# Council Environmental Quality Committee - September 20, 2011 > Auto-transcribed civic record · September 20, 2011 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/2179 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/2179?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2011-09-20 - **Last revised**: July 17, 2026 - **Length**: 15,678 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 Environmental Quality Committee met on September 20, 2011, at 10:00 AM, with Chair Blues presiding. The committee addressed four agenda items during the session, hearing one public comment and taking five votes. Two items were presented for informational purposes: the Quarterly Financials and an Environmental Quality Projects Update. The committee deferred action on a proposal to Consolidate Greenways Maintenance & Management, and transferred Items Referred for further consideration. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the meeting on September 20, 2011: * Blues * Stinnett * Gorton * Farmer * Crosbie * Myers * McChord * Martin * Henson * Lane * Cosby * McCord No absences or late arrivals were recorded. ## Votes and Decisions Five motions were passed by voice vote during this meeting. **Greenway Management Policies Review** [timestamp: 01:13:33] A motion by Farmer, seconded by Stinnett, to ask Commissioner Taylor to convene an in-house group to examine greenway management policies and operations, with a report back in two months, passed unanimously. **Removal of Private Solid Waste Providers from Committee Referrals** [timestamp: 01:48:40] A motion by Stinnett, seconded by Henson, to remove "Private Solid Waste Providers" from the committee referrals list passed unanimously. **Valley View Ferry Transfer** [timestamp: 01:49:46] A motion by Blues, seconded by Gorton, to remove "Valley View Ferry" from the committee referrals list and transfer it to the Planning and Public Works Committee passed unanimously. **Paving Warranties Transfer** [timestamp: 01:50:17] A motion by Blues, seconded by Gorton, to remove "Renegotiation and Expand Paving Warranties" from the Environmental Quality Committee and transfer it to the Planning and Public Works Committee passed unanimously. **Bulky Item Collections Referral** [timestamp: 01:52:20] A motion by Farmer, seconded by Stinnett, to send "Bulky Item Collections" to the Waste Management Task Force passed unanimously. All votes were conducted by voice vote with no recorded opposition or abstentions. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting addressed several financial actions related to water quality, stormwater management, and infrastructure upgrades: **Appropriations** * $125,000 appropriation for maintenance of greenway properties outside parks using Water Quality Management Fee funds * $125,000 appropriation for maintenance of stormwater-related properties, including grass cutting and mowing activities **Contract** * $12,000,000 contract for SCADA electrical and computer operations upgrade at treatment plants **Grant Program** * Incentive grant program established for neighborhood associations and private businesses to support green infrastructure projects, with funding amounts to be determined based on individual project proposals ## Public Comment No public comments were received during this meeting. [timestamp: 01:52:57] The committee proceeded without remarks from members of the public and adjourned following the passage of final motions. ## Appointments The following appointments were made during this meeting: * **Cosby** was appointed to the Environmental Quality Committee. * **McCord** was reappointed to the Environmental Quality Committee. ## Contested Items The meeting featured two significant areas of disagreement among council members. **Funding and Management of Greenways** Council members debated the appropriate funding mechanism for greenway maintenance and construction. The core disagreement centered on whether greenway maintenance should be funded through stormwater fees or parks budgets. Council Member Hanson opposed using tax dollars for trail construction, while other council members advocated for exploring new funding models. The discussion revealed concerns about misaligned funding sources and inconsistent mowing policies across the greenway system. This disagreement resulted in a split vote, indicating the council remained divided on the best approach to sustaining greenway infrastructure. **Procurement and Local Hiring Preferences** Council Members Martin and Lane raised concerns about the dominance of out-of-state firms in large municipal contracts. They advocated for local hiring preferences to support the local economy. However, other council members argued against implementing local preference policies, citing fairness concerns and potential negative impacts on competitive procurement practices. This heated discussion highlighted a fundamental tension between supporting local economic development and maintaining open, competitive bidding processes for municipal contracts. The disagreement reflected broader questions about the council's priorities regarding community economic support versus market-based procurement principles. ## Consolidate Greenways Maintenance & Management [timestamp: 00:21:33] The committee discussed the fragmented management of Lexington's greenway system during this agenda item. The discussion revealed that the city's greenways span 850 acres but are managed across multiple departments with various funding sources, creating inconsistencies in maintenance and oversight. **Key Issues Identified** The committee identified several challenges with the current greenway management structure: - Fragmented management across multiple departments - Inconsistent maintenance standards - Lack of a designated greenway coordinator - Unclear definitions of what constitutes a greenway - Funding challenges and unclear budget allocation **Speakers and Discussion** Multiple committee members participated in the discussion, including Taylor, Lovin, Martin, Stinnett, McCord, Lane, Hanson, and Farmer. Their contributions addressed the need for a more coordinated approach to managing the city's greenway assets. **Action Taken** The committee passed a motion tasking Commissioner Taylor with convening an in-house working group to address the management issues. The working group was charged with developing a coordinated greenway management structure that would consolidate oversight and improve consistency across the system. The committee requested that the working group report back with recommendations within two months, allowing time for the group to assess current practices and propose solutions for better coordination and management of Lexington's greenway network. ## Quarterly Financials Commissioner Driscoll presented an overview of the city's financial position as of June 30, 2011 [timestamp: 01:17:55]. The presentation highlighted approximately $36 million in investments and $3 million in operating cash. Council Member Lane raised concerns regarding cash reserves and their adequacy for future bond issuance. Lane requested a review of the required cash levels to ensure the city maintains sufficient reserves for upcoming financial needs. Council Member Mulligan also participated in the discussion. The agenda item was informational in nature, with no formal action taken. ## Environmental Quality Projects Update Director Charlie Martin presented an update on several key environmental quality initiatives to the committee. [timestamp: 01:21:16] **Projects Discussed** Martin reported on the following projects: - **Sanitary Sewer Assessment Group 2**: Fieldwork for this project has been completed. - **SCADA Upgrade**: Upgrades are underway at treatment plants. - **Coldstream Crimson King Stormwater Project**: This project was highlighted as a success. - **Incentive Grant Program**: The program has been performing successfully. **Procurement and Engineering Practices** The committee discussion included consideration of procurement practices and the pre-qualification of engineering firms. Committee members Stinnett and Lane participated in the discussion alongside Director Martin regarding these operational matters. **Outcome** This agenda item was presented as informational, with no formal action required. The update provided the committee with current status information on the environmental quality projects under the department's oversight. ## Items Referred The committee reviewed and voted on several referral items during this portion of the meeting [timestamp: 01:45:33]. **Items Transferred:** The following items were referred to appropriate committees: - **Private Solid Waste Providers** – Removed and transferred to the Waste Management Task Force - **Valley View Ferry** – Moved to Planning and Public Works - **Renegotiation and Expand Paving Warranties** – Moved to Planning and Public Works - **Bulky Item Collections** – Sent to the Waste Management Task Force **Key Participants:** The discussion involved committee members Stinnett, Blues, Farmer, and Gordon. **Outcome:** All referral items were successfully transferred to their designated committees for further review and action. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed: Motion to ask Commissioner Taylor to convene an in-house group to examine greenway management policies and operations, with a report back in two months. - **Motion** — passed: Motion to remove 'Private Solid Waste Providers' from the committee referrals list. - **Motion** — passed: Motion to remove 'Valley View Ferry' from the committee referrals list and transfer to Planning and Public Works Committee. - **Motion** — passed: Motion to remove 'Renegotiation and Expand Paving Warranties' from Environmental Quality Committee and transfer to Planning and Public Works Committee. - **Motion** — passed: Motion to send 'Bulky Item Collections' to Waste Management Task Force. --- ## Full transcript I still haven't found what I'm looking for But I still haven't found what I'm looking for I am fierce, hard and lips Felt my healing, fingertips I was cold as a stone. But I still haven't found what I'm looking for But I still haven't found what I'm looking for I believe in the kingdom come Then all the colors will bleed into one Bleed into one But yes, I'm still running You broke the bones and you lose the chains Carry the cross and I'm ashamed I'm ashamed You know I believe it But I still haven't found What I'm looking for But I still haven't found what I'm looking for But I still haven't found what I'm looking for But I still haven't found what I'm looking for Thank you. I wake up every morning I stumble out of bed, I stretch it and I yon in another day ahead It seems to last forever and time goes slowly by Till baby knees together and it starts to fly Cause the moment that he's with me, time can take a flight The moment that he's with me, everything's alright Nighttime is the right time, we make love And it's here's the right time we take off My baby takes the morning train He works from nine till five And then he takes another home again To finally wait for him My baby takes the morning train He works from nine till five And then he takes another home again To find me waiting for him He takes me to a movie or to a restaurant To go slow dancing, anything I want Only when he's with me, I catch a light Only when he gets left, makes me feel so red My baby takes the morning train He works from nine to five And then he takes another home again To finally wait for him I can't think of him Dreaming of him constantly I'm a crazy man for him And he's a crazy man for me Crazy man for When he steps on the train I'm in for the fight I work all day to earn his pay So we can play all night My baby takes the morning train He works from 9 to 5 Then he takes another home again To find him waiting for him My baby takes the morning train He works from night to night He takes another home again To find him waiting for him My baby takes the morning train We're going to watch from nine to five, baby We'll take some young thought over again So far away Ooh, you can dance, you can dance Having the time of your life Ooh, see that girl, watch that sea Digging, dancing queen Friday night and the lights are low Looking out for a place to go We're the favorite music Getting in the swing Thank you. Committee members, I think we have enough for a quorum in the room so if we could gather around the horseshoe we can get this meeting of the Environmental Equality Committee started. it rang and everything Okay, we have a quorum around the horseshoe, and this is the September 20 meeting of the Environmental Quality Committee. Welcome, everyone. Committee members, in addition to the packet that was distributed earlier, we have in front of you the committee for us, which we'll take up toward the end of the meeting, and we also have the summary of the June 21 meeting. You might want to take a moment to look that over. It's relatively short, and I'll ask you in a moment to consider it for approval. I do want to welcome new members to the committee. Council Member Cosby has joined the committee since our last meeting, and Council Member McCord, thank you for your dedication to environmental quality. And appreciate your willingness to serve. Have you had adequate opportunity to look at the summary? And if so, we'd love to hear a motion from one of the members. Second. It's been moved and seconded that the summary be approved. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. And those opposed, nay. And the summary is approved. Before we move forward, I do want to call your attention to the fact that the private property work group has met for the first time. And under Councilmember Farmer's leadership, and Councilmember Farmer, maybe you could just say a few words, It's not a report on that meeting, but that we did get started and moving forward. We met last Friday at 1 o'clock, kind of our private property working group, and just assembled a few council members and a few staff and kind of looked at similar successes in similar cities, specifically in Winchester and kind of the approach they went through to gain access to folks' homes and to spend time with them about what type of sump pumps they do or don't have and how they are used and to work on a similar type of critical path for us as a government to find a way to get as much just what is really storm water that runs in through roof drains, gutter drains, foundation drains and gets pumped into the sanitary sewer system and supercharges it. So we're trying to balance the answer that we are currently sending to the EPA about the size of storm we want to size our system for and get as much water out of it at the same time. We agreed to meet in two more weeks, and I thought it was very productive. Thank you, sir. And it was a good meeting, and I look forward to making some serious progress on this because the remedial measures plan success really do depend on a successful private property access program. This is a very important piston in the engine we're building to solve the sewer problems of Lexington, so I completely agree. Love that metaphor. I like that. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. At the end of the meeting, given time, we will take time for public comment. And if there is a member of the public who wishes to speak at the end of the meeting, there's a sign-up sheet at the back of the room, and please avail yourself of that. Our first agenda item is the Greenways Maintenance and Management Report. Our entire Greenways system is vast and at this time has no single leader or manager. rather so an update is is appropriate and maybe some discussion of where we go from here commissioner taylor will introduce us to to our our reporter thank you councilmember blues as you all know we were asked to take the point today in discussing greenways maintenance and management and where we are and for me almost everything i do on the public works side of the house is a learning curve so i'm I'm learning more about that, although as previously in my work with the water quality division, we had greenways that we maintained there. And I think one of the first things that we still have a lot of discussion about is what is a greenway. Greenways, depending on who you talk to, can be anything from a creek with natural vegetation along it to an asphalt-covered trail. So it depends. And we are going to attempt today to visit this topic and give you a definition and try to build on that definition. And a greenway, I guess in my opinion, sort of becomes what we call it. And so what is a greenway to Lexington is what Lexington calls a greenway. The other piece that I guess has continued to be an issue and probably why it came up with this group in the first place is, based on that definition, we need to figure out how we're going to manage this and where's the best point to put the management of that. It was interesting to me as I'm learning about this to see where are greenways and we have sheets and sheets and sheets of pieces of green property and the way that those are classified and who owns what is a little bit random. I am not the expert on this. I always like to defer to our experts, and we have quite a mixed group of people back here. We're diverse. But we have parks people, planning people, water quality people, engineering folks. And so bravely, Keith Lovin has agreed to come up and talk about some of the details of what our group came forward with. I guess my impressions, though, as a new person coming in taking a look at this, is we have a program of green waste that was really developed and suggested almost 10 years ago, but we never really implemented that program. We've done bits and pieces of it, but never a holistic program. So for that reason, we've never really developed clear management. We don't have clear funding structures in place. And this is really the time that we need to revisit this issue because first we have experience now. We've been attempting to manage all these pieces of green for some number of years. And second, because of the budget situation that we find ourselves in, everything is questioned. And for greenways, we all know it adds great quality of life to Lexington, but we also know we have to manage them effectively and efficiently to have that quality. So with that, I think today what we're going to try to do is give you an overview of where we are and then talk about some recommendations that we might make as a group and then ask for your input and questions so that we can begin to craft a better program. And with that, I'll ask Keith to cover the slides for us. Thank you, Commissioner. Welcome, Keith. Keith Lovin of Division of Water Quality. Actually, Division of Engineering. I thought you had switched over. Not yet. Not yet. Cheryl's done a great job of describing the problem. I'm going to attempt to get into the details and explain how we got to where we are today, where we've been, and where we hope to go in the future. As Cheryl described, we've got a definition of Greenway. It tries to cover a lot of things, and in turn it gets to be confusing. But we've described it as a linear corridor that provides environmental, hydrological, and recreational benefit. It's generally along a stream or a creek, but it could also be along an abandoned rail line or a utility corridor or even some of our roads we have identified as part of our Greenway system. And there's a multitude of reasons why we wanted to develop a Greenway program. It's a quality of life issue. It improves the wildlife habitat. It's an environmental benefit from it. It's water quality. So just a number of benefits for developing a Greenway program, and that's why we started one back as early as 1988. The Greenways were first mentioned in the comp plan. So we've got a long history of trying to develop Greenways and maintaining them. We've got a number of plans that we have approved or adopted. We've got a Greenway Master Plan. we've got also a greenway manual that we're working on it's in a draft form but the program started back when we had a lot of problems with flooding and during the development process in the early 90s we started requesting some of this land from the developer and let the government maintain the property rather than having individual property owners maintain it and so there was a need or a recognition that this is something that the city could take on and so we attempted to to work on that um another thing that's not up there is the consent decree uh identify greenways is a way to help solve some of our water quality issues and so that's you know another part of our history is why we need to move forward with this project. The way we started getting the greenway properties were through the development process. After we got our master plan, we identified greenways that would be viable to our system. And as developments came in, we had a greenway coordinating committee that would meet on a regular basis and look at the development plan. if it was a floodplain or a stream, we determined at that time, based upon some of the scoring criteria, whether or not that that would be appropriate for the city to acquire. And if it was identified as a potential greenway property, then we would go to the developer and say, you know, the city's interested in this. Would you be interested in either donating it to the city or setting it aside for greenways? and so that's how we got the vast majority of our property within the last 10 to 12 years another way we get it is through the capital improvements projects we built a number of trails the legacy trail is a prime example when we built that we acquired basically 60 acres of additional property that the city is going to be responsible for maintaining and then if through as we develop the system if we identify tracks that are vital to a overall system then if funding became available we look at purchasing it or trying to acquire it through that way another thing that we can do is conservation easements if we don't want to buy it if the seller if the property owner is not interested in selling we get apply a conservation easement onto a piece of property and that way it It would protect the integrity of the property, and the city wouldn't actually have to buy it. And then there's a lot of greenways in our park systems. This is just so we have just identified basically the floodplains in our parks and given it a classification as a greenway. We work with parks to maintain it the same way as we maintain our other properties. And so the vast majority of our acreage is in the park system. Where are we today? We've got about 850 acres of what we've identified as greenways within the LFUCG. We've got another 164 acres that have been platted, meaning that we have made a commitment to the developer that we would be interested in that property when the LFUCG is ready to acquire it. Right now, we have a number of acres where the developer is ready to give it to the LFUCG, but because of our funding situation, we put it on hold and we're not accepting it. Within the expansion area, there is an expansion area master plan that has identified greenways, and it's a requirement based upon, I guess it's an ordinance that says the LFUCG will take those properties. outside of the expansion area, it's optional whether we take it or the developer can keep it. And then we have another 400 acres that are not platted, but we have identified as potential greenway acres that, as the development occurs, the city would like to acquire that if we continue going with the program the way it's going. Right now we have $125,000 budgeted for greenway maintenance, and this is just for properties that are outside of parks. This funding is coming from the water management fee out of the Division of Water Quality. I am in the Division of Engineering, so we've got a Division of Engineering personnel spending Division of Water Quality funding. This maintains about 144 acres, and these are acreage that's not in parks. Parks has their own budget set up for maintaining their properties, and I think that they've got some numbers on how much they actually spend on greenways, but that is not included in here. We've identified all of the various divisions that have greenways properties within their division, and they maintain it within their division, and this money does not reflect their budgets as well. We've got a number of projects that we have gone in and naturalized. And these are the Armstrong Mill, Bluegrass Wilkes, Fort Sumner, Mabel Lane, Shaker Run, Sunningdale, Sweet Clover, and Royal Troon. These are greenways that we've gone in. We've met with the neighborhood. We have killed the existing vegetation and replaced it with native grasses and wildflowers. This has been about a 10-year process. We go through a not-in-my-backyard mentality. We have to educate the property owners. We explain the benefits. We still have property owners that live adjacent to these greenways that don't fully want what we're proposing, and so we are having to deal with that situation, and it's time-consuming, and we don't have any mechanism to enforce what we're trying to do other than taking them to circuit court. And I've also listed most of our significant trails that are, we actually have listed those as greenways, but they may or may not be in a floodplain. So we've made some, we've got some recommendations and some things that we'd like to see for a greenway program to be successful. As I mentioned, we've got a draft Greenway manual. It has not been implemented or adopted. This manual will dictate how Greenways are to be maintained. It will also establish a Greenway program. The purpose is to create a staff, and it sort of identifies where we would like to see the Greenway program. we'd also like to see a person designated as a greenway coordinator right now it's basically done by committee a committee made up of individuals from various divisions the committee is is sort of an ad hoc committee and we'd like to have it more formalized and so we can definitely have representation from each of the different divisions that have issues with greenways we'd like to see a lead agency for greenways you know it's we've got people working in engineering on greenways and we've got it's a water quality issue and we've got a you know Department of Water Quality and or Environmental Quality so we just need to identify identify a lead agency. We have issues with trying to enforce various things that happen within a greenway. We've got issues with people coming in and destroying what we've done. We've got issues with the greenways not being protected during the development process. It's used as a staging area. A lot of times when we get these properties from developers that are not in the best condition, we have to spend money to bring them up to acceptable standards. So we want a mechanism to be able to enforce that with fines and rules. And then there's infrastructure hearing board is one way to do that, but we have to change ordinances in order to be able to do that. And then we have a plan for maintenance, but each greenway you need to look at individually to determine what the best management is. If you've got a tree area that's with the mature forest, then basically that's all you need to do. I mean, that's our goal is to create sort of an urban forest along our creeks and streams. But we have a lot of areas that don't have that, so it requires different maintenance. And so we just need to look at each greenway and establish a maintenance plan for that greenway. And we need to educate the public about why we're doing this. We still run into a lot of opposition. They consider it weedy. It's just overgrown. They feel like that the turf grass is the preferred way to maintain this. It's an extension of their backyard. So there's a lot of resistance for us to do what we're trying to do. And our goal is to create a low-maintenance or no-maintenance property just because of the benefits from that. And we use a lot of different groups to help us maintain these greenways. I work with a lot of UK students, college students, neighborhood associations. We've actually got a grant program that provides funds to neighborhood associations to help us maintain properties. And they come back to me and say, we've got this funding, we'd like to do some work, and so I work with them. So we just need to formalize that. And then we need to produce an annual report just to show what our successes are, where our strengths are, and what our needs are. And that's all I have for the presentation. We can take questions. There are some committee members already signed in to speak. And let's start with Council Member Martin. Thank you, Chair. Keith, you and I have talked about over the last couple of years about the need for someone to coordinate right-of-way acquisition and project management. Is that the Greenway coordinator you had on your list? But if you could talk about why this position is important to try to realize a lot of the potential plans and promises that our bike and trail system has. Well, actually, we've identified two, I guess, positions, a trail coordinator and a greenway coordinator. There's no reason why it couldn't be the same person because a lot of the duties are the same. But there's a real need to have a person identifiable that people can go to to ask questions. That person can direct how funds are to be spent, and they can also be used to help acquire property. I mean, we need a person that can go out and talk to individuals if we've identified a specific piece of property that we need. So a coordinator basically does, it's sort of a jack-of-all-trades. It does a lot of different things, and I hope I've answered your question. I've tried to get that position in the budget for the last two years, and so I have a trail that is a promise made years ago. The trail would lead from Dogwood Trace Park, they have a trail out there, down underneath the Harrodsburg Road Bridge, I guess near Ramsey's there. And when the state built the Harrodsburg Road Bridge, they reserved a bike tunnel underneath the bridge. And I know that Councilman McCord has ideas of connecting that trail over towards Shiltoe Park. And so that is an important amenity for the south side. And I think without a right-of-way coordinator, it's going to be very difficult to get that kind of a project off the ground. I agree. So I just hope the council would think about that for when we allocate positions in the future. I think this is a trails. Some folks don't understand why it's important, but the trails is a community amenity that really has an impact on people who want to come and live here and being able to attract the best talent that we have from the various universities to be the brains behind our economy, creating new jobs and new companies and new ideas, both at UK but at Lexmark and at Toyota. I think that that is an important part of what we have to offer as a community. I was at the groundbreaking where the ribbon-cutting for Florida tile, and they just love the trails. They just love the amenities that we have. And it was an important part of them coming here from Florida. They could have gone anywhere. They could have gone back to Italy because it's an Italian company. So thanks for working on this, and I hope that we continue to move forward on it. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Chair. Keith, thank you for giving us a brief update. I know during our water quality meetings over the last three or four years, this has been a hot topic of conversation. I know we've given a tremendous amount of additional duty, but a lot less money to our Parks Department to maintain some of these areas. So I want to go back and understand your numbers you gave us. The $125,000 budget, is that combined to everybody, or is that just your budget? That's just my budget. And what piece of that, so you're saying your budget covers 34 acres? Actually, it combines the water quality, engineering, and public works. But the problem is that we've identified some areas like within Public Works, there's the Haley Pike landfill. There's a greenway out there that's substantial. So we're not spending any money out there on that part. The 144 acres that this budget covers are the areas that we are actively made into a naturalized area. So it's more than just mowing. It is going in and removing evasives and treating like the Fort Sumter greenway. So your $850 average cost per acre is only for that 144 acres. Okay. And so do we have any idea, Commissioner, or anyone, how much it costs to do the rest of the acreage? With $850 total, it would seem that we would have an average cost for all of it or a unit price contract or something that could tell us a little bit? Right now we don't. I don't have the parks numbers. We have the numbers that we're managing, and as you can see, it's mixed up. Where those categories came from is this list. And so as we've acquired greenways over the years, it's assigned to an area based on what the greenway is used for. So when we established the water quality management fee, we were very careful to identify and put aside those greenways that were specifically used for managing water. Water runoff, naturalized areas, like Keith said, engineered areas, more or less, as opposed to, say, you have two homes and there's a piece of property between them, and we decide to leave it a green spot where kids can play or whatever. So that's a parks area. And right now, these things have been assigned to different areas of management just based on what we were doing at the time. So it is a mishmash as it exists today. The numbers that we were able to get in our office were the numbers that come from Charlie's Water Quality Funds to manage a property that's specifically identified as water quality acreage. The rest of the properties, I don't have good numbers yet. Parks manages the largest amount of it. And, of course, now that we've reorganized, you could put parks and general services together. Really, streets and roads engineering, that deck pew, which is our whole department, kind of a random assignment, and water quality are all sort of in our department, but those are even funded separately. So it's a quilt right now. I don't have all the numbers, no. We should be able to get those. So when we buy a house, tear it down for water quality purposes, who is paying for the maintenance of those lots long term? The Division of Water Quality. Let me clarify. So you're transferring money to Parks, who's actually physically hiring the people and overseeing it. Let me clarify something. There is $250,000 a year budgeted in the water quality management fee for maintaining properties. $125,000 of it I allocate to Keith to do the greenways that he's focused on, which is a more aggressive management plan as far as removing invasive species, those type of things. The other $125,000 goes to cutting grass that's associated with a lot of these teardowns that you were talking about, Councilman Stenet, as far as the FEMA projects and things like that. We're not doing any type of special treatments or anything. I guess just getting the grass cut six times, eight times a year. Parks does that through their unit price contract with them. And so then the money flows out of us. We review that project list every year to make sure we haven't added new houses or new teardowns that they have missed to make sure that it gets cut. So the water quality management fee provides $250,000 for land management purposes. One part of it is what might be viewed as a traditional greenway management, and the other is just simply maintenance of cutting grass. Well, I mean, one big issue, for instance, in several parks, there's water retention basins. that were put there as part of stormwater projects, yet parks is not receiving any money to mow them. And I can give you a couple. Now, granted, they've been there since 1960s and 70s when these parks were built, but it seems like we need to go back and identify all those pieces as well. Even though they're within a park, they are protecting the neighborhood around it, and stormwater should be paying for that mowing cost. I've got a detention basin in my backyard, and I'm mowing it. So, I mean, those kind of things go on all over the place. the fact that most of our parkland is at the lower part of a drainage area to start with. I will say, though, this is that if that's the will of the committee and the council, we could do that. But that would have to be a recalibration of the stormwater management fee because we did not contemplate that type of expense when we put together that program. Well, and that's the purpose of this conversation. You know, are we going to have a stormwater system in Fayette County that's comprehensive and we understand who is maintaining it? Or are we not? I mean, because we need to go back and identify all those areas that parks monies should not be paying for the maintenance of stormwater areas. Otherwise, let's fill them in and use them for parks land if we want to get technical about it, because they're using parks money that's dwindling every year to pay for stormwater retention basin mowing. And that's not right. It's not right to the parks, and it's not why we set up the stormwater maintenance fee or water quality management fee. is to do, part of that is to do maintenance. And we need to go back and identify all the areas, and let's get a really comprehensive plan, Commissioner, about all of our areas we're trying to mow and maintain as a result of stormwater and also as a result of recreation. Well, and I think that's really how I wanted to open that, whether it was clear or not. You know, because for you, the point of this conversation was how we're going to take care of it related to water quality. But the lion's share of what we have up there isn't necessarily water quality related properties and then i heard council member martin say for him the point is the amenities and the trails and so part of the confusion for me is just like in waste what is it we want to address what's part of the program and then how do we manage it because right now we have management and we've made progress we have greenways we've even gone into community gardens in some years we've used some of this property for other projects and neighborhoods but it is not at all coordinated. I think people coordinate it because they care, but they don't coordinate it because we formally set up a management structure, and we do need to figure out where everything is, what its function is, how we ought to pay for it. There ought to be a structure, and there ought to be a system for how we acquire and bring new properties in. A few years ago, I know when we were first talking through this with the water quality fee, anybody that wanted to donate property, the city did it. I mean, there was property being donated everywhere, and absolutely no mechanism or funding to take care of it. So we've gotten ourselves into a position where we really do want the green space, but we're going to have to have a process to manage it and fund it. And I agree completely. So I think, you know, for me, the biggest outcome of this is we need to begin to agree on what it is we want to manage and put together a group of people that can do that and come back with a structure for the council to consider. So that's my two cents worth. Yeah, and in fairness to stormwater area, we do have trails that are built in the middle of stormwater retention basins, one being Liberty Park, for instance. There's a trail right through the middle, but yet that's the floodplain. So who should be maintaining that? That's the issue. Should it be parks money or stormwater money? So those are going to be decisions we're going to have to flush out. Either way, it ought to be funded. I mean, we've got to fund it. We want to have it. We need to take care of it. And then we also have two other parts of this. One, we need to develop a consistent policy of how we mow. Because I know, and I'll use Fort Sutton or Gale Drive, we're letting things grow three, four feet tall along the creek 15 feet back. But yet other creeks are being cut up to the edge four inches tall. So we were very inconsistent. And it's hard for me to explain to a neighborhood, you can't cut it within 15 feet because that's our stormwater policy. But across town, you can go cut it all the way to the edge because we want it to look pretty. That's not right. So we need to go through and identify that. Otherwise, everyone should be allowed to maintain and mow it the way they feel acceptable behind their homes. So we need to get that policy consistent. And last is the planning piece. You mentioned we make people give us land, so to speak, when we develop an area. I know Chris and I have been in conversations about some of the zones here recently and requirements on those zones and when people go to develop. We need to look at that again, too. If we're not going to figure in a cost for accepting that land, it's nice to have free land. Don't get me wrong. Everyone wants green space, but we have to start figuring out how we're going to pay for it before we accept it and identify the dollars in the budget. So that's just my two cents worth, Commissioner, so I hope it can go a long way. Thank you. Yes, thanks. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, guys. Keith, thanks for coming in and, I guess, taking the lead on trying to explain it. And I think that a couple things, just an overarching statement is that when we stepped into this, when we first started stepping into building trails, one of the things that I found was that everybody's in charge and therefore nobody's in charge. And I think that's what we've kind of identified today is there really isn't a plan. And I think what the council is saying is that we're tasking the administration in this particular administration whose strength is in project management to come back with a very solid game plan going forward. But I think the other thing that you hear me say all the time is we've just got to start thinking differently. You can't just keep doing what we're doing. We can't just keep raising a tax or have a dedicated fee for this or that or the other thing. And there are different ways to look at this. Two years ago, a group of us flew down to Atlanta to see how they build trails. We'll just take the trails piece out for a second. And it is done by a nonprofit. The nonprofit raises the money. They raise the maintenance money. They have a tremendous amount of flexibility on how to acquire easements. Everything is taken care of, but yet they coordinate with what they call the green team, which is folks from parks and from public works and the other areas that touch on trails. And this group basically goes and builds and is the project manager, negotiates the price out and so forth. And it saves the city a tremendous amount of money, but there is a consistency of what their trails look like, how they're built, and so forth. So having that coordinator piece is really critical. And I think, Council, as we move towards a new planning commissioner, I think this is a question that needs to be asked to whomever the candidate is or are, is how do they see this? Because this is as critical an issue as faces our city because it is a planning issue. It is a water quality issue. It's a quality of life issue. But the thing with trails is this, and everybody knows I'm obviously the trail guy and so forth, but what we've got to move away from is the thinking of trails as a nice thing, an amenity. Gosh, people really like that. And we've got to start realizing that what we're talking about is a different way of getting around and moving it to a necessity of transportation. And what we've got right now is nice. And, you know, Jerry and I, we've had this conversation before. We raised, you know, $10, $12 million, built an unbelievable amenity for our community in the Legacy Trail, and we just handed you a nine-mile linear park that you've got to mow, and it cost $40,000 to mow it. So you have all this community goodwill that says, hey, we want to do these nice things, and all of a sudden we are stuck with a maintenance issue that we weren't prepared for. So the key thing is that we've got to shift our thinking as a government and as a community away from NICE and amenity, and this is something that people like, to this is something people will need. And, Commissioner, I would tell you, and Council Member Farmer, I had mentioned this the other day to put into the planning committee, but looking at health and physical activity design guidelines and moving our community towards policy around health and physical activity is a way to attract new money to this community. Again, I'm going to keep saying this over and over and over until people hear me, but the obesity epidemic that has struck our nation, there's a tremendous amount of money, public and private, and there's a lot of ways to leverage that money. You don't have to come at it just from the health side. You can actually come at it from public safety, and you can come at it from economic development and other places. But the bottom line to it is that thinking differently about how we fund this stuff that we've got is critical. And I would challenge this government, I would challenge this administration and all of those who have something to do with greenways to stop thinking about it in the environmental, kind of the greenway, oh, isn't this great for our environment, and move more towards transportation necessity. What are we doing to create a more active community? Because you're going to find the funding dollars that we don't have right now in those types of places. So the good news is that there are other ways to do it. The challenge is that we've got to stop mowing grass long enough to go find those new ways and implement them. But I will just tell you, Chairman, whether it's through this committee or on our own, this council member is dead set on setting policy that get us there. And whatever it takes to get us there to a coordinated plan, a different way of looking at these trails, and a new funding source, this council member is behind 100%. So, again, I know it's a daunting task when you stare at a spreadsheet like we've got, but at the end of the day, what I'm looking for is what are the policy decisions that we can make to move us forward in that regard and get us to these places where we are being seen as an attractive place to put new money. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you. Council Member Lane. Good morning, Commissioner. Welcome to our meeting today. Hearing the reports this morning, my thought process was that we probably should have one entity that would be responsible for all Greenway areas and that the funding maybe should come from the different departments that maybe technically have ownership to the property. That way one person could coordinate everything and you could have a plan for action to manage those areas. One of the other thoughts I was having is that when we have properties that are in the floodplain, is that rather than to mow those properties, unless there's some reason that it needs to be mowed, I think that the policy ought to be that we plant natural flora in there and let it go back into more of a natural state because in many of our better neighborhoods, there are green areas that are back to natural state, and rather than us mowing those areas, and particularly if it's a floodplain, but if it's part of a hike-like path or some regular place that's used, then there would probably need to be mowed in that case. but that would eliminate maintenance of areas that really don't need maintenance. The other question I had is that if people are on the hike-bike path and there's a medical emergency or an accident, do we have a method to let, like, EMS or police know how to find you on the hike-bike path? Is there some kind of markers or numbers? Because I've not seen that published. So if we do have that available, maybe it would be good to let people know how to use that system to contact emergency response. And then the other thought I was having is volunteerism. It seems like once we had an organization that was managing this, that we could go out and make some type of an agreement with a neighborhood association or some group to agree to maintain a segment of a hike-by-path, not necessarily to cut it or trim it, but to maybe go through on a regular basis and take trash out and make sure it's in good shape. Or if there's some maintenance repair needed that they could advise the entity that would be managing the overall management on that. Just a couple of thoughts I was having. Maybe you've already had all these thoughts, and I'm just sort of beating a dead horse here, but I'm fairly new on the environmental committee, and I really hadn't heard too much of those ideas previously. I think those are all good ideas, and I won't pretend to be the expert on any of it either. And I think we have talked a lot about the more we bring the homeowners and the homeowners associations in and get them involved, that's good. Keith, I know, was talking about the value of having a coordinator, and I think part of that value is that that consistent person can be that liaison with the homeowners because we really do get a lot of pushback on naturalized areas, and people want to cut the grass. I mean, I guess their whole life that's what we've done, and that's what looks neat, and we want to cut the grass and we want to get rid of the weeds, but we're finding a lot of people have problems with that and with education and a lot of time spent they are being more accepting of that and we do have some successful areas that have been naturalized and keith again's the expert keith also says we do have trail markers but what i could you elaborate a bit on that as far as the mile markers on every trail just on trails but if not free place. Yeah, obviously we're doing it, but we haven't done a good job of getting it out to the public. On the Legacy Trail, we've got these brown mile markers that are marked every two-tenths of a mile. And we've coordinated with GIS to let them know, and they've got the mapping as well as police. And we don't have it on every trail, but our trail of significant lengths, we do have those mile markers that are marked every two-tenths. I know that people don't understand what they are, and so we need to do a better job of getting that. So if somebody's on the trail, they would just call 911 and say I'm near marker number, such and such? Yeah, the legacy's got an L8.2. Okay. So the EMS knows that that's the legacy trail and 8.2 mile marker. Okay. While you're there, I have just one last question. In some of the areas in my district, people have been hesitant to put the height white paths in because they're afraid of some security issues. And I was curious, we've had these hike bike paths since for several years now. Have there been any major security issues that have come up that you're aware of? Or basically, has these been extremely safe areas? As far as I know, everything that I have been preaching up to, they've been in place, is held up. I'm not aware of any issues where there's been an increase in crime. Now, I've heard of there has been some break-ins, but it's no different than the rest of the community. Well, I think the people will experience the higher property values if they're near a high bike path because it becomes a really nice amenity for your neighborhood where your kids can go out and play in a real safe area. Thank you very much for your comments. I think that Council Member McCord wanted to respond. Council Member Lane, I wanted to add a couple things to your questions or your suggestions. One is, first, property values do go up on average 16 percent if you are within a proximity of a bike trail. Crime does not go up. Those are national stats. We can show that. But to your point about getting neighborhood groups together to help and so forth, what the PATH Foundation found in Atlanta after 18 years of doing this is that that's an organizational nightmare because you are trying to keep up with all these different things. And if you have a nonprofit that has been tasked with raising the money to build trails and to maintain trails, and they are the ones that are dealing with those contracts and so forth, they can have that maintenance done. If tree branches fall on it because of the ice storm, they are the ones that can call immediately and have those things cleared. And so there is a group in Lexington that has already kind of pulled itself together to say that they would like to form that trails foundation. Many of us that have been building trails for a while are a part of that group. So the bottom line to it is that while those things sound really good, they are very difficult to maintain. And moving towards having an entity outside that would work with our government, but they would be tasked with raising the money for building and construction as well as maintenance, is the better route to go and more efficient route. Thank you. Were you thinking something along the lines of Lux Park or something like that, That would be an entity who would have appointed members, and they would actually take care. Maybe they'd even get a budget, the $125,000 or whatever would be budgeted to them, and another $125,000 from parks or whatever, and they have a budget to maintain the paths out there. Would that be one approach? That can work. The way that Atlanta does it is that the city gives an amount sufficient to two salaries, and then they are tasked with, those people are tasked with raising the money, project managing, the maintenance and so forth. So there's a lot of different ways to do it, but we could do it for a lot less by giving some of our resources to a partner agency in that capacity. But I'd be happy to share with you the stuff from Atlanta Offline. Do they have corporate sponsors that maybe would underwrite a portion of the trail? Absolutely. So it could be the Jay McCord, Inc. trail. Something like that. But I will tell you their corporate sponsor, for a signed sponsorship, a very small signed sponsorship on that trail is $100,000. And so, I mean, they're very serious about what they do, and they've got it down. And we had the opportunity to spend time with them. In fact, one of our members of our community was actually on their board, so we have a lot of resource here in Lexington. But I want to clarify that before we start heading down that path, so to speak. Thank you, Council Member Myers, and welcome, Mr. Myers, to the Environmental Quality Committee. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm pleased to be here. Commissioner, this is just a little bit off topic because we're talking about greenways right now, but I just want to put on the radar retention and detention basins. and I think I mentioned last week that Bluegrass Pride was out on the night that we did the movie night and they said that they have some concerns about the retention basin, retention basin down there in Gainesway Park and the quality of it and the shape that it's in. So I guess at some point can we talk about what type of funding is put in place? We spent almost $2 million on that project. what type of funding is in place to make sure that we maintain those once we get a project like that completed. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Hanson. Thank you, Chair. I really wanted to make a few comments about having a Greenways coordinator. I think that would be a route we should take and we should pursue for the sake of efficiency within government. Because I know it can be frustrating to parks trying to maintain all the greenways and keep up with them as we acquire more or whatever. and the Greenway manual by ordinance and if that could be distributed to residents that maybe live along our watersheds and give more education as far as how to maintain those creek beds along the backs of their properties. And as for trails, I really like Mr. McCord's idea of using a not-for-profit agency to build and maintain those. In all honesty, I'm against tax dollars going to build those trails when we have infrastructures that are falling apart. falling apart. That would be my comment. But I do think definitely that moving forward with a coordinator would be the first goal that we should pursue. Thank you. Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioner, in your comments earlier, you did a couple of things, I thought. First, you looked at the amount of acreage up there and kind of depicted a way where groups could kind of come together in a way that they haven't yet or haven't gelled up yet after our reorganization. And then after that, you actually made a couple of comments about kind of getting a working group together with kind of what I would call in-house to work on these issues, which the genesis of this issue was from our environmental quality link during the budget. And that's kind of where I'd like to see it go first. I mean, I appreciate all the needs involved here and all the opportunities involved, but I think the best first thing we can do is let's find out what we can best do first for ourselves. So is that a group that would, if we so ask you, would you maybe convene it inside your area and kind of bring us a couple of deliverables back or at least a reconfiguration or something? Yes, I think it obviously is a big issue for my department in particular. It crosses over into general services and even public safety. So I think we need a group to kind of sit down and talk through structurally what that might look like, what functions might go in that group, what a coordinator might do, and try to put together a little bit better defined plan. because quite honestly in preparing for this today, it was a lot of work just to figure out how all this fits together. For me, of course, it was newer than for some others. But for Keith, for example, who's been dealing with greenways for a number of years, and I'm not sure exactly why Keith deals with greenways, partly because he loves them. I mean, you can tell he likes trails, and that's a personal interest for Keith, but also because he was in the engineering group and managed a number of projects, so it just sort of migrated toward him. And for me, coming in fresh, it's very confusing to figure out how to do this. So it has to be confusing for you, and it's certainly confusing for the public. If you call in and you say Greenway, immediately there's panic because you're not quite sure which one it goes to. And we have to do something to draw that together. This is a complex problem, but I think it's a very manageable problem if we have a system. I know I had similar feelings of confusion when I came in and we started trying to tackle the litter problem. I mean, litter is everywhere. It's everybody's problem. But over time, we've developed the Keep Lexington Beautiful approach, which is not quite what Council Member McCord is suggesting, but it's a group that helps direct the activity. And then we have internal resources in government that are providing support and technical advice to that group. And that's starting to make a difference. We're starting to get people more interested in that. We're starting to see some reduction in litter in public areas, some areas, and it's very early. But, you know, I think with greenways, it's very people are passionate about it. They care about it. It is a health issue. It's a transportation issue. It's an environmental issue. So it is complex, and I think we have to start by putting a small structure together in the center to try to draw those entities and make them work in a coordinated way. There's a lot of opportunity here. Do you think that you all could gather and have some meaningful time and come back to us in a couple of months? Is that too short a time period? I don't think so. I think we can. I mean, will we have the problem solved in two months? No. No. But I think within two months we could certainly come back with, here's where we are with this. I need to do a better job of figuring out how much money we spend. I know how much comes out of our department, and Charlie was able to articulate that more clearly than me. But I don't really have a good handle on what Parks is spending. I know we have mowing contracts all over the place. The idea of more naturalized areas certainly is something we've all discussed, but I'm not sure what program we have in place to push that. So I think I could come back with a better idea about some definition on those pieces and how we might best coordinate them. I think that's great and puts us in a position to be ready for the next budget cycle if we want to take budgetary action based on your report back. So with that, Chair, I would make a motion to ask Commissioner Taylor to convene an in-house group to look at just all of the policies and operational endeavors around greenways and what, I don't know, how would you phrase it? You got something? Go ahead. I think there's five things we're talking about today. Number one, identify the budget as part of that. How much money are we really spending on maintaining greenways? I think you just alluded to some of that. It's been difficult to get a handle on it. Number two would be to identify the land. I think you have a pretty good handle on where our greenways are and what they are and who's maintaining what currently. But we may need to clarify a little bit on the park's end. Number three would be the coordinator. identify how we could get who's going to coordinate greenways, which department, which person, et cetera. The greenway manual, when to implement that in terms of mowing consistencies, policies, and everything else in the manual that identifies greenways. And the last piece I'd like to see personally is our planning and acceptance policy. When we require development plans to have 25% or more of green space, is that what we really want today? Can we accept it and where that budget will come from once we do accept it? So those are some of the takeaways I've got from the conversation. Okay, thanks. All right, I'm sorry that that went down the line. That's fine, though. Can you do that in two months? I mean, that's a different list than what I was going to ask you for, and I don't mind that list, but that's a lot to do because that's a lot of policy to try to make. Are you asking for it to be solved in two months or have an initial cut at it in two months? I think we're just looking at the first swing, the first cut. I think that's doable. And as you pointed out, I think that we're going to have to have something together this fall in order to be prepared for the budget cycle. So I think we would want to go ahead and put together a plan and an approach to bring back and suggest to the council before we hit that budget cycle. So there was a long motion in there, I think, because I started a motion and he finished it with four separate parts. Do you want to? I don't want to restate it. I'll tell you that. But I think we need a second in order to discuss it. There we go. Thank you. The motion has been made and seconded to, let me see if I've got this right, to ask the administration to ask Commissioner Taylor and her assembled group to come back to the committee in two months. That would be our November 22nd meeting with a, I think it may be accurate to say, a sense of direction on the entire issue of greenway management And the report back would give us some notion of where we are with regard to the budget, with regard to the land areas that we're talking about, with regard to how we might move forward with finding a coordinator and a structure for this management. I'm not exactly sure, Council Member Stinn, what you were referring to with regard to the Greenway Manual. Well, I think we need to set a formal policy to adopt it and to adopt some of the elements of it. We need to move down that path. I'm not sure we can do that in two months, but I think we need to adopt something formally about board names. To include that in the report back and to consider a planning and acceptance policy. That's it. That's the five, yeah. So we've got it. Moved, seconded. Any further discussion? I think Mr. Lane wanted to say something on this issue. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman. I think you touched on the points I wanted to bring up, but I think the idea of some type of an oversight board that would oversee this and be maybe appointed by the mayor would have authorities to operate the greenways or manage them or supervise them or promote them or whatever. And then the other thing I was going to add was some type of a draft ordinance that would cover all of this, but I believe you've already brought that up in your comment. Thank you. Thank you. I don't think we have to amend the motion to take those things into consideration. The structure would be included in the discussion of the coordinator, and any ordinance would follow as a way of codifying any final decisions. Any further discussion? All in favor of the Farmer-Stinnett motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And that motion is adopted. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, Keith. and thank you for accepting the various tasks that the council members have. We'll be very happy to assist you with and support you in. I hope you'll feel free to call upon any of us on the committee as you go forward with this. Thanks again. Committee members, we do have the quarterly financials for your information and discussion. I think I saw Commissioner Briscoll just come into the room. Did I see Commissioner? There she is. So if you have any questions about the quarterly financials, log in, and I'm sure that she can help out. Council Member Lane. Yes, I have a couple of questions for Commissioner Driscoll. Hello, sir. Actually, Stephen Mulligan is here who works on the financials, so I've asked him to come and help address any questions that you have. Okay, that's terrific. My main question was how much cash do we have, because I don't think the statement shows cash on hand that I can identify. and my thought process was that at some point I believe that the sanitary sewer system will be issuing its own bonding, and in order to get bonds, I think we're going to have to have an accurate amount of cash reserve, and I wanted to see where we were in that area there. Right. I did look at the balance sheet. I did not present one because it's a little more since we're still in the process of the year end and working on the audit. I did come up with a couple of figures, though. We have about roughly $36 million in investments and roughly about $3 million in just operating cash. Okay. But that's a preliminary figure. Right. Well, I think part of the – As of June – sorry, as of June 30th. Right. I think what would be helpful to us, maybe you could analyze where we are and where we need to get to and how much cash you recommend that we have in the account so that when we need to start bonding, that we would qualify for that. And, of course, having cash in reserve certainly would be helpful to the overall government also. So I don't think we should spend everything in cash. And I think as we go through and begin to talk about those discussions, that will be a part of the conversation. All right, very good. That's the only question I had today. Thank you very much. Mr. Farmer? Bill, are you in the room? Are there any other questions for the Commissioner? Thank you all. Thank you for being here, Mr. Mulligan, Ms. Schuster, Commissioner. Thanks again. We do have also, for information purposes, essentially the environmental quality projects update. Director of Water Quality, Charlie Martin, will highlight a couple of the main ones. And if you have questions for him, please log in. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a few highlights on the list. You'll see projects number 6, 7, 8, and 9. Those are really two different projects, groups 2 and 3 of the Sanitary Sewer Assessment. Those are consent decree-driven projects in that we have just finished the field work for group 2. I just wanted to point that one out because we've got a report that's due in October on that. And that was a very challenging, challenging endeavor. We ended up bidding that project multiple times. We had to change consultants in the middle of it. And my staff is to be commended, Craig Prater in particular, the fact that they've been able to get this thing done on time was an amazing feat. Number 18 is the SCADA electrical and computer operations. that's going on at both of the treatment plants, so it's not something that will be particularly noticeable to the average citizen, but ultimately that's going to be about a $12 million investment in the operations of both treatment plants. Right now we operate the treatment plants with one operator in the evening and all weekend long, and that is very challenging with old and antiquated software. Most of the software that runs Town Branch was installed back in the 80s, and those of us who deal with software know how much things have changed. We've had a very difficult time supporting the existing. So this is a big long-term investment for us in that we're getting ready. We're in the process of bidding that project out right now. Number 36, that is the Coldstream Crimson King Stormwater Project. I point that one out because that was one of those situations where we evaluated the different options as far as stormwater mitigation and we're able to get the neighbors together to where we're able to buy all the properties that we want to buy within a reasonable time we actually did not budget the full amount for but since all six properties wanted to participate right now we've been able to try to work around the existing budget to be able to get everybody taken care of at the same time so that one's that was going well i'm looking at council member myers i'm sure sure you're aware of what's going on out there. Numbers 42 and 43, Commissioner Taylor mentioned the litter program. We have had contractors essentially canvassing creek areas collecting litter, tires, those kind of things like that. It's actually been pretty well received and this is one of those outcomes of the water quality management fee where we wanted to go about attacking the litter problem. And then lastly, numbers 50 through 76. This is another one of those outcomes of the water quality management fee. This is the incentive grant program. You can see a long list of projects there and participants under the contractor. Many of those neighborhood associations, private businesses, this is another one of the outcomes of the water quality management fee that has been very, very well received. For those of you who are not aware, there is an independent board that reviews the applications once a year. It's not the division that decides who gets it. It's the board. But a lot of success, a lot of good things going on here with rain gardens and pervious pavement. If you've been over to the Ronald McDonald House over off of Cooper, that's been featured on the website. And if you get the opportunity to go over and check out what they're doing, they're really doing a really nice job over there. Last but not least, one benefit of these projects is in the consent decree, there are four supplemental environmental projects. These were projects that we had to do in order to reduce the cash civil penalty that we had to pay. One of those supplemental environmental projects, in particular the green infrastructure SEP, required us to spend $200,000 on green infrastructure. We recently received approval from EPA to use these incentive grants and apply that towards meeting that SEP obligation. So that was a real win for us, is that we were able to use a program that we developed internally and apply it to that SEP and be able to check that box. And what was really exciting for me is to get the response back to them is that they called this an exciting and innovative project. And from that coming from Region 4, that was a real, I guess, feather in the cap for Lexington as a whole, as they thought very, very highly of the incentive grant program. That concludes my remarks and questions. Well, thank you very much, and congratulations on that commendation and on that result. It's a wise investment. It brings the community into direct involvement with addressing and solving our water quality problems, and that helps with the education of our citizenry as well. Absolutely. A home run from our point of view. That's great news. A couple of council members have questions. Vice Mayor? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Charlie, thank you very much. And I appreciate the big print spreadsheet, as do most of my colleagues. I needed it, too. I have just sort of a general question on the spreadsheet. aside from the incentive grant projects, looking at the sanitary sewer projects and the stormwater projects and all of that whole list down through, I guess, through 49. I was curious about contractors, and it's a really good thing that we have a lot of work right now for folks. Have you had any situations, and as we've seen the RFP requests come through, have you had any situations where you had difficulty getting enough bidders on any of the projects? No, I can't say that we have been short of bidders. And in some cases, those of you who participated on the selection committees realize that sometimes we have more than 10, which is a lot of them to read. You know, one of the things that we have identified with our remedial measures consultant is that we need to work a lot harder on our procurement process, looking for opportunities to streamline that in a fair and equitable manner so we can move quickly on a large-scale number of projects, even compared to what's on the list right now. But there's certainly no shortage of interest. And are we getting some from outside Fayette County or most of them from inside Fayette County? Mixture of both. Mixture of both. Okay. I end up talking with a lot of different folks that are concerned about, you know, as far as the number of them that are in Fayette County or not. What I would like to move towards, and we've kind of had a pilot that I'll be coming to the council with here in a couple of weeks, is that we're going to pre-qualify engineering firms for different types, categories of work, treatment plant work or pump station work or pipeline work. I'd like to get to when we get to the consent decree, when the flag really drops, essentially is that we have qualified everyone that's qualified in those areas, and we rank them based on a scoring thing, but we just give projects out based on that. If we have to go through RFP, blue sheet, to you guys every time, I'm very, very concerned that we're going to be able to get that work done in that time frame. We've got to have a little bit more flexibility to allow things to move quickly. But it also, I think, addresses your concern is that there's some perception on some folks' part is that we're investing this money and we're not getting a share of the opportunities that come with us. I think that opens it up and levels the playing field that everyone who's qualified to work in Fayette County, whether you're in Fayette County or not, has an equal opportunity. When you pre-qualify firms, then does that allow you to go straight to hiring rather than have an RFP, or how does that work? Other communities do this. The Louisville Water Company does it. Frankfort does it. Northern Kentucky does it. a lot of large folks do it, is they have a certain amount that they have the latitude of which at a division or department level to award a task order to someone to design a pipeline from point A to point B. If they exceed that amount, then they have to go back to their board. But their board, you know, and from a long-term master plan, they know that these 10 projects are coming up, and this is the budget for those. Get them built and stay within the budget. we've approved the budget, how you get it done, they don't necessarily get into the details of that. Okay. Well, I encourage you on that then because since we're under a consent decree, the quicker we can turn these around, I think, the better. Except making sure that it is fair, equitable, and transparent is the most important part of that as well. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Chair. And, Charlie, you and I talked about this a little bit the other day after one of our meetings. And, you know, I hear in the engineering community a lot in Lexington that they feel like they're being basically outbid because of the project specifications by out-of-state companies who are able to qualify for these very, very large bond amounts. And so I think we as a council need to move quickly to find the proper mechanisms for making sure that the vast majority of this rather large amount of work is going to be done here in Lexington. I mean, we talk about buy local all the time, but we at the city frankly don't do that. We send a disproportionate amount of work out of state, and we're just taking tax dollars. We're funding someone else's economy out of state. And so I think that we both have to find ways to engage the services and the expertise that we already have here in Lexington and to allow the firms here in Lexington to do what they do. I mean, we're laying folks off at engineering firms here in Lexington because we're sending work to Florida firms that are out of state. Yeah, one of the things I was hoping to work for through the course of this, making those changes I was talking about with Vice Mayor Gordon, was that our current procurement policy is a CAO policy, and it says degree of local employment is one of the criteria at which we base our selection on. But it's a little bit vague on how you define local employment. Is it a national firm that has an office here in Lexington, and so all the people in that office, you know, they live here, they pay taxes, they shop here, they do all those things, or is it a firm that has a large degree of local ownership? We've got to put a little bit more on that in order to be able to better define that as far as if we're going to use that as a selection criteria. That would be hopefully a discussion I'm going to have with the CAO's office here in the next couple of months. You know, there's several of those criteria that I've always kind of struggled with and they're a bit ambiguous, but those were the ones that were here when I came to work here 12 years ago. And now that we're doing this over and over and over again, it's become a bigger problem. So I agree with you 100% is that we've got to find a better way to be able to do that. Vice Mayor? Vice Mayor, is this something that can be put into, would this best go in the Finance Committee? Because obviously we have some here in environmental, we have some in public works. Where would be the best place to work on this issue? I was on here because what I was going to say is Council Member Ellinger has been chairing a procurement task force. and one of the issues I put into it was the issue of preference points for local firms. So I'm not sure whether he's ready to, I don't know if anybody in the room knows whether he's ready to report out, but that is an issue that's already in his task force, and I think he's close to being finished. Perhaps he can update on their status. Yes, so we need an update on that. And I guess the second issue, and I think Council Member Lane might be speaking on this, but I agree that we need some management expertise. This is a, what, $540 million project, and I'll let Council Member Lane speak to that if that's where he's headed. If I may, I wanted to address one other thing that you had mentioned, is that the contracts that we're working on right now, this pilot study for pre-qualifying folks, one of the things that I've changed now is that the insurance requirements, We will identify them based on the project or the task that they're assigned. One of the things I've always been concerned about is that we use boilerplate insurance requirements that don't always match the risk associated with the project. That creates that very problem that you had mentioned is that the insurance requirements are just burdensome relative to the level of risk. And so we've recognized that and we're making those altercations. that you know there's not any point in carrying five million dollars of liability insurance when it's a not a very big project and this is a question for a later time but you know that in some ways once you had it you guys get to write the RFPs and then in some way stacks the deck on what we end up in the in the end and so the RFPs don't get approved by the urban County Council I'm not I mean the selection who comes out but the document itself the requirements that set out. The contract's not part of the RFP typically. That's written by law. But the RFP itself that people have to respond to and that set the hurdles over which companies have to jump to get jobs are written in-house, and they sort of set the stage for what folks are going to be able to qualify for. And I think the RFPs are written in a way that sometimes give preference to specific companies. I'm not saying anything specific, but I think that we need to review the RFP process to make sure that we aren't trying to sort of curtail our requirements to fit specific groups. So thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Lane. Welcome. Thank you. The first question I was going to ask today is under your list of contracts here for Sancte-Serve projects. Most of these contracts are in the $1, $2, $3 million range, although it appears that one company may have gotten several contracts here. My question is, the difficulty in getting local firms is that they don't have the specialty, expertise to do some of the engineering work required, or is it because their bids have been higher than the other firms? I could only answer that in a general standpoint. It would probably be a little bit of both. The Division of Water Quality alone doesn't select who gets recommended. There is a committee that includes the council, purchasing, the mayor's office, the CAO's office. I mean, we're typically outvoted on these type of things if we were going to have a vote, So we don't always necessarily get the ones that we necessarily want to choose. But what I see a lot of times is that if there is a price that's included in this, is that we're very leery to come to you guys with anything that's not the low bid, because obviously you're going to be concerned about that as well. But I can't tell you that anything that is a materials type of construction contract that's on here, like the screw pumps at Town Branch, those are low bid, period. In some of the engineering contracts, there may be somebody that is low to the point where they've left things out of their submittal to where that maybe disqualifies them from it. But I don't think that there's one thing that you can point to that would be characteristic of why a local firm does or doesn't get selected. again most all of these that are on here they have some type of local office here and so when it comes down to for me when I'm scoring my sheet and degree of local employment am I thinking about it from the terms of the the the organizational start organizational chart for ownership or am I of everybody in that office that they are taxpayers here in Lexington or surrounding counties yeah because technically all the people that work on the jobs in Fayette County, their payroll taxes go to our local community. My position may not be totally popular, but I believe that we should take any contractor who's qualified, who can bond to provide insurance, who's the low bidder, regardless of where they're from. And I feel that to give local preference, it creates other issues, like sometimes if we give local preference in our community, if a company from our community wants to bid somewhere else, then they get penalized in another market because we're penalizing out-of-town businesses that are working here. So I think we need to carefully evaluate that issue and see where that comes from. The other thing I wanted to ask, this chart I have here, I presume, well, it doesn't say specifically, but are we dealing with contracts that have been issued in this fiscal year, last fiscal year, fiscal year 10? Because it has a list here, and like even the ones that say FY11 out here under the storm, sir, they could have been awarded in 10. What this is is this is stuff that is six months forward or six months back that either will be completed or is about ready to start. This is really kind of what's going on right now. Okay, well, I would find it helpful if you could take these numbers and maybe come back with how much we spent or awarded in contracts by fiscal year just to see what the trends are and how much we're spending year by year and what the growth of the volume is. That wouldn't be a problem. I know we've been kind of working with that stuff already. And then I guess the last point is I still feel strongly, you know, that we should be using construction management firm to handle these jobs. And it's not any kind of a personal criticism of our staff, but this is a long-term project. We're spending hundreds of millions of dollars, and to have a company that's an expert in this that has redundancy, they have experience in a long-term track record, would be better than trying to do this internally. And I mentioned if one of our key people retired or resigned or took another job or we have a change in administration. I mean, you never know when you might have a new administration coming in and there's new commissioners appointed. I mean, there's a whole lot of factors that could come into play or maybe reappointed just to fill it in because you all are highly qualified out there. But the point I'm making is there's a lot of things that could happen, and we're investing so much money, and it's coming from our constituents, our taxpayers, to me to have the long-term plan and have viability of getting the work done and be able to get it done high quality with minimal cost. I mean, that sort of should be our mantra. And because we have a businessman running the mayor, as an expert in construction management, He's a businessman here running our government. I would like to see his support of this also. Well, I'll leave the mayor to obviously comment however he wishes. I mean, I would be happy to have Hazen and Sawyer, CDM, and Stantec, who are acting in that role right now as far as developing these remedial measures plans and also providing the construction administration as we move forward to come in and talk about what they're experiencing. because I think we're kind of doing what it is that you're asking us to do already. Charlie Martin isn't doing all this. I'm just the one standing here talking about it all the time. But, you know, honestly, Councilman Lane, I will take all the help that I can get because you're right. This is a big, big, big project, probably the biggest public works project Lexington's ever done. All hands on deck. I'm welcome to help. Well, you know, if we brought in a construction manager, if we're going to spend $500 million, $600 million, $800 million, whatever the number is going to be, if they could just say 1%, you know, you're talking about $5 to $8 million in savings, that would more than pay probably for the construction manager's fees, and they have a lot of expertise that we probably don't have on staff. And then the other aspect of it, maybe it's even if it costs a little bit more just to have the insurance that we have continuity, we've got redundancy, we can continue this project until it's completed and get it done on schedule. So these are the issues that I think we need to be thinking about. But let me thank you all because my comments here today are in no way a criticism for what you all are doing. I think you all are doing the very best that you can. And I don't see any problem areas right now that make me nervous. I'm just saying I think this is the best policy for the government for investing and managing the investment of this money. and I still feel strongly that we ought to be focusing on that as a future way to manage this work. I don't take it any other way because you're right. We've got a lot of stuff going on right now, and we're just getting ready to go over the edge of the falls. Right. And that was another reason I was asking to see sort of what the number of contracts and how much we're spending on an annual basis and look at how it's incrementally, I'm sure it's exponentially increasing in volume and amount of dollars being spent and invested. I decided it would be helpful to look at the trend on that, too. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your comments, Charlie. Thank you, Mr. Lane. Council Member Stinnett, you were there. Well, we shall honor that. Council Member Gorton. I just have a quick update. Council Member Ellinger will be reporting out his procurement task force recommendations to Budget and Finance Committee, and I don't yet know what the date is. Thank you for that update. Are there any other comments related to the projects? Seeing none, if committee members you could turn to the committee referrals that was not in your packet but is on a separate sheet at your place. Are there any comments, questions or motions related to the referrals this morning? Vice Mayor Gordon? I just have one. This first issue, private solid waste providers, I don't know that we've had an update. There was supposed to be a group working on that with the private haulers, and now that we've started the private, the solid, let me step back, the waste management, we no longer call it solid waste, The Waste Management Group, I'm wondering where this is, if we ever got anywhere on the private haulers. It was a group that was supposed to be working administration and private haulers and some council members. Council Member Stennett held our first Waste Management Task Force meeting, and one of the questions that we were asked to address for the next meeting is around which haulers we have in Fayette County and an estimate of what they do. And it was discussed in general about trying to come up with a consistent plan. So this is the old group that was supposed to be working on, I mean, we might ought to, I don't know if this group is working. It was in the last administration. And it might be that we want to just remove it from the list because the purpose of the solid waste providers that I referred to committee was to have a sit-down conversation with them to work toward providing services that got us to the waste-free by 2020, which I presume our waste management group will do. Is that, Council Member Stenet, is that your feeling? Because we can take this off if we think that our group will get there. I think we can definitely work towards that effort as long as it relates to what services we're going to offer to get there. I think that we could address it then on the task force. Okay. If we can do that, I'll move to remove this from the committee. Motion to remove private solid waste providers. seconded by Council Member Henson. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye, please. Aye. Opposed? And that motion is passed. Any other observations on the committee referrals? Mr. Chair? There are two items listed here that are with the status of having been referred to planning and public works. And I would just say the first one is the Valley View Ferry to develop a better partnership with Madison-Jussman counties. And in the committee staff work, we've begun to develop the background materials and the folks involved in that. So in my opinion, we could take that off this committee list because it has been vested into the Planning Public Works Committee and we're taking it on. So I would so move to remove it. Thank you. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? And that motion is also passed and the item removed. And I would tend to the same motion. There are a group of issues surrounding paving and paving warranties, of which the one that's been referred from the Environmental Quality Link, at least right now to this committee, is one that we will take up as part of the other issues in the planning committee. So I would so move to formally send the renegotiation and expand paving warranties to planning and public works. So moved. So this is a motion to remove from the environmental quality and move to the planning committee. Yes, sir. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor? Opposed? And that motion is passed. Thank you, sir. The item removed from our agenda. Anything further on committee referrals? Vice Mayor Gordon? I just have a question. What the last two issues are the U.K. Game Day garbage collection revenue source and the bulky item collection revenue source, are those issues that will be discussed in our waste management task force, or are they different? Bulky item, I'm sure we can address whether or not we want to continue that as a free service for charge. UK game day, I'm not sure that we'll be able to address that issue as a revenue source. I'm not sure who put that in there or where they want to go with it, but I don't think we're going to be able to address that issue. So do we need to, well, for one thing, we need to change solid waste to waste management task force. Yes, I agree. And so Mr. Farmer had comments. I was just agreeing with you that we could, pursuant to a motion, we could send the bulky item to his task force. Well, I move to send the bulky item collections to Council Member Stenet's Waste Management Task Force. Second. Vice Mayor Gordon, that refers to both items, game day and bulky item. My motion refers to bulky items only. Only. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. Moved and seconded to remove that item. All in favor, please say aye. Opposed? And that motion is passed. We're on a roll here, folks. We can put our committee out of business if we just keep going. Mm-hmm. Any other discussion of committee referrals? If you will just hold off on that for one second. And we usually do like to leave some time for public comment. I see only hardworking members of the government here and no members of the public. So the motion to adjourn is indeed appropriate. All in favor? All in favor. And we are adjourned. Thank you. Interesting meeting.