# Public Safety Committee August 21 - July 10, 2012 > Auto-transcribed civic record · July 10, 2012 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/2666 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/2666?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2012-07-10 - **Last revised**: July 17, 2026 - **Length**: 11,852 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 Public Safety Committee met on August 21, 2012, at 1:00 p.m., with Diane Lawless presiding. The committee addressed three agenda items during the session. One motion was voted on, and the committee heard three public comments. Of the three items on the agenda, one was approved: "Fireworks Blues." Two items were deferred for future consideration: "Examine Quarry Ordinance to Ensure Revenue Neutral PS Link" and "Items Referred to Committee." ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the meeting on July 10, 2012: * Diane Lawless * Doug Martin * Chuck Ellinger * Chris Ford * Julian Beard * Bill Farmer * Kevin Stinnett * K.C. Crosbie * Jay McChord * Peggy Henson No absences or late arrivals were recorded. ## Votes and Decisions **Ordinance 0130-26: Amended Fireworks Ordinance** [timestamp: 01:14:55] The body voted on an amended fireworks ordinance proposed by Peggy Henson and seconded by Bill Farmer. The ordinance prohibits the use and sale of Category 2 and 3 consumer fireworks while allowing only Category 1 fireworks. It also increases penalties for violations. The motion passed by roll call vote with 9 ayes, 0 nays, and 0 abstentions. **Voting in favor:** Diane Lawless, Doug Martin, Chuck Ellinger, Chris Ford, Julian Beard, Bill Farmer, Kevin Stinnett, K.C. Crosbie, Jay McChord, and Peggy Henson **Voting against:** None The ordinance becomes effective upon passage. It establishes escalating fines for repeat offenses: $250 for the first violation, $500 for the second, and $1,000 for subsequent violations. The ordinance also allows temporary sales tents for fireworks, with a recommended fee to be determined by administration. ## Public Comment Three members of the public addressed the meeting regarding fireworks enforcement and regulation. **Kevin Stinnett** [timestamp: 01:04:18] advocated for a proactive enforcement strategy, recommending that joint police and fire units begin enforcement efforts starting in May. He emphasized the importance of public education to ensure community compliance with the new, stiffer penalties associated with the proposed ordinance. **Jay McChord** [timestamp: 01:06:15] raised concerns about the practical challenges of enforcement, citing limited staffing as a significant constraint. He suggested that allowing temporary sales tents could serve as a control mechanism for access to prohibited fireworks while maintaining revenue neutrality. **Julian Beard** [timestamp: 01:12:24] expressed urgency regarding the immediate implementation of the ordinance. He noted that delaying enforcement could result in a surge in fireworks use before the new rules take effect, as people may quickly exhaust their stock if they become aware that a ban is imminent. ## Contested Items **Fireworks Ordinance Enforcement and Penalties** During the July 10, 2012 meeting, discussion of fireworks ordinance enforcement and penalties revealed underlying disagreement among members, despite the final motion passing unanimously. The core dispute centered on the effectiveness of proposed increased fines as an enforcement mechanism. Some members expressed concerns about whether higher penalties would meaningfully deter violations given the department's existing constraints. Specifically, they questioned the feasibility of enforcement, citing low citation rates and staffing limitations as obstacles to effective implementation. The disagreement reflected a tension between two approaches: whether increased financial penalties alone could serve as an adequate deterrent, or whether the city lacked the operational capacity to enforce such penalties effectively. Members questioning the approach were concerned that raising fines without addressing underlying enforcement challenges—such as insufficient staffing or low citation rates—would not achieve the ordinance's intended purpose. Despite these concerns raised during deliberation, the body ultimately reached consensus, with the motion passing unanimously. This suggests that members either resolved their concerns through discussion, accepted the measure as a step forward despite its limitations, or determined that other factors warranted approval despite the identified enforcement challenges. ## Fireworks Blues The committee discussed and approved an amended fireworks ordinance during this agenda item [timestamp: 01:00:00]. **Ordinance Details** The proposed ordinance would significantly restrict consumer fireworks use and sales within the jurisdiction. The amendment would: - Prohibit the use and sale of Category 2 and 3 consumer fireworks, which include aerial and audible devices - Allow only Category 1 fireworks, limited to ground and handheld sparklers - Establish tiered penalty increases for repeat offenses: $250 for the first violation, $500 for the second, and $1,000 for subsequent violations **Key Participants** The discussion involved five committee members: Peggy Henson, Kevin Stinnett, Julian Beard, Doug Martin, and Jay McChord. **Outcome** The committee voted unanimously to approve the amended fireworks ordinance. The motion included a recommendation to forward the ordinance to the full council for further consideration and final action. ## Examine Quarry Ordinance to Ensure Revenue Neutral PS Link [timestamp: 01:15:27] The committee reviewed the quarry ordinance with a focus on establishing a revenue-neutral fee structure for mining and quarrying permits. The discussion involved Julian Beard, Kevin Stinnett, Peggy Henson, and Doug Martin. **Fee Structure Options Presented** Three fee structure options were examined: - A fixed fee with cost-of-living adjustment - A $50 administrative fee with private inspection - A formula-based fee tied to actual costs **Committee Action** The committee deferred action on the ordinance, determining that additional input was needed before making a final decision. Specifically, the committee requested input from the Division of Engineering to inform the final fee structure selection. ## Items Referred to Committee The committee reviewed a list of items that had been referred by the Public Safety Link. [timestamp: 01:30:47] **Items Under Review** The referred items included: - Chronic nuisance ordinance - Community corrections - Emergency management planning - Fleet maintenance **Key Speakers** Peggy Henson, Kevin Stinnett, and Julian Beard participated in the discussion of these referred items. **Actions Taken** Several items were removed from the agenda. These removals occurred either because the items had been completed or because they lacked actionable content. Other items on the list were deferred to allow for further coordination among relevant parties. **Outcome** The overall outcome for this agenda item was deferred, meaning the committee postponed final action on the referred items pending additional work and coordination. --- ## Decisions - **Ordinance 0130-26** — passed (9-0): Amended fireworks ordinance to prohibit use and sale of Category 2 and 3 consumer fireworks, allow only Category 1, and increase penalties --- ## Full transcript I don't know where we're by the roses, the queen of corona See me and Julio down by the schoolyard See me and Julio down by the schoolyard I'm on my way. I'm taking my time, but I don't know where. Who got a rope? Thank you. so Thank you. Thank you. Are we young? Do we have quorum? This is August 21st at 1 p.m., the Public Safety Committee meeting. Calling to order. there's something on the screen that needs to Thank you. Okay. Today on the agenda is the approval of the July 10, 2012 summary of the Public Safety Committee meeting. Motion approved. Okay. We have Peggy Henson moving to approve. Council Member Ellinger seconding. All in favor, is there any discussion? All in favor? All in favor. Okay. Okay, number two, pages 5 through 16 on the agenda are the fireworks. It's the fireworks ordinance. And I believe Council Member Blues, did you have someone presenting on this? Okay. Would you move forward? Move forward. Thank you, Madam Chair. As you know, I'm not a member of this committee, but I appreciate being allowed to put forward this amendment to the current fireworks ordinance. Let me start out with some definitions which may be useful to the committee, but also, of course, to the audience. And these are definitions of consumer fireworks as characterized, as defined by Kentucky Revised Statutes. Category number one is constituted of ground and handheld sparkling devices, the kinds of fireworks, cone fountains, spinners, and the like that anybody is allowed to purchase and to use. Category two are aerial devices. These include sky rockets and bottle rockets, roaming candles, fireworks that shoot into the air and explode there. And the third category of consumer fireworks is audible ground devices, as described in KRS. These are firecrackers, salutes. Their primary function is to make noise, and as we know, they do. Categories 2 and 3 are governed in the following way in terms of their use. That is, you must be 18 years old or older to use them. They are not permitted to be fired within 200 feet of any structure, of any vehicle, or any person. Now, a bit of history. Up until two years ago, the only fireworks that were allowed to be sold, the only consumer fireworks that were allowed to be sold and used in Kentucky were the Category 1, the ground and handheld sparkling devices. But prior to the summer of 2011, the legislature decided to allow Categories 2 and 3 to be sold and to be used by the general public under the conditions I just named in Kentucky. There is another category of fireworks called display fireworks. These are larger fireworks. They're typical of fireworks events that would be permitted if approved by the Commissioner of Public Safety or his designee, as under the current ordinance. That would include, of course, our Fourth of July celebration downtown. the occasional fireworks exhibitions at the baseball park, and I can't remember, Legends Park. And I think every year the Heartland neighborhood has such an event. Now, the proposed ordinance amendment that I have brought forward for your consideration, here's what it does. It still permits the sale and the purchase of Category 1 consumer fireworks, the sparklers, the cone fountains, and so forth. It allows for display fireworks at permitted events. It prohibits categories 2 and 3 of the consumer fireworks, the aerial devices and the audible ground devices. In essence, this ordinance returns us to the conditions before 2001. before the legislature liberalized the state law to enable the categories 2 and 3 fireworks. I suppose the rationale for bringing forward this amendment should be fairly familiar to any council member who receives email and phone calls from constituents. We have been, I think, saturated with reports about the noise, about the hazards, danger, the frequency of late-night fireworks disturbing people's sleep, of driving dogs and cats crazy, of being a general and very loud nuisance, It's not just at the 4th of July, but for weeks and weeks of the summer. It starts fairly early, and as you know, it is still going on, and we are still getting emails. In a city like Lexington, where density is more the rural than the exception, it is virtually impossible to use categories 2 and 3 fireworks legally. And as we know, most of these fireworks are not used more than 200 feet away from any structure, anybody's house, any vehicle, or any person. we could say that, well, the problem here is that there are just a few scofflaws and people who are indifferent to their neighbors, heedless and irresponsible, and that's probably true. Unfortunately, it only takes one person to disturb and disrupt and annoy to the point of distraction in almost an entire neighborhood. And so to try to bring back some peace, some reasonable quiet, and still to allow for the more benign types of fireworks, plus those that are, as I described, the display fireworks. I brought forward this amended ordinance, and I hope that the Public Safety Committee will see fit to not only discuss it and review it, but also to recommend that it be forwarded to the full Council for its approval. We have representatives from the Division of Police, the Division of Fire. I think that Lieutenant Roberts from Division of Police is here. Assistant Chief Rick Jordan from Fire. Battalion Chief Davis is here. I think Commissioner of Public Safety is here. And so, Madam Chair, I turn this back to you for your discussion and consideration. Thank you very much. Thank you. Let's hear from the public safety officials, and then we'll take comments from the committee. Is that okay? Are they here just to answer questions? Well, that's not my decision, Madam Chair. That's yours. I just didn't know if you had called them. But I did send them copies of the proposed ordinance and ask them if they could be here to be available for questions and comments and their opinions on the proposal. Then I guess we'll have comments from the council members that you all can answer. Council Member Martin, would you take over as chair so I can make a comment? I will so take over as chair, recognizing Council Member Lawless. Thank you. One question I have, just to be perfectly clear for the viewing public and the council members, this would exclude the use of firecrackers? Well, it would prohibit the use of, as I said, in this case the Category 3 audible ground devices, which do, yes, they are firecrackers, the ones that explode and make. And another question somebody asked me, and it was an interesting question. There's something called snappers where kids, people throw them on the ground, they make a noise and sparks fly up. And just this weekend I was at an event where I was walking by and somebody threw one, a small child threw one down and a piece of it hit me in the eye. So they do make noise and I'm not sure if they would be included. Well, as you know, I put the KRS-227702 in the packet for your consideration, and I won't go through this whole thing, but you can look on page 5 of your packet and see all of the various ground and handheld sparkling devices that would continue to be permitted under this revision. Okay, thank you. I have had an overwhelming number of people who said they never thought they would agree to this or think that this has been an extremely bad year. And firecrackers in at least my district are thrown on roofs and people get out with their hoses, etc. So that being said, I will ask to Council Member Martin to pass the gavel back to me. You got it. Okay, thank you. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Blues, for your introduction of this issue. Obviously, this is something that the Council passed last year in response to the state law change that caught a lot of people by surprise, and I'm not sure was fully debated, the effects of it in Frankfurt, but unfortunately we get a lot of those mandates from time to time, and we have to react. Last year the council took more of an easier approach into this issue by trying to be fair, trying to allow fireworks on certain days to sell them at certain times of year. But unfortunately, some individuals in our community have made that very difficult to enforce and have caused quite an issue in all of our neighborhoods. And this is the second year in a row we've had this kind of public outcry to do something about it. And I think it's time the council, unfortunately with a heavy fist this time, put a stop to this issue and make some necessary changes that allow the tools our police and fire need to enforce it, but also allow citizens some type of recourse and assurance that this is not going to be an annual occurrence that we just have to learn to accept and live with. Because prior to two years ago, the state law change, prior to that state law change, fireworks were easily accepted in our community, and people typically obeyed the law for the most part, and we didn't have this issue. And so, Councilman Blues, I assume most of these changes kind of put us back to two years ago and how our previous laws were in terms of locally and enacting the Class 1 fireworks only to be sowed and to be ignited in our community? That is correct. There's one difference here, and I just talked to Battalion Chief Davis about this. The proposed revision would not allow the tent sale of fireworks in future, as they have always been up to now. So you would have no seasonal retailers basically out there in the temporary structure? That's correct. On the other hand, he suggested that as we work on this ordinance, we might consider allowing those tents sales. And he can explain it better than I can what the reason would be for that. As we know, when we did have the tent sales in previous years. I don't want to take my time on that issue necessarily. I just want to make sure, not to cut you off, but we can talk about that here in a second. And I know Chief is glad to go back, but I have two other points I want to make, and we can talk about that here in a second. But I appreciate that clarification. If we want to allow them, we can debate that here in a second. But the other two big issues I'd like to hear about from the commissioner, one, we have a huge issue with E911. When citizens were calling in, I myself called in on two occasions just to prove the point. Our dispatchers didn't know what the law was. They told people this year that it was okay to light fireworks off, and that wasn't true. It was okay with the exception of you have to be 18, you have to be 200 feet away. And so we weren't sending officers to the scene because we said it's okay. So that can't happen again. We've got to nip that in the bud. We need to make sure. I know our police and fire are trained on this, but everyone is trained on how to respond to our citizens' calls because I know it can be frustrating for our E-9-1 folks, and for the most part, they did a great job. But in those cases where we didn't send someone because the citizens were told the law allows them, and that's not necessarily true. So I want to make sure what we're going to do to bring everyone up to the same speed on what the law says you can and can't do and how we're going to handle calls because when people are calling, I know they're frustrated. And I know they're getting the blunt of those calls and not catching people at their best moment. But we need to be able to handle that professionally and explain to them what's allowed and what's not allowed. The second issue I'd like to see addressed by the committee today is the fines. I had more than one citizen tell me, well, I'll pay a $100 fine. Heck, I paid $1,000 to get these fireworks. That's nothing. You know, that's a small fee to pay to let my display off. I'd like to see the fine beefed up. If we're going to get serious about it, and, Commissioner, you can tell us how many did we write this year, actual fines, the $100. But I'd like to see it jump up to the second level, $250 the first time, $500 and $1,000. If we're really going to get control of this issue now and nip it in the bud. Because we've tried the easy way. We've tried to let people enjoy it responsibly, but it hadn't worked. How many fines did we issue this past year? 30. 30? 30, yes. Because it's not a money thing for the city. I want people to understand that because we don't get the money. The state gets the money. We had, in the past five years, we went from 301 calls in 2007 to 262, 249, 323. In 2011, we had 897 calls, and then this year, 2,187. So it's clearly not about the money. there's a significant manpower and time resource to address and try and enforce what is a very difficult issue. And I'll be glad to let Lieutenant Roberts come up here in just a second and kind of talk you through some of the logistical issues, if you wish, of enforcement. But I'll get back to that in a moment. But to address the other part of what you asked about, nobody likes a Barney Fife reference better than me. When you say nip it in the bud, I think you're right. I think that the fines would, I'm in agreement that the fines need to be stiffer when people pay the kind of money they've paid. Because quite frankly, you pay more for a speeding ticket than you do for this type of violation. This one can be as serious. It does. And we did have one or two instances of fires that were directly attributable to fireworks. and with the dryness of this summer, even with the ban we put in, it didn't really stem the tide. In terms of the E911, we did look into that. There were some issues in communication of direction in terms of what the law allowed, and I think that some of it was due to a volume that the call takers were really swamped at various times and would give the short answer that they're legal to shoot without going into detail of some of the parameters of the ordinance. And we have reeducated the call taker and dispatch staff on that in terms of making sure they understood the specifics of the distances and the ages and the time frames. So we have addressed that in terms of going forward on how to handle. Again, that's an education process with those folks. But I assume a simpler ordinance that just proposed today would help that communication to the public when they called to know that? Yes. Yes, simpler ordinance would do that. Okay, I'd love to hear enforcement suggestions too. My time's up, but I'd love to hear about next year, what we can do prior to the 4th, either form a tactical team of half police, half fire, whatever it may be that can respond to these calls and only respond to them during certain times. if we can form something like that in our community to handle these calls. That would be great to be able to do that ahead of time. That's a good idea. Council Member Beard, thank you. Thank you, Chair. I, too, have had numerous calls recently in the last two weeks. A lady almost in tears because of her lack of sleep. somebody is setting something off every night. They can buy fireworks, however, probably in Jessamine County, which is not very far necessarily. It's not far from my district, anyway. Anyway, so I think we do have to stiffen the fines. You know, fines for different things. People don't notice, for instance, what they're doing when they're driving a car, and all of a sudden they're 35 in a 25-mile-an-hour zone. somebody has to get up and drive to Nicholasville or wherever to buy these heavy-duty fireworks. And then if there is a second offense of any kind, And they're pretty well thumbing their nose at us and the law. And, of course, the same for the third. So I would suggest probably $250 for first offense. $750 for second offense? and $1,000 for the service. That might get somebody's attention. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Beard. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Chair. I'm concerned that the genie's out of the bottle. I appreciate Dr. Blues' efforts. I believe I seconded the motion to put this in committee, and I support this proposal. I, too, have received dozens and dozens of e-mails asking for the repeal of the Council's firework ordinance. The ordinance was never enforceable, and officers, I think, have little appetite to go put the whammy on citizens and tell them to quit firing off their fireworks. We are short-staffed as it is, and I think it's a very difficult situation. I, too, would like to better understand the enforcement of this, because now that we've allowed it, I think it's going to be years before we get this back under control. Instead of needing enforcement after 10 o'clock every night or after midnight every night, now we're going to need enforcement 24-7 because none of these aerials are now legal or none of the Class 2 and Class 3 are now legal. And so instead of just trying to keep people from shooting it off after 10, we're now going to have to keep people from shooting them off any time. And, Commissioner Mason, I guess if you're the person to ask about the enforcement, I guess the numbers that I heard you say is that we had about 2,100 complaints in 2011. No, this year. So far this year. And how many citations? 30. That's not a real great ratio, is it? No. so i guess my concern is if and i've had seen some email traffic so i'm i'm wondering how this works one of the emails i saw was that the that the the officer responded to to a citizen and was having discussion with the citizens about the whether or not the council should have passed this and whether how the citizen should take up her complaints with the council but my question is If the officers see the fireworks going off at 1130 at night on a Wednesday, do they go talk to the citizen or do they go find the fireworks? I mean, these are supposed to be bright, easy-to-see explosions. I would think that you could go to the fireworks. Well, potentially you could. But I know where I live, sometimes it's hard to determine the point of takeoff for the fireworks. You have a reasonable boundary, and then sometimes you have to drive up and down streets to wait for the next one and be able to see into a backyard or come upon a cul-de-sac where people are setting them off. So it's not as easy as saying, well, over Meadowthorpe they're shooting off fireworks. Well, how many streets are in Meadowthorpe? How can we really pin down the exact location? So that's some of the dilemma in the instance of enforcement. So when people call, the officer responds to the caller and says, okay, where are they being shot from? You know, right here around? Or is it a neighbor you can see? There's a lot of steps that have to be taken right at the outset of addressing a call. But as I understand, with 30 citations, that's about one a week for the entire city of Lexington. Is that probably close? Over the course of so far this year, I guess we're probably about to have one. One citation per week for the entire city. And with 2,100 calls, it just doesn't seem to me that there's a – and I know we're short-staffed, and I know this is a difficult thing to enforce, but when you've got – Some of the calls can be narrowed down. When you look at the call chart, you see that there are multiple calls probably about the same instance in particular neighborhoods because you'll get calls from people within the same small geographic area complaining about fireworks. So some of it is duplicative calls. Well, I'm happy to support increased fines for this. but excuse me i'm concerned that uh it's going to be even more difficult to enforce um and you actually have to go hand out a citation before you can give them a fine and so if we're only giving out on average one citation a week for the whole city then i'm concerned that that the uh you know the additional fines really won't have an impact you actually have to i guess find the bad guys on a regular basis for that to... I think that goes to what Councilman Stennett was talking about, is coming up with a proactive plan that with an increased fine is going to be an educational process for the citizenry as well. So we can look at that as the first step is starting to educate the citizens that, you know, the tolerance level has been dropped way down on people doing this, that in the past 30 citations may not sound like a lot, but in the future, the fine itself will be dramatically higher. Well, I think I was the only one that voted against the fireworks ordinance last year, so I appreciate the Council reconsidering this. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to echo what everyone else is saying, because we've all received numerous emails, phone calls, whatever, to please put a stop to the madness. So I really appreciate CM Blues for taking the bulls by the horn. It's something one of us was going to have to do, so I really appreciate that. And as for the police, I was told that there were special units assigned just to fireworks, and that was from the West sector. I'm not sure about the other sectors, but I felt like they were overwhelmed this year. And I would much rather have police doing other things than chasing out fireworks. But I guess I was also told, Commissioner, if maybe you could tell me, do the officers actually have to see them shooting off the fireworks? On the specifics and nuances of that, I think I'd rather have the lieutenant address those. That's your question, Ms. Hanson. Yes, they do. The officers are, in order to give the citation, they need to be able to show evidence that it was happening, so to see it shot off. Many times we show up and multiple neighbors have been setting off fireworks, so there's a lot of debris in the area. If we don't physically see somebody lighting the firework, then we can't necessarily determine who it was that created that problem. So if you're coming down a street and you see a firework go off in a yard and you stop and get out, you really can't prove who set it off, but would the property owner be responsible? Not under the current ordinance. The way it's written, it's the person in the act of actually setting it off. Or the tenant or whoever's responsible for that property. Yes, ma'am, whoever is actually doing the act. I think that is one of the reasons that just a small amount of citations were actually issued, because the officer didn't actually see them shooting it off, and I thought, you know, that's bad. But I know that you were overwhelmed. I know that one night alone, it was either July 3rd or 4th, there were 600 calls. That's correct, ma'am. Answered, and that's just enormous. And with that volume of calls, many times, the commissioner touched on it, many times by the time the call gets in the stack and it gets dispatched amongst the other priority of calls, when the officer arrives, nothing's going on. We typically don't see people going out and for hours and hours and hours setting off fireworks. They go out to the stands, they buy some, they come home, set them off. And so sometimes it's just the lag time of the response time to get there to actually see them still in the act. Right. But there were officers assigned specifically to firework calls, correct? Correct, yes, ma'am. Okay. Because I like if we could, like we're going to do for a U.K. game or whatever, our city, if we'd be better prepared for an event, knowing that it's a good possibility. but thank you thank you thank you chair Ms. Wallace if I may you had a question regarding the trick noisemakers the snap and pops KRS 227704 addresses those as novelties and so they will not be covered under this current ordinance our current ordinance only addresses those outlined into 702 so 227704 the party poppers snap and pops would not be regulated under your current ordinance Thank you. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Madam Chair. You know, in a democratic process, you try and work with people, and that's what's happened over the last couple of years is you're trying to work with the people. Unfortunately, when folks throw personal responsibility out the window, you end up in this situation trying to legislate personal responsibility, which is very, very difficult. and how do you legislate personal responsibility when people are shooting fireworks off starting in June and ending at Christmas, apparently. And that's one of those things where what we're wrestling with. So first I want to say thank you to Council Member Blues for bringing it forward, but really offering language and some specific motions to work with. It doesn't really matter how we voted in the past, Council Member Martin. The bottom line is no matter what ordinance was passed, you've got an enforcement and a fine issue. So it doesn't matter. You can't throw, as Council Member Beard says, you can't throw an iron curtain around Fayette County and expect that somebody's not going to go to Jessamine County and go buy the stuff. So at the end of the day, we can say ban it all and do all that kind of stuff, and that's maybe one part of this. But really what it comes down to for me is, and I really would like to hear from fire and police as to your all's ideas about how to do this specifically. But I think you name the officers in fire and police in May that you go ahead and start that public campaign, that education process, that these fines have dramatically changed, that we basically point out these are the folks who are going to go after this and go after it because here is what happened. And we can go with just the 911 calls and the progression that we've seen, but people are fed up. I mean, people are absolutely fed up with it. And, again, it goes back to you're trying to legislate personal responsibility, and that's where it gets very, very difficult for us. But what we can do is this council can support fire and police's plan for addressing that with specific officers. and is it something that we can literally put some enforcement into some folks in a temporary fashion to go out and cite this? We're not pulling police officers or fire folks off the streets from necessary calls. Can you literally just deputize some folks during this season and make them this group that starts to go after this very aggressively? Once the word gets out over the course of about two years' time, you're not going to have this problem. So I don't believe the genie is out of the bottle. I do believe that you've got something right now that we can address, but we have to be very sensitive, obviously, to staffing and things like that. I agree with Council Member Stennett and Beard and others who have said ratchet the fines up. Take them up as high as you want to take them. If we're going to send a message, if it's a point of this has gotten kind of ridiculous, we've tried to work with people, we've spent two years doing this, then go ahead and put some serious fines out there, and I believe the first fine should be much higher than a speeding ticket and going from there. So at the end of the day, no matter what ordinance is passed, those are the issues we've really got to get at, and what we need to do is recognize what we're working with and what are the creative solves. How can we address this given our specific circumstances? And I think that there's a creative way to do that. It does not tax our regular fire and police folks. So I'm in favor, Council Member Blues, of what you brought forward, and I'm certainly in favor of lending whatever support is needed to put these fire and police folks into the mix starting May of next year. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Council Member McCord. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Chair. I wanted to jump back in the conversation and listen to Commissioner about the enforcement. What are our plans going forward if this passes today? Are you all open to the idea of police and fire naming a joint group in May, June to start tackling this issue? Or are we going to? I think those are very reasonable steps to analyze. Have not sat down with them and laid out any options and plans. but I think it would be something along the lines of an education process. In terms of staffing, we'll have to look through the telescope down the road to see what staffing is going to be at next spring and see what kind of considerations of overtime and some of those kind of things would come up. We can put something together for this committee. Maybe within a couple of months it would be in advance of the new ordinance time frame kicking off in January, though. But I think there's several things that have been mentioned here about some approaches that we'll be glad to consider and sit down and talk with you all as well. Yeah, I'd love to get a handle on it well before it's time and catch us all by surprise. I know FIRE has a role and have different ordinances they can enforce and help with, and I know police have their role as well on the enforcement. So I'd like to work with both of them together moving forward. And you all are comfortable with the temporary structures. Do we want to talk about that again, not allowing it at all? Because the current version doesn't allow any type of sale of temporary structures. Right. I thought the point that they were discussing before the meeting, if you all want to go ahead and talk about that, I thought it was a point worth discussion in terms of if you close it down and folks do drive to other jurisdictions. They're going to have access to bigger ones. They're going to have access to bigger ones. If we allow some temporary tents in to sell what is controllable. That's a good point. Then the people, while they're there, they won't be looking next to them in the next aisle and seeing the great big things. Assuming we're diligent on inspecting and making sure they don't have any under the side tent or under the table that they're giving away as well, because that's a big issue. We were doing that in the old days anyway. Right. Prior to this happening, we generally had 10 to 12 permitted tents, and it only cost them $25. This last year, we had 42 permitted tents at a cost of $500. $500 would be cost prohibitive to sell the type of fireworks that you're talking about allowing, but if you had tended structures, as we did in the past, we did inspect those for those type of fireworks that weren't allowed, and we had very, very few infractions. To my knowledge, we had more infractions of people just pulling up in a pickup truck and actually selling them. We caught, I believe, two doing that this year, if I'm not mistaken, literally just selling them like that. But the big box places generally and the convenience stores tend to sell a package. They don't tend to sell the bigger fountains and the bigger devices like that that would be legal under this, and so people might be tempted when they drive over to a neighboring county to buy the illegal ones also. So it might be better to provide them an outlet to buy those type of things here in the hopes that we can enforce as we have in the past. We inspect all those tents. We physically inspect them all, and we've also sent out people undercover. We've gone out and we've attempted, hey, what do you got under the table, if we hear anything, or we also do it without hearing anything. But that's one consideration. And then, like I said, the other one is there are some groups, some civic groups, and some landlords who rent space and use these as a fundraiser, and they might have an objection to that also. But now I'm not saying that we have to cater to everyone's needs, but if we could accommodate them and help the city out at the same time, it might be a good plan. So the way Councilman Blues introduced it, you can't do temporary structures, but the big box stores like the Sam's and Walmarts can sell them? Everybody that's got a permanent structure could sell them, every retailer. They're called ancillary sites. Everybody could sell them, every convenience store, Walmart, Kmart, anybody you want to name, Lowe's. It's anybody that's got a site here in town that has a business permit or a retailer operating could sell them at that point. Okay. All right. Very good. Thank you, sir. Yes. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Martin, would you like to take the gavel? So taken. The Chair recognizes Council Member Lawless. Thank you. Two things. I know that our county attorney, Larry Roberts, has said that if you record dogs barking, whatever, that they can prosecute them, and he would. So would that not apply to if you saw a person setting off the fireworks, take a photo, and then you would have proof that they had done it? Again, I'll let the lieutenant handle that. I'm not sure we can really speak for Larry Roberts, but in terms of the evidentiary value of a photograph like that. Ma'am, my understanding in those cases, those are direct prosecutions. Those complaints are taken directly from the citizen to the county attorney. In those cases, our officers would not go out and write a citation based upon the recordings or something else that a citizen provided. So in this stance, could somebody go and make a complaint for fireworks directly to the county attorney? If he would accept them, I suppose it's possible, but it wouldn't be something that we could cite. Well, and I know that we, the police department, had during the riots, during the NCAA, had a lot of footage that they put out there and people to identify them. So obviously officers did not see them directly commit those offenses. So I would assume it might be similar to that. And secondly, I support this. I think it has gotten way out of hand. I would like to see us have escalating fines, and I want to thank Dr. Blues, Council Member Blues, for bringing this forward. But I would like to have the effective date be upon passage, even though we may not be completely geared up, because I know in a lot of my neighborhoods and probably others, it's not just Fourth of July. It's year-round. It's ball games. There's no ball game. And it's, you know, so even though we may not have a perfect plan in place, I would like to see this go into effect immediately because, like I say, there are some serious problems with firecrackers and such being thrown on roofs of houses, et cetera, when there's no event, even during the middle of the week, when nothing's going on except somebody's board. So I would support, I would like to see if there could be, after the motion is made, I'd like to make a friendly amendment to add escalating meaningful fines and also an effective date that is sooner. rather than later if that. So, thank you. Taking back the gavel. So, take him. Council Member Beard. Thank you again, Chair. First, I believe, anyway, what I just heard not too long ago. So if, in fact, the sparklers and the little fountains and things like that are being sold at Walmarts and Speedways and Kmarts and going on and on, allowing a few little tents, I think, is futile because it's not going to be very profitable to them. And they're going to be up against the big boys who can undersell them, so it makes no sense to even bother doing that and allow anything. The second thing I was going to amend also was the question of the fines. And I like the $500, $750, and $1,000 for repeat offenders, and I would like to see this thing, as you mentioned, be effective immediately. No sense in waiting for whatever and have somebody disrupt people's sleep or terrify their dogs. And I had that situation with a dog. When he got terrified, he would jump into bed and get behind my head and have me shelter him from the noise. And he only weighed 80 pounds and couldn't get him out of the bed because he wasn't sure when the next one was going to go off. So anyway, beside the point, I just think we've got to be tough on this thing. I understand the problem of enforcement. Enforcement is a problem, but enforcement is a problem about a lot of things, whether it's, again, the speeder, 35 miles an hour in a 25-mile-an-hour zone. There are lots of things. everything isn't a capital crime. And I'm afraid that law enforcement is going to have to continue to chase these people if they continue to do it. But hopefully we can get some press on this and alert the people that they're in trouble and they're going to be in trouble immediately. and see if they want to roll the dice with us. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Baird. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Chair. Mr. Barbary, were you the one who helped work with the law on drafting this new ordinance? Could you clarify what would be allowed now and what would not be allowed? As far as the use and sale? Yes. I think it's pretty close to what Dr. Blues described earlier. The intent is to allow, is to pretty much get it back to where it was prior to the state law passage when you all decided to allow the legal sale and use of all of the types of fireworks. You'd go back to the class one, and I think he's included the copy of the statute which defines those things. What page is that on? I think it's on page five. those are ground and handheld sparkling devices, including sparklers, fountains, cone fountains, illuminating torches, wheels, ground spinners, flitter sparklers, and toy smoke devices. And then starting with the aerial devices, which is category number two on page six, those would be what's prohibited. So if it flies in the air or if it makes a loud noise, it's pretty much not allowed. Now, were these allowed prior to the same? Yes, sir. I think I'll defer to fire, but I think those Category 1s have always been allowed. So have we gotten more restricted than we were prior to? No, I think we're at the same point, the issues of the tents, and that was an oversight on my part because we had not discussed that when I drafted it, and I had forgotten that we had tents that just sold the regular ones. legally you're probably in a better point if you allow some of those tents so they don't come in with some sort of equal protection argument but we didn't really have a chance to discuss that type of tent operation i think what fire would like you to have happen perhaps just go back on the way it used to be on that and perhaps make it like a fifty dollar fee instead of the $25 or $50 instead of the $500 it would be now to operate one of those tents. And the tent would only be allowed to sell these Category 1s also, just like it used to be, I guess, two or three years ago. Now, those are the tents. What about, we talked about the retail plate businesses that have a business license. Can they sell more? They've been selling the 1s all along. I think they might have started, I don't think legally they were allowed to sell the 2s unless they pulled another type of license. My confusion has always been, as someone that looks at them in the store, I think sometimes those packets might have limited aerial devices, and they'd have to get with the retailer to make sure they're not carrying something like that. Like if you buy one of those packs at a box store, there's a possibility, I think, depending on the pack that it may include a very small number of the Category 2 ones, and they would need to make sure that that was not the case going forward. Thank you. Dr. Blues, if we go to this change back to where it was prior to the state law, are we going to do some kind of education process? Because I think if we're going to up the penalties, which it sounds like this is where the committee is headed, then we've allowed them up this past year to do that, and then also we're going to go back to not allow them to use those, and now we're going to double or triple their penalties. I think that's being a little unfair to people who were not educating them enough. We allow them now. We're not allowing them now. we're going to charge them more. I think we're going to have to do some kind of education, and I'm not sure how that's going to happen, but I think it's something that needs to be addressed. Well, I certainly agree with that. I think that the revised ordinance, if the committee chooses to move it forward and the council passes, it should be a catalytic effect. That is, it should state clearly what the law is, prohibit the more dangerous and noisome fireworks, elevate the fines. And I think this also implies that we would have a serious public education effort to notify the public. and perhaps however you decide to move it forward, if you decide to move it forward, to set maybe a date in future that would give the government some opportunity to do that educational piece. And as well, I think, for public safety to devise an improved enforcement plan, because I think enforcement has to be strengthened as well. I think this gives public safety some real tools here. which says these kinds of fireworks are prohibited. And it notifies the public to that effect and the fines as well. So we as a council can do our part, but this will have to be a total government effort. If I could, I would be glad to coordinate that with both fire and police, their public information folks. I think today's newspaper even had an insert about public safety that Chief Davis wrote a very well articulated piece about arson in, And we'll be glad to take the ball and carry that forward to educate through those offices. Council Member Stimmit. Thank you, Chair. And I appreciate Council Member Ellen for asking about the educational process. I think that's good for everyone, including on our side in trying to enforce it, making sure everyone understands what the new ordinance is, especially if part of the new ordinance is going to be changing the fines dramatically. So it's good to hear that. But I think the public, I think in just our bottom line today, we all need to understand this is basically putting us back two years ago to what the ordinance was prior to the state option to allow the Class II and III fireworks. So with that being said, I appreciate Councilman Blues once again bringing it forward. And I hope the commissioner has taken everything to heart today. And we are able to get together with police and fire and really create some kind of tactical effort next year, not only to educate but to also enforce this. I think if you need overtime from this body, I think you should ask. I think it's that serious, and we received that many calls two years in a row that we need to do all we can do to support you all in your efforts, both the men and women in police and fire. So let us know, and if it takes overtime, it takes overtime. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Stinnett. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Chair. I'd like to make a motion to move the ordinance forward to full council with the changes or amended penalties instead of to 100, 250, and 500. changed the penalties to $250,000, $500,000, and the effective date upon passage. So moved. Second. So Council Member Henson made the motion with the changes. Did you, and it was second by Council Member Farmer, did you all get the changes? Would you like to read those again? The changes included changing the fines to $250,000, is that correct? And then it was $500,000 in $1,000,000. Correct. And it would be upon passage. Upon passage and a date. Thank you. Is there any discussion? Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Chair. I would make an amendment to that motion and also include the temporary structures as we had written in the ordinance prior to 2011. So I'll make that amendment to include the temporary structures. And I guess we would need to set those fees as well. Is there a recommendation on what that fee should be? I know it was $25. Now, last year it was $500. That's a building inspection based on those fees. I think the law department, I know we have to be within range of other fees, as we've been told on a lot of other issues. But is there a recommendation from the administration on the amount of the fee? I'll just leave it up to you all within reason. We can get you one when you all are looking at the final draft to vote on. Okay. So the motion now would just be to include that with the stipulation that the administration will recommend a fee for that temporary structure. Second. Well, we have another motion on the floor. Do you want to accept that as a friendly amendment? And Council Member Farmer? Sure. Okay. Any other discussion? I think Mr. Martin has. Oh, I'm sorry. You're not on my screen. Council Member Martin. Thanks. This is just for this particular motion, so I think the folks on the screen are for other motions. Mr. Barbering. Sir. So the entire Section 98-4 on restrictions was removed. and in there is the statement that this sub-A that it was previously fires and consumer fireworks must be handled, stored, used, possessed, and sold in accordance with all applicable federal, state, and local law. Was that already in there someplace? Because obviously we want it to incorporate by reference the state and federal law. I think that we tried to capture, well, I can put something like that back in there if you would like, but I think we generally captured the same intent with the modification on A right above that, where it includes the term sale, includes sale, offering, exposing for sale, or keeping or possessing with the intent to sale. I can certainly put the catch-all provision like that back in here if that's what you all would like to do, as far as complying with all of the other laws. Yeah, I just want to make sure we don't throw out the stuff we still need. So what I see in here is in sub-A is that basically what we do sell has to be in compliance with applicable federal, state, and local laws. Right. I think that's a worthwhile thing. And then in C, no person under the age of 18 may possess, use fire, ignite, or explode any of these things. Now, that's prohibited by state law anyway, but if you all would like that in here as well, I don't see a problem with it. But we're covered under state law on that. Okay. And do we need any reference to proximity to structures with sparklers and smoke bombs and the witch hazel or whatever they think is? I would defer to fire on that. I don't know that we had anything like that prior to this being adopted, but certainly if you all would like to come up with something on their recommendation, that would not be a problem either. Is there a recommendation you all have? Because I think we're drafting this as we speak. They'd like to queue on it, but certainly we can put a safety distance along with the fee amount. We need to state it, I think, for our motion here, probably. Can you all – is it too hard to come up with something? I'm sorry we're putting on the spot. I understand that. I think we're going to try to move this along, and we can always tweak it, I guess, on Thursday night. Currently, in the past, it's been 200 feet. We have no problem leaving it there. Well, the 200 feet is, I think we've had testimony that 200 feet would preclude basically any place in Fayette County. And what typically happens is folks let off smoke bombs out in their driveway or out in the street in front, and that's certainly less than 200 feet. There's no more explosives as well. So we didn't have a proximity before, is that right? I believe that Council Member Blues has a statement he'd like to make. Well, thank you. I just wanted to add that it's the Category 2 and 3 fireworks that are prohibited within the 200 feet, not Category 1. Okay, so then maybe we don't need proximity then. Well, I don't think so because they're considered fairly benign. Right. And, of course, it's impossible to— Right. Virtually impossible to— I just want to make sure we sort of got back to where we were with the status quo. So I think where we left it, and I realize my time has expired, that the age is already in state law, that we don't need the proximity. So I'll make a friendly motion that the ordinance include a statement that the permitted fireworks, however, legal counsel wants to word that, must be handled, stored, used, possessed, and sold in accordance with all applicable federal, state, and local law. So move it. Second. Second. And we have a second by Council Member Ellinger. Is there any other discussion? Council Member Beard? Just one, and that is a time, in my opinion, is of the essence because these folks have rat-holed fireworks and metered them out over time. Yeah. and if they find out that it's immediate or two weeks from now or whatever, in the interim, it will be World War III out there where they're firing off everything they've got left. So, again, as quickly as we can get this done and get it on the books, we need to do so. Okay, we have a motion on the floor. Council Member Beard? No, it's blues. Council Member Henson's motion said that the ordinance would be effective upon passage. Yes, sir. So I think that's taken care of. Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, if there's no more discussion, can we take a vote on the original motion and the amendments? We do the amendments first. Okay, the first amendment would be upon passage. They were all friendly amendments. The only one we have to do is yours. We have to do Doug's. Okay, Doug's is the only, Council Member Martin's is the only one, and that's adding the language of accordance with federal, state. It can be a friendly amendment. It's friendly. Council Member Henson, can you accept that as a friendly amendment? Okay, so now we have the original motion with friendly amendments. Is everybody firecracker clear? Any further discussion? Does anybody need the motions, et cetera, restated? Okay, all in favor? The electronic voting is on. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? And that passes 9-0 to be placed, to be forwarded to the full council for a vote. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is examine the quarry ordinance, and that was referred by the Public Safety Link. Pages 17 through 19 on your docket. This was a referral by Council Member Myers through the Public Safety Link. So, Council Member Myers, like... Well, I simply drafted some. He had asked me, and I think this was done, if I'm remembering correctly, we at least had some presentation on this perhaps to even you all a couple months ago. So apparently there is some desire to explore maybe multiple options on how you would do the permitting fees for mining and coring going forward. I think there was a draft on the mining and coring ordinance that simply put the fees that proposed at $24 and $18, depending on whether it was a new permit or a renewal. and I think there were some questions asked about whether or not that would require whoever was going to enforce it, which I think is the other issue, is it's engineering, and I'm not sure they have anyone here to speak about this yet. I think the concern was that they might have to come back on a regular basis and ask you all to revise the fee, and they didn't want to have to do that. So I was asked to come up with a number of different proposals that might avoid you having to do that, and those are laid out in pages 17 and 18 of your packet. The language that is in the current draft proposal for change is at the very top of page 17. That is pretty much the language that's in the current ordinance, except the Division of Building Inspection is now the Division of Engineering, and the fee amount has been changed to $24 and $18, which building inspection feels would be enough to capture how much it's cost them the last couple of years go rounds on these inspections. One of the things you all could consider is simply adopting something like that with a cost of living provision similar to the one that appears directly below that. That's a cost of living clause that we use in a lot of different examples and different ordinances for fees or that kind of thing already. That's one model where you hopefully would not have to come back in front of you all on a regular basis to ask for increased fees. There's additional language in there in the paragraph below there that could be considered where if for some reason the fee ends up being too high or too low based upon the actual cost, we could either go back and bill the mine operation for the difference or we would remit the overage to them if they ended up paying us too much money. Option number two, which is at the bottom of the page, This would simply be a $50 administrative fee, and then the mine owner would be responsible for, the mine operator would be responsible for going out and retaining the inspector on their own. That person would have to be adequately qualified. They would have to be independent from and not an employee of the operator. And the inspection report would have to be submitted under oath, certified, and witnessed by a notary public. and that was because there were some concerns about perhaps how the relationship that this inspector might have with the operation, and I think someone wanted there to be a penalty in the event that this was falsified in some manner. So this hopefully would alleviate some of those concerns, but this option would be similar to what some other divisions like code enforcement do. When we don't have the in-house resources to perform it ourselves, we put the burden on the owner of the property to go out and hire the appropriate expert for us and perform the work. So I think there were some reservations perhaps about that model as maybe exceeding too much control of the situation over to the mine operator. And I think that's historically the reason we haven't done that. Option number three is an attempt to just base it on the actual costs that were incurred the year before. Because we don't know what those necessarily are exactly on a year-to-year basis, they would actually be calculated under a formula on the costs, and then those would be made available to the operators so they would have that information available to them. and once again this would have that same type of provision as maybe you'd want to consider on an option number one, which would be if for some reason the amount ends up being wrong because obviously we're going to pre-charge them, then we would have the ability to go back against them and say that we were short on the permit estimate because it ended up costing us X amount of money more. We would distribute that amount among the various inspections. They would have to pay the difference. And if we overcharge based on the formula, then we would remit the difference back to them. So that was my end of it. I had some concerns once again because I don't think, as far as I know, I don't know that engineering has assigned exactly who would be doing this operationally going forward, unless I'm missing something. So I think that you might want to buy in from whoever is going to end up doing this program before you maybe take a final vote on how you want the fees to be. I do appreciate all the work you've done on this, Mr. Barbary. There are people signed up to speak. It does seem that engineering needs to weigh in if they're going to be the ones enforcing this or collecting the fees. Council Member Stennett? Thank you, Chair. I guess I don't know who to ask this, but I guess Commissioner here. Annually, how much do we generate from these inspections currently? How much revenue? It's relatively revenue neutral. It's about a $2,500 line item. So it's $2,500 to inspect, what, three mines that we have in town or four? Okay, last year it was $2,254.68. And how much do we need? That's a ballpark figure. The professional services engineer expenses actually over the last five years have ranged from $4,200 to $4,760 for the three mines. So is that what you're asking us to fund so it's revenue neutral, basically $5,000 a year in revenue? Yes. So which option gets you there of the three? Well, this is, again, it's being transferred over to engineering from building inspection. Okay. And that's why we were kind of leaving it open for them to. Well, as was stated a second ago, I think they need to weigh in, and we need to become revenue neutral. It's not a huge issue, not complicated. So, Chair, I'd wait to have engineering here next meeting. I agree. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to say, as a member of the Public Safety Link, what was happening is we were inspecting the mines through building inspection that has now been transferred to engineering. And the cost for us to inspect the mines was greater than the fees. So somehow if we could just adjust that to be sure that it's revenue neutral, and I would be in agreement with waiting for engineering to let them get their feet on the ground and then come back and look at this, but I don't think that we should wait until next budget cycle. We should do that as quickly as possible. But thank you. Certainly. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Madam Chair. Two or three comments. I'm only aware of two mines. Unless somebody knows it any different, there's one out near where I-75 crosses the river, and then there's Vulcan, which is everywhere else. Council Member, there is actually two operating mines currently in Fayette County. Vulcan Materials controls both those locations. They also own a non-active site on Georgetown Road. They do hold full permits, active permits, to mine or quarry there at any time. They are currently inactive, but they do have plans to activate that site in the coming years, and they do plan to go into a full mining operation when they go in out there. Well, it's interesting because they have a different approach to mining when they go underground. I had the opportunity when the Isaac family owned it to go down into the mine. And we got down there, and this chamber, which had avenues that you could drive trucks side by side in, we walked and walked and walked. This was 1959. God knows where they are now. But if we're doing it by acre, it's not an even approach to how we would do that, I would think. Generally, the type of quarry that everybody's used to seeing is the one out at Richmond Road. and they work the whole wall from top to bottom, the one on old Frankfurt Pike. They're tunneling, and again, it's 330 feet under the ground. And they said in 1959 that 100,000 people could go down there and let Russia drop a bomb on us and we'd be safest. This could be. I don't know whether that would be true or not, but it's 330 feet of a climb stone. It is a pretty dense situation, and I see them going horizontally, which would add up the fee. as opposed to the other approach, which means they would mine up and down the ball. Council Member, the per acre fee is applied the surface acreage that they control. It was never applied on a per level, underground level, or any of that. It was simply applied on per acreage, surface acreage that they control or lease and have control to mine or quarry on. So it would be then at least to the better part of being even and fair. Of course, a different way, obviously, to do that fee would be to apply it to however many each level that they are on. And they are mining both on the old Richmond Road site and the location downtown, and they are mining on multiple levels at both of those locations. Well, we were talking about breaking even on something, and if that's the goal, then however you may measure it now would be probably just fine at the higher level. dollar level. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Martin. I think that was left on, thanks. I'm sorry, what? I think that was left on from before, thanks. Could you turn this down just a little bit? I'm really loud. Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. I'll withdraw you to speak. So it sounds like this is something we maybe like to hold over when engineering can be here and they've kind of settled their roles in this. Would somebody like to make a motion? motion to keep this on the agenda and have engineering here to speak on this. I will need to look at the agenda, but try to get it next month. I'm sorry. I wouldn't think it would take up much time. There isn't a lot to talk about. Talk about it. Okay. I will do my best to get it on the agenda for next month. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Any discussion? All in favor of holding this over for a future meeting, hopefully next month, please say aye. Aye. Nay. The ayes have it, so that will be held over for the next possible time to get it on the agenda. There are several next on the agenda. There are several items. We can remove fireworks because we've done that. public safety, disability claims, paramedic training. And I believe we've heard that one, or we discussed it, and Council Member Farmer chaired that task force and reported out. Do we need to do anything further with that? I would make a motion to remove that issue from the committee referral list. All in favor? Community Corrections, best system of management. I thought we had... That's coming to the floor. That's... Committee. That's coming to the... Okay. keeping the right-of-way signage, and that was put in by the public safety link. So we'll leave that in. Nuisance abatement process, that also was public safety. Link. Nuisance ordinance. The chronic nuisance ordinance. Chronic nuisance ordinance. I wanted a motion to remove this item from committee, and I'll be bringing forward another, well, an amendment to the current public nuisance ordinance. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Emergency management long-range strategic plan. Again, this was put in by the public safety link, so I'm assuming we'll leave that in there. E91 routing non-emergency calls. Again, public safety link. Community corrections explorer receiving federal and state inmates. That was public safety link, electronic monitoring, best practices for firefighter and paramedic staffing. I would make a motion to remove that. I think we have made that recommendation through the task force. off-premises signage. I made a motion to remove. If there's no second, I guess we're leaving. Second. Best practices for firefighter and paramedic staffing. We have a motion and a second to remove. Favor? Aye. Okay, the chronic nuisance ordinance. There's two on here. Examine nuisance ordinance. I think this, Diane, was code, and that was resolved this year in the budget, so I don't have the first one up on top. Fleet Management Services, that was put in by Council Member Myers. He needs to stay in. Stay in. Horses running at large. I would motion to remove. Yeah, they don't want to run the district level. They want to. Okay. Yeah. They're hiding in Council Member Beard's bed when the firecrackers go. Compiling a list of sale places people can get. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I just can't read this. Can you read it? I can't read this tiny print. That one is compiling a list of safe places people can go in times of weather or emergency needs. I think this could be renamed tornado safe rooms, but you may leave it as you wish. Okay. Tornado, emergency weather, yeah, shelters, maybe the quarries. would be good. Abandoned housing that was put in by Council Member Myers that needs to be left in. And creation of a policy for systematically replacing and maintaining vehicles, apparatus, and other recurring costs that are critical to the public safety divisions. From the link. I assume we need to keep that in there. And then, oh, I've got fireworks last, and we removed that? No, there was no. Oh, sure. Oh, that's actually the same. It's the same line. Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay, Council Member Henson, did you want to say something? Yeah, I was just going to say, Chair, that Public Safety Link has put multiple items in here, and we need to get with you and Andrea, I guess, and organize this, some kind of discussions, or where we want to go with these, rather than just put them in committee, and we've done nothing. It's very difficult to manage all these. that public safety, that links put in here without a specific council member. Exactly. I agree. And I think we need to find a new way to do that. Yeah. Thank you. So do I have a – oh, Council Member Stennett, I'm sorry, I didn't see you there. Well, actually, I was going to echo what Council Member Henson related to. These are recommendations from a link. I think until someone does some work on them, they shouldn't be put into this committee unless there's something really to discuss. Having an open topic just to discuss, it doesn't really get us anywhere unless we have something tangible. So I'm glad to hear that maybe the link can reconvene and work on it with you. That would be great. Yeah, I mean, it's been very confusing for us to be. Thank you. Okay, so do I have a motion to adjourn? I'll move. In a second? All in favor, the Public Safety Committee meeting is over. Thank you. Thank you.