The Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶ ¶¶ Thank you. The End Thank you. Good afternoon. Calling the General Government Committee meeting of April 12 to order. My name is Ed Lane. I'm chairman, and Jay McCord is vice chair. And Scott Seymour is our staff to counsel. The first item on the agenda is the Citizens Advocate Work Group update on multiple tasks for the Citizens Advocate. And Linda George is here to give us a little bit of an update from the legal department. Hello. You all should have a copy of a memo from me dated April the 1st, which addresses the last outstanding issue that we had concerning the citizen's advocate, and that was whether or not we could add additional job duties to that position. If you'll recall, in Section 4.11 of the Charter, it states the three duties of the citizen's advocate, and that's to investigate any complaint by a citizen of the urban county government, disclosing any abuses or irregularities on the part of the Irby County Government, its officers, agents, or employees, and to recommend substantive or procedural policy changes to eliminate problems of citizens with relation to departments and divisions of the government. In terms of whether or not we can add additional duties, the Department of Law has reviewed that, and the answer to that is a qualified yes. It will depend on what additional duties we want to add to that position so that we would need to take a look at what you want the citizen's advocate to do to determine whether or not there's any type of incompatibility with the position of the citizen's advocate in any of the additional job duties. For example, if we were trying to merge two positions, we would have to look at that to make sure there's not any incompatibility with the job duties of those. And that's outlined a little more in the memo that was distributed to you. Does anybody have any questions on that? Council Member. Thank you. One of the concerns I have about adding duties, or I guess questions about it, is to the extent – well, the assistant advocate has a number of protections in the Charter. Right. if they are dismissed without, I guess, any sort of impropriety or something like that, they get a six-month severance. Would the additional duties fall within that six-month severance? Well, the person would be the citizen's advocate. And so then you would just be adding additional job duties. So if the council did decide that they wanted to dismiss the citizen's advocate, then yes, all of those conditions like the six-month notice or six-month severance would still apply. Would removing duties from the position require severance? As long as we have a person in the position of the citizen's advocate, that still applies. You have to do six-month notice or six-month severance. That won't go away as long as there is the position of the citizen's advocate. So if we gave them a certain administrative duty or something like that, and we thought it was overloading, and we could take that back and not trigger the severance. Right. That's correct. Okay. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Martin. Does anybody else have a discussion or comment on this? Okay. If there's no objection from the – I'm sorry, Mr. Myers, go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. George, could you maybe elaborate a little bit, maybe in a broad sense, of what types of duties you think might be able to be assigned to that person and not create a... Well, I think one of the things we talked about was maybe approving, like, time for the council staff. It was more administrative duties, is my understanding, and those types of things would be okay. But if you were trying to merge it with another position, maybe like the citizen's advocate would also function in total as the council administrator, there may be some issues there. Do those issues begin with reporting, how they're accountable to reporting to certain people if they take on certain duties as opposed to whatever independence they might have as an advocate? It relates more to the independence because the citizen's advocate, if there was a complaint against a council member, depending on the nature of it, the citizen's advocate could investigate that. But it creates a problem if the citizen's advocate is also the council administrator because then you would be, there's just too much of an overlap there. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Byers. Anyone else want to speak to that? Mr. Ford. Thank you, Chairman Lane. Thank you, Attorney George. I'm looking at the agenda, and it talks a little bit about part-time employment options. And so I guess my question is for the committee. What's the status of our deliberation on this position? Have we come to a determination of whether it should be part-time or not? As I look at the organizational chart that we were presented with in our last meeting, both the former organizational chart and the proposed restructure, it clearly shows the Citizens Advocate Office reporting to council. But even as it stands now, an office of one full-time person, even that alone in all of itself represents the only structure within our urban county government that has just one position. I mean, if you look at the organizational chart, it's the only one. So I guess I want to kind of get brought up to speed and kind of an understanding of what the committee's thought process is on the current status of the position and where we go from here. I think it's clearly in the charter, Section 4.11. It's clearly reflected on organizational charts that this government passed and now proposed for restructure. So, Chairman, I'll just throw that out to the committee. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Ford. I guess, you know, we did cover the summit in our last meeting, but the point was that when the charter was drafted over 30 years ago, you know, we didn't have, you know, TV coverage of our meetings. We didn't have streaming video. We didn't have Internet archive of some of our minutes and meetings information. And we didn't have aides for each of the council members, so we didn't have 311 to answer a request for aides from citizens. We've put in a lot of these additional services, and the amount of use of the assistance advocate has been minimal, a very limited number of calls. But at the same time, we want to maintain that position as it is a charter requirement. So what we were trying to do is work out a plan where the citizens advocate could be in somewhat of a part-time role and do another function in the urban county government, perhaps in the council office. So that's the reason for checking out what could be done, what would be legally permissible, and how we might go forward with this plan. What I was going to suggest is that I don't think we necessarily have to take a vote on this, because this is an opinion of the law department, but if there's not an objection of the committee, then what I would like to do is provide a copy of the law department opinion to the vice mayor so we can have additional discussion at our next council meeting. That's what I'd like to do with this. There's not an objection from anybody on the committee. I object. And I think here's to Council Member Ford's question. And his question really, I think, was what do we do to move this forward? We've got a committee that each council member that is a district council member has appointed to this committee to start the search. We fooled around now for almost a year, and nothing's happening. And the charter requires that we have the position. Everybody acknowledges that that's the case. whether or not we can assign something additional to this person, I think, is irrelevant to the question of how we move forward. The question that was put in the committee was, do we, in fact, have the citizens advocate become a part-time position or remain a full-time position? And that's the question, and the only question that needs to be answered so that that committee can move forward with its work. Because, obviously, you may have a different candidate pool if it's a part-time as opposed to a full-time position. And so I would move that. So that being the case, the real decision here that we were asked to look at as a committee was part-time or full-time. We know the position is not going away. There's a lot of conversation about, you know, whether we need this position or not. And I still maintain that most of the conversation that's in that domain is not germane because the reason for that position being created in the charter was not the same as the reasons why we have council as a 311. So I don't know if we can get the votes to do this, but I want to move that we go ahead and recommend to the full council that we hire the citizens advocate in a full-time capacity. So moved. Second. Okay. Do we have a discussion on that subject? Mr. K. I have an additional question for Ms. George. It has to do with the possibility of having the citizen's advocate report in a part-time position, as he or she does now to the council, and having a position that might have him or her reporting elsewhere in government. So to be a part of, just for an example, the audit department, would there be any difficulty with that? So is one person holding two separate positions, or is it one person just with additional job duties added on to it? I think it could be structured either way, but let's presume that it's a position that is half-time as citizen's advocate and half-time, for an example, in audit and responsible to both the council and to an administrator within the audit department. I don't think that would work because on the citizen's advocate side, you have the issue of the charter in terms of how to terminate the person. And then if the person is filling a position, I'm assuming it would be a part-time non-civil service position in another department or division, you would, if one area wanted to terminate the person, there would be some issues there in how to get rid of that particular employee on either side, unless both could agree to let the employee go, if that makes sense. Yes, it does. So a follow-up question. That seems to indicate that whether this is a full-time or part-time position, if there were additional responsibilities, they would have to be responsibilities within the council office. Right. There would have to be additional responsibilities added to the citizen's advocate within the council office. That is correct. I would agree with that. That's really the only option. Otherwise, we run into some other issues. Thank you. Okay. Mr. Ford, you're speaking to the motion. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lane. I guess I had a question for Attorney George, if she will. And thank you for your patience as I again come up to speed. As I look at the charter, I think we all are clear that it says Section 4.11 create and establish an office of citizens advocate. It doesn't identify or dictate how many folks are in that office. But it seems to me that an office of citizens advocate would at least have the position of the citizens advocate. Correct. Is that right? Mm-hmm. And to me it would seem that naturally that position has historically been a full-time equivalent and that the interpretation by just reading the charter face value is that that position is a full-time equivalent. That's my interpretation. I would ask of yours from your legal opinion, how would that be interpreted just on looking at as the charter reads? We have to have the position. Now, I think the reason we have the issue of whether or not it should be full-time or part-time, that's come up in part because of the previous reports that we have received from that office that have shown that the level of work is not sufficient to support a full-time position now because of the implementation of LexCol and some other things you are having, your own aides and other things that Council Member Lane pointed out. And in my previous memo that we talked about at the last meeting, it clearly stated that, yes, we have to have the position, but the charter does not require that it be full-time. And thank you. Thank you, Attorney George. Just my, speaking to the motion, though, speaking to the motion, again, my efforts in promoting council member, Myers motion that we move this as a full time equivalent is because to me that's what's needed. That is what it's always been. I interpret it as that's what the charter requires. It's clearly identified and this is probably the most telling point that I like to make is that if you look at our organizational chart No other office is furnished with an employee of less than one full-time equivalent. And even the Citizens Advocates Office, as it stands now, is the only one. It was formerly two, but currently now it's one. I know our government has taken some cuts, but this is not a cut that we can afford to make solely to use an excuse of finances or lack thereof. Again, I look at the three core roles of the citizens advocate, and I won't recite them because the council knows them very well. I think it's incumbent upon the council in turn to do two things. distinguish the importance between the Citizens Advocates Office and the improved technology and communication that our government and society has been afforded. There's a major difference. Lex Call, GTV3, email, and the Citizens Advocate. There's a major difference. And our role as council is to support the advocate to fulfill what's in the charter, which is to provide for these three core functions. They're important and they're needed. And so that's why I will support your motion, Council Member Myers. Can I make a point of clarification? Excuse me. I think Ms. Crosby gets to speak next. Well, I just asked if I could make a point of clarification. All right. And that's for the Chair to roll on. Have you spoken already, Ms. Crosby? I think, Mr. Martin, you have spoken, have you not? I'm happy. Okay, that's why I was going to let Ms. Crosby go next because she hadn't spoken yet. I was just going to make a point of clarification of something that was said earlier. Okay. Well, I'm going to give you an opportunity to speak in a minute. Well, that's not going to be on my time to speak. I just want to make a point of clarification that's separate than me speaking. You don't have to do it if you don't want to share. Are you asking for a point of order then? Yes. Well, a point of clarification is different than a point of order, but that's what I'm doing. Okay. Well, go ahead then. When Attorney George was speaking, the thing that we've missed in what she said was that the council agreed at least in philosophy. It's not been voted on 100%. It's not been solidified or codified. But we agreed that the position of the Office of the Citizens Advocate would go down to one FTE. And so in what you were talking about, we have to add that into the mix, that now we're going from having agreed to having one FTE down to now, or from two FTEs to one to now a half of an FTE. And for the new council members that didn't know that, I wanted to make that clarification. So it's not just going from one to a half. It's going from two to a half is what's being proposed if we do it that way. Thank you. Okay. Ms. Crossman. Well, that was part of my question was didn't we vote through our previous process that we were going from two to one with the office? So that was a formal action by council. but I wanted to ask Council Member Myers, have we had any report out making any suggestions from this committee that it be full-time versus part-time, or are you just coming forward with this motion because we haven't taken any steps to move it forward? Really, I go back and look at why we put it in the committee, and it was to decide one thing only, and that when it really originally came in. Now, we can change that, but originally when it was put in committee, was to decide if it was going to be a half-time position or a full-time position. And so we keep batting this around, and time keeps ticking, and we're not filling the position. The committee's been put in place. There's no action being taken, and there's nothing going to be taken until the full council gets some kind of report out to us as to whether it should be full-time or half-time. And in the absence of any real reason to make it a half-time, particularly considering that we're already eliminating one position, I want to go ahead and make the motion to move forward with it. Okay, Mr. Martin. Thank you, Chair. Ms. George? Oh. I wasn't done. That's okay. I'll come back to me. Okay. Excuse me. Ms. George, I have a question. So it can be a part-time position, and so I guess being that they would be working part-time, would they be allowed to have other duties work for somebody else outside of city government? Yes. So it could be, for example, a private attorney or something like that. As long as there weren't any conflicts. You know, say, for example, even with attorneys in the law department, we're limited as to what we can do in terms of outside employment. So as long as there was no conflict, there wouldn't be a problem. It'd be the same thing. Right. So it would be possible to, for example, to hire a private attorney to work part-time as citizen's advocate, similar in many ways to the way county attorneys in most of the counties in Kentucky work. Because in most of the counties, the county attorney is not a full-time position, but it's a part-time position. And you have attorneys who represent zoning boards and who represent councils and fiscal courts who are not full-time but who do that as a part, as a, I guess it would be a flat fee service to the city or to the body for a given year. And obviously it would be affected by the termination provisions of the charter. But one thing to consider is that we could essentially have the citizen's advocate be someone on the outside who would serve as the Office of Citizens Advocate. An individual would have some independence from the city, which is something that's desirable, someone who could investigate complaints, someone who has the ability to conduct an investigation, but also to write reports and to make suggestions about changes in city government. So I think that should be something we might consider because you might be able to get a very capable individual who might be able to serve that type of role. And it would, in fact, there's a lot of precedent for that in other counties in that folks serve as county attorneys or city attorneys or attorneys for fiscal courts and things like that. So I just encourage my colleagues to maybe think about some other solutions that we might be able to bring some efficiencies to this office, but also increase our capabilities as well. Thank you, Chair. Okay, I'll go back to you, Ms. Crosby. Thank you. So I guess back to my question was we haven't had an official report out from this committee. We're just making a motion today so we can put it forward to the full council. Right. The idea is to move, well, we now have a motion to move forward. Mr. Myers has to make it a full-time position. That's what we'd be voting on. I understand what his motion is. My question was, did we get a report out regarding this from the committee? I think what I heard him say was that the Citizens Advocate Committee that was formed to look at whether it should be. I haven't seen a report on that. I don't know that that's even had a meeting. It has had a meeting. Are you on that committee? Do you want to mention what that is? The committee did meet and asked Ms. George to provide information about the options, and they wanted to bring that back to the committee and then let the committee make its own determination, given the information about what was possible legally. Do you anticipate when you all will be making some kind of recommendation out of your committee? I'm not sure there was an intention to make a recommendation from the subcommittee rather than to bring back information to the full committee for its deliberation. And Jay's not here, but that's the way I remember it. We just met and thought that our responsibility really was to do some sorting of the information to make sure that when we considered this issue that the law department had had an opportunity to consider the questions that we might ask and then to let the full committee move forward. Okay. I think there's some confusion here is that Mr. McCord, who's not here today, was just had a work group together to get all the information that had been compiled before this committee was formed and to bring it back to our committee so we could review it. But I believe there's another committee that would actually, you know, have representatives from the different, I guess, districts of Fayette County who would actually meet and review that. I don't know what the status on that is, whether the vice mayor is working on that or not. I don't disagree that we need to move forward with something, but I feel like we've got two different committees looking at this. We've got no report outs from either one to even be able to toss it around. I haven't seen a memo from the law department because I'm not on the small group committee. They send it to those who are on that committee. but I guess I'm just uncomfortable trying to move forward something to the full council to debate before we have all the information out of the committee. That's why we formed them in the first place. But I understand, I empathize with what Council Member Myers is trying to do because we have to take action. If I could maybe bring some clarity. The two committees are, one is the hiring committee, the selection committee. They're not going to make a recommendation to us except for putting forth the people that we should look at hiring. So we're not waiting for anything from them. The work group is the work group that Council Member Kaye just talked about. And it was my understanding that Council Member McCord reported out last meeting when he had the law department come in and opine on the memo that we had. So we've already had that report out. And I think what Council Member Kaye said was accurate, that they weren't intending to make a recommendation, but rather define the topic and get the need of research done and then provide that to the full committee. So we've had that. So now the question is, what are we going to do with it? Do you have anything else? Not at this time. Okay. Let's see. I believe Mr. Kaye, you want to speak again? I guess my concern about the motion is that in all of the conversations that I've been involved with that concern budget and personnel, the question really always has been, are these people being asked, given cuts, are people being asked to do too much? Do they have too much on their plate already? How are we going to continue to provide the services we provide, given that we have to cut staff? The exception has been this conversation about the citizen advocate, where it's not clear that there's enough work for that person. And so I'm uncomfortable voting in favor of a motion that keeps that a full-time position. It's not clear to me. I understand the importance of the function. I want to keep that. I understand the legalities of keeping the office. But I'm uncomfortable voting for a full-time position when it does not seem like there's full-time work involved. Thank you, Mr. Kaye. Now I'd like to speak to the motion because I think everybody else has spoken more than once. I personally would like to see this as a part-time position too, but I think that the best thing to do would be to tie it in with another position in the government so that the person would actually be a full-time employee for the government. And I base that on the fact that, as I recall in the last report, that there were 100 inquiries made in the citizen's advocate office over a three-month period, and that averages out to about one and a half phone calls per day. And I'm not sure what the actual cost would be, but it's probably around $150 to $200 for each phone call that comes in. I don't think that's very efficient. I don't think that's what our taxpayers expect. I don't think that's the way we should be optimizing the efficiency of government operations. So the other benefit of tying this position into the council is that both are non-classified positions, so they would have the same terms of employment, and I think that would be a very effective way to handle it. So that's my comment on the motion. Now, does anybody else want to make any additional comment on the motion? Do you have another comment? I guess I would go back to, and I've said this since day one, two years ago when we first started having this conversation, that most people who speak about the citizen's advocate don't understand the position of the citizen's advocate. And to continue to imply that council aides and 311 do the same thing that the citizen's advocate does is simply not true. And I go back to what I said in the last meeting. It says a lot about an organization, and we can sit and talk about how much it costs per call to do something, which really I think further exasperates a lack of understanding what the citizens' advocates' role is in government. It says a lot about an organization, whether or not they understand that having an ombudsman is important. If you go back to the U.K., every university in this country has an ombudsman. I don't know how many calls they get, how many students come in, or how many faculty come in and talk to them, but every one of them has one. All state governments have one. Most local governments have one. I think it really says a lot about an organization, particularly a governmental organization, when people suppose that there doesn't need to be an independent person that speaks on behalf of the citizens that have to interact with this government that can take up their cause or their concerns or their issues independently of anybody else in government. So I hope that my colleagues here on this committee will see that we've already tentatively agreed to strip the office down from two FTEs to one, and that by stripping it down to a half really says that we don't want the office, but because the charter requires us to have one, we're just going to put the very minimum we have to put in there. So I hope that everybody will vote to at least move this forward to the full council so we can have a vote and a discussion of the full council, and we can move one way or the other. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Myers. I believe that everybody has spoken to the motion. Are you speaking to the motion for the second time? Okay, go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Lane, for letting me speak but twice. I have to echo Council Member Myers. The first thing I'll say before I echo him is that I believe we as a council are using the wrong measures. measures to quantify the value of the citizen's advocate. LexCol perhaps can answer 100 calls, one worker in LexCol. The one call per day for a citizen's advocate could be one day's worth of work. I'm not certain. But as I look at these scopes of work, LexCol doesn't investigate complaints. They refer to provide services. We talked about in the restructure plan a great emphasis on the CIO's office, and I think that's chief information officer. And some of our fellow council members were kind of appalled that a government of our size would not have a chief information officer. I could say the same thing about a citizen's advocate. Two words, citizens advocate. You know, the folks that built this government, we have some great community leaders still amongst us here in Lexington. So this charter and this position of the citizens advocate has evolved, perhaps, but it's not ancient history. It was put in there for a reason. And I think that the folks that put it in there recognize, just as some of the other things that were put in the charter still remain and we honor. and valid. 300,000 citizens Lexington Fayette County. 3,000 plus employees. $275 million general fund budget. Probably double that when you talk about all the other funds that we have. If we are to sit here and think that nothing goes wrong, all procedures are always followed. Mistakes are not made. We're fooling ourselves. We don't want those things to happen, but things do happen. Processes are violated and citizens are aggrieved. We need the advocate there to be an independent voice for the citizens. And the one thing I like that the advocate really does is the third scope of its three-pronged And I'll read to recommend such substantive or procedural policies as may be required to reduce or eliminate problems of citizens access to the departments, divisions, agencies or offers to the government. Basically, as I read that there to help us solve problems. That's what the advocate is supposed to do. Lex call cannot do that. They can refer you to services. Email cannot do that. us as council members and legislative aides in certain sensitive situations cannot do that. That's what the Citizens Advocates Office provides for us. I'll close simply in stating just what Council Member Myers stated. To date, we are devaluing the position of Citizens Advocate. And I don't know if we recognize it or not. By doing so, we're devaluing our citizens. I would urge us, if not for all those in the passionate argument that I've just made, let's go by the law. Let's follow the charter. Let's follow the organizational chart. And I'm certain that we can create the work that will fulfill the promise and the purpose of this office. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Ford. I think that concludes Ms. Crosby. I'm sorry, Ms. Crosby. Yes, ma'am. I just wanted to follow up. Is there an intention after this motion to add a motion where we would look at the dual committee that's looking at the responsibilities of the core staff of council to see whether or not we'd be adding any responsibilities since that was what was initially on our agenda to this office? I don't, I'm not in favor of adding any responsibilities, so whoever wants to do that, sure, if they want to bring them forward, we can vote on that, too. I understand. Thank you. All right. I would like just to make one more short comment and say that, you know, there are other offices in government that are part-time, like the Master Commissioner of Fayette County is a part-time employee. the benefit of doing the part-time position but offering another part-time position to go with it is that we would then be able to evaluate the workload that is in the Citizens Advocate's Office, and thereby we could always make a change and modify that. So I think it gives us options, and that's why I like this provision, because I don't think that department is very busy. But at the same time, we protect that department. in that position and we could always switch to full-time back if we found there was more need for a full-time person. Okay, I'd like to call the motion now to vote on this. And would you restate the motion for us, Mr. Myers? I think there's some other people signed up to speak. I don't know if you're... I think everybody's had a chance to speak more than others. And I just, I hate to interrupt you, Councilman Blaine. And I don't think that's a fair comparison. I know we've heard about county attorneys and master commissioners. They're not built in the organizational chart of the Lexington-Fayette-Urman County government. They are not anywhere identified in the charter of this government. So that's not a fair comparison. I think that my statement earlier, that is, when we look at the organizational chart, there is no other office that has less than one full-time equivalent. I just wanted to make clarification. You want to state your motion, Mr. Myers? Yes, and if I can respectfully say also that your premise of looking at this in the future to see if we need it to be a full-time position is an opinion rather than a fact. I don't think when the Charter envisioned this position being in there, it put any kind of parameter on there that it had to have a certain amount of work going through it in order for it to be viable. If you understand what a citizen's advocate or an ombudsman does, the value of that position is being there if and when it's needed. And when it is needed, and I gave some examples in the last meeting, two very real examples of when the office was utilized, how valuable it was to our citizens. And so the motion that I've made is that we go ahead and move out to the full council a recommendation to go forward with the hiring of the citizens advocate in a full-time capacity. So moved. And that was second by Mr. Ford. Okay. All in favor of that motion, please vote electronically, or if you're opposed to it, vote electronically. Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, if I might just – Yes, sir. I just want to explain my vote briefly. I am going to support the motion so that it can go to the full council. I do have some other ideas that we may be able to look at this, but I certainly appreciate the comments of both Council Member Myers and Council Member Ford, and I appreciate their conviction about it, and I certainly would, I think, want to hear the whole council sort of decide how we want to move in this. I still have some reservations, but I will support the motion. Okay, well, the motion passes. So we will report that out to the Vice Mayor at the next Cal meeting. Thank you. And we'll go to the next item on the agenda. This is the facilities use policy, which George Myers has worked on. And I think, George, I think you want Mike Santer to speak to that today, or you plan to speak to that? Sure, if he'd like to start. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We forwarded a general resolution regarding facility usage policy to Council Member Myers. I believe Council Member Lane got a copy also. It doesn't codify the policy, because if you did that, then every time you change the policy, you have to go back and amend the ordinance. What this resolution does is it authorizes or directs General Services to draft a facility usage policy for all facility space owned by the government. And this facility usage policy will be submitted to and approved by council. And that any time there's a request to deviate from this policy, council would have to approve that deviation. Now, my meetings with General Services and the job sheet is here. they have a tentative draft of a facility's use policy, and you have something regarding real estate also. Yeah, and he can speak more to that. And Council Member Myers asked John Shee to speak to two current facility usage issues. Thank you. Does anybody have a question for me, Mr. Sanner? You do. Yeah, on Section 2, I just was curious why it says periodic basis, and that's not more defined. Is there a reason why we didn't define it like an annual? That would be up to you all, because I didn't know how you all wanted to look at it once a year, twice a year, quarterly. I mean, that can be easily amended as to how often you all want to review it. I would just suggest maybe annually, maybe even at the same time we're doing our budget link process or something. That might be an appropriate time. if everybody agrees. Okay. We don't have a motion to adopt this ship. Do you want to make an amendment to when we make the motion? We make a motion after the presentation, then we can just amend it. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Myers? Thank you, Mr. Chair. If Commissioner Johnsey could come forward, I asked him to speak to these couple of issues because some have asked why we need an ordinance, And I think that after he gets to speak, you'll understand why we're trying to move in this direction. So I'll turn the mic over to you. Thank you. As I explained during the last committee meeting, we're still in the process of sorting out the different entities that one way or the other utilize our services and our facilities, being free or partially free or paying fully for the utilities. we started implementing what's been proposed in the past on case-by-case basis two issues that has been brought up and I believe everybody's aware of it one was dealing with a pro bono that's currently occupying one of the locations at the North Broadway shops the reason we approached that first because of nature and the location of where it's at It's considered a retail shop. We already have been successfully being able to rent the other four areas right there. The average cost of $15 to $17 a square foot. So the idea was to approach them and see if we'd be able to discuss an amicable solution to the issue because the nature of what they do does not require a retail space. So we were looking at what other spaces we might have available. And we have got a pretty good inventory of the areas that we got right now in terms of vacant, fully occupied, and some of the leases that would be coming up for renewal shortly. And the idea is trying to locate an area that would suit their needs needs while it gives us an ability to go ahead and market the fifth and the last area at the North Broadway shops. We feel like there's an opportunity there to generate some funding and some income. The second one was in regard to a contract that we have with one of the partner agencies that currently occupying part of the Carver Community Center for community-related activities as child care and risk care, which goes back to some of the issues that we've had. For example, even some of the older leases that we've been able to identify and evaluate and actually go on site and examine, we've noticed there is a trend toward people occupying and expanding into some of the unoccupied areas within the same facility. We felt like with the new policy, once we go ahead and move forward with that, we'll be able to put in place, if you say checks and balances. We've got one tenant, as I said, in Carver Center that already has expanded probably about 25-30% beyond what was specifically identified in their contract with us. So those are just two typical issues that we're dealing with right now. There's plenty more once we start implementing the policy. There's going to be a learning curve. There's going to be a transition time that's going to be needed to make sure everybody's on board. And obviously the communication. We have to make sure there's an appropriate amount of times allocated, and we'll be able to communicate with people who are going to be affected by this. I have a question for you. Do you ever have a situation where a tenant will take space in a building and then, you know, take over some other space, put new locks on it, and they don't even have a lease or anything? That's the case. The Culver community says, well, we've had some issues. We've reached out and asked for some explanation, but also have requested for the tenants to stay within the area that was identified in a lease contract, but have not got much cooperation. And many of the tenants don't pay anything at all? No utilities, no insurance, no janitorial, no repairs and maintenance? Some don't. Some will provide their own utilities on a prorated basis. For example, this specific tenant we talk about at the Carver Center, we prorate it based on the score footage that's been occupied among different tenants, and all the utilities are prorated. And so some will pay the utilities. Some would be exempt. And that's why it's so important to go on ahead and implement this policy, because it provides the committee as well as general services an objective way to be able to look at each and every one of these entities. Some have been with us for a long, long time. And be able to objectively evaluate on what basis we are going to provide facilities free of charge or the cost of the utilities only or what have you. As I mentioned before, we kind of looked at what is the average cost of utilities are for our facilities, and those obviously change based on the age of the facility and the systems being utilized for heating, cooling, and so forth. We're looking at about a mid-seven to about $8 a square foot, and that was one of the reasons we offered for those who already got a valid lease to create a three-year transition time when we're going to go on and implement in the first year the transition at 50 percent, second year 75 percent. By the time in the third year we'll be getting at least the cost of utilities and some of the maintenance back. Do you anticipate that when you put in the policy where the tenants have to pay their operating expenses, maybe they get free rent, but they still have to pay the operating costs for the space, that they might want to reevaluate their space requirements, maybe tighten up their space to be more efficient in its use and thereby reduce the total amount of footage that would be in that category? Absolutely. One of the benchmarks that we use is average space occupied per tenant. And obviously a lot of that has to do with also the type of activities they're engaged in. But we have seen a lot of cases where you've got underutilized facilities, and we believe that this would provide the incentive for each of these tenants to really take a very good look at their operation and try to minimize their footprint, which means in return we'd be able to minimize our footprint and be able to concentrate on the facilities that we want to keep and hold on to and provide the level of services that we need to. Has your department, did it sort of inherit this issue? Is this something that's been going over maybe the last 15 or 20 years where people have been moved in and given space and all that, and there's really not been good control of that? Lack of control and transparency has been an issue. You might have organizations have approached a city, and I'm just using this as an example, 10 years ago, and were able to secure some location within our facilities for providing community-related services. And since then, I don't think we have had any of these entities come before the council and the administration have proved that they actually are providing the services that they had identified as a reason for such subsidies. Part of the new policy would require for at least an annual report of some sort, be it in writing, be it coming in in person, just kind of provide to you all during the last 12 months what type of services have been rendered to the community and things has to be quantifiable things. And then also discuss with the council about what they see happening within the next 12 months or so. So it's going to benefit that policy is going to be impacting a lot of different areas. But as I said before, it's just a matter of making sure that accountability is there and equity is there. We've got buildings that are under 99-year leases, and the building's probably useful. Life's probably another 10, 15 years maybe. So it just does not make sense to write these 99-year leases anymore. It just doesn't make any financial sense. Thank you for your input on that. I think Council Member Crosby has a question for you. Oh, I think Mr. Meyer's already spoken. Oh, okay. I was just curious how this policy would affect the Charles Young Center if this is adopted. Charles Young Center is right now currently being looked at. CM40 is leading the way with that as well as CMK in identifying specific areas in terms of community services. We are collecting data right now. The idea is, as I said, trying to at least get some of the costs that cities are going to be facing in terms of opening that center. The center right now is empty, but we have not what we call mothballed the facility yet. So you've still got some basic heat and basic cooling going on. There is a process that you can go by. And part of that, the reason we have a mothballed yet is because we're waiting to see what the final solution is going to be for or the use for the facility. Obviously, what we just discussed in terms of cost being brought back to the LFECG to us, that some of the operational costs would be a pretty important item there. And if I could, Mr. Lane, following on John Shee's notes, I think that we hope to incorporate all that is going on with the facility usage planning into the later stages of the Charles Young Redevelopment Task Force work. So I look forward to getting with Council Member Myers and with John Machine because we want consistency. We will have improvement over at Charles Young, I'm certain, in what's to be determined, but we want it to be consistent with overall governmental policy. So thank you. Thank you. Mr. Myers, you want to speak again? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess before I move forth on motion, I'd ask Commissioner, Have you reached out to this organization that's kind of creeped into other space? Yes, we have. We've had e-mail correspondence. We also had registered letters that were sent in. We've initiated calls to see if there's a possibility of meeting on site and have been unsuccessful so far. We're going to keep pushing. Has he impeded our ability to enter certain rooms in that building? Yeah, there were a couple of areas that were specifically during the discussion process. We brought up if there's any need for those specific areas, we were told no. So that was not part of the original lease. But what we found out in about four to six weeks afterward, they started using the facilities we had specifically inquired about. And then it didn't take long to change the locks. So what we plan to do is one of the two things. Since that area is currently vacant and it's really not being used on a day-to-day basis, it's to actually add that unilaterally to their lease and start charging them. maybe go back to the date where we know, we've identified when they actually started occupying the space. So those are some of the issues that we're dealing with right now. And I'm confident by putting a policy together such as this, there would be consequences, would be identified as part of the policy, that if you, it's just like going and renting a house or renting an apartment. Now, you agree you're going to stay within what's been identified for a certain amount of dollars. That doesn't give you a bill to go on ahead and go to the neighbor's yard and take over. Right. So going back again to what I talked about, the accountability, when you sign a contract, we believe we're going to deliver our end, and we expect the same thing from the tenants. Okay. So just to wrap up what he said, we have a tenant that we signed a lease with. We walked through the building, identified the space that they would occupy in their lease. The lease was agreed upon and signed, and this entity has gone in and changed the locks on doors in our building and locked us out of rooms and are not paying the additional rent. So that's one of the reasons why we wanted to have an ordinance in place so that when he reaches out to us and says, you can't do this, then he has something he can do with it. So thank you very much for your update and your hard work on this policy, and our Attorney Sanders' work on the ordinance, or resolution, I guess. So I think Council Member Crosby wanted to change this to number Section 2. Instead of it saying that the facility use policy shall be submitted and approved by council and reviewed by council on a periodic basis, we would say reviewed by council on an annual basis. Is that what you're thinking, Council Member Crosby? Okay. So I would move to add that change into this and then move that we would approve this and recommend this on out to the full council for adoption. So moved. Okay. Do I have a second on that? Okay. All right. So we're adopting the ordinance that was passed out, except we're changing the periodic to an annual basis. All right, and I'll just read the summary. A resolution directing department general services to draft a facility usage policy to be submitted and approved by the council, that any deviation from the facility usage policy must be approved by council. This resolution was by George Myers and seconded by Mr. K. Are there any more discussion on that? Yes, sir. Thank you, Chair. Mayor, recognizing that many resolutions of council sort of go into the sort of great holding pattern, I think we've got our third year on our sort of planning committee. Is there a time frame that we might be looking at for the drafting and submission of the facility usage policy? In Section 1, there's not really a time frame on it, and so I'm always thinking about when that could be. Actually, I was going to make the motion to go ahead and move that forward as well. It's not in a packet today, but it was in a packet last meeting and discussed at the last meeting. Well, I guess in this motion, should we say by July 1st or August 1st or something like that? I'm comfortable by the time you have the meeting in July, we'd be ready for it. The policy is quite a bit of what's been done. We're just trying to tune out a few things and tweak a few. So I'm comfortable with the June date. So June 1 or? That'd be fine. I'm not trying to hurry you. No, no, no. Sometimes things get going a while. That would be fine. I certainly don't want to pressure you or anything. Is that acceptable to you? Absolutely. So I guess I move to amend that to add, you're directed to draft and submit to the council by June 1, 2011, a facility usage policy. Okay. What is it? I have a second on that. Second. Second by Mr. Myers. Okay. All right. Any discussion on the amendment? Okay. All in favor of the amendment, if you want to vote, let's just vote electronically, please. We're coming up here, I think. Okay. Okay. Well, we'll just vote by voice vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. Thank you. That is for the amendment. Now we'll go for the motion, the amended motion. And do you want me to read that again, or are you good to go on that? Okay. All right. Then the vote on the amended motion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. That motion passes. All right. I think that concludes that part of our agenda. Thank you very much. Thank you. Appreciate your help. Okay. Okay, the next item is item number three, the internal audit update. Mr. Shelley. Thank you, Chairman Lane. I just wanted to report to the committee today the results of the internal audit board meeting this morning. I'm pleased to state that the internal audit board did unanimously vote to approve its bylaws. So that action has been taken. Bylaws will be provided to the council in the next few days. And at that point, we will be seeking council's approval for the bylaws, and then we will have that process completed. Okay, that's very good. Do you want to speak to the ordinance that modifies the internal audit board that was sent out on, I guess the latest draft was on November 16th of 2010, and it sort of had been held in limbo because there wasn't a full internal audit board there, and also there were some pending board members after the new mayor came in that were pending. Right. But do you want to, are you ready for the board to bring that forward for approval? I think we are. I think the board is certainly in favor of it, to my knowledge. And I think the bylaws fit quite well with the ordinance and any amendments thereof. So in my opinion, and I certainly would like both you and Council Member Myers to speak to this if you wish, It appears to me that the timing is good for both of those to move forward simultaneously to the council for its consideration and approval. Okay. Mr. Myers, you're on the Internal Audit Committee and pretty involved in reviewing this ordinance way back when. Would you be amenable to reporting that out to the vice mayor? Yes. So are we going to run that through this committee? Because you brought copies here. Well, that was what I thought. Yes, sir. Okay. So do you have a comment? I was going to make a motion to bring this out of committee because I stated at our last committee meeting that we had, knowing that you all were meeting this morning, that I would make the motion to bring this out. And I would be happy to do the bylaws at the same time to make both of those motions so that we can have them going forward at the same time through council. If that's okay with the committee. That's fine, too. Either way works for me. I'll just make a motion that we bring to the vice mayor and council the ordinance for the changes with the internal audit board that were presented to us today as well as the bylaws that were voted on this morning by the Internal Audit Board to move those forward through Council. Okay. Second by George Myers. All right, do we have a discussion on that? Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Sully, the ordinance, and you've seen this, is it? Yes, I've seen the draft amendment. Do you have a copy now of it? I do. Okay. Okay. The Section C talks about removal for neglect of duty, malfeasance, conflict of interest, or misconduct. I think all of those are fairly self-explanatory, and I guess they would be in some – they're strong enough words so they'd be really anything the Council would say if this was malfeasance. But are there any objective criteria that describe those, or in particular the conflict of interest? because I know that we have a conflict of interest statute that basically says that you have to have a direct proprietary interest in a matter. And I know that there were some accusations made about the previous chair of the audit committee based on a relationship, but not on actual financial interest in it. And so my question is, do we have yet any guidance about what that would entail so that we could give guidance to future chairs about what their limitations are and to be able to properly make decisions about compliance? Well, I was not involved in the drafting of the draft ordinance, so I do want that understood. I know that the urban county ordinances, there are conflict of interest ordinances that relate to financial matters. I believe that also there is the civil service rules regarding conflicts, ethics, ethical behavior, conflicts of interest. And perhaps Attorney Horne can help me clarify that a little bit. But I think most of the language that is taken out of here, neglect of duty, malfeasance, conflict of interest, or misconduct, I think those attach pretty concisely to existing ordinances that we have now. And I think most of these terms are defined to some degree within the ordinances. Keith, do you have anything you want to add to that? He said no. Always appreciated. The Ethics Act, of course, will apply where conflicts of interest are concerned. And as I recall, Bruce, the bylaws talk a little bit about recusing from votes. And I think you amended your bylaws to include the appearance of a conflict, unless I misremember it. I think that's correct. But that's different from – that could come forward potentially as a removal if someone refused to recuse or didn't report something. But generally it's going to be the same sort of conflict of interest rules you're used to practicing under because they're the ones that apply to all of the urban kind of government boards and commissions. And I guess I might ask the Department of Law to maybe review those because I think they're fairly loose. Because having a direct financial interest, I think the situation that arose is that someone who is acting as the, I guess, finance chair or campaign finance chair for the mayor was the chair of the audit board, and that was perceived as a conflict, although I'm not sure it was an actual conflict under our rules. And so I think we have some fairly broad ambiguities about what those are, and I think it's both fair to the people who serve but also to the public at large that we have some clarity about what those conflict of interest rules are so that I think folks can have a clear understanding of what the rules are that govern their behavior and when they're within the rules and when they're without, as opposed to a bubbling public perception that may feel that something shouldn't be going on, even though it's not really against the rules. So I don't know how to get that started with the Department of Law. I can certainly pass that along, but if I'm understanding what you're saying, it may be that the current conflict of interest rule for the government may not indicate a conflict early enough. Yeah, as I've been instructed, the conflict of interest rules, you have to have a direct pecuniary interest, a direct financial interest. You have to be receiving money. So like if I were to be being hired by the city or somebody from the outside was giving me money. And that's not really what the case was here. This was sort of conflicting duties. And there are many times I think where particularly we want to give clear guidance and protect our board members but also the public about when do conflicting duties arise to the level where a real conflict exists. And I think that would be helpful for everyone to have some additional clarity in those rules. Because in this case, the board member was one of the founding members of the audit committee and had been there for decades, I guess. And so I think that without commenting on that too much, I think it is fair to maybe want some additional clarity in the conflict of interest rules. Like I said, I'll pass that along. And obviously, whenever those rules were adopted, they were no doubt heavily debated and people, the council deciding where that should land. There will always be disagreement about what might potentially constitute a conflict in terms of recusing or stepping aside or whatever. And that's why you try to add as much definiteness as you can. But I'll pass that along to my commissioner and the attorney that handles the ethics stuff so that they can take a look at that. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Martin. All right. I guess that Ms. Crosby, you're next. Thank you. I guess my question is about the somewhat similar to Council Member Martin, but you somewhat addressed it when you said that you all clarified to the perceived conflict of interest, which would be different than what we currently have. And I guess I have two questions. One is through the process that got us here that I learned quite a bit that internal audit also operates under national guidelines. Are there conflicts of interest addressed in those guidelines or perceived conflicts of interest that would fall in the bylaws you've adopted? Within the bylaws that were adopted today, one of the sections is conflicts of interest. and so it goes into some of the, it spells out some of the conflicts that a board member is supposed to avoid. I don't have it right here in front of me. That's fine. But it does go into that in some detail. But I do think that Mr. Horn's point is well made, is that you want to make sure that there is as much continuity between the bylaws and the ordinance that may, so that, as he said, disagreement between what is a conflict and what is not, the better job we do to make sure that we don't have that kind of a disagreement or confusion in the future. It's going to serve everybody very well. And do your board members, I assume they have some sort of training that they would go through before they, or once they're appointed, that they go through training? So this is certainly something that could be part of the training process. Well, all the board members, of course, will now have the bylaws that will help, you know, direct them very clearly as to their own duties and actions with the board. And also in today's meeting, we talked about putting together an operational manual, basically, for the board members. And included in that manual would be ordinances that relate to the internal audit function and the board's function. Also included in that manual would be the Institute of Internal Auditors, Professional Standards, and Code of Ethics, the Ethics Act that Keith made reference to and any other ordinances that may have some purview over how they should conduct their duties and business with the board. Well, because I would say with the situation maybe that happened earlier was the fact that it just never was approved by council. So the guidelines that you state in your now approved bylaws by the board, which will hopefully be approved by this council, will govern those types of issues. So we probably, I mean, the problem was we hadn't formally approved everything, so we had nothing formal to go by to know whether there even was conflict or not. But as it appears under your national standards and code of ethics with internal audit, and then what we have approved under our code of ordinances would pretty much cover those situations. I think there's a lot more guidance now and a lot more clarity. And then I was just going to state to you, I know that law has been very good at letting council members know if there is something that could be a conflict. And it certainly seems that members of the Internal Audit Board could ask our law department at any given time for their opinion as to whether or not something is indeed a conflict. And law would provide that. And if they say no, then I would assume they'd be protected by the fact that they got a law opinion before they participated in something. Is that correct? Well, one of the changes we have made, and it really began with today's meeting, is Mr. Horne has been assigned by the Commissioner of Law. He will be the attorney to attend all of our internal audit board meetings. So there will be an attorney with us to help us, you know, in case a question of this nature came up. That advice would be ready at hand. And they could go to you prior to? But to answer the question you asked, I would certainly assume that this council, if the law department gave someone an opinion that there was no conflict, that if an issue came up later you would take that into consideration. If, for example, this member was coming before you and said, look, the law department told me it was okay, that that would certainly give that member a good faith reason for acting the way that they did. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Crosby. Mr. Myers, you have one more? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to speak to the same issue because, you know, in talking with Shea after the fact, she did say that if they had this to do over again, they would not allow him to serve in both those capacities. And your question, Councilman Martin, about the conflict of interest, it didn't have anything to do with the overall ethics act. It had to do with the ordinance itself that created the board. And the ordinance itself that created the board, I don't have it in front of me, but if we can bring it in here, when you read that, it clearly outlines that the two outside positions are supposed to be outside of government. And once one of those two people is the treasurer for the mayor's campaign, that's clearly a conflict that, because he's no longer outside of government. He's no longer acting independent of government. And so that's where that conflict came from, not from the Ethics Act. Mr. Martin. Yeah, and I appreciate that because obviously you and Councilmember Lane are members of the audit committee, and I think that it helps us understand where the rules are and to be able to give both board members of this body but also other board members some guidance about what their limitations are. And I appreciate you letting me know about the provisions, the bylaws. I look forward to seeing those because it sounds like you have far more specific conflict rules than applied to the rest of government, and I think that's appropriate in the Audit Board, and I commend you and the Audit Board for taking that upon yourselves to sort of clarify those in your own rules. So I look forward to seeing those. Thank you, Council Member. There are 18 sections in the bylaws. I think it's 10 pages long. It's quite detailed because rather than having the bylaws be very general, as they often are, it was the will of the board, and I've certainly agreed with it, that a lot more specificity needed to exist in these bylaws so that there would be clarity of purpose and duty going forward. As I get paid by the word, until we get into 40 or 50 pages, it's just not enough. Thank you, Chair. Okay. Does anybody else want to speak to this issue? All right. We need to take a vote on this matter. Would you like to restate your motion, Casey Crosby? Sure. My motion was that we bring forward to the Vice Mayor and full counsel the ordinance that revises the internal audit board and also the bylaws that were approved by the Internal Audit Board this morning on 4-12-11. Okay, and that motion was seconded by Mr. Myers. All right, please vote electronically. Okay, that motion passes unanimously. Thank you very much, Mr. Shelley, Mr. Horne. Thank you. And that concludes most items on the agenda. We just need to look at the general government committee items. And there's an item here for open standards, open data from Mr. Martin. Do you want us to take any action on that? I would like to bring it, and maybe if you could add it to the agenda for the next meeting. This arose from a number of actions by other city councils to try to make their data more open, and it's kind of a gentle push by the council to encourage that within the government. The last time we addressed this, there was a desire, I think some comments made, to have the Lectureary Commission take a look at this. And we're not really aware that they're meeting at all. And so, you know, I'm happy for we'll try to have someone come from who was a part of that group to speak to us. But I'm not aware that they're active. And so if the chair is so inclined to bring it up at the next meeting, I'll bring something in and bring the motion, and we can see whether the group desires to move it to the full council. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Myers, we have an issue regarding the purchase of energy-efficient vehicles. You want to speak to that? Yes. I'd like to add that on the agenda for the June meeting. There was some consternation about putting us in this committee when we first did it because there's a couple other groups working or looking at a similar topic. Commissioner and I have discussed that after that last meeting. The reason I think it was at the point of this committee is because I want to look at it from a government's policy perspective, rather than an environmental quality, they're looking at it from an environmental standpoint, or another committee might be looking at it from a different aspect. I want to look at it as a policy for this government to begin to utilize alternative fuels whenever and wherever possible, where it makes sense. And so to me that's much broader than looking at it for one of those particular reasons of being green or saving fuel and that kind of thing. So Commissioner and I are working together on some things, and I look forward to being able to put this on the agenda for the June meeting. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Myers. Unless there's any other items to be brought before the chair, I'd like to take a motion for adjournment. So. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you.