Thank you. Thank you. First up is an item we spent some time on, and our notes reflect. At the October meeting, we had some rather lengthy discussion about the repaving or the paving program, and that resulted in a motion to allow additional time for questions. Then we had a request that the administration present options that would help ensure the equitable distribution of repaving funds. And that has brought us back to a potential commentary today. I was going to ask Kevin Wente to come forward and just give us a general update, and we'll see what council members' pleasure is after that. Welcome, sir. Thank you, sir. As you can see, we just wanted to give a general summary of our paving statistics year to date. the amount that council allocated for resurfacing, the amount that we were receiving for our county aid road fund. One thing I wanted to point out with the statistics on item number three with 14% of urban county government maintained roads having a rating of 65 or less, that is as of our last assessment that ended last August. So our assessments typically begin in May, so we'll be bringing in interns. So with having a milder winter and the amount of money that we've allocated towards or that Council allocated towards resurfacing this year, this $29 million figure, I think we put a pretty good dent into that this year. Sam has some specific statistics as far as length of road that we've paved year to date that might be of interest to you. Yes, sir. But otherwise, the other thing that I did want to point out at the very bottom of the statistics sheet, we're currently or still underway of having our current contracts reviewed by Mr. Dwight Walker. We should have that assessment complete within the next week, to which we already have a general timeline to where we're going to report that information back to the administration. We could also provide that to this body if you'd like to know what. How general is that timeline? We would like to have a meeting with the CAO and the mayor by the end of this month. Okay, very good. With that information. So, Sam, do you want to give your statistics? Mr. Williams, welcome. Thank you, and your excellent work on our One Snow event. I appreciate it very much and gave you a shout-out last Tuesday. We're going to give our acting commissioner credit for having a very light winter, Mr. Okay, so noted. Duly noted, sir. Very good. Just a brief overview of what we've got accomplished so far this fiscal year as far as paving. As you know, we have worked through 10 of the 12 districts on their listing with a couple of streets to be done this spring. We've paved a little over 23 miles of our streets in the city, and we've expended a little over $4 million of the budgeted amount. And for those handy with a calculator, that figures out to be about $175,000 a mile is about what it is running. Just a little over that and about $33.50 a foot for those that want it in a foot. Drilled that down for us. Thank you, sir. But anyway, I understand our contractor is going to be back in operation again the first of the second week of April, which I think starts on Mondays the 9th. So we should get back and get going again on that. I get a proclamation for that. That's a great thing. Thank you. All right. Good deal. I would just ask if there's questions from council members or comments about what's been presented to us or what we talked about in our last meeting. First, I see Council Member Martin. Thank you, Chair. Hey, Sam, just sort of a follow-up of our last meeting. Are you all, I guess, what is the status of sort of the revised specifications that we've talked about in the past meeting? We've had a couple meetings with our consultant. We're actually meeting with him this afternoon. And, Councilman Martin, what our goal is, and I think this is something that's going to be attainable, is we're trying to make the bid spec more attuned to what our needs are and also make the bid spec more, I'm trying to think of the correct word to use, but basically looking at volumes of asphalt applied and so we can get some benefit from that. So what we're probably looking at is increments of, say, maybe zero to 500 tons would be priced at one level. 500 to 1,000 tons may be priced at another level. And 1,000 tons and more may be priced at even a different level. And that would be on specific streets. You know, like if we put down 1,020 tons on one street, that's going to be a better value for the city than if we put down 200 tons on another street. That's not what I'm looking for, and I appreciate that. But what I want to see is a policy from the administration about when we're going to fix the base failures, about when it's appropriate to do crack and seal, and when we put down a tack coat or asphalt felt or all these kind of things. Because I don't see any coherent policy when we do these things. Obviously, we have financial challenges. But I'm just not seeing where this is. I think it's happening. As a matter of fact, out on Lansdowne Drive, we are evaluating that pavement. It started a week or so ago, actually coring the pavement to see what we have to work with. have met with specialists in the field looking at a fix for that unique failures we're having out there. As far as a written policy plan, probably not documented as such. And there's something here I might print it off. Maybe I have to go back to the tape last time because I thought you told us that you guys were putting that together and we're going to come talk to us about that. Well, I think that's what this spec will include, those options for fixing. Because we're looking at putting in our specification the application of a reinforcing map, particularly gearing toward the Lansdowne area. looking at pricing milling to mill out the base problems and putting the base back in there. That's going to be in our contract. And those decisions are going to be made once the council comes up with the streets. We'll go in there and price and give our contractor the direction that they need to do. Well, I think it's reasonable to ask that the city have minimum qualifications, a minimum criteria for what a repaired, repaved street ends up with, that we fix the base failures, that we have a standard set of criteria that we follow when we redo a street. Because my concern is that we're putting a thin coat of paint on a bad problem, and the problem's just going to come back. that's not what's happening but are we fixing the base failures and you and I talked about you're kind of we've got one that is very close to this office right here that we are looking at addressing this spring, Rose Street is basically a base failure from High Street to Maxwell and we intend to address that as such because we have gone in and actually cut out areas, and they have failed. And what we find there, Councilman, is that there is nothing below what you seek. It's dark. Well, I guess if we might keep this in committee, and maybe my council aide and I will maybe try to come up with some legislation. As a legislative body, all I can do is look for it in a piece of paper, some player that says we're going to do it. I'd like to share something with you. I just have one copy of it. I'll share it with you. It's something that the Federal Highway Administration had. It's basically a pavement. Back to the microphone. Tell us, please. It's basically a pavement maintenance primer there. It's about a three-page deal. I can copy each of you on it. It kind of goes from road maintenance in the Roman days to what we deal with today. And it's kind of a good basic primer, I guess, for what we're trying to do. Well, can you put the photo up? This is, you know, this kind of, a lot of this started, and obviously all of us council members deal with this, but this is my guy out in Palomar, and he's an engineer with Lexmark. And he went out there after they had grinded it down and were getting ready to put the repaving code on. And he said this is like a quarter of an inch, three-eighths of an inch or something like that. And so that's next to the curb. And this guy's an engineer, so I'm assuming he knows how to measure something. And his, let me read his email. He says, I'm very concerned about the preparation work for the repaving of Palmar Boulevard. All that's been done is the scuffing at the edges. Some edges are even with the cement curbs. How thick will the layer of asphalt be? Zero inches, and how will the asphalt adhere to the smooth surfaces? Will the road be thick in the middle where no grinding has been occurred? Who's overseeing the work? And so obviously this is a citizen who went out and took a picture, put a tape measure on it, and sort of took it upon themselves to send it in. And so as a legislator, I'm trying to figure out what can we do to assure that the work of these contractors is of a high quality, that we're going to have a long-term fix for this road so we don't have to come back for 15 years or 20 years instead of 5 or 10. So that's kind of my frustration is how do we assure that we're getting a quality work and that the problems in the existing roadbed are being addressed so that we don't have to come back in five years. And all I have to do is ask you, when are we going to get... We don't buy the asphalt by the thickness. We buy it by the ton. But Sam, what we do, though, is we have specifications about what we repave. And the question is that, when do we as a city put a crack and seal down? that's done as part of the inspection process. I think there has been a pavement management plan in place for this city since the 70s. And there is a procedure where certain maintenance items happen after certain events. And it is written in a plan. and it's all a methodical way of maintaining the pavement. You probably look at what they call a rejuvenation of a pavement, and that's usually done four to five years from when it's placed down. And then it's inspected for crack sealing maybe at an interval past that, maybe seven to eight years, and then the crack sealing is done. So there is a plan. It may need to be updated, but there is a plan in place. Well, we are not following it because on a daily basis I look at Lyon Drive. I think we're talking about a different item here, sir. Those areas were developed by developers with, in my opinion, as a professional engineer, with inferior specifications. So we're looking at developers putting in inferior roads that the city has to maintain. Well, when a seam opens up in pavement, and at some point the crack starts opening up, we don't go back and put crack seal on it. And winter after winter, that seal gets bigger, and suddenly we have a two, three-foot wide sort of deterioration of the pavement, and then suddenly our only choice is to repave the whole thing. Well, we have certain budget amounts that we use for crack sealing, pavement rejuvenation, and surfacing. So those are mandated by this body, how much monies we have to spend. Do a little turnover there. Councilman Martin, what we'd be glad to do is you get your aid in some of the questions and concerns you have, and we'd be glad to sit down with you guys and see if we can answer some of your concerns and go over some of these pictures, and I'd be glad to get that done for you. Well, I appreciate it. This is the fourth time we've talked about this, and the fact is the city is not following a coherent plan for repaving its roads. It's allowing them to sit around and deteriorate until our only choice is really to repave the whole thing. And so I think that's more expensive than taking care of the road throughout the life of a road. What I would expect to see is that we would have sort of a thought-out system where once the center seam between the two lines of pavement starts opening up, then we go out and crack and seal it. But that's not the case. We just sort of do things happenstance. And I think it's cheaper to plan it rather than do happenstance. I think also our compliance officers also need to be able to see these kind of issues and have a checklist to make sure that these things have been done after the asphalt goes down to protect ourselves. So there's a lot of potential here, And I think Sam right there, different road for different, but we'd be glad to sit down with you and go out. Well, my biggest problem is that a couple years ago, and Sam was gracious to do that, we went around and we looked at every road on my list, and we identified all the base failures. And when it came time to pave those roads, not one of those base failures got fixed. And so essentially what we did was we paved over existing problems, And those base failures will continue to be base failures and will continue to cause problems on that road. And so it's just not a good way to do business. It's not smart management of our money. Okay. Thank you, Chair. We'll be glad to get back with you. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Chair. I appreciate it. I think Mr. Maloney and Sam, Mr. Williams, I think, you know, we all, a lot of us share Council Member Martin's frustration in terms of the conditions of our roads. In fairness to your area, over the last several years, up until the last several years, of course, we put very little money into our own road system from our own budget. What mostly we were putting in there was the municipal aid money only, which was about $100,000 a district, and we weren't getting there. We were spending about a million and a half a year on a need that was $30 million a year. So up until 2007, we just weren't putting money towards it, and we started dripping it in $3 million extra a year since then. And I think what Councilman Martin's point is, when we sign a contract with our construction company that performs this repaving work, do we put in there our own engineering specs? Is it labeled in there as to how deep we want that asphalt? And do we do it by location? Because obviously every road is different. In fact, everyone has different drainage. Are we specifically putting in there our engineering specifications? And what are they? I think that's what you're asking, Councilman Martin. Is it an inch of pavement enough when we do a repaving job, or should it be four inches so we don't have to come back until 15 years later? So what are we putting? Are we putting them in there? There is a – we expect a minimum amount of surface to be applied. And in a lot of cases, there are more depth than that is applied because you have rutting at intersections, subsidence in the street, and you do what's termed in the industry as a scratch course, which basically you go in and basically level the road, get it back to its approximate original crown so that you don't create any drainage problems. If we applied an inch and a half surface everywhere, we would have puddling, as you and I have discussed about some issues that we've had in your district where we have drainage issues that were brought more to the forefront once we paved. So if we told our contractor we want an inch and a half everywhere, we would still have the ruts in the road. We'd still have the sags along the curb that did not allow the water to drain off. So that is not a practical way of specifying the maintenance paving. It's basically we need to be able to apply a surface on a good sound road, which we have provisions in to repair areas that have failed, and then apply the surface to bring it back to the original configuration so the drainage will work. And let me ask you, can you give us those engineering specs, what we put in our contract, or give us an example of what they are? That's not a problem. You can give me the minimum. And then also, after they grade the road, who is testing it? Are we going out and inspecting it before they apply the asphalt, the new asphalt, and saying, hey, there's a base failure there, let's go ahead and fix it? Or is the contractor just identifying it? It's generally a visual inspection by our on-site inspector, and I get involved with it sometimes also. And we look at areas that have failed, and we come back and rework those areas. Yeah, but a lot of times you don't know until we take the layer off and see what's really going on underneath. Generally, you know it's there because that's what's caused the pavement to fail. And are we paying extra to have that fixed while we have it exposed? We are paying, yes, the actual cost of doing that repair, which would be milling out the failed area, filling it back with an asphalt base, and then getting it up to a contour that the surface can be applied. Okay, and then you mentioned earlier that we're accepting inferior roads into our system after a developer had built them. Who's inspecting those roads when they're built? That has historically been done by the new development group. LFUCG. We're the ones expecting the road. Actually, the way I understand now, it's actually the consulting engineers that work for the developer are certifying those that are built to the specification. Because I know we've taken over private roads in my district that have had to be brought up to spec. So I know we're not taking them on now. I'm just trying to get to when do we ever take on an inferior road, And if so, it's our own fault. Well, I think it's probably the specifications are not as stringent as they need to be. It's probably the best way. Well, let's fix that. I think that's what comes from it. I think that's a good, what needs to be done, because the roads that have failed in your district and the roads that have failed in Councilman Martin's district were all built about the same time. And that was a big boon in development here in Lexington. Well, let's get ahead of that boom curve, because obviously we have time now. I know we're not super busy in any of those divisions. We have time now to go back and say, here's what our minimum should be, and if they're not there already, then let's make them there. So I think bringing back to this committee something like that is what we're looking for. That's not under the Streets and Roads umbrella, but it is under our commissioner's umbrella, so I will see that we do that. Yeah, if you can. I know our CEO is here, and he, I'm sure, is taking notes. So if we need a change in policy, let's change it, bring it up to spec. If you can get us the engineering numbers, I'd appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. Next I have Council Member Lawless. Thank you, Chair. One issue that has plagued the first district since I became the council person three and a half years ago is prior to that the road paving money was divided into 12ths, one twelfth for each district. And so the first fiscal year I was on council, they changed that, and the third district got 1% of $1.7 million, which was $17,000. The next year I think we got maybe 2%, and now you're suggesting 5%. It is the center of the city. Everybody going in or out goes through the third district. It is old neighborhoods with terrible infrastructure problems, stormwater runoff. Many have been so overpaved, there are no curbs. And the sheet I got apparently had not been upgraded. There had been quite a few asphalt failures on roads that were rated 75 to 100 that were clearly hardly passable. And I really hope that we can rethink how we allocate those funds. When you look at the newer subdivisions or whatever that are having paving failures, the roads in the 3rd District for the most part, and they're cut through. Our neighborhoods aren't like most subdivisions. They're cut-throughs to avoid traffic on Nicholasville Road or Versailles Road, Broadway, to quick back road to get to UK. And the roads are in horrible shape, and over the years they have been allowed to be overpaved, oftentimes causing the stormwater, if they even have a stormwater system, overpaves. So those outlets get leaves and whatever washed down, a lot of flooding. so my request is that we as this administration looks at the fact that we are the city and the city in the third district because everybody goes through the third district. So thank you. And I appreciate Mr. Wente's work on this. We also have some horrible intersections that are extremely dangerous with no money, trying to use some of the little bit of paving money to try to fix those, and we're talking about people getting killed. So thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Next is Council Member Ford. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to echo on Council Member Lawless's comments, and I totally agree. I raise very similar concerns in regards to the equitable allocation of funds. In my understanding, if I can ask Mr. Winty to come forward. Good afternoon, Kevin. Yes, sir. Hello. Yeah, no problem. Again, I raise the same concerns Councilwoman Lawless just mentioned in regards to the allocation of funds. And she mentioned that historically in years past, it was divided by 12 for the 12 council districts, and then that changed. And then at the last meeting we discussed this, my understanding was that it was based upon the percentage of roads in a district that had a rating of 65 or lower. Correct. Based on need primarily is what we're saying. And I recognize some rationale in doing that, but I also understand that that would apply more if there were a requirement that all of the repaving funds were used for roads at 65 or less rating. I know that's strongly encouraged, but in practice that's perhaps not applicable in all cases. I would also encourage us to go back to an equal distribution of funds. We're representing, particularly now after redistricting last year, we're representing pretty close to the same amount of folks in our respective districts. And I would support that. So let me finish by asking this question. And respective of that, when can we expect the fiscal year 13 proposed funding allocations per district? Because the districts have changed. Correct. And the land mass of those districts and road compositions of those districts have changed as well. Correct. And we'll just step through this. As far as our involvement in so far as providing this service of resurfacing to you, we can allocate those funds either way that this body feels necessary, whether it's an equal amount distributed based upon the amount that Council approves us to resurface. What we were finding in years past was we were applying money to roads within certain districts that effectively weren't of that requirement of needing resurfacing. But that district had that money allocated, so let's just go ahead and pave it. With this approach, we thought this was a more equal distribution or allocation of those roads that were in the greatest amount of need, and at that time the body agreed to think this would be a good way to distribute those funds. However you all decide you want that done, we can accommodate that. At the present moment, our current database that we're using for our pavement management system is being revised to account for the newly redistricted areas, which would in turn change that geographic boundary, obviously, and that would in turn change that allocation of 65 and less that we were using those percentages to allot that percentage of money that you've allocated for us. However you want that to be addressed or any recommendations you have for us to readdress that, will be happy to do so. And thank you, Kevin. And Mr. Chair, I would implore the committee to consider that. And I think, and I can only speak on behalf of the constituents of District 1, but I would imagine that each of us as district rep council members could understand the need to be able to provide the greater services we possibly can. And so the difference between one or two percentage points in regards to the allocations paving per district can equate to whether or not we'll be able to provide some services for some streets that we all know we have in our district. So I would encourage us to consider that. And in the interim of that, I would definitely look forward to the reassignment per the new district boundary lines. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Next, I have Council Member Stendant. Thank you, Chair. I just want to touch on the resurfacing allocations. I know Councilman Lawless and Councilman Ford haven't been on council since we used to do it the old way, and we changed it right before both of you got on council. And the reason why we changed it was exactly what Mr. Winthie said. We had people using money for roads that had just been paved three or four years ago, and when other districts had roads that hadn't been paved in 15 to 20 years. So doing it based on need, we changed it, what, three years ago, Kevin, three budgets ago? It made the most sense so we can, in theory, catch those districts up. so that in 10 years or so we can all get back to the same monies once everyone has equal numbers above 65. And so that's what we were striving to do because what we were doing just didn't work. Splitting it up 12 ways did not work because, again, people were using money on roads that were perfectly in great shape no matter where they were in the city. And so that's why we changed. We haven't given it enough time to really see the impact because we only rate roads, what, once every four years as a whole city? Are we still doing it that way? We've actually changed that allocation. We're dividing the county in half, and so we're actually having a full assessment every other year now, whereas in years past it was every four years that we'd have a full assessment. So with these two new changes, it's still early on. I would encourage you to give it more time to work. And to just move beyond that point, I think that as you see these allocations, as we have it currently distributed, You have the various geographic sizes per council district, but our intent is to see these averages even out among each council district based on those needs. So that's just to highlight that point. Yes, sir. Yeah, and some of our districts are much larger. Correct. In terms of land, I know obviously the 12th is the biggest, but I know my district is the second biggest geography-wise, and so I typically would have bigger or longer roads. Again, that's in theory. And one other point, I had a meeting with the Division of Engineering yesterday who are the ones that are responsible for the pavement management system and hiring our interns. We actually hired those folks out of using MAP money. And I am going to take over that assessment from this year forward. I'm going to be out in the field training with the interns. So one thing that I'd like to see as far as the allocation, if you see in the center part of the page of these statistics, And so far as addressing base failures, Council Member Martin, I think if we were to incorporate that as part of our pavement management system and a rating assessment and then take a percentage of the allocated monies each year, like if we had that percentage of 2%, 3%, whatever that might be, similar to what we do for traffic loop replacement, crack seal, rejuvenation, that might be a way to approach this. There's also been some discussion among us in Parks and Recreation where they don't have a set or a good maintenance budget for their roadways, and they're looking to us to maybe assess or assist with that end. And maybe even in similar fashion with our government-maintained roads, such as entrances to our parks, we could allocate another percentage for that, as we could for base failure. So that might be another means of addressing those issues as well. And Kevin, did you say that we have gone through since the redistricting and moved the streets around appropriately? We are currently doing that now. Okay. Yes. And, of course, the funding piece will be in the budget. We won't know total dollars until the mayor releases his budget and then council deliberates, same as we did last year. But you'll get those to us before the budget? That would be my goal, yes. Okay. Very good. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. We'll pivot back to Councilmember Lawless. In principle, Council Member Stennett, I do agree with you that if there were people that were paving roads that had just been paved, my point is that it was the first fiscal year that I was on the council that it was changed. And I voted against it because I was the only council district that got 1% of the money, while some got 17%. The problem is the newer areas were never overpaved like the older neighborhoods. They were not milled down appropriately. They were overpaved. And again, the third district is the city and the city with all these older neighborhoods. And it's causing stormwater problems. And the roads I chose were rated very high, but there were asphalt failures. So what do you do there? So I'm just asking that those kinds of things we need to get back to milling those streets down to where they need to be so that they can have curves and so that their stormwater outlets aren't paved over or paved over so high that water cannot drain and then there's flooding. So that's my issue, not that, you know, I know you have a lot of long roads. You have Sir Barton Way that gets an enormous amount of traffic, but it's never been overpaved to the point that it has no curbs. So I think all those things are really critical issues when we're looking at this and looking at new development, new roads versus older roads that have been there 100 years and have been paved over until there's almost no yard. So thank you. Thank you, ma'am. And Council Member Ford. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for this opportunity to speak twice. I'm going to keep it brief. Looking at the statistics for fiscal year 12, And I think Council Member Stenet raised a good point, and I definitely appreciate giving us that background information of why the policy and the practice was changed. It was an attempt to put the focus on the greatest need. But I think we still have to include the importance of equity. And I would argue, I'm looking at the statistics, it says that we roughly citywide have a $29 million need for roads countywide that rate under 65. Is that correct? If we were to resurface all? Well, just as a clarification, this is based on our assessment from last year. So that was only accounting for half the county, and then we still have the assessment of the western portion of the county to put into this. But that was a good statistic based upon that date of September of last year. So, yes, that was a good working number. Thank you, Kevin. Mr. Chair, what I would recommend, and I don't necessarily agree with the call that we kind of let it play out, because the need still exists. And if we can bring equity to the process, I would encourage us to do that. One very rational and simple approach we may take, if we were to strongly consider going back to divvying, dividing the allocation up by 12 districts, is to mandate and require that the roads that we surface with that equal and equitable share go to the greatest needs, roads that rate under 65. To me, that seems the simplest way as opposed to just allocating based on need. Because even to that premise, there's no guarantee that we've set in policy that has required council members and the administration to pave roads under 65. I think I hear what you're saying. And I think what I would say to you gentlemen is I hear two things from this discussion. is, one, I think if you could revise with a flow chart or a policy piece that says, day one, this has been repaved. What happens between when it's repaved until it's crack sealed to where it needs to be repaved again? Let us know kind of what that magic is, what goes on, when it's inspected, what is done at that time, what makes the rating change dramatically. And then there's some conversation among the council members about the allocation approach, which I don't have a resolution for us other than I am interested in the updated look at what that would be with the new district lines being drawn to it. And if you could kind of work on those things and bring them back to us next month. Yes, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate that. And in the last two minutes, if I could, if my request and instruction will provide guidance for the committee, I will offer it. Kind of heading on to what you just stated. To know just what each district has as of right now for need under 65 is one piece of data that we need. and we need to know it relative to the fact if that need-based number, how it compares to the funding allocation that we have here now, and then what the difference will be. Thank you. Is that request something you could do in a month's time, or would that take a little longer? I'm just asking because you're all grinding. I think that's a possible request. My question is, you're wanting this information per the new redistricted location. Am I understanding that correctly? Yes, I think that would be the best approach. Okay. That's how we're going to play the game. We can have that within a month. Yes. All right. Good. Absolutely. Very good. Thank you, sir. Council Member Martin. I appreciate the opportunity to talk again. This is kind of a slightly different issue with the paving system or the allocation. You know, when we reallocated, the 10th District had 17% of the bad roads in Lexington, and the roads rated below 65. And I think at that time the 3rd District had 1%. And so we had 17 times the length of bad roads than the 1st District. To give the 3rd District and the 10th District the same amount of money, we had 17 times the need of the 3rd District I don't think is equitable. And so obviously we disagree with that. The numbers have equalized somewhat. I think we're more around, I think we're at 13%. A number of districts are at 11%, and the third district is at 5%. The third district has a lot of state roads, and so you guys get some state money as well because they travel through that district. But I'm happy to see our rating system updated so that it's more accurate, more fair. but I can't change my mind that we should spend our money where it's needed not based on some arbitrary division of the money among the 12 districts in Lexington. And whatever we need to do to make it fair, I will support. But giving the same funds to a district with 1% versus one with 17% I don't think is fair. Now, hopefully over time they will equalize and the disparity between the districts will both be caught up, but also the funds will equal out. So I'm happy to have our rating system updated to account for whatever needs to account for, but the folks who live in the 10th district are as important as the folks who live in the 3rd district. And I think that everybody is entitled to a high-quality road, and we have to do the best we can to give folks good roads. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. Next is Vice Mayor Corton. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a quick question. Did you say that you look at how long a road has been on the 65 or under list? We have done some preliminary studies just tracking in a similar fashion of what Council Member Ford's requesting, a general pavement life cycle. that's something that I think we need to take a more serious look into so far as tracking dates of last pavement and then over a course of 10 years at a point where it is requiring or at a level of rating to where it's requiring resurfacing again typically on average I think we generalize that to be around a 12 to 15 year period life cycle of having to require resurfacing with crack seal occurring generally every 5 years after we put a resurfacing code down. So that's something that does require further investigation. Yes, I agree. I guess what I'm getting at is if a road has been on the 65 or under scale for five or six years, it should certainly be resurfaced before a road that just went on the 65 or under. I mean, is your database? Well, I agree with that. But that's why we work closely with you and your staff to see if that's, you know, per your constituency, if that is the requirement. If it were up to us, sure, absolutely. That's the way we would approach that. But we also want to make sure that the allocation of funds that are assigned to your district are what you feel is going to be equitable for your district as well. My district gets all the funds. Well, excuse me. So I'm not talking equity so much as being sure we're paving what is the worst. And that's really what our approach has been or what we try to accommodate at this point. Thanks. In the meantime, if you have questions of me or the council members or what we've asked for next month, don't hesitate to call one or any of us so we can have a productive discussion next time. Not that this wasn't productive, but I think we're trying to zero in on what the actual Q&A things are. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next on our agenda is the addressing ordinance, which from conversation before the meeting, I understand that the Commissioner of Public Safety, Mr. Mason, would like to make some comments to us before we take up this discussion. Commissioner, welcome. Thank you. I just wanted to give some brief opening comments and kind of our position on this. And we understand that addressing is a contentious issue. We understand the historical significance of addresses. But I think we can probably all agree that logic clearly dictates that sequencing has a verifiable importance to a community. or else we wouldn't have hundreds if not thousands of years of addresses in different localities. In the recent past here in Lexington, attempts to clarify aberrations and create a sense of consistency have caused change for some of the locations. We have a very modern system here in Lexington, and there are now only a few exceptions. For instance, we have about 168,000 addresses in our system. There are 163 fractional addresses. The math on that goes beyond my simple calculation ability, but it's pretty minute. What the committee has asked us to do in finding instances where these exceptions have led to delays is somewhat like proving a negative. It's very difficult to do. When a police call or an ambulance call is made, the times are recorded from dispatch to arrival, and there's not a notation of whether or not the officer or the paramedic had difficulty finding an address simply. That's very secondary to what their mission is at that point. They're going there to solve a problem or help deal with the problem. So we really can't find empirical data that supports that misnumbered or out-of-sequence numbers or numbers that are odd and even on the same side of a street have created any systemic issue in response times. With that said, at this point, if Council wishes to continue to allow these carved-out areas to be accepted, we can abide by that. But in the slightest of chances where that can cause a delay, I think everybody needs to be aware that that can occur. So that's basically our position on this at this point. I just wanted to kind of open it up with that. So you're saying we use the best mechanism possible at this time? Is that what you, I mean, that we use the best software possible at this time? Is that what you were saying to me? I'm saying we have a very modern system. I don't know if it's the best possible. It's been in place for quite a while. But it's a system that works especially in newer developed areas. And in going back to try and create or recreate a more logical system in some of the older places, that's where the issues seem to be coming about. And we can accept those. You know, but we just need everybody to be aware that there could be a slight chance that at some point there could be a problem in a response time due to addresses being out of place. I understand that. And I would, unfortunately, at this time, put that on par with the emails that we're all getting when a fire station is being browned out. because I got a couple over the weekend about fire stations being browned out. They were not going to receive service because there was not going to be anybody there. So there's certainly policy differences and policy opportunities here. I'm chairing the committee, but I have a very one-sided feeling on this, and I will have to defer to others who want to comment and or make motions. But I appreciate that you wanted to come and try to clear the air on the front end of this. And if there is a motion and the council does so move in that direction, I appreciate the fact that you have said that you would do the best that you could under those circumstances. Yes. As we all would. And I appreciate that very much. Yes. Thank you, sir. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I've got a question or two for the commissioner. Commissioner, you say that you can live with these very limited exceptions if the Council approves this draft ordinance. What concerns me is that if we do approve it, many, many other neighborhoods in the city can come forward and say, well, we too are an older neighborhood. What makes this other neighborhood more historical or more culturally significant than our neighborhood? So my concern is that by making one exception, there's not going to be any district council member who can go to his or her constituents and say, well, yes, that neighborhood was accepted because they have cultural significance or historical significance, and therefore they can be possibly less safe than your neighborhood. Yes, you've lived here at this address for 30 years. Yes, you don't want to change it, but you're not an exception. Now, what concerns me then is that I think this draft ordinance has the potential for sabotaging, not deliberately so, the entire addressing system, which is premised on the need to make our citizens as safe as we possibly can by making as sure as we can that response times are as fast as they can possibly be. I'm not concerned so much about, like you, if this could be confined to one small area. And in that sense, we might say, well, if people want to be less safe, that's their choice. But we as a city and this council made a decision years ago, before I was on council, to create a system predicated on the need to make everybody as safe as possible. So my question to you is, do you see the same potential that I do for damage to the entire enterprise that our ordinance has been based on? A vast majority of the places that need to be corrected have been addressed, no pun intended. They have been fixed. The position that we have is that on these remaining few, it's your call in terms of how you want to go forward. We have, the committee has done over the past, my understanding, 10 or 12 years, a huge amount of work in trying to bring everything into consistency and have gotten a large bulk of it done. And in these few exceptions, you know, we understand both sides of it and, you know, we're prepared to deal with it. Well, thank you for that. But nevertheless, my concern remains. And then, of course, I have another problem as well. How do I go back to the neighborhood I worked with two years ago and say, Well, I'm sorry that I didn't think to ask the council to make an exception because of the fact that you've lived in your address for the past 40 years, and in some cases 50 years since the neighborhood was created. So, that's my worry. What I think is that this is not a small exception. I think this jeopardizes the safety of our residents throughout the city. And I also think it has the potential to say to the citizens who have cooperated and to the council members who have worked with them and with the addressing people to bring about the necessary change. It says to them, hey, you know, that was kind of dumb. You could have gone to the council and asked for an exception. So that's my worry. I understand. Thank you, sir. Other comments? Council Member Lawless. I think the issue here, Council Member Blues, and I think it's unfortunate that it was about cultural or historical areas. These are the words. These are the words in your draft. Yeah, well, I think those should be removed. The issue here is that I was wondering if it is true that the police do not have GPS in their vehicles. Thank you. Also, I'm going to ask these questions so different people can come up. Well, then let's do them one at a time then. Okay. I just want to run out of time. Take care of this issue or not today. Let's try not to blur it. Good afternoon. We do not provide GPS to the officers in their units. Some officers choose to purchase their own and have them in their cars, but as a practice, no, we do not. Do they have cell phones with GPS? I would say some officers do and some officers do not. They purchase their own cell phone. Okay. Would that make a difference in finding an address? Not a significant difference. Our biggest factor is we need a number on the building that's visible. Absolutely, and that's the big issue. That's the biggest issue. There are some other issues here that y'all are talking about and considering. To echo what the commissioner said, the issues that have been there have been there since long before I came on the department. And we've lived with them up until now. If we have to live with them, we will. And do you know of an instance where the police officer could not find the address? I know from talking to people, we do not keep data on this. So we've had some discussions, and each of us can relay a personal anecdotal experience where we drove down the street and the house number that should have been there is not there because the street falls out of the normal protocol of, for example, the odd numbers on the north and west side of the street. The first time we run into one of those, it does pose a problem. We overcome it. In a rare occurrence, it could be a safety issue, but not all the time. But we deal with it. But the first time you run into it, it's rather confusing because you're expecting it to be consistent throughout the city. And we have to train our people, well, there's these exceptions. Well, and my street was renamed several years ago, 10, 12. And it's still, if you go to most GPS, it will send you to the south side of Maine over on Ghent Road, which I don't even know that it exists. So to me, that's a safety issue because if they use a GPS, they're not going to find my address, which was changed. My street name was changed, which I fully cooperated with 10 or 12 years ago. The other issue, ma'am, is a GPS is only as good as often as you update it. Right. And is it true that the fire and police systems cannot communicate? If you're talking about our radio systems or computer systems, ma'am? Either way. Our radio systems are not interoperable. But the computer systems are. And our computer systems are not really connected directly, no. Okay. And is Battalion Chief Hoskins here? Thank you so much. I understand that someone on Elizabeth Street spoke to you about changing the address. And on Elizabeth Street, what was 103 and 105 is now like 140. So if someone were being logical, they would race by 140 thinking it was 103 and then have to turn around and go back. and in these situations, would that cause a delay, do you think, when these addresses are changed, not just in one area but any area that have been there for a long time? Well, the delay would come in that when a fire company turns onto the block, there are a couple of things they want to find out pretty quickly. Where's the odd? Where's the evening? What's the increment of the number? because once you figure that out, you've got an idea of which side of the street you're looking for and how far down in the block you're going to have to go. Could you raise the microphone just a little bit? I'm sorry. Thank you, sir, very much. So as I said, which side is the odd and the even? What's the increment? How quickly are we going to move through the numbers to get to where we're going? So if it's random, pops back and forth on the other side of the streets, then it stands to reason that it very well may cause a delay. We may overshoot it. We may slow down trying to find the number we think should be next. In general, when you're dispatched from the 911 communication, are you all given information about where the house is located? We're given cross streets. What two streets would be on either end of the block this number should fall in. And do you know of any instances where this has caused a life-threatening situation? A specific incident that we have not found the location we're trying to find. Eventually, we will beat it down. If we have to go knocking on the doors, which has been done, looking for the individual, that's what we'll do. Okay. And I hope that people will put their numbers on their streets, on their houses. That would be a tremendous help. because that's a huge safety. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Next I have Council Member Kay. Thank you, Chair. I want to make a couple of comments, and then I'm going to offer an amendment to the ordinance as proposed. The comments are these. My experience with the appeals process, which is set up and has two levels, is that at both levels, the committee that's set up interprets its responsibility as purely procedural. That is, it looks at the regs, the default of the regs. If so, then there's no reason to make an exception. My take on it is that the regulations are designed for safety purposes, and they are rules that should be applied, but they are not rules without exception. And if a case can be made that there is no safety issue, then the rules ought to be set aside. So what I would like to propose is an amendment that I believe addresses the underlying question, which is ensuring that any sequence of numbering is, in fact, designed to present the greatest safety for our citizens. And the amendment is this. In Section 1, it's written, the underlined section reads, unless the particular address at issue already uses less than whole numbers, and it is determined by urban county government that there is a historical and or cultural significance to that numbering and that the continued use of such numbers will not create E-9-1 response issues. I would propose deleting the phrase that says that there is a historical and or cultural significance to that numbering and that so that it reads, and it is determined by urban county government, that the continued use of such numbers will not create 911 response issues. I think that's the underlying question. Does the change, in fact, with a lack of change create a safety issue or not? or not. Part two would be to take the same phrase out in the next section that's underlined, which is very similar, which addresses non-sequencing, and again, to delete the phrase that there was a historical and or cultural significance to that sequencing. I would take out that special circumstance, but I would leave in the question of whether, in fact the change presents a safety hazard to the inhabitants. And that leaves us with some leeway. Thank you. So you've made a motion to strike two lines from the two underlined sections, and we would wait at this point for a second. Now and your point? So now we have a motion to strike that there is a historical and or cultural significance to that numbering out of the possible change in the top section. And the same. And there is a historical and or cultural significance. Point of order, Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. There's no motion on the floor to amend yet. To approve. Unfortunately, I think you're right. So I would say that I would need to step aside and ask you to be the chair, if you would. And I would then make a motion to make the changes as outlined on page 12 of our packet. We have a motion. Second. And a second to accept this ordinance as drafted. Do we have any discussion? And I think Mr. K. Dr. K. If I may, simply re-enter that amendment as stated. And now we have amendment. Well, he just made the motion. Mr. Farmer made the motion. Now we have a motion to amend. And I'll second that. And we have a second. Now a discussion on the amendment. Mr. Martin. Thank you, Chair. I appreciate the spirit in which the amendment is offered. I think that it's difficult when government tells people to change their address, particularly one that they've had for years. It is a personal thing. Your relatives know you at that address. Your friends do. The IRS does. Maybe that's a good idea to do it. But I can't support the original motion, and I can't support the amendment for a couple reasons. The amendment makes the exception, see this is an exception to the rule, and it makes the exception less strict. It takes out a criteria, instead of having three criteria, it only has two criteria. And so it makes the exception actually easier to meet rather than harder to meet. Before you had to prove that there was some cultural or historical significance. By taking that out, they don't have to prove that, and the issue is anybody can do it so long as they can show that it somehow will not create E911 response issues, which I'm not sure what the evidence would be to support that. I agree with Council Member Blues that I think making this type of an exception basically undercuts the entire ordinance of having an E-911 system so that folks can get places. Am I correct that this is not something we made up? Is this sort of a national policy that we are following? Yes, when we created the ordinance and the several revisions, since then we have been following national standards and those of our peers elsewhere. And so the standards that are embodied in our ordinances are, in fact, national standards. Is that correct? Yes, they are. For the most part. That is true. And to clarify, I don't want to think it's all broad brush. There are other states or cities that say if it's already that way, we'll leave it that way. And there's others like us who say we're going to fix them as we find them. We've obviously taken the when we find a problem, let's fix it approach. We don't want to ignore a problem when we see it there. Thank you. And I agree with Dr. Blues that this essentially encourages council members to cave in to their constituents, that an exception is out there. And if you didn't get us an exception, you just didn't fight hard enough for this. and it will make it difficult to sort of create consistency within reason with our numbering system. And so I appreciate the spirit in which the amendment was brought. I think it makes it easier, not harder, to satisfy this exception. And so at this point I can't support it. Thank you, Chair. Mr. Farmer, is this on the amendment? Yes, sir. Mr. Farmer. I was just going to first thank Council Member Kaye for his thought and insight in posing this amendment. I think it adds further clarity to this issue, and I appreciate it very much, and I'm very much in favor of it. Thank you, sir. And Dr. Blues. Thank you, Vice Chair. I also appreciate the spirit of the amendment, but I think a problem, in addition to the one that Councilmember Martin just referred to, is that, and this is based on my experience in working with the neighborhoods, the streets, who have had to change either street name or address. The first argument they make is nobody has problems finding this address. It is safe. The pizza guy can get here in time. I think most people haven't had the opportunity to compare what they would consider a reasonable arrival time of the pizza driver and the emergency responder in the case of a heart attack or some other catastrophic illness. So the problem is that addressing would have to cope with that argument. is this going to make it safer, less safe, on a case-by-case basis instead of following the uniform code and standard that has governed the operation of 911 based on this ordinance. So thank you, Vice Chair. Thank you. Dr. Kay. Thank you, Vice Chair. I kind of want to come back to a couple of things. One, exceptions have been made. They have been made both at the committee level and they've been made at the council level. And they may or may not have been made for good reason, but they have been made. Secondly, having language that requires that you make the case that there be no safety issue simply, I think, strengthens the existing ordinance. Right now, there are a series of considerations that the committee takes into account if it's a discontinuous street and so on and so on and so on. Those are all reasonable, and for the most part, I would say in 90 or 95 percent of the cases, they apply. But there are some cases where you take that same rule and you look at the actual situation, the difference between a discontinuous number that is a half a block away and a discontinuous number that might be two lots away. So I believe that there are exceptions to the rule, and that as a government we ought to be sensitive to those. We do allow for people to make an appeal right now through this process. They can go through the two committees. They can bring it to council. What this simply says is here's the basic criteria. We're talking about a safety issue. The entire 911 system was set up to ensure greater safety. The rules that were put into place were designed to implement that safety issue. And as I said, rules are fine. We need them, but there are exceptions, and there ought to be the opportunity for this council as well as those committees to make those assumptions. So I would urge passage of the amendment and passage of the ordinance. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Lawless. Thank you, and I agree with what Mr. Kaye said and Mr. Farmer. For instance, in the ordinance it says there can be no single-digit numbers, But there are many streets that have single-digit numbers. Those have been overlooked. So I understand about the half numbers, and at this point they could be A and B, like they are on some streets. This isn't about just one neighborhood. It's about what's best for the safety. And also, we're talking about people and a tremendous cost often to changing that address. And again, I had my address changed, my street name changed. I did not oppose it. And the pizza man still can't find my house. So the fire truck could, though. So the committee that makes the decision is the committee you go to to appeal it. The same people. On Elizabeth Street, and I'm using that as an example because it was very recent, And the committee recommended changing six addresses to even or north side, whatever that is. And it was against their own rule. The ones they were trying to change flipped the street. So then they said, okay, well, it doesn't follow our rules, so we're going to change 30 addresses. So these are regulations, and I think that the cities that have said if it's that way, unless there is an obvious safety hazard that has been documented, then we leave it as it is. And it's not about fighting for one constituent or one block. It's about why change something that's working. On Burley Avenue, the first 200 block of Burley Avenue, their address was 200 Burley Avenue. And for some reason, they changed them to 208, never told them why. and I just found out about that. That was Ms. Henson's, and they just brought it up. I wasn't asking about address changing, but I think it has been arbitrary. I think that they, like I say, on Elizabeth Street tried to break their own regulations and the guy protested it, but we have a situation where if you want to, as an individual or a group, when I appeal, you go to the same people that made the decision in the first place. So it seems like if it's not broken, why fix it? And in some situations, it is broken. But in some situations, the rules are not applied consistently. If we say they can't have one-digit numbers, then why are some streets allowed to have one-digit numbers? if we say they can't have 1A, 1B, 1C, why are some streets allowed to do that and others not? So there is inconsistency in the way they apply these regulations. And again, I think that if there are communities that, you know, if it was that way, they leave it that way. It's not about historical or cultural, but it's about people and it's about safety It's about people's lives and cost to individuals and cost to the city where they have to reenter all that data into their computer system when there's no real need. Or the biggest need is that people put their addresses on their houses. As I've been driving around, not just in the 3rd District, I've noticed that there are 25 to 30 percent of the houses do not have numbers on them. So that's a big deal. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. I do think this is about consistency and about public safety. And I do think that what we heard, if I was listening correctly to our police and fire representatives, is that they have had difficulty finding addresses, but that they have eventually gotten there. So that's a credit to our public safety folks. You know, three minutes is kind of a golden rule, I believe. And I don't know if when you eventually have found an address, whether it's been a one-minute delay or what it's been, but I think those delays can be critical in terms of emergency care in terms of response to fires. And I am not in favor of the amendment or the actual ordinance change because I think the bottom line is our public safety. And even if it's a 30-second or a 60-second delay, it could be someone's life. and you know the pizza guy I think that's a whole different realm of discussion that's not a public safety issue and so I agree with Council Member Blues I appreciate the spirit of your amendment Council Member Kay but I'm not sure ahead of time how it would be determined that this would not create a 911 response issue Those are usually discovered after the fact. I mean, there could be speculation about whether it would create a 911 response issue, but the only time we actually know that is after the fact. So I appreciate your comments and the spirit of your amendment, but I will not be supportive. Thank you. Mr. Ford. Thank you, Councilman Elliger. I've had the opportunity to sit back and listen to the discussion, and I definitely can understand the concerns of the residents that are here. But Councilman Martin mentioned something in regards to the amendment that kind of struck me, that it makes the proposed amendment I'm just, from where I sit, I'll leave that there. From where I sit, but I thank you, Councilman Martin. I couldn't recite what you said, but you made it easier. Yes, it makes it easier, not harder. Because, for example, if the historical and cultural significance were to be considered, I think that there's something to be spoken for that. My district has seven of the 16 historical districts, and I think our city values that. However, at the same time, as Councilman Blues mentioned, it can also present, and I mentioned in our earlier agenda topic, equity, equity of process, equity of application of the law of public safety. So I definitely appreciate the spirit of the amendment that has been addressed earlier. but at this time I'm not going to be supportive of the amendment. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Anybody else? Dr. K., if you would, just reiterate your amendment before we vote. And if you could put on the screen the voting, please. I read it as it would be stated. Please. It would read in the underlying portion, unless the particular address at issue already uses less than whole numbers and it is determined by urban county government that the continued use of such numbers will not create E-9-1 response issues, period. That's one sentence. And then in the second sentence, unless the particular address at issue already uses non-sequencing in relation to other addresses and it is determined by urban county government that the continued use of such numbers will not create E-9-1 response issues. Thank you. Are we ready to vote? Could you hit it on the screen so we can... Okay. All those in favor, say aye. And press your button. and all those nay. And the vote is 4-4 with one more person to vote. He throws an end around. He voted yes and now he is I'm sorry, I'm a big strike. Okay. Are you a yay or a nay? That's an A. So it fails four to five. So the amendment fails. Now to the motion. Do we have any discussion on the motion? Mr. Ford? That was from my time. I saw a hand. Ms. Lawless, did you want to discuss the motion? Yes, and this is the motion to move the amendment as presented forward. This is the ordinance forward. The ordinance as unamended. As unamended. As unamended forward, correct. I would like to, when we're talking about minutes count, that the salaries that are paid to people that are on the address committee and the amount of money it costs the city who is financially strapped to reenter all the data, notify all the parties, and that possibly we wouldn't have to brown out a fire station, which would take longer to get to address regardless of where it was. So for that reason, I am going to support this as put forward. Thank you. Anybody else? Chair Farmer. Thank you, sir. Thank you for running the meeting here. I just think that we as a government are better than this. I understand the underlying reasons that go to enhanced 911 service, but I think given the opportunity, we as a government could perform to a higher standard that would not require what is, in essence, a very usury tax that we place on individuals. I mean, the folks here and the folks before them and the folks after them have to come out of pocket at a tough time of this economy or whatever economy to make a change in everything from their checks to their deeds to everything in every address book they've ever had to satisfy a need that is only brought to bear by the government. And if the government brings it to bear, I think that they should bear the cost for it. And that's been my problem with this issue from the beginning, is that I just think that we as a body and that this government can act more humanely in some instances, and this is one of them, because I believe in the power of the individual, that individual that works here, that individual that lives here, that individual that votes here. And to tell them that to convenience basically a binary code system, we have to change their address completely just to satisfy a perceived need that I think could be remedied by better, a better system, better software, a better addressing committee. Some or all of those. And I appreciate the wisdom of this body and those who make those votes. And while I'm not always on the prevailing side, I respect those that are. In this instance, though, I really appreciated the work that Councilmember Kay put in with a really good amendment, and I'm very supportive of this change even without that amendment. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Any other discussion on this motion? If you would, could you? I'm sorry. Mr. Ford? Thank you. Now, speaking back to the motion, with the inclusion of the historical and cultural significance. And I recognize that and definitely much appreciate that in the resonance here. Going back to the public safety aspect, it says that it will not create E911 response issues. And my question for the committee is if we need to address the E911 issue at all in the context of this ordinance. And the reason I say that is because that's kind of painted in a very brush. It will have an impact. It may have an impact on E911. And if we recognize that, and if the residents recognize that as well, we know that every second counts in certain cases. But I'm not necessarily certain that we need that or need to attempt to make that case in this legislation. towards our end goal to be responsive and respectful of a constituency that has come before us. I think that we've already heard from our public safety folks, and I'm not certain that that's a totally accurate or needed inclusion in the legislation. Aside from that, I do stand here again, as I mentioned, respectful in recognition of the importance to this area. And we'll definitely kind of consider helping this council be responsive to their needs. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Vice Mayor, anybody else? Would you go ahead and get the voting set up, please? All those in favor of the motion, vote aye. All those opposed, vote nay. It passes 5 to 4. I will relinquish the chair back to the chair. Thank you. Thank you, sir, and thank you for your work there. Next on our agenda, I'm sorry, yes. Yes, sir. Now that's passed, can I ask for a correction on the text? Yes, sir. It actually refers to the use of less than whole numbers. The only thing that's less than a whole number is actually a negative number, and I should actually state the use of non-whole numbers if you are trying to specifically talk about half addresses or anything that's a fraction. All right, so then you're saying rather than the term... Less than whole numbers should actually be used as non-whole numbers. Non-whole numbers. I believe the intent is to specifically talk about fractions, and so that would be a non-whole number. Then I would ask for a motion from the committee to make that change. So moved. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor? Opposed, like sign? Motion carries. Thank you. Anything else there? Anyone? I'm sorry. All right. Thank you. On our... I'm sorry. Yes, sir. I think he's here for the next item. I'm putting that side. For the third item on our agenda, the Valley View Ferry, we have had this in committee for a while. In our last meeting, we'd ask for an update from the administration about the ferry and its operations. And Mr. C.O., glad to have you here, sir. Thank you. Just to go over the package you all got, we broke down what the budget is. We have $14,000 that we sent in as a partnership with the other counties, and also we have $29,420, which is for repair and maintenance. Forty percent of that is for parts, and 60 percent of that money is for labor. and on the next page you see how many average we're having around 307 vehicles a day and we also have the monthly average for you all in the year in there on the last page we want to give you a little bit of update we do have some good news, you do have a new board member on there who happens to be sitting up there right now, that's Paul, we're excited to have him on board a lot of things have happened since last year when we met with on the Valley View Ferry one time we were talking about taking it out but after talking with our other county officials and finding out a little bit more about the good news that are going on with the Valley View Ferry they were able to get a grant for $600,000 for their new boat and And we're excited to have that on board, which will also help us keep our costs down on our maintenance repair and all that because that will be under a warranty. And eventually we have talked to them about possibly them hiring their own mechanic, and that's something I think Valley View is going to continue to talk about. We support this. We will continue to support this Valley View. So just one note, Ed Lane has met with me a couple times since it's in his district, and he's very supportive of it, too. Very good. I appreciate your time with this issue and that of the administration, as well as Mr. Schoeniger in the council office. I think we all know a lot more about Valley View and its importance as a historical and very useful link between the three counties. I would ask if there's any questions or comments from the committee. then I would conclude that we could remove this item from committee interest, and I would ask for a motion to do so. Second. We have a motion to remove the value theory from our referrals. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed, like, sign. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. CAO. I appreciate it very much. We do have just a few moments. I'm going to ask whether to run down through everything on the referral list to see if anyone wants to make comments about anything on the referral list, and we'll try to allot a little more time for next time. Council Member Kay. I just have a question, Mr. Chair. Yes, sir. On the review, Chapter 4, UCG Code, in the last meeting, I believe you were going to set up a subcommittee. A subcommittee, which we had two volunteers for, yourself and Council Member Beard. It's going to be a nice, cozy conversation. Well, I'll be glad to join you in the kennel then, sir, so that we'd have three and we can do our work. How's that? Is that good? So unless there's anyone else who wanted to step into the breach on that. Okay, so the three of us do form a subcommittee, which can work, and I will look forward to having you chair that, sir. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your timely question. All right. Other issues of interest? and then council member ford had another issue he wanted to bring up briefly okay thank you mr chair and members of the committee uh there's an issue that i want to uh later on today at work session bring forth uh to this committee and i'll give you just a little basis about the issue is uh the the back in uh late december and i'll be very brief uh the first issue had a new uh neighbor to join us, the New Day Life Center, which is located at 224 North Martin Luther King Boulevard. It's a center that's open primarily during the daytime to provide services for homeless population. And I believe the area is Zone B2A, I believe that to be the case. Nonetheless, it's a downtown neighborhood. But my colleague, Councilman McKay, is a neighbor just around the corner and has been working as we bring this neighbor on board. The gist of it is that it is properly zoned. But when it opened on Monday, December 5th, there was a very short period of time prior to it opening before the full band of neighborhood members were really apprised of it. And it caused somewhat some confusion and an uproar. The neighborhood is comprised of residential neighbors, businesses, and also education. So what we want to do, and they applied under a community center. I contend that that perhaps does not best describe what the facility is attempting to do, and I'm not making any judgment on the facility itself. But in my opinion, it does not truly describe what it is intending to provide to the benefit of its persons that it serves and also its thing in the community. So what I would like to do is bring forth for the committee's discussion, I would like for the council to initiate a zoning ordinance text amendment to create a definition to the zoning ordinance for an adult daycare and to also apply its use as conditional uses in applicable zones. I've also met with the administration late in the calendar year 2011. Bill Salih from Planning and David Barberi from the Law Department is also working with us. So I would hope, Mr. Chair, if we can get this referred to committee, that the committee would be interested in hearing it and hopefully moving it very quickly to get it over to the Planning Commission's review. We will look forward to that referral and that discussion. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Chair. And I will support those efforts, although we've had some issues of that in the 10th District, and there are some rather significant state laws that supersede our local zoning. And so you may want to make sure you have a conversation about those, because it can be a very frustrating issue to deal with. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Vice Mayor Gorton. Are we back to the issues list? Yes, please. I see one thing on here that's accomplished. Yes, I agree. And that would be the Department of Planning Commissioner position, so I move to remove it. We have a motion, a second, to remove the issue Department of Planning Commissioner position. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed, like signed. That is removed. Thank you, ma'am. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Chair. On the request from the Chair, the ordnance, the addressing ordinance, I would make a motion that we remove that. Second. We have a motion and a second to remove the addressing ordinance issue from committee as we have dealt with it. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed, like sign. Lastly, I would just say to you that it is my hope, going back up to the 2012 comprehensive plan and goals and objectives, our working group will meet again this Thursday, and it is my hope that we will have that issue in the committee in April, just to keep you all updated on that. Are there any other comments or questions or motions about any of the referred items at this time? Then I would ask for a motion. So moved and a second. All those in favor? Thank you very much. We are adjourned. Thank you.