Music Council Member Ellinger said, well, this is like a cocktail party without the libation. Welcome, everybody. We appreciate all of you being here. I think the senior citizens, not the senior, the senior intern academy. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. Yes. Plead forgiveness. Thank you all for joining us. You're going to be officially recognized in the work session in just a few minutes by the vice mayor and by the council. And so, too, will some of our visiting corporate citizens who've brought us some new jobs. Have we got a quorum? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. We do? All right. We do have a quorum. So I'll call the meeting to order. You need one more. We need one more? Oh, here's Council Member Martin. All right. We've got a quorum. Thank you, sir. All right. This is a meeting of the Council, and the meeting of the council requires a roll call vote for attendance by our clerk. So, Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll? Mr. Ford. Here. Ms. Gorton. Here. Ms. Henson. Mr. Kay. Here. Mr. Lane. Ms. Lawless. Here. Mr. Martin. Here. Mr. McCord. Here. Mr. Myers. Mr. Stinnett. Yes, ma'am. Mr. Beard. Mr. Blues, Ms. Crosby, Mr. Ellinger, and Mr. Farmer. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Just one minute. I'd like to get my monitor turned on here. All right. Okay. Okay. On our agenda today, the agenda is fairly limited, and on the agenda is the first reading of ordinances. Is there a motion? You just need to read the... I'm sorry. Yeah. Okay. First reading of ordinance. An ordinance appropriating the revenues, expenditures, expenses, and interfund transfers for the General Services District Fund, the Tenant Relocation Fund, the Urban Services Districts Fund, the Police Confiscated Federal Fund, the Police Confiscated State Fund, the Public Safety Fund, the Spay and Neuter Fund, the Municipal Aid Program Fund, the County Aid Program Fund, the Mineral Severance Fund, the Coal Severance Fund, the Miscellaneous Special Revenue Fund, the Police Confiscated Treasury Fund, the FY2012 Bond Projects Funds, the Sanitary Sewer Revenue and Operating Fund, the Sanitary Sewer Construction Fund, the Lexington-Fade Urban County Government Public Facilities Corporation General Fund, the Lexington-Fade Urban County Government Public Facilities Corporation Parks Project Fund, the Lexington-Fade Urban County Government Public Parking Corporation Fund, the Water Quality Management Fund, the Landfill Fund, the Right-of-Way Program Fund, the Extended School Program Fund, the Prisoner's Account Fund, the Enhanced 911 Fund, the LexVan Program Fund, the Lexington Fayette-Urban County Government Public Library Corporation Fund, the City Employees Pension Fund, the Police and Fire Retirement Fund of the Lexington Fayette-Urban County Government, the Medical Insurance Fund, the Property and Casualty Claims Fund, and the reallocation of bond project funds on a divisional level by four control levels for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2012, for the Lexington Fayette-Urban County Government and its agencies and instrumentalities, approving and adopting the Capital Improvement Program for Fiscal Years FY 2012 through FY 2017 as a portion of the fiscal year 2012 annual capital improvements budget and approving funding for the Lexington Fayette-Urban County Tourist and Convention Commission from the transient room tax and said funding to equal 99.5% of the revenue from the tax. All right. Thank you, Madam Clerk. If the Council members will just sign on electronically as chair, I will open the meeting for discussion. Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Senator. Since Thursday is the second reading of the budget, and we generally don't have comments when we have second reading of the budget, I did want to make some comments today about the budget. it. Last year was the first year in my 13 years that I voted against a budget, and I have some great concerns about this year's budget that the council has crafted, and I know that all council members right now are deciding whether to vote for the budget or not on Thursday night. And although it's a very small part of the budget, I guess about maybe $400,000, I did want to comment about the new bonds and the new projects. I, along with several council members, voted against those projects last week and voted against putting them in the budget. and I have a very great concern about bonding new projects. We all know that last year our government was downgraded in its bond rating. We also know that we're trying to decrease from our 12% debt service to 10% debt service. and I would never in my own personal life go out and spend money on my credit card if the credit agency had just told me they had downgraded my credit. And I am wondering why these past several years, when we've known about the need for lacrosse fields, We've known about the desire for Frisbee golf that some groups of citizens didn't come forward like baseball does and like Lysa Soccer does and like Friends of the Dog Park does and raise private money to do those projects. These nonprofit groups raise lots of private money to fund exactly these sorts of projects. And I just simply felt that I needed to make a statement about that particular part of the budget because I disagree with it. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Next who signed up is Council Member Martin and then Council Member Crosby. Thank you, Mayor. Due to a rescheduling by the council of its vote to put the budget on the docket, I was forced to leave for a prior obligation at 1 o'clock, and so I missed some of the conversation in those last two hours. One of the things that came up was the approval by the council of a recruiting class of 25 officers for the police department. And the reason this disturbed me is because the council failed to basically honor its obligations to fund the police and fire pension in the same meeting. We owe $222 million for the police and fire pension. We owe $103 million for the bonds we issued several years ago to put money in it. We owe $212 million for the medical benefits for our public safety retirees. And to fail to meet our obligations to fund those extremely serious payments, these are promises that we made to our retirees that we're going to pay their pension and their medical benefits while starting a new recruiting class who we have no intention on funding their pensions like we're supposed to. Each new hire requires about $300,000 to fund on day one to fund their pensions. And we are so far behind that these new recruits, we are never going to be able to pay their pensions and retirement benefits that we promise to them when we hire them. And so until we work this out, I think it's not responsible government to continue to hire folks and make promises to them about their retirement benefits that we don't have any intention to keep. And so I guess I am not prepared to support that at this time. When we can make promises that we can keep, then we should hire the folks. But right now we are not keeping our promises. The other thing I have problems with is that the conversation came up earlier on the funding of the Urban League, and it came at a time when it was sort of out of proper order for sort of legislative discussions. But I understand it really never came up again. And so I'd like to see the council fund the Urban League. It is a crucial part of what we do in this community. And if it's possible, I don't know, Council Member Ford, are you going to bring something forward on that? Well, if so, I'll leave it to you at some time. Otherwise. I'm supportive of the funding. I look forward to talking more about the budget after everybody else talks about it. So I would like to see the Urban League get funded. I think it was just simply an oversight in the midst of all the conversations. But I thought those comments were important to make as we finalize this budget. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Martin. Council Member Crosby. Thank you, Mayor Gray. and I agree with some of the sentiments that have already been expressed by our vice mayor and Council Member Martin. Clearly, when we went through the process last week, and there were some of us who were in and out, as many of you all know, that was a last-minute scheduled meeting. But when you look at the line item votes, there were many council members who just didn't agree 100 percent. But procedurally, we vote to move and ratify budget forward so we can vote as a council up or down. It's part of our procedures. Mayor Gray, with all due respect, I know you worked to make some cuts on the budget. I've been very supportive of us trying to live within our means, and at this time we've had the discussion that I do not plan on voting for this budget. I'll be interested to hear what some of my colleagues have to bring forward by Thursday, but I just wanted to make sure my colleagues understand that I do not intend on voting for this budget. Thank you. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Mayor Gray. I think a lot of discussion has occurred since our workings on finalizing the budget last week. I guess it appears to me that the responsibility of council is to pass a budget. And I would just ask, where are we now? We have just had the first reading of the budget. It appears to me that perhaps council is not done with this deliberation of the budget. And if things have changed since last week, I'm just asking in regards to the process of where we stand now as a council to perhaps reexamine some of the proposals that we've made fiscally last week. It appears to me that it sounds like that we have a lot more discussion to do. And I would prefer, if at all possible, if we could ensue upon those discussions to get it right. I think there's still time for us to get it right if we're not comfortable with where we are right now. I know it's every council member's prerogative to vote no on the budget, but I would recommend and really encourage that we try to continue working, that we can get a budget that everybody feels comfortable with. So as a newcomer, I'm just throwing that out as a possibility for the council to consider. Thank you, Council Member Ford. Does anyone else wish to speak? Council Member Lawless and then Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. I too am very concerned about this budget. I think it is spending more than we can afford to spend. We don't have to pass all these items now. We can do budget amendments if it starts raining gold on us in, say, January. But I don't suppose that's going to happen any more than the lottery ticket I bought is going to cash in. But if it does, I think that there were very deliberate and hard choices made by the administration. I may not agree with every single one, but I do agree with most of them. And mostly I agree with if you don't have the money, you don't spend it. And if you, the one place, and so many people have talked about the lacrosse fields and disc golf, et cetera, and I think those are wonderful things. But parks is the one place where community members will dig into their pockets and make contributions. And I think that we need to look at ways to raise money for those projects before we fund them or bond them. I also think that there were some very needed cuts in positions, and nobody ever likes to lay people off. It's a really hard job. I did it in my work world, and it's the last thing you want to do. But at the end of the day, if we can't pay our bills, we're in big trouble, and we have infrastructure problems. And so for that reason, the budget as it is, as the council passed it, I could not, I will not be able to support. And I think if outside partner agencies and I'm a social worker and perceived as very liberal in many ways, and I am, but I also believe in living at or under your means or we pay. I mean, we had a collapse of the global economy because we used our credit cards as individuals, as cities, as states, and countries, and we cannot afford that. If revenues pick up, if people want to raise money, people want to make contributions, we can always put things in the budget. at making these kind of commitments now when we don't know what it's going to look like in January. And by all indicators, it's not going to look great in January. So thank you. Vice Mayor Gordon. Yes, I wanted to respond to Council Member Ford about process because I think that, you know, our charge is to approve a balanced budget by the end of the fiscal year, which is June 30th. So there is opportunity today or Thursday, I mean, at the risk of making our law and budget folks a little nervous, there is opportunity if Council members wanted to amend the proposed budget. And the only thing is that if it's a material change, we would need to have a new first reading and then probably set a new special meeting for a second reading if it's a material change. So there is some opportunity, a few days left in the month, if council members felt like they wanted to do that. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Kaye. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. A comment, and then I have a question. The comment is, my understanding is that a material change to the budget means adding funds, but that deleting costs from the budget is not a material change. So that there could be changes that took things out of the budget without having to go through another special meeting for a second reading. But my question, and I'm not sure who the most appropriate person to address this is, perhaps too legal, as I hear some of my fellow council members begin to express views that suggest that they will not vote for this budget, I'm curious to know what happens if the council does not pass a budget. If we put a budget up and it is defeated, what happens? I think it would be useful for people to know that. I think Commissioner Graham, can you speak to that question? Under the charter, if you don't pass a budget by June 30th, it continues on a month-to-month basis based upon the past fiscal year's budget prorated. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Any other questions? Council Member? All right. Thank you. Are there any other? Council Member Gordon, you're still on. You're done. All right, okay. Mr. Lane? I don't think the Commissioner of Law answered the question that was asked, and that was if we deleted something from the budget. Oh, maybe she didn't understand the question. Maybe it would not be a material change. No. No, Council Member Kaye's question was, what is the procedure in the event that a budget is not passed? I believe the other question wasn't. Well, I expressed my understanding was that the definition of a material change was adding to the budget, but the deleting from the budget did not constitute a material change. Is that correct? If you delete something in its entirety, we would probably recommend you go ahead and give it another first reading. If you reduce the amount, that is not a material change. Taking something out altogether can be argued to be material. Reducing the amount of it is not a material change. Thank you. Is that okay, Councilman Blaine? All right. Any other comments? If there are no other comments, as Chair, I'd like to make just a couple of comments on the process myself, if that's appropriate, unless there's objection. I do want to thank the Council members for the enormous effort that goes into developing a budget, working through it, the LINCS processes. As Council Member Stenet said more than once, this may well be the toughest budget in the history of the merged government, and that's a number of years. To our senior interns, you all have sometimes heard that democracy can look a little like making sausage. The outcome may be worthwhile, but the making of it may not look so good sometimes. But what occurs in this process is often very, very healthy. Issues are debated. They're debated transparently. They're debated right here in the open. We take an oath in our swearing in that we won't fight a duel, that we'll kind of work it out right here in these chambers, And that represents a real inspiration in so many ways for democracy, even right here at the local level. And I've been on the side of the council representing as a member of the council, and I know what a challenge it is to work through a budget with so many points of view and interests and constituents who are involved. So I just want to take this time to acknowledge and thank and express my appreciation and on the part of the administration, appreciation as well. So thank you all very much. Next on our agenda, actually, oh, Council Member Kay, another. Oh, yes, sir. Let me recognize Council Member Kay now for a, hopefully for a motion. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, I make a motion to add an ordinance for first reading of budget amendments, and it's necessary to walk on this ordinance in order to get two readings done during fiscal year 2011. Second. There's a motion by Council Member Kay, second by Vice Mayor Gordon. Do we need to further explain this motion? Does anybody need? Okay. Okay. Budget Director Brian Barrows is available. Brian, why don't you share with us the – I asked the same question, Council Member Martin. Give us a little bit of history on this process and when this has occurred in the – routinely, I think, is what I was told. Yes, appreciate your consideration. This is obviously fiscal year 11 budget amendments. the documentation came out from our office on Friday afternoon. Due to the end of the year calendar to meet the schedules with the only two council meetings left, to have the two readings, which is required by the charter, two readings for things that have budgetary impacts, we would need those two readings to happen this week to be able to get those in and completed and approved for the end of the fiscal year. If there's any individual, it's a similar type of form that you've seen normally would go to work session for approval on the docket. But again, given the scheduling constraints, we're going with this format so we get them in before the fiscal year. I'm available for any questions you may have on specific items. All right. Thank you, Brian. Are there any other, no other discussion? All right. Been ready for the, Susan? Just, there needs to be a call for the vote on the motion. Yeah, is this a roll call? No, sir. No, just a voice vote, right? That's correct. Or electronic voice. Electronic voice. Electronic vote. Thank you. Yeah, it could be. So if we're ready for the vote, all in favor, please indicate by saying aye. All opposed, no? All right. Can we do electronic on it, Susan? Okay. Thank you. All right. The vote does indicate passage of the motion. All right. If Ms. Lawless would record her vote, please. Thank you. And now I can give it first reading. Yes, ma'am. Ordinance number two for first reading, an ordinance admitting certain of the budgets of the Lexington-Faylor County Government to reflect current requirements for municipal expenditures in appropriating and reappropriating funds, Schedule No. 129. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Madam. Thank you, Madam Clerk. All right, now we can move on our agenda to the next item, which is announcements. Does the Council have any announcements? Any Council members? Senior interns are going to be recognized officially in the work session. In just a few minutes, that's going to be the next meeting that convenes just as soon as this council meeting is adjourned. All right. There are no one. We do have some announcements. All right. Council Member Ford and then Council Member Crosby. Thank you, Mayor. I don't have an announcement. I hate to go back, but my thoughts are still in regards to the budget. And since I'm not certainly sure, I would ask for clarity from the law department, I guess, is the appropriate venue. We've had first reading on this budget ordinance. It's scheduled for second reading. If council were to reopen its budget deliberations and were to make changes, would that make mute the would that just invalidate the first reading we would have to do another first reading is that correct depending on whether or not the changes are material or not will determine whether or not we need to do a new first reading so we would have to see what changes are going to be made and then we could make a determination as to whether or not a new first reading is required may I ask another question Sure. If we adjourn this meeting after having the first reading of the proposed budget ordinance, and then we convene in the work session that's set to follow, and we call to reopen the budget deliberations, and we start our work again, do we have that purview? Can we do that? Yes, but keep in mind that then the first reading would occur on Thursday if we needed to have a new first reading, and then we would have to schedule a special meeting to have a second reading. So if you were going to consider making changes to the budget, my recommendation would be that we do it now while you all are in an official council meeting. And then if it's required for us to do a new first reading, we can do it now. But all in all, we can measure twice to cut once. We can measure three times if needed. We can keep having first readings until we get it right. We can do what we need to do to amend this budget. Is that correct? Yes. I would then thank you, Glenda. Council members, this has been my first process, but it appears that we're going to vote a budget down, and I don't think that that's what we are here to do. We did have the link process, but there are several questions, I think, that are outstanding that hinge on policy. I'm just going to mention three that don't have a defined financial impact. Police and fire pension, Doug mentioned that. Health insurance for our employees and collective bargaining. Throughout the link process, I don't think that I personally don't have a grasp of what impact that is going to mean for fiscal year 12. So I would implore us to examine those things at the very minimum to help us get to where we need to get to to pass this budget within the next nine days or so. Personally, I'm not so concerned in regards to the schedules that we have set as far as this council meeting and Thursday's meeting, just as long as we get it right. That's going to be my request of council. that we examine those three things in an attempt to get it right, as opposed to bolting down the budget that we have right now. Council Member Ford, Vice Mayor, just ask if you could repeat those items that you identified. What I heard were police and fire, the pensions, collective bargaining, and the health insurance costs. That's correct. And the context of the question was the extent to which those issues are influencing the 2012 budget, right? I think that's correct. Right. And I can say order of magnitude, that represents around $9 million in the budget. But Commissioner Driscoll could confirm that. But I don't know if you're asking for us to go into that conversation right now. I didn't hear you say that. I heard you say that you're asking the council to consider what steps need to be or could be taken to continue examining to the satisfaction of the council. And I will, Mayor. What I would do if it helps the council, I'll make a motion that we reopen the budget deliberation process for this fiscal year 2012 with emphasis at a minimum to study those three items. for its fiscal impact, police and fire pension, employee health insurance, and sworn collective bargaining. So moved. There's a motion by Council Member Ford, and there's a second by Council Member Crosby. Do I need to repeat the motion? Okay. All right. Then I'll open the floor to discussion. Council Member Crosby. I have a point of order question. I'm not sure if our parliamentarian or the chair can answer this. Since the wording of the motion was a little confusing, I agree that there needs to be discussion. But my question is more technical. Since we are in a meeting now that is budgeted for us to open another meeting, I mean, don't we just have to stay in this meeting and continue this meeting? So I'd be happy to withdraw my second, but I wanted to just, I was trying to get the point of order beforehand, and I don't know our law, if you could answer that, if it's even an appropriate motion, since we're currently in a budget meeting. Well, my interpretation of the motion was to reopen discussions. discussions. And I think that's my interpretation of that would be that it would be up to the Council to determine what that represents. Does anybody have a different opinion on that? Councilman Blues. Thank you, Mayor. Well, I think we probably all have questions and issues about the budget. I certainly am not going to support a motion predicated on a prediction that the budget will not be approved by this council. I don't know what the basis for that prediction is, but it does seem to me inappropriate. I think that the budget has been read once. It needs to be read a second time. It needs to be voted up or down. If it's voted down, then we will open, reopen our discussion, and I should think that we would not restrict it to three particular items. Let the process work. Let us see where the chips fall and go from there. But I'm not going to support a motion predicated on a prediction that may or may not have some basis in fact. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Lawless or Council Member Crosby, did you have? I'm sorry, my name's up there for announcements. Thank you. Okay. So, yeah, why don't you, since I've got, my monitor is showing the announcements, I think. Okay, it was showing the announcements. Now, all right, but hold up your hand if you want to speak to the motion. Council Member Lawless, please. Thank you. I appreciate the sentiment behind the motion. However, that's a, the collective bargaining hasn't started. We have a consultant, as I understand, examining our health care costs and what we can do to rein those in. And we can't make a budget on information that would be impossible for us to have. That's one of my issues with a lot of this budget is that we can always amend it and add things to it later, but we don't have a crystal ball, so we don't know what's going to come out of collective bargaining. We don't know what's going to come out of what the health care costs are going to be for next year, and we're not going to know for a while. And that's why I think it's prudent to be as lean and green as we can be with this budget. And if things look really rosy, we can always add to it in January, February, you know, whatever. So I don't understand how we can have a meaningful conversation on those items which are complete unknowns to us at this time without a crystal ball. And maybe I'm misunderstanding, but thank you. Council Member Lane. Thank you, Mayor. The budget has about a half a billion dollars in it, and there were some items in there which I voted against because I did not like, and there were some items that I reluctantly voted for, so in the spirit of compromise. That being said, I feel that a good approach on this would be for the mayor to use his veto power to delete any items in the budget that he has consideration about, and that would allow the council then to vote again on those items. And to me, that would be the way we could promptly move the budget forward and resolve any issues that are pending, and I would encourage you to do that, Mayor. Thank you. Thank you so much for your encouragement, Mr. Lane. Council Member Ford, if you don't mind, since Vice Mayor Gordon has not spoken to the motion, I'll allow her to speak next and then back to you. Actually, then Council Member Stenet just asked to speak, and then we'll go back to you. Thank you, Mayor. The motion refers to police and fire pension, employee health insurance, and collective bargaining. And I was simply thinking that maybe we could get a quick update today, like a three-minute update from Commissioner Graham on the status of the collective bargaining, which might help us know where that is, what's finished, what's started, and what hasn't started. I mean, for the future after the motion. So the request by the Vice Mayor is that we hear from the Commissioner on the status of the collective bargaining after the discussion by Council Members. Okay? All right. Council Member Stenet. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'm going to go ahead and speak to the motion because we do have an opportunity Thursday night to speak on the budget once again. So today is not our only opportunity to address the budget issues. On the motion, you know, Council Member Forner has hit the nail on the head. The Achilles heel to this budget, the thing this council did not deliberate for one minute, was the savings for collective bargaining that was built in the budget and for health insurance. And as the mayor correctly stated, it's $9.2 million. If we don't realize those savings, you think our jobs are today debating over $1 million? Come back and try to find $9 million, and that's going to be a tough sell. And I appreciate the efforts and things that people have said today about saving money, not putting things on credit cards. But as you pointed out, Council Member Ford, in our discussion earlier today as well, that's the Achilles heel of this budget, and everyone should be aware of it and understand it and do what we can to support that and get those savings. because if we don't, we'll all be back here in January once again finding ways to cut, cut, cut. And I would support that, Council Member Ford, normally to have that motion, but we didn't ask the Vice Mayor for a cow in the motion, and we can always have discussions as we are now. We can bring it up in Council Report. You can bring it up at any time and ask the administration to bring us information on how we're really going to save that money in the future. So I won't support the way the motion stated unless it's restated to have a Cal meeting, make us all come, or have another opportunity Thursday night. We can also address it as well. Thank you. Council Member Kaye. Thank you, Mayor. I agree with Councilman Blues. I believe we've had a tough budget process. And also, as Council Member Lane said, there were some things that I voted for that did not get moved forward. There were some things that I voted for, again, in the spirit of compromise. We have a budget. I believe it's our job to either vote it up or vote it down and then proceed accordingly. So I would not support this motion. I think it's going to be very difficult if we open this budget back up before voting on it to limit the discussion to any set of items. I think every single issue that has been controversial in the conversations for the last two months will again be brought up, and it took us a long time to reach the place that we have reached, so I will vote no on the proposal. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Kay. Back to Council Member Ford. Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to move on to the motion. Speaking to the motion, perhaps didn't fit the true tone of what I'm trying to get to, so I'm going to withdraw the motion, and I'm going to ask my second council member, Crosby, to withdraw her second. And this is my contention. A lot of work has gone into this budget, but we have not checked our homework, point blank. We have not looked at the numbers. We sat in the chamber. We had a lot of link activity. We started at 9 o'clock last week, and we went all the way to 4 o'clock. But the reality is we have not checked our numbers. We have not gone through the budget. And particularly, I still contend that the major points are just as Kevin mentioned, collective bargaining, health insurance, and police and fire pension. This council and this government, in my opinion, we don't have a clear understanding and or a policy position on these issues. And without policy positions on these issues, we cannot properly do what it takes to work with the administration to craft a budget that's going to get us through June 30th. It is going to take additional time. So I've withdrawn my motion. I will ask that I will make another motion to ask the Vice Mayor that the Committee of the Whole will reconvene for us to review the budget line by line as adopted. We have yet to do that. And if we don't have time to do that as a council, to make sure that we measure twice in order to cut once, I'm not certain why we go through the exercise. So that's my motion. It's my new motion. is to ask the Committee of the Whole to review the budget that we ratified last week, line by line, so move. There's a motion by Council Member Ford. Is there a second? There's a second by Council Member Crosby. All right. The floor is available for discussion. Vice Mayor Gordon. If I might ask Councilmember Ford, is the, I know that our budget analyst, Connie Underwood, sent us, on Wednesday, sent us line by line according to what we decided. And so I'm just asking about the intent of the Cal. Would it be to look at every line and go through and vote again? Or what would be the exact charge for the committee of the whole? To re-examine. to reexamine and to make sure that we are doing what collectively we think we ought to be doing as a council and as a government. I hate to be burdensome, but we haven't done it, Vice Mayor. I think, just to tell you the truth about it, I try my very best to keep up with the line-by-line items that we went through last Tuesday, but we haven't had it reconned. And from what I'm hearing from everybody, and I apologize, Councilman Blues, didn't mean to be presumptuous that the budget would be voted down, but I've heard a lot of folks saying they won't support it. My motion will offer an opportunity for council members to continue to talk this thing out and get it right in order to hopefully that most of council can support it. To pass a budget 8-7 or 9-6 is not where we need to go and stay at yet trying times as a government. So to re-examine Vice Mayor would be my, we haven't done it yet. We haven't checked our homework. Council Member Lane. I respectfully must disagree with Council Member Ford. The LINCS committees went over every line item in the budget, and they reported out in detail to the council. And I feel like that we reviewed the costs and expenses in great detail. And the budget is approximately 600 pages long, And if we were going to go over each line item in the budget, it would take us 30 days to do it again. So I think that's not an appropriate recommendation. Thank you. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mayor. I agree with Council Member Lane. And again, Council Member Ford, I appreciate what you're trying to get at here. but as the mayor just said, sometimes the democratic process is a messy one. And it can be contentious, it can be awkward, it can be incomplete. But when it comes to voting on an issue in this body, eight is the number. And I agree with you. If a budget passes or fails 8 to 7, that's unsatisfactory in many ways. But nevertheless, the majority prevails in these cases. As I said before, and I don't see a reason to change my position on this, We've moved the process forward to this point. We've had a first reading. I believe we should do a second reading and see where the chips fall and go from there. If the budget fails, then we reopen the discussion. So, again, this is not a motion that I feel I can support, even though I understand that we would all like to reexamine issues. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Blitz. Anybody else wish to speak to the motion? All right, then call for the question. All in favor of the motion, please indicate by saying aye. All opposed, no? All right. Well, just voted electronically. Okay. Thank you so much. The motion fails to pass. All right. Excuse me. Council Member, we're back to announcements now. Council Member Crosby. Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to announce, I don't know if the senior interns were back here or if anybody else, but I have found a pair of glasses at my spot. Oh, they're Dr. Blue's. And I figured somebody was probably looking for them, so I apologize. I thought it had made its way down. So I apologize. I just figured somebody would probably be needing those, and since it's Dr. Blue's, we know he really needs those to be looking at these numbers. Will that change your vote now? Yeah, well, we change your vote now, Dr. Blue's. And also, Mayor Gray, I had requested, as many of the council recall last week, because we were here for several hours going through line items voting, that something Council Member Martin brought up was with the police recruit class, and I think there was great hesitancy among many of us to, we voted for it with the understanding that we would be getting some information. I know that I requested that a memo be sent to every council member with the discussion that we had lining out the issues surrounding this, and we've yet to receive anything. I double-checked with my aide a little bit ago to make sure I didn't miss something or he missed something, and we've not yet received anything, and that was from last week. And, of course, we have to vote on this Thursday night. So if we could please get that information, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Right. Thank you, Council Member Crosby. Did we get that, Rich? Did you understand the request? Okay. You want to comment on when or what we can deliver by when? All right. We'll let you all convene on that question and come back to it. All right. Council Member, Vice Mayor Gorton. Yes. I just wanted to request if Commissioner Graham would e-mail us to give us an update on collective bargaining, what is finished, what is started and ongoing. I would appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Yes, ma'am. If it's okay, can we, would it be appropriate to get an answer on Council Member Crosby? It looks like Council Member Crosby is in. All right. Why don't we go on then while they're discussing the question of Council Member Crosby, we can move on to public comment. I have two citizens signed up for public comment, Frank Harris, Frank, and Debbie Tester. Debbie here. I saw her. Oh, there she is. Mr. Frank. Yeah, Frank, would you, the protocol is that we ask that you please state your name clearly and state where you live. Hi, my name is Frank Harris. I live on the north side of Lexington at 282 Old Kingston Road. I have lived here my entire life of 49 1⁄2 years. I graduated from Henry Clay, graduated from the University of Kentucky. And one other thing, Frank, excuse me. The public comment is limited to three minutes, and I have the unpopular role of being the timekeeper, so I need to let you know. Thank you, sir. I need 15 more seconds added, please, sir. So I want to commend Mayor Gray for his budget proposal. When I first read your budget proposal five or six weeks ago, I was honestly extremely thrilled to see that I thought we were moving in the right direction as a city to try to trim the city's budget. I believe that we are in a recession. I don't believe the recession is getting any better. I think you're going to continue to see revenue streams in decline and that we need to be preparing for this over the coming years. I think that it is wrong of us to add spending at a time when we should be thinking seriously about the problems that we already have on our plates. So I'm glad to hear the thoughts and comments expressed by the Council today that we shouldn't be adding new items until our current problems are addressed, and that it is wrong to fund these with bonded indebtedness. on the issue of the disc golf. To me, this sends a very bad message to the city that we would spend $150,000 on disc golf. By my calculations, that comes out to $44,166.67 per hole. Now, I used to play disc golf. I've been over to Veterans Park. I've played that course a number of times. I've played Shillito Park golf. I was there Sunday to count how many people I found playing the game. Sunday afternoon after the rain stopped, it turned into a pretty nice day, and in four hours I counted 30 disc golfers. I talked to a lot of them. I asked them if they were regulars, if they played on a regular basis, and what they thought about the idea of new disc golf. And, of course, they were excited when they found out about new disc golf, but when they found out how much it cost, they were less enthusiastic. I was able to find online a company that made the baskets for disc golf for $339. Now, what I see is you've got a concrete pad that's 4 feet by 12 feet. Figure a couple hundred for that. You had a little sign that stood about 4 feet, 50 bucks. So by my calculations, you throw in a little bit of labor. you ought to be able to do this for around $600 per hole. And if you ask the Lexington Disc Golf Association to come up with volunteer labor, you might even be able to reduce it beyond that. Thank you very much. You had three seconds remaining, Frank. Wow. On a roll there. Okay. Next, Debbie. And then Mr. Patrick Kelly has signed up. My name is Debbie Tester and I live at 2026 Memphis Court. Debbie, could you pull that microphone down? Thank you. Now can you hear me? Okay. We received some information that the Urban League had requested money from you all. And we had heard that it's a 5% raise for all their employees. And the non-sworn civil service employees were really upset over this when we haven't got a 5% raise in many years. And we would just like for you to look in on this before you funded this to make sure that they weren't giving, you know, employees a raise because the non-sworn employees also deserve a raise also. Thank you. Thank you, Debbie. We've had an addition. Mr. Valenti, Jack Valenti, is also signed up. But, Patrick, you're up next. Thank you. my business. I support three children and two grandchildren. I've had to make drastic changes in my own household. I only had a 12-year mortgage, but I had to turn it into a 30-year mortgage in order to survive to what's going on. So what I'm asking the council to do is no different than what I do. I do tough choices, which is basically common sense. If I don't have the money, I don't spend it. I really take it seriously to teach my children how to be proper with the funds so they don't live in debt. I don't live in debt, but I live very, very small means right now. So, you know, as the other gentleman said, I enjoy disc golf, too. I take my kids out there. I have a lot of fun. But thanks, but no thanks. Please don't put another one of those in there. Please don't borrow money to do things that are truly unnecessary at this point in time. If we need to pay police, fire, and do those things, let's take care of that. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Kelly. Mr. Valenti. Thank you. My name is Jack Valenti. I live in Richmond, Kentucky, and I've been supervising the tennis program for Parks and Rec for the last nine years. I worked at IBM as a manager for 20 years and came to Lexmark and did inventory control. I want to speak specifically to the job of a storage clerk where we control the inventory for not only the tennis program, but football, baseball, and stuff like that. I understand that it was approved that we were going to not eliminate a bunch of jobs. Originally, it was like 28 jobs. I just wanted to bring to the attention of the council that the job that is done by the store's clerk over there is invaluable. If that job over time when you start debating this thing on Thursday is eliminated, you're going to lose total control of the inventory, and it's going to cost you a lot more to replace that. And I've seen firsthand, I have 45 adults taking lessons. I have 145 kids during the week taking clinics. I have a tennis and swim camp, which we get 120 kids over two months and about 140 people in the league. So we have a lot of equipment going out there. But I see also the stores clerk is cleaning up the football helmets, replacing the equipment that goes bad in the tennis program. And so I would say that if the council ever decides that the stores clerk is not a very valuable job because it doesn't seem that important, it's very important. I mean, you'd be making a grave mistake if you decide to eliminate that job. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Follain. Is there any other? I have no one else signed up wishing to speak. If there is no one further, I have nothing more on our agenda. There's a motion by Council Member Second and a second by Council Member McCord to adjourn. All in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. All opposed, no. Motion carries. Council members adjourned and now I'll turn the work session over. Do you all want to move right ahead?