Music Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm the chairman of the General Government Committee calling the meeting to order at 11 a.m. on March 6, 2012. The first item would be approval of the summary. Do I have a motion on that? Move it. Second. Call in favor. Say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that motion passes. The first item on today's agenda today is the scrap metal ordinance that was submitted by Council Member Stennett. I'm going to turn the chair over to Council Member Stennett to discuss the ordinance, and there may be several people who would like to speak to the issue. Thank you, Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Chairman Lane. And as you all know, our community has long fought this battle the last several years, and it's something that has gotten worse and a lot of national attention, not just in Lexington, Kentucky, but across the state. And we began back in November of 2010 in working with our police department and some of our scrap metal dealers in looking at trying to get our hands around the issue and looking at the problem and trying to identify some type of legislation that would assist our community not only in providing better information for our Division of Police so that they can thoroughly investigate the crimes, but slow down the market in which the thefts are occurring in and allow that to take its toll and slow it down to some extent that we can regulate how these things are being sold. So having said that, I want to thank our Division of Police and Commander Holman, I see you're in the audience today, as well as all of your officers, and our scrap metal dealers who helped give input on this. We had the opportunity to tour one of our salvage yards, the biggest one in town, and take a look at their operation and how it would impact them. I've talked to many people who do recycle. I explained to them the premise of this ordinance as well as the folks that just want to continue operation of business in the scrap metal industry throughout the state. There's a lot of people in the state that are aware of this issue. Also understand that on the state level, Representative Pullen has introduced a state bill that may have some impact, and we can talk about that impact with our Department of Law here in a few minutes, how it would affect our local ordinance, and if we need to change our local ordinance to comply with that one should it pass. So there's a lot of things that we've looked at, a lot of people we've talked to. This didn't come overnight. This wasn't an ordinance that we created in a month. Again, we started back in November of 2010. and tracking this problem in our community and then working on some type of ordinance that we feel is fair. Obviously, it's open to the criticism of the committee as well as the public to make adjustments or pass it forward to council the way it is at the discretion of the committee today. So having said that, I want to start off with Commander Holman. If he can kind of give us an update on the stats. I know I passed out some stats to you all through the end of last year, but we actually have the first two months of this year now. and just kind of, Commander, if you can kind of paint the picture from the Division of Police in terms of number of reports and where we're at today as of March 6th, that way we can kind of catch everyone up to speed about what's happening in the community on reports of copper thefts. Sure. I've given, I only brought one copy with me as far as a color copy because we just got those updated about 30 minutes ago. But the total number, the significant data, the total number of reports since November of 2010 is 1,621. The total number of arrests is 145. Cases that we have cleared is 239. And, again, that data should be up here shortly after he gets that on the scanner. And then the total damage dollar amount, which counts the replacement as well as labor, repair, and those kinds of things, total is $6,232,133. And that's going from November 2010 through February of this year. I'll give everyone a second. They're being passed around to the committee members. Commander, what was that number again, please? The total reports, 1,621. That's the slide that's actually up right now. I've got the total up near the top left quadrant. These are the actual reports that people have called in and we've gone out and done an investigation? Well, and that's a good point is that, you know, obviously not everyone reports a criminal activity in Lexington or the state for that matter. But these are the number of people who have contacted us, and we have a report on file to follow up on. So that's 1,621. 145 arrests, those are individual people in separate incidences, maybe the same person more than once, but separate incident arrests. Can you hold right there and flip the page on the overhead so we can see the number of arrests? That's actually the financial. One more. There we go. The blue is the number of cases and the red is the arrest. Correct. And that's broken down by a month starting in November 2010. So 145 arrests and 239 cases cleared. And that's just simply investigative work through the arrest that we may be able to clear a certain number of cases. Usually with these types of thefts, whatever evidence we have and then we can leverage is all the people will admit to. So it's almost corresponding one arrest, maybe one or two clearances, and that's, again, based on the evidence that we have. And then the last piece, the financial, if we can put that back up. That was the red one. Some of those numbers are hard to see, but you can see at least the thresholds on the left axis and those where they breach those dollar amounts per month. And in the total, just didn't print properly, but that's $6,232,133. $6,232,133? Correct. Okay. Anybody have any questions for Assistant Chief Holman? Apologize, sir. Congratulations. Yes, sir. Thank you. That's okay. You've changed titles on me. Yes, sir. Thank you. Councilman Lane. Okay. I think just for clarification, the data you're providing today is just for Fayette County by itself, which shows you how significant this is for just our county alone. This is not statewide data. This is just local data. Yes, sir. Just Fayette County. Yes, sir. The other question I had is I noticed that in August, September and October, I guess it would be last year, there was a terrific amount of financial cost. Can you say why that was, why it was so high in that time frame? Well, there were more reports. If you looked at especially September 2011, that's the month that we had the most reports, the most incidents that occurred. And if you think about an average dollar figure, then that will go up. And correspondingly, October with 133 was also one of the most highest number of reports in a given month. You know, it's hard to say what drives one particular month over the other. Obviously, as we get into colder months, as you can see the first part of this year and the last of last year, we're going to see a reduction in those type of thefts. But we do, across the board, all crime reduces when it's cold outside. August and September, other than the fact that more reports, it could be a product of someone that's recently got out of jail, that had been incarcerated earlier for doing those things or other things, one that's prone to these types of theft. There were more of those people on the street. That's one possibility. warm weather, construction. There's lots of variables that could come into play that would just be speculation on my part. The ordinance that we have in front of us today, is there one or two points of that ordinance that strengthen your ability to catch people, prosecute people, and also to eliminate the stealing of scrap metals? Well, we've reviewed the ordinance, and we believe that it provides the tools for us, and really, frankly, we believe that it provides tools for those dealers that are out there operating, that are buying scrap metals, to be able to choke off the illegal trade, and that's what we're talking about. There's a couple of things that are in this ordinance upon our review that actually strengthen that in our opinion. I think one of the key components is the seller's license, that we're requiring those that want to sell, someone on the street, a person, not the dealer but actually a resident, to have a seller's license if they engage in this trade more than three times. What that does for us is it allows us to control that license. One of the other components is the ability to revoke that license or not issue it if someone has certain criminal activity in their past. We have the luxury right now that most of our district court judges are banning those that commit these types of thefts. They are banning them from participating in the trade at our local dealers. But that's not a requirement. That is just a judicial decision that they're making. and if they violate that, they can be held in contempt of court. This ordinance allows us to actually charge the people if they don't have a license, if it's revoked and their ability to sell. It also means that the dealer, if there's not a license for the third time or more, not to engage in a transaction with that person. So that is one example of something I think that strengthens the ability for us to intervene in this activity. Okay. Thank you very much. I'll turn this back over to Council Member Stennett. Unless there's any other questions for Assistant Chief Holman, I'm going to kind of go through our highlights page and hit some of the key points of the ordinance just to give a little bit more clarification. Councilman Blues, did you have a question for Assistant? Yes, sir. Go ahead. I just wanted to ask about the provision for a seller license. If you sell the scrap two or more times, why that particular number? What's the rationale for it? Well, I think that from my perception, I think that we're wanting to target the person that actually engages in that activity regularly. You know, when you have a license for someone that may do that once a year or twice a year, then maybe that would be particularly burdensome for those people who don't do it but once or twice a year. We're looking to people that actively engage and trade in this. I don't know that there was other than that. We just wanted to have a reasonable number, and three, more than two, seems to be that magic number from my perception. The concern I had, or the reservation I guess, is that this still enables some illegal seller, or illegal possessor of copper to sell it twice, or on two occasions, and then quit. So if you're advocating maybe less than that, we wouldn't be opposed to that. The Division of Police would not be opposed to that if you wanted to require a seller's license for the first transaction. On Customer Blues, just to interject, we put that in there just to kind of give you some background. One, you have a lot of philanthropy groups. You have a lot of people just cleaning out their garages. is we didn't want to make them have to get a seller's license for doing it again once or twice a year. You know, obviously a lot of people could do it once a year. You may have a possible second time. But we realized anyone doing it more than that is doing this to make money and doing this as a trade. And so that's why we kept the number at two. And looking at the other ordinances, we looked at several cities, Florida or states, too. Indianapolis had a study, Cincinnati, Mount Sterling, Winchester, Tennessee, Houston, Texas. So that's what we were trying to find, a happy medium on that issue. And I can go more in depth to it when I get to it on the highlight sheet. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate that. Assistant Chief, thank you. If you'll stand by, and I'll kind of walk us through it. Again, you know, we didn't want to create an ordinance to make it hard to do business in Fayette County for the dealer side, but we all realized in studying this that something has to be done so we can give our police department better information. And information is the key because we all want to put a stop to this. Now, this is not the silver bullet. This is not going to overnight change the climate. But what it will do is begin a process of building a database, of having that information available. And really the next step after we get that information is prosecuting and keeping these folks in jail and allowing the judicial system to do their job to help us squash this epidemic that obviously has risen over 6 million in our community. So if we look on page 6 of our packet, I'll kind of walk through the highlights of the ordinance. That sheet kind of explains the highlights. We've been through the stats at the top. Again, we want to define the various metals and the various items that you would see being sent to a scrap metal dealer. So our first part are definitions, and I guess the most important one is the definition of non-ferrous metal, which is most part of copper and other things. So we wanted to define that in writing so that it's on our books. The second one and the other piece that we've talked about a little bit briefly is the dealer license. There's a $500 annual fee for each person that wants to be a dealer in Fayette County. There are right now currently three known scrap metal dealers in our city. There may be more that are operating. We just don't know. But under this, if this should pass, then everyone who is buying scrap metal would have to become a dealer if they wanted to do so. And the annual fee would be $500. The other piece to that is the administrative requirements of the dealer. This is where it gets a little bit different than what has been business as normal. for the dealers. One, all information that they could collect would have to be retained for two years. Obviously, this is currently happening now, though. A valid driver's license or other government-issued ID would have to be obtained from a seller, and then should we pass the seller's license, a copy of a seller's license, or unless they're exempt, proof of that exemption. And then the big part of this are the next two bullet points, the database. Our police officers in other cities in the country, too, that do the same thing, require an extensive amount of data to be kept and transmitted to the division of the police at the close of business day or allow police to have access to that database to be able to research various crimes that they are investigating. So that's something much different. They also would have to be able to flag, as Councilman Blues talked about, on the seller side, that third transaction. Should the sellers make it, their database would have to be able to flag that third transaction. The other is the VIN numbers have to be photographed on scrapped cars or vehicles and recorded. We did also put in there a piece about a title requirement and cited the KRS statutes in there as well that would also require a copy of a title should an owner want to scrap the vehicle. If it's 15 years or newer, then they would have to prove the title. So those are the gists of the administrative requirements of the dealers. I can stop there, and if anyone has any questions on the dealer requirements that are currently written in the ordinance. Council Member Beard. Just a quick question. Does this stop a seller from aggregating the copper and only sell it, but sell a bunch of it twice a year rather than go out and hit one place and then run to the dealer, just store it away and wait for the big hit. Well, and quite frankly, some people already do that now, depending on market prices of certain metals. So, no, the seller's license, when we get to that, would not stop that at all. I mean, you could always aggregate it and do it once or twice a year if you wanted to, under the current proposal. Right. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Chair. Councilman McCord. I just wanted to point out under, I believe it's seller's license number one, it refers to number three in the ordinance. Is that correct? Number three, I'm not sure where. In the ordinance here, it's the non-ferrous metal. Is that what we're looking for? Oh, Assistant Chief, if you don't mind. I'm sorry. It's actually, I think we spoke around a little bit, and I didn't notice that really, but it's the third one. So you get two free passes without requiring a seller's license, so any third transaction or more. So that should be three or more times. Thank you for that clarification. Any other questions on the dealer's license piece? Councilman Lane. Okay, my question was, what about payment? Is that covered later, or do you pay for the scrap metal when they bring it in, or is there a delay on that? On the payment, no. There is currently no delay in our local ordinance on the payment. Now, there is a similar provision in the state ordinance, and I'll pass a copy of that out. That's currently passed the House. That is currently in the Senate now. that there is a delay in payment for certain types of metals that would have to be paid by check and not by cash, and that would be in the state law should it pass. But in the local ordinance, we didn't feel like we wanted to go that far into a business's practices and determine how they should pay and when they should pay. So there is no delay on the payment. Well, since Fayette County is one of the largest in the state, and we probably have more scrap metal dealers than some of the smaller communities. What if persons from outside Fayette County came in to Fayette County to sell scrap metals? How would that work? Would they get the two exemptions? And if they wanted to sell more than Thompson Act, could they actually go through a local seller who's licensed to sell the materials back to a scrap dealer? They could. I mean, honestly, they could, you know, the thing you go about with any of our regulations is you can create a black market easily with anything like someone being able to sell to a seller, and they sell to the scrap metalers. And, of course, that's going to happen. But, you know, again, we get that information of who's doing that, and it's easier for our police department to be able to trace that backwards. Because if they buy anything that is stolen, and we can determine it, we can revoke that seller's license as well as track on where they're getting their stuff. So, again, it's all about trying to get better information for our Division of Police to be able to investigate these. And I'm not one to want to create another government bureaucracy and create more layers, but we have to figure out how to handle this so that we can get better information. All right. If someone from outside Fayette County is identified as having stolen the metals, we don't have jurisdiction probably. I'd probably be what we would if they bring it into Fayette County to sell it. we have the ability to arrest them here if we identify them, or do we have to refer that to another county? Maybe that's a legal issue. I'll let Assistant Chief Holman answer that, but I would think we would have the ability to arrest anyone committing a crime and work with that jurisdiction. Absolutely. If they're in possession of stolen material in Fayette County, we can charge them with that if we have probable cause to believe that they are. If it's all contained outside of Fayette County, we do work with surrounding agencies, not just on this, on any criminal activity that may be consistent or patterns that are happening. So if it was necessary, we would ask another agency to help us, and we do that all the time. Surrounding counties will make an arrest for us in their county of someone who has committed a crime here. That's what it usually will take is investigative follow-up work for us to be able to capture that evidence, to be able to charge someone. That happens frequently where arrests were made in other counties on our behalf, and then they're eventually brought here to be tried. Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. I refer back to you, Mr. Stennett. Thank you, sir. Council Member Blues on the dealers. Thank you. This is a question for you, Council Member Stennett, or for Chief Holman. Who steals copper? That is, are these thieves people who pick up this or that piece and take it in for a quick dollar? Or getting back to Council Member Beard's inquiry, are these people who are more systematic in the business, so to speak? Well, it's most of the people that we contact and that are forthcoming about their activities. And it's really not just about the copper. It's any thefts, whether it's breaking into a car or anything else, where their dollar, the return that they get for that type of activity is relatively small. A lot of it can be traced back to some type of drug abuse, drug addiction, whether it's legal drugs, prescription drugs, or if it's something that's not legal. It's getting in the mindset of someone who steals something that doesn't belong to them is difficult. It's hard. But the dollar amounts that we're talking about here are relatively small, not counting the damage that's misdemeanors in most every case. And it's just a quick dollar that they're wanting to turn over and take that money and go somewhere. That's why the state provision that the Councilmember Sennett was referring to would be particularly, I think, hard on those people that are wanting that money now. They don't want it three days from now. They want the money and the cash now to be able to accomplish whatever their purpose is, if it's an addiction of some sort. But a lot of it can be, a lot of our property crimes can be traced back to drug addiction of some sort. Thank you very much. Yes, sir. And also, to add on to that, another good source to answer that question, I'm sure they can answer it here in a little while, are the dealers themselves. They know their client values better than most anybody, of course, so they're going to be able to answer that, too. They know their customers, and they can probably tell you, too, if there is a significant amount of normal people that constantly come and deal in the coppers and the things we're trying to curb. Councilor Myers. Thank you, Councilor President. I guess the first question I have is why wouldn't we add that provision into our law so that if a lot of this is people that are looking to buy drugs or feed some type of habit, part of the biggest deterrent is that they can't satisfy their habit immediately. So why would we not put that in ours if the state put it in theirs? Yeah, I'll explain why. From my instance, I'm the one that brought it forward. It was in there, okay? It was originally in my first version, and I took it out because what I'm trying to do is to work with our dealers and to not overkill an ordinance so that, you know, day one, it's the toughest in the country. I want to try to work towards seeing baby steps, so to speak, and see if this one will work. If it doesn't, we can always add that as another step. But if we want to add it today, that's open to the committee. I just didn't feel like it was going a little far to start off with. But, of course, you can always add it back in there. But I'm working with the dealers. We're trying to be fair to their business practices. We are, keep in mind, we're the second largest market in the state. Louisville's obviously probably the biggest market for this industry. So we were just trying to work with them and to see, without making it too tough to do business in Fayette County, obviously we don't want them leaving Fayette County and going to other counties and opening up shops because it's easier to do business there. So I was sensitive to that, and we tried to work with them. But we can always add it. If you want to make a motion to add it, feel free to. Well, no, I'm more trying to get information and understanding rather than trying to amend the law right now. But let me ask you this. Two things to that. How does a state law, if it's in the state law, how does that affect what they do here? Yeah, Ed Gardner is here from our law department. The state law, again, hasn't passed yet, but it's moved from the House to the Senate. And in the current version, one-day payment requirement by check is in there. So it's a one-day hold, and they have to make a payment by check, not by cash, for certain types of metals like copper, et cetera. So if the state law were to pass, Mr. Gardner, how would it affect if we passed a local law and didn't have it in there? If the state law passes that has that in there, the current statute on the state would require us to put that in our local ordinance. Because we just amended it. as i read it uh there's another provision that is actually not being changed by the current bill but it already existed that said that paraphrasing an urban county government can pass its own ordinance as long as it complies with everything the state has and then you can add on to it so if that does pass we will have to put that in our in our ordinance the delayed payment okay and at the the final version of this bill, whenever it passes, they'll have to make sure that we are complying with all the provisions. But there's nothing in what is in front of you all now, except maybe that that doesn't just add to what the state has. Okay. Are there any dealers here? Yeah, there's two represented. Okay. If there comes a point when they get to speak. Absolutely. As soon as I finish going through the highlights, I'm just trying to hit the highlights so everyone can get that, and then I was going to let them have an opportunity to address us. Okay. One of the questions I'll just put out there, one of the questions I would ask them when they get a chance to come up is, are they pushing back at the state level on that piece of the law? And if so, how do they think that's coming out? The second thing I would ask is, Dr. Blues asked the question, or I think it was Dr. Blues asked the question, who steals copper? The other question, and forgive me because this might sound a little bit rude, but who buys copper? In other words, if I'm in business and I have my regular customers that bring copper to me all the time, I kind of know who they are and that they have an air conditioning business and they're bringing in old stuff or whatever, as opposed to those folks that are coming in to satisfy their habit and they're bringing stolen stuff to me. So if I, in the normal process, I think, and correct me because I'm not an attorney, but if I receive stolen property, then I'm at risk for being prosecuted for having stolen or having received stolen property. So I haven't read this all the way through to that level of detail, but does this or do you know if the state law has anything in there with that respect? Because it seems like to me part of what would make it easier to shut this whole operation down in terms of the illegal piece of it is if someone who was buying the illegal copper was prosecuted for that, that would stop some of the trafficking. And I remember the story that we heard a year or so ago where someone had a car that had an actual light pole on the back that they were taking in to pawn off. And it seems to me that that almost says that we have a culture that will buy anything that you bring in the door. And so without a disparaging of anybody who's in business, just speaking at a high level, it seems like if we can do something on that end, then we can prevent a whole lot of this. It is actually in there, and we do create fines and penalties, and we can revoke the dealer's license should we determine they are buying and receiving stolen property. But I'll let Assistant Chief explain how we're controlling it now and how we're investigating it now. Well, I just wanted to comment on Councilmember Meyer's statement. And in their defense, in the dealer's defense, the receiving stolen property statute, which really means possession of in this case, is strict enough that it's really difficult for them to be able to identify something as stolen. And what's required is that they know it has been stolen or have reason to believe that it's been stolen. And there's so much material that moves through there that's not stolen, it's hard to say. we almost get to the point where they would almost be in a position where they are profiling the seller. The product is the same. It may look the same as someone who is engaging in a legitimate transaction than the person who is providing some stolen material. So the poll, they didn't purchase the poll. So those things we get called on, and they do call us whenever there's something that is obviously, apparently must be stolen, and then we do get contacted by some of them, and then we investigate it. But I think that it can be difficult for them to see that something is stolen. But let me, Councilman Riles, let me give you an example to follow up on that. We had a case while we were working on this ordinance where a prominent place here in town, their gutters were stolen. They were obviously copper gutters. Well, they split it up and took it to two different places in town to sell it. But one place automatically said, you know, there is no way they had possession of these, called us, we went in there. The other place scrapped it. Now, was the other place acting in bad faith? No, I mean, but common sense does come into play a lot of this time. But, you know, they can't regulate common sense, of course. But that's just an example showing one place bought it, scrapped it. The other place called us, we were able to investigate, and that's how we found out about the other one. So there are people out there doing the right thing on the dealer side. Right. And it just, I mean, I would almost, I guess I seem to be suggesting, and I'm probably okay with that, that we do do a certain level of profiling in this type of situation. And maybe when you guys come up, if you could speak to what comes in. Are these people that are the crack addict that's trying to satisfy their habit, when they're going out and they're hitting, like where my commercial office is, they hit that area and just swept and did a whole bunch of them at once. So are they bringing in, I guess speak to when you get a chance, is it easy to see that someone is a repairman or woman, and they've went out and replaced some air conditioning units, and they're bringing in the old stuff, as opposed to, and that's your customer that you know, as opposed to the drug addict that comes in and the condition of the copper when it comes in. Does it look like it was hacked and stolen? Can you kind of speak to that when you guys get a chance to? Yeah, that's great. Okay. Because to me it seems like there is an opportunity, like you said, with the copper gutters to use some common sense and say this probably isn't legitimate trade here. Thank you. Thank you. And I'll add one other piece to that on adding a three-day hold or a one-day hold on the monies. We also didn't want to put Fett County at an unfair advantage from a business standpoint. and no other county has it. But if the state law has it, obviously it creates a little bit level playing from the financial side of it and helps us. So the next piece was a seller's license. Again, we've already covered this a little bit. Two or more times a year you would be required to obtain a seller's license at a $30 annual fee for individuals. A business that wants to practice it would be $150. We also put in there a provision that the application to get the permit can actually be made at the dealer's locations. So instead of someone having to come down here to our Department of Revenue to get it, and they still can, they could actually do it at the dealer's location, and the dealer would bring us a stack of applications. Once we receive that, Division of Police would do the background checks and identify the people and record it in our database of who is obtaining the licenses. Now, there are some key exemptions to this seller's license. The first one is any plumber, electrician, or HVAC person who holds a valid professional license. And these are, again, issued by the state and local municipalities. Any municipal or licensed waste hauler, such as M&M and our sanitation department, any organization that is registered in Kentucky as charitable, philanthropic, religious, fraternal, civic, et cetera, utility companies, and also industrial, manufacturing, or commercial vendors who generate scrap as an ordinary course of business. So those are the key exemptions. There's a couple other ones in there as well. On the hold requirement, we did put a hold requirement, and, again, this is to benefit our division of police. Once the metal is scrapped, being able to investigate it, there is a three-day hold requirement from date of purchase of just non-ferrous metals. We did not include in there every other piece of metal, such as steel or vehicles, things like that. And the reason we didn't is because, one, that's very costly to store and stock in their yards. If you go out and visit the scrap metal dealer sites, a lot of space and most of the space is for vehicles and the scrap steel. There just would be too much volume there to hold for any length of time. So we did not include that in there because we were trying to target catalytic converters and copper. And so that's why we put a three-day hold requirement to be able to investigate those items if they were purchased for scrap. And then the last piece of the ordinance is the fines and penalties. Going back to something Councilman Myers talked about, we talked about being able to revoke a seller's or dealer's license should they not comply with this ordinance. That's an important piece because it affects the ability to do business in Fayette County. Obviously, the fines are $100 to $500 in jail time. So there is some penalties and fines that would be attached to this type of ordinance. And last but not least, any time the council does choose to pass an ordinance, there's a 30-day grace period. from when the mayor signs it into law until when the ordinance actually takes effect, so that the dealers can have time to get caught up to speed and to get their business ready, as well as the public be able to be educated about what they would need to do going forward. That's the gist and the highlights of this ordinance. Again, in fairness, the scrap metal dealers have been very good to work with in trying to understand their business. They do have a tremendous impact on our community from an economic development standpoint. There's close to 150 jobs there in that industry in our community, and those are just the ones we can account for. So there is some respect to that industry, but at the same time, we have an epidemic in our community, and this is just a first attempt to try to curbtail that epidemic and try to get something into writing that we can all sink our teeth into and are pleased to be able to get better information going forward. So with going through the highlights, I see a couple of council members have questions, and then I'll ask the scrap metal dealers to come up and comment. Councilmember Lane. Yeah, my question has to do with the data maintenance. And the way I'm reading this is that each dealer would have to maintain a data system. And if somebody came in three or more times, they would flag it. But why wouldn't that make it possible that a person could go to the different dealers three times a year? And to me, I don't think that's really that effective. Do you have a thought on that? Well, you're right. They can. You can actually go six times if you switch. The reason why some of them won't and the reason why some of them will, I can tell you, is one, they won't because some prices are higher. It may be different dealers. And it may be a closer location. There's various reasons. The reason why they would is exactly what you said, to be able to do it and get away with the law. So the only way to change that would be to everyone have to have it day one. And even your mom and pops who are cleaning out their garages, they would have to have it. So we didn't want to go to that extent and be that burdensome and have that many permits issued. But we do want to get the people that are habitually doing it. But you could do it six times a year. You're right. Well, I would be leaning towards getting one time a year instead of three because, I mean, I'm a typical homeowner. And maybe every three or four years I might clean some junk out and sell it off. But I can't see myself doing that three times a year. And so that might be a way we could remedy that issue. Yes, you could. Thank you. Councilor Blues. Thank you. I'm basically sympathetic to this, and I think that this can go a long way toward cutting down on these kinds of thefts and the great expense they cause. But I do wonder whether, if and when we do clamp down, are we in danger of creating an underground traffic in these metals? That is, so that dealers would, or thieves would sell to unlicensed dealers who would then take the copper to some other state or municipality and sell it there where there aren't the same restrictions. You always have that opportunity. Anytime you create regulation, the people want to try to get around it. I'll give you one example that's already going on in Fayette County. We talked about electricians, plumbers, and HVAC having to have a contractor's license to do business. There's already people doing business using one person's license, and five people are doing business. So can that happen with this one? Absolutely. One person can get a seller's license and the other people can get it. But if we ever have an opportunity to catch that one person is what we're looking for, to put a stop to it somewhere. We have to draw the line somewhere. And most of the people, and Commander or Assistant Chief Holman, you can probably answer this better than me, most people committing these crimes are not going to drive three hours away to get the money or scrap the metal. Most people are not going to drive out of state. Lexington has one of the best prices in the state for scrapping, so people are actually coming here to do that. And that's why we try to make it a little easier to get the seller's license because there are people from surrounding counties that we talk to that come here once a week bringing scrap and to make it a little easier so they can get a seller's license at the location and get it processed. Well, and that's true. And a couple things to consider, too, about that is it's all about risk versus reward from our perspective, just in investigating and talking to these people. As the price of copper drops, there are less thefts. So if you introduce middlemen into it, then you're going to have that thief that's going to receive less per item, whatever it happens to be. So we're not finding that they're taking in truckloads. So it would definitely defeat the purpose to take it two or three hours away, pay for gas, time, and everything else to go somewhere else and sell it. That's going to happen sometimes. But I really believe that we have an opportunity. this community has an opportunity to kind of set the bar for not only the state, but as well as for surrounding states, because it's a problem nationally. And the numbers we talked about, as Council Member Lane said, was just Fayette County, the $6 million. There's no telling what the numbers are for the state. But I think when you look at all the variables and the people that are still in, what they're still in, how much they're getting, and that's at top dollar here when they take it directly, to introduce a middleman in that undercurrent of a black market would change the reward, and it may push them into other areas, thieving, other places, shoplifting, other things that we have a little bit better odds of capturing them. So that's our perspective on that. Councilor Myers. Thank you. Going back to Councilmember Lane's question on being able to sell multiple times a year and be able to go to different dealers. You know, with the prescription drug Casper, the database that they use statewide, can we look at doing a database like that that would eliminate your ability to go, instead of just a dealer keeping a database on their premises, they would feed that into? I certainly think that that is possible. I think that that would take some funding support throughout the state. Obviously, we're set the bar in that field, you know, because that program is probably the best in the country, the state, the Casper. It's certainly possible, and I agree with everything that you've said, and Council Member Lane talking about this six times. And we wouldn't be opposed to the one. But, again, you know, we defer to this committee and the council as a whole. Well, even if we didn't limit it to one, if we had the Casper-type database, that would give law enforcement a much easier time seeing who's really doing what out there. It absolutely would, and we'd like to have a seat at that table to discuss that possibility. That would take a lot of time, but certainly I think that that's an approach that we should keep in mind. I think that would work well, but it will take some time and some money and support from other stakeholders. Yes, sir. Okay. I wonder if maybe the state was looking at something like that for their law, or if they could give us some assistance with having put Casper together and maybe get some economies of scale where we didn't have to start from scratch where we could use sort of a base of what they started with. Yes, sir. Yeah, I mean, that's what we shoot for. Right now we're just trying to get out the dealers having a database that we have access to. We don't have that right now. We do have access to a couple, but not all of them. And we want that access. We want that information. That's what we are trying to get there. That's what this does, first step. And then the second step would be able to get all that into one statewide database, and that would really help us. My last question is you talked about when the cost of copper decreases and people go on to the next new thing. But on the horizon, where does the law, I mean, where does the police department see in terms of your research across the state and talking to different municipalities, where do they see projection-wise the strength of the copper theft? is that going to wane in the coming years, or is that something that's here to stay? I think there are several components. I may not be able to speak to that part of it per se, but I think that what we're beginning to see, the damage comes from heating and air. You know, HVAC system is where we start seeing the really large dollar damages that some of you have experienced. So I think what we're beginning to see is that there's been a market that's created to secure those locations behind businesses to where you can't break into it very easily. We've seen videos where we've apprehended people where they can make a theft in 30 seconds. The more protection that those equipments can have, you're going to start building a lot longer frame for the thief to go in there and steal it, and they won't do it. So I think that's going to begin to cut into the HVAC, the damages, and so forth like that. But I'm just not equipped to speak about how much copper is available and what's the likelihood of that kind of stuff in the future, though. Okay. Thank you. Yes, sir. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Councilman Stennett. I appreciate the work that you've done to bring this forward. I recall a few weeks ago we had the unfortunate incident of the home explosion not too far from here. And I think my understanding was that it may have been in part due to copper theft or something of that sort. So we recognize how it has an impact on the safety of innocent bystanders and neighbors. I do appreciate the whole requirement on the copper, the three-day requirement. I think that that is good. I do share some concern in regards to the three times. I kind of favor having a license for all sellers. And the reason I say that is because it only takes one instance of being a victim. And I think we all know we have churches are victims of copper theft. Folks who sell real estate property make the investment in their home and fearful to put the real estate sign in the front yard because it becomes an instant target. So it only takes one time to be a victim and have that impacted. The question I do have, Council Member Stenner, as I continue to explore and learn more about the great work that you've brought us, is the penalties. How do we equate the penalties on the thief, on the unscrupulous seller or dealer, to make those commensurate to the impact of the victim? Talk to us a little bit about that, Kevin. There's two ways. One, our penalties in this ordinance just affect this ordinance. So it affects the seller's license and the dealer's license in terms of our penalties. Now, the state has added, and they would have to be the ones to do this, is my understanding. And Ed Garner can maybe tell me if I'm wrong. But in our research, the state would have to impose a penalty, and they have in this current draft that I passed around, that says they can aggregate the cost of damage to the crime. So in other words, right now, you steal a $10 piece of copper. That's a misdemeanor all day. But if you can aggregate the damage to the building that it caused and the $10,000 unit and all that, then it makes it a felony. And I think the state has language in it that would make that grow in terms of the severity of the crime. And so the state has done that. They haven't passed it yet. And that's where you would really target the criminal. But our fines and our penalties have to do with the violation of this ordinance and the seller's license, not abiding by that, and then also the dealers, not abiding by the databases and things like that, and the hold requirements and the sharing of information. Okay. And very good. And, again, I appreciate your comment earlier not to be a burden to the one-time seller or just the occasional folks cleaning out their garage, but I think that we may discover that even those folks may not be so burdened by having that requirement of a seller's fee if it ensures that we can get our hands around this problem. So, again, thanks for your work. Thank you. And I would add into that, you know, we have exempted some HVAC and electricians who have a valid contractor's license, and that's not to say some of them aren't the same ones doing some of the thefts as well, and we've caught in the past. So even though you have a license, that doesn't mean you're still not going to do it. So just keep that in mind. Council Member Beard. Thank you. Chief, maybe you can help us with this or help me with this. Has anybody gotten around to the idea of alarming these air conditioning units? We've seen that a little bit. That's beginning to be a little bit of a trend, not moving as quickly as the enclosures that secure them, but that is something I think that we're beginning to see as a trend. And I think that as you begin to miniaturize that equipment so that you can place that out there in the weather and it's not taking up a lot of space, I think that we'll see that grow even a little bit more. And that's just the answer to follow up on my comments to Council Member Myers is, I think that's where we're going to see nationally go, where those equipment that causes the most amount of money are going to be protected, whether through an enclosure or an alarm, as you suggest. I think that will be the trend in the next few years nationally, and it will trickle down here as well. I know. It's in more rural areas where it seems that they're hitting these churches, and there are smaller community churches that are empty maybe 80% of the time. And in some cases even, I think I saw, where they stole the copper. They got it replaced. They went back two weeks later and stole it again from the same church. And we've seen that here in Payette County, actually, with some HVAC in a couple locations. One thing I know Council Member Stenet mentioned, when we find someone who has actually committed a copper theft that has created damages in excess of $1,000, then we go ahead and charge them with a felony offense or criminal mischief as well. Most of our arrests, though, are for things like a copper downspout or gutters or things that don't cause answer to damage. We don't make as many arrests for those type of things, but we do place felony charges when we have a damage that exceeds $1,000 as well. And we do have a suspect, Council Member Ford, and we will be making arrests if we haven't already done so in that house explosion. Okay, that's all I had. Thank you. Yes, sir. Any other questions from Council Members? Okay, I just want to make also an offer that we have copies of every other city's ordinance as well that we were able to find out there. I can e-mail it electronically. I didn't want to print them all off because there's several pages to each one, but if anyone wants to take a look at those as well, we have those. I'll open up the floor, Chairman, and turn it back to you if you want to recognize any public and the dealers to be able to speak to us. Thank you, Mr. Stennett. The first parties that signed up to speak today are Justin Irwin and Andrew Logsdon, and they're both with Wise Recycling. Are you both speaking, or are you going to speak for both of you? Well, we'd like to see if Mr. Babbage would like to. Well, Mr. Babbage is your spokesperson today. Well, you all have done pretty well then. Okay. Well, I welcome Mr. Babbage. Would you identify yourself early? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm Bob Babbage, Babbage co-founder. Three years ago, I had the good fortune to represent the industry with the legislature when the last law was passed there for comprehensive revision of the state statutes. Last year, a small act was taken to prohibit some forms of burnt copper from being sold as easily as before. the person bringing that to a scrapyard would have to show more ID. Then we have the law that was passed by the House unanimously, 96 to nothing, just last week. I'd like to say several things, if I may, and try to answer some of your questions. If I don't address some of those questions, please re-ask them. So we work closely with law enforcement all the time, and the industry has a great respect for law enforcement. The industry I represent are the more sophisticated, more significant, larger dealers. If you go to Old Frankfort Pike or you go to these guys' operation or you go over on 7th or you go to River Metals in northern Kentucky or Louisville, these are large, sophisticated operations. There's much more material than could fill this room several times. They measure in tons. Let me try to address several points that you raised. Who steals? We believe the person who steals is organized, they're effective, they're thinking of ways to outsmart us right now. The business model for the bigger operations, and that's who I represent, I represent River Metal specifically, the larger operators and also Baker here in town. And you know Greg Dixon from his work with the Chamber and the Council, United Way, and so on. I wish you were here today. He would like to be the next time you discuss this and will be. Those criminals are desperate. It is certainly driven by the drug trade, we believe. The chief would confirm that, I'm sure. Other law enforcement does as well. So in order to get a better solution, Chairman Pullen, Tanya Pullen of eastern Kentucky, Ashland area, pulled together not only our industry right from the start, but about 40 related industries as well as state police to figure out a way to do this better. So there's a new state registration spelled out in that document you have before you. We suggested that. The industry did. There's a working group that's permanent, called for in the law. We suggested that, the industry did, to pull together every stakeholder, and that could certainly be a local law enforcement chief, and it should be, but especially at the state level and folks who work in this routinely. The dealers who I work with wrote a lot of the law and wordsmithed the law back and forth with Chairman Pullen. A failure of this morning's editorial writers is not to commend her for pulling together 40 different industries or thereabouts, as well as law enforcement, who weren't mentioned at all, as well as, in addition to Chairman Pullen, State Representative Bill Farmer from Lexington, who added the theft provision. So you've got the registration, you've got the working group, and you've got the theft provision. He increased the penalties in a separate law, which Chair Pullen put into her law on the floor of the House at Representative Farmer of Lexington's urging. He, like me, is a victim of copper theft within the last year. He, like us, had copper taken from an air conditioning unit. Then you have to front the cost for your deductible for your insurance, get it put back, and hope that that person who took the copper is prosecuted. Under the Farmer Amendment taken by Pullen, the entire damage, in my case $4,000 or $5,000 worth, In Representative Farmer's case, a similar amount, the crime is that level, not a couple of hundred bucks for the copper. What's driven this problem back up is the price of copper rising again. If it were a dip, you'd see a dip perhaps. As it's risen and likely stays high, it is a continuous problem. Our business model is not to do business with folks who steal. Our business model rests on big producers of lots of material, as well as anybody else with small material or who cleans up the farm or who does any kind of thing like that. So that's where the cash payment provision comes into the law. That's the fourth piece you're looking at. That delays the payment because it makes it by check the next day to anyone who sells in those restricted areas. The restricted areas of metal, then, being paid by check delays that payment by a couple of days. It creates even more records. We already, if you came in today, Councilman Beard, we have your car tag in a picture. We have your driver's license in a picture or other ID, along with other information about every transaction that we make. Those are the larger dealers working. So who steals it and where does it go? it goes into some intermediary who's aggregating this or some desperate person who comes in perhaps early the next morning, as was alluded to, and tries to get rid of it for quick cash. Usually in the business setting, you mentioned profiling, Councilman Myers, you can usually tell the HVAC truck from somebody who's desperate for cash. You can tell the regular customer, the industrial customer, if you will, from a residential or farm customer, Chances are. And you can tell folks who have come in regularly and who you know right there in business. A lot of those folks come back and come back. But there's also the occasional person who may clean up the garage or the neighborhood or the church group or whoever it may happen to be. The M&M sanitations, obviously, and the others have a different standing in what we do. So by slowing the payment, you hope to build in not only more records, but the quick cash, as Representative Cohen has called it in the press, is curved there. If somebody brings you one gutter, copper gutter, you probably take that as a standout from somebody who brings you truckloads regularly of product. It also requires a record to be kept that's not kept now that describes that restricted material that might come in, Not in every detail, but in enough detail that police can note it. We've worked with the industry. The telecommunications industry, Councilman Ford, is victim often because people will climb towers to get this. They'll desecrate graves to take it off a tombstone. They'll do whatever they have to do to try to get copper to sell to get $200, $400, whatever they get for it. Two people died climbing those towers trying to steal. They were probably not of sound mind when they did it. and they certainly put their life at risk, obviously, to try to commit a crime for whatever desperate circumstances they were in. That's pretty much a summary of where we are. When Councilman Stenet was on WVOK Friday with Chairman Pullen, Chairman Tanya Pullen, to talk about this, he mentioned what he was doing. It does correspond in some cases to the state. I hate to make predictions, but I do think the Senate will take this up in judiciary, and perhaps with a couple of changes pass it along. It would get passed by the Senate, we hope, then conferred or concurred with by the House if there are any changes. We hope it gets a chance to act. In responding last week, I think it's fair to say that Chair Pullen said if we could give it a chance to work, it helps keep some consistency in the law and ordinance, some consistency in law enforcement, some chance for this to work. If it works, we'll be far better off. There are certainly elements that can. Unlike the unfortunate piece of writing this morning in our local paper, unfortunate that it was incomplete, it didn't give State Representative Farmer any credit, and it certainly didn't give the industry any credit for working hand-in-glove day after day all the way through with all these other industries to put together a new and better state law based on multi-state experiences. Some of our members of this team, this professional team, have multi-state experience, have served on national boards. Greg Dixon here has been president of the state board. He has clients in-state and out-of-state. River Metals has 30 states they represent. They're probably the smartest guy in this business I've ever met. It's Chris Fidel in Northern Kentucky, who'd be glad to come help you refine this a bit. We do have some suggestions to make as time goes on and would love to. Our goal is your goal. When we have a theft, just imagine, if we have a theft and have to produce that information Out of those electronic records, the data, the stuff we store, it's an interruption to our business. If we spend time on this with police, which we do regularly, you can ask Congressman Guthrie. We intercepted some stolen material from his industrial site there in Bowling Green, quickly got it back to him. It was a lot of stuff, kind of an inside job, as I recall. So this kind of problem faces us. We have worked collectively together like never before to produce House Bill 390. I hope we can perhaps share more of that, also comment and respond as an industry, as an association, both nationally, state, and local, to the elements of what you're trying to do and find ways to make it work even better. Thank you, Mr. Babbage. Does anybody have a question for Mr. Babbage, Mr. Stennett? Excuse me, Mr. Beard, you're first. That's quite all right. Something popped into my mind. I don't know why I didn't catch it the first time when Council Members Tendent mentioned it, but there's a situation in the financial arena now called Zero Float, and a check that is presented is captured electronically at the teller's window and automatically transmitted to the bank the check is drawn on. So this thing about a two-day wait, and it's not 100% yet, but it's probably 75% of the banks in the country are doing it now. So that zero float applies somewhat also to how we handle our own internal finances in the city. To be aware of this zero float situation, it obviously is good for the banks. They wouldn't pay for the electronic equipment to do all this, but it's coming, and it will be 100% probably in the next five years easily. Well, in full disclosure, Councilman, you were my banker, and so I trust your judgment on zero float. If you do bring the restricted material, though, and it is purchased, then you're going to be paid by a check that's mailed tomorrow, which presumably you receive the next day, so that's where we come up with the 48 hours. You don't hand them a check, in other words. No, sir. It must be mailed to them. That's our computation. U.S. Postal Service, it's going. It may be three or four or five days before you actually get it. Yes, sir. Thank you very much, Bob. Mr. Stennett. Thank you, Chair. Mr. Batish, thank you for your comments, and I appreciate your work and thoughtfulness throughout this last year and working on this. I'll say a couple comments back to you, and I hope you understand where I'm coming from. You mentioned that you could fill this room with scrap metal dealers across the state in various industries. Dealers with scrap itself. Well, the scrap too. But we could fill this room ten times over with churches, people in the community who are tired of this problem, who want to see our local government address it, and assuming, and you make a huge assumption there, assuming the state passes something. We don't know what it's going to look like. The state doesn't go far enough, in my opinion, to what we need from a local basis to ensure that our police have better information. And if we had better information now, I guarantee you we probably wouldn't be sitting here talking about it. If we had better record keeping from the dealer side and better cooperation, we'd do with some but not with all. And that's the problem. That's where we're running into the roadblocks. We wouldn't have this problem now. If we had better transmitted the records to us on a daily basis, we wouldn't have this problem we have now. So that's what this attempt is to do. And we ask them who their customer is. They know who their customer is now. Let's not be naive and sit here and think that you all don't know who your customer is because you can identify. Like you said, those people that come in on a regular basis are in it for business. We know who they are. But the people that are coming in to supply a drug habit, you can also identify them for the most part on a daily basis. So I appreciate your wanting us to slow down and to take a breath, and I have no problem if that helps us get to a better product, such as maybe what House Bill 390 will ultimately look like. But Lexington needs to do something, and if the state wants to parallel with our ordinance, okay. If they don't, they want to make it tougher, okay. But I don't think just requiring a dealer's permit and the one-day payment on certain types of metals goes far enough to give us the information we truly need. And if you want to put in that House bill when it hits the Senate floor a statewide system that Councilman Myers talked about, that would be even better, too, so that everyone could be on the same page like we have with automobiles now when they put that information to a nationwide database on VIN numbers. So I think we've put some things in here. What I would like to hear from you all is what parts of this ordinance do you not like and what are your suggestions that we should change and let us have that feedback. But absence of that, it should move forward. As quickly as I can, Councilmember, let me apologize for the misinterpretation. I wasn't talking about filling the room with people. I was talking about filling the room with material. When people visit the scrapyard, their first impression of, this is an enormous, it's acres of material. It's not just a little bit of property. It's acres of material. I'm not trying to pack the room with people. I'm just trying to make an analogy, and I made it poorly if you thought I was talking about folks. I'm talking about metal, all kinds of metal that ends up by the acre, recycled by industry and other people. So please let me beg your forgiveness. And is that in reference to the hold requirement in our current one? It's in reference not only to the hold requirement but how immense the business is. Okay, fair enough. The recycling part of the industry, whether it's aluminum, most of which is recycled, or anything else in the environment that we recycle, important cog in the industrial wheel. I'm just trying to get people who haven't ever visited a scrapyard the idea that if you laid the building flat and filled it with scrap, there might be more scrap than that on old Frankfort Pike at the Baker site on any given day. It's a lot of material that comes through. Secondly, this is day 41 of the legislature. Far be it from me to ever make a prediction about how the end will be, but it does appear promising that by what has to be an April 15th deadline, right now an April 13th deadline, with really just a couple of working weeks left before you get into concurrence and veto and other stuff, you're going to know what the state is bringing you. And because of the registration and keeping up with that, we think the bad dealers or the dealers you're targeting, the smaller dealers, maybe the mom and pops, maybe somebody who's unscrupulous, Councilman Stenet, won't want to register, or if they register, it's easier for all of us, the industry and you, to find them and certainly the chief and his folks in any given town. So the registration element, the working group element, the cash payment element, on the restricted metals that go right at the heart of this problem. And I'm forgetting another piece of the bill. I think there were four pieces. Forgive me. I guess it's a Perry moment. Thank you for laughing. The law that you're about to see enacted does go a long way. That's why we work with state police and everybody else. Now, Winchester's passed a different little law, at least at the county level. Kenton, a different law. And what we hear from state police and other law enforcement is some consistency would be good. That's why a stronger state law that's been vetted by a lot of folks deserves a chance to stand. If there would be time for other colleagues to speak today or in the future, certainly Mr. Dixon being as large as he is in the community in terms of the operation, I think you might get a couple of suggestions about how the local ordinance as proposed could be improved based on our experiences other places. Kentucky.gov, also a client I should disclose, Kentucky.gov, which does so much record-keeping, may be a means for us to go to produce those records where they're even more accessible. But you're going to have a central place where you get all this kind of information, or if you come to larger operators, particularly when the police come, it's all hands on deck. It's our own 911 internally to get that record and get that person. We have an industry site where we post thefts, material that's suspicious, other kinds of things all the time. And we've invited industry in Kentucky, including the big ones, big brand names like AT&T and Windstream, to come in and participate, make the contribution of information there so we can find that better anyplace. It's a mobile business. It goes out of state. In fact, Ohio and West Virginia, we're on the tri-state, lots of places. as Kentucky is, Tennessee, Missouri, Missouri, Illinois. The other states are saying, now what do we do? You're just going to send problems over to us. How do we square that up? Still a step in the right direction. And we commend you for everything you've done and for working with us, for visiting the sites, and for hearing us out. We just have a little bit more to share and would like to make this as perfect as possible. Thank you, Mr. Babbage. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for coming in today, Mr. Babbage. Thank you. We just got a copy of the state, the HB 390. Yes, sir. After we got into the room today. You mentioned that there's a database element to this. There's a provision for providing information on the restricted metal transactions. Where's that at in here? Do you know offhand? Step up and show it to you, or maybe Councilman Stenet probably has a mark. Is it on the same order? Did you say statewide? Yes. So it's going to be on the order of the CASPER system? Well, I don't think it would be that good. But it requires the information to be kept and on file and available for the restricted transactions. So if you had that transaction, you would have to, within the time specified, get that submitted. I mean, this happens fast. Crime happens fast. Right. Getting rid of the stuff happens fast. That's why we want to try to meet that. Where is the information submitted to? Who keeps that database? Well, the solution is to try to get the best central possibility for that information. Right now this goes through the cabinet for public protection for the registration. That's one place to put it. Obviously that's driven by Frankfurt. Frankfurt is served by KY.gov for every agency and for a lot of record keeping. That's why I've suggested them there may be a better way to do it without having to have a transaction fee for everybody who does it or every company who does it all the time. So you're, on behalf of your clients, actively pushing for that to be a piece of the legislation at the state level? Right. We're definitely supportive. In fact, there was a news conference last week about this with state police, probably a dozen House and Senate members, Chairman Pullen, 40 Industries, CSX, AT&T, Home Builders, Realtors, Kentucky Retail Federation, lots of input, all the cable industry. But I'm speaking of your clients because most of those people you named are the victims in some cases. True. So I'm speaking of your clients. It's also a victim to us, I want to point out, I mean, not nearly on that scale, but we have to change business practices to produce the checks to meet the requirements of the law. So we have an expense as well. That's why we want it to work, and that's why we want to report it. Getting into massive electronic data keeping and reporting is an expense that we don't anticipate from House Bill 390. But we do expect from the language there better record keeping of those restricted transactions and who those folks are and any way we can try to find out how to isolate that problem. Okay. I'm just trying to figure out if your clients are in favor of it or not. We're in favor of House Bill 390. But I'm speaking in more specifically the database. I think the folks who practice day in and day out could give you suggestions as to your ordinance and what they would favor. I'm not sure they came to be. I'm certainly not here to favor your effort, but I'm not speaking for an industry that you've got it exactly right. I think there's a constant process to fix it. Okay. So then my last question for you is, with respect to your clients, I know you can't speak for the whole industry, are your clients in favor of or opposed to our draft legislation that we're considering today? The association is in favor of the state law and giving it a chance to work. And I think the sentiment of the legislature, at least as they've expressed it so far, is to give the state law a chance to work. But that's not binding on you. We understand the problem here. We understand Councilman Stendt's direction as well as the need for the police to have the best they can possibly get. There are parts of the ordinance we can definitely support or improve. I'll just put it at that. Okay. Who's your client? Kentucky Recyclers Association, for one, and River Metals, which is a large producer, Baker Iron here in town. And all of us are in the same professional family. Okay, so are your two clients in favor, not the state law, but are they in favor of what we're doing here today? They haven't given any conclusion about the ordinance, hoping that it will be a process they can be a little bit more involved in and have some suggestions that you might take over this period of time. Okay. The reason I ask that question is because Councilman Stenet said, if you guys are opposed to it, then what changes would you make? So that's what I was, if you're opposed to it, what changes would you make? If you're not opposed to it, we're all good. Didn't come to oppose it. There are definitely elements in the ordinance that we believe we can make suggestions to improve it. We'd like to get to you. I don't have those today. I'm not prepared to do that today. Our entire absorption has been at the state level to finish that process. Okay. So can we expect something from you? Yes. Or your group? I'll work directly with Councilman Stenet if you would authorize. that chairman and you to get you their feedback and their suggestions on the timeline that you want to follow. Obviously, between now and April 15th, Pam Jenkins and I, who've worked on this bill from here in our partnership, and others in the industry are focused on the state solution. Okay. These are the big operators I want you to understand. The big ones, not everybody. Right. And I'll just say in closing, I appreciate Councilman Stenet and all the work that he's done on this, And I do believe, just like you said earlier, that it's incumbent upon the local government to act. It's our citizens we need to take care of. I understand the state's working on something. They have that job to do something statewide. I appreciate that, too. Hope they get it done and hope it's solid. But I do think that we need to move forward with something here. I would also say, respectfully, that when you represented the industry before, you did such a good job that that's why we're back, because we didn't get it right the first time. I'm not sure we'll get it right this time, Councilman Myers, in all probability, given the determination of people of a criminal mind to keep at it. You'll get a solution from the state, and you'll take your action appropriately here. Then we'll move on to the next subject, and they don't let up. That's the problem that the police face, and while we're trying to back them up at every turn. Sure, and for those of you who don't know, you actually sat in one of these seats at some time before, right? Yeah, I don't think you were old enough to vote, but it's been a while. I don't know. I'm probably older than you think I am. But you were a council member here. I was a council member, and that's why, knowing you and respecting you, this is a complicated problem. Trying to shut off a societal problem that seems to affect Kentucky and Kentuckians more than others, and that's crime as it relates to drugs or other circumstances, mental health, whatever it may be. And so you can appreciate why we think we need to do something at the local level. Completely. We have total appreciation for what Council Member Stenet has worked on these months and respect his efforts and also appreciate his involvement at every turn where he could include us. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Babbage. Now let's go over to Council Member Stenet. Do you? I was just going to answer. Council Member Myers had a question about the differences on the state ordinance and the one we have drafted on the database reporting. the state only you have to report to either the sheriff or the local police department, but you have the option to report in a digital format, in writing, or by other electronic means. Ours requires approval of a database by a division of chief of police, which is a little bit different and allows access 24-7 versus reporting to us what you want us to see. There's a big difference. And in different forms from a paper document that's lost to an eclectic record, et cetera. I just wanted to clarify that. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Senator, are you bringing this motion forward at this time? I'm not a member of the committee, but anyone can feel free to do so. Well, you are a member today because... No? You had quorum. I can't. You had to recognize me at the beginning of the meeting. Okay. All right. Well, do I have any motions on the floor here regarding the ordinance? Do we have any? I don't believe we have anybody else signed up. I'd like to say one thing about the bill. My name is Justin Irvin. I'm the general manager of Wise Recycling here in town. Bob represents Bakers here locally specifically. And I'd just like to give you a little bit of a picture of the area and how the industry kind of works. In Lexington specifically, there's two main recyclers currently. It's Wise Recycling and Baker Iron and Metal. outside of fayette county we have i'd be willing to bet about a dozen various recyclers that are smaller than the two of us but do the same thing um i just i just the main problem that i have with the bill as it's written today is that i just fear that there's going to be a black market like some of the council members were hinting at i just fear that there's going to be a black market that's created that this shuffles metal across the county line and the only things that i would like to change in the bill is items in there that are going to exemplify that gray area where our customers are willing or the thieves are willing to take metal across the border across the county line and sell to counties that have less regulations that's the only that's the only topics that I would like to focus on changing. I'm for Lexington being the leader in this bill. It's a major problem. I think that we need to try to focus on prosecuting the actual thieves themselves with stricter enforcement. but like I said, I just hope that the bill that comes out at the statewide level that Bob is working on, I just don't want Lexington to be more stringent on certain items and then that not reduce the theft by just pushing metal outside the county line. A couple of those items like Mr. Myers was hinting at, I feel that the tag and hold will be an issue for the recyclers in Fayette County. The title issue with the VIN number, that is not a statewide law. So I envision vehicle sales, scrap vehicle sales going outside of the county. A few of the other things we can go through over again. but I don't believe that even the day-to-day scrappers who are selling legitimate metal will want to do business in a county where regulations are more stringent. And furthermore, we currently have legislation in place that makes dealers report or have the information that we're trying to request in this current bill available to the police department. I feel that there's a lot of dealers out there that aren't following the law the way it's currently written. I think that we should look into prosecuting those dealers who are doing things illegitimately already rather than passing more stringent laws on top of what we already do to the businesses who are doing the right thing currently and are trying to identify metal and helping law enforcement prosecute the criminals. I'm willing to bet that between Baker Iron and Metal and Wise Recycling that the majority of the arrests that were on the sheet there for cases that were brought about for scrap theft were cases that the recyclers ourselves helped the law enforcement prosecute these criminals. If you push all that metal outside of the county, that reporting isn't going to be there anymore. It's going to be harder to actually prosecute these thieves when the mail gets pushed out into these areas of the state where the laws aren't as stringent. That's what I fear. Mr. Stanton, do you have a question? Yeah, I just want to thank Wise Recycling. You all have been very cooperative and supportive throughout this whole process. And from what I understand it from our police folks who work with you, you've been very cooperative in relaying information and identifying via common sense and via your records who we're targeting. So thank you for that effort. I hope it continues. I will touch on a couple things. One, the hold requirement is only on copper and catalytic converters. The rest of the metal, steel, cars, you don't have to hold those at all. They can already be moved the minute you buy them. The second issue is I think this is a whole other issue, I don't want to muddy the water today, but the title requirement when you buy a scrap car, we have language from our county attorneys and from other county attorneys in Clark County, and this may even go up to the attorney general at this point, but it says you already have to provide a title. And I can read straight from the statute 186 and 191. It says a person shall not purchase, sell, or trade any motor vehicle without delivering to the county clerk of the county in which the sale or trade is made the title. So the state law already identifies that. And I know there are some discrepancies on the scrap metal dealer side saying that that doesn't necessarily apply to their transactions. And I think we will get clarification on that in the coming months. I don't want to muddy this conversation with that. But that's why we referenced that statute in our ordinance as well. So I just want to clarify that. And we can have more conversations on that requirement. So thank you. Thank you all. Okay. I believe that gets all the questions there. Thank you for your comment today. Does anyone else want to speak today? Okay. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that we go ahead and take a vote to recommend to the full council passage of the legislation that Council Member Stenet presented today. So moved. Do we have a second? Second. Okay, second by Vice Chair McCord. Thank you. All right, Mr. Beard. this is a question for council member stennett you you've referenced further discussions um is this ready as far as you're concerned to go further discussions on the last piece on the on the title issue well not just the title issue any other tweaking that might take place or that you may think? I present the best compromise with working with the dealers and then what else is out there and trying to give some of the Fayette counties that we get better information to the police. So, yes, I'm satisfied this is the work product that I've come up with and presented. Okay, that's fine. I just wanted to be sure. You can always make it tougher. Well, no, I understand that too, but I just want to be sure that we weren't running before we could walk. I understand. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I would like to first ask if anybody else want to comment. I would like to propose an amendment to modify the ordinance to an individual that would only get to go one time a year without a license to sales for out materials because I feel that three times a year is two times too many. Did I have a second on that? Second. Okay, thank you. Is there any discussion on that item? Okay, well, then I guess the first item is all in favor of the amendment. Please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? All right. We will now take a vote on the amended ordinance. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, both the amendment and the motion passes. And that will be brought before the next work session for review by the full council. That concludes this portion of our agenda. The only remaining area on today's end. Yes, sir. Can I ask for a question? Just for purposes of clarification, your amendment amended Section 4.1A? Right. I was looking for the number on that. It's 4.1A on page 15 of our packet. And I'm assuming that you reduced the number 3 to number 1. Is that correct? Yeah, let me find this in here. I'm sorry. Bottom of the page. Does anybody have the page number? Page 15, 1A. Yeah, that would be, actually, I guess the correct reading on it would be two or more occurrences, since the first one would be excluded. If you kept the word totaling in there, yes. So, is everybody in agreement? Do you want any question on that? Everybody clear on that? Would you like to re-vote on that, just for clarification? Okay. Then the amendment would read, any scrap metal seller within Fayette County who sells trades, barters, or otherwise transfers ownership for compensation of regulated scrap materials totaling two or more occurrences in a calendar year within Fayette County should be required to obtain the license established in Section 13-3 by making application for the same to the Bureau of Police in order to conduct business as described under the definition of the law. of scrap metal seller have a second on that we want to any more comment okay all in favor please say aye any opposed okay that motion passes thank you okay that's correct and we will now revote the amended ordinance any discussion okay all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed Okay, that passes also. Thank you, Mr. Blues, for catching that. Okay, the next item on the agenda is items in committee. And does anybody want to discuss any of the items that are on the committee listing at this time? this time. I guess there's no comment on committee items. Would anybody like to have a closing comment? If not, we'll be in adjournment. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. This meeting is adjourned. I'm sorry.