# Urban County Council Work Session - August 14, 2012 > Auto-transcribed civic record · August 14, 2012 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/2657 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/2657?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2012-08-14 - **Last revised**: July 17, 2026 - **Length**: 32,366 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 Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government held a meeting on August 14, 2012, presided over by the Mayor. During the meeting, the body took 19 motions and votes, heard 6 public comments, and addressed 11 agenda items. The meeting included a mix of outcomes: two lease agreements for Metro Employees Credit Union locations were tabled, while other items were passed, approved, deferred, or presented for informational purposes. Key approvals included the Tates Creek Sidewalk Improvement project, Ad Valorem Tax Rates Presentation, Neighborhood Development Funds from August 8, 2012, and the Itinerant Merchant Task Force Report Out. Two items—School Crossing Guards and the Public Safety Committee Summary from July 10, 2012—were deferred for later consideration. Additionally, two informational presentations on the Capacity Assurance Program (CAP) were delivered to the body. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the meeting on August 14, 2012: * Council Member Beard * Council Member Lawless * Council Member Crosby * Vice Mayor Gordon * Council Member Farmer * Council Member Ellinger * Council Member Stennett * Council Member Martin * Council Member Henson * Council Member Blues * Council Member Lane * Council Member Myers * Council Member Kaye * Council Member Ford * Council Member McCord * Council Member Wallace * Council Member O'Keefe * Council Member K * Mayor No council members were absent or late. ## Votes and Decisions The council conducted multiple votes throughout the meeting, with most passing by voice vote and several conducted electronically. **Docket and Procedural Motions** Council Member Lawless moved to place the requested rezoning on the docket without a public hearing, seconded by Council Member Crosby. The motion passed by voice vote [timestamp: 0:15:15]. Council Member Farmer then moved to approve the docket, seconded by Vice Mayor Gordon, which passed by voice vote [timestamp: 0:15:48]. Council Member McCord moved to place installation of a four-way stop at Boston Road and Wyndham Hills Drive on the docket, seconded by Council Member Myers. This motion passed by voice vote [timestamp: 0:17:21]. The docket as amended was subsequently approved by voice vote [timestamp: 0:18:58]. Council Member Beard moved to approve the summary, seconded by Council Member Myers, and the motion passed by voice vote [timestamp: 0:19:29]. **Budget and Tax Matters** Council Member Ellinger moved to approve budget amendments, seconded by Council Member Myers. The motion passed by voice vote [timestamp: 0:25:13]. Council Member Lane moved to place an ad valorem tax for streetlights on the docket at a rate of .034 per $100 of assessed value, seconded by Council Member Martin. This motion failed by electronic vote [timestamp: 1:51:48]. Council Member Farmer moved to keep ad valorem tax rates the same for General Services and Urban Services Funds, seconded by Vice Mayor Gordon. The motion passed by electronic vote [timestamp: 2:33:41]. The health department ad valorem tax rate of .028 was approved by electronic vote on a motion by Council Member Farmer, seconded by Vice Mayor Gordon [timestamp: 2:51:16]. Council Member Farmer moved to approve the soil and conservation district ad valorem tax rate at .000433, seconded by Council Member Ford. The motion passed by electronic vote [timestamp: 2:52:53]. Council Member Stenet moved to amend the extension district ad valorem tax rate to a 4% limit, seconded by Council Member Beard, and the motion passed by electronic vote [timestamp: 3:01:15]. The amended extension district ad valorem tax rate at the 4% limit was subsequently approved by electronic vote [timestamp: 3:04:46]. **Committee Referrals and Other Matters** Council Member Farmer moved to refer items CC and EE to the General Government Committee, seconded by Council Member Kaye. The motion passed by voice vote [timestamp: 1:05:01]. Vice Mayor Gordon moved to approve Neighborhood Development Funds for the East End Reunion Committee, seconded by Council Member Kaye. The motion passed by voice vote [timestamp: 3:34:17]. Two motions regarding itinerant merchant matters were made. Council Member Henson moved to place the itinerant merchant ordinance in the Planning Committee and the pilot program in the Economic Development Committee. These were subsequently consolidated when Vice Mayor Gordon moved to send both items to the Economic Development Committee, seconded by Council Member K, and the motion passed by voice vote [timestamp: 3:38:11]. Vice Mayor Gordon moved to approve the Mayor's report, seconded by Council Member Beard, and the motion passed by voice vote [timestamp: 3:46:32]. Council Member Senate moved to adjourn, seconded by Council Member Ellinger, and the motion passed by voice vote [timestamp: 3:47:52]. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting included three significant financial actions: **Streetlight Operating Deficit** An ad valorem tax increase of $2.5 million was approved as an amendment to cover an operating deficit for streetlights. **Utility Franchise Fee Increases** Franchise fee increases were amended for electric and natural gas utilities provided by Kentucky Utilities to support the streetlight fund. The increase totals $2.5 million in FY13 and $4 million in FY14. **SAFER Grant Appropriation** A budget appropriation of $22.5 million was approved for the Fire Department to fund 25 additional firefighters through a SAFER grant. ## Public Comment Five speakers addressed the Metro Employees Credit Union lease rent waiver, and one speaker raised concerns about a sidewalk project cost increase. **Metro Employees Credit Union Rent Waiver** Piper Graham, representing Metro Employees Credit Union, spoke at [timestamp: 0:01:06] requesting a waiver of base rent for city-owned facilities. Graham emphasized the credit union's 72-year history as a no-cost employee benefit and highlighted its critical role in providing low-interest loans and financial services to city employees, particularly those with low credit scores. Debbie Tester, a long-time credit union member, spoke at [timestamp: 0:08:11] urging the council to reconsider the rent proposal. Tester expressed concern that the credit union might close and that she would lose access to affordable financial services. Priscilla Sullivan, a retiree and credit union member, spoke at [timestamp: 0:09:18] sharing her personal experience of financial assistance from the credit union. Sullivan urged the council to reconsider the rent increase to preserve this vital employee benefit. James Jackson, a retired assistant police chief and credit union board member, spoke at [timestamp: 0:10:23]. Jackson emphasized the credit union's family-oriented, educational, and financial support role for city employees and their families, urging the council to reconsider the rent proposal. Ada Jennings, a long-time employee and credit union member, spoke at [timestamp: 0:12:03] describing how the credit union helped her and her family achieve financial stability. Jennings expressed hope that the council would preserve this essential benefit. **Tates Creek Sidewalk Project** John McCarty, a resident affected by the Tates Creek sidewalk project, spoke at [timestamp: 1:31:22] expressing concern about a 30.8% cost increase. McCarty questioned the transparency and accountability of the project's management and urged the council to review the change order. ## Contested Items **Metro Employees Credit Union Lease Agreement** The proposed lease agreement for the Metro Employees Credit Union generated heated discussion among council members. The central concerns focused on the financial impact to the credit union, the absence of a formal agreement, and the broader implications for city employees. Multiple council members expressed worry about the potential closure of the credit union and emphasized the need for a formal, long-term relationship to protect the institution and the employees it serves. **Tates Creek Sidewalk Project Cost Increase** The Tates Creek sidewalk project became a point of contention due to a 30.8% cost increase. Residents and council members raised concerns about the lack of transparency in project management. One resident specifically criticized the council's handling of the change order and questioned accountability for the significant budget overrun. The dispute centered on how the project had been managed and communicated to the public. **Ad Valorem Tax for Streetlights** A motion to increase the ad valorem tax for streetlights to cover the operating deficit resulted in a split vote and failed to pass. Council members were divided on the appropriate funding mechanism for the service. The disagreement involved whether to use property taxes or franchise fees to fund streetlight operations, and whether it was fair to burden only those properties with streetlights through an ad valorem tax increase. This fundamental disagreement over funding philosophy and equity prevented the measure from gaining sufficient support. ## Lease Agreement for Metro Employees Credit Union Main Office [timestamp: 1:05:01] The council discussed a proposed lease agreement for the Metro Employees Credit Union's main office located on Versailles Road. Key speakers in the discussion included Piper Graham, Council Member Beard, Council Member Martin, and Council Member Lane. Multiple council members expressed concern about the financial impact of the lease on the credit union and its implications for city employees. The discussion centered on how the proposed terms would affect the organization's operations and the employees it serves. Rather than voting to approve the lease agreement, the council voted to table the motion. The item was referred to the General Government Committee for further study and review before any final decision would be made. ## Lease Agreement for Metro Employees Credit Union Phoenix Branch [timestamp: 1:05:01] The council discussed a lease agreement for the Metro Employees Credit Union's Phoenix branch. The discussion paralleled considerations from a previous agenda item (item CC) regarding similar lease matters. **Key Speakers and Concerns** Council members Piper Graham, Beard, Martin, and Lane participated in the discussion. A primary concern raised during the debate centered on the financial sustainability of the credit union. Specifically, council members questioned whether the credit union could remain financially viable if rent obligations were imposed as part of the lease agreement. **Outcome** The item was tabled, meaning the council postponed further action on the lease agreement. Additionally, the matter was referred to the General Government Committee for further review and consideration. ## School Crossing Guards Council Member Farmer raised concerns about a perceived reduction in school crossing guards during this agenda item. [timestamp: 1:13:13] Farmer cited resident complaints regarding safety issues on St. Ann Drive and Clay's Mill Road, indicating that community members were worried about the impact of fewer crossing guards in these areas. Commander Thomas Kurtz, representing the traffic section, acknowledged that a reduction in crossing guards had occurred. However, he attributed this decrease to two specific factors: the elimination of redundant crossings and the adoption of alternative safety measures by the schools themselves. Kurtz's explanation suggested that the reduction was part of a deliberate effort to streamline operations rather than a resource constraint. The discussion reflected a tension between the council's concern for resident safety and the traffic section's operational decisions. While Farmer brought forward community concerns about specific roadways, Kurtz provided context suggesting the changes were intentional and supported by alternative safety protocols implemented by schools. The outcome of this agenda item was deferred, meaning the matter was not resolved during this meeting and would be revisited at a future date. ## Tates Creek Sidewalk Improvement The council discussed a significant cost increase for the Tates Creek sidewalk improvement project [timestamp: 1:31:22]. The project experienced a 30.8% cost increase, which the engineering team attributed to two primary factors: signalization upgrades and delays in right-of-way acquisition. **Key Concerns** Council Member McCarty raised concerns about the lack of communication and transparency regarding the cost overrun and project delays. McCarty's criticism focused on how the council and public were informed about the scope changes and timeline extensions. **Project Details** The engineering team, represented by Mr. Paulson and Bob Bayard, explained the reasons for the increased costs and extended timeline. They outlined how the signalization upgrades and right-of-way acquisition process contributed to the project's expanded scope and budget. **Outcome** The council voted to approve the Tates Creek sidewalk improvement project despite the 30.8% cost increase. ## Ad Valorem Tax Rates Presentation [timestamp: 1:36:19] Commissioner Driscoll presented proposed ad valorem tax rates for the General Services and Urban Service Funds. The presentation included options for rate increases of up to 4% as a potential strategy to avoid voter recall. **Key Participants** The discussion involved Commissioner Driscoll as the primary presenter, with participation from Ryan Barrow and Bill O'Mare. **Presentation Content** Commissioner Driscoll outlined the proposed ad valorem tax rate adjustments for two fund categories: General Services and Urban Service Funds. The presentation included multiple rate increase options, with increases up to 4% presented as part of the discussion around potential fiscal strategies. **Outcome** Following the presentation and discussion, the council voted to maintain current ad valorem tax rates rather than implement the proposed increases. ## Capacity Assurance Program (CAP) Presentation [timestamp: 3:05:58] Charlie Martin presented the Capacity Assurance Program Task Force's progress to the council. The presentation focused on the banked credit system designed to manage sewer capacity under the consent decree. **Program Overview** Martin explained the framework for the Capacity Assurance Program, which uses a banked credit system as the mechanism for managing available sewer capacity. The presentation outlined how this system would function to allocate and track capacity usage. **Key Topics Covered** The presentation addressed: - Key decisions made by the Task Force - Implementation challenges identified during the planning process - Requirements for moving forward with the program **Council Action Required** Martin indicated that the final Capacity Assurance Program plan requires council approval before implementation can proceed. **Participants** The presentation involved Charlie Martin as the primary presenter, with Joe Herman also identified as a key speaker during this agenda item. **Outcome** This agenda item was informational in nature, with the presentation serving to brief the council on the Task Force's work and prepare them for the approval decision needed on the final plan. ## Neighborhood Development Funds - August 8, 2012 The council discussed and approved the allocation of Neighborhood Development Funds (NDF) to the East End Reunion Committee for an upcoming event. [timestamp: 3:34:17] Vice Mayor Gordon and Council Member Ford were the key speakers on this agenda item. The council voted on a motion to approve the NDF request from the East End Reunion Committee. The motion passed unanimously, indicating full council support for the fund allocation to this community event. ## Itinerant Merchant Task Force Report Out The task force presented its report on itinerant merchant regulations during this agenda item. [timestamp: 3:36:25] **Key Speakers:** - Council Member Henson - Vice Mayor Gordon **Presentation and Recommendations:** The task force report included recommendations regarding itinerant merchant policy. The task force proposed that both the itinerant merchant ordinance and an associated pilot program be referred to the Economic Development Committee for further examination and review. **Outcome:** A motion to refer both the itinerant merchant ordinance and pilot program to the Economic Development Committee passed. The item was approved, advancing these matters to the committee level for continued deliberation. ## Public Safety Committee Summary July 10, 2012 [timestamp: 3:39:51] Council Member Lawless reported on the Public Safety Committee meeting held on July 10, 2012. Two agenda items were discussed during that meeting: - Public safety disability claims - Chronic nuisance ordinance Both items were left in committee for further study. No motions were made regarding either item during the committee meeting. The outcome of this report was that the matters remain deferred pending additional review by the committee. ## FY 2013 Ad Valorem Tax Rates Presentation The council received a presentation on proposed ad valorem tax rates for fiscal year 2013, with discussion occurring approximately 1 hour and 36 minutes into the meeting [timestamp: 1:36:19]. **Key Speakers and Presentation** Commissioner Driscoll, Ryan Barrow, and Bill O'Mare led the discussion on the proposed tax rates for various districts, including the urban service fund. **Issues Discussed** The presentation detailed implications of potential rate increases, with particular attention given to the impact on streetlight funding. The council examined how changes to tax rates would affect this essential service and the broader implications for district operations. **Outcome** Following the presentation and discussion, the council approved the agenda item. The council ultimately chose to maintain current tax rates rather than implement the proposed increases. ## Capacity Assurance Program (CAP) Presentation Charlie Martin presented an update on the Capacity Assurance Program (CAP) task force's progress [timestamp: 3:05:58]. The presentation focused on the development of a banked credit system designed to manage sewer capacity under the consent decree. Martin outlined the task force's key decisions and discussed the implementation challenges associated with establishing the new system. The banked credit approach represents a mechanism for tracking and allocating sewer capacity resources in compliance with the consent decree requirements. The presentation was informational in nature, providing the meeting attendees with an overview of the CAP task force's work and the current status of the program's development. No formal action or decision was required as a result of this agenda item. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): place on the Docket for the August 16, 2012 council meeting, an ordinance changing the zone from a Wholesale and Warehouse Business (B‐4) zone to a Professional Office (P‐1) zone for 0.6478 net acre, with dimensional variances, for property located at 620 South Broadway without a public hearing - **Motion** — passed (0-0): place on the Docket for the August 16, 2012 council meeting, a 4‐Way Stop at the Wydham Hills and Boston Road intersection - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve the amended Docket - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve the July 10, 2012 Work Session summary - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve the Budget Amendments - **Motion** — passed (0-0): change item x to “authorization to re‐name the Valley Park Neighborhood Building as the Jesse Higginbotham Neighborhood Center.” - **Motion** — passed (0-0): refer items cc and ee (Authorization to execute a Lease Agreement with the Metro Employees Credit Union for space within the front building at the Versailles Road Campus and Authorization to execute a Lease Agreement with Metro Employees Credit Union for a space within the Phoenix Building) to the General Government Committee - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve the New Business - **Motion** — passed (0-0): adjust the agenda to discuss the FY2013 Ad Valorem Tax Rates Presentation first, followed by the Capacity Assurance Program (CAP) Presentation - **Motion** — failed (0-0): place on the docket for the August 16, 2012 Council meeting a separate ordinance levying the ad valorem tax for Street Lights in the Full or Partial Urban Services Districts at a rate of $.034 on each One Hundred Dollars ($100.00) of assessed value. A portion of this tax would be subject to recall petition and vote or reconsideration pursuant to KRS 132.017. Motion failed 3‐ 11 (Lane, Myers, and Martin voted yes) - **Motion** — passed (0-0): call the question - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve option 1 for the General Services Fund 1101 and Urban Services Fund 1105 which would keep all rates the same as last year - **Motion** — passed (0-0): call the question - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve the Health Department rate at the level recommended by the Administration - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve the Soil and Water Conservation rate at .000433 as indicated - **Motion** — passed (0-0): change the Extension rate to .0033 - **Motion** — passed (0-0): amend the motion to a ratio of 4% - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve the NDF list - **Motion** — passed (0-0): amend Gorton’s motion adding the East End Reunion Committee to the NDF list for the August 16, 2012 docket - **Motion** — passed (0-0): place the Itinerant Merchant Ordinance into the Planning and Public Works Committee - **Motion** — passed (0-0): place the Itinerant Merchant Program Pilot Program into the Economic Development Committee - **Motion** — passed (0-0): place both items into the Economic Development Committee - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve the Mayor’s Report - **Motion** — passed (0-0): adjourn --- ## Full transcript Our members of the audience, greetings. This is a meeting of the work session of the Council. And first on our agenda is public comment for issues on the agenda. And has anyone signed up for public comment for issues on the agenda? All right. Okay. Yes, ma'am. Please come forward to the podium. And if you would, please, your name and address. All right. Yes, ma'am. Good afternoon. My name is Piper Graham, and I am the president at Metro Employees Credit Union, which has been a no-cost employee benefit to employees for 72 years. I'm here today representing my board of directors, which is made up of both active and retired city employees, as well as our close to 4,000 members, which are comprised of city employees from the divisions of police, fire, solid waste, corrections, streets and roads, just to name a few. Before you today are two agenda items pertaining to the credit union, item CC, which is a lease agreement for our main office on Versailles Road, as well as item EE, which is a lease agreement for our branch in the Phoenix Building. I'm here today in hopes that you will consider waiving the base rent that the city is proposing that the credit union pay. MECU was founded in 1940 by eight city employees, and it was founded as a no-cost employee benefit. Our first full-time employee was hired in 1965 and conducted business actually from his desk in what is now the District Court Building. In 1974, we moved to the basement of that same facility. In 1984, we were relocated to the Graphic Art Office of Public Information. In June of 1988, we moved to 240 Clark Street. At that time, we also opened a second branch in the Police Roll Call Center. And we operated that from November of 2000 to September of 2003, at which time we were approached by then-acting CAO Charlie Bolin, and he asked us if we would be interested in opening a second office in the Phoenix branch so that city employees would have easier access to their credit union in the downtown area. Then again, he came to us in 2005, and he asked us if we would be interested in moving to the Versailles Road government campus. At that time, we were told the city did not have the funds to renovate the Versailles Road government campus, and they asked us if the credit union would be willing to pay the fix-up cost for that facility, and in return, we would be able to occupy that space rent-free as we had done since 1940. The credit union board at that point voted to spend $225,000 to renovate the Versailles Road office. And we did that by depreciating the expense through June of 2016. And the board voted to do that with the understanding that we would not also be paying rent. Metro Employees Credit Union is a people-helping-people, not-for-profit financial cooperative. What's different about us is our charter only allows us to serve city employees and their families. We are not able to serve the general public. We are specifically for city employees. Unlike for-profit banks, we are owned by our members, in this case city employees. What this means is that any money that the credit union makes is returned to those employees in the form of services, dividends, or lower loan rates. On the flip side, any expenses that the credit union incurs are also passed to city employees in the form of additional fees, lower dividends, or higher loan rates. Metro Employees Credit Union provides a full complement of services that many of our employees could not obtain elsewhere. We consistently make loans for as little as $200 to get city employees to their next paycheck. Piper, excuse me just a minute. If you're close, are you close to the three minutes? Did someone, oh, you're... And I have somebody who signed in for me, but I promise I only need two more minutes. That's okay. That's great. You have someone who's ceded your time. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, sir. Our credit union has a longstanding tradition of paying city employees a day early at the credit union's expense, and we currently have 1,350 payroll deductions to savings and 737 to loans every payday. In addition to helping city employees with their financial needs, we have also worked hand-in-hand with LFUCG on various projects. Just this summer, the Division of Youth Services came to us and asked us if we would assist with the summer youth program. And so what we did is we went to the orientations for the summer youth and we opened accounts for them. We taught them about financial management. We actually attended their sessions on one Friday and we did some financial counseling for them. And in addition, we cashed their paychecks for free, even if they weren't members of the credit union. We just did that as a service to the city. Last year, Commissioner Mills of the Department of Social Service approached us and needed a no-fee account for their representative payee program, and we were able to provide that. When the city switched to the new PeopleSoft program, the credit union was contacted to ask if we could facilitate that transaction or transition, and at that time, we attended the training sessions with employees. We agreed to provide kiosks in both of our offices so that we could assist employees with printing out their pay stubs and understanding how their pay stubs worked. A project that we would love to help the city facilitate is the initiative to mandate direct deposit. I know that's something that you all have been working on, and I feel like our credit union would be a valuable asset to the city because all city employees are eligible for membership in the credit union, and we could go out to the city agencies, open accounts for the unbanked, banked, and maybe help those employees feel more comfortable with how financial services work than a traditional bank setting would be. Some of you may have taken the time today to look at our financials, and you may have thought, well, they make money. They can afford to pay the rent that is being proposed. But what you may not realize is the credit union income that is generated is needed to support our asset growth of around a million dollars a year. Unlike other organizations, we're not allowed to issue stock to generate capital, and we cannot accept grant funds. So the only way that we can build capital as a credit union is through net income. And without sufficient capital, we would be subject to regulatory oversight, and we would be forced to limit deposits and loans to city employees, and I don't think any of us would want that. Metro Employees Credit Union has been a consistent benefit for this government for 72 years. In a time of limited pay raises, rising insurance costs, low employee morale, taking away another employee benefit would just be another blow to employees. So I ask you today to consider waiving the base rent that the credit union has been asked to pay. Thank you. Thank you, Mick Graham. All right. All right. Does anyone else wish to speak to issues on the agenda? Okay. All right. So, Ms. Debbie Tester. Ms. Debbie Tester. Hi. Yes, my name is Debbie Tester, and I live at 2026 Memphis Court. I've been a member of the credit union for 22 years since I've started here. My husband's been there 27 years, and we get loans there at a cheaper rate than we would at the bank. And it really helps our family. All my family members have, even my grandsons have a credit, I mean not credit, but has an account there. And it really does help. They are learning, the six-year-old and nine-year-old is learning about having a banking account and being able to keep their money and stuff. So I wish you really would not because I'm afraid they'll close down. And I don't think I could get one at a bank. with what we get now. So I wish you would kind of reconsider the... Thank you. Thanks, Debbie. Okay. Good afternoon. My name is Priscilla Sullivan. I live at 1059 Redwood Drive in Lexington, Kentucky. I am a retiree of the Lexington Fair, Irving County Government of 27 years. And I am also, I believe, a member of the credit union since I became an employee of the city. And it is a benefit. It's something that we normally have issues with employees and others who are starting out, because I know I started out many years ago and financially was not able to go to the bank to get certain types of loans. and I was able to become financially, they give you assistance with that. And it is a benefit, and I hope you will reconsider. Thank you, Linda. Thank you, Ms. Sullivan. Anyone else? Yes, sir. Hello. My name is James Jackson. I'm a retired assistant police chief. Most of you know me. But I'm here on behalf of the Metro Employee Credit Union. I've worked for the Division of Police for 36 years, and ever since then I've been pretty much a member of the credit union. And I don't know if you had an opportunity to either join or participate in the credit union, but it is a family environment. And I understand business, I understand financial situation and budget cuts and things like that, been a part of all of that. But this credit union is trying to provide for the families and employees of the urban county government to try to make life easy for them. A lot of times when there are budget cuts and restraints going on, it affects the employee, which is sad. But I know business is business. We just ask you to reconsider what you're considering as far as having us pay the rent. I'm also a board member as well for the credit union, and I'll be on there until I'm voted out. My three boys, ages 13, 14, and 11, are also members, and I have two of them with me. and one of them is going to be late for football practice, but I think it's important enough for the come here to say that it is a benefit, and it's very educational not only for the kids, but just the things they do for families and friends, other urban county government employees, it's very beneficial, and I just hate to see that taken away from them. And I applaud you all for what you do. You have a hard task in front of you, but God bless you and be safe. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. J.J. Jackson. All right. Is that anyone else wish to speak? Ms. Jennings. Ada. Yes, ma'am. Welcome to the podium. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm going to try and be quick with this. Ada, you might want to tell us. I know we all know you, but maybe everybody out there in the TV world doesn't. So if you'll give your name and all that. Okay. I'm Ada Jennings. I live at 580 East 4th Street here in Lexington. I'm an employee of every kind of government and I'm a past board member of MBCU and I'm also a member ever since I started working here. When I moved to Lexington, I started working at a low pay. So when I came in, it was very difficult for me to get any kind of accounts or anything at the banks and they took my money. So when I had an opportunity to join the Metro Employees Credit Union, I did so. And from that point on, my life changed. As my daughter grew up, she also became a member when she went off to school. I was able to be sure that she had funds that were available immediately instead of money orders or having to pay for things. So as a member, it means a lot to me. A lot of people that don't come in with a lot of money and they don't have a lot of opportunities to be able to gain things. Through the credit union, I've been able to purchase automobiles. I've been able to save and put myself in a position that I am not a homeowner because of all of the things that I learned as being a part of the credit union. And what it brings to us as employees, it is as much a benefit to me as my health insurance is. So I'm hoping that you will take a look at all of the opportunities that the employees have that are on the lower end of our pay scale that really depends on the credit union for the benefits that are available to them. And another thing, every year we have a dinner, and I come into that dinner, and I know the president and all of the officers. There is not another company, mortgage company, bank, or any other organization that I have ever been involved with, that when I came in, they could greet me by my name, and they actually knew who I was, who my family is. So I'm asking you to consider it and hope that it will still be a very good benefit for us here as urban county employees. Thank you. Thank you, Aidan. All right. Thank you all very much. All right. Council Member Beard, you wish to speak. This will be on new business, as you probably know, right? If you were to speak to this issue, it will come up again in new business. You want to speak to it then? I think I want to now because I want to ask Ms. Graham a couple of questions, if I might. Well, wouldn't it be appropriate for us to, I think it would be appropriate for us to speak to it when it's on the new business agenda. That would be fine if she stays to answer the question. No, she'll be here. Okay, that's fine. Thank you. Pardon? Oh, Julian, you're talking about Commissioner Hammond. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Is that okay? Is that all right then? That's good? All right. She is going to be here. Okay, thanks, Piper. All right then. Now we can move on to item number two on our agenda, which is requested rezonings and docket approval. I need a motion for ordinance number four under the first reading. Council Member Lawless, this is in your district. Are you prepared for a motion? Yes. All righty. I move that it be placed on the docket without a public hearing. All right. It's a motion by Council Member Lawless, second by Council Member Crosby. 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. Is there a motion to approve the docket? Second. Motion by Council Member Farmer, second by Vice Mayor Gordon. Is there any discussion on the motion? Do we need to go back to kind of complete this on the docket? We're in discussion now. Is it about the docket, Council Member Wallace? Yes. Okay, then please proceed. Thank you. I have some questions about item M. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, move approval. It's understandable. Five weeks it has an effect. Yes. Or it does on me. All right. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right, then. If hearing none, we can take a vote. All in favor of the motion to approve the docket, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. Mayor. Mayor, I just need a motion. I was trying to get attention, but I just need to add something. real quick. Motion placed on the docket for Thursday night, the installation of the four-way stop at Boston Road and Wyndham Hills Drive. So moved. It's a motion by Councilman McCord, second by Councilman Myers. Is there any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, then... Oh, Councilman Farmer? Traffic has opined. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. We should speak to this. Okay. All right. Is there any further discussion? All right, then, if hearing none, we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. I just have a docket question in that I know that there is at least one and maybe two presentations, so they are not showing up on here on the docket for Thursday. don't they normally show up? We have not received any yet, but they'll be on the docket for Thursday night. I think that there are times when we'll get a presentation that will get it between the Wednesday and the Thursday, I believe. Okay. The one, the Lafayette Band, has been in the works for quite some time. Is it not on the... Are you not aware of it? No, ma'am, but we'll make sure that they're on there on Thursday night. Okay. Well, if we have a lot of information about it and several people coming, and in fact the president of the Tournament of Roses will be here, so I want to be sure that that gets on the docket. Yes, ma'am. I want to make sure of that. I promise. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. All right. Can we take a vote? Can we take a vote? Well, if we didn't, let's go ahead and take a vote. As amended. All in favor of the motion to approve the docket as amended, please indicate by saying aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right, we can move on now to the next item on our agenda, which is approval of the summary. Is there a motion to approve the summary? Motion by Council Member Beard, second 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 carries. Next item on our agenda, budget amendments. Is there a motion? Motion by Council Member Ellinger. Second by Council Member Myers. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Vice Mayor Gordon and then Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. I have a question on page 19 regarding the journal entry 61877, the Haley Pike landfill closing. Who would that be? The transfer of $4,391,000. Mr. Barra? The answer is more of an accounting nuance. Typically, at the end of the year, the appropriation would have rolled year to year. That was not requested of purchasing. So the money that was appropriated last year was closed out. It didn't roll into this new year. Actually, the bids came in a little lower than previously anticipated. So this is the new amount that is being requested for this fiscal year to close the landfill. Okay, so my question was going to be, what is this in relation to any money that had been set aside for Raven Run landfill closure, which has been done by the state? Did we have money in our land? I believe this does not affect that. That money is still in the fund. The Raven Run money? Yes, ma'am. That's my understanding. Well, the state has closed the Raven Run landfill. Yes, ma'am. So what will happen to that money, the Raven Run money? That's back to an exact question. Is this the full amount? The money that is there is the full amount for Haley Pike only. It is. Yes, ma'am. So is it possible because of the Raven Run money to roll back the landfill fee? Has anybody been looking at that question? That's not a question for me. I'm sorry. Is there maybe, Commissioner Driscoll, are you here? I think this is an issue I brought up during the budget because we learned that. Susan Bush is coming up, I believe. We learned that the Raven Run landfill had been funded, the closure, by the state. The closure has been accomplished by the state. Yes. That's true. It's my understanding that what we budgeted for Raven Run was just operation and maintenance, that full closure cost was not budgeted. Okay. So there's not a lot of money that has been budgeted for Raven Run, just some ongoing monitoring. Okay. And so the money that's in there will be used for the monitoring from now on. So there's no relation to the Haley Pike movement of money. Correct. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Council Member Stenet. Thank you, Mayor. I have a question on page 18, journal 6224647, and this has to do with the SAFER grant that the city received, and I want to say congratulations to our fire department and to Representative Chandler for all their hard work, and Mayor and your administration for bringing this to Lexington. My question is, this has established a new budget for 25 firefighters. Is this in addition to this current year's budget of two classes or 50 firefighters, So we're looking at a total of 75 firefighters, or are we just looking at 50? How will that work? Commissioner Driscoll, are you able to? Because I know with the police grant, it was a little more difficult as well that you couldn't support our budget. I saw you acknowledging Jane. That's the only reason I called you. That's fine. Commissioner Mason may want to add his comments as well. But, yes, we anticipate because of the current staffing levels that this would be an additional class. It would be 75 total? And would it all be in this fiscal year? I'm not sure each class is equal to 25. I think one class was a little smaller, but I don't have those numbers right with me. But, yes, it would be an additional class over what was in the budget. But will it be this fiscal year? Will we get the grant that soon? yes and that's why commissioner mason would have the dates of those classes oh there you are well we're already in august so right the dates have not been been firmed up because we've got the process to work through in hiring but we're looking at trying to get that third class in maybe right before the start of the next fiscal year. So we'll have that money before this budget's up? We don't know that for sure. Right. Oh, okay. So it's a lot of moving parts with the process, and some of it is dependent upon attrition and things like that, too. Okay. And I'm sure you'll let us know when we get the money to fulfill this budget we're approving? Yes. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, sir. Thank you. Okay. Any further discussion? I don't have anybody signed up. Is this on budget amendments, Councilman Martin? All right. All right, then we can take a vote on the motion. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Next on our agenda is new business. There's a lot of new business. A whole lot. Approval. Yeah. Second. It's a motion to approve. Vice Mayor Gordon, second by Council Member Ellinger. All in favor? No, I'm just kidding. Floor is available for discussion now. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Mayor. You know, it's great to get federal grants. We're already, though, committing ourselves to put together two fire classes. And I would remind the council that each public safety employee we hired on the day that we hired them incurs a pension liability of $300,000 approximately. And so 25 employees, on the day we hire them, we incur a pension liability of $7.5 million. Two classes is obviously $15 million. and three classes is, what, $22,500? Is that where we are? And so we cannot continue to hire these folks and promise them pensions when we don't put away the money. If we want to sock away the money, then let's do it. But let's not hire these folks and promise them a very lucrative pension and not have the political courage to put away the money for the promises we've made. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Martin. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Mayor. I had some questions on item Q. If Jerry's here, Jerry Hancock, or Sally. Item Q. Q. That's the usage contract. Jerry, I was just curious what the honorarium is paid from the ESP fund. What kinds of things? We pay the school board an honorarium in cash in lieu of rent. to support? To be in specific schools. Some school principals and the school board choose to have an honorarium that they can use in a variety of ways rather than receiving rent. We operate our ESP program rent-free, but some schools request this, present it with an honorarium. How is that amount decided? I mean, is there a percentage? That's a good question. I don't know the answer to that. It tends to be in the neighborhood of $5,000 to $10,000, and I'm honestly not aware. Historically, it has been that range of numbers for the 12 years that I've been here. Okay. Also on item X with the Valley Park Shelter. Yes, ma'am. When Chris and I met with Jesse's parents, it was supposed to be neighborhood center and not community center. So will I need a motion to change that? I think the council probably has that prerogative to change the language here of item X to accommodate the family and the neighborhood's wishes. Okay. You want to make a motion, Peggy? I'm sorry, Council Member Henson. You want to make a motion to that effect? Yeah, I would like to make a motion to change. Item X where it says Jesse Higginbotham Community Center to Jesse Higginbotham Neighborhood Center. Second. Motion by Council Member Henson. Second by Vice Member Gordon. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing none, we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. And then, thank you, Jerry. I had a question on FF. Frank Frank. The school guards? No. No, this is community corrections and the maintenance personnel. FF. FF. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah, yeah, okay. So an issue related to the changing positions in community corrections, okay. Is Commissioner Mason maybe, or is it Director of Balance? Or HR? We can't get an answer today if someone could let me know. I was just curious because I know that the detention center was having a difficult time keeping up with their maintenance, and they're going to reduce two positions to one. Is that correct? Were these two positions part-time? I'll have to check on that. Would you? Okay. All righty. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Henson. Council Member Lawless. Thank you, Mayor. Item M, regarding the positions in building inspection, creating two. It looks like it's adding supervisory staff. What we're doing is we're going to eliminate one administrative specialist senior position and one staff assistant senior position and create two administrative specialist positions, to one to serve over what's called my front counter customer service operations and the other would oversee basically back office, payroll coordinator, insurance coordinating, the financial end of the operation. And then those positions would serve as the first-line supervision over lower staff assistance within those sections. Currently, I think there are about 27 employees. In the division? Mm-hmm. We're currently authorized. I believe my authorized strength is 31. We have several vacancies, however. And of the 27 before, I guess these are added, 12 are already supervisors? So this would make it 14 supervisors? We would only be adding the one supervisor which would have supervisory functions, doesn't necessarily have to serve as a supervisor in the clerical staff ranks. The administrative specialist senior position typically had been over top of all my support staff. That has not worked well in the past, and in fact we were looking at doing this several years ago, and budget constraints prevented us from doing it. But those basically break out into two functional areas, the front operations, which deals with customer service, permit issuance, the collection of permit fees, and those type things, and what I would call the back office functions, which is payroll coordinator, insurance coordinator, all the functions that are done to run the office, purchasing and those type things. And we're trying to split those out because they're handled a little bit differently, and it was just a little bit too much for one position in the administrative specialist to oversee in a normal course of business. So we feel this would be a much more workable and responsive way to do it is have those two positions basically be responsible for a very specific area of the operation. I guess I'm just curious as to why approximately this would bring it to half of your staff would be supervising the other half. I'm not quite following you on that. But anyone above in my office that carries as a senior or above technically can supervise lower-level employees. That doesn't mean they always do, but they can. The way we have to go about things, in other words, to give credit for supervision, in the case of the building inspector senior positions, they must supervise a building inspector when they have to. We have positions that don't do that, but whenever they go to apply for higher-level positions, if they have no supervisory experience, they're penalized through the hiring process. So those individuals are generally assigned some supervisory oversight to lower-level inspectors. So it does look like there is a large number of supervisors, but they're actually sitting in a very limited capacity. So it's to build their resume. We have followed what HR has directed us in the past as to what those positions have to do. And associated with being a building inspector senior is supervisory capability. And we're just keeping within how we've been directed to operate. Okay. If we could have some more information about that before it moves. Before you vote on it. Before we vote on it. Okay. Sure. That's all. Okay. All right. Thank you, Council Member Longis. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mayor. My question is about item double P, the PSA with the Roots and Heritage Festival. That PSA of $35,415 doesn't include $63,000 in in-kind services on the part of the urban county government. I'd like some information on what those services are for that amount of money. Mr. Maloney. Thank you. We have a division of streets and roads where they agreed to do some labor, which is about $646 for four hours of work. We also have the Division of Solid Waste that has agreed to do 500 hours, which runs about $11,000. We have the Division of Police who have agreed to do it. It runs about 1,266 hours. That runs about $34,000. And then we have the in-house mail, which they agreed. It will run about $400 or $500. And then fire agreed to do 129 hours, which runs about $6,450. Those of the in-kind. What was Streets and Roads? Streets and Roads was, I'm sorry, was for four hours $746. So what will Division of Fire be doing? What will the fire be doing? Hold on a second. Good afternoon. I'm Kimberly Bayard. I'm the chair of the Roots and Heritage Festival. The fire department provides, well, let me say it this way. there is a fire station that is right near where we are, but they pull a buggy that sits kind of right in the festival area because of the number of individuals that were there, and we were told that that would be the safest way for them to provide services for us so it's not pulling from that particular station. So they do come for those three days that we're down there, two days, mainly Friday and Saturday, and provide services for us there. Thank you. I just want to clear one thing up, Mr. Blues. We are going to be working with Roots and Hedgewood. We're excited to be working with them now. There's going to be some changes coming in next year, and they've already agreed with some of the changes. So next year will be totally different how we do this. So everybody's on board, and we'll give an update to the council members before, definitely before not August next year, but sometime mid-year, March, or February to give everybody where we're going with this festival. Thank you, Mr. Maloney. Okay. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Stinnett has a related question. Mr. Maloney might not want to go too far. Don't leave. Just a quick question. Do we have a policy on when we provide in-kind services for different festivals downtown? Because I know we have a lot of other ones that occupy our streets throughout the summer and year. Do we also provide in-kind for those as well? And what is our policy as to when we provide that and when we charge for it? Because there are groups that pay for it. Yeah, we do, and I think Lori Houlihan, she's here. Lori's not here, right? Well, we can get an update on that. In July, we do in-kind contributions. I think what he's asking for is just to do an appraisal to the council of the protocols, what adjustments or what level of flexibility, what are the protocols, that sort of thing. Lori has a pretty good handle on it, I think. Yeah, that would be good. Just so we know if a group wanted to ask for in-kind, how we say yes or no. Yeah. Lori will have that information. All right. Thank you. All right, sir. Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. I have a couple of different items. First is F on page 5, the school crossing guards. And I wanted to know, I'm not sure who is that, public safety? Might as well sit over here, Mr. Mason. and you're getting up and down a lot. How many school traffic guards we have and what the total amount of money is that we spend and whether we have approached the school system about partnering on the cost? You're getting some help. I know numbers. He has numbers. Currently we have 50 school crossing guards that are part-time. We have nine additional ones that are alternates. They'll be able to come in on a short-notice basis to fill in vacancies. As far as approaching the school, that, to my knowledge, has not been done on a formal basis yet. I know there's been sidebar discussions with some school officials in the past. We are currently reviewing how we're deploying those and trying to do it more efficiently, cutting out certain schools where the services may not be absolutely necessary, and sort of the schools have already taken it upon themselves in some locations to have teachers available to help assist in crossing the students. So we're looking at ways to be as efficient as possible. Does the Division of Police make the decision in conjunction with the schools where they're needed, or how does that work? No, that is primarily the Division of Police. I mean, obviously it's driven by needs from schools, but we used to have a lot more positions at schools and around neighborhoods where we used to provide those, but due to budgetary impact, we found ways to reduce that safely. I guess my encouragement would be, since the school system has raised the taxes every year for a few years, to talk with them perhaps about cost-sharing, because I think it is an important service to both the school system and the city. So I appreciate your information. And then I wanted to ask a couple questions about CC and EE, the Metro Credit Union, and I'm sure other council members have questions, to Ms. Graham, the other Ms. Graham. That's right. When you refer to the loss of service, we don't want to lose this service, I want to be sure I understand what you mean. is the fear that the first year the cost will be about $30,000 plus, that that will eat into the dividends? Tell me exactly what that means, because before you and others spoke, I didn't have any idea that the credit unions would close as a service. Well, and obviously that's an extreme case. What I was trying to reiterate in my speech earlier is the credit union, the only way they can build capital is through net income. Our credit union has been consistently growing at about $1 million a year. When I came to the credit union in 2000, we were $5 million in assets, and right now we're at about $19 million. And so we need net income to support that growth. If we do not maintain a certain level of capital, then regulatory agencies will come in and put conditions on the credit union and they would stunt our growth, so to speak. And so the credit union has no way to make any money other than through the products and services that we provide. So if we were asked to pay the proposed lease, it could be that we had to increase fees to city employees or increase our loan rates or reduce the dividends that we pay on savings. So have you run that model based on the $30,000 for the first year? Sure we have. I mean, right now, if you look at our numbers, I mean, I can't tell you exactly what the capital would be. Those are numbers that I would certainly be able to provide to you, but I didn't bring them today. Our budgeted net income this year for the entire year was $22,000. Now, if you look at the financials that we provided you, you'll see that we are having a better year than we expected. Right now, as of June 30th, we were at $63,000. However, with our size credit union, that is subject to change very rapidly. Any time a city employee falls on hard times and has to file bankruptcy, those losses come straight off the bottom line. So, you know, our financial situation can change from one year to the next pretty quickly based on the financial situation of each employee. And I just had one more quick thing to be sure. Are you aware that our Commissioner of General Services is systematically going through and looking at rent for all agencies? You are aware of that effort? Yes, absolutely. And that's been part of my board's confusion because we were presented a couple different proposals this year, and the numbers changed dramatically from even May to July. And so, you know, we thought we were in agreement on one proposal, and then two months later we got different numbers. And so that's one of the reasons that my board felt it was necessary to come make sure the council understood the benefit to employees. Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Thank you, Vice Mayor. All right. Council Member Crosby. Thank you, Mayor. I know that Council Member Beard had some questions regarding this issue, and I do not. Mine are on K, so I can yield to Council Member Beard. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Crosby. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Council Member Crosby, and thank you, Mayor. Three or four questions. I was one of the ones that asked for some materials today, as you know. A couple of three questions. One of them had a little trouble navigating your information here because it's got no dates on it. On the funding? No, I see a date for just this, but it doesn't say, it says beginning of year. But when is your beginning of year? Are you on a calendar year? You are on a calendar year. Okay, well, that helped. Because I could just multiply everything by two. How many employees do you have? On staff? Yes. 11. 11. Okay. And it looks like the employee costs 247,000 times two, close to half a million dollars in employee costs. Correct. And that is at two different branches. Yes, that's correct. which is almost 39% of your income. Right. What needs to be spoken to that, though, is we are a full-service financial institution that is doing everything that a lot of local banks are doing with 11 employees. We have no other help outside of the credit union staff. I don't know too many banks that could operate with 11 employees. I don't know either, unless they're small banks, and you would be considered a small bank at $19 million. Right, but we are also full service, so we're doing the exact same products and services that many banks do. I understand how that works. I started a bank, so I started from scratch with $10 million. dollars. You said that a loan loss would go right to the bottom line. You have a loan loss reserve, do you not? Yes, of course we do. Okay, so does it not go against the loan loss reserve, not necessarily against the bottom line? It does, but our loan loss calculation is based on a two-year average losses, and so for a credit union our size, one loss would factor pretty heavily into that ratio. And so as we charge it off, we essentially refund it almost at the same level. Okay. I'm trying to make this palatable to some point. But if we were to transition this rental agreement, lease agreement, where it would be like 25% on year one and 50% on year two, Would that be a better situation for you than going the full amount from the get-go and give you time to adjust maybe some of your other expenses to make up for that? Yes, sir. It most certainly would. And I mentioned earlier that the depreciation on the building renovations go through June 2016. And so any transition that the council could provide us would help us get that renovation expense paid off, which would lessen the impact of the full rent expense. Okay. Well, that would be something maybe I would feel might be a fair way to transition to this, because obviously this hitting you is a semi-surprise anyway. It is kind of tough, I'm sure. That's all I had, Ms. Graham. and I appreciate it. Thank you. Mayor, thank you. Thank you, Council Member Beard. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. I was going to ask our Commissioner Graham, the other Graham in the room, what our legal relationship is with the credit union. I know they've been around 72 years, but since merger, how did that relationship change? Is it a contractual relationship, or is it required by charter? It is, as I recall, and this is off the cuff, and I'd like to look at this a little further, but I believe we did some research about a year ago on the credit union and did not find any recent written agreement with them. It's my recollection. In fact, I'm not sure we found any kind of writing that provided what each side is supposed to do. Unless the other Ms. Graham knows something different, I'm not aware of anything. So we have a financial institution that is a quasi-benefit for our employees, but there is no contractual relationship? I'm not aware of one. And if we approve this lease or don't approve it, are we in the works of preparing some kind of reformal relationship so we know in perpetuity after this council is long gone what that relationship consists of? Because I think we're treading on thin water with not having that type of agreement, and especially that body holding $19 million of employee assets? I think this would be probably the first written agreement that would have been generated with the credit union that I'm aware of. And I think that probably would be a beneficial thing. And also, is it in compliance with our purchasing and bidding processes? Because obviously our other benefits, if we're saying this is a benefit, we bid out to Colonials, to Humanas, to other companies. and are we in compliance with our own ordinance of purchasing and offering a service. Because they've been around, I mean, I understand that relationship, and it's a very good one. It has worked very well for our employees, and obviously they've established a good track record. But anything formalized, we need to make sure we're covering every ordinance on every basis. So when we work on that. And we can certainly provide some guidance on that to the council. So I think on this lease, I think you're following the process that you all set forth related to leasing guidelines. So with respect to the banking services part, that's probably a different issue. Okay. And Commissioner Hamilton, do we have the current offer that's on the table? Because I know I've heard two different offers. Do we know what the current offer is in terms of lease payments? Is it what's in the packet? Or did we renegotiate something since we published this Thursday? What is the current number? The current number is what we have in the lease package. I also, though, have some other numbers in case we were asked to discuss any different lease arrangements. What are our other options? One option would be that we look at this over very similar to what Council Member Beard had said, and we look at it over a five-year term. I dealt in a three-year term. And in the five-year term, the given would be that you pay operation and maintenance costs, that all your utilities, you're paying that. The first year, you would go 30%. The second year, you would move to 55%. And then every third, fourth, and fifth, the five years up, you would be moving at 15%, which takes it up slower. This obviously may go on the docket for Thursday night, but I think the council needs to see that on the overhead and what that option is versus the options in our packet so we can have a little bit better sense of what our leeway is as well as we work to formalize some type of agreement between LFUCG and the credit union going forward. So I think it would be good to see that before Thursday night if we can do it, where our options are. Thank you. And then, Ms. Graham, just a couple of questions. When you were speaking a few minutes ago, what is your threshold with the federal government? You mentioned if you don't keep a certain amount of assets, what is that threshold before they would come in and the auditors? Well, before they would consider us undercapitalized, it would be 7%. 7%, okay. And then you mentioned there are some other services that people can't get anywhere else with any other banks. What are some of those? I was just out of curiosity. Well, I think you heard some of the testimonials from employees, and I think probably our ability to offer low-cost loans, most banks will not loan to consumers for as little as $200. We do that regularly at low interest rates just to get employees to the next payday. It keeps them out of the payday lenders and gives them another alternative. We also are very willing to loan to credit scores that a lot of banks would not be interested in loaning to. I mean, we make loan exceptions to 400, 500 credit scores. And I think what really makes us unique is because we are small, we can look at each employee's situation individually. Whereas at some larger financial institutions, a number is a number is a number. At our credit union, we know the employees. We look at how long they've been on their job, and we look at the circumstance. If they come to us and their father has just passed away, it doesn't matter what their credit is. If they're working, we will reach out and try to help them any way we can. And so I think that is what makes us unique. And what are some of those low interest loan rates, approximately, ballpark? Well, I mean, anything from, I mean, our lowest loan rate right now I think is 249. Our rates do go up to 22%. So, I mean, they're not all low. You're capped at 22? We're capped at 22. And your board is elected by your depositors? Our board is elected by anyone who is a member of the credit union. And so all you have to do to run for our board is be a member, which means you have $25 on deposit. And at the annual membership meeting, it's a general election. How many board members do you have? I have nine board members. Very good. Thank you. Can I speak to one thing real quick that you asked about the relationship between the city? I wanted to just reiterate, there is no formal agreement. There never has been. But my charter, which is the credit union's charter, is what we follow. And that is what was established by the eight city employees. And that is registered. We are a state chartered credit union. So that is registered in Frankfurt. And what that charter for me says is that I can only serve LFUCG employees, satellites of the city, and their family members. So while the government may not have a relationship there as far as a formal agreement, we would be receptive to that. But that is what our charter says. It says that we cannot serve anyone but city employees. And that charter was created 72 years ago, correct? Correct. And that's when we weren't a merged government. We had city and county separate. So since the merged government, we probably need something more formalized, though. It has been updated to take in the merged government. So that is in there. Right. But, again, we need something on our end just to formalize and protect you in the long run. Absolutely. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member State. Does anyone else wish to speak on this issue, Council Member Lawless and Council Member Lane? And Council Member Blues? I just wanted to add that we are doing a review of banking services for the government currently. We've issued an RFP for banking services. And through that process, we're evaluating all of our accounts and all of our relationships. So we are looking forward to working with all of our partners on a much more structured agreement between the government and whoever the partner may be. Council Member Wallace. Thank you, Mayor. It seems to me that this is a really important service that we can offer our employees without costing us anything but that rent. And if we can do it over the five-year plan, many of our employees, with the increased cost in health insurance and many don't make a lot of money, they do get in situations. And certainly, if it just keeps people out of the payday lending mill, that in and of itself is worthwhile. People have emergencies, and many of our employees, just like with the economy and no raises until this year, are struggling and do have those, you know, my $200, my husband was out of work for a couple of weeks because he broke his leg, that kind of thing, as well as, you know, low interest rates and, again, the very small loans. You can't walk into any other bank. You have to go to one of the Payday Express, Payday Advance places. So I'm very supportive of helping as much as we can. It seems like a very low-cost benefit that we're providing our employees. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Lawless. Councilman Lane. Thank you, Mayor. I've been involved in this to a certain extent because the General Government Committee is involved in the leasing and discussions and working with some of the tenants out there. And I would like for us to consider maybe enhancing our relationship with the credit union. Perhaps, and here again, I don't know, there's some legal issues here, but perhaps we could make a deposit into the credit union from the urban county government, have a cash reserve account of a small amount in there, which would help them with having more assets on the books. and I feel like we do need to have a written agreement with the credit union sort of memorializing our relationship and what each one's obligation is to the other party. I think that would be good because technically to give a tenant in one of our billings a discounted rate, we probably need to have some type of an agreement with that party to qualify for that lease. And then the other thing that I think is important is because our employees are using the credit union, that we probably should have somebody in our financial department receive a copy of the financial statement on a regular basis so that we could just keep tabs on how they're doing. Because if they should, for some reason, go under, our employees would be at some risk. And I think that's another final question is about what type of insurance that the depositors have. Are you FDIC or something like that? We are governmentally insured just like the FDIC, only we're insured by the National Credit Union. Okay, so that's great. That's the issue is that there's a lot of information that we need to communicate between the credit union and our government. And I told you I would do everything I could to be accommodated, but at the same time I feel that the city should be paid fair rent for the space. So anything I can do on a continuing basis to help you, I'll be happy to do. And perhaps Commissioner Finance could speak to whether or not we could, putting some money in your bank from the city, like a savings account or something, we could pull out if we needed. Would that be helpful to you at all? Not exactly. And let me explain why, because I know that sounds like a strange answer. I mentioned earlier the capital number. As our assets go up, we have to have net income to support the asset growth, and that's what makes the capital drop. So if you were to put a million-dollar deposit in our credit union, our assets jump to $21 million. We have to have net income to support that growth. So a smaller $100,000 might be better or $50,000. If you took out some loans, that would actually really help us out. Well, there's another opportunity because, you know, I've been on the council, and this is my eighth year, and I was really not that aware of the credit union and the benefits that it offers. You know, I buy a car every now and then, and, you know, there's no reason that I couldn't run my loan through you guys if I'm buying an automobile. So I think letting the, you know, folks in the government know you're there I think would be helpful, too. Thank you so much, and I appreciate all your efforts on this. Thank you. Mayor, thank you. I'd like to speak to the two new business items that encompass this discussion. I think it's easy to see that the credit union does provide a very valuable service to the employees of the government. The way the business items are couched today, I'm not comfortable in voting on them in their present form. In fact, I believe they might benefit from some time in the General Government Committee to maybe better define what relationship we have with them just generally, but specifically how we want to work out the terms of the agreement, which they've made comments to a presentation that they had in May versus the numbers that were presented to them in July. And I think it's incumbent upon us to arbitrate out something in the middle of those or different than what has been presented in a packet. And so to that end, I would like to table these two business items and send them to the General Government Committee for further consideration. Second. Okay. There's a motion and a second to table. Motion to table is not debatable, but can you give us the item numbers for the two? It's double C and double what? Double E. Double items. Double C and double E. So the motion is to table. Point of order, Mayor. Council Member Martin. I think this is a motion to refer. Fine. He uttered the words table, but it really is a motion to refer it to a committee. Is that a fair statement for a parliamentary? Thank you. Thank you. All right, then we'll. Motion is to refer items CC and. EE. EE. to General Government Committee. So is there any discussion on the motion? Council Member Martin. Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate the reasons behind sending this to General Government. Obviously, we're not trying to close this credit union's business down, But I would like the council to maybe stay focused on ways that we can save millions of dollars rather than $7,000. And I realize that is toward your all's bottom line. But we've got some rather serious issues. I mean, we're going to spend $540 million on our sewers, and we don't yet have a mechanism that the council is comfortable with yet to oversee that. And we could save millions upon millions of dollars. And so I'd like to go ahead and have the administration send us their proposal for staggering this over a couple years and moving on to Thursday night. And let's just move on to stuff that we can really save. Thank you, Mayor. I won't comment right now on the comment, but I will later on what, Mr. Martin, what you had to say about the consent decree management. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Mayor. I support the motion to refer these items. There's been a great deal of discussion. There has been some anxiety expressed and some true concern by the members of the credit union and the staff of the credit union. It does appear that the administration has began to kind of reshuffle and has expressed a willingness to kind of renegotiate the terms. But the fact that it's on the work session docket, it makes it an opportunity and even a responsibility of counsel, I believe, to help the administration to review this matter. We've had, I've counted, three of our very capable commissioners representing the law department, general services, and finance. This issue, as a result of the lease proposal with the credit union, has basically presented itself as a true issue relative to the general government in the interest of our employees. So I support Council Member Farmer's motion, and I would ask that the general government committee at the council sends it there would give us some attention and allow us to work on this issue, employees, council, and administration. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Ford. Council Member Crosby. Thank you, Mayor. I, too, will support this motion. I've learned more about the credit union, I think, in the past hour than I ever knew about it. And some of what I've learned is a surprise, and some of it I'd like to learn more about. For those of us sitting up here, some of the e-mails that we have received over the course of the past several days have been, this is going to go away if you do this. And so I think we need the opportunity to study it more and understand the relationship more. But I would request that we expedite the process because we have, in general government, we have looked at our relationship with people who utilize government space, and we have started charging people for the space that they utilize. And not everybody's happy about it. And we may come to some different conclusion with this group, but I think in fairness also to what we're doing with everybody across the board, look at social services, I mean, partner agencies. We just need to be fair and expedite this since this has already been in committee. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Crosby. Anyone else wish to comment on the motion? Yes. Council Member Beard. I, too, think that we need to get this into general government and work with it a little bit. I would agree about expediting. And just one other point, so everybody will have the opportunity to hear it, and that is that typically and historically the companies that had credit unions supplied not only the space and equipment, but in some cases the labor to keep the credit union going. And I'll give you an example, and that is IBM. IBM, they would rotate people into work as a teller or a loan officer or whatever. They went off-premise at some point and became Members Heritage Credit Union, and they now have a location on Harrisburg Road, and they've got a very nice large location on Harrisburg Road, and they've got a large location over near the Lexmark plant. University of Kentucky's got a very large operation there off of Virginia Avenue. So things have changed as far as credit unions are concerned. This model here is more like a model of 25 years ago as opposed to what credit unions are doing now because they're going everywhere. It used to be that you had to be an employee of the company. Now they have a common bond is what they used to call it. And the common bond is that they are somewhere between the Arctic Circle and the equator. And if you lived there, then you could belong to the credit union. And so, as I say, it has changed. and it gets a little complex if you're not familiar with what those things are. So I wanted everybody to have an opportunity to know before I actually got into committee. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Beard. Anyone else wish to speak? All right, then we can take a vote on the motion by Mr. Farmer. All in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. All right, the motion does carry. Okay, with one dissenting vote, Council Member Martin. All right. The vote reflects the passage of the motion. Okay, back to new business. Council Member Farmer? Yes, yes, Mayor. Yes, sir. I wanted to return to item F, which is the crossing guard item, which my office has received a couple of e-mails about the loss of crossing guards in certain areas, some in the 5th District, some not. And so I guess the fact that this new business item is here is interesting, but I have people who feel like there's been a loss of service or there will be a less safe crossing for their children tomorrow morning. on St. Ann Drive or on Clay's Mill Road. And so I have a question about what has changed and how there are fewer guards out there and how we're going to overcome what I consider to be what presents to me as a safety deficit in the emails that the council office has received. I'm Thomas Kurtz here. I'm the commander of the traffic section. Welcome. Sorry, could you, your question again, sir? It seems like we have less guards, not more. that's what is reflected in emails to my office specifically one on Clay's Mill and then specifically one at St. Ann at St. Matilda going to Breckenridge so I guess I appreciate the new business item as an opportunity to say are there truly less guards honestly I can't answer that I just began this position just shortly ago I'd have to look back in our history to see but I believe we have fewer school crossing guards now than we did, say, 10 years ago. But I would have to actually look back at our records to find that out for certain. There are fewer school crossing points that we are monitoring. The schools have adopted some of those. We found some of those were able to be eliminated because there were another one. For instance, there was one closer to the school. It was redundant. In other words, they could just walk up another half block or a block, and they would have another opportunity to cross. So in those situations, several of those were eliminated. Well, I appreciate you're new to the position. The two emails that I have gotten pertain specifically to people who live in the district. And this one lady whose children go to Lexington Catholic, and she's very concerned about the loss of the crossing guard there somewhere in the neighborhood on Clay's Mail. And then having met with the Eidelauer neighbors last night, I mean, they're very familiar with the fact that there will not be a crossing guard at the part of St. Ann tomorrow morning. Sometimes if you're uphill and going over, it's too fast. I guess which school would that be crossing? It would be Breckenridge Elementary. I'll look into that. I don't have the information now, but I'll be glad to provide it for you. As far as Lexington Catholic goes, Lexington Catholic was a post that we eliminated. There was a crossing on both sides of Lexington Catholic for the other schools for the elementary and the middle school. Right, both sides. And we offer no crossing guards to any high school in Fayette County. We don't offer a crossing for any. And I don't think we have. I have to check back, but I don't think we have for years. I appreciate that point. I think her point was there's three schools there. There's a public school, Mary Queen, and Lexington Catholic, and there's a lot of kids crossing a rather busy road. And if you say Clays Mill, is that what it is? Yes, yes. And I think that I appreciate the public, private, parochial part, but less guards is less guards. That is correct. I mean, we've looked at those pretty closely, and as far as safety, as far as an impact of safety for the children, It may not be as close to the school as it once was, but there are opportunities there for the children to cross near the school. Some of those that were redundant, where they were crossing multiple locations to get to the school, those are the ones that we've focused on eliminating. I'm going to forward a couple of emails to you for your specific use, and welcome to your new job. I feel like we'll get to know you very quickly. I suspect so. So Commander Blanton had been in the previous position for a while. He's the institutional knowledge person on that, and we can get from him some of these kind of answers pretty quickly to you and disseminate some information. It would just be good because people are concerned, and this is a concern for in the morning, not down the road. I appreciate the new business item, but the conversation will be more important. Thank you both. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Lane. What is your crossing guards? Are you looking to recruit anybody? What's your status on crossing guards? Right now we're adequately staffed on crossing guards. It had been an issue in the past keeping consistent crossing guards. I believe they're, I have to look back in the history of it, but I believe we got an adjustment on pay some time ago which helped with that situation. Again, they're all part-time employees, and some of them have been with us a very long time. Do they receive any no-benefits? Is there part-time they don't get health care or pension funds or anything like that? No, sir, not to my knowledge. All right. Okay, that answers my question. Thank you. All right. All right. Council Member Crosby. Thank you, Mayor. I have a question on item K, which is the Tates Creek sidewalk improvement. I'm just curious, can you explain for everybody, this was rather, I think it was rather contentious at the time, and also to see it extended once again in the increasing cost. Can you go through what the increase is for and why are we extending it, please? I'll give you a brief one, and if you want more details, I can get Bob Bayard or Marwan to speak. It may depend on what your explanation is. Okay. In general, this cost is associated with right-of-way issues as well as the signalization that lands down. It's going to cost more than was originally estimated, and so we're getting a little bit more from the state, of which we then get a $62,000 match from our MAP funds. and the extension in terms of the time is just standard agreement with the state in terms of that would you like more details yes please well this is going to be yeah let me let me intervene for just a second first off now how long have you been in this role mr paulson with engineering for about a couple weeks right okay oh he did a fine job yeah i just want to put in context Yes, no, he didn't find jobs. Because Mr. McCarty's here, and he's going to speak, and I'm sure there's agitation associated with this project. We know there has been for some time. That's okay. I thought you wanted to, John, which is great if you do. You have a lot of experience. You are affected by the project, and this is the way that we engage in a very transparent way. none of us like projects Marwan as you know very well which you are trying your best to work around our historic barriers Mr. Paulson in dealing with projects that don't meet the original estimates and the original schedules but we do have some long standing practices and protocols which sometimes don't honor those principles that we're working toward. So I'm only saying that to introduce that changing behaviors does not occur overnight, just like battleships don't make right-hand turns. So having said that, I think it's very important that Council Member Cosby's question be answered in as precise a level of detail as we can. And I will let those with the details. Thank you, but you did a fine job. Thank you so much. the nuts and bolts. Now, Moan. Yes, sir. Yes. You know how many conversations we've had about these sorts of issues. That's true. Yes. And we're trying to get things improved. Mr. Paulson has been asking for some time for a record of projects that are underway, and those are the sort of management models that are so essential in project management. Okay, regarding the question from Councilwoman Crosby, the change order, the $250,000, this is for the signal, to upgrade the signal at Lansdowne and Tez Creek Road. The original scope was to leave the signal the way it is. And then we wanted to improve it, upgrade it. That added cost to the project, and the state agreed with us that it needed that improvement, so they agreed to give us this $250,000. Now, the extension of the time, whenever you have an extension of the scope, It automatically increases your contractual time, and so we are asking that the agreement with the state be extended based on that. Plus, also, we've had, as you know, the right-of-way acquisition. We've had a lot of problems, a lot of issues with that, and it took longer than we anticipated because of some opposition, and that is included in this extension of time that we have with the state. Is the signal like a life safety issue? Is that why you're upgrading the signal, or is it something that's new? I'm trying to... I think we're using masked arms. Bob, is that correct? Go ahead. Creating the sidewalk network along Taste Creek Road where none existed before, there were no crosswalks, ped buttons, those types of things, all which need to operate integrally with the traffic signals themselves. So it's kind of an entire package, this $250,000 for the signals. It will cover all those things, which they kind of build on one another when we introduce this pedestrian way through here. Thank you. That answer my question. That answer my question, unless you say something else that causes me to ask another one. I'm curious as well. Well, the way I translate that is that these were improvements that were identified after the original scope was created. Is that a summary, adequate summary? That's true. Okay. And those improvements were designed to enhance the pedestrian experience and to provide a greater level of safety. Is that accurate? Yes. Okay. And was this something that you just didn't know up front when you started designing this project? The things like crosswalks I think were anticipated, but the full realm of the improvements, the safety improvements, were not. And I think some of the frustration, too, as you said, on your end has been that it has taken longer with some of the acquisitions and things. But I think also on the other side, some of the frustration is yet another time extension. and oftentimes wondering, is it ever going to happen? And here, these people have been through all this. It was rather contentious with this group. I don't think it was an overwhelmingly majority that voted for this. And so I think, do you believe that it's going to be until June 13th? I'm sorry, I've lost the year. 2013 to complete this? or we will be submitting final plans for the final approvals to the state within the next 30 days that will include the signal plans which was the final missing piece from there we should be able to bid this thing this fall and get under construction this fall it will lapse into the spring in order to clean things up and get everything put back together thank you so much Thanks, Bob. Council Member Farmer? I kind of want to ask you one, or just make a point. The problem with this project, as well as the Ecton Park sewer project, and this goes to your core background in construction management, we have a problem in right-of-way acquisition. We can't get it done in a timely fashion. And we have a lot of things if you wanted to take those two and then add in the entirety of the, and I'm sorry. Oh, that's okay. I see those eyes glowing. I see the harpoons coming. Keep going. It's a joy. The consent decree, and we haven't talked to Charlie Martin yet, but the consent decree is going to have to have a lot of right-of-way acquisition in it too. I hope we're doing something to kind of bone up that whole thing. Going against the grain on a routine basis, I think we have people who are wonderfully well-intended, and we have had very few systems in our wonderful government ever developed associated with these things. And that's one of the reasons that a professor in criminal justice is now in the role of commissioner of planning and has taken on responsibilities far beyond criminal justice because he has good skills at thinking systematically and problem solving. And I appreciate so much your introducing my background and fascination and interest in project management, Council Member Farmer. I'm really not sure what you call me, but I'm still glad to be back. Yeah, I appreciate it, buddy. No, it's a good question. It's a very fair question, and absent the challenge that a body like this presents, We in government tend not to move as swiftly as we might otherwise. So I appreciate enormously the challenge and the questions, and I believe that I'm sure that Commissioner Paulson does well, and as I said, I believe that those well-intended folks in our civil service and in our government appreciate it. So thank you. It challenges us to raise the bar, and that is a very wonderful thing. Thank you. All right. Anybody else? Council Member Beard. Yes, sir. Yes, thank you so much. Yes, sir. Mayor, I think one of the concerns, and Marwan, probably you've been closer to this than our Bob. I know I personally asked the engineering team 10 or 12 times, are you going to make the $1,008,000 or whatever it was that the original, and I was not just asking you all, I was asking Keith primarily. And I was patted on the back and said, oh, yes, of course, yes, of course, yes, of course, yes, of course, yes, of course, yes, of course, yes, of course. We definitely will make it. Now, all of a sudden, and for whatever reason, it comes right after break, we see a 30.8% increase in the project. It makes me wonder if we're going to see more at some point. And there were, I guess the lack of communication has bothered me for some time. And there were issues and things that, specific things that I had asked about that I've never gotten an answer to. And I think that needs to get fixed also. Now, Mayor, I have a constituent who would like an opportunity to speak also. He's been right in the middle of this, and you knew he didn't just come down here to greet us all from being back on break. So if you don't mind, I would like to ask John McCarty if he would like a shot at the podium. Sure. Mr. John McCarty. My name is John McCarty. I live at 2709 Tates Creek Road. I found out about this early this morning, and I guess I'm kind of disappointed. Many of you were here for the council hearing when this got approved, and although I've heard from some people today to say that there's changes in scope, I think if anybody goes back and looks, we asked about signalization costs, and we were told at that point that this was a complete scope project. So, you know, I'm here. I live on Tates Creek Road. I think most of us who live on Tates Creek Road were concerned about ambiance issues, and we were concerned about safety issues. I think the people who were proponents of this project tried to make it something different. I don't think anybody in their right mind is against sidewalks on Tates Creek Road. What we are concerned about was, as I say, safety issues, and I'm here today as a taxpayer to say I'm concerned about credibility issues and accountability issues. You know, to be this far into the project after many meetings with engineering staff, to get this kind of change in scope, I think you as a body need to be concerned. I could go on. I hope you take your responsibility seriously and you take some action here because I don't think this is the right way to do business. I served almost five years as Secretary of Finance of this state, and I understand your concerns, Mayor Gray, because I had to try and implement some change also. But at this point in the project, I would ask you to take a hard look at this in terms of the approach you're going to take to a change order or a change in scope at this point in time. I appreciate your time and I apologize for the dress. I didn't know I was going to be here today. Thank you. Thank you, John. Thank you, Mr. McCarty. Thanks for being here and joining us. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, sir, Council Member Beard. All right. George, okay. All right, I don't see anyone else signed up, so where are we? Are we ready to? I can't believe. Are we ready? We've got a motion. This is it. Ready to vote? All right, then. All in favor of the motion regarding new business, please indicate this saying aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. I'm voting no on item aye-aye and yes on the rest. All right. That's appropriately noted. And also, Council Member Crosby is voting no on aye-aye. on pardon on K I'm sorry Council Member Crosby's no is on K right okay excuse me Mayor yes and all but M pending further information alright alright Council Member Beard I do want to vote no on item K. I'm voting no on I. All right. Have we got it? Got it? All right. All right, then. Okay, moving on then to continuing business and presentations. I think Council Member Blues has a comment or a motion or a suggestion. Thank you, Mayor. Looking at the order of presentations, I realize they're all significant, but D and E are of particular importance, and the hour is moving forward. So while we still have everybody here, and I know some Council members will have neighborhood meetings and other obligations later, I would like to move that we take up the ad valorem tax rates, item D, and the capacity insurance program presentation, item E, before the others. So move. Motion by Councilman Blue, seconded by Vice Mayor Gordon. Is there a discussion on the motion to make an adjustment to the agenda? All right. Hearing none, we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. So we will move then to the first issue on the agenda is the presentation on ad valorem taxes. The ad valorem tax rates. Commissioner Driscoll. Thank you, Mayor. We're going to get our, we've got a little PowerPoint for you. I just want to tell you in an introduction way what we're going to present tonight. We're going to be talking about the taxing districts for general services as well as the urban service districts, street lights, refuse, and street cleaning, property tax, ad valorem rates, as well as addressing the special taxing districts of Soil and Water Conservation District, Agricultural Extension Service, and the Health Department. I wanted to first, just for review, put the ad valorem calendar. I know there were many questions about this as we prepared for today. and as you all, both we had talked to you about and the clerk about, there being not much flexibility between the state statutes and the deadlines that are set by Kentucky State Statute and with your all's break and having to leave you the, what we always feel is important is to preserve all the options for you as a council. So depending on what you decide to do about rates, we have still preserved all those options for you. You first received all the information in an email, the ad valorem tax booklet. I believe, as we had promised you, it was on or around August 1st. And then I believe you received a hard copy of that just recently, too. but that was the same information that was provided in the email. If you look at this calendar, the certification date starts the clock ticking. That was July 23rd for this year. And we are at the discussion and approval of rates presentation today. As you will note on the schedule, the first reading of the tax rates is scheduled for Thursday. And if there are no increase in the rates, the second reading would be on the 30th, and then 45 days per the statute is September 5th. When you look at our real estate values for the general services, the growth from fiscal 12 to fiscal 13, 0.8%. so the valuation is basically flat. It is what we assumed in the budget when we built the budget, so it went from $22.5 billion to $22.7 billion. If you look at this graph, the blue represents residential real estate values. The red is farm and the green is commercial. Ryan Barrow and Bill O'Mare are going to go through the remainder of the presentation, and then we all three will be happy to answer any questions. Ryan? Thank you. As Jane had mentioned, I'm going to go over the general services and the urban services. We have the same options that we have every year. Clearly, you can go and do any type of percentage increase. What we prepare in general is obviously the same rates. That is the administration's recommendation in general and urban as well. The compensating rate and the maximum that's not subject to recall, you can go up to a 4% increase and it won't be subject to voter recall. Clearly, you can go above that. We didn't assume a number, but we'll highlight options 1, 2, and 3 for you today. But if you go above the 4%, that is subject to voter recall based on various provisions in the state statute. But as Jane said, this calendar preserves all these options for you. So first in the general services, the first two categories, the personal T on the second line is actually a derivative of the real estate. So what we're going to focus on is the real estate tax for the general services. And we have those three options I highlighted as you go from left to right. And we've listed the existing rates in there. So as Jane said, in the budget we assumed essentially flat in this category. So we hit it within $100,000 in option one. So if we keep the rates the same, there would be an impact of about a $100,000 change. There's de minimis when you factor in how large the general service fund is. And we've listed the compensating rate, which is essentially a rate that would drive the same revenue on the existing tax base. The reason the number's higher is there was some growth, as Jane said, 0.8% growth. And then we've also listed the maximum rate out there, which is not subject to voter recall, at the 4%. So that's an item for council to apply on in terms of the general services fund, three options we've laid out. Just an excerpt, and what this presentation essentially is, is just graphs out of the larger Admin Lauren packet that's posted online under the budgeting website and was also distributed electronically as well as written copies. So there's plenty of information, historical information, you may want to refer to there as well. We've simply listed out, I think it's germane, how small a percentage of the tax bill in terms of what we pay at the end of the year on a $150,000 house under all the various scenarios. Transferring into the Urban Service Fund, we've listed for your consideration the three options as well. Urban service is a little higher tax rate, so obviously the three options have a little bit more of an impact to fund balance, as well as the library is a large component of the general fund. The urban fund doesn't have any type of agreements in that as well. So we have the three options. The prior rate is about $330,000. Option two, the compensating $425,000 and about $1.5 million for the maximum. But obviously in this category we have three things to consider. The real estate tax is the only thing to consider in a general service fund. We have the refuse collection, street lights, and street cleaning. Each of those can have independent decisions made on any of the options or in between any of the options we've listed out is obviously at your purview. So then we've listed out the average tax bill on, again, the $150,000 home, and you can see under the various scenarios what each of those, essentially when you get your tax bill with the anteater, what you're contributing for the three functions within the urban service fund. And my role today is to talk about the special taxing districts. These are at the bottom half of this schedule, the conservation and soil, the extension service, the health department, and LexTran. I'd like to talk about them from the bottom to the top. The six cents rate for LexTran was by referendum, although it has been past practice that council would confirm that each year. The next three are set by their boards, and the health department last year rate, which is your first column of 028, has been passed and recommended by the health department to be this year's rate. The extension service last year's rate is .0032 on $100, and they have recommended a rate of .0035. That's a 9.4% rate and would be over the 4% and subject to voter recall if adopted. The soil and conservation, their rate, we only go out to six digits, so their rate is effectively .0004, even though their official rate is an additional 1.6. They are recommending a 4% increase, which would bring their actual rate to 000433. That still stays the same and would have the effect, which is that next column, of a zero tax impact on the taxpayer, even though their rate has gone up 4%, because we only compute the tax bill out to four digits. Let me go over that again. their current rate is .00416. That rounds to the .004. And that is what is used to calculate the tax bill. They are asking for a 4% rate, which would still round to .004. No impact on the tax bill would put them in a position that in future years, If they did additional increases, they may actually go to .0005 after two or three more years. Do I have you sufficiently confused? Well, let me regroup. The first column is last year's rates. For special taxing districts, if you read from the bottom up, LexTran is .06, Health Department .028, Extension .0032, and Soil and Conservation, I'll use the effective rate of .004. What is being recommended is a 4% increase for conservation and soil that would bring their actual rate to .0043, no impact on the calculation of the tax bill. The extension service would be .0035, which is a 9.4% increase. Health department, same, and LexTrans, same as last year. I think in order for us to stay on schedule, and I would defer to the budgeting department, but everything in the red box is what council is being asked to have a motion and adopt, or some other rate, but a rate for the general, the three parts of the urban surface, refuse, streetlight, street cleaning, and then to confirm the rates or not for conservation, extension, and health. No LexTran, I'm being told. What will happen next year? They increase it by 4%. It will take the 4, 3, 3. 4, 5, 1. Oh, LexTran. Thank you. Thank you, Bill. All right. Council members have signed up for comment. Council member Lane. Are you ready for me, Mayor? Yeah. Okay, good. Council Member Lane. Yes, sir. All right. I wanted to speak to the fee for streetlights. And before I address the overhead there, I would like to say that the reason I'm bringing this up today is because I think that making the rate increase for streetlights higher so that we could actually cover the cost of the service, because that is a special fund and the money is allocated only for streetlights, is a more appropriate way to pay for that than to increase the franchise fee on electric and natural gas utilities for every person that uses utilities in Fayette County. That being said, on the overhead here, This is from our January 24th report to Council on streetlights. It showed that our approximate monthly cost is $550,000 per month, or about $6.6 million a year for all the streetlights. We are receiving revenue of about $350,000 a month, or $4.2 million a year in revenue. So we have about a 200,000-month operating deficit over about 2.4 million deficit annually. So the streetlight deficit is actually causing our urban fund to operate at 1.2 million in the red number. If you would look at page 6 of the document provided by the commissioner, If you'll notice under streetlights that the rate for streetlights and, say, just beginning of year, like year 2000, was .311. It was reduced in fiscal year 4 to .026 and then again to .021 in fiscal year 5. So when we had surplus money in this account, the council, and this was before most of our time here on the council, did reduce the rate. In order to get the rate up, can we go to the next sheet, please? In order to get the rate where we need it, the rate would have to increase from .021 to .034 per $100. At the current rate, the cost per household is $31.50 based on a $150,000 home. And under the new rate, it would be $47.25 per home valued at $150,000. So the annual increase would be $15.75 per year or $1.31 per month. This is based on a $150,000 valuation because this is an ad valorem tax, and so if your house is more or less, it would be adjusted accordingly. Anyway, that being the case, I would like to move to place on the docket for August 16, 2012, a council meeting, a separate ordinance levying the ad valorem tax for streetlights in the full or partial urban service districts at the rate of .034 on each $100 of assessed value. The portion of this tax would be subject to recall, petition, and vote of reconsideration pursuant to KRS 132.017. Now, I thought... Thank you, sir. I would like to just add another thought on top of this with regard to the recall. Because this fee would only be applicable to the people who have streetlight service, it would not apply to any of the other parties in Fayette County who don't have streetlight service. And for that reason, I don't see this as likely to be recalled because this is not a great increase. and the benefit is that this fund will now be at break even and then if we need to raise it a little bit each year in the future, the fund will stay up with the cost of utility increases. This also eliminates the need to pass the franchise fee on natural gas and electric service in Fayette County. As I said, that would apply to every single person who owns property here, whether they're a taxpayer or not. And so if you're operating a business, you would pay that extra 1%. That is a 33% from a 3% to a 4% fee. The other thought is the issue of equity and to make everybody pay so that we can put money into this fund to pay the deficit for people who are getting the service when they're not getting the service. when this is a designated fund for streetlights and exclusively that money is for that service, I think this is the appropriate way to go. So thank you, Mayor. That's my motion. And thank you, Mr. Martin, for the second. All right. There's a motion. Is there a second? Doug's second. There is a second? Doug. All right. Second by Council Member Martin. All right. Now the floor is available for discussion on the motion. Vice Mayor Gordon. Yes, thank you, Mayor. I had a few general comments about our tax rates, which I will reserve for after the motion. But on January 24th, the Council received a presentation on the Urban Service Fund streetlight imbalance. and at that time the existing street light rate was .0210 and the cost of service rate was .0299. So I wonder, Council Member Lane, a couple of things. Did you look at that cost of service rate and how did you come up with this .034? Thank you, Vice Mayor. Yes, I'm a pretty good mathematician, but I didn't compute those numbers. Those were provided. I'm not sure somebody from the either finance or budget came up with that number. Thank you. When comparing the numbers, there's a couple nuances. The numbers from that packet, we did not include capital. There's about $300,000 in streetlight capital that was not included in that cost of service rate. The electric rates, which comes through an electric tariff that we pay, actually for street lights, has increased since then. Are there any other nuances? I think those are the two big nuances between the two numbers. Okay. Capital and increased rates. Increased electric rates. Okay. And, Council Member Lane, does your motion include, or were you intending to discuss later, lowering the franchise fee increases which were built into the budget? because one of the reasons I think that that increase went into effect was to help the Streetlight Fund. Yes, ma'am, that is true. And my understanding is that that agreement is still in negotiation and that the council will have to vote on that to give final approval. So my intention would be to vote against that and not approve that increase. You are currently operating under franchises at 3%. there's a workshop for you all scheduled in September, and until you all vote otherwise, it's 3% on the franchise. So the increase has not taken effect. And so will someone have for us, or maybe, Mr. Lane, you have this number, with your motion, the .034 rate, do you also have the amount that that would bring in, and then do we have that to compare with the increase in franchise fee and what the difference is? Right. That will have to come out of the Budget and Finance Department also, because I relied on their right to determine that number. But I can say that the franchise fee should be substantially more money. That's very difficult to estimate, too, because since it's not beginning at the start of this fiscal year, it will be implemented sometime in the fall or maybe the next calendar year, depending on when that agreement is finalized, then it's really hard to say what the revenue would be for this current fiscal year. But then for the year following that, I'm thinking it's going to be in the $5 million to $6 million range. So it would be substantially more than the increase that we're asking for here. Excuse me. And there are other variables in there, too, because every time a new business or new home moves in, that revenue would go up. And also the utility companies, particularly the electric companies, are faced with the EPA modifications to their power-generating plants, and their rates are like going up 9.5%. So there are compounding rate increases on top of that, too. So I think coming up with an accurate number would be difficult, but I think it would be substantially greater than the amount just for the local electric service and the neighborhood lights, tree lighting. So, Mr. O'Mara, when was the franchise fee increase going to come back to us? Well, that would be... Oh, Mr. David, Mr. Barber. You all have a workshop September 13th. Right. If there was a movement out of that workshop, it would be whenever you all wanted to finalize them after that date. So I think my recollection is for budgeting purposes, I think they wanted those to go into effect around October 1st, I think. So is that what the current past approved budget includes? Was those rates being increased in October? That's correct. The budget assumption was they would be effective for gas and electric, effective October, and that would bring in approximately $2.5 million in FY13 and approximately $4 million when it's a full 12 months in FY14. The $0.34 per hundred is estimated to bring in an additional $2.5 million. Okay. So this might be a good way to take the franchise fee down and make the Streetlight Fund pay for itself. Excuse me if I could clarify. The franchise fee is currently 3%. It was budgeted to be at 4%, so it has not been changed. Not raised the franchise fee. Okay. Thank you very much. Vice Mayor, may I just make a short comment? And I wanted to say that, you know, because this was our first meeting of the year and all that, and I actually had to work some on my vacation to get some of these data and numbers together. So I'm sorry that I had to bring it up today's meeting rather than give you more advance notice on it. But because of the deadline for the votes on this, I felt like it was important to bring it up today. Thank you. Okay, all right. Council Member Stenet. Council Member Stenet. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Lane, so your .034 does include the PSC rate increase that hasn't been approved yet by the PSC that the KU is asking for or does not? I cannot address that aspect of it. Maybe I've relied on our scheme over here. There's a pending rate case, obviously, with rates going up. And if it were that .034, Mr. O'Mara, cover that. I can answer that this way. I took the approved budget for total street light utilities, added $300,000 in indirect estimates for indirect and direct costs. So I would have to defer whoever prepared the utility street light budget on what their assumption was on this rate increase. Okay, because, again, we may be running a deficit should the PSE pass that new rate, and that's the danger of us passing a rate today. on ad valorem. Also, I assume why the administration didn't recommend adding this and making this fund whole was because we did the franchise fee in the budget. And as you know, there's a big difference between an ad valorem tax and a franchise fee. Ad valorem tax, obviously, churches, schools, this government does not pay it for streetlights, but yet everyone who travels the roads get the benefit of it. So I don't think it's unfair to say the franchise fees shouldn't be used to pay for street life funds when the whole community benefits, safety, a number of things. And last but not least, any property tax to be raised is subject to the recall, as Councilman Marlene said. But keep in mind, there is no election next year. Therefore, if there was a recall, this rate could not go into effect until 2014, at which time it could be voted on by then. So what would we do over the next two years if there were a recall? Did you think about that? Right. Well, what my suggestion would be is if there were a recall and we could not raise the rate, then we would have the option to go ahead and raise the franchise fee. But I feel of the two options that are available that this is the better of the two because the people that are getting the direct streetlight in their neighborhoods are the ones that would have the increase, and the people that don't have streetlights would not be paying it. But if you raise the franchise fee on both natural gas and electricity, every single person in Fayette County will be paying higher utility rates in every area because it applies to every area of the city. And I don't think that's equitable, and it's not the basis under which this fund was set up. The Street Lights Fund is dedicated for the payment of street lights, I think that for us to raise another tax and then subsidize that out of the general fund is not right. So I would say I encourage us to consider that. I think also one thing to keep in mind, too, is that although the electric rates are going up, it looks like the natural gas rates are going down. So there could be a little bit of an offset on the franchise rate if that were to happen. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Stenick. Council Member Farmer. Mayor, just a follow-up question. In terms of your budget, the budget you proposed and we passed, changes the franchise fee. So I'm assuming that in terms of this legislation, you might prefer for us to stay with what you had proposed rather than to substitute this motion. Well, I just heard about this motion. Okay. I suspect you all did today as well. Yes, sir. That's part of the democratic process. I understand that, Mr. Lane. but as we have been as Commissioner Driscoll and others have been looking at options and new initiatives including LED lights for example and currently negotiating with Kentucky Utilities some of the options include owning rather than leasing so my thoughts myself are and Commissioner Driscoll could help me with this just to confirm it my thoughts are that the council's workshop is scheduled for September the end of September and during this time we continue to examine the options that we may have we further define any numbers that we are developing I always believe that negotiation, somebody sitting at the table and working on things like this, that's always important. We're dealing with a privately owned utility who is well intended. Of course we know that it is so important that we be at the table, present and accounted for, representing the citizens. And that's my expectation as we go downstream. A budget does include the franchise fee adjustment. I also believe that a budget is just that. It is a budget. And until we act on that, that's what it is. Yes, sir. Jane, would you like to add to what I just said? Correct me? Expand on it? Upgrade me? Oh, that's always helpful. I think it is correct that, and Dave may be a better person to comment on, obviously we do have negotiations that will be ongoing and we'll continue to work that side of this equation in terms of the franchise fee and the rates and any other cost adjustments. I do want to remind you we will have to take action on a property tax rate at whatever level. So I just wanted to make that point as well. But, Mayor, I think the workshop and the negotiations give us opportunity to work through other issues as it relates to the franchise fee. Dave, do you agree? And would we need to discuss in the court, I mean, as we're examining this motion, would it be worthwhile for someone to take us through what a recall would represent? I think Dave should do that. If we had to do that, if we were to vote on this motion today, it would imply at least or anticipate that action. Your recall petition process is laid out in KRS 132.017. I've hit the highlights here. and this will be more complicated, as Mr. Lane pointed out, because the only people that will be able to put the petition together are going to be people that actually pay the streetlight tax. But you have a group of citizens that files their, it's called a, the group of citizens gets together to basically file some paperwork with the clerk's office, and they represent themselves as being essentially the committee to represent the petition process. All of that gets published in the newspaper. They have 45 days from your second reading of this to get the petition filed with the clerk's office. If nothing's filed during that time period or nothing close to that gets filed during that time period, that's pretty much the end of your issue. If they don't get their act together to do that, then essentially you'd be talking about you'd know these get passed August 30th, so you would know the middle of October whether or not there is a successful petition filed. There may be an issue with petition, and the clerk's office has 30 days to determine whether or not it's valid. You have to go through the process of making sure the people live in the right district that they said they did, that they're a registered voter, all those other kinds of things. And if that gets successfully determined by the clerk's office, you all have an out. And this would be your last out before the actual election process in 2014. You have an out 15 days after it's certified by the clerk's office. You all can revote on the tax level. As long as it's below the 4% compensating rate analysis, as long as you all adopt something below that amount, there would be no election, and you would have just adopted a tax with a lower level. What you need to understand is the billing element in the meantime is by going down this route, we will not have, according to this, we talked to the finance cabinet about this in interpreting the statute on how you're supposed to do this, you're not supposed to send a bill out with the streetlight portion on it at all. So you would send out two sets of tax bills. One of them would have everything but the streetlight tax on it, and then once this issue is resolved, you would send out the streetlight tax bill. So what you're foregoing if you have the election in 2014, according to the state, is you are not supposed to be collecting the tax at all until this is resolved. So the big wild card for you all would be if you had the vote take place and it didn't take place until November, you're really talking about having to come up with another sort of income entirely for the street light during that time period, which is complicated by you're going to obviously have another tax-setting opportunity next fall as well, so we would have to work through how that would work next fall because the election is taking place in a different two years beyond now. So that's generally how it works. I think what Mr. Lane indicated possibly, and I want to speak for him, is I guess if the petition was successfully filed, maybe there would be a different thought process that maybe you all would not want to have the election take place and you'd go ahead and set it at the lower rate, having known that the citizens wanted to have an election on it. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Carberry. Does anybody have any questions for Dave? Okay. Mr. Lane. Just for clarification, if we pass the increase and there is a vote on it or a petition is filed to get a vote on it, then we can explain what we can do. We can terminate that and go back. Basically what happens, the clerk has to formally notify you all that a successful petition has been filed. Once he does that, you all would have 15 days to act and pass a different tax rate, lower than the threshold amount. So if you went back and if the petition was successfully filed, as long as within a 15-day period you instituted a different tax rate that was below the 4% compensating rate in the statute, you all would not have the voter recall take place. So you have an out at that point in time. And I guess from a timing standpoint, that looks like it would be approximately 90 to 100 and something days from August 30th when you would have to make that determination. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Mayor. I supported this motion for a couple reasons. Obviously, I'm wildly concerned about the city's finances. Everybody who comes here regularly knows that. In a ways, because of that, I feel like we need to reserve the franchise fee for other needs that we may have. It's a more flexible fee, I think, as I understand it, than this ad valorem tax. We have a moment in time here, a very short window, where we can take this expenditure and put it on the ad valorem tax, and we can kind of hold this franchise fee for what may be coming at us in the next year or two. We have an out if 10 percent of the folks who voted in the last presidential election ask us to challenge this and to recall it. we had the opportunity to dial it back and to reconsider it next year. And so we will know in a fairly short period of time whether or not this will be a successful way to finance our streetlights. my big concern is the hesitancy of the council to to i guess engage in in in exploring revenue sources to pay for the things that we buy and we pay you know we buy streetlights and if we don't want to spend what we're spending in streetlights then we need to either not approve streetlights, find a way to do less, or we need to pay for them. And so right now we are underfunding the streetlights, and I realize that the conversation is much about the franchise fee, but we're going to find out whether this relates to the other taxes here in a minute. So I think this is the way to do this, and I think that being able to hold the franchise fee for other potentialities in the next year or two, I think is important because I think we've got some heavy winds coming at us financially. And I would like to see the city in a position to be able to react to those financial contingencies should they occur. So I encourage my fellow council members to support this. Thank you. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate Council Member Lane's thoughtfulness on this and his rationale. At the same time, I take a different view on whether to go the franchise fee route or the ad valorem tax. I think that we're in this bind because we've made commitments on streetlights that we can't honor. And we're way behind on putting those streetlights in place. I'm afraid that if we go the ad valorem route and raise beyond that 4% threshold that we enter an area of uncertainty. I agree that recall is perhaps unlikely. However, we live in a climate where taxes are seen as evil, which is unfortunate, but it's a reality there. I also realize that the franchise fee might be used for something else, but we're not talking about something else. We're talking about streetlights and an immediate need. I think we are on safer ground to meet that need by going forward with the budgeted raise in the franchise fee. To Council Member Lane's point, I think that everybody benefits from the streetlights, no matter where they are placed in the city. that makes us a safer place, a safer community, and we're not tied to just the area in which we live. So we benefit from a street light no matter where it is placed. So I will not support this motion and hope that we can go forward with the franchise fee advance as proposed. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Blues. Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Lane, for bringing this up for discussion. I want to just continue what Council Member Blues said in that everyone does benefit from having streetlights, but the fact of the matter is only a certain portion of the community pays the tax to put the streetlights in. So there is an inequity there. And I guess I wonder if we've ever looked at taking away, and I'm not sure, David, if this is a question for you or for Mr. O'Mara, but if we've ever looked at an overhaul of how we pay for streetlights and don't put the burden on the homeowner in the neighborhood, but put the burden on the franchise fee. Have we looked at that in terms of restructuring how we pay for our streetlights? I think there was some analysis of that during the streetlight discussion. I don't know how many different ideas got explored. There was some talk about perhaps moving some of this to a fee structure, and it's greatly complicated because you don't have a fresh playing field on this stuff. You've kind of put yourself in a corner on some of these things. based historically on how you've done them. So you may have less. I don't know that anything's been really fully explored, but you may have less options than you would have had if you weren't, you know, in the situation where you've adopted a tax, and the expectation is that by paying the tax, I'm going to have literally streetlights in my immediate vicinity versus just generally available in Fayette County kind of thing. And one of the difficulties is where you would, if you went towards a fee instead of a tax, is kind of how you justify, if you got rid of it altogether, kind of how you justify or portion it out, which percentage is going to be the fee versus the tax kind of stuff like that. Well, I know we require streetlights now with new developments, so there's no choice. It is part of the issue. We keep perpetuating this because our development plans require you to have them in there, and as part of your development process, how many lights you have in there and everything else. I'm not supportive of increasing the tax to where it would trigger a recall. I think it's got problems which we would have to overcome, but I do hope that once we're through this tax setting session that we will look at the issue of particularly the KU franchise fee and how we might use that to our advantage to pay for the streetlights and perhaps reduce or take away the tax, the property tax that only the few are paying. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Henson? Thank you, Mayor. I just, it was my understanding there was money in the budget to pay for street lights. So, is it? That's the franchise fee. Yes, yes, ma'am. Okay. So, that being the case, I think we should stick with what we chose in the budget. And I wouldn't support this motion. But thank you. Council Member Beard. Thank you, ma'am. David, I hate to admit this, but in this electronic age, you don't get bills and look at bills in detail. Is the franchise fee passed back through? Yes. Essentially, and this is by virtue of the Public Service Commission being in charge of the rates and services, they see this as a rate component. and this is based upon, I think it's probably been 30-something years now, they got permission from the Public Service Commission to pass franchise fees directly through to the consumer. So it appears similar to the school as a tax technically, but there's a tax and a fee line on your utility bill, and I believe all of the utilities do it the same way generally. One of the listings would be our franchise fee, and another listing would be the school tax, which I think is currently 3%. So in essence, as far as the public is concerned, it's a zero-sum type of a proposition. Whether it comes as loan tax route or whether it comes as franchise fee, it's going to be the same. They're still going to get an increase of one for one. Any amount that you all adopt in a franchise fee is paid for by the consumer, ultimately. Right. Okay, I just wanted the public to know that. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Beard. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Mayor, I'm not sure you might have the answer to this question. Earlier, the Vice Mayor asked a question about Mr. Lane's numbers, Council Member Lane's numbers. Was it you that said that part of this was a capital cost? Or was it somebody else that said that? No, I did. Okay. The $0.34 would pay for the current tariff, which is the utility bills, $300,000 in capital, and then an allocation for direct and indirect in the urban service district. Okay. When we had this discussion before, we talked about some neighborhoods have been promised sort of vanity light poles as opposed to the regular light poles that we're putting out, say, on Man of War. does this capital cost include that or or have we made a decision that we're not going to do those vanity polls i don't know the answer that that would be a traffic engineering question they requested 300 000 and that has been the amounts that they have had in the past and that was what was in the budget okay that's as far as i can answer okay well i took the position on the budget that I did because I don't agree with this. I like Councilman Lane's motion here today, and I'm going to support it. There are some inequities here we've talked about. I'm not going to be the dead horse, but I think another one that I'd like to know the answer to is if we're going to put this fee across the board on everybody, are some neighborhoods getting vanity lights or light poles that other neighborhoods are not getting? And if that's the case, I think we need to change that policy and go back and say if everybody's going to pay this fee, then everybody gets the same exact light pole unless there's some type of a reason that technology's changed and the value of the pole becomes less expensive than the poles that we're currently using. And I know part of that discussion may take place as the administration looks at owning the poles rather than leasing the poles, but I think that's something that I'd like to keep on the forefront. Yes, sir. I think I could maybe answer that question on the poles. Right now we're going to go with the underground service, but we'll use the cheapest pole, usually ornamental underground, the silver pole, sometimes the deck of shield, the black box. So we'll use the cheapest pole. There is currently an ordinance where neighborhoods can still select the special lighting, but they're only going to be reimbursed for the value of what the cheapest pole would be. So we're not going to go in with anything. The only major decorative poles that have been going in are the ones downtown, and those are the ones that are really expensive. But otherwise, it's not from the same. We'll stick with, if we get to $300,000, we'll stick with probably putting in about 500 lights a year. But that also adds to the operating cost if you continue putting them in. Okay. Thank you for that update. And if a neighborhood wants to pay the difference, I don't have any problem with that as long as we're not getting that spread across the board. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Myers. Council Member Kaye. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Bobbery, a question or two? What does it actually take for a petition to be valid? Thank you. what the actual paperwork itself would look like. But with respect to the substance, I guess what I'm really asking is how many people need to sign it, and what is the time frame? The petition shall be signed by a number of registered and qualified voters residing in the affected jurisdiction equal to at least 10% of the total number of votes cast in the last preceding presidential election. And the affected area would be the issue in this case. The only people that would qualify to sign the petition would be someone that is in the taxing area that is paying this tax. So 10% of the people who cast a vote in those districts, I presume, only the people who now pay the fee? Yes, sir. So it sounds slightly complex. Right, sir. I'm trying to think about what that means in real numbers. probably about 8,000, 10,000 people signing a petition. I don't know. I believe there are a significant number of people in the urban services tax area. So, yeah, I would think it would be more people than not in Fayette County that would be able to be a petitioner on this. But I don't really know how many people voted in the last presidential election. Yeah, I was making a guesstimate. And I just want to make sure that I understood one other thing you said. Should there be a petition filed and ruled legitimate, we would not be able to collect that fee. We have to separate it out and not collect it until the issue is resolved. That would be at least until 2014. If you go through the entire election, now I was told that the schools don't necessarily look at this statute the same way, but I don't think it's ever been litigated. But the state's position on the statute is, and the language does seem to support this, you're not supposed to send out a bill if it's subject to the recall provision. You're not supposed to send it out until after it's been finally resolved. So, yes, you would not send out any kind of tax bill on the streetlights until the 2014 election, if that's when it took place. So you can't send it out on the existing rate? Well, now, my understanding is as a matter of practice, there are school boards that apparently have, and they just take the position that, you know, they're going to send out a modified bill at some point in time. But that issue has never been litigated, to my knowledge. The state's position is you are not supposed to send out a bill at all until after it's been finally resolved, which would be the 2014 election scenario. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Kaye. Back to Council Member Lane. Thank you, Mayor. I have a question for Commissioner Driscoll. For Commissioner Driscoll. Commissioner Driscoll? I see a big smile a lot because you're going to get some revenue somewhere. Or reduce the expenditures. Good. Here is my question. Is that the ad valorem tax and the franchise fee, from a standpoint of being deductible from a taxpayer's income as a federal deduction or a state deduction, could you tell me what the status on those are? I'm going to make sure I give you the correct answer. I know property tax, but I just want to make sure with Bill that I don't believe franchise fee would be an appropriate deduction. Obviously. Is that correct? That's correct. All right, good. That's the reason I brought that up, is that from a taxpayer standpoint, then, if you can write off the ad valorem tax as an adjustment to your taxable income, that's good. The franchise fee, you cannot do that. Is that correct? Okay. That's all I've got, Mayor. Thank you. All right. Council Member Farmer. I'd like to call the question. Okay. There's a motion to call the question. There's a second. Is there any discussion on the motion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Chair will call the question. All in favor of the motion, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. All right. Show of hand, please. Vote electronically. Can we do an electronic vote? All right. All right. The electronic vote is cast. Is everyone voted? One, two, three, four. All right. We have it now, I think. All right. The vote indicates that the motion fails. All right. Now we're back to? A square one. A square. A square one. Yes. Mayor. Mayor. All right. Yes, sir. Council Member Farmer. So going back to the beginning discussion actually about the ad warm tax rates and the calendar, was part of the original presentation, and I may have misheard this, was it the administration's recommendation that we go with the compensating rate, or was there a recommendation from the administration? I just didn't hear. Commissioner Driscoll. As Bill went through, it's the recommendation that they, for the general refuse street light, street cleaning, and urban, that they stay the same. So that would be option one? Yes, sir. Then I would so move, Mayor. Second. Motion by Council Member Farmer and a second by Vice Mayor Gordon. Question. And now the floor is available for discussion. Council Member Crosby. But we're changing the other rates that you have dealt with them historically separately, a separate vote. Okay, so the first one is to keep it safe. Thank you. Thanks for clarifying. All right. Yes, ma'am. Is there any further discussion on the question, on the motion? All right. Hearing none, then we can take a vote. Council Member Martin? I didn't see that. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, sir. I am frustrated by this. I think I was one of the few people, if only people, to vote for the rate increase last year. The Fayette County schools voted for a 4% raise in their rate. and were we on good financial footing I could understand that because it's not popular to raise tax rates folks are hurting out there and they don't need to pay more to the city but the fact of the matter is that the history of this city is a lack of political courage to pay for what we buy Over decades, this council chose to underfund the police and fire pension and ignore our sewers. And we are looking at probably $2 billion to fix those two problems. And I can't say it, frankly, any nicer. I know this is not the way to talk to folks I respect. But I think it is irresponsible to leave these rates alone, knowing what we know about the financial storm that is headed for this city. We cannot continue to hire three fire classes for the tune of $22.5 million in pension obligations. Let me explain this, Mayor. The previous Commissioner of Finance calculated that she thought that the day we hire a public safety employee means that we have about $300,000 of liability on the day we hire them. If we put $300,000 in the bank and that grows at the actuarial rate of return, then that will pay for their pension. So that's the obligation that we incur when we hire employees. And that amount grows at 7.5% every year. So to the extent that we are not willing to make the hard decisions to pay for what we spend, I think that's irresponsible government. And we are simply sending our debts down the road to future taxpayers. Okay, excuse me, Mr. Martin. Are you referring, is this commentary related to the motion that's on the table now? The motion on the table is to leave the tax rates alone. All right. We've already had a conversation related to the budget, which includes an option for increasing and adjusting the franchise fee, which relates to this very issue. It doesn't relate to this 4% decision that we're making at this point in time. But it certainly relates to the same issue of funding services. It's a matter of how, I think. Mayor, I appreciate that you disagree with me, but I think I have the floor. Well, you do, and as the chair, I have the privilege of challenging whether or not it is an appropriate intervention. That's what I'm doing. I'm trying to ask you to clarify what the point is. The point is that it's irresponsible to incur expenses for things and not pay for them. You've made that point several times. That's right. That's my point. Okay. Thank you very, very much. You're welcome. Democracy allows for a point of view to be expressed, and you've done that adequately. Thank you so much. You shouldn't allow the chair to argue with the folks who have the floor. As Chair, we have been very tolerant of your points, Mr. Martin, today related to this issue. Mr. K. Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to agree with Council Member Martin, at the risk of incurring the displeasure of the Mayor, on one simple point. and that is that I agree that when we're looking at this taxing structure and we look at what the school system has done routinely, which is to raise the fees below the 4% to fund what they think are essential services and that we do face a deficit of significant proportions in a number of areas, which I think we all recognize. And then I'm going to disagree with Council Member Martin also. See if I can incur his wrath as well. And that is I'm going to support the motion because I don't believe that this is the moment to make a decision about raising taxes. I think we need to have a long and full discussion that includes the community and informs them in a more comprehensive way about what we're really facing. Because I agree, all we're doing is postponing costs. We're putting them on future generations. It is, I agree, irresponsible. We've done it in a number of areas. We should stop doing it, but I don't think we ought to stop today on this particular issue. But I think this is the most serious conversation this council should be having. And we need to be able to go to the public and say, here's why we need more money, here's what we're going to do with the money, and we need to get their consensus and approval on that. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, sir. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. I, too, appreciate a lively discussion, especially when it comes to the taxes we're charging our citizenry out there and how everyone is struggling to pay these rates as they are. And it's a very difficult decision to fund those programs and not change revenue streams without first looking at the program itself. And I don't want the public to sit back and think we are being irresponsible because there are actually two groups looking at this very issue. One, we have a pension task force that is looking at the police and fire pension. Secondly, we have a group looking at the refuse collection tax. As Councilman Kay alluded to, these may be the proper channels before we get this in August to come back with a recommendation. And hopefully the Refuge Waste Management Task Force will bring back a recommendation before next year to look at that tax and to see if we can do a better way of collecting our service or charging for our service as well as looking at the rate. So I don't want the public to think we're doing nothing. As well as Commissioner Driscoll last year and her team looked at the street light, made the recommendation in the budget. So people are working on this, Council Member Martin. It's not that we're being irresponsible. It's just you disagree with the way we're working on it. and I don't think it's a fair assessment to say we've been irresponsible, as well as street cleaning. The Stormwater Task Force made the recommendation four years or three years ago to put street cleaning as part of the Stormwater Maintenance Program to see if that's a viable option because that fund, too, is underfunded. But yet at the time, I believe, Councilman Gordon, you correct me, Vice Mayor, I think there was a surplus in street cleaning at the time in that fund. So there's a lot of things we are looking at, and we are trying to do the best we can. this is not something you bring to council our first day back and say, oh, let's just raise these up and that'll solve it. Let's look at a way to better do our system first before we go charging citizens more taxes, Councilman Martin. And I don't really appreciate you sitting here calling us irresponsible. And I try to respect your opinion. I try to listen to you. But sometimes actions speak louder than words. And all you've given us is words. And I've had enough of it. So if you want to come to these meetings, we're going to meet again here very soon with Waste Management Task Force. Come to the meeting. Help us figure out a better way. step up to the Pension Revenue Committee. Help me figure out a way to solve the pension. We'd love your support and help before your term is up. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Stenet. Council Member Lawless. Excuse me. Thank you, Mayor. I believe I'm just going to withdraw my comments. Okay. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Mayor. This is the point in time where we decide about property taxes. It comes once a year. We have to do it quick when we come back from break. The fact is that we have enormous financial challenges facing the city. And they're going to hit us from a lot of different ways. And what happens to an organization or a city is that they start piling up faster than you can shovel. than you can get out of. That's what's happened to Stockton and San Bernardino and many cities in California, and it's heading our way. And we see enormous $540 million debt that we're going to have to pay for our sewers. We have, what, $585 million and counting in our police and fire pension and medical benefits and the money we borrowed to put into that. and the fact is that we're going to need a number of tools in our toolbox to address these things and if we are hesitant and want to agree with everybody and want to do the thing that is popular then we are not going to have the tools that we need when the crisis hits and so council member stentett um i'm sorry you made the comments you did and i i don't know how you can say that i don't somehow do enough for the pension and so uh i will just leave those where they are and leave those for posterity but future generations are going to look back on what we do and what we've done and whether we have prepared for the financial storm that's heading our way. And the inability to pay our debts and our obligations as they come due means that we're living beyond our means. So, thank you, Mayor. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Mayor. I think I've been on the council for four and a half years. and in those four and a half years, the sanitary sewer fee was increased. There was a water quality fee implemented, and that was to take care of things that we were not adequately taking care of. So we're getting ready. There soon will be another increase in the sanitary sewer. And to me, that is the same. We call it a fee, but it is the same as a tax. It's an added cost to the citizens of Fayette County. So for that reason, I would not support a tax increase. I think the mayor has done a good job with really digging into government and see where we can make and save costs, like charging rent, turning over our garages. I think there's several things that has been done to correct spending that we've had in the past, and we need to do more of that before we look at raising taxes. So thank you. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Mayor. I believe that the motion on the floor is in regards to the current tax rate. the issues that have been brought up I would just ask council collectively that we debate one issue at a time. We understand the context that all these you know, all the concerns are valid. Some of the delivery may not be But if we can debate one issue at a time and try to keep moving day one back from council, and I would think that nobody up here on this horseshoe takes their responsibility lightly. The sacrifice that we all make in the call of leadership, I think we ought to be mindful to respect that. And I think Council Member Farmer brought up after debate on a motion that failed. I've made a few motions that have failed, but it shouldn't resort in the cause of your responsibility. And maybe it's because we've been here for a long time. As such, Mayor, I would like to call the question on the motion that's on the floor from Council Member Farmer in regards to the tax rate. Motion to call the question by Council Member Ford, seconded by Council Member Ellinger. Is there any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion passes. Okay. Now we can move to the vote. All in favor of the motion, please indicate by saying aye and voting electronically. The motion was by Council Member Farmer on option one. Option one, all races may be the same as last year. Right. On every sandwich service. No, it was just on the urban services. The motion was on the urban services. Fund, right. I'm sorry, Commissioner, and General Services. It's just not on the special districts. Okay, let's clarify the motion. I'll make sure. Council Member Farmer, did you understand? General Services Fund 1101 and Urban Services Fund 1115. Yes, sir. Thank you. All right, thank you, sir. All right, so we're clear on the motion? So we can take a vote? We've got the vote being taken electronically. All right, I think we still have a couple of votes perhaps to register. All right, the vote is tallied now, and the vote reflects passage on the motion. All right. Thank you. Mr. O'Mara. Thank you, Mayor. So what would be remaining is council setting rates for the conservation and soil extension and the health department. And in the red box are the recommended rates by those governing boards. Health Department is the same, extension from .0032 to .0035, and soil conservation is the one where they're asking for the 4%, but it will have an effective zero tax impact because we only go out to the four digits. Pardon me. Go out. We use a four-digit rate, So .004 is the effective tax rate for soil and conservation. Yes, excuse me, I was corrected. It's three zeros and a four. Mayor. Mayor. I'm only doing health. These we can take separately, I understand. Yes. I want to do health now, then. Second. Motion by Council Member Farmer, seconded by Vice Mayor Gordon. Is there any discussion on the motion? Excuse me. Yes, sir. Council Member Blues? Motion is the health tax only. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Thank you. All right. Is there further 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 and vote electronically. All right. All right. The vote reflects passage on the motion. May I again? Yes, sir. Put that one back up if you want. All right. So, Bill, your point was on the conservation soil that basically this changes the rate, but it doesn't change the amount that accrues to the government. Or to the taxpayer has to pay. But in future years, it does set the stage for a possibility for them to make a raise that people would notice in their pocketbook. That's correct. This gets them a third of the way to the next point, it looks like to me. Yes, sir. Well, then I would make a motion to approve the conservation soil district at the rate of .000433 as outlined in the red box. So moved. Second. Motion by Council Member Farmer. Second by Council Member Ford. Any discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing none, we can take a vote. All in favor. All right. Council Member Myers has a question. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. O'Meara, did they present anything as to why they wanted this increase? I realize that it's revenue neutral to the taxpayer, but have they submitted any documentation to you as to why they're asking for this increase? Not to me. Or to? Well, because we're getting some help here. They did submit documentation as to what they wanted their rate to be, but they didn't make any outline as to what specifically that would go to. It does support their general operations, and this generates a very, very small amount of money. It's not a significant amount of money. It's $0.60 for a $150,000 house. So it's just supporting their general operations. Thank you very much. Council Member Lane. All right. I can't speak for the conservation people, but I believe the strategy here is because the increase will not change the cost to the taxpayer, but it does increase the basis so that if they raise the rate next year or the year after that, it would increase the rate, because they're limited by the amount of increase that they can have. So they're just preparing for the future. And I understand that. I was hoping that we had some commentary on what they plan on using that for us. since they're setting that motion in place. Council Member O'Keefe? Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to support the motion. I believe it's fair if the only rationale is they want to be prepared in case they should want to raise the rate in the future. They can't do it now. They need to be close to the threshold. We would have to make a determination if we push them over the threshold. Right now, they can't do anything. So, you know, if they came and made a case and it was compelling, all we could do is raise it, the amount that's specified, does not get them any revenue. So I would be in favor of getting them to the threshold, and then we can deal with what they would do with the money if they went over it later. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Kaye. All right. Is there any further discussion on the motion? Council Member Myers. I would support that if they were here to explain to us why they want us to get to that place. But if it wasn't important enough for them to come and explain that, then I'm not going to support the ocean. Thank you. Mayor? Councilman McCauley? I believe that a gentleman was here for most of the afternoon and left. But I may be wrong. I thought there was somebody here who was coming to address it. Anyway. Does anyone have anything to say? Jane? No? All right. Bill? I have not had a conversation with them this year, but two years ago the discussion was how this mechanism would go, and that was exactly what they were trying to do was get themselves in a position that if they needed a tax increase, they would be able to reach it in a one-year. But that's a two-year-old discussion that I had with them. Councilman Ford. Mayor, I recall a representative, maybe even one of the commissioners themselves, coming and asking us last year, presenting the same information. But they're not here now. But I do recall, just in the two years I've been here last year, the same basis that everybody's expressed now. So thank you. Okay. All right. Ready for the vote then? All in favor, please indicate by saying aye. I am voting. I am all opposed. No. All right. I'm voting electronically. All right. So the vote reflects passage on the motion. Okay. Thank you, Mayor. So I would leave the extension office as the last rate to set. They're currently at .0032. Their board has requested a .0035. I'm not sure if there's anyone here. There is a representative here if you would like to discuss their proposal. Council Member Farmer? I would be appreciative of that conversation since this amount is recallable. Okay. All right. Your patience has rewarded you. Yes, sir. Good afternoon. My name is Steve Mewson, 617 Hadlow Street here in Lexington. I am one of the 4-H youth development agents here in Fayette County, and I'm not the district board contact for budgets, but because of the fact that all the other extension agents are at the state fair, At this moment, I've got the privilege of being here this evening, and hopefully I'll be able to answer your questions. I just wanted to mention that this increase would result in $68,740 of additional revenue for the Extension District Board. And that amount, our Extension District Board felt was necessary because of increased financial obligations that we're having to take on this year. Particularly, 2011, the Extension District Board bought the extension property off of Red Mile Place, and we're now having to take on the additional upkeep and repairs that are associated with that 20-year-old facility, including looking at replacing the HVAC. We're looking at repaving the parking lot, which is more than 10 years old, has a lot of cracks, additional upkeep involved in that. But in addition to that, we're all aware of all the financial constraints that the University of Kentucky is under, and one of their solutions to that problem is pushing those expenses to the extension offices. We're now having to take on additional costs to offset costs for specialists from the University of Kentucky. We're taking on additional employee benefits for employees in the office. or having to take on additional costs for technology costs. So that is the reason for that increase. My understanding, I came to this meeting not realizing that this was going beyond the rate where we would be subject to recall. My understanding that the Office of Property Valuation calculated the compensating rate would actually be .4, And so we thought we were below the rate which we'd be subject to recall. So I think that our Extension District Board understands the fact that we are under additional budget constraints for the coming fiscal year. But I would venture to say that they're really not interested in being subject to recall. So if there's discussion perhaps to put it at the maximum level to where we're able to get their revenue without that possibility of recall, that might be a more prudent course of action this afternoon. Is there any questions? I would yield to others, Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Farmer. Who signed up? Are these signed up to speak to the question? Okay, why don't you just hold up your hand then. Okay, thank you, sir. Council Member Stenet. Thank you, Mayor. So I guess Commissioner Driscoll or Ryan, if we just go at under the 4% so there isn't a recall, I guess it would be .0033, .33 instead of .35. So you're talking $5 property tax bill versus $5.25. It would be the 4% would be .0033. Right. So the average bill would be like $5.03 or something like that? You're better at math off the cuff than I am. All right. I would vote we do the .0033, so moved. Motion by Council Member Stenet, second by Council Member Beard. To make the adjustment at the 4% level, is there any discussion on the motion? Council Member Farmer. Didn't you say .0033? I said .0033. Okay. Our screen says .034. I just want to make sure that you said .0033, and I just want to make sure that reflects what worked. Very good. Thank you. Is the motion clear then to everyone? Okay. All right. Is there any further discussion on the motion? Oh. Ryan, do we need to wait on that? Okay. If I may request, if the intent is to limit it to 4%, because there's nuances associated with rounding, if we could peg it to the 4% limit, and let us verify with the state and run our own calculations to see exactly what 4 percent is and maybe steer away from a specific number and then we'll have that in for the council meeting is that a fair adjustment i think there's two eighths of a point after the point three three when you really do it so yeah that'd be fair so that way they have the same situation that the soil conservation then would have so i think that'd be fair yes we'll limit thank you very much yeah All right. Okay. All right, then if we can take a vote. All in favor of the motion, please indicate by saying aye. And voting electronically. All opposed, no. All right. Motion carries. You're wearing that floor out, Mr. Romero. Thank you, Council and Mayor. Point of order, was that a motion just to modify the rate, or did we actually vote on that rate? We voted on the rate. We voted at 4%. 4%. Okay, now do we need to, we voted to change the rate. Now don't we need to vote to approve the new rate? What's that? We voted to change. Okay. But we didn't vote to approve it. Oh, okay. All right, let's vote then. A small technicality. I technically made a motion to amend it. Pardon? I made a motion to amend it. Okay, I was interpreting that you adjusted the motion before we... All right. So second to amend. All right. All right. Second by Councilman Lane. All right. Is there any discussion on the motion? What's the motion? The motion is to amend the original motion to a ratio of 4%, right? Okay. Is that correct? Yes. All right. Then we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. They're moving toward voting. Has everybody voted? No. All right. Well, we've got everybody that's sitting here voted. Yep. All right. Motion carries. All right. Mr. O'Mara. That concludes our presentation, Mayor. Oh, my goodness gracious. Thank you so much. Thank you. You did a great job. Nice job, sir. Thank you. All right. Next on our agenda is the Capacity Assurance Program, Parencis Camp, Parencis Close, presentation by Charlie Martin. Mayor, if I can just say it. Yes, I'm sorry. I appreciate Councilmember's patience, and I also appreciate Charlie Martin's patience and Joe Herman from Stantec. I realize the hour is late, but it is important, colleagues, that you be brought up to date on what the Capacity Assurance Program Task Force has been up to, because we will be asking you to vote on this program that we will be recommending to you in October. There are serious time constraints, and the program plan has to be submitted to the EPA by January 3 of 2013. So this is to bring you up to date, and it will be followed by a workshop for council members on August 28, 11 o'clock. Lunch provided by the Division of Water Quality. Menu choices will be sent out in due course. And that will be an opportunity for follow-up questions and further detailed discussions. And so, as I say, this is a presentation that will outline what we've done so far, what we're going to be doing and asking of the Council, and followed up by the workshop. So thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Charlie. Thank you for the introduction, Councilman Blues. Yeah, I don't know how I got so lucky to be after ad valorem taxes and 51 items on new business, including the credit union. So I'll try to be brief here. As Council Member Blues pointed out, this is kind of, I guess, the appetizer for the workshop on the 28th. And so hopefully I'll be able to give you enough information to where you can be able to formulate what questions you might have for the 28th. and my staff and I would be available at any time between now and then to try to clarify certain points, because there's a lot here, and it is fairly confusing at this late hour, but I'll do my best. You see what the agenda is there, and I won't read that to you. I'm just going to go ahead and jump into it. First and foremost is that I wanted to include this slide, because this illustrates really what our overall program management strategy is for implementing the consent decree. You see different engineering groups that are working for us in certain elements. What we're focusing on today is Stantec, who is working on the Capacity Assurance Program for us. This is the meat and potatoes of this, and I'm going to spend a little time on this slide, because through the task force meetings with the stakeholders, there's been a lot of confusion about these items, and so I'm going to try to go slow on this. The consent decree requires us to certify that there's adequate capacity before we connect new stuff to the system. In the past, we had not done that, and that was something that they perceived to be a fatal flaw given the problems that we have when it rains. And so they had defined adequate capacity based on the two-year, 24-hour storm, which is roughly 3.2 inches of rain in a 24-hour period. We all talked about that roughly a year ago when we were talking about remedial measures. So we have to certify adequate capacity to verify that new flow plus existing flow and previously approved flow that hasn't appeared yet, that it all isn't going to blow up on us. But now, if we can't certify adequate capacity, they've given us an out. Is that we can use banked credits or a banked credit system in lieu of certification. Look at it this way, is that you're bankrupt. But yet, at the same time, your lender says, listen, I'll let you have 33 cents of each dollar you make. You're paying me back at 66 cents, and you can keep the other 33 cents so you can continue working. That's basically what this credit system is, is that we're bankrupt in our capacity based on that two-year, 24-hour storm. But EPA recognizes that no community can go on a moratorium and kill their economic engine. So this bank credit system, which is essentially gallons per minute of flow removed, can be applied to allow new connections to be made while we fix the overall system or overall bankruptcy itself. Now adequate capacity is defined in multiple different ways, and in particular it's the collection system where it goes by people's houses, where it goes to the pump stations, and particularly the treatment plants. And I can tell you today, we do not have adequate capacity. We could not certify adequate capacity, not only in the collection and transmission system, but primarily at the treatment plants. You know, we went through this dry flow period of time here in June. We dropped off to as low as 9 million gallons a day, rated for 30 at Town Branch. So if it's not raining, we've got plenty of capacity. But it's that two-year, 24-hour storm, if everything got to the treatment plant, we would have 123 million gallons a day of flow. So it's a severe spike that occurs during the wet weather, and that's what's driving this capacity assurance program. Even where we don't overflow, there's issues, and there's this term called surcharge condition in order to be able to define adequate capacity. So here's a pipeline that's full of sewage, and during this one-hour peak flow for the two-year, 24-hour storm, you can see it's not overflowing out of these manholes, but the consent decree defines that if it's greater than two feet above the top of the pipe, it is still considered to be inadequate capacity. So as we implement our remedial measures plan, we're going to have to deal with those surcharge conditions in addition to the overflows that many of us know about in our respective districts or throughout the urban service area. Okay. Bank credit system. We've talked about this before, I think, in previous environmental quality committees, but essentially the consent decree provides for trade ratios is that for a certain amount of flow that's removed, you can have a percentage of that return. And it varies depending on what kind of work that you do and also depends on where you're at. So, for example, you've got a trade ratio for removed flow versus added flow. For offline storage, which is big storage tanks at various locations, at West Hickman, for every 1.5 gallons that you add, you can have one gallon of that back for additional connections. So incrementally that you're getting better. In the other watersheds or other sewer sheds, it's a one-to-one, so it's even a better trade ratio for us. For stuff that doesn't involve offline storage or removal of connections, that you can either fix things like we are in Acton Park where we're making point repairs and things like that, or we're building new things like the diversion line or the South Elkhorn pump station, you get a trade ratio for that. It's not quite as favorable as storage. It's 4 to 1 in West Hickman and 3 to 1 in the other sewer sheds. And that's if it's related to a recurring SSO. If it doesn't have one, if it's just surcharged sewers, you get a 2 to 1 ratio. Bottom line is this, and I don't expect you to memorize this, but visually it looks something like this. Is that if you do storage in any place other than West Hickman, it's the biggest bang for your buck in order to be able to bank credits. It's a 1 to 1 ratio. So if I build 5 million gallons of storage at Town Branch tomorrow, you have 5 million gallons of credit sitting in the bank right off the bat. West Hickman, obviously not as favorable only because it's considered to be the worst of all the problems that we have. There are more sanitary sewer overflows in West Hickman than there are in the rest of the system combined. Now, if we look at those I&I or capacity-enhancing projects, it gets a little bit messier, but you can see that we're able to figure out, in order to implement this capacity assurance program, how to be able to apply the repairs that we make, the capacity-enhancing projects, and the storage in a way where we can bank credits and be able to track those, just like you would at a bank, in order to be able to allow future connections to occur. We're starting down that road because we have to have this capacity assurance plan in EPA's hands by January 3rd of 2013. The consent decree required it to be two years from the effective date, and that's where that number comes from. It says that we shall commence implementation 30 days after approval. So you can do the math and realize that they won't make us do anything until February 3rd of 2013, and that's assuming that they are incredibly prompt as far as their returns on comments, and they have not yet been so, so I wouldn't expect that in February. But we do need to be ready for what is it we're going to do when we finally have to implement this. And so as we've been guiding the task force, we've kind of broken up the decisions into two different elements. One are the plan-related decisions, ones that EPA expects those decisions to be presented clearly in a plan that we submit to them. And so that's what we've been working on right now is things such as how will capacity credits be banked, how will we deal with prior commitments that we made, such as development plans or approved subdivision plans, people we've committed sewer service to already that hasn't utilized it yet. Those are all decisions that have to be recognized in the plan. But there are also implementation decisions that are not required by the consent decree, and so we're not recommending putting that in the plan. Those are local decisions on ourselves. For example, if we do allocate credit to a new subdivision, do they keep that forever or not? Consent decree is mute on that, so that should be a local decision that's made locally. Yes, sir. So on this slide right here, number one on the left side, how will capacity credits be banked? Is an example of that determining that you're going to put a storage tank at location A? No, I think I'll cover it here in a couple minutes here. If you'll be patient with me, I think I even have a slide that shows the illustration of a bank, and maybe we can talk about it there. Okay, thank you. Sure. Anyway, the point was, again, like I said, I'm trying to be as swift as I can through this. is that we're working on decisions that are involved or related to required by the plan. We've got to have those decisions made soon in order to be able to commit to them in the plan. There are other implementation decisions that we're asking the task force to consider that recognize the task force and the council themselves still have more time to be able to flesh through how they want that to come out to where we have an orderly implementation. And the number one one regarding that is when are we really going to implement this? Are we going to start January 3rd or are we going to start sometime later? That's a decision we have to make. Okay, task force members, all of you probably know who these folks are, and so I'll just go ahead and skip by this. If you need to talk to one of them, we've grilled them on numerous meetings, and so they've become resident experts in things involving the CAP. We've had a lot of participation by stakeholders, a lot. We've met with them individually ourselves. The division has. I think I've met with the home builders more times in the last two months than I have in the last two years. But they have been very beneficial and spirited conversations because I'll have to admit, I looked at things a lot differently when we started than where we are today, and particularly where involving commitments that we have made through subdivision plans or preliminary development plans. The economy changed on people a lot, and you've got a lot of people that are sitting out there with lots and infrastructure in the ground, and I think we have to be mindful of the commitment financially that they have made and that we've made to them to make sure that we honor that. The task force was not required by the consent decree. It was something that I was asking for, and I'd ask CAO Maloney to try to get that started for me, which he did, because it felt like it was really important. This is going to impact the community probably as much as anything we do outside the capital construction program. And so we wanted to make sure that we had input and perspective from folks, and plus we wanted to be transparent. This is a much, much bigger program and decision than what belongs to the division level for us. Ultimately, we're going to take a cue from the stormwater management fee or the water quality management fee that we're going to end up producing a document, or our consultant will at the end. It's going to be a final report of what the task force recommendations are. Essentially allow us a road map to remember where we've been, because as we get further into implementation, there may be some concern about, well, why did we do that? that we will have a record of why we made that decision and hopefully will allow us to guide us moving forward. Like I said, the hour is getting long as far as the task force is concerned. We had to submit this, obviously, in order to be able to get in the packet several days ago, and so two of those meetings have already gone by. We're down to three meetings left, and we have a lot of decisions that need to be made. There will be one more meeting before we have our workshop meeting, but hopefully we'll be able to have gotten a little further down the road and have some more, I guess, recommendations back to the council by the time we get to the workshop. Because progress that we've made to date, we have completed work on the banking unit, which is the next slide, and I'm going to come back to that one a little bit. The credit harvest date is that the consent decree says that you can't begin to bank credits until the effective date of the consent decree, which was January 3, 2011. Well, we all know in this room we've been working on this stuff since 2007, since we signed this, and so we felt that it's a reasonable argument to go to EPA and say, you need to give us back credit for all of the work that we did in 2008, 2009, 2010. Just because the consent decree was appealed, we should be getting credit for what we did. We think we've got a sound argument for that, and plus it would allow us to start with more money in the bank, so to speak, starting out this. Issues such as the use of record is that we want to make sure that there is a permanent record for a parcel. If, unfortunately, someone's house burns down, they shouldn't have to face trying to get capacity just to rebuild their house. That belongs with that parcel and becomes a permanent record and an asset of that parcel. Essential services was one that we spent a lot of time debating, is that the consent decree allows for essential services to be connected to the system, even whether you have credits in an area or not. It doesn't matter. It's considered to be an essential fabric of the community, and it can connect, but it accounts as a negative to the credit bank. So you could have a hospital or something like that taking something completely negative. The task force decided that we didn't want to give up that opportunity yet, but at the same time we're going to deal with it later down the road about making decisions about whether something really is in fact essential or not. And then lastly, the work that's been completed has been the third-party trading. It was our recommendation that we don't create a secondary market on if I've got gallons per minute, that I can sell that to the highest bidder to somebody else. Here's the credit map. This is an example of one, and actually this might be part of your district, Councilman Miners. I've not stayed up with redistricting lately. But this is the East Hickman drainage area right here is the intersection of Manowar and Richmond Road. So as you go out Richmond Road, here's Jacobson Park right in this area here. So we've got the Andover area in the top. The large yellow area is one bank. And the reason why it's one bank is because everything drains to one overflow point, which is right there at the dead end of Alumni Drive and Buckhorn, which is the East Hickman Pump Station. That's the thing that we're recommending that govern the banks is where the overflow points are is that to allow additional connections there without offsetting corrective actions in advance just makes the problem worse. And the whole idea is to make the problem incrementally better while you still allow development to go on in the way that it does. Similarly is that you see smaller banks here in the Heartland area, and mainly because they all drain naturally towards Overbrook. So there's these individual temporary pump stations that are right there along the edges of the different phases of Heartland. Each one of them are listed in the consent decree, so they make up their own little banks themselves. I don't have a map here that will show how these will merge, but they will merge into larger and larger banks over time as we implement the capital program. The plan is to build a large pump station out here on Overbrook, which is in the urban service boundary, and eliminate these individual pump stations. Voila, four banks turned into one. So right now we're starting out with a recommended 52 banks throughout the urban service area. But we had a slide in one of the presentations that show as you move through the implementation of the plan, 13 years, 52 ultimately become 8. And that's it. And then we're done. Okay. We've still got a lot of work to do, as I mentioned in three task force meetings, that there are the four items you see there right now. They have been presented in previous task force meetings, and they're still being discussed. The grandfathering, which is what do we do with the previously approved development plans, subdivision plans that don't actually physically have individuals tapped to it, that's still a matter of debate right now, and it's certainly a hot-button issue for a lot of different folks. Also, moving forward, is where do we enter in as far as the land development process? Where does somebody get a commitment for future service in order to minimize their risk that they invest a lot of money and then find out that they can't connect to the sewer? Those are issues that are still being discussed in-depthly as far as the task force. We've provided recommendations that we think are fair and reasonable, and I guess we'll see how things progress with that. There's the task, I mean, the schedule for the task force. We will be coming back to the full council, so even the workshop is not your only opportunity. We will get through that last task force meeting, and then the intention is to begin to draft the plan and introduce it back to full council so you all can follow with what's going on and know what we're committing to as we go. Ultimately, then, we also want to be able to brief the planning commission before we actually send the cap to EPA on January 3rd. That last one, that full implementation, when do we do this, I'm not so sure I know the answer to this either. There's part of me that says that once we put the plan together and says this is what our intentions are, maybe we should just go ahead and do it because then that levels the playing field for everybody. The other side of it is it's going to be hard. I mean, we put this one off as long as we could, we being the division of all the things that we were doing relative to the consent decree because we knew it was going to be the hardest one to do. And so that's, I think, is going to be a difficult decision we're going to have to make moving forward. With that, questions? Thank you, Charlie. Councilman Myers, signed on. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Charlie, for the presentation. Can you go back a couple slides to the cap? As soon as you knew that way, you were starting to head back that way. Okay. Okay. On this slide, up in the top of our hand corner, you have Thompson pump station number two, number one. It's like a little square there. Then down the corner, the pump stations have a star there. Is there a difference between? These pump stations here pump back into the larger yellow area. So they're considered to be part of that bank. They wouldn't be their own bank because they don't overflow. So we can merge them into the larger bank. It's only what really signifies the ending of one branch bank and the beginning of a next one is where that overflow point is. because by not doing it that way, you could introduce more flow into an area and have not reduced any flow to it, and the perception is that it's worse than it was before. So is that the distinction between the star and the square? Yes. The star means that it is designated as a recurring sanitary sewer overflow in the consent decree. Okay. So down towards the bottom we have Heartland 1, 2, and 3, and you have STARS. Go back to my original question of trying to do a bank. What determines what your option will be for how to get your banked points? On how to get your credits? Your credits, yes. There is a variety of things that can be done to be able to get credits. I kept it on my phone here. Okay. is that you can do things such as sump pump redirects, you can do downspout redirections, you can fix broken sanitary sewers or manholes that leak, you can replace manholes, you can even remove connections. I mean, we're banking the stuff that we removed as part of the stormwater program. If we tore the houses down, we're going to bank those credits, believe me. Now, in more grandiose efforts is when we're doing the remedial measures plans, is that when we build that system out there on Overbrook, we're going to claim all of the capacity enhancement that we did by eliminating those pump stations as a huge credit as well. So it's little things such as just repairing a pipe all the way up to major capital construction, and there's different values associated with how much credit you get from it. Most of it we're going to have to take on our own. One of the things that you might have seen in one of the other slides is that we're proposing a voluntary developer credit earned program to where a developer, if they're on a time schedule such as that they feel like they really need to move forward, is that we're going to entertain entering into an agreement with them that allows them to facilitate some of the repairs. This is something that's on the task force's menu right now. Now, there's been some question from the development community, Well, how am I supposed to do that? Well, I don't know. We'll figure that out. But I think that it's a solid recommendation to at least leave you the opportunity to do it instead of eliminating that opportunity here at the task force level. But there's a whole lot of things that you can do. That was a long answer. Through the course of the sanitary sewer assessments that we did, we have logged thousands upon thousands of defects in the sanitary sewer system. We were so focused on meeting the deadlines of finishing those assessments. Now it's time to go back and start fixing them. There's plenty of cookies in the cookie jar. It's a matter of going to get them. Okay, final question. If you go back to the slide that says council decisions, two types. There we go. And you just talked about what the developers can do and can't do. on these three on the right, what kind of discussions are you having? If I'm a developer and I ended up with a whole bunch of credits, you talked about that secondary market. How do you keep someone from hogging up a bunch of credits and then dumping them on the secondary market? Well, they can't dump them on the secondary market provided that the task force's recommendations hold true through this council, is that we're saying no third-party trading. If you've got credits and you're not using them, the only people you can return them back to is this government. Okay, I misunderstood that. I thought there was third-party trading. We are not recommending that. This issue about hoarding credits has come up a lot, because there is a lot of concern is that maybe somebody is going to somehow lock up all of the credits and game the system and game their competition. Honestly, I thought about that so much that it gave me a headache because people are going to figure out ways to do stuff. I need to turn my attentions to fixing the system because if you implement that remedial measures plan on the schedule that you have, those credits by years four, five, and six become worthless because you have adequate capacity. You're not talking about credits anymore. So I kind of mentally got myself more around that, okay, well, this is our recommendation and we're going to move forward with it, but after this is done, I'm going to worry about fixing the system and restoring the capacity. Okay. Well, the real answer was that there's not going to be third-party rating because I thought there was. Okay. Thank you very much. I'm looking for the monitor to say someone else wants to speak. I know I didn't do that good a job. It's clean in the day. I was saying, Charlie, you're batting 1,000, man. Hopefully we'll see everybody on the 28th. Look forward to it. Thanks so much. All right. All right, now we can move back up to the earlier items on continuing business. Is there a motion on the NDF? Move approval. Second. Motion by Vice Mayor Gordon. Did you do a second? No, Council Member Kaye did a second. All right. Second by Council Member Kaye. Is there any discussion on the motion? Mayor. Council Member Ford. I'm sorry, Mayor. I'd like to add an amendment to the motion to add just one NDF to the East End Reunion Committee for their event this Saturday. So moved. Motion by Council Member Ford. Is there a second? Second. Second by Council Member Kaye. 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. We get back to the original motion. That was only a minute. Back to the original motion. All right. Thank you. Are we ready to take a vote on the original motion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Next on the agenda is the itinerant merchant task force report out. Council Member Henson. Mayor, I was thinking that maybe we could postpone this until next week. I'm not sure what's on our agenda but there may be some discussion on this I'm not sure definitely in committee there will be yeah Stacy do we have a big agenda for next week present so would it be too much of a problem if we postpone the okay thank you so do we need a motion I'm sorry. I hate to intervene, but I think your report simply refers the key pieces to committee. Correct. I wonder if we could go right to the bottom line and just make those motions and get them in committee. And then I can get the report out. Okay. We could do the full report out later. Next week. Okay. The two motions that I have are to place the itinerant merchant ordinance, which is attached, into planning. Thank you, Council Member Farmer. So the draft ordinance would go into the planning committee, so moved. Motion by Council Member Hanson, second by Council Member Kaye. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right, then we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. And then the second motion would be to place the pilot program of the itinerant merchant into the Economic Development Committee for further examination. Motion by Council Member Henson and second by Council Member Gordon. And there's a look of great concern on Council Member Blue's face. Do you wish, is there a discussion? Well, I just, my concern, and it's a mild concern. Oh, just some kind you never can tell. It's whether we're disconnecting two elements that should be all part of one discussion. That's all. Well. Send it all to one command. Send it all to, there's a, there seems to be a developing suggestion of sending to one committee, economic development. Did I hear that, Vice Mayor Gordon? Yes, sir. Do you wish to speak? I move that we send both motions to economic development committee. Okay, so. So both the itinerant merchant ordinance and the pilot program. Does that suit you, Mr. Farmer? Either way, it's fine with me. I'm glad to help. All right. Is there a motion? Did I hear a second? Is there a second? There is a second. Council Member K. All right. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right, then we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Okay, so that motion would supersede. Is that the right one? I was just going to say that ordinance has already been in three. This will be the third committee. All right. Yep. That's right. There you go. Third time's charm. Council Member Kaye said. All right. All right. All right. Next on the agenda is Public Safety Committee summary for the meeting on July 10th. Do you wish to give a report? Council Member Lawless? Yes. The Public Safety Committee met on July 10th with two agenda items. We discussed the issue of public safety disability claims and the chronic nuisance ordinance. There were no motions made, both were left in committee and for further study. And for details on the committee discussion, please refer to the minutes which are included in today's work session packet on pages 118 through 121. Thank you. Vice Mayor Gordon. I'm so sorry to do this, but I do have a question. In the June 26th public safety summary, Commissioner Mason, you said that there are physical fitness tests administered annually. This was when they were discussing firefighters and police, And on July 10th, you said that physical fitness testing is not legal. And I wanted to ask, you know, which is the case? And if they are not legal, why not? Whose law is it? I was speaking generally about employers having the capacity to place people under physical fitness performances that are not related to their job duties. The previous comment about fire does physical testing, wearing their gear and things like that, the particulars of it I'm not intimately familiar with. But in general, my understanding was that a lot of law enforcement agencies had stopped doing physical fitness tests over the years due to various rulings in various courts. And I know the FBI stopped a long time ago in doing them because of a need to show job-relatedness. And it was not something that was looked at as being, I'm not sure if it was really something they didn't want to fight in court, so they just dropped the tests. How do we ensure that our firefighters and police stay physically fit? I think they have annual physical exams that if red flags are raised, then it goes into a process. I'll have to check on exactly what that process is. I would appreciate that. The summary says police physicals are every other year, and I would question that. Most physicians on adults conduct yearly physicals, and I would like to know why the standard for police is every other year. Okay. It does say fire physicals are yearly. Okay. Okay, I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Next we've got Council reports. Council reports, Council reports. Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Mayor. I'll be very brief. During our earlier planning and public works committee meeting, we took up the issue of compressed natural gas, And I just wanted to highlight one of the new business items today was we were receiving our very first electric vehicle into our fleet for use. I thought that was something that was worth at least noting. And then, given Chris, I was privileged to be with you when we were talking about the Lexer bill, Mayor. And this was the ad that was in a Sunday's paper. And I just, I know we've hired Group CJ to do this. I just thought this was so ingenious, I just wanted to just highlight it, because I think it's a really great way to demonstrate that the bills are separating, and you will have a water bill and a LexServe bill. And I just thought it was just, I just found it very illustrative, and I just wanted to compliment the creative genius behind that. There's only about $6 million on the line. Yeah. It better be effective. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They appreciate your mentioning that, Council Member Farmer. They did work hard on it. It's been well done. I just thought this was very catchy, as it were. And then last, I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, no, no, no. Go right ahead. Lastly, as we get ready to leave, I will just tell you that I've had my car for many, many years, and I've become kind of attached to it. Late yesterday afternoon, it developed a little tick where if I'm driving straight, the car is fine. But if I turn left or right, it honks just a little bit. So tonight when we leave out of here, I'm not honking at any of you. I tried to disable the horn, but it also... Councilman Martin. I thought there was a parable there somewhere. No, no. It's just fair warning. Try to drive in this town straight. It's really tough. Oh, Lordy, I'm not going to pick that one up. Thank you, Mayor. All right. Council Member K. Council Member K. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member K. I keep seeking recognition at the wrong moment. I'm sorry. I just wanted to let everybody know, if you haven't seen it in your email, that the Mayor's Commission on Homelessness will be having an open space meeting Saturday, August 25th. And everyone is invited to attend. If you're not familiar with open space, you'll get an opportunity to talk about whatever topic you think is really important. It will be all day, and I hope to see many of you there, and I hope the public will come. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Kay. All right. Nobody's okay. Looks like there's a, looks like we're, no one else wishes to make a council report. All right. Well, we've had a good evening tonight. Next on the agenda is the mayor's report. Move approval. Oh, my goodness. Motion by Vice Mayor Gorton and Enthusiastic. Second by Council Member Beard. But there is discussion available. Is there discussion on the motion? Okay. Hearing none, then we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Next on our agenda is public comment for issues not on the agenda. And I don't have anyone signed up that I'm aware of. Do we? No? Derek? Derek? No, okay. I don't think that's serious. I think that's standing up for anticipation of another vote, perhaps. All right, then. Is there a motion to adjourn by Councilman Senate, second by Councilman Ellinger? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. We are adjourned. I'm just kidding. Sorry. I'm sorry. I want a shot of that red.