# Clip 1803 - December 7, 2010 > Auto-transcribed civic record · December 7, 2010 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/1803 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/1803?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2010-12-07 - **Last revised**: June 18, 2026 - **Length**: 15,605 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1. 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 Services Committee met on December 7, 2010, at 1:00 P.M., with Dr. Blues presiding over the session. The meeting covered four agenda items in total, all of which were informational in nature: an Itinerant Merchant Ordinance, a Taxicab Ordinance, Sidewalk Specifications, and a Golf Operations Update. Each item was presented to the committee for informational purposes rather than for action or decision. The committee took 2 votes during the course of the meeting, and no public comments were heard. ## Attendance The following members were present at the December 7, 2010 meeting: - Ellinger - Myers - Lawless - Beard - Feigel - Crosbie - McChord - Martin - Henson - Lane No members were recorded as absent or late. All ten listed members were in attendance for the meeting. ## Votes and Decisions Two motions were brought before the committee during the December 7, 2010 meeting, both of which passed by voice vote. - **Remove graffiti removal task force from committee:** Ms. Feigl moved to remove the graffiti removal task force item from the committee's purview. The motion passed by voice vote. No individual roll call tallies were recorded. - **Remove last item from committee:** A motion was made to remove the final item from the committee. The motion passed by voice vote. No mover or seconder was recorded, and no individual roll call tallies were documented. Neither motion was assigned a formal identifier, and no transcript timestamps are available for either vote. Both votes were conducted by voice, so no individual member votes for or against are on record. ## Contested Items Two items generated significant discussion during the December 7, 2010 meeting. **Itinerant Merchant Ordinance** A proposed ordinance to regulate itinerant merchant activities prompted detailed debate among participants. The discussion centered on questions of definitions, licensing requirements, and the potential impact on neighborhoods. The structured data does not specify the individual speakers involved or the final outcome of this item. **Taxicab Ordinance** A requirement that new taxicab companies maintain a fleet of at least 25 cabs was the subject of heated debate. Participants raised concerns that the 25-cab minimum was overly restrictive, and discussion included the possibility of amending the ordinance to accommodate smaller companies seeking to enter the market. No specific individuals are identified in the available data, and the final resolution of this item is not recorded in the provided materials. ## Itinerant Merchant Ordinance [timestamp: 0:30] Council Member Henson led a discussion on a proposed ordinance to regulate itinerant merchant activity in Fayette County. The ordinance, as presented, would cover three categories of commercial activity: door-to-door sales, mobile vending, and stationary vending. Key speakers in the discussion included Council Member Henson and David Barberie. The proposal was described as aimed at addressing concerns related to vendors operating at neighborhood entrances, which appears to have prompted the need for a regulatory framework. The item was presented in an informational capacity, meaning no vote or final action was taken at this meeting. The discussion served to introduce and outline the scope of the proposed ordinance to the council. ## Taxicab Ordinance [timestamp: 1:00:02] The committee took up a discussion of the taxicab ordinance, with Ms. Lawless leading the presentation. The central focus of the discussion was a provision in the existing ordinance requiring new taxicab companies to operate a minimum of 25 cabs in order to enter the market. Key speakers during this item included Lawless and Paul. - **Primary concern:** The 25-cab minimum requirement was identified as a restrictive barrier that limits competition and prevents smaller operators from entering the taxicab industry. - **Discussion focus:** The committee examined potential changes to the ordinance that would allow smaller companies to operate, suggesting that the current threshold may be set too high for new or smaller entrants to realistically meet. The item was informational in nature, meaning no formal vote or binding decision was taken at this meeting. The discussion appeared to lay the groundwork for future amendments to the ordinance that could lower or otherwise modify the minimum fleet requirement for new taxicab companies. ## Sidewalk Specifications [timestamp: 1:17:54] The committee took up Agenda Item 3, a discussion of proposed changes to sidewalk inspection criteria. David Jarvis led the presentation, with Feigel also participating as a key speaker in the exchange. The central focus of the discussion was on distinguishing between sidewalk conditions that constitute genuine safety hazards and those that are purely cosmetic in nature. Jarvis outlined proposed changes to the inspection criteria that would draw a clearer line between these two categories, suggesting that the current standards may not adequately differentiate between defects that pose a risk to pedestrians and those that are merely aesthetic concerns. The committee also considered the question of fines associated with sidewalk violations, with discussion around the possibility of reducing penalties. This appeared to be connected to the broader effort to recalibrate enforcement priorities — if certain conditions are reclassified as cosmetic rather than safety-related, a corresponding adjustment to the fine structure would follow. No formal vote or binding decision was taken on the matter. The item was informational in nature, and the discussion served to surface the key considerations and concerns that would inform any future policy changes to sidewalk inspection and enforcement standards. ## Golf Operations Update [timestamp: 1:30:12] Paul Schoninger presented an update on the ongoing review of golf operations during this agenda item. The presentation focused on efforts to determine the full cost and revenue associated with providing golf services. This item was informational in nature, providing the body with a status report on the golf operations review currently underway. No vote or formal action was taken as a result of the presentation. No additional detail on specific figures, concerns raised, or further discussion points are available from the provided meeting record. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Remove graffiti removal task force from committee - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Remove last item from committee --- ## Full transcript Dr. Blues, I will recognize you to make a quorum. Thank you for participating. We have four items on the agenda for our December 7th Services Committee. The first item on the agenda with Council Member Henson put in the Intermittent Merchant Ordinance. If you would, Ms. Henson, go ahead and begin with that one. Thank you, Chair. This is an item that I've been working on for several months now with the law department. And Dave Barbary is here. He is the one that completed the ordinance. And this was, I've been working on this after a meeting with the mayor and a neighborhood organization that there seems to be more and more things showing up at the entrance to our neighborhood. So in an effort to restrict that somewhat, I'd ask Dave to help, Dave's help with this. Welcome. Could you just give us a little... What do I get, like ten minutes? Is that right? Oh, sure. I'll try to be brief about this. There's an email that kind of summarizes generally what this is about. I think Ms. Henson had a specific problem with a type of one of these vendors that we're going to get into in a minute. And in attempting to do a draft, we came across an ordinance that's on the books in Louisville that addresses all three of these types of activities. And so we struggled initially with whether or not to try to include all of those, and we made an initial decision to go ahead for draft purposes and do exactly that. So we're going to cover three different types of merchanting activities in this proposed ordinance. The first one would be, and their definitions are on this first page. I don't know how well you can read this, but this is page two of your docket. We do not separately define or regulate door-to-door sales in Fayette County. It is generally regulated under the peddling ordinance, which as you all are probably aware, there's not a whole lot of meat to our current peddler ordinance. So we don't really have anything specifically on the books with respect to door-to-door sales. So the first thing this does is it creates a definition for what door-to-door sales are. Then the next definition is for mobile vendors, which generally they would be someone that's selling merchandise that's actually conducting it on the public street or sidewalk. And then the third one is a category of stationary vendor where the activity is taking place on public or private property, probably more so private than public, but it's not taking place in a permanent structure. It would be, I'm not going to use names of specific businesses, but it would be similar to if you had a gas station property that had another type of activity taking place out on the outskirts of that property. That would be the type of activity we're generally talking about there. C requires all of these types of merchants to obtain licenses. We did not create any additional type of license. If you're the first two categories, you would obtain a peddler's license from revenue. If you were the third category, you would obtain an itinerant merchant license. It accepts the religious types groups, charitable groups from licensure, but not from having to abide by the provisions. And this is consistent with how we currently do our regulated licenses now. I think Bill could verify this for you all, but if a not-for-profit is conducting a license type activity, we normally don't require them to pay for the license fee. There's a general activity regulation in E, and then there's some more general ones on the next page, starting with F. Just general prohibitions that are probably things you would expect them to normally have to do, but this merely articulates them, that they're not going to be allowed to violate any other type of traffic law or ordinance that's on the books through their activity. They can't create a traffic hazard. They can't obstruct traffic or pedestrian traffic, those types of things. And then they've got to comply in G with all other applicable laws that are out there that regulate that type of activity. So the first section is basically defining it and putting some general requirements on it. This next section, section 15 blank, and our thought was we'd have to figure out exactly where in the code to put this stuff if you all want to go forward with it, so we've just left all that blank for now. I think if it went forward in its current form, it would probably eliminate the peddler changes you all made probably earlier this year, and it would be replaced by this in its entirety plus this section that is specific to the itinerant merchants on here, I mean the mobile vendors on here. The next section deals specifically with door-to-door sales, and this is a set of restrictions on door-to-door sales, and I think they speak for themselves. You would be limited in the hours that you could do that. You can't give a false basis for why you're there. If they've got a sign displayed on the property that you're not supposed to be soliciting, you're not supposed to go ahead and go on that property, and you're not supposed to remain in the property when the owner tells you to leave, and then there would also be a requirement that you provide, if the person wants it, that you provide some written evidence of what you actually purchased from them. So hopefully those are pretty self-explanatory. The next section would be things that apply, and you have to read through each one of them to determine whether they apply to both the mobile vendor and the stationary vendor. It may depend on which section you're talking about, but this lists the requirements in addition to that first section we talked about that would apply to those types of activities. I would note that when we discussed this internally, there was a desire to accommodate the downtown area. And so the way this reads now, you would have hours regulations outside of the downtown, but no hours regulations downtown. And I think that one of the things that probably needs to be further discussed is if we want to keep that exception there for the different types of town, and I think there's a strong desire to do that on some level, at least administratively, do we need to put some sort of hourly restriction on in the downtown area? Because right now, they could be, if you left it like this, even though I'm not aware of this happening now, you could have someone doing this type of vending at 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning. I don't know if you all want that to take place downtown during those hours or not, but if we didn't put any hours in here, if it's drafted like this, we really couldn't shut somebody down based upon the hour of operation if they were located in the downtown area. So I would ask that you all focus perhaps on that section as one of the ones for further discussion. Some of these other ones are kind of like the general ones. They should be fairly evident, and I don't think there's really any controversy to it. In F, for instance, if you wanted to do business on the park land, we already have a process in Section 1462 of the Code of Ordinances. You would have to also go through that process if the public land that you wanted to do this activity on happened to be a park that was regulated by them. G, if this only applies to locating on public property, but you could not be within 100 feet of a school or 300 feet of a permitted special event on public property doing this type of activity. It does not apply to private property. So to give you a specific example, if you had a piece of private property across from like the Woodland Art Fair, this would prohibit someone from vending on the sidewalk or the street in front of there, but it would not prohibit them from being located on the private property within that same distance. H is kind of a standard provision about keeping in good operating hour. I was identified as a potential issue needing to have enough, needing them to have the trash receptacles on hand so that they don't create a trash or litter issue. Fire extinguisher in the next section. And then we go to the next page. And this is another section that's been highlighted. And this is another one that I think you all are going to have to give some thought to as far as what policy you all would like to put in place on this. Right now, and this is, I think you all just looked at this maybe six months ago with the peddler ordinance. Right now you all don't make any distinction between the downtown area and the rest of town at all with respect to peddling. And the way it works, if I understand it correctly, if I remember this correctly, is if you're told, you're really supposed to be constantly moving. And so if you're told to move along by a police officer, you're supposed to do that or you could be subject to citation. There was a desire to accommodate, once again, and this is only in the downtown area, there's a desire to accommodate, perhaps allowing a merchant to locate on property beyond that, not have to move around downtown. I think perhaps you've got some limited examples now of some mobile vendor type activities where they do in fact locate on the sidewalk during certain hours. And I think the desire was to allow them to do that. The loophole that's created by the current draft is, I don't know if you want to create a situation where you could have someone sit there and try to argue that because you didn't put any kind of restriction on me, I can just camp out on this piece of property that may happen to be a public piece of property 24 hours a day. I don't think that's what we're intending, but at the same time we didn't really have a clear directive administratively on how we wanted to try to regulate that. I think the idea is we should allow some sort of prolonged merchant activity in the downtown area, but I don't think we necessarily want to create a loophole where you could have someone sitting there trying to argue this is my piece of public land, I'm just going to set up my stand here 24 hours a day and never move it, or only move it for an hour each day and then locate it in the same spot every day, 23 hours a day. So that is something we really don't have a definitive answer to yet. And then there's a secondary issue on this where I don't know if you, and I stand corrected now because I think we tried to actually put a suggestion in there, but this is not something that's really been vetted out yet. We put the 4 hours in there in this current draft. The 50 feet is another issue where I don't know how you all feel about that, but there was an issue raised about not wanting to encourage mobile vendors to be able to set up in front of a permanent business that's doing the exact same type of activity. So that underlying section is something for you all to focus on, whether that's the direction you all want to head on those two issues. L is more or less kind of just bringing in the existing zoning requirements. B is a restriction on where they can locate vis-a-vis certain types of zoned areas. N is a prohibition on the stationary vendor setting up in a public way versus the mobile vendor. And then there's a requirement with respect to the stationary vendors only that they provide sufficient parking so that there's not some sort of traffic or parking issue created as a result of them setting up their business there. The next section is just dealing with the fact that there's a requirement on the stationary vendor dealing with exceptions to this. Some of these, I think the ones that are listed in A, they should make sense to you all. These are kind of the exceptions we have now for some of these things that are on the books or otherwise available through the law. This does keep these people from having to worry about being licensed under this or having to worry about following the set of regulations. B is an exception for someone that's got the appropriate permit to be a merchant for a special event. If you're at a licensed bazaar or sales event or sales exhibition or you're on property owned by the Commonwealth of Kentucky, you don't have to worry about following these regulations. There's a current requirement on the books to treat the inside of mall areas separately, so those are accepted as well. And then this accepts yard sales, garage sales, etc. And the penalty for this is a criminal penalty. The other thing that we did not address specifically in the draft, which could either be addressed in this ordinance as well as in Section 1410 of your Code of Ordinances would be other than the police, who are the fallback enforcement entity, is there another division of the government that you all would like to empower with enforcing the citation authority for an offense for violating the provisions? Thank you. I think we have some questions here. Ms. Henson? Thank you, Chair. Dave, first I want to thank you because I know that you put a lot of time and effort and research into this, and I appreciate it a lot. When you speak of stationary vendors, that would include a vendor selling, it doesn't matter the item, whether it be food or clothing, whatever. Yeah, there was no distinction made on the type of item that's being vended. I know in the past it seemed that I was running into the definitions of mobile food vendor and food vendor, and so this better clarifies that. It may, but I think you're still going to have separate sets of regulations that may apply to them. For instance, if they're required by the health department, as is in the case with some of these mobile food vendors that are currently in business, this is not going to eliminate whatever requirement the health department places on them with respect to their doing business in Fayette County. Correct. This is just an additional set of regulations that would also apply to them. Also, I know we had talked about trying to limit the number of vendors, like trying to avoid in a neighborhood area a vendor on every corner, and that doesn't really, this doesn't address that, does it? This would not, this current draft, we went through several other iterations internally of this. This current draft does not limit the number of vendors within an area, other than I'll note that I think there's some setback requirements. If you have to get a stationary vendor's license, you're going to have to go through the process of going to building inspection and go through that process, and I believe they require setbacks and other things as part of that process. So I think there will be a limit anyway on the number you could possibly put on one parcel of land, but if you're talking about separate parcels, this in no way, if you've got a strip of private property that's three or four different parcels, it's not going to limit how many of them can locate next to each other down that strip. Okay. But what if there was a property, if you've got like a four-way intersection, and you could have a vendor on all four corners? This is not going to, unless you went forward with there being this footage requirement. The 400 feet? No, the 50 feet from another business. Unless you've got something like that in place, you there's nothing in here that's going to restrict your location with respect to the location of the operation as to another type of the same vendor. Okay. One of the drafts that you had given me had a section in there where it said stands shall not be closer than 400 feet from any other vending operation. Could that be true? We include that? Well, I think that in the discussions I remember taking place, I think there was a reservation that there are a lot of these stationary type vendors in operation now. And to put something like that in place would be a severe difference in how they're being regulated now versus how they would be regulated under this ordinance. And on some level, at some point, when you start putting that stuff in there, you're going to get into legal issues about who are you being fair to with respect to who gets to operate first versus the other business and that kind of stuff. If you're going to put restrictions like that in place, it's going to essentially take a lot of private parcels out of their ability to do this act out of their ability to do this activity at all. And I think that's going to create some issues for you all legally. I guess I think it could be first come, first serve. If whoever gets their permit first would be permitted, and then if another vendor wanted to locate there, they would, because the vending is only temporary, correct? Well, I think we might be talking about two different things. There is no restriction on in this current draft, other than possibly this 50 foot that's highlighted in this section K, there is no restriction in the current draft on how close you are to operating with respect to another one of these businesses. And the issue that comes up is why should one parcel be able to have one of these on it and the other one can't? That's the issue that comes up. And then you've got an issue, but you're correct, it's intended on being temporary in nature. It's not intended on allowing them to have the same operation on the parcel of property the entire year. Then they're going to get into certificate of occupancy issues with the division of building inspection and that kind of stuff. But I think the legal issue that comes up is one of equity and fairness as to you all would essentially be saying if you put footage restrictions in there, you would be saying so-and-so pulled their permit first and you can't have anything within 500 feet of there, so you other people are de facto out of business for the same type of activity. So I don't know that you would be able to create a system that makes that ultimately fair to everybody. Well, I'm trying to be fair to the folks that have purchased their properties in a residential area, you're entering the neighborhood, and you come to a stop within, you know, the entrance to their neighborhood, and there would be a vendor on every corner. Now, there is a restriction of within 100 feet of a dwelling in a residential area. Right. But we're talking about two different things now, because there is a restriction where you're not supposed to locate within 100 feet of a dwelling unit located in an area zoned as a residential district. Okay? So you are prohibited from locating too closely to a residentially occupied area. But what you don't have is, if it's not a residential area, what you don't have under this draft is a restriction on how close they can operate. Other than what requirements are put on their building inspection process, setbacks and stuff, there is no restriction on how close they can operate. And that's, just so you all are clear on that, that's how it is now. I mean, my understanding is you can go to certain areas of town, and they will have multiple parcels of property, and you will have two or three separate businesses located next to each other. And right now, we don't regulate that at all. It's private property. We don't say, and we're not intending in this draft to say, you can't make that use of your property. We're just trying to put reasonable restrictions on that activity generally, as opposed to saying, we don't think it's right for you to conduct that type of activity on your private piece of property. They're zoned to be able to do that. They can do it now. And I think if you start creating a system where you can't operate within X number of feet of each other, you're going to put some of these parcels, you're going to limit their land use on some issue. At the very least, that's going to create an issue. I'm not telling you you lose on that issue, but you've created an issue with respect to their use of the property. Right. And I guess it's the zoning of where they're allowed, you know, the B zones that are right there at the entrance to the neighborhoods are becoming, well, I've received many complaints about them, about what business occurs at the entrance to these neighborhoods. And of course, you did restrict the hours. That was another complaint that I'd received. And there's a 100-foot restriction if it happens to be a, if it's a, and I think we added the dwelling unit into it, but you're not supposed to be able to locate one of these businesses within 100 feet of a dwelling unit that's located in a residential district. And then we exempted the downtown area because we would have a situation where it would not be infrequent that the sidewalk in front of a lot of buildings would have a residential, it would have a dwelling unit that's occupied, and you wouldn't be able to conduct business on the sidewalk. So the downtown was exempted from that requirement as well. But I think part of your issue is addressed by the fact that they're not supposed to be able to locate within 100 feet of a residential property that happens to have a dwelling unit. I have one more question. You said it would be criminal? These are criminal penalties, yes. But were we looking at doing civil? You could look at civil, but I will tell you in this area of the law, what you have to understand is a civil fine, the ultimate mechanism and recourse on a civil fine is going to be to file a lien. And in many instances, I do not know that these, and I don't know, but I think in a lot of cases, I will assume that it's factually accurate that these mobile vendors do not have a piece of real property in Fayette County necessarily to attach a lien to. So you would have a civil fine that, unless we went down to court and got a judgment on the fine, would really not be of any significant value as an enforcement tool if, in fact, there was no property to place the lien on. But there could be fines. And you're talking about liens if the fines were not paid. Well, the way this is structured now, it would be a criminal violation, which is no jail time, it's not a misdemeanor, it's a fine. And this is a progressive fine where you would pay a higher fine for each subsequent violation. And right now, without you all weighing in otherwise, right now, this would be enforced by the Division of Police because unless you all create another division that has the citation authority for this new section, they're the only ones that would be authorized under the law to issue a criminal citation. You all have the ability, as you've done with many of your divisions, to add their citation authority in the Code of Ordinances and designate building inspection, code enforcement, whoever it might be, to also be able to issue a citation so that you don't necessarily have to have the Division of Police be the ultimate primary enforcement authority for this code. We do issue civil fines in other. We do. So that could be done. It could be done, but I'm suggesting to you I don't know how much value that's going to have in this context if you have a substantial number of your vendors that do not own real property in Fayette County. So. Now, maybe most of them do. I don't know whether that's a factually accurate statement or not. I do know it's factually accurate that some of them don't because some of them come in, they don't even own a house here. They're renting or whatever. They're only here for X number of weeks or months a year. And if we got a civil fine assessed against them, what happens is you can go place that, record that as a lien on the real property. If they don't have any, that means you've got a worthless recordation of your civil fine. You could enforce it at that point in time, but that would require us to get a judgment. And I don't know how much, you know, you've got issues of going through the court process to get a judgment for this amount of money. And if they don't have any real property, I don't know how much real other type of property other than the real property they're going to have that's worth getting a judgment for. Okay. But that would only be in the case if they didn't pay the fine, correct? You wouldn't need a lien that way. Yes, you are correct that if you had a civil process and they paid the fine off, you wouldn't be worried about the lien. I'm assuming that some portion of these would not pay the civil fine. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Beard. Thank you, Chair. Just to further complicate things, Ice Cream Man, mobile vendor, I assume? Yes. Sale of firewood, where they actually come to your door, but the firewood's out at the curb. If they're only doing it in that method, it's probably door-to-door. It's probably? Door-to-door. Right now, both of those are quote-unquote peddling. And both of those activities would still get a peddler's license. There wouldn't be a new license required for them. They'd still get the same peddler's license they would have to get now. They would just have these other regulations they have to worry about. So if you did a door-to-door sales of firewood example, if that's how the person was doing that, they couldn't do it after 9 o'clock at night. And then the last question is the sale of services, like leaf raking. The sale of services we added into the door-to-door. Let me make sure that that's the case. Yes. Door-to-door includes the example you just brought up. And, yes, we've included services, I believe, in the door-to-door sales. We've included future services, delivery of future services. In the other two, we've included immediate services, but we have not included future services. And I'm not real – I can think of the door-to-door example of services more readily than I can the other ones, but I'm under the impression, and this is – I think we got this language from Louisville's ordinance. I think there are limited examples where a mobile vendor or a stationary vendor might be purveying services instead of goods. So the idea would be they'd also have to follow the same restrictions for selling those services. Okay. It just seemed fair to me that they'd be covered somewhere anyway, so thank you very much, Dave. Thank you. Ms. Lawless? I have some of the same concerns with this as I did the peddlers. I guess it was the peddlers license. Because B-2, B-2A, and B-2B zones, that's a really large area. And the way I read this, anybody could set up a vending in the downtown area and stay for however long they wanted. That's correct. And while it says it has to be 50 feet from a business that sells a like item, I mean, you know, people could set up, you know, all these hot dog carts or whatever, and I think some of that's really great and can be fun, but at the same time we're competing with they're competing with businesses that have invested in employees in renovation of buildings or pay rent, property taxes. And so because it is such a large area, I think this could cause a lot of problems. Let me speak to that briefly. One of the other models that's out there, and this was not pursued, frankly, because no one wanted to be the administrative entity to do this type of stuff, and I don't know that we have one naturally on the books that's been created, so to speak. The other model that's out there for public property in like a downtown area would be you create a licensing system where you go down and apply for the license and say, here's where I'm going to be, and if you have too many of them, you have a lottery and everything else. But there's a designated area of the public land, period, where you can do some of these types of operations, and you can't do them anywhere else. Or you could do them, but you'd have to do back to the peddler one we have now, where you would actually have to be moving up and down the street instead of located in a specific area. So there's other ways of addressing that. This doesn't address them because I don't know that there was a consensus administratively on how to address that issue. I'm pointing out to you all that that is an issue, that right now this draft would accept, and as you put, I think that is up for discussion, it may be too, number one, it may be too wide an area because it may not be the same area for this as it is for other things. But this tried to accommodate, I think, the immediate issues I understand it is, and I don't go out this late anymore downtown, but my understanding is if you go out downtown, let's say 2, 3 o'clock in the morning, I don't know if it's every night of the week or Thursday, Friday, Saturday, it's not unusual to have food vendors, I guess specifically, that are located on the streets and sidewalks, I guess on a regular basis in the same regular spots, and I think there was a desire in the discussions I had with administratively to allow that to happen. Everyone thought that was kind of a good idea, but no one really wanted to throw out, well, you know, I'll volunteer myself as the licensing entity if we have an issue with how long the license should last or those kinds of things. Just so you all are clear on this, this is not really a licensing scheme, okay? We're not doing anything to your licenses that you don't have on the books now. This is not, you don't comply, you get your license revoked. And that's for the same reason, because we did not have, we don't appear to have a division of the government that wants to be involved in issuing these types of licenses and having to go through revocation hearings and those types of things. That is the process that is in Louisville's. Do I think legally you need to have that? No, I think you can do something like this. One of the reasons the draft looks like this is because we really didn't have a strong feel for, you know, how to set that licensing up if you don't know which division of the government is going to end up licensing. Well, because it is such a large area and so residential dwellings in those zones are exempt, for instance. There are a lot of people that have residences. I mean, we're not just talking Main Street here. I mean, it is a large area. And you're probably correct. I just don't know. When we actually drafted it, we just pulled the definitions from what we use generally for the downtown area. Once again, this may be too broad for the, this exception may be too broad for this type of activity. It may be more prudent to have a process if they're going to locate in the same spot for a period of time to require them to pull a license. But I don't know who to direct to do that. So, but there's other ways of doing the same thing and avoiding some of these issues that are not in here. We could make the area smaller. And that's why these have been highlighted because I think these are the sections that it was acknowledged going in, we don't really have a clear direction on which way the council might want to go on something like this. If it's okay with you, Renee Jackson from the downtown Lexington corporations here, would it be okay if she directed this? Sure. Do you all know which committee this is going to go to when you all start? The public works, public safety one, I would think. Welcome, Renee. Please give your name and your address. 161 Constitution Street, downtown Lexington Corporation. I guess when I read it, the thing that concerned me about B2, B2A, and B2B is, while it's large and it hits some areas that we may not want it to, it also doesn't hit some areas that we probably want it to, like the distillery district. I don't think that's included, is it? I don't know how you could write it in a different way, but that's an area that we definitely wanted to include, especially with everything that's probably going to be happening there. And there are other mixed-use areas that are probably not going to get that B2, B2A or B2B designation that we would want to consider, too. I mean, whatever's happening up around the Red Mile and that show prop and just some of the other TIF districts that are potentially going to happen. So just trying to consider that. And then also the four-hour limitation that I saw that was added in there. I know that's not definite, but, I mean, that doesn't seem like a really long time to me. I mean, for somebody that comes out for the day to make a move, you know, because we have the one hot dog guy, and I think I've seen some by the transit center lately. And I guess knowing that in the future it could be a problem if you had too many, but you could come back and somehow regulate it then, too. I just wanted to throw that out there about those other districts, though. Do you have concerns about how it might impact businesses, established businesses? Well, absolutely. I mean, we saw that in the, I guess what is now the center point block. There was a guy that parked a vehicle there for a very long time, and he actually had electricity. So, you know, I do like the 50 feet. I'm not sure, I mean, in my mind that's not very far, really. I mean, 50 feet, if you look at a hot dog vendor, for example, I mean, that's only going to put them within the same block face. And it's also 50 feet of an establishment selling the same thing. So we would say bellinis want a cart selling, you know, rubber toys or something. Well, I hadn't thought about that. I mean, exactly. Maybe it's so when it says like product it would literally be like hot dogs and not just food or beverage, right? It would be food, but it wouldn't be rubber toys. Okay. See, when I read it, I was thinking if it wasn't, you wouldn't allow a food vendor of any type within 50 feet of any food vendor. Okay. So it's not, so I guess if we need to address rubber ducks and balloons, then we probably should too. Because I don't think they would want that. I mean, junking up the street. Plus, with the new streetscape, I mean, you want to make sure, I'm sure this says in here, but I think I heard you say that about, you know, not blocking sidewalks and stuff. Correct. But, yeah, I hadn't thought about somebody like that coming out. Because, I mean, we see that during special events where you have people just walking up down the street selling lights and balloons and things, and there, you know, we've had to address that with them. Yeah, and special events are different. But, again, I'm concerned about how very large the area is, because it is most of, it's a huge part of the third district. And as are most things. So I like the idea of some kind of licensing and limiting the number in a lottery that you mentioned. Who in Louisville does that? I'm just curious. What area of government does that? I wrote that down to ask. I'd have to look. We can provide you for information purposes the entire Louisville audience if you'd like. I don't know that Louisville has had to go to the lottery, but they do have a process I think where you may have to get permission to set up a stationary event. I don't think they have this accommodation for the mobile vendors. Excuse you. I think that they require a stationary vendor on public property to go through a licensing process where someone in the government says it's okay for you to be here the following hours. With mobile vendors, I think they pretty much tell them they have to keep moving along. Okay. Thank you. I just think those are things that we might want to consider and look at the map of the area. And, you know, those are my concerns. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Crosby. Thank you. As far as the districts go, I think I would probably have to defer to Councilmember Lawless and Councilmember Blues and Councilmember James because a lot of their district falls into the downtown area. But just a few things. If they get a license, would there be a fee associated? The licenses they would have to get are the same licenses you'd have to get now. We didn't require anybody to get a license they're not required to get now. In other words, even though we redid some definitions for the activity that's involved, if you're peddling now, you're required to get a peddler's license. And I don't recall how much that is, but this doesn't change that. You still have to get a peddler's license. And if you're a stationary vendor, you still have to get an itinerant merchant's license. And we didn't change any of those fees or anything else. And we didn't require, I don't believe we required someone that wouldn't have to get one of those licenses anyway to get one. What about, I know that Councilmember Beard mentioned a couple examples. What about, like, the lemonade stand, the kids' lemonade stand? Well, we talked about that one. I would like to think that that would not fall under this, but technically, I suppose, if someone made enough of a complaint about it, technically speaking, if it's not fulfilling a not-for-profit type thing, I think ultimately it comes down to whether they're engaged in a business activity. And I think, unfortunately, the lemonade stand comes down to if it's a business activity, you're not supposed to be doing it in a residential area. Licensing aside, you're probably not supposed to be doing it in a residential area anyway, if that's where it's taking place. So I guess my answer would be I would hope that we wouldn't get into that stuff, but I don't think this changes anything with respect to lemonade stands that's not already on the books now. I don't think we're looking to require a lemonade stand unless it's going to be located as, like, a business activity under one of these temporary or mobile-type things to get any type of license for doing that. Well, and Council Member Lawless made some interesting points about, I'm just going to throw out food vendors specifically, because clearly you don't want something like this to hurt businesses that are established and have invested in downtown, but from what I know of a lot of these vendor-type people, there's a few during the day, like we had one on the corner in front of the government center for a while and he was selling hot dogs and chips and things, and I thought that was great. But a lot of these vendors are setting up late at night when most restaurants stop selling food at 10 or their kitchens close by 11 and they want to get a hot dog or a piece of pizza at 2 a.m. in the morning. And so I wouldn't want to limit them because even though they might be set up in front of a place that does this type of business, that business is not available at those hours. So I just think we have to be careful of getting too restrictive. And I also agree with the time. Asking somebody to move every four hours, I would imagine those carts are heavy and there's a lot of things that go with them. Well, right now, just so we're clear, I think whether it gets enforced like this or not, I think technically what you have on the books now is if you're mobile, you're supposed to be moving all of the time. Now, I'm told that as a practical matter with some of these examples, that's not the case. And I think the desire in part in bringing in other vendors other than the ones that Ms. Henson was focusing on is to try to allow that to happen without subjecting those people to getting, you know, fined for doing the stuff they're doing right now. Well, and I think that's where you see a difference between possible districts. What Council Member Henson was saying, I mean, I can't even think of an example that I've seen at a neighborhood entrance where in the seventh district that I represent, and if it is, it would be very rare that something like that would happen, where it sounds like to me that's occurring rather routinely in her area. So I don't know. I wasn't aware that that was a problem until she just spoke of it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Several months ago when we upgraded the street vendor ordinance, you may remember the problem there was that street vendors who by ordinance were compelled to stop only long enough to make a transaction in some cases and in some neighborhoods were setting up as stationary vendors on the public right-of-way. So we made some corrections to make it much more easy for the police to enforce the law on only momentary pauses. There were some concerns expressed at that time from the DDA about that provision because of the kind of specialty vendors, the hot dog stand that Council Member Crosby mentioned, I think a specialty pizza operation, where the desire was in the downtown area for those vendors to be set up on a stationary basis for at least some limited time. So the last, my last conversation I think with Harold Tate on this was that as the emendations that I had suggested moved forward, that DDA and possibly with DLC would bring forward a suggestion for the downtown area, whether all of B2, B2A and so forth would be included or not. So I think probably it's pretty clear that this draft is going to go back to the drawing board because it's pretty far from being ready to bring to Council that DLC and DDA be brought into the conversation and this issue worked out. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Ms. Henson. Thank you, Chair. I was going to suggest just that for what Council Member Blues just brought up. But I wanted to ask, and Dave, I don't know if you can answer this or not, but I know that there are vendors existing that are included in the development plan, correct? I don't know. Okay. Well, that's what I was told. Okay. Like at Saron Drive, for instance, the Sunshine Grove shop is on the shelf in the shelf parking lot. That was part of the development plan. It would not be surprising to me if that was the case. So I was just thinking like in the case of some new developments where there would be a mixed use, that it could be included. that it could be included in the development plan, correct? I don't feel comfortable answering that. Well, maybe that's a question we need answered. I know Councilmember Martin has indicated that he would like to speak, but I was going to suggest continuing to work with Dave on the ordinance, get Councilmember Lawless involved, and if the DLAC, whatever, would like to also participate, that would be great so we can get this right. And if anyone would like a better explanation, I'd be free to talk to you later about what I'm experiencing in my district. I also think that Kevin Stennant has mentioned he has experienced these situations in his district. So thank you. Well, we'll keep this in committee and then the issues that are in this committee will be moved to the new format of the other committees. I think this will probably be the public safety one as well, I think. Thank you, Chair. Mr. Barbary, so help me understand, what's the sort of progeny of this draft? The guts of it is Louisville's existing ordinance. Louisville's existing ordinance? Louisville went through, apparently, I don't know whether it was specific to this or part of their consolidation of their governments. I think in the last three years, Louisville came up with a comprehensive scheme of regulating these same types of activities. And so this is sort of a modification of their current ordinance? It's not as detailed as Louisville's current ordinance, but it's based upon Louisville's ordinance. Have we looked at any other models from other cities? Because I'm sure there's lots of different. And I'm not going to say we did exhaustive research on this. I'm not aware of any other jurisdiction in Kentucky that has had as comprehensive a model as Louisville's. I think the normal way cities address this is on a piecemeal basis, kind of like our existing code of ordinances. And so, yeah, I think there's some other examples of peddling and some other things, but they all appear to be dealt with on a singular basis rather than putting them all together to try to address in one type of way. You know, like some places like Cincinnati or Indianapolis might. We can certainly look at those. Maybe a slightly larger jurisdiction might have come up with something. One of the things is that, you know, obviously we want to try to not reinvent the wheel. And like the lemonade stand, for example, that seems like it would fall under sort of the garage sale type of things. You know, you don't want them having a lemonade stand out every day, and you don't want to turn it into an 18-wheeler loading off with your 8-year-old selling TVs off the back of 18-wheelers. So there's got to be some sort of balance in there. I was reading through the definitions of this, and I think they do need some work. Because, you know, for example, just as a way of example, a door-to-door salesman means a person who goes from house to house. Well, I'm sure we would want to have that apply to apartments as well. And so I don't know whether house is defined. It talks about a permanent structure, and then it talks about stuff outside of the permanent structure such as a vehicle. And so I think that there's some clarity needed there. Because of the prevalence of the definition of permanent structure, we might want to include that definition in some place because it sort of flows throughout here. And I didn't understand on the last page of this, on six of our packet, I guess it's the ABCDE, the selling, soliciting, property license, bazaar, or sales exhibition, or on property operated and owned by the Commonwealth. I want to make sure that we don't leave an exception that isn't licensed, because it seems to me that these are all sort of licensed activities. Would that be right? The first two, when you stop at the comma before or, the first ones are licensed in a different manner. The second part is primarily put in place for the horse part, but it would also apply to any other property that's owned or operated by the Commonwealth of Kentucky. So it would apply to U.K. and some other places. And frankly, I think that's, from a legal standpoint, we would have a difficult time enforcing this regulation on their property anyway. So do they have adequate means to require licenses on their property? I'm not sure what the Commonwealth of Kentucky does with their property as far as licensing activities on it. But, I mean, this part in particular was put in for the horse part, but it would apply to other pieces of property that are owned by, and as you have a university here, that would be probably, as a practical matter, the biggest land use of that nature. But in a lot of context, legally, you're not going to be able to necessarily regulate that activity on state land anyway, because of the way the law works on that stuff. I guess we might want to check in with them at some point. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. A couple more questions. Ms. Lawless. Just real quickly, I do understand the problem we're trying to solve, and I'm not opposed to any downtown vendors. And I wanted to thank you. I appreciate all the work you've put into this and the research you've done on it. So it's, I think, a good start. So thank you. Mr. Mary. Thank you, Chair. You struck a nerve with me when you said university. Yes, sir. And this is somewhat off the subject, but you may have crossed this issue at one point or another. Are food vendors at Commonwealth Stadium at all ever inspected? Well, I don't think we do any inspections as an urban county government. I'm not aware of them being exempted from inspection by the health department, but I don't know the answer to that. I would assume that they're regulated in the same manner that any other like health department, I mean any other like purveyor of goods is. I don't think, if you're asking whether because it's run under the Commonwealth, they're accepted from that type of regulation. I don't know off the top of my head, but I doubt it. Most of the things that we're concerned about regulating deal with land use more than anything else. Is the use of the land that we clearly are not going to be able to say you can't do this with your land. And then with respect to some of the business activities on their land, the same argument would apply. I don't know that they're exempted from having to comply with the requirements that the health department places on food establishments, but I don't know that we've ever looked at that issue before. Well, they move an awful lot of product. And they, in my opinion, should be inspected by somebody, health department probably. And the question is can we, I guess. And I don't know, I really don't know the answer to it. I know that many of those are sublet out to organizations to make money for their various and sundry ball teams or bands or whatever, at least at Commonwealth Stadium that's the case. I don't think that's necessarily the case at Rupp Arena. If anybody else in the horseshoe knows the answer to any of this, I don't happen to remember ever seeing an inspection sticker up on any wall or anything of that sort. It could become a problem if we just ignored it. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you. We'll keep this one in committee and then put it into the proper committee in the new year. The next item on the agenda is the taxi cab ordinance that was put in by Ms. Lawless. Ms. Lawless. I'm sorry. This issue came up because in Fayette County we have a restriction, you have to have 25 taxi cabs to start a cab company, which pretty much excludes everybody but existing cab companies. And Paul did some very good research on this, and thank you, Paul. I know you all have been talking about the taxi cab ordinance, several different issues in the taxi cab ordinance. It does seem very restrictive to only somebody who has a lot of money to invest would be able to start a cab company here. And while we're trying to promote business and, you know, small businesses, et cetera, that's why I brought this up. So if you want to speak to it a little bit. Well, I mean, I know that the original taxi cab ordinance was enacted by the council at that time in 2002, and the intent specifically was public safety, public safety only, in so much as they wanted to ensure that the business that started up could, in fact, adhere to the rest of the ordinance, not just the number of taxis, because it is extensive in so much as the requirements for each of the cars, especially and particularly. The inspections that they have to go through mechanically, the equipment that they have to have inside by ordinance, it's just a very expensive venture, not just the car, but everything else that surrounds being a regulated taxi cab itself, with the exception of the one company that was grandfathered due to the state certificate that he possessed at the time when this ordinance was enacted. And at that time there wasn't, in 2002, it appears that there wasn't an intent for smaller companies to be established, because it was such an expensive proposition to get started. That's not to say, as you say, as I know, for the last two years we've had numerous companies, numerous individuals that have approached us specifically about the numbers in particular, about it being such an expensive process to start a company. And we actually realize that. But it's not just the numbers that are affected. It's every facet of the ordinance that goes with each individual vehicle. And that's what we're looking at, is totality of circumstance, not just numbers of vehicles. So if they, say, had five cabs or ten cabs and were able to, I mean, is there any reason that they can't go through and be required to maintain that level of equipment and safety and regulations and et cetera with less cabs? Well, I mean, obviously right now, yes, because they have to have 25. But that's what we're talking about. If we go down to a lesser extent, when this was enacted, 2002, which now is eight years ago, we required a dispatch system for each and every car and a main dispatch 24 hours, seven days a week that you have to adhere to. That's a huge expense when you have to set up your own radio system for a company. And it's almost cost prohibitive to expect somebody to set up a dispatch system for four, five, ten cars. There's another expense that's required by this ordinance. And that's the kind of things that we're looking at, is that still the kind of required expense that we need with today's communicative abilities that didn't exist back then. I mean, now when I call a cab, I call a phone. I use a cell phone and call the cab driver's cell phone. But what I'm saying is, yeah, that is very, very expensive. But if somebody can afford to have, say, five cabs and have that equipment, would that make it less safe? That I don't know, not without the specifics of looking at the actual company itself who's doing it. Are they going to be able to adhere to the restrictions of the inspection? Are they going to be able to adhere to the pop-up inspections, the logoing, which basically goes into branding the cabs themselves, not so that they interfere with the already established cabs? There's a myriad of things that are involved other than just the numbers and adhering to the safety itself. Right. But they would be expected to if they had five cabs or 50 cabs or 200 cabs. Exactly. And that is the prevailing attitude, is to change the ordinance so that it will, in fact, accept smaller venues where they have less than 25 cabs. There has been a definitive number specifically decided on. We've actually gone to other areas and I've researched other areas that don't have those same restrictions as far as numeric numbers of cabs. I've gone to Washington and looked at their cab service in Louisville and that sort of thing. And they don't have that numeric requirement. Right. So there is a way to do it, but you have to change the ordinance in its entirety, not just the number of the cabs. Why would you have to change the ordinance in its entirety? Because it requires a company specifically to be incorporated as it is right now. It has to be certified through the state. It has to be a corporation. I mean, there's more involved than just having numbers, for lack of a better term. And I'm not explaining myself too well. Linda, am I saying this correctly here? I mean, I'm not an attorney by any stretch of the imagination, but there is more involvement than what we've heard up to this point or what I've heard up to this point is cab drivers that basically want to get together as a group and start a company. Well, they can do that, but they still have to file for articles of incorporation. They have to go through the state. They have to become a company. They have to be certified through the transportation cabinet. Once they're certified as an organization for a four-hire type of organization, then they come to us and they have to apply. They have to be inspected. It is an extensive process. It's 25 or five. It's a very extensive process. And up to this point, even with five, it's a very expensive process. Correct. So in answer to your question, if somebody wanted to start with five, if the ordinance was changed as it exists right now, I don't see any reason why they couldn't if the ordinance numeric was changed. But it's more than just five drivers getting five cars, having cell phones, and getting out on the street and getting phone calls. Well, I mean ñ And that's what I've heard up to this point. I completely understand that. What I'm saying is if they go through that process with fewer cabs and they want to go to all that trouble and spend that money, that's their thing. I mean, it's like do you build a Walmart or do you build a boutique? Exactly. It's still you've got to be incorporated and you've got to get IRS and et cetera. So, I mean, I guess what did we find out about Louisville? I've forgotten now. They had a much ñ I'm sorry. Off the top of my head, I can't remember. I know that it wasn't nearly 25. It seems to be more restrictive than any of the other places that ñ I agree. And I've yet to find anyone who can give me a definitive answer why the council passed it at 25. It was a council decision at that time eight years ago. Why they did that, if anyone was here, if they could tell me why, then I'd like to know. Okay. Does anybody else have a comment on this? Mr. Beard. Rick, in my wanderings throughout the United States, it has been years since I've heard ñ not ten years, but it's been years since I've heard of a dispatcher talking to a cab driver. I mean, it just doesn't happen anymore. You don't hear all that chatter and stuff that you used to hear in a taxi cab. So that situation there, and, of course, in places like New York or Chicago, we're talking about a bunch of cabs. That issue and that level of expense is handled by cell phones now. Well, it's even gone farther than that. Because of the advent of digital messaging and that sort of thing, most cabs have small computers in them in the larger cities, and they digitally send the cab fare to the driver because they GPS track where they are, and they send them basically a digital message to them and say you have a fare at such and such. It's not even by cell phone anymore. It's quicker now digitally. Yeah, probably so. I think I agree with Council Member Lawless as far as the 25. I thought that was the first time I ever heard that. I thought that was, to be perfectly blunt, a little home cooking as far as the city was concerned. And, you know, I would favor moving that number downward to some level. Not obviously one cab, but that 10 number kind of resonates with me, Council Member. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Glen, did you want to add anything to this? We have a sidebar conversation here. Well, that's one thing, that whatever changes are made by the council as a whole, we do have to send to the state for approval. Because there had to be a law passed for Lexington and Louisville to actually affect an ordinance to control their own taxi cab service, and we're the only two entities in the state that do. So we have to, if we go down in number, then we have to get approval. But other than that, I mean, if they can adhere to the limitations of the ordinance. Is there anybody else who would like to? Ms. Henson. I just want, for FYI, Rick, I read a few months back I was in the yellow cab office with the individual that, well, I won't go into why I was there, but they do have a dispatcher. Yes, they do. And a lot of it is done electronically, but part of it is on the radio. So I just wanted to clarify. And they have, they're probably the largest taxi cab company in Lexington. Yellow cab is, yes, by far. Okay. They're twice as big as anyone else. Okay. Thanks. Any other comments? Ms. Lawless, what would your desire be for the committee? Are you all working on making or updating changes to this? We actually had an internal committee that had gotten together to try and look at all the specific changes. Because there's more changes that need to be made. It's very restrictive as it is. We wanted to change it in its totality. But by the same token, it was, we put it on hold because the World Equestrian Games came. And we wondered what was going to happen there. We came to you all and asked for special permitting for additional cabs and that sort of thing. So we put it on hold. I've still, I've got a file that's probably two inches thick of different suggestions. And the other thing is, is that if I can speak specifically for them, is that the taxi cab companies that exist right now, they do try to adhere. I mean, like Ms. Henson says, it is an extensive network that they have already set up. And they're going to be, obviously, the loudest voice against changing, obviously. Oh, yeah. I mean. Yellow Cab in particular advised me just a month ago, or two months ago, that they put $220,000 into upgrading their cab system just to handle the World Equestrian Games. And, I mean, it's not that they'd leave tomorrow. But by the same token, it's for a lot of years. I think the reason this was changed in 2002 was because that was the year that they passed the state law that allowed competition. Prior to that, there wasn't, they basically were allowed to have a monopoly. There wasn't a whole lot of competition back then. There was none. Two, three, one taxi got you all of them. You're right. My friend told me not to do it, that two, three, one taxi did not work in New Orleans. But that being said, you know, there were several listed, but they were all the same place. So that's kind of the history with that. And I would be in favor of lowering it. I know there was one suggestion that, you know, lowering it to five with the mandate that they would have at least ten within the first year of operation, which would give people an opportunity to make money and reinvest it in their business. So if there are changes that are going to make it easier for and less expensive for the cab company to start, less equipment or whatever, if that's part of what you're looking at, how long do you think it will be before you're ready for that? February. That's where it has to come from. So you're hoping February. So could we maybe leave it in committee until February and look at lowering? Sure. I think that's the prudent thing to do and let them kind of look at it as an aggregate and try to pare down that 22 inches down to more of an executive summary of issues. I agree. And then we can, with the new committee structure, we can have it in there and bring it up at that point. Thank you. I think we have Mr. Martin like to ask a question. Yeah. As we look at the taxicab ordinance, I guess one of the concerns I would have with allowing taxicab companies to sort of creep into compliance is that you could set up a different company and basically start over and be in the continual process of starting over. So I think as we look at this, we want to make sure that we have companies that are, have the requisite amount of permanence where the public safety is really not at issue. Because if I was allowed, for example, to start a, you know, to come into compliance sometime during my first year, I could set up a company, start, go six months of that, and then start a new company and go six months with that and never be actually in compliance. So we just want to make sure that we, you know, we look at the bigger picture and that we have, I think the overall interest is to make sure that we have not fly-by-night companies, but companies that are permanent and that have, are in full compliance and that have a high level of safety for the public. And I think obviously you agree with that. And the other thing which springs to mind, if I may, is that when you talk about enforcing the ordinance specifically, we have two detectives that also do backgrounds, that also do everything else relative to fire, police. And, I mean, it's just, they're lucky if they inspect a cab, each individual cab once a year, specifically because we just, we don't have the manpower to do it. And it's not like somebody had mentioned Louisville. Louisville has their own, they call it IPL, Inspection, Permit, and Licensing Division that does everything. And they have officers assigned to it specifically, and if they need more, they just take from one section and put to the other. And I just, if we have, and this is the worst case scenario, ten companies pop up tomorrow with five cabs each, I don't have the people to inspect them. I really don't. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Ms. Lawless, did you want to add something? Well, just, you know, I don't see the difference in ten companies with five cabs popping up any differently than one company with 200. I mean, the market only will support so many. I understand that. And like you said, there is a big expense to starting it even with five cabs. So thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Commission Committee. The next item on the agenda is sidewalk specifications on page 16. Ms. Feigl. Thank you, Chair. This committee has taken one look at this issue, I think about a month ago, and we were directed at that time to have the engineering department and code enforcement come together and make some recommendations. We did have a meeting with engineering and have made some revisions or at least have kind of come together to try to present something that both departments can live with. So David Jarvis is here today to talk to us a little bit about what those specifics are. So, David, if you would just share that. Sure. Thank you, Council Member. One of the things that we wanted to address was really the criteria for the inspections versus safety versus cosmetic. I think the guidelines that we really have to follow, the engineering regulations, are more designed for the replacement of concrete versus the actual existence of a concrete sidewalk. And we think if we can possibly change some wording to where the Division of Code Enforcement would have the, I guess, the authority to deem a sidewalk a public hazard versus cosmetic violation, I think that would give us some leeway as far as citing some of the older neighborhoods. I mean, you know, the existing regulations say eighth-inch displacement, one-inch cracks. And, you know, in some of these older neighborhoods with trees, you know, every sidewalk is going to have an eighth-inch displacement or a one-inch crack. And we think we could be a little more customer friendly if we can maybe tone those down a little bit. What we don't want to do is we don't want to change the regulations on the engineering side, and we don't want to confuse people. But we think that if we can really address it as a public safety issue versus a cosmetic issue, it would benefit everybody. And another thing also we want to look at is changing the fine schedule. Right now the fine maxes at $1,000 violation every 30 days. We think that could be a little excessive. I think maybe cutting that in half. I would just add to that that many of the people in the Fifth District have brought this issue forward to me because we do live in older neighborhoods and the sidewalks have been around for years and years. And the standards that they were being judged by were standards that we require for brand-new concrete in a brand-new subdivision. And what we strive for there obviously is, you know, perfect concrete. And that just, that same standard cannot be applied to an older neighborhood without creating a tremendously expensive burden on all of the homeowners that live in those neighborhoods. So while we do want to protect public safety, there are some areas of this that are quite difficult for people to comply with. And that really is relative to just cosmetic changes. But as the ordinance reads currently, if a sidewalk is cited, then the entire ordinance or the entire requirement has to be imposed upon the entire sidewalk. They can't just go out there and cite, you know, the trip hazard. They have to cite the entire sidewalk for cosmetic changes or cosmetic problems and everything. So this is just to really kind of make it a little more fair to folks. Mr. Martin. Thank you, Chair. Mr. Jarvis, and again, I appreciate everything you do. We call your office a lot. We appreciate all the help you give us. And I know going out and issuing citations is not the easiest job in town. One of the complaints I got as I was making my travels this fall from door to door was that the city issues citations for defects in sidewalks that we ourselves have on our own city sidewalks, things that are in our jurisdiction. Can you help me understand that? We do. And we have some issues in some of our property. Luckily, you know, just here lately with the downtown, the sidewalkscape, we took care of a lot of that. And I know there are plans to address some other issues with some of the, you know, the Urban County Government property. And that's something also, you know, if we do have an issue, we need to be made aware of it so that we can get with building maintenance and streets and roads. And especially if it's a safety hazard, we definitely want to address that. Cosmetically, I'm sure we may not be able to address everything, but safety, we definitely would address that. And I think those very words are the exact what we should probably expect on homeowners as well. We agree. You know, because we can't be in perfect compliance, and I think neither can they as well. And I think that there's sort of a doctrine called substantial compliance in the law, and I'm sure you're familiar with that. But it's, you know, we want to go after the worst offenders. I had an opportunity to visit with the state police at one time when I was in Leadership, Kentucky, and I had to ask the question, how fast do you have to go before you get a ticket? And they said, well, their current policy, and that may have changed, was that they wouldn't bother folks five miles over the speed limit. Right. But more than five miles over, that's when they would get a ticket. And I think that's what we're looking for is some sort of substantial compliance. Folks can't be expected to be in perfect compliance because that may be, you know, what they're using for their medicine that month. Or that may be what, in terms of elderly or folks that are in poverty, that may be what they're going to eat that month to replace the sidewalk. And that may push them into bankruptcy or losing their home. So I think what we want is we want to protect the safety without sort of getting overboard about it. And because particularly if we as a city can't possibly be in perfect compliance either, then we probably shouldn't expect our citizens. So help us craft the language in our ordinances to do that, I think. At least that's my take on it, is that if you would help us sort of work with our ordinances and put together a proposal for substantial compliance, because I think there's a lot of homeowners out there that would appreciate that. I agree. And I think the draft that we've gotten from the law department, it would address that actually. And, again, it talks about the code enforcement officer deems the condition of the sidewalk to be a hazard to public safety. And that would trigger the citation process. And, again, we don't really want to tinker with the regs as far as the requirements for sidewalk, because once the sidewalk is replaced, of course it would be replaced under sidewalk regulations. And that would be typical. So, again, I think tinkering with the regulations as far as requirements, it's really not needed. I think the language that we want to add would really address that as far as a public safety hazard, give them some leeway as far as cosmetic issues. And then, again, we feel that the penalty phase is just a little overbearing, I think, too. You know, $1,000 per 30 days for a sidewalk citation, I think that's just a little much. I think $500 would be more than enough to persuade someone to correct their sidewalks. Well, I appreciate Council Member Feigl's work on this. I know there's a lot of folks out there who will appreciate a little more consumer friendliness in this. So thank you, Chair. We agree. Thank you. Mr. Beard. Yes. Once upon a time, for one month, two months, three months, maybe max, we had a pool of money where we would help homeowners rehabilitate their sidewalks. Where does that stand now? Has that whole process gone away, or are we still doing it for some? We run out of money early, let's put it that way. We do. Yeah, and the process still is in place. We were budgeted $30,000 this year, which, you know, that's not going to go very far at all. We'd like to, in the future, if we do budget money for the Sidewalk Assistance Program, we'd like to budget it for the 100 percent, the below poverty level, and really just concentrate on that end of the Sidewalk Assistance Program. If we have the money, it would be great to go back to the old days to where, you know, everyone was eligible. We reimbursed everyone, you know, the $225,000 a square foot. But, you know, looking at the projected budget outlook, you know, I can't see that program sticking around very much longer. Taking the given pool of money, whatever it may be, and dividing by 12 so that we could spread it across a larger group of people that might have access to it might be an idea that you might want to look at. I agree. I agree. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, David. Ms. Crosby. For the cosmetic issues with the sidewalks, isn't there like a seal or something that people can put on that and that you already recommend to fix the problem or correct the problem somewhat? So the cosmetic issue is corrected, but yet you're not as hard on them with having to replace the entire sidewalk? Right. We do allow repairs on sidewalks. There's several products out there. There's a lot of ASTM accepted products. A lot of the concrete companies have them. There's caulks. There's sealants. There's things you can do to them. Instead of having to replace the entire sidewalk, you can do that. I guess my question is more, is it an informal thing that you recommend in your office that's not written in the ordinance that they can correct it this way versus replacing the sidewalk? No, it's a formal citation. Once you receive the citation, it has repair or replace, and it denotes whether it's a repair or replacement. You can repair them. I'm torn on this one because I don't disagree. We need to have flexibility when dealing with people and also the fact that the fine seems excessive. But as somebody who uses the sidewalks in a lot of areas in town, you can't even use them in some cases because they're so bad. And so I guess my concern is we don't have the manpower clearly now to even get around. I think isn't there just one person, and it's usually complaint driven? That's correct. Okay. I'll think about this one. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions or comments? Ms. Feigl, what was your intention today? Actually, I had seen on the cover sheet, and I'll have to ask David to explain this, that we shouldn't pass this on to council until there's administration's drafted regulations. I can explain that. The proposed ordinance would, rather than putting all these standards in the code of ordinances, you would adopt regulations, and the regulations are not ready for you all to adopt yet. So I wouldn't recommend making any change to the code of ordinances with respect to what the standards are until you have a set of regulations in front of you to look at and consider and possibly adopt. And those were not ready for the committee meeting today. Do you know when those might be? I guess if you all meet in January, if you all wanted them in January, we could do that. Well, I would like to request then that this stay in committee and that this be on the agenda for January. It will be in the Public Safety Public Works Committee. I think that would be a good idea. Thank you, Chair. Any other questions on this item? The last one, I think, the golf operations update. I believe, Mr. Schoeniger, you're going to just probably tell us what's happening and where they're headed with that. Thank you, Councilmember. This item was put into committee last June by Councilmember Cord, and I just wanted to give you a very, very brief update. A group of internal and external folks have gotten together at least one time in August to go over, I think the charge of this group was to determine the full cost of providing golf and compare that with the full revenue that we're bringing in because of golf to see if they're, on a P&L statement, what the profit or loss would be. Right now, this group is going through the process of reviewing all the direct expenditures to determine if any of the direct expenditures in the budget are, in fact, charged to golf but incurred someplace else. And they're also looking at capital expenditures and the annual debt service of any capital expenditures as well as any of the indirect costs. They're going to meet later this week. I think it's actually tomorrow. And hopefully sometime after the first of the year, they should have something back to the general government committee, I believe, for their consideration. I'd be happy to try to entertain any questions if there were any. Seeing no questions, we'll look at the last item. Thank you, Paul, in the items in committee. And as the Vice Mayor-Elect has said, Ms. Korten, that she'll be looking at what other items are left in committee and put them in the appropriate new standing committees. And I guess, Ms. Schroeder, if we could go down through each one of these and see, and if there's any that you'd like, and I think the last one on the agenda, I've been told that it's going to be asked to be removed. And outside of that, if there's any that wants to be removed that are going to be moved forward. Ms. Feigl. Yes, thank you, Chair. I had asked for the graffiti removal task force, and so it appears that that was an issue that maybe was not long-term, just kind of an incidental thing. So I would ask that that be removed from committee. We have a motion to remove. Do we have a second? And a second. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? That passes. We'll remove that. And like I said, Mr. Schroeder, let's just go down through each one and see where we stand. If there's anybody that wants to have it removed, you can make the motion then. Sure. The first item, traffic tax scab ordinance, you guys have discussed that today, similar with the itinerant merchant item. The second item, you've discussed it today and you've expressed an interest in keeping both of those in the committee or some committee. A residential parking permit, that was referred by Council Member Lawless, and I believe she's still working on that with her aide, I think, and the parking authority, I think. The sidewalk specifications, you've discussed that today. Council Member Martin had the utility pole issue, and I believe he's still interested in pursuing that. I believe that would be in the public works, public safety. Mr. Beard? Council Member Martin, if not the right of way, where? Well, there's a number of ways that the issue, we're talking about, for those at home, we're talking about the large power line structures, particularly the ones on the corner of Euclid and Rose Street. Oh, I understand. Well, but folks at home, since we're changing topics, I thought I'd sort of bring folks up to speed. There's various possibilities, and I think what we want to try to do is figure out which might be possible in an economy such as we have. But the various, to answer your question, where, you've got obviously the right of way, which where they've been being put. You've got in folks' backyards where they could be put. You could require folks who are making substantial renovations or putting up new structures to bury commercial power lines, such as we've done in the residential neighborhoods. And you could require some sort of transitioning of existing structures. You could have some sort of a grant program where we put a certain amount of money in every year to have projects buried. You could do it on a project-by-project basis like we've done downtown and on South Limestone. So there's a lot of options, and really it's a funding issue. And so what consensus can we build within the community about where we want these structures to go? Requiring Kentucky Utilities to run these large structures through backyards or off major corridors I think is, from a personal standpoint, maybe more palatable than running them down the middle of Rose Street or down the middle of Shinaway or running them down up Fontaine or down Pasadena or someplace like that. But I think it's a complicated issue. That's why I want to keep it in committee. And my council aide and I are currently looking at other jurisdictions. The last time we brought this to you, we looked at how other jurisdictions, just as some of the ideas that other jurisdictions may have brought forward. But it's a complicated issue, and before we bring it again, I want to have made some progress and try to bring a little bit more direction to where we might be going with it. But there's a lot of different cities who have addressed this, and certainly a lot of places have required new projects to bury their underground, bury their utilities underground, which is a possibility. But at this point I'm not in a position to sign on on any particular direction in this. I think we want to look at what different cities have done and also probably hear from some folks to see what their preferences are and how the community may want to address it. But I think clearly we want to prevent the kind of large massive structure that's down in the middle of Roe Street and Euclid from returning again. I would agree with you that they aren't very pretty at all. In fact, within my district I've got the Lansdowne Drive situation, which is carrying an awful lot of voltage on it, as do the ones on Euclid Avenue, for that matter. When you get that high voltage, it becomes 10x expensive to bury them because you've got to refrigerate them, and that is a big, big problem. I've talked to KU's on several occasions about that. Putting them in the backyard is also a problem in some areas because of the tree lines that many of our homes have in the back, and they sure don't want to lose, obviously KU doesn't want to lose a power line or two to a tree limb breaking off. So you're right, it's a tough situation, and the public needs to understand that it's a tough situation but that we're sensitive to it. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Crosby, did you want to make a comment? You're on your list. Ms. Lawless? I just wanted to say that the Euclid and Rose Street giant power lines were put in by UK and the city doesn't regulate the University of Kentucky, but I applaud your looking into this because I think it is a problem in other areas. Well, if I might respond, Euclid and Rose Street is a city street and it's not owned by the University of Kentucky. It's on a city sidewalk, and the fact that we could have an ordinance that would have required the University of Kentucky to bury that, and so I think we do have a lot of options. We just have to decide what we're willing to do. Obviously they buried the ones around their hospital but not the ones that were further out, and they ran some up Nicholsville Road toward Central Baptist Hospital as well. So I do think we have some options, and I don't think that the one on the corner of Rose and Euclid was completely beyond our authority. Thank you. The next issue, Paul? The gulf operations you just spoke about, I'm assuming that's going to come back to, I think, the General Government Committee sometime this fall or this winter, excuse me. The street cleaning issue that Council Member Lawless put into committee, you folks heard from the Parking Authority and the Streets and Roads back in September, and you've asked them for some more information about options for on-street parking restrictions and enforcement. I believe that would probably go to Public Safety, Public Works, I would imagine. Right. The Gypsy Cab Company issue that was put in by Council Member Myers prior to the World Equestrian Games, I assume since it hasn't been removed it's still an issue to Council Member Myers or to somebody else. Assuming that's the case, it would probably go to Public Safety and Public Works as well. We can wait for him, but I think it did have to do with the World Equestrian Games, so this might be one in the spring and we can take out. The repaving list, you folks, this was again put in by Council Member Lawless. The committee or the council asked for a couple things from Public Works, and I think they're starting to comply. You asked for a five-year strategic plan and also the biannual or semiannual rating of the streets. So I think that's probably ready to come back sometime in the spring to, I'm assuming, Public Safety, Public Works. I'm going too fast. I apologize. The graffiti removal you just heard from Council Member Feigl. We took that out. Yeah, took it out. The emergency snow plan and the snow plan from Council Members James and Myers. You've heard at least once or a couple times from Public Works. They're probably going to be in Public Works and Public Safety in the future. The issue from Council Member James about the loading and unloading zones in downtown, this relates to the two-waying of some streets. That, again, probably be in Public Works, Public Safety, I would imagine. The private solid waste providers from Council Member Gorton. I know that there's been a working group meeting intermittently, I think, intermittently. Okay. That would probably be in environmental quality. The horse cruelty issue from Council Member Beard, I'm assuming Public Safety, Public Works, but again, I'm not real sure about that. Possibly even environmental quality. And the last item you folks have discussed removing as well. If somebody would like to make a motion to remove the last one because Dr. Blue said that he would like to. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed? So we'll remove that. Any other business for the Service Committee? Motion to adjourn. I have a motion to adjourn and a second. I just want to thank you all for the opportunity to be the Chair. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. We are adjourned. Thank you.