# Council Public Safety & Public Works and Development Committee - July 12, 2011 > Auto-transcribed civic record · July 12, 2011 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/2084 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/2084?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2011-07-12 - **Last revised**: July 17, 2026 - **Length**: 7,667 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Public Safety & Public Works Committee met on July 12, 2011, at 1:00 p.m., with Lawless presiding. The committee addressed five agenda items during the session, including one action item and four informational presentations. The committee approved the Taxicab Ordinance and heard updates on the E911 Transition, Todds Road Widening Phase 2, and Oliver Lewis Way, as well as a report on items referred to the committee. Two motions were voted on during the meeting, and one member of the public provided comments. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the meeting on July 12, 2011: * Lawless * Martin * Ellinger * Farmer * Crosbie * McChord * Henson * Stinnett No absences or late arrivals were recorded. ## Votes and Decisions **Taxicab Ordinance Amendment (Vehicle Requirement Reduction to 5)** [timestamp: 0:47:16] An amendment to reduce the required number of vehicles from 10 to 5 as part of the taxicab ordinance change was moved by Stinnett. The motion was not seconded. The amendment failed by voice vote, with only Stinnett voting in favor. Voting against the amendment were Lawless, Martin, Ellinger, Farmer, Crosbie, McChord, and Henson. No further discussion occurred after the vote. **Taxicab Ordinance Changes (Vehicle Requirement Reduction to 10)** [timestamp: 0:50:02] A motion to pass the proposed changes to the taxicab ordinance, reducing the required number of vehicles from 25 to 10 and to move it to the full council, was moved by McChord and seconded by Farmer. The motion passed by voice vote. Voting in favor were Lawless, Martin, Ellinger, Farmer, Crosbie, McChord, Henson, and Stinnett. ## Public Comment [timestamp: 0:11:36] Carmen Davis, a resident and aspiring small business owner, testified regarding the taxicab ordinance vehicle requirement. Davis stated that reducing the required number of vehicles from 25 to 10 would enable new minority-owned taxi businesses to enter the market. She emphasized that high upfront costs and limited access to capital currently present significant barriers for entrepreneurs seeking to establish taxi services, and that lowering the vehicle threshold would make business entry more feasible for underrepresented groups. ## Contested Items **Reduction of Vehicle Requirement for Taxi Companies** A significant point of disagreement emerged regarding the vehicle requirement threshold for new taxi companies. The initial motion to reduce the requirement from 25 vehicles to 10 vehicles passed by voice vote. However, this decision did not fully resolve the underlying dispute about the appropriate standard. Following the passage of the 10-vehicle requirement, an amendment was proposed to reduce the threshold even further to 5 vehicles. This amendment failed, indicating that while some members supported a more lenient standard, the body could not reach consensus on lowering the requirement below 10 vehicles. The failed amendment revealed a division among participants over where the appropriate balance should be struck between facilitating new market entry for taxi companies and maintaining operational standards. The contested nature of this issue suggests that members held differing views on how accessible the taxi licensing process should be to new operators, with some advocating for a lower barrier to entry and others preferring to maintain a higher vehicle requirement threshold. ## Taxicab Ordinance The committee discussed proposed changes to the taxicab ordinance during this meeting. Rick Curtis of the Department of Public Safety presented the modifications to the existing regulations. **Proposed Changes** The key changes to the ordinance included: * Reducing the required number of vehicles for a new taxicab company from 25 to 10 * Increasing the frequency of vehicle inspections * Requiring independent mechanical inspections twice per year **Presentation and Rationale** Rick Curtis emphasized that the proposed changes were designed to achieve multiple objectives: improved safety standards for passengers, better oversight of taxicab operations, and support for small business entrepreneurship by lowering barriers to entry for new companies. **Outcome** The ordinance was approved by the committee. [timestamp: 0:14:26] ## E911 Transition Update Glenn Brown provided an update on the E911 transition during the meeting. [timestamp: 00:50:33] **Transition Progress** A transition committee has been formed to oversee the E911 implementation. The projected completion timeline extends from late September through mid-October. **Key Areas of Focus** The update addressed several operational challenges associated with the transition: - Staffing requirements and adjustments - Scheduling considerations - Administrative challenges **Concerns Raised** Several issues were identified during the discussion: - Employee turnover - Overtime management - Potential shift of administrative calls to 311 **Outcome** This agenda item was presented as informational, providing the group with current status and anticipated challenges related to the E911 transition process. ## Todds Rd Widening Phase 2 Update A written report on the Todds Road widening project Phase 2 was presented to the meeting [timestamp: 1:03:31]. The report was included in the agenda packet for review by attendees. No speakers addressed this item during the meeting, and there was no discussion or debate on the topic. The presentation was informational in nature, with no action taken or decisions made regarding the project at this time. ## Oliver Lewis Way Update A written report on the Oliver Lewis Way project was presented to the meeting as part of the agenda packet. [timestamp: 1:03:31] No speakers addressed this item during the meeting discussion. The update was provided for informational purposes only, with no debate or discussion recorded during the session. ## Items Referred to Committee A packet of referred items was distributed to attendees following the conclusion of the meeting [timestamp: 1:04:34]. No discussion or debate regarding these items took place during the session itself. The referred items were not available at the start of the meeting and were only provided after the formal proceedings concluded. As a result, this agenda item served as an informational matter rather than one requiring deliberation or action during the meeting. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed: Motion to pass the proposed changes to the taxicab ordinance, reducing the required number of vehicles from 25 to 10, and to move it to the full council. - **Motion** — failed: Amendment to reduce the required number of vehicles from 10 to 5 as part of the taxicab ordinance change. --- ## Full transcript This is the first time I'm going to play with the game. I'm going to play with the game. I'm going to play with the game. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. guitar solo guitar solo Thank you. guitar solo guitar solo Thank you. After one, we had some technical difficulties, so I called the Public Safety and Public Works Committee to order. We have someone who would like to make a presentation on, not a presentation, but would like to speak to an item on the agenda and she has given us a handout. We don't do this at standing committee meetings, but if you would like to take a five-minute, come up to the microphone, state your name and address. No, it's not on the agenda. Hello, my name is Carmen Davis, and I'm a resident of Lexington, Kentucky. I would like to make a comment regarding the proposed change by Rick Curtis on Ordinance 18A-3 to decrease the number of required vehicles for entry into the taxi service industry in Lexington. This change would impact me directly as I am currently building a business plan for a new taxi service. As a new small business owner, the amount of funding required to purchase 25 vehicles would make or break our ability to start the business. business. The upfront cost would be substantial when you consider the cost of purchase, permits, and maintenance for that many vehicles. We have only a small amount of capital and banks may not be willing to provide loans for such a large initial cost. We would have a much better chance if the vehicle requirements were lowered. There are many obstacles to becoming a new business owner, and this one makes it very difficult, especially for a new minority business owner. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy, who evaluated data from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2007 survey of business owners, Kentucky has 10,381 firms owned by by African Americans and 310,403 firms owned by non-minorities. That is a rate of 0.033 percent ownership for African Americans. Of that number, only 39 percent are owned by women. Kentucky ranked 26th in the growth of women-owned businesses from 2007 to 2011 2011, according to the State of Women-Owned Business Report, published in March of this year by American Express Open. I understand the need for a certain level of restrictions, but this is one that is very much a barrier. In Lexington, there are only really two taxi services that provide 24-hour service, Mr. Taxi and Yellow Cap. I did not include Wildcat as a separate business since they are owned by the same company as Yellowcat. I believe there is room for competition in this market. So I ask you, please level the playing field in this industry. Consider Mr. Curtis's proposal and the fact that it could potentially bring new business into Lexington. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. I also, the stats that I quoted, that's part of the package that I submitted. Thank you. We appreciate that. Thank you very much. Next on the agenda is the taxicab ordinance, and I believe Mr. Curtis is going to do a slideshow for us. Thank you. I'm Rick Curtis with the Department of Public Safety. Thank you for letting me speak to you today. This is in reference to a request that was made by Councilman Lawless in reference to the taxicab ordinance itself and the taxicab. This actually started as a request some six to eight months ago from Councilman Lawless, specifically where she was having contact from various individuals, including other drivers, taxi cab drivers and such within the community that were wanting to do essentially the same thing that Carmen is, is to start their own business. And as such, we have been looking at, basically, if you look at it, this is a little bit of history. In 2002, Kentucky, the legislative session in 2002 passed a state law that allowed the two largest counties in Kentucky to actually draft their own ordinances to control taxi cab services. Jefferson County and Fayette County are the only two that can do that. All other counties in the state of Kentucky, all 118, are controlled by the Kentucky Department of Transportation, and they issue certificates to operate a business based upon need, and that's governmental assessed need. They have to go to their own individual governments and request a letter from the governing body saying that there is a need for an additional service, and they submit that to the Department of Transportation, and at which time they'll issue them a certificate of operation. What I've basically done over the last couple, three years, because we've had various situations that have cropped up, is I've looked at ordinances and processes. I've actually traveled to Louisville. I've traveled to Knoxville. And it's just on my own time specifically, except going to Louisville, to look how specifically other people operate their taxi cab businesses. When I was in Washington, D.C. a year and a half ago, I actually approached a couple of taxicab companies to see how they specifically ran theirs as well, trying to get an insight as to some of the things that we can do here to make our services not only better but safer as well. The proposed changes that I'm submitting today to the ordinance itself address concerns and complaints since the inception of the ordinance in 2002. 2002 from companies, from drivers, from you the council, from law enforcement itself. They also will allow the government as well as the Department of Public Safety to more effectively monitor and control taxi transportation within Fayette County. Some of the largest complaints that I have is the specifics about the drivers and the cars, the conditions, this, that, whatever, and we really don't have that much of a control over them as far as inspection purposes go. The proposed changes will allow for an establishment of rules and regulations that will result in better and much safer service to passengers across the county, Fayette County, as well as the visitors to our city. I have had discussions with residents that were taxi cab customers themselves, with other passengers, especially during the World Equestrian Games. I had a lot of conversations and phone calls with people that took taxi cabs from the airport, this, that, and whatever. The companies themselves have actually sat down with all the owners and the managers of the companies and talked to them over the last couple of years. I've had discussions with I don't really know how many drivers I've actually talked to, the law enforcement officers that have to enforce it, and other council members, not only councilman lawless but other council members that have approached me relative to the taxi cab business. And all this was a culmination of an effort to try and establish new parameters within the ordinance itself. The proposed ordinance changes you have been given today are a result of all those two years' worth of effort and discussions. And you can see specifically in your packet, it's not going to be because it would be much too small to read, but you can see I've included in your packet a copy of the state law that gives the urban county government the authority to actually produce their own ordinance. As well, in there I have a copy of the proposed changes as far as our own ordinance goes. Some of the bigger changes that exist within the ordinance, just for your reference, would be that they would establish that the public safety commissioner in the original ordinance was responsible for everything that happened within the ordinance. and as large as our taxi cab services, we almost have 400 cabs now in Fayette County, it becomes not a full-time but pretty much a part-time, full-time job depending on what's going on. It's impossible for the commissioners specifically to take care of everything relative to taxi cabs that happens on a daily basis. So what this establishes throughout the ordinance is the commissioner's appointed designee to, in fact, take care of that. In this case, it would be me, obviously, because I'm the one that deals with them on a regular basis. And you'll see that throughout the ordinance. Also, another larger portion, to Carmen's point specifically, I have asked everybody that I could find to find out why specifically there was a number 25 given on the original ordinance. And I'll ask you all today, does anyone know specifically why the council in 2002, we're talking nine years ago, said that they wanted a number of 25 cabs to establish a company, a cab company. No one has been able to give me, the only thing I can think of is specifically at that time, there was three companies, one of which has gone out of business, that had the availability of 25 cabs, and they were just trying to protect the current businesses. That's the only thing I can think of that it would be. The end result is, is I am asking within this ordinance to take it from 25 to 10 cabs, specifically. Because I think that 10 is a manageable, from everything that I've seen and everyone that I've talked to around the country, 10 is a norm number around the country to start a taxicab business. It's controllable by law enforcement. It's not so much out of hand that it cannot be controlled by the companies themselves. And I know I'm out of time. Okay. I'm sorry. But that's the reason why I'm requesting within the ordinance that I'm presenting today, or the amendment to the adjusting ordinance, that we take it from 25 to 10. Those are the two major changes that I'm asking for specifically within the ordinance change itself. There are some other things that are housekeeping relative to inspections to allow police officers to make inspections on cabs that are unoccupied, not if they have someone in them specifically, but allow a police officer or the authority, if a cab is stopped on the curb or is going down the street, that they can actually stop that car and make an inspection specifically, which will put more eyes out there for us to actually see specifically how things are going. In the last month, is that correct, inspection-wise? This year, the inspections that we've had, we've inspected, if you don't mind, Now, we've had 11 inspections, and of the 11 inspections where those were just, those were actual scheduled inspections for them to bring in cabs. Of the 11 inspections, eight of those cars had to be taken out of service, and two of them permanently because they were in such bad condition. This is not a situation that we need to continue. We need to be allowed specifically to make more frequent inspections, other than just programmed inspections twice a year. I mean, it just goes without saying. Public safety, public safely speaking, we've got to have the availability for more officers to be able to inspect these cars for the safety of the general public and the passengers that ride in the cars themselves. I think that's an extremely glowing statistic that we've only been able to do, number one, 11 inspections because only two people do them, and number two of the 11 inspections, eight of those inspections, eight of those vehicles had to be taken out of service for mechanical reasons. That's a telltale sign that we don't need to continue. Part of going from a 25 to a 10, especially with a company, is that they will have more control. They will be able to review their drivers and their cars more closely, and hopefully that it will become a safer cab company that only has 10, as opposed to one that has upwards of 200 cars. It's 10 amount to almost impossible to keep track of all of them. So with the 10, if we encourage the small business entrepreneur to start the cab, then specifically we'll have a better control with the company owners as well by going down to a number of 10 as opposed to 25. Now, that's my presentation, and I welcome any and all questions, please. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Chair. Rick, I guess with reducing the number to 10, hopefully that would put more taxis on the road that you would have to monitor. And I know that there's already some really strict requirements for drivers. Yes. And in many cases, I know the taxi driver actually owns his own vehicle, his or her own vehicle. So as far as monitoring, would that put a significant amount of responsibility on you to make sure that everyone's in compliance? It would, but I want to use a role model of Louisville, what Louisville does with their cabs, and they have numerous cab companies. What they specifically do is they actually go to the companies four times a year and they expect everything that rolls, pretty much. They take all the small cabs and they'll take the detectives that do the inspections, go to the company and mandate that it's, say, 10 o'clock in the morning, all your cabs have to be here for inspection. That way every one of them gets inspection at least twice a year. Later on down, when we're talking specifics about permitting, it's not in the ordinance now and it's something that hopefully will come later on, They issue separate permits twice a year after being inspected. And that's specifically the only way that they can get that permit is to be inspected. So that's the reason why their cabs, they don't have a lot of problems, mechanically speaking, with their cabs in Louisville, and they've got twice as many plus as we do because of the inspection process that they have. We actually, the two detectives and myself, we actually went to Louisville several months ago, and we went for an entire day and watched the inspection process that they have on one of their larger cab companies. And they can inspect up to 250 cars in one day with the process that they have. It's all automated and it's very, very efficient, very effective. And as such, we want to institute that same kind of process here. And if there's something that's found wrong with one of the cabs, they immediately fix it on spot. That's why they go to the cab companies themselves to do the inspections as opposed to having them come to us. So what do the inspections entail and what qualifies you to inspect it? I mean, like I'm not an auto mechanic. No, you're not. What we effectively do right now inspection-wise is we make them come to our fleet services department out at Old Frankfurt Pike. and we have an ASC certified mechanic that works for the city that actually does the mechanical inspections for us. What we're proposing is right now in our ordinance, they are required to be inspected by an ASC mechanic once a year, and that's all. What we're proposing is they do it twice a year, and that those inspections basically become, they have to update them every six months, so we know mechanically at least every six months they're being inspected, which is twice as much as what's going on right now. And then on top of that, when we go to their businesses itself, we won't inspect mechanics because we're not certified mechanics and it takes longer to do that kind of inspection, but we will inspect what basically is the largest complaints that we have, the cleanliness, the paint, the driver themselves, the way that the cab is kept, the way that it looks, that they have the proper markings, the proper stickers. We even have complaints specifically on a regular basis that the fares aren't posted, and that's part of the ordinance. They have to have the fares posted. This way we can alleviate all that and make sure that probably 90% of our complaints are alleviated. And hopefully with the twice-a-year inspection by the ASC certified mechanic, then we specifically have better cars out on the road. One last question. Yes, ma'am. As far as I know the drivers have to go through a pretty intensive background, criminal background check. Yes, ma'am. How often is that monitored? Actually, they are renewed every year, an application process. Now, we do, like you said, an extensive background process on the initial application for obvious reasons. We're going to get them to mingle with the public itself. and as such we want to ensure the people that are driving the cars don't have the kind of background that we don't need out of the car. With that in mind, those applications themselves, they will go back every year when they're recertified and they do a cursory check of their criminal and traffic background to ensure that nothing would prevent them from being continuing on as drivers. They have to renew their application every year, and we've asked for specifically all applications for drivers and companies, effective July 1 of 2012 go to a fiscal year status. Right now we're in a calendar year renewal status. And what effectively happens is payroll taxes, that sort of thing, we don't catch those at all. Because we're renewing in January, that doesn't really come due until April. And by that time, they've already got their license, so they actually operate for a year and a half free gratis as far as money that should be coming to the urban county government. This way they will have filed their taxes, and they'll have to bring those in to prove specifically what kind of money they've made, which we hope will help bring in more revenue as far as their profit margins go. Thank you, and thank you for bringing this forward. I think it's a great idea, and competition is a good thing. It's great. So thank you for your work on this. Thank you. Kevin, Council Member Stinnett. Thank you, Chair. Mr. Kerr, thank you for working on this. I know you put a lot of time and effort, it sounds like, and to bring you something that we can actually possibly move forward today to the full council. I just had a couple of questions. I'm trying to get my finger around one, the moving number from 25 down to 10. But more importantly, what kind of complaints and calls have you had? what's the majority saying in terms of the taxicab situation as it is today? Are they asking for more cabs? Do we not have enough out there? Is the market saying we need more? I really haven't specifically seen that there's a necessity for more cabs. The largest complaint that I have is, that I've had, especially over the last seven years, is the mannerism of the drivers, cleanliness of the cars, possible lack of maintenance on the cars. and it's just competition brings better effort from the companies. And specifically to take it down to 10 and let us inspect more often is going to alleviate 90% of the complaints that we're having right now. Yeah, I definitely was glad to hear the inspections are going to increase and that would assist with some of the safety. But I'm still trying to buy the argument that lowering it from 25 to 10 or whatever number that ends up being will increase, you know, money on our tax rolls, so to speak, will increase. Because the way I see it right now is there's not a demand from the public saying we need more cabs. So there's a finite number of people you're going to pick up. So by increasing the number of people that can have a cab company, all you're going to do is spread it out. We're going to get the same revenue from them. It's not increasing business for Lexington. And what I've done specifically is contact Scott Lanner, who is the Director of Operations and Public Safety for the airport. They have an extensive inspection process on their taxi cabs, and they actually issue a separate sticker to allow them to come to the airport. One of the biggest complaints that they have is this passenger is waiting for cabs. Okay, so there is a demand. That's why I asked the software. If there is a demand, then it would make sense. And I should have said that. I didn't say that up front, but there is a demand. If there is a demand from where I can see, and then moving from 25, a legitimate business owner who's going to be in business a while that purchases 25 cabs, is a pretty significant investment. There's some good assurity there. Moving it down to 10, probably you can relatively have the same assurance that, you know, 10 vehicles buying them all at once is a pretty good investment, especially, you know, in our community and maintaining those is not a small chore. Not at all. Any lower than that, you get into some of these road taxi cab drivers and a couple of buddies getting their two cars together and picking up people on a Friday night, and that creates a public safety issue. Did you look at anything lower than 10? I wouldn't recommend anything lower than 10. Okay. Because I think that keeps continuity of service where it needs to be. But I did like what you said. If we bring in competition, getting the cleanliness and the safety issues of the cab up to par, that would be the reason to lower it to me 25 to 10 to support. Because I still think we have a finite base of people that will use a cab. I don't think that's going to increase anytime soon. But it might if we have better service. Who knows, maybe more people will utilize them. Exactly. Thank you, sir. One thing that concerns me is that by ordinance, we're responsible for inspecting these cabs once a year. And what I just heard you say was that only 11 were inspected. By ordinance, we're responsible to have them inspected once a year by an ASC certified. mechanic. That's done independently by the drivers and the companies, and they have to turn that inspection into us once a year. That's what we're mandated by ordinance. What we're trying to do is increase the amount of inspections that we do as law enforcement to catch some of these problems before they get to the point where they have to be deadlined completely. Many years ago when Kentucky had a law that all cars had to be inspected once a year. I remember. There were certified independent mechanics that did those. If we implemented a program like that and it was the responsibility of the cab owner to be inspected and have that sticker, would that not take the pressure off Fayette County and our fleet management? Two trains of thought. Louisville had that situation crop up, say, four years, five years ago. And what was happening was is that the drivers were going to friends of theirs with their ASC certified, getting the inspections done. And it wasn't a credible way to get it done. We have included in the ordinance itself specifically that, and a lot of the companies in Louisville even hired ASC certified inspectors because it was cheaper to pay them full-time wages than it was to pay somebody $40 or $50 to get a car inspected. It didn't work out specifically for them because the cab drivers and the companies found ways around it. We have programmed into the new ordinance that it can't be anybody associated with the cab company specifically. It's extremely expensive and time-consuming to be ASC certified. Once a year on a car that does 150,000 to 200,000 miles is not enough. It really isn't. Well, I mean, it could be twice a year. It could be twice a year, yes. But as far as that still doesn't take care of what the major complaint that I've heard over the last seven years from the public itself. They talked about the rattling and the possible mechanical problems, but the major complaint that I've heard is the condition of the cabs, the condition of the drivers, the tone of the drivers, the fact that they didn't really represent the city that well. And I heard that during the World Equestrian Games as well, that people thought that some of the drivers were rude. We had some drivers that were trying to use their position specifically to make more money than what they should have, heaven forbid. In other words, they were overcharging passengers, obviously. And then we put that to a stop immediately as soon as we found out that that was happening. But by the same token, the additional inspections by the police department will, to my way of thinking, eradicate most of the complaints that we have as far as the cab companies go. Well, during the World Equestrian Games, we also had cabs from other counties. They weren't all Fayette County cabs. They didn't operate, no. They didn't operate originally from here. Now, they may have been coming from other counties. I'm just referring to the ones that operated in Fayette County and originated their fares here. We had no cabs from out of county originating their fares here. We're the only county in Kentucky that has such a high threshold. In Louisville, it's one cab. And I think that clearly is too low. I also know that there is a need. There are times when I've called a cab and waited an hour. I agree. So you tend to not use them if you know you're not going to get picked up. So I clearly think that there is a need. I think competition is good. And I'm still trying to figure out how going to twice a year and using our fleet management certified mechanic, who only did 11, is going to now do two. I'm not asking for that specifically. I'm not asking for us to do mechanical inspections. I'm asking for us specifically to be able to make them get inspected by an ASC certified mechanic twice a year. We're not going to inspect them mechanically. We want to inspect them for what the bulk of the majority of the complaints have been about over the last several years. And that's the condition of the car, the cleanliness of the car, the fact of the matter they don't have the proper signage, the driver himself doesn't have the proper information. Those are the kind of things that we want to inspect. Okay. The mechanic part, who's going to do that? They'll actually have to go to a separate mechanic from the company itself and be inspected by an independent mechanic. That's what I was asking. And send us the certificate twice a year. That's what I was asking. Yeah. And they will pay that mechanic. They have to pay that mechanic. And I think that's a great idea. That's what I was saying. Okay. And to me, the mechanics of the car are far more important to me than whether or not there's a french fry on the floor or it's dirty because nobody gets killed because the cab's messy. I personally would like to see it drop to five. And the reason I think that dropping it to five, it seems 10 is an arbitrary number. It is expensive. We're adding an additional fee for them to be inspected twice a year, which mechanically, which I think is great. I think it is still five cars, getting five taxis equipped and in service is a big investment for a small business to start. We are trying very hard to encourage small businesses and entrepreneurship as well as minority-owned businesses. And I'm not clear as to why 10 would be more beneficial than 5. Well, the only reason why I said 10 specifically is because from the research that I've done, A lot of the cities that I've contacted, that's what they have as a minimum for a company to start. Charlottesville, for one, was like that. Raleigh was like that in the Carolinas. Knoxville is like that. Louisville, you're right. Louisville does allow one. They don't have a company that only has one car. They have one company that has two. The rest of them all have 20 or 30 or more. And because we went up there when they were doing the inspection, And those two that are that one company that only has two, you would not believe how pristine those cars are. And they are exclusive, exclusive cab companies for the higher end hotels in Louisville itself. Which leads me to believe that five is a reasonable number. And to be honest with you. And that these are going to be, I'm assuming, locally owned independent business owners. Most of them. And we know that locally owned independent business owners, 68 cents of each dollar stays in that community as opposed to a outside business owner where it's something like 38 cents per dollar. So these are small independently owned local businesses. and is there a... Well, what I'm trying to do with the ordinance is try and justify the number itself. I mean, if in fact it's the pleasure of the council to go to five as a whole, then obviously we'll work with whatever you all want. I just think that 25 is an arbitrary number that I cannot find any reasoning specifically why it was instituted that way. And like you said, over the course of the last two years especially, I have had numerous calls from drivers that want to start their own business, folks such as Carmen that want to start their own business, and as such, I was trained by going to 10 to justify it, number one, and also give them the opportunity to start their own business. But saying that again, if it is the council's pleasure to go to five, then that's exactly, we'll work with the numbers. I mean, I think 10 is as arbitrary as 25, and 5 seems to be what you're saying to me is the smaller cab companies in Louisville have the most pristine sparkly cars. So I think. No, that was one cab company with two cars. One cab. The rest of them weren't, but that one cab company is. And the major cab company that we have here that has Wildcat and Yellow Cab is based in Louisville. Actually, they're based in Louisville, but they're a nationwide company. They're based all over the country. Right. And they, for years, had the corner on the market. Pretty much right. But I very much would like to see it drop to five to give more people an opportunity to start their own business. And, you know, that's twice the investment that they would have to make for 10 cabs. And I absolutely applaud the idea of them having the responsibility to pay for their inspections with an independent mechanic twice a year and that that be part of that. Very much so, yes. Any other questions or comments? Council Member Henson. Thank you, Chair. I actually think this ordinance is in good shape and ready to move forward to the full council. However, I'm not opposed to reducing it to five. I guess the 10 sounds like a good number to me when I just think about operating a business and that it seems realistic to me. Five seems a little low, but I would be in favor of certainly dropping it from the 25 to either and moving this forward. Thank you. Any other comments? Council Member McCord. Thank you. I'd like to make a motion that we pass this forward with a number of 10. So moved. Is there any discussion? Council Member McCord. I'm sorry, Elvinger. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. On the two that you had, is that similar in the situation that we have? Because I think don't we have one person who has one cab or did? We have one person who has one cab in town because he was grandfathered by the old state. And that's my point. Did that same thing happen in Louisville by chance? Was the two grandfathered in? No, they actually allowed it. Okay. They didn't do the ordinance. I didn't know if that was a similar situation or not. But their situation has been their regulations are a lot stricter than ours. And the smaller entrepreneur that has tried that their restrictions are so regulated that with the exception of this one, hardly anybody has been able to withstand their rules and regulations. They come and they go and they try and start cab companies, but most of them haven't lasted over a year because they are so strict. They're a lot stricter than we're talking about being, that's for sure, especially with their cleanliness and that sort of thing. Council Member Stinnett. I was going to ask on the inspection piece, if we do go to this ordinance, what's to say they couldn't hire their own mechanic on site and just have him certify every one of their cabs was in working order? It says specifically in the ordinance that they cannot be affiliated with the company whatsoever. I just want people to understand that, right. So there has to be a true independent person. A true independent. And if we discover that it's not, then we have the authority by the new verbiage to actually take them out of service. And you did define what independent is, not a company owned by the same company? We'll have to do backgrounds on it, but I hope not. Okay. Thank you. As far as lowering it to five, I'd like to speak to the motion. I would like to amend it to five, and the reason being I think that people are going to have a finite amount of money to invest. and that they're more likely to buy better cars if they only have to buy five, and that we allow all other businesses to have, you know, you can open a restaurant with three tables or 100 tables, And certainly people get sick from eating in restaurants. I just don't, with the regulations as they are, I think we need to encourage locally owned entrepreneurs and small businesses. and that so I would like to amend it to five cabs so that more people have the opportunity. Do I hear a second? Okay. Any more discussion? Chair, I was going to suggest that we start with the 10, and there is nothing that says later on that we could not reduce it to 5 if we see that everything's running smoothly with the 10. Sure. I'm willing to look at that. You know, because, I mean, I totally understand what you're saying, and I wouldn't want to, but I don't want to burden those that have to monitor these taxis and let, you know, because the public safety is crucial. Extremely. I agree. Well, actually, the monitoring of them done by an independent mechanic, it's going to boost their business. It's going to bring money, dollars, into our mechanics in Fayette County because the cab companies are going to have to pay them to inspect those cabs twice a year. So that's a big boost to our mechanics. Any other comments? Okay. All in favor of the motion made by Council Member McCord, seconded by Council Member Farmer, to accept this ordinance as written and move it to the full council, say aye. Opposed? Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Next on the agenda is the E911 transition update. And I believe Mr. Brown is here, although I thought you were supposed to be on vacation. I'm back. Did we interrupt it? Oh, no. Okay. last week. The E911 transition report is as follows. The project lead, Glenn Brown of the Mayor's Office, as you know, conducted a survey during the course of the transition period. And the survey made some recommendations which we are following up on. During the course of the last few weeks, Mr. Brown has pulled in all of the stakeholders involved in this process to include himself from the Mayor's Office, personnel from Human Resources, the Law Department, Divisions of Fire, Police, and E911. We have looked at a number of the issues that need to be considered in transitioning employees back underneath fire and police, have put together a project action plan to address the different categories of actions that need to be done. With that, we are forming a transition committee to be inclusive of current staff members of E911 to make sure that their concerns are voiced and heard and considered during this process. And we are meeting again the week of July 25th to continue to move forward. The timeline that we have established at this point is to probably be completed with the transition through the administrative processes that we need to do with HR, PeopleSoft, and those types of components sometime in the late September, mid-October timeframe. Could you speak a little bit to what all has to take place and why it's taking this long? Well, we're trying to make sure that we're deliberate in moving to address the concerns that were raised throughout the transition report as well as issues concerning management structure at both fire and police, that that's set in place to give us time to deal with some of the budget implications in terms of separating people, putting them in the right parts, ensuring that we have coverage once it's broken into two components for equipment maintenance, for training, and those types of things. So we're just trying to make sure that nothing's going to fall through the cracks as we move along, instead of just taking the people and separating them by location. It was my understanding that it would be managed by the police and managed by a fire. That's our intentions, yes. Rather than having a separate division, is that correct? That's correct. I'm also aware that there have been quite a few employees, I think, that have left or are leaving, et cetera, and that there are pretty severe scheduling problems right now with mandatory overtime and like five, 12-hour days or something like that. I don't think that's quite accurate. I think there has always been turnover within E911. There were people who several months ago had already announced that they were leaving at certain points due to spouse transfers and things like that. The schedule that we are looking at implementing in about another week or so has some changes built into it that will involve some 12-hour shifts, but it's not five 12-hour shifts in a row. It will be an alternating schedule that was established over several months to look at some of the complaints that employees had had for quite a while about being on a fixed schedule that never gave them a weekend off or always had them segmented into particular types of schedules. The schedule that is going to be implemented will alternate the weekends off for personnel. So it's giving them what they've asked for and some breaks in the schedule. It's a series of there are some 12-hour shifts you work. I think my recollection of looking at the schedule and concurring with what the management there at police on-site was telling me they needed to do to staff the operation during the summer was they would work like two 12-hour shifts. on Monday and Tuesday, have Wednesday off, come back and work another 12, so that there's some time off built in, but it also alternates the weekend coverage. But it's still five 12-hour shifts a week? No. No. It looks at a two-week period in covering. It's not mandated five 12 hours in a week. There may be five 12s in a two-week period, but it's basically covering, I think, an 86-hour period for two weeks. Okay. Mr. Brown? Do you have any information on this? sir the particular day in question that commissioner mason is making reference to is that when he went over after information about going to 12-hour shifts it was necessary due to the number of staff that was the reason why that there was going to be a change in the actual scheduling and there's a quite a possibility that in the addition of more staff leaving it it's It's probably going to increase the overtime. So I guess my question is if it's a matter of training and getting people in there before you implement it or whatever, waiting until September, they're going to lose more and more people. We are looking at the staffing currently, and if there is a need to supplement, it will be done. Okay, thank you very much. Any other questions? Council Member Henson. Thanks, Commissioner. I was curious. I know during our public safety links meetings, we talked about administrative calls going to 311, which would or should help reduce the number of hours needed in 911. So can you elaborate on that if there's been any plans at all to move those calls? We have discussed with the Division of Police about that, and I think they are looking at it in terms of during the daytime hours trying to minimize the numbers of calls. But that's something that has to be worked in conjunction with the 311 folks as well. So it's, again, a process that we've been discussing along the same path. So are you thinking that will be done? Yes. Is it something you're working on? Okay. Thank you. If I may. It's my understanding from different police officers I've talked to when Mr. Lucas said something like 63% of the calls that came in were from police officers or their own personnel. And what I've heard from the police officers is that they call the 258-3600 number for two reasons. One is so that they may need to get immediate information from the dispatcher about a call. And another reason is if they're about to call a residence or whatever, that it's not from their cell phone that it comes from the police department. And so those are very legitimate reasons, and they're not things 311 could do. That very well may be. I'm not sure of the technology and the capability of 311. Those are legitimate reasons for using the 3600 number as a police officer calling in. So we've got to continue to sift through that and see what the volume is. I'm also concerned that since 311 is only open certain hours, I mean, a lot of times people will call the 258-3600 number, and it's truly an emergency. If they call 311, they're not equipped to deal with that. When I've called 311 about a police matter, they just transferred me to the police number. So that seems like a pretty big thing for the public to understand and overcome and for 311. So I'm just asking that those things be considered. They will be considered in discussion with 311. There's going to have to be some training issues if we switch this that they're going to have to become accustomed to. Part of the reason why just some of this information has been gathered is once the transition is completed, this will give more of an opportunity to look more at that as opposed to trying to do it midstream. Because without them having that proper training, calling, because sometimes you get someone screaming and yelling, you've got to calm them down on the phone, they are not equipped to handle that, or they're not trained to handle that. So that's one of the things that we're looking at once the transition is completed. so we can make sure that as we do this, it's done properly. Okay. And again, since it's not 24-hour, I think that also presents a challenge. It does. Does that piece have to be in place before you move? Well, no, it doesn't, but that's got to be part of the discussion once we do the transition. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. I think one thing to keep in mind is that even though some of the calls, whatever percentage that comes in that are answered at the 911 center as a transfer or as a call to 3600, it's still a police issue, and they're better capable, and that's part of the reason to keep it there as well. And that's what we're trying to continue to look deeper into with the 311 issue. Council Member Henson, did you have a question? It just didn't disappear. I'm glad you didn't disappear. Okay. If there are no other questions about this, we have the Todd's Road widening phase 2 update. Is there anybody here to speak on that? It's in your packet, if you'd like to read it. Council Member, if you remember, these were written reports. Just written reports, okay. So those are in your packet. And items referred to committee, which I don't seem to have. I don't have it. Thank you. Council Member, I inadvertently left that out. It's my bad. I'll distribute that to the committee. Okay, thank you very much. We'll get that to the committee. All in favor? Thank you. Thank you.