforcement, the divisions of fire and police, as well as environmental and emergency management. Those are all really good topics, and I know many people would like to learn more about the things that they do and have questions for those folks. How to start your own neighborhood association. We're going to go through that for those who would like to start one. And then finally, how to navigate through government, which will be everyone's favorite, and we'll go through that with LexCon, the division of law and planning, and we're going to help folks know perhaps where to start in getting some of the things that they need through government. We'll repeat those five again the next hour, and at noon we will have a sack lunch, and for those who would like to stay, we'll have a tour of the division of traffic engineering's traffic management center, the division of police, LexCon, and I'll walk some folks up to the mayor's office to see some of the beautiful artwork we have there that are displayed. So we hope folks will come. It will be a very fast-moving but very informational program. Any questions? Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. A couple more things real quickly. One, I would call your attention to the fact that we have on the docket for Thursday night the approval of a recommendation subject to your all's confirmation of Chief Information Officer Rama Dwaraha. Rama is from here in Washington. He is young but technically adept, I am confident, and look forward to you all having the chance to meet him. We have a few projects that we have been anxious for him to attend to. So I just wanted to mention that to you, and we'll try to get that confirmation hearing scheduled promptly. Last, I wanted to mention to you that we have contacted the Public Service Commission about making a presentation. They are legitimately concerned about not getting into the particulars of any case that is pending before them right now, namely the Kentucky Americans' proposal to construct a water treatment plant, but they certainly are willing to provide us with some general information about their process and how the docket will be handled there, which I think will be useful to you. Incidentally, yesterday was the deadline for anyone to intervene and for Louisville Water Company to actually submit a definitive proposal through sworn testimony to the commission. I haven't seen that yet, but I think a lot of the questions that have been circulating around will undoubtedly be resolved by the filing of that testimony in Frankfurt, and so there will be something specific that everybody can look at, and we'll try to get them here as quickly as we can work it into everybody's schedule. Thursday night, we've got a little conflict going on in our community with a lot of people wanting to watch a football game. So game day attire would be appropriate if you are so inclined on Thursday evening, given the circumstance. Excuse me, Mayor, are you going to make a motion to suspend the meeting? Well, we have a motion and a second to that effect, I think. We can, I hope, move through the agenda pretty promptly, but that's a possibility. So we will see what kind of technology we can bring to bear here. All right. That's all that I have today. Does anyone have any public comment on any issues not on the agenda? I see none. Council Member Blevins. Thank you, Mayor. I move that we go into closed session pursuant to KRS 61.810, subsection 1C, for the purpose of discussing pending litigation. I have a motion and second to go into closed session. Any discussion? Those in favor, please vote aye. Those no. Motion carries. Thank you.