# Council General Government Committee - October 11, 2011 > Auto-transcribed civic record · October 11, 2011 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/2199 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/2199?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2011-10-11 - **Last revised**: July 17, 2026 - **Length**: 18,567 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 General Government Committee met on October 11, 2011, at 10:00 AM, with Ed Lane presiding. The committee addressed four agenda items during the session, including approval of the summary from a previous meeting, which was approved. Two of the substantive items—General Services Link Recommendations to General Government Committee and Items in Committee—were deferred for future consideration. The committee also heard three public comments during the meeting. Two motions were voted on during the session. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the meeting on October 11, 2011: * Jay McChord * Linda Gorton * Steve Kay * Tom Blues * Julian Beard * K. C. Crosbie * George Myers * Doug Martin * Scott Seymour No members were absent or late. ## Votes and Decisions The meeting included two motions, both of which passed by voice vote. **Motion to Approve September 13, 2011 Meeting Summary** A motion to approve the summary of the September 13, 2011 meeting was made by Jay McChord and seconded by Tom Blues. The motion passed by voice vote with no abstentions. [timestamp: 0:00:00] **Motion to Approve Aquatic and Golf Master Plans Presentation Schedule** A motion to approve the presentation of the Aquatic and Golf Master Plans at the November 15, 2011 General Government Committee meeting, followed by a special December meeting for follow-up discussion, was made by Ed Lane and seconded by Steve Kay. The motion passed by voice vote with no abstentions. [timestamp: 1:59:21] ## Public Comment Three speakers addressed the council during the public comment period on October 11, 2011. **Julian Beard** [timestamp: 0:46:18] spoke regarding the Facilities Use Policy and proposed rent increases. Beard expressed concern that the policy could create undue financial hardship on partner agencies, particularly organizations like the Lexington Art League that currently pay minimal rent but receive no direct funding from LFUCG. **Doug Martin** [timestamp: 0:28:53] addressed long-term leases and accountability issues. Martin highlighted risks associated with long-term 99-year leases that would bind the city to provide space indefinitely, even in cases where buildings become non-functional. He emphasized the need for greater accountability in real estate management. **Scott Seymour** [timestamp: 1:41:07] sought clarification on parcel ownership discrepancies in the inventory list. Seymour identified a property marked as owned by others (P) but listed under LFUCG's inventory, and requested clarification regarding the partial ownership status of this property. ## Contested Items The October 11, 2011 meeting included two significant areas of disagreement among council members. **Fair Market Rent Policy** Council members were divided on a proposal to set rent at fair market value. The split centered on the policy's potential impact on nonprofit and social service agencies, particularly those not receiving direct city funding. Some council members supported implementing fair market rent, citing the need for transparency and accountability in how public facilities were priced. However, other members expressed concern that this approach would create undue financial hardship for service providers and could force them to reduce or eliminate services. The disagreement reflected competing priorities between fiscal accountability and the financial sustainability of community-serving organizations. **Facilities Use Policy Scope and Timing** A heated discussion emerged regarding the breadth and implementation timeline of the Facilities Use Policy. Council members debated whether the policy should apply uniformly across all property types, including commercial properties, institutional facilities, and community centers. A related concern involved the adequacy of the proposed three-year transition period for affected agencies to adjust to new requirements. Additional concerns raised during this discussion included the lack of immediate subsidy mechanisms to help agencies manage the transition and the risk that organizations could be displaced if they could not afford the new rental terms. These issues highlighted tensions between establishing consistent policy standards across different facility types and providing practical support for agencies during implementation. ## Approval of Summary The committee considered approval of the summary from the previous meeting. [timestamp: 00:00] **Speakers and Process** Jay McChord and Tom Blues were the key participants in this agenda item. **Outcome** The committee approved the summary of the previous meeting by voice vote. There was no discussion or debate on the matter. ## General Services Link Recommendations to General Government Committee Director Jamshid Baradaran presented updates on several facilities management topics, including deferred maintenance, capital improvement projects, facilities software, and a proposed Facilities Use Policy [timestamp: 00:01:03]. **Topics Presented** The presentation covered four main areas: the status of deferred maintenance and capital improvement projects, implementation of new facilities software systems, and details of the proposed Facilities Use Policy. **Key Issues Discussed** The committee addressed several substantive concerns: - **Standardized Leases**: The need for standardized lease agreements was identified as a priority. - **Fair Market Value Assessments**: Discussion focused on establishing fair market value rent assessments for facilities. - **Council Authority**: The committee discussed the appropriate role of the council in approving all leases and subleases. - **Financial Impact on Partners**: Members raised concerns about the financial impact of facility policies on partner agencies. - **Budgeting Transparency**: The committee emphasized the need for a transparent budgeting process, particularly regarding rent subsidies and how these costs are allocated and tracked. **Speakers** In addition to Director Baradaran, the following individuals participated in the discussion: Ed Lane, Tom Blues, Doug Martin, Steve Kay, Julian Beard, K. C. Crosbie, Linda Gorton, and George Myers. **Outcome** The agenda item was deferred, indicating that further discussion or action on these recommendations will occur at a future meeting. ## Items in Committee The committee discussed the timing and structure for presenting the Aquatic and Golf Master Plans. [timestamp: 1:42:55] **Presentations Scheduled** The committee decided to present both the Aquatic Master Plan and the Golf Master Plan at the November 15, 2011 meeting. Rather than holding a work session for these presentations, the committee opted to schedule a special December meeting for follow-up discussion of the plans. **Parks Acquisition Fund** The Parks Acquisition Fund was noted to be scheduled for a work session on November 15, 2011. **Key Participants** The discussion involved Ed Lane, Jerry Hancock, Julian Beard, George Myers, and Scott Seymour. **Outcome** The item was deferred, with the presentation schedule and format established for future meetings. ## Public Comment Three members of the public provided comments during this portion of the meeting. Julian Beard raised concerns about rent increases affecting partner agencies. Doug Martin emphasized the risks associated with long-term leases, highlighting potential financial and operational vulnerabilities. Scott Seymour questioned the ownership status of a listed parcel, seeking clarification on this property matter. The public comment period was informational in nature, with no formal action taken on the matters raised. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve the summary of the September 13, 2011 meeting - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve the presentation of the Aquatic and Golf Master Plans at the November 15, 2011 General Government Committee meeting, followed by a special December meeting for follow-up discussion --- ## Full transcript is the approval of the summary. Do I have a motion to approve the summary of September 13th? Okay, that motion was by Council Member McCord and second by Council Member Blue. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Okay, that motion passes. Okay, the second item on our agenda today is the General Services Link recommendations to the General Government committee and the director of facilities and fleet management rob she is here to update us from the meeting our last meeting welcome good morning thanks for your time um i've got a quick presentation i know there's a lot of information that was provided to you all a few days ago and so we try we try to walk everyone through it and answer any questions that you might have. During the last general government meeting, we requested to bring to you some additional information and we went ahead and put those in four different categories. One was a lease agreement which is something we've been working on about establishing some standardized lease forms that would be utilized with just about every type of lease agreements we're going to get into in terms of partner agencies, commercial properties and so forth. The next one is probably the large set of documents that you have received, which is all the current partner agency tenants identifying the location, the term of the lease, what they pay for, what LFECG pays for and so forth. we reviewed that set, what we found out, we found just the amount of information, lack of better word, overwhelming. So I went ahead and took the liberty of reducing some of the columns, and I think Scott has already handed out a smaller version that makes it a whole lot easier to read and follow. So that's the one we're going to be using in order to work through the item number two. Number three was the item that CM Hansen requested, separate from the facilities that we own, and that was primarily in regard to the parcels, and that was provided. There are four sets of documents under the heading under number three. One is the list of all the parcels that LFECG owns and maintains. And then toward the end of the packet, you will see a sheet identifying the parcels which have already been surplused and sold and taken off the inventory. The next one identifies the one that we're currently considering for surplus, and we're going through the contacting other departments and divisions, making sure that there are no problems with going ahead and moving forward with surplus in those. And the last sheet shows you what is it that we have on our radar for the next six months to a year to surplus. And number four was an item that CM Stenet asked for. He just wanted to kind of get an updated sheet from us in regard to the current tenants that are paying leases as of January 2011. The lease agreement, you have in your packet a copy of what we're proposing to be an attachment to the proposed ordinance to be utilized. We feel like this is probably the best way we can streamline a very important part of the process. That way everybody's familiar with all the different terms and so forth. And there were a couple of items that were brought up to our attention, and we were requested to look into it further. Obviously, one that seems to be probably, in my opinion, most urgent is a subleasing of the facilities and the buildings that are leased to primary partner agencies, that item has been identified in page 4, item 17, which prohibits any and all current and future partner agencies into getting into any kind of sublisting agreements with anyone else. The other one was an item that CM Stent brought up, which I found was a pretty good item, was trying to have these leases cycle when their effective date would be as of July 1st. That doesn't mean the term of the lease because, as I mentioned before, primarily we're looking at leases about three years and then two additional years. So when you're looking at the length of the lease, we're still looking at maximum five years, but I think the idea was trying to make sure that these leases, actually not all of them would be terminating or being in place at the same time, but also they're going to start at the same time as our budget cycle, fiscal year. The next list that you see is the one that I was telling you about. It should be a handout with a yellow heading on it. That is the most recent list that we got. There is a total of four pages identifying, as I mentioned, the first column to the left is pretty much an item number. It makes it easier if you all want to refer to a specific lease or partner agency for you all to use as a reference. Next one, we put in which district the facility in question is at. Next one, obviously, is the address, name of the building, and so forth. occupant names and then the score footage that's currently on the lease. Then what we've got under the revenue heading, pretty much on the first column of it, it'll show you what it is that, if any, the occupants are providing to the city in terms of leases or paying part of the facility upkeep or utilities. And what you're looking at on the third column, under total LFUCG annual revenue, it's the net between what it is that they pay and what it is that we are paying. So that shows you what it is that net expenses are. We were asked to provide some additional information in regard to some partner agencies that are provided leases free of charge, and we were asked to provide data of what we think that lease will be worth out there based on the fair market value. So pretty much what we looked at based on the type of the property, its location, its usage, its classification, and we were able to identify what that facility would have cost that partner agency if they just wanted to go out there to a non-LFECG facility and what they would be paying. Also part of the data, what we provided to you all was what has been approved and ratified for the current fiscal year in terms of actual financing to each of these partner agencies. And then what you see on the last column, it shows you the net, which is what it is that we actually are providing in terms of finances plus any kind of lease subsidies, be it fully subsidized or partially subsidized. So that will give you all an idea of what total packages cost to each of the partner agencies. The last column, obviously, we've got some comments about clarifications and some of the terms of the leases and so forth. As I said, there's a lot of information in here. We took out some of the columns which really didn't directly relate to these specific items to make it easier for you all to read. If you all want me to, I can continue. If you have any questions at this point about this specific form, I would be glad to answer. Thank you, report. I think what would be a good approach, there's a lot of information here to review, is maybe you could go back to the beginning of your presentation, and we will then let the council members ask questions on an issue-by-issue item on your list. I've got one more slide, and then I'd be glad to answer your questions. The next one, as I mentioned at the first slide, it's primarily just a database providing you a list of all the parcels that we own, we sold, We're in the process of selling and also the ones that we are looking for the next six months to a year to bring to you to declare surplus and initiate the work of getting them off of our inventory. And the last one is a sheet that you have in your packet which identifies the payments received for the tenants that we receive lease on a regular basis, be it quarterly or monthly or in very few cases annually. And it will show you during the dates starting with January 2011 what has been received, what might be overdue, and so just give you a snapshot of what we've got there. I've got one more slide, but that's primarily in regard to the deferred maintenance items. If you wish to just keep that separate and just go over this specific, any information for the proposed ordinance, I'd be glad to answer that. you said you have one more slide or that's that's in regard to the deferred maintenance items which is separate from uh this topic would you like for me to just bring that up no that'd be fine i guess we could do that one later can we go back then to the beginning and then we'll open for questions Sure. And you did submit a lot of information, so. As I said, a lot of numbers in there, so. Okay, the first item is the, I guess, the lease agreement, and perhaps it might be appropriate to ask Mr. Sander to come up and speak to that. Sure. And maybe to the ordinance that sort of ties in with that and the general operating procedure. As a matter of fact, since I understand the lease and the standard operating procedures would be an attachment to the ordinance, maybe we should speak to the ordinance first and then go to the lease second, if that would be all right with you all. Okay. Is that okay? Sure. All right, sir. If any council member has a question on the ordinance, this would be a good time to go over that at this time. And Mr. Santer, if you don't have an immediate question, he could maybe go into more detail about what the agreement or the ordinance says. Do we want to go over your changes that we discussed before the meeting, too? Yes, sir. That would be another possibility. I did review this. I made a couple of suggested changes, which if you'd like to, maybe if there's not a direct question, maybe you could go over a couple of those suggested modifications. Okay. In Section 1, that's where the Urban County Council is going to improve the policies and procedures that General Services has drafted, and those will be incorporated by reference to the ordinance. and also as part of the policies and procedures, the standardized lease agreement will be part of the policies and procedures will also be attached as an exhibit to the ordinance. And then Council Member Lane, we discussed and we added the following sentence to the end of Section 1. Any changes to the policies and procedures shall be approved by Council. Does anybody want to speak to that? Okay, I guess that's good. I'm sorry, Tom. I had you covered up here. Mr. Blues. Thank you, Chair. Actually, I just wanted to ask a question about Section 4. Did you want to have Mike go through the ordinance? He went through step by step. Yes, sir. I think he's going to go through line by line. that's a good question too section two is my understanding for the minutes of the last meeting is the urban county council wanted to review and approve all leases including the rental amounts and sub leases that general services rents out council member lane and i talked and he wanted to add the following the urban county council shall review and approve all leases, including runable amounts, pass-through operating expenses, length of the lease, and sub-leases? My reason for asking that is that way we would have information about the complete lease, and the length of the lease could vary substantially depending on the needs of the tenant. There might be a tenant that would only want to be in there for a year because they're moving into another space they use as an interim office location or there might be somebody that would want a longer term lease and because we might have to spend money or they may have to spend money in order to amortize the cost over a longer period of time might be appropriate but that would leave the decision on how long the lease would be to the council and i you know i'm shorter of the lease as far as i'm concerned it's better but there might be some circumstances where a little longer lease would be required. But I don't think we want to do any 99-year leases that were done in the past. I think those are a bad policy. Does anybody have a question on that aspect? Okay, I have Mr. Martin. Thank you, Chair. How does this relate to some of the city's obligations to provide space? For example, I understand we provide space to the PVA. I believe we talked, and that's by statute or ordinance we provide them. I think you all wanted, from my understanding, anybody who is using LFUCG space was to sign a lease. That's how you all wanted it. I think that the idea here was that if we were receiving less money than market rent, we would then declare that as a benefit to them in that regard, but at least we would have some type of a control on what that is. I mean, I agree with that, and I was certainly in my position at the last meeting. I just want to make sure that we were coordinating some of our statutory obligations with the contracts that we enter into and the rent we set. So would we then have a rent rate in, for example, the PVA lease and then just grant them that money every year? I believe in your last meeting minutes you all discussed the rent, and some of the agencies, part of the rent is paid for by grants. And I believe you all discussed that that would go through the budget process, and Council Member Lane and I thought that that probably shouldn't be in this ordinance, but the grant process, their payment of rent would go through the budget process. So do we own the county clerk building? Yes. So we lease it to the county clerk, Mr. Bluthers? We lease it to them to pay for the utilities. We do the maintenance. Okay, and how much rent do they pay? There's no rent. No rent. So we had to figure out some sort of a, so under this mechanism, we would charge them some sort of market rate of rent and then grant them that as a budgetary. So I was just sort of looking around the edges, the logistics of it. I mean, I agree that's the way we should go. I just don't know all the specifics about how we handle particularly statutory obligations. Yeah, this would enable the city to actually look at and see, as I mentioned in the presentation a couple of months ago, what is the value of any kind of subsidies that's being provided, be it by legislation or be it because of the partner agency or the type of the services being provided. But at least put a value on it. We know internally what it is being. I agree. I think that's the way to go. I thought at the last minute I was thinking in terms of partner agencies and nonprofits and things like that, but I hadn't really thought through the statutory agencies like the PVA and the county clerk, and I guess some others as well. Thank you. Thanks for bringing this forward. Thank you, Chair. Okay. We're going back to Council Member Blues, who got bumped off here. Thank you. My question has to do with the mechanism for setting these lease rates. If we initially charge everybody at market rate, but we have grants for reduced rates, wouldn't that have to be budgeted in advance and calculated into every fiscal year budget? What we're proposing, as a matter of fact, is not to assess each of these groups a fair market value. What the current rate structure calls for, $4 for the first year, $6 for the second, irregardless of the market value, and $8 for the third year. And how that number came about was actually the eight represents an average over all the facilities we've got. What is costing the LFECG in terms of maintenance, utilities, janitorial services, security services, and so forth. So the idea is not to charge these partner agencies. The fair market value was primarily for the city to break even and what has been actually the cost burden on them. I understand that, but what I don't understand, and at least for me needs some clarification, is we'd be saying by ordinance that the rental rate would be set at fair market value. then there's some mechanism to reduce that rate for particular entities. And my question is whether that would have to be done during the budgeting process, whether we'd have to budget for those grants, those reductions, and whether that does not become a fairly complicated and iffy process. Each of the current tenants who are receiving partial or full assistance with the lease will be receiving within the next couple of months what they can anticipate the cost of the lease for the organization be in terms of the $4, $6, and $8 starting with fiscal year 2013 and so forth. So they will have a pretty good idea of should they decide to stay at the exact same location, occupy the same square footage, what they can anticipate to pay for that space. Then we expect them for that additional expense to be part of their budgeting process and budgeting request speed if they're coming to the city for additional or they have to shift some funds from grants that's being received from federal or any other sources. But I still have some concerns about how the process works for the government, for the council. Am I right or am I incorrect that on a fiscal year basis we'd have to budget in these different rate reductions? Not the reductions. What you're going to budget for, for example, let's say Agency X, it's occupying 1,000 square foot of our facility at no cost. let's say the assessed value of the lease based on the $4, $6, and $8 for the first year come up to $4,000 for the first year. They have to have part of their budget request identify that item specifically in their budget request saying lease $4,000. So what happened here is Citi is actually not actually dishing out the $4,000 additional dollars, but that is earmarked and put back into an account to cover those expenses. That's what we get into. Okay, I understand that part, but it does seem to me that then we've got to prepare for all of these various levels in advance. Perhaps we'll come back to this later. My time's up. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Council Member Beluse. I'd like to just add just a thought to that and then go to Vice Mayor Gordon. We would have a six-month period to budget this because we're going to give notice as of January 1 and for fiscal year 13, which means the budget for that organization would be worked out over a six-month period. Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have sort of a follow-on to Councilmember Blue's concerns, but in a little bit different way. If I understand what you said, there will be notification within the next, did you say the next few weeks? A couple of months, yeah. A couple of months, like eight weeks, to all the agencies. As this proposal has been moving forward, has there been discussion about how asking the partner agencies, particularly the ones who provide human services, how asking for rent will impact the actual service level they can provide for us? Absolutely. That's why part of the process calls for, for example, I use the Department of Social Services, which is the largest number of tenants, just because of nature of what they do with community services. they would identify if there is a reason for them to increase the support. So that does not mean that every agency is going to have to pay the amount. It would be up to every department who is, lack of a better word, sponsoring these different entities who provide the service to the community. But I think it's going to provide them with a tool to know what it is, what is the cost of the subsidies that we're providing. And then we're going to decide based on that and extend to the services provided to what extent we want to provide that subsidy. When would an agency know that? I mean, back to Council Member Blue's question, I think this sounds like a more complicated process for finding the end answer so that the agencies can be budgeting or know they don't have to budget. They don't have to budget. It would not impact the agencies at all. I mean, if they're being asked to pay rent. The agencies, oh, you're talking about the partner agencies. I'm talking about the partner agencies. Okay, if I'm a partner agency and now I have to budget rent, so I'm going to look at what services I'm going to cut in order to pay rent. That's kind of my question is when will they know that and how would we have input to say we don't want you to cut your services? By the end of this year, they would receive a detailed analysis of their space, what they occupy, and that's a combination of two numbers. One is actually the area they occupy and the other area what we call CAM area, which is everything we do pretty much in line with BOMA and FMA. There's national guidelines that just about everybody uses, irreguless if it's a government agency or private. By the end of this year, they will receive a full report letting them know what it is they're occupying, what is the rate, which is the first year would be $4 per square foot as long as they are a current tenant under a valid lease. And that will give them an idea of what they can anticipate the additional cost would be. They can at that point identify ways to either absorb that, some of it probably would be by adjusting the level of services, or have an additional request when they send in their budget request to the city or to a grants agency to say, okay, our expenses have grown by X dollar amount and this is why. So give them six months and a tooth by which they can look at different alternatives and different options. Has this committee had a full discussion of whether we're willing to cut those kinds of human services in order to bring in rent? Has that discussion occurred? because it sounds like the, I mean, if I heard you correctly, I think you said they will be given information and then they'll have to figure out whether they can pay it or whether they have to cut services or ask for grants. And in the process, I guess they may not get grants. So in essence, we would collect rent, but we may be decreasing our services to the community. Is that correct? That might be one of the cases, yes. Okay. Now, my second question in the last 30 seconds about number two is, what do you anticipate as a review by the council? Is that simply all the leases coming before the committee and passing them on? That's pretty much a reaffirmation of what we're doing right now anyway. All the leases come to you all irregardless for your approval. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. If I could kind of weigh in on a little bit of this. First, I'd like to start. Jamshed, when you talked earlier about the leases, and the Chair, I think, said that we didn't want to do the 99-year leases. I agree with that. The shorter the lease, the better. I think it's important for people to understand that in some cases we have those kind of leases in place. I know back when we were looking at this in partner agencies, we had a discussion that in the event that the building's life expectancy is 40 years and we have a 99-year lease signed with someone, there are cases where when that building is no longer functional, we still, because of our 99-year lease, have to provide space to that entity someplace. And at that point in time, they may move to another building that's much more expensive for us to provide that free space in. But because of that 99-year lease, we're obligated to do so. So I think that's really important why, one of the reasons why we're changing this. If I can move now to the conversation that different committee members have had, I think part of the concern is when we talk about the agency's perspective on what they'll do when they get the letter, I think the council needs to understand, and correct me if I'm incorrect, that the process, once it comes to us, we still will be able to determine if an agency is going to get 100% assistance or subsidized rent or 80%, 75%, whatever that is. What we're really trying to do here is two things. One, account for what we're providing people so that on our books we understand, as a government and as a community, what we're actually providing people. because a lot of times people come in and they say, well, that partner agency funding was cut 10% this year, for example. But a lot of people don't understand that a whole lot of those agencies are getting free rent from us or other in-kind services. So what we want to do is account for all those things on our books. But also, in social services committee, Council Member Stenet brought up an idea that when the partner agency funding is recommended, that that come through that committee, and I suppose that the partner agencies that fit under different committees, those could come through that appropriate committee. And that's where the council would weigh in and look at that application and determine if their rent is going to be $4,000 this year, do we want to fully subsidize that, do we want to partially subsidize that, et cetera. And so that's the opportunity for the council to weigh in on what that will look like at the end of the day. So I'm not sure if that clears up anything or if that makes it muddier for people, but I just wanted to put that out there. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, as you mentioned, Council has the full final say-so on this matter. Council Member Kaye. Thank you, Chair. I may have missed this, but along with everybody else over here, I have a little bit of confusion about how this would actually work. In Section 4, it says the property should be set at fair market value, and yet you're talking about a formula that does not relate to fair market. The reason the language was put in there is because not all of our tenants partner agencies. We've got some commercial properties that we lease on a regular basis at fair market value. So rather than splitting and getting two different ordinances for the same thing, that's where the language was put in. As I mentioned again, the actual rate would be part of the policy and would be adjusted as we move forward. We're going to go ahead and look back every year at what the costs of the utilities, upkeep, and so forth were. and if we have overestimated the rate, the adjustments will be made for the next year and so forth for the specific partner agencies whose reduction in fee has been approved by the council. What the council will receive will be two numbers, as a matter of fact. One is what is the value of the subsidies that we are providing, and that would be based on fair market value because if they wanted to go somewhere else and occupy an office building, this is what they would have paid. The other one would be what we're actually asking the partner agencies to contribute to offset the cost of maintaining and operating these buildings. So there are two sets of data there, and one is, again, to give you all an idea of what is a total amount that is being subsidized, because irregardless who's going to occupy these facilities, You still got a cost of your CIP, you got a cost of your regular maintenance, you got a cost of repairs, you got a cost of utilities, you got a cost of janitorial services, securities. So the issue we got, for example, here with the budgets continuously being cut down without having the score footage being cut down, that is putting the city's specific general services at a bad situation where we are still expected to provide the same level of services without having not only no additional funding coming in, but also our current funding being cut. So somebody's going to pay for this. But regardless of that, we need to be aware of what are these subsidies, what are these agreements actually costing the city as a whole. So it would really be helpful to me if we could take a specific set of numbers and walk it through. Sure. If we look on the back of the sheet. I'll go to the front of the sheet. If you take the first one, it's the Fayette County Bar Association Pro Bono Program. That is an organization that has not had a valid lease with us for a long time. Go ahead. Okay, so what I really want to know is if the fair market value is $24,992 under the formula, what would this organization be asked to pay? This organization would be asked to pay exactly that amount because that area, the area that they're occupying, is a retail area, which its value is much higher. We felt like for them to occupy an area that could generate a whole lot more funding to the city, it would be unfair to let them be in there. I mean, we can provide facilities in other areas that we've got for the $4, $8, and $6. Okay, let me do it. So that's a little bit of it. Go down to Castlewood Park, Loudoun House Art League. Yes. Fair market value, $121,000. Yes. And change. what would their cost be? Their cost, since they're already under a lease with us, would start at $4 a square foot for July 1st of next year. So their square footage is rounded out 14,000 square feet, so that's... $40,000. $56,000, $57,000 roughly. They're now paying $12,000. Is that right? Yes. Okay. Right. So they would go from 12 to 56. Yes. And how would that be accounted for in the system that we now use? The budgeting system? It would just show that. It would show they pay 12, they should be paying 56. We're subsidizing them. It will show a loss, yes. The difference between what they should pay, which is primarily operational expenses, versus what they're paying would be considered a loss to the city. Okay. And I guess I'm out of time, but I think we need a mechanism for review of that whole set of numbers, which we don't have. Thank you. Sure. Mr. Martin. Thank you, Chair. You know, I think this is just an attempt to modernize our accounting system. And those of us in the business world sort of understand this type of accounting, any corporation out there would have to account for it this way. If they gave free rent to somebody else from an accounting standpoint, the way you report it to the IRS, it's simply reported as charging them fair market value for something and then giving them the money to pay for it. So I think that's a fair way to review that. And so I think this is really not a – giving the council the ability to review and supervise these leases is not the same thing as cutting services, because we are the ones who are going to be just simply put in a loop. Right now we sort of have a mishmash of side deals and unsure deals and a more loose way of operating with our tenant services. And so I don't really see this as a cut in services. That's up to us. I mean, just what it does, it puts the council in the loop on approving these contracts, because a lot of these things are just sort of done as side deals. Is that fair? Absolutely. As I mentioned in the very first meeting we had, this bring back accountability to the whole process. Irregardless of what organization you are, for-profit, non-for-profit, what have you, go through the same process and you will be assessed. And then as we mentioned before, this council has a full right to review all the data and make the final decision. But as I mentioned, we can't change the fact that if a facility is going to cost you $8 a square foot, it's not going to cost you that much because you're giving it away for free. So we need to know where that $8 per square foot is going to come from. So I don't agree with the characterization from a tax and accounting standpoint that giving an agency free rent is the same as cutting their services. I didn't say that correctly, I don't think, but that putting us in a role of supervising and accounting for the grants that essentially we make by allowing someone to be in the facilities is really the same thing as cutting their services. And so I think it's just a way to modernize our accounting, to include the transactions on our books, and to show the transactions from the way the IRS would view them, which is that we're charging someone for a facility, but then we're giving them the grant to pay that charge. And so that is sort of a true cost of that facility because there is a fair value to that. And to the extent we charge them less than that fair value, we're essentially giving them a grant from the IRS standpoint. And I think we have the authority to decide whether or not we're going to give someone basically the free rent on something. And so I think that's up to the council to do, allow us to know who's in our facilities and to have a more close relationship with these organizations. I support our helping our partner agencies survive and have the ability to, I guess in some ways we subsidize them through this. And so I support that. But I also support modernizing our accounting practices because I think that there are a lot of things in Lexington that are sort of kept in the bottom drawer of the file cabinet. And this sort of gets it out of the bottom drawer and gets it on our books and allows us to measure it and to count and to see how our costs change over time. And I think that's good for government to do. I think that's good government. So thank you, Chair. Mr. McCord. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, John Sheet, for bringing this forward. Just a little bit of background as to how we got here. A number of years ago, Council Member Myers, in the original partner agency committee, said we've got a lot of folks in a lot of places, and we don't have any really idea what their rent is and how these leases are about and where is that documentation. Council Member Stenet also during that same time frame began to point out, and I think that we missed this a whole lot during the budget process because things are moving so fast, is that, yes, we fund partner agencies with a certain amount of money, but there's also CDBG money that goes to those folks. There's also rent or free rent in a lot of cases. And so what this is, in my opinion, and I wanted to say thank you all for starting to corral this information in, is so that the council has a full understanding of what it is that we actually give to a partner agency. Because a lot of times folks will stand at that mic and say, you know, you're cutting us and it's not quite fair and this and that and the other. And then we're up here going, yeah, we see that, but we didn't quite realize that they also are getting CDBG money that is decided on by folks in this government. They also have free rent. And I really like the example that you used with Council Member Kay in that as we start to look at where we have certain folks placed, what we've got is an opportunity to maybe move folks to a facility that is equal in service for them, equal in appearance and functionality, but also something that doesn't take up retail rent, and we could use that in another way. So, again, I know, John Sheet, it's a very difficult jigsaw puzzle to start to put together, but I really appreciate where we are in this. And I would just say to the council, for my sake, it starts to help give us a clearer picture of what it is we are actually doing for these folks and what we can do more for them. So, again, thank you. This may not be quite the final version of it, but it's certainly getting to where we want to go. And I think Council Member Myers would agree that a few years ago this is something that we were kind of longing for. And I really appreciate you guys' all the hard work on this. Thank you. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Chairman Lane. And thank you, John Fasheed. My initial thought of the ordinance is it appears that a lot of work has gone into doing just what Council Member McCord just mentioned as a need of government is to get our hands around an inventory of our property and who's in our properties and for what uses they occupy the space. However, my initial concern with the ordinance is that it paints with too broad of a brush, and it lumps all the categories of our real estate holdings into the same category. I know that on your spreadsheet you've identified commercial space, but I think we also have to realize that that, in my opinion, represents a small percentage of all the real estate that we own. Most of the real estate that we own I consider to be institutional. such as this building, such as the annex across the street where the county clerk's office is, and then also our neighborhood centers, such as the Black and Williams Center and Carver Center and the Loudoun House. And so if there were a way for us to pay greater attention and distinguish the different types of property that we have, I think it may be best for us to do that as opposed to have one ordinance that lumps all of our real estate in one category. To the issue of the impacts that such a policy would have, particularly I'm concerned with Section 4 that talks about the fair market rent for several reasons. I personally don't believe that there is a fair market demand, perhaps in relation to rents, on many other facilities that this would impact, particularly our neighborhood centers and our institutional spaces. The folks that are there are ideally situated there in many cases. It will have an impact. I think the committee and the council has to recognize that such policy will have an impact on some of our human services and social services attendance. The example that Council Member Kay mentioned with Castlewood Park's strike, I mean, it hits home for me. So I'm looking at the spreadsheet. It says Castlewood Park, and just to use the Lexington Art League, not to call them out, but to use them as an example. on row 6. They currently pay $12,000 in rent. And per your calculation, that rent would escalate up to $56,000 come July 1. But they receive no other direct funding from LFUCG. And so my understanding of a partner agency, and council members can correct me if I'm wrong, We define partner agencies as those that receive direct cash contributions from this government during the budget allocation time. But in that regards, if that is true, the art league that is housed at Castlewood Park at the Loudoun House is not a true partner agency. And while I cannot speak for their financial housing, it would seem to me very difficult to budget an increase of almost three times from $12,000 up to $50,000 plus. That's an economic hardship that I think that we're going to be placing on many of the occupants of our facilities. So in closing, I would ask that we revise the ordinance to look at commercial, institutional, community centers. And then also, I'm not comfortable with the fair market. I think it's going to provide an undue impact initially on our occupants, and I also think it very likely will require many of those agencies to cut their services to pay government rents. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Ford. I wanted to speak to the issue now. I think that we have to look at this process as a way to appropriately allocate the expenditures of the government to the operating centers that are receiving the benefit of that income or funding. and if we're paying the rent, we're paying the maintenance, we're paying the janitorial service, we're doing repairs, we're managing the property, and we're just not accounting for that, then it just runs up a big tab in our general services department. We don't know where that money is really going. And then if the utility costs go up for water, sewer, electric, that is just run into the budget. We don't know where those costs are. If you actually had a water leak at one of the properties and we don't have an individual bill to determine, is there a water leak? We don't even know whether there's a leak or not. I have in the past visited a lot of the buildings that we own and manage, and these are some of the issues that we have. I've seen spaces that maybe were 2,000 or 3,000 square feet, and there were only two people, two desks in that space. Well, if you're getting it for free and you don't have to pay any expenses whatsoever, then why don't you keep 2,000 to 3,000 square feet of space for two people when you really don't need it? And so one of the benefits of allocating the cost, knowing what the costs are, passing through some operating expenses will then require the users of the space to be more efficient in how they use that space, how they operate it, how they heat the space, if we're paying the utilities on that. So from two points, I think having an analysis of the space and what it's actually costing, asking some of the tenants to pay a share of it or all of that cost will make them think about, do I need all the space? Is this the best location for me? But when you're not having to pay anything, then what difference does it make? Another issue is that some of the tenants move into one space, and then there's a vacant space next door. They just move into the space next door, and they start squatters' rights on a space in there, and we don't even have control over that. That's another management issue that goes back for a number of years in the way we've managed our real estate. A third issue is that one entity has a lease on the space, And then they let other people move into the space without any sublease or any agreement. And that creates a lot of legal liability. Let me just make up an example. Let's suppose some youth organization had a space where young people came in after school or something, and then they entered into an agreement verbally with some group to go in there, and maybe some bad person was in that group. and we don't even know who the subtenant is, what they're doing in there or anything, yet we're going to be legally liable if something went wrong because we failed to properly manage that space. So, you know, I feel like this is a very serious matter, and the cost to the government, what is the total square foot adjustment you have there, Mr. Robb Chief? The total score footage that's currently being occupied is 381, almost 300. I'm talking about the total score footage we have for all real estate. Probably about two. I need to get an exact number for you. What we provided here was the total score footage that the partner agencies are occupying right now, Okay. What is the partner agency number? $342,000. All right, $343,000. Probably the operating costs of that are somewhere in the range of $6 a square foot. So we're looking at, now this is just operating expenses. It's not really rent. This is to pay for maintenance, repairs, heating, insurance, janitorial, management, those costs. So you're looking at several million dollars there alone, not even including rent. And if you consider all the buildings that we have, and that is another problem we have in our real estate, is that each building should have its expenses directly allocated to it and not just lumped into a big number, because you cannot officially operate a property if you don't know what the operating costs are. So I'm just throwing a few ideas out here. I know this sounds sort of radical, but this is a serious problem for the government, and we're talking about millions and millions of dollars in expenses that are really not being properly allocated or accounted for. All right, after that, I believe Mr. McCord is back up again. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just very quickly, John Shee, Council Member Ford had brought up a question in, for example, the Loudoun House situation. Does this ordinance, it doesn't seem like to me that we're doing anything other than just assessing this is the loss we're taking. It's not that we're asking them to pay that rent. Are we asking them to pay that rent? We're making two types of assessment with this. One is when I use the term fair market value, that does not mean if I've got somebody waiting for my properties, but if these agencies will go to a private area and want to rent native, what it's going to cost. The next one is actually what we'll be providing is what is operational cost to us. So those are the two numbers that you're looking at. Okay. And I think the point is that we may want to subsidize that $40,000-some. That's a real call. All we're trying to do with this is to say this is what the real cost is based upon a real number. And, yeah, if we jumped $40,000-some, that's a huge financial hardship. But at the same time, I think what I've said before from this mic is that folks in our partner agencies and folks inside this government need to realize this is not our money. This is the taxpayer money that we steward in the best way possible. And when we pay maintenance and capital improvement on buildings and so forth, it's taxpayer money that's doing that. And for us to rein that in and have this is really important. And something I failed to mention, and I want to make a comment, and this is why this is so important, is because if we don't do this, then future councils are kind of walking around in the dark, like we were seven years ago when we walked in. This is being designed for future council members that are going to occupy our seats and future administrations so that they will have an actual idea of what this stuff costs. It's not really about us and next year and July 1. It is really trying to rein these numbers in and have a way to educate folks who are coming in cold because this is just something very, very important. I think Council Member Martin said it well, is to take something that's kind of antiquated and to modernize it. So, again, I want to thank you for that. Council Member Ford? Excuse me, Mr. Ford. Mr. Myers is next. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to kind of add to some of the things that have been said. And, Jamsi, do you have a dollar amount for deferred maintenance that we have? Well, we've got a dollar amount that we updated and would be a slide that's going to come up, and you all should have a cup in your packet, identifying the deferred maintenance projects for the downtown campus, which is roughly about $25 million plus. Okay. That's what we're looking at. Okay. Thank you. So part of what this does is, as we've all been saying, the council will at the end of the day determine whether or not we're going to subsidize fully or partially or nothing at all the space that each one of these occupants will occupy. Another part of the reason why we need to do this is because currently, we talked earlier about the 99-year leases and the fact that we're on the hook for providing space for certain entities well into the future. What we don't have is a plan to maintain those buildings that they're in. We're paying for capital improvements. We're paying for utilities. We're paying for maintenance. We're paying for lawn care. I mean, all those things, these folks are just sitting in some of these properties for free. And so at some point, the government's not going to be able to continue to do that with the age of our buildings, and they continue to age, and they're not getting any deferred maintenance. So part of this is going to be that those agencies, once we get a handle on what we're giving away, We can juxtapose that with what it's costing the government and the taxpayer to give that away. And then at some point we can use that data to analyze what, if anything, we need to start recouping from these agencies, if for no other reason, so that when the roof goes bad on that facility in which they're in, we have the money to replace it. Right now we've got some situations where if some of these HVAC systems go down, we're in an emergency crisis and probably going to have to shut those buildings down because we simply don't have the money to make those repairs. So at that point, those entities that are occupying that space are just going to have to be out because we don't have the money to fix those buildings. What we're trying to get to is a proper accounting of what we have, what it costs to maintain those things, what needs to be done to keep those buildings functional, what we're giving away, and then a plan to start to pull some of that money in so that we can fix these buildings in a proactive way instead of waiting for those emergencies to happen. And then we can't provide those services because the facility is no longer inhabitable. So I encourage everybody to look at this, and when we get to the final product, go ahead and move this forward. Thank you. Mr. Ford. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I'll be brief. If it's been discussion here in the committee today that the council may, if this ordinance were to pass, the council may consider subsidizing parts of the to-be-determined fair market value rents that some of our occupants for the space that they're in. And that's promising. That is promising. It would do very well for those agencies or those occupants not to have that sticker shock or that undue financial hardship. But my understanding is that we have not come to that term just yet. And if we want to discuss that and consider that, I think it's a worthy topic to discuss. But as I read the proposal on this now, Section 4 says that the tenants and occupants shall pay the fair market rent. That's what it says. it doesn't give any mention to what the government may or may not do to help them do that. It says that you will pay that fair market rent. So I think we need to have that conversation. And, Attorney, did you? You can change the shout. Well, it says, first of all, it's at the end of three years, so they've got a three-year window to work the kinks out of this before the fair market values charge. It's not like they're going to get charged at the fair market value in June of 2012. It will be June of 2015. So there's a three-year period before the fair market value rate is set. And if you want to just change the ordinance, you can say at the end of three years from the effective date of this ordinance, the charged rental amount for the Lexington Fair and County government's facilities shall be set at fair market value. That means you're telling them you're charging them the fair market value in three years, and how you allocate that charge is up to you. Thank you, Attorney, for that. The point out that I wish to make is I think that as a matter of process on council, it would be helpful for us to have that discussion of how we want to allocate that charge and how we wish to work this policy. also I do want to go on record in saying that I recognize the problems of having these long term leases having 99 year leases for buildings that I understand all that and so my issue on that would be is to correct it and again I still think the disordination is too broad of a brush and what we're doing as a committee is kind of combing through it And so we ought not to enter into such agreements again. One thing that I would say is that perhaps some of those agreements were done. The longevity was an attempt to demonstrate and emphasize the importance or the value of the service provided by the occupants there. As we sit here right now, it still doesn't justify a 99-year lease. But I say all that to say is that we talk about free rent, no-cost rent. I would hope that every occupant of our building is providing some community service. And perhaps the committee also needs to delve more into the value of that service that they are providing to us. That's just my thoughts. particularly in the institutional facilities we own and the community service facilities that we own. Now, if we wanted to say Section 4, you pay fair market for our commercial properties, I'm okay with that. I really have no problem with that. If you're on Broadway in our retail district, I have no problem with Section 4 of this proposal and it's addressing that. My heartburn lies with the impact that it's going to have on the institution and the community. Thank you again, Mr. Chair. Thank you, John Sheehy. Thank you, Mr. Ford. I'd just like to add one little comment on that. I believe it said that the rental amount shall be set at fair market value. There's a difference between being set at fair market value and being charged at fair market value, and the fact that these leases and there will be recommendations from divisions of government for the use of this property and whether we should underwrite it or not, we'll have a lot of input on each lease before it comes before Council for approval. So I feel like there is a check and balance here and that each agency would have a due opportunity to show what the services it's providing and ask for a maximum grant from the Urban County government. Mr. Sander, I think you might want to say something. I saw you step up. No, I just thought you would want to. Okay. Do you want to comment on that? Yes. Section 4 doesn't provide that they have to pay the fair market value. who just says the rent shall be set at fair market value, how they pay it will be determined by the council through your grant process and budget process. Thank you. Council Member Kaye, I believe you're up next. Thank you, Chair. I think there's two things going on that may be contributing to the confusion. and in my mind one of them is getting a clear understanding of what people now pay for the facilities that they're in, and that's the data that you've provided. And that allows us to understand what we've been subsidizing. Essentially, we've been providing support. It hasn't been a part of the budget. It's been hidden. So part of what the interest has been is surfacing that. And I think this data provides a good starting place. But I would separate that out from the question of what we then charge people. So actually, I had raised the question about Section 4 initially. In my mind, we could do that immediately. That is, set the rate, fair market value. And then what we would do is we would have to look at each individual lessee and say, how much do we want to subsidize that rent? And it may be initially we want to do it all because we don't want to impose a quick burden. But eventually what we would get to is a clear understanding of what the fair market value is, regardless of the nature of the building or the tenancy. We would then make a determination. How much do we want to subsidize that? And then it would be clear and we would be making that decision in a transparent way. So that's where I would go with it. I would say let's set the rate, let's get the data, set the rate, and then our charge becomes looking at each individual case and making a determination about the appropriate subsidy. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Kaye. Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Council Member Kaye has articulated, I think, a very good approach. I think this whole discussion has been really helpful for, I know for me and maybe for others, but in the process, I don't want us to forget that the reason, one of the reasons we have provided free rent is because as a government, we believe certain human services are providing a safety net, a final safety net for people who are in need. So I think that's been highlighted through the discussion, is that that's one reason we've been doing this. Now, the beauty of this whole thing is we're going to get a handle on the facts and the data, and that's a very good thing for us to be able to see what we are providing. So I would put a big ditto under Council Member Kay's approach because we can very shortly determine what the market rate is on all of these, I would presume, and then start looking at what's a commercial. There are several businesses in here that are for profit. And then there are several entities that are not-for-profit, and they're kind of squeaking by providing that human service that's necessary. So the discussion's been very helpful to highlight the fact that we need to look at a few different pieces of this. And so I will be very supportive of Council Member Kaye's idea to go right now toward compiling that list of fair market value, and then we can make the other determinations. So thank you very much. Okay. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Mr. Myers? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Jamsi, it seems to me that this is what Councilman McKay talked about is in fact a process that we've already presented. There's the ordinance that does that piece of it, and there's the policy that helps us determine, helps the administration determine which category under which the specific agency falls. And if people go back to that policy that we had and that whole flow chart of how it worked through that policy, That's the information then that the council would receive to help us determine, along with the administration's recommendation, whether or not we completely subsidize or partially subsidize or not at all. So I like what Council Member Kaye said, but that's exactly what we have proposed, is that we have the ordinance that does one piece of that, and then we have the policy that does the other piece. And I agree with the vice mayor that one of the reasons that we've provided free rent is because this community and this government have determined that there are certain services and certain safety nets that have to be provided for. What we don't want to get lost in that mix, though, is that in the effort to provide that on a continuing basis without interrupted service in a way that we can move on into the future and continue to do, we will also have to account for taking care of those facilities. And so there has to be a piece of this so that in the end we have capital maintenance money so that when the roof goes out or the HVAC system goes out, we're not in an emergency crisis and having to relocate people that we can continue to provide uninterrupted service. So again, if we look at the two aspects of this, the ordinance and the policy, we are doing exactly what Council Member Kay proposed. So thank you very much for the rest of your discussion. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman, I'd like the way this conversation is going. What I would like to have a firmer grip on is what the process would be in evaluating the agency's contribution to our social services interests. how we would go about setting the rental rate. Who would be doing this? What would the criteria be? Would the administration be doing this and bringing it to the council for approval, or would council members actually be crucially involved in this process? Council Member Martin suggested an additional section to help clear some of the things up. I think he's shown it to a few of you, and he wanted me to read it. It will say, the Urban County Council shall consider grants and subsidies for tenants of facilities owned by LFUCG as part of the Council's annual budgeting process. Could I interject? So what does that mean? Does that mean that individual links would make recommendations on particular partner agencies? Would each link be bound by the same criteria? Because if not, you would have five different links, five different standards. Okay. Okay. Council Member Blouse, could I maybe ask Council Member Myers to answer that? Because he's got a plan that he's, I don't know, do you have an ordinance ready for that yet where the directors would review and make recommendations about underwriting agencies' costs for rents and all that? We're getting there, but we're not quite there yet. But I think, when I spoke earlier, I think the best opportunity would be to, the administration The administration is going to take this data and make the first recommendation to us. And then from that recommendation, I think it should go through the committee, the standing committee under which a particular agency falls. Yes. So in this case, there's I think probably all but maybe environmental quality, there are partner agencies that fall underneath each one of these standing committees. And so it would go through that standing committee, the recommendation from the administration on how to proceed. The policy outlines the criteria for determining which category the agency might fall in. That would be the start, and that would be provided by the administration. It would go through committee and then come out of committee before the budget process starts. And so we'd all have the same criteria, and it would start with recommendation from the administration. Yes, sir. Continue. We'd all have the same criteria in terms of category of entity. Is that what you're saying? In other words, is this a commercial operation or is this a social service agency? We don't have in front of us the policy, but the policy was very clear on the criteria for which you establish where you would fall. fall. And so that's already, if adopted, that's already set. And so then you would get a recommendation as a committee from the administration based on that criteria. And then I guess at the end of the day, if the council decided that, and remember, the market rate doesn't set in for three years. So at the end of three years, if the council determined at that point in time that we still want to fully subsidize that agency's space, then the council has prerogative to do that. But at least it has a criteria that it used to get to that decision and a recommendation from the administration that is, because if you look at when Partner Agency Oversight Committee started looking at this issue, those 99-year leases, we've got leases all over the place that are written a number of different ways. It's just amazing some of the things that are out there. In some cases, there's no written documentation as to how that lease arose, you know, why it was entered into, what the purpose of it was, or any of those things. So I think even the fact that we have some of those leases that were put together in that fashion, the council and the administration need to take a look at whether or not just because they have that 99-year lease and we do want to have that safety net, is this still really something that should have that safety net and that free rent? So the policy, I think, is really clear on how we get to that point and the recommendation would come from the administration. based on objective criteria, which is something we've never had before. Well, thank you for that. I still, and I think it's probably unavoidable, the particular committee is still going to be making judgments about whether they meet any particular criterion. and that's something we need to be cognizant of, I think, in going forward with this. I think my take on that would be that the criteria is pretty clear. The committee may decide they want to do something different than the recommendation, but I think rather than them making a judgment on the criteria whether it was correct, they would probably more make a decision and a recommendation that, in spite of the criteria, we still want to do something different, if that makes sense. I think the criteria is clear. I don't think it's subjective. I think it's objective enough that it's clear why they're in that category, and that won't be disputable, probably. But at the end of the day, the council still has the prerogative to say, even though it fits in this category and we should do market rate on this, we still feel like that we want to do a 50% subsidy or 100% subsidy. And that kind of prerogative is with everything the council does. No matter what comes before us, we always have the prerogative to say, even with all the information we have, we still want to do something different. That recommendation then would have to be brought forward and the whole council make a decision on it. Right. And I think with that recommendation, the committee would be able to say, here's where the administration placed it because of the objective criteria, but we still, for these reasons, recommend that we do something different. And then based on those reasons, then the full council would be informed and then take a vote. And I think that's a good thing because there's extenuating circumstances. I know that when we started this process also, Council Member McCord, after Katrina hit, one of the things we started doing because we didn't have a policy in place was to look at what's this year's Katrina or what's next year's Katrina. So it might be that some things have happened globally or nationally or even regionally or locally that require us to rethink what we're doing based on that new circumstance. And so we always want to have the freedom to be able to do that. But we'll be able to explain that so future councils will be able to say, this is why they made that decision to go outside of the policy rather than just have things all over the map and there's no explanation for why we did that. Thank you. Mr. Ford, do you wish to speak? No, I'm here. Okay. I just would like to add one little closing thought. I believe everybody has spoken to the issue. Is that if you are objective about it, I think most people would agree that we could have managed the real estate assets of the city much better over the last couple of decades. and the first time we try to set these values to properly allocate the cost to work out and negotiate arrangements with the entities that are using this space, it might be a little bit messy process because it's the first time and we've got to work through some of the issues we might not even anticipate today. But once we've done that, then we will set the groundwork and the foundation that we can continue this on into the future, and the process will be more refined and it will be a much better way to manage our costs for the government. And I can say I haven't specifically discussed this issue, but I have talked to Commissioner Driscoll about allocating costs to the operating centers, and I think she's fully supportive of this, and we will get very strong support from the administration in getting this worked out. Now, having said that, would it be possible that we could agree on a few changes to this and have it revised so we could submit it to Council for review and vote today? Do you think that's possible? Well, Mr. Santer's got the changes up there, I believe. Mr. Chair? Vice Mayor. I'm sorry. I just, I guess it's the process person in me that we got this in front of us today, and I think I heard you ask that we approve it on to Council today, but with changes that aren't in here. No, no, I'm sorry. I didn't say that. I was just saying I'd like to maybe get some revisions in this so that we could submit it at a later date, not today. Oh, okay. I misunderstood. My concern is that our next committee meeting is until, I think, November the 11th, and I would like to move this forward sooner than that so that we have plenty of time to do planning and notify the agencies by the end of the year. So I was just hoping we could discuss a few of the changes. Maybe Mr. Sampter could then go ahead and modify this. Then we could walk it on in one of the work sessions. And when would you have the changes to us? I have to run it through our things upstairs. It could be, let's see, this week, I would think. Okay. So maybe within a couple weeks we would just move it on? Thank you. But I thought if we discussed the changes that were proposed and we were generally in agreement of that, then when we get the draft, everybody would be in agreement with us, what we wanted to go forward with. Not that we can't change it at the work session further after we have more consideration of it. Could I have some feedback? Would you all like that idea? We can try to move this forward because I think time is our enemy, particularly in real estate issues. And the sooner we can address this, the better. All right, Mr. Ford, I think you've got your hand up down there. Thanks, Mr. Chair. A thought of mine slipped my mind, and I'm glad it's returned to me. I have a question, and then I also have some suggestions to highlight what has been discussed, Mr. Chair, so we can maybe discuss some of those revisions. The question, and Council Member K brought it up initially, is in regards to timing. As I look at the spreadsheet, and again, John, you guys have done a great job, it does not identify the end of the leases, if leases exist. And so I say that to say, for example, the ordinance as it reads now proposes the fair market rents to be set upon three years. I kind of like what Council Member K has said is that if we're going to set them, perhaps we're going to need to set them. And my question is, attorney, if we decided to set fair market rents now, the lease would still be in effect. And our policy would not impact the leases that are in place right now until the expiration of those leases. Correct. Okay. So you can have somebody whose lease expires in a few months if you did it effective January 1st. If their lease expired in March, then it would be effective to them in March. But if you had somebody else who had a lease expire two years from now, then that section would be relevant to them in two years. when they release expired. Okay. It's all based upon when lease expiration is. Okay. I'll say this, and I won't make it in the form of a motion for formality purposes, Mr. Chair, but based upon the comments that Council Member Kay has made and also Council Member Martin, I would look at Section 4, and I would look at that sentence, and it reads, I would strike the first phrase of that sentence. I would strike the phrase that says, that at the end of three years from the effective date. I would have Section 4 just to simply read, the rental amount of all LFUCG facilities shall be at fair market value. Secondly, and I would be in support of that if we were able to incorporate Council Member Martin's phrase. And if you could read that, dear attorney, what that section that Council Member Martin has. The Urban County Council shall consider grants and subsidies for tenants of facilities owned by LFUCG as part of the Council's annual budgeting process. And we would put that in Section 6 and move Section 6 to 7. Okay. I would support those revisions because, again, it does several things that I think that it leaves us a lot of work yet to do in regards to the process of how we reconcile these things. But it says that the fair market, it is what it is. But it also gives the Urban County Council the leeway to create further policies to help not be a cost burden and also to be fair and equitable. to all of our occupants. So thank you for that consideration, Mr. Chair. That's what I would just throw out as a start. Council Member 4, there was one other addition Council Member Martin made to that. Instead of the rental amount, the stated rental amount. I added the word stated. Section 4, we added the word stated. I think the idea was to simply clarify that it's not the rent they have to pay us, but simply what the contract states. Right. Okay. Well, Mr. Myers, do you want to make a comment? Let's try to keep these comments shorter because we're running short on time now. No reflection on this. Let me see if I can provide any of that. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The only thing I would add is that on Section 6, I think it is, when you talked about it being a part of the process, the budgetary process, Can we add some language in there that kind of directs it into the standing committee? Because I would prefer that it go through the standing committee rather than it go through the link. So is everybody okay with that? That we add that language that Council Member Martin came up with where it puts it into the budget process that we direct it into the standing committee of the particular agency. so when the budget process starts that's that's how it's channeled through the budget process do you want to say the urban county council shall through the standing committees consider grants and subsidies for tenants of facilities owned by lfucg as part of the council's annual budget process excellent thank you okay um are you good now mr blues All right. Mr. Martin? I guess I'm okay with the language addition. I was trying to leave it vague so that we could figure out where we wanted to do it and that the council would do it as a part of its buzzing process didn't say that the standing committees couldn't do it or that it isn't where we would decide to do it later. It was just kind of leaving a placeholder so that we could at some later time figure out our process. So if you all are comfortable with that's the decision where we want to put it, I'm okay with that. I was trying to leave it vague so that we could decide at some point, not necessarily now, but what our process is for reviewing and deciding as to these grants and subsidies. May I say something here? there was a suggestion that we would get recommendations from the administration about the level of grant or funding for these agencies, and I feel like that would be very appropriate also. And, you know, I would like maybe the initial recommendation would come through the administration back into the budgeting process. Yeah. Dr. Mike. Does that cover? Do you want to say something on that? Yes. Okay, go ahead. And I agree with you, but I think that's part of the process already built in. But if I could give a rationale for why I think it's really good to put the language in that it goes to the standing committee, is that the standing committees will then be looking at these issues throughout the year, and they will have more up-to-date and more longitudinal information about those partner agencies and the work they're doing, rather than dumping that into a link that meets for a very short period of time and doesn't have the breadth of information as to why it might be good to hold with the administration's recommendation or vary from it. I think there's real value in having that done in the standing committee process because of the longevity of information that comes through there. Okay. Mr. Kaye, you want to speak to that? Yeah, I do have a slight concern, and that is the whole timing issue. Again, we've talked a lot about accelerating the time frame so that we have adequate time to consider all of these things. And it may be useful to think about specifying when we'd like to get information or a recommendation from the administration. Because given the way the budget cycle works now, if this has to go first to standing committees before we get into the full budget cycle, those committees would need that information or that set of recommendations. Sure. you know early in the early in the calendar year so i and i don't know whether it makes sense to be more specific about that or just to convey that in an informal way but my concern is that we would not get that information in time to actually have because i think it's going to be a difficult conversation all right thank you okay mr martin thank you chair the in response to to Council Member Ford's discussion of Section 4. I think that first clause needs some work because it's not that we're going to do this at the end of three years because that's a point in time that's going to be measured from the time this is adopted. I think what we're really talking about is the next time these leases come up for renewal. and so you might because to the extent we have an existing contract we can't unilaterally amend that contract and so so we can't do it immediately and and which was my con my comments about council member ford's suggestion but at the same time it's never only makes sense to do it at the end of three years because that's a single point in time in which all of them would have to be done and i don't think that That is really what we're talking about. I think maybe within three years or the next time they're up for renewal or something along those lines, because I think realistically to the extent that we have an agency whose lease comes up in a year and a half, for example, that's the point in time in which this new mechanism would go in. Is that fair? Is that correct? How about this? Upon the expiration of current leases, the stated rental amount for all Lexington-Fade-Urban County government facilities shall be set at a fair market value. So we're adding the phrase, upon the expiration of current leases. I think I would like you to kind of go work on that, because the problem with that is that we've got new leases as well. So to the extent we have a new lease on January 15th, that might be set at that point. So I'm not sure we can wordsmith this here, but we've got one class, which is going to be new people who have run it from us before. And so those new leases will be under this new system in some way. But then when we have existing tenants that have renewals, the next time it's renewed, it might come under this system. So I guess I'm just going to do we need a specific change at this point, Mr. Chair, or can Council? We can try and write something and send it out to you all for some reasons. Yeah, but you see what I'm talking about is that at what point in time are these various types of leases going to be put under this new system? And clearly the existing leases that we have won't until they are up for renewal because we have a contract with them, and those contracts are contracts. So at some point, you know, so I think that just needs a little bit of kind of working through, and I'm not sure we're going to be able to come up with that here, although I welcome comments from my colleagues. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Get back. Mr. Ford. Thank you, Chair Mullane. Just to Council Member Martins, and this is not to be contrary, but just to continue on with this, I think we're having a good conversation. But the value in Council Member Kay's clarity, I think this exercise was designed for us to get a feel on who's in our facilities and what is the true value of the space. And if that's the case, we need to go ahead and do it. However, there has been great concern, and I share that concern, not to bring immediate burden to our occupants. And my understanding with Attorney Santer is we can't do that anyway because we have existing leases. So if we set the fair market lease rate now, and then we also add your Section 6, which says that we have the right, we have the purview to grant subsidies and grants to offset that fair market value, I think it's a pretty good compromise all the way around. Because just what Council Member Martin and John C. this is going to be a great challenge for you is to look at every lease on an individual basis and to help us with the administration continue the process. So, you know, if we're looking at the overall, this ordinance is just a policy, the guiding policy. There's going to be a lot more work from that. So I would, again, if we're going to set the rate, let's set the rate, but let's also put that section in there that says that we can get grants and subsidies, because the lease term is going to dictate the cash flow in regards to these properties up until they renew again. And when they renew, this policy will be already in effect. Thanks, Mr. Chair. Mr. Sanner, do you think that you could take one of the ordinances and just write in the changes and we can make a quick copy and let the committee look at it with the idea that maybe we could approve that for revision, final revision by the legal department, and then bring it back in a week or so before a work session so that we can move that forward? Do you want a handwritten now or do you want me to email it to you all? Would the email be okay? If we had a handwritten version, we could maybe vote on that so we have something in writing. The other changes that we discussed earlier would be to include the rental amount, pass-through, operating expenses, and the length of the lease and subleases in that section, and then to take out of section 6 shall be the same length. I think that was going to be deleted because we've agreed that the leases all can't be the same length. Were there any other changes anybody wanted to discuss in this document? Yes, sir. Going back to number four, the change that we made earlier, if this were implemented to take effect in January, doesn't that do what Council Member Martin was concerned with, that whenever a lease is up, then you automatically fall? Take out the first phrase, and if you say the stated rental amount for all Lexington-Federman County government facilities shall be set at a fair market value, that means on January 1st of 2012, any new tenants would be, would the rental rate, stated rental rate would be set at fair market value, and any existing tenants whose lease expires upon their expiration, the rental rate would be set at, stated at fair market value. Okay, so we've got, so that takes care of. So essentially, you don't really need to add anything, because we have the effective day of the ordinance, that it will catch what you want. Thank you. Okay. I see Mr. Beard, do you have a comment? Just a question on fair market value, setting fair market value for different properties. You're going to have to set different fair market values. Yes, that's correct. For like properties, location, usage, classification, all of those coming to play. That in and of itself is daunting, is it not? Sure is. We're up to the challenge. The danger, I guess, I see in any and all of this is that we may run these tenants off. If they have to pay fair market value, maybe they'd just rather pay fair market value in a nicer quarters. That point was brought up a couple of cases. some of the tenants already mentioned to us that they might reduce their footprint, which is a very good side effect of what's being proposed. As CM Rain mentioned, we've got some facilities where you've got two people and a thousand score for the area, which is absolutely nonsense. You've got activities that were provided space free of charge where they ceased the operation two years ago. They still got a key to the building. The facility is still being heated and cooled. There are going to be quite a few changes going to be happening, and I agree with you. Some of the tenants may decide they might be able to maybe partner with another group and be able to receive some additional subsidies in terms of moving in to their location. What it does at the end of the process, I think, will do quite a few things. Number one is going to identify underutilized and underperforming facilities that partner agencies are utilizing. Provide an incentive for them. It's going to be a business decision to minimize the score for the job occupying without compromising what it is they're trying to provide to the community. and that pretty much falls in line with what we need to do. The next step for us is to actually implement the same plan internally. We are working on a framework for a charging system for internal customers, other divisions, other departments, and so forth, to provide the same incentive for them trying to reduce the spaces that they are occupying right now. So this is just one phase of many things that's going to be coming up within next year or two. The chargeback option is nothing new. It's been out there for a long, long time. General Services Administration, that's the largest landlord in the United States, have been doing this for a long time. As a matter of fact, they own every piece of square footage of property that the government occupies and actually pay them a rent that most of it's going to go to administrative costs, maintenance costs, but also they've got an internal revolving fund that part of that money would be deposited into. So when the roof comes up in five years that you're looking at a $300,000 expense, you've already planned for it, and the money's there. You don't have to rely on bonds or going back and forth with the budget. So as I mentioned, this is one step toward the right direction. this is something we want to do for the entire LFG, not just for partner agencies. There's a lot of empty space out here. Absolutely. Absolutely. Some of the social service agencies that we have can't leave the area they're in, but others can. Yes. They can go anywhere. They can go to Vermont, they can go to Hamburg. We want to actively participate with them and make sure we identify locations, core footage, and so forth where it's going to suit them the best for what it is they're trying to do. Obviously, if somebody's trying to provide community services to the west end or east end or whatever location, they don't need to be on their side of the town. They need to be close to the community. So that's also something that we bring to the table in trying to assist them, trying to find the best facility to dovetail with the operation that they plan to do. Thank you. Sure. Thank you, sir. Vice Mayor Gorin. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We've spent our time on these two documents. Is this a time when I could ask about your list of parcels that we own? which was in the packet, just a couple little questions. On page, I guess it's 18 of the general government packet, we've listed a property which we don't own. It's got a P beside it, and I wondered why it's on our list if we don't own it. What page was it on? Page 18 of the LFUCG-owned parcels inventory list. The fourth item down has a P, which means owned by others. And do we partially own the building, or what's the situation there? What is the title under the AKA column? Bluegrass Rape Crisis Center. That might be something. We might have partial ownership. I'd be glad to get your clarification. How does that work to partially own a bill? We might have provided the land and they might have provided the facility, so we'll get your clarification. Okay, I appreciate that. And then let's see. I had one other. I'm presuming on page 9 that, and tell me if I'm wrong about this, Jacobson Park should now reflect an O instead of a P. So that will be changed? Okay, thank you very much. Is that all, Vice Mayor? Okay. What I'd like to do while we're getting that marked up ordinance copied is perhaps go over to item three in committee, the items in committee. And I thought maybe Director Hancock could just make a very short comment about his presentation to our meeting in November and how the time frame on that looks to him. It's very short because we have just a minute or two. Mr. Lane, you're referencing the aquatics and golf presentation? Yes, sir. It was my understanding that the committee would like to not do that in December, which we had talked about previously, but in fact to do it earlier. And I've asked that that be set as late in November as possible to give me as much time as possible. and Mr. Seymour suggested that perhaps the 29th of November would be a good date to do that collectively in front of work session and not at this committee. Well, I believe one of the ideas, and maybe the Vice Mayor could address this, our last meeting, I believe the general government is on November the 11th, I was wondering if Mr. Hancock could bring his presentation to the work session, because you'll be covering quite a few items, and we might as well brief everybody on council at one time rather than have two presentations. Do you feel that you could work that out to get that on the docket? Probably. This is... You know, it's not surprised, but... No, I get surprised all the time. So exactly what would you want to hear at work session, Mr. Lane? Because we try to only schedule two presentations, and so if it will be lengthy, we'll make it on a day when we only have that one. Could you go over the topics you want to cover, and we can sort of make a decision right now on that. I've been directed to bring master plans, if you will, for aquatics and for golf to the Council for consideration, in part because given the budget situation, we may have questions of reduced budgets next year, and Councilman Myers and others wanted to speak to the issues of what our plans are prior to budget discussions because we'd rather have a plan that would speak to if we're going to close Pool X, what are we going to do with the property at Pool X, and what were our intentions of permanently replacing or upgrading the facility. So that was the aquatics question, and the golf question has been for some time in front of Council, what is the long-term plan for our golf facilities in the community. So both of those could be as long or as abbreviated as you'd like. my recommendation would be that we present to you a summary with a larger document of backup material that you could study at your leisure. So they could both be done in 15 minutes each if you're given adequate time in advance to study the backup materials. So, Mr. Lane, I guess my question would be, is this something that the committee doesn't want to hear? and discuss, or is what you're asking just to hear it at a work session and then put it into committee for discussion? Because I think these are both fairly complicated, having heard a little bit at the Parks Advisory Board about them. So I would ask for some input from the committee as to what they actually think. Do they just want to do all the work at work session? Okay, because we've asked for a lot of reports from you. I think the one that I had a question about was the master plan to do a summary of the master plan. I think that was requested at our last meeting, too. and I was looking at the schedule that that was sort of shooting for spring. Do you all want to, do you think spring as soon as you could do that? Is there any chance you could give us an overview when you do the aquatics and the golf on the 29th? Do you could do something with them? I would really prefer to separate. I mean, each of these three are big pieces with lots of moving parts and pieces, and would like some breathing time in between if possible. I think your suggestion, Chairman Lane, was that these two pieces, aquatics and golf, are things that the council needs to internalize between now and budget time, and over the holidays would be a good time to do that if you've already heard about it. Those are two important issues. Does any council member want to add any comment on that? Myself, my preference would be that we heard, one, that we do two separate presentations, like you said, but that we do it in this committee rather than doing it in work session because it really needs to go through the committee process and come out with a recommendation for the council prior to the budget season because none of us want to be debating pool closures in April again next year, and I don't think anybody does. So, and if I could add one thing about the golf, is it possible at that time to have any kind of handle on what it's costing to operate each golf course as a part of that presentation? Yes, you've asked for that. That's relatively straightforward. You will see that. Okay. My vote would be if we need to have a special meeting or move the date of this committee's meeting to giving more time and present at the end of the month. That would be my preference rather than put it in a work session. November. I think it's November 11th is the scheduled meeting, but I think you are asking for a little more time than that. Yes, we've got some SurveyMonkey instruments about to go out, and it's hard to predict when the data from the public will actually come back, which is pretty important to have. Could I ask one more question? Have you done any work since the last meeting of this committee towards those two master plans? Yes, there's a considerable outline that's already been created for each, and I've shared the timelines with CAO Maloney, and we've done a lot of Internet search on what the world is doing in both of those areas. Yes, we've done quite a lot. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Myers. Anybody else want to speak to Parks? Yes, sir. So pushing this out much further, however, is going to put you in a bad position as far as you're going to be starting your budget process. And if, in fact, there are any drastic changes to be made anywhere, you will have already started down the path of having all your golf courses open or having all your pools open. and we may offer to you an idea that maybe we wouldn't. Or conversely, you may close some, and as has been the case, we may decide that we want to leave one open. But it's just going to hit right in the middle, it looks like, time-wise, of at least the mayor's proposed budget. and I just don't see that happening. We might as well just forget about it and sit back and relax because you've gotten a whole other year now of a budget cycle if we go past that date. I don't know what the FY13 budget schedule will be. I expect to hear shortly on that. What I'm asking for is as late in November as possible to come back here, if that's your wish, certainly not to do it earlier in November. I was planning on doing it in December, so I've already been asked to do it a little sooner. This is important enough that I need lots of citizen input. And I'm not as concerned about the budget impact. What I'm going to present is what we ought to do for the next year or two or three. And I think we can integrate that into what our budget plans are as they're being discussed. I think the conflict is inevitable of what we have to do in a given year and what our plans are for the next three to five years. I think there will be some financial constraints that will make both of those. If you could say grace over that, good luck to you. Thank you. And then we'll have to struggle with it too, I guess. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Mr. Blues, are you? I was just wondering whether we couldn't schedule a meeting of the committee in December to take up these issues. I would certainly be open to that. I was looking over notes that Mr. Seymour, my aide, made, and we're showing the Parks Acquisition Fund will be coming to the work session on the 15th of November. and then the aquatics and golf plan will be at the work session, and that is already scheduled. I apologize. I was out of town for four days, so I got a little bit out of the loop on that for November 29th. And so we do have those two on the agenda. But I think perhaps the issue of the master plan that Mr. Beard suggested, I think that should be accelerated if at all possible. Would you all be open to another meeting? Because I agree with Council Member Myers that this ought to be vetted through committee before going to call council. Okay. Well, then why don't I have Mr. Seymour send out a date that we could set a special meeting for that and try to do it as soon as possible as long as we can accommodate Mr. Hancock's ability to prepare the report. Mr. Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So is the plan to have a presentation of both of those two master plans, golf and aquatics, in this committee in November and then do a special meeting in December? Yes, sir. That would be my suggestion. Okay. I agree with that. I guess I'd ask the other question. If this is in committee, how could this be scheduled to be presented in work session? Well, we just requested it to get on the docket to do that because we weren't going to have another committee meeting until January, and so we felt it was important to get the information out. because all council members would be at the work session, everybody would be briefed at the same time. But it's in committee, so I don't know how we put it on a work session. If it was voted to be put in committee, how all of a sudden we go to a work session before it comes out. All right. Do you want to pull that off then? Yes. Okay. All right. Then we will pull that off, and we'll have a special committee meeting, and then we can talk about the master plan, aquatics, and golf all at one time. Does that meet everybody's requirement? Okay. So to be clear, we're going to have a presentation in November and then a follow-up meeting in December to continue the discussion. Thank you. Okay. All right. I guess the last item is you have the revised ordinance. Yes, sir. Before we move on, the director asked if we could give him a little more time. So is a November meeting the 11th of November, our regularly scheduled meeting? Well, if we start at 10, we would have two hours. Do you think you need more than two hours? I think he means more time to prepare. Oh, okay, more time that way. All right. Well, we would be looking at trying to have a special session, I guess, in early December. Will I give you enough time to prepare for that? If we do it in early December, that gives me some more time to do the master plan piece, which I have not been focusing on. And that's a couple of hundred items that need comments about each one. But as a point of clarification, I thought we were going to have the presentation in the November meeting, and then we'd have December to continue discussion. so you'd actually present in November. Is that what... No, sir. I don't believe that was our agreement with... That's why I asked for clarification, because that was my understanding. So we won't hear these two presentations until December. Okay. You've got me confused. We were going to ask for aquatics and golf to come before the work session, but you felt like it was not appropriate to take it out of committee for presentation to council. So that has, you know, I was thinking we could do that at the same time we do the Parks Master Plan special presentation, combine those together. Would it be useful to separate those out and do the one in November, the one that is more ready to go, so we get a first discussion of that, and then the December meeting would be the other presentation and follow-on conversation. Okay. The vice mayor would like to speak here. Yes. First of all, I definitely favor a presentation followed by discussion. So I would favor whichever one of these is ready first, And you could say, Mr. Hancock, that we hear that first with discussion. And then if there are two that will be ready, we could hear two. I think three in the same meeting is way too much. Having read that master plan, whenever that first came out, that in itself will require a lot of discussion. My preference would be to go forward and do golf and aquatics as late in November as you'll allow me, and then in December we'll do the Parks Master Plan update review. I would prefer that we do aquatics and golf in November and then have the December meeting to follow up on those two and put the master plan off so that we have two meetings, one to hear your presentation and discussion, and then a follow-up meeting in December to discuss both of those two plans. Because the goal is to get something figured out before the budget process starts on those two and then save the overall Park Master Plan for later, I guess, January. That would suit me. Okay. Why don't you make that emotional and just vote on that? Thank you. Okay, so I move that we would have a presentation by Jerry Hancock, the director of Parks and Rec, on the aquatic master plan and the golf master plan at the November general government meeting, followed by a follow-up meeting in December, a special meeting called to continue the discussion on those two master plans. So moved. I'll second that. All right. Is there any discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. That's very good. Okay. Now, can I have one follow-up question? Yes, sir. Because my original question when Jerry came back up was, do you need more time? So do we need to maybe do a special meeting in November to push that meeting back so he has a little more time? I would prefer that. I came in today thinking we would present on the 29th, and now you've taken two weeks away and made it November 15th. So if we could split the difference an extra week, it would make a lot of difference. All right. I would like there's another meeting that's coming up. And before that meeting goes out, everybody's had a chance to look at the ordinance. Do you think we could get a vote to put that into the work session? So moved. Second. Okay. Do you have a question, Vice Mayor? Is this the exact wording that we will see on Tuesday? Yes. Thank you. Okay. Any more discussion? All right. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you very much. Anybody want to speak to anything else while we're here? Can I make a motion? Does it have a motion for adjournment? Motion to adjourn. Do I have a second? Second. Okay, all in favor? Aye. Aye. And by the way, I was supposed to say, I mispronounced your names a couple of times.