# Economic Development Committee of the Whole - October 2, 2012 > Auto-transcribed civic record · October 2, 2012 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/2717 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/2717?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2012-10-02 - **Last revised**: July 17, 2026 - **Length**: 18,748 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 Economic Development Committee met on October 2, 2012, at 1:00 p.m., with Chair Beard presiding. The committee heard three agenda items during the meeting: an informational presentation on the Kentucky Horse Park, a quarterly activity report from Commerce Lexington, and discussion of the Itinerant Merchant Task Force, which was deferred to a future meeting. The committee took one motion and vote during the session and heard six public comments from members of the public. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the meeting on October 2, 2012: * Beard, Chair * Stinnett, Vice Chair * Gorton * Ellinger * Kay * Ford * Blues * Lawless * Farmer * Crosbie * Myers * McChord * Martin * Henson * Lane No members were absent or late. ## Votes and Decisions The meeting concluded with a motion to adjourn. Mr. Rios moved to adjourn the meeting, which passed by voice vote [timestamp: 02:07:17]. There were no recorded abstentions on this motion. ## Public Comment Several speakers addressed the council on economic development, workforce issues, and regulatory concerns. **Economic Development Reports** John Nicholson presented on the Kentucky Horse Park's economic impact, noting over $500 million in economic contribution across two fiscal years, with $201.5 million attributed to the World Equestrian Games. He emphasized the park's role in attracting major events and supporting regional prosperity. [timestamp: 00:12:00] Bob Click delivered a Commerce Lexington Q3 report highlighting strong economic development activity in the Bluegrass region. He cited major projects including Amazon's Kindle tech support facility in Winchester, expansions by Big Ass Fans and Toyota, and noted ongoing workforce development and minority business initiatives. [timestamp: 00:40:58] **Land and Infrastructure Concerns** Council Member Martin raised concerns about limited available land for large-scale manufacturing, emphasizing the need to balance economic growth with preservation of Lexington's horse farm landscape. He urged the council to plan for future development needs. [timestamp: 01:03:00] Guest member Ryan highlighted the importance of regional economic development partnerships, citing the Bluegrass Alliance as a successful model for cross-county collaboration, particularly for attracting companies requiring broader regional infrastructure. [timestamp: 01:14:47] **Workforce and Regulatory Issues** Council Member Kaye requested that Commerce Lexington provide median wage data alongside average wages to better understand actual workforce composition, arguing that median figures offer a more accurate picture of job quality. [timestamp: 01:11:27] Sean Tibbetts, representing the Bluegrass Food Truck Association, expressed concerns about the proposed itinerant merchant ordinance, specifically objecting to restrictive hours and location rules. He argued these restrictions hinder service to third-shift workers and eliminate access to parks and breweries. Tibbetts advocated for a streamlined permitting process. [timestamp: 01:26:25] ## Contested Items **Itinerant Merchant Ordinance** The proposed Itinerant Merchant Ordinance generated heated discussion during the meeting. The primary disagreement centered on the ordinance's restrictive hours and location rules. Food truck operators raised significant concerns about the proposal's impact on their business operations. They argued that the proposed restrictions would eliminate their access to key markets and hinder their ability to provide service to shift workers who rely on mobile food vendors during non-traditional hours. Additional concerns were voiced regarding the complexity of the permitting process outlined in the ordinance. Participants identified a need for streamlining the permit application and approval procedures to make compliance more feasible for itinerant merchants. The contested items reflected a fundamental tension between regulatory oversight and operational flexibility for mobile food service providers. ## Kentucky Horse Park John Nicholson presented information on the economic impact of the Kentucky Horse Park [timestamp: 00:12:00]. The presentation outlined the park's financial performance across multiple fiscal years and major events. **Economic Impact Figures** Nicholson detailed the following economic contributions: - $180 million in fiscal year 10 - $179 million in fiscal year 11 (excluding the World Equestrian Games) - $201.5 million from the World Equestrian Games **Park Operations and Strategy** The presentation addressed the Kentucky Horse Park's role in attracting national events to the region. Nicholson discussed the park's business plan focused on achieving self-sustainability, emphasizing the importance of local support for the facility's continued success and ability to host major competitions and events. **Outcome** This agenda item was informational in nature, with no formal action or debate recorded. ## Commerce Lexington Quarterly Activity Report Bob Click presented the Q3 2012 economic development report for Commerce Lexington [timestamp: 00:40:58]. **Major Project Wins** The report highlighted several significant economic development achievements during the quarter: - Amazon's Kindle tech support facility in Winchester - Expansions by Big Ass Fans - Expansions by Toyota **Additional Focus Areas** Beyond the major project wins, the presentation covered: - Minority business lending success - Workforce development initiatives - International outreach efforts **Outcome** This was an informational presentation with no formal action required. ## Itinerant Merchant Task Force [timestamp: 01:19:55] The committee discussed the proposed Itinerant Merchant Ordinance, which would establish regulations for itinerant vendors, including food trucks, regarding their operating hours and permitted locations. **Key Participants** The discussion involved Peggy Henson, Sean Tibbetts, Chris, and David Barbary. **Issues Discussed** The committee raised several concerns about the proposed ordinance: - **Operating Hours**: Committee members expressed concern that the proposed hours were overly restrictive for vendors. - **Location Restrictions**: The ordinance included location bans that would prohibit itinerant merchants from operating near homes and parks, which the committee found problematic. - **Permitting Complexity**: Members identified concerns about the complexity of the permitting process for vendors seeking to operate under the ordinance. **Separate Food Truck Initiative** A separate pilot program specifically for food trucks was discussed but was deferred to a future meeting for further consideration. **Outcome** The agenda item was deferred, indicating that the committee did not reach a final decision on the Itinerant Merchant Ordinance at this meeting and will revisit the matter at a later date. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed: Motion to adjourn the meeting --- ## Full transcript ! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. guitar solo guitar solo guitar solo Thank you. I'm sorry. guitar solo guitar solo Thank you. I need a gavel. It's a couple of minutes past one o'clock. We do have a quorum. Mr. Nicholson, would you mind flip-flopping with Bob Quick? It would be an honor. Okay. That would mean that you would come first. Okay. Are we ready now? You may start any time you wish. Okay. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to be here and your graciousness in allowing me to be here. I think it's a good thing that from time to time I come and visit with the committee and then with the council, it has occurred to me that it has been two full years since the All Tech FEI World Equestrian Games. In fact, this time, two years ago, was when we were having all the fun. So I think it's appropriate to kind of catch up since then, to share with you what's been happening at the park since then, to talk to you a little bit about the future of the park. And we think it's particularly appropriate that this month's annual market review of the Lane Report featured the Kentucky Horse Park and its economic impact, And I think that's been included in your packets, and we have plenty more as well. And I invite you to read that and reflect upon it and look at it, because it really is a very, very good exploration of not only how the Kentucky Horse Park works, but the contribution it makes to the economy of Lexington and our region. And I hope also by being here today that we can begin to initiate a conversation, a discussion, a dialogue among leaders in the community like yourselves about the value of the Kentucky Horse Park and the economic contribution that it makes. A few months ago, or a few months I should say after the World Equestrian Games, this publication, which is called Chronicle of the Horse, which for the equestrian sport world is equivalent to Time Magazine or the Blood Horse or something like that, it is a weekly publication that evaluates the state of equestrian sport. It is a forum for debate. It is not a cheerleader type publication, but one that often explores issues and discusses them and creates, well, controversy a lot of times. But we were really interested in what they would editorialize in their review of the World Equestrian Games here. And in that editorial, it said, because of major upgrades to facilities at the Kentucky Horse Park, it's now become the go-to spot for national championships and other major events across disciplines, including the new location for the National Horse Show, among other many events. There were plenty of people who, in the lead-up to the WEG, were sure it wouldn't work for one reason or another. But it did. It went better than anyone could have expected, and the benefits to the horse industry in the state of Kentucky will be measured for years to come. So I think it's important that we recognize how we were viewed as such a success and then also remember the benefits that we have not only in the state of Kentucky but more particularly here in Lexington and within this region. In fiscal year 10 and fiscal year 11, we had both the SIRTEC Corporation and the Research Division of the Tourism, Arts, and Heritage Cabinet do an economic impact survey of the Kentucky Horse Park. And it found that in fiscal 2010, the park had a $180 million economic impact for Kentucky and for this region. The World Equestrian Games alone, just those 16 days, contributed $201.5 million to our economy. And then in fiscal year 11, which was the year of the World Equestrian Games in terms of the fiscal year, if you take out the World Equestrian Games and just think of everything else, it was $179 million contributed to our economy as a result of the activities of the horse park. So in the last two fiscal years that we have measured, the horse park has generated well over a half a billion dollars to our economy. One of the great promises of the World Equestrian Games in the buildup and the new facilities that were added so that they would be ready for the games was that it was going to bring many new annual events to the park and contribute to the economy in that way. In 2008, we had 63 major events at the park, and we measure major events as events that put a lot of people in hotel rooms, whether they be spectators or more often their competitors and trainers and all the people that are involved in our major events. So 63 and 08, as we are in the latter half of calendar 12, we had and will have 87 major events this year. And we have already booked 89 major events for calendar year 13. And so we've gone from 63 to 89. The promise that if we built these facilities, they would benefit us for years to come, that promise has been kept, and that's self-evident. And we're having really the best year ever in the history of the park right now. All of our events are up, both in terms of the quantity that I talked about, but also the quantity within the events. More horses are here, more people are here with the events, and the quality and prestige of those events are increasing. We're doing new events this year. For example, this week we will be having the National Championships of the United States Passo Fino Association, which is a really cool horse with a Latino background. We'll be having this weekend along with that the United States Equestrian Federation National Driving Championships. We'll be having our Fall Classic Saddlebread Show all just this weekend. And that continues, those kind of events continue through October. And then in November we will have the second time, for the second time, the All Tech National Horse Show. And this year they're adding saddle breads, and it's a day longer, and it's getting bigger and better all the time and continues to return to that great prestige that it had for those 128 years at Madison Square Garden in its new and permanent Kentucky home here in Lexington. Next year we're adding events like a really cool event called Road to the Horse, which is like a reality series of these competing horse clinicians. And this thing has been in Murfreesboro, Tennessee for nine years since its inception. It's now coming to Lexington permanently. It will have 8,000 or 9,000 spectators come here in the month of March for that. The first ever United States Equestrian Federation Young Horse National Championships will be held next year for the first time at the park. and the United States Dressage Federation Dressage National Championships will be at the park this coming year in 2013. So it's really a wonderful time for the park, exciting, and the promises that we said in the years past as we built up this are really coming to fruition. However, as happy as we are now, we did have a less than pleasant session of the Commonwealth's General Assembly last spring. And I want to review with you for a second the circumstances of that and what led to that less than pleasant General Assembly session. In the years 07, 08, 09, and a little bit into 10, there was a perfect storm of negative factors that descended upon the horse park. First of all were gas prices. If you remember, they were exceedingly high in the summer of 07, which began to have a depressing effect upon our business, which is both tourism but also putting on major events with lots of horses being shipped in. and secondly, of course, the worldwide recession that hit in 08. And so people that would often bring lots and lots of horses to compete at our park and pay us lots and lots of money either didn't bring as many horses or in some cases did not. Simultaneously to all this, there was the construction of $85 million of infrastructure at the park, which had to be ready by 2010. So we essentially had a deep, deep recession in our business, and we ripped up the park physically to be ready. At the same time, all of this, the Commonwealth of Kentucky had its fiscal crisis, and what we had anticipated would be a greater contribution from the Commonwealth went flat and, in fact, declined. So we had a perfect storm which presented a cash deficit and a cash challenge for us. We worked very closely with the state budget office and we navigated through that, but it did require a fix. And that fix was last year a request for $3.5 million and a current year fiscal appropriation. We were one of two state agencies, ourselves and the state fair board, which was faced with many of the same issues we were. and they too required a current year appropriation. It was difficult. There was opposition. It was such a bad fiscal environment, as you can appreciate and as you remember, that it was a difficult thing for many legislators to support. We had friends there that did offer us support, but we had opposition as well. Finally, at the very 11th hour of the General Assembly, the funds were included and Governor Beshear signed it into the executive budget. But the funding for each year of the new biennium that we're in now was cut some 40%. So that gave the current year appropriation, but cut our request for this biennium. And also as a part of their passing the executive budget that included this funding, the General Assembly requested a business plan from us, And that business plan ultimately was to describe how the Kentucky Horse Park would operate without any state support. So we undertook this business plan, and this is it. And it is online, and I invite you to go to the Horse Park's website and read it. I think it's, again, an interesting description of how the park works and where we think we're going in the future. The business plan was really divided into three parts. First of all, short term, how were we going to deal with having $1.6 million less each year than we anticipated from the Commonwealth of Kentucky? How we were going to cash flow through the current biennium? And we dealt with that. And the second phase was the beginning of a description of how we would lessen the contribution from the general fund. And that involved new revenue streams. For example, the Kentucky Horse Park's Food and Beverage Division, which has really done very, very well and is a big part of our future. And finally, the third phase was what was called for in the legislation, and that was a theoretical scenario whereby the Kentucky Horse Park could operate without any funding from the general fund. And there were some big ideas in this that I think would significantly enhance revenue flow, like expanding our very popular campground. Also, it is our intention to build a hotel at the Kentucky Horse Park. We almost had this done before, and the recession interfered with that. The fear that we might have a half-built hotel forced us and the Commonwealth of Kentucky to cancel that contract in 2008. We've had a situation where we're in litigation about that. When that situation resolves itself, we will proceed to build that hotel at the Kentucky Horse Park. All the utilities are stubbed in. We're ready to go. This would be a public-private partnership. This involves no state funding or legislation or anything of that nature. This would be proposals we would receive from the private sector. And the interest that we have received informally would indicate that we're going to get a lot of activity with that. And then finally, in this effort to become liberated from the General Fund, we submitted a concept called local support. The idea is that we have created a lot of prosperity for many. And the question becomes, how does the Kentucky Horse Park participate in the prosperity that it has created for others? and so this is kind of an exploration somewhat vague at this point but also somewhat calling for that discussion during the testimony that I did before both of the A&R committees I was asked by many members of the General Assembly what kind of local support what support do you receive from Lexington and from the other communities that you benefit and I said that we have a wonderful relationship and a great relationship, and the best evidence of that was how wonderful the World Equestrian Games went because of the support we received from our government here. But it should be remembered that at any given time in a calendar year, especially in the warm weather months, the largest convention in Lexington is as a result of the horse park. The horse park is producing that largest convention. We just have to think of it in a little bit of different terms. In terms of filling hotel rooms, many times during the year, we're the largest convention. Our very wonderful convention center here, which we all love, there is a 6% transient tax, for example. Three cents of that tax is dedicated to going to the Lexington Convention Center for its operations. under the very sound theory that it produces a lot of hotel room nights. So therefore it's worthy of support from those hotel rooms that they fill. It's a sound theory. And so we need to explore, I think, not specifically that necessarily, but other forms and the way other cities support their convention centers because, frankly, Lexington is very blessed to have not one convention center, but two. So I think we I would invite you anyway to begin that discussion. And again the economic impact that the Kentucky Horse Park has I think is self-evident and demonstrable and so as we go forward I'm looking forward Mr. Chairman and not with any specific proposal today or even perhaps anytime soon but that perhaps we as leaders in the community, both in government and in business, and opinion leaders begin to have that discussion, which evaluates the value of the Kentucky horse park for our city and for our region. So, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I really appreciate you letting me come and speak to you today. Thank you, John. Do any of my colleagues wish to ask questions? Ed? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for coming and visiting us today. And, of course, I'm happy to report the horse park is located in the 12th District, and I've enjoyed working with the park whenever I can be of support. I thought one of the areas that what I found very interesting was the National Horse Center and the fact that there are 35 regional and national organizations that are located there. Could you give us just a little more detail on that, about how many employees are there and that kind of thing? Thank you, and I appreciate all the support you've given the park as our councilman very much. And I actually had intended to talk a little bit about the National Horse Center, and sometimes it's forgotten in this community, but there are 35 organizations that reside on the grounds of the Kentucky Horse Park. Interestingly, for every one public employee that works for the park that comes to work every morning, another four people come to work at private sector jobs within the horse park that are not only good jobs, and they, generally speaking, would not be here in our community were there not a Kentucky horse park. They are well-paying jobs, and they support our signature industry and give a depth to our signature industry that makes us multidimensional, not just thoroughbred breeding and thoroughbred racing, which I think is an important point of diversity as our horse industry and our economy moves forward. Interestingly enough, and I think people don't remember this either, Councilman Lane, is that beginning in 1999, we were able to persuade the United States Equestrian Federation, which is the governing body of everything in horses except racing and rodeo, to move from New York, where it had been since 1917, to here. And that really was the beginning of all the wonderful things that have happened in terms of World Equestrian Games and the elevation of all of our competitions because the analogy would be if we built a golf course and we were able to get the PGA and the USGA to move to our parking lot. How would that help our golf course? Well, you can't even begin to describe how it would help. It would be immeasurable. And that's the importance of having that organization. And when they came, others came as well. So we've had a real synergy now, a real groundswell of support that solidifies us as the horse capital of the world. And I just have one quick follow-up question on that. With regard to the number of visitors to the park each year, and of course there was a little blip in 2011. That was the fiscal year, 2011, when the World Equestrian Games came in. But could you give us sort of an overview of that? Because those people are coming in, they're spending money, they're staying in our hotels, eating at the restaurant, flying in on our airplane at the airport and that kind of thing. Could you? Absolutely. There's about 850,000 people in a normal year that utilize the park. And probably simply stated there's probably two-thirds of those that are here for the events, and the others are here as visitors, tourists, and guests of that nature. The great thing about those that are here for the events is that they, generally speaking, aren't staying for two nights or three nights. They move in for weeks often at a time. The Hunter Jumper series that we do throughout most of the summer is several weeks long. And it used to be that people might come in for a week or so. Now they are staying for the entire summer. We're having a significant effect on real estate for certain, and without question, it's got a significant economic impact bump as a result of what's happened in the last few years. Thank you, John. That's all I've got. Thank you. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks, John, for coming. And I want to point out an example of how diverse you guys really are and why what you're saying is so important for this body as well as this city to kind of look at how do we support you more. For the longest time, you've been an island out there, and folks kind of think they know what goes on out there, may have one experience with you all in going to an event or taking a tour. But a conversation you and I had a number of years ago led to one of the most diverse events in that you hosted this past year, the state wrestling tournament for the KHSAA. And many people know for the 20-some years I've coached wrestling at Lafayette High School. And what's great about that is that the KHSAA had a real problem because it moved from Louisville to Frankfurt, and that arrangement we had with Frankfurt was coming to an end. It was very limited. You could only get four mats onto that floor. And when you were building the indoor arena, if you remember, we were having a conversation about that pressing problem. And you and Julian Tackett sat down and found a very creative solution. In this past year, we had one of the greatest events in the history of that sport at the Kentucky Horse Park, of all places. And it truly was amazing to see. But I think that most of us would have no idea that you all have that capacity and capability. Well, we have. And thank you. the Councilman McCord, and there really is, it's really multidimensional at the park, and I really appreciate you pointing that out. But it also bears out what we were saying before, is that this is an asset for our community. And we've got beautiful assets and very functional, but we have new assets. You know, a 6,000-seat arena that can do things like the state wrestling championships is something we need to remember. We have new and great opportunities, and we have two convention centers. Well, and that was my point, is what made that so special for so many folks is because you said the confluence of 64 and 75, it was easy for every high school to get here. By having it in a venue where you could drop down more than four mats at a time, you shaved an entire day off of a three-day tournament, which cost schools travel time and real money. So it became a really important asset in play that really helped the entire state. So you look at that and you say that was a convention, basically, of thousands of high school students and their families, and it was a wonderful experience, but there should be some benefit to the horse park because it's such a generator. And I just wanted to point out it's a very nontraditional example of things that you can do now that you have these things. The other thing is that I laugh about the conversation you and I had about seven years ago about bringing a trail out to you all. And at that time, I remember, John, you looked at me and you went, that would be great. Yeah, go ahead and do that, which is the implication of if you can get the money, that would be awesome. I think that would be wonderful. And now you've got this amazing trail that leads right to you. And next weekend, you have Second Sunday where it's going to be hosted on that trail. And you all are one of the hosts of that event. And again, it's another example of how the horse park is really at the confluence of so much stuff that's happening regionally. So I applaud everything that you all do and your willingness to look at things in a different light. And I fully support somebody, all of us in this community, looking at different ways to utilize you and to benefit you. Well, I appreciate that. I'm going to make a couple of points before I'm dismissed. One, I want to make sure that everyone understands that I'm not even whispering or implying that I will be here asking for money in the Urban County Council budget for the horse park. That's not at all any intention at all. And so I wanted to make that clear. But what you said, Councilman McCord, reminds me of something else. If ever in the past there was some sort of divide between what was good for downtown Lexington and what was good for the Kentucky Horse Park being in some sort of conflict, I am so very pleased that if ever that Berlin Wall existed, that it has been knocked down totally. And if anything, the World Games demonstrated the synergy and the relationship and the symbiotic nature of what happens good at the Kentucky Horse Park has really good implications for downtown Lexington. You can ask any merchant in downtown Lexington, and I think they will bear that out. So I'm really pleased about that phenomenon that's happened, and the Legacy Trail is so symbolic of that, of the connection between downtown and our horse park. Thanks. Okay. Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. John, thank you very much. Appreciate all your work out there at the Kentucky Horse Park. And just have one question. You mentioned in your packet a lot about the economic impact on Kentucky and particularly on Fayette County. Do you have an economic impact study that has been done in the last couple years? Yes, and I referenced this a few minutes ago. It's $180 million in fiscal year 10, 179 absent the World Games in fiscal year 11, and then $201 million for the 16 days of the Games. So in the last two years, we've contributed over $500 million to the economy. So did you have an economic impact study done? Yes. Is that something that's emailable? Absolutely, yes. I'd like to take a look at it if you don't mind to e-mail it to me. Happy to do that. I've got your packet. Right. And all of that. It was conducted, the World Games was conducted by SIRTAC, and then the Research Division of the Tourism, Arts, and Heritage Cabinet did the annual ones. Okay, if you could e-mail it to us. Now, right now, today, our e-mail is down. Okay. But it will eventually surface to us. So if you could e-mail that, I'd really appreciate it. Happy to do that. Thank you so much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, John, for the update. One thing, if you would, I didn't quite understand where we stood with the hotel that had been proposed and where that is, and if you could elaborate a little on that, and how important is that to the horse park to continue to be successful? First of all, it is very important if we're charting a course to being self-sustaining. It is, in fact, critical, and it's certainly the next big thing that should happen there. Where we are is waiting for some litigation from the last venture to be resolved. It's in the Court of Appeals. The Commonwealth and the horse park totally prevailed in the court case, and we look forward to that being resolved. And the concept will be as it was before, and that is a private sector hotel, which would be a land lease agreement with the Commonwealth of Kentucky and with the horse park. and it would be a revenue share. We would be partners with this venture. The last provider that was a successful offerer had a scenario whereby they would pay us a certain amount of money each year and then 3% of the gross. So something in that nature would be perhaps proposed again, and that's how we would proceed. And it would be a strong revenue stream in and of itself, but then also would foster increased usage both in tourism and our events. And keeping in mind those 35 organizations that all have conferences, that all have committee meetings, and all need to meet, and have all indicated that they would utilize such a facility very strongly. But presently you're in litigation in the Court of Appeals. That's correct. Just going through the legal process right now. That's right. And when that is resolved, however it is resolved, then we can act accordingly. Thank you. My screen says that that's the last person to ask your questions. Okay. John, thank you so much for coming. Thank you. You made my eyebrows raise a little bit when you started spending out those $100 million here and $300 million there. Those are things that we don't necessarily know, and I'm sure that Vice Mayor Gorton will share what she gets from you to the rest of us. Okay. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to share this story. Thank you. Our next speaker is Bob Click, President of Commerce Lexington. Did you get your technical things done? We did. We've got the. Oh, yes. It's up on the screen. Good. Thank you, Chair Beard and Vice Chair Stenet, council members. We're glad to come in and report on our last quarter, which was April 1 through June 30, to give you an update on some of the activities that did take place. I do concur with my friend here, my colleague from the Kentucky Horse Park and the significance of the horse park, and especially as we market Lexington, it's very refreshing to go overseas and people know Lexington because they know the horse park, they know the horse, and it gives us a leg up on our interactions and our trips. So congratulations on the numbers. Do I click it here or the high? So from April to June 2012, our client activity, and this activity that I would point out to you is for the entire Bluegrass Business Development Partnership, which is Lexington Federal County Government, Commerce Lexington, as well as the University of Kentucky. When we talk about University of Kentucky, we're talking about the Innovation Commercialization Center, or we often call it the acronym ICC, and the Small Business Development Center, the SBDC. So the numbers that you see here will be with our entire group. Overall, on the economic development side, our activity continues to be strong. As I've said before, our portfolio has been very active, probably the most active we've had since way back before the recession. So we're very hopeful about that. And as you all know, you participated in some of our announcements as of recently, so we've had some good projects that have worked well for us. Some of the projects during the fourth quarter. Amazon.com brought in a facility. We were obviously aggressively pursuing that here in Fayette County. They found the facilities that was kind of a unique fit for them in Winchester, and it also allows them to pull from the eastern Kentucky side as far as for workforce. But they located their new Kindle tech support in Winchester. Big Ass Fans, which has been one of our excellent local success stories, has continued to grow. As you know, they purchased a large track of land out at our business park, and they have not disappointed us at all. They've continued to expand and grow, as is evidenced with this new expansion. Toyota Motor Manufacturing in Georgetown also has created a big, huge new expansion. and Exact Communications, which is a cloud-based phone and Internet-based company, as well had an announcement back in the fourth quarter. These are just the larger ones. You can see we're talking shy of 1,000 jobs, a good wage, and a very strong reported investment. This just adds. I've got a few slides here to show some of the major projects here. Again, when you look at the average wage numbers and the investment, pretty good, pretty significant projects. FrogDice is one of those companies that people will say, what is that, a gaming company, programmers? and you want to talk about some of the best cheerleaders for Lexington, Central Kentucky. You're witnessing the two individuals there to the left of the podium to your right as you're looking at this picture, but they are strong advocates of this. And they're slow. They start up with two people. They just keep adding as they go forward. And I did throw in a slide from the first quarter of the 2013 fiscal year. Many of you are very aware of the Bingham-McCutcheon Global Services Center, but also we have Premier Talks, Bertley. And the reason I get to present versus having Jenna up front here with Kimberly is that they are getting the last few winks of sleep before they catch a plane home and taking advantage of the Bertley manufacturing facility at the business park. They went to China. They have met with them. We take every lead seriously. There's a lot of potential in China. But they also then went, and we have some very close friends in Japan that over the years have been very supportive and have made a lot of investments here in the automotive industry and other industries. So they're wrapping up that tour. I have with me Margaret Ridley. She's another project manager that we have as our project portfolio keeps expanding, and she's been an ace for us. So this is her first, I believe. Yes. Yeah, good. All right. So also NITO, DENCO, which is an automotive supplier, has expanded. So again, we're seeing in some challenging times economically, we're still seeing some good outcomes. One of the things that we get asked, especially when you land a project like Bingham, is that, well, what do you do next? Well, let me tell you, as you all, being a council member, being in economic development as well as 24-7, So we continue to stay connected to the site consultants. For example, the Bingham project came through a consultant out of San Francisco. You know, you never know about those projects until they announce them unless you have the relationship. And so having those relationships have paid off dearly. So we have been part of the Kentucky United Marketing Group. That's when Kentucky economic development folks go and sell. And I will tell you that when we go, our staff is very good when they market all of Kentucky. many of the questions get focused back in on Lexington, Louisville, Northern Kentucky, Bowling Green, a lot of the metro areas, but we do very well. And also many of the people we're visiting, we visit on our own as well. So those reinforcements, that relationship is extremely key. In Louisville, just to kind of show you the diversity, the National Institute of Health and the National SBIR, Small Business Innovation Research Conference, was held there, and we participate in some very select events where we know they address our targets. And then Boston, again, meeting with a key group of consultants as well as the Bio-International Convention that was there. To kind of toot our own horn here a little bit, business facilities, which is a very significant publication in our trade, once again recognized the economic development efforts of our team And so that was a nice little kudo for Jenna and her group of folks. We're getting our recognition nationwide for not just the projects, but also the effort that has gone into these. Minority business development is a big part of what we do. And what I have down is for the year as well as for the fourth quarter, the clients served in the minority business area, the existing business business that we make, and then women-owned businesses that we also connect with. And we had a big success. We have reached over the $10 million mark on our access loan program, and that's significant because that's where a lot of the small businesses will come to us. We'll take their projects. We go through all the book work. We explain to them what they need to do to be able to get in front of a group of banks that all make up the access loan group. and I think we're at 19 banks, so they can come in. If they make it through certain points, then they get to make a pitch, and then we find out from those banks which ones will bank with them, and then we leave it up to that client to choose which one they want. Well, we have hit that $10 million mark. That is a huge success story, and again, it helps the small businesses among us. Many of those have a hard time being bankable, so we help set that up and help them. and then the final piece the summer is an extremely active time for workforce development and here are two of the program areas where we spend time connecting one is we're always trying to encourage entrepreneurship in our public schools so we have a week long program where we will bring in this case 25 juniors and seniors from Fayette County together and they get to learn principles of entrepreneurship and they get to come up with a cool idea that they get to invent their own company and then kind of going through the real motions that any real company would go through and any entrepreneur would go through in trying to establish a business. Best in the Bluegrass is where we reach out to those college students that chose to go to college someplace out of the central Kentucky. And we bring them back home and we connect them to an internship with a company because we don't want to lose them and we want to keep that connection with them. And again, we had 10 students this year and it actually, this program has worked extremely well. So with that, Mr. Chair, I don't have any questions. Thank you, Bob. If anybody would like to log in and discuss whatever with Bob Quick, I'm sure he'd be glad to help. Call anytime. I mean, we are there anytime we can help. Any questions you have or comments, and many of you take us up on that, and we appreciate it. Well, it looks like you did a good job because nobody had any questions. Well, let me tell you. What do you want? Just a second ago. I'm sorry. Uh-oh. My wife's married. I turned my head for about a tenth of a second, and somehow or other she dialed in. So she has a question, I believe, or something to discuss. It's magic. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Bob, for your report. I had a curiosity question. I appreciated your list on page, I guess it's page 21 of your packet of the various firms. I'm not exactly sure the title of this page, but it looks like firms that have brought jobs here. On the report here. What year? Uh-huh. The report. 2010, 11, and 12. This list? No, it's a full-page list. The packet that we deliver to you all. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Starts with SRC holdings and ends with exact communications. Okay. I don't have that. Oh, okay. That's additional. We give you a fairly thick packet. Yes. Yes. Well, just a couple. I was going to give a condensed version here, so that's what we do. Okay. Thank you. Well, just a couple questions. I was just curious about we have Bluegrass Station here and Ceradyne, and I wonder what kinds of efforts you make with Department of Defense Industries in bringing them here, trying to land some of those companies and jobs. Absolutely. Two fronts. One is we work with the commanders at the different, in Bluegrass Station we work with, we call them the general. And they work with us very closely, and as well, the mayor's office and the state. And even the second part of what I was going to refer to is that even in Washington, D.C., we spend time. We're always trying to make those connections and to work with the local Bluegrass Station commander here to recruit, attract, expand the companies that are here. So we treat them just like we treat all of our other clients or prospects, is that we're very aggressive because they're a business, and we want to expand that here. Bluegrass Station has been a very good success story, and I think what I often find is most people don't even know the military. It's got a very large presence here, so we're working continuously with them to try to get that word out and to continue to market. Because if that ever would leave, and we have a BRAC issue coming up in 2015 at Richmond, we've got to make sure we're doing everything we can to try to keep as well as grow the military complex we have here. But Bluegrass Station, yes, Vice Mayor, we spend as much time as the General will give us. And I've got to tell you, he is super interactive with us, the governor's office, in trying to make things happen. And for those who don't know, BRAC is base realignment and closure. Closure. I'm sorry for the acronym. Every few years, the military goes through a BRAC and closes down facilities. So I think it's very important for, even with the Richmond facility, that is very important to Lexington. These are very good-paying jobs. These are very well-deserving families. This is an excellent workforce. And let me also go back to the second part of what we do. When we were in Washington, D.C. for our D.C. fly-in this year, Congressman Chandler set up a meeting with officials so that we could talk about the Richmond base. And it was significant because we are trying to head off, be aggressive, working with the Bluegrass ad in everything we do to keep that facility alive. I will tell you, just with military in general, with the war coming to a close, both in Afghanistan, as we know it has, and Iraq, there's going to be some realignments. We're just trying to make sure we're pitching ourselves the best way we can. Well, and I think the importance of it is that the more diverse our industries are, I mean, you're the expert at this, not I, But the more diverse kinds of industries we have here, the more kind of buffered we are in terms of the economy. And then my second kind of quick question is I asked you last time that you were before us about your efforts with agriculture. And I wondered if there's anything new on the horizon. And then number two, what kind of partnership do you have with UK College of Ag, who they're really on the cutting edge of a lot of the agriculture technology businesses? That's a quick question, but that's a great question from the standpoint of we have a, so for full disclosure, I'm from the College of Agriculture. I'm from a farm, University of Illinois. and there are a lot of similarities of different crops between Illinois and here. There's also a lot of similarities. We had a lot of cattle and hogs in Illinois. We didn't have very many horses, but let me tell you, a lot of things cut across both lines. We have one of the very best research facilities in the world, not just for equine but for animal science as well as plant pathology, plants. And, again, it's one of those things of having to know what's in our own backyard to be able to know how best to help. We stay very connected to Dean Scott Smith, Nancy Cox. We are moments notice when they call. For example, we were doing our strategic development plan. There was some comments made about where's agriculture. That was a quick fix. That was digging down in. We had kind of lumped it in other areas, but we broke it out to make sure that people understood this. It's like the military. It's an easy thing to overlook. Agriculture is our backbone, and so we spend as much time as we can with, If it's John, if it's the National Horse Center, if it's the folks out there we visit out at the horse park each year, we're always looking for leads. We're looking for issue opportunities. Just like anything else we do, Vice Mayor, we're looking for how we can help grow that industry or sustain it with all the challenges that we've had with tobacco and other type crops because that land is still here and we have to make sure we use it to its fullest. Or help build the clusters. The clusters here, just like all the other clusters we built, agriculture has been here, going all the way back to our origins, and it's a strong cluster. And, again, but we've got to be aware of it. So we've been a part of the Lexington Federal County Government, the equine task force, and a number of other things over the years, and try to work with the ag community to implement it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Lane. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll just throw out another thought about agriculture, but I have another question for you. But Fayette County ranks either first or second in the state year in and year out for the amount of cash crops created on our farms here. So even though we have Lexington in our metro area, the agribusiness is really very strong here, too. The question I was going to ask you is that, and I don't remember the year, but I'm thinking it's about eight years ago, So the Lexington Chamber of Commerce merged with other economic development agencies to form Commerce Lexington, and then you partnered with the city and the University of Kentucky. And I just thought maybe a little bit of a retrospective on that, how that's progressed, and you were very involved in the initial setup of that. Absolutely. It's been about eight years. Is that about right? 2004. Okay. So, yes, eight years. and I would also share what the big success that was, was the partnership. And I was glad you brought that up because when Bingham was here and kind of sharing, I was going to say downloading, the questions were why Lexington? What drove you to believe this was the place? And this is a compliment that I want to pay to every one of you. They said, I'm not sure if I'm supposed to mention the other communities, but they were very significant communities that we beat out for this. The bottom line was we have our act together as a community. Government, public sector, private sector working together, they were taken aback by it. The other part is we talk about horses again. When you fly in, and the mayor says it all the time, is that Lexington sells itself, that line is very apropos because when you fly into this airport and you see the horse farms down below and the green rolling pastures, the fence lines, don't ever underestimate or undervalue that. But for us, back in 2004, we had three entities going three different directions at times. We had private and public sector leaders involved in three different initiatives. Sometimes they're all involved in all three, and what it's allowed us to do is to go forward collectively with one direction, one vision. And then I would also say that the investment, the significant investment of funds as what's allowed us to really reach out and to build those relationships and to have the necessary funding to do a lot more of the basic fundamental things we needed to do. And I will say that for us, we go back, we can take it right back to 2004 in January when a lot of the things started changing for us. But in the last eight years, that alignment, the interaction, and it's all natural. That's the other thing. All these prospect salesmen that come in, it's natural. It's not made up because they can fish that out so quick from folks. If it's real, made up, if it's a stunt for a day. Because guess what? They come here and they talk. They talk to you. They will talk to the existing companies, and they want to know, is this real or is this a facade that they're going to witness until they make a decision and go back home? Just out talking to Tiffany and company the other day. Love this region, this community. It's a natural connection. But I think all this, the alignment, we've made it real easy for people to come into the alignment to get help. Okay. My last question is, it's been my experience that commercial real estate is a little bit on the leading edge of the economy because as companies sense that maybe things are improving, they start looking around to expand. How do you read that in the last few months? How are you seeing activity in our community, and do you see it picking up, or it's more static, or is it flat? Two things. From the commercial developers, we hear good comments, very positive comments. They're very hopeful. They're feeling a good trend going forward. On our end, as I said, our portfolio has never been this large. Again, keep in mind, we don't know who's looking at us in the world we live in today. They look at you, and they discard you before you even have a clue. They look at your data. There's enough information across the marketplace, across the country that they can pull from. So we're already, as a community, when a Bingham, when they start with those, what, 1,500 communities, we don't know until they get it down to that few and we're in it. So that's why we've always got to be out there making sure we're hitting our contacts. But also as a community, we've got to be always putting our best foot forward. But what we're hearing locally is positive. When I talk to my colleagues, there's a lot of things that are static nationwide. There's just a lot of caution still in the marketplace. We run into that here, too, don't get me wrong, but we tend to see people are becoming a lot more optimistic. Thank you. Keep up the good work. We need more jobs. Yes, I know. Thank you. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Chair. I wanted to sort of second the Vice Mayor Gordon's comments about bringing defense jobs to central Kentucky. We saw that at the San Antonio chamber trip this year, the leadership trip. I'm glad you brought that up. And the San Antonio economy has just thrived with a huge number of defense sector jobs that are down there. And it has just supercharged their economy down there. My concern is where would we put them? And so we've been told that we have 1,500 acres for manufacturing land. And how many acres do we have that we could put a manufacturing facility? We have a team in our economic development group. Jenna's been part of that and several volunteers. And of the acreage that's out there, we've scrubbed every acre. And we can assemble about 80 acres. That's available for what we do in the light manufacturing economic development zone land. What's the largest contiguous usable parcel that we can put together? That's real small. We couldn't parcel that together to make 80 acres work together. What's the biggest one we could put together, though? Good question. I've heard that, but I don't recall off the top of my head right now. But it's still small. Yeah. And so my concern is that today we wouldn't be ready to bring in a defense sector jobs or a new Toyota or a new Lexmark because we're not really thinking ahead about where would we put one of these companies. And I tell you, I cannot support more strongly our need to be the horse capital of the world and preserve what folks see as they fly in. Because I've lived other places, and I can tell you, there's no place more beautiful than Lexington. There's just not. It's just we have an immense treasure here. And so we don't want to damage that in any way, but we want to put it somewhere. And so as I say this, I hope the council is thinking about, well, where would we put it? and what are we going to do in the future to make sure that we have a place to put it. And some of us up here went through the, I guess, the planning process for the new, what do we call that, the comprehensive plan. Thank you. Sometimes the words just aren't there. But the comprehensive plan. So we had a lot of discussion, and particularly Council Member Cade and I had a couple of vigorous discussions on this, about what we have available. And so it would be nice if you could bring us some information about what realistically do we have. Because we've got a piece of land we're working with the administration on trying to work through all the pieces and parts to make that happen. I think we need to hear that from you all because while it may not be here today, it might be here tomorrow or next year. And are we going to be ready for when a company comes that needs a bigger tract of land than a Bingham McCutcheon? I mean, fortunately, they came into a facility that was already there, but not every company is going to be able to do that. And so what do we need to do to prepare for the future that also protects this world-class horse farm land that we have and this image that we're the horse capital world and a unique place in the world, which I think we are. We can do that. Yeah, thank you. And at the Rotary Ag Day, and I know you were there, a number of us were there, I asked the question because I remember it from the last year. Lexington is the largest cattle market east of the Mississippi. And I had a... And so... You said move. I had to be Council Member Farmer. That's right. You were moved? Farmer Bill. And so, and that's a big deal. No one sort of knew that. And I didn't know that before I was at Rotary Ag Day, which is a great reason to go. And so I think it would be great, and I realize you are the Visitors Bureau, but it would be great if we can sort of tell people that and maybe the restaurants could somehow get together and sort of create this awareness that, you know, Lexington is the best place to get a steak in this part of the world. And that's a lot of beef going through Lexington. And I don't think we realize that one of the things that makes us an agricultural capital for not only Kentucky, but this part of the United States, is that it's a huge beef market here. And let me, yes, it is. We set the price for the eastern half of the United States right out of Lexington, Kentucky, for feeder cattle, which is just an amazing thing. Let me throw out one other thing, and if you're not aware of it, I would really encourage you to have someone come in. And actually, I would actually encourage maybe to even have a meeting there. The Locust Trace AgriScience Farm, Fayette County Public Schools, it's a technical school. Prior to that, we had a very small agriculture component in our technical schools. We do not have a very small component anymore. Matter of fact, we have a national, leading, very advanced effort in agri-science. Our mental science, the veterinary clinic is there. We're setting up an ag advisory board as we speak. This is a big, big deal, and we've got some of the leading names in agriculture in a diverse setting there. That's another thing, Vice Mayor, that we're very active in, and Councilman Martin, on agriculture. Here's a thing we've all learned. When we were much younger, whatever you had in your community, most people took it for granted, and you thought it would be that way for a lifetime. Not anymore. As things come today, they could be gone tomorrow, and agriculture is something we can't assume will always be here. Again, I have a bias. I have an agriculture background. But when you're from the farm and you're from the land, you know how it all works. And I've got to tell you, there are very few communities in the United States of America that know how to do it. And I know I'm biased, but I also know I'm factually correct. Lexington, Kentucky knows how to do it. And we've proven that. And our infrastructure we're building, how many schools are building agro-science farms? And let me tell you, there's a lot of communities in the United States of America that have the assets we do. Maybe not an equine. There's a couple. Nobody's building schools like that. That was a big move on this community's part. And they're going to be busting at the seams already. That's the end of my time, but I did want to add that my experience on council is now complete, having Council Member Farmer move here at the council meeting. I feel like I've seen it all now, so thank you, Chair. Can I go back to something that Jay said earlier? Don't ever underestimate any of the pieces, parts, and components. the trails, the connecting of every aspect of the community. It's not just with a horse park, but we need to connect the horse park to the other side of town. We need to connect those trails. That connectivity is another big deal when people come to town and look at us. They want to know, is there just parts and components to your town, and does your town really live, breathe, and interact together? It's a huge deal. So, again, I think we're hitting, as a collective community, on a lot of fronts. Perhaps we can revisit my budget motion again about funding for trails. Thank you. Thank you. Furthermore, Council Member Martin, number three in the country, number one in the eastern United States, but number three in the country, in the cattle market. Council Member Kaye. Thank you, Chair. Thanks for being here, Bob. I appreciate the presentation. And I have kind of a question and a comment, But before I make it, I cannot resist responding to Councilmember Martin's usual comments about the need for acreage. I think this is a serious question, and it's a policy question. And we can either think about it as a short-term policy question or a long-term policy question. So if we need a manufacturing site today, and other people have argued for this, we ought to create that space. We ought to basically take it from the rural area. If we take that tomorrow, how many more times can we do that before it's all gone? And when it's all gone, is the imperative of the need for that land any less? That is, if we project 100 years out and we've used that land, we might still need a manufacturing site. We don't have any land left. So in my mind, the policy question is, what do we want our community to look like when we are done expanding into the rural areas? And I don't think we can think about it in five-year increments or ten-year increments. I think we have to look at it in very long-term increments. And that's a conversation we'll undoubtedly, whether you're on council or not, there will be other people who will take up that couch, and we'll be having that conversation. I'm not sure if you're not going to be on council. You never know. Okay. But I had a very specific request, and I've kind of been chasing this notion before, but when you report on the jobs that have been created, what we get is an average wage, which I think tells us something about what that means in terms of revenue and impact on the community in a general way. What it really does not tell us is very much about the nature of the jobs that are actually being created. So I've quickly generated a little bit of an example to explain what I mean. If you have a company that's bringing 30 jobs, 10 of those pay $100,000 a year, and 30 of those pay $20,000 a year. I've done the math, and that gets you an average of $46,000. But if you take the median, that's $20,000. dollars. So median information, which is easily calculable, I think would be very useful for us as a council and a community to have in addition to average wage. It would tell us a lot more about really the makeup of that workforce. So I'd appreciate it if you could think about that. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. All right. Council Member Lawless. Thank you, Chair. I'd like to point out, I too have, well, before I was on council, I traveled all over the world, and I've never seen any place more beautiful. but I think one thing that is really important to point out is third district our downtown UK and the surrounding neighborhoods is also our brand they fly into the bluegrass airport and they see our beautiful farmland and then they come almost always right into the third district to look at our downtown, if they're going to look for a job at UK, et cetera. And I think we, both the administration and we as a council, need to recognize that we draw business. We are the economic engine of this city. And unless we all invest in the third district, people aren't going to want to come here. And, you know, we've made great improvements in our downtown, and it's a really enormous accomplishment. But I think that that is an extremely important thing to add in there. What's fulfilling is when you have someone who moved away from Lexington come back, they're stunned. They're literally stunned. And it's all pieces and parts. And it takes all of us working together to make it happen that people are stunned. And it's not just the downtown or UK. It's also the neighborhoods that surround it. Absolutely. Thank you. When you bring a client in and it happens to be Thursday night live time, let me tell you, wow, we just need a tape recorder. They're shocked. The vitality, the energy. And when they drive through the neighborhoods, they need to be equally shocked. They're beautiful. That's right. They need to be. Thank you. Oh, we do. Don't worry. We put every foot forward. Yeah. Guest member Ryan. Thank you, Chairman Beard. Just as a follow-up on land for development, there are two thoughts that I have. One is that I have been in commercial real estate, and my experience has been that if a large company wanted to build a manufacturing plant, they have a whole set of criteria that they're seeking. They want to be on an interstate, good access, reasonable land cost, a ready supply of trained labor, and those kind of issues. And unfortunately, because the way Lexington and Fayette County area is, we're not ideally suited for some of those type of companies. We're more suited for people in technology, information, education, medical, business services, hospitality. Technology. But I see that a number of the counties around us are, and I wondered if you felt the same way and how you're partnering with, for example, the deal that just went into Winchester, I guess, with Amazon, which is a good example. Could you talk about how you partner with the outside counties for that kind of an opportunity? I always say the best example of economic development success we've had from a regional perspective probably started 25 years ago with Bluegrass Alliance. Bluegrass Alliance is an unincorporated entity. It's really the economic development directors and a few utility folks from an eight-county area that come together about every month, month and a half, and they talk about common opportunities, problems. If we need help from another county, we'll talk with that economic development person. We talk in a collective way. Sometimes we can't share because an issue is confidential. That camaraderie is built into respect, and people really respect each other. And so there's a real connectivity between counties, between the ED folks, mayors, judge execs, over simple things to more complex economic development efforts. But that has allowed us really to kind of look from a regional perspective. But also, I mean, when we sell, we're selling hard for Fayette County as well. Obviously, we want those projects to come here. but it is good to have that trust and to have that interaction. It's been a glowing example of how regionalism can work. And, again, it's because it's not just a meeting. It's a meeting where people trust each other. And we let our hair down. And right now, every community in the country is having the same issue we are. It's about having an adequately skilled workforce and having the capacity, the numbers we need. So we're spending lots of time, just like every other community in America is, we're trying to figure out how do we overcome that. And it's better to do it collectively regionally than it is just one county here, one county there, because what happens in another county has a major effect on us. When somebody comes and looks at Lexington, trust me, they're going outside of Fayette County too. They want to see the whole package. They want to see if they're going to have employees come here or if they're going to expand here. They want to know what the region's like, and so we need each other. And that's worked, and it's worked well. Does that answer your question? Yes, sir. Thank you. you know a lot of it's like being a good council member is just doing those common sense things doing them well you know those you got to work with your constituents you got to look collectively you got to look long term there's a whole package of things you all know it's no different in our area where you just got to do the right things the common sense things and you always have to be honest because they're going to find you out if you've been the truth a little tiny bit here or there, you've always got to be very straightforward and very honest. I think we've kind of done it as far as the council is concerned. Bob, thank you very much. Thank you. This was a very good presentation. Thank you for your support. Between you and John Nicholson, lots of surprises for some of us that didn't know. So, again, thank you. Thanks for the partnership. Okay, the third item on the agenda, I think, involves food trucks. I'm a quick learner, and that T-shirt also helps. So I have four names. Sean Tibbetts Tibbetts Okay Help yourself Three minutes Your name Pardon me? I'm not going to let Peggy introduce But it's not Well It is Excuse me just a second Yes sir Council Member Hanson Do you want to kick this off? I would like to, Chair, if that's all right. That's fine. That's you. That's you. No, I'm going to let you talk. I had, of course, everyone knows that there was, I'm sorry, Sean, There was an itinerant merchant task force that placed the item of the itinerant merchant ordinance in this committee. First, I'd like to thank all the task force members that are here. Many of you are here. Many of my friends are here. We spent many weeks together tackling this issue, and I very much appreciate their work. First, I wanted to say, I wanted to clarify that the task, the ordinance is not just of food trucks. It includes all itinerant merchants. There is another ordinance that we worked on that I didn't feel fair in order to provide enough time for both topics that they should be heard on the same day. So that is also the pilot program which deals with strictly only food trucks. It will be heard at the next Economic Development Committee meeting. But itinerant merchants are, including food trucks, rugs, fireworks, just all itinerant merchants. And early on, in an effort to help some neighborhoods that had complained and help protect the entrances to their neighborhoods, I found that it was very difficult with the current ordinance. there were no regulations on itinerant merchants. So we had two goals in mind. One, to restrict the hours and restrict or regulate the distance that an itinerant merchant could be in close proximity to a residential dwelling. So this ordinance does both of those things. It regulates any itinerant merchant from operating within 100 feet of a residential dwelling, not a zone, a dwelling. And it regulates the hours from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. We also, in your packet, or in addition to your packet, I guess you received a map. because the regulating of the hours we felt it posed a problem for our downtown area where we're trying to revitalize our downtown and get folks downtown. We extended the hours, and I think you all should have gotten a map, in the boat area. we call our boat, and in the adaptive use areas, the hours would be extended to 4 a.m. in those areas. So we felt like this was a good compromise based upon, you know, in our neighborhoods, out in the suburban areas, it would be 11 o'clock, or if the business would have to be open. Now, Dave, I guess Dave Barbary was drafted the ordinance, and I couldn't remember if you could help me clarify. If the business is open, say it's in the parking lot of a business that's open 24 hours, then the 4 a.m. rule would apply? i think we tied it i need to i need to find this section but if my memory is correct i think we tied it to the latest hour of operation on the property in other words you couldn't have some somewhere operate independently if there's another establishment on the property they'd have to close at the earlier hour of that operation instead of the 4 a.m you couldn't just have somebody park if there's no nothing on the property it could be open to the later hour but If you had other businesses, it would be required to close at the same time as those other businesses would close. But it could stay open, for instance, just as an example, a shell parking lot, a firework vendor could stay open until 4 a.m. If something was open 24, I think some of the examples are there's some places that are open 24 hours a day. They would still have to close at 4 a.m. if they're on one of those locations. Right. And the 11 o'clock would not apply. So, thank you. But I don't really feel like this ordinance, I know we've received lots of emails from food trucks, and I certainly appreciate the willingness and standing up for what they truly believe in. But I don't think this ordinance is that much restrictive than the current ordinance. So, you know, all I'm asking is that this ordinance move forward so that we can protect our neighborhood entrances, you know, particularly the appearances. If I had received complaints, and I know that there are vendors in many, many other areas of the city where you're entering a neighborhood and there was one location in my district where there were art, and it was actually, there was a yard sale, art for sale, and a food vendor all in one small parking lot. So we were just trying to regulate that a little bit, but still compromise with the vendors and allow them to operate. And this would be anyone that doesn't have a permanent location. So that's my... Thank you. Now, Mr. Tibbetts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Amanda Tibbetts and James Duggan have yielded their time to me, if that's okay. Pardon me? Amanda Tibbetts and Mr. Duggan have both yielded their time to me. Okay. All right. Thank you, sir. That's nine minutes. Yeah, okay. Honorable guest council members and my fellow citizens, I come before you today as the director of the Bluegrass Food Truck Association and a business owner in Fayette County. Today's agenda includes the report from the Itinerant Merchant Task Force, which clearly demonstrated many hours of difficult work to come to the proposal that's here before you today. While the current version is favorable in many ways, there are still some clauses in this particular legislation that cause us some grave concern. Primarily, the hours of operation are restricted, as Councilwoman Henson explained, from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. in most places, past 11 if we have a business chaperone who's open after 11, and 7 a.m. to 4 a.m. if it's inside the boat or the adaptive reuse zone. At least it's very confusing to try to figure out what hours I'm allowed to be open on this particular parcel of land. So the first problem or the first struggle that we have is that it also restricts our businesses from being able to serve the third shift workers. It eliminates our ability to serve any late-night customers anywhere outside of the boat on your map downtown. And it also eliminates the ability for even a coffee truck to come down and serve the early birds. I heard the folks talking about Department of Defense earlier. My day job is actually in Fort Knox. I know a lot of people there that work at 530 in the morning and would appreciate a cup of coffee as they came through the door. So by eliminating our ability to start before 7 a.m., that eliminates that entire business model, as well as third shift and any late night outside of downtown. That leads right into the second one that we're very concerned about, is the locations of operations are restricted that make several areas off limits, including all parks, any place where people can congregate, and any place within 100 feet of someplace where somebody lives. Now, the struggles that we have with that is obviously it eliminates our ability to serve any of the sports leagues in town. We've already been approached by the Little League Baseball and Little League Football to take over their concession operations for them as they tend to lose money on it and we don't. So they've asked us to step in and fill that void for them. With this, we won't be able to because we aren't allowed on parks and recreation land. Additionally, it eliminates our ability to have a line because the way that it's phrased at the moment, it says that any place that causes people to congregate is off limits. So as soon as I have a line or I have somebody waiting to pick up their food, I'm in violation of this ordinance. Whether I'm on public or private property doesn't make a difference. In addition to that, the last one is, again, anywhere within a residence, within 100 feet of a residence. Currently, we do a lot of work with the breweries in town. We've been working with Deer Works and West Six and Country Boy and setting up at places that don't have kitchens. They find that we bring a lot of business for them. The best example I can give is the Bar Association recently had their picnic down here at Fifth Third. They asked food trucks to come out instead of catering like they usually do. we quadrupled the head count for the picnic attendance. And the number one reason that everybody listed was because the food trucks were there. So when we're talking about bringing people out and generating revenue, food trucks do that. And we are already demonstrating that in Fayette County today. So along with that, the 100-foot restriction will eliminate our ability to operate at West 6 because there's houses on both corners on either side. You look at West 6, we're within 100 feet. Beer Works, there's an apartment upstairs, so it eliminates our ability to be there. So there's current businesses we're already working with that this eliminates our ability to continue to earn a living. Additionally, these kinds of restrictions are arbitrary and don't serve to protect public health and safety, but rather to support one industry at the sacrifice of innovative entrepreneurs. The concerns that have been addressed here today, for example, Peggy Henson brought up the entrances to the neighborhoods. Based on this current regulation, it doesn't solve that problem. This person could still get an itinerant merchant license and still be set up in an empty parking lot at the entrance of a neighborhood until 4 in the morning. It doesn't resolve the issue that was created for the task force to resolve. We would like to see Lexington adopt a much more streamlined process. If it's okay, I have a handout. I'd like to ask my vice president a handout. It's a quick diagram that shows you the permitting process in Fayette County. This is the process that we go through. We go through this at a minimum every 14 days. So they're going to be bringing it around for you. It's over 19 steps just to get all of your permits, and that's on top of this legislation and additional restrictions. None of the permitting process goes away. So not only are we creating barriers to entry, but now we're creating restrictions on locations and hours of operation, which severely inhibit our ability to serve multiple markets in town that the brick-and-mortar restaurants already have the privilege to serve. What I'd really like to point out is it's very clear to those of us in this particular industry that City Council and the Mayor's Office supports our endeavors, as demonstrated by the fruit and vegetable cart that's available downstairs in City Hall. That's a food cart. You guys have a food cart in City Hall. You're supporting a particular industry. We're just asking for the same privilege for the rest of the county. We'd like to remove the pilot program. The pilot program does not have any measures for success and does not have any stipulations for extending it or defining who can participate in the pilot program. We would rather see a single streamlined ordinance with a single permit required, like Louisville offers and other municipalities that have adopted the food truck culture. We'd like to see a streamlined process, easier permitting. If we can't ease up on the permitting, can we at least do it online? Because as you're looking at this chart, this happens in four different buildings, and we go through this every 14 days or for every address where we operate. So if I work at three different addresses in the same weekend, I go through this three times to operate just that weekend. The total cost to an operator at the end of this is $95. So it's $95 for every address where we go set up, whereas several of these fees were never included before. The zoning and compliance permit used to be free. The certificate of occupancy used to have no expiration date on it, and the itinerant merchant bond used to apply to only a single business. Now, the flip side of that now is zoning compliance now costs us $25. Zoning compliance and certificate of occupancy are limited to 14 days, and if you have multiple trucks, you're required to pay multiple bonds to the Department of Revenue. So we have some serious concerns with the legislation that's on the table that's being reviewed. We would like to see a work group formed to work on this legislation a little bit further. I think we're very, very close. There's been a lot of compromise and a lot of things that really would have shut our businesses down completely have been removed. There's just a few remaining low-hanging fruit here with hour restrictions and location restrictions that we'd like to see removed. Any questions? Yes, Mr. Lane. Yes, sir. I was intrigued with your chart here, and I'm just curious, did the Irvin County government provide that to you, or did you make that up? That took over a year of walking in and out of offices, being denied my business permit five times for not having had the appropriate paperwork. And I learned every step on that chart the hard way. We need to hire you for the planning and zoning department. I'm an IT nerd during the day. Can you tell? How many different? I've never, you know, this is sort of overwhelming me because I feel your pain. You know, if you're trying to run a business and you're running around getting paperwork. Who, you know, what departments? You've got zoning, is zoning in there? Yes, there's zoning and compliance as your first stop. From there you go to the building inspection office and get your certificate of occupancy. From there you go to revenue and pay your $500 bond and up to $250 an itinerant merchant. And from there you head over to the health department to get your temporary permit to operate. Do we know, does anybody know how this process was, are they just taking existing ordinances and enforcing all this? We haven't. Council didn't pass a plan like this, did they? This is yours, right? Yes, ma'am. This is through experience and researching the regulations. This is a process to get it approved. My question is, is this just because we have different ordinances for each of these departments and the merchant has to go to each one of them? Yeah, there's the man. Your current ordinances, frankly, are not designed to address this type of operation. So what you have is a mishmash of existing ordinances. And this streamlining issue is being currently studied to try to eliminate some of these steps. I think the greatly complicating factor is actually the health department, the 14-day rule. That's not driven by us. We have no control over that. That's the state that does that. And I think that a lot of these food merchants are legally required by the health department to obtain a new permit and move. I think they have to move locations within 14 days as well. So that's the part we can't control. I think there is a desire to try to come up with a streamlined process to accommodate them. What they're trying to avoid doing is opening up the door for some unforeseen consequence to another type of business that you wouldn't want to tap. Well, I mean, I think there's several layers of issues here. I mean, I think some people are concerned about, you know, the merchant on the wheels moving around and competing with restaurateurs that have fixed space operation. They've got larger overheads and all that. But then the administrative issue and the permitting issue, this looks overwhelming to me. You have to do it on a frequent basis for each location at which you're. To bring a little clarity to what Mr. Barber said, he's correct that we are limited to the 14-day rule with the local health department. That is the lower left-hand corner of your page. That last big triangle in two boxes, that's the health department. Everything else is other county departments and other county regulations that we go through. And additionally, in Louisville, they actually respect the statewide mobile permit. There's a permit that mobile food operators can get that's a $120 annual fee that is the same inspection a restaurant goes through, and you're licensed for a year to operate anywhere in the state using that permit. You're required to register with the local health department. Jefferson County doesn't charge, Fayette County does. Well, maybe that would be an idea that we need to investigate what other cities have done that has been successful and has been cost-effective and time-sensitive and pro-business, because this seems a little bit cumbersome. Okay, that's all I had. I apologize that it's so bureaucratic, but maybe we can focus on this and make things a little bit better. We would appreciate that. Thank you. Yes, sir. Any others? Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Tibbetts. I have down here Amanda Tibbetts also. Did you give your time up? Okay. James Diggins? That too. Well, then this is going to be easy. Anthony Rios. Well, then, we're done. Okay, thank you. Council Member Lawless? Thank you, Chair. As you all know, I met with you and asked you what some of the barriers were for you to be able to operate, not just downtown or necessarily downtown, but in the county. And I saw the hoops, and so we had a meeting, and I thought we had that this ordinance would address those issues because I see, well, one thing, the certificate of occupancy from building inspection. And my understanding, the new language would be the owner of the property would get that one time for a year, that that wouldn't be your all's. It would be a year. But is that in the ordinance, Mr. Barbary? And then also, so that wouldn't be something that you all would have to do. so it doesn't sound to me like that's in here yet. And then the whole thing with the division licensing through permitting through finance, that that was another issue the way that was done. And I thought we had come up with a streamlined way for you all to do that. And if it's not in the ordinance, now this ordinance that we're looking at today isn't about the pilot program. And so it's really not about the boat or those things, which in your case, well, it's, Yes, ma'am. So if you review in the ordinance in the location restrictions, there's a section that refers to several downtown streets. And if you map out those streets on the map, that's what forms the boat. So that is in this current ordinance. And the adaptive reuse. Yes, ma'am. areas, which is the brewery where you all often operate. It's one of three of them. Right. I understand. Yes, ma'am. Why shouldn't I? So if these issues aren't dealt with prior to us passing the ordinance as far as the streamlining, I don't see how we can pass that today. And, you know, for me, the issues you were having in your neighborhoods, Council Member Henson, were probably the only issues that weren't in the 3rd District. and all of a sudden, you know, you were given this map that had all B2, B3, B2A, B3, which is a huge portion of the 3rd District, including our downtown. So I got, you know, like I say, it was the only problem we didn't have in the 3rd District, I think. So I certainly think that there are ways that you all can, and I've talked to you about this, that there are a lot of ways that you all can have a very good business model, and it can be streamlined without some of the things that you asked for, but having some balance. So that being said, I think in here it says parks unless you had permission from parks. Oh, ma'am, it's all parks or off limits. All parks. Yes, ma'am. I've read this thing so many times. and it's changed so many times and it's flip-flopped so many times and the votes flip-flopped and the concessions have been agreed and disagreed and, you know, I mostly dealt with the part that was the subcommittee. And so... To address the proposal you had brought to us about working in neighborhoods, with this particular ordinance that would be off limits because we're setting up in a residential zone. The only way we could do that is if we get the special event permit from the city, and once we start down that process, it's a flow chart that looks just like this. Well, a special event from the city, they're free, and you can apply for a special event, food truck, a restaurant doesn't have to apply for any of this. They apply for a lot. If you want to talk to any restaurant owners, they jump through a whole lot of hoops. That being said, what I'm saying is you can apply for a special event permit every Wednesday at such and so. It's free and it lasts all year. Okay? So that's certainly not a huge. Excuse me a second. This is becoming more of a conversation, I think, than a question and answer. Yes, sir. I guess I'm trying to explain my concerns, and I apologize. I think we need to get together with our attorneys and see where we are. Well, I guess it doesn't seem ready without the streamlining and some of these issues addressed. Probably so. With the areas outside the boat, and so thank you. I would if I had to have 30 seconds. No, ma'am? Okay. You've been at the podium a long time. Yes, sir. Understood. And we're not going to solve this 100% because we're going to have to put something together and go a little more deeply than standing here. I think the Institute for Justice has been in contact with all of you with suggested legislation. If you would like to review that, it would help immensely. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman. Council Member Hanson. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to clarify some things because I think we are getting some misinformation. This ordinance does not have anything to do with parks. Parks control their own vendors. There are vendors within our park system that support. Am I correct, Dave? This ordinance merely restates the current law on parks. a different section of your code of ordinances. Currently, decisions on vending within parks are made by the Division of Parks. So this doesn't change any of that. That's the status quo right now. It does reference that as part of the ordinance. I have another question. As far as streamlining, that was a recommendation of the task force. It was, but the decision was made to go ahead and bring this forward separately. I don't have any kind of issue trying to put that language into the ordinance if that's what you all want to do. But, I mean, the thought was that might proceed on a separate track and be addressed separately. This, if you, I mean, it has some impact on them, but this was, I think the intent was, this was going to address more of the neighborhood issues. So it technically could be adopted separately if that's what you all wanted to do. If you want to combine these all into one ordinance, that's fine as well. But the streamlining, would it be also in other ordinances? We'd have to amend other ordinances. I think the idea, the discussions that I'm aware of on streamlining, we've had a discussion about trying to define this to a limited category of vendors. It would be some sort of definition of food merchant. And then we would go through a process where it would eliminate some of these steps. And I think the idea would be if you went ahead and did it on the front end at the beginning of the year, you wouldn't have to go back after that point. Once you start switching space, you still have to go to the health department possibly, but you'd be done with us as long as you were listed on the property as being acceptable to that particular property owner. They would file the paperwork at the beginning of the year listing the vendors that had permission to be on their property as long as they met the qualifications, those particular vendors could move in and off of that particular property, and the entire time they would have the permission of the government to be doing that. So I think that's kind of the streamlining concept that's been discussed internally to date would be the property owner gets the permission. They go through the process one time. They list all the people that can operate there. As long as all that's of record, you'd be fine operating on those particular locations. without going back to the government again to get any kind of permission. Thank you, Dave. Chris, did you have something to add? I'd just like to add a couple things. There are certain things here that you are discussing, such as the hours and stuff that are policy, but I've never seen this, and I will tell you right now there's been some misinformation given. First of all, the average zoning compliance permit takes 15 minutes to obtain from our office, not 180 days. There are no fees associated with a zoning compliance permit, so I don't know where that information came from. Maybe there's confusion over what's required for a building inspection occupancy permit. So I just wanted to be careful and at least clarify some of those things. And what we have talked about in terms of how we would do this is that when someone came for it in a business zone that allowed it and we verify what uses are allowed in that zone, there would be the standard site plan that's required. there would be a one-time identification of where on that site plan an itinerant merchant could go. And that way we could check to make sure that the issues that Ms. Henson has had in her district where all the parking for a brick-and-mortar business gets taken up by itinerant merchants wouldn't happen. So you'd still be able to have a functioning business. Necessary aisleways and circulation would be maintained, but there would be an area identified for the merchants. After that, and that permit's given, we would not care who that merchant is as long as they were only selling items that were allowed in that zone. For instance, you could not sell adult items in a neighborhood business zone or something like that, because we're not just talking about food here. So our idea would be that once that's done, any enforcement would be by complaint of somebody being outside of the designated area or a type of business use that is not permitted in that zone. So that's a fairly easy, simple type of thing to be done. Many of these other things may have to do with other types of requirements or special requirements. We can't speak for the health department and things like that. But I just wanted to clarify that certainly you can, when you draw every step in a chart, I think you could make a chart about that complicated from going here to get a drink of water and walking back in and all the decisions you have to make. but I think it gives you a little bit of a misleading impression of what's done. We're all committed to making this as simple to protect neighborhoods as they need protected. But likewise, we don't need to spend a lot of time fooling with these things. We don't have the time. We don't want to. So we're trying to make it as simple as we can, and we frankly don't feel we even need to change the ordinance. That would be an administrative procedure that I could direct from our department in terms of issuing the zoning compliance permit. The only question that may come into play is where we have had a planning commission-approved development plan. Would we as a staff be granted the authority to make that designation, which is what we would want to do? We don't want to take those kinds of things back to a planning commission. So the question from your point, will that be acceptable to your constituents to have the urban county government staff making the decisions as to where on a piece of property these could be allowed? So I just wanted to let you know and add a little more flesh to what the practices and procedures are, and we also agree that they should be as streamlined as possible. Chris, would it be possible just to make us feel better anyway to do something similar to this flow chart, so to speak? Well, again, this is for a specific food merchant, and again, once it gets outside of urban county government, In government, there are basically three places. One, to get your zoning compliance permit, get the occupancy permit, if, in fact, there would even be one required when you're bringing in a mobile vendor onto a site. I'm not sure. We can certainly see whether that's required from building inspection and whether one of those two steps could be eliminated. We've got a list of things that, as you know, we've only been doing this since January 1st, and we are exploring with building inspection things like having a unified single permit for home businesses and things like that because they virtually do the same things. We could look at that kind of thing for this as well. And, again, what's required to get the business license so that we know that revenues and taxation are being properly collected. I'm sure Mr. O'Meara could speak to those kinds of issues and what he requires, But I don't know that that's a real onerous situation as well. Okay. Thank you. Vice Mayor Gordon? I wasn't finished. Oh, I apologize if he wasn't finished. I also wanted to say that I think this has taken the focus off of what I was trying to do as far as help my neighborhoods, and I just wanted to clarify that. The only thing we're asking is 100 feet, not from a zone that was mentioned earlier, from a house. So that means that I wouldn't have an itinerant merchant with neon lights next door to my home. Just 100 feet. That is not very far at all. And as far as restricting the hours, I think if the business is open where you're located, you can stay there until 4 a.m. If it's not, you close at 11. And I just don't understand why a vendor would want to be in a secluded dark area anyway. So those are the two things that, you know, and then we did allow the adaptive use areas, and we allowed the downtown area to be included in the 4 a.m. And across the city if the business is open. So just to clarify, and I may be wrong again, Dave, thank you. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to point out that the 100-foot definition that's been discussed is on the top of page 5. It's number 2. So that's the actual language that would be in place under the card. So it's 100 feet of a property line of a dwelling unit. The dwelling unit has to be zoned and located in a residential district under our zoning ordinance, and that would not apply in this boat area that was discussed, nor would it apply in the adaptive reuse areas that are zoned that way. So if you were actually located downtown or you were located in an adaptive reuse area and vending, this restriction would not apply. If you were located anywhere else in Fayette County, it would be 100 feet, but if it was a mixed-use type of area, it's not going to apply. It has to be the 100 feet of a dwelling unit in a residentially zoned area. Are you through? I never spoke. Okay. Now, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the public input that we had. And, Chris, for you and David, I appreciate the clarity that you've brought to help us understand this and would also look forward to seeing what Councilmember Beard asked for in terms of our process from your perspective. And Councilmember Henson, I do recall that when this issue was originally brought up, there was a significant problem brought by you about one of your larger parks. and the presence of continuous itinerant merchants without permits and other things. And that kind of kicked it off. But Parks has a process, I believe, which, well, in an area that was a neighborhood near, yes. And I appreciated you speaking to the Parks process, because there is a process already in place where parks can issue permits, et cetera. I believe that's how it works. I would, Council Member Henson, if there are pieces of this that after this discussion you feel are needing any kind of, If any more work, I would like to hear that from you. And I also look forward to the food truck discussion and the pilot project and all that at a future meeting. But it seems to me you've done pretty due diligence to the timing and linked it to businesses being open if it's on a business property and that sort of thing. So I will look to you for other changes that you think might help this even more. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Furnimer. Thank you, Chair. And to think this could have come to the planning committee that I chair. I guess from looking at it, it says that the purpose of the attenorant merchant task force was to restrict attenorant merchants at the entrance to our neighborhoods from a holistic standpoint without eliminating complete access to the downtown area. And I don't know. I'm just, I'm still uncomfortable with the restrictive nature of the proposed ordinance here. and I'm also very interested in the discussion of the fees that we're promulgating for this potential group in terms of our license fee of $100 versus the $250 versus the $150, and I would like to see that fleshed out personally. I know some of these things are regulated by the state, and we can't have any effect on that. I think that most people would understand if there was a food truck that it would be in one regular parking space and not on a yellow curb. I'm uncomfortable with the idea of some of the hour restrictions involved here. And I don't know if it's the chair's prerogative or someone who's going to bring a motion. I'm not personally ready to vote on this legislation today, but I think there's plenty of room for good conversation and for an opportunity for us to promulgate something that could help rather than restrict. And I think that's one of the things we should try to do all at the same time. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Kaye. Thank you, Chair. I guess my concern about this is that what we have at the moment is only the restrictive aspects and not the permissive aspects. I think there's an interest in seeing food trucks in the community and having them function in a way that's going to be beneficial to everybody. And there's an interest in protecting especially the residential areas. But this piece of it, being separated from the pilot project, simply gives us the restrictive side. And I think as a result, it's very hard to make a determination about it. So I'm also hoping that there will be continued discussion about this issue. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Chair. Mr. Barber, I've got just a couple questions. I'm sorry, I'm trying to play catch up and understand how all this fits together. So let's take Chevy Chase, although that's not in my district. But so the building that the white building in Chevy Chase, I'm sorry, I don't know the name of it, but it's a multi-use building. It's got residential units upstairs in it. So an itinerant merchant couldn't locate anywhere near that building. Is that right? If it is, if it is, I'm not that familiar with what you're talking about. But it would depend on how close that location is to a hundred. If there's a residential zoned area and there's a dwelling unit within a hundred feet of where you're talking about locating within that residential zone. It's going to be R1, R2, or R3. Right. If you're within a hundred feet of a dwelling unit, you go to the dwelling unit and draw a line to where it was located. So busters across the street would be out of bounds. And you would potentially have a problem somewhere like that. but I could put a hot dog stand maybe in front of a farmer's jewelry or something like that. That's probably correct. Probably correct. So I'm trying to understand multi. So it's the zone. The line you would draw, it's only an issue if you've got a residency zoned area, you would look for the dwelling units that are in that area, and you would draw a line 100 feet from a dwelling unit. If it was located within 100 feet, it would be a problem. So I don't know that we mapped some of these places out specifically. I think that Jeff Eugert's shop did do a great deal of mapping, but I don't know if they actually went to each type of mixed-use area like that and actually did a full map of all of the impacts within those types of areas. Was this based on another city's ordinance? It started out with Louisville's, but then my understanding is Louisville's changed. So I can't tell you that this is currently really based on Louisville's ordinance. So we sort of took Louisville's and kind of like Macaroni was changed. But they did have some similar concepts in there, some footage restrictions, that kind of stuff. And so I guess at what point will these two ordinances be put back together, or will they? Well, I don't disagree with Chris. I suspect you could greatly streamline your process administratively if you all were comfortable doing that. So I don't know that that needs to get in here. If your comfort level is to have it in here, that's fine too. I guess I'm a little concerned about adding to that flow chart. I appreciate Director King's comments, and I realize that I have great respect for them, and I know that they may have some shortcuts on this flow chart that might not be there. But I think maybe what would help you all is to at the next meeting to have what the flow chart we think would look like from our perspective, and then you all could tell whether or not you thought we needed to work further on it or not. The other component of this that is missing, because frankly it is the more controversial of the two topics, is this pilot program. We had a draft pilot program ordinance, and the real issue that you all need to be thinking about addressing as it comes forward is there has not been a readily identifiable public land spaces for these people to operate on. So that's been the, in my opinion, there's other issues, but that's the main issue is there's not a, they want, they'd like to be able to operate on, I think, if they were honest about it, on any piece of public land anytime they wanted to. But in many of these other communities, the pilot programs, you identify spaces for them to locate. So we had a very hard time doing that. And then so then the last proposal was going to be we would allow them to operate on a lot of pieces of public land in the downtown area, but only during certain hours. So that was kind of where it fell apart. And I guess I'd like to see maybe the boat change shape a little bit because I don't understand why Rupp Arena wouldn't be within the boat. You're saying you can't, someone can't put a hot dog stand outside. Well, there's other issues of Rupp. There's a whole different overlay with Rupp when there's an event going on particularly. Do you have an ordinance on the books that prohibits stuff from being sold in there during events anyway? That's a rough issue in and of itself. But the boat has gone back and forth many times, and I think it's probably in its smallest shape right now. Well, as best I can tell, we can sell hot dogs around the street from the mayor's house. And so if that's what the administration, where they want the boat to be, I guess rather than Rupp Arena, I guess I will go with that. But I appreciate it. I'd like to see these get together because I think it will help have a more consistent, consolidated approach. I really appreciate the work of the task force. Because Council Member Henson and I originally met, you and I met two years ago with Mr. Bosco, remember, and it was the health department regulations that seemed to always gum up the words. So I appreciate your diligence in staying with that, and I know Vice Mayor Gordon is ready to go. Thank you, Chair. Go right ahead, Vice Mayor. Just a quick question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think I heard Mr. Farmer mention, David or Chris, parking spaces. Do I understand this draft to say that parking spaces would not be available for trucks or merchants? Well, so far we have not proposed that an itinerant merchant would have a new parking requirement in and of itself. However, if they locate on parking spaces, we need to make sure that the brick-and-mortar business at that location still has the minimum parking that it needs to have. So public parking spaces. There's two different parking issues. I think Chris is addressing his own one. I'm talking about in the public right-of-way parking spaces. No, this does not open up any public land any differently than what you're doing now. Okay. And I think that's maybe the missing component from you. But, I mean, that is the issue of the most controversy. This stuff is tame compared to the discussion on the public land. Did Gary Means have input at all? I think Gary's existing policy is where I think there were issues. The specific example, if I remember correctly, was several years ago someone tried to, I guess they maybe took three or four parking spaces in front of the bookstore or one of the bookstores at the college area and started vending books out of it. And that raised the question of what the proper uses of the parking meters were. I believe his existing policy is it's for parking only, but I think you can reserve them. If you need construction done in front of your house or something like that, you can go ahead and reserve a block of them, and they still regularly do that. But he is not currently allowing, I don't believe, any hour of the day commercial activity to be taking place in those spaces. Okay. So that helps clarify that for me. I remember seeing the folks. I think it was down on Limestone, actually, seeing some of the folks park their selling books and things out of the public parking spots. So thank you for that clarity. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Mr. Rios, I'm afraid you've already extended your time and passed it on to Mr. Tibbetts. So needless to say, in 60 seconds, we're going to turn right around and start another meeting. And that's where all these people are coming in the back door. You haven't noticed probably yet. But do we have a motion? Move adjourn. All in favor? Aye. Thank you.