# Council Work Session - November 28, 2011 > Auto-transcribed civic record · November 28, 2011 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/2262 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/2262?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2011-11-28 - **Last revised**: November 28, 2011 - **Length**: 14,000 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 Urban County Council met on November 22, 2011, in the Council Chambers on the 2nd Floor of the Government Center, with Mayor Gray presiding. The meeting included three agenda items: Public Comment on Issues on Agenda, Approval of Summary, and New Business. The Council took four motions and votes during the session and heard one public comment. The Summary was approved, while the Public Comment and New Business items were handled as informational matters. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the meeting on November 28, 2011: * Mayor Gray * CM Ellinger * CM Myers * CM Stinnett * VM Gorton * CM McChord * CM Lane * CM Beard * CM Blues * CM Farmer * CM Lawless * CM Martin * CM Ford * CM Bennett * CM Crosby * CM Henson * CM Kay No members were absent or late. ## Votes and Decisions The meeting included four votes, all of which passed by voice vote. **Approval of the Summary** [timestamp: 0:01:08] CM Ellinger moved to approve the summary, with a second from CM Beard. The motion passed by voice vote. **Approval of New Business Items** [timestamp: 0:20:42] CM Blues moved to approve new business items, with a second from CM Myers. The motion passed by voice vote. **Referral of Jail Administrator Cost Effectiveness Issue** [timestamp: 0:55:10] CM Myers moved to refer the issue of the cost effectiveness of having an elected administrator oversee and run the jail into the Budget and Finance Committee, with a second from CM Lane. The motion passed by voice vote. **Approval of the NDF List** [timestamp: 1:38:17] CM Ford moved to approve the NDF list, with a second from CM Blues. The motion passed by voice vote. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting addressed two grant allocations for fiscal year 2012: **Ticketing Aggressive Cars and Trucks (TACT) Grant Program** - Amount: $50,000.00 - Recipient: Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet - Identifier: 418-11 **State Criminal Alien Assistance Program** - Amount: $129,533.00 - Source: U.S. Department of Justice - Identifier: 419-11 The total financial actions approved amounted to $179,533.00 in grant funding. ## Public Comment [timestamp: 00:38] Mr. Mundy reported that no members of the public wished to speak on the agenda items. ## Contested Items **Cost Effectiveness of Elected Administrator Overseeing Jail Operations** A heated discussion arose regarding the cost effectiveness of having an elected administrator oversee and run the jail. The primary disagreement centered on the appropriate committee venue for addressing this issue, rather than the substance of the proposal itself. Committee members debated whether the matter should be moved to the Budget and Finance Committee or remain under the jurisdiction of the Public Safety Committee. Concerns about timing and the scope of discussion influenced the disagreement, as participants weighed the procedural implications of each approach. The discussion reflected uncertainty about which committee was best positioned to evaluate the financial and operational dimensions of the proposal. The contested nature of this item indicates that no clear consensus emerged on how to proceed with the review process, though the specific outcome of the debate is not detailed in the available record. ## Public Comment – Issues on Agenda [timestamp: 00:00:38] No public comments were made on the issues on the agenda. Mr. Mundy noted this during the meeting. ## Approval of Summary The council approved the summary of the previous meeting. [timestamp: 00:01:08] Council Members Ellinger and Beard participated in this agenda item. The summary was approved without noted objections or concerns. ## New Business [timestamp: 02:09] The meeting included discussion of new business items focused on participation in the Kentucky Business Investment Program. Key speakers addressing this agenda item were Jenna Greathouse, Conrad Carney, Russ Hensley, and Joel Fay. The discussion centered on three organizations' involvement with the Kentucky Business Investment Program: CMS Text, Shatterbox, and GE Lighting. The specific details of their participation, proposals, or initiatives were presented during this portion of the meeting. This agenda item was informational in nature, with no formal action or decision required. The outcome was to provide information to meeting attendees regarding these business program participants. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of the summary - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of new business items - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Move to refer the issue of the cost effectiveness of having an elected administrator oversee and run the jail into Budget and Finance Committee - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of the NDF list --- ## Full transcript Hello, everyone. Welcome to the work session, November 22nd. I'll call the meeting to order. And first on our agenda is issues, or is a public comment. Does anyone here wish to speak to issues on the agenda? I don't have a list of anyone, so I'll assume that no one has wishes to speak to the agenda. Thank you, Mr. Mundy. Thank you, sir. All right. I don't have any indication of requested rezonings, and there's no docket approval required. Next on our agenda, item Roman numeral three is approval of the summary. So moved. It's a motion by Council Member Ellinger to approve the summary, second by Council Member Beard. Is there any discussion? Then I'll ask for a voice vote. All in favor of the motion, please say I owe. Council Member Farmer. Just on page four, it's been brought to my attention that my name is misspelled. Oh, my goodness. Where is this? under page 4, Continuing Business, Item A. The update was given by Council Member Famer. An egregious error. Well noted. Thank you for noting that, sir. Do we have that? Is our clerk? Yes. Thank you, sir. All right. Any further discussion? All right. Then we can take the vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. The motion passes. Next on our agenda are budget amendments. There are none today. Next on our agenda, new business. We do have, under new business items today, we have three companies represented today, and they are here in connection with items E, F, and G, related to their participation in the Kentucky Business Investment Program, and Jenna Greathouse will introduce the program, its relevance, and the companies. And I believe that the companies are going to speak to us as well. I assume this is on. Oops. Yes, ma'am. Sorry. Julian has trouble with that, too. Council Member Beard has had trouble with that just last week. Thank you for having us up here today. I'm Jenna Greathouse, Senior Vice President with Commerce Lexington, and our team has worked actively with all three companies today. And I'd like to introduce them by giving you a summary. Together, these three projects, and there are CMS Text, Shatterbox, and GE Lighting, and I'll give a little bit more detail. But together, the three projects have announced the intention of a total of $12,565,975 in capital investment. 186 direct jobs with an average wage amongst them of over $40,000. And after we ran the projects through the economic impact model that was created by Dr. Coombs from the University of Louisville, we can estimate the projects also have the potential to create 88 indirect jobs. That results from company spending in the community and 77 induced jobs as a result of the employee spending. And these jobs will have a total of impact of, we think, $249,000 in LFUCG payroll and property tax revenue and an additional $40,000 in Fayette County public school payroll and property tax revenues. So a little bit about the companies, and if it's okay, I'd like to ask them to come out and talk about themselves. But first is CMS Text, and they're a mobile marketing firm. And we have Mr. Conrad Carney here. He's the CEO. and they have individually announced the intention of 135 jobs. So I'll let Conrad come up here. And then do you want me to go ahead and do all three, or do you want me to come back up individually? Perhaps individually would be great. Thanks, Jenna. Well, thank you. On behalf of CMS Tech, we want to thank the council for the economic incentive and as well as Governor Beshear's office. the Cabinet of Economic Development with John Bevington, Jenna and Kimberly and Bob Quick at Commerce Lexington. We're very actively involved, along with Mayor Gray and Kevin Atkins in your office. Also, involved in this is a very long process as far as developing these companies and bringing it to fruition. working with Dean Harvey at the Von Albans Center, as well as Warren Nash and Pat Powell at the Lexington ICC. Without all their help over the last two and a half years, this would not be possible. And on behalf of the Council and the Economic Development and all those that we just talked about, I want to thank them because it's because of Ural's effort and their effort that high-tech companies such as CMS Text are able to flourish in central Kentucky and be able to develop these jobs and be able to keep these jobs here. And so we're very excited about being involved. We're just a little background. We're four and a half years old. We're an international software mobile technology company. And what we do is we help businesses be able to market to their clients. And so we work within the retail and restaurant industry, and we're very proud that we are the exclusively endorsed mobile marketing company by Cisco Foods, which is the world's largest food distributing company to restaurants. Also, we are the exclusively endorsed mobile marketing company by the National Restaurant Association. That is an organization that was founded in 1919, and there's only 10 companies that are endorsed by them. We also recently executed an agreement where we are the exclusively endorsed mobile marketing company for the Canadian Restaurant Association. And we also work within the pharmaceutical and pharmacies. We're working very diligently with Cincinnati Children's Research Hospital where we provide medication reminders for adolescents with chronic illnesses. And that is a study that's been going on for now two years. It will conclude probably within a year and a half, but it's seeing tremendous results in being able to remind teenagers to take their medications. And so, again, it's on behalf of our current employees but also our future employees that we thank you. Thank you, Mr. Carney. Jenna? And now we'll bring up Russ Hensley, who's the CEO of Shatterbox and their branding and design firm. I'll check and see if this thing's on, too. Our expansion is really a complicated one. And many of you know me as Russ Hensley of Hensley-Elam Associates, which has been downtown for 13 years now across the street in Barrister Hall. And we purchased controlling interest and share box systems and are growing this business into the 15 jobs that we intend to create in the next two years. A lot of this effort came to fruition because of some of the efforts we've had from Commerce Lexington and the support from you all. and it's exciting. Shatterbox is a little bit different from a lot of technology companies in that we are branding a new media company. And so it's more the design and the creative talent in that group. Jeff Ruth is some of the staff that's there. You all may know. And we're excited to have this incentive to go forward and grow these jobs. Thanks, Russ. Thanks very much. And last but not least is Joel Fay, and he's the plant manager of the GE Lighting Plant. And Joel will come up here to talk about his jobs. Mr. Mayor, members of the council, on behalf of GE Lighting, and especially the employees of the Lexington Lamp Plant, I'd like to thank you for funding this project. We currently have about 125 employees. We're in the process of hiring another 40. This is to operate a new assembly line making household seal beam lighting, par 38 flood lamps. You may use them in your backyard. They use them in display lighting. I don't see any overhead lighting here, unfortunately. But we're very excited. We've got about a $10 million budget. We've spent the majority of that already. We're employing three local machine shops and equipment shops to help us with this project, so it's reaching beyond our four walls. We're really excited about the opportunity. This will be making energy-efficient products that will comply with the 2012 pending legislation on lighting energy efficiency. So I'll be brief, and thank you very much. We appreciate your faith in us, and our employees truly appreciate it. Thanks very much, Mr. Fay. Any council members wish to comment and thank our guests themselves? Council Member Lane. Well, I just wanted to comment. Normally, many of the companies that come before us to get incentives are companies that are just moving to Lexington. And today, all three of the companies are existing firms here who are expanding, and they're getting some incentives from our local community to help them in their expansion. And I just wanted to say thank you all for your continued investment in our community. And this is a great city, and I'm glad you're staying. Take care. Thank you. Council Member Lane. Council Member Lawless. The businesses mentioned are, as Council Member Lane pointed out, local businesses that are already here. Will this also be available to locally owned businesses that are not chains, or is it just for chains and franchises? It's actually geared around manufacturing companies and technology-based companies that 51% of their services are provided outside of Kentucky. So there are incentives to help local business, but this particular one is geared around where the revenue comes from. So in other words, they're not trying to incent to put someone out of business. It's to bring new business here. But there are local incentives for small businesses that we can try to help with. Can you elaborate just a little bit on what those might be? There is a small business access loan that is done via our office helps coordinate with Mark Johnson from the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development. We have a team. Our staff is on the ground as we're out there meeting with them. We sell those incentives, and that incentive is specifically geared from the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development. This one is actually in partnership with the urban county government. So the urban county government gives up a portion of its payroll tax, as does the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The small business tax credit and the small business loans are geared specifically from the state, but we're actually on the ground selling those as we're out meeting with companies. And would that be for existing locally owned businesses or? The tax, the small business tax credit and the loans, yes. It says 135 jobs over 10 years. Correct. and what is our commitment on that? Are they going to get a reduction in? For Conrad's, for CMS text, the maximum amount that they could receive, and this doesn't mean that they will, it's just the maximum amount that's projected, the local portion that the city would be given up would be a maximum of just over half a million dollars. The city will still collect a maximum of $682,000, and that doesn't include the school tax. So there's an additional school tax as well. So basically we're giving up almost half of our payroll tax revenue. Could be, provided that they meet their job numbers. And I guess my concern, and these sound really great, the CMS text message marketing, et cetera, very innovative. But one of the big issues of us growing jobs is to increase our payroll tax. So if we're losing almost half of our payroll tax, what's that going to mean for us down the road as we're struggling to? Well, these incentives have a requirement in them that they've looked at other cities. And so, for instance, Mr. Carney, I don't want to speak for you, but there are other cities that they looked at. So Conrad started here, but he could have put this in other cities as well. And so the Economic Development Cabinet has what they call, it's called the but-for clause that they have to commit to. We're looking at other locations in addition to Lexington. Okay. And what's the website to apply? Is there a... We usually coordinate that incentive, we being your team on the ground with Kevin. So we have a project manager from the Economic Development Cabinet who works with us, and I can send you links to the applications. We can send you a copy. Is there a plan in place to help connect people who are out of a job? Yes. If you look on our website and you go to locateinlexington.com and you click on Find a Job, There is a job portal, and then also people call us every day, can you please give us a contact at this company so that we can make an application. So we keep a consistent book with all contacts in it so we know who to connect a person to. And is there any possibility that could also be on the LFECG website? Perhaps maybe we could work something out with Kevin's office. or we can give Kevin the same contact so that people can contact him as well. Okay. Thank you very much. Council Member Lane. Yeah, I have a follow-up question for you. How are you? Could you just explain to the people that will be watching this on TV about how the incentives are structured? In other words, in order to get an incentive, you have to create jobs and the revenue created from the job, a portion of that goes back as the incentive. You could probably say that better than I did. Correct. The KBI incentive, it's by statute, and it's offered through the Kentucky Economic Development Cabinet with the participation from the local community. So 4% of it is a state incentive and 1% of it is local. And the state will not incent a company without the local's participation. And we work with companies every day, not just in Lexington but across the region, And to help them find the incentives, we feel like if we can do things to help lower their costs of doing business, it will encourage them to add more capital investment and more jobs down the road. Thank you. Thank you. That's all I have. Councilman McCord. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to say thank you to Jenna, but also thank you expressly to the folks who are represented here today in your organizations. And, you know, payroll tax or no payroll tax, the bottom line is that in this economy, and expansion and creation of job is the most important thing. And I appreciate all that you all are doing, and hopefully this creates momentum for not only your operation but others as well to do the same. And so, again, personal thanks from this council member, and again, Jenna, to you and your team, and Kevin, to everybody that's making this work. I would say that anything that we can do from some of the comments that you made as far as the positive process that you went through, to get that word out that Lexington is a really good place to do job expansion and job creation. I would ask you all to help us with that if that's okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Council Member McCord. Just as a bit of a footnote, too, thanks to you guys for joining us today. We appreciate it. Everyone has expressed that appreciation. And from my own past life experience, what we see today is, as Jenna and Kimberly know well, as Kevin knows, and as many of you members of the council know, that the competitive nature of jobs creation has presented every city with opportunities, and sometimes those opportunities represent minimum thresholds that we have to get through, and this competitive nature, the competitive framework is such that every city is offering incentives, especially in today's economy, and it's great when we win, even though we may not win as much as we might have otherwise in terms of the income stream to the institutions. We are winning, as Council Member McCord pointed out. We are winning whenever jobs are created. So thanks a lot. All right. Is there any further discussion regarding the new business items? If not, then is there a motion on new business? Move approval. Second. Motion by Council Member Blues. Second by Council Member Myers. Is there any discussion? Council Member Lawless. On number H, I'd say changing the title from Human Resources Manager to Payroll Manager in the Division of Accounting. Could somebody explain, is that position filled? Commissioner Graham. Council Member, that's because when you all approved the reorg back in July, we moved all of the payroll functions or most of them over to the Finance Commissioner Shupp, so that was an existing person that's just a change in title. It's not the Human Resource Manager Director position. Okay. Thank you very much. Any other discussion? All right. Hearing none, we can take a vote. On the motion, all in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you. All right. Moving to Roman numeral six, continuing business and presentations. Is there a report from the Public Safety Committee? Council Member Lawless, I'm showing a report from the Public Safety Committee. It's in the page 32 of our packet. This was the November 17th meeting at 1 o'clock. Council Member Diane Lawless chaired the meeting. The committee members present were Doug Martin, Council Member Ellinger, Council Member Ford, Council Member Beard, Farmer, Bennett, Crosby, McCord, and Henson, and Council Members Steve Kay, Tom Blues, and Vice Mayor Linda Gorton attended as non-voting members. I made a statement that time would not be able to be yielded for this meeting and that each speaker would have three minutes to speak. There was some discussion about traditions regarding speaking. The chamber was full, and there were a lot of people signed up to speak. Council Member Blues and Vice Mayor Gorton made their presentation. Thank the members of the Noise Ordinance Task Force who were in attendance. Council Member Blues also thanked the council staff who helped and the members of the public who attended meetings of the task force. Council Member Blues called Vice Mayor Gorton to speak on the history and review of early decisions the task force made. Vice Mayor Gordon stated that the task force was created to look at all noise issues. She made note of various organizations. Council Member Lawless, excuse me just a minute. I might just make a suggestion, realizing that this is a long report. Yes. Yeah, it's about three pages. I was just going to suggest you may want to, oh, it's actually more than three pages. You might want to give us sort of headlines on it. Well, that has been the way I've done it before, but my aide, Andrea James, was told to put a lot of detail in here. Oh, yeah, okay. Yeah, and I think this is worthwhile and valuable for the council members and for the record. It is, I just now counted, there are six pages. I agree that it's a lengthy report. You want to give us the headlines then? So I will give you the headlines. Great. The big headline was Council Member Martin made a motion to amend the exception, Section 1417 of the draft ordinance, to include noise caused by activities in industrial, business, economic development, and professional zones which are authorized by the applicable zoning regulations for those zones consistent with the standard practices for the business, office, or industry involved and that necessary or appropriate for the business, office, or industry involved. Council Member Ellinger seconded. Council Member Farmer asked for further explanation of the amendment. There was a motion to table the amendment, and that did pass and will be heard sometime in February, tabled until February. Additionally, the CAP home incarceration program was on the agenda, but due to the noisiness of the noise ordinance, it was not heard and will be scheduled at a later meeting. Thank you. And anybody that wants a copy of the six pages are welcome to email my office, and we'll get those to you. Great. Thank you. Thank you. All right. No motions from that committee report, right? Okay. One motion that was tabled. All right. Okay. Next on our agenda, council reports. Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. I just have one item. Council members received the 2012 draft council calendar last week, and we had a period of time for comments and proposed changes, et cetera. And during that time, there was really one proposed change, which I think will come forward. But I would like to go ahead. I know there's not a council meeting this Thursday, but I would like to go ahead and move that we place the calendar, which may get amended, on the December 1st council docket. Motion by Vice Mayor Wharton, second by Council Member McCord. Is there a discussion on the council member Stennett? Thank you, Mayor. Just want to thank the Vice Mayor and your aide for getting that together. I know it's a tedious task, but thank you for doing it. Just have a couple maybe potential changes that I'd like to present. One would be to change the first motion would be to amend and make all the 10 a.m. meetings, move them back to the 11 a.m. slot. Do I have a second already? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Motion by Council Member Stenet, seconded by Council Member Myers to amend the motion. Is there any discussion? Okay. Take a vote then. Council Member Kaye. Just a question. This was discussed when the calendar was first proposed. Has something changed in the way that the rationale for making that 11 to 1 instead of 10 to 2? It was just putting it back on the voting again. Well, this is the first draft we've seen of the calendar for next year. Are you talking about when we changed it to the 10 a.m.? Yes. Well, it was an attempt to give some – a lot of our days were going from 9 a.m. until 7, 8 o'clock at night. It was an attempt to give a break during the middle of the day. But unfortunately, with that attempt, we also lost the opportunity to have 9 a.m. meetings that a lot of us used to have for various task force or meetings. So moving it to the 11 would give another option to meet on Tuesdays, another time slot that a lot of people do prefer. Thank you. Council Member Blues? yeah i'd just like to underscore that point that for example the the nine o'clock hour would enable us to to schedule corridors commission meetings on tuesdays rather than on other days less convenient for council members thank you anyone else wish to speak on the amendment to the amendment okay and we can take a vote all in favor of the motion Please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. No. All right. We need to take a show of hands then. All in favor of the amendment, please indicate by holding up your hand. In favor, yeah. Repair it once you get in. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. All opposed to the amendment, hold up your hand, please. So one, two, three, one, two, three, four. Motion passes. What was the vote? please. No, this is just the amendment. The amendment to 10 a.m. To 11. Is that that part? What happened to it? Okay, try to vote again. This is on the amendment. 10 a.m. to 11. I'm getting a 8 to 3. I have a question, the mayor. Motion to amend passes. All right. We're back now to the original motion. Any discussion on the original motion? As amended? Okay. All right. All in favor, then? We can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no? Motion carries. And, Mayor, I would just like to thank Jeanette Williams, who actually worked with me closely to put this together. She spent quite a bit of time on it, so thank you very much. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Okay, we can continue with Council reports now. Council Member, please. Thank you, Mayor. At our environmental quality meeting earlier this afternoon, the Hazen and Sawyer report on the remedial measures plan was accompanied by this fairly large packet, which was distributed to members of the committee. Mr. Steinmetz, who delivered the report, indicated that he would provide copies of the binder, which is a very thorough, meticulous, detailed, and informative report on their proposals and strategies going forward will be made available to all council members. And I think whether you're on the committee or not, you should have this as a reference over the next several months as this project goes forward. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Blues. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mayor. I guess all the council members received a spreadsheet or a series of spreadsheets regarding the overtime usage at the jail, and that was a topic of discussion during Thursday's council meeting. So I was wondering if Mr. Sabatini was here. How are you doing, sir? Could you please come up, and I just have a couple questions for you. Is that your armor bearer with you? Yes. If the spreadsheet that we received is correct, it looks like you had about, there's two different numbers. I'm not sure which one is the right number, but $762,140 in your overtime budget. Correct. And with 38.5% of the year having passed, you've already spent 66.9% of that budget. So you spent $525,500, you're down to $259,000. That's correct. Do you have a plan for getting through the rest of the year without blowing that budget wide open? Well, as we spoke the last time, the budget is really a cumulative personnel budget. Now, you all had a view that that was different, but we've been talking with budgeting about that issue. and as we have vacancies that are created by people leaving the facility, those are the monies that we're planning on utilizing to cover the overtime budget. As we have a class coming on in about four weeks, that will start lowering that overtime budget. We have a recruitment pamphlet going out Monday of next week for the next class of 30, but they won't be really, it will be six months before those individuals are on, but we'll have 23 or 24, 23, 22 staff members that will come on in four weeks, so that should start lowering. But if you look at the direct relationship between the number of vacancies we have and the overtime, it's a proportionate relationship. So if you want us to request additional overtime funds, it would be difficult to project that given that we know we're going to lose some additional folks. If you want us to try to portion it out on a monthly basis to give you a better idea, the reporting is done, and we've been working with budgeting on a regular basis. So they have a very good idea of what we're spending every two weeks and what's coming out and what to expect here with the new class coming on. But there are also still some contingencies there that we can't nail down to try to give you an exact number by the end of the year. But we are confident that it will not exceed the personnel budget that we currently have in place for the budget year, if that makes sense. So in other words, you plan on using the personnel laps in order to cover the overtime costs? That's correct. That's what we've planned thus far, and that's what we work with budgeting on. I want to make a comment on this, too. You should point out that you have accepted a position as an interim director, and you are inheriting a budget. Am I wrong? No, you're correct. Okay, all right. So that needs to be clear that you are working with a budget that was adopted or prepared, recommended by others. That's correct. You may have, in a turnaround condition, you may have a different point of view on what is needed in a turnaround. So I think you need to speak to that if that is something that... Well, I would have accelerated some of the hiring. And, you know, I don't even know within ordinance whether that could have been done. But the fact of the matter is it takes us several months to get a class hired and working in the facility and then trained and working. So if there is a mechanism to shorten that process, we would love to engage in it. but I don't believe there's anything on the books right at this point that would allow us to create an emergency situation so that we can circumvent some of the normal bureaucracy that takes place in hiring individuals. I guess this goes back to my questions I had for you Thursday, and that is, you being the subject matter expert, and that's why the mayor brought you in to run a jail, it seems to me that if that were a situation that were of dire straits, then you would have come to the council and said, if we're going to manage this budget that I inherited and the council is the only one that can make changes to that budget, that you would have informed the council that you need to do some hiring expeditiously or we're going to have a problem with the budget. So I'm not complaining that you are where you are today. I simply want looking at these numbers, knowing that there's the likelihood that we're going to get through this budget year on track is, I don't think, very high in my view. I wanted to make sure that we don't come back. What do you mean by on track? I'm talking about for the entire government, not just your budget. Okay. What I didn't want to have is you come back later on with a budget amendment request saying we overshot our overtime budget by a half million dollars and so we need some help with it. So if you need to do something in order to hire people more expeditiously, then you need to come to the council and say that. But the bottom line is, do you have a plan to get to the end of this year without exceeding your budget? Exceeding the overtime budget or the budget for personnel? I guess I'd start with the overtime budget because if you exceed that, you're going to have to. Absolutely not. You have positions to fill. You can't not fill positions. I mean, we discussed that earlier or last week. We have posts to fill, and those posts need to be filled. And it's not like you can leave those posts unfilled. So what we're doing is using the credit vacancies that have been accumulating to fill those positions and the overtime positions. And then we discuss the fact that we're wearing people out by doing that because we're having people work 16 hours three times a week. And that was my next question. Which is creating even more problems from the standpoint of turnover issues. And that was my next question because we're looking at some of these evaluations that people are complaining about the number of hours of overtime they're having to work. That's right. So if you're going to exceed the budget, all you have to do is ask for a budget amendment. If I can have budgeting. Yeah, we can. Let me remind. I don't say this in a. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I'm just saying that the role of the chair is to call people to the podium. So we're going to call Mr. Barrows to the podium now. All right. Thank you, sir. I appreciate this coming up. This is actually something we started our recent budget meetings with the divisions. This was something that we talked about in detail. So we already see some benefits associated with that. Looking at this globally, we did recognize on the one particular line item, they were trending higher based on that current spend. But I would argue that that current spend in overtime is not going to continue as such. For instance, the beginning of December, their class that's currently in training are going to come online. From my limited standpoint, community corrections is post-driven. So with additional 25 officers coming on board, some of that overtime will be reduced. Then with the additional class that they just started hiring, when those officers then come on board, the overtime will be even reduced. So for us to calculate the math associated with the overtime that will be needed throughout the year is something we can't do right now. We talked about it. We realized that the current trend would put us over, but those calculations, we have to know how many officers that are going to qualify and we're actually going to hire in that second class. So that was a to-do maybe in January or February when we have firmer numbers. But I can say globally the council has purview and has approved a personnel budget and community corrections as a whole. Being post-driven, the mayor and commissioner and such in the budgeting process, we over-budgeted. Not over-budgeted. We budgeted for the adequate number of posts. They started the year with 42 down. So community corrections in terms of budget is a giver thus far. They have been trending even with the current trend in overtime. Aggregate personnel has been below budget almost every month this year, and globally it is below budget. So essentially by them not bringing the officers on in a more expedited fashion, yes, that has resulted in slightly over-trending currently for overtime. So then you feel like that with the class that was just hired and the one that's going to come on, this trend will reverse and you'll be fine by the time the fiscal year is over? I don't know if I can answer right now we'll be fine by the time. I can guarantee that the trend will slow. With being post-driven additional officers, it's just going to ratchet that trend way back. But without knowing specifics about how many are in the class, when the class is going to start, and when the class is going to graduate, we couldn't run that math currently. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Sabatini. Thank you, Council Member Myers. Council Member Henson. For? Okay. Sure. Would you like me to get my council report? Okay. You want to ask questions for? No. So who does? Okay. Why don't we just do that now then? I just want to follow up, and Mr. Burrow, you already sat down as well, but normally when we have an overtime situation where someone would go over overtime, they do bring budget amendments regardless of what money they're utilizing, and I'm glad you've already identified personnel laps so we don't have to go find it somewhere else in our budget. So I would hope, Ryan, we would see a budget amendment moving that money from the laps into the overtime account, So that way next year when we're budgeting, we can say we actually spent this in overtime, whether or not you got it from laps or whatever. Absolutely. So that's good to hear. I want to go back to you. You said something about hiring. You're going to start a new class or advertise for one Monday? Monday we will start. We will hire or we were advertised for I think it's about 31 positions. Okay, because we didn't hear that Thursday night. So when was the last time we advertised for a new class? July, right when I, probably the last week. So this is the class we advertised in July is the one that's getting ready to come on board. In about four weeks. Okay, I mean, here this year sometime. Right, that's correct. So why did it take us so long to advertise for the next class? It's the budget process and trying to get the approval to start another class. And then you had the, what was the group, the talent group, and trying to address that issue as to whether we fell within that or not within that. And we've been moving as quickly as possible. So is that what you're talking about, some of the bureaucracy that was holding us up? That's exactly right. So you're saying it took us from July, the last advertised, until Monday, almost five, six months, to advertise between classes? because of the... I can't speak specifically to that time frame and when. I mean, I had to catch up a little bit when I came back. I didn't know exactly what our deficiencies were at that point. It took me time to take a look at where we were and to figure out how deficient we really were. And it's at this point that I can see there's a need for an acceleration. Okay. I'm just trying to find out where in the process can we have sped it up so we can advertise sooner, like back in September, if we were going to hit this overtime issue. That's what I was looking for, and you mentioned there were some issues there. There was also contract negotiation going on as to whether we went in one direction or another direction that slowed it down. Okay. A lot of issues. So are all officers working overtime and everyone's eligible? Now they are. We had 56 officers that were not working overtime that are now working overtime. We had two shifts that are pretty much stabilized. We had one shift that was not doing the callback the way it should be done, and we addressed that this weekend. So now there's parity in fairness to all three shifts. So although they're still going to be working, at least it will be fair to all of them as to the callback situation, and I think that will be helpful in reducing the number of individuals that we're losing. And when we get that four weeks and get that class working, that will help out as well. But there's still a whole lot of work to be done. I understand, and thank you for showing up today and answering the questions. I think we all just want to get a better handle of the situation out there. And I would ask for one comment to the Commissioner of Finance and to the CAO. I would be very cautious in the past, the last eight years on council, When fire and police have come to this body asking for additional overtime money, we have told them, no, you cannot use personnel laps. So I want to be very careful in the precedent we'll be setting going forward. And right or wrong, there's a new precedent. And we need to make sure and be clear about what precedent that's going to set because there could be needs in other departments that will want to use personnel laps and overtime. So just be leery because I know Vice Mayor and Minister Farmer and those that have been on here a while know we've never allowed that to happen. So new day, new time. Thank you, Mayor. All right. Do you have anything else to say, Mr. Saptini, about this? I think one of the things that you said earlier, you said. I have a lot to say, but you don't want to hear it. Yeah. I'm going to say something. I'm going to remind all of us that this is a turnaround condition, and in a turnaround condition it is not possible to predict everything that is going to occur, and the flexibility in being able to adapt quickly is an essential part of it. And I think I've been on the Council when we have dealt with the overtime issues, And to the best of my recollection, we're following the protocols that we followed before. Where we saw patterns that were developing that were irregular, that's when we addressed it. The difference between this condition and previous conditions is there is a new management in place trying to deal with the issues that have accumulated over time. I think the only remaining issue that I'd like to just mention is that the jail statutes are different from any other of the KRS's as it relates to post assignments and personnel. And if you look at 441, it specifies that once you all set a budget and a personnel budget, that those funds will be expended on personnel issues. And as long as you're staying within that budget, and if you all want to change the rules, that's fine. But that was the budget that I had always operated within in the past. That's the statutory. If it's different from that and it needs to be changed, that's fine. But that's what we were operating under. Mr. Lane, you want to speak to this? I just had a question. The other day you were in, you were mentioning about a 30-minute break for eating, and I was not very satisfactory and no food available from the in-house cafeteria. What happens when somebody is on an extended overtime schedule? How many breaks do they get in that period of time? And it's still the same. It's every 10-minute breaks and then the half hour for a meal break. The problem is to get from just the bowels of the jail to your car in order to get out to get to a place where you can get a meal, your half hour is gone. All right. Well, what would be the possibility of, because we're short-staffed and this is an issue at this time, that maybe we could evaluate some type of cost to provide some type of supplemental food or whatever for the people on overtime? Could you come up with an estimate of what that cost would be and maybe submit that back to you? Even if we were coming back with a meal that was an inmate-prepared meal so that they can at least eat one of those meals at that time, the ODR, I'm trying to rectify that. I think we were close to around $100,000 a year if we were to put the ODR back in place. but we'll give you exact figures based upon the cost estimates of providing the meals today as an inmate meal versus an ODR meal that we get back with you, because that would really make a difference to the officers. I was thinking perhaps maybe we consider some type of an interim thing like that while we're short-staffed on people on overtime to help. That would be a great gesture on everybody's part. But also I want to remind the mayor that we're short on money, so we'll have to look at it very carefully. But if you could come up with an estimate. We can do that. That would be great. Thank you, sir. I'll have that for you. Thank you. Council Member Henson? You don't need any. Mr. Sabatini, okay. Thank you. You're in good shape. Thank you, sir. Pardon? I was going to give him another comment, but we're good. We're good. Okay. Another? I thought you said you had to add to your report. Either way, I mean, I can do it now while this topic's up or I can wait. All right, I've already called on Council Member Henson, so let's just bring Brian back. Okay? Okay, thank you. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to quickly say that over this past weekend, I had the pleasure of going and visiting one of my new neighborhoods that I acquired from the 10th District, Boba Link. And they're doing some stream restoration along the creek. And it was just like a great turnout. Many, many folks there. And I just commend them for their efforts. And the last thing is I just wanted to say everyone to have a happy Thanksgiving. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Hanson. Okay, let's go back to Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Burles, I have one question for you. When we talked about trying to predict how many employees you would need to take care of the overtime or the double time, if you took the hours of overtime worked since this fiscal year started, and then average that out, if everything stayed the same, it would say that we needed 58 more employees in order to handle those hours. Is that a way? I know you said you can't come up with an accurate number, but does that make sense as a calculation? That's close to what I have. $285, I believe, is essentially the amount of individuals it would take annually to cover every post. And, again, I'm not the expert. This is some of the information I was given. And they're down currently probably over 50 people, 25 or so about ready to come out in the class. And then we're going to go and advertise for another 30. So essentially with the class and then the next class, that should be enough to cover all the posts. Okay. because my question was going to be could you just increase that second class but if you don't if it's going to cover all the posts and you don't need to i guess well that was one of the things that i was in discussions prior to the meeting about what number that class would be historically we've had more capacity than would qualify is what their most recent experience is so i think that's a combination of community corrections hr as well as my office to kind of talk through what's the right number. Okay. Thank you very much. I have just one last thing on my council report. I know Thursday night we talked about the issue of different issues that were in committee, and so I know there's a lot of things going on in Public Safety Committee. And so after conferring with several council members, I moved to refer the issue of the cost effectiveness of having an elective administrator oversee and run the jail into Budget and Finance Committee. So moved. Second. Council Member Myers, would you repeat the motion, please? I move to refer the issue of the cost effectiveness of having an elected administrator oversee and run the jail to Budget and Finance Committee. So essentially it's the same issue that we looked at before. The first time I put it in committee, we put it in public safety, but when we talked about it I said then that really the issues that I want to look at are budget and finance related. They're really not public safety related. And so it's in the other committee but the other committee is tied up. There's a lot of things before it. We'd like to get the issue discussed by the council and move forward. There's an opportunity to do that in budget and finance. Okay, so there's a motion by Council Member Myers, a second by Council Member Lane. Okay, the floor is available for discussion. On the motion, Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. So the issue is strictly financial. Is that correct? Yes. You don't want any other aspect of the issue discussed? Well, the decision that's made based on the outcomes of that discussion could be that we decide to do something different with who runs the jail, if that's what you're getting at. But the reasons that we're looking at it are financial in nature. Okay. The original issue, I thought, was to look at all the possible scenarios and see what best suited the needs for who ran the jail, which I think could be more than just financial. So I just was wondering why it would go there if there were other issues. I guess I will probably not support it because I think there could be other issues other than just the financial aspect. Does anyone else wish to speak to the motion? Council Member Lane. Council Member Sinclair. As the seconder, I missed part of Council Member Meyer's motion about elected management or whatever the term you used on that. I like the idea of reviewing the budget for the jail and looking at some of the financial issues that we have. But I, too, am concerned there are some other issues regarding an elected official. It has to do with the separation of duties between an elected official and their county government. I think that's a problematic area that we might have to touch. So I think I will hate to do this. I think I'm going to withdraw my second on that because I misunderstood your motion. Thank you. Well, let me ask you what we need to do. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I need to get the protocol on this. So you would withdraw the second so the motion then needs a second to continue. All right. So does anyone wish to second the motion? All right. Okay. All right. Motion. We have a second. All right, so the motion has a second now. Back to discussion. Council Member Farmer. So what do you want me to change? Council Member Myers. Yes. I seconded for discussion, which is the oldest council trick in the book. What do you mean with the verbiage about elected official? For the point you're going to, that verbiage clouds it, it sounds like to me. But really all I was trying to do was change the verbiage a little bit so it wasn't identical to what we put into the other committee. Well, I guess. So if you were to amend that, how would you amend it so that we could discuss the financial aspects? Well, the way I would amend it, you wouldn't like. I mean, you know, we had our first half task force meeting this morning that the mayor has set up. And I think a lot of the information that you're interested in is going to be party to the task force that's been set up. So I'm unsure as to where this gets us personally. And so with that, I'll withdraw in a second. Oh, my goodness. You are really challenging the chair here on this. All right, so we now have a withdrawal of the second. Is there an interest to second the motion? Motion second. There is a second to the motion, so continuing discussion. I have Council Member Blues and Council Member Beard signed on. Do you still wish to offer discussion? Yeah. Oh, good. Thank you, Mayor. Wonderful. I think that if we put this issue into budget and finance, it ought to be confined to the financial, the fiscal issues related to running, you know, to the operation of the corrections facility. And if that discussion leads to other issues, I think, such as who might be the administrator of the jail and so on, I think that would be a discussion for another committee. So I'm certainly willing to support the motion so long as it's confined to the discussion of the financial issues. and if an amendment to the motion in that regard is appropriate, I'll make that right now. And I accept that motion to amend, and I second it. All right. The amendment. Council Member Blues, would you restate the amendment, please? The motion then, as amended, would be to put into the Budget and Finance Committee a discussion of issues related to the financial aspects of the administration of the jail. All right, there's a motion and a second. Is there a discussion? There's a motion and a second in the form of an amendment. or there's a motion to amend, and there's a second. Is there discussion? Count Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. So then what happens to any of the other issues that were in the original topic? I mean, it seems to me it would be wiser to discuss it all at once in one committee than to split off the financial part. I still am not understanding why we would split off one piece of it. So if there's a good reason, I would be happy to consider it. That's a great question, and the reason is because, if you recall first tonight, and I know you left earlier, so you might not have been here at this point, when I tried to ask the Chair of Public Safety for a date at which the issue would be brought forward, and also had the conversation, and if Mr. Sabatini is here, I don't know if he's still here or not, but he agreed with me last week out in the hall that really the issue of who runs the jail should be looked at before we expend the time on looking at the CAP system or program or transportation to and from the jail to court. Because if, in fact, it's decided by the council that the sheriff's office should run the jail, then that would do away with those two issues. And when I opposed that to the chair in an email, she simply said she can't. And when I asked the chair in the meeting on Thursday night, she said that she wanted to wait until after the mayor's task force looked at the issue. And I said in that meeting that we all discussed that issue when we put it in committee in the beginning. And all determined that this is really an issue since the council is the one who created the ordinance that allowed for a director to run the jail. It's really the council that should be looking at this issue. And because she decided to wait until after the mayor's task force is done, that's why I wanted to bring it forward. And the majority of the council members that we've talked to were in agreement with looking at those financial aspects of this in budget and finance. Council Member Lawless. No, we have someone who signed on before. Okay, I can't sign on. Council Member Beard, then Council Member Lawless. Actually, we're – Thank you, Mayor. You were signed on to speak to the motion originally. Now you're speaking. So that's why we're now on the amendment. But go ahead. Well, I'm glad that we finally opened the kimono and said that we're talking about the sheriff's office because it was couched somewhat in a way that the public wouldn't understand what we were talking about. and that's not very transparent to be doing that. But now that's been fixed and I'm perfectly happy with it that everybody knows that we were talking about the sheriff when we were talking about who would operate the jail if we weren't. Thank you. Okay. Council Member Lawless. Thank you. Your, Council Member Myers, as I recall, the conversation we had at the last meeting, excuse me. I'm listening. Okay. I said I was not willing to put off the CAP program because it is, and everybody has said, the way it is run is extremely dangerous. and the sheriff's department can do it for about $400,000, $411,000 less than how it's being used now. So those two things are intertwined. It doesn't matter if the sheriff's office were to take over the entire jail. This would not prevent that from happening. I would like to see a purchase of service agreement, but I agree that as I look through these reasons people left, Many of them had been there for years, and the comments made by mostly Mr. Kamer, who interviewed, were interesting. And but we have had the jail has been the lawsuits, the problems there have been going on for years. So it's hard for me to believe this mass exodus is just because there's change. and I too am, you know, when it was put in as best practices, that was a little overwhelming because I believe that one of the big issues we need to look at is efficiency and the financial part of it, much of which the sheriff's office was not able to get information in order to put together some kind of budget. But rather than looking at it as it being run by an elected official, which Louisville and Lexington are the only two that aren't run by an elected jailer, that we look at it as a purchase of service agreement with whoever, if it is the sheriff's office, that can do it. But the lawsuits alone have probably cost us as much, if not more, to run the jail. So I would like to see this move, and I'd like to see it move quickly, and I think things are deteriorating quickly out there from everything I have witnessed and seen and been aware of. So I'm on board, I think, with the motion that we did. It is somewhat of a crossover. And so how to do that and move it forward, I'm okay with. My comment about the task force was, you know, we have so much on our plate. If they're looking at it, do we want to look at the exact same thing at the exact same time? But I'm open to and I am in favor of making our jail safe for the inmates, safe for the employees, fair and just, and safe for the community. And with the new House bill, I think there may be a big increase in the number of people that we would have on home incarceration. So that piece of it and what I said to you was I wasn't willing to separate this, you know, leave that indefinitely because I do think it is a safety issue for the community and our employees. So I'd just like to clarify that. Council Member Kay. Thank you, Mayor. This is an issue where the wording has been problematic, I think, from the beginning, and I have problems still with the way that the proposal and even the amendment are still worded. Procedurally, I don't know if it's appropriate to amend. Can we amend an amendment? Let me just tell you what I'm thinking and see if this would be a workable solution. It seems to me the underlying issue is the timing of consideration of this issue. I have a preference for having it be considered as a whole rather than splitting it out. Would it solve the problem to have your committee schedule a special meeting that was dedicated just to this topic from your perspective? I don't know about Councilman Myers. Absolutely. I think it might be two meetings, but my preference and the way I think we could best get to where we want to go is to have the sheriff's department have access to the information they need and to put together a budget for a one-year purchase of service agreement. and look at the jail's corrections budget and see where that takes us, if that makes sense. Mayor, if I could respond to something that Council Member Lawless said. Well, first we've got on the – Council Member Kay has the floor on the question. There's an amendment. As I understand it, we have an amendment on the floor and a motion on the floor. And in order to put anything else forward, we may have to withdraw the amendments and perhaps make a different motion or a different amendment to the motion. Or we can just vote on the amendment that's out there. There's an amendment on the floor. Is there a willingness to vote to withdraw the amendment? No. All right. So we need to continue with the discussion on the amendment or vote on the amendment. Does anyone else wish to offer discussion on the amendment? Council Member Myers. Yeah, I would just say that even in the commentary from Council Member Lawless, when she talked about the cash program, everything she said was financial, that the sheriff could run it for $400,000 less than it's being run right now. So in talking to the chair of budget and finance, the docket was open. they can have it up for discussion at the regular November 29th, 27th, 29th, next week from today, 29th meeting. And so, you know, I also asked for the vice mayor's clarification because she wasn't here at the time. I asked the chair of public safety if she would call a special meeting and give us a date for that, and that wasn't offered up Thursday night. So that's why I moved in the direction because we can get it because she was talking January. We can get it on the docket next Tuesday to at least discuss the financial issues, which would include the CAP program. And if there's anything else that needs to be discussed, we can look at it at that time and determine if it needs to go on a different committee or whatever. But we can look at all the financial aspects of who should run the jail a week from today. And Paul has most of the research completed, and we're ready to go. Councilor Lawless. Councilor Lawless. What I said was that we would have to schedule some special meetings and that the January calendar didn't allow for, unless we were willing to come in on a different day than Tuesday, There was no place for a special meeting. I didn't say I refused to do one and, in fact, was going to have Andrea send out a doodle. I'm all for getting it, but the number one issue for me on the CAP program wasn't the $400,000, although that is very tasty when we're in such shape. It is about safety, and it is about the program being run well and safely. That's my number one consideration. All right. The amendment that's before the Council is to, Council Member Blues, let me see if I'm phrasing this correctly, is to focus that the budget and finance would focus exclusively on the financial aspects of this issue. Right? Okay. Okay. So the discussion, Council Member Kaye. Just a point of clarification. Does the amendment mean that that issue would be considered by budget and finance, but that the main issue itself, it would not be moved from public safety, but this would be in addition? Is that the intention of the amendment? Yes. Thank you. All right. Is there any more discussion on the amendment? All right. Hearing none, we can take a vote. All in favor of the amendment, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. No. All right. Show of hands, please. All in favor, please. Okay, we can do the electronic then. All in favor, please indicate by voting electronically yes and opposed electronically no. Electronically yes, electronically no. All right. The motion. Has everybody voted? Who's going to vote? One, two, slowly but surely. One, two, three, four. Okey dokey. One, two, three, four. Oh, my goodness. Somebody's not voting. Uh-oh, is it not working? So the motion passes. The amendment passes, right? One, two, three, four, five. Okay. Motion passes. All right. Now we're back to the motion. Here you go. It's the vice mayor. Okay. So based on the amendment, would, I guess I'm wondering then what happens if budget and finance, what happens to any kind of recommendation without the full discussion of all the issues? So if budget and finance has financial issues, would we then refer those back without full discussion of all issues, which was originally in public safety? What is your thinking that budget and finance would move forward without discussion of the other part of the issue? Are you directing that to me? Well, anybody who wants to answer, I mean, I'm... I'd be more than happy to answer. My hope would be that the Chair of Public Safety would go ahead and call a special meeting and look at the other issues and not wait until January. But we've got, you know, next week we've got the whole month of December, not the whole month of December because we're going to be on a break part of it, but I would hope that she would schedule that special meeting before we go on break. And so the financial issues could then be illuminated and go on to the full discussion in public safety. Is that what you're thinking? If that's the way you want to do it, it doesn't matter to me. I don't know why budget finance can't come out with a full recommendation to the council based on its research. And then if public safety is looking at other issues, then it can bring a recommendation as well. Thank you. All right. Jeanette, can you reboot for us? Thank you. Who's it? Council Member Kaye. I would say that unless whatever recommendation comes out of budget and finance were then referred back to public safety and included in a comprehensive recommendation, that I'd be opposed to the motion. All right. Any further discussion on the motion? All right. Council Member Beard. I don't see how we can work in somewhat of a vacuum. We have the financial aspects of the jail, but we have nothing to compare it to. So we don't know at this point whether an outside entity, the sheriff's office, for instance, is going to be cheaper or not at this point unless all of this discussion takes place not in budget and finance but in a public safety committee. So I originally had thought it would be a good idea to have it moved to budget and finance, but I just don't see how it can fly normally without some element of comparison. Okay. Thank you. Yes, sir. Anybody else? Councilman Lawless. Okay. One question I have is, Council Member Myers, I haven't seen the research that you have available. Do you know if Sheriff Witt is prepared to present? Because in my discussions with both Mr. Sabatini and with Sheriff Witt, there have been issues about getting information and being able to put together a full budget. do you know if she does have that information available? I have not heard. One, I have not seen the research myself either. Number two, I don't know. I've not heard from the sheriff that she can't get certain information. So I don't have any knowledge of that. So I'm more than happy to call a special meeting, but I also feel that it's important that someone speak with Sheriff Witt about her readiness to come in here and do something like that in a week. so I'm more than happy to call a special meeting in January and you know we can't we're not going to be able to vote on it twice before Christmas break anyway so would you be okay with that? I guess my question would be why do we need to wait until January? Well, because it's not just like, I mean, it's complex. It's, you know, adult probation, you know, juvenile offenders, drug court, parole. So, I mean, it's not just a jail. There are a lot of aspects to this. And so there doesn't seem to be any, since there's not going to be able to be a council vote on it twice if it comes forward, and we don't know if she has that available and the ability to pull that together. Before then, we're kind of putting her on the spot as well as Mr. Sabatini. Council? That's my concern. All right. Vice Mayor Gordon? Thank you, Mayor. I agree with your concern. I agree with the timeliness issue, Mr. Myers. I am concerned the packet for this meeting next week is due tomorrow to us because of the holiday. And I'm wondering if a special meeting could be called January 10th, because we moved our 10 o'clock meeting to 11, if we could have that meeting at 9 o'clock the first day we're back in session. It would give plenty of preparation time for everyone, and it would put that right first on our calendar in January. It's just a suggestion. But, I mean, this packet for budget and finance is going to be due tomorrow. It's a suggestion. So we need to make that in the form of amendment if there's any consensus about it, right? That's what you want. So the vice mayor hadn't made a resolution. Yeah. Does anybody wish to comment on the, I don't, you want to make that? Well, I'll make a motion to, I don't know if this, Miguel, this could be an amendment to the motion. To, in fact, schedule a special public safety meeting. I mean, I would want to be sure the Chair was on board with this for 9 o'clock on January the 10th. That will give everyone plenty of time for preparation and to look at the entire issue rather than to go before budget and finance. Second. It's a motion by Vice Mayor Gordon. Second by Council Member Ellinger. All right. Board and Board. Board and Board. Yes, sir. Do we not have a motion? We do have a motion. What this is doing is what this amendment would do would amend the motion, right? Yes, sir. And basically substitute. Yeah, effective. Well, you could still go on budget and finance, right? No, it would be a special meeting. Okay, the motion puts it in the motion. The original motion places the issue in budget and finance related to financial. financial. So this would amend it to call a special meeting of public safety, right? Yes, to study the entire issue and not split off the financial. Okay. Is there any more discussion on the amended motion? Council Member Stenet. Thank you, Mayor. Vice Mayor, what exactly, can you define the topic that will be discussed at 9 a.m.? I think we're having two different topics right now. So what exactly will be discussed? Because I think there's been some foregone conclusions about what this council is going to do and what we're not going to do. And I think it needs to be very clear what the topic is going to be. Well, if you go back, I've forgotten what it was. The issue that was placed in committee, I believe, and we could research how it was stated, was to look at what would be the best system for operating the jail. and that includes all possibilities including financial. It was an all-encompassing motion. Okay, because I think previous attempts have been just to discuss the CAP program and adult probation and that's not what we're discussing on the night. We're discussing everything and that could be a piece of it but not the whole meeting. That's what I didn't want to get into on the night for two hours of just that. Thank you. All right, any further discussion? Councilor Myers. So, Vice Mayor, in a sense, what you're doing is taking the original issue that I put into public safety and putting that same exact issue into a special meeting to be held on January 10th at 9 a.m., 10 a.m., whatever it is? 9 a.m., yes, because I've... That works for me. Yeah. That works for me. Yeah. Now, Councilor Wallace. So we will have from 9 to 11 for that special meeting, is that correct? Okay, thank you. All right. If there's no further discussion, we're ready to take a vote. All in favor of the motion to amend, please indicate by saying aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. Now we've got a vote on the original motion. As amended. As amended. All right. All right. Is there any more discussion on the original motion? Mm-mm. I think it's my motion. Go ahead. I think it's basically to call a special meeting on January 10th from 9 to 11 of the Public Safety Committee to address the issues of running the jail, best practices, et cetera. So it effectively substitutes the original motion, which was to place the issue in budget and finance, right? Okay. Council Member Myers is agreeing. Yes. All right. Is everybody clear? All right. Ready to vote? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. Okay. Back to council reports now. Council Member Stenet. Thank you, Mayor. I'm glad to be back. A couple things. Just a couple commentaries. One, those are good discussions to have, but I think we need to really work on our next Cal, Vice Mayor next week to discuss how we can have those conversations outside of this room because we have folks sitting here listening to that, both on TV and in person, that probably would rather spend their time doing other things. So maybe at the Cal, that can be added to our agenda next week to discuss better protocol on handling meeting dates and times and issues like that. Secondly, I had sent an email based on several questions the council is continually getting on the health insurance issues. And I basically narrowed it down to top four. And the commissioner and Ms. Jarvis were gracious enough to answer those today. And I would wonder if we could maybe clear the air, because I know a lot of employees are watching. I know you all have done a great job of trying to get emails out to people and address questions. And you've also tried to do it during these individual meetings. But these questions are still coming up. I like to put them to bed so that all council members have the same information and no one can say they don't have it, and we can all be on the same page. And if you don't mind, Commissioner, I'll start with the easiest one is, can people use their 401K money or 457 money that's in their retirement accounts and put that into the HSA account? Council Member, we checked with our ICMA representative, who's the one that administers those plans, and I think Mary Lyle and Leslie both had checked with them before, and the answer they've given us is no. So they're the administrator of the plans and we have to go about what they tell us that they can do. Easy enough on that one. The second one was a lot of us have been asked about the benefit pool dollars and can we make that available and distribute that to an employee. And when I say distribute, realizing that it's going to be a taxable event which would diminish the amount of those dollars that their employee would receive, obviously not necessarily a good idea, but have we looked at that or had discussions about that at all? Council Member, that's kind of a combination legal and policy question. Okay. I can address the legal concerns, but I think the policy concerns, I might have to call on Melissa and some of the folks that dealt with our BIM folks. Legally, first of all, there's no mandate that that be done. We have not been asked to research each particular plan to see if we could do that. If we were going to do that, I think that would probably require some expertise and a real thorough examination of each of our plan documents, which I think would be somewhat of a lengthy process. But I think the policy considerations are probably the more... Well, without getting into that, I think the point I want to make is at this point in the game, I know you all have had those discussions, but at this point we're not changing that for this next year. But obviously this body and the administration is free to explore it over the next year before next plan and come up with a recommendation one way or another that we won't or will do it and go from there. But the good news is you have discussed it, but there's a very complex issue, obviously, because we have never done that in the past, and it's something that maybe we can look at. The last two questions, one of which was talking about changing open enrollment by one week. I know we've had a lengthy discussion in here. Some employees still feel like they're not ready to make that decision. I think, Melissa, you want to answer this. I know you've done a great job in responding today, too, but what are some of the ramifications if we did extend it by a week just so people are aware that it could influence their ability to go to the doctor January 1 if we did that? Yeah. I talked with our consultants today and the concern of pushing open enrollment back one week. Everybody has to enroll in our PeopleSoft system. That data has to be cleaned up and sent to our vendors, Humana, Bluegrass Family Health, all of those vendors. And then it has to be processed and entered into their system. So if we push it back by a week, we run the risk of it not being entered into the vendor systems and processed in their systems. So whenever an employee goes to the doctor or goes to pick up their prescription, while they may not have their card, they also may not be in the system. So if you're not in the system, you're going to have to pay that full cost, no discounts, no copay, anything like that. So that's the risk that we run if we move it back a week. But doesn't Humana already have most of that? I think we'd only be worrying about Bluegrass Family. No, it would be all new data going to them. So, yeah. Okay, and then the last question was about the qualifying event. Say one person already enrolls in the plan, and then come February, March, they want to get out of the plan. I think the best way to have employees understand that is, I believe, a more understandable version of what I've emailed to you is included in the health insurance booklet that they get that talks about what a qualifying event is. Can we re-email that document out so that people understand like we've been doing, and that way they can have that list of what the qualifying events were? Yeah, we'll be glad to do that. Okay, thank you. And then, again, colleagues, this was just an attempt to get everyone the same information because these are the same questions we're all being asked, and I'm sure you all are being asked during the open enrollment process. So thank you all for taking time to address these today, and I'm sure there's definitely more work going forward. And last but not least, thank you all, and have a good, happy Thanksgiving to all my colleagues and everyone watching. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Stannett. Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Mayor. First, I wanted to take a moment to alter the schedule for the planning committee in December. After meeting with the staff, I don't believe there's any issues that would come forward with any motions for the December 6th meeting, so I'm going to cancel the planning committee for 1 o'clock on December 6th. that leaves it open for anyone else to have a meeting at that time, which may happen. All right. Just coming. That's it. Well, I mean, since there's nothing. Nobody's running to take that time. Well, I think Councilman Bustinett might. Oh, okay. He's already done, as a matter of fact. Then okay. We are. Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait. Councilman Farmer, you still have a floor. Yes, sir. Go ahead. I was just going to continue briefly. Although we haven't taken much note of it in Lexington, we are in the midst of the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, and it brought many changes, both culturally and literally, in terms of fitted clothing, mail delivery, changes to our life in many ways. I think underneath all that, though, President Lincoln's declaration of Thanksgiving is probably one of the things that is uniquely American in its feel and its tradition. And in my mind, the most special of the holidays because it affords us all the opportunity to give thanks for that which we have each received individually as a family and as, in this instance, county and a country. democracy is a very it's treated in so many ways very harshly but it's a very delicate balance and it's something that we here in Lexington seem to do better than folks in Washington do it and folks in Frankfurt do it and I think that's a combination of good leadership and good service so at this Thanksgiving time I want to give thanks for the work that we do here the decisions that we make and the opportunity to continue to serve. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Farmer. Well said. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Mayor. I have just two quick items to share. The first would be to move approval of the NDF list. So move. Yes, sir. Motion by Council Member Ford, second by Council Member Blues. Related to the NDF, is there any discussion? Okay. Hearing none, we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Mayor. And lastly, today Council Member should have received in your office a hard and bound copy of the Charles Young Center Redevelopment Task Force report. It's 22 pages. We hope that you find it clear and understandable in anticipation of the presentation, I understand, to the Council Work Session next Tuesday, November 29th at 3 o'clock. So for all persons that are interested, we would invite you to come down to the council chamber or watch on GTV3. As well, information on purpose for the council, we have distributed this via e-mail to all the persons who have followed our distribution list throughout the planning stages. So, again, thanks for this opportunity. We look forward to presenting next week. Thanks, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Ford. Council Member Lawless. I want to wish a happy Thanksgiving to everybody. This weekend, I believe the ice skating rink is opening downtown. And you can go to downtownlex.com to get a list of the happenings around and about. So everybody has a safe and healthy Thanksgiving. Thank you, Council Member Lawless. Anyone else wish to offer a council report at this time? Okay. Then we can move on. There is no mayor's report for this week. And next on the agenda is public comment. I don't have anyone, nobody, Mr. Mundy. Okie dokie. Thank you, sir. All right. there's a motion to adjourn and a happy thanksgiving mr farmer you said it eloquently i sure wouldn't be able to do it nearly so much so happy thanksgiving to everybody there's a motion by councilman we're standing to adjourn a second by councilman Myers all in favor please say aye those no we are adjourned