# Urban County Council Meeting - June 19, 2012 > Auto-transcribed civic record · June 19, 2012 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/2588 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/2588?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2012-06-19 - **Last revised**: July 17, 2026 - **Length**: 3,483 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 19, 2012, at 3:00 p.m. in the Council Chambers located at 200 E. Main St, Lexington, KY 40507. Mayor Gray presided over the meeting, which included four agenda items. The council conducted a roll call, heard an ordinance on first reading, made announcements, and received public comments from seven members of the public. One motion was voted on during the session. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the meeting on June 19, 2012: * Gorton * Henson * Kay * Lane * Lawless * Martin * McChord * Myers * Stinnett * Beard * Blues * Crosbie * Ellinger * Farmer * Ford No absences or late arrivals were recorded. ## Votes and Decisions **Ordinance 0669-12** [timestamp: 0:23:11] The council considered the first reading of the budget ordinance appropriating revenues, expenditures, and interfund transfers for multiple funds. The ordinance also adopts the Capital Improvement Program for FY 2013–2018 and approves 99.5% of transient room tax revenue for the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Tourist and Convention Commission. The motion was made by Blues and seconded by Crosbie. The ordinance was **postponed** by unanimous vote. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting included an appropriation of funding for the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Tourist and Convention Commission. The commission was allocated 99.5% of the revenue generated from the Transient Room Tax. This funding mechanism directs nearly all revenue collected through the transient room tax directly to support the commission's operations and programs. ## Public Comment Seven speakers addressed the council during public comment, with the majority of discussion focused on council salary and compensation issues. **Salary and Pay Raise Arguments** Gorton [0:04:15] urged council members to review a memo on the council's salary and thanked Connie Underwood for her assistance during the budget process. Martin [0:06:00] argued against keeping salaries flat, contending that low pay discourages breadwinners from serving and undermines good governance. Beard [0:12:40] noted that the council has not received a raise since 2008 and emphasized the principle of aligning council pay with cost-of-living adjustments. **Questions and Concerns** Kay [0:07:43] questioned whether action was needed on the salary issue, noting that the budget would govern pay if no raise was included. Lane [0:14:56] questioned whether a sitting council can increase its pay and sought clarification on the cost-of-living adjustment timeline. McChord [0:19:51] opposed raising council salaries, arguing it sends the wrong message during economic hardship, but acknowledged the need to define the council's role long-term. **Process Irregularities** Blues [0:08:25] highlighted potential irregularities in the June 12 vote due to council members moving seats and voting on open computers, raising transparency concerns about the voting process. ## Contested Items **Council Salary Increase and Vote Integrity** A heated discussion dominated the meeting regarding a proposed council salary increase. The debate centered on multiple interconnected concerns about the approval process and its legitimacy. The primary point of contention involved the transparency and validity of a vote that had taken place on June 12. Council members raised concerns that during this vote, participants had voted from different seats than their assigned positions, which raised questions about the integrity of the voting process and whether proper procedures had been followed. Beyond the procedural concerns, council members disagreed fundamentally about the authority required to approve salary changes. One perspective held that the budget itself could supersede existing ordinances regarding salary restrictions, allowing the raise to proceed through the budget approval process alone. The opposing view maintained that a formal ordinance was necessary to waive the existing salary restrictions, regardless of what the budget contained. These disagreements reflected broader tensions about governmental transparency, procedural compliance, and the proper hierarchy of governing documents. The discussion highlighted uncertainty about whether budget authority alone was sufficient to modify compensation structures or whether additional formal legislative action was required. The meeting records indicate this was a prolonged debate, suggesting the disagreement was not quickly or easily resolved, and that council members held substantively different views on both the procedural validity of the June 12 vote and the legal framework governing salary modifications. ## Roll Call [timestamp: 00:01:32] The clerk called the roll to confirm attendance at the meeting. All listed council members were present, and attendance was confirmed without issue. ## Ordinance – First Reading [timestamp: 00:02:04] Ordinance 0669-12 was presented for first reading during this meeting. The ordinance addresses appropriations across 25 funds, adoption of the Capital Improvement Program for fiscal years 2013–2018, and funding allocation for the Tourist and Convention Commission. Key speakers during this agenda item included Gorton, Martin, Kay, Blues, Beard, Lane, and McChord. Following the first reading, the ordinance was ordered placed on file for public inspection. The document will remain available for public review until June 21, 2012, allowing community members and interested parties time to examine the proposed appropriations and capital improvement plans before any further action is taken. The outcome of this agenda item was the completion of the first reading, with the ordinance proceeding according to standard municipal legislative procedures. ## Announcements During the announcements portion of the meeting, Blues raised discussion regarding two matters of council business [timestamp: 00:04:15]. The primary focus was on a council salary issue that required attention. Additionally, Blues noted the need to review the June 12 vote, indicating that council members should revisit the details and implications of that previous decision. No formal announcements beyond these two items were made during this section. The discussion remained informational in nature, with the outcome being to flag these matters for further council consideration and review. ## Public Comments [timestamp: 00:04:15] Public comments were not formally taken during this agenda item. Instead, council members engaged in an extended discussion regarding council salary matters. **Participants in Discussion** The following council members participated in the discussion: Gorton, Martin, Kay, Blues, Beard, Lane, and McChord. **Topics Discussed** Council members addressed several concerns related to council compensation: - Transparency in salary decisions - Fairness of pay determinations - Long-term implications of compensation decisions **Outcome** The agenda item was informational in nature, with no formal action taken. The discussion allowed council members to exchange perspectives on salary-related matters without formal public comment procedures. --- ## Decisions - **Ordinance 0669-12** — postponed: First reading of the budget ordinance appropriating revenues, expenditures, and interfund transfers for multiple funds, adopting the Capital Improvement Program for FY 2013–2018, and approving 99.5% of transient room tax revenue for the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Tourist and Convention Commission. --- ## Full transcript quite an audience in our chambers today. Welcome, everybody. And I will call the meeting to order. We've got two meetings today, actually. First, we have a meeting of the Council. As soon as the Vice Mayor, as soon as we all sort of get settled here, I'll call the meeting to order. And it's good to see our senior interns again today. It looks like most of y'all are in the same seat you were in yesterday. You haven't moved. You haven't moved. You enjoyed yourselves. All right. Okay, y'all. What we have today are two meetings. The first meeting is a meeting of the council for the purpose of a first reading of the budget. And so I'll call that meeting to order, and then I will ask our clerk, Susan Lamb, to please call the roll. And then I will ask Susan for a first reading of the ordinance. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Absolutely. Ms. Gorton? Here. Ms. Henson? Here. Mr. Kay? Here. Mr. Lane? Here. Ms. Lawless? Here. Mr. Martin? Here. Mr. McCord? Here. Mr. Myers? Here. Mr. Stennett? Yes, ma'am. Mr. Beard? Present. Mr. Blues? Here. Ms. Crosby? Yes, ma'am. Mr. Ellinger? Here. Mr. Farmer? Here. Mr. Ford? Here. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Next on our agenda is the first reading of ordinances. Madam Clerk. Ordinance number one, an ordinance appropriating the revenues, expenditures, expenses, and interfund transfers for the General Services District Fund, the Tenant Relocation Fund, the Urban Services District Fund, the Police Confiscated Federal Fund, the Police Confiscated State Fund, the Public Safety Fund, the Spay and Neuter Fund, the Municipal Aid Program Fund, the County Aid Program Fund, the Mineral Severance Fund, the Coal Severance Fund, the Miscellaneous Special Revenue Fund, the Police Confiscated Treasury Fund, the Fiscal Year 2013 Bond Projects Funds, the Sanitary Sewer Revenue and Operating Fund, the Sanitary Sewer Construction Fund, the Lexington-Fayette-Irban County Government Public Facilities Corporation General Fund, the Lexington-Fayette-Irban County Government Public Facilities Corporation Parks Projects Fund, the Lexington-Fayette-Irban County Government Public Parking Corporation Fund, the Water Quality Management Fund, the Landfill Fund, the Right-of-Way Program Fund, the Extended School Program Fund, the Prisoner's Account Fund, the Enhanced 911 Fund, the LexVan Program Fund, the Lexington-Fayette-Urban County Government Public Library Corporation Fund, the City Employees Pension Fund, the Police and Fire Retirement Fund of the Lexington-Fayette-Urban County Government, the Medical Insurance Fund, the Property and Casualty Claims Fund, and the reallocation of bond project funds on a divisional level by four control levels for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2013 for the Lexington-Fayton County Government and its agencies and instrumentalities, approving and adopting the Capital Improvement Program for fiscal years 2013 through fiscal year 2018 as a portion of the fiscal year 2013 annual capital improvements budget and approving funding for the Lexington-Fayton County Tourist and Convention Commission from the transient room tax and funding said funding to equal 99.5% of the revenue from the tax. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Are there any questions or comments by Council members? Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. Two, and I don't know that these need to be dealt with today, but they do need to be dealt with before the second reading of the budget. The first is that I have distributed to Council members a memo about the Council's salaries, which in particular has an item in it about the vote on June the 12th. And I would just urge Council members to carefully read this and think about whether you want to take any action regarding the vote on June the 12th. And then the second item is that I believe Connie Underwood on our behalf. And Connie, this is your last day. Thank you very much for your help to the council. We appreciate it. I believe Connie requested the ordinance which council would need turning down our raises. That's based on all the discussions last week. And so I guess I would request, I think she's already requested that ordinance from law. if law could bring us that ordinance so that we can vote on it before we vote on the budget. I think that that would put us back in kind of sync with the past and what we've done in the past. I'm assuming you want that for Thursday? Yes, please. Yeah, we'll get that to you. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Vice Mayor. All right. Councilman Martin. Councilman Martin. Thank you, Mayor. On this same topic, I know this is probably not popular, but since I'm leaving council, I can sometimes speak my piece without fear of becoming further unelectable. I would encourage the council, since I'm leaving, to not keep their paid salaries flat as they've done for the last three or four years. As someone who purports to try to have a full-time job, those of us who are working, it is a terrible strain financially to serve on the Urban County Council. And to the extent that the remuneration, the pay from the council gets lower and lower, I guess, as a real issue, folks who are the breadwinners for their families won't be able to afford basically to serve on the council. And so that's what we're doing by keeping the pay scale lower and lower and not keeping even up with inflation. I know folks may disagree with this, but what we'll end up doing is sifting out folks who basically are breadwinners for their families. from serving on the council. And I don't think that's healthy for our community and for good decision-making. I think we have a nice broad mix of folks up here, but to the extent that the pay is that someone's unable to basically continue to support their family by serving on the council, I think that does a disservice to the public. So I just wanted to throw that in and thank the mayor. Thank you, mayor. Okay. Thank you, Council Member Martin. Council Member Kaye. Thank you, Mayor. I have a question for law, same issue. I don't know who needs to respond to this from the law department, but my understanding was that since the item that we're talking about, which was about council pay raises, was not in the budget, that we did not need to take any further action. Is that not correct? If you are pleased with as it stands, that is correct. You do not need to take any action. So right now there's no raise, and the budget would be the ruling document, so we need not take any further action. That is correct. And so the question of the memo from law, I guess that's what I'm confused about. Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. In the answer to that, the memo simply reflects that there were some potential irregularities with the vote. It was noted by the folks running Granicus last week that many council members were moving around the room and sitting down at different seats and perhaps voting when someone else's computer was open. and the reason it came up is there was a question by someone about how their vote was listed. So just in fairness to bring it all to light, I wrote this memo with the help of law so that all council members know that there potentially was someone who sat at someone else's seat and voted, and it would reflect on whoever had the computer open. That's all, is it was just to notify council members that the vote on Granica stands, although the vote may not have truly reflected how each of the 14 council members voted. So when we get up and sit down at another seat and someone else has their computer screen open, and it will register their vote, not your vote if you've sat at someone else's seat. And I thought, because I had heard from a council member, that it should be noted in the record. So nothing needs to be done if council members are satisfied, but I did think that it needed to be highlighted about the tally of the votes. And I think about three different people have watched the video and have confirmed that people were moving around and sitting down and voting when they weren't at a seat where they were before. So it's just for heads up, clarity, and transparency that I sent you this memo. Okay, so that's this memo, but I thought you were asking law for... Oh, the memo to reject the... I was just trying to get us back on track with the ordinance. Okay. But my understanding, as they just responded, is that that memo was not needed. Okay. So thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, sir. I would just like to point out that that's a very different answer than the law department gave the first time council waived their salary. The first time Council waived their salary, it was required by the Law Department that you all pass an ordinance saying we waive our salary. There was no discussion that the budget decided whether the raise did or didn't go into effect. It did or didn't go into effect based on a Council vote on an ordinance. And that's the reason the ordinance was originally written, and Council voted to pass it at the time the first waiver took place. So, again, if I can, Mayor, my understanding is the way that this played itself out, there was a late item which the Council did not approve, and that once that was done, it rendered the question of our acting on the budget on our own salaries moot. Again, I would ask for clarification. I don't know what Connie Underwood or others have been told in the past, but I can tell you that when you pass your budget, if you do not include in the budget an increase in your salary, then you have, by adopting the budget, waived any salary increase. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Mayor. primarily for the audience who maybe doesn't stay glued to GTV as closely as others, and for those people on GTV who maybe missed our conversation last week. The council has not received a raise since 2008. During that period of time, it was desired because the employees were not getting raises. that we too would not get a raise. But there was a raise in 2010, and we kind of skimmed over that and didn't take a raise then. And there is a raise this year in this budget. And the way the vote went, it was a 7-7 vote, and it fails when there's a tie. We're not as we stand right now. there's not going to be a raise either for 2013. So I do math, and that's five years. Actually, six. Right. And, you know, as Council Member Martin mentioned, we all have some of the same problems that the rest of the city has. I know my pension, for instance, doesn't have a COLA attached to it. So my pension was the same as it was when I first retired in 1988. And so even though we're not talking about a lot of dollars by any means, it's more the principle of the thing. And the ordinance was written that we were to actually index our salary increases to the CPI and then take 90 percent of that. So it's not a whole lot of money, but it's the principal thing to get back on track with where we should be as far as taking care of the council members just like we tried to take care of the employees. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Beard. Council Member Lane. Yes, Keith, could you come back up? Mr. Horne, excuse me, sir. The question I always wanted to ask is, under the ordinance that sets our pay, does it not say that a sitting council cannot increase its pay, and the pay raise can only apply to a new term? And since our new term, because we have council members that are on four-year terms, The new term will be about two and a half years from now before the pay rears actually could be put into effect. But you're saying that if we leave it as it is in the budget or we put another number in there, it would still be good. It's not like that would be in conflict because that's why we had the cost of living set in that, so that the amount would go up automatically and there would be no necessary vote of the council to increase its pay. I'm not sure I followed all of that, but if you're saying that whether or not it's necessary for you to make an affirmative vote to waive the COLA from the ordinance, is that what? Well, the first question, let me ask it in two or three questions here. The first question is, can a sitting council increase its pay during its term? No. Okay. All right. Since we have council members that are on four-year terms, their term will not run out for two and a half years. That means that if we don't go back to what the ordinance says, that we have a cost of living increase, we would have no increases for two and a half years. Would that be correct? No. You could do the COLA increase next year. Okay. All right. And will that COLA increase be based on from 1972 to the current year, on which the increase is calculated, or do we deduct years in between there? I haven't been intimately involved in that examination, but I think it would have to be based on the way that the Commissioner of Finance proposed to you, because if you go all the way back, then you basically are voting yourself a raise for those years that you waived it, and that legally is probably a problem. Okay. All right. I think that sort of describes the predicament we're in. It's like a no-win situation. Thank you. All right. Council Member McCord has signed up, but I think, Vice Mayor Gordon, you wish to comment on it. That's fine. I was just simply going to respond to what Mr. Horne said. In the past, when the Council was presented the letter, they had an opportunity to waive their pay increase. We have not had that opportunity to vote by ordinance, as we're supposed to, to waive our pay increase. So we have not waived one since 2008. including all the years that our employees did not receive an increase. So, I mean, technically, I mean, I'm not an attorney, but technically if we had done what was done every year in the past up to 2008, we would have had the opportunity by ordinance to say we reject a pay raise. And we did not do that. That is just a fine technical point, and some might argue that by passing the budget, we waive our pay increase, but that is not, I don't think a budget should supersede our ordinances. I may be wrong about that, but our ordinances are in place to be followed. So I think it's a whole other discussion that we could have, and I appreciate that law was willing to talk with me at length about this, and if council members are willing to do anything about it or want to do anything in the memo, there is a way to do that through a committee of the whole. And you're certainly free to disagree with what I'm saying about when you adopt a budget, But I can tell you that there are other ordinances you supersede when you adopt the budget, one of those being the pay-to-work or whatever the automatic increase in salaries for employees is. Your budget is always going to supersede various types of ordinances, as much as the state budget supersedes certain state statutes. World of work. Yes, world of work. All right, Council Member McCord. Thank you, Mayor. Just very quickly, I think I voted against it because I don't think there's anything more disdainful than elected officials sitting here talking about raising their own salaries. But at the end of the day, this government going forward has to decide what it's going to be because, see, we're stuck in the middle. Oklahoma City, their council members are much like our school board. They get paid about $1,200 a year. It's truly public service, and you know what you're getting into there. Louisville's city council members make about $48,000 a year, and so they have the opportunity to work that into their work. We make $26,000, and as Council Member Martin said, it puts you in a very strange spot because this job takes a great deal of time if you care anything about it. And for $26,000, it can do some interesting things to your other incomes. It used to be that you could only be one of the three R's to be on council, retired, rich, a realtor. So you've got a lot different bunch up here that are doing this out of a great deal of sacrifice. And at the end of the day, though, what our employees need to understand, and especially every one of those employees that have blasted this council over the last four years over what they deserve and how much we should increase pay, This council has led from the front since 2008 has not taken what is legitimately ours, hasn't taken a pay increase, has absolutely waived that and has led from the front. And so when this government starts talking about some of the pain that it's felt and so forth, this council and the members that have sat up here over the last number of years have led from the front. And we're doing that again because in the times that we're in right now, there is a tremendous amount of pain in our economy. And the reason I voted no was that I don't think that that sends the right message. But I think that going forward, this council needs to figure out what it's going to be when it grows up. Is it going to be truly public service? Is it going to be this is what you know you're going to get? You don't get paid a lot to do this. Or is it going to be something that legitimately, as Council Member Myers says all the time, are we going to have the tools to do what we can do? Let me give you, for instance, what Louisville has to work with. Every city council member who serves the same size district we do is paid $48,000 roughly, has a full-time staff member, has about $100,000 to use just in capital projects in their district, and has about $20,000 to give towards nonprofit. What we have is about $26,000 in salary. We have our own aid. We have $10,000 to give to nonprofits, and we run our offices on $6,000 a year. And so at the end of the day, it makes it very, very difficult for us. But the one thing that I'm proud of, of this group up here and some of the folks that have sat in these seats prior to some of these folks, but since 2008 is, is that we've led from the front. And this council has said, you know what, we'll take the first hit. And every single time we've taken that hit. And so I want folks in the audience, especially the senior interns, to understand this is where we are. But I will continue to vote no against this because I do think it sends the wrong message for elected folks in the times that we're in right now to look at increasing their own salaries. Thank you, Mayor. All right. Thank you, Council Member McCord. I have no other council members signed on to speak. Are there any other motions, any announcements for the council meeting? All right. I don't have anyone signed up for public comments. So without public comments, then I will ask for a motion to adjourn the council meeting. Council Member Blues, a motion by Council Member Blues, second by Council Member Crosby to adjourn. Is there any discussion on adjournment? All in favor, please say aye. Opposed, no. The council meeting is adjourned. All right. Now we can move into our work session. And, Mayor, just if you don't mind, just give us just a second for transition, please. Thank you. Thank you. It's that way the record gets on the system.