agenda. So seeing none, we will move on to item number two, Roman numeral number two, which is rezoning and docket approval. Is there a motion to put ordinance number seven on the docket with or without a public hearing? Vice Mayor Gordon. Yes, Mayor. I move to place it on the docket without a public hearing. Second. It's a motion and a second to place Ordinance No. 7 on the docket without a public hearing. Is there any discussion? Mayor. Council Member Blues. Because this particular ordinance affects not only the neighborhood in which I live but also my own residential property, I must recuse myself from this and future votes on the issue. Thank you, Mayor. All right, we'll appropriately note that. Thank you, Council Member Blues. Is there any other discussion on the motion? All right, hearing none, we can take a vote. All in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right, is there a motion to approve the entire docket? Second. Motion by Council Member Farmer, second by Vice Mayor Gordon. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing none, we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. Is there a motion to approve the summary of the work session of March 20th? Move approval, Mayor. A motion by Council Member Farmer to approve, second by Council Member Ellinger. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing none, we can take a vote. All in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. Next on our agenda is budget amendments. Are there any questions? Is there a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Motion to approve by Council Member Meyer, second by Council Member McCord. Is there any discussion on the motion? Yes, Mayor. Council Member Farmer. There are a couple of amendments that have to do with Salem Village, and that's reflected in New Business also. And I just wondered where Salem Village is. I'm sorry, Councilman. This is at the bottom of page 14. There are a couple of journal entries, 59-297 and 59-298, that are rehabilitation funds for Salem Village. There's one at the top of the next page and the middle of the next page. And I'm just wondering where Salem Village is. It's at 1109 Winburn Drive. Thank you, Irene. I appreciate it very much. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, sir. Thank you, Irene. All right. Any other comment? Council Member Crosby. Mayor Gray, I apologize. I had a miss during the docket, and the only question I had was will we be including the mayor's report on this because we received a mayor's report, but it's not listed on the docket. So it seems like it's an easy fix, but I just wanted to clarify. Can you help us, Madam Clerk? That will be added after it is approved at work session today. Okay, thank you. Yes, thank you. All right. Thank you, Council Member Crosby. Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. I also will have a motion. I don't know if you want it now or during council report regarding the council calendar, and it is an item that will have to go on the docket. Would you like that later or now? That's good. Council report. Okay. All right. Great. All right. Any other comments or questions? All right. Then we can take a vote. All in favor of the motion, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you. New business, are there any questions? Move the president. Motion to approve by Council Member Beard, seconded by Council Member Blues. Is there any discussion on the motion? Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. I just have a request related to item A for Mr. Hancock. if you would please, do you have a list that you could email us that details these leases on parts owned properties? Yes, I certainly can. I have a summary that I thought might have been with the packet that lists each property, who the tenant is, the market rate, the labor donated, and whether utilities are being paid by the tenants or not. I have that all on one sheet of paper. I'll give that to each of you before I leave the building. Do you have that? Jeanette will email it to each of you. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you, Mayor. All right. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Is there any further discussion? All right. Hearing none, we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Next on our agenda is continuing business and presentations. There are a number of presentations here today. And before we get into these, I do need to make just a quick comment. I think other council members probably got the invitation for the opening of the Triangle Park this afternoon, and I did accept to offer short comments, and I believe that's at 5 o'clock, so if I exit early, it's because of that. All right? So thank you all very much. I hope we may, well, I know better than to truncate council proceedings, but I will try my best to adequately represent you if the meeting continues beyond the appointed hour. Okay, so for our presentations, item number, the first item is NDF, actually not a presentation, but continuing business. Is there a motion on the NDF? There's approval. Motion by Vice Mayor Gorton, second by Council Member Beard. Is there any discussion on the NDF? Hearing none, we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? No. The motion carries. Next on our agenda is the Public Safety Committee update by Councilmember Lawless. Thank you, Mayor. There are two separate meeting summaries of motions that I will be reporting out on today. The summary of motions are in Packet B, pages 2B through 5B. And everyone has the ordinances that were passed out of committee in front of them. On February 7th, which is the first report out, the noise ordinance was the topic of the entire meeting. As chair of Public Safety Committee, I'd like to thank Councilmember Tom Blues and Vice Mayor Gorton and their offices for the work on this ordinance. The Noise Ordinance Task Force began meeting in early 2008 and spent many hours working on a document to present for consideration. I'd also like to thank the citizens who participated, both those citizens on the task force as well as those who attended the meetings. In November 2011, the Public Safety Committee heard the report out of the Noise Ordinance for the first time. Then it was presented again on February 7th. After much discussion, numerous amendments, the draft ordinance failed to pass by a vote of 1 to 9. Currently, the noise ordinance is still placed in the Public Safety Committee until further action one way or another. There are no motions to bring forward on this committee meeting. The second report out is from the March 6 Public Safety Committee meeting. The first item in the committee considered was the engine brake ordinance, also known as the Jake Brake Ordinance. The engine brake ordinance was also a product of the Noise Ordinance Task Force. This ordinance was drafted to deal with noise disturbances and moating from engine brakes, compression brakes, and mechanical exhaust devices used to aid in braking or deceleration of any vehicle. This ordinance was drafted based on the concerns of our citizens after extensive research by the Noise Ordinance Task Force. The ordinance defines noise disturbance clearly and prescribes fines for each cited occurrence of the violation. It would take effect July 1, 2012, to allow for an opportunity for all affected to receive advance notice prior to the effective date. Again, many thanks to the task force, Council Member Blues, and Vice Mayor Gorton for bringing this forward. This item passed the committee unanimously. Therefore, I moved place on the docket an ordinance creating Section 18-40 of the Code of Ordinance prohibiting the use of or operation of any brake, compression brake, or mechanical exhaustive device designed to aid in braking or deceleration of any vehicle which results in a noise disturbance except for on a limited access highways in establishing a fine for an offense of not less than $50 nor no more than $500 for each offense effective July 1, 2012. So moved. Council Member Lawless has moved, and Council Member McCord has seconded the engine ordinance break. Is there discussion of the motion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Okay, we have one no. Okay. The next issue was the taxicab ordinance, which was also presented. There is a correction that should be noted in the summary referencing motion number five. the summary should read Councilmember Farmer's motion to remove the strikethrough of 25 cabs and keep the minimum 25 cab requirement. This correction is reflected in the draft of the ordinance which is presented for your consideration. There were three motions that amended the ordinance as it was originally presented. The one I just referred to of keeping the 25 cab minimum, the removal of the 24-hour strikethrough, which would keep the requirement of a 24-hour service, and a motion including the language of 24-hour, of the requirement of 24-hour service, 365 days per year. This motion passed the committee by unanimous vote. Thus, I move to place on the docket an ordinance amending Section 18A of the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government relating to taxicab services. So moved. Second. Motion by Council Member Lawless. Second by Council Member Ellinger. Is there any discussion? Council Member Farmer? So are these the changes that the committee made at the meeting rather than as they were reported in the minutes from the meeting? They are the changes. The ordinance before you is what came and was passed out of the committee. So that includes keeping 24 hours and having a minimum of 25 caps? Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Mayor. I still have the same problems I had in the committee meeting with, and you just mentioned, 24-hour service doesn't tell me anything. One cab, five cabs, 15 cabs, how many cabs would be employed? And if that's not delineated in some way, it means nothing, absolutely nothing. If we're really concerned about the availability of cabs for our population here, then we should have some kind of a number attached to that, in my opinion. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Lawless? I agree, Council Member Beard. That's why I also was hopeful that we could lower the number of cabs that a company had to have to start. Cab drivers are contract. They lease the cabs from the companies. They are not employees of the cab companies. So I think that is also going to be extremely hard for them to monitor. One other point, Mayor, if I might. Also included in that is the fact that we only measure one day a year 25 cabs. On the second day of January, they could send 24 of them to Louisville or Cincinnati or someplace else, and we've just gone through an exercise. and this whole thing has been flawed by not going into this thing in enough depth. Thank you again, Mayor. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mayor. I have the same two questions, and so I guess I would ask, who is going to be responsible for monitoring this, both the aspect of how many cabs are on duty for that full 24 hours, and secondly, who's going to monitor that they keep all 25 cabs in service all year long? I would assume that that would go through the Commissioner of Public Safety, and right now Mr. Curtis is the person that monitors that, I believe. Okay, Mr. Curtis. Good afternoon. Thank you all. I mean, we do, and we do, in fact, monitor it by using the detectives from the police department that are assigned here that are in the background unit. They're the ones who do the inspections. They're the ones who do the follow-ups. They're the ones who do the application processes on a yearly basis. And if, in fact, there is a problem with someone being in violation of the ordinance, that's who I call upon to go out and monitor that that, in fact, be done. They are the ones that have the enforcement power to actually do something. Do you know how it is that they're going to monitor that these cabs have a certain number of cabs online during the 25-hour period? And also that once they go through their annual inspection and they have the 25 cabs, do you know how they're going to monitor that that company keeps all 25 in service here? Well, no, I don't. I mean, it's almost impossible to monitor a 24-hour, 7 operation. It's the availability, 24 hours, seven days a week, for a cab to be available. It's what it amounts to, that if a citizen calls, regardless of what it may be, if it's 2, 3, 4 o'clock in the morning, then they should be able to get a cab. Right. And if it's not available, then it's reported to us, and we ask for a thing why. Why somebody wasn't available when they called a company. Okay. I know you and I have had several conversations about this because my question goes back to if we're not monitoring and ensuring that the company has 25 cabs in service 365 days a year or with the exception of repairs, then it seems like all we've done is prohibit companies that have a lower number than 25 from getting started. And I know that we kind of may be on the same page on some of the conversations we've had. I'm not going to put words in your mouth today, but if I could ask one more question, because I'm not sure I'm going to vote for this because I'm not satisfied. To me, it seems like all we've really done is legislate smaller companies out of existence. And unless someone will come up here from the police department or wherever and say how you're going to monitor the fact that they have 24 cabs in service here. If I could ask you a question, because you're sort of the one that's responsible for a lot of this, Are you comfortable the way this is written? Are you comfortable that we're not legislating a smaller company out of business because, in fact, these companies that have 25 that are in business will have the 25 on duty here? I realize that the real issue is availability of a cab. But for me, the issue with this ordinance is that we're regulating people out of business. I mean, and that's not something that we have approached relative to the private business side of it. I mean, we're the enforcement side of it, and as such, as long as the cabs are available, and the ordinance, as it was written in 2002, required to 25, and that's what we've actually gone with. Can I ask one final question? Yes. If this law were amended to make the number go from 25 to 15, but we had the same parameters in place that they had to be on call or on duty or whatever 24 hours a day, and they had to have that 15 on around the clock in terms of number of days out of the year. Do you see a safety issue if we do it that way? If all the same, because what I keep being told is that the main thing is we want them on call or available 24 hours a day. Yes, sir. Because some of these companies will get two or three cabs and only be on rush times or the weekends or when a conference is in town, that kind of thing. So they're cherry-picking the good times. So if we hold everybody to the same standard, that they're available 24 hours a day and that they have all 15 online 365 days a year except with the exception of a repair or something, do you see a safety issue? I won't say I see a safety issue based upon numbers. because we're going to try and inspect twice a year regardless if it's 15, 25, or 100. And it's not a numbers issue with us. It's a viability of the mechanical soundness of the vehicle regardless of the number. Okay. I know I said final question, but just to follow up then, if this were amended to 15 and all those parameters were hit, they have to be on call or on duty for 24 hours a day, and they have to be accessible 365, would you be comfortable with that ordinance change? I don't know, to be honest with you, because I've never had that situation in the 10 years that I've been down there actually dealing with cabs themselves. I can't honestly answer that question. Okay. Does it raise a flag for you? I understand if you can't say you're comfortable with it, but is there anything that makes you uncomfortable about it? I really can't say. Part of having the 25 cabs is the commitment to, in fact, invest a great deal of money to actually have a cab service. And once you commit that much money, I mean, specifically, then it is, mechanically speaking, and that's all I can say is public safety that I'm speaking about, when you commit that much money, it's incumbent upon you to keep that many cabs running so that you can continue to orient your business because of the amount of money that you've invested. So I don't know if we had 10, 15, again, 25 or 100. It's just as long as they're mechanically sound and that they're available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Okay. Thank you, Mayor. I'll talk to you offline so I don't hold this up. Thank you. Council Member Farmer, have you already spoken or not? No? Council Member Beard, you also have too. Okay. So Council Member Lawless, you want to respond? Yes. This ordinance in its first round and was amended was creating, lowering the number of cabs required to start a cab company to 10. The one major thing and the reason I supported it after it had been amended was that it did also require, and this stayed in the ordinance, that cab companies would have to have their taxis inspected twice a year by an independent certified mechanic that was not working for a cab company because many of the cabs, the city does not have the resources to do it, and many of the cabs, there were very few brought in for an inspection, and many of those, I think it was like 65%, who came in for an inspection knowing they were being inspected failed the mechanical inspection. So with that being a safety issue, it costs approximately $300,000 to start a cab company with 10 cabs. And I do think we have basically legislated out small businesses and competition for smaller companies to continue. Thank you. Council Member Farmer? Thank you, Mayor. I think there's more than one conversation we can have about this issue today. There's some inconsistency as it relates to the summary and its accuracy and what it reflects that actually went on at the meeting. And there have been times in the past where we would take up the changes to the summary to make it accurate. and we've chosen not to do that today and I'm comfortable with that. But I think in terms of talking about the ordinance as it was recrafted and redrafted, I think we would have to depend upon the April 9, 2012 draft, which I think was at everyone's seat, which does, in my opinion, correctly reflect not just the motions and actions taken at the last committee meeting, but also the other substantive changes to the ordinance that came through over a period of months that you can see all the strike-throughs on page 1. On page 2, you can see where 10 was dropped out, 25 had been struck through, and 25 is back in. You can see some differences on page 3 and 4 and 5. And finally, the most substantive one, I think, is back on page 9, which is where the strike-through to eliminate the 24-hour service and put it back in place is there. So I would just want to make sure that in terms of what we're couching and actually doing here today, that it would be to adopt the ordinance as redrafted and brought before us in the April 9, 2012 draft, which I think accurately reflects the work of the committee and its actions at its last meeting. Now, I don't believe I need to make a motion to that end, because I believe Council Member Lawless has said that is what we are debating. But I just wanted to make sure for others, I had sent an e-mail out last night to the council. There was one motion specifically that was reflected completely opposite from what I had motioned and the committee had done, but just by way of kind of clearing things up, this draft from April 9th is accurate to the work of the Council to date. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Farmer. Council Member Beard. Just one quick comment. It would be quite interesting to determine on Oaks Day and Derby Day how many of our cabs are running the streets of Louisville. seeing as how they all are owned by the same folks. Anyway, the major ones here are owned by the same people. And my guess would be that it would be few, if any, that would be available here in Lexington. Thank you, Mayor. Councilor, Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. Given what Mr. Farmer said, and I agree with you, We've got the copy of the ordinance. I would just request that the committee bring back before the council the amended summary so that we can – I don't say that to delay this at all, but just so that we can have the accurate summary. Certainly, that was our new – I think that was the first meeting, the new Granicus person did, and the second meeting was also the new Granicus person. So we were dependent on that. So they're working on the redress? We have, yes. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Any further discussion? Ready for a vote? Thank you. We're going to vote now. Are we ready for a vote? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion came. All right. Show of hands. All in favor, please raise your hand. We don't, is our electronic, is it working, Jeanette? It will, just one second. All right. Motion, we make a motion. The motion was made by Council Member Lawless, and second was by Council Member Ellinger. So please register your vote electronically. All in favor, please vote electronically. Yay or opposed, no. All right. So, one, two, three, four, five, six, so the motion carries. Yes. Okay. All right, motion carries. Thank you. Councilman Lawless, is your report complete? Councilman Lawless, is your report complete now? Yes, sir. Thank you. All right. Thank you. All right. Next on our agenda is an environmental quality committee update by Council Member Blues. Council Member Stennett. Seeing that we have several people in here on our last item, would it be okay with the Council if we go ahead and hear that one so they don't have to stay through the eight other presentations? Yes to speak. Who wishes to speak on this issue? I've got Mr. Babbage. Anybody else? No, on item G. G. I'm sorry, Mayor. You can make a motion to take things out of order? Yes. Oh. Go ahead and hear that since there's a large crowd here to hear item G. Does anybody wish to make a motion to that effect? Looks like keep it the way it is then. I was going to make a motion to take it out of order so we wouldn't keep the rest of the people here for the rest of the business. Second. All right. There's a motion and a second. Is there any discussion on the motion? to move it to uh now all right okay uh all in favor of the motion please indicate by saying aye opposed no all right motion carries all right so we'll move the item related to affordable housing up to uh up to to to now and um i'm going to ask if council if vice mayor gorton will We'll take over the chair now, please. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You are very welcome. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. I guess everyone received their folders with the Affordable Housing Trust Fund Task Force information, And I'll just make a brief summary. But first, I would like to thank all the task force members that hung in there with us month after month after month. But Council Member Blues, Council Member Beard, Council Member Ford, Council Member Kaye, David Christensen, and Council Member Ellinger. the task force originally began in September of 09 and the purpose of the task force was to identify funding for an affordable housing trust fund. The task force was created after a social service needs assessment had been conducted and found that there was definite need for affordable housing in Lexington. and we were also to study the further recommendations made by the Affordable Housing Trust Fund Commission, the report from September of 2008. We had 25 meetings, and in an effort to study the economic and social impact of the trust fund, An economic impact study was completed and presented to Council in March of 2011. In September of 2011, the task force presented the results of the study to the Economic Development Committee. And the committee at that time referred it back to the task force, asking that we develop a structure for the trust fund. Our current recommendations from the task force is a 0.5% increase in insurance premium taxes, excluding health insurance. This increase would cost the average household $15 annually and would generate $1.9 million annually for affordable housing. In turn, it would create approximately 200 housing opportunities for individuals. And that would be individuals that are 80 percent or below of the annual median income. We further recommended an annual review by Council and a sunset provision that would require reauthorization by Council after five years. The final recommendation of the task force was to place the Affordable Housing Trust Fund into the Planning and Public Works Committee. The reasoning for this throughout the comprehensive plan, affordable housing is mentioned in the goals and objectives of our city. It's a very important aspect of the planning of our city to plan for all individuals. I guess I would like to ask at this time if any of the other task force members have anything that they would like to add. But if not, I would like to make a motion that we place the Affordable Housing Trust Fund Task Force into the Planning and Public Works Committee. So moved. Second the motion. We have a motion by Council Member Henson and a second by Council Member Martin. Now would be the time for discussion. Council Member Stenitz. Thank you, Council Member Henson, for bringing this report to us. The only issue I have is what committee it's going into because obviously there's a lot of good information here, but I think the final need and the final line on here is an ask for a tax increase, and I think that would be better served and better discussed in budget and finance. So I would make the motion to amend to put it into budget and finance so we can discuss the revenue stream because I think that's what's been at issue. And unless I'm missing something about a zone change or a new overlay or something, I think would belong better in the budget and finance. So move. Second. We have a motion by Council Member Stennett and a second by Council Member McCord and Beard to amend the motion to place this into Budget and Finance Committee. Any discussion on the amendment? Council Member Kay. Yeah. I understand what the concern is, but my understanding is that this was in economic development, and it got referred back to the committee mainly to look at the structural issues around the trust fund itself, that there's been an opportunity to talk about the question of revenue. There will be more opportunity, of course, because it will have to come back to the full council. I believe that many of the issues that are contained in the Affordable Housing Trust Fund have to do with development issues in our community. The impact will be on affordable housing and the areas of our community that need affordable housing, on stimulating private investment in those areas. I think those are the issues that are most salient at this point. Also, the recommendation that the task force has brought forward recommends that the initial administration of the fund be placed within the new Commissioner of Planning's office. And so I believe that planning, therefore, is the most appropriate place to put it. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You're welcome. We've lost our ability to log in. we've gone to the voting screen. I know Council Member Crosby, I think, was next. Council Member Crosby. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I agree with Council Member Stinnett. I believe that if this is going to be looked at, it needs to be in budget and finance. I think we have to look at all revenue streams, particularly when we just got the mayor's proposed budget, and he's not proposing one tax increase in his budget to support our general fund. I believe we have to look at all revenues and all fees and all tax increases that we have done over the past several years and how it affects the taxpayers of Lexington, and budget and finance is the most appropriate place for this. I also believe that since part of the recommendations is that there's going to be people within government who have to staff this, that we need to take that into consideration, which also would be more appropriate in budget and finance. I'm not so sure that I will support the final outcome until the work's done in the committee, but I do appreciate that you're bringing it forward so that it can be looked at within the committee as to whether this is the best option. Thank you. And we'll continue discussion on the amendment. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And thank you, Council Member Henson, for your leadership of the task force. I agree with Council Member Kay that the task force, long deliberation of this issue, Our recommendation that it goes to the Planning of Public Works Committee is not a recommendation that we've taken lightly. We do recognize that it perhaps can be this issue of affordable housing perhaps has impact over a few of the standing committees of this council. But again, with the administrative structure that still needs to be vetted, the infill and redevelopment components of this, we are bringing hopefully something very innovative to our city, something that we have not yet done before. But the timeline that you see in your packet demonstrates that it's a long time coming, dating back four calendar years. So planning, I think, is the appropriate place for it. I would support the consideration of the task force, that task force that has met 24 times since its formation in the fall of 2009. So, again, I do understand that at the final conclusion, we're going to have to get to the budgetary impact of it. But as we stand right now, the need is for the council to discuss and consider this from a planning and development standpoint. So I cannot support the motion. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Mayor. For the same reason I felt that a parking district overlay belonged in the planning committee, I also believe that a program that deals with affordable housing also goes in the planning committee. These are housing issues. These are planning issues. And, yes, it has budget impacts, and that will be addressed at the time when the planning committee can dispatch with that. But I think for the meantime, I think it belongs in the planning committee. That's where things go that relate to housing and relate to zoning and things like that. So I will support Council Member Henson's decision to refer this to the planning committee. Thank you. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Very simply put, the work has been done. It's been presented. It keeps coming back to where's the funding going to come from. You can talk about it all day long, but if you don't fund it, it doesn't happen. So if you're going to want to move this forward, you've got to figure out where the money is going to come from, and that's why you put it in budget and finance and get to the issue, or else you can just keep it in that committee and talk more about it. But ultimately, as Council Member Martin and others have just said, you're ultimately going to have to figure out how to pay for it. So why not go ahead and get to the chase and figure out how you're going to pay for it? put it in budget finance and see where this council sees as the way to finance this need or how we're going to approach that, because from day one, that's been the issue. The bottom line is that if you study the Louisville model that these good folks keep bringing forward, Louisville put together the trust fund and stuck a million-dollar kind of placeholder in there. They never figured out how to fund it. So it was a hollow piece of legislation just to kind of move on down the pike. So at the end of the day, this council needs to figure out where you're going to get the money from. So put it in budget finance and figure it out. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'll just be brief and say that I agree that it needs to go in budget and finance because that's the real issue is how it's going to be funded moving forward. Thank you. Council Member Blues. Well, thank you, Vice Mayor. To the issue of figuring out how a trust fund would be funded, the task force devoted considerable time and attention to that very issue and in fact commission a study to provide us with the best advice on how to most fairly fund the trust fund. No one will deny that budgetary issues, funding issues, are important, but we have made the funding proposal quite clear. I think have justified it extremely well in terms of comparison with other sources of funding. and need to discuss this issue as a planning and development issue, which is the predominant thrust of our proposal. So that's why I will support putting this issue in planning rather than in budget and finance. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Beard. Thank you, and if I might bore everybody with an analogy, make up the decision that you're going on a European vacation for a month. You go to Joseph Beth and you buy books on each one of the countries. You study them. You start making reservations, things of that sort, and the next thing you know, now it's time to pay for it. and you've only got $42.13 left on your credit card. I think, as Council Member McCord said, I think that's the salient point. Let's take care of business first, and then after that we can work ourselves to death on the planning committee to get exactly where we want to be with how that's going to be handled. But if we're not going to fund it, we're just going through an exercise. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Does any Councilmember who hasn't spoken wish to speak before we go back to seconds? Councilmember Blues? Well, to Councilmember Beard's analogy, I would just respectfully say that we did put our thinking and our reasoning on this in the right order. We determined what amount would be necessary on an annual basis to make this a viable fund and then went to the question of how best we could fund it. So we have taken care of how to pay for the money that the fund would need to provide housing, which would be affordable for that large segment of our population, which now does not have it. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You're welcome. Does anyone else wish to speak? perhaps we have two issues one for planning and one for budget and finance there is an amendment yes to put it in budget and finance so if there's no more discussion we'll take the vote all those in favor say aye anyone opposed? no okay we'll just go ahead and take our electronic vote please oh wait yes it's a 7-7 tie so it dies there's no mayor to break the tie so that motion dies because it's tied that was the amending motion so the motion on the floor is to put the issue of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund Task Force report in Planning Committee. Is there any discussion on the motion? Council Member Farmer. Given our vote just now, what would be the effect then of not referring this item to committee? Would it languish in some respect? Well, if it's a 7-7 vote, is that what you're thinking? I was just asking. That motion would fail. And then you were kind of advocating a separation of issues in some capacity? Well, with the 7-7 vote and all the discussion, I thought there is another option to split it, to put the planning issues in planning and put the tax proposal in budget and finance. That would be a way to have a little compromise. Thank you. Council Member Martin. I was just going to point out, because I think the vice mayor has the authority to put it in any committee she wishes, I think. Is that correct? True, although right now it's up for a vote. It is. I just thought I'd point that out. So if it fails, I'll put it in committee. Anyone else? Council Member Ford. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Speaking to the original motion, I would just ask for Council's consideration for all the hard work to date. Again, on the first page of your packet, we started this in September of 2008. And if you guys, Council Members, have the packet, you would see that we have delineations of fonts. The red font demonstrates the actions of Mayor Newberry and Vice Mayor Gray to get this process started. The blue font demonstrates the actual time that this council has considered the issue in this room, in this chamber. And the only two occurrences of those deliberations were when we presented the economic development study, the impact study, which lends itself to the concern about budgeting and finance, and then also the subsequent discussion that the Economic Development Committee has. Absent of those two presentations in this chamber, four years of work on this issue has been put in. It's time to bring this issue to a committee of the entire council, and we just ask for that consideration. I think four years of work is deserving of such, and I think, again, going to, as is the task force recommendation, the planning committee, utilizing the expertise of a new planning commissioner that this council created. This council created that position for instances and opportunities such as we have right here with this affordable housing trust fund. So I would ask council members to consider the referral of this item to the Planning Public Works Committee as has been recommended by the task force. Thank you so much, Vice Mayor. You're welcome. Council Member Crosby. You know, I just want to say I don't think that members of this body are discrediting work by any task force. And, you know, we had another task force that worked almost three years on something as well, and they didn't get something through for lack of a second when that was brought forward. I believe the discussion up here is that there is a difference of opinion of where this should be heard and what committee it should be heard in, not that nobody wants to hear this or doesn't appreciate the work of the task force. That is our job, Council Member Ford, to ask questions and determine what we think is best of where something should be. And frankly, half of us disagree with what committee it should go into. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Kaye? I'd like to call a question. The question has been called. Do I hear a second? Council Member McCord seconds the call question motion. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right, that motion passes. The question on the floor then is to the motion is to place the Affordable Housing Trust Fund task force report into planning committee for discussion. All those in favor say aye. Anyone opposed? Okay, we'll take an electronic vote. In favor of planning committee or opposed? We have two people who have not voted. Okay, it's a tie vote. So the vice mayor will place this into budget and finance. Now, we have two people who wish to speak on this. Council members, would you like to hear from them now, as opposed to the end of the meeting? Yes. Okay, Mr. Christensen. And our procedure is, if you will, come to the podium and state your name and address for the record, and you'll have three minutes. My name is David Christensen. I live at 4844 Brennan Drive here in Lexington. I want to thank all of you for all the hard work that you've done on the task force in particular, and for all of you in the council that have considered this. I would have as a task force member in the recommendation I would have rather it go to the planning committee because I think there's some necessary work that needs to go there but I'm delighted that it is moving forward to some committee and for those of you that believe that have said for the council members that have said the real issue is here how we're going to pay for it I hardly agree with that as well I think ultimately we as a community have to say there's a great need here, something needs to be done, resolve that it is an issue for community commitment and involvement, and figure out how to pay for it. So I'll second the motion for all of you that said that this issue needs to be addressed from the standpoint of where the money is going to come from. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Christensen. Next is Father John List. If you'll state your name and address, please, for the record. And you'll have three minutes. Thank you. Father John List, I'm the pastor at St. Peter's. I live at 153 Bar Street, which is right next to the church. While it's certainly a paramount issue to know how such a thing would be paid for, I felt compelled to also present the human side of the, put a human face on it, if you will. Let me first of all begin by thanking the members of the task force who have plugged away long and hard to come to not only what is the issue, what is the impact on the community, but also how we can see it's best funded. Having said that, before I came to St. Peter's, I was pastor in Georgetown at St. John's. And another hat that I wear with the diocese, I work in another office with the diocese, where I encountered a co-worker who came to me and said, Father, my husband and I, we recently got married, we're trying to start our family, and we can't seem to find affordable housing in Lexington. Well, I've got to tell you, as pastor of Georgetown, I was tickled pink to have a family, two salaries, raising young kids to come to live in Georgetown, even though it was going to be much more convenient to live and work in Lexington. I was tickled pink until I came as pastor to St. Peter's as downtown parish. And I said, wait a minute. If there are not families, how does the parish survive? If the families are moving to Georgetown, to Winchester, et cetera, how is the parish to survive? Just recently, our ladies' group at the parish began responding to the needs of a number of children at the nearby public school where a teacher said, these kids, their families are so hard-pressed, they don't have food for the weekends. And so our ladies' group has been collecting food. And I understand that there are 70 children yet who could be served by this. And it's not because their families don't want to feed them, I'm sure. It's because they're hard-pressed. There are over 26,000 families who are paying more than a third of their income in housing alone, housing costs. That's as of September 2008. I doubt that number has gone down. when you're losing families, and again, as a downtown pastor, I have maybe a more focused interest in this. When you're losing families, you're losing community. So I urge you to give this your full and earnest consideration. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. was there anyone else from the public who wanted to speak on the affordable housing report? If you'll state your name and address for the record, please. John Kemper, 4413 Ravens Crest Lane. As a builder and developer in Fayette County and six surrounding counties, I was one of the initial guinea pigs for the PDR program. We put a farm we owned in southern Fayette County in there to see if, in fact, how that process would work and where the money would go. I think you all have set up a paradox in the Home Builders Association. We hear we need affordable housing in Fayette County. Well, when you take a million dollars every year and invest it in purchase development rights, taking land out of the pool of available land, you drive up the cost to builders and developers. When I'm paying $1,000 a linear foot for a lot, 60 by 120, I can't build affordable housing in Fayette County. So by setting up the PDR program, you put that in motion, and now you're coming back trying to solve a problem you created with driving up land cost. I understand I've lived in Lexington all my life. I enjoy the green space, but I also have family in Nashville and have seen how they have controlled their development and spread it across county lines, run sewer lines, various places. We have a rule that we kind of have to tap on to an existing line to be able to develop. So when you think about this, you're investing money to solve a problem that the purchase development rights help create. We love our green space, and we think we have to protect that. But if you're looking to take 50,000 acres out of the Fayette County pool of land eventually with the PDR program, you're going to continue to drive up costs and drive families out of Fayette County. That's why a lot of your builders and developers develop outside Fayette County. So just think about that, that you've set up. You're paying money on one side to help create a problem you're trying to solve now. Thank you. Thank you very much. Is there anyone else from the public who wishes to speak on this item? Okay, thank you. Council Member Ford? Thank you, Vice Mayor. Just quickly, again, I'm personally very grateful that the council will finally be taking a jab at this issue of affordable housing. So thank you for your leadership and sending it to the committee, and thank you in the Budget and Finance Committee in advance for hearing it. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Council Member Henson. And thank you to all the task force members who have worked on this. Now we'll go back up to Item C. Council Member Blues has the Environmental Quality Committee report. Thank you, Vice Mayor. The Environmental Quality Committee met at 11 a.m. March 13 to take up two main agenda items, the first being the Division of Water Quality Director Charlie Martin's report on the Capacity Assurance Program, which is a key component of the Environmental Protection Agency consent decree. That program will enable the urban county government to authorize new sewer service connections or increases in flow from existing sewer service connections only after the government has determined that there is adequate transmission, collection, and treatment capacity. Prior to authorizing new connections, LFUCG must certify that new flow combined with existing flow will not result in unpermitted bypasses or diversions or result in noncompliance. The urban county government must submit its CAP plan to the Environmental Protection Agency by January 3, 2013, and then must begin implementation of the program no later than 30 days following EPA approval. Director Martin requested that a task force similar to the task force that crafted the water quality management fee be created to direct the process of creating the capacity assurance program. In response, Council Member Stenet moved and Council Member Kay seconded the motion to request the Vice Mayor to form a capacity assurance program task force. The motion passed without dissent, and the Vice Mayor has, as I understand it, already begun to form that task force. So do we have a second? Second. Vice Mayor, does this require council action? It's coming from a motion from your committee, so technically I could do it without the motion. You don't want to make the motion. Well, I can go ahead and do that. But therefore, I move to that the full council approve the vice mayor's creation of a capacity assurance program task force. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Kaye seconded it. Is there any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. And I am working on that. Thank you very much, vice mayor. And the other agenda item. At our February 28th Environmental Committee meeting, the Division of Environmental Policy reported out the Empower Lexington Plan, a voluntary program which calls for reducing Lexington's energy consumption by 1% per year. At the March 13th meeting, Environmental Policy Director Susan Bush presented a resolution that, if approved by Council, will affirm its support of the plan, validate the work that went into creating it, and endorse its energy reduction goals. Following discussion, Council Member Martin moved and Council Member Henson seconded the motion to recommend approval of the resolution by the full Council. The motion was approved 6-2. Subsequent motions by Vice Mayor Gorton and Council Member Lane resulted in an amendment to the resolution stating that the Department of Environmental Quality will report annually to the Council the annual report to include efforts the urban county government has undertaken to reduce its energy costs. That amendment passed 7 to 2, and the motion was approved. Vice Mayor, because the entire Council has not had an opportunity yet to read that resolution, I'm going to defer bringing it forward until I can distribute the resolution to the Council, and I'll do that, I think, at next week's worst section. Okay. Thank you, Council. I appreciate that. That concludes my report. Thank you. All right. And Council Member Kaye has a question. Yes. In the notes, it does not reflect the full language of the amendment that was offered by the Vice Mayor. Is that important for the notes to reflect that, or will that be contained in the resolution? I thought it did contain the full language, but perhaps I'm in error there. I'm sorry I did not. Can you repeat that just a little bit louder? You say that the amendment that... The notes that reflect the amendment offered by the Vice Mayor are not complete in terms of the resolution, the amendment that she offered. So I want to make sure that those are reflected somewhere either in these notes or in the notes from the meeting itself. Well, I tried to put back together again that discussion and reflect in my statement of the amendment, the vice mayor's motion. But maybe what we could do here is compare notes after this meeting and come to some clarification. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Council Member Blues. Now, Council Member Farmer has the Planning and Public Works Committee report. Thank you, Vice Mayor. This begins on page 9B of the packet, and this is our March 13th meeting of the Planning and Public Works Committee, convening at 1 p.m. The first item on our agenda was the repaving program, which was a returning item that is still in committee, Just a brief note through the summary here, Sam Williams stated that 10 of the 12 districts have been completed in terms of having repaving work done, a total of 23 miles, and an average cost of $175,000 per mile. Council Member Martin has requested that the administration create policy that indicates the standards for fixing base failures, crack and seal work, and other applications related to resurfacing. Basically, that's where this issue resides at this time. We're waiting for the administration to come back to us with information on that. So we have kept that item in committee for further action in the future. The second item, which is on page 10B, is the addressing ordinance. And I would just say to you I believe that in the same way that the summaries maybe didn't accurately reflect the work of the committees in a couple of other instances today, I don't believe that this one does either. This reflects the conversation that we had about the addressing ordinance and even gives the vote and the vote tally. But I think from my point of view in asking the council to take action on this, I would like for you all to have at your disposal the actual verbiage that would be changed from what and to, because I think if you're going to be asked to vote on something, you should have the verbiage before you. So much as Council Member Blues had done with his item, I would defer the option of bringing that to you in its specificity at our next meeting so that you can see what was voted on rather than try to piece it together through making a referral to, I mean, I think this actually says referring to page 12 of the packet, which I don't think accurately reflects what I would ask any of you all to vote on at this time. So you'll bring the addressing ordinance motion at a future meeting? I would just bring it next week with proper foundation and background materials. I just think that that's one of the things that, in circling back around in our committee, Maybe our packet work and our report out of our committee structure needs a little tweaking, perhaps. Just a thought. The third item that we took up in committee was the Valley View Ferry, which had been placed in committee by the Environmental Quality Link last year. Council Member Maloney provided an update, and that is on subsequent pages 13, 14, and 15. I think basically at the time this was placed in committee based on the mayor's budget address last year, which was going to take some of the funding away, this gave us the opportunity to become more familiar with the apparatus that is the Valley View Ferry. We have now been lucky enough to add to the ferry authority one of our own, Paul Schaudinger out of the council office. So it's a three-way partnership between ourselves and Madison and Jessamine County and something that's a very good transportation link for us. Having that submitted, that seemed to suffice the committee's need for conversation. There were two items that were then removed from committee because we had dispensed with them, and we adjourned at 252. That's my report. Vice Mayor, thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Farmer. And our final committee report is Councilmember Myers on the Social Services and Community Development Committee. Oh, Council Member Henson is going to do it. Thank you, Vice Mayor. This was a very, very short meeting, so the summary is two. The Social Services and Community Development Committee met on March 20th and received an update on the fiscal year 2013 Social Services Partner Agency funding process. The presentation included an overview of the new process for reviewing partner agency applications, as well as a ranking assigned by a scoring committee to each agency's application. There were no motions or actions taken during the meeting. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You're welcome. Thank you, Council Member Henson. And then our final continuing business presentation is the scrap metal ordinance presentation by Councilmember Stenet. Thank you, Vice Mayor. This was a presentation. I don't see him in here, so we may have to wait until he gets back. But Councilmember Martin, who requested this, is he still here? Or his? Okay, well. I think we all voted on. I know. Okay, we're going to start on page 20B of our packet, too, since we had such a long packet. We're on 20B. We're going to start. I'm going to briefly go through the highlights of the proposed ordinance. And to start off with, we have some updated numbers since through the end of March that I'll reference quickly if we can put the slides up. Ten minutes. Ten minutes. Ten minutes. Ten minutes. Ten minutes. Ten minutes. Ten minutes. Ten minutes. The total number of reports through the last 15 months that have been reported, copper thefts and other metal thefts to the Division of Police, are now at 1,737 reports. The second is the numbers. The total financial loss of those 1,737 reports is now at $6,549,832. Again, that's just what has been reported to the Division of Police. And then this is the case analysis. Of those total cases, we've made 152 arrests. And then last but not least, what we did this time, too, so Council can get a better feel of the nature of copper prices. These are local copper prices. I know at the last committee meeting, some of you had asked about the national and state, but this is actually Lexington's copper prices, and you can see the rise and declines. And if you compare that with the number of theft reports, it does have some impact on the increased thefts during times when copper prices do rise. So you can see that as well. Thank you, Chris. Also, state law. We talked a lot about state law in the committee meeting. The state law did pass, both the House and the Senate, and it's my understanding it will be signed into law this Thursday by Governor Beshear at a bill signing ceremony. We have incorporated the state law changes in the draft ordinance. It is a copy of the state law, and the new draft is attached in this packet. Those motions to change it and amend it will be made Thursday night, so the ordinance will have to be given a new first reading, and I don't plan on asking for two readings that night, so it will be actually the second reading won't come until two weeks from Thursday night. Give everyone enough time to digest the state law changes. Just a couple of highlights from the state law. It did increase some of the penalties and fees or fines associated with that, so we did increase those in our ordinance from $200 to $250. And also there is a payment by check after the first day for certain restricted metals. Now keep in mind that's not all copper. Some of you are thinking that's all copper. That's not including plumbing, electrical wires, copper. So that is not included in the state law. So they would still be able to buy that and pay instantly for some of those things like gutters and electrical wiring. So those are just some brief comments on the state law. Again, a copy of it is in our packet. Going through the highlights of the local ordinance, again, we did the same thing the state did. We defined various types of materials in our ordinances. We created two type of licenses. The first one would be a dealer's license. The second would be a seller's license. The dealer's license does have a $500 annual fee. Currently in the ordinance, there are three known scrap dealers in Fayette County. The way this ordinance is written, it would be very difficult for someone on a smaller scale to come into the market and become a dealer with the administrative requirements in our ordinance. But right now we are working or have worked in the past with three known scrap dealers in Fayette County. The administrative requirement highlights they must collect all information outlined in the ordinance for two years. Again, the valid driver's license or other government-issued ID from a seller. Electronic database, this is a huge requirement that's different from the state law. We require an electronic database that can flag the sellers as well as provide information to the Division of Police on a 24-7 basis. And also we're asking the VIN numbers of all vehicles that are scrapped to be photographed and recorded, not just written down but also photographed so we can verify those numbers as well. On the seller's license, $30 annual fee for sellers, $150 currently for businesses. This would be required and amended by the committee to anyone that would sell more than one time a year. So obviously anyone cleaning out their garage, they don't need a seller's license. They can take it down there once a year as well as a business and be done with it. Any times more than that, they would be required to get that seller's license. You can get that on site at the scrap dealer's locations as well as at our Division of Police. The Division of Police will administer and approve, based on criminal background checks, the seller's license. Exemptions to the seller's license. There are many in the ordinance, but I'll just highlight a few. If you have a valid plumbers, electricians, or HVAC license, you'd be exempt. Municipal waste haulers are exempt from both the dealers and the seller's license. Any organization in Kentucky that is charitable, religious, fraternal, civic, et cetera, or school-sponsored would be exempt. Utility companies would all be exempt. than any industrial, manufacturing, or commercial vendor who generates scrap metal as an ordinary course of business or has a contract with a scrap dealer would be exempt from having a seller's license. The other couple final highlights of the ordinance, the hold requirement. We are asking the scrap metal dealers to hold any non-ferrous metals and catalytic converters. That would be your coppers and the catalytic converters from vehicles for three days from day to purchase before they ship it off. and then the fines and penalties in there are written there on page 20b. I won't go through all those, but there would be abilities to fine and penalize dealers who do not comply with this ordinance. That is questionable in the state law. If there is an enforcement mechanism in the current state law, being that it is a new section, and that's something we'll have to continue to investigate. Those are the highlights of the local scrap metal ordinance. Again, we've worked on this since November of 2010 with our Division of Police. We've taken input from some of the scrap metal dealers and have modified it accordingly. Obviously, they've been very cooperative in working with us throughout this process, and this will be a change of the way we've done business in Fayette County. I know myself personally had some issues with even putting an accelerator's license in there to begin with, but long-term and legally, that is really the only way we can require someone not to purchase from individuals who have been convicted of a theft of any of these materials or anything, for that matter in our community. There is no other legal mechanism to prevent those type of purchases in our community. So that's why the seller's license is ultimately a state in there. If there's another mechanism that we can control that, I'll be open to it, but we've looked through it through the Department of Law and Division of Police, and there really isn't anything else we can hold the dealers accountable to from buying this material from people who have stolen it. So there's the ordinance. There's the quick summary. I know I've spoken quickly, but I'll open the floor for discussions. Members of our Law Department and Division of Police are here. I want to thank both Mike Sanner and Assistant Chief Holman for all their hard work and working with me on this issue. So thank you both, too, for being here. Thank you, Councilmember Stennett. Councilmember Kay. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Just Kevin, a question. Yes, sir. The state legislature did or did not act, and how does that affect this bill? They did act. They did pass it through both House and Senate. It will be signed into law, as my understanding, this Thursday. The changes that the state law would have impacted on our law are in here. They're underlined. We have changed our law to incorporate pieces from the state law. The two main pieces that affect our local ordinance that would complement our local ordinance. Because, again, we can't create an ordinance that's any less lenient than the state law. But we can create one that's a little bit harder than the state law. And obviously ours is. But we did increase the penalties from $200 up to $250 for certain offenses, and we did add the provision or definition of restricted metals that the state defines in their ordinance. But, again, it does include all types of copper, whereas ours would include all types. But we do include the one-day pay-by-check provision the state passed or will pass Thursday. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Do other council members have questions? If not, I have a question. I was contacted by a very, very small business. There's probably two employees. And I guess I wonder, they generate scrap metal through the materials that they make, and they were very distressed at having to buy a license every year. And so I notice that there are many exemptions. And, Council Member Stenet, can you tell me where in here it talks about a small business that might have two employees requiring them to pay the license every year, and is there a way we could exempt them? Yeah. From the example you've given, if they produce scrap as an ordinary course of business, then they would not have to get a seller's license if they're an industrial, manufacturing, or commercial vendor. And or had a written contract with a scrap metal dealer to buy it at a certain price. Okay, so would you state that again? They have to be industry, which is what would be the definition. Can our law department help us? Who's your attorney? Mike Sander is here. Mike, thank you very much. So in this exemption, industrial, manufacturing, or commercial vendor, how would you say that a very small business of two employees fits into that? Commercial vendor. And what do they have to show to prove they are a commercial vendor? A business license. Okay. Which they need to have to operate in Fayette County anyway. Okay. So now if they're not in Fayette County but they sell their scrap in Fayette County, what do they have to do to be exempt? They need a business license from wherever they're situated. Do all counties require a business license? That I couldn't tell you. So if they can't produce a, if, I don't know the circumstances of this person who called me about his business, but if their county doesn't require the business license, then are they? I think they would have a business license either with the county they do business in or they'd have to register with the Secretary of State. Okay, so they would just show. Something to show they're a business, yes. Otherwise, that small, okay, I see. You just have to have a seller's license. And so all they have to show is their business license. And that's on page 38B of our packet, Vice Mayor, just for reference. And the Secretary of State, same as we do here to do NDFs, we have to show that page. That would be what you could print out. Okay. Okay. When this person called me, I didn't realize that there might be many very small businesses that do produce scrap metal. And apparently there's another buyer not too far away in a different county, and they were speculating that rather than pay our license, they would take their metal. Is it Boyle County? I've forgotten. Well, there are several small. There are several around, so I will get that information to that person. And then I guess we will, when this is enacted, how will businesses know that they don't have to pay the seller's fee? Who's going to tell them? Will that be at the scrap metal buyer? They would need a scrap metal seller would have to pick up a registration form either here or at a scrap metal dealer's place of business. Okay. And they'd have to determine either through the ordinance or through the instructions with the application whether they fall into that. If they have any questions, they can call the Division of Police or the Department of Law. Okay. And, Vice Mayor, too, that's the benefit of having an electronic database. If we see someone in there we think should have a seller's license, we obviously could enforce that at any time. Or we may see someone in there who does not need one, who purchased one. So it can work both ways with that electronic database so we would know who they're buying scrap from. Okay, very good. Now we have a question from Council Member Crosby. Well, something you said just kind of sparked me because I was vehemently against the fee that people have to pay to do business in Fayette County. And it was my understanding, I know that we have revised it a little bit, but it was my understanding that anybody who does business in Fayette County has to pay that business license fee, unless it's under, I can't remember the threshold of dollars. Are you talking about a seller's license for this? No, she's talking about the business occupational. Yeah, I'm talking about the business because you were saying that they have to show a business license, license, but if they're in Fayette County doing business, it is my understanding that our requirements with this fee is that if they do business in Fayette County, they have to pay this fee. So they would have to have a Fayette County license. I think we're talking about two different, are you talking about business licenses to do any kind of business in Fayette County? Occupational, yeah. That's not what we're talking about here. we're talking about a seller's license for selling scrap metal. But if they're selling in Fayette County, would they have to? If they're selling in Fayette County. Yes, doing business in Fayette. But wouldn't that fall under that? That's my question. The seller's license would not fall under an occupational. I'll ask you offline. I don't think I'm communicating when I'm trying to ask very well. Okay, thank you. I think, if I heard you correctly, a person whose business is in another county does not need a Fayette County business license, but they need a seller. They would need a seller's license if they qualify. If they don't have a business license from their own county. Or something from the Secretary of State saying they're a legitimate business. Okay. Any other questions? That was my question. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Sanner. and thank you, Council Member Stinnett. I think we have one person signed up to speak to this. Council Members, do you want to hear that now? Yes. All right. Mr. Babbage, if you'll come to the microphone, state your name and address for the record, and you'll have three minutes. Thank you, Vice Mayor Gordon. I'm Bob Babbage, Babbage co-founder and represent the Kentucky Recyclers Association as well as Baker Iron Metal here in the community. I also worked on the state law three years ago for the industry and the recent state law. The new state law does have some significant provisions for treating criminals like criminals instead of businesses like criminals. The amount of damage done, you understand, by the theft of copper can run into the thousands of dollars while the copper is only worth a few hundred bucks, let's say. So now, in the new state law, Council Member Kaye, that crime will be treated according to the entirety of the damage, the scope of the damage caused, which gives us a better chance to take action against those criminals. At the same time, the registration, which will occur in state government, could be revoked if an operator were to do bad business, or some operators will choose not to register at all. But this is a significant burden on Baker and on the other businesses in town. It's a significant change. A couple of weeks ago, we reached an agreement with you not to have the seller's provision. That changed over these last two weeks. We've not been in touch with many of you in that time. Because of that change, Council Member Stenet has explained the reason for the change back, but we relied on your word at that time, and that creates a problem for us. As we've seen some of these provisions in other communities, they have not done altogether well. They're well-intentioned, but the consequences are not effective in fighting crime, and that is the goal for you and for our industry as well. Recently in Cincinnati, steps like this were taken. and those steps are now restrained. They're in court, and they'll be decided there, not in the local ordinance, but through a different process. So I would encourage you again, as I was able to do before the committee, Vice Mayor, to give the state law a chance to work. Your motto or your commitment to go green, as you have stated and pushed so well and so effectively, is not supported by this but undone by this. I think Mr. Dixon, who is the general manager of Baker, will be here Thursday, and under public comment will speak more specifically to some of the general points I'm making here today. And in the meantime, we'll give you a letter wherein he'll show you some improvements that could be made in the ordinance, which I hope he'll seriously consider for him and for the industry. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Babbage. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak to the scrap metal ordinance? If you'll come forward and state your name and address for the record, please. It's John Kemper, 4413 Ravenscrest Lane. Mr. Stennett, can you tell us how you arrived at the fee for the license, the amount? Do you want to have a... Mr. Stennett. I'm sorry, I didn't realize your mouth was... Just like a bad waiter waiting until our mouth's full. Yeah, we looked at several other ordinances across the country, but on the individual fee we looked at what our cost would be to administer that's similar to some of our other licenses and fees. That's what the statute gives us the ability to do is to charge a reasonable cost, what it costs us to do business. So do you think it's good to have a recently enacted statewide piece of legislation that hadn't taken effect, and we're going to do something more stringent than what the state's already done? I think this is not a public comment, not a time for discussion, but I did want to give Mr. Stenner an opportunity to ask your question about arriving at the fee. I just wondered as small business owners, things keep piling up on us. Yes. Thank you very much. Is there anyone else from the public who wants to speak to the scrap metal ordinance? All right. If not, we'll move on to Council Report. Council Members, if you'll log in, please. Are there any Council Reports? Council Member Kaye. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Some of you may know that some citizens have been working informally on making local and fresh produce available in the government building. And I'm happy to report that we've made some progress and have got a tentative understanding and agreement with the farmers market to move forward on this. This will be a pilot project. Hopefully it will be successful and there will be interest in doing it maybe more frequently and in other places. Right now it's planned to operate one day a week between May and September. And there will be more information on this coming shortly to you. As a result, I'd like to make a motion. I move to place on the docket for April 12, 2012, Council meeting a resolution authorizing the Mayor to execute an agreement with the Farm and Garden Market Cooperative Association, Inc., doing business as Lexington Farmers Market, to provide fresh produce at the Government Center as part of a pilot program. So moved. Second. Council Member Kaye moved, and Council Member McCord said. seconded the motion. Is there discussion? If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right. Does that complete your report? Thank you, Vice Mayor. You're welcome. You are welcome. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. A couple of things. Chris, if you could. Thank you, sir. I wanted to talk about and then refer to committee the issue of how we address distressed properties that are in foreclosure with respect to code enforcement issues. And I know I didn't ask code enforcement to be here, so I don't expect them to be here to answer any questions. I really, what happened was on the way down here, the Courier-O-Journal today had this as their front page story. And I thought, I was already going to put it in committee today. I'm sorry? This house? Yes. Yeah, this is the front page of the Courier-O-Journal today. This house. The reason I bought that picture in is because it's just going to give us a visual to talk about what I want to talk about. And we've got some, as I drive the district, houses that are in foreclosure. And the issue seems to be that code enforcement doesn't interact with those properties in the same as they would interact with a property that's not in foreclosure. If, for example, the grass is not cut and it's two feet tall, that kind of thing. And there's reasons why that is, and I obviously don't want to get into that today. And I certainly don't have anything negative to say about code enforcement. That's not why I'm here either. But if I can read briefly what's happening here with this house. A 97-year-old house in Virginia Avenue on South 32nd Street, let me put my glasses on here, in Parkland has languished for years with overgrown grass and a piece of metal drip edge hanging off the porch. Last April, Louisville Metro government employees made an emergency visit to the board up the house because people have been going in and stealing copper and hanging out. A month later, Metro officials filed criminal charges against their property owner. and moved a move reserved only for the most negligent property owners. But while he remains the House's legal owner, and this is why this is pertinent. I realize this is Louisville and it's not the same thing. We're not Louisville. But while he remains the House's legal owner, he contends that he surrendered the property to the bank when it was foreclosed on or when he went through bankruptcy. So now he's suing Bank of America and some other banks because they have him in legal limbo. The house is still in his name in some regards, but the reality is the bank owns the house. That's the situation that we have here. We have banks that own the houses, but because it's not gone completely through the foreclosure process, we're in limbo on who is going to make sure that the house is kept up. We've got houses that people are squatting in there, people are going in and stealing the copper in there. The houses are becoming in disrepair. The neighbors are complaining because it's bringing down their property value, and rodents are coming in and all kinds of things, but our code enforcement officials can't act. And so what I'd like to do is put this issue into the proper committee so that we can figure out, is there a way that we can hold the banks accountable for these properties? That's a reminder to go pick my daughter up at daycare. So I guess my question would be what would be the best committee to put this in? Code enforcement is under public safety now. So probably if we want code enforcement involved in addressing their concerns, that's probably the place to put it, right? It seems appropriate. Okay. So I move to put this issue into – yeah, nobody wants this in their committee. I was trying to figure out a way to put it in budget and finance, but I couldn't swing it. So I move to put this issue into public safety. Okay. Council Member Myers moved and Council Member Martin seconded the motion to place this issue into public safety. Thank you. And if I could stay on discussion, I've got houses in my district that have yet to cut the grass this year. So you know how high the grass is already getting, and code enforcement is not able to address this issue at this time. So if we could ask that if it successfully goes into committee, if the chair could find a way to advance that issue, we would greatly appreciate it. And I'll be quiet now. Okay. Thank you very much. Now, we'll discuss the motion. And we already have people queued up electronically for council reports, so we'll start with Council Member Henson and then Council Member Kay and Martin. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And I do know that this is an issue throughout the city. And I have several, you know, we're looking for tall grass. I mean, but I just wanted to mention that there was a bill in Frankfurt, and I don't know if you're familiar with it, but if we could do a little research, I'm not sure that it passed or has been signed, but it did have to do with giving the banks that foreclosed on the property so much time to file the correct documents. So I don't know. We probably should do a little research on that. Thank you. Council Member Kaye. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just want to let whatever committee this gets into know that the Infill and Redevelopment Committee has been looking at some proposed recommendations for code enforcement and that this issue just today was being discussed, not in that committee, but in a conversation with law. So there's some information that's readily available about what the present status is in our community. Thank you. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Vice Mayor. This is an issue that is, I think, important to a lot of folks. It's important to folks. Well, everybody here has houses in their district that are foreclosed, and they really are sort of a legal no-man's land and no-woman's land. But what really has to happen, just to preview, I think, where this needs to go is you have to have a fund. And so somebody has to pay to go mow that, and that's what the issue is. And so there's nobody you can slap a fine on or nobody you can put a lien on. What you have to do is either the city has to go mow it, and we're going to collect money someplace to go do that. And that's really how this gets done. So I'm supporting putting this into the committee. There's no other way to solve this. The best way would be for the legislature to put a fee on the foreclosures so that they pay for it. But that's kind of where this is going. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You're welcome. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. A couple things. I know that Frankfurt's working on this, but they're really addressing sort of a different issue because what we need is regular maintenance done on that property. And there is a fee and there's a fund. Code enforcement has a fund right now to go out and mow. So the issue is not whether or not we have the money to do it. The issue is that that property is in limbo, and if I don't cut my grass, they'll come out and mow it for me, send me a bill. If I don't pay it, they'll put a lien on my house. It's my understanding that part of the issue is that the courts have not put that. If the city were to do that and they cut the grass all summer long, the courts traditionally have not put that on that bank when that house comes out of foreclosure. They haven't required the bank to pay the city back. And so we have to find another way to address the issue because, obviously, we don't want to be cutting grass at every one of these foreclosed properties across the city all summer long. So I don't know what the solution is, but I think if we put it in committee, we can come to one. And if we need to involve Frankfort, then we'll know to do that. But I appreciate the votes to put it in committee so we can address it. Thank you. Council Member McCord. And I really appreciate, Council Member Myers, you doing this. And let me give you a real-life situation. You've got a house in this situation in foreclosure in your district, and neighbors around it are very frustrated. They call 311. It gets put to code enforcement. Code enforcement goes out, finds out it's in foreclosure, and they end up in this kind of black hole. And the neighbors are mad because they're following the procedure. They're watching their home values degenerate. And as council members, you don't really have any recourse. And so there is an absolute need for this. And one of the other opportunities, as it goes into this committee that is somewhat separate from this, but it's an opportunity for us from a revenue standpoint, is you mentioned the way we do it is we have an abatement fund. And the way that works is that if it's this person's yard and we go out and cut it, and then we give a $300 bill to the owner, whoever the owner is. If they don't pay it, we put a superior lien on their house. It's a go-first lien. But we have to pay somebody to go do that. Then we have to do all the back end. The way Louisville has done it, and the way that I would encourage us to look at doing it, is to flip that, use some of our own internal folks, do it inside, and keep that money here. When we did the study a couple years ago of the opportunity with that, it was possibly as much as half a million to $700,000 of revenue we could keep inside our own government if we did it that way, just like Louisville does. There's some issues there that have to be worked through. But when it goes into committee, you've got this issue of who do we nail for it when it's in foreclosure. But you've also got an opportunity from a funding standpoint that if you just flip who mows that and we don't hire outside contractors and we do it all inside, You can still charge them the same amount or more and keep that internal. So just don't miss that opportunity as well. Thank you, Council Member Myers, for doing this. Does anyone else wish to speak to the motion? Yes. Council Member Beard. While we're discussing, as people may guess, the question of banks comes up and I can wake up. I would say that probably 90% of the foreclosures are banks that are either not domiciled in definitely Lexington, but even in Kentucky. Deutsche Bank, for instance, is a big lender, and they're domiciled in Germany, of course. So that makes it much more difficult. You can't go sit down next to the president and talk to him about the problem unless you want to go to Germany. And you can't go to Germany with a $43.36 credit card. Anyway, I wanted the public to understand we're not necessarily talking about banks in Lexington or banks in central Kentucky. We are talking about big banks elsewhere. Thank you. Does anyone else wish to speak to the motion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Okay, that issue gets forwarded to Public Safety Committee. Now, but you're not done with your council report. Mr. Myers. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and thank you, Council. So secondly, in today's economic development standing committee meeting, the fourth item on the agenda, we ran out of time, and that was looking at the ticketing process for the parking authority. And so in discussion with the chair and the vice mayor earlier, we thought that it might just be easier to look at this at a work session. And I know that we had some folks get together with Gary in the caucus room after the meeting was over, and I'm going to get together with both of them. And so I'd like to put this on for a presentation maybe next Tuesday, if that's possible. I think the – are the presentations full for next Tuesday? Do you know Stacy and Jeanette? Presentations are now being arranged back in the council office, and so they've got the couple that Hillary's got tempted to leave. That are already confirmed. Okay, so if they don't get confirmed, can we move this one to next week? or if they are confirmed maybe the following week. That would be fantastic. So can we just do that and we don't have to follow up? We'll just know it's going to be on one of those two weeks. That's fine. We'll let you know. Okay. Thank you very much. And then finally, I got an e-mail today on sort of another internal issue where we have a contractor who is contracted to do some work, and now this project has been held up for several months, and now when it came time to do the work, we find out that this particular contractor has not paid some fees and things to LFECG, and so the contract's been held up. And the second difficulty is that there's no other company that we have under contract that can do this work, and the second person that was being looked at hasn't submitted some of the necessary insurance certificates. So my concern is that we have a contractor who's not paying his fees or her fees to the government. So in my opinion, they shouldn't even be on the list to be eligible for work. And if they weren't on that list, then we would have known that we have to go out and solicit others so that now that this work is needing to be done, we wouldn't be waiting to find somebody that can do the work. Secondly, what's articulated in this email is that they're working with this company who hasn't paid its fees to get those fees paid so we can do business with them. And I think that's a very bad business practice. If you want to do business with the city of Lexington and you don't pay the city the money you owe the city, then we shouldn't be looking to do business with you, in my opinion. So I would like to put this issue, and I've tried to stay away from names and things, but I'd like to put this issue into committee also so that, one, we can come up with a process to ensure that if people owe the city fees and things and they're doing business here, that we're collecting what we're supposed to collect from them. And secondly, that we ensure that we have a process that allows us to be prepared to do work when work needs to be done on a contractual basis and not have this conundrum where the only person that can do the work isn't eligible to do the work because they haven't done something properly. So everybody's shooting for planning today, but this, I think, would be general gov makes sense to me too. So I move to put this into general gov. Do I hear a second? Did I hear a second? Council Member Blue seconded putting the issue of contractors who haven't paid their LFUCG and the other local fees still being able to contract. Is that basically the issue? That's part of it. And the second part is that I'd like to see what we have in place to ensure that if they owe those fees, we're going after them. Okay. So the motion is on the floor. Is there discussion? Any discussion? All right. The motion to put it in General Gov. Follow up in collecting the fees or the licenses or the taxes or whatever is delinquent. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Those in favor of putting this in General Gov, please say aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? All right. Now, let's see. I'm sorry. That concludes my report. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Next on the council report is Council Member Lawless. There are quite a few things going on in the third district. First, I'd like to address what went on last weekend during the NCAA and the situation on State Street, which got all the press. But there were multiple fires, vandalism, property damage in many of the neighborhoods in the 3rd District. And I hope that in the future, I spent a lot of time. I was in Oregon for the weekend for my grandson's second birthday, but I spent a lot of time on email and the phone with police, fire, UK, and I think we're coming together as a community that that's not what people see when they see Lexington. That, too, in my mind, is an economic development issue. It has to do with UK's ability to recruit top students, athletes, and researchers. It has to do with Lexington recruiting businesses to make this their home. And the 3rd District is the core center of the city and is much a part of our brand as our rural areas. So that being said, I hope we can all work together as a community and as a council to see the importance of that situation. And I know that President Capilouto feels very strongly also. So I look forward to a better type of relationship community-wide and with our anchor institutions. There are several very exciting things going on in our downtown. 21C is a game-changer. It is a place that people in Louisville go to as well as visitors from other places go to. So I'm extremely excited about that and Center Point Block being developed and moving forward and the TIF monies that will be available for our museum, our old courthouse museum repairs and some other infrastructure issues downtown. So I think it's a very exciting day for our time to be in Lexington and certainly an exciting time to be on the council representing the 3rd District. Sometimes the excitement's really fun, and sometimes it's quite harrowing. However, all that being said, I hope everybody has enjoyed the beautiful weather and glad to be back from break, and see you all next Thursday. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Just quickly, I know we all as Council Members received a letter, I think maybe yesterday, in regards to a follow-up on the Health First, which is formerly the primary care center, in their efforts to utilize a federal grant of $11.7 million for the health needs of less fortunate residents in our community. We got that letter yesterday, and I also read the article in the paper. I just publicly want to express my disappointment and frustration as the elected representative for many of the folks in my district in North Lexington that could benefit from the gift, the grant that has been offered to our community, $11.7 million. That's just my personal opinion. I do applaud the administration because, again, this is not our project. This is not an urban county government grant, but the administration with our commissioners and the mayor's office has attempted to assist the primary care center in utilizing this grant. And if the quote that I read in the paper, and again, that quote, health first may be forced to abandon the north end of Lexington, that almost doesn't make sense when you think of the need for the less fortunate lower income residents in our district. The letter that we received yesterday seemed, in my opinion, to be full of excuses and also kind of served as a concession that they may not be able to utilize this $11.7 million grant. I would hope that, if at all possible, we could have some kind of report back to this council in our community. if there is any opportunity for us to put these funds to use and locate and find a location that can serve north and west Lexington. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Lawless, or Council Member Myers, did you have something else? Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just had a quick follow-up with what Council Member Lawless was talking about, some of the things that happened after the game the other day. and you're probably already looking at this maybe but I was just wondering if there's an opportunity for the city and the university to come up with a space that a big bonfire could be built after that. There's a university that has a bonfire every year and I know they had a tragedy a couple years ago with that, not thinking about anything anywhere that big, Texas A&M. But I'm just wondering that if there's a way that we can come together with a place that they can go and get rowdy and do some things like that without causing any problems or endangering the lives of anybody. So I just want to kind of throw that out there in a discussion. And I'm sure you're probably already working on it. Thank you. Councilmember Lawless, did you want to? The thing is, there were those spaces, Limestone and Woodland and Euclid, and they were very well behaved. The ones that broke the law, and it's a miracle someone didn't get killed, were not spontaneous. Those had been planned, and they were not people who wanted a place to get rowdy. And I've looked at hours of video and photos. They were playing, many of them, to the camera. They weren't all U.K. students, but they're, you know, so it wasn't a matter of they didn't have a place to go. Woodland and Euclid was very peaceful. People had fun. Limestone, same thing. So there were gathering places. So, but, no, there, I mean, they set a car on fire that exploded. You know, burning, I mean, it wasn't, we don't have any place to go to have fun. Councilmember Blues? And I can talk to you more about that. We have had those discussions. Okay. Councilmember Blues? Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just wanted to make a short follow-up comment following Councilmember Ford's statement about establishing a health first clinic on the north side. At last night's Board of Health meeting, the Board of Health expressed that same sentiment, that clearly a primary care facility is needed on the north side. I have not had an opportunity to read the Herald-Leader account of last night's meeting, but I think I can say that we have the Board of Health and the Health First Board, I think, are coming closer to a conclusion on this matter. I think that's the direction, and that working together, we will be able to establish a serviceable clinic on the north side. So that's the effort, and I'm anticipating that we will get there. And, Council Member Blues, I appreciate you taking the time to follow up on that, and your work representing us on the Board of Health. And if you get a chance to read the article, because it doesn't, the leadership of the primary care center, it doesn't shine well. Long story short, it would be tragic for this community. I think we recognize that if we were not able to utilize those federal funds, funds that we perhaps don't have with the budget that was just presented to the benefit of the north side of Lexington. So, again, I appreciate your support and hope to learn a little bit more about that activity, hopefully, as it accelerates closer to that federal deadline. Thank you, Tom. Okay. Council Member Lawless. Just quickly, I wanted to remind people that the downtown farmer's market will be open the 19th. and the Colt Trolley has an expanded route on the weekends, dealing with evenings and the farmer's market, and you can find that, I'm sure, on Lex Tran's website, the Colt Trolley, so you don't have to drive. And I believe there is free parking in the Fifth Third Bank building for farmer's market attendees. Thank you. You're welcome. I have one item for council report. And council members, you should have the proposed committee of the whole budget schedule in front of you. And then I think it might have been emailed before, the top portion only right now. And I've been working with Stacy Maynard, our council administrator, and getting input from others. And this schedule in front of you is basically modeled on last year's, taking into account that Council Member Martin last year had asked that Council Member recommendations be a couple days later than Lynx's recommendations so Council Members could see what the Lynx had recommended. and then also including, if you'll notice, on May 15th, 17th, and 29th, Lynx report outs. You'll remember that last year we ran short on time for Lynx report outs, so we built in basically two and a half meetings for report outs. And it also includes what Council requested the last couple years, which is a second revenue update. The first one would be April 26th. The second one would be June 12th to give Council the most updated, excuse me, the second one June 7th, the most updated revenue report. And then we also on this specified who, which link reports out which day. it will no longer be who requests first to go last. It's based on which link finishes first, that link reports out first, so that links have an equal amount of time based on when the link is finished. And I want to thank our council administrator as well as the chairs and staff of the links because they worked really hard to try to get a master schedule of LINCS meetings, which in a moment Council Member Ellinger will go over. But I did want to go ahead, and the other good thing is you'll notice first reading of the budget is June 19th, second reading June 21st. If something should go awry and we need more time, There's a whole week left in June where we can push things forward if we need to along the process. So I wanted to get any particular feedback and then move this forward. And this will require, I've also been working with and gotten the agreement from Councilmember Farmer and Councilmember Ellinger to switch the budget and finance and the planning meetings in June. budget and finance was scheduled the day of the first reading of the budget. And as you know, we convert budget and finance meetings to the committee of the whole, so we felt it would be better to have that a week before the first reading. So they've agreed to switch the meetings, and I have a motion to all of that effect. And so we'll make the motion and then ask for your discussion and input and any amendments. So I move to place on the docket an ordinance amending Section 1 of Ordinance No. 158-2011, amending the schedule of meetings for the Lexington Fayette Urban County Council for the calendar year 2012, to change the date of the Planning and Public Works Committee meeting scheduled for June 12th to June 19th, to change the date of the Budget and Finance Committee meeting scheduled for June 19th to June 12th, to add Committee of the Whole meetings according to this presented budget schedule and to change the time of the Quarterly Committee of the Whole meetings scheduled for May 17th to 3 p.m. We have a motion. Do I have a second? I have a second. My Councilman Myers, any discussion? Council Member Martin? Thank you, Chair. Vice Mayor, last year we ran into a lot of late discussion about budget items prior to the time in which the council had to ratify the budget. And that was a fairly lengthy day. I guess my question is, why are we not starting that meeting maybe at 9 that morning in anticipation of the deliberations of that day? And I might just, before you answer that. Are you looking at June 12th? Excuse me, I'm looking at June 12th. Thank you. And as an aside, I have a meeting like the same meeting last year four hours away. And so I'm going to have to leave to go to that at some point that afternoon anyway. So I realize we both have a larger issue about the amount of time that the council needs to deliberate personal requests from council members and suggestions. But also I have a schedule conflict. Vice Mayor. Those are very good points. On June the 12th, we have standing committees. Instead of planning at 1 o'clock, this motion would change it to the next week, and it would put budget and finance at 1. We have social services at 11, and I did not take the liberty to make that change. If Council thinks that we should, we could make it now, or we could make it later. One of the things that's happened historically is that we adjust our schedule as we go along, depending on how discussions go. So I think we could either do it now, we'd have to cancel social services, or we can do it later. Or, as you said, we could do it at 9 o'clock and schedule a meeting from 9 to 11. We wouldn't have to cancel social services then. And take a break. Or if we move social services to one and the finance at nine, we could get started at nine on that. And should everything run late, then you could cancel social services as a last resort. Aye. Good. Council Member Myers. So the motion on the floor will, yeah, if we can amend it any way we want. Chuck. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Before we cancel social services, Commissioner, I don't want to put you on the spot, but do you anticipate this meeting for anything? I don't want to cancel this meeting for social services. We're getting to the point where we're going to go on a break shortly after that and that kind of thing. I guess it will depend on what happens in the links meeting. and it's hard to say. Okay. Thank you very much. I would say I'd prefer that we move the time around to 1 o'clock or one of those options rather than actually canceling it. Is there something already at 1? Vice Mayor? Well, the motion includes putting budget and finance at 1 o'clock and moving planning to the next week so that we can have that extra committee of the whole at 1 o'clock for budget. And it would be better to have that at 1 than early in the morning, right? Yeah, because we, okay, I got you. I'm sorry. Well, you know, if we need to, then if that's what makes it work, then that's what makes it work, and we can cancel that meeting. Council Member Martin. I guess I move to amend the motion to move the budget and finance to 9 o'clock and also to move social services to one. Is that an appropriate motion? We have a motion. Do I have a second? It fails for lack of a second. Back to you, Vice Mayor. We have a motion on the... We're still discussion. Are you through, Vice Mayor? Any other discussion? Mr. Stennett. Can you repeat the motion that's currently on the floor? I will do that. Can I summarize? Just on the times on the 12th. Okay. It moves Planning and Public Works Committee from June the 12th to June the 19th at 1 o'clock, and it moves Budget and Finance from June 19th to June 12th at 1 o'clock, and it would, for now, adopt this Budget Committee of the Whole schedule. And the movement of the quarterly cow on May 17th is because we thought it was appropriate to put the Budget and Finance link report out right before the 6 o'clock council meeting. So it would move the quarterly cow on May 17th to 3 o'clock. well i was just going to say that this will be my thinking ninth or tenth budget and we've never not started at 8 a.m on the 12th on that whatever that day is in june to get the budget done we've always called an early meeting so i i agree with councillor marlon we need to start earlier that day period well i mean so i mean we've not we've never not finished um before you know starting an 8 a.m. meeting so i would just go ahead and cancel everything else but that day and keep it as budget personally well on the sidebar councilman meyer said he would be willing to cancel the social services if need be every year we've done had to cancel and start at 8 a.m so would you like to make would you like to make a amendment to the motion that we start on 9 a.m on the 12th we have a motion to start everyone can plan to be here at 9 a.m on the 12th Second. We have a second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed. Now on the main motion, any more discussion? I'm going to abstain on the amendment because I have a prior commitment. Okay. Council Member Martin, did you have a question? I'm sorry. Council Member, did your motion include canceling social services? Okay. Sorry to miss that. Thank you. Now on the main motion as amended, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed? That passes. Vice Mayor. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And then the only other thing is that I wanted to ask Council Member Ellinger, as Chair of Budget and Finance, to look with the Council at the links. And there's a schedule, thank you, that the Council Ministrator has been working on with all the Council link chairs. and it looks like we have worked out the schedule very well. There has been a change on the first one and if there are going to be any changes, make sure that we work through the council administrators so we can keep this up to date. But as it appears, I think we have everything filled in and ready to go. Anything you want to add? I'll send an updated copy out to everybody and all the commissioners and directors. Would you please use your microphone so we can hear? I'm sorry. Sorry. I'll send out an update to everybody so all the commissioners and directors and council members have it. Thank you. Is there any questions from council members? Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Ellinger. And I'd like to thank our council administrator who worked very diligently to try to make sure nothing overlapped. I know there were some changes at the last minute, which meant I think there's one overlap. But if you do need to add more links, please do not add them when other links are already scheduled. That way our financial folks can cover everything, and they won't have to split up and not cover a link. Okay, is there any other council report? If not, the next item on our agenda is the public comment for issues not on the agenda. Is there anyone who has an issue that was not on today's agenda? Mr. Babbage, state your name and address, please. If you might just give me a half a minute, Vice Mayor Gorton. There was an issue on the agenda that I had signed to speak to but was not called, which is fine. You decided it well after two years. That's the taxicab issue. And on behalf of Yellow Cab, we would thank you for bringing that to such a good conclusion. A couple of clarifications. We've taken some flack at times on the inspection issue. We were able to tell the committee that those inspections that might be a problem on, say, a Tuesday are corrected the next day. Most of those are corrected the next day, I should say. So these are minor problems that are found and fixed by everyone in the business. Additionally, because cabs are assigned by geography, as you know, it would be impossible for us to have our cabs in Louisville on Derby Day. So just as a clarification, all of our cabs are here around Derby time because that's where they have to be by law, and there's a great business around Derby anyway, as well as any special event. Lastly, last week we were able to announce that we have four wheelchair accessible cabs. the first in this marketplace. We're delighted to make improvements like that. Yellow Cab and its management will always be sensitive to your input, to your suggestions, and to any ways we can improve the service of the company. Thank you very much for these last couple of years of work on this issue. Thank you, Mr. Babbage. Is there anyone else who wishes to comment on items not on the agenda? If not, we'll move on to the Mayor's Report, which you should have received by email we have a motion by councilmember stennett and second by councilmember ellinger councilmember beard thank you uh mayor um what we have in front of us is not complete as far as as at least what i have in front of me is not complete as far as the council the mayor's report, there will be added between now and Thursday night an appointment to the planning commission. And this is somewhat difficult for me because we've had some discussion at various levels on the fifth floor concerning this because there is a possibility anyway of a nepotism situation that might arise. Melody Flowers, who is immensely qualified for this job, happens to be married to Jeff Fugate. And, of course, Jeff Fugate is the president of the DDA. And And the DDA and the Planning Commission work very closely and are intending to work even more closely in the future. And so I'm suggesting that we refer this to the Ethics Commission to make a judgment on this at this point. Is that a motion? That is a motion. You can't do it. It's a motion on the floor, right? Ah, so his would be to amend your motion. Amend motion. And remove the motion. So according to our parliamentarian, the proper procedure would be for you to move to amend the mayor's report and remove the Planning Commission person and refer it to the commission. Refer it to the commission. Is that your motion? That's the motion. Do I hear a second? Second. Okay. There's a motion and a second to amend the mayor's report. by removing and referring to the Ethics Commission an opinion on the Planning Commission nominee, whether there's a conflict of interest. Is there a discussion? Council Member Ellinger. Do we have an issue with time that we have to confirm within a certain time? Is it the 90-day rule? Because we had that issue once before. If there's a day. We did not get it finished in proper time. And if we have to send the ethics, are we running a timeline on this? Would that be a constraint? We would need to know when the vacancy occurred, and it just occurred when Derek Paulson was appointed commissioner. I don't know about the 90 days, but I do know the Ethics Commission meets the first Thursday in May, so that meeting is coming up fairly quickly. Very soon. So could we get it? Well, we can determine when the 90 days runs and get that to you all later. Is that all right? Okay. Yep. Thank you. Any other questions about the amendment? Council Member Kay? Thank you, Vice Mayor. My only question is whether we can get a ruling from law as opposed to going to the Ethics Commission, which may be quicker and as reliable. This issue comes up every once in a while, but on conflicts of interest matters, the Ethics Commission is the binding authority on that, so I think it should come from them. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions on the amendment? All right. All those in favor of the amendment, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Okay. Then the motion on the floor is to approve the mayor's report as amended. And Commissioner Graham, may I ask, would you be the person who would take this referral forward if it passes. I'd be happy to. And I think the issue is regarding the Planning Commission nominee, right? Correct. Okay. Yeah, I'll be happy to. Thank you. Okay. Seeing no other discussion, all those in favor? Council Member Martin slid right in. I thought we were raising hands. Sorry. I just want to say that with some hesitation and regret, I'm going to support this because it includes the resignation of Jeff Reed, and we'll be losing Jeff. And Jeff has served the mayor's office and the city very well, and we will miss him. Thank you. You're welcome. Does anyone else wish to speak to the motion? All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Okay. Now, Council Members, that motion having passed, we had scheduled a confirmation hearing for 5 o'clock on April 12th to confirm this person that we just referred to the Ethics Commission. So I think we probably will want to have a motion to cancel that and move the committee of the whole, which was requested about office arrangements, move it to 430. So would someone want to go ahead and make that motion? Second. Okay, Council Member Farmer moved. Council Member Kay seconded to cancel the April 12th confirmation hearing and to reschedule the Committee of the Whole regarding office arrangements to 430 on the 12th. Okay. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? Straight up. All righty. Now, before we adjourn, is there anything else for the good of the whole? Do I hear a motion? I'm a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? We are adjourned. Thank you very much. Thank you.