# Council Public Safety and Public Works Committee - March 8, 2011 > Auto-transcribed civic record · March 8, 2011 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/1905 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/1905?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2011-03-08 - **Last revised**: July 17, 2026 - **Length**: 14,032 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Public Safety & Public Works Committee met on March 8, 2011, at 1:00 p.m., with Diane Lawless presiding. The committee addressed five agenda items during the session, including updates on paramedic training and EMS units, a pilot project regarding on-street parking during street cleaning, and progress reports on two road projects: Todds Road Widening Phase 2 and Oliver Lewis Way. The committee took three votes and heard four public comments during the meeting. Most agenda items were presented for informational purposes, with the exception of the on-street parking pilot project, which was deferred for further consideration. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the meeting on March 8, 2011: * Diane Lawless * Steven J. Stack * Council Member Crosby * Council Member Hanson * Vice Mayor Gorton * Council Member Martin * Council Member Myers * Council Member Farmer * Council Member Henson * Council Member Cross * Council Member Ellinger * Council Member McCord * Council Member Feigl * Mr. Curtis * Mr. Grumwald * Officer Keith Gaines * Mr. Means No members were recorded as absent or late. ## Votes and Decisions Three motions were passed during the meeting, all by voice vote with no recorded opposition. **Paramedic Training Presentation Preservation** [timestamp: 01:12:26] Council Member Farmer moved to preserve the one-page paramedic training presentation for ongoing discussion during the budget process. The motion passed by voice vote. **Task Force on Staffing Issues** [timestamp: 01:31:21] Council Member Crosby moved to ask the Vice Mayor to create a task force to study staffing issues. The scope of the task force includes examining the separation of EMT/paramedic roles from firefighters, response times, recruitment, and collective bargaining implications. Council Member Ellinger seconded the motion. The motion passed by voice vote. **Removal of Graffiti Task Force from Committee Agenda** [timestamp: 01:40:49] Council Member Henson moved to remove the graffiti task force from the committee agenda. Council Member McCord seconded the motion. The motion passed by voice vote. ## Public Comment Council members raised several questions and concerns regarding firefighter recruitment, staffing practices, and budget planning. **Recruitment and Diversity** Council Member Myers [timestamp: 01:07:05] suggested expanding firefighter recruitment efforts to local high schools and athletic programs. He noted that this approach could reach a more diverse pool of candidates, as many potential applicants may not attend college. **Bilingual Services** Council Member Henson [timestamp: 01:12:58] inquired about bilingual capabilities within the fire department, asking whether any current firefighters are bilingual. He also asked about previous efforts to provide Spanish language training during the pre-entry phase, noting that such funding had not been sustained in the past. **Shift Scheduling** Council Member Martin [timestamp: 01:04:47] asked Dr. Stack about the advisability of continuing the current 24-hour on/48-hour off shift schedule. Dr. Stack indicated that this schedule is standard practice and that changing it would not be advisable due to the complexity involved and potential professional dissatisfaction among staff. **Budget Planning and Paramedic Services** Council Member Crosby [timestamp: 01:08:13] asked the administration whether they plan to present options during the budget process to address paramedic training and staffing needs. He emphasized the urgency of this matter given upcoming collective bargaining negotiations. ## Contested Items The meeting featured two significant areas of disagreement among committee members. **Separation of EMT/Paramedic Roles from Firefighters** A substantial debate centered on whether paramedics should be required to hold firefighter certifications. The committee was divided on this issue, resulting in a split vote. Proponents of separating these roles argued that removing the firefighter requirement could help address ongoing staffing shortages and ultimately save lives. Conversely, other members contended that maintaining the dual-role system was essential for operational effectiveness and crew safety. The disagreement reflected differing priorities regarding workforce structure and emergency response capabilities. **Paramedic Training Funding and Urgency** The committee engaged in a heated discussion regarding paramedic training and its funding. A critical concern was the five-year gap that had occurred in paramedic training programs. Multiple speakers warned that this gap represented a life safety crisis and was contributing to workforce burnout among existing personnel. While committee members acknowledged the significant cost of conducting a training class—approximately $400,000—there was strong emphasis on the urgency of addressing this issue despite existing budget constraints. The discussion reflected tension between fiscal responsibility and the immediate need to develop adequate paramedic capacity. ## Paramedic Training & Supply and EMS EC Units in Service Dr. Steven J. Stack presented concerns from the Emergency Medical Advisory Board regarding paramedic training and EMS unit capacity [timestamp: 00:14:45]. **Key Issues Presented:** - No paramedic training has been conducted since 2009, creating workforce shortages and contributing to employee burnout - All nine currently operational EMS units exceed the standard 3,000-run benchmark annually, with some units handling over 4,000 runs per year - A 10th ambulance was purchased in 2006 but remains unstaffed due to lack of funded personnel positions **Concerns Raised:** Dr. Stack emphasized the operational strain on existing EMS units and the need to address the paramedic workforce gap. The absence of training for several years has created staffing challenges that are affecting service delivery and employee sustainability. **Committee Discussion:** The committee discussed the necessity of implementing paramedic training in 2012 and the importance of staffing the 10th ambulance unit that has been available since 2006 but remains inactive due to budget constraints. **Outcome:** This item was presented as informational, with the committee acknowledging the need for immediate action on paramedic training and the staffing of the additional ambulance unit to address capacity and workforce concerns. ## On Street Parking During Street Cleaning (Pilot Project) [timestamp: 01:36:26] The committee discussed a pilot project to implement no-parking zones during street cleaning operations on specific streets in the third district. **Project Overview** The pilot project aims to establish designated no-parking periods while street cleaning takes place on selected streets within the third district. The initiative would use signage and door hangers as the primary methods to notify residents of the new parking restrictions. **Project Status** The project experienced delays due to weather conditions but is scheduled to resume during the University of Kentucky's spring break period. **Key Participants** Officer Keith Gaines and Mr. Means were the primary speakers on this agenda item. **Committee Decision** Rather than conducting a full discussion of the pilot project at this meeting, the committee agreed to send the information to the third district for their review and consideration. This approach deferred further detailed discussion to a later time. ## Todds Rd Widening Phase 2 Update Mr. Grumwald provided an update on the design phase of the Todds Road widening project, which is currently 60% complete [timestamp: 01:33:06]. **Project Team and Review Process** The project review team overseeing this work includes the project engineer, engineering section manager, Director of Engineering, and input from KTC. **Project Status** The design phase remains in progress with a change order currently pending. **Concerns Raised** The committee identified concerns regarding the aging tunnel located under the road. These concerns encompassed both safety issues and pedestrian access considerations related to the existing tunnel structure. **Committee Request** In response to the tunnel concerns, the committee requested that the engineering team investigate the possibility of including a tunnel study as part of a future change order to the project. **Outcome** This item was presented as an informational update to the committee. ## Oliver Lewis Way Update [timestamp: 01:37:01] Mr. Grumwald provided an update on the Oliver Lewis Way project, reporting on progress across multiple phases. **Phase 4 Progress** Utility companies are currently burying cables as part of Phase 4 work, with completion expected in mid to late summer. R.J. Corman is working on the underpass component of the project. The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet is addressing punch list items. **Phase 2 Funding** The committee is actively seeking funding for Phase 2 property acquisition. A supplemental agreement has been submitted to support this phase of the project. **Community Land Trust** The Community Land Trust continues to search for an executive director to fill this key leadership position. The update was presented as informational, with no debate or specific concerns noted during this portion of the meeting. ## Items Referred to Committee [timestamp: 01:40:49] The council discussed the status of several items that had been referred to committee. Council Member Henson and Council Member Crosby participated in this discussion. **Graffiti Task Force** The committee considered removing the graffiti task force from the agenda due to lack of activity. **Emergency Snow Plan** The council noted that the emergency snow plan was currently listed in two different committees. A motion was made to combine these items into a single committee assignment, though no final action was taken on this proposal. **Itinerant Merchant Task Force** The council indicated that the itinerant merchant task force would be brought back to the agenda once it had completed its work. The outcome of this agenda item was informational in nature. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed: Motion to preserve the one-page paramedic training presentation for ongoing discussion during the budget process - **Motion** — passed: Motion to ask the Vice Mayor to create a task force to study staffing issues, including separation of EMT/paramedic roles from firefighters, response times, recruitment, and collective bargaining implications - **Motion** — passed: Motion to remove the graffiti task force from the committee agenda --- ## Full transcript Music I took a look down westbound road, right away I made my chore. Headed out to my big two-wheeler, I was tired of my own boy. Took a beat on the northern plains and just roll that power on Twelve hours out of Mackinac City stopped at the bar to have a brew Met a girl and we had a few drinks and I told her what I decided to do She looked out the window a long, long moment Then she looked into my eyes She didn't ever say a thing I knew what she was thinking Roll, roll me away, won't you roll me away I too am lost, I feel double-crossed I'm sick of what's wrong and what's right We never even said a word We just walked out and got on that bank And we rolled And we rolled clean out of sight I rolled across the high plains Deep into the mountains Felt so good to me Finally feeling free Somewhere along a high road The air began to turn cold She said she missed her home I had it all along Oh Still on a mountaintop Staring out at the great divide I could go east I could go west It was all up to me to decide Just then I saw a young hawk Flying and my soul Began to rise And pretty soon My heart was singing Roll, roll me away I wanna roll me away tonight Gotta keep rolling Gotta keep riding Keep searching till I find what's right And as the sunset faded I spoke to the latest first starlight I said next time Next time we'll get it right. Run away. Run away. Come on! We're all going to be away! Thank you. I love you. Thank you. guitar solo guitar solo guitar solo guitar solo guitar solo Thank you. We have a quorum, so I'd like to get the meeting started. This is the first public safety and public works committee meeting with our new committee structure. And first on the agenda is, do you want to take roll? Okay. Dr. Stack, I believe, has a presentation for us on paramedic training. Hello, Councilor Lawless, and thank you. It's a privilege to be your first agenda item at your first committee meeting. Thank you. Thank you very much. Particularly in light of the events of the last week or so on this particular topic. So I've got three items I just want to review for you. The first was just to share with you, because Dr. Richardson, who's the medical director for EMS, may have been here before, but I've been on this committee for a little over four years, and I'm not aware that as a committee we sought time in front of the Public Safety and Public Welfare Committee before, and so this is the first time we've chosen to do this. So I thought I'd share with you that we are, in fact, a chartered committee in statute. We serve with the chairperson is the commissioner of public health, and we meet quarterly. There are physician representatives and other representatives from the various hospitals in the community, and we get together at the very highest level to provide oversight for the medical direction and control of EMS services within the fire department. We do not specifically get into detailed budgetary issues or human resource issues or things of that nature. So I have two major issues to bring to your attention, and they are, for good or for bad, particularly timely given the events of the last couple weeks. The City of Lexington has trained paramedics, to the best of my knowledge, every year since 1977. So we've got over 30 years of uninterrupted paramedic training. For the past three years, for the calendar years, 2009, 10, and 11, we have not trained any paramedics. And what this has done is created for us a situation where we have senior members of the fire department who are not able to elevate up through the normal progression in their career, and we have junior members over the last three years who have been hired on who have not been trained as paramedics. This creates some problems. The ambulance crews are by far and away the busiest units in that department. They're out on the road the most, and they are in service quite a bit. And so they tend to have people who serve a period of five years or over five years in those and then go on and serve on the engine units and the other areas of the fire department, of course, being able to come back and fill shifts in those ambulances as needed. But that progression has been interrupted and halted for a number of years. I also have a number of new recruits who, as part of their career development, it is typical and normal for large municipalities to train their paramedics, and that's an important part of the investment in them as professionals in their career development, and that's been interrupted. Because of the budget cycle, even if you were to budget for a class for 2012, we would not, and it takes about a year to train them. They do rotations in the hospitals, in emergency departments, learning how to start IVs and do procedures, and anesthesia in the OR, learning how to intubate patients. Even if we fund for next year, it will be four years before we have online a new class of paramedics because it will be the end of 2013, or I'm sorry, 2012 before they're online. So we didn't train in 2009, 2010, or this year, and it takes about a year to train. So if the new fiscal year is starting July 1, there was funding, it takes about a year to train. We would be to next summer or beyond before that class was ready to go into service as paramedics. If we don't fund for 2012, now we're five years behind. we really do start to run into a very potentially, I don't want to say danger, and I don't want to use an inflammatory language, but a potentially very worrisome situation where we could run the risk of having inadequate workforce for our needs in addition to the other disruptions to the progression of the junior and senior members of the fire department. So that's issue number one, and I know you have a lot of difficult budgetary issues to address. I'm grateful that you're in your positions there to do this on behalf of the community, but we really need to find a way to train a new class of paramedics as soon as possible. And we think as soon as possible defines 2012 budget year. We know you're going to have a lot of issues to face and deal with. So we bring that to your attention. The second issue, and there's some graphs on the back, and I'm not going to great detail on all of that, but I want to draw some attention to it. We have nine ambulances in full-time service to the community. And historically, the community has felt that when we exceed about 3,000 runs per ambulance per year, it's time to add another ambulance in service to the community. The reason for that is that we use as a metric time from call to scene less than eight minutes as a target. Eight minutes may or may not seem like a lot, depending on your perspective. Brain death occurs in four minutes without oxygen. So for things like acute cardiac arrest and so a lot of the public sensation about having automatic external defibrillators on walls and airports and restaurants is the most meaningful determinant to survival is time to electricity if you have a sudden cardiac arrest that is responsive to electricity. There are also a number of other conditions where if you have properly trained paramedics with the right equipment and they reach you in time, it can mean the difference between a good outcome or a bad outcome, and in an extreme case, of course, life versus death. So that time to scene of less than eight minutes is a pretty broadly used metric, as far as I'm aware, in other communities. We have begun to fall off from hitting that. So it was 90% less than eight minutes was the target. And if you look at those graphs on the back, and my apologies, I generally put the y-axis at zero because I'm not intending to try to make the problem look bigger than it is. So if you just look at the trend as opposed to the magnitude of the trend, we knew in 2006 when our runs per unit were approaching 3,000, we were probably in danger of falling off in that metric. And, in fact, if you look up at the above, in 2007, 8, 9, 10, we had continued increase in our volume, and that corresponded with us beginning to fall beneath our target in 2008 where we only hit 88 percent of the time on scene in less than eight minutes. And now it's fallen to 87 percent in 2010. The concern is as that growth goes up at some point, the fall begins to be a little more precipitous because you have ambulances tied up on scene and more calls that go unmet in the time you need to. So that performance could deteriorate further in the coming years if we don't address the need for more supply in the workforce. So in order to address this, in about 2006, if I recall correctly, funding was provided to buy a 10th ambulance, And that ambulance was purchased. And it's actually being used now, but there was not sufficient funding for the human resource needs to staff that ambulance. And so we are still running nine ambulance units, not ten, even though the vehicle was purchased and is in use. So essentially an older vehicle was retired or not used as often. And what we need in the very near future, and I would describe this as in the coming couple years probably, to really find a way to get to that tenth unit. And the reason being, if you look at my little summary on the bottom of page one, our ambulance units average over 3,000 runs per year. Our target is 3,000. There is a difference between this and the chart on the other side where it says that the ambulance runs are about 3,400 because that did not include all the additional runs they go out with the engine and ladder companies to respond to fires in case there's a need. So I put in my summary figures on the front the total number of runs that these ambulances are responding to. So we're over 3,800 runs per year. And every single one of the units, the one that's the least busy, still exceeds 3,270 runs per year, which is over our metric. So the slowest ambulance in the city is still doing more than we target as being our ideal maximum. And what this does is it burns out the crews because the EMS crews, I mean, they work 24-hour shifts. They're on the road over eight hours a day. Some of them are probably over 10 hours a day. There's insufficient downtime between runs. It provides for stress, for burnout, potentially safety implications down the road. So the second item brought to your attention is the need to find a way to staff that 10th ambulance and get that in service and on the road. And these are in the order they're presented for a reason. Realizing you're going to have difficult budgetary discussions this year, if you can do any of them and you had to pick one, We think the first one is we've got to have paramedic class this year in order to get our workforce where it needs to be. And then the next one, if it had to be in a subsequent year, would be to get that 10th ambulance on the road. So I hope that provides some degree of overview. And I should have introduced myself. So, again, I'm Stephen Stack. I'm an emergency physician at St. Joseph East, and I was the director of the emergency department there for the previous four years. And I've been a member of this committee for a little over four years. And I'm here at the request of the committee representing these concerns to you. So I hope that's helpful, and I think I have a few more minutes if there's questions. I think I've got six minutes left. Yes, sir. Thank you very much. Council Member Crosby. Thank you, Chair Lawless, and also thank you, Dr. Stack. We appreciate you being here today, and we know you're very busy. And I'll just mention to Council Members, these physicians serve on this board voluntarily, and I know that Dr. Richardson has been chair of this board, or medical director of this board, for years now. And one thing I know that we've learned in our links, I'm sure Jay will recall this, that oftentimes in cities this position especially is paid, and paid quite handsomely. So we appreciate Dr. Richardson for volunteering his time to us, and that is truly a savings for us as a government. So thank you, Dr. Richardson and Dr. Stack. I just wanted to – I'm not sure – you mentioned that this is your first time before this body, and so I'm not sure what gets relayed back to you. But I know that there are a few of us in here who have served on the budget link for public safety. And when we had discussions with the fire department about removing the paramedic training to try and get some firefighters on a little quicker, it was our understanding, I think, two things. One, that we were going to look for people who had experience from other communities to be hired. and then, two, that the people who were hired on and could get through the firefighter training a little quicker could then on a voluntary basis do paramedic training. And I think what I'm hearing is that's not happened, that there's not been anybody volunteered to do any type of training. Well, I know that no paramedics have been trained in the previous three years. As far as the reasons for that or the previous discussions you referenced, those are not things we have discussed at the Emergency Medical Advisory Board. And then second, I just wanted to make this body aware that the vehicle, we purchased the vehicle, the EC10 unit in 2006. As I recall, and actually I started trying to do some research on this last week. I haven't gotten too far with it because we had trouble finding on our old boats EC10 in our search. But we approved the vehicle because we were using two vehicles that had kind of been one way. They were both used, and they had been put together. And the purpose of having to buy a new EC10 unit was because we were told that this unit was just not functioning properly. As I also recall, we had approved staffing for EC10, but we didn't have the vehicle. So there was like a pool. So I'm trying to go through and find that information. But I believe that we have voted to staff that unit at some point, and those people have been put elsewhere. So we'll look into that as well. And to that point, and I think these are very important, it's not a little bit ironic how the world changes. When my friend and colleague at Central Baptist volunteered me to come present to you, little did I know how much the world would change between now and then in my little world, since when I go to my next meeting I'll have a new chair of my committee and a new chief. But these level of details are really important. I guess from the physician members and the other leaders from the hospitals who serve on this committee, I think now, if not before, this is a particularly good time to look into how this can be done and what the real history is if there's a difference from what I've represented because to the best of my ability, I've represented what I can recall over the last four years. Yeah, and I don't think you have represented anything that you have not been told. I think oftentimes, too, when we're voting on several different things, and sometimes we have to go back through tapes and public meetings to actually listen to the discussion we had as it revolves to approving an EC-10 unit and then the personnel that we may have approved that followed that maybe within our process, we didn't say we were hiring them for the EC10, but when we had the discussion on EC10, we were told we would have to hire so many people, and then we'd see it come up the following week on a docket. So that would be something you would have no idea and something we have to kind of do a little homework on. But we really appreciate you all and the time that you give to this body, and thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Hanson. Thank you, Chair. You mentioned if we hire firefighters and they already have the credentials needed to be a paramedic, does that, I mean, like this last recruit class? So I'm going to go a little off the reservation, but I know I've got Chief Gribbon and Dr. Richardson behind me to correct me. If we were to hire someone who already has the training and is already licensed as a paramedic in the state, then there wouldn't be the need to train them that same way. There may be other training we have to do to bring them on the force. The last class that we just graduated of 20, 25 members, they were hired either all as EMTs or paramedics. So we did try to supplement our paramedic force through giving extra credit through the workforce throughout Kentucky to find some paramedics. One of the problems that we had with hiring, if you remember, is that the paramedic EMT workforce throughout Kentucky is not very diverse, and it ended up not being a very diverse class. so how many trained paramedics were in this last class the of the 25 that we had in the class all of them were at least EMTs which cut off three weeks of training and of those there was an additional I think it was 12 that were paramedics Okay. So, and is the training pretty the same across the board for county to county? Yes, ma'am. There's a national standard throughout the nation that everyone has to reach. Okay. So, but then again, would that cost us more problems with our overtime? If we hired the paramedics? If you put the current recruits on the ambulance, then you would be short firefighters, correct? Well, if we put those guys on the ambulances, the guys that are on the ambulances will be moving into firefighter roles. So it's really a wash that way. But, yeah, they will be going to, as soon as their probationary periods up, they will be going to ambulances. So do you have enough paramedics for without the class? We desperately need a class, but we need to continually rotate the people coming in. So if we don't have any classes that we can teach, then we're not rotating that class or rotating those medics. Because of burnout? Correct. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Vice Mayor Gorton. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I appreciate your having this presentation in your committee. I'm not a member of this committee, but I am serving on the EMAB, and I think that, well, first I thank Dr. Stack and Dr. Richardson for being here and for giving us some education on this. if I think that in the, I don't know what we call this, the EMAB packet, the highlighting of your concerns is pretty well established. If, for example, we can go to zip codes and see how long it took on average or median it took the EC units to get to specific hospitals. So each of us can look in our zip code area and see the number of runs and how that all plays out. I think that the main concern I have is the response time of, you know, getting qualified paramedics to a patient who's called 911 and how that response time may continue to go up. And, of course, we know our money situation, And I think that in our last EMAB meeting, it was said that a class of 20 paramedics would cost about $400,000. Do you remember that number, Chief? So it is expensive to do that. And so I'm happy that 12 of our most recent recruit graduates were paramedic trained. And I think I heard you say, did I not, that they get basically the same training throughout the state. Is that correct? So would it be helpful to consider whether, and I may be, I'll ask both of you, one physician, one from the fire, Would it be helpful for the council to consider that as something to be put into ordinance that is required? I mean, I wouldn't want to do anything to tie our hands to get recruits, but do we need to be sure they're all either paramedic or EMT trained in the future? I'll give the short answer and let Mike fill in the rest. I suspect that you're going to find that there's just not enough people out there that you could hire in with those credentials, certainly with the paramedic credentials. So we might hurt ourselves in the long run in terms of getting recruits. Well, I think you just won't find enough people in the available pool who have that credential when they come to you for a job. The last ordinance, our last hiring ordinance, we did have preference points for EMT and for paramedic in there, hopefully to raise some of those folks up in the hiring process. Again, the hiring preference points worked in the way that we thought, just the diversity of the pool didn't work out. So rather than requiring it, the preference points might take care of a portion of it. Will that be in every ordinance, or is that up to us? That's up to you. Okay. Well, I like it. I think it worked for that part. It didn't help the diversity, but it did help us get some trained paramedics, it sounds like. Right. So thank you very much for being here and for helping educate us. Thank you. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Chair. Dr. Stack, thank you for being here. You're welcome. My father was a chairman of the Department of the U.K. Med School for years, and my sister is a physician, so I'm very sympathetic and I appreciate you taking time to be here. Are the paramedics in our department, are they on our public safety pension? Ah, that's a good question for the Chief. So they are on our pension? Yes, sir. They're all firefighter paramedics. So the inability to hire somebody who might be working in Louisville and Owensboro is because they don't have a pension that's compatible with ours. Is that a fair statement? I wouldn't – I mean, we've hired people from all over the state, so I don't think that's been a deterrent. It has not. So have we tried to hire folks to fill any vacancies that we currently have? Yeah, we – I mean, we just hired 25 in our current recruit class. That's a recruit class, but I'm talking about folks who are actually out and have experience in other cities. The paramedics that we did have in that class, they were experienced medics in other cities. So we don't accept credentials from Louisville? Sure. I think we even had somebody from Louisville. But you make them go through our own class. Correct. Well, they go through our fire training. And how long is that? We don't have a single. We're actually getting dual role. We don't have a single role like medic or EMT. You're getting basically two jobs for the price of one. You're getting firefighter and medic for the price of one. So we just can't hire somebody in. We have to put them through new training. Correct. There is no nationally recognized training for firefighters. There are several different ones. There's IFSAC training. There's the other one. I can't remember the other one right offhand. But there's no, like, cross-border certification or licensure for firefighter. There is a cross-border for medics and EMTs. It's called national registry. Dr. Stack, are you familiar with, I guess, with best practices with EMS departments and things like that, as far as national practices? To a certain extent, Dr. Richardson, who's here, would probably be more aware of some of that. Is that a follow-up presentation, or is Dr. Richardson the – Well, no, I don't think we had a – see, just to the point you just asked the chief, it's customary even in hospitals when you have nurses who come in whose licensure is standardized. You know, you're licensed to be a nurse in Kentucky. You can be a nurse anywhere. Even when you bring those folks into a hospital, they have a three-month probationary period and onboarding and certain educational requirements. I think for the firefighters, they go through a comparable thing to bring them into the policies and procedures of the department. So the issue is not about the firefighter workforce. It's specifically about the paramedic workforce where there is a smaller supply and there is standardization but only so many people out there to be had to hire. As far as best practices, I know that we do a couple things. We maintain three officers per unit, then other communities use two. Is that correct? Some communities use two and some use three, yes. Do you know what percentage you use each? Any idea? I don't know the percentage. I know that there are more who use two than who use three. Some of the reasons for us using three in Lexington have to do with the quality and the safety, first of all. Second of all, there are other issues. When you bring a crew to a scene and you're bringing materials in and out of the room, it's just demonstrably a better quality service when you have the three folks, the individual who can drive and fetch materials and the other two who can care for the patient. The other issue, I wouldn't raise this to the highest level, but it's a consideration. When we work in the emergency department to take care of patients, certain things we always have chaperones present for when we do certain procedures and for our own protection, for the protection of the individual, and then also for liability concerns. And so in this instance, when you're driving in the back of an ambulance providing medical care to a patient and the other person's in the front driving, this provides for two clinical caregivers with that patient at all times. So there are some other real benefits that go with that. The final point would be these units are often or frequently the first unit to the scene, even for a fire response. And those three members then can do rescue missions and begin the ground fire support, and then they roll into the larger fire response units that are there. And so I think this city has felt that it is a level of service commensurate with what we've sought to provide. So you are correct to draw a distinction between the two. I can't give you concrete, specific statistics. In some of the conversations last week, Chief and I were talking about the first response to the scene, and many times we have two separate units that go to the scene because there's always a first, you know, there's a closest to the scene aspect to it. Are you familiar with practices from other communities and how our rules may differ from other communities? No, I'm not. As far as how we dispatch and how the 911 service dispatches the available units, I think you generally want to get the unit quickest to the scene you can, and that may mean sometimes dispatching two available and the other one peels off when a unit's already on scene. Again, this goes back to our first responder program where we want to get help to the person as quick as we can. So many times it may be the engine company from that district or a ladder or even a district major that may be out in that area. We employ a thing called the AVL, Advanced Vehicle Locator, which plots down to the feet. It can pick out which unit is closest and will dispatch that unit. If it's not a transport unit, such as someone was having a heart attack, That would automatically get a first response unit. The one that would get there closest, they could start interventions immediately. And the transport unit could come along when it could get there. Do I have time for one? I don't see a clock running, so I don't know how long I'm gone. I didn't set the clock, but we have a couple people waiting. Can I ask one more question? Sure. One more short question. To what extent – oh, hello. I'm sorry. I wanted to address one point. We have long held that three as opposed to two in the back of the ambulance is of paramount importance. There is literature to support that. You can imagine in the setting where you're doing CPR and also trying to ventilate the patient, and you've got another fellow in the front driving the vehicle. If you've got a crew of two, you've got a driver, and you've got one person to do everything else. In other cities that use only two in the setting of CPR, they have to cannibalize a crew member off of another unit, and then that unit has to follow the first ambulance to the hospital. So you've, in essence, tied up not one but two units for a single emergency. There was a great study that was done in South Carolina in 2004, I believe, that addresses this exact issue. And they went to two, and they currently are running three. It just doesn't work. Well, on a couple occasions, and I'm trying to understand how often this happens, I've been at places where I've seen two units show up at the same time, and all six people go inside. and so it's basically six people working the scene instead of three or two. And so try to understand we're limited, we need folks try to understand how we can hire folks quicker and how we can better allocate our resources. And as to two units on a scene as opposed to one Chief will have to address that I'm not prepared to answer that. But in terms of one versus two versus three paramedics on a given unit I will be very vocal about that. Thank you. I'll come back. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Madam Chair, for recognizing me while I'm not a part of the committee. And I'll try to be brief. That's going to be difficult for me, but thank you, Dr. Stack, for coming in, Dr. Richardson and Chief. A few questions, listening to the conversation that we've had. Because we just brought in 12 firefighters that have the paramedic training, Is it safe to say or are there any conversations around whether or not we can limit that class of 20 down to 8 and look at the reduced cost of that and then see if we can fit that into the budget instead of trying to do a class of 20? Right. Now, so these are absolutely the necessary follow-up questions, the kind of things that I would envision whatever components of city council discuss with the public safety commissioner and the chief's kind of offline as far as the details because it requires, like Councilor Crosby mentioned, a much more detailed understanding of the budget. I just note that generally we train 20 a year in recent history and have gone three years training none. So that's 60 fewer than we would have typically had, and we've got 15 back in the last class. So you've got 45 plus next year is 20 add to that. So I'm not sure that it would actually be sufficient, particularly since we've raised the other concern about needing to try to find a way to get that 10th EC unit in service. Therefore, we need even a little bit more of a paramedic workforce. So that's going to probably take more level of specificity than we could provide in this particular venue. Okay. When we have the conversation about two versus three, I'm going to see if we can't get a copy of that study from South Carolina from 2004. But also what I'd love to know is whether or not, at least in Kentucky, the stations or the departments that use two, if they're volunteer as opposed to full-time, and if they're part-time as opposed to full-time. And maybe that's one reason why they use two instead of three. So we make sure we're comparing apples to apples. And then also, I guess if we go back to, I understand the performance points or the preference points for bringing on firefighters that either have an EMT or a paramedic background. But the diversity is an issue that this community has as important as well. So I guess what I would ask is, are there ways that we can strengthen our pool of applicants that are minorities and women and provide that training up front for them in a way that makes them equal candidates? Because one thing that troubles me is that when we hear the conversations in the newspaper and the like about making sure we get the most qualified person, What I would love to see is if we separate out those who come in with EMT or paramedic training from those who don't, fighters down the road are the ones that came in with that training a better firefighter. Because it's not exactly, and you haven't said this, I know that no one in this room said it, but when we have this conversation, it's not, I don't think, fair or accurate to say that we're picking a better person or a better qualified person if they have that training, because this other person can be hired on and receive that training and be just as qualified and just a good firefighter down the road. So I think that this community does want to look at diversity as a factor. So the question becomes, how do we bring that into this mix? And I'm not sure if it's that, you know, we try to go out and find some grant money and we get a pool of candidates that are minority and women that can pass the agility test and the written exam, and then if we elongate our recruiting process to be all year, and maybe we can bring some folks in, get them through those first two hurdles, and then get them into that training process so that by the time we're ready to hire, they're either almost through their paramedic training and they can get those performance points or they're already through it. So I guess in closing, I know those are things really just for conversation. I know you may not have anything to add to that, But what I would ask is if we could have the vice mayor put into this committee a discussion around the hiring ordinance criteria and process for bringing on new firefighters, and maybe we can have that conversation. So I don't know if you have anything you'd like to add to that. Only to that point that I think Joe would agree with me, that the community should feel very well served by the caliber of the individuals who are serving us as paramedics and firefighters. And so as the recipients of the patients that they care for, I think as far as their caliber and their competency, we should be very pleased. As far as the diversity in the recruiting, that's a substantial issue and very important. And I read the Herald-Leader more in the last week than I have in the previous year, I think, knowing I was going to be here today. And so clearly there are issues of concern surrounding diversity, And I think that that's probably a discussion that's both very important, also a little off the topic for these particular two things today, which really just have to do with paramedics and getting that 10th unit on the road. Sure. If I could add one thing, and this is a question too. In the Herald-Leader, there was an article that someone wrote in, and they talked about separating out in their community the EMTs so that they're non-sworn from the paramedics and the firefighters. I don't know the difference between a paramedic training and an EMT training. Obviously, a paramedic is higher training. But is that something that even if we – is there a way to split this out so that that helps us as well? And that's all right. Thank you. Chair. I think it kind of goes back to what I was talking with Councilman Martin about. Basically, in our system, you're getting a two-dual-role person. If you go to all non-sworn EMTs, paramedics, basically you would be hiring an additional workforce. So the bottom line probably would be you should be hiring twice for the one job. If I could ask one follow-up, though, if that happened, though, would that be a different level of benefits and salary that may make that an attractive option, or is that there's not much opportunity there either? I'm not real sure how you would structure it. I'm sure there would be some. It would probably be outside, I would assume it would be outside the collective bargaining agreement. But then there are some provisions in there about contracting out services. I don't know if they would consider that as a contracting out of that service or reducing the role of the firefighter medic. Thank you. Thank you. Because I think Dr. Stack and Dr. Richardson have a meeting that they have to get to. Is that? No, but I can conveniently have a meeting to get to because I know you have other things you need to do. Okay. But let me share one little thing. This committee also gets together, and we've talked about WEG planning, Rolex planning, other community things. So, you know, it is hopefully a resource to the community, and we meet quarterly. If there are issues we can be helpful with, we're happy to do so. Many of these issues you will face are very clearly issues far more in the weeds than are appropriate for us to deal with. Council Member Henson, and then I also have a question I'd like to. Thank you. I fail to thank you all for being here when I asked the questions earlier, and I appreciate your work very much. and your volunteers, I take it, so that makes it even more appreciative for our city. But I wanted to ask, I guess, Chief Gribbons, is it Gribbons? Yes, ma'am. To have the ideal response time, because I agree with Council Member Gordon about, or Vice Mayor Gorton about, you know, we want those response times as low as possible, and they're not where we need them to be, correct? Correct. How many EC units would you think in normal circumstances would we need in order to meet? I guess it's hard to define what you would think of as normal circumstances. Right now we have the nine that run on days that we are using more than that. We have units that we're calling surge units where we take a fire company out of service and put them in an ambulance and make them an ambulance. We've long held the 3,000 per unit per year or 3,000 runs per unit per year has been the benchmark where we needed to start looking for another unit or putting another one on. As Dr. Stack pointed out, all of our units are exceeding that now. We actually have two units that are doing over 4,000 runs per year. So easily we could make the case for 10 ECs, probably pushing 11 ECs by now. And Councilman Crosby left, but I think if she looks back in FY07, she'll see where the authorization for EC10 was put in that budget. and also the personnel, although the personnel were never funded. I think they got authorized, but they were never funded. What's the oldest unit you've got? Right now the oldest one, well, the oldest front line or just the oldest truck we have? The oldest ambulance. The oldest one is probably 12 years old now, I think. Yeah. So I think this is very serious. It's something we really need to seriously look at to see if we can't get those times, get what we need in the budget. It almost sounds to me like we have the man hours or personnel to man the buggies, but we need the buggy, correct? Well, we actually have some reserve trucks that we could put into service right now if we had the manpower. The man fire is what is really hurting. But with your new recruit class? Those were replacements for people that were already there. Okay. It wasn't any expansion in the authorized strength. It was just people that had retired and were replacing them. Do you ever have a firefighter that wants to go back on the ambulance? Yes, ma'am. We've had some here just last month, I think, that went back on. Good. And are there still problems with folks calling for unnecessary calls? We make a large variety of runs, and our position has always been that it's an emergency to them, so we want to treat it like an emergency. Right, exactly. And I'm not sure what the answer to that would be, but I've worked with enough folks through my other employment that I know that that can be a particular problem. I guess some folks just want to get out of the cold or different reasons. All varieties. And a couple other things I wanted to say that I do support having the three men on a unit, and I have had actually relatives that were paramedics on a unit, and sometimes not only just trying to render care to someone, but if you have an extremely large person, it could endanger the paramedics trying to lift them into the buggy and things like that. So I truly support the three men on a unit. And with the diversity thing, I was just curious, who does the recruiting? We recruit, you know, we send out ads in the paper. I believe we had an ad in some of the national trade magazines this year. I'm not positive on that one. I know they've been on a couple of the websites and that kind of stuff. Usually when we're hiring, the word gets out pretty fast throughout the state that we're hiring. I mean, even in this group of 25 that we just hired, we had applicants probably from all over the country. One of the gentlemen we hired was from California. So it gets out there. Okay. Okay. I was just curious about reaching out to minorities, and what about veterans? Veterans do get preference points also. Okay. So they are included. But I just wasn't sure if the recruiting was coming from our HR department or the fire department itself. I think it's a combination. HR, as I understand it, and I'm not really involved in this part of it, HR does the ad purchases. They ask us where we would like to target or whatever is my understanding, and then they reach out and do the ad purchases and the legal notification. I think there's got to be a legal notification in the paper and that kind of stuff. Yeah, I agree with Council Member Myers that maybe that's something we should look into. Do you have a comment? Thank you, Council Member Henson. It's my time. I'm sorry. It's okay. Thank you. Do you want to go on and answer? I would just like to briefly state that in the past few weeks, I've had conversations with folks at the Division of Fire about minority recruiting. I have been told that at one point within the past few years, there was a concentrated effort to visit some of the HVACs in the region, Kentucky State, Tennessee State, and a few other universities to try and recruit minorities. and the efforts have been there. I think that this is something that is prominent on my mind that will be addressed in the very near future. You can, if it would be all right, I have a question and you can come back since you've spoken twice. Thank you. Are all firefighters, by the time they finish their training, also paramedics? No, ma'am. We train them to be EMTs in recruit class while they're out there. They come out of pre-entry as EMTs. At that point, what we've gone back to now, at one time we were trying to get them to be paramedics before they got out of training. We found that took like 44 weeks to get that done that way, which caused us to have overtime issues in other areas. What we've gone back to now is to have them become EMTs when they're out of preentry, where then we would like to do a voluntary class, anybody that was interested in going to class, not forcing any of them to go, but if they are interested in going and becoming paramedics, we would have them go. But again, we would have to pay for them, and that would be on overtime. But the thing about it, those folks is it's usually the junior folks that are at a lower pay grade than the other ones that we would be backfilling if we were having them all be paramedics before they got out of preentry. Are all paramedics firefighters? Yes, ma'am. And is that an industry standard? Is there the potential that we could hire people who wanted to be paramedics but not necessarily firefighters? You know, throughout the country you'll find all different varieties of that in our system. We do the dual role firefighter-paramedic. You certainly could always create another position of paramedic only. create some other classification, pay scale, that kind of thing. I mean, it seems to me that if we're low on paramedics and you have to be a firefighter to be a paramedic, we're kind of shooting ourselves in the foot by not looking at getting people that are paramedics that maybe don't want to be firefighters. Right. So I think that's something that would be very important to look at. The other question I have, and I also support the three-person on a buggy, but possibly the person driving wouldn't have to be both a paramedic and firefighter. I mean, you know. Right. If you remember from our CAL session a week and a half ago, our standard staffing for those are two medics and an EMT, so the EMT would be the driver. But he'd also be a firefighter. Correct. So that seems to me an unnecessary requirement for someone driving. And when we're talking about both funding issues and a lack of personnel to drive the buggy, it's time, I think, for us to think outside the box. The other thing, another question I had, and I'm a strong advocate for quick response times and have personally known what happens when that doesn't happen. So one of the things that a program that they've done in other cities that seems to have been extremely successful as far as response times is if someone calls with something like chest pain, they have motorcycle paramedics that have the... Defibrillator. Yeah, thank you. I know how to use one, but I've been trained to use one. And the expense is a lot less, but they get there a lot quicker. And can we look at some of those kinds of options? And, again, do they have to be firefighters? Could we have paramedics that respond quickly while the ambulance is getting there? One of the things that I suggested at the last EMAB meeting, the most important number in emergency medicine is time to electricity. I'm sorry, is timed electricity. And one of the ways around that with defibrillators that have come down dramatically in price would be not only to have a defibrillator on all of the EC units, but to have a defibrillator in the trunk of every policeman. Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you very much. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Chair. Dr. Stack, you made a comment about the 24-hour on and 48-hour off system. Do you have any comments about whether that's advisable to continue that, whether for either the EMTs or the broader segment? Yeah, so I have some position of expertise, I guess, as a scheduler for emergency doctors for the last eight years. I think it is pretty much the norm across the country that they do 24-hour shifts. I think that's pretty standard. And I think that, well, I know that when you go from 24-hour shifts to 12-hour shifts, the complexity of the scheduling goes up substantially as far as getting, because you have to have, instead of having three rotations, you've got to have six rotations in a three-day period, and it makes a lot of other complexity. Not that there aren't benefits to that. My gut feeling in this community is that it probably is not necessary. it probably would not result in savings. And my experience having just tried to get physicians to go from 12-hour shifts to 10-hour shifts is that it would be such an intense dissatisfier for a community of professionals who have become accustomed to that particular rotation that I think it's probably not advisable to go down that path at this point. And I guess, Chief, I had a question about, you mentioned it was, I guess the $400,000, is that the training cost? Yes, sir. That's just for the class of 20? Class of 20 for overtime for them to go to class to bring in doctors that we need to bring in. Any other books, the application fee to the state, the testing fee to the state, all those things? Okay. All right. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Madam Chair. Commissioner, I just had one. You talked about a few years ago when we recruited at historically black colleges for firefighters. Is it a criteria or prerequisite that firefighters have a college degree? No. I would recommend, then, that we recruit at our high schools. I have had that discussion with community outreach battalion chief, Marshall Griggs, about developing a program at the local high schools, even so far as detailed down into looking at their athletic school, their athletic teams, because you've already got a cadre of folks who have a proven ability to perform as a team, to be in physical condition. And so we had discussions starting, I think, about three weeks ago about this. Yeah, because I doubt if a lot of people go to college, then they go to college to be a firefighter. You know what I'm saying? And so if we're recruiting only at colleges, that's probably not the best. It was an avenue, though. It was. You may be right. I have not had a chance yet to look at the demographics of what makes up the firefighter pool. But I'm just recounting that that was an effort that was taken several years ago to try and address a need. Okay. I'd love to work with you on that program. I'll call you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Council Member Crosby. Thank you. My question is for Commissioner Mason as well. Thank you, Commissioner. Do you expect or have you been working? We're in the middle of the budget process, and clearly lots of different scenarios have come up here, as well as the collective bargaining contract that's in place currently and working within that. Do you all plan on presenting some different options to the council during the budget process to help with this situation, or is it still just going to be hanging out there? Is this something you all plan to address as an administration? No, we've been working very hard at looking at numbers and narrowing programs and coming up with a streamline that we can to try and also keep in place future hiring and those aspects. I think my question related more to some of the ideas that we've come up here, these things that you're looking at, like whether or not, And I don't know if I agree or disagree because I don't know much about it, but like the EMTs and whether or not something like that could fit in with what they have with collective bargaining and what we could approve to help with the budget. That's more my question. I think it's separate from what Council Member Myers was asking. I think some of those things are a pretty dramatic HR change that would have to be worked in over time. I'm not sure there's enough time leading up to this current collective bargaining agreement negotiation that is set to start at the end of the month. Those are things I've written down to take a look at, and there are some of these things that I've had conversations with about over the past few weeks as well, even down to looking at scheduling, whether a 12- or 24-hour shift would make any kind of difference in some of the budget. But I think these are things that probably would have to take some time to set into place. So do you foresee these being brought up during the collective bargaining process first and then taken through human resources? And then, I mean, I guess I think the council feels a sense of urgency because we're going to find ourselves in the same situation next year. The chief will be up here saying the same thing. The medical directors will be up here saying the same thing next year, and we're in the middle of the contract. I guess I'm just trying to figure out, is this going to happen during collective bargaining first, and then you foresee if there's changes accepted, taking that through the human resource process? I think we're going to have to vet the feasibility of some of these. Some of the ideas have been talked about here are pretty conceptual. They may work in some localities and may not work here. So I think that we're going to go back with the fire staff and take a look at all these things that are talked about. Is this something that the, I guess, the third party that you all have said will be involved with the negotiations, is this something they'll have experience with? Yes. So it's something that could be vetted through them as well? It could. And that person does have experience with public safety negotiations. Now, some of the nuances of some of the particular ideas that have been talked about, again, that's something that have to be looked at to examine the overall feasibility. Okay, thank you. Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Madam Chair. Dr. Stack and others, we do appreciate your all's work, especially the volunteer nature of it and the serious nature of it, certainly with WEG and the other things. It's really tremendous work. Thank you. In relation to today's presentation and page one of it, I'm wondering, Madam Chair, since I believe that this committee will become the link for these issues, I would like to keep this issue or at least this one-page presentation in the committee for us to consider during the upcoming budget process. So I'd like to make a motion to preserve this, the one-page piece here as part of our ongoing discussion when we break up into our link group. And a second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Is that all? Okay. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Chair. I have one final question, very simple, and I'm probably the Commissioner or Assistant Chief Gribbs. I'm sorry. Are any of the officers bilingual? Are the firefighters paramedics? We have one that is truly bilingual. He was born in Argentina and came here to work. We have several that I would say have functional ability. Okay. I didn't know if that was something that is included in the training, just some basic even sign language, not just foreign languages. Yeah, we had, and I can't remember how many trainings ago, but in some of our pre-entry classes, we had originally put in like a week or two weeks of Spanish training in those classes, but we never had the funding to continue it on or to have follow-up in-service training with those particular folks. And I think that's where the ones that have the functional ability now, I wouldn't say they're fluent or anything, but they know enough to get the information they need to get. Right. Well, I appreciate that, and not to complicate things even more than they already are, but I wanted to ask. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. And I just have one quick thing I'd like to add, And I'm sure many of us will have more questions that we can email to Chief and Dr. Stack and Dr. Richardson, if that's okay. But I would like, this is for Commissioner Clay. It seems to me as we were talking about some of these things that we're requiring firefighters to be all paramedics and EMTs to be firefighters, that they're driving the buggies, that we don't have the staff, that our run times are low, that this is, in my mind, an urgent issue. And I see Dr. Richardson shaking his head and Dr. Stike. I don't know why, but that's my question is, is it in some ordinance that firefighters, all paramedics and EMTs have to be firefighters, or is that just a policy that got put in place? because if it is just a policy, it seems to me that that could be changed very quickly and save lives and money, and this is a sense of urgency. I mean, we keep saying we'll have to study this or we'll look into it or we'll work on it, but we're in a crisis at this point, both a life safety crisis and a financial crisis. So if you could get back to us on that. I'll be glad to. I think that this discussion has been very good, that we can look to the future towards an opportunity to be open to change. I think one thing that needs to be reiterated is the quality of service that is provided. And I think that everybody needs to understand that the system that's set up here does save lives. And I'm not saying you're saying it doesn't, but for instance, last week at the fire awards banquet, There was a dramatic story of heroism that the first unit that rolled onto a call was a fire engine. On the engine were paramedics. And they get into a house and find a lady whose heart is stopped and who is not breathing. And they were able to resuscitate her before the ambulance got there. And she was able to walk up on the stage and hug the firefighters. So I think that those kind of circumstances, I think we need to look at the big picture in order to see, you know, what kind of changes can be made. And we're very willing to look at that. I guess what I, if I may, and I'm sorry to interrupt, but everybody's, yeah, what I'm suggesting is that paramedics and EMTs, so they're driving the buggy or doing the medical procedures, don't need to be firefighters. I think that's something that can be looked at. And it seems to me that that's something that's a policy thing that possibly could be changed very easily and quickly if it's not in organs. Well, it could, but I think that one of the preliminary comments that was made by Dr. Stack in his presentation was that a five-year term on a buggy as a paramedic is about the limit to which those people generally want to work at that pace. And that doesn't mean that during those five years they can't train to be a firefighter. Right. But you've got to also have that training so that then they could rotate to something else for a while to recharge and go back onto the buggy. So I think every problem touches another problem here. Certainly. And that's what we're going to evaluate. Okay. Thank you very much. Council Member Cross. I believe that some of the council members up here have kind of had some sidebar discussions. And as mentioned earlier, there's more of a sense of urgency without doing things that would have unintended consequences, like Commissioner Mason just mentioned to other divisions within FIRE. but also the fact that there are probably some changes that we could make that would fall in with the current collective bargaining contract or make recommendations as we're going through the new process. And so I think there are people up here who believe that possibly we could ask the vice mayor to appoint some kind of blue ribbon task force or something along those lines made up of members of the council and members of the medical community and others who would understand all the different consequences with making any changes and try and do that quickly because we do have the collective bargaining issue coming up as well as our budget season. And so I will make that motion that the Vice Mayor creates a task force to look into the various issues discussed today. Do I hear a second? That's a second by Council Member Ellinger. Is there any discussion? Vice Mayor? Since I can't vote because I'm not a part of this committee, I will say I think that's a very good idea. I would like, rather than the task force to discuss the issues discussed here today, I'd like it to be much more specific as to the charge of the task force. Well, I don't know how much more specific I can be because I don't know what's in collective bargaining and the consequences, things that we would have on that, as well as some of the recommendations we've heard from members up here. and what we can go to the table with. So that's why I kept it kind of vague. But I do believe we have a huge resource in our advisory board because they have researched other communities. I know that from just working with Dr. Richardson in the past, when he mentioned the issue of three versus two, they've done a lot of research on some of these issues. So I think that they can provide us with a tremendous amount of resources from other communities with some of the work that they've already done in this issue. So I don't know how to make it more specific except for making recommendations of ways that we can. So two of the items in the task force would be looking at three versus two on a buggy, separation of EMT paramedics from firefighters. No, some of the recommendations. No, two, I don't think it's, I don't believe that that was the wish of this committee to go. Okay, that was disgusting. I think it's probably maybe what you brought up with response time and also different, I don't want to say classes, I don't know how to word it, but EMTs, different staffing levels, and the effect it has with training, budget, and collective bargaining issues. I mean, there's all kinds of different things that have been thrown out here today, and looking at those issues specifically and the experience that these people bring to the table, as well as what we can do within our budget. And to come back with recommendations for our public safety commissioner during the collective bargaining process and during the budget process. I guess I think so the goal. Also looking at using EMTs and paramedics for our ambulances who are not firefighters as a possibility. So the separation of EMT paramedics from firefighters. Okay. And again, this may not be, I mean, they may come back and say that this won't work at all, But we're not looking at anything. We're throwing all these things out on the table, and we've got a budget that has to be approved. And if we don't do anything, we're going to sit here again next year, and it's going to be the same old problem. And we also are getting ready to go through the collective bargaining process. And if we don't have a firm understanding of the decisions we make and how it affects collective bargaining, we're going to be in the same situation next year. So I think there's a lot of things they have to look at in a very short-order period of time. I think everybody agrees with you. I'm only asking for direction. A task force has to have some direction. And I guess I was under the impression that I'll let George speak. Council Member Myers, do you want to add to that? Thank you, Madam Chair. Just some things that I heard were the separation of duties, paramedic staffing, response time, preference points, women and minority recruiting, and I think it would be great to have Dr. Stack chair the committee. This is my personal. I was thinking I know a colleague at another hospital who I owe a favor. Should we call Central Baptist? Could I share just for your deliberations on this? So one thing, it's good to think outside the box because you never know and you might stumble upon or intentionally find something that's a better arrangement. There are a number of things that have been proposed that have some real implications for how the work units work together. And so I think a smaller work group is good. And I want to thank both Councilman Farmer and Crosby for bringing the action items, which I didn't concretely ask for, so thank you. But there are other details that I didn't share here, and there's a universe of details that we on the EMAV are not familiar with. And so I think you are going to have to do this in a smaller venue, not as a public forum with cameras and all, just to really get to the meat of the issue to bring an actionable item back to council. Thank you. So would you like to amend the motion, or do we need to? I'm not a member of the committee, but if the language that I use is acceptable. I'm good with that. Is that Council Member Ellinger was the second? We're going to assume he's going to like that. Any other discussion? Madam Chair. Yes. And Vice Mayor Gordon might be able to help us understand this, but does the committee actually have the ability to form a task force? If we just – the Vice Mayor – It's her prerogative to do that. Is that correct? Yeah. Okay. Council Member Henson, if you have a quick comment about the motion. Yes, ma'am. I think that we need a plan for future – I mean, maybe – Maybe I'm wrong, but I think as the city's grown, we haven't kept up the pace. So we really need to look at the future. And there are certain things in this city that should be a priority, and this is one of them. Yeah, I think that's kind of the part of the goal. So Councilmember Ellinger, can somebody read the motion again? Thank you, Vice Mayor. Here's what I wrote down. Okie dokie. That Council Member Crosby moved to ask the Vice Mayor to create a task force to include a study of the separation of EMT paramedic from firefighters, knowing that EMTs and paramedics are two different things, response times, preference points, women and minority recruitment, and paramedic levels of staffing? Does that include everything? I would prefer to keep, because I don't know that I necessarily agree with, as I said, with separating EMTs from paramedics. I mean, my motion would be more to look at the levels of staffing in general within the fire department and whether different levels can be separated. I would prefer not to name it. That's something I think the task force can determine, but I don't want to tie their hands in saying that that's what they need to look at. Well, I think overall that's part of what we were. Well, and that can be a charge, but that's not my motion. Do you want to, would separation of duties be more acceptable? How about the feasibility of different staffing for the emergency? I'm sorry, you faded out. I said, how about looking at the different, looking at staffing options for our emergency vehicle versus firefighters? But the staffing wasn't what we were discussing about on the vehicles. What we were discussing was whether or not there's opportunity to do different types of separations of maybe jobs within the division of fire, not necessarily. But that would be part of staffing a vehicle, but I don't think it's staffing a vehicle. I mean, I'm just a little unclear. why can't we just say staffing, to look at staffing issues and we're at a loss for words, but I guess the ultimate outcome would be what can be done within collective bargaining, if anything, or to present to the commissioner for the current collective bargaining contract regarding these issues. I just don't think it should be so specific to where that's their only charge. Okay. Are you okay with that, Council Member Ellinger? I think because of the urgency of the time, I'd like to consider taking out the recruiting, minority recruiting, because I do think that's a longer-term issue. Would you be okay with that? Well, why don't we just leave that in there? Okay. And if we don't lock anything down and the task force finishes this work, that's okay, and then we can continue to work on that issue. Okay. So we have a motion. You're okay with the motion? Any other discussion? Council Member Martin. Yeah, I support leaving the minority recruitment in the motion because it's – I don't think it's a long-term issue. I think it's an immediate issue. And the fact is, is that you put it in place. I mean, it's just not that complicated. Yeah, I think – We can – you know, I was at a public event within the last couple of months where there was not one person of color that participated in the event. I said, well, why is it, why are there no people of color here? Well, it's not like they weren't invited. I don't disagree. I think we agreed that we'd leave it in there. So that's the motion on the floor. Thank you. Is that, any other discussion? I just clarify what's on my list. Sure. Response time, preference points, women and minority recruitment, paramedic level of staffing, and other staffing issues. Is that good? Yes. And second by Council Member Ellinger. Any other discussion? All in favor? Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. May I thank you all for your time? Thank you for, in only the most positive sense, for the longest 15 minutes of my recent life. It works out that way up here. And share for you on behalf of the members of the EMAB, many of them have said they are quite ready and willing to meet with any of you if you would like to, to have the more informal type discussions that would just be educational just to share the consequences. So all you need to do is reach out. Chief Griffin can find us, and Dr. Richardson would be happy to do that. Thank you so much. And I really appreciate your all's volunteer time and energy and commitment. At this time, because one of the council members needs to leave, I'd like to, if it's okay with the committee, do number three next instead of number two, the Todd's Road widening phase two update. Is there somebody here to speak to that? Hello. Good afternoon. I'm going to be very brief today since time is of the essence, but essentially I think – Andrew, I'm sorry. Can Council Member Crosby ask your question? She might be able to – you might be able to give the information that – from the questions might be your presentation if that's all right. Yes, sir. We get a routine update on this, I think, every month or quarterly. I can't remember. But my question is, under the design phase, it states that they're 60% complete and that there's going to be some changes with the project review team. Can you tell us who makes up the project review team? The project review team is usually the project engineer, the engineering section manager, the Director of Engineering, and we usually have a great deal of input from the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. It is a state route. Okay, and then it also is stating that there's going to be a change order on this. Would, if there is, I have several neighborhoods requesting that there be a study as part of this change order regarding the tunnel that goes under. under the road, since it's only 60 percent complete, is that something that they can request that the engineers look at? Because currently the plan is to just extend the existing tunnel, which is like 22 years old, and I believe that there's some public safety, life safety issues with the current tunnel, and the fact that the places to cross are further apart, we're increasing it to four lanes, which means more traffic at higher speeds. And currently it is privately owned, but I think they're willing to turn it over. Is there any way to get that as part of the change order to look at the options as it relates to this tunnel? I don't know if it can actually be put into this change order. I think this change order to the design contract is currently in front of the council. It might be able to be put into another change order, but I can definitely check on that. Can you please check on that and then let us know the process that we need to go to? This is a multi-neighborhood and two districts it affects, and Council Member Stentz is not here. I'm not sure if he's getting the same amount and types of phone calls that I am regarding this, But right now the tunnel as it stands is not the safest tunnel in the world. And it's my impression, too, that the position engineering has taken is that it should not be a tunnel that's used for pedestrian traffic. But when you're going across a road that's going to become wider and at speeds that people are going with, there's not very many options. And when you're putting sidewalks up both sides of the street, it is encouraging more pedestrian traffic with nowhere to cross between, except for two opposite ends. So if you could find that information out and we could then find out who they need to approach, because I wasn't aware that there was a project review team that could potentially add this. I can definitely have Keith Levin look into it. Okay. And I think he's fully aware of the issue as it relates to this. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Are there any other questions for Mr. Grumwald? Okay. Number two is on-street parking during street cleaning. I believe all these streets are in the third district with this pilot program, and I believe Mr. Means and other folks have another meeting to get to. if the committee would like to hear this, we can. Otherwise, I can send out the information that you've shared with me about this to the 3rd District. Is that, are people on the committee okay with that? Okay, thank you very much. And sorry that we kept you here this long for, didn't foresee this coming. And number four, Oliver Lewis Way update. I'm back again. Probably I won't go over the entire written statement, but I'll give you an update on Phase 4, which is probably of most interest. The utility companies are still continuing to work to bury the cables. It is anticipated that they will be complete mid to late summer. At that point, you will see all of the existing overhead cables removed. The R.J. Corman Railway Company is still working on their underpass. And the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, of course, is still overseeing punchless items and making minor corrections following utility companies as they damage curbs, sidewalks, and things like that. The phase two of the project from Versailles to South Broadway, we have made a request to the Transportation Cabinet for the authorization for the funding to begin purchasing that property. We still have not heard if we have that money as of yet. We also have in with the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet Supplemental Agreement Number 2. This would be in between the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet and the Lexington-Fade Urban County Government so that we could finish out the right-of-way plans and construction plans for Phases 2 and 3. In the Phase I, the redevelopment area, we have negotiated with the Norfolk Southern Railroad Company, and we are beginning to purchase right away to build a noise barrier wall. It is our hope that that noise barrier wall will be under construction by this summer. and the property acquisitions that are ongoing in the Phase I area. We had a contract with an acquisition company. They had produced 27 parcels out of 33 that we now own outright or have right of access. About six of those had to be turned over to the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet for eminent domain. In the Community Land Trust, they did have a national search for an executive director. They narrowed the search down to four candidates. They extended an offer. The primary candidate actually declined, and they are going to go back and evaluate the remaining candidates and possibly open it back up for additional candidates. Are there any questions? Thank you very much. Yes, ma'am. Now we have items referred to committee. They're just going to graffiti removal. There is a graffiti task force. So I'd like to remove that. I don't know if I have the authority to do that or if. Yeah, I move that we, that was done by a former council member, and I don't think we ever had any meetings. I think I was on that task force, and I don't recall having a meeting or anything on it. So I would move to remove it. Okay, second. Second by Council Member McCord. Any discussion? All in favor? Opposed? Motion passes. There's currently research being done on forced cruelty and care and what exists in the state statute. The street cleaning, if somebody would like to move to remove that. Did I hear a second? All in favor? Opposed? I'm going to need an update on sidewalk specifications from code enforcement. Council Member Feigl put that in, and I understand what she was talking about. Mr. Curtis, do you think you'll have the taxicab ordinance? Pleated, no. By next meeting, it will be well underway as far as our study goes, yes. Because we wish to look at the entire ordinance itself, not just one portion. Okay. Because there are numerous portions that are totally antiquated. Okay. Thank you. But I'll have a report for you at the next meeting. So you could have a report. Okay. Thank you. Is there anything else anybody has on here that they'd like to change, remove, or put somewhere else? Council Member Henson? You know the itinerant merchant task force is formed for that. Okay. So we'll bring that back to committee once it's completed its work. Okay. I talked to Councilmember Vice Mayor Gordon, thank you, about Councilmember Martins had referred erecting large utility poles on right-of-way. Since Public Works doesn't do that, I suggested that we put it in planning because it would be an ordinance issue. We've looked at new subdivisions having underground wire utilities, et cetera. So would you be willing to make a motion to move that to planning? At this time, I'd rather leave it in Public Works. I mean, I think Public Works gets a lot, finds out a lot about these things as they come up, and I'm not on planning, so I'm not sure what good I'm going to be able to do to it in planning. Okay. I had this conversation, so I have that. So do you want to report from somebody in Public Works? If you'd like to tell me when you're able to docket it, I can let you know what I recommend to bring it in on it. Okie dokie. Thank you. Anybody else have anything? Council Member Crosby. I noticed that the emergency snow plan is in our committee, and then we also have, I think in another committee, just the snow plan in general. Can we just combine those? But you may have to find out which committee. Okay. Oh, okay. Paul said he would be happy to find that out. Okay, so you'll find out, Ms. Sure. Thank you. Probably. I don't know. It doesn't matter to me which committee, but I think they just need to be combined. Thank you. If there's nothing else, do I hear a motion to adjourn? So moved. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. . The 2011 Parks and Recreation Fun Guide is on the way. The Fun Guide will be delivered to all Fayette County homes March 16th through the 18th. It contains all the information you and your family will need to plan a year full of fun. So be sure to watch your mailbox for your edition.