The Thank you. Any member of the public who would like to comment on issues that are on today's agenda? Seeing none, we'll move along. We have a docket to approve today. Is there a motion? Move to approve. I have a motion by Council Member McCord, second by Council Member Ellinger to approve the docket. Mayor, there are two zone changes, Ordinance Number 16 and 17, that need to be addressed as far as public hearings. and I believe there's some people here about number 17. All right. Is there a motion with regard to item 16? Yes. I move to send this forward without a public meeting. Thank you. The motion by Council Member Crosby and second by Council Member McCord is to put item 16 on the docket without a public hearing. Any discussion? All in favor of amending the docket in that fashion, please indicate the saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Is there a motion to amend with regard to item 17? Yes, I'd like to ask for a public hearing on the rezoning. Do I hear a second? Second. I have a motion by Council Member Lawless and a second by Council Member Crosby to amend the docket, to put item 17 on the docket with a public hearing. Any discussion on that proposed amendment? Council Member Crosby. I think there was some question as to whether or not this needs to be a special meeting or a public hearing because of the duration of time. I understand that. When I was checking on mine, I was told that about the other one, which was not in my district. So we may want to clarify with the clerk. Typically what happens if the hearing for the Planning Commission was longer than two hours, they would like to set it up as a special council meeting just for the public hearing. But if it's less than two hours, they usually try to hold it at a regular council meeting with it following the council meeting. And Mr. King, do you know if this was more or less than two hours? What's the pleasure of the council? I would say after a work session rather than after a council meeting. Can you give us a date? I think we have to approve it by February 16th. So February 8th, I believe we have a committee of the whole at, say, 5 o'clock. Okay. We'll accept that as a friendly amendment if there's no objection. Part of order. Committee of the Whole is you can't vote on anything at a Committee of the Whole meeting. You have to call a special meeting, I believe. Yeah, a special meeting at 5 o'clock on February the 8th. So my understanding of the motion to amend the docket now is that we would have a public hearing on item number 17 at a special council meeting to be held at 5 p.m. on February 8th. Council Member Blues. I have a conflict at 7 o'clock that evening, so we'll have to leave by that time. All right. Any further discussion on the motion to amend? Ms. Cowan, do you have anything to add? No, I just wasn't sure Ms. Lawless was going to make it back in in time, and I didn't want this to go through without expressing our opposition to it as a neighborhood. Then the motion to amend the docket is to have a public hearing on item 17 on February 8th at 5 p.m. at a special council meeting. All in favor of that amendment, please indicate by saying aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. We're now back to the motion to approve the docket as amended. Any further discussion? Seeing none, those in favor of approving the docket, please indicate by saying aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. We have the November 23rd summary to approve. Do I have a motion by Council Member Gordon? I don't remember you, Gordon. Second by Council Member Henson to approve the summary. All in favor, any discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. We have some budget amendments for your consideration. Second. Have a motion by Council Member Beard, second by Council Member Gorton to approve the budget amendments. If there's no discussion, we'll vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. We're down to the new business items now. Do I hear a motion to approve those items? No. Approval. Second. I have a motion by Council Member Blues, second by Council Member Gorton to approve the new business items. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. Motion carries. Takes us down to the Budget and Finance Committee meeting. Council Member Lane first. Yes, sir. Can I do a walk-on now? You may. Okay. That would be in order. I move to place on the docket for December 9, 2010, Council meeting a resolution authorizing the mayor to execute an assistance amendment with the Environmental Protection Agency, reducing the amount of cost share required of the Erden County government for the South Elkhorn Hump Station project. Essentially, this will reduce the amount of money we have to pay for it. And I think there's a time issue on this, too. Thank you. Second. I have a motion by Council Member Lane, second by Council Member Henson, to add that item to the docket. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Council Member Stenet. Well, since we're adding to the docket, I have one as well, Mayor, before I read the budget and finance report. I move the place on the docket for Thursday, December 9th. Council meeting under first reading resolutions, a resolution to accept the donation from Radiant Network Services, Incorporated, professional services and equipment for the installation of the public safety network for use of the Division of Police. Again, this is a donation. We're just accepting it. Second. The motion by Council Member Stennett has been seconded by Council Member McCord. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Now, Council Member Stennett. Let's talk money. Okay. This is the report from last Tuesday's budget and finance meeting. Again, we start off the meeting with economic indicators. The Fed County unemployment rate was down to 7.8 percent through the month of September. Fed County home permits issued or building permits issued were down for the month of October from 1,427 in September to 923 in October. Fed County new business licenses were slightly up to 239 from 203 in September. New home sales were actually almost flat in October at 442 homes. And then the Fayette County foreclosures, there were 44 home foreclosures in the month of October, which is slightly down from the 52 in the month of September. October budget numbers, again, in the four major revenue categories, employee withholdings were up 27.9 percent or $1.75 million. Now, we'll add a disclaimer to that number. There was a one-time payment from a major employer in the month of October of $1.73 million. Again, we were up $1.75 million. The major employer contributed $1.73 million of that. So otherwise, we would have been flat for the month of October. Net profits for the month of October were down 25.8%. Again, this is a category we continually see to drop throughout the year. The last couple of years is our net profit. Insurance was up 15.5 percent, or $344,000, and then franchise fees were down 1.2 percent, or $4,934. Year-to-date, through the month of October, again, through the first third of the year, employee withholdings were up 5.8 percent, and that does include that $1.73 million one-time payment. Net profits were down year-to-date 1.5 percent. Insurance was up 17.7%, and then franchise fees are still behind at negative 6.6%. Year-to-date compared to budget, we're 5.6% ahead as compared to budget. The next item on our agenda, we compared January through October for this year as compared to a year ago, and those numbers were actually up this year 1.2% for withholdings, and that's payroll. But net profit, once again, compared to last year's nine or ten months, we're down 9.9 percent or almost 10 percent as compared to last year. So not good numbers, but expenses have continued to be down year-to-date. $1.1 million were down on our expenditures as compared to budget for a total income of $5.2 million year-to-date. So it does mean we do have some cash flow coming in and some money in the bank. but our indicators in the net profits are still far behind where we need them to be. And the last item we had on the agenda was a discussion of sale of real estate, and we'll have an update at Thursday night's council meeting on possible sale of real estate, and we'll have a discussion then. I don't know if it will be in closed session or during the meeting itself, but we'll notify the council members prior to Thursday night's meeting. Thank you, Mayor. Any questions for Council Member Stenet? All right, Mr. Martin, if you'll come on up. We'll move on to the presentation on stormwater runoff. One of everybody's favorite topics. On a cold day like today. Thank you, Mayor, Council. It is ironic that I'm here to talk to you about land use and watershed management on such a cold day. But stormwater runoff certainly will have an impact when it warms back up and the snow and ice begins to melt. as I drove in here and happened to notice the main break that we're all kind of aware of and all the salt all over the road and stuff like that. Same sort of impact. The other reason why, though, I'm out here today is that we're required by the consent decree to come and talk to the council and to the planning commission. I gave this identical presentation to planning back in October to essentially inform and educate the elected officials regarding land management and watershed management. It's an important program tool for mitigating water pollution in urban areas. You know, I don't need to read the slides to you to explain to you what pollution is. I think we all kind of know that or at least have a framework of that in our minds. But, you know, we have existing stormwater permit that focuses mainly on surface water. And that the state permit, it's all focused around a beneficial or designated use, i.e. swimming, fishing, wading, those type of things like that. And they use different criteria, whether it be numeric, so many pounds of pollutants, so many this, so many that, or a narrative that you must not degrade water quality in order to gauge our performance. And so those are important parameters as far as moving forward and being able to measure our success in our water quality program. Where does the pollution come from? Some of it's kind of obvious, leaking sanitary sewers. We all know about problems with that, and we're working in solutions in the other parts of the consent decree on dealing with that. Erosion from construction sites and those type of places. We all see the muddy town branch or the muddy Kentucky River or anything else after a major rainfall event. Some of the other more subtle things is pollution that comes from yards, that you add a weed killer to your yard and then it rains and it all runs off into the stream, but also housekeeping in commercial and industrial areas as well. Good housekeeping also often leads to pollutant discharge, and so it's one of the areas that we're very much focused on. What you're seeing here is a map of Fayette County, and the red essentially shows you streams that are impaired. I mentioned the beneficial uses before, designated uses. And you see that there are many streams that are running out of from the urban core that are considered to be impaired. Well, impaired for what? Here's some of the examples of some of the pollutants that we're dealing with. from the urban areas, you've got sediment that's coming from erosion or from construction sites, bacteria that could be sanitary sewers or pet waste, those type of things, oil and grease that washes off the roadways and off of parking lots that just accumulate there, and that first flush when we have a storm washes it all off into the stream. But you also notice is that the rural areas, they're not alone or they're not immune from this problem, And some might point to the fact, it's like, well, you know, those are, the city is sitting on top of the hill, that most of it's coming from the city, but I can assure you that it's not, and one of my future slides will kind of demonstrate that a little bit more. This one in particular, you look down here at Boone Creek, it shows that it's impaired on a couple of different criteria, particularly as far as bacteria, and also for organic enrichment. There's not any really development out there. A lot of that is agricultural, and a lot of these impairments are really due to our human presence trying to coexist with nature. But you can see that based on the streams that have been assessed to this point in time, that we've got a lot of streams that are in Fayette County that are not meeting their beneficial or designated use. And not all of the stream segments have been assessed yet, so there may still be more to come. That's why land use and watershed management issues are important. Again, we talked about some of those sources of stormwater pollution. Some of them are fairly obvious regarding the sediment and stuff, but I'll point down to the organic enrichment sewage. Pretty obvious there. But we get a lot of calls about leaves and grass clippings, that folks need to be educated that blowing grass clippings out into the street or raking leaves down into the storm sewer is actually having a very negative impact on our water quality, and that proper management of yard waste is just as important as not having sewers that overflow. Some of the impacts of polluted stormwater, the poor water quality, lower quality of life. You know, we invest a lot in our greenway system. A lot of our parks are located in low areas where there are streams, so it's part of our overall recreation and quality of life, along with it being a health issue. And, of course, for me, the most important aspect of the things that I'm dealing with hand-to-hand combat on a daily basis basis is the regulatory violations associated with either the stormwater permit or the consent decree. Well, all right, that's not all gloom and doom. It's more about what are we going to do about it. And the way that our geography is set up somewhat presents us a unique opportunity because we have all these drainage areas or watersheds. and being able to focus on it on a watershed basis gives you a starting point as far as an action plan. Many of you are familiar with that we have several citizens groups that are really focused on their watersheds. The Friends of Wolf Run, the Friends of Kane Run, there's other citizens groups that have been forming as I speak. So starting with a watershed approach and being able to understand the uniquenesses associated with each one of those watersheds is really important. So some of the tools that you would go about as far as taking an integrated approach with watershed management is identifying those stakeholders. As I mentioned earlier, we have stakeholders that are very anxious and willing to participate already. Identifying the drainage areas, we've already done that. You saw that on the preceding map. Assess land use and cover. How much is impervious and how much of it's not and how much of it is industrial and being able to focus on the particular problem areas. Analyzing our monitoring data, that's something in the past that we have not, as a government, done as good a job as we need to, and that we have a stakeholders advisory committee that we have formed that includes folks from Commerce Lexington, UK, Fayette County Schools, some of the citizens group, and we're meeting this Friday and we'll be presenting some information regarding past monitoring data. We've been able to establish a benchmark of what is the condition of our water quality in certain areas because future monitoring and future activities are going to use that against that benchmark to find out whether we're actually making any progress or not. IDing the pollutants and managing those pollutants such as on industrial areas, making sure that there's containment devices and a good housekeeping that you don't just throw the motor oil or the what have you out the back and hope for the best. and implementing those practices. Everything is really about being able to implement all of those processes and then monitor it to determine whether or not best management practices and good housekeeping are doing what they need to be doing. There's other ways that we can deal with land use and watershed management in a positive way. New design standards for development and redevelopment. This is getting a lot of attention on the national level, So I hope you'll focus on this, is that trying to maintain the same amount of runoff flow as prior to the development or redevelopment, we've been working on that for a long time. But one of the things that they're trying to focus on now is fewer retention basins are not as large regional structures, but more about promoting infiltration on that site using rain gardens or pervious pavement or those type of things like that. And then even further downstream about stabilizing some of the ditches and stream banks. I know several of you, as I look around the horseshoe here, that have talked to me about erosion problems that some of your constituents are having, is that they're losing parts of their yard or that they've got some of their structures that are in danger. And so being able to stabilize those areas and be able to prevent further erosion is very important from a water quality standpoint because that compounds with the construction site runoff that leads to heavy sediment loading that undermine water quality downstream. Other aspects of things that we're already doing is inspect, inspect, inspect. Since the consent decree came along in 2008, we formed a compliance and monitoring group. They are very focused on commercial and industrial inspections. We have certain numeric criteria in our permit that requires us to do a certain number of inspections a year. We've also, as you know, created an enforcement component in the Division of Environmental Policy where we will actually, after notices of violation, we will actually up the ante and pursue them through existing ordinances and ordinances that were modified by this body to make it hurt, essentially, as far as doing the right thing. The sewer line inspections, replacement and maintenance, a lot of you will get to see in January as far as some of the findings associated with our sanitary sewer assessment. The first group is the report is due to EPA in March of next year, so you'll be getting previews probably in January of what the first level of findings are. are. And I know many of you have been active participants in some of the public education that we've been doing. We had a watershed festival out in the Cane Run area in late fall that was a rousing success based on the number of people that attended. This was an interesting slide because I am not sure what kind of conclusions to draw from it, but essentially what it is is it shows Fay County as far as the impaired streams and the amount of canopy cover or trees that are associated with those streams. And you can see in the south part of the county, and we've got a lot of trees and stuff here, but you get out here into the northern part of the county, essentially pasture land and all that, it looks basically is that we've removed a lot of the canopy that would help stabilize many of those streams, and it helps create an erosion problem that potentially could be avoided. It also has an impact on water temperature as well is that when they're out there exposed to the sun that increased water temperature is going to increase the rate of reaction associated with whatever type of thing that's going on there. Some of the basic premises associated with low impact development, I mentioned this earlier about maximizing infiltration of precipitation. First of all, it minimizes or prevents the contamination because you don't get that first flush that washes off of a parking lot and picks up all the grease and cigarette butts and grit and what have you and dumps it down the storm sewer essentially acts as a filter and is able to be able to remove that minimizing the flooding concerns by reducing the amount of water that's coming off of those sites and minimizing the erosion I had mentioned before you know many of these things are some of the things that you just approved in the last round of water quality management fee incentive grants. Is that using pervious pavement and rain gardens and those type of things, folks are already utilizing money that we're generating through the fee to make investments in their properties to be able to do these type of things. You know, there's the opinion of which that there is a reduced cost associated with low impact development. I'm not going to go into all of this because I can see that there is some challenges that are unique for us, and particularly because of our rural area and our urban area, especially when it involves infill and redevelopment. And for me personally, I think this is going to be one of our real challenges, is to reduce the impervious surfaces and reduce the building footprints, while at the same time trying to maximize the undisturbed area is going to be challenging. I'll point to this particular example here is that here's what you would see as far as a traditional development, and here would be the nontraditional or low-impact development. We're doing a lot of those kind of things right now. I know my colleagues here over to my right, we're working on a stormwater plan associated with the expansion area where they're going to be constructing wetlands and things like that. But they have a lot of challenges in something like this because they're also trying to be able to maximize the area that they have in order to be able to make a project work financially. And I think it's going to present a lot of challenges for us. I know that the Planning Commission was particularly interested in this slide. But moving forward, it's something that we're expected to have in our toolbox as far as on the federal level. Winding things up a little bit, I've just got a few slides that show some of the examples of things that can be done and that are being done right now in Fayette County. Again, a lot of this, while it's a water quality feature or a best management practice, there are also some really, really great opportunities there as far as just beautifying the community. I mean, we've done that with rain gardens on South Lyme. We've done this on Vine Street. We've done this in a lot of different areas. And I think there are still a lot of great opportunities to do that. This is one I like in particular because we build large parking lots and we don't take advantage of areas to where we can drain into the middle of a parking lot or between parking areas because then that minimizes the amount of runoff that comes off of that, especially in that first flush that it ends up in this green area to where some of that stuff can be removed as opposed to it ending up in the storm sewer and in the stream. The pervious pavement, I've mentioned this to several of you before, is that we've got different sites that are going in in the public sector, but also at some of the pump stations. We're experimenting with some of this right now to be able to monitor its performance, because there's somewhat of a lack of data that I'm uncomfortable with as far as their long-term performance. I'm anxious to see how well they perform and what kind of maintenance they need. Open swales, this is another example of our greenways. I mean, this is where the greenways really fit in, and that along with being a path to a destination between plants, that it's a stormwater management thing and that we wouldn't want to be lost on that. Lastly, the rain barrels. You've all seen these before. My wife was particularly appreciative of the fact that they're not as ugly as she thought they was. I guess she thought it was just a 55-gallon metal drum that's out in front of your house. Okay, got through my hopefully within my 10-minute time frame. Again, I appreciate your time here. This was an obligation on the part of the permit. And so I'll be back next year and in the following year because I doubt very seriously if they're going to take it out and take whatever questions you have. Any questions for Mr. Martin? Thank you very much. Now ready for council reports. If council members wish to make a report, please indicate. Council Member Beard. Yes, I would like to move approval of the NDF for this week. Second. I have a motion by Council Member Beard to approve the NDF. Second by Council Member Lane. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Mayor. I was unable to attend the Services Committee meeting today because I was at the Pearl Harbor Survivors Lunch. Today marks the 69th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and there were four living Pearl Harbor survivors that were there at the lunch, along with 20 to 30 World War II veterans, and certainly want to say how much I appreciate all those who wear the uniform and have worn the uniform, but specifically to those who served in World War II and those who survived Pearl Harbor. Thank you, Madam. Council Member Lawless. Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to announce that there will be an Ellsford Neighborhood Association meeting tonight at 7 p.m. at Woodland Christian Church. There will be a discussion on a proposed zone change to build a sorority house at 253 and 255 East Maxwell, and they will also be holding the election of officers for 2011. And I think there will be a representative from the sorority in attendance to answer questions. Columbia Heights Neighborhood Association is hosting a safety walkthrough the neighborhood tonight at 6 p.m. It will start at the corner of Columbia and Woodland and travel through the neighborhoods. The purpose of the walk is to identify areas of concerns related to poor lighting and overgrown shrubs. And there have been LFUCG and U.K. representatives invited to attend. I also wanted to, going back to Mr. Martin's excellent overview about the water quality issues, I know as I drive through my district, and it's probably that way other places, I see a lot of storm drains that are clogged with leaves and debris. And if we could all just kind of volunteer and be good neighbors and take our brooms out there and sweep them out, it would help a whole lot with our stormwater issues in the 3rd District. So, you know, if you see them and have time to stop and sweep them out, that would be great. I also wanted to talk about the local first group. It's made up of local independent business owners, businesses, And some interesting statistics on that is, and I'm not, of course, knocking the big box stores or the chains, but supporting our local businesses is one of the best ways to jumpstart and boost our economy. When you spend $100 at a locally owned independent retailer or store, approximately $68 of that $100 stays in the community versus the chains, et cetera. It's about two to three times more stays in our community. So there's a place for buying both locally and buying in the big box stores. But think about that as you're doing your Christmas shopping, et cetera. Oftentimes they offer unique items and services. So a little plug for our local businesses there. And that's all I have. Thank you very much. Council Member Crosby. Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to make a motion for the installation of a multi-way stop at the intersection of Ridgeview Way and Steel Creek Way. And this has been recommended by the Division of Traffic Engineering. I have a motion with Council Member Crosby, second with Council Member Ellinger. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you. And just with that, I want to thank Officer Doug Smith for attending many neighborhood meetings to help us. This is a whole series of probably things that will be coming to you all over the next couple of months. And Brad Frazier, too, I know he's spread very thin, and he does an excellent job trying to help all of us out. So I just wanted to recognize those two individuals. Thank you. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Mayor. I just have a few announcements. And we're doing the celebrity bell ringing again for the Salvation Army. and many of you have agreed to volunteer and I appreciate that. It's not too late, so if you haven't volunteered and you still want to, there is time. Also, Cardinal Valley Neighborhood Association is having their monthly meeting tonight at Harvest Worship Center at 6.30, and that is potluck, so it should be lots of good food. There's a meeting at Cardinal Valley Park on Wednesday at 6, Pine Meadows Neighborhood Meeting Wednesday at 6.30. And I also want to send congratulations out to Ed Brady, who has been the director of Red Cross Wheels for many years, and he's retiring at the end of the year, and I just want to publicly thank him for his service. I graduated from high school with him. Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, the administration has asked me to make a motion, and this is regarding an agreement we have with the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security. So I move, and it expires December 31st, so needs to be done this week. I move to place on the docket for the December 9, 2010 Council meeting a resolution authorizing the mayor to execute an agreement with the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security for extension of the Metropolitan Medical Response System project through June 30, 2011. I have a motion by Council Member Gorton and a second by Council Member Lane to add that item to the docket. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. Motion carries. Does any other council member wish to make a report? All right. Do you have the mayor's report that's previously been circulated? A motion to approve would be in order? They're here a second. Second. Motion by Council Member Lane. Second by Council Member Blues. Council Member Crosby. Yeah, I just, I don't necessarily have a problem with anybody on the mayor's report, and I don't see Anna here, but I just noticed when I was going through, we got 27 of these Thursday night, and some of them, you know, we said we're going to vet and make sure we look at all the forms, and some forms are filled, some are not completely filled out. Some have references, some don't. And while I know some of these people, and I think they're probably all fine, I just had hoped that maybe if we were going to get this many at one time that there might be some consistency with how it was done, but also making sure that the forms were completely filled out and or we had a resume. Thank you. Any further discussion? All in favor of approving the – Council Member Lawless. I, too, have a problem with this. And, again, it's not personal because I don't know most of them. But, you know, we have asked numerous times to have resumes with them and to know what the board makeup is. And with this many coming at us at one time, there's no way we can vet these properly. And it is the council's job to make sure that the mayor's appointments are approved. And I think we've learned, if nothing else, we've learned over the last year or so how important those appointments really are. And I take that part of the job very seriously. Again, it's absolutely nothing personal, but, you know, 14 of them don't have resumes. And so for that reason, I can't support placing them on the docket. Any further discussion? Council Member Gordon. I just have a question in regard to that comment. Do, and I'm not sure I see Ana here, do you have resumes? for the people, the 14 people who don't have resumes in the packet? I'm taking a quick look through. Not everyone submits a resume if they fill out the application completely. So the resume is not a requirement. Correct. So you're saying some who fill out, don't fill out the complete application have attached their resume or you've asked for their resume? No, they send in their resume and they say see attached. I see. Thank you. So we give them that option. Any further discussion? I have a question since you're down here. Also, is it a requirement that they completely fill out the form if they don't attach a resume? We ask them that they fill it out to the best of their ability. I don't follow up and ask them, for instance, to fill out membership in organizations if they didn't do so. So... Reference? We do like those, yes, unless there's an attached resume with references. Okay. Thank you. Certainly. Council Member Blaine. Yeah. I would just like to say I reviewed the information in here and these seem to be extremely well-qualified people. And I would hate to see all the effort and work that have gone into making these nominations and getting all the information together, making sure that the configuration and the makeup of the board is in accordance with any resolutions and ordinances that affect that. And this would technically be the mayor's last nomination. And I think it should be honored. Thank you. And Council Member Mark. Thank you, Mayor. I was just reading at the bottom of the boards and commissions application. It says complete all sections of the application or attach a current resume. And so we really haven't asked them to do both. I think some actually do that. It's probably through no fault of the individuals. One of the individuals on here, I've asked to be appointed to the Parks and Recreation Board from the 10th District. And they've indicated here they have a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Engineering. and their registered professional engineer and an employee of the Kentucky Division of Water. I mean, I think that gives me a sufficient amount of information about this individual, that they both have an expertise in the area and are qualified. And I think this was – they've been waiting for the formal appointment for quite a while. So I think many of these – I've also reviewed these, and I think these folks are very qualified. Thank you, Mayor. There's no further discussion. We'll vote those in favor. Council Member Lawless. I absolutely respect what you said, Council Member Lane, and I'm not suggesting that, I mean, they can be appointed at the beginning of the year. There aren't any meetings over December. And like I say, I hate to go through this and make it personal, but, you know, we have no idea how many people, how many males, females, what kind of diversity are on any of these boards. And I think that's a really big issue also. So thank you. Any further discussion? All in favor of approving the mayor's report, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. No. Motion carried. All right. Tell you what, let's vote electronically so we can go ahead and have a record. Those in favor of approving the mayor's report, please indicate by voting aye electronically. Those opposed, vote nay. The motion carries by vote of six to four to three, with three abstentions. It takes us down now to public comment. Any member of the public wish to comment on matters not on the agenda? All right. I think we have a closed session now on some pending litigation. Mayor. Is there a motion? I move that we go into closed session pursuant to KRS 61.8101C for the purpose of discussing pending litigation. Do I hear a second? Second. All in favor, please say aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. As Christmas nears, the hustle and bustle of gift shopping increases. Jessica Gies of the Downtown Lexington Corporation tells us how the shopping experience could be made easier and more convenient. I'm Jessica Gies of the Downtown Lexington Corporation, and I'm going to tell you about the fabulous shopping that we have downtown. What separates shopping downtown from shopping in other locations is that you can find unique items that are in specialty stores. We have places where you can customize jewelry. We have places where you can customize candles and baths. We have toy stores. We have music stores. We have everything downtown. Anything that you want. We have a lot of parking. I know parking is a lot of work.