♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Okay, we will begin the 1 o'clock Intergovernmental Committee meeting for October 9th. And in addition to the committee members that are here, I will recognize Councilmember Stephens so that we have our quorum. Thank you very much. And we will begin. The first item on the agenda is the employee compensation system. Is there someone here to speak on that? Mr. Allen is coming forward. Thank you. Good afternoon, Councilmembers. Thank you for inviting us back to discuss compensation. For the Councilmembers who are not aware of how this arrived on your agenda, if I could just review a little history. I know Councilmember Gordon is very aware of it, and Councilmember DeCamp and Councilmember Stephens, Dr. Stephens. Over the last several years, one of the primary issues that we have been dealing with from the perspective of LFUCG, compensation, and the Intergovernmental Committee was a concept known as pay equity, which was driven by ordinance. And basically where we had to look at all of the classified systems, all of the individuals throughout government in those classifications, and compare them based upon four qualifying factors as to compensation. I think everybody remembers those days and how we worked diligently to correct some inequity within the system. At that point in time, when we finalized our analysis, I came before this committee and requested on several occasions, it was approximately $1.8 million, if I remember correctly, which the committee graciously recommended to the Council to approve, to remove pay equity from our lexicon. Thank God. Part of the agreement was that human resources would begin analysis and looking at a solution long term to the problem to prevent this issue of pay equity from arising again. The first thing that we did was to create a committee of all interested individuals from every division to make sure that they had input into what our new program would look like. And also, when we start looking at the actual position descriptions, because we want it to be more of a market-driven concept, to make sure that we were writing those position descriptions accurately to reflect the actual jobs in the division instead of very broad classifications, which is what had got us into the trouble before. That was the first step which we did do. The second step was to hire an individual to spearhead that process, a compensation manager, to spearhead it and to kind of be the driving force in making this happen. First is going outside and hiring high-priced consultants. We've also completed that part of the program, and I'd like to introduce that individual to you now. His name is Wally, actually Wallace, but he goes by Wally, Wally Barker. And I'll ask Wally to go a little bit into his background. He's included some very, very general concepts that we're kicking around. We've done some very initial presentations to both to the commissioner group to make sure that they were aware of where we're thinking about going with the comp program, and that's the information that you have in your packet today. That is not, again, it's strictly theoretical. It has not been discussed or approved. So at this point, I'd like to ask Mr. Barker to come forward. Hello. It's a pleasure to be here and very pleased to have joined Michael's group and Total Rewards. I'd initially like to introduce myself and give you a sense of my background. I have 25 years' experience concentrated in the field of compensation. I'm originally from Kentucky. I was born in London, grew up in Hazard, graduated from U.K., and then left the state for the bulk of my career, my entire career, actually, and have just come back to Lexington and have joined Michael. My career began in New York at CBS for eight years. I took an entry-level position there within human resources and within a couple of years moved into the compensation field. Following that, I moved into investment banking in New York and worked for Payne Webber and several foreign-based investment banks down on Wall Street, which is CIBC, UBS, Barclays. And my most recent work was at Quest Diagnostics and Harrah's Entertainment, where I was the director of compensation. And there are several parallels that I can draw between the situation that we're facing here with your compensation programs and the experience that I have had. At CBS, it was very heavily unionized, collective bargaining in the broadcast field. And at Harrah's, each individual property that Harrah's and Caesars owned is akin to a mini-municipality. They have total population, 80% is non-exempt, much like what you have here. Each property is self-contained, having everything from their own groundskeepers, recreation people, security, finance and accounting, human resources, legal, engineering, maintenance, everything that you have here at this present time. So as Michael had said, there's already been a committee put together, which has representatives from every department within LQCG. And what we're hoping is to have a very inclusive process where folks from every operating area are engaged and follow us through this process so that we have local advocates to speak directly with the employees and to speak with us to keep an open communication going. If you'd like to look at the handout that we included, the goals of what we're hoping to set up going forward would be to set up a program that's externally competitive, internally equitable, so that we're paying folks appropriately compared to their peers and compared to the hierarchy as it exists within the organization, to align the business objectives and our pay goals, which is primarily considering shifting to pay for performance rather than the way increases are handled at the present time. The program that you're presently working with, which was based on a Mercer study about 10 years ago, was funded for the first three years but has not been funded appropriately since. So that's what has caused part of the problem with what you're dealing with. Our new program will be legally defensible, and the most salient example of that is the FLSA category of whether an employee in a particular job is eligible or exempt from overtime, and that, again, is federally regulated. In putting together the new program, tying it to the marketplace and making sure that we're using market pricing and paying appropriately so that we can be competitive within the local marketplace, within Lexington and Fayette County, we want the program to be dynamic with shifts in the marketplace so that as things change over time, we remain competitive. If you look at the next page, the current program that you have, which was based on the Mercer study, currently has a disconnect with the marketplace. So while we feel that there's probably equity internally because of the equity payments that Michael had discussed and also the inversion process that you go through, more than likely internal equity is in fairly good shape, but there's a disconnect with the marketplace right now so that we aren't certain whether we're paying competitive rates with the market. There are probably some positions where we're leading the market, other positions where we're lagging the market, so we need to ascertain exactly what our competitor groups are paying out there in order to make sure that we are competitive. As I'd said, the current program isn't funded. It's not pay-per-performance. I think we have some exposure currently as to the designation of FLSA exemptions and non-exemptions. The current process is very onerous. The job documentation, as you might be aware, the PAQ is a 14- to 17-page document versus something more abbreviated that would accelerate the process. As far as the employee base that you're servicing right now, there seems to be mystery around the current program, a lack of understanding and a dissatisfaction generally with how things have been operating. I don't know that there's been direct communication with the employee base so that they might understand the current process. They definitely have a lack of confidence in the way things have been moving right now, and there's a feeling, especially in the non-exempt ranks of career stagnation and clerical families and job families where you can become trapped in a certain position or a certain job family and not be able to move and spend several years there. On the next page, what we're considering as solutions to the current problems is to simplify the job documentation. As I had said, reduce the PAQ down to a two- or three-page document that includes all the pertinent information that we would need to determine appropriate grading and to be able to go out to the marketplace to match current rates. We'll compare all of the job documentation that we put together to make sure that we're in compliance with the exempt, non-exempt rules. We need to also put together internal pay policies and procedures to determine whether, once we do ascertain what the market rate is right now, whether we want to lead the market, lag the market, or where we would like to position ourselves within the local market here in Fayette County. The current job evaluation program that you're using is also very onerous. It's a part of the Mercer evaluation process that was put in about ten years ago. We're hoping to put in a direct market pricing job evaluation process where we simply take the specs on the job here with us, compare it to the marketplace, and come up with what the median at the market is, and then compare the individual who's going to be filling that job, their experience to see where they should be placed within that range. In setting the appropriate market rates, we look at different competitor groups for different job families and different categories of employees. Typically for the non-exempt side, which is clerical, lower-level employees who are eligible to receive, over time we look at the local job market. That's who our competitors are. As you go farther up the hierarchy, there may be a need to look at more regional and even in some cases national, as if when you're looking for a fire chief or those type positions where the scope of the geography that we're looking at may need to expand beyond just the local job market here in Lexington. We're going to be using a building block approach if you'd like to look at the pyramid on the next handout. The basis of the entire program is going to be how well we document the jobs. We need to be able to determine exactly what our jobs are doing, what the responsibilities are, before we can go out and match those jobs directly to the marketplace in order to get the appropriate market data to determine what we should be paying. As we go on up the pyramid, first we're going to document the jobs. Then we're going to run it through the FLSA review to make sure that we're paying everyone appropriately, anyone who should be eligible to receive overtime, to ensure that they are being paid overtime. As I said, we'll identify the markets that we need to look at in order to determine which employees and which job families here need to be compared to which competitor base. We'll collect that market data once we've defined it, analyze it, set up salary structures, either by updating our current salary structures or creating an entirely new setup of salary structures. Once that is in place, then we take all the jobs here that we have documented and we slot them into the appropriate grades based on the market rate. It's typically considered that the midpoint of a range is the current going rate for a job out in the marketplace and then a range of salaries is built around that. Again, we're going to be defining policies and procedures all through this process so that we know once we have slotted the jobs how we're going to handle increases going forward, reclassifications, anything relating to a change in a job or moving through a job family. The last step would be to come up with an aggregate, either savings or cost, that this program is going to result in. Right now, in looking at it, I'm sure that there are some positions that are over the market, some that are under, and when we get down to the final analysis, it won't be until that point that we know if this is going to result in a cost or an ultimate savings. As Michael said, there is a committee in place that has 50-plus employees representing each area. We're going to reactivate that committee and start having meetings to review this process to get their input and then hopefully to move forward into something that's going to be more effective than what you have in place right now. I think that's it. Thank you very much. I have some questions from council members. Dr. Stephens. Thank you. I have two questions. One relates to how you evaluate what the benefits are besides salary level for employees, government. Of course, our retirement systems and our pension funds and our health insurance and all that have to be part of the equation. Second, how much reliability do you place on the number of applicants you get when you advertise a job? You know, if you have a lot of applicants, maybe the salary is adequate to attract people who would do the job and do it well. In looking at the market rate, you're correct. We look at the total rewards package, and there are segments of or components within the total rewards here at LFUCG that are more lucrative than they are out in the private sector. So that's taken into account so that we're looking at the bottom line for total rewards, meaning that when we're determining whether our base salary structure needs to either lead or lag the market, that will be determined by and offset by what the total benefit of our total rewards package is independent of that. So it may well be that if the other components of total rewards are leading the market here, then our base salaries don't necessarily need to lead. They could lag the market in order to match total comp. The question related to when you advertise a job, your applicant pool and how many you get, because if people are lining up to get the job, maybe our offers are good enough. The first thing that I'm starting to look at right now is to analyze your turnover over the last few years, especially since the current compensation program hasn't been funded. So I've been looking at the year 2000 forward. And typically one of the leading indicators that you have an issue with your compensation is that your turnover will be very high. So until I look at that, I'm not really going to be sure. But you're correct. If we're not having a problem attracting or maintaining or retaining talent, then there are probably certain job families where we're currently paying the market. The question mark right now is that we don't know that we're paying the market. We need to ascertain what the market is and then compare that to what we're paying. But there are certain indicators. You're correct. If there are 20 applicants for every job that is open and we hire that person and they're satisfied with their salary, that would seem to indicate that there's no issue with that job. You're welcome. Thank you. And next, Council Member DeCamp. Thank you. I'll admit I don't know very much about all this, but this presentation and the steps that you are planning to go through certainly make a lot of sense to me. It's a daunting job, I would think. I mean, with the number of employees that this government has. And so my question is, have you sat down? Yeah, you know what the question is going to be, Mike. How long do we talk about, we think about this might take? I mean, it just boggles my mind when you think of gathering all this information for the number of employees. But what do you kind of see at the end of the tunnel? Michael probably could answer this better than I can, but there are several factors that are coming into play. One is the PeopleSoft computer system that is in the wings. And as to whether we put this in as that is activated, I think we're looking at about a year or possibly a little bit more. The number of employees may appear daunting, but actually once you get into it, it isn't that onerous. We've always had 100,000 employees, so I'm used to dealing in big volume. So am I hearing you correctly? We're talking of being able to go through these steps and come up with something within a year or about a year? I'm not holding anybody to anything. I'm just curious to see what you're thinking about. If the stars stay in alignment, Councilmember, yeah. It's a good, it's a solid estimate. And one thing to remember is, as Commissioner Coe has pointed out, that half of our employee population right now is bargained. Is what? Is under collective bargaining. Oh, okay, right. So, I mean, that, you know, that takes it a little more handleable from that perspective. But I think a year or right at that point is a great goal. Okay. Thanks very much. And next, Councilmember Baird. Thank you very much, Chair. The specialized jobs that you would run into in government that aren't necessarily out there, at least in this market, you might be able to find a comparable in Cincinnati or Louisville. Let's take a sanitary sewer engineer two, for instance. How do you deal with that to get any type of pure comparison, I guess? Currently, we participate in several surveys that are representative of municipalities, typically within our geographic region of the country, comparing us to so that we can see what the market is paying in Nashville, Knoxville, Atlanta, Charlotte. So we can go by that in seeing what they're paying in their local markets and sort of determine what we think we should be paying here. The other thing would be it's a very specialized field. You're correct. I don't know what the experience is that's required. If you could hire someone who has not done that before but has a certain background, where we could look locally for folks like that. But that's how we would determine initially what the going rate would be. I guess when you mentioned our market, I assume that was geographically Lexington, not necessarily Cincinnati or Nashville. Right. But for these specialized jobs, you're correct. We might need to look in a market outside ours, depending on what. I'm not familiar with what the requirements of the job are or if you start out accepting folks with master plumber experience or, you know, I'm not aware. But other municipalities, I don't know how. I know that when I applied for the job here, I found it on the Internet. I don't know if those are posted so that they're accessible nationally. But that may be one avenue. And second question, and maybe Michael answered this, those employees that are under effective bargaining are totally out of this system whatsoever, even as a tool to hang our hat on to be able to negotiate? We always look at comparisons on negotiation, Council Member. That's a very valid point. So we'll always use market data and total compensation, to Dr. Stephens' point, when we're looking at making comparisons in collective bargaining. That will never go away. But as far as this particular system is concerned, that probably won't have as direct of an application as with the rest of our employees. I'm thinking about the new PeopleSoft system. That will probably not be the new PeopleSoft system by the time it gets implemented, but it might be middle age. Whether they would be in there so that you can deal with them, I guess, for other reasons. There would obviously be, yes, applications for PeopleSoft with the collective bargaining groups. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Council Member Beard. And then Council Member Blevins. Thank you, Chair. I have a request and a comment. First, a quick question. I believe you said you're going to analyze the turnover data since the year 2000. Is that correct? Do you have an idea when you might be ready to talk about what you found? The first report that I'm looking at is a canned report that you've been working with in the past, and there's not much information on there. It literally is just, within each department, beginning headcount, ending headcount for the fiscal year, and then what the turnover rate was. And without the reason code there, whether it was voluntary or involuntary, I'm having trouble. So I'm going to have to request a special report that provides more information. But once I have the report, I don't anticipate it would take very long to analyze it. So we're looking at the next month or so or less? I would hope so. Okay. I'd like to request that whatever you compile and analyze that you share with the council, if it makes sense as a written report, that's just fine. If it's more complicated and requires some presentation, please make arrangements with any one of us. I would love to hear that because I think the turnover data is going to factor into other areas, not just this one, and we'd all like to know that. Second thing is I would encourage you guys to continue your process independent of what STARS is doing. As we know, the STARS schedule has proven to be rather flexible. So I wouldn't want you to try and dovetail perfectly with STARS. That doesn't make sense. Go ahead and push your project as fast as possible. And if it aligns with the implementation of the HR component, great. If it doesn't, I don't think the work will be a whole lot different, irregardless. So don't let that stop you, in other words. We plan to move full steam ahead. The question would be at the end of the process whether we set things up in the current system and then convert them later on or whether PeopleSoft, the implementation there, will be eminent to where we can. Right. Well said. My point is cross that bridge when you come to it, not now. Thanks. Thanks, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Blevins. I have a question. I'm going to turn the chair over to George Myers. Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam James. Thank you very much. My question is just one, and maybe you answered it and I missed it. When you say compensation, are you just looking at the hourly rate, or is that anything else in addition? So is it like allowances for uniforms and other types of, I don't know, extras that employees would get? It's everything, all inclusive. Health insurance, things such as that as well? Right. Okay. Thank you very much. You're very welcome. And I turn the chair back over to Council Member James. Thank you very much, Council Member Myers. And unless someone else has a question regarding this, we will just expect your report out, and thank you for your good work. Thank you very much. Agenda item number two, we've got Council Member Stevens introduce this into committee regarding hazardous street tree ordinance. It looks like Paul is passing out some information to us. Do you have anything that you'd like to say? Yes, thank you. This item has been on the docket in the Corridors Committee for some time and has been recently highlighted in our community by the public reports that occurred in the Herald-Leader, at least, and maybe other places about a certain tree on High Street that was dead and was thought to be a threat to public safety and could not get the owner of the tree to take it down. And this ordinance, which was drafted by Rochelle Boland and presented to the Corridors Committee and approved by the Corridors Committee and referred here for the whole council to consider, or at least this committee and if this committee passes it on for the whole council. And what it does is create a mechanism whereby forestry and streets, roads, and forestry can approach a property the same as code enforcement does. For example, if you have a property in your district or in the city in which it's been cited for not mowing the grass, for example, and the grass can get so high before it becomes a nuisance and can be cited, and the property owner is notified and the property owner does not cut the grass, then it goes through a due process whereby eventually code enforcement can hire somebody to cut the grass and pay them and then send the bill to the property owner. If the property owner does not respond, then a lien can be placed on the property, which then is transferred if the property is ever sold or transferred. And this will do the same for street trees that are deemed to be hazardous. And it's a mechanism and has all the, if you read through this thing, the number of safeguards for the property owner so it's not an impetuous thing. I did get a call from a lady who had read about this, and she thought that that meant that she had a low-hanging branch and it was deemed a hazard. They could come by and cut it, forestry could cut it, and then put a lien on her property, but it doesn't work quite that way. It has to go through a due process. And Mr. Query is here as well as Ms. Boland, who wrote the thing, to further elaborate on it. So I'd like to call on Mr. Query. Thank you, Dr. Stevens, and thank you for coming. It looks like you've got a great PowerPoint presentation for us. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Tim Query. I'm the urban forester with the Division of Streets, Roads, and Forestry. Before I get started, I have two other things I'd like to hand out real quick. I want to present to you today just some information about Lexington street trees and identify some of the problems through some photographs that I have in my PowerPoint presentation that hopefully will reflect some of the issues I think you as the council probably receive phone calls from constituents about probably on maybe a monthly basis. Before I get started, I was just wanting to give a quick background about Lexington street trees. A street tree is defined as a tree that's located in the public right-of-way easement. Our street tree ordinance, Chapter 17B, defines what a street tree is. Typically, a street tree is located between the sidewalk and the curb. That's the easiest way to explain that to the public. Sometimes street trees can be planted in what is called a tree planting easement. A great example of that are the street trees that are planted in the Firebrook neighborhood. Street trees are required by developers as a part of Article 610 for all new residential developments. Property owners are responsible for maintaining street trees. Again, that is pursuant to Chapter 17B of the Code of Ordinances. Myself and two arborists within our division are responsible for enforcing Chapter 17B. In 2005, we did a quick windshield survey of the urban services area, and we determined that there was over 51,000 street trees now in Lexington. As a comparison, Cincinnati, Ohio, maintains 80,000 street trees for their community. 51,000 street trees, that's in 2005. We believe that there's currently now over 53,000 street trees just within the urban service area alone. Probably in the next 10 years, we will pass the number of street trees in Lexington that Cincinnati, Ohio, maintains, because Cincinnati, Ohio, for example, is only within their city limits. As areas in Lexington continue to develop single-family residential neighborhoods, street trees will continue to be planted. And predominant species include pin oak, calorie pear, sugar maple, et cetera. This picture right here, I've shown this to a lot of different groups, and I guess the question that I have is, who wouldn't want to live on a community street like this? I would hope that Lexington, every neighborhood, would have street trees. I think this is a very special place to live. Property values in this area of town are probably higher than any other neighborhood. And is it because of the houses? I think it's because of the trees, or at least that's my opinion. Notice how the trees are correctly pruned above both the street and the sidewalk. The benefits of street trees, I could spend, you know, a long time talking about this. There's environmental benefits. They provide shade, cooling for our houses. They actually help extend the life of asphalt on our right-of-way. They help to reduce the heat, heat island effect during the summer. Economic benefits, as I just mentioned, property values in areas of town that have street trees are generally higher than those that don't have street trees. It is a quality-of-life issue. I have talked to a lot of citizens who would agree that areas of town that have mature tree canopies are very desirable places to live. One of the other things that I've always said, and several years ago, when I talked to Councilmember Dr. Stephens, is it is an increase in our tourism. Several years ago, we looked at the downtown street trees after the ice storm. They were in such disrepair that, in my opinion, if I was visiting Lexington shortly thereafter the ice storm, you know, it's a reflection of this community. So I was happy that we were able to work and get a lot of those replaced. Some of the issues that we deal with on a daily basement involving enforcement, as Dr. Stephens had mentioned just a minute ago, is the hazardous tree. This is our highest priority because it's so dangerous to the public. And that can be a tree that's either completely dead or maybe just a tree with a defective part, which can still be considered a hazardous tree. And a nuisance tree is actually defined under Chapter 17B of our Code of Ordinances. I think everybody is probably aware of this situation in Lexington. Right now, we're in a disagreement with the property owner as to, you know, when is this tree going to be cut down. This is the only street tree violation that I'm aware of that will eventually probably make it to Fayette County District Court. And once again, we have over 51,000 street trees in Lexington. This is only one situation that we're aware of. How do we try to deal with all these problems? Just another picture of a dead tree in another part of town. They don't have to be large trees. They can be small trees and can still be a problem for us. Another issue that I know that everyone on the council deals with annually is low-hanging limbs over their sidewalks in the streets and neighborhoods. I've got several pictures here of situations where basically you have to drive down the center of the street in order to use the right-of-way. You know, how many property owners are we trying to identify here who the responsibility is to maintain these street trees? Another part of town had different species of street tree. Services that the urban county government and even private contractors provide to our citizens are being affected by these problems. Just in our division alone, street sweepers aren't able to sweep the entire right-of-way because if they get the street sweeper up next to the curb, the tree will probably end up damaging the street sweeper. We've heard the same thing from LexTran, the city school system and the school buses, cargo vans, et cetera. Another issue is just the general lack of maintenance by the individual property owner. And we see these on occasion where the property owner, I guess, would rather not try to maintain the street tree. Conflicts with street signs, utilities and sidewalks. We get referrals from traffic engineering and building inspection when it comes to trees blocking road signs. We try to make this one of our top priorities. We will go out and prune a tree in front of a stop sign. However, sometimes it's better if we just try to follow the enforcement process. Depending on the severity of the tree situation, it won't be too much longer until that tree right there that's on private property completely obstructs the stop sign, which now presents an issue for the public. And following the ice storm, I think everybody here learned that trees and overhead utilities don't seem to mix very well. And there is maintenance that needs to be performed in these situations, either through private contractors, utility companies, or the urban county government or the property owner. Recommendations. We need to revise our enforcement process with Chapter 17B. Basically, I'm here today to tell you that it's not working. And I talked to several citizens this weekend at the Neighborhood Summit. One citizen in particular, I don't think he's here today, but he maintains a lot of properties on one side of town for neighborhood associations. And he said we work with him on a normal basis, but he basically looks at it like you guys send letters and you try to follow up, but basically citizens realize that this will never make it to court. So about 25% of the time are we successful with sending a property under notice of violation. We need to create a civil citation process. Rochelle is here today, and she can explain that a lot better than I can. And in those worst case scenarios, such as the tree out here on East High Street, that property owner has been given adequate time to correct the problem. If he wants to spend more time arguing with us as to whose responsibility it is, we should have the ability as the urban county government to go in with the private contractor, remove the tree, and put a lien on the person's real estate. Long term, a lot of the council members and I have talked about this before. Ultimately, we would like to assume that responsibility, and I know a lot of citizens would like to see the urban county government do that. However, it's very costly. It was interesting when I had my conversations with our consultant doing the management audit. One, there was two people involved in that meeting. One of the gentlemen was from communities where they had taken over that responsibility, while the other gentleman in that same meeting said that we had to go to the lien process, like what you're asking to do in Lexington. And the lien process, I want everybody to understand, that would just be an interim step. Hopefully one day we will be able to take over the responsibility. And, of course, that would provide more of a uniform management approach, and maintenance would be performed on a neighborhood basis. Again, in conclusion, we're asking to revise Chapter 17B to stiffen this enforcement process. We need to be able to increase the number of inspections each year. And a program that started about seven years ago is the Hazardous Street Tree Cost Share Program. That program is only available to owner-occupied residential property owners that have a dead tree. It is not available to commercial property owners. That might be something that we may want to think about, because in the situation with the tree on East High Street, it's involving a commercial property owner. That person is not eligible to participate in this program. One other thing I wanted to mention, too, when that program, the guidelines for that program were developed years ago by the tree board, the council, and the law department, provisions were added under those guidelines to deal with low-income property owners. We will assist a low-income property owner, if they qualify, to remove the tree, have the stump ground out, and to replace that street tree, and the city will pay for all of that if that property owner qualifies. That's the end of my presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions if you have any. Thank you, Tim. Rochelle, did you want to say anything prior to asking questions? I don't really have a presentation, but probably a lot of the council members are familiar with the process that went into place several years ago with respect to code enforcement violations. And this, in essence, would be precisely the same process. There are notices of violations sent to property owners before any citation is issued. So there are procedures in place that there would be a lot of notice to a property owner that there is a problem, a significant opportunity for them to alleviate the problem before any kind of civil penalty or abatement process would go into effect. And, of course, it's followed by a specific appeal process. In this case, we determined it would probably be best to put it before the infrastructure board, because that is a board that is used to dealing with violations that may be on the privately owned property in an easement situation, much as the street trees are. And so they're used to dealing with the legal ramifications of that situation. And so it's a process that has seemed to provide sufficient procedure to protect citizens and at the same time allow us to ensure that violations are taken care of. And, of course, with the street tree situation, we are seeing cases throughout the country where even with an ordinance like ours that puts responsibility on the citizens, there is some concern that if our enforcement processes aren't working and we're aware of that and someone is injured as a result of damage from a street tree, we could still possibly be subject to liability. So our feeling was it's significant to assure that when we place the responsibility on the adjoining property owners to maintain these trees, that we are, in fact, enforcing that and making sure that it's operating for the public safety. Okay. Thank you, Rochelle. We have a few questions from council members. Council Member DeCant. Thank you. Tim, I want to ask you a couple questions. Then I assume that, and this has to do with private property, trees on private property, I assume that if there's a tree on private property and the limb's over the right-of-way and it's causing some sort of hazard or in front of a stop sign like you showed in your slide, that that is a code enforcement. The code enforcement can go out and be sure that the owner takes care of those limbs or trims their tree up so it doesn't, you know, it's within a standard height. Is that true? That's correct. And during our conversations with former council member Farmer, that was an issue that he wanted to add to this ordinance, Chapter 17B, to deal with hazardous tree situations on private property, which are outside the public right-of-way, that can affect the public right-of-way. Yes. Currently, the way the ordinances are written, code enforcement can enforce that when it comes to a tree. And any dangerous tree situation that exists on private property, that the code enforcement can enforce. I think they would have to be cleared a nuisance tree, but I don't think currently those are in our code of ordinances. Primarily, if a tree on private property is, if the hazard does not interfere with a public right-of-way situation, that's usually considered a private issue between adjoining property owners who may be placed at risk. However, if it is a tree on private property so it doesn't fall under Chapter 17B, there are some provisions in the code enforcement chapter that address private property trees that extend out over the right-of-way and create a public hazard. And that, we're not changing that with this. Okay. Because we're only changing the street tree enforcement process. Okay. The other question I had, so in other words, the one with the stop sign, code enforcement could go out and request that they trim that tree back so it doesn't hinder the stop sign. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. Okay. You know, I love the trees, and I am a tree hugger, and I live on a street with a lot of trees, and it does make a big difference. But there is a downside, and the downside is that the tree roots, after a while, begin to destroy the sidewalks and the curves. And it is a problem. I mean, I've had, I guess, maple tree in front of our house, you know, 50 or 60 years, I'm sure. But, you know, the sidewalk looks like a mini roller coaster. And so it doesn't, it's not very inviting for people, you know, to actually walk on the sidewalks. So this is a problem, and do we try to recommend trees that don't have a root system that spread as much, or whatever it may be? I mean, is it a problem that we recognize and try to do something about in our tree ordinance? The situation that you described is a bad situation in that those trees were planted back when we didn't have regulations. Right. To, there weren't minimum widths within that utility strip. And the downtown area, large shade trees were planted in such a narrow space, which 40, 50 years later is now causing problems with sidewalks. In our ordinances today, those situations should not exist anymore. Because a large shade tree needs a minimum of at least 7 feet between the sidewalk and the curve. Okay, so you do have a minimum before a street tree can be planted. Yes. Are most of the new developments providing that kind of right-of-way that new trees can be planted? That is another issue, actually, that the tree board has identified. And we have sent a recommendation to the planning commission. We would suggest that only a minimum width of 7 feet be developed by or constructed by developers. Because what we normally see is about a 5 1⁄2 foot utility strip. Unfortunately, only small to medium-sized trees can be planted in that area. And we feel like during the course of the life of the tree, a medium-sized or a small ornamental tree is not going to provide the same environmental benefits that the large shade trees do. So you are approaching that problem and trying to do something about it? Yes. Unfortunately, that's a situation that the planning commission and the division of planning also is aware of. And we are making that recommendation. And that would take changes to our zoning ordinance. So you're pretty restricted if you only have a 5-foot space between the curb and the sidewalk as to what you can plant, is that right? Yes. And in the downtown neighborhoods, that is a problem because property owners want to come back with those large shade trees. Right. And unfortunately, we're kind of limited through Chapter 17B to tell the property owner that you can only go back in with a medium or small-sized tree. To further complicate that situation when you have the overhead utilities, Chapter 17B was written long after those situations had already been developed. And if they have overhead utilities in the public right of ways, they're also limited as to what they can replace that tree with. Right. So we still have some issues here that probably need to be looked at a little more closely as we get more, especially in tree replacement in existing neighborhoods. Just one last question. You mentioned the Hazardous Tree Program. Is there any money in that program? There was $36,000 budgeted this year. Currently, we've already got about $13,000 left over. So I would guess by the first of the new year, we'll probably have depleted the money in that. And that's eligible to any owner-occupant? Single-family owner-occupant. Single-family owner-occupant. Anybody? Yes, other than commercial properties. Right. Okay. And it doesn't make any difference as far as the income level? If the property owner would like to ask for assistance for low income, they can qualify for low income assistance, and that service would actually be paid for by the Irwin County Government. Total pay. The other is a match, right? We average probably about 70 property owners a year who participate in that program, and probably four to five property owners actually qualify for that low income assistance. Right. So most of them are on a match basis, right? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member DeCamp. Council Member Beard. Thank you. Compound question, I guess, and I want to use examples, if I might. 300 block of Shenandoah Road, Penn Oaks. Yes. Placed there in 1940, and which had been dying through the years, and had been taken out with no replacements. How does that happen? We are asked that question all the time by citizens, and we have to be able to prioritize when it comes to violations to this chapter in terms of what the Fayette County Attorney's Office can help us with. And the dead street tree situation is really our top priority, and that situation is eventually going to make it to district court. We send notices of violations to property owners all the time who haven't replaced their street tree. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but to think that we would ever hear that kind of case in court, we know it's never going to make it to district court. And then there are, like, let's go back on Clinton Road, which is two blocks further southeast of Shenandoah, and there are no street trees at all. Yes. I live on 300 block of Jesslyn, and most of Jesslyn there are no street trees, but in a couple or three occasions people had looked like they put them in. When a subdivision is developed, is that in the subdivision rules that have been passed by the Planning Commission that you don't have street trees, or how does that happen, I guess? There was a period in time during Lexington's development from 1958 to about 1979 where street trees were removed from our zoning ordinances. And so that's why out of the 1,000-plus lane miles that urban county government maintains, about half of that doesn't have any street trees within the public right of way easement. So those neighborhoods were developed during that time period where street trees weren't required by the developer to be planted. Now, the property owner can plant a street tree in any one of those situations. That's the case in the 300 block of Jesslyn, I do know. Right. You know, I personally like the idea of not having street trees. It makes the streets look wider, more open, and then people plant their trees, spot their trees, so to speak, to cover the shade of the house and things of that sort, and they aren't all pushed down next to the street, which might not necessarily do what they need to do as far as the protection of the house is concerned, heating, cooling, and that type of thing. I guess that's all. Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Stevens? Thanks. I finally live on Jesslyn Drive down the street from where you now live. When I moved there, I think I was the fourth house on the street. Mr. A.R. Henry, who is the builder and the developer of that subdivision, as you know, had planted many trees on Albany before the law was passed and prohibited. He also developed a subdivision off Limestone, which has beautiful trees. So he was very much a tree advocate, and he was sorry that he couldn't put them out, and so was I. But I believe the Tree Board has also reviewed this ordinance. Is that correct? Yes. And they have endorsed it also? Yes. Mr. Quigg, it's a pleasure attending the Tree Board every month as well as the Corridors Committee, so I know that he looks forward to those meetings. Thank you for your presentation. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Chair. I guess this is a question for Ms. Boland. I wanted to ask about the fine mechanism where a fine is set at X amount but then reduced to Y amount if there's no appeal. And I guess I'm concerned about the motive of that. I gather it's to discourage people from appealing. This is the way that this ordinance was set up for Code Enforcement and the Environmental Board as well as the Infrastructure Board. I wasn't involved in the logistics of why they set up that process, but I would think it was considered to be motivation as opposed to coming in and going through our appeal process and then your appeal may well be denied and you're still being put in a position of now go back and fix it. I think the motivation is to try to get people to decide I'm in violation, I might as well just fix it instead of going through this process. I think it's motivation to alleviate the violation as opposed to going through the process and then possibly having to alleviate it anyway. I think the intent is to give people a break if they just decide I'm not going to appeal, I'm just going to take care of it. And I think it was looked at more as a reward for proceeding to take care of the problem by allowing that citation to be decreased. I think that was probably the view of this mechanism. My only concern with that is the person who thinks on the one hand that he or she has a legitimate appeal but also considers on the other hand the, you know, the trouble and the possible expense of making appeal that could turn out to be unsuccessful. And so I guess I have some. I understand. I think there are dual concerns. And I think that if someone truly feels they have a legitimate appeal and grounds for it, I mean, I think these boards have a pretty good record for understanding that kind of situation. And a lot of times I think they will waive the violation as long as the problem is taken care of. I see. So I think if they have really good grounds for an appeal and they're upheld, neither level of violation is going to be imposed on them. I can certainly understand your concern, but I think it kind of was intended to act to prevent frivolous and time-delaying appeals. And you have to, you know, I guess it's really up to the council members to balance the pros and cons of that situation. Right. Thank you. And I think it is something that we ought to at least discuss and consider going forward with the ordinance. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Blues. Council Member Blevins. Rochelle, if you would just stay. All my questions are for you as well. I want to follow up on what Dr. Blues was talking about and make sure I understand. It looks to me that prior to issuance of the first citation, we are required to give a notice. Is that correct? That is correct. I believe the only exception to that is if there has been a history of citations for that problem so this person knows they don't need to be put on additional notice. That is correct. Make sure I get it. You get a notice and some reasonable time period according to the text here. If you don't take care of it within the reasonable time period, now you'll get your citation and that's where the fines begin to kick in. That's correct. Okay. My other question for you was 24 hours. It's in Part A here. Let me read it here again. Which shall specify a time period of at least 24 hours for the correction of the violation. This is the original notice? Yes. There is no way most of us can get something done even in 25 hours. That is the minimum. That is the minimum. I think it's a situation where if there's, as you saw in the picture, for instance, there's one small tree limb that's coming out and blocking a stop sign. If that were a street tree so that it falls under disenforcement process, it isn't that unreasonable if it's a real traffic hazard for somebody to go out with a set of pruning clippers and cut that thing off in 24 hours. But to be quite frank, the time limit that's set by the officer giving that notice of violation is supposed to be commensurate with how easy or difficult it is going to be to alleviate it. So this is just setting. This is the minimum. And I think maybe a lot of your questions might be answered by talking to code enforcement people who have been going through this process for, I think, at least a couple of years now. When the few times I have sat in on these code enforcement hearings, there has almost never been a situation where there's been an expectation of a violation to be cleared up in 24 hours. They work with the property owners and give them. So this is not a maximum. This is you can't ask for compliance in any less than this amount of time. And, you know, obviously, if this committee and or the counsel thinks that that should be extended, that's not a problem. This was just to be protected that you can't ask for instantly. But there may be situations where, safety-wise, it really does have to be that quick. Is the code enforcement ordinance written with the exact same 24 hours? I'm pretty sure it is, because when I drafted this, I know a lot of time was spent researching the statutes and required procedure and process protections. And for the most part, word for word, these things were taken from those other ordinances. What we're really doing is leaving it to the discretion of the officer here. That's correct. If it's something that's difficult, they'll give them, say, what I'm used to hearing in code enforcement, I've done exactly what you asked us to do. I've ridden along with them and done them. I feel like I'm well versed in that program. They typically give 14 days for a correction, even mowing. And I think that would probably be the case here, in addition to which this is another aspect that's up for appeal, you know, when they go before the administrative board and say, well, this was the situation. They didn't give me enough time, and these are the steps I took. And that is certainly a factor and a consideration in whether or not a citation, you know, a violation of fine is up for appeal. I guess my concern is if we have a zealous officer that overdoes it a little bit, I don't see a protection. But I guess I'm willing to take a chance that we'll have reasonable human beings. Second question for you is, at the very end, it looks like we're modifying some language to just dovetail this process into existing boards. Is that correct? The infrastructure and the environmental boards are already existent. We're not creating new boards here. They are existing and up and running. I'm trying to look at the names of the boards. The environmental hearing board is obviously for environmental issue. And then there's the infrastructure hearing board is already up and functioning for engineering problems and sanitary sewer problems. It's been in operation for at least a year now. Great. I just want to make sure we weren't adding boards. Last comment is for the viewing public. I want to assure everyone that Council Member DeCamp has assured me that he fixed his roller coaster sidewalk. And you can know calls aren't needed in the code enforcement anymore. Thanks. Thank you very much. And Council Member Myers has some questions. Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Bowen, could you come up first, please? On the second page of the draft ordinance, Section D, if you have a situation where the issue is the tree limbs are hanging down over a sidewalk or they're hanging down, say, over the street and the street sweeper cannot clean the street based on those limbs that are hanging down, does the code enforcement officer have to go through 1, 2, 3, and 4 on C with the citations before they get to the point where they go ahead and have someone evade the issue themselves? Frankly, I'd have to go through and read this. I know the time spans would be shortened. I don't believe so if it's considered to be a public – there would have to be notice and an opportunity, I think, to evade in order for us to impose the lien and the fine process. Now, you know, if there was a tree that suddenly broke halfway down, we couldn't get a hold of the property owner, and we went in there and removed it without any notice, under civil procedure issues, we would not be able to impose the fine and the abatement fee. I think in order to impose those civil liens, we would have to go through a notice process that might be a situation, if it was a severe hazard, where we have a shortened time span, because we're going to be in the same situation probably as that private property owner. We're going to have a private company on contract to do these civil abatements,  Right. But yet there would definitely have to be a notice process. It would be on the most foreshortened schedule that we could do if it's a serious hazard. And then if it's not taken care of before the appeal process time would run, we can go in and evade it and remove it. Okay. And I'm really thinking of that in the reverse, not so much that I would want those fines to be placed on the person, but do they have to wait and go through that long process before they can just go ahead and trim the tree themselves? As I said, I think they can do it. The only issue is whether the notice was given sufficient to impose fines or not. But we have the right to do that.  Since they're on public right-of-way or in a planting easement. So by definition, we have the right to go in there and work on them. Okay. Thank you. And, Mr. Curry, I have a couple questions for you real quick. We've had some complaints in my office, and I think you went out to a couple places in my district today and hung these notices. Yes. You hung these notices. Do you, by chance, leave these at the home so that? No, we do not. Okay. That might be a good idea. And that way the resident knows if they want to go out and prune the tree themselves, how to prune it without causing harm to the tree. And then I guess my other question is, do you have any information on the cost share program so that I could get that to, if someone called in and said, I got a notice, and I heard there's a cost share program, how do I access the program? Do you have something similar to this? Yes, Council Member Myers. We have, on the door hanger, we have put the Urban County Government's website, and that brochure and information about the cost share program is available online if the public would like to view that. Okay. Or, of course, we have our phone numbers there, and we'd be happy if they want to call our office to send them that information. Great. So if they got one of these on their door today, they could either call your number here or go to the website and find out more information, or they could call our office at 258-32-20. Right. I just want to put that information out there. Thank you, and you've done a great job. Thank you. I wanted to mention real quick about one of the comments that I've heard. Typically, we give property owners 30 days, and like I had said earlier, unfortunately, after that 30-day time period is up, we really don't have much recourse to fall back on other than going to the Fayette County Attorney's Office and trying to file a complaint. And with situations that we've encountered in the past, we then get into whether or not the property owner is going to say that they actually received a notice from our office. So basically, the end result, we're just trying to remove us from having to rely on the Fayette County Attorney's Office to enforce this ordinance. Hopefully, we can do it in-house, and hopefully the property owner would realize in the future that when we send them the notice of violation, that there's going to be civil penalties assessed to them, versus right now, we really don't have any way to really find the property owner. Thank you very much. Thank you. Council Member Stevens has a question. No, it's not a question. It's a motion, and I would move that the Service Committee approve this ordinance and recommend to the Council that it be placed on the docket. All right. We've got a first and a second. Any discussion? All right. Let's get to this little screen here. We'll need to vote. Has everybody pushed their first and second motion on the screen? We don't have a first and second motion. All right. We'll need to vote. Everybody in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? And it passes. Shannon, are we in limbo? If you can make a notation that all were in favor and no opposition, and we'll proceed. Thank you. I feel kind of lonely up there. All right. I guess you don't want to speak now. There's no need to speak. The last item on the agenda is just an update on committee items. Anybody have any questions on those committee items? Any discussion? Okay. Can I get a motion? All right. And so moved. We are adjourned.