# Council Work Session - June 12, 2012 > Auto-transcribed civic record · June 12, 2012 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/2565 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/2565?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2012-06-12 - **Last revised**: July 17, 2026 - **Length**: 10,423 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Urban County Council met on June 12, 2012, at 3:03 p.m. in the Council Chambers on the 2nd Floor of the Government Center. Mayor Jim Gray presided over the meeting, which included five agenda items and resulted in 11 motions and votes. The council approved the meeting summary and addressed new business, while also hearing presentations during the continuing business segment. Fourteen members of the public provided comments on issues both related to and outside the formal agenda. The meeting covered routine council operations including council reports and concluded with a public comment period for items not on the agenda. ## Attendance **Present:** VM Gorton, CM Ellinger, CM Kay, CM Ford, CM Blues, CM Lawless, CM Beard, CM Farmer, CM Stinnett, CM Crosbie, CM Myers, CM McChord, CM Martin, CM Henson, CM Lane **Absent:** CM Martin **Late:** None ## Votes and Decisions **Fiscal Year 2013 Budget - First Reading** [timestamp: 0:01:34] Motion by VM Gorton, seconded by CM Farmer. The council voted to place the fiscal year 2013 budget on the docket for first reading at the June 21, 2012 council meeting. Passed by voice vote. **Neighborhood Development Funds Transfer** [timestamp: 0:02:07] Motion by CM Ellinger, seconded by CM Myers. The council voted to transfer $2,000 from Council Member Ellinger's Neighborhood Development Funds to the Salvation Army for the Women and Family Shelter. Passed by voice vote. **May 29th Work Session Summary** [timestamp: 0:02:39] Motion by VM Gorton, seconded by CM Myers. The council voted to approve the summary from the May 29th, 2012 Work Session. Passed by voice vote. **New Business Items** [timestamp: 0:03:11] Motion by CM Ellinger, seconded by VM Gorton. The council voted to approve new business items. Passed by voice vote. **Separation of Street Name Authorization Item** [timestamp: 0:29:28] Motion by CM Lawless, seconded by CM Farmer. The council voted on separating item W (authorization to change street names and/or individual property address numbers) from new business items. The motion failed 7-8 by roll call vote. Voting in favor (7): CM Ellinger, CM Kay, CM Ford, CM Blues, CM Lawless, CM Beard, CM Stinnett Voting against (8): CM Farmer, CM Crosbie, CM Myers, CM McChord, CM Martin, CM Henson, CM Lane **Neighborhood Development Fund List** [timestamp: 0:33:46] Motion by CM Lane, seconded by CM Ellinger. The council voted to approve the Neighborhood Development Fund list. Passed by voice vote. **Council Member Pay Ordinance Revision** [timestamp: 1:05:55] Motion by CM Kay, seconded by CM Farmer. The council voted to refer revision of the ordinance governing Council Member pay to General Government. Passed by voice vote. **Sign Ordinance Revision** [timestamp: 1:07:00] Motion by CM Farmer, seconded by VM Gorton. The council voted to refer possible revision of the Sign Ordinance to Planning and Public Works Committee. Passed by voice vote. **Closed Session** [timestamp: 1:08:05] Motion by VM Gorton, seconded by CM Kay. The council voted to enter closed session pursuant to KRS 61.810(1)(f) for discussion that may lead to discipline or dismissal of an employee. Passed by voice vote. **Return from Closed Session** [timestamp: 1:08:44] Motion by CM Blues, seconded by CM Beard. The council voted to return from closed session. Passed by voice vote. **Adjournment** [timestamp: 1:09:14] Motion by VM Gorton, seconded by CM Crosbie. The council voted to adjourn. Passed by voice vote. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting authorized 26 financial actions totaling approximately $2.2 million in expenditures and commitments. **Technology and Communications Contracts** - Vision Solutions, Inc. received authorization for $21,841 (L571-12) to provide software maintenance for redundant hardware and software applications between Fire and Police Headquarters communication centers. - Directapps, Inc. was authorized $36,800 (L572-12) to implement and support a network-based Emergency Call Tracking System (ECaTS) for the Central Kentucky 911 Network. - Central Business Systems received authorization for a 5-year mail equipment lease and maintenance agreement with an annual cost of $3,107.28 (L583-12) for the False Alarm Reduction Unit. **Community Development and Housing** - The Fayette County Local Development Corporation (Urban League) received a $87,187 amendment (L573-12) increasing HOME Investment Partnerships Funding. - REACH, Inc. was authorized an additional $166,000 (L578-12) for the First-Time Homebuyers Program Agreement. **Public Safety and Corrections** - Bluegrass Regional Mental Health/Mental Retardation Board, Inc. was authorized $881,265 (L581-12) for a 3-year offender mental health care services agreement at the Division of Community Corrections. - The Institute of Police Technology and Management received $12,500 (L586-12) for a Crisis Hostage Negotiations Level 1 course for 30 persons. - Agreements with the Board of Education of Fayette County and Kentucky State Police were authorized for $33,027 (L607-12) under the 2010 Project Safe Neighborhood Grant. **Municipal Services and Facilities** - Group CJ received authorization to amend its contract up to $225,000 (L576-12) for an education and outreach campaign for new municipal services billing from June 22, 2012 through June 30, 2013, with possible extension up to $150,000. - Dean Dorton Allen Ford, PLLC was authorized $124,000 (L619-12) to conduct the financial audit of all LFUCG funds for fiscal year 2012, and up to $15,000 (L600-12) for the Sheriff's Settlement 2011 Property Tax Audit. - Explorium of Lexington received authorization for $169,000 (L620-12) as approved in the FY2013 budget. - The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission was authorized $150,260 (L593-12) for FY2013 services. **Leases and Property** - Urban League of Lexington-Fayette County was authorized a 1-year lease for 955 square feet at Black & Williams Neighborhood Center at $4,612.65 annually (L590-12), with options for two 1-year renewals. - Lexington-Fayette County NAACP Branch was authorized a 1-year lease for 824 square feet at Black & Williams Neighborhood Center with no rental rate in FY13 (L589-12). **Other Authorizations** - Kentucky Department of Education received authorization to submit an application for the Child Care Food Program requesting $21,000 in General Fund dollars (L594-12). - Pedal the Planet, Inc.'s donation of three Fix-it Stations on the Legacy Trail, valued at $2,862, was accepted (L605-12). ## Public Comment Council members raised questions and concerns across multiple agenda items during this meeting. **Billing System and Outreach** CM Farmer requested clarification on funding for a public outreach campaign regarding a new billing system, specifically addressing the $225,000 initial funding and $150,000 potential follow-up allocation. He emphasized the importance of public education to ensure high compliance with the new system. [timestamp: 0:03:11] **Lease and Space Agreements** CM Farmer asked about differences in formatting and financial treatment between lease agreements for the NAACP and Urban League at the Black & Williams Neighborhood Center, noting confusion over why one was presented at no cost while others were not. [timestamp: 0:07:09] He also requested discussion on supporting the Actors Guild of Lexington and their space agreement with LexArts, suggesting potential for growth and improved operations. [timestamp: 0:11:03] **Billing System Ordinance** CM Farmer sought rationale behind proposed penalties, interest rates, and refund limits in ordinance amendments for the billing system, asking for confirmation these were based on standard practices from other utilities. [timestamp: 0:09:47] **Budget and Human Rights Commission** CM Stinnett questioned whether the $150,260 amount for the Human Rights Commission agreement reflected the council-approved budget, noting a discrepancy and suggesting the item be tabled until the budget passed. [timestamp: 0:11:37] **Mental Health Services Contract** CM Crosby expressed concern about the lack of formal bidding process for a three-year contract renewal with Bluegrass Regional Mental Health, particularly given an upcoming state audit of the agency. [timestamp: 0:15:56] CM Lawless and CM Henson asked follow-up questions about mental health services for inmates, including whether unconvicted inmates receive services and whether quality is monitored. [timestamp: 0:21:19, 0:23:01] CM Lawless also clarified that Bluegrass Mental Health handles only emotional or mental illness, not drug and alcohol treatment. [timestamp: 0:25:56] **Address Change Request** CM Lawless moved to separate the address change for 454 East Maxwell Street to Transylvania Park from new business items, citing concerns about 911 call data and community use. [timestamp: 0:26:31] CM Crosby requested that 911 call data for the past two years be provided to support the argument. [timestamp: 0:32:41] **Water Quality** CM Beard asked about water testing types and whether Kentucky American Water has won recent awards for water quality. [timestamp: 0:53:46] He also inquired whether infrastructure replacement costs are fully accounted for through depreciation and whether rate increases are inevitable due to declining water usage. [timestamp: 1:03:44] **Community Meeting Announcement** CM Kay announced a public meeting on June 28th at the Tate's Creek branch library to gather community input on government operations. [timestamp: 1:06:27] ## Contested Items **Street Address Change for 454 East Maxwell Street** The council debated a motion to separate the address change item from new business. The motion failed 7-8, with the Mayor casting a tie-breaking nay vote. Council members disagreed about the legitimacy of the proposed address change, with discussion centered on 911 call data and community use of the property. The failed motion meant the address change item remained part of the new business agenda rather than being handled separately. **Contract Renewal with Bluegrass Regional Mental Health** Council member Crosby raised significant concerns about the renewal of a three-year contract with Bluegrass Regional Mental Health. Crosby questioned why the contract was being renewed without formal bidding procedures. The timing of the renewal was particularly contentious given that the agency faced an upcoming state audit. In response to these concerns, the council requested documentation of the procurement history and a formal justification for renewing the contract with the incumbent provider rather than opening the process to competitive bidding. ## Approval of Summary The Council considered approval of the summary from the May 29th, 2012 Work Session. [timestamp: 00:02:39] VM Gorton and CM Myers were the key speakers on this agenda item. The Council approved the summary without dissent. ## New Business [timestamp: 00:03:11] The Council addressed new business items during this portion of the meeting. Key speakers included CM Ellinger, VM Gorton, CM Lawless, and CM Farmer. The Council approved new business items encompassing contracts, leases, and amendments. However, the meeting included a procedural matter regarding the handling of agenda items. A motion was made to separate a street address change item from the main new business discussion. This motion resulted in a tie vote, which was resolved by the Mayor casting the deciding vote against separation. The overall outcome of the new business section was approval of the presented items. ## Continuing Business/Presentations Cheryl Norton, President of Kentucky American Water, presented a comprehensive overview of the city's drinking water system to the council [timestamp: 0:34:17]. The presentation covered multiple aspects of water service operations, including infrastructure, water quality, customer service, and future challenges facing the system. Council members CM Beard, CM Lane, and CM Crosby engaged with Norton during the presentation, raising questions about several operational areas. Specific inquiries focused on water quality testing procedures and protocols, rate structures and pricing mechanisms, and the capacity of the system to meet current and future demand. The presentation was informational in nature, providing the council with detailed information about Kentucky American Water's operations and service delivery to the community. The discussion allowed council members to understand the technical and operational aspects of the municipal water system while addressing their concerns about quality assurance, customer costs, and system reliability. No formal action or decision was required as a result of this agenda item. ## Council Reports During the Council Reports section, the Council considered two referrals for further review and revision. **Actions Taken** The Council approved two motions: - A motion to refer the revision of the Council Member pay ordinance to General Government for further consideration - A motion to refer the possible revision of the Sign Ordinance to Planning and Public Works for further consideration **Key Participants** Council Members Kay and Farmer, along with Village Manager Gorton, were the primary speakers during this discussion. **Outcome** Both motions were approved, moving these items forward to their respective committees for detailed review and potential revision. [timestamp: 1:05:55] ## Public Comment/Issues not on the Agenda [timestamp: 1:07:33] No public comments were submitted for this agenda item. Mr. Mundy noted the absence of public comments, and the council proceeded to move forward with the meeting agenda. Following this brief informational update, the council entered closed session to address personnel matters. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve the summary from the May 29th, 2012 Work Session - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve new business items - **Motion** — failed (0-0): separate item W, authorization to change street names and/or individual property address numbers within various Council Districts, out of the new business items - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve the NDF list - **Motion** — passed (0-0): refer to General Government a revision of the Ordinance governing the setting of Council Member pay - **Motion** — passed (0-0): refer to Planning and Public Works the possible revision of the Sign Ordinance - **Motion** — passed (0-0): go into closed session pursuant to KRS 61.810 (1) (f) for a discussion that may lead to the discipline or dismissal of an employee - **Motion** — passed (0-0): come out of closed session - **Motion** — passed (0-0): adjourn --- ## Full transcript Thank you all. Council has been very busy. I know that all our citizens appreciate it. Thank you all very much. This is a meeting of the Council for Work Session. and first on our agenda is public comment for issues on the agenda. Mr. Mundy, nobody signed up for, no one signed up to comment on issues on the agenda today. So we'll move to our second item. There is, I'll just acknowledge there's no docket this week. There is no council meeting this week. However, the Vice Mayor has a motion. Vice Mayor. However, this is the day that we would ratify and vote to place the budget on the docket. So I'd like to go ahead and do that today. Mayor, we have finished our work. and so I move to place the fiscal year 2013 budget on the docket for first reading at the June 19, 2012 council meeting. Motion by Vice Mayor Gorton, second by Council Member Farmer. Is there discussion on the motion? All right, hearing none, then we can take a vote. All in favor of the motion, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? No. Motion carries. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You're welcome. Next on the agenda is approval of the summary. Council Member Ellinger. Actually, Mayor, I have a docket of approval. I'd like to move to place on the June 21st docket for first reading a transfer of $2,000 for my NDF neighborhood development funds account to the Salvation Arms and Support the Women and Family Shelter. So moved. Second. As motioned by Council Member Ellinger, seconded by Council Member Myers. 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 does carry. All right. I'll ask for a motion to approve the summary now. Is there a motion? Second. Motion by Vice Mayor Gordon. Second by Council Member Myers. Is there any discussion on the motion? Okay. Then we can take a vote. All in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. The motion carries. There are no budget amendments today, which allows us to go on to move on to new business. Move approval. Second. Motion by Council Member Ellinger and a second by Vice Mayor Gordon to approve new business. Is there any discussion on the new business items? Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Mayor. I had questions on several new business items, beginning first with item E, which is on page 14. This is the addendum to the contract, and I'm just asking for a clarification. I received one in our last meeting about the use of the initial $225,000 for this contract period to advertise the fact that we will be doing our own billing separately. Just walk me through this total potential estimated extension of $150,000, if you would, please, sir. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Yes, sir. The $225,000 is what we need for this summer in order to educate the public that it's same rates, same fees, different bill. Right. and we're asking for the total budget to be approved in case we need to have a follow-up based on our response to that initial advertising campaign. So this would be the first part would be for this fall, summer and fall. The second part would be after January, after we have a few months' worth of actual responses to see if our message didn't take and we need to go back and advertise more. And so after having arrived at the $225,000 number, what was then the alchemy to come up with $150,000 in the follow-up funding variety? Well, we went through a high-impact campaign and what that would cost. That's where the 225 came. And the follow-up would not be as intense, so it would be more of a steady stream instead of a big splash. It's an estimate. All right. I was interested in some background. I know we're educating the public to a whole new situation. It's a good question, Council Member Farmer. I think that our awareness for this is worthwhile and important. So I appreciate your bringing it up. And, Bill, if anybody else wants to ask a question, I don't want to interrupt. I would like to inquire a little bit about it myself. I have some other new business items, but if there are others on this, I would step aside for that. So, Bill, I think it would be worthwhile, especially for the benefit of the public, to illustrate the significance of this, the merit of this investment. and what we could lose if we don't do this well, the risks. Well, let me go on the positive first, Mayor. Okay, good. You're always that way. Thank you. We have about $60 million of revenue into three funds. One is the sewer, the other is landfill, the other is the water quality. That will be part of this billing initiative. We have been billing these for many years. It's been a unified bill with the water company. This will now be a standalone bill. So for the public to realize that and to realize it's the same services that they've been paying for but have to pay separately is the initiative. And this is a total of about six-tenths of an investment into that education, trying to make sure that compliance will be as high as possible. So if you have $60 million that you're trying to protect, and so this is much less than a 1% collection rate or a 2% collection rate that we're trying to protect. So we think it's a good investment in educating the public and to be clarifying what it is that we're doing. All right. Thank you, Bill. Councilman Farmer. If I may, my next one was on business items K and L, which are on pages 20 and 21. Both of these are the ratification of lease agreements. And I guess this is a follow-up to an earlier question I asked where when these items came through, there was kind of more of a grid and a write-down of what the projected rent would be and what we were crediting back to them. There was a different format. I'm just wondering the difference between what was presented before and these two items of business today. This is item number K. K and L on 20 and 21. Because in one instance we're providing space at no cost and the other one for some cost. Council Member Farmer, I may be able to answer those. Those are at Black and Williams Neighborhood Center. Okay. We have recommended operating in maintenance for the agencies. The NAACP's fund balance is currently at a loss. Right. So they asked for one year at no rent with the idea that they would go to regular operating maintenance in the next fiscal year. So we wanted to give them one year at no rent so that they would have a year to raise funds. So that's why they were at no rent for this coming year. Well, I'm fine with that, and I don't have a problem with it, but weren't there previous business items that showed something in red numbers when we were writing down the amount of their rental in some capacity? All of the agencies were paying operating and maintenance. None of them were paying fair market rent. Right. And that was what? That was the red. We were charging the O&M, but not the red. So that didn't apply in these two because? It did not apply in the NAACP. We wrote it all off for them for one year. All right. And that's a one-year lease. And then next year, we're going to go back and charge them operating and maintenance, just as we did all the other agencies. The Urban League, on the other hand, will be paying operating and maintenance for the coming year. But then why did these appear differently than the previous ones? The format any different? Who wrote them up or how they got blue-sheeted or something? Well, Commissioner Hamilton actually blue-sheeted these, so I don't know why they may look different than the other ones. Because I like the way those looked. It was very easy to look at and understand. Well, I'm sort of puzzled because when I pulled my copies, you know, it looked like there it is. Yeah. And that's what I thought we submitted. Okay. Because I'm like you. I think this is real easy. It's the only way I can understand it if I look at it like this. I'm trying to, I'm going to have to go back to the leg store and see what happens. If you would just forward those to us. Yes, sir. After the fact, that would be the most excellent. I appreciate it very much. Two more, Mary, and I'll be done. Item O on page 24. This is, again, back to our new billing operation. These are proposed ordinance amendments, which are all very good. I'm just wondering, will we have more later? This is a proposed ordinance amendment that will create a standard 10% penalty for unpaid bills after 15 days, amend interest on unpaid bills to match state statutory interest rates, create a two-year limit for requests for refunds, and allow fees incurred for discontinuation of service on delinquent accounts to be the obligation of the customer. These are just some of the little details we're working out in taking over this. These are the only four you've found so far, then? This is what I would call an ombudsman bill where we're trying to make, we have different ordinances that created the billing for sewer, a different one for landfill, and a third one many years later for water quality. This is trying to make sure they all read correctly and function like a utility billing. Realizing that we may find other nuances later, potentially. We may, but we've met with law. We've met with the environmental quality people, and this is what we feel we need in order to kick off on September 1. All right. I think it's a good way to start. Thank you. Mayor, the last one is just a comment just for us to have a conversation about later. Item P, which is the sublease management agreement for the Ountown Arts Center, and I have several constituents who are involved with the Actors Guild of Lexington, And I would like the opportunity for us to have some conversation about how best to treat the Actors Guild and their agreement with LexArts for their space or the space that is rented for them at the Downtown Arts Center. Because I think there's some opportunity for them to move forward kind of and grow where maybe their situation at the Arts Center right now doesn't really work for that opportunity. But we'll spend some time on that later. Certainly. Thank you, sir. Happily. Looking forward to it. Yes, sir. You bet. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Mary. I have a couple questions. One on item M, or M, as in Mary. This is the agreement with the Human Rights Commission. The council, during our budget process, actually modified the amount we're giving them and increased it. Is this $150,000 the correct amount, or does it reflect the council amount? Because I don't think it does, and I think we need to table this until the budget passes before we approve this. Does anyone want to speak? I don't know the answer to that. Is there someone here who can help us with that? I hate to do it twice. I have to go back and amend it. We might as well just put it on hold until next Tuesday or Thursday night, Mr. Maloney. This is what the mayor put in. I think we added a couple of positions and through the links process. Yeah. 50,000. It should be for $200,000. All right, well, if it is, then what is it? Before we have second ring, if we can just make sure we have the right amount. Can we confirm that then? Great. We just did it Thursday, so I know this was also blue-sheeted before that. So thank you. If we can make that. Now, on item O, I know Council Member Farmer asked about it. I'm just curious, Mr. O'Mara. I know you sat down already, but on item 0, where do we get these penalties, the 10%? Do we cabbage them from other utilities, or do we sit around a group and come up with a two-year refund rule? Where do we get these from? Are these standard practice? Yes. From where? Other utilities? We've looked at different utilities. We've looked at St. Louis. we did well i have to get with my consultants because they were the ones that actually did the survey okay good but but um if you need a list i can i don't have that off top of my head so this thing came through our work with the consultants and we believe this will help us on our collections and the 15 day is standard uh the two-year refund is what we have in other statutes so we were trying to bring that in line with what we do with others okay that's what i That's my final question, so this is in line with our other ones, if I remember. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, sir. Thank you. Council Member Stanton. Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. Commissioner Driscoll, I wanted to ask a couple questions about Item Y, which is our financial audit. Or Mr. O'Mara. You will remember we've had quite a number of discussions about the audit and how to get it in a timely manner. So I'm wondering with this, what date have you given our partner agencies to report back their audits? I need to actually send you the entire schedule. I'll find out that date. But we have our work scheduled to complete the audit prior to Thanksgiving, and our goal is even earlier than that. So I'll get you that date. So sometime in November. Is that written into the Dean Dorton Allen Ford track? We have a work plan with them and have had a number of discussions, as well as just for your information, they came before the Internal Audit Board and also talked about that date and they understood the importance of an earlier completion. I want to thank you for that and for taking input from the council about getting that earlier to the council. I appreciate your work on that. Thank you, and I'll get that date for you. Thanks. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Crosby. Thank you, Mayor. I have a question on H. I guess I'll start my question and maybe somebody will come forward. It looks like it's public safety, perhaps. My question is really more or less since I think everybody has read in the paper that the state auditor is going to be auditing this agency for lavish spending and many other things, and I was just curious about the agreement. It looks like it's a renewal, and then is the agreement pretty ironed out? I mean, I just have concerns that we have an agency that we're providing funding and agreement to that is getting ready to get audited by the state auditor for many reasons. It's my understanding this was put out to bid prior to my arrival, and then only one bid was submitted back to the government for approval. And that was a direct. Have you all considered maybe reducing the term of the contract? It means a three-year contract we're about ready to possibly enter into. We're willing. I can tell you the men and women for Bluegrass who work in our institution do a good job. If Council wants, we could put it back out to bid and see if other people would consider rebidding. Maybe I should ask, did you all have any concern knowing we were about to get into a contract when you saw that they were getting ready to get audited? I don't understand. Let me try to, instead of a scramble up to the podium, let's put in context. bluegrass has bluegrass has performed this service in the past for a long time so it was up for renewal nobody else did procurement okay would todd want to take us through maybe council member probably that would help to give a historical picture on it's my understanding that we never actually had put this out the bid up until this last year we always had an arrangement with them It may have happened years ago, but not in recent times. But we put it out for bid back in the early spring. There were some private companies that showed some interest in it, but when they found out that Bluegrass Regional was going to submit, I think a lot of them decided they couldn't compete with that, and we only got the one submittal. And so that's who we selected. I will just say on the surface, I could possibly have concerns about this. I understand we've had an agreement with them for years, but this is the first time, too, that probably I've heard that we haven't had any type of formal bidding go out. And then second, I just don't know if there's more information or if we need to send it back out to bid. It was just a little uncomfortable to me when I looked at it, and it raised some questions, but the council may not feel like it's their desire to do this. I mean, I think the process that we went through, when we did our health care services for inmates back in the fall, a lot of those same companies provide mental health services as well, and those were the people that had expressed some interest in doing the mental health piece. But when we actually gave them the opportunity to submit something, they decided that they couldn't compete, and I heard that from two different companies, and they did not submit. So, I mean, I'm not sure if putting another bid out is going to draw in someone else into the fold, if you understand. Did they happen to state why they felt like they couldn't compete? I think it's like a per-inmate, per-day fee. I'm not sure how the fee is structured, but my understanding is they could not match the prices that we were currently paying and didn't expect to be able to compete with that again. And that could possibly be because I think Woodgrass Regional Mental Health has some subsidies, whereas these private companies are not going to have that benefit. Thank you. I'll just make a suggestion. I think in consideration of Council Member Crosby's comments or inquiries, that it would be worthwhile to develop a chronology of the history of this contract and the procurement issues, the history that you're just describing, Todd. And I think it's also worthwhile to illustrate as an incumbent the benefits, I'm assuming, the benefits of incumbency in this role. Those were the considerations that had to be evaluated or examined. Right. So can you do that? Since this is new business, there's some time to examine it. Yeah, and I'll get some assistance from Community Corrections. They know much more about the history than I do, but I'll find out from previous instances how we arranged contracts with them. But we'll get that information. Okay. Thank you, Council Member Crosby. All right, thanks. Council Member Lawless? I had questions about Item H also. It says to provide offender mental health care services. So are inmates that have not been convicted receiving mental health services? Yes, ma'am. Each inmate that's presented at our intake center, if they are presenting with mental health issues, those folks from Blue Crest Mental Health are seeing them at the intake center. So the correct wording should be inmate rather than offender? It's probably a play of words, but everybody gets to seek bluegrass, whether they're convicted or not convicted, or just waiting to post a bond if it's needed. And is there any cost to the inmate for this? Not at this time, no, ma'am. I'm sorry, what? No, ma'am. Okay. And I, too, would like to see what it's based on, if it's a fee for service or if it's just a blanket contract, et cetera. I think that would be very helpful information. Okay. Thank you, Council Member Lawless. Council Member Henson? Thank you, Mayor. Director Ballard, is this a requirement for corrections to have the mental health available? Yes and no. Since we deregulated the mental health hospitals, jails across the country have become the mental health hospitals for our local population. There's no place for the police to take them and they bring them to us. So in our community, it's a necessity. It's the first chance we have an opportunity to see with the inmate. They make referrals to other doctors. We can start getting on psychotropic medications that help with their co-occurring disorders. I agree. I wanted to ask the question, when this was put out to bid, is the measurement of a quality of service, I mean, you know, maybe it's something we see that is an issue, but are we just going through the motions or are we really trying to? I'm glad that Council Member Crosby brought this up because I do think low-income individuals with mental health diagnosis have little option of mental health care. and their option would be cop care, which is Bluegrass Mental Health. I can't speak to the newspaper article that talked about the upper management and their salaries. What I can tell you is what I see in the detention center from the men and women at Bluegrass that provide the service. And from my short tenure, the service that I see them providing, they're doing a good job. They show compassion towards the inmates in trying to help them the best they can. and sometimes their help is very short-term because they may be released from custody. But those that we have time to work with longer, so far, everything I've seen I've been pleased with. Yeah, you know, I guess I'm thinking aftercare plan or something once they're released, that might reduce the number of times that they're incarcerated. But, you know, that's in a perfect world, too, so I'll just hush. Well, and when you talk about continuity of care, that's where you do run the change. If you had a private person in here running the mental health that did not have the comp care offices in the community, you could have a disconnect. Here, the same people that run your comp cares in your community are also the same ones running in our facility. So hopefully there's a better continuity of care when they leave our facility and are released back to the public. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Hanson. Thank you, Director. Councilman Lawless. Thank you, Mayor. I have just one more question about H, and then I have another question about another new business item. Previously, the Hope Center has been doing the drug and alcohol treatment for the women and, I think, men. So Bluegrass Mental Health Mental Retardation does not provide any kind of drug, alcohol, treatment? No, ma'am. It's just for emotional or mental illness? Or a combination of both. Many of our inmates that we see have what we refer to as co-occurring disorders, meaning that they could have a substance abuse issue as well as a mental health issue. Okay, thank you. Thank you. I have a question on item W. It's the W. W. All right. Let's get over there. All right. Yes, ma'am. It's address changes. D on that list. East Maxwell Street, changing to Transylvania Park. This issue arose because someone purchased a house on the corner of Maxwell and Transylvania, and it's a large old house that faces Maxwell. And when they purchased it, they added apartments, which then they did not have enough, didn't meet the .9 parking spaces. So there's a porch that goes around and a kind of old door on the side. So they put 304 Transylvania Park on that side door and started calling it 304 Transylvania Park, even though it was in the PBA, et cetera, and was sold as 454, so that they could qualify for the residential parking permits on Transylvania Park, which, as you know, is a small street. So it's six apartments. That would be possibly three permits, which would be 24 on Transylvania Park, which would take up all of Transylvania Park. So this has nothing to do with cultural or historical value. It just has to do with, and we had a conversation, and we talked about how many 911 calls had been made and what address had been given, and East Maxwell had been used for those calls prior. So this, to me, was simply when the new owner added apartments, a way to establish their requirement of parking for that many apartments, which they did not have. So for that reason, I'd like to make a motion to separate that one out. Second. There's a motion on item, what was it? It's D on here. East Maxwell Street, the name of East Maxwell Street, located at 454 East Maxwell Street, is changed to Transylvania Park, and the following number change is made to 304. Okay. Is there a motion and a second? Is there any discussion on the motion? Hearing none. If I could, can I? Yeah. I would just like to make a point. Mr. Lucas is out of town, and I was just kind of filling in for David today. The folks in that building over there have been using that Transylvania Park address for a long time. They've made over 200 calls to 911 using that address. To say that it's inappropriate to change it is, I think, a little bit misleading. They have that address posted. They use that address. We respond to that address, and it's an appropriate address. we would like to change the property record to make it match what the tenants are already using. When we pulled up the 911 calls, there were far more. 222 calls to Transylvania Park. There were about five to Maxwell Street. I would like to see that information again because that's not my recollection, but I may not have the correct memory. It's been a while. All right, there's a motion and a second. 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. No. All right, let's vote electronically then. All in favor of the motion? And opposed? All right. All right. The motion, one, two, three, four, five. Oh, my goodness gracious. Has everybody really voted? Or is this manufactured? Pardon? Well, I want to. I can't get a... The motion was to separate that item out. All right. I vote no. All right. So the motion fails. All right. All right. Does anyone else wish to speak? Two items, two new business items. I voted no. I said the motion fails, right? I don't have a, I do not have a queue for voting here, so I had to do it orally. All right. Thank you. Yes, Councilmember Crosby. The information, Councilmember Lawless, are you still going to receive the information since we don't have to vote on it formally for two more weeks? Yes, I would like to request that the 911 calls for the last year or two years be supplied. All right. We will do that. All right. No one else has signed up for new business, so we have a motion. We have a second. We can vote on new business. All in favor of a motion, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. Next on our agenda is continuing business and presentations. We need a motion on the NDF. That is a motion by Council Member Lane. Second by Council Member Beard. 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. The next issue on the agenda is the presentation on the drinking on the Lexington's water update by the Kentucky American Water, and the presentation is by the President of Kentucky American, Cheryl Norton. Cheryl, thank you for joining us today. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you to the Vice Mayor and the Council members for having me here today. I appreciate your time today. And I've had an opportunity to meet with several of you and chat about different things. But for those of you who I haven't had a chance to talk with very much, I'd just like to introduce myself. I've been in Lexington for about a year and a half now, and my family actually relocated here last summer. And I came from southern Illinois, which is where I worked for American Water previously. I've worked for American Water for almost 25 years now. And I started out in the laboratory facility there doing research and have just worked in different areas of the business as I worked through my career and so have landed here as president of Kentucky American Water. And I have to say that Lexington has been a wonderful fit, very welcoming community for my family, and I thank you for being the leaders in that community that have helped things be so smooth here and appreciate the time today. So I'm going to try to drive my own slides. Hopefully I don't have a problem with that. And when I came here, I didn't realize that Kentucky American Water had always been a privately owned utility, an investor owned utility in Lexington. So the municipal, it's never been a municipal system here. It's always been a privately owned utility. And for me, that was, I didn't realize that. So there was just a little bit of history that we put in the slide presentation that we wanted you all to be aware of in case you weren't familiar with Kentucky Americans history. But it goes all the way back to 1882. so about 125 years we've been in the area, and we joined American Water as a parent company in 1927. So there were a lot of things that happened between then and now, and I won't cover all those things, but a lot of really important things. And at one point you'll remember that we were owned by a German company, and in our 25-year history that was only a six-year period, but people really remember that as a significant part of our history. And I can say we learned a lot from the Germans, but we were happy whenever they issued an IPO in 2008 so that now we're American-owned completely and we're traded on the New York Stock Exchange. So our newest Kentucky American plant was completed in 2010, and that was to help resolve some of the water supply concerns that the people of central Kentucky had had for about 20 years. And in 2011, as you may recall, we transferred ownership of Jacobson Park to LFUCG. And we were excited about that. And it's a beautiful park. And I know that the people in the community really do love Jacobson Park. So I want to talk just a little bit briefly about today's operations. What do we look like today? We serve over 120,000 customers, about 112,000 in Fayette County, and we serve portions of 10 counties which are listed there. We have only 138 employees. A lot of people think that Kentucky American is a huge employer, and we have a lot of people taking care of all the pipes and hydrants and valves in the area, but we really only have 138 people. And we have four treatment plants and two wastewater treatment plants, both of which are up in our own county area or north of here in Rockwell Village. And the Kentucky River is our primary water source. We do still use Jacobson Reservoir for our customers here in central Kentucky. Just so that you can understand, most people don't completely understand the Public Service Commission and how they work, but they completely regulate our rates and how we perform our service. There are many requirements that they put forth about the level of service that we provide to our customers, so they're watching over us all the time. We have about 2,000 miles of main. That's a lot of water main out there under the ground. We have more than 8,500 fire hydrants, storage tanks. We pay a lot of attention to customer service, and we're very proud of our customer service. We have a customer service advocate office, which is local, that people can call if they need help. But we also have two 24-hour customer service centers. One's in Alton. It is 24-7. There's one in Pensacola that's not, they don't work 24 hours a day. But those two centers cover us for 24-7 so that we do have customer coverage. We're constantly looking at our customer satisfaction numbers. So we have some national research that's done every year, every quarter, that's done nationally for our company, including specific to Kentucky. and our ratings there say that more than 90%, about 94% of our customers are satisfied with Kentucky American Water, which makes us very proud. And so we've also done some local research using a local company and have found very, very similar numbers. So we're pretty confident in those numbers as far as our satisfaction is concerned. We've also done some work with Midway College and trying to partner with them and see from our commercial customers what are they saying about us, what are their needs. And when we got the research results back from the Midway College research, we actually found out that we had a gap. So we're always looking to improve. And so to fill that gap, our larger customers wanted a liaison. They wanted somebody who they could go to and that would be their one single contact person. And that wasn't somebody that we had. So we've created a position. We actually transferred a position from someplace else. And many of you know Charlie Bolin, who's in the audience today. And Charlie has joined Kentucky American in that capacity. He was already working at Kentucky American, but he's joined us in that capacity and is doing a great job with some of our large customers. So you'll be seeing Charlie around quite a bit. So one of the things that's been an issue for utilities across the United States is infrastructure. When I talk about 2,000 miles of Maine buried in the ground, nobody sees that, so people don't understand the kind of care that you need to take of that infrastructure. And right now, between the American Water Works Association and EPA, they think that it's going to take about a trillion dollars nationwide between 2011 and 2035 to be able to get that infrastructure back where it needs to go. They've actually issued, the American Society of Civil Engineers, issued a D- for the infrastructure across the United States. so we're working hard to invest in infrastructure at Kentucky American Water and we just want to share some of those numbers with you we typically invest about 20 to 25 million dollars each year in infrastructure and that's with main replacements main upgrades, meter upgrades or replacements, treatment plan improvements various things like that it's a huge focus for us because it's so important to being able to sustain what we do and another investment that we made recently which I know you guys are all very well aware of was in the Kentucky River Station the water treatment plant there which we talked about which should secure an ample water supply for at least the next 20 to 30 years and not just with customer service but we're always focused on continuous improvement so we're very committed to managing our operations as efficiently as we can without jeopardizing our service to our customers And so one of the things that you may have recently heard about is that we filed a certificate case or a case with the PSC that asks for permission to install a pipeline from the new treatment plant up to Owenton, which is the area in the north that we serve. By doing that, we believe that, and we can show in our business case, that we're going to be much more operationally efficient, and we can reduce our operating costs in the long run by installing that pipeline. So right now, we're just going through the process of trying to get approval to begin that construction. And that's one thing that we're looking at to try to reduce our costs wherever we can. Our average residential water bill is about $34 a month or approximately less than a penny a gallon. So some of the other improvement efforts that we've done is IT system upgrades, trying to make us more efficient internally as we do our work, a regular review of our operational structure to make sure that we have the right people in the right places. Again, creating the position that Charlie Boland's in was a way that we could really take a look at that and make things more efficient and more effective for our customers. We've had exceptional water quality, I think forever, as far as I've been able to tell. You won't hear about us getting frequent violations. Hopefully you never hear about us getting violations from EPA. But for the last 13 years, we've been a voluntary member of the US EPA's Partnership for Safe Drinking Water. And that means that we meet or exceed all the requirements. And there's only a total of 220 utilities and six in Kentucky that participate in this program. We are one of the first ones to get certified in that. Again, as we go back to the new plant in Kentucky, there was a concern over water supply deficit for about 20 years. The plant was completed in September of 2010. Since that time, we've operated at the level that we said we would operate at. We built that plant within the budget that we said we would build it in. And we feel that we're going to have plenty of water, even during the very hot, dry periods. the drought periods as well as the peak daily usage that we need through the summertime. And this is really important, I think, when you start looking at the amount of water that you need to bring industry to this community. And so we've got plenty of water for ongoing economic development in the area. And we also remain open to creating partnerships with other communities that may be in need of water. We know that there are some communities that are very concerned in drought situations about how much water they will have. So as you guys previously talked about the sewer billing agreement, we wanted to make sure that we discussed that with you and let you know kind of where we're at from our side of this. And again, in the mid-'90s, we started doing some of the billing, added on the water quality management fee in 2010, We started talking last February about concerns that we had, particularly after the PSC order came about and the impact that was going to have on the ability to get the revenue. But there are a lot of other issues that played into this for us. Our customers have been very confused about what fees they were paying and how their bills were structured. And so we wanted to clear up that confusion. And frankly, it's not our core business. It's not something that we believe that we can do on an ongoing basis and do really well. Again, our real concerns are making sure that we're serving our customers and that we have adequate water for everybody and that we're investing in the infrastructure of the system to make sure that that continues. But in August of this year, we'll have a massive IT system upgrade. It will be a phased-in process that will take about a year for us, and at that point it would be very, very challenging for us to continue trying to do the billing contracts because we're going to be dealing with changing everything about the way we do from a computer aspect and then to add on the billing was going to be a big challenge for us as well. So from an environmental stewardship perspective, Kentucky Americans are very focused on the environment. We know that it's very, very important to the quality of water that we have to provide to our customers. So we were the first utility in the state to join the Kentucky Excel program, and you can see there are a lot of other things we do there. We've given more than $100,000 in grants for community environmental programs, as well as some ripple effect scholarships for students that are interested in environmental projects and also work closely with the schools on a lot of different projects. Some of the partnerships that we have with LFUCG, we feel like we work very closely with LFUCG on a lot of different things, including the Arboretum Arbor Day, the MedTOS program, McConnell Springs, Reforest, the Bluegrass. We also work closely with Bluegrass Pride and have just done a lot of different projects with the school systems and Trout in the Classroom, the Science Fair. We're a huge supporter. We're the sponsor of the regional science fair here. And, Mayor, I know you've been there, and I've really enjoyed those science fairs. There's about 600 kids that attend those, and it's just a really great program to encourage our students. And since I come from a science background, I really enjoy being part of those science fairs. Plant tours are also an important aspect of the school that we do. And I've already pretty much covered this about the customer satisfaction, the work that we've done there. So then I want to talk just a little bit about community investment. And when I looked at these slides, I thought, oh, my, the school tax doesn't seem right. And we just dropped a few zeros. It's really about $2 million in school tax each year that we pay instead of $23,000. So there's a lot that we pay in taxes and in franchise fees back to LFUCG, and we think that that's a really important part of supporting the community, and we're happy to do that. We've had our volunteers at Kentucky American Water have provided hundreds of hours of volunteer service, and we've also given more than $250,000 in the last year in charitable contributions, which includes more than $60,000 a year that we are committed to give to customers who need help with their water payments through CAC. And here's just a few other things that we've been happy to be a part of with the community. And some of the challenges that we face in the future would be just to continue to replace our infrastructure, and there's a nationwide need for more succession planning. The average age of people in the water business is about 47 years old, and in the next 5 to 10 years we anticipate that 25 to 30 percent of our employees will be eligible for retirement. So it's a huge gap for us, and we continue to look for ways to develop our younger employees so that they'll be ready to step in. And as regulations get more and more stringent, we continue to be concerned about how we're going to meet those regulations and continue to do research to look for the best way to do that at the least cost possible. And for some communities, they have water supply concerns and needs. We don't feel that we're in that situation at all. And also, of course, we're worried about preserving our water sources because without good, clean water to start with, it costs a lot more to try to bring that along for our customers and get it to their homes in a safe way. And that concludes the presentation. So if you guys have any questions, I'd be happy to answer. All right. A few council members have signed up. Council Member Beard? Council Member Beard? Thank you, Madam. Thank you for coming and presenting this. I'm one of the ones that responded to your request to meet, but I never got a call back. I'm sorry for that. Are comparisons made between the Fayette County plants and the Owen County plants as far as water quality? And does one exceed the other? They all meet or exceed the standards set by EPA. And so the water quality is very consistent coming from the different plants. There may be a very slight difference on a day-to-day basis depending on the quality of the river water at that point in the Kentucky River. And then the next question is how much of that water from Owen County comes to Fayette County? Did you have to back down what you were doing in Fayette County to send water to Fayette County, from Owen County? not not on any given day our the amount we produce out of each plant will vary from day to day and and when we first talked about doing this plant when we got the approval the certificate case to get the approval to build the plant we anticipated that we would be sending during regular months not summer months about six million gallons a day and that's that's what we're providing out of that treatment plant. And so we make up any difference, and it just depends on how each plant is running, depending on whether we need to take a portion of the plant out of service for maintenance or things like that. So those numbers vary each day. Where is the terminus for the Owen County water? I'm sorry? Where does the water come to be distributed? There has to be some point where the... So from the new plant to Fayette County? Yes, uh-huh. Yeah, it comes down the pipeline and into the Georgetown area. The pipeline goes to the Georgetown area, and it's in that part of the distribution system. It goes out, I believe, on the northern part of the distribution. I'm not that familiar with all the hydraulics and the engineering of that. I kind of chuckled at last year. You know, we were 10 or 12 inches over our allotted. Yes, it was the wettest year in history for Kentucky. It was kind of a strange situation. It looks like the opposite is true so far this year. The very opposite. Keith, do you want to say where? Yeah, Keith Cartier with operations with the water company. The terminus is actually at the corner of Newtown Pike and Ironworks. So that's where it connects up. It's in Fayette County. That's where it connects up. And it feeds water from there, comes down, goes up. It comes into a central system, all one system. But that's where the physical terminus was, that transmission line, to the existing distribution system. And what's the size of the pipe? It's 42-inch. 42-inch? So you've got plenty of opportunity to send more water if you need to? Correct. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Beard. Council Member Lane. Thank you, Mayor. Thanks for your presentation today. My question really was addressing more in the area of quality of the water. And could you, maybe for our viewers and for me too, because I'm interested, explain what types of tests you would normally run on the water when it comes through for treatment? And then have you all won any awards lately for water quality? Thank you. Thank you, Ed. Yes, there are numerous tests that we run on the water to make sure that it's of the right quality. Those tests will range anywhere from physical types of tests as to how cloudy the water is, called turbidity, to how much disinfectant residual there is in the water, which is the chemical that you use to control the bacterial levels in the water and keep the bacteria from growing and make sure that it's safe for consumption, all the way to very complicated chemical testing. And we actually send a lot of those samples to our laboratory facility in Belleville, which is where I started my career. And we do a lot of very expensive, complicated testing for volatile organic carbons, synthetic organic carbons, nitrates, different types of metals. So there's a whole wide array of tests that we do. Many of them are required by EPA, but we also do some additional things. we look for some additional compounds that aren't yet regulated in that case. And I'm sorry, there was a second part of your question. I was just wondering if you'd want any awards for anywhere around this area. Yes, we just were recognized for several of our plants for the AWAP award, which is a statewide kind of water quality award. And so we got recognized for that. And again, the EPA Partnership Award through AWWA and EPA, They give those awards every five years, and so three years ago we won that award, and we're very proud of our water quality here. Thank you. That's all I have. Thank you very much. Thanks, Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. Welcome. Thank you. I will say you had a sense of humor when we first met, when you had first come to town, when I asked if I should put on my flow hat. Yes, I remember that meaning well. And you did laugh. So I appreciate your being here, and I wanted to ask a couple of questions. You mentioned that you have applied for, I believe, adding Owenton to the system. Correct. And when the council was in heavy discussions about paying for the treatment plant in Owen County, we discussed that the more cities that could be tapped in, so to speak, the lower everybody's rates could be because we would share the cost. Now, the treatment plant has been built, and Lexington has been the user and the payer, correct? Kentucky American is structured, their rate structure is a single tariff pricing. So even though our customers in Owenton haven't taken advantage of that plant, they've paid the same rates as the Lexington customers have paid. So essentially they've been paying for this plant all along, that capital investment, but they haven't taken advantage of that. Okay, that was going to be my question, is as you hook on more cities, and the hope is that you would, I think. Yes, the hope is that we would. Would there be any hope for Lexington customers for their rates to go down? It's unlikely that they would go down. What we would hope to do is stabilize the rates because we continue to invest $20 million to $25 million each year in renewing the infrastructure that's already in the ground, so there's a continual investment which drives additional rates. We try to keep that as low as possible, but we've determined that that's a minimum amount that we need to invest to make sure that we don't end up on one of those critical lists. So we would hope to stabilize as much as possible, but as our operating costs continue, we've been able to maintain them flat for the last couple of years, and we plan to continue to do that going forward to the extent that we possibly can. but those capital investments do drive. Okay. And then I wanted to ask you a little bit about demand versus capacity because from news media and other sources, I understand that our citizens are conserving with their water. So demand perhaps is down. I don't know for sure what it is. but can you talk a little bit about the total capacity in Lexington and the Owen County facilities and what the demand is and how much extra capacity there is? Yes. Our total capacity is about 85 million gallons per day that can feed Lexington. Our Owenton plant that feeds Owenton is at about a million gallons per day. of a million gallons of water per day. Not the new Owenton plant that you're thinking, not the Owen County plant, but the one that feeds the city of Owenton. I'm interested in the Owen County plant, the new plant. That plant is a 20 million gallon per day plant. But that's included in the 85 million gallon capacity that we have. Okay, and then the Fayette County plant on the river? is 40 mgd right keith 45 sorry okay and then of those two plants what is the total demand right now well we don't break it up by those two plants there are three plants that feed lexington there's also one on richmond road right where our office is okay and that one has a capacity of 25 25 so of the 85 million gallons per day total what's the demand right now the demand on a given day will be, I think we've hit about 55 million gallons this year in May. We hit that number. That's our highest, that's our peak demand for this year. But in 2010, the peak demand was 60, almost 67 million gallons, I believe. And last year, demand was down. I can't remember what the peak day was last year. Keith, you don't remember that peak day last year, do you? No, I don't remember that. with the wet weather. Yeah, it was probably less. And I have to say, overall, you're exactly correct, that there has been a declining usage across the country on a per-customer basis. And we've seen that here, and we actually calculated that in when we sized the treatment plant in Owen County. If you go back to that initial case where you look at the demand studies, we said that there would be some decrease in demand by each customer. Between the new plumbing fixtures and just the smaller family sizes, we anticipated that that would go down a little bit. And you end up with a balance between how much a customer is using and the amount of growth in a community. And at the time that all those demand studies were done, there was a lot of growth back in 2007, 2008 when they were looking at that. Then all of a sudden the growth dropped off dramatically, and it's been relatively very slow the last few years, as you know. So recognizing then that if usage is down and people are conserving, do you have any idea, I mean, how will you account for the, I think you don't use the term profit, you use a different term, in terms of rates and going to the PSC to maintain the, what do you call it, not profit, what do you call it? The ROE, the return on equity. Return on equity. The percent. So what is your forward thinking about that and how to maintain that? I mean, it seems to me you'll have to go for a rate increase if consumers keep conserving and usage goes down. I don't believe, and I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I believe that we're not seeing enough of a decline in the usage. It's so dependent upon the weather, to be honest. Even this winter we saw a difference in the usage because it was such a mild winter. There were a lot of things that weren't happening. The boilers weren't working as hard as what they normally would. They weren't hosing down parking garages to get the salt out. There were a lot of things. So we saw a fairly good decline. But now in May and in June, as we've approached very hot weather, we're actually seeing more usage than what we thought we would see. So you're seeing a big change in that. And I think overall we're seeing a decline on a per-customer basis. But right now we're just kind of waiting to see really where that demand goes. And we still believe that we're going to see enough variation in that that we're right on track for where we said we would be. Okay, and then my final question is, do you have any other cities on the horizon who are going to hook on? Hook on. We've talked to a couple of different cities. Nothing is so far in the works that I could share anything about the discussions that we've had. Some of them may simply be an emergency connection, but we continue to have those conversations. All right. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Beard. I'm sorry to come back, but something you said which sounded like the justification to go to the PSC for rate increases was the amount of replacement that you all will have to do on pipe that is in the ground right now. Now, is that not on some kind of a depreciation schedule and or fully depreciated at this point, and you've got essentially a free ride on those? It is on a depreciation schedule, and it's not really a free ride because if the pipe degrades to the point to where it breaks, then there's a lot of cost involved with that. I know specifically, yes, but globally you have some that have depreciated off the books, and you're still utilizing them, I'm sure. Potentially, yes. Yes, I'm sure that's probably. More than potentially, because I would imagine where I live, you had to have depreciated them. It's been 46 years since the house was built. Now, actually, pipes are on a 60-year depreciation. I think it's 60 or 70 years for pipes. For depreciation? Yes, for depreciation. And then the plants are like at 30 or 40 years. Okay. So it's possible that there is, but as we go in and replace those mains, and when we do a rate case, that depreciation is all figured in to the amount you can get back out of that capital. So it's all calculated in. And if there's less depreciation, then they calculate that in and they reduce that from rates. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Beard. I have no one else signed up to speak or comment. So, Ms. Norton, thanks very much for being here with us today. Again, thank you for allowing me to be here. Have a nice day. Thank you. All right. Next on our agenda are council reports. I'm showing Council Member Beard. Was this from your previous? I'm showing you a sign. All right, sir. All right. Now we're up for council reports. All right. Council Member Kaye. Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to make a motion to refer to General Government a revision of the ordinance governing the setting of council pay. So move. Motion and a motion by Council Member Kay, second by Council Member Farmer. 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. The motion carries. I also have an announcement. All Council members, administrators, everybody else in the room, Anybody else who's watching, cordially invited to a public meeting that I'll be conducting on June 28th at the Tate's Creek branch of the public library from 7 o'clock to 8.30 in the large meeting room. And Tate's Creek branch is at 3628 Walden Avenue. And I'll be taking comments, questions about anything that's working in government. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Mayor. I want to make a motion to place the issue of update and possible revision of the signed ordinance into the Planning and Public Works Committee. Second. Motion by Council Member Farmer, second by Vice Mayor Gordon. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing none, then we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, sir. I thought someone else had signed on, but no. All right. No other council reports? All right. Then we can move on. There is no mayor's report this week. And next on the agenda is public comment for issues not on the agenda. And Mr. Mundy says nobody signed up. All right, sir. All right, then. Thanks very much. We do have a closed session today, so I'll ask for a motion by Samara Gorton. Thank you, Mayor. I move that we go into closed session pursuant to KRS 61.810.1F for a discussion that may lead to the discipline or dismissal of an employee. Second. There's a motion by Vice Mayor Gorton to enter closed session, seconded by Councilmember K. Is there any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, we'll take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. The motion carries. We'll enter closed session now. Thank you. Thank you. Take a vote on the motion to return to open session. All in favor, please say aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Is there a motion to adjourn? Motion by Vice Mayor Gordon. Second by Council Member Crosby. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you. We are adjourned.