Music Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The End Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And we will go ahead and convene our Committee of the Whole work session for the Urban County Council. And the first item on our agenda is public comment about issues on the agenda. Is there anyone who wishes to make a public comment about an item on the agenda? Mr. Todd, will you please give your name and address? Welcome. Don Todd, I apologize. I didn't intend to be speaking today. I was just going to consult. I represent John Winchester, who is one of the bidders on the towing contract. It's my opinion. He was the underbidder. And I note on the agenda there that it's on for your approval. And I'd like to be heard at some point on that issue. We feel we have legitimate basis to indicate that, in fact, Mr. Winchester, CTS towing should have gotten that bid. So I don't know how, from a parliamentary procedure, what you want to do, defer that or put it on for hearing or have a public discussion. I think that would be up to the council. Okay. I didn't get my address. You still have two minutes and 36 seconds. Do you have anything else to say? Listen, I've been around. I'll give that time back to you. Okay. Thank you very much. Is there other public comment on items on the agenda? Go ahead. Welcome. Thank you, Madam Vice Mayor, members of the council. I didn't sign up to speak. I'm Rena Wiseman on behalf of Bluegrass Towing. We were recommended for the bid that Mr. Todd, speaking of, we do think that we have the low and most responsive bid. And if this is to be discussed, we're prepared to discuss it today. We think you should follow your recommendation from purchasing. And I think they're here to answer any questions today if you want to talk about it. We're here and ready to discuss it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Is there other public comment? Items on the agenda? If not, we'll go ahead. We have an April 26th summary, Council. Move approval. I had a motion from Council Member Ellinger, second from Council Member Crosby to approve. That is on pages 1 through 3 of your packet. Any discussion? If not, those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? All right, thank you. Now we'll start our review of the docket, and this starts on page 4 of the packet. And so we have two items for first reading. Is there any request to first reading of ordinances to refer table or any questions? Council Member Beard, which item is your motion on? I thought you said there were only two. Yes, this is a time to, if you want to refer one of these to a committee or table one or ask questions about one. Is there an item you wish to take action on? Or any council member? And our electronic screens are working, seem to be. So log in, please, if you have a question. If there are none, let's move to first reading of resolutions, starting with number 26 through 47. Are there questions or motions to remove or motions to table or refer to a committee? Councilmember K. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I circulated a memorandum to members of Council regarding item number 33 with some more information about the pools that were recommended to be kept open. And I'm moving that this item, number 33, be removed from the docket. Is there a second? So Council Member Kaye has moved to remove item 33 in first reading of resolutions. And Council Member Crosby seconded. Is there discussion? This is the item relating to keeping Berry Hill and Constitution pools open for fiscal year 11 and 12. No discussion? So the motion is to remove item 33. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. Okay, let's do a, can we do an electronic vote, please? All those in favor of removing number 33, please log in aye or yes. All those opposed, no. This motion passes 8 to 7. So that item number 33 will be removed from the docket. This will go forward as a motion Thursday night. Are there other motions? Council Member Martin. Thank you, Vice Mayor. On item 42, I understand that the downtown Lexington Corporation has circulated a revised agreement with the city, and I guess I make a motion to substitute the revised agreement for the existing agreement that was originally affiliated with this resolution, so move. Okay. Council Member Martin has moved to substitute the new resolution for number 42, and Council Member Lawless seconded. Is there a discussion? Council Member Beard? Are we going to get an opportunity to review that before we actually approve it? And I'm going to maybe ask Richard to come up. Richard, are you out there someplace? There you go. The administration, I think, has circulated it to all the council members. I received one. And so, but this is something that I think they've been working on with the downtown Lexington Corporation, and this is, I think they were ready to go, but it's certainly a fair question. And I'll – We just want to put it on the docket. Mr. Emmett. Sure. We want to put it on the docket for discussion. Today we have a presentation on it towards the end of the meeting. Oh, okay. Well, that'd be fine. Other discussion? Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I guess since we had some question about number 27, I guess if we could just get some further information. There's four people on here. I'm not sure who that would be that we should ask to come forward. Looks like police or code enforcement. If anybody wants to jump up. Number 27. Vice Mayor, I think we had a motion pending. Oh, we did indeed. Excuse me, Mr. Todd. I would just like to comment on that if given the opportunity. Actually, this is time for council comment on the motion. So is there other council comment on the motion? Right. On my motion to substitute. Yes. We need to have that vote first. Okay. All those in favor, this is back to, I think the confusion came because it was stated that there's a presentation, which there is, later in this meeting. Should we table this until after the presentation? I think all that will be left for you all to consider is the new agreement, so your motion would probably be appropriate to go ahead and make now. Okay. To substitute. Okay. Is there any further discussion on substituting the new number 42 for 42, the downtown Lexington agreement? Okay. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? No. So we have one nay. Council Member Beard and 14 ayes. Thank you. Now, let's go back to Council Member Ellinger. Were you finished? No. Okay. I just had a question on the last motion. Okay. When was it originally tabled? I thought 42 was tabled until May 12th. Is that correct? It was tabled until the May 10th Committee of the Whole Work Session. That's why it's back on the docket. Thank you. I think I'm back up now. Thank you. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I guess if I could hear from either the law department or code enforcement or from purchasing, I guess, on the contract, and just to kind of follow up with the discussion that we've had from the two different attorneys. I'm Todd Slayton in purchasing. I did the bid for the towing contract. Thank you. Mr. Markham's out today. But there are two types of bids. There is a bid that would be paid for by the city. There's a bid that would be paid for by the general public. Bluegrass towing is the low bid for the bid that would be paid for by us. In fact, there's no cost to us in that type of service. So that's the reason for the low bid on there. There are several other issues as far as the capabilities. Did you go through that again? I didn't quite understand, Nick. Would you explain the difference? Yeah, there's an impounding of vehicles at the request of code enforcement, which that's typically paid for by the city. On Bluegrass Towing Submittal, they submitted that at no charge to us, which we estimate is about $10,000 to $12,000 a year. The other services on there are impounding vehicles at the request of police or towing of wrecked vehicles, and those are fees that would be paid for by the general public if their vehicles were towed. Does that make sense? I think we do have some comments from the attorneys, and I think would it be appropriate this time, Mayor, or Vice Mayor? That's fine. John Todd, on behalf of the underbidder, CTS Towing, the city's portion of that particular contract is like 10 percent of the entire contract. The major portion of that bid is for the city or for the citizenry, the people that live in neighborhoods, whatever, that have tows. And our bid was lower on five of the six criteria that were presented. And it should be made known to the council that no information was disseminated in the bidding process as to the number of tows, the amount of business in each one of these various criteria. Bluegrass had that information all to themselves because they've had this contract for 25 years. So we bid in the dark without that information. The bidding process was evaluated by purchasing. One of the individuals who was evaluating on behalf of the police department was a prior employee of Bluegrass Towing. We don't feel we got a fair shake. I would ask that you look at the bidding process. Look at the numbers that we submitted. We were clearly the underbidder in all but one of the categories, and that category was the tows that are specifically requested by the city for its own purposes, and Bluegrass bid zero because they knew what a small portion of the total towing operations per year was undertaken on behalf of the city. Again, that information wasn't given to us, and that's not fair. We satisfied all of the other criteria. We had the number of trucks. We had a lot. We had the appropriate fence. We had the occupancy permit. We had the letter of credit. We had every other criteria. And I think that process was unfair, and I would never come down here and make this public statement unless I was convinced of that. Thank you. I'd like to hear from the attorneys. Ms. Wiseman, if you don't mind. I only have a couple more minutes, so. And I would like to hear from police also. Okay. Thank you. If Mr. Todd had a problem with the bid process, it clearly says in the specs that you have three days from the date the bid is open to register a notice of contention with respect to the process. That was not done. If Mr. Todd had wanted information about the number of toes and any other information pertaining to this contract, that could have been requested and provided from the Division of Purchasing. Apparently that request was not made, and therefore he did not have that information. We do not think the process was unfair. We strenuously object to the characterization of that on behalf of Bluegrass Towing, who has done this contract for many years. It seems as though the only criticism is that we've done it and done it well. It is true that there are charges that are assessed against individuals that are higher from Bluegrass Towing. But again, these are charges if someone is in a wreck and causes a wreck, they pay that towing charge. And they can request Bluegrass Towing to do that tow, or they can have their own towing company. But that is not a cost to the urban county government. We do provide the service to code enforcement when they ask to have abandoned cars or whatever removed from properties, and that is being provided at no cost to the government. Mr. Todd would like to poo-poo that because that's just a small part of our contract, I think, in this day and age. I don't think this council certainly ever poo-poos the opportunity to save the taxpayers $10,000. dollars. Mr. Todd also fails to talk about the other parts of the specifications in terms of the types of equipment that are required to have. We have more than twice the amount of records that are required in your specs. His client has much less than that. We have the heavy-duty equipment that you need to remove semi-tractor trailer trucks when there's an accident on the interstate. They have two of those, and apparently they're located in Lawrenceburg. It's a lot closer to get – well, you can – that's fine. That is – so this is more than just a cost contract. It's a service contract. We have three times the employees and drivers, and this contract requires that this service be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week if there is an arrest or an emergency. seven of our vehicles are configured to be able to deal with cars in parking structures. If we remember the tragedy across the street at the Chase parking structure, when that truck was hanging out over that parking structure, it was bluegrass trolling that had the equipment to deal with that. That is also part of this contract and something that we think purchasing took into account. So we think the process was fair. The time to raise that question is long past, and we would ask you to accept their recommendation. Thank you. Commander Bernard, did you want to respond from the police, please? Can I respond to her point quickly? Well, it's not a back and forth, I'm sorry. But Council Member Ellinger wanted to hear from the police. Yes, ma'am, and I apologize. I talked to Commander Blanton before coming over this afternoon. He told me this might be coming up. And we received a recommendation from Sergeant Richmond from our Bureau of Traffic section who went out when this contract was coming up. Things that we looked at were the level of service available, the experience, equipment, facilities, and manpower. For the Division of Police, when we call whatever contract towing company it is, it's not only about the equipment that they have but the level of service and the service of the community. That's what we were evaluating more than what purchasing was looking at the contract. Looking at several of those areas, I asked Sergeant Richmond to break down, and he did provide me a memo, and I can get that to you all later on. The main concerns that he had when he did his inspection or was looking at going through this was all the required permits needed for the company at that time. CTS, I believe, did not have those, and he said to refer to purchasing at the time that they did the inspection. Facilities, building for inside storage was not secure, often was secure a vehicle for some type of evidentiary scene. The storage facilities that they had were not adequate for what we need. Lighting, vehicle inventory system as required by the bid specifications upon inspection, CTS had just purchased the software, which had never been installed or used by an employee or not trained on the system. And they got to the driver's part of it, which is a public service aspect of it, of getting and responding to the wreck scenes or to the needs of the police or fire and quote enforcement. And it was a number of vehicles and, excuse me, drivers that they had incapable of responding to those scenes. Very often the officers, and you'll see them on the street or the Division of Public Safety with the fire department, will need a vehicle removed quickly. And if it's limited by the number that can be provided by the towing service, that impacts our ability to do our job. So Sergeant Richmond took all those into consideration when he made his recommendation for purchasing. He did not, and we did not ask him to look at the pricing on that. We wanted the quality of service for the community for Fayette County, and then that's what he did his evaluation on. And then he's provided that to us and sent it through Chief Bastin, and I have that, and we can forward it to you all if you need to look at his recommendations. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Commander. I think my time is up, but if no one else asks a question, I might want to come back and let Mr. Todd speak at that time. But at this time, I think my time has expired. Okay. Does any other council member have a question about this item? Somebody asked me to respond to those points. Yes. Okay. I appreciate it. First of all, the information as to the number of operations or trips Bluegrass has, they're required under the specifications to give that to the police department. That was not done. That is not in the public domain. As far as the equipment is concerned, not only did we have adequate equipment, but obviously we wouldn't have the number of units that Bluegrass has because we didn't have the contract. But we had letters from the bank saying if they are given the contract, we are authorized to advance funding for them to purchase four new trucks, which would give us as many, if not more, than Bluegrass. As far as the heavy equipment, both of these parties, Bluegrass and CTS, have subcontracted this out with second parties. Our equipment is on the lot in Fayette County, and they know that, and they were there. They saw it. Sergeant Richmond needs to be here because he's a prior employee of Bluegrass, and I wanted to question him. And he should have been here so I could ask him about whether or not he should have participated in the process, having been a prior employee of Bluegrass. I think that tainted the process. I think that's unfair. And I think people who are involved in the evaluation of bids should never have had any prior contacts, whether it be employment, contract, or otherwise with any other party. The storage facilities, people from building inspection gave us the approval. People from purchasing came out. Our storage facilities is better than bluegrass. We have the appropriate height fence. They do not. We're in an I-2 zone. They're in an I-1 zone. Our lot is closer to the police department. We had secure facilities. I was out there. So were the people from purchasing. We had secure units. We had lighting. We had a new computer system put in place. You've got to remember that we're bidding on the contract for the first time. We don't have the contract, so we're buying new equipment. We're trying to show you what we have. If given the contract, obviously we're in a position, as would be Bluegrass, to have the cash flow to afford new equipment or afford to sublease additional equipment. The thing that's really important here is we underbid them in every single aspect of the bid except for what services they're giving you, the government. So what you're saying is we're going to go ahead and accept less obligation or reduce price to us as citizens or the city. and the citizens out here are going to have to pay more. And I think if you run the numbers, you'll see that the volume of business that deals with the citizenry and private tows is much more than the small amount that the city utilizes. In fact, if we had known the numbers, we would probably have been zero because it's really not that significant as it relates to the total operations. Thank you, Mr. Todd. Commander Bernard jumped up, and we have Commissioner Mason. Did you want to respond to that? Commander Bernard's got a couple of comments relative to what he was speaking about. Okay. Thank you. One, I apologize. I really wasn't prepared for this. And two, I'm usually in court, so there are certain rules and standards Mr. Todd I respect very much. But let me say this to all members of the council and all members of Fayette County, the community. Sergeant Richmond worked for me in homicide and has worked for me on the police department for over 20 years. He's not worked at Bluegrass Towing for over 15 years. Most of you all know him. He works in our collision reconstruction unit. He is above our approach on this. He is not someone that's doing favoritism to Bluegrass. He is someone that we tasked with going out and evaluating a service for our community. He's not looking at the purchasing price. He's looking at the quality of service. I just wanted to make sure that the council was aware that Sergeant Richmond was asked. He didn't volunteer for this. He was tasked with this. This was a very difficult assignment in going and doing those things. And he is someone that has the highest integrity. And I'll borrow a phrase from the movie Armageddon, if you remember that, when they're going up in the space shuttle and they're looking at it, and the guy turns over to Steve Bucci and says, imagine going to the moon on the lowest price contractor, riding a piece of machinery to the moon on the lowest price contractor. You don't want to do it. You want the best quality of service. That's our perspective. That's all we're asking. for whoever can give Fayette County the best quality of service. Thank you. Thank you very much. Council Member McCord. I'd like to echo what Commander Barnes said about Sergeant Richmond. And, you know, it's one of these things where certainly within people's prerogative to talk about what is lowest cost and so forth like that. But I personally don't appreciate anybody making any characterization of anybody at that mic. So I think that was an out-of-bounds statement, Mr. Todd. and I'd like to say that Sergeant Richmond, I would concur 100% to him, about him. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other council members who wish to speak on this item? I was not criticizing him, but I'm saying in the process. Sir, you're out of order. You're out of order. I'm sorry. Point of order, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council members, do you have any other items? you have questions about or wish to refer? Council Member Crosby. I would just like additional information on number 37 while we're hiring people and laying them off in the same Department of Government while we're doing this now. So if I could just get more information. I think, is Leslie Jarvis back there? I think she might be able to answer that right now. These two positions are director positions. There will still be a division of youth services and a division of family services, so the position of director was necessary for that. The positions that are being laid off in that area provide a service that, a couple of them were grant positions, the others, the services aren't needed. Did you have any further questions? Okay. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mayor. I have a question on the same, number 37. Ms. Jarvis. The new director of youth services, do they have all the support staff or administrative staff that they're going to need? Do you know that? I do not know. Is there anybody here from social services that can speak to that? I'm sorry, Commissioner, I can see you back there. Commissioner Mills, welcome. Thank you. Currently there is not, there's a staff assistant in youth services. There's not an administrative staff person that will report to the director. Will there be a need for one in the future? Excuse me? Will there be a need for one in the future? Yes, there will. So the five people that are being laid off, do any of them have the credentials to match that position? I do not believe that any of the administrative people who are being laid off are above the level of staff assistant. Usually a director requires an administrative specialist or administrative specialist senior. And none of those five have that qualification? Not to my knowledge. I don't believe they do. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You're welcome. Council members, are there other questions about first reading of resolutions? If not, we will move right along to second reading of ordinances. Are there any questions or matters to refer to committee or items to be tabled? Council Member Crosby. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I would like to make a motion that we remove number six. This came up during our general services budget link, and after further review, this was not part of the restructuring by the administration. This is something that we tabled several months ago, and this contradicts to the transition team's recommendations for this division, and it was our understanding during our budget link that this person could still provide the same services that they do. to general services as well as perform functions within risk management. So since it's not recommended, it was just something we had tabled. I make a motion to remove. Council Member Crosby moved to remove number six under second reading of ordinances, and Council Member Lawless seconded. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Okay, let's log in please with your vote. Okay, this motion has failed 5-4-10 against. So that motion remains, that item remains on the docket. Is there anything else for first reading of resolutions? Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mayor. I believe in the last work session, Committee of the Whole, there was a report out from General Services Committee, and it included a motion to put on the docket moving forward with that position of full-time citizen advocate. And it never has appeared in the work session packet, and I was curious as to why that was. I'm looking at law and do you know? Glenda? We'll have to go back and take a look and see what happened with that. I didn't have that as one of the things for the law department to put on the docket. Okay Council Member Lane I know reported that out Do you recall Council Member Lane Because it's already a full time position So I don't know that we need to put something On the docket making it full time Well I think that The point of the motion was That the council was discussing Whether or not that position would remain full time And until that decision was finalized, we couldn't go forward with the process of hiring that position. And so we voted it out of committee to put it on the docket so that it would move forward. Because without that happening, there's just a stalemate, and we've got the committee in place and nothing's happening. So maybe it's not the issue of it being full-time that has to be the key because it's already a full-time position, but it was the fact that we were motioning to move that hiring process forward. Okay. And that's not on the docket. Well, could we do this? If you report out on Thursday, then we could just then have the resolution ready to put on the docket on Thursday? Has it been reported out already? Yes. Council Member Lane can speak to that. Yes, ma'am, I reported out. I believe the vote was four to two. One person was missing from the committee meeting, and so it has been reported out. Did you report it out in that meeting? Well, I think you also reported it out as Vice Mayor. Right. I guess my only concern was doing it that way, is that there's a motion that we're probably going to hear today to add to this packet, a motion to make that part-time. And so we're going to be discussing that rather than the original motion, which was to move forward with the hiring process. And so it puts that motion at a little bit of a disadvantage, I think. So do we do a walk-on now to put that in? If there's going to be a motion to make it part-time, You can also do a motion to make it full-time, and both can be discussed today if you wanted to do that. Whatever the will of the council is, really, I just don't want the fact that we put this through committee, pulled it out of committee and reported it out, and it be kind of lost in the process. So I'll kind of yield to you, Vice Mayor, whatever you think is the best. Well, did you, Council Member Lane, did you want to restate your motion from the last work session that was brought forward? And I believe I reported that out on Thursday night at the last Thursday night meeting. No, I wasn't putting my paper on it. Oh, okay. I was going to speak to the issue, but, you know, I can just say that we did report out the motion from the General Government Committee that the vote was four to two to recommend the council to put the citizens advocate as a full-time position. And I just thought I would, I voted against that motion, and I would like to speak to the minority position on that if I might. So you're not making a motion? Well, I mean, I felt that I reported it out to you, and you'd already made the motion. I mean, I can make the motion. So technically it has already been before the council. So Mr. Blue's motion would probably be more appropriate to amend that motion to make it a part-time position rather than full-time. I mean, that would be a way I would approach it, I think, under the circumstances. So I would ask law and maybe our parliamentarian, can we go ahead and have on the table again the motion, which Council Member Lane reported out, which did not make it to the docket, for discussion now? The key is going to be, was that motion debated by the council after it was reported out, and what was that vote? Was it voted to be put on the docket? I'm not sure. I don't have the meeting minutes in front of me, but how was that motion disposed of? Was it just reported out, or did we take action on the motion? We should have taken action on the motion if it was brought to the open. I think there was no, there may not have been action taken because two council members were going to talk about it between then and now. Is that, is my memory correct on that? Okay, well, if that being the case, since we have a motion for Mr. Blues to make it a part-time position, why don't we, it would be one or two things we could either modify to make it a full-time and put it on the docket and then subject it to, you know, being modified at the council meeting to be part-time position. That would be one approach we could take, which I think would be consistent with the recommendation of the general government committee and your recommendation as vice mayor. Can you repeat that, please? I'm merely saying that Mr. Blues has already prepared a resolution saying that the Citizens Act would be a part-time position. My suggestion is we could take that document and make it a full-time position and put it on the docket for Thursday night, and then at that time Mr. Blues could make a recommendation that we go to a part-time position by amendment, and that would handle the paperwork on it. One moment. We've had several memories put together here that do seem to recall there was no motion put on the docket. And so a new motion of some type would be in order, and I also have two people who wish to speak to this issue. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Vice Mayor. It appears that we're going to have a discussion in regards to the Citizens Advocate. I, as a member of the General Government Committee that made that request to report out, I think it's imperative, and that action was taken on April 12th and then reported out at the following work session. I think it's imperative that if we have a discussion, that the discussion first is about the advocate being a full-time position, Because that action of the General Government Committee precedes any walk-on resolution to or not to be presented to this council today or at some time in the future. So I think it's important that it was reported out. If we fail to take a vote to put it on the docket or have discussion, we just need to first discuss the full-time status as recommended by the General Government Committee. Law advised that nothing was put on the docket because it's already a full-time position. And if I recall, two of the council members, Blues and Myers, were discussing the part-time versus full-time issue and agreed to work through that before it came back up. So there's no motion on the floor. Vice Mayor, if I will, in just the time I have remaining, I will gladly, consistent with the action of general government and your reading out, I make the motion that we place onto the docket the hiring of the citizen's advocate in a full-time position. So moved. Okay. Council Member Ford has moved, and Council Member Myers has seconded that it be placed on the docket to hire a full-time citizen advocate. And so log in, please, if you wish to discuss this. And can you give me back the screen, please? I think Council Member Blues was on the list next. Okay. Oh, yes. Our parliamentarian, Council Member Stinnett, has pointed out that this may be out of order since we're discussing the docket as it is. And so there's an opportunity later in the meeting to put any item on the docket. So, Council Member Stinnett, did you want to speak to that? I can't. This would go under item 5, V, right there on page 9. Right now the question was on the current items, and Councilman Myers' question, what precipitated the conversation was, wow, it should have been listed here. It wasn't making a new motion. So the appropriate spot would be, and JEDA items referred from Councilmembers would be appropriate to make that. I would ask for Vice Mayor, if I can just chime in. And with the new system that we have with government and the working of the work session is different from what we've had in the past, I would just like to consider this as an oversight on part of the council and as part of this work session group. And so I would counter that. All we're doing is asking to go back and correct what should have been done and what was already done and read out. So our attorney, Glenda George, would like to respond to that. I have a draft of the minutes from the council clerk from the last meeting where this was reported out. And the only thing it says is that the committee of the whole has recommended hiring a full-time citizens advocate. There was nothing further in terms of putting something onto the docket. So Council Member Stenit is correct. If we want to put something on the docket, it's not an oversight. We'll need to do it under items referred from council members under number five is what I think it is. Is that – some people say that works. Does that work for everybody to discuss it under item five? Can we get what – yes, we'll get that back. So we do have a motion, though, on the floor. Does the maker and the seconder wish to withdraw it, or simply can we postpone it, Mr. Parliamentarian? Well, again, I mean, I'm just trying to follow the agenda as it has been written by the council. So, I mean, if we start going out of order on this one, which I'm sure it's a friendly, none of us mind making a decision on this. The point is we need to stick by our agenda just because if this starts to be the norm, then it gets to be a little hectic in here. Mr. Ford, would you want to withdraw it and bring it back under item 5 to place it on the docket? It would actually have to be a ruling from the chair as a point of order. I'm sorry. It would actually have to be your ruling as a point of order to stick to the agenda. I mean, you can obviously, we can vote to hear it now if we want to do that. Vice Mayor, if it's the will of the council and to take the advice of the law department, whatever suits the council. But I would just request that we address this issue first. that the issue of the citizens advocate as a full-time, that discussion has precedent over any subsequent discussion that may have of the council. I think that's my point and focus. So do you wish to withdraw it and then bring it back under item 5? I will do so, and I'll bring it back. Okay, thank you very much. Does the seconder? Vice Chair, I would gladly take my second back, but I concur that I hope that we can be first in line. All right. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. Now, thank you, Mr. Parliamentarian, for keeping us in order. We're still on second reading of ordinances. And is there anything else on the second reading of ordinances that you wish to address? And if we could get our screen back, we're still on a voting mode. Please. If there are no more on second reading of ordinances, let's move to second reading of resolutions on page 8 of the packet. Is there any item there? Council members, just raise your hand if you have an item. If there are no items, our next agenda item is pages 11 through 13, which is budget amendments. And this is a time for questions, comments on pages 11 through 13. Are there any questions, Council Members? Okay. Okay. Now, we still don't have the ability to log in for questions, but we're on item five now. And so the first item we'll take is, Council Member Ford, did you wish to address the item? Thank you, Vice Mayor. Consistent to the action of the General Government Committee, I move that we vote to make the Citizens Advocate a full-time position. So move. So Council Member Ford has moved and Council Member Myers seconded to motion to make the citizen advocate a full-time position. And I think, okay, I think Council Member Blues was on the original list, but we don't have that. And then Council Member Myers was next. And Council Member Lawless, did you have your hand up? Well, we can put you on the list. Okay. So, Council Member, well, this is the opportunity to refer a matter to Council, to place an item on the docket, or to recommend something else. So, Council Member Blues, then Myers, then Lane, okay, and Lawless. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I think it is a little bit strange that a motion has been made to do what already is done and that we already have a full-time citizens' advocate. Nevertheless, I would, as Council Member Lane has mentioned, I do plan to put forward a resolution to make the citizen's advocate position a part-time position, that is to say a 20-hours-a-week part-time position, and we'll do so if the current motion is not passed. And I will do that because I think that any position in the urban county government has to be in scale with the actual dimensions of the job. What we know by Citizens Advocates reports, the quarterly reports, and the last one is typical of the last many over the last several years. The Citizens Advocates Office has received in 62 working days 37 calls. that's approximately one call every 13 hours or about a day and a half. It does seem to me that while we certainly need a citizen's advocate's office and that while one is mandated by the charter and the duties are spelled out, that it is, I believe, an irresponsible expenditure of taxpayer money to make that job full-time when it can be readily managed by an advocate who works part-time. And I will further argue that position if there is opportunity to do so. And in order to do that, I would urge my colleagues to vote against this motion so that we can consider the question of making the job a part-time rather than full-time one. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I think, you know, everybody's heard my arguments for why this position needs to stay full-time. And last week when we had the discussions about whether it be full-time or part-time, we had hoped to get together and reach some type of compromise and then be able to come back with something, and that wasn't able to happen. But what I did learn from several council members is that one of the concerns that they have is the amount of money or resources that we're putting in that office. And so, you know, you've heard me say before that places like the University of Kentucky has a full-time ombudsman for its students and faculty because they understand the value of having that position there for their employees and their students. And so in listening to different council members, the main concern that I heard was, again, the number of resources or amount of resources that we were going to put forth in that office. Previously, there's been a staff assistant. I'm not sure the title, but there's been a staff assistant in the office, as well as a full-time ombudsman that was making, I think, last time in a range of $75,000 or $80,000. Several council members said it didn't matter to them if it was 20 hours or 40 hours. It was the cost or the resources that were put towards it. So I would move that we would make. And so one of the reasons they were trying to go to part-time is to decrease that salary from $80,000 down to $40,000 or somewhere around there. So I would move to amend the motion to decrease the salary of the full-time citizens advocate to not more than $40,000 a year, which gets us to the same place as limiting the position to a part-time, except that we have full-time access for our citizens. And so there's some other things we can do, too. And if there's only one person in the office, we can switch the two offices that are down there on the first floor, which gets HR a larger room to be able to accommodate citizens that come in and look for employment opportunities. So, again, I move that we would decrease that salary down to not more than $40,000. Second. So, Council Member Myers has moved to amend the motion to say that the position will pay no more than $40,000 a year, and Council Member Ellinger seconded. I said $40,000. Is it $40,000? So now, we have a list, but the list was for the original motion. So is there anyone who wishes to speak to the amendment? Council Member Stenet. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I appreciate the spirit of it, Council Member Myers, but I think that debate or that amendment would be more appropriate after the links is reported out because we are currently in the budget, and fortunately for us, we have an opportunity to debate this once the general government link is able to report out. I know the mayor put a placeholder number in his budget, but I'd like the opportunity to be able to debate it a little bit more in depth rather than making it part of this motion. I'd rather go ahead and do away with either full-time or part-time first and then address the salary issue later. That's just where I stand, so I'm going to vote against it. I understand what you're trying to do, and ultimately I think we can decide that when we do the budget in another month or so. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Just two quick points. A full-time position is also full-time benefits, So we have to factor that into the expenditure on the job. And even so, we're putting a, by passing this motion and this amendment, we're still saying that although we don't have the work, we are going to make the room. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You're welcome. Councilmember Farmer and then Councilmember Ford. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Is there a way to quantify the effects of either one of these motions? Which one would, shall we say, save the most? Or which one would make the most savings between going halftime and keeping the full time at a lower number? I think HR would need to weigh in on that, perhaps. Thank you. That's kind of a payroll issue. Is that what you're asking? Well, I guess there's the implied cost that the Council Member Blues was giving concert to. I mean, what is the difference between keeping the full-time position and capping it at $40,000 versus turning the position into a part-time position and all of the requisite dollars that go along with that? I'm just trying to get kind of a T account about which one, what they both cost. Okay. Council Member Ford, and then we have our electronic list back. Okay. And I'm speaking, thank you, Vice Mayor, speaking to the amendment, but before I do quickly, I want to clearly explain the nature of my original motion. As I recall, general government, there was great discussion in our committee meeting on April 12th, And I believe that part of the reason the vote went the way it did was to allow this council the opportunity to discuss and debate the merits of full-time status of the advocate. And so that was the gist of my motion. With that being said, I'm not truly in favor or in support of the amendment because I think it convolutes an issue that is very complex to start with. Just for the timeline, I do want to say that I think that we ought to have this discussion, but it needs to start with the full-time employment status. We've heard if it's already full-time, then why are we discussing it? The reason we're discussing it is that an issue that predates my time on council has brought it up, whether the full-time position needs to be part-time or not. Just for the context for those watching and those around us now, the General Government Committee met on April 12th. That committee voted 4-2 to recommend to the council that we hire the advocate in a full-time capacity. That report out of our committee was not made until two weeks later, April 26th, in which our chairman, Mr. Lane, did report that out to this council and the Vice Mayor Gordon. The following Thursday was the presented an opportunity that we thought was going to be a walk-on resolution to do just the opposite, which was to make the Citizens Advocate a part-time position. And that's the gist of my concern now. Such a walk-on resolution prohibits and precludes this council from the discussion that needs to be had around full time. And so while things may seem out of whack as far as timing, that's the true timing that brings us from there to now. So with that, I will unfortunately not support this motion and the amendment, and I stand behind my motion for us to discuss the full-time status of the advocate alone in and of itself. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You're welcome. Okay, now we're back to our electronic list, and this is to speak to the amendment. Council Member Lawless. Is yours a different issue? Okay. Council Member Beard, did you want to speak to the amendment? Okay, Council Member Myers, did you want to speak to the amendment? I'll just hold off. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Okay, Council Member Lane to the amendment. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I feel strongly that we have to think on the lines of reducing the cost of government whenever possible. And when there are only 37 inquiries by constituents to the citizens advocate over the last three months of the first quarter, that does not seem to be a full-time position to me. You add to that that the citizen advocate attends council meetings and you add all those hours up under the report, the citizen advocate reported that 37% of her time was dealt in dealing with these 37 inquiries that came in. And if you add to that, going to the meetings, that's about 50% of her time on the job. One of the reasons I feel that it's appropriate to reduce the scope of this position is that when the charter was first, I guess, adopted by the city, this was over 30 years ago, the Irving County government did not have live TV coverage of our meetings. We didn't have archives of counsel actions online where you can go look them up on the Internet. We didn't have streaming videos of past meetings. We didn't have full-time counsel aides. We didn't have LexCol where assistants can call in and get assistance when they're having problems. All of this technology has more or less made the duties of the assistance advocate somewhat obsolete. However, there are occasions and there are issues that come up where the assistance advocate is required. My feeling is that we could save somewhere between $25,000 and $40,000 a year by cutting this back to a part-time position. Council Member Lane, I'm so sorry to interrupt you. No, your time's not up, but the amendment has to do with the $40,000 item. Right. Well, that's what I'm addressing. Okay. The fact that cutting it back will go to $40,000. not limiting the total pay to that. You know, my thought, we need to, you know, cut costs. We need to reduce our costs. We can't do things to keep people on that we don't need, give people raises we can't afford, leave phone pools open that aren't being underutilized. We have to think more frugally in order to get through the tough financial times we're having. So I would encourage us to either reduce the price to $40,000 or to have a part-time citizens advocate. That's my position. Thank you. Council Member Myers wishes to speak to the amendment. Thank you. I guess I would just add that, you know, if you look at the $40,000, it's half of what we were paying in the previous advocate, and we also have, I think, a $50,000 placeholder in the budget, which will provide the $10,000 for the benefits. So I guess I'm not, yes. So if in trying to speak just to the amendment, I guess my question would be that if we're going to make it a part-time position and we're not going to do the $40,000, I mean, are we going to pay the advocate $10,000? I'm not. We have to address the salary at some point. So to me it makes sense. even if you want to cut it to half time, if we cut the salary in half, then we're really getting to the same place that we were trying to get to. Thank you. Council Member Beard wishes to speak to the amendment. Thank you. And I'm not totally crystal about whether it's the amendment or the original motion. The amendment is to amend the motion to give no more than $40,000 per year. So it's the cost. Well, that is embedded in somewhat of my conversation. So I'll start here, and somebody can tell me to quit when I'm out of bounds. But we've struggled with this whole situation with the Citizens Advocate for at least three years. And I just looked over Councilman Blues' information here. Of the 37 issues that they handled, 21 of them went to Lexington call, and only 16 of them, they actually worked themselves. Council Member Beard, that's not part of the amendment. So you asked me to tell you when you strayed off. I understand that, but my... There will be an opportunity to speak to that. That's fine. I can wait until then. Okay, great. All right. Is anyone else wishing to speak to the amendment? Council Member Lawless. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I've changed my mind. I agree with Council Member Stenet that we're in the middle of the links and the budget amendments, I mean, reviewing the budget. And so for that reason, it seems reasonable that we let that process go through. Does anyone else wish to speak to the amendment? If not, oh, Council Member Martin, did you wish to speak to the amendment? Yeah, just briefly. And I guess I, too, echo Council Member Stenet's sentiments. I agree with what you're doing, and I think that we might end up there eventually. But I think it probably needs to be a part of the budget process. And so remind us all, because we'll bring this up again when this comes up. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You're welcome. Anyone else? The motion is to amend the motion to pay no more than $40,000 per year for the citizen advocate position. Will you please log in, aye or nay, and we'll take the vote electronically. Do we need one more vote? Okay. That motion fails 3 to 12. Now, the motion on the floor is to move forward to the docket a full-time position for the citizens advocate. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And again, I stated that my intent to bring this forward is for us to have the council to discuss. So I'll make my comments brief, and I'll rest my case. It concerns me for us to diminish the Office of the Citizens Advocate. It has historically been an office of two full-time equivalents, and now is, for all intents and purposes, is being proposed as it stands now as an office of one full-time equivalent to make the advocate a part-time position with no administrative help. We'll have it as an office of one-half full-time equivalent. I don't think that's sufficient enough for it to meet its charter requirements to be an independent voice for the citizens of Fayette County. In regards to the organizational structure of this government, as it stands right now with one full-time equivalent, it remains the only office in a government of 3,000-some employees that is supported by just one full-time equivalent. I do recognize some of the data that has been presented. in regards to the improvements that we have as a government been afforded with email, et cetera, and legislative aides to enhance our communications with our constituents. All that means to me and recognizes to me is that we have an opportunity and probably furthermore an obligation for us to really support the advocate as this position can evolve and continue to be an asset, a safeguard, and a recourse for the citizens of Fayette County in dealing with this government. So that's why I support a full-time equivalent vice mayor and council members. And I just hope that you would consider as well and vote to the affirmative. But that's just my say, and I look forward to hearing everybody else's say. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Beard. Now, Vice Mayor. Have at it. Let's see, where was I? I think I was discussing the 16 real issues that were handled by the Citizens Advocate Office, and it's criminal to put somebody in that office, I don't care what the price is, to sit there for 40 hours and hand things off to LexCol, and we don't really know in detail exactly what those 16 issues were, but they may have been more important than what went to Lex Hall, but then maybe not. My concern, though, is that a $40,000 a year full-time individual is not going to be the quality level individual that we would want. whereas a part-time individual can be a quality individual who can be a stay-at-home mom or has been a stay-at-home mom who's a retired attorney or whatever and wants to be in the action to a certain extent, but not as in-depth as it had been in their career earlier. So that's why I'm not supporting this at this point. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You're welcome. Council Member Crosby? I believe somebody may have made a point similar to this earlier, but I guess I feel a little confused on why we're doing this, why we're voting for a full-time position that's already a full-time position. And I feel like this motion was made because there was an alternate motion that was coming forward today. I'm just somewhat under the impression after listening to all the discussion that this is something that the links the budget link is going to recommend to this council based on what they go through with the budgeting process I'm not 100% sure because I'm not on that link but it just seems a little backwards how we're doing this today so I don't know if I will support really either one and would prefer maybe just to see it go through the links Thank you. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'd like to respond briefly to Council Member Ford's concerns, which I do appreciate. He said that we are diminishing the office of the citizens advocate and that it needs to continue to be an asset and a resource and a service to our citizens. My point is that making it a part-time position does not diminish it at all. According to the Charter, the charge to the citizen's advocate is to investigate citizen complaints and to disclose government abuses or irregularities if they are discovered, and to recommend policies and procedures to eliminate or reduce problems. that service will still be provided on the scale at which the citizens advocate does at the present time and for the past several years has received complaints, which is roughly in the neighborhood of 15, 16 issues per quarter, or one every three days. Again, the job needs to be, as we describe it, in scale with the actual work that is involved. And so it seems to me that keeping it at a full-time level is not appropriate. pertaining to Councilmember Crosby's point that the process should be reversed here and that this should well come out of the links process. I can appreciate that too, but it does seem to me that by making this decision today, full-time or if that motion fails, I will put one forward to make it part-time. full-time or part-time, the LINC Committee will then have its guidance from the Council on how to work out the details and the dimensions of either a full-time or a part-time position. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You're welcome. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. First, I'd say I'm thankful to Dr. Blues for reading the three things that this office is charged with because we continue to hear in this debate about Lex Call, about council aides and all kinds of other things, none of which is outlined in the charter, the responsibilities of the citizens' advocates. So I appreciate that you read those. And I will also speak to Council Member Crosby's question of whether or not this motion was made simply because another motion was being presented. This motion is being made because that was the intent when it came out of committee. And the reason that, and we discussed it in the very beginning when I brought it up, it's not so much that the motion is full-time, it's that this issue has been debated for almost three years, like Councilman Revere said. And the fact was that until it came out of committee with some type of recommendation to move forward with the hiring process, the process wasn't going anywhere. We've had a committee that's been in place for more than a year without any direction to move forward in advertising the position and then doing the interviews and those kinds of things that have to take place. So I hope that my colleagues here will again appreciate the fact that this office was created in the charter to investigate any complaint by citizens of the Irving County Government, disclose any abuses or irregularities on the part of the Irving County Government, its offices, agents, or employees, and to recommend such substantive or procedural policies as may be required to reduce or eliminate problems of citizens' access to departments, divisions, agencies, and officers of the county government. And so I think really this is a resource issue, which is really what we're talking about in most of the things that are said. If we can decrease that salary and keep the position full-time, then I think we do our citizens a favor. Thank you. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Speaking but twice to the motion. For clarity, earlier when I spoke I gave a timeline of how we got here. I think Council Member Beard mentioned that this discussion has gone on for three years. So up or down, I think we need some clarity in where we go with the citizens advocate position. I'm for a full-time position. In response to Council Member Crosby, Council Member Crosby serves as our colleague on the General Government Committee and was one of the four votes that allowed us to get here to the discussion today. So we're not out of process. I just want to be clear. Our discussion of keeping the advocate full time, we're not just grabbing this out of the air. It's a discussion that has been on the table for quite a while. We're just bringing it to clarity and hopefully to some finality. We have an opportunity to do what the charter requires and to comply with the organizational chart of this government. So we make this decision, and either way, we move on as a council. Thank you. You're welcome. Council Member Crosby. Council Member Ford, I simply stated that we already have a full-time citizens advocate. I have been supportive of that. My comment was related more to the fact that we are in the middle of the budget process, and to give the budget link the opportunity to report out regarding what their thoughts are was just simply my comment. That's all. I have been supportive of the full time through the committee, but I'm also hearing new information today, which is the benefit of us bringing it forward as a group to gather information and debate it and to come to a conclusion. Thank you. Council Member Lane. Just an additional comment on this. If we go to a part-time citizen's advocate, we aren't locked into that forever. And it seems to me the information we have from statistics based on the activity in that office, it makes sense to try it on a part-time basis. If we find out the citizen's advocate is swamped, they're overworked, then we can expand the hours. But it seems to me the prudent thing with the budgetary issues that we have and all the other options that our government offers to constituents to get information on what's happening in the government, that we should be able to cut this back. Thank you. Are there any other council members who wish to speak to the motion? So the motion on the floor is to move forward, making the citizen advocate full time. And so let's take an electronic vote. If you are in favor of the motion, please register aye. If not, nay. Okay. That motion fails by a vote of 4 to 11. Is there any other motion to come before us under Item 5? Council Member Blues. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And I appreciate the discussion on both sides. I think this brought views and perspectives and information to light, or it should be. But I do have this motion, which is to place on the docket under first reading resolutions, a resolution providing that the citizen's advocate position be a part-time position. So moved. Second. Okay. We have a motion by Council Member Blues to move forward that the citizen advocate become a part-time position, with a second by Council Member Beard. Now, we have discussion. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I've got a question for Glenda. In order to make it a part-time position, would it have to be an ordinance instead of a resolution? Because in council rules it was created by ordinance and that would have to be amended to say the word part-time if we wanted to live on past this body of council members. Because the resolution is just a feeling or sentiment from this body. Obviously there's no binding as to part-time if it passes. the ordinance have to be amended under council rules and the job description have to be changed. So we really need an ordinance instead of a resolution is what I'm trying to get at. Unless you want a resolution asking you to go draw the changes to the ordinance and come back, is that what you want to do? Ms. George. We wanted to confirm with Leslie to make sure what I'm going to say is correct. You all can put on a resolution of the council making it part-time, and then what we will do later is in a personnel ordinance, come back and make the change to make that part-time in Chapter 22. So there will be something else that happens after this resolution passes. Yeah, so it wouldn't be final until the actual ordinance actually went through, which hopefully we'll get it done before the budget is completed. So thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You're welcome. Council Member Kaye. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I didn't speak to the previous motion because I knew, I thought I knew that this motion was coming, but I do want to weigh in with my own thoughts about this. And I kind of sort it out into three pieces. The first part is that the importance of this position, and I don't think anybody on council questions that. I think everybody understands that we need a person in that position, and we need a person who's competent to do that work. The second question is, what's the workload? And I'm convinced that it's not a full-time position and that halftime will do. And then I think there's a third question, and that's for the lengths to decide, and that is, what's the salary? So I'll be supporting this motion, and I'm hoping that the budget folks will then look at what a halftime position is really worth. Thank you. You're welcome. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I have a question for law. I guess, or maybe Ms. Jarvis, but I was just curious if we could write the ordinance to where if we found at some point that we wanted to go back to full time, we could without, I mean, could we say at the discretion of the council or anything? It would have to be specific. If we change it in Chapter 22 to make it a part-time position, if you wanted to go back and make it full-time, I'd have to look at it, but I don't think what you're saying will work. But let us look at it, and then I'll have to let you know. I was just hoping we wouldn't go through this. No. Right. But I'm in agreement with many of the council members. I do believe this should be a part-time. I think with all of the improvements we've had electronically and workloads reduced, that it makes sense that this should be a part-time position. So thank you. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Just a couple of questions I have as we consider the resolution for part-time other advocate. Am I correct in my understanding that if adopted, this resolution would result in just the Office of Citizens Advocate? And the charter reads the Office of Citizens Advocate, which I think we all interpret to at least mean the advocate. But historically, that advocate has had administrative help. So if this resolution is adopted and passed, will that result in that office being reduced down to one half-time employee? I think that's what that means unless we create another position in the office. That's concerning for me. The other question is, in that regards, will such action require, you know, there was questions of why are we voting to keep it full time? And the answer was because that had been brought up. So as we consider to go part-time, and not only go part-time for the advocate, but basically I think what we have to realize is that we also have an incumbent civil servant in this office who, with the adoption of this resolution, will for all intents and purposes be laid off. It's the only civil servant that I think that we have in all of council office because the Advocates Office reports to the Urban County Council. That's of grave concern to me. A long-term civil servant who, as we diminish the office, is going to be laid off. I think we've got to also recognize that this office, the position of advocate, and I won't give a history lesson because I really can't date to give it, But I understand it to be a compromise between the city proper and the residents of Fayette County as we merged this government 40 years ago. And there was a reason we did that. I think we've got to recognize that. My last question, are we certain? Are we certain? Before I get to my last question. Section 2 says that this resolution will become effective upon the date of passage. And the discussion we're having part-time, full-time, I think is a procedural question as it relates to the charter. I understand budgetary. I understand length process and all that. But we had to really and we need to still come to full-time, part-time. How does that work? If it does become, I mean, that's a major sticking point, I think, that we ought to consider. If it becomes, this could become effective Thursday night. And what does that, it could, I mean, if we gave it first reading and gave it second reading, it could become active Thursday night. So what does that do for the incumbent civil service admin person who is also acting as our acting citizens advocate? It has major implications. Lastly, my last comment with all that being said is I'm not certain that we are sure that such action does not require the okay of the citizens of Fayette County. Changes to the charter require some action, I believe. And I'm not certain that this is questionable. I know we've had law department chime in on this, but we're not certain if we're tinkering with what validates our existence as an urban county government, and that is the urban county charter. All that being said, as it pertains to this motion and the citizens advocate. Ms. George, would you weigh in on those questions, please? On the question about Section 2, that is a good point. And I would recommend that we change that to say that this would become effective after the committee has gone through the hiring process and we have selected the citizen's advocate. and that will address your concern, and I apologize for not catching that when I drafted this resolution, but that's a good point, and I would recommend that we make that change. And then did you have any comment to the second question about whether this is actually changing the charter? Well, I mean, I think I'm right in my opinion. Oh, good. So I don't think so. I like it when you have confidence. I don't think it's contrary to the Charter. Okay. Do you believe that your recommendation of when it would become effective would require a motion to amend? Just for clarity's sake. Yes, to be clear, yes. All right. Thank you. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Vice Mayor. A little earlier in our discussion, it seemed like we were talking about an either-or type of situation. Part-time doesn't necessarily mean half-time. And if the workload increases, we could ask the person to work 30 hours a week rather than 20 hours a week. It could be metered out more accurately and make a lot more sense to fit the shoe, so to speak, with increasing the available hours as the volume increases. I think history has shown, however, that the volume has been decreasing for some period of time. I don't know that, again, for all the reasons that have been mentioned. I guess that's all. I just want everybody to be aware that we could do that. Okay. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I guess, Ms. George, could you go back and speak to what happens to the incumbent when this takes place? Because it's obvious that if we hire an advocate, then the incumbent is no longer the advocate. Right. If I remember correctly, you all decided that once we hired the citizen's advocate, that the administrative specialist position, and I'm not sure if that's the correct job title or not, would be abolished, and the person holding the position would be laid off. So let me ask you if there was ever a vote of the council taken to codify that. I would have to go back and check. I don't know off the top of my head, but I know there were some discussions about that, but we can go back and look in the minutes to see and let you know on Thursday. Okay, because I don't think we ever did. So let me ask you this. Does that have to happen? It would seem that if that's what the expectation is, that the council has to vote to eliminate that position. It's not just going to arbitrarily happen. Right. There would be, like with any other position that's abolished, there would be an ordinance that comes to you all for approval that abolishes the position. Okay. Okay. So until and unless that ordinance is passed, is it your understanding and expectation that the incumbent would transfer back to her original position when the advocate is hired? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Lane. Yes, ma'am. I think the only point I wanted to make, I believe that the administrative assistant and the civil service in the assistance advocate office is a civil servant, whereas the assistant advocate is a non-civil servant and really reports to the council and works at the pleasure of the council. So, you know, there are two different types of employees for each job, and their rights and obligations, I guess, under their employment are different. Thank you. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Vice Mayor. With reference to Ms. George's point that, and her suggestion that we amend the motion to, if it passes, to make it effective at the beginning of the FY12 fiscal year, Isn't that what you said, Glenda? No, not the beginning of the fiscal year, just starting once the committee has gone through the interview process and we have selected the citizen's advocate. Then when that person starts, it would become part-time at that time. Okay, so until such time as a citizen's advocate is appointed by the council. Yes, correct. Vice Mayor, can I make that amendment and ask if my second would agree? Yes. Thank you. So moved. And Council Member Beard seconded. So the motion to amend is to, well, would you restate it, Ms. George? It's to make this effective upon hiring after the committee has interviewed and hired a new citizen advocate. Correct. Good move. Okay. Thank you. Okay, now, those people who are on the list, did you want to speak to the amendment? To the amendment, Council Member Stennett? I just want to make sure everyone's clear. What Council Member Ford brought up, we are getting ready to pass a budget, and if we don't hire an advocate, if we put this language in there prior to passing the budget, we will pass a budget with benefits in there that will either have to be pulled out later or changed or modified out the budget amendment later on. So the other issue is in the current budget, as it's proposed to council, does not have the administrative spot in there. It's been abolished in the budget. So we just have enough money for an advocate and benefits for that advocate. So just keep that in mind, too. This will come up again. So I'm not sure if that language, I necessarily agree with that language being amended, but I would say upon passage of the budget or sooner personally. But I just think the budget really controls it more than anything. This language doesn't really control it because if we don't fund it in the budget, then we can change it to part-time, but just by how you fund it basically too. So just keep that in mind. Did you want to propose a change to the amendment? No? Okay. All right. Council Member Myers, do you want to speak to the amendment about the timing? Yeah, I guess my concern is, and we have a lot of people around this horseshoe that when people were being laid off last year, continue to extend their time for nine months. We have an incumbent here that we're just kind of willy-nilly talking about next week into June, this time, that time, that their position is going to be gone. And so I think we really need to look at this between now and Thursday and get a grasp on, and Councilman Senate just mentioned that the mayor's proposed budget doesn't have that position in there, which doesn't mean anything because it's in there now. If we don't pass it that way, then it will still be in there. But we have an incumbent here that served this community well for quite some time, and I'm not sure how many years, but quite some time. and we are talking about her job going away whenever we do this. So I think that at the very minimum, we need to understand what that means and how that's going to work, and then to be fair to the person, give them some type of timeline and expectation of, you know, what's going to happen here and how long that committee is going to take to do its work if we keep it to the point where this goes into effect that the appointment of the new council administrator or the new citizen's advocate, et cetera, et cetera. But we have an incumbent in the position we need to take that into consideration and work with her so that she understands what can happen and when and what that means to her and her family. Thank you. Thank you. Does anyone else wish to speak to the amendment? The amendment is to amend the motion to be effective after the citizen advocate committee has interviewed and the council has hired a citizen advocate. Is that correct? I'm looking at law. Okay. Let's go ahead and take the vote, and we'll do that electronically if you don't mind. Thank you. Please register your vote. I for the motion to amend nay, if you oppose it. We need two more votes. Has someone not registered their vote? Oh, okay. We only have 14 in the room. All right. The motion passes 11 to 3. Now, the main motion on the floor is to move forward a citizen advocate position as a part-time position. and this motion is as amended. And we'll wait just a second and give a chance for the electronic to reset. All those in favor, please register your aye vote. Those opposed, nay. All right, that motion passes 10 to 5. Thank you very much. Now, are there any other motions under item 5 on the agenda that council members wish to refer to a committee or to the docket? Council Member Myers, do you have an issue? Thank you, Vice Mayor. I don't have an issue relative to what you asked for, but I have a concern about what we just did in this motion. And I'd like our attorney, Ms. George, to speak to the conversation that Councilman Stennett ushered in. And then I have a comment. I have a point of clarification on my answer to Councilmember Myers, because I didn't realize that the administrative specialist position wasn't funded. So nothing will come back to you all to abolish the position. If there are no funds there, then on June 30th, that position or that person is automatically laid off, and we will come back with a big ordinance that abolishes all unfunded positions. So it would show up there, but if there's no money, it just automatically, her job will just automatically end on June 30th. So, again, I guess I would ask the vice mayor to, I don't know how, well, here's what we can do. We've got a committee of the whole, a quarterly committee of the whole coming up, And maybe the vice mayor can get with HR and come up with some type of plan and understanding for the incumbent so that we can present something to that person so that they have some type of understanding of a timeline on when that position might go away. And then the opportunity, because they are civil service, to find employment elsewhere in government or whatever she needs to do. So I guess what I'm asking for is that we keep this issue and we work this issue so that we have some answers for her, because I'm sure that she's sitting here with a whole lot of questions. But if that happens in a timely fashion. And Ms. Jarvis is in the room, and I'm thinking that maybe, can you give us some feedback on that? Ms. Jarvis? I know that we have a committee in place approved by the previous vice mayor to go ahead with the search for the citizen advocates, so they're waiting to do their work. Council Member Myers has a question. I guess could you work with us as a council? We've got a committee of the whole quarterly cow coming up here in a week or two. could you provide some information the sooner the better please on what it looks like for the incumbent based on the resolution or the motion that was passed here today so that she has some type of understanding of what she needs to do to take care of the things she needs to take care of yes you can provide something back to the council thank you thank you council member Lawless Thank you, Vice Mayor. I have a resolution I would like to add to Thursday night's agenda docket. A resolution establishing a residential parking permit program for the 600 block of Providence Road from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday from August 1 through May 15 of each year. And waiving the provisions relating to the mechanics of designating residential parking permit areas adopted by resolution number 168-90 and amended by resolutions numbers 450-91 and 433-2006. So moved. Second. Council Member Crosby seconds. Is there any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Okay. Council Member Cosby. I, too, have a resolution to add on to Thursday night. It's a resolution authorizing the acceptance of a deed from the owners of record for the fee simple acquisition of 405 Plainview Road for the Stormwater Home Buyout Project. Costs are not to exceed $205,000. So moved. Council Member Blue seconds. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Anyone opposed? Are there other motions? All right. If not, we will move on to A, which is simply for informational purposes on page 14, or the Neighborhood Development Funds. and then we will move to our very patient Lex Tran folks and Rocky Burke for his presentation, and that can be found starting on page 31 of the packet. Welcome, Mr. Burke. Thank you, Vice Mayor and members of council. As you all know, once a year I come before you all to present the Lex Tran budget to you all for your acceptance, so that's why I'm here today. and so I will take you through the budget presentation that follows the same format that many of you have seen for the last, I guess, two years that I've been here before you, maybe three, I'm not sure. So the first thing I'd like to do is just talk to you a little bit about some of the accomplishments that we've had in this past year. First of all, of course, when you talk about public transit, people talk about ridership. So we've increased our ridership over this past year about 14 percent, and, of course, that's based upon our fare collections that we take. We use a formula to compute the fares and the number of passengers that we have. So it's up about 14 percent where it was last year. We also increased the number of service miles this past year by about 5.1 percent. Something else that's very exciting for all of us was during the World Equestrian Games, we transported about 45,000 passengers during those games, and of course got lots of compliments and things like that. And I think the important thing to also note, a lot of folks that rode the bus during those days have actually started riding the bus full-time as well. So I mentioned that. Next, as you all know, we have the Arts in Motion program. There's a couple of pictures right there of two of the Arts in Motion shelters. We completed two of those this year, the one at Newtown Pike. That was the bluegrass shelter, and the one on Euclid Avenue is kind of the green shelter, if you will. It's got the grass roof, and all of the parts of the shelter were made from recycled wood and different things. So completed two of those this year, and that program will continue for the next. In addition to that, one of our really neat projects that we do with Fayette County Schools, We partnered with them, and we took about 1,300 students to the reality store this year, so they really appreciated that. And as part of taking them to the store, they got to learn about riding the bus and those kinds of things. So, again, trying to educate our younger folks how to ride a bus. Some more things we've done this year. As you all know, a couple years ago, well, a year or so ago, I guess we expanded the – or we started the trolley service this past year. We expanded it to include Jefferson Street and Old Vine. And then on a limited basis, we just recently started going into the Chevy Chase area where we're doing a once a month, probably sometimes in the evenings and sometimes during the days. I guess just a couple of weeks ago, we did the daytime route and took folks up to the farmer's market. So we're trying that. Another really big success story for us was we partnered with the University of Kentucky and put together the late-night CATS Cruiser service. This was an initiative from the University of Kentucky Student Government Association. So essentially we run buses for the university from about 9 p.m. to 3 in the morning. But it's also important to know it's open-door service, so anybody in Lexington County can ride those buses. You know, we continue to add amenities to the bus system. In this past year, we added 52 new benches. 20 new shelters went up and added 72 new trash receptacles. Another really neat thing that we just recently did was we installed electronic fare boxes on all of our buses. If you've ever ridden the bus prior to this, you know there was just a little container, if you will, on the bus, and you put your money in it, so there was no real way for us to judge what type of fare was being paid. So with the new fare boxes, we'll be able to come to you next year with very, very accurate information about ridership. With these new fare boxes, we're able to essentially tell if a person's paying a regular fare. Are they using a 30-day pass? Are they using a 20-ride pass that they've purchased? Is it a senior citizen? Is it a person with disability using it? Is it a student? And all those kinds of things, as well as being able to tell what bus they're riding and what time of the day and those sorts of things. So very valuable information. So that project is complete. This past year we also received the Smiley Pete Award for the downtown trolley service. It's really neat for us. And then also this past year we received the Federal Transit Administration State of Good Repair Grant for a sum of a little over $8 million, almost $9 million, for the renovation and construction of facilities at the Arloudon Complex. It will be a new administration operations facility as well as remodeling the maintenance building. Now, shifting gears a little bit, this is just a slide that shows the ridership. I told you we were up about 14 percent. So you can see for the course of June of last year up until March, you know, every month, we've shown a significant increase. A lot of folks always ask me, is that due to increased gas prices? And I'm sure some of that is attributable to that. But I also mentioned I think a lot of people that rode the buses last year during WEG have started routing the bus again. Plus, you know, we're improving the bus system daily, you know, putting new amenities out, as I talked about, continuing to look for more efficiencies in the bus system, the new fare boxes, you know, better shelters, et cetera. So I think people are just realizing the importance of the bus system and routing more. This next slide kind of gets into now the meat of the presentation on our budget for this coming year. This is kind of the revenue slide that I show every year. You can see that the lion's share of the money that funds their bus system, 68 percent of it, comes from the mass transit tax. This was the property tax that was passed five or six years ago. So that's the lion's share of the money. The other major category is Federal Transit Administration funds. That's a formula grant that we get every year. It's about 17 percent of our budget. And then the next part is our passenger revenue. That's up about 2% over it was last year, so that's a good sign. It's growing. More people are riding, and so we're getting more money out of our fare box. And then you can see we collect a little bit from advertising and a very, very small amount from state funds. So next slide we'll see is our expenses. you can see that as with most organizations the lion's share of our expenses come from wages it's about 34% of our budget next on the list is our fringe benefits at 18% followed very closely with 17% being paratransit costs fuel is a huge part of our budget and then you can see on down the various other categories of how our budget's broken out. And I guess right now is probably a good point in time for me to pause and explain something to you. Before I came to you, our board of directors approved our budget. And last Thursday, I got some information from our paratransit provider, that being Red Cross, that they had had some information provided to them by their national organization that essentially said that for them to continue providing service to us, or at least operate this, they could not operate a community program in the deficit. So they came to us and asked for an additional $1.50 per trip. Well, what that essentially is doing to my budget, it's increasing at about $346,000. So what you have before you today, what I'm going to continue with, is short about $346,000. So what I'm hoping to do is that for your next work session, you will have an amended budget from me that will show the addition of that $346,000. So I apologize for it coming to you late, but Mr. Burkhart came to me as soon as he could with this new request. So in other words, instead of paratransit being 17% of the bus, I've got a budget. I'll add another $346,000 essentially to carry me through the fiscal year. So please bear that in mind as I kind of go through this process with you all, if you would please. So the capital and operating budgets. Again, these are the dollars that show what it's going to cost us for our budget this year. On the operating side, we project to take in about $16.6 million in the Mass Transit Fund. Federal assistance, that's the grant money that we get, $3.8. And from our other sources of revenue, that's about 3.2. And other sources of revenue are advertising, fuel tax, and the University of Kentucky. They pay us for service over there. So our budget, operating budget, is a little over $23 million, $23,783,438. That's the operating side. On the capital side, you're looking at $16.2 million, federal and state assistance, local matching funds, 1.3. and then the expenses equal out about $17.5 million. And on the capital expenses, we're looking at construction costs, capital maintenance, paratransit, shelters, and other equipment. So again, bear in mind that on the operating side, we're going to increase that by about $346,000. So some key budget assumptions. People say, well, okay, how did you get to your $23 million? There were actually three factors that's driving our increase in our budget this year. Our fringe benefits are going up about 15, almost 16%, which is about $580,000 more than it was last year. The paratransit costs, that's the wheels contract I just talked about. Before today, it was going to be a 13% increase. And so that's the number that will change for the next time you see the budget at your next work session. And the diesel fuel, as you all know, you see gas prices every day. Well, it affects us as well. So this past year we budgeted about $3.25. I think we're paying like $3.40 now. So our suppliers have indicated we should at least go up $3.75. So that's $884,000 more than it was this past year. So when it's all said and done, when you look at our budget compared to what it was last year, there's about a $2.5 million increase. Those three items alone right there is almost $2 million, just those three items. So the next page is a little bit busy, but I'll sort of walk you through it. The top part, it talks about our revenue, and you've already seen this. our passenger revenue advertising the mass transit, the FTA funds and state. Again, the majority of the money that we take in are represented by the mass transit fund. Our year-end projection is going to be about $21.8 million. Our 2012 budget is going to go up about 2% revenue, which is obviously a good thing, $22.2 million. Going down to the bottom part of the slide, those are our expenses, And I've explained to you that wages represents the lion's share. Wages are going to go up essentially 5%, fringes 16, and on down. I think you all can probably see it. You have the packet in front of you. But as I mentioned before, our year-end projection is going to be about $21.2 million. The new budget for this coming fiscal year is $23.7 million. Again, I'll add $346,000 roughly to that. So that's what we have for the revenues and expenses. What we will be doing this year, as you can see, the revenues and expenses don't necessarily add up quite right. So to balance the budget, what we will be doing is taking $1.5 million out of our cash reserves that we have to balance the budget. We projected this past year, for example, to take about $300,000 out last year. And fortunately, our revenues have been up and our expenses have been down, so we didn't have to go into the reserves this year. So next, I just wanted to briefly share with you the capital expenses that we have. It's a $17 million budget. Essentially, there's a few things on there that, you know, some service vehicles that we need to replace. Of course, part of the capital is the paratransit services. Of course, our tire lease and things like that are in there. The big items that you'll see up there is obviously the architecture and engineering fees for the new facility, facility rehab construction project, and then, of course, there are some smaller things in there, our shop tools and equipment, some security things of that nature. And the bottom part of the slide is simply just showing you that this capital budget will be balanced using our funds. Questions? Yes, Council Member Henson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Rocky. Yes, ma'am. I've got some questions about the paratransit wheels. Are they under contract? Yes, ma'am. Red Cross is under contract with us, yes. So, but they need an increase even though, does that contract renew every year? Is it an annual? It is a two-year contract, and they're in the last year of their contract, and the way it was written is there is an option for two additional years. And just to further clarify, Red Cross has come to us, like I said, asking for an additional $1.50 per trip. If they don't receive this, it's been very politely explained to me that unfortunately their nationals will not let them continue to operate a community program like this at a deficit. So therefore, that's the reason the Red Cross folks have come to me and asked for this additional monies. What do you currently get per trip? Yeah, I mean pay. It's currently $21.03, so it will go to $22.53. Okay. So I can explain the big difference. For example, if Red Cross would ask for this, their contract expires in March. So we would pay them the $22.53 through March, and then what we would do is rebid the contract. I mean, Red Cross could possibly bid again, but there would probably be other people also out there. Have you seen any big changes out there since their director retired? No, since Mr. Brady left. Well, I shouldn't say no. I've seen things, not necessarily because Ed retired, but Red Cross has done lots of things to improve the service. They've added an advisory committee to advise them on issues. In addition to that, they've purchased some new scheduling software, and they're working really hard to improve the performance measures and that sort of thing. So I would say to you that it's improved. Good, good. Well, I certainly appreciate everything you guys do because I know, you know, like in my district, Versailles Road is the biggest area for public transportation. I think it's the largest route. Yes, ma'am, it is. I was looking at numbers today by far. The Versailles Road bus route is the most helpful. And I appreciate the shelters for the folks that utilize the service. Yes, ma'am. Doing a great job, I think. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Rocky, thanks for coming. Thanks for the presentation. I appreciate you guys deliver a wonderful service. One of the numbers I'd like to see, either you can send it this week or next time you do this, but it's helpful to compare our measurables against other communities. Ridership, cost per rider, riders per bus, you've been in the business a long time. it would be, I think, helpful for us to sort of see how we're comparing because that might tell us some additional information about where we're excelling and where we're maybe coming up short. So maybe you could provide some of that to us. That would be helpful. We'd be happy to do that next time. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Councilmember Stennett. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Actually, I'm glad Councilmember Martin brought that up because Rocky and I met the other day, but I pull the numbers always from the National Transit Database that they have to file every year. And just so you know, though, and credit to Rocky and his other leadership here, of the six major categories they're judged on nationally, they're below the national average in cost. So that's a credit to the service you're running. When I started tracking this in 2004, we were above the national average in all of it, I think. But you're keeping it well below, and I'll be glad to share that information with everybody. I know you will too, Rocky. Yes, sir. My question is, though, going back to the Red Cross issue, you said their contract expires next March of 2012? Yes, sir. Okay, so I'm trying to figure that you just renewed their contract this past March? What is it, I guess? Is it a one-year or two-year contract? Gary, was it two years or three-year contract? I'm sorry, three-year contract. So you're in the last year of it now, correct? Yeah. So you won't see an increase until next March, until their contract renews. So are you seeing an increase immediately? What they're asking for is to be immediate. So the contract says the price. I guess their fiscal year starts the same as ours, which would be July 1. I'm sorry. Okay. So you're going to change to modify the contract then for the last several months? Yes. From July through March, we would add another $1.50 per trip. So what are your other options if you don't modify that contract? Not many. You know, there are things that we could possibly do. There may be other contractors that could come in and set up shop and do this for us. But I would say to you that when this came about, I looked at what one of the other proposers, when we gave the contractor, when Red Cross won the contract three years ago, two years ago, First Transit was a contractor that actually also offered bids. when I compared to what, even adding the $1.50 that Red Cross is asking for now, if we would use First Transit for an example, their price is still more than what we would do. So someone else could very likely come in and do it, but I think their price would still exceed what Red Cross is asking for. Okay, and you said they're on the same fiscal year. I assume that's why you're getting them asked now versus two or three months back? Yes, sir. All right. And then talk about your capital reserve a little bit. I know a lot of people had some anxiety in the community about Lexington building up a capital reserve. In other words, the tax should be lower because they're building a surplus. Explain what's going on with that surplus and why it was needed to be built in the first several years. One of the things that got us to where we are today with a significant cash reserve is that when the tax levy passed several years ago, you all may remember the bus system was in very, very, very bad shape. We didn't have the number of buses that we have today. We had far fewer employees. We operated fewer service miles, hours of service, and those kinds of things. So our payroll, our budget was much less back in the day. So the $0.06 out of every $100, we were able to bank a lot of that because we didn't need it all to pay for service. But over the last six years since it passed, we've continued to increase service levels each and every year. So we've gotten to the point where the fuel costs, benefits, wages, and sorts of things that our expenses are exceeding the revenues. Now, one of the other things that's important to remember is that I wasn't here at the time, but I know that what I've been told when the tax referendum passed, there was some issues of trying to get it $0.08 versus the $0.06. And then when it was passed at $0.06, there were a lot of people, the consultants indicated that within probably three years, we would probably be into a deficit situation. Fortunate for us, you know, we're here six years down the road reaching into this. But let me say this, those cash reserves are needed. In the out years, we have to buy buses. So that money, you know, a lot of it will be spent for the capital match, for example, for buses and things like that. So, yes, there's a reserve of $11 million right now, but our board is taking a hard look at that and deciding what is it that we need to do to stem this spending spree, if you will, so that we, you know, don't have to – at some point in time, there will be none if we don't do some things. And obviously in the public transit industry, we only do one thing, and that's we provide bus service. So, you know, you raise fares, you cut service, or you increase the taxes and those sorts of things. On that note, I only have a few seconds left. I'd still like to explore the marketing idea on the inside of the shelters. I know a lot of cities have a message board that's not big, it's not gaudy, but it allows businesses to advertise services, whether it be food or transportation or other type of services that your passengers may want to utilize. So I still want to work with you on that because I think that's a big revenue source that you're sorely missing out on that you could really capitalize. Thank you. We'll explore that. Thank you. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Vice President. Just a couple more things, Rocky, about wheels. Do you think the cost, the reason that they need the increase is due to gas cost? No. One of the things that Mr. Burkhardt has explained to me is that in years past, they had a lot of ability to do things at the local chapter, but now they're a business unit of the national chapter, is the way it was explained to me. And, of course, one of the things that they now do is they have to contribute a lot toward their employees' pensions, benefits, and things like that. And that's gone up a lot like mine has. And, of course, the Red Cross Wheels program is not their core service, you know, their disaster relief and things like this. So this is a community program that they've done. And it was a real good partnership with LexTrain for many, many years and still is. But they simply can't operate it at a deficit, and that's, you know, per, you know, directions from the national headquarters. So they feel that they need this to at least break even. So will increases be passed on to the customers? No, not at this time. No fair. Not at this time. No, ma'am. No. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Kaye. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I want to do two things. First, as a former member of the Lex Tran Board, I had the opportunity to see in great detail how this entity was operating under its former management and its present management. And I want to take the opportunity publicly to commend you, Rocky, for the leadership that you provide. I think the community is very, very fortunate to have you at the helm. So thank you for that. And secondly, I'd like to make a motion to approve the budget as it has been presented. Okay, we have a motion by Council Member Kay, second by Council Member Blues to approve the LexTram budget. Is there any discussion? And so that motion will move it to the docket, I believe. So there's no discussion. So all those in favor, please say aye. Opposed? Okay, that motion passes. Thank you very much for your presentation. Vice Mayor, may I ask a point of clarification? So with this additional 346 that this is, it was. I believe that was included. Was that your intention, Council Member Kaye? My understanding was that we could amend, we're approving what you have presented, and that we can amend that when it comes on the docket. Is that correct? Now I'm asking law or somebody. Do we need it to approve it with the additional monies that Rocky indicated? In other words, what I presented today did not include the $346,000. But you, right, so it's just going to be the budget as presented. If we want to amend it to add that in there, we can do that later. So you all would do that at your next work session? Okay. I presume that you, are you taking this before your board again? Yes, I was going to say, they have to do that. That will be at our next board meeting, which is Wednesday night. So they would vote to amend our budget, and then hopefully at your next work session, you would approve our amended budget. Or could it? What we had planned to do, and maybe this will help, after you all have your board meeting and vote on whether or not to include that, they will submit the budget to us, and then we would put that on the docket as a part of our regular process, and then it would already be included. So we had planned to do it after the board meets, if that will work. Okay. All right, very good. Thank you very much. Thank you all. Appreciate your time. Next item on the agenda starts on page 44 of the docket. And, Council members, these are the presentations regarding fire and E911. and so we have Commissioner Mason listed to start us off. Is that correct? Welcome, Mayor. Hello, hello. Greetings, everybody. You need to come back every Tuesday. I get to come back every now and then. Well, not everyone. We're not here, everyone. Well, I asked Commissioner Mason if I could give just a little bit of an introduction. When I saw the agenda, I thought it might be appropriate, with y'all's blessings, to introduce what I think is a theme in these three presentations today and really which can also provide, in a sense, a bit of an update for where we are now, now running into a little over 100 days into this administration and the new council as well. The three presentations today, an update by Commissioner Mason on our fire and E911, those two, and then the third one. But let me say that in the context of these three, as I look at them, there is a common theme. And the common theme is how are we translating good management practices, good business management practices and protocols into our government? How are these themes applying themselves today? And Commissioner Mason will introduce Chief Jackson and what Chief Jackson has been doing. I really like the introduction, the cover slide that he presented, which says it's about the future. It's about moving toward the future. It's about addressing the problems that we have, in a sense, getting at those problems and moving forward. So bringing people together, I appreciate that he's got a lot of his command staff here today. I suspect, though I haven't seen the presentation myself, but I suspect that he's going to illustrate to you what he's done all of his life, especially in his military career and in the career here with the fire division. and that is to bring people together for common problem solving, not just chasing symptoms but actually getting at root cause and making changes that then allow us to move forward efficiently and effectively. I've been, I'll say as importantly, and not actually parenthetically, but importantly, that I've certainly, as perhaps you all have as well, been impressed with how Chief Jackson has gone about this important work. The second presentation by Glenn Brown has to do with E911. And what I'd like to say about Glenn's work is, again, it is representative of what we're we're trying to do today, and that is to leverage the resources, the human talent that we have, whether it's in the mayor's office, whether it's through commissioners and directors, through the administration, but leverage those resources, those talents, most efficiently in order to engage problem solving. Now, Glenn's work is sometimes I describe as, you know, killing the snakes closest to your feet. You've got to do that. You've got to get down on the dance floor sometimes, and you've got to go right at it. Glenn has a lot of background in management, a lot of experience in management. The role that he's playing today has to do with addressing issues where we see perhaps issues in our managed environment, in our employee population, where we can shore it up. We go in and we shore it up. In the business world, for a long time, you all probably heard the language troubleshooters. I also like the language utility player. So that's the role that Glenn's been playing. It's really a key role, as many of you know, in a management environment, to have those with the skill sets able to walk in different moccasins with different experiences, management experiences, be able to examine quickly a social system, whether it's in a for-profit or not-for-profit environment, whether it's an institution like a government or a business, but be able to examine the conditions and suggest interventions that may be necessary. The final presentation that Jamie is going to make is on the DLC work and it's expanding some of its functions to take on events. Now, what is it that's common in this? It, too, is about focusing on core competencies, focusing on the things that we must do excellently as an institution, manage very well. So my view for some time has been that the job of government isn't so much to do event planning as an example, and we have other examples of that that we will need to examine as we go forward. What are our core competencies? What are the skill sets that we must apply on a day-to-day basis as managers in government? the opportunity for us to leverage the strengths that the DLC provides in terms of the skill sets, events management, the entertainment management function that they have performed for some time, the opportunity had presented itself for us to, in a sense, outsource that to them and leverage their strengths. So I just wanted to say that these may be viewed as independent, in a sense, presentations, but there is a common theme to them that actually does have to do with the effort that I know I'm making and I know all of you all endorse as well, that effort to strive toward creating a more efficient government, one where we're using our taxpayer money just as well as we can. So thank you all very much for allowing me to give this bit of an introduction. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you very much. Commissioner Mason, I do want to say in introducing Clay that I told him the other day that he's doing a pretty good job of illustrating a concept that I learned about 25 years ago that was introduced to me by Toyota. The Japanese word for this is genchi genbutsu. And what in the world does that mean? Well, it means when you've got a problem, you put your boots on and you go to the site. You just don't solve it from behind a closed door or in an office. And Clay's really been doing a good job. I think Keith will endorse that of getting out and actually touching and seeing the work of our divisions of fire police, E-9-1-1, and other areas that he's involved with. So, Clay, thanks very much. Thank you, Mayor. Welcome, Commissioner Mason. Thank you, Counsel. I think I've got some very positive news to report today. Fire in Lexington on May 10th is a different organization than what I found on January 24th. Foundationally, fundamentally, it's improved. Communications and atmosphere, morale and functionality have been enhanced. How do I know that? Well, as the mayor said, I've gone out and visited. I've visited 19 of the 23 fire stations thus far. I've observed training sessions on EMT issues for smokehouse and rescue. I spent one day riding EC1, carefully watching the types of encounters that this ambulance crew ran into. I witnessed a life being saved. Probably a topic for another day, but I'm a supporter for a three-person buggy. I've met with groups of mid-level officers from each platoon to hear their issues, to answer questions, and to educate myself on the Division of Fire. I met with the Lexington Professional Black Firefighters Association about their concerns. I've met individually with fire majors who are bureau managers of various programs, health and safety, EMS, facility maintenance, and special operations. I routinely stop at Station 1 to meet with executive management, line personnel, community service, and the garage staff. To acquaint myself with the stress and rigors of the job, I accompanied Station 20 one day on a fatal car wreck response and witnessed their gallant efforts. I also witnessed a lot of cooperation between several of the divisions to include police and fire. The traits that I have discovered during my visits start with a workforce of dedicated professionals very passionate for their work, so passionate that in their off time they often volunteer and work in other localities. As an educated staff, one member of council asked a question at one of the first meetings I was at, Well, people don't go to college to become firefighters. I didn't know any better then, but yes, they do. There's a program at Eastern on fire sciences. Many of the firefighters I've encountered have undergraduate and graduate degrees. These are dedicated people that often come in on their days off to enhance their training, certifications, and abilities. Last week, I stopped out at the training academy. There were 25 firefighters and the trainer doing some courses on rescue techniques. I said, how many of you were here on your day off? 16 of the 25 in that class were on their day off because of the work one, off two schedule. So the next day there was another 16 off that were in on the training. Morale is very high. Routinely firefighters expressed to me that theirs is the best job in the world. with some of the things that Chief Jackson is going to reveal about some of the retooling that they've done, some of the units are going to be impacted. Captain Chris Front still yesterday, even though his unit is going to be potentially impacted, expressed to me how great his job was. The line personnel and management are very, very supportive of the executive management. Why? Because of communication and leadership. Communication has vastly improved to and from the top ranks. Several times recently, Interim Chief Jackson has sent letters via email to the entire force. I've heard numerous times from people who have been on the force 10 to 15 years that this is the first time they can ever remember that happening. Upper management is looking for input on several key functions, strategic planning, All three platoons are represented. He's using the appropriate internal resources to come up with the strategic plan for fire to move forward. Cost-cutting and revenue-producing. There are ideas out there that have percolated up from the ranks about their use of resources to include a paramedic school on duty without incurring overtime costs over the course of the next 14 to 16 months. Each Bureau has developed operational plans that I've been reviewing to help them define and focus on their mission with an eye towards the future. Now, in terms of the operational improvements, I'm going to turn it over now to Chief Jackson to go into some detail. Thank you, Commissioner. Welcome, Chief Jackson. Good afternoon. Good evening. First time I've ever been here. So it's kind of revealing that it'll pass. So I'd like to thank the command staff for coming. And one of the reasons why they're here is, although I have knowledge of a lot of areas within the service, one of the things I want to ensure is that everyone that is a part of the staff has an opportunity to show you their talents. As I began with my opening, I was charged with coming into the division as the leader and providing a new way. And the new way began with opening up communication lines and developing programs and processes that would allow us to be more efficient. We're already a proficient division, as you see every day. We are great firefighters, great paramedics, great MTs, and we produce in that way. but in the areas of efficiency from the infrastructure aspect, that is what we want to work on and improve. We've improved that by working towards developing a daily strength report that the shift commanders and Chief Jordan utilizes to know how many personnel that we have available every day. We developed a daily report that we, I think, provide to the council members that provides you with information on the number of runs, the number of inspections, and the number of training hours or classes that we conduct daily. So in that, we were laying the groundwork for the future. As we had our many, many hours of executive staff meetings, one of the things that I always wanted to point out is that we're working towards 2015. We're not working in 2011. We're not working in 2012, but we're working in 2015, four years down the road, trying to ensure that we provide the citizens of Lexington and Fayette County the best service that we can. And so when we look at the retooling process, what we have begun, I don't know if we're going to, we have two slides. One is showing us where we are as of April. If you go through the slide process, I don't want to go through all 28 slides, but where we are today and what it takes for us to function on a daily basis. Yes. Currently, we have approximately 157 sworn members per platoon. If you look at the benefits, loss is 27. So what we have to run every day, what we need to man every piece of apparatus every day is 128 sworn firefighters. And so what we've done to ensure that we have that personnel is in January, I think the next slide we'll talk about how we have reduced some of our staff and some of our run units or personnel that were in some of our support bureaus and move those folks back into the staff and into some of the areas that I talk about when I talk about efficiency in the infrastructure. So what we've done is in January of 2012, what we're looking at is the projected retirement. This could be more. But based upon bringing approximately 14 personnel back to the line, to support our function will be from that 157 number that I showed you earlier down to 151, which will still allow us to function and support the citizens of this community. And if you review the slides, it goes through how we've reduced some of the bureaus by eliminating some of the sworn firefighters in the building maintenance area. We've reduced our rescue company from three down to one. Our hazmat officer no longer has a second. So we've taken those personnel and put them back into the fire line, and those are the firefighters. And within the officers, if I may move towards the aspect of increasing our efficiency within the infrastructure, We're in some of the areas that have not been afforded the opportunity to have seconds in command or second-tier personnel. We're taking the mid-level manager, the major, and giving him a lieutenant or a captain to support him or her in their efforts administratively. Because in my over 20-plus years as an officer in the military, the one thing that will get you in trouble is not having that paperwork completed. And in my first two or three months here, I found that administratively it can get you in some trouble if you're not tracking and ensuring that we are moving in the right direction administratively. So what we've done is to enhance and strengthen our infrastructure by, one, training for leadership, because those people will have a strong knowledge of those positions in the future and hopefully will slide into those positions. And it also gives us a second person with the same knowledge base as the individual that is in the lead. with us in the future. We're being proactive in this also in our radio and IT communications aspect. We're putting a second in that area. In the area of health and safety, we're ensuring that we're putting a strong second in that position. So that's how we're developing and moving forward with our infrastructure. We're also trying to empower our upper-level management and our mid-level management by allowing our shift commanders the power to utilize all the sworn personnel. As I go back to that daily report that we produce every day, he can go back and he can identify one of the support personnel that's a sworn firefighter and pull him to fill trucks if we have sick call-ins or we have a guy whose child gets sick and he has to go home. So the shift commanders also have been empowered. When we go down to our district majors, the guys that are doing the work every day who are the leaders of the districts out there, we are empowering. We're giving those guys more power to manage their personnel in their districts. And that's through that communications effort. In the leaks meeting, we didn't get to discuss it this morning, but one of the things that I live by, and it's in reference to our mission statement. And I try, as I talk with many of the people that are being affected by some of the transitions that we're going through, you know, one of the things I want to ensure that is that not only is Commissioner Mason supporting me, but I'm supporting our staff by putting a face to the decisions. and those that have called me or I've tried to talk to face-to-face and give them a better understanding of what it is the direction of the division as far as going in. One of the things, if you go, well, you don't have our link statement, but it talks about our vision statement, and it says, do we have one? And I borrowed this from John Wooden in one of his books, and it's the ABCs of the Lexington Fire Department. The first thing is there are no secrets. It is not what you do, but it's how well you do it. Number two is no system will be successful unless the members are grounded in the fundamentals. And as I stated earlier, we're the most proficient fire department in the country. I will put this division up against any fire department in the country. We have the best paramedics. We have the best officers. We have the best firefighters out there. Number three is the systems of teamwork is the integration of individual talents who have mastered the fundamentals into a working unit. This can be applied to the tactical aspect or the administrative duties we perform. And as I say, as I look at the staff and what we've done and what we've accomplished over the last two months in getting this retooling process done and communicating and working together. And as I always say when it comes to anything, physical fitness, driving apparatus or whatever, you have to lead from the front. And that's what this staff has been doing over the last two or three months. So those are the fundamentals that we live by. And in the future, you'll see that the long-term benefits of what we're doing will provide this community with a very strong fire department. Thank you very much. Councilmembers, do you have any questions of Chief Jackson? Councilmember Ford. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I wanted to just thank Chief and the leadership of the fire department for being here and being patient in your presentation to Council. I don't have a question. I just want to offer continued encouragement during this transition period. And thank you guys all individually, Chief, and collectively to the leadership for stepping up to the plate to kind of recognize that there may have been some issues in our fire department. but the best is yet to come as it can relate to the product provided for our citizens. So thank you, Chief, and we hope to be in your company often to find out how we can be of support. Thank you. Yes, sir. Councilmember Stennett. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Chief, I just want to say thank you. You know, maybe it sounds simple, but thank you for bringing this to us today. Since I've been on council, I've been asking a lot of tough questions over the past years of your department, And I ask that because I have the utmost respect in working with the men and women on the front line and listening to what they want. And I think you've done just that by going through this retooling. Thank your command staff for being here because I haven't met a firefighter who I haven't had the utmost respect for in terms of the job they do on a daily basis in our city. There are efficiencies that obviously that you have found within our division. I thank you for doing that because it's not easy to do without the support of your command staff and the members of your department to be able to implement those. It's easy coming up with the idea that implementation is the hard part. And I wish you all the success moving forward because I do think there's a lot of opportunity, and sky's the limit for what we'll be able to do. But thank you. We've been asking for this type of presentation for a number of years, and we finally got it today. Appreciate it. Yes, sir. Do other council members have questions or comments? Council Member Lawless. I do want to thank you and all the officers and firefighters and EMS folks in our community. And I love firefighters and unfortunately have had and needed them too many times. So you mentioned remodeling some of the places and creating dorms, et cetera. Is there a plan for that? Who will be remodeling it and et cetera? No, ma'am. We are currently, as far as the remodeling aspect, just in the transition of information and communicating with the guys on the line, when we talk about the remodeling of some of the stations, for example, the movement of EC9 to Station 15, I mean, the guys, the station captain, just an example of the communication aspect, the station captain, through the chain of command, immediately said, you know, we don't need that. You know, every other station that has an EC unit and an engine in it, we all wake up together anyway. So nine times out of ten, we're going to make a run together. So the men and women of the line are stepping up and saying that we don't need to utilize funding for remodeling in some instances, and we can take that money and do other things with it. Like I said, that's just an example of the communications and the willingness of the members of our division to save money. Well, I'm extremely impressed, and I was just thinking this might be something that we could think about as a community and get some folks interested in doing that as a gift for you all, finding out what you need and getting in there and taking care of it so you don't have to spend money. but with the kind of stress you deserve a place to be comfortable and work well and sleep well. And so I'll put my thinking cap on that, and maybe we can get some groups out there to volunteer to do some of that for you all as a gift to you from the community. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Council members, does anyone else wish to speak? Chief Jackson, I want to thank you for your leadership and thank the command staff. I know that in our public safety link this morning we were, maybe I can't speak for everybody, but perhaps I can, very pleased to see some of the moves that you are making and leadership development of folks within the fire department and, you know, the efficiencies that you've looked at through different eyes. So I appreciate it very much. We do have another council member who signed on, Council Member Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I, too, Chief Jackson, want to congratulate you on the work that you're doing. And as part of that link meeting this morning, I'm very impressed with the work that you're doing, your leadership team, and they're all there this morning. And I hope that what we're going to hear in the next presentation and presentations to come, that this is what we're going to see as all the government retools, because they're doing a fantastic job and they are leading first and leading by example. And so I appreciate that. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Councilmember Mark. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Chris, you've got the slide that my counsel I gave you. And, Chief, actually, I want to ask this to the commissioner because I think you did a great presentation, and I don't want to welcome you to council with a hard question. Chris, can you go to page two or three of this, that chart? Can you blow that up as big as you can? We're looking at efficiencies, and we've been looking at sort of some of the salary structure, and I just want to sort of throw this out. Can you make that a little smaller? It makes anything smaller. I think you got it. I think you got it. What we did was we looked at the various pay scales of the different levels of salary, and one thing that really struck us was that the percent increase from firefighter to the captain in Lexington is 122%. It's $42,113, and it's the highest of any city we looked at. The next, ours is 122%. The next highest looks like Austin, Texas, which was 70%. So as we look at efficiencies and streamlining and new practices, I think this is a chart that I think needs to be discussed a number of times because I think we are certainly in the pack at the firefighter base salary, but as we move up the scale, we didn't look up past captain, But as we look up the scale, it increases vastly quicker than just any other comparable city we can find, except maybe Austin. So, Commissioner, I just want to sort of give this to your charge, and I guess to sort of work with the fire department to try to bring this in line with sort of national practices. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Any other questions? Council Member Henson. Chief, I just wanted to publicly thank you for what you've done and taken over in a difficult time. And as I told you earlier, I'm just very impressed, especially with the overtime numbers that you showed us this morning. and I was like blown away that they've reduced that much. And it seems like you have real good support from the department and everybody working together, and that's the way to get it done, I think. But thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. It doesn't look like any others on the list, so thank you again very much. And next we have, I believe, Senior Advisor Glenn Brown. Yes, Glenn Brown is going to come in and talk about the Division of E911 and his survey there following the transition. Welcome, Mr. Brown. Thank you, Vice Mayor, Council Members. Just kind of, you've got a copy of the executive summary, which kind of outlines recommendations, the review approach that I used, and also the findings. I'd just like to read the point about the recommendation, and that was to decentralize the current alignment of the Division of E911 by placing supervision to separate call centers under the Division of Police and the Division of Fire and Emergency Services. At present time, these two groups are serving in two divisions. 50 call takers are located, and dispatchers are located in police, and 17 in fire. When I started the review of the division, it started on February the 3rd and ended on March the 25th or somewhere thereabout. Throughout the process, there were several individual interviews with staff members. Fifty-six past and present staff members were interviewed from the divisions of police and fire and emergency services call centers, consulted with human resources, and even employees in the mapping division. A brief questionnaire was developed and disseminated to all the staff, and on an anonymous basis, 37 of those were returned completed. My review approach also included ride-alongs with officials from the divisions of police and fire and emergency services, in-house observations, and several staff discussions. Throughout the process, as I ended the process, I had to come to a conclusion and make some findings as to why I would make such a recommendation. One, there was a need for a more structured supervisory environment. In conversations both face-to-face and then in some impromptu discussions with staff while I was in the call centers, Those times also included times where I appeared that were unannounced, such as a 12 midnight rendezvous to come downtown and spend some time in the police call center, visited the fire center on several occasions. And some of those things that came about were low morale, which were contributed to little to no involvement in day-to-day operations by management, mishandling of personnel problems, excessive amounts of mandatory overtime, a lack of interactions with the Division of Police, Fire, and Emergency Services, minimal training regarding stress and the unique working environment that those staff members work in, and inequities in what I had seen was in the scheduling process. And a lot of those, some of the number one complaints are all contributed within my findings. And in my findings, I am a person that didn't work in the environment but had an opportunity from the start of the transition as I chaired the public safety transition team. But I used myself more as an independent look at these types of issues that were going on. Everything wasn't taken for granted that was said. There was a lot of time, energy, and effort spent reviewing this process. So it wasn't something that I was told to do to come up with this. It was something that I was charged to do to try to find the best recommendation possible for the continuing success of the division of E911 at the present time. Thank you very much. Council members, do you have questions? Council Member Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you very much for your report here. And I know there's a bigger report behind this, but I guess as the chair of the public safety link, I would ask, do you plan to come and provide the link with any information that you would want us to consider as we deliberate? That hadn't been discussed. We've already met with the director, but we have a lot more information, I'm sure, that we can read a report that we didn't have when we met with the director. I will follow up with the commissioner, but I don't see that there's any impact that probably hasn't already been discussed. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Mr. Brown, I was curious about where it says to decentralize the current alignment. If they're separated now, right? They're separated. Fire and police? Yes, ma'am. They're separated in location under the supervision of an E-911 director. To decentralize would be to pull that group that works in police, put them under that supervision, and the same within fire. Because it's my understanding from talking to dispatchers that there is a need for fire and police to work together. Well, one of the things, and it was in a lot of the process when you ask some other questions, a lot of what maybe has been part of the problem to some extent is a few years ago there was talk about coming to one call center. Correct. Which, to some point, maybe some of that, if they could be under one centralized roof, could have taken care of some of the problems. But to this point, I don't know that, but I still think that that's something that we still should continue to look to, being able to put all the call centers under one roof so you can have more interface opportunities, more chances for cross-training to where everybody can work together. I agree. Thank you. Council Member Lawless. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and thank you, Mr. Brown. So your recommendation would be to bring the two separate call centers under the Division of Police and Fire and Emergency Services rather than having a specific division of E911? The division just goes under the direction of the two agencies of police and fire. You still have an E911, but they go under the separate supervision. Okay. And I know you did a lot, a lot, a lot of work and spent a lot of hours on this. Do you have a more extensive report that we would be have access to? Yes, I have a, and I can send that to you. I have the E911 Employee Questionnaire Summary of Response, and also have the report of the Division of E911 Review with Findings and Recommendations. You have just the executive summary. Okay, thank you very, very much. Any other questions? Apparently not. So thank you very much for your presentation. And have a good evening. Thank you. And, Commissioner, thank you. And thanks, Chief, and to all the public safety folks who are here. I think if I could make one quick comment. I'm not sure it was in your packets, but if you would look at the overtime figures for the last couple of months, We spent $3,800 in overtime. The previous year for that same figure, for that same period of time, was about $80,000, and the previous year before that was about $400,000. So we've had a dramatic improvement in reining in the overtime money. Thank you very much. Okay. Council Member Myers has a question. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Commissioner or Mr. Brown, either one, is it possible for us to get your full report? Yes. On the 911? Okay. If you could just email that to all the council members. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And so now, bless you for your patience. We have the Downtown Lexington Corporation presentation and our Chief of Staff, Jamie Emmons. Welcome. Thank you, Vice Mayor and Council Members. I think the Mayor did a nice job of teeing this discussion up. I have with me tonight Lori Houlihan, who is our Special Events Liaison, as well as Renee Jackson from the Downtown Lexington Corporation Corporation to answer any questions that you might have or make any clarification as necessary. Before I begin, let me just summarize what we'd like to talk about tonight. First would be the mayor's reasoning in proposing this change. I think he's begun that discussion well. The second would be the current condition of special events that both the downtown Lexington Corporation and the mayor's office currently manage. The third would be our proposals, highlights, and impact on special events. And then, of course, take any questions you might have. To begin, first let me say that, as the mayor did, organizations operate most effectively and efficiently when focusing on core competencies. And that's our goal with this proposal. Those of you who may have attended Mayfest last weekend or our recent Thursday Night Live may not know that the Downtown Lexington Corporation manages those events. And event management is a core competency of the DLC. Our proposal will allow the city to utilize those existing management skill sets at DLC, who is already a trusted partner agency. And secondly, an internal shift in the mayor's office priorities from special events management, which the mayor mentioned, to reorganizing our office to focus on problem solving throughout the administration. What I mean by that is that we will be using general fund personnel dollars that would have been spent on special event management to identify, investigate, and tackle problems with folks like Glenn Brown, who you just heard from, Jeff Reed, and Sheila Hupp. The new administration inherited many problems, which I won't get into right now, but you've already heard from Glenn on 911 tonight, and that's just one of our many challenges. That's an example of this mayor's approach, to tackle problems with good management and to proceed with a centralized approach from the mayor's office that has the direct involvement of the mayor in making good use of his business experience in dealing with these issues. Secondly, I'd like to talk a little bit about the current condition of special events. To begin, I think to summarize the mayor's office special events, there are five special events that have been traditionally managed by the mayor's office. If we're considering numbers, 83% of what we're discussing tonight has to do with the 4th of July Festival. The other four events are the Kentucky Christmas Chorus, the Winter Festival and Holiday Market, Community Tree Lighting, and the Vintage Kentucky Wine Festival. Renee, would you like to give a brief overview of DLC's events? Welcome, Renee Jackson. Thank you for having me. DLC manages several events throughout the year, and just very quickly, Trash Fast, Best of the Bluegrass, Mayfest, Thursday Night Live, which there are 26 weeks of Thursday Night Live that we put on, a Festivals event in September, and then the Christmas Parade. Those are our events. We already partner with you on Bike Lexington and Second Sunday. If there are any questions specifically about those events, I can answer them. But, you know, we have taken on several events since I've been there. I've been there five years this year. And, you know, we have expanded and taken on new events since I've been there in that time. We have one question. Council Member Beard? So far. Renee, what about your staffing situation, and what do you anticipate that to be? Well, I often get asked that question, and I truly do not produce these events alone. I have a great staff. We have two event coordinators now and a part-time event coordinator. We also utilize a lot of interns that are very great for us that work for free throughout the year. and then we have other staff in place. But we have taken on Penny Ebel also in anticipation of these events to have her institutional knowledge just through the 4th of July. But I feel very comfortable, and I think my board feels very comfortable with our staffing level to be able to produce these events. Well, of course, the 4th of July is definitely not a Thursday night live type of activity. Thursday Night Live is large because of its extended time that it's being offered, but Fourth of July is three or four days of extremely intense activity, and it's good to hear that you have plenty involved. That's fine. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You're welcome. Anyone else have a question, Council Members? I don't see any. Thank you, Renee. Jamie? Sure. If I might just add a little bit to your comment, Council Member Beard, the downtown Lexington Corporation will have to maintain their partnership with the city's parks department in order to successfully pull off the Fourth of July event. I think they worked between 50 and 75 employees from parks during that weekend. Next, I'd just like to hit on the highlights of the agreement. The DLC will manage those five events that I discussed. The agreement calls for a one-time transfer of $120,000 from the special events budget. That is, those are not general dollars, general fund dollars to the DLC. These funds have been and will continue to be dedicated to special events for continued operations seed money. The Special Events Commission will maintain its authority with the 4th of July, as will the 4th of July Festival Committee retain their oversight of the festival. Downtown Lexington Corporation will provide detailed estimated budgets for each event, which you've been sent via email. They will also provide timely access to all documents and records for each event, should the government wish to perform an audit. and the DLC will provide an annual presentation to the Urban County Council on the progress and success of the special events. The proposed agreement is written to protect LFUCG divisions from any new expenses for special events participation. The term of the agreement is one year with a renewal option. and we expect the same results from the 4th of July and the other four events that we've had in the past, and we hope that the DLC will be able to expand on the sponsor pool from the relationships they have currently to increase the revenues that can be reinvested in these events for potential improvements down the road. With that, Renee, if you'd like to add anything else, feel free right now, or we'll just open it up to questions. We do have a couple of questions. Council Member Lawless. Thank you. Since most of these events occur in my district and I'm an ex-officio member of the DLC board, I would like to say that they have always done an extraordinary job. and are a ball of fire and a joy to work with. I think one of the questions that I kept hearing from people is, you know, if there is a profit made off of these events, will that go into the DLC budget or will it go into the special events pot of money? And I understand they're contracting. They're going to have expenses putting these on. I'm not suggesting that. But I think that would be a good clarification for folks. No problem. DLC, as you know, is a nonprofit, and they cannot take the money and run, so to speak. They can't take bonuses and that sort of thing. They will have added expenses with hiring Penny Evil on contract. And the 120 is intended to be a seed money cash flow instrument. I was talking to Joe Terry, their chairman, earlier, and he said that, you know, our goal is to maintain that fund balance at about the same level every year. Now, it might accrue a little bit, and we're going to have to take a review of that next year after all these events have been finalized. Well, I do want to say I support this, and I do, you know, like I say, I think they're very efficient. They are extraordinarily great at raising funds. It was the DLC that at the final hour got $750,000 so we could have the Fifth Third Pavilion at Cheapside, which would not have happened had they not done that. And they have also been very generous about being the DLC Foundation, having some other special projects like Change for Art and those kind of smaller things. They've taken those on without taking any profit or even being reimbursed. So I highly support this, and I hope others will too. I think it's the most effective and efficient way that we can operate these. Thank you. Council Member Stenet. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just had a couple follow-up questions. I know we went through this at length last week during our length process, but I guess for the public watching, they don't know why we're entering this agreement. And I think you said there were some cost savings, but I'm not sure that's the reason why we're really entering this with the DLC. You want to kind of give it in a nutshell the bottom line why this is good for the city? Sure, yeah. So the people watching can. No, completely understood. When I referred to dollars, I did not say cost savings. It is a cost shift because of a priority shift. The bottom line is the Gray Administration is saving a little over $200,000 in this next fiscal year when you look at the total impact of our appointments to the administration versus last fiscal year. But again, I'm not claiming that the special events dollars are savings to the mayor's budget. It's a cost shift to fill the priority gap for project management and problem solving. Well, I was hoping you would say that the DOC can take these events and raise more money and make them bigger and better than ever before. But given that, I mean, the $200,000 number, where does that come from? We're not laying off any employees. We still have the same person of events people. I mean, we're not saving jobs here or anything. It was as a result of the reorganization that you guys are taking a look at later this week. That's separate from this issue. Let me ask Renee a question because I have the utmost faith and confidence in the DLC. I think we've put you behind the eight ball, though, for this year. I'm really concerned about the Fourth of July and how that event will be pulled off now given this late hour. My concern is on the fees and funds. We mentioned we're going to audit those accounts and keep separate accounting. Do you all have an annual audit every year at the DLC, an outside agency? We have an annual review every year with the option to have an audit, and that is actually something that we discussed yesterday at our executive committee meeting about would you all require an audit every year or not. And so, I mean, that is certainly. Have you received that answer yet? We haven't necessarily received that answer, but, I mean, you know, we are prepared to do that. I would think that, you know, this council would be in a position maybe to make it part of our, and Commissioner Driscoll is here, of our annual audit, to audit just those funds like we do for the airport, the LexTran, or the library and the airport, the funds that we're giving you for special events. Well, that was one of the questions that came up, was because that's written into the PSA that you all have the opportunity to do that, would it be something that we would have to do? Our practice in the past has not been to have an audit every year, but to have an annual review. But I can assure you that every month when our executive committee meets, they review those numbers very meticulously. Yeah, it's not something that we're saying the DLC will do something. It's something for fiduciary responsibility from this point. Oh, and I appreciate it. When board members ask me questions, there's nothing more than I appreciate to know that they've actually read all the material. But the audit is not specifically spread out in agreement, is it? It says an opportunity to audit, And I think we need to make an annual audit of those funds just so we can say exactly where the money went, how much profit was made, and where that profit went. You being a nonprofit, that way would help you track that money as well. I'm not saying you would do anything to the contrary. I'm just saying I think it's good public stewardship to have that annual audit. I agree. So I think it would need to be in there. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Councilmember Martin. I guess just to follow up on that, you know, there are, you know, certainly you get financial statements that show the financial activity of the downtown Lexington Corporation, and that does answer some of the things that Council Member Stenet was concerned about. So it's not like they don't report their numbers and they don't have those numbers looked at. But also there are different types of audits. Some types of audits are exceptionally expensive, and some just sort of give a modest look at the books. But audits generally just simply say that the entity has the amount of money that they say they do on their books. And so I think that, you know, I know that you guys have a vigorous board and a lot of oversight. So should you pursue that, I guess it would be helpful to have something that's sort of in step with industry practice. We certainly don't want to say out of you with something that's going to be cost prohibitive. Are there any other questions? Okay. Thank you very much for your presentation. Thank you. Appreciate it so much. Council members, we're down to item 6 on our agenda, which is committee reports, and we have several. And so first, Council Member Blues. Thank you, Vice Mayor. This is the report from the Environmental Quality Committee for actually for two meetings, April 19th and May the 3rd. On April 19th, Director Steve Feast from Waste Management gave an overview report of the Division's services, its revenues and expenditures. Richard Miller followed up with a demonstration of new routing software and resultant service improvements. The committee requested further information on a list of items, including fund balances for components of the Urban Services Fund, the plan to reach zero waste goals, and an opinion on op-out of service policies. You can see the complete list of those requests in the meeting summary. Then from Water Quality Division, Director Martin gave a presentation on the status and direction of the remedial measures plan. He reported on his meetings with stakeholder groups and the public, noting that Lexington residents want sanitary sewer overflows eliminated but are concerned about the costs. Now, there are two key components of making a remedial measures plan. One is the storm event itself that, as a community, we will prepare for, whether it's two years or five years or ten years. Now, this council will determine the storm level, keeping in mind, among other factors, that the costs range from $540 million for the two-year event to about $814 million for a 10-year event. These are costs that would be passed on to property owners through the sanitary sewer fee. The other component of a remedial measures plan is the inflow and infiltration of stormwater into the sanitary sewer system from private property sources. Director Martin pointed out that fixing only the public system isn't going to solve our problems. That work on the public system must be paralleled with greater access to private property in order to identify and eliminate INI from private sources. Now, these two components of a remedial measures plan were the focus of the May 3rd meeting, at which, on a motion by Council Member Farmer and seconded by Council Member Henson, the Committee voted unanimously to request that Vice Mayor Gordon appoint a task force to examine the issue of private property responsibility for stormwater inflow and infiltration, and to develop recommendations regarding access to private property for inspection and remedial follow-up. And on a motion by Vice Mayor Gordon, seconded by Council Member Lane, the committee agreed to hold a special meeting at 11 a.m. June 21 to discuss the storm level baseline. That's the two-year, the five-year, or the ten-year preparation plan, and to recommend a level to bring to full council for consideration. And colleagues, you might be interested, even if you're not a member of the committee, in attending that meeting or in observing it, because what comes to council is going to be a recommendation for preparation for a storm that's going to cost our taxpayers substantial funds. Between now and that meeting, I'll be providing all council members with information and data that will be helpful to the committee in making its recommendation and to the full council in understanding that recommendation. Council members, if I could have a second, we'll vote and make that meeting official. Thank you, Council Member Farmer. That's to hold a special meeting on June 21st at 11 o'clock for the Environmental Quality Committee. Is there any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Thank you. Council Member Vlis. And one more item, Vice Mayor. The committee also discussed the perennially flooded basements, often with raw sewage backup debt, that some Lexington property owners suffer every time there's a significant rainfall. On a motion by Council Member Martin, seconded by Council Member Lane, the committee voted to recommend that the Division of Water Quality fund a pilot grant program not to exceed $100,000 dollars that would address these chronic problems for those particular property owners and to develop grant criteria. Do I hear a second? Council Member Lawless seconds. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. That's my report. Thank you, Council Member Blues. Next is Council Member Lawless with the special Public Safety, Public Works, and Development Committee meeting. Thank you, Vice Mayor. This was held April 19th, but due to the size of the last Cal meeting, which seems to have grown, I was asked to do this report out. It was a special meeting of Public Safety and Public Works Development Committee, and there was only one item on the agenda, and that was public safety and collective bargaining agreements. Council Member Lane and Council Member Martin presented a PowerPoint presentation regarding the need for collective bargaining agreements. Council Member Lane cited reasons for support of the Council participation in the negotiations. And these were a need for both administrative and legislative branches to provide checks and balances on behalf of citizens. Council represents the taxpayer, and this is a substantial amount of taxpayer money. and the collective bargaining agreement is for a three-year period, which often overlaps administrations. There were several conversations back and forth about that, and there was discussion about the 2008 Attorney General's opinion by Mr. Gardner on Louisville's current process regarding collective bargaining, and in his opinion the statute does not prevent the mayor from enlisting the council to contribute to the process. He stated that the council could participate in the process if so decided. Council Member Stenet commented on ways council could be involved in the collective bargaining agreements, which do not involve legislative changes but through the budget process. CAO Richard Maloney commented on the administration's use of a consultant for the collective bargaining agreement. I don't believe that's been done before. And so he also commented that if Council wanted to make change to the process, they should seek a change through the Kentucky Revised Statute. Commissioner Graham discussed the last Attorney General's opinion regarding an interpretation of state statute. The courts were ultimately the final arbitrator in the issue, not the Attorney General's office. A motion was made by Council Member Martin and seconded by Council Member Farmer that the committee refer to the full council resolution to be drafted and updated by the legal department whereby the council would approve collective bargaining agreements prior to the mayor's approval and signature. The motion failed 4 to 2. And then we adjourned. Thank you very much. I think, Jeanette, I think that technically the motion failed 2 to 4. If you would mind to change that in the... Thank you very much. Thank you for catching that. Okay. Thank you very much. And math is my thing. Next, we'll hear from Council Member Myers with the Social Services Committee on page 79. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I want to give a little bit of a background on how or why this issue was in our committee. So under the current model, well, first let me say that under the mayor's current proposed budget, partner agencies are taking an across-the-board cut. Under the current model, partner agencies' funding is subjectively based without analytical or empirical data to suggest the categories we should fund, which agencies we should fund, or provide funding to, or to what percentage of the general fund dollars should go towards partner agencies. Prior to the partner agency or site committee being dissolved due to the restructure, the committee asked United Way of the Bluegrass and CEO Bill Farmer to help us understand and identify a new model. The new model would provide objective metrics and analytics-based decision-making to determine the best use of limited taxpayer dollars and to achieve desired outcomes. This would include introducing new non-tax dollars to plug in budget shortfalls. On April 19, 2011, the Social Services Committee heard a presentation from the Director of the University of Kentucky's Martin School of Public Policy, the Dean of the U.K.'s College of Social Work, and the CEO of the United Blade of Bluegrass, outlining a proposal for a new model that accomplished the earlier stated goals. Under this model, the Mayor and the Urban County Council will retain all decisions related to allocation of taxpayer dollars. The funded agencies will still answer to the Director or Commissioner as previously established. The proposed partnership would provide objective and elite-based data to the Mayor and the Urban County Council to utilize during the decision-making process. That proposed partnership would introduce new non-tax dollars to the nonprofit agencies and the community. During the meeting, there was discussion of issuing an RFP to match the elements presented in the proposed partnership with the University of Kentucky, the United Way, and LFUCG. There was also discussion about how this might be done in-house. A special meeting will be held on May 12th at 2.30 p.m. to hear a presentation from the Department of Social Services as to how they would match the elements of the proposed partnership and do that in-house. We also heard from some representatives of the social services community during the meeting. Several questions have been raised regarding changes to the current funding model. They have asked for a public forum where members of the community and nonprofit organizations would be able to come forward and participate and provide their input. And so Thursday we're going to have the meeting where the Commissioner of Social Services is going to present her proposal, and then we'll discuss that, and then the next steps will be to look at putting together a forum. I guess I'd turn to the Vice Mayor to ask how we might be able to do that, maybe during the council break, maybe provide some type of open forum so that everybody in the community, but specifically partner agency representatives, could come and provide their input. Would that be posted by the committee? I'm really trying to figure out the best way to do that. Social services? Yes. I'm sure we're going to talk about it in the meeting Thursday, But to help with that conversation, it might help if we had some guidelines on what type of meeting to best have. Would it be a public meeting and it would be a public hearing? You're talking about a public meeting for council to hear from the public, or are you talking about getting input for social services? It's really the partner agencies to be able to come. They came to this meeting and said that they wanted to have input into the process. So I'm trying to figure out what the best form of that would be. Commissioner Mills, do you have an idea on this? The partner agencies express wanting to see our proposal before it was presented. So as we presented it to council on Monday, we also sent it to the partner agencies. And we have feedback that a good number of them will be here at our committee meeting on Thursday. So if time permits and Council wishes, we could have some public comment on Thursday during this special committee meeting, Council Member Myers. Okay. But we know we've got meetings followed. We've got a council meeting after our special meeting on Thursday. So we're not going to have an extended amount of time after your presentation to have that input. but I would think that we need to have more input than just what they're going to be able to do tomorrow as well. So the committee has another meeting in June, if that's too late, but maybe we could do that as a public meeting. I think we have a standing meeting set in June. So does it suit for the committee to hear this input from the partner agencies? Do you have an idea, Councilmember Ford? Yes, thank you, Vice Mayor. I agree with you. I think it's perhaps more appropriate for this committee matter to be discussed in committee. And I would also, speaking for myself, request more input from the committee. I do suggest that we have our input from the partner agencies. But as a committee member, as I walked up to that meeting that day, I was unaware of the true nature of the presentation in that a partnership was in works with United Way. So I ask that we back up and revisit how this committee is going to work and then perhaps we can help our Chairman Mr. Myers relate to the full council, the social services needs of our partner agencies and how we go forward. So I think we need to slow down and do committee work first. Well, let me respond to that if I could. First of all, this has more to do, it has to do with more than just social service agencies to start with. Secondly, they express their desire to have input. If we have it during a committee meeting during the day, you're going to hear from a lot of people who can't leave work and come down here and provide that input. So I think, and we have backed up and slowed down, and that's why we're having a second presentation from the administration. And then it was also recommended that we do an RFP process. So we've got a long ways to go in this process and a whole lot of input to get from a whole lot of people. My question is, how do we best do that? And it would seem to me that maybe an after-hours meeting where people who work in the day will be able to come to that meeting and provide input. We'll have two presentations out there, and then we all know that whatever we do, is going to have to go out for an RFP. So my question is, what's the best forum to get input from all those in the community who want to provide that input? George, and I know it's too late to be argumentative, and I don't mean to be, but I just recommend that you ask the committee. You know, there's seven of us on the committee, and I don't think this is the venue to kind of air that out. I think that if you bring that discussion to the committee, we could be of greater help to you as our chairman. Just my thoughts. So, Council Member Kaye wishes to speak. Thank you, Vice Mayor. That's pretty much where I was going. I think we've got a special meeting set up. If people come expecting to have some input, they can have limited input. But I believe that the committee ought to be looking at this question more broadly. And if we're going to have a process for public input, we ought to talk about how we want to do that at the committee meeting. Thank you. Council Member Lawless. Well, I think Council Member Ford and Council Member Kaye just said what I was going to say. I, too, was under the impression that the first time the United Way came, that they were offering to help with for free to consult with outcome measures that they were working on. And somehow, and I very well may have missed the memo, but I was kind of confused by that also. So I agree it should just come before the committee and let's figure it out from there. And it may be that we do an RFP, or it may be we decide we don't need to spend $75,000 or whatever. So I think this is definitely, I agree that it could come back to the committee to hash out and then report out to the full council and assist you in how best to get the feedback. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. Okay, so Council Member Myers thinks that will work. So the committee will hear more on Thursday. And apparently, according to Commissioner Mills, several people are planning to be there to give input. Excellent. That's my report. Okay, thank you very much. And last but not least is Council Member Farmer with Planning and Zoning. Thank you, Vice Mayor. We'll try to make it least. We met on May 3rd. All council members were present for the meeting. We had our opening conversation discussion about the council's roles and goals and objectives for the conferencing plan update that is ongoing. Chris King was here and walked all of us through that. We had some examples and some questions, and really it was just very much an opening discussion. There were no motions. There will be a lot more work for the committee and the council to do in the very near future, but that was not the case on the day of this meeting, so my report is we have met. Thank you very much. Is there anyone who has a council report? Now's the time. Council report, if you have a council report, please log in. Council Member Lane. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Earlier we had a vote on closing the pools at Berry Hill and Constitution, and I did not vote to close those pools. And I want to just go on the record and explain why I didn't vote on that today, because I am in favor of closing pools at Berry Hill, Constitution, and Picadome. I voted today to keep these pools open because there was really not a plan to close the pools, to fund any additional improvements to the park after we close the pools, or really to communicate with the people living in that area about the pool closings. So I'm hoping that maybe in the process coming forward we'll be able to work out some of these details, and then I would be able to change my vote. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Lawless. Just real quickly, I think in the links there's been a lot of discussion about having a plan and engaging the community about the pools and other services. So I hope we'll be able to bring something to you, and certainly a long-range, well-thought-out plan and community and neighborhood involvement is critical to that. So, just had to say that. The Historic South Hill Neighborhood Association is meeting, and you are now late if you plan to go. the Bell Court Neighborhood Association will be hosting a porch party on Saturday, May 21st starting at 4 o'clock at the Confluence, their word, not mine, of East Bell and Russell Avenue the theme is Wild Wild East so you can come and enjoy and visit with the neighbors and they're hoping everyone will attend and have a really good time Um, Southland, the Southland Drive Neighborhood Association is having a Great American cleanup on May 21st, this Saturday, or, no, Saturday, May 21st, from 8 to 11. The rain date will be the 28th, and in part that is to prepare for the first Southland Jamboree concert, which will be held on the 31st. Also, I wanted to say that, and thank you, Council Member Blues and all on the Environmental Quality Committee about the sewage issues. That's a big problem and ongoing problem for many of the people in my district. And we're expecting a lot more rain, I hear. next few days, and I found that if you have raw sewage coming up and you call 311 after hours, and you wait, there's supposed to be an emergency number or something that you will be given to report a sewage issue. So with the rain coming, please keep that in mind, and don't hesitate to call. And thank you very much. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. We had a great event last weekend with Great American Cleanup at the Valley Park Stream Clean. I sent out thank you letters to everyone that contributed to this event, but I wanted to also publicly thank you. Those that were involved, Pepsi-Cola donated 20 cases of soft drinks for the kids. Papa Neas donated fruit. Modern property management prepared food, hot dogs, hamburgers for all of the volunteers that cleaned the creek up. They were a tremendous help. The clear unit, several of the officers came out and helped clean up the creek. Fire was there with the smokehouse, which kids really loved. Bluegrass Pride, Water Quality, UK's community engagement was a huge part in this. We had at least 12 of the UK PD that came out to clean up the creek. Hamilton Park Neighborhood Association, the STARS group, and many, many residents of the community participated. So I don't know if you had an opportunity to see the picture in the paper, but there was a great number of folks there, and I didn't get the weight on it, but we did get a lot of trash out of the creek, although it is in better shape than it has been in the past. So just very grateful to everyone that participated. Thank you. Councilmember Beard. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Actually, nothing much is going on in my district specifically to talk about, but I will talk about this garage out here. I got here at 2 o'clock, and it was packed, and I assumed it was because the Planning Commission was here, and we've had that problem before. But it's my understanding that it's overflow of certain individuals who were on the Phoenix garage and somehow got access. It would be interesting to look into that if Richard, if you could. CAO wants to talk or jump sheet. Oh, we did. Well, that's a good reason. Based on the most updated information, I've got the second assessment that was done by another engineering firm from Cincinnati cleared the facility to be occupied. So officially, as of tomorrow morning, we'll be open, but we've not seen any reason for it to be shut down any further. That's fine. That's great. I'm glad it's in that good a shape today, the truth. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You're welcome. Are there any other council reports? If not, we're at public comment for any issues not on the agenda. And I don't see anyone, so do I hear a motion to go into closed session? Vice Mayor, I move that we go into closed session pursuant to KRS 61.810 for the purpose of discussing potential litigation and pursuant to KRS 61.810 for the discussion that may lead to the discipline of dismissal of an employee. So moved. Council Member Blue seconds. All those in favor say aye. Anyone opposed? Could we take a 10-minute break? Okay. Then I'll say yes. Thank you. Do I hear a motion to come back into open session? Second. Okay. There are several motions. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? Do I hear a motion to adjourn? All those in favor say aye. Aye. We are adjourned. Thank you.