Music I convene the Committee of the Whole Work Session, and today is July the 5th, 2011, And the first item on our agenda is public comment for issues on the agenda. Does anyone from the public wish to comment on any items on our agenda? Seeing none, there's no summary to approve. So we'll move right along on page one of the packet. We have first reading of ordinances. This is new business, and there is a zone change that will need a motion. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I move to put number six on the docket without a public hearing. So move. A motion by Council Member Blues, second by Council Member Beard to place number six on the docket without a public hearing. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right. Thank you very much. Is there any other item in first reading of ordinances which needs attention, Council Members? Council Member Lawless. Number eight, which has to do with positions in community corrections and et cetera. And this has been placed in the Public Safety Committee for study of best practices. And so rather than change the ordinance before we have an opportunity to look at that, I'd like to make a motion to remove that from the docket. Is there a second? Council Member Martin seconds. The motion is to, is your motion actually to table number eight? Just remove it from the docket for now. Okay, and what date would you like it to be placed back on? Is there a date? No, because I'm not asking to table it. I'm asking that it not be placed on Thursday night's docket. Okay, so the motion is to remove number eight from the docket. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? No. Okay. Let's see. Can we take an electronic vote? And this is actually. Okay, all those in favor of removing number eight, please electronically vote. All those against, electronically vote. There should be 14 voting. Is there someone who hasn't voted? Council Member Beard. He's on the move. Are you a yay or a nay? He's a yay. So that motion fails with a vote of five to nine. Are there any other motions or requests for information on first reading of ordinances? Council Member Ford. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I have a question. I would like to ask more information on ordinance number nine, the closing of portions of Goodloe and Ann Street. Is there anybody from the administration? Commissioner Taylor or Mr. Wente that can speak to this. If they aren't here now, Vice Mayor. Yes. Council Member Ford, depending on your question, I may be able to. Okay. I guess I would ask just a general description of the area to be transferred. I'm very familiar with that area, but the memo did not include a graphic to describe what we're transferring to them. Sure. It comes out at the part close to Midland Avenue. As a part of the redesign of those roads, we need to swap some property with the owner. And so he has agreed to do that. So we've already designed the road. This is just cleaning up some of the after effects of the design of what we were doing. So the construction is finished. It's just a cleanup. May I request a copy of the design? Sure. That'll be very helpful. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You're welcome. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I wanted to ask if Commissioner Mason or Ron Bishop could provide us a better explanation of Item 8 before Thursday night. Mm-hmm. Commissioner Mason. There's a lot of history with this ordinance request, and I think it goes back to about 2007. So I've asked Director Bishop to come in and provide the background information about this particular move. Thank you. Welcome, Mr. Bishop. Thank you. This is a permanent solution to a two-pronged problem that goes back to 2007. In 2007, when we signed the first collective bargaining agreement with lieutenants and captains, we knew that in 2008 the captains would move beyond the majors in salary compensation. In 2008, we began working on that. And in 2009, that was addressed by this council. And the method that we are proposing today is the same method for solving part two of this problem that we used in solving part one. The majors have now passed the assistant directors in salary compensation. So the assistant director is making significantly less than the majors and the captains that he supervises. And this scenario would permanently resolve that, and it would bring corrections police and fire all organizationally together where chiefs and future directors of corrections could select their own executive and senior staff and bring some consistency there. The abolishment of the positions would put the Division of Community Corrections more in line with the way the other public safety divisions handle it, and I think would be consistent. And we are unfunding some positions to fund the stipend. So it addresses several problems that have been around for quite a while that we knew were coming in 2007. I also wanted to mention that in last year's budget process, this came up during the public safety link. And I remember asking, and you have said that it would be addressed, so now it's a year later. And thank you for giving us a better understanding. Sure. Council Member Martin. Yeah, I have a follow-up question. So is this basically going to give a bunch of senior staff raises? No. With the current organizational structure, it would give two individuals compensation to place them above the people that they are supervising currently. And that's not a raise? That's not a bunch of people. That's two. Okay, two people. Two people, yes. You're going to give two people raises? Under the current organizational structure, yes. I guess my comments on this is that, and the reason I've seconded Council Member Lawless' motion, is that if the Public Safety Committee has been asked to look at this at a sort of broad, across-the-board, best practices for this department, I think it should be given the freedom to do that. If the Council wants to go ahead and make decisions about this, then we don't need it to have it in committee. You guys can go ahead and make those decisions. But to the extent that the Council wants the Public Safety Committee to look at this department and look at practices and corrections, I think it should be allowed to do so. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You're welcome. Any other questions or comments or removals from the first reading of ordinances? Council Member Lane. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Could you be more specific and just say the amount of the increase and what can you say what the actual compensation is of the person and the person being supervised? I'm somewhat familiar with this because I got a briefing several months ago, but it was my recollection that the people being supervised were making more than the person doing the supervision because of the way the agreement was structured. Yes. As I indicated, in 2008, the captains moved past the majors. In 2009, the majors moved past the assistant directors. The stipend that's proposed is $800, and that would create the spacing that is equitable with the majors whom they supervise and would bring a permanent resolution to this so that in future collective bargaining contracts, regardless of the movement of the officers, sergeants, lieutenants, or captains, the spacing would always be there and this would never have to be addressed again. And that is $800 a month, so it's a nice $600 cost per each officer, or each assistant director involved, is that correct? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Is there any other question about first reading of ordinances? If not, let's move on. Oh, I'm sorry. Commissioner, did you want to add something? One other thing. This was noted in Deputy Chief Boggs' report in terms of structure of leadership at corrections in needing more of that second line of personnel and more of a delineation. So this is something that he also saw as one of the shortcomings there. Thank you. Council Member Lawless. Yes, I do remember seeing it in Mr. Boggs' report. and again the reason I ask that it be taken off the agenda is that we have put it in public safety for best practices and putting something in ordinance before we even have an opportunity to it may be the most brilliant idea in the world I don't know but we haven't had a chance to look at that and it seems premature with the committee work ahead of us thank you All right. Seeing no other questions about first reading of ordinances, let's go to first reading of resolutions on page two. Is there any motion to refer to a committee, any motion to remove, or request for information? Council members, log in, please, if you have a question. Council member Stennett. Thank you, Vice President. I have a question on 31. I'm not sure who can answer it. This is in regards to the distillery district and the proposal for the feasibility study. First of all, I want to make sure, one, this money is coming from a bond issue to pay for this, correct? Yeah. And what is the balance of that bond issue that we did 18 months ago, I think, or older? I think the bond issue was for $2.2 million, so this is the first $418,000 of that $2.2 million. Okay, and then depending on the outcome of this feasibility study, would this give us the amount of how much we really need in a bond issue to complete the actual work? Well, the original bond, I believe, was for the feasibility study. Everything. That's what this is, design of the streetscape and the trail and partial construction of the trail. So whatever's left over of this $2.2 million will be used for design and then for construction of the trails. And we're anticipating that that will be enough for everything? As we bonded 18 months ago, it would be enough? Well, I mean, it's going to be enough for this portion. I mean, this is, you know, long-term, this is a much bigger project than that. And there would be, you know, federal money and state money that would be involved. But to do this part of it, yeah, it's going to complete that. And the feasibility study, once again, does give us the price tag for the entire piece of this project. It gives us, it's the feasibility study only, the $418,000. So we have no idea what the construction will actually cost then. Right. We haven't gotten that far yet. So the bond may not be enough. Well, I mean, no, that's not true. The $418,000 is for the feasibility study. So what's that give us? So the people out there watching, I mean, we bonded this at the last minute 18 months ago, $2.2 million that's sitting there. What does this buy us to utilize that money? This buys us, this is basically an analysis of the existing conditions of that area, what the underground utilities are, what the environmental issues may be concerning that, and how that's going to affect the project moving forward as far as where does the trail go? Does it run along the street? Does it go next to the town branch? Does it go behind buildings, in front of buildings? There's all of those issues. The key, I think, is that you have to do this feasibility study to determine what our next steps are and what the best alignment is. And if we don't do that, then we probably, you know, we'll have a lot of unknowns. But the money was designed to do the feasibility study, a portion of the trail construction. Depending on what the feasibility study finds, we may do a mile, we may do the whole thing. Who knows? And then the streetscape design, if that answers your question. It does. It sounds like we pulled the cart before the horse and bonded more money than we should have 18 months ago. Thank you. Okay. Council Member McCord. I want to piggyback on that for just a second. Also, we had a situation 18 months ago where we spent a lot of time, The previous council spent a lot of time talking about the folks who had been hired to do the feasibility study to do this work. And there was a whole lot of rhetoric at that point in time about quality-based selection and so forth. Is it true that after going back and putting the RFP back out there that the same group was awarded the public? We did. Strand Associates was selected on the first RFP. We put the RFP back out with a more detailed scope for the second time and had a different selection committee. I think Tom, Council Member Blues, was the only selection committee member that was a part of the first RFP that was part of the second RFP, but we ended up selecting Strand as the most qualified firm. Now, we changed our process to arrive at a price for the feasibility study. We used the transportation cabinet negotiation process, which is where our engineering group comes up with the task list, strands group comes up with the task list, and then we assign hours to it, and then we whittle it down from there. Before the first RFP, we didn't have a very detailed scope, so there was a lot of unknowns. What's different in cost, roughly, from where we are? We were at $508,000 for the first RFP. We're at $418,000 for this RFP. Now, it's important to understand that the way that we wrote the RFP this time, with a detailed scope, if we would have stopped at that point and taken their fee, we would have been at $664,000. So we negotiated from $664,000 down to $418,000, which is where we are today. Okay. Good deal. All right. Thank you. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Vice Mayor. This will be a real popular comment that I won't make, but I won't make it anyway. The private sector piece of the distillery district, where does that stand at this point, or does it stand anywhere at this point in relationship to what we're doing here? As far as how? As far as the level of success in going through this infrastructure work, if, in fact, there is no distillery district or there isn't much distillery district. Well, I mean, you would probably have to ask the developers. Well, somebody needs to ask the developers, yeah. But, I mean, there's still a distillery district. I think it's a distillery district corporation. They own all the Pepper Distillery and several other buildings down there, and I believe they've been bringing in additional investors to buy up extra pieces of property there. But, I mean, it's moving forward, but I think this is a viable piece. I'm just looking for the third leg on the stool, I guess, is what I'm looking for. Because, I mean, we want this thing to be a success, and it's got to be all three legs have got to hit the ground at the same time or close to the same time, in my opinion. When you say all three legs, you're talking about LFUCG plus private sector plus maybe federal funding? Federal or land or state, yeah. To my knowledge, all that stuff is still in play. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. My question is for Brian Markham. So it looks like we saved $418,000 by putting this back out to bid. Is that correct? Well, I think that. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah, $246,000. The reason I was sort of letting Todd address this is because he was the one that led that negotiation. But I think savings, the blended hourly rates were lower, but I think also the way the negotiation took place and things that were eliminated also led to lower hours involved as well. So it's a combination of both. And that was a point that I was going to make. So there's a lot of discussion about the process and how this was negotiated the first time around. Have you adopted new processes based on the two opportunities to bid this that you went through? Yeah, as Todd referenced, the transportation cabinet process is much more in-depth, much more thorough in looking at each task order and the number of hours associated with it. So, yes, we're adopting that process going forward in QBS selections. Plus, we involved multiple engineers as well, which always leads to more discussion. So we think that was very beneficial, and that's the model that we want to use going forward. Excellent. Thank you very much. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You're welcome. Are there any other questions by council members? I'd like to ask a question. It's okay. It's a different item. You're off the hook. Well, I need to make a request on an item as well, so whenever you get done, I would like to know. Okay. Charlie Martin, I just have a quick question on number 28. As you know, we have a history with leak eliminators, and I saw that there was only one bid on the sanitary sewer system rehab. Is there anything? No concerns. They actually have the bid right now, and they have for the last couple years. This is what we call the I&I contract. It's contract maintenance. Very happy with what they're doing. Not a problem. You're happy with their work so far. Very much so, yes. Okay, thank you very much. That's all I wondered. Councilmember Lane. Vice Mayor, I'd like to walk on a resolution. Can I do that at this time? Well, let's see if there are any more questions. And actually the time for that is at the end, not at the very end, but item 5, when we get to item 5. Is there any other question about the first reading of resolutions? If not, we'll move on to page 7. There is a first reading resolution item number 25 that has a typographical error in it, and I would like to, if we could, someone make a motion today to clean that up so we don't have to do it Thursday night. The low bidder is still a low bidder. It's just the wrong amount that's in there. This is number 25 on page 2? Yes, first, yes, I think. So what's the changed wording? The correct amount should be $48,859 and $32,800. We tried to catch it, but this had already been distributed, so we would just like to have a motion to change it to $48,859. $48,859 is law. Okay with that? Okay. Okay. Council Member Lawless moved and Council Member Ellinger seconded to change number 25, first reading of resolutions, to the amount of $48,859. Is there any question or comment on the motion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right. Thank you very much. Now, going to page 7, second reading of ordinances. Questions, comments, motions? I see none. We'll go to page 8, second reading of resolutions. Is there any question or comment? While we're seeing if council members have questions or comments, I have a question on number 12 from Human Resources. Is there anyone here from Human Resources? Maybe the CAO could answer. My question is on number 12, if these are new hires. There is an environmental inspector, a probationary sworn appointment of a police sergeant and the permanent civil service appointment. I'm actually concerned, or my question applies to the first two. Are those new hires? The police sergeant is not. It's a promotion. Okay. And the environmental inspector is? The environmental inspector position, it was a vacancy that was created by a promotion into another position. So these are the people that do our environmental inspections, including erosion and sediment control. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Okay. If there are no, there's a question from Council Member Diane Lawless. Thank you. Number three, page eight. Yes, I'm sorry. Page 8, accepting the bid of American pavements. It says three bids, and this was non-low. Is there – is Mr. Williams here or somebody that could – What is your question about the non-low? Well, that there were three bids, and we took the non-low bid. There was a company called CNR Asphalt that was the low bid by two cents, and they don't maintain the asphalt emulsion equipment that's required. They were going to subcontract their entire project. Okay. And is American Pavement so local? They are, I believe, they're out of Ohio. And they've done that work before. But they determined that CNR didn't have equipment or the expertise to apply this type of seal. Thank you. Is there any other question, Councilmembers? Okay. We'll go to item four on the agenda, which is budget amendment review, pages 13 and 14. And this would be a time for questions or comments on budget amendments. Seeing none, we'll go to item five. And that is where we can have walk-ons or other items for action. Council members? Council Member Lane? Thank you, Vice Mayor. In 2008, I introduced a resolution to Council to approve collective bargaining agreements, And we did a round that was not moved forward out of the session. It was table at that time. And so we've had another three years around of collective bargaining agreements. So I'm bringing forth that similar resolution at this time, a resolution establishing the procedure for approval of collective bargaining agreements by the Lexington Fayette Urban County Council. And I've provided over the last several weeks a good bit of information on this, including the resolution. So I'd like to have that added to the docket for our meeting on Thursday. Second. So there's a motion by Council Member Lane, second by Council Member Martin, to place on the docket for first reading the resolution relating to the Council's review and approval of collective bargaining agreements. Is that your motion? Yeah, I can restate that. A resolution establishing the procedure for approval of collective bargaining agreements by the Lexington-Feya Urban County Council. And Council Member Martin seconded. Is there discussion or questions about the motion? If there is, log in. Okay. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? May I request an electronic vote, Vice Mayor? Yes. And since we're going to vote electronically, to clarify your motion, this does not place a council member in the negotiations, correct? That is correct. We would merely review the negotiated agreement that's been approved by the unions and then be submitted to council for review. And we would have to either vote it up or down. There's no line item veto in there. Thank you. Council members, if this is to... All those in favor, please log in your vote. We need another couple votes. One more vote. Has everyone logged in? Council Member Lane, did you want to vote on this? That motion passes 11 to 3. Okay. Is there any other motion or refer to a committee, referral to a committee, or item that needs action to go to Thursday night? All right. Thank you. If not, we'll move on to committee reports, and we have the Special Social Services Committee, and Council Member Myers will report out. That starts on page 59 of the packet. Thank you, Vice Mayor. On May 12th of this year, the Social Services Committee heard a presentation from Commissioner Beth Mills and Craig Binns from the Department of Social Services, as well as Lisa Adkins and Barbara Fisher from Bluegrass Community Foundation. Social Services presented the challenges of the current process for funding outside agencies and the process improvement timeline for the funding of partner agencies. The Bluegrass Community Foundation presented the GoodGiving.net tool and discussed how the city can streamline the application process for applicants. The presentation, however, did not provide program evaluation, bringing new money in from outside government, objective analytic data or based data, and details were not discussed as to how outcomes will be measured. The Department of Social Services, along with the United Way of the Bluegrass, and Bluegrass Community Foundation are continuing to work, continuing to meet right now, and we'll be putting together something for the next meeting. That's it. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. Any questions about that report? If not, on page 74, Councilmembers, you have the Neighborhood Development Fund list for your review. and we'll go straight on to council reports. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Just a couple things. One, I want to remind my colleagues that NASCAR is coming to Lexington for the first time tomorrow. So, again, 10 a.m. to 12 in Hamburg, 40 of the NASCAR haulers that will be hauling the actual race cars that will be used in Saturday's inaugural event at the Speedway up in Sparta. We'll be here in Lexington for public viewing. And then at 12.15 we'll be pulling them through Winchester Road down Main Street for the entire public to see and out Newtown Pike so they can get to the racetrack in time for Saturday's race. We invite everyone to come out to Hamburg tomorrow from 10 a.m. to noon or view them downtown as they come through downtown Lexington. And once again, they are funding the police escorts that they will be having for traffic reasons and safety reasons through downtown. The second item I wanted to address, and maybe our commissioner will all see her back there. Maybe she can give us some guidance. I know I'm not the only one in here last night that may have lost a couple hours of sleep due to some of the activities that were going on in Lexington, and we've received several e-mails from the public in regards to the amount and number and volume of fireworks that have happened the last four nights here in Lexington. I think there is some confusion on a local level about who actually controls the state statutes, about what type of fireworks can be let off during these events and what we can do from a local level from a noise ordinance. But can you, again, for the public, explain to what happened this year in the state fireworks law and that from a local level do we have any power to modify change or maybe make it tougher from a local standpoint, that law? Council Member Stanton, here's my understanding of the law, and Richard Maloney actually has been working in this area too. But my understanding is the state law changed in April, which went into effect this year, which made bigger fireworks, the ability to purchase bigger fireworks and shoot them off when we didn't have that in our state previously. So I think there still is, my understanding of the state statute doesn't prohibit localities from prescribing more strict ordinances. So if you all need more detail on what you can do and what you can't do, I'd be glad to provide that to you. But I think it does still give localities some power to regulate that area. So basically the state law in a nutshell allowed us to use different fireworks that are much larger, much bigger, much noisier, and thus the number of new venues around town that popped up this year in order to purchase those around town. I think that's why there was a lot more activity. Richard may have some things to add. I know Louisville right now is looking into making some changes, and so we're going to try to trace to see what Louisville does. I think they've got the same issue we have on what can be legal, what size and all that. So we'll keep that up on you. Because I'm not sure if making them illegal is the answer because they can just drive to Jessamine County, Clark County, Scott, all the way around us and get them. But at the same time, there has to be some type of parameters with the noise and the number of nights you're doing them because I think a lot of people heard them four nights in a row here, and hopefully we don't hear them again tonight. Is that all you've got with four nights? I've got two weeks. But I just want to make it clear to the public watching that this was not a local ordinance change. And apparently there's more, I guess there's a genius in Frankfurt that thought it would be smarter to change for the whole state and allow everyone to use bigger and better fireworks. So did you want to add something, Commissioner? Chief Griggs is here and has been part of the education process here in the community, if there's any other particular questions anybody might have. Well, I would add that the education process I think was excellent, but I think there's still the public's upset because obviously it was a much different night than we've all experienced. Those of us that are from Lexington, a lot of us can say it's the last we've probably ever heard it in our community. So some may have to do with being on a Monday, so you have a three-day weekend, but I think there's a lot that had to do with the law change. So if you'll bring that to us when you all get some new language before next year, I think that would help the public tremendously. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And I've actually put that into the Public Safety Committee, and we did it not, I did it not with the expectation that Council would act on it before the 4th of July. I've forgotten it was a couple weeks ago. And so we will also be hearing that in committee. Did you want to say something, Mr. Curtis or Commissioner? If you all would forward whatever complaints you've received and funnel them to Mr. Curtis, we had looked at the situation. There wasn't enough time to try and draft something to get it on the books. And that's what we were waiting to see, what kind of feedback, what kind of circumstances that we encountered. And that way we can work on it from our end. Thank you very much. Council Member McCord. Vice Mayor, I think Jeanette was trying to get your attention first. We actually set up a folder in the council office this morning for council members and staff to put, to move everything into that folder for the noise with the firecrackers because we did have so many phone calls already. And so we can just place everything that we have in that folder. And Rick would be able to look into that folder because it's under public folders. And so he will be able to have access to that. So do you want, I think council members all got the same email, so you don't want 15 copies of the same email? No, I can go back in and take out whatever's there if people end up putting duplicates in there, but we do have access now where there is one folder and it says noise, fireworks, that we can put everything in there, and then he will have access to it. Is it on the iDrive or where is it? No, it's actually in public folders, but it's under the council. Okay. On the shared drive. Okay. So, Council Members, put your e-mails in there, and Jeanette will go through and take out all the ones that are duplicates, and then you'll send them. You can look at them, Mr. Curtis. Council Member Lawless. I'm sorry. I just wanted to make a quick comment. A lot of times we get e-mails and the person doesn't want to be identified. So I know I've had two about it that didn't want to be identified. So just caution people to remove the names if that's the case. Thanks. Thank you. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Speaking of the Fourth of July, on a more positive note, I wanted to thank all the administration and all the staff of this government that made yesterday work really well. And specifically, I also wanted to say thanks to Renee Jackson and to the entire DLC staff for a great day all the way across. And, you know, when you take things like change of weather and change of routes on the race and a lot of change of venue for your fireworks and things like that, I thought it was very, very smoothly done, very professionally done. And I know a lot of folks, you know, across our government worked exceedingly hard all through the night, and I just wanted to say thank you for all of that. John Sheed, one of the things that I want to do, I know we had talked through the budget process, golf kept coming up, whether it was Meadowbrook or it was we started talking about what are the alternatives for lowering our expenditures. Should we be in the business? Should we not? One of the things I'd like to do, and we don't have to do it formally through a resolution, but I just wanted to kind of task you and Parks, if you would to take between now and, let's say, November 15th to give council a plan or proposal that would show us what it would take for golf to break even. And I think one of the things that's difficult for us is we hear a lot of should we do this, should we do that. I think it would be very beneficial for this council and the administration to understand what it would actually take for golf to not lose a dime. Is that closing during the winter months? Is that closing certain courses, those types of things? So if you don't mind, by November 15th, if we could have a proposal. It could be earlier than that if that's fine, but I think that that would be very beneficial for us. I appreciate it. Lastly, I wanted to point out that last Monday, Lexington made national news, and not in a necessarily positive way. And Men's Health Magazine came out and said that Lexington, Kentucky, was the most sedentary city in America. And as somebody that's involved in activity and health and wellness, it's funny to watch the reaction of our community to that article. A couple nights later, Stephen Colbert ran a piece on us, giving us the Golden Reacher Grabber Award because we don't like to bend over for anything and we want to stay sedentary. And so basically we've been called out as a city. And it's interesting to listen to the response of our leadership. And as you read that article, it kind of ranges from they don't know what they're talking about, how did they ever come up with that. The point is it actually doesn't matter. You've been made the laughingstock of the nation. Everything that we've ever done to help health and wellness, whether it be building trails or Second Sunday or this health initiative inside this government, has just been erased by a magazine out of Emmaus, Pennsylvania. So one of the things that I believe is necessary going forward is that every entity inside this city, from our government to our school system to our nonprofits to all of us that sit up here, the goal was going to be to radically change that and take this as an opportunity versus what it actually is right now. And so I'm laying the challenge out to our community that within a small amount of time, I want to put together a group. I'd like to invite the mayor, the school superintendent, the University of Kentucky president, to go with me to Emmaus, Pennsylvania to meet with Men's Health Magazine and to ask them to do an article in one year's time about us and how we turned this around. I'm going to ask them to walk with us for a year. I believe this is a golden opportunity to do exactly what Council Member Myers has been talking about for quite a while, and that is bring in a lot of outside money, attention, and positive resource for our city and for us. So I will be bringing forward a resolution by this council to kind of lay down the gauntlet for that. I'm going to be asking the mayor for every ounce of his influence and energy as well as every community leader. But I think that we've been given an opportunity, and it's a matter of what we're going to do with it. So, Vice Mayor, thank you. Thank you. I hope when you're up there, you'll ask them to break down the deep vein thrombosis between the people from other counties who came in to be treated and the people from Lexington, because that's what I'd like to know is how many of those were our folks and how many are people who are from other counties. Of course, it's just as bad that it's from Kentucky, but being the health care hub that we are, I suspect a lot of those are not Fayette County. So put that on your list. Absolutely. And if you look at the list, the number three city was Indianapolis, and I would say that they have the very same dynamic where they are treating people from around the area. But the point is it doesn't matter. Right. Because to the outside world, this is what we look like. And so we have an opportunity to change that dynamic, but it is something where we need to pull together those resources inside this community. But that is a question we will ask, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Vice Mayor. As a men's health reader also, not a poster boy, but a reader, when they rank, and they do every month rank something, there are a hundred cities that are involved in the ranking. They rank them from an F- all the way up to an A+. and for the first time in many, many, many months, we were in the F-minus category. We were the worst in the country as far as this list. It's a constant list, I believe, of entities that they measure. It is an opportunity, Council Member McCord, and anything I can do to help, I would be glad to do so. The only other thing I did want to mention was that when we're talking about the fireworks in Fourth of July, let's not paint ourselves in a corner about the Fourth of July, because there are other occasions when fireworks are set off for whatever reason, whether it be a national championship basketball team or somebody's birthday or whatever. And we're concerned about the noise, not necessarily about the event that the noise has brought. So when we're digging into that, let's do the complete broad brush. Thank you very much, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Lawless. Thank you. I don't read Men's Health, but I did see the Colbert Report. I want to let everybody know the Ellsford Neighborhood Association will meet tonight at 7 at the Woodland Christian Church, and everybody is welcome to attend. Historic South Hill Neighborhood will be meeting July 12 at 6 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church in the basement. And the Southland Jamboree will feature the Mountain Connection tonight at 7 p.m. at the stage to the side of Collins Bowling Alley on Southland Drive. Bring a lawn chair and enjoy a great night of bluegrass music and possibly great weather. I also, along the lines of what you were speaking of, Council Member McCord, I recently came across a status that cities can apply for, and through Kaboom, which we've gotten grants called a Play City USA or Fun City USA, there's only one in Kentucky. And I forwarded that information to Kevin Adkins, and he has a student looking into it. But it provides what there's some government commitments that have to be made, including an inventory of what activities are for children. but it also provides a lot of programming and the possibility for grants for different types of activities and playground equipment and fun things for people to do and get up and go. So hopefully, I think the next time they're accepting applications is in September, and we're moving hopefully towards something like that and looking outside the box for getting people up and getting people moving other than me. Thank you very much, and I hope everybody had a happy and healthy, safe 4th of July, and I'm really too old for all that and real tired. Thank you. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I, too, want to congratulate and thank all the city workers for all their hard work. It was just a delightful Fourth of July festivities. I realize the weather had a lot to do with it, and it was nice and pleasant weather and supposed to 105. But everybody did a great job. The fire department did a great job. Some folks came out to the Herod's Hill neighborhood for a 25-year-old bicycle ride, and they'd been doing it for 25 years. And it was just the delight out there. The kids just had a great time, and all the officers and folks in the fire department were very gracious and nice with the kids. Also, the Southland Jamboree, Council Member Lawless has mentioned that, but also Moondance at Midnight Pass is continuing its summer concert series and movie series on Thursday nights. And I also want to mention that Forbes magazine has once again ranked Lexington as one of the best places in the country to do business. I'd have more information about Forbes and Moondance, but, Vice Mayor, we still are in an Internet cave in here. And so I would, again, ask the council to maybe examine our policies again about Wi-Fi on the fifth floor and here in the council chambers. Hopefully those things were going to be addressed, but I can't get a signal because I can't tell you what's going to be at Moondance. But I appreciate it, and the Moondance is just a real treat on the south side. And they had the Johnny Cash tribute this weekend for the Fourth of July festivity. So come out and enjoy the fun. Thanks, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Lawless. I'm sorry. I almost forgot. I want to remind people that Wednesday, July 6th, this Wednesday, starts the Summer Fest at the Arboretum. and it's the 6th through the 10th with Richard III and then the following two weeks there will be plays at the Arboretum. It's really extremely well attended and a lot of fun and I also want to thank the people at Waste Management and Environmental Quality for once again providing Summerfest with trash receptacles and recycling. So please come out and bring a blanket. You can get tickets. You can go online to look for tickets. And also Thursday Night Live is back. And don't forget the Farmer's Market on Tuesdays and Thursdays on Southland Drive. and on Saturdays at the Cheapside and Sundays at Broadway and Maxwell. Did I get that right this time? So, no. Sunday, yes, Tuesdays and Thursdays, Broadway. Anyway, you can go to lexingtonfarmersmarket.com, I believe, and find that information. So go buy the veggies. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I hope that this is the appropriate time on the agenda, so I'll just use my time under the council report to ask Commissioner Graham and Attorney Barber, if he would, to give us a summation of his memo that he provided for our benefit today in regards to the veto of the fiscal year 12 budget. I hope this is an appropriate time, Vice Mayor. Thank you, David. I've had the opportunity to read over your memo, and I do thank you for following up with the council. But if you could just provide a summary for us and for those who may be interested into that process. Let me first ask whether you all got it. The intent was to send everybody something today so that you all could discuss it today or would have it well in advance of Thursday because we thought that would be the earliest time you might be discussing a potential veto override. So did everyone get it? Does everyone know which memo we're talking about? There were three distinct areas that the mayor exercised his veto on, and I think we were concerned that there might be some confusion on what your options are. With any veto override, first of all, you should know that even if you can't do it technically under the veto override, you always have your budget amendment process, either as part of the next couple meetings you all have or at a future point in time. So this does not at all cut you all off from amending your budget like you normally would. Because it's a veto, you really don't need to do anything other than a motion to override it. On some of these items, it's really going to amount to an up or down on the whole thing. Otherwise, it would be viewed as a budget amendment. And that's where we tried to lay out the distinctions. On the debt service expense and related projects, because of the way that was funded as an expense, as one item, pretty much you're going to have to vote that up or down. If you voted it, if you put it back in, it would be as to the entire amount. If you took it out, it would be a no vote. If you want to put some of the projects back in, you're really going to have to identify another means of funding and come up with it through the budget amendment process. On the partner agencies, because of the way they're funded, there's 26 different entities. You all can vote up or down on each particular entity. but what you can't do as part of the veto is decide if it was a 10% cut. For instance, you can't put 5% or half of that back in. You're going to have to go all or none on the entire funding amount for each particular entity, or you could just vote that up or down in its entirety as well. But on that one, you could parse it out by each particular entity and do the voting based on that. And then on the communications personnel, the way that's laid out, there's more than one account, but all of the positions are lumped together. So that's another situation where because of the way it's funded, you should vote up or down for the entire thing. If you want to, for instance, place some of those positions back into the budget but not others, you should probably do that through the budget amendment process rather than through a veto override. So hopefully that's enough information for you all to operate on for Thursday night. We would encourage you once again to try to do whatever you're going to do or not do on the budget before you go on break, because if you tried to exercise a veto much after that, you're going to just have some extra issues that come up with needing to find some funds and stuff that won't be in there, because these things are no longer in there as of Friday. And, David, thank you so much for that information. And I guess I would ask this final question to that point. The vetoes freed up approximately $900,000, and so if the council took no action on the vetoes presented last week, would that increase the fund balance for fiscal year 12 by that $900,000? Yes, sir. Thank you, David. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Vice Mayor. The Wi-Fi muse finally kicked in. I think just as I was saying those words, it popped up. But Forbes Magazine published on June 29th a list of the best places in America for business and careers. And number one was Raleigh, North Carolina. Number two was Des Moines, Iowa. Number three was Provo, Utah. And number four was Lexington, Kentucky. Austin, Texas was number seven. And Louisville, Kentucky was number 14. So to have two of our major cities, biggest cities in Kentucky being number four and number 14, that's pretty good. And one of the things that was mentioned was that Lexington was one of the best places for projected job growth. So that's a, I'm sure Bill O'Mara is giving us a thumbs up and back. So it's good news, and we like good news. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. I have two items. I had a question either for, well, I guess it's now for the Commissioner, Public Safety Commissioner Mason. I was just curious about page 13, whether there's anything we need to know about the seven resignations from corrections. We haven't seen many of those lately. And we used to see a lot of them. It's on page 87, several years ago, before collective bargaining. Do you know anything about that? I do not have any particular information on that as far as I think I can check with Director Bishop and find out. If you wouldn't mind, and then maybe email us if there's anything in particular that happened there. And then, Council Members, I have a motion. you will remember that we met as a committee of the whole to do our six-month review of the council restructuring. And so I moved to place on the docket or refer to Thursday night to place on the docket changes to the rules and procedures and to the council structuring. These will come, I think, in two different, looking at Glenda, two different segments. The elements are as follows. The work session will revert to every Tuesday. The mayor will chair the work session. We will maintain the six current standing committees, and the Economic Development Committee will change to a quarterly meeting of the committee of the whole. And every standing committee will have 10 members, so council members will pick up more committee assignments. Every standing committee will meet monthly, and we will start the new system, which is sort of the old system, on September the 12th. So moved. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Thank you. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed, that passes. Thank you, Mr. Ellinger. And then I am working on, the council asked that I work on a revised calendar based on the new structure, And I will actually, it will move forward when I've had a chance to review it. Jeanette, thank you for doing the draft. And I'll look that over and I'll move it forward when it's set. Is there any other council report? Council Member Lane. I thought I'd end the meeting on a good note. But the most recent unemployment data for the state of Kentucky showed that Fayette County's unemployment rate was 7.3 percent, which is the lowest in the state. So it's a good way to end our session. Thank you. Thank you. And is there any public comment on issues not on the agenda? Welcome. Billy, if you'll state your name and address, please. Billy Mallory, 549 Mustang Crossing. And really this is more of a question for clarification. There's a meeting that is scheduled, the Charles Young Task Force meeting is listed here as being in the conference room at the Phoenix Building tomorrow night. And last month there was a public meeting at the Charles Young Center with about 60 people from the public in attendance at that meeting, and there was a discussion about the meetings to follow being open to the public, which they always have been. But there was a discussion about would it be easier and more accessible if meetings were in the community, and people agreed with that. And so the announcement was made that this meeting would be at the Charles Young Center or William Wells Brown, which is directly in the community. And as president of the Neighborhood Association, I have distributed 100 notices informing people of that meeting, and there is no time to let people know of this change, and I'd really like for you all to honor that commitment to the residents to hold that meeting in the community. Did your notices say the Charles Young Center as the location? Yes, yes. Do you know Mr. Ford? Yes, Vice Mayor, I can speak to the concern. June 22nd was a Wednesday night. We had our community forum great attendance at that meeting, and there was a desire of the community to have future meetings in the community. The difficulty that we faced in the interim of that meeting was to find an appropriate venue, and we were not able to do so. We attempted to contact some churches, the William Wells Brown Community Center. Charles Young is continuing renovation. So our attempt was to have the meeting over at the Phoenix Building on the third floor, which can accommodate a larger crowd as opposed to our fifth floor conference room. And we are in discussions with the area church to plan for our August meeting to be there. So we do apologize for any inconvenience or confusion that has caused, but we will greatly invite community members, and we send out notices tomorrow night at the Phoenix Building on the third floor will be the task force meeting. It won't be a community meeting. Public comment will be on the agenda, but this will be the workings of the 12-member Charles Young Task Force tomorrow night. Was, Billy, was your notice about the task force meeting? It was, and the discussion at the last meeting was that the meetings were open to the public, and people said they would prefer that it be in the community, and the Charles Young Center and William Wells Brown was specifically mentioned as meeting places. So it sort of looks like we have, I'm not sure what was said because I had to leave that meeting early. It sounds like the neighborhood is expecting to go to the Charles Young Center, and the task force is probably expecting to go to the Phoenix Building. Is that what I'm hearing? The meeting is planned for tomorrow due to the appropriate venue. We were not, in the interim of 10 days from that community forum, able to schedule a meeting in the community. We will and have already started for future meetings to be held in that neighborhood. And we've had several meetings over at the William Wells Brown Community Center prior to our community forum last week. So we have met outside of the government center. And if we have a good crowd tomorrow, which we hope to. Go ahead, Mr. Ford. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And if we have a good crowd, we hope that the Phoenix Building third floor conference room will be able to accommodate. There's going to be an open meeting of the task force. Do you have a way within your office to let folks know in the neighborhoods? Yes, ma'am. I don't know if that will help. but it sounds like it's been advertised here in the Phoenix building and that the neighborhoods are thinking it's at the Charles Young Center. Well, that's what the announcement was made at the public meeting. And the majority of our residents do not have email. So, you know, unless someone wants to pass out notices tomorrow, but those notices have already gone out to over 100 residents. Any suggestions? Vice Mayor, my office will try our very best to get the general notice out to the constituents of the neighborhood and any other interested parties that the meeting will be at the Phoenix building tomorrow. We apologize for any inconvenience or confusion. I think that would be helpful if you can. Thank you. Is there any other public comment? If not, Council Member Ellinger has a motion. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I move that we go into closed session pursuant to KRS 61.8101F for the purpose of discussions, which might lead to the appointment of an individual employee. So moved. Moved by Council Member Ellinger, seconded by Council Member K. All those in favor of going into closed session, say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right, we're now in closed session. Thank you. We are adjourned. You can't touch this. Break it down.