# Council Planning & Public Works Committee - November 1, 2011 > Auto-transcribed civic record · November 1, 2011 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/2230 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/2230?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2011-11-01 - **Last revised**: July 17, 2026 - **Length**: 12,186 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 Planning & Public Works Committee met on November 1, 2011, at 1:00 p.m., with Farmer presiding. The committee considered four agenda items during the meeting: a Paving Program Update, 2012 Comprehensive Plan Goals & Objectives, Street Tree & Tree Protection Ordinance, and Items Referred to Committee. All four items were deferred for future consideration. The committee took one motion and vote during the meeting and heard one public comment. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the meeting on November 1, 2011: * Farmer * Ellinger * Gorton * Kay * Ford * Blues * Lawless * Beard * Martin * Henson * Sennett No absences or late arrivals were recorded. ## Votes and Decisions The meeting concluded with a motion to adjourn. Beard moved to adjourn the meeting, and Martin seconded the motion [timestamp: 1:15:42]. The motion passed by voice vote with no recorded abstentions. ## Public Comment Ralph Rochelle addressed the meeting regarding Comprehensive Plan Goals and Objectives [timestamp: 0:20:55]. Rochelle highlighted economic challenges in Fayette County, noting that child poverty has accelerated at a rate four times faster than the state average. He emphasized the need to attract high-paying manufacturing jobs as a strategy to improve economic outcomes for the region. Rochelle presented data on tax revenue, pointing out that rural land generates low tax revenue for the city. He argued for a combined approach to land use planning, specifically proposing that residential and manufacturing land uses be integrated to increase city revenue and support economic development goals. ## Appointments The following individuals were appointed to the Working Group on Comprehensive Plan Goals and Objectives: * Knox von Noggle * Todd Johnson * Darby Turner * Margaret Graves ## Contested Items **Funding for Road Repaving** Council members engaged in a heated discussion regarding the process for securing additional road paving funds from the state. The primary disagreement centered on whether a formal council resolution should be submitted to request state funding. Council Member McCord advocated for this approach, pointing to successful precedent under the Fletcher administration. Other council members expressed concerns about the timing of such a request and the absence of a formal commitment from the state, suggesting uncertainty about the viability and effectiveness of pursuing funds through this method. **Urban Forestry and Tree Planting** Council members raised significant concerns about the long-term sustainability of the city's street tree program. The contested issues included poor species selection for planting locations, inadequate space allocated for tree growth, and insufficient funding for ongoing maintenance and replacement of trees. The discussion also addressed the threat posed by the emerald ash borer, an invasive pest that threatens ash tree populations. Council members highlighted the financial burden placed on homeowners to maintain trees on their properties, indicating disagreement about how costs and responsibilities should be distributed between the city and residents. ## Re Paving Program Update Staff provided an update on the 2012 repaving program [timestamp: 00:00]. At the time of the meeting, 55% of resurfacing work was complete, with 45% of the budget expended. **Key Discussion Points** The staff indicated that formal requests to the state for additional funding would be necessary. A memo was being prepared by staff to be sent to Frankfort regarding funding needs. Council members Wente, Martin, Sennett, and McCord participated in the discussion and raised several concerns about the road maintenance program: - Long-term road maintenance planning and sustainability - Crack sealing procedures and their effectiveness - The absence of a coherent, comprehensive maintenance plan **Outcome** The agenda item was deferred, indicating that further discussion or action on the repaving program update would be taken up at a future meeting. ## 2012 Comprehensive Plan Goals & Objectives The committee discussed the revised 2012 Comprehensive Plan goals and objectives [timestamp: 00:18:09]. Chair Farmer proposed establishing a working group to revise and blend the new version of the plan with the previous one. The working group would include members from the planning committee and staff. The proposed timeline for the working group's efforts included delivering a revised product by February, with council action anticipated by March. This schedule would allow for public input between the February delivery and March council action. Ralph Rochelle provided public comment during the discussion, emphasizing the need for high-paying jobs and economic equity to be prioritized within the comprehensive plan. The agenda item was deferred, with no final action taken at this meeting. ## Street Tree & Tree Protection Ordinance [timestamp: 00:25:17] Council Member Martin introduced this discussion item, drawing inspiration from a visit to Greenville, South Carolina, to explore long-term urban forestry planning strategies for the community. **Key Discussion Points** The committee addressed several interconnected challenges related to street trees and tree protection: - **Tree Survival and Species Selection**: Participants discussed the importance of choosing appropriate tree species and ensuring their long-term survival in the community. - **Funding Mechanisms**: The group explored potential funding approaches, including a proposed $4 annual donation per household to support tree programs. - **Maintenance Requirements**: Long-term maintenance needs were identified as a critical component of successful urban forestry. - **Pest Management**: The emerald ash borer was highlighted as a significant threat to local tree populations. **Participants and Perspectives** Council Member Martin, along with committee members Quirley, Angelucci, Henson, Beard, Blue, and Stennett, engaged in the discussion. Staff representatives and members of the Tree Board participated, emphasizing the necessity for comprehensive planning. **Key Recommendations** Staff and Tree Board members stressed the importance of: - Long-term planning for urban forestry initiatives - Public education efforts to build community support - Sustainable funding mechanisms to support ongoing tree programs and maintenance **Outcome** The matter was deferred, indicating that further discussion, research, or development of proposals would occur at a future meeting. ## Items Referred to Committee [timestamp: 1:09:48] The committee reviewed several items that had been referred for further consideration and discussion. **Re-Harboring Animals in Residential Areas Ordinance** The committee examined the Re-Harboring Animals in Residential Areas ordinance, which remained under review. Concerns were raised about the burden this ordinance would place on animal control. Committee members also identified a need for more nuanced definitions within the ordinance to address specific situations and clarify enforcement expectations. The Chair and Rochelle participated in this discussion. The committee agreed to continue working on this issue and scheduled a follow-up report to address the identified concerns. **Other Referred Items** The committee also addressed several additional items: - Utility pole placement - Addressing ordinance - Downtown Traffic Management Revitalization Study **Outcome** The items were deferred for continued review and development, with plans for future reports and additional work on the ordinances and studies under consideration. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed: Motion to adjourn the meeting --- ## Full transcript Council members, to our November 1st meeting for the Planning and Public Works Committee. We have three business items in our referral list. We had a very productive meeting last time. We met for quite a while and talked about a lot of issues that taught us a lot about, certainly this very first item on the agenda, the repaving program. And we're going to kind of ask just for a brief update today on that. We don't really have any outcomes, but I think last time had a lot of information. And as I've highlighted in the council meeting, if you read the minutes from last month's meeting, you learned a lot about how things get paved and done. But, Mr. Wente, we had spoken earlier about you just giving us a brief update because we've asked for a couple things to kind of have informational value and come back to us. Absolutely. If you would highlight that for us, please. Certainly. Currently, we have our contract specifications are being reviewed by Dwight Walker with Asphalt Materials, who attended last meeting. I got actually a confirmation email from him this morning that he's still reviewing those. Is that the paving percentages then? He was looking more specifically at our contract specifications to see if there might be something that could be improved. Good. According to Sam Williams, we got some statistics. Approximately 55% of our fiscal year 12's resurfacing is complete, and 45% of the budgeted funds have been expended. We have roughly five to six weeks remaining in our current active resurfacing schedule before the asphalt plants close. And it says, let's see, Streets and Roads have told me that they're going to conduct an inventory of roads where we have existing base failures. So we'll have that information for reference and for report back to the committee. we continue to have discussions in reviewing the council member Ford's request of fund allocation and distribution per council district so if we want to continue that discussion we'll be happy to do that that's good and effectively that's all I have to report to this body of the staff wasn't one of the gentlemen from the Asphalt Institute going to do something too Dwight Walker that is reviewing it correct Very good. All right. Any questions for? Yes, ma'am. Council Member Henson. And I'll come back to Council Member Henson. Sorry. Thank you, Kevin. And I just want to commend the streets and roads for the work they did in my district. And I think all my streets were paved. Hopefully they'll hold up. Hopefully the quality will be good. I know it's certainly better than what was there. I was curious as is this I know you don't rate the streets and roads every year correct we're actually rotate it's at every two-year cycle that's correct we'll redo half the the county one year and then the other half so we'll have a full assessment every two years okay because I I know, you know, the list I received was not really updated, so I was hoping that next year it will be. Absolutely. In fact, your district would be part of the assessment for next year. Effectively, it went through. We divided the county in a north-south line using Tates Creek Road through to High Street and then up through Georgetown Street was our dividing line for the county on an east-west basis. Okay. So the majority of your county or your council district in entirety would be in the next year's rate. Correct. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Council Member Sennett. Thank you, Chair. Kevin, thank you, too, for your work on this. I know it's been a lot of effort that's been spent going into this, but I see progress being made out there, and that's good. I want to go back to the question I asked at our last work session about are we asking anyone else for help on our roads here locally in terms of the state? Because I know we're not going to be able to pave the Manowars, the Surbartons, some of our major corridors, and I know the state has some funds right now. Have we made that? Has there been conversations within your group making that ask? Because we formally need to make it because we haven't. And I'm concerned about time is running out. And do you have a list we could send up there and ask for help on? I have not had any formal discussions with the state at this point. I know that Sam Williams has actually had some conversations at this point. I don't have anything to report as far as funding allocated for or additional funding that might be allocated for resurfacing at this time. But, Mr. Commissioner. What we did after your comments last meeting was we met with the engineering group, I met with Streets and Roads, Kevin, and we got together and put together what we knew of as potential places that we could ask for additional funding. And some of those we've already approached and others we have not, but we were going to send a memo, which is what you asked us to do is to send us a memo, and we actually met again late yesterday afternoon, and we're going to put something together for you on that. We've been told informally that there are funds available for us for certain types of rework. We've also been told by other groups that there are zero funds available. So, you know, we've got a mixed bag depending on which group we ask. But we'll put that in a memo, and then we'll invite any comments, any leads you have. We'll be happy to pursue those. And where would that memo be sent? Would it be sent to the Cabinet Secretary in Frankfurt? What channel are you working through? Well, we had been working through the Department of Transportation. District 7? Uh-huh. Here locally? That's where Mr. House, and we've talked with locally Mr. Ballinger and those folks. And so Mr. House did indicate that there's a possibility we would have some funding available. But we're not getting a lot of – I don't have a formal commitment at this point. And the memo was you had asked us to send a memo to council on kind of capturing what we had done. Well, but I think the more appropriate piece is to send it to Frankfurt from the mayor. I mean, I think if the mayor's asking Lexington for money or for money for Lexington, I think that would be appropriate. We've done this same thing back in 2006, and it worked out quite well for Lexington. We almost got every major artery resurface at that time. So I would think it would be more appropriate to send a memo to Frankfort because I think we all understand what we could put on that list. But coming from the administration, we need to be asking Frankfort or we can have the council ask Frankfort via the resolution. Either way, it would probably be sufficient. But I'm just asking, is there conversations from the administration in going to Frankfort and asking for additional dollars when they do have them right now? Well, we're asking through the Department of Transportation, and we've had contact with the governor's office, but that's all I know. So if you have a different source of funding or a particular place, we would be happy to pursue that. So they have been asked. They have a list of pardon. Not formally. So are we going to formally ask? That's my question. Yes. Okay. We'll formally ask, and we may formally receive. But at this point in the informal conversations, there has been no commitment from any place that we've inquired for additional funding. But we're going to ask. Yeah, and I think sometimes it's healthy to ask and get turned down, but keep asking because a lot of people are out there getting additional money for their communities, and Lexington sure needs it. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, Chair. Very good. Thank you, sir. Council Member Martin, welcome. Thank you, Chair. Commissioner and Mr. Lovett, I guess at what point would we be getting some sort of presentation about our methods and procedures for paving? That's what I thought we were going to be getting last meeting, and I thought that's what we were hoping to get this meeting. I can give the presentation myself. I've got one from Mike Webb for a couple years ago. But the reason I put this in committee was for us to examine what our methods and procedures are for taking care of a road in the life of a road. And the thing that brought this up, in my mind, is in my own district, Lyon Drive, has received essentially no care during the life of that part of the road. We paved half of it last year. But from the time a road is first constructed or repaved until it's repaved again, does the city of Lexington have any procedures for caring for that road? At what point do we apply crack and seal? At what point do we put any sort of overcoating on it? I mean, I understand there are many, many types of maintenance procedures that can be used for different roads, but I have not been able to see a coherent approach in the city of Lexington to how a road is taken care of. It just seems complete happenstance. And so are we going to get some sort of information about that? Just prior to you, Kevin had made just a few comments. I apologize for getting tied up in traffic. No, no, it's not a problem. But I think he may have some of the answers, but certainly the questions you ask can be added to the work that is ongoing. Sir. And actually, customer, we actually did provide that information to you in our last presentation as far as our time period for rejuvenation, crack seal, and what have you. So that was part of the presentation last year. I'll have to get that presentation to show those numbers to you again as far as. In the last month? Yes. That's correct. So that was part of our presentation. I'll get that to you again. Let me just, if I may. He's asking for a critical path, it sounds like to me. Is that part of what we have? It is. Effectively, it is. We do our updating our review period for every two years was part of that, so that we can look to see where the degradation is occurring and then apply those methods of resurfacing or crack sealing or what have you to those particular roads that require that. And I can give you, from our last presentation, the timelines that we typically engage in those procedures, but at this point I don't have that information available to me. I'm just not seeing any sort of coherent procedures in my district. There's been very little crack seal in the 10th District since I came on council. This is my third year. and so I'm not sure what the procedures are. I mean, I have a whole host of stuff because we went through this with Commissioner Webb at some point and Sam was involved in that. And so I've got a lot of materials on this, but I'm not seeing what the procedures are and how do we tell whether or not we're following them, I guess. So I haven't seen anything that's yet specific enough to say, oh, yeah, on year five or at the time that the seams start opening up at the crack seals applied or anything like that. I just don't see any coherent approach at all because Lion Drive is just we're going to have to repay that because it's never been crack sealed because the water over the course of winters has gotten into those seams and has popped them up, and the cracks and the things are getting larger and larger. I mean, we all see them all over town. And so in terms of that type of road all over town, when exactly do we crack seal that kind of a road? And the state, I saw that they crack-sealed the seams on New Circle Road sometime this past year. And so I'm just not seeing where the coherent procedures are. And my experience is that we call it in and it gets done, but I don't know if the council member's phone calls is a reliable enough source to pay road. I feel like we're doing a better job of shepherding our inventory now, but I know that in the next month's packet we can make sure that we have part of that critical path to answer your question as well as the funding questions that Council Member Ford had asked. We're still kind of in process here, and if there's something you wanted to add, Commissioner, I'm glad for you to do so. and you don't have to. No, I just want to be sure I understand what you need because it's really difficult, and I've commented on this before, when these committee meetings used to be up on the fifth floor, there was a lot more interactive dialogue. And in these positions, I'm trying to understand what you need, but it's a little harder for me to come and ask because I'm behind the podium here. Why don't we get together between now and next meeting? That would help me a lot. And I can pull out my stuff out and kind of show you it, and maybe I can get my answers. Yeah, it sounded to me like you might be interested just in addition as an overview of our overall program. You know, how do we take care of roads? What are we doing? More than just paving, there's a lot more to road maintenance than paving. And, in fact, you know, I've only been in this position for not quite a year, even though it seems like a longer time than that. We talked a lot about recently about the impacts of we have a number of streets that are not surfaced here in town. What are we going to do about snow? Do we go ahead and treat with salt or not? We're not supposed to. It breaks down the base. So there's all kinds of issues about different types of streets in addition to just the paving issue, which we do spend a lot of time on in this meeting. But if you want to meet with me in between, maybe we can come up with an approach for how to answer those questions. Thank you, Chair. I'm comfortable with that. If you all are and we can bring that work product back here, I would appreciate it. Thank you both. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Council Member Farmer. I'm not on this committee either, but I want to go back to something that Council Member Stenet said about paving just from a historical vantage point. In 2005, 2006, under the Fletcher administration, we started working very closely. Council Member Farmer and I had put into the budget $2 million of bonded money. That had not been done before. Council Member Martin, everything was crack-sealed up to that point. We were getting about $190,000 to $150,000 per council district through SLX funds, and nothing was getting done, basically. We were crack-sealing this whole city. And so we put $2 million of local money in, which is funny to hear when you start talking about, well, why don't we put $7 million in this year to see that that trend through Councilmember Senate and Farmers' work, we've actually started putting local money here. But the point of that was on that first bond, Council Member Farmer, if you remember, we put a caveat that said we would not bond that bond unless the state matched us. That's right. We did. And we didn't say up to how much. They could match us a dollar or they could match us up to $2 million or whatever. We never bonded that $2 million, and we received, if you count the interstate work that was done, almost $50 million worth of asphalt in about two years. We saw roads paved like Manowar from Nicholsville Road to Vercels Road, Clay's Mill, Liberty, Todd's, Tate's Creek, Richmond Road, Vine Street, South Lyme. All of that was done in that very small amount of window. Because we were up there talking every single day, and as Council Member Farmer used to make fun, I would sit up there about every week in the transportation cabinet giving them a new road that we needed to pave. Now, that was a different time. They had different resources. But I think what I would like to see, and I'm not a member of this committee, But Council Member Farmer, Chairman Farmer, what would probably be the best way to do this is for the Council to bring forward a resolution asking the administration, along with the Council by resolution, asking the Transportation Cabinet to look for these funding dollars, giving them some streets that we specifically need or would like to see done in a priority list. And if you remember back when we went to visit with folks at District 7 and at the Transportation Cabinet, Right. They were very generous about saying, you know, we've got this opportunity during this small window, and we'd like to see this done, that done. So if we catch it at the right time, and we've done our work, it allows them to do theirs. So coming out of this committee, when you report to the full council, I would like to see a resolution by the council asking for paving dollars from Frankfort. And it guided towards Mike Hancock and towards Commissioner of Highways and copied on all the right folks. Welcome to the committee today. I think we can work on that for the report out, both in terms of what streets to highlight and who to send it to. And we'll turn that wheel on this end and ask the administration to move in behind us a little bit or lead from that point on. Because you're right, it was very effective before. And, Commissioner, I know, again, it's one of those things where, you know, when you're just trying to get everything working at one time, it's very difficult. Sometimes you get mixed messages from Frankfurt. But the other thing that I wanted to point out was during that process, we also discovered what toll credits were. And toll credits is what allowed us to move forward on Clay's Mill Road on the portion we're working on right now. And that's not something that they can advertise and talk about because everybody will go in and start soaking those things up. But there are millions of dollars of toll credits sitting there still that we can use. So those are some of the things that, again, if I can be of any value or help, I want to, because we've done this once before and seen great things. Thank you. Thank you. And, Council Member Senate, too. Anything else on our repaving update? Anyone? Thank you all very much. Next up is our 2012 Comprehensive Plan goals and objectives, which were forwarded to us from the Planning Commission last month. and had they been timely, we would have been asked to act on them by the end of the year. I've been in arbitration with planning staff to see if we can take them on as a working group of this committee and deliver a product back to the planning committee and to the council so we can take action by the end of March. I've spoken with the vice mayor about process on this because if you're any sort of a connoisseur about goals and objectives, you'll note that in this packet they take up four pages. Normally the goals and objectives would take up this entire packet. So there's been a kind of a historic rewrite or revisioning of how goals and objectives are done, and I'd just like to spend time for us kind of going back to some comments the commissioner made, a little bit offline working on this. So I'm going to ask members of the planning committee to volunteer for a little bit of a working group, if you will, and I'm also asked Knox von Noggle, and she has accepted. Todd Johnson, and he has accepted. Darby Turner, and he has accepted. And I spoke with Margaret Graves, who can't make the meetings but would be glad to correspond back and forth with us. So I'm proposing a working group that would meet on the fifth floor as an open meeting, but for us to edit through the new goals and objectives, contrasting them with the previous goals and objectives, and come up with a blended version or maybe a different version or just get comfortable with the idea of a 30,000-foot version of goals and objectives, edit through them in that committee structure, and then bring that process, that product, back to this committee hopefully in February or in January so the committee can take it up in February, we can have public input on it, and the council could work on it and hopefully pass it in their second meeting in March. So that's what I've envisioned, and pursuant to you all's volunteering today, the vice mayor will then panel that, and we'll start work very shortly after we get done with the sanitary sewer private property work group, which I hope we will get done with this week because we have to report that back to Council Member Blue's committee meeting rather shortly. If there are any council member questions on that, I'll be glad to take them. I know we have a member of the public that is here wishing to speak, and I will defer to him at this point, Mr. Rochelle. Welcome, sir. Thank you very much. My name is Ralph Rochelle, R-U-S-C-H-E-L-L. I'm a resident of Fayette County, Kentucky, and I'd like to briefly talk about goals and objectives of the comprehensive plan that you've just talked about. Yes, sir. Thank you. Well, I can't. I'd like to also be included in these meetings at Knox, Van Nagel, et cetera. Sure. I'd like to start out by saying that I read in an article in the paper recently that one in four children in Fayette County live in poverty. In the last ten years, that has accelerated at four times the state of Kentucky. at the same time personal income in Fayette County has risen at only 55% of the rate of the entire Commonwealth of Kentucky. We believe we know the reason. The reason is that we aren't attracting high-paying jobs to Fayette County. This is not news. People have heard of this and talked about this. We need high-paying manufacturing jobs in Lexington. This is borne out not only by my articles in the paper, but also Bob Quick with the Chamber of Commerce. It was written a letter, which I hope you've all seen, to the Planning Commission that states that there's only 75 acres in Fayette County left for this type of facility. By way of reference, you can know that Lexmark sets on over 350 acres, Toyota in Scott County on 1,200 acres, Square D on over 75 acres. to know what you can do with 1,000 acres, which I think that we need at least for manufacturing. University of Kentucky sits on 800 acres, provides jobs for 17,000 people at an average of $60,000 per person. So a lot can be done on a big piece of land. According to the American Farmland Trust, the report that you've all heard about how it's 93 cents per dollar of revenue for the rural area and $1.63 for the urban area, they don't bring out that the same report says that for manufacturing land it's 22 cents per dollar. The fact of the matter is the manufacturing and the residential should be combined. And when you do so, that comes to 93 cents, 93.4 cents per dollar for the city. And for the rural area, it comes to 93.3 cents. So it's essentially the same. The rural service area comprises 70% of our land, yet only contributes 5% to our city coffers. The payroll tax for the rural service area is less than 3% of all revenues payroll tax, and manufacturing land brings in over 70%. tourism dollars for the horse industry are greatly exaggerated and I'd like to as these meetings go along to be able to bring forth the documentation on these numbers for them to be considered and to realize that we really truly have a situation here where we're increasing our poverty in Fayette County the land of milk and honey But what's supposed to be easy, our poverty rate for our children is increasing, and our income is not increasing at the same rate as the state of Kentucky. I thank you all very much for your time. I'm going to give her my e-mail address, and I would like to be included in all meetings that have to do with this. Very good, sir. Thank you for your time today. We'll make sure that you are included, and I appreciate it very, very much. unless there's other comments from the committee at this time that would conclude that portion of the comments and questions about the goals and objectives process as soon as this meeting is over or throughout the course of the day I'll ask the vice mayor to move forward on appointing a little work group and we will get on with it anyone? all are welcome but you must volunteer thank you very much very good Next on our agenda is the Street Tree and Tree Protection Ordinance, which actually takes up pages 5 through 24 of our packet. And this was an item placed in committee by Council Member Martin, and I will defer to him at this time. Thank you, Chair. As members of the Council heard, after my trip to Greenville, South Carolina, I know many members of the Council went to Greenville on the Chamber trip this year, and I was unable to go because of work. I was just incredibly impressed by the amount of tree canopy in downtown Greenville. And to be able to pull off that kind of community amenity, that type of environmental tour de force, if you will, really takes a long-term vision in a community. and I wanted to really take a moment here at the City of Lexington to look at what we're doing to try to provide for the long-term maintenance and health of our trees, particularly in the downtown area. It takes a lot of care to have trees that are 40, 50 years old. And so, Mr. Query, maybe you and I can sort of work through this, and I appreciate Ms. Angela Lucy being here as well, and maybe she can add to this. let me start out by no come on up we're going to talk you know looking out on the another thing that made me want to bring this forward was as I saw the trees being installed on Main Street it appeared that the trees were being put in a pit of concrete and gravel about two to three feet deep and so obviously these were supposed to be our trees of tomorrow So, you know, the future depends on what we do today. And so as we examine how we got here and how we can get that kind of a downtown amenity, that's kind of a starting point because those are supposed to be the trees that we're going to be here in 50 years. And so, I mean, for those at home who are watching, if anybody is bored enough to be doing that this afternoon, And Greenville, South Carolina, essentially has Gratz Park running through downtown. These are 40-, 50-year-old trees. It provides an enormous outdoor walking area. And their farmer's mark is in the middle of Main Street downtown. And it's like being in the middle of Gratz Park. You just have these large trees all over the place. So what are we doing? Tim, appreciate it. I appreciate your comments, Council Member Martin. While I didn't get to visit Greenville, South Carolina myself, I have looked at a lot of pictures online, and it is very impressive. Having a mature tree canopy in a city provides a lot of benefits economically, socially. The environmental benefits, we could talk a lot about those. I can tell you that the downtown street trees that were planted recently with our new downtown streetscape were done so using the latest technology, using what's called CU structural soil. And while it looks like the trees were planted in concrete and gravel, there is a lot of research that was put into that mix of gravel and soil to maintain and sustain that tree over a period of 60, 70 years, hopefully. That's why you're doing this and not me. I don't have a formal presentation today, and Karen Angelucci is here, too. with she's the chair of the tree board what i would like to recommend that we do with your permission is let this issue maybe go back to the tree board and let us work on a presentation and maybe get some of your thoughts you know outside of the meeting here today and let us come back at the next meeting with a with a formal presentation i'm ready to answer any questions that you may have or talk about the benefits of trees and the urban forestry program in general? Well, we have made different decisions in Lexington that were made in Greenville, because whatever decisions that were made over the last 40, 50 years in Greenville has led to a mature tree canopy downtown. And it's just an incredible thing. We have made different decisions, and we don't have the same kind of canopy. but the same thing you see going into Greenville like on their interstate for example they have trees in the median on the interstate downtown, leading to downtown they have trees and other landscaping features just in the median and so from the first day I became on the Corridors Commission Chairman Blues is here for the Corridors Commission but the question is how do we take care of these trees How do we put more in so that we have basically a mature landscape that is an incredible amenity for the community, but it also creates value? It increases the value of the property in those areas where you have the mature trees. And so both downtown but also along our corridors, either Nicholsville or Harrodsburg or Tate's Creek, I think we got a good start. So I would just love to be able to work with you and the tree board to try to figure out what do we need to do different here in Lexington? What choices can we make that are different than the ones that have been made before? Because as I used to always say, if you keep doing things the way you're doing, you're going to end up where you are. And so have we already made those changes? and are we in a new day in Lexington so that we're going to have these trees in 50 years or are these things going to get cut down in 10 years and we're going to start all over again? I agree completely with everything you said. The urban forestry program here with the city is only about 13 years old. I would imagine that Greenville, South Carolina, and other communities that have mature trees in their downtown, that was in their planning early 50, 60 years ago. Really, the only difference is time. As a comparison, I recently went to Montgomery, Alabama, and that whole community is almost treeless. There's no trees in their commercial properties. There's no street trees anywhere. And it was rather stark. And to me, I wouldn't want to live in a community like that. So comparing Greenville, South Carolina to Lexington to another community, we're sort of behind the time, but we're actually now catching up. And so I think in just a few years, 13 years, we've got a good process with our street tree ordinance. In the packet that Paul Schonegger put together, there's a copy of Chapter 17B. We're in the process of revising the enforcement process, whereas property owners are responsible for maintaining trees fronting their private property. Elsewhere, it's the city's responsibility if the tree is located on public property. But having ordinances that didn't exist only 15, 20 years ago makes a huge difference. We had just recently discovered that Greenville, really everything that you're probably seeing in their downtown is a result of a landscape ordinance that they had adopted probably 50 or 60 years ago. One thing that I tell people all the time in Lexington is, compare Hamburg with the Kmart on Nicholasville Road. One's an older development, one's a newer development. The older development doesn't have any tree canopy, And so we're moving away from that kind of development. But once those ordinances have an effect over the course of development throughout a community, you really start to lose the old Kmart-style development where there's hardly any trees. Well, and one of the things as the tree board looks at that is maybe to talk about what institutional changes can occur that would allow longevity. because I see a lot of one-year thinking here at the city and the ability to plan 15, 20 years down the road and to actually carry out a long-term plan over changes of many councils and many administrations and to figure out how you're going to have a consistent funding source because the Corridors Commission is doing great work, but it was defunded this year. We don't have any money this year. and the corridors commission at least is one place that can continue to put trees in and to create the kind of lush community that frankly Lexington is known for and we just need to do it more and we need to take care of the trees that we put in so that it's easy to have kids, it's hard to take care of them. And that's a great segue into something else that I would like to mention is currently We really don't know what the current tree canopy coverage is for the urban service area and the rural service area and Fayette County in general. That's something that we're hoping to work on in the next year or so. Also having a management plan, whereas you prioritize, given the limited resources we have right now, prioritizing whether it's the corridor areas or the downtown street trees or a tree in a park or a tree in a greenway, But given the limited resources, we have to have a system of a priority, and having a management plan would do that for us. Well, I appreciate you and the tree board. I appreciate Ms. Angelucci coming today. And it was just something that I was just blown away up there. It was like, we've got to have this, and we've got to figure out how to get it and how to, if we need to do something different. Chris King's laughing in the back. But, you know, it just really is impressive. And obviously we don't have Red River Gorge downtown the way Greenville does. But we do have some wonderful things, and our tree canopy is a great way for us to continue. I mean, Gratz Park is such a great place because of its trees. I mean, if Gratz Park didn't have the trees, people wouldn't care that much for it. I did want to ask the chair of the tree board to make comments if she would like to, if that's all right. Then we'll come back to you, Council Member Martin, if that's good. I have a few comments. Yes, ma'am, please. Welcome. A lot of these I can address. Actually, the corridor has just passed this past year a two-year warranty on plant material. I just asked the mayor yesterday to have all divisions of government use the same planting specs. That way, a tree is easy to kill in one year, but people will put a little bit more time and effort into planting it right if they have to babysit it for two years. So hopefully... And I might comment on that if I might, Chair. The two-year warranty, because I'm a business lawyer and I have a lot of clients who do this kind of thing, I would like to see a provision where they actually have to water it for two years because it would become a financial calculation that, well, we'll do a two-year warranty, we'll charge a little bit more, and we'll just replace the ones that die. It's not uncommon, a two-year warranty. It's not uncommon. And, you know, Quarters just picked it up. And I would love to see all the divisions look at that and respect that. Obviously, funding. You know, we plan these great plans, but we don't plan on taking care of them. Like kids, I guess. You have kids, but you don't want to take care of them. Or maybe that's just me. I do know that a lot of it, I don't know, I don't want to make anybody mad, but it has a lot to do with planning. and maybe it's the ways of the times but it used to be they didn't look at green infrastructure when they built cities it was all as much concrete and get all the stuff out away from us let it run off somewhere else so I think if engineers would come to the table with three people that might help something simple as lightening up on grading specs where they don't take everything away, all the good stuff. I know they have to do that to build something, but make sure it gets put back and it's not just rubble and pop cans. It might have something to do with it. And the biggest thing is educate our property owners because the majority of the trees, well, the street trees, are supposed to be taking care of property owners. Same as in Greenville. They have their citizens or their budding property owner takes care of it. But I think a lot of it is back to planning, making sure there's a spot appropriate to plant a tree. And that's all in the design. And that's all I got. Thank you. If you'll remain, there are another couple of councilmen. Well, just in the chambers. Hold on. But thank you for your service to the tree board. We appreciate it. Next, I have Councilmember Beard. Thank you, Chair. Just so we're on the same page, I guess, Councilmember Martin, the area you're talking about is where probably 80% of their restaurants in Greenville are. They're shoulder-to-shoulder for about five blocks, it seems like. But that's not their main street. That is another street they retrofitted that already had the trees, and that's their entertainment, arts and entertainment and restaurant. And it goes to a bridge and once you cross that bridge, it's not a pretty sight, actually. Mayor Gray, then Vice Mayor Gray and I went to Greenville about two years ahead of Commerce Lexington and we got a pretty good, for whatever reason, he has connections everywhere, and we got a lot of good help from the people in their chamber and some of their commercial activities, and he put on a nice dinner for them, and we spent some time actually talking to the folks that are the doers. and it's kind of the cart before the horse or the horse before the cart, which way you go. But, I mean, they took a street, it was like Maxwell Street, for instance, and retrofitted it to become an entertainment area. And it already had the tree canopy. so we can't I don't think in our lifetime get an adequate downtown tree canopy that would be anywhere close to what Greenville has in their arts and entertainment area as much as we'd want it it's just we aren't going to live that long but we can start and maybe our grandchildren can and get to find the benefit of that sometime in the future. Anyway, I just wanted to point that out, that they were very far-seeing rather than we stayed at the Hyatt, and it's a cross street on this street about two blocks away, and they have trees planted just like we have trees planted every 25 feet or 30 feet, and they aren't very mature at all. They're three or four-inch trees, and they'll be nice someday, but it's not what we'd call a canopy necessarily. It's the start of a canopy. Anyway, I just wanted to point that out to you, Council Member Martin, and the rest of the group. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. I think that's kind of the underlying substance here is we can't retrofit anywhere unless it is to Grads Park because there's no other canopy in downtown. We're trying to find a way to make it happen and keep it rather than redo it every 25 years, which has kind of been our practice, I guess. Next up is Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think that Council Member Martin has raised an important issue, And it's a very daunting one because we know that our tree canopy is insufficient, that it's threatened by disease. We're going to lose a lot more trees than we're going to be planting in the next several years. We also know that an adequate tree canopy is not only an aesthetic benefit, it's an economic benefit, it's an environmental necessity. and I think that we do have to start thinking about an issue that is very difficult in the sense that it's one that will not benefit most of us sitting around this horseshoe and certainly not people of my maturity, let's say. Which part of the tree canopy are you? But will be for our children and their children. We also know that money doesn't go on trees, otherwise we'd be planting some of those, and that we do need to think seriously about how we pay to plant the trees and preserve the trees that we want. There has been talk at various times about a parks and natural resources tax, but of course in this climate, whenever you mention the word tax, you tread on dangerous ground. We have so many needs, but without question, this is one of our city's most critical needs, and it's critical because we don't really think about it very much. So I think that Tim Quirley's point of first thing is to make a serious and critical assessment of this situation. Not only in terms of the number of trees, but of the consequences of not having an adequate number. and the consequences of poor choice of species and of the various threats to our trees that we ourselves, you know, can't avoid putting out there. We plant a street tree and then in the wintertime we splash salt on them. So it's a difficult issue, but I think that Council Member Martin is right to raise it. This is very long term, and I'm hoping that we can look at these facts and the consequences of them and begin to move toward some kind of intelligent and conscientious plan for rebuilding what we over the years have lost. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. I appreciate those comments, too. And next is Council Member Henson. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Martin, for bringing this up. It never ceases to amaze me the things that maybe we're not looking at, things that we're taking for granted. So I appreciate you bringing this forward. And I did have some questions for Tim. If you don't, and Council Member Blue's brought up the question of this particular species of trees that are planted. And if we look at, you know, trees that have low maintenance or just really take into consideration the types of trees that are being planted in the areas. Is that something? I know you talked about not, you know, the planting of them and that you took special care when planting them, but also I think if you want more rapid growth, different species grow quicker than others, and the root systems are different and that. Generally, we recommend planting large shade trees all the time, more so than smaller ornamentals, because a large shade tree species lives longer than a small ornamental, such as a red bud or a crab apple, et cetera. But going back to what Karen had said, choosing the right species for the right location, making sure there's no conflicts with underground utilities or overhead utilities, is really the key to the long-term survival of an urban forest. I mean, we all unfortunately remember the ice storms of 2003 and 2009 and the problems that were associated with large tree species with overhead power lines. Unfortunately, you know, years ago, what was available in the nurseries at that time was like silver maple, And now we're learning the same mistakes probably with the Bradford Pears species that don't perform well over time. So the tree board has actually been involved in recently looking at the species list that we do recommend for property owners to choose from when they make those decisions about planting a tree in public right-of-way or either planting a tree on private property. So there is a lot of thought put into that process. Okay, and I appreciate that. I did have a question because I don't know if you remember or not the situation we had on Gibson Avenue where it was a grant-funded street tree planting, and now they're pretty much all dead. Right. And you may have several people on fixed incomes, low income, that cannot afford to have those trees removed. So have you given or has any thought been given to maybe some kind of assistance to homeowners in situations like that? We do have grant money or cost share money available to assist low-income property owners with the cost of street tree removal. They have to qualify through our Division of Adult Services. So there is money available for property owners currently in those situations. There's not a lot of money, but there is some funding available. That's good to know. Yes. And does it require them to replace the tree? We do ask that they replace the tree, but we also have to recognize in those particular situations, when it comes to low-income property owners, possibly the reason that they're in that particular situation is because of a disability or a health-related issue. we can't expect a property owner in that situation to be able to maintain a tree. So given those circumstances, depending on the person, we may ask that a tree be replaced, but if they're not physically able to maintain the tree and they don't have the money to do that, then no, we're not going to ask them to replace it. And I know in particular on Gibson Avenue, when I went over and took a look at it, the strip where the trees were planted with the public right-of-way between the sidewalk and the street might have been 24 inches wide. Right. And it's really not, to me, a large enough area to plant a tree to begin with. Sure. But it is pretty when the trees are living. but in reality they do grow up and that root system has to maintain the the likelihood of the tree and if the space is not there but it's good to know though that there might be some funds available that I could pass along Thank you for those comments. One particular issue that I would mention when it comes to urban forestry is, given the resources, the urban county government can remove trees for the most part, can prune trees on public property, but planting a tree is going to involve some form of money. You know, money, like Council Member Dr. Blue said, money does not grow on trees. Well, trees just don't fall into the urban county government's lap, so to speak, and we can go out and plant those on public property. In order to do so, we have to have money to plant. With the resources that we have available right now, we can prune trees, we can remove trees, in most cases on public property, but if we are to try to increase our overall tree canopy cover here, we need money to do that. And going back to what Council Member Plouze said about the diseases and the insects that we're starting to encounter, emerald ash borer is a great example, that's going to reduce our overall tree canopy. At this point in time, we really don't know by how much or how much of a long-term effect that's going to have on this community, But we do know that in order to mitigate that loss, we're going to have to plant trees. And we're going to need money to do that. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. I'm going to take the list kind of in a – I want to have Council Member Stennett, then Beard, then I want to have Council Member Martin kind of wrap us up. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. Council Member Martin, I assume you want to look at all aspects of this tree ordinance, not just downtown trees but our whole urban forestry program in terms of street trees. And so on that note, I know I had this conversation with Susan Bush back in the spring, but street trees, 13 years ago when we started acquiring this or whenever, what a great idea, especially in residential areas, to replace them. But as Council Member Henson alluded to, you get some places a two-foot strip, most places a four-foot strip that normally has been reserved for utilities, and now we're putting trees. Well, just this past week, my neighborhood was reminded by the post office that their trucks are hitting the trees. I've been reminded by Fayette County Public Schools, their buses are hitting our trees. And as well as several neighborhoods, and Tim and I have been through this battle too, the roots have grown up and busted up the sidewalks, not to mention the salt trucks have thrown salt on them. So I think there's a lot of opportunity there. What used to be a good idea and probably is well worth putting them in the soil is just the location of those trees. We may need to rethink that, maybe in the residential area. put them in the yards on the other side of the sidewalk versus right there on the street because one walking uh walkers are having trouble with neighbors don't prune them so neighbors get mad at each other because they don't keep it seven feet so they're walking in the road now in most neighborhoods or you can't see down a side distance at night there's some instances where that happens so there's a lot of things that are a negative result of our street tree ordinance that we may not have anticipated especially when you add in you're talking about money the repair of sidewalks And that is the homeowner's burden to do so if the improper street tree was planted well before they moved in, and now they have to come back in at almost $100 a square and replace that sidewalk. That can get very expensive. So all these things need to be considered, and I hope that was your goal, Councilman Martin, is to look at, especially in the residential areas, because as Councilman Henson alluded to, we're putting the burden on the financial costs on the residents to put the tree back because we don't have the money sitting around to do so all over the city. And I think that needs to really be examined. And if we put it back, we may need to rethink where we're putting them because there has to be a better location and cause less harm than what I just described with salt and post offices and school buses and repairing sidewalks and just from a safety standpoint of walking down your street. So I know you and I have encountered that in many places, and I hope you all are rethinking that opportunity there. What am I just saying? Yes, sir. The primary focus was about downtown and about downtown trees, and I think it's up to the council whether we want to sort of move into other areas. I'd hate to take the focus off of downtown because it's such an important thing, but I think it's up to the council if you want to expand the scope of sort of our looking at this because it affects all of downtown and affects all of Lexington and particularly the effect of our corridors. How do we provide long-term funding for the Corridors Commission so that we can continue to land and put trees in our corridors and along our corridors? But the main focus was downtown, and as we were particularly doing these new projects to make sure that we were entering the due day, as Tim was telling us, that these are state-of-the-art type of installations and not the grass seed and straw over gravel, which is in my front yard. I think we'll let this kind of evolve as we move forward here, but I wanted to get the rest of the council input first, coming next to Councilmember Beard. Thank you again, Chair. Tim? You mentioned the insect, talking about the insect problem and the emerald ash borer, and not knowing exactly what we're up against. I know at one time you had said a half a million trees. We are treating the ash trees in the parkland. Is that correct? We are treating only a very few of the significant blue ash. A corridor's commission a few years ago dedicated about $5,000 for the treatment of some of the older blue ash on public property, so it's around a dozen. These are 200-year-old trees. We had worked out a priority system of trying to save those old significant trees that we felt were worth trying to save. and we were looking at the downtown street trees, the ash on vine, and from there we went back into the parks, but there's just too many. We just don't have the resources to do it. I guess what I'd like to see, how somehow we might be able to do it, and that is to get the word out more strongly to the various and sundry people in this county that if they have ash trees, and maybe they don't know what kind of tree they have, but that there is an option for them to save that tree at some point and allow them to go ahead, an educational-type process, to get them involved in treating their own trees rather than it waits too late and then they can't catch up with the problem. Other than that, if it is a half a million trees, or a quarter of a million trees is a lot of trees, and there's going to be a lot of dead trees at some point, what do we do about stark, leafless, dead trees firewood what exactly can we do and we probably need a plan for that in some way shape or form as to how we're going it's going to be an ugly ugly situation if we lose a half million or a quarter million trees in Fayette County just exactly we're talking about our canopy and our canopy extends as far as I'm concerned to the county line. And we'll let Bourbon County and Clark County and some of those people worry about theirs. And, again, the education process of the public, I think, is critical to getting somewhere with the insect problem. That's just one of the insects. I think there's more. And talking with the neighborhood associations, most of the neighborhood associations are aware of it. One of the first jobs that I had working with Susan was to contact neighborhood associations where we had identified through the tree boards just a group of volunteers out surveying what neighborhoods have the majority of the ash in the neighborhoods in Lexington. And we targeted those areas. Volunteers put a green ribbon on the trees. You may have been familiar with that. It was a very low-cost educational campaign that did wonders for us because then when we followed up a year later with those neighborhoods, the neighborhood associations themselves, for the most part, already had developed some sort of plan whether they were going to hire a private contractor, depending on the size of the tree, to go through and either treat the trees themselves or possibly the thought of going ahead and removing the trees with the idea of replacing them, of course, with a different species. Trees on public property will have to be prioritized. Fortunately, every single ash tree won't die at one time. We know that it will probably be over the course of the next 10 years. So trees that are around the playground equipment, swing set, and so forth, that would receive a higher priority as far as a hazard with that tree associated with the tree. Somewhere on public property that's, say, in a natural area where there's not a risk involved with that tree, we would have time to come back and remove that. But the trees that would pose the biggest danger would be our top priority to remove first. But fortunately, it'll take, if there's a good way of looking at it, it will take probably 10, 15 years for all of them to die. What we are noticing with other communities is now that we're dealing with this problem, it's coming up with the funding not to treat them but to actually start replacing them. Because that's a discussion that the tree board had years ago, probably two years ago, about you can spend a lot of money on purchasing pesticides and putting pesticides into the environment to try to save a tree with this particular problem. We don't know exactly when the end will be in sight. So it would probably make better sense financially to spend our money on replacing the tree at some point in time versus continuing to treat them. Unless it's a significant blue ash that's 200 years old. This came from north to south, did it not move? That's correct. And, you know, maybe there's some folks in northern Ohio or whatever, in northern Indiana, that maybe has already met this problem and has some ideas about what they've done. If we could find out, that would be great. No sense in trying to reinvent the wheel. It's a slow, painful process. Seeing trees die like that with the resources, limited resources, to try to preserve them, it's a losing battle. All we can do is really try to think about the future and try to replace those. Thank you, Tim. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Chair. Tim, thank you for coming, and I appreciate the Council putting this in committee. I hope we can keep in committee and maybe Mr. Query and the tree board can get together and sort of sift through some of these issues. To me, one of the biggest things is the hardest thing for a city to do is to take care of long-term issues. The city can't keep its attention over a 15-year period. It changes from budget cycle to budget cycle. So how do we provide for the long-term funding of both installing but also maintaining these trees so that they can really be there? The second thing is how do we prevent folks from cutting them down? I know, and I love that maybe when we come back we can talk about the trees that were cut down on Nicholsville Road. That should have some fairly severe consequences because it takes years to grow a tree like that. And finally, how do we provide for this long-term maintenance, either with tree bags or with collars to prevent the mowers from chewing them up at the base and feeding the trees over time? So I really appreciate you all coming and helping us understand this issue today, and I look forward to hearing from you again. And if you'd like, I can come meet with you guys, and we can sort of put our heads together and see where we can go on this. Chair, thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for bringing that. The only thing I thought we heard was some subdivision regulation things in terms of that Council Member Stenet had brought up. But if you all will kind of meet and work on this or just come back to us or work with the council member or work with staff, because I think that there's interest in ongoing outreach here. Yes, ma'am, please. I just have two things, and I have to believe. The tree board does not have a council person on our board, and we really need one. We can work on that. Well, I've asked nicely. But that would be helpful if we had a council member there. The other thing I'd like to say is, with 90,000 homes in Fayette County, roughly I guess, if everybody donated $4 a year, they could give up their tree responsibility. And you can't ask people to take care of trees that's in an area that's not technically theirs, that it's their responsibility, but it's not their land. So instead of calling it a tax, maybe if they could donate $4 a year, we could have a comprehensive urban forestry program, just like Cincinnati has. Yeah, that's very successful. And theirs is only $3. I raised it to $4. You were asking nicely, though. Because I want the best trees. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. We'll look forward to the continuing conversation of these multiple issues. This brings us to the summation page, page 25, which is our ongoing issues in the committee, which I'm just going to tick off through here kind of quickly because we've had the Oliver Lewis update. I don't really have anything going on the large poles in the utility right away. I mean, I'm not sure which way to turn with that. We can kind of talk about it or come back to it. Todd's Road we get a quarterly update on. We've talked about goals and objectives in repaving. The fencing issue had gone through here to Council and then to planning and then back to us. So I think it's still kind of being worked on. The paving warranties we've covered. We're working on having a presentation with the folks from the Valley View Ferry for our next meeting. Let's see. We have had one meeting with the folks from the Fayette County Public Schools about trying to come up with a kind of assault services partnership. And Mr. Wente had some comments on that, but I think we've neglected the opportunity to let him give those to us here today. The Downtown Traffic Management Revitalization Study is ongoing. We did have a presentation about it, but I don't think it's ready to come back to us just yet. The right of entry and administrative warrants. This one is still kind of a mystery to me, but I think we have missed the opportunity to talk to Councilmember Stennett about it at this point, so we'll look forward to that opportunity again. The Department of Planning, Commissioner of Position, which I understand we had a presentation from the administration saying that they were working on a job description and the search is open. So I think we will look forward to following up on that. The addressing ordinance is one that got placed in this committee based on input from the folks on Richmond Avenue, and I've told both the folks on Richmond Avenue and the addressing office that we will take this up in January after the holidays to give everyone a chance to not have to be down here talking about it at that point in time. This brings us to, since we already have talked about review of streets reordnance and protection ordinances, brings us to the review of Chapter 4 of the Urban County Code, Re-Harboring Animals in Residential Areas. And I think we have maybe an update on that or a follow-up report. Welcome. Good afternoon, Council. Thank you, sir, for being here. I am the chair of the Advisory Committee for Animal Care and Control, which does exist. And Councilman Stenis sits on that committee as well. And when I first heard about this, I actually sent out the verbiage that was proposed to the committee members, which have hundreds of years of experience. We have veterinarians. We have people in animal care and control. We have people that are in election humane society that are on there, council people as well. And I still don't like me except for the fact that I write the contract for the city for animal care and control is the reason why I'm the chair of the committee. I don't know why that is. It's kind of like, you know, dubbed you're it. But the end result is that we actually got together and formed a non-scheduled meeting. And we had a majority of the people that were there last Monday. And there were some concerns relative to the verbiage that was within the writing itself. Okay. Some of the major concern was what was the intent of the council itself as to why they wanted this written. And could we, in fact, just massage what exists within the ordinance itself? A lot of the things that were in there definition-wise would put a huge burden on animal care and control, and contractually we are not prepared for that burden that would exist if it was passed as written. There's been some suggestions, and I know that the Humane Society and Animal Care and Control are surveying various calls for the last three years as well as their own individuals to see what kind of problems actually exist throughout the county, where there are, for lack of a better term, farm animals that exist in the urban service district, such as we know that there's a horse that exists over on Tahoma Drive. That's a full-grown horse in a postage stamp-sized lot. And can we, in fact, massage the ordinance as it exists to alleviate something like that and to make it not happen as opposed to just arbitrarily? There are people in the urban service district right now that I know of that have horses. But they have acres. They have an acre or two, but they're still in the urban service area. And if you just cart black and white, no horses, except for miniature horses, then people who have had horses for years would have to take them out. So with that in mind, what I would ask for is when you all meet next month, we are preparing, as I said, information to try and find out specifically where farm-type animals exist within the urban services area, and we will come back to you as a committee with a suggestion. Okay. That's agreeable to me. This was actually placed in committee by Councilman O'Beard, and he has rung in to make commentary. Just for everybody's edification, I guess the Tahoma horse, as we call it in the neighborhood, is gone. I think Animal Control cited them. They cited it under the care and control ordinance. And then they gave them 30 days or something to react to that, and they did react to that. and the horse is gone. Exactly. His initial response was to hire an attorney, and they were going to file against the city because they didn't think that it was fair, but he saw the wisdom and actually moved the horse back where it was to begin with. He had it on the farm. Yeah. I guess they wanted it as a pet. It's kind of tough to have it around the house, though, isn't it? That was the exact reason that he gave was that he didn't get a chance to see the horse enough. That's why he brought it to his backyard. Well, anyway, that one's fixed. There are probably other issues similar that are going on. Are there other issues that you want to continue to work on? Well, we do have issues relative to equine and horses. With the new state law that was passed two years ago, we no longer have a horse running at large because they took the term horse out of our definition of livestock. state law supersedes it, so we no longer have an ordinance that allows us to actually cite people for horses running at large. We can cite for dogs and other pets, but we cannot cite for horses. And right now, I mean, if you know anything about, especially in the county areas, some of the farms, and I don't know why, but the fencing, that sort of thing, we have horses running at large on a regular basis throughout the week. And we basically are capturing them. we will take them down to the one stall that they have behind Lexington Humane Society and wait for somebody to come pick it up. And sometimes that's three to four weeks because they can't take care of it to begin with. So it is a situation that we need to put something back on there for horses, especially that are running. So there are other policy issues you all want to address? There is other issues relative to... You don't have to number them today. Not normal, but like urban farm animals. There are people that raise chickens. There are people that have chickens and ducks. Ducks is pets, believe it or not. So it's just we want to look at it and come back with an idea to you all. That's good. And I will just say that we had a spate of e-mails about goats of all sort and nature. So you can take that into your policy work. I understand. Everything from pigmies to full-grown. Yes, sir. I appreciate you kind of rotating that from the one call to a policy update. I think it's very good, and we appreciate it very, very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Unless there's other issues to come. Yes, Council Member. Chair, I just want to comment briefly. The erecting large utility poles in the right-of-way, that issue is about Rose Lane and Euclid. It's about the large transmission towers that were installed. And while this is a very difficult issue, particularly from a financing standpoint, because it's very costly to divert those things or to bury them, I haven't given up hope yet that the council can do something to prevent these from showing up on any of our streets in the future. So if we could keep it in committee, that would be terrific. I have no problem with that working on the policy to go along with it. I appreciate the update very much. Anyone else? I ask for a motion for adjournment. So moved. Second. All in favor? We are adjourned. Thank you very much. All I'm asking is for one little chance.