# Council Environmental Quality Committee Meeting - November 27, 2012 > Auto-transcribed civic record · November 27, 2012 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/2771 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/2771?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2012-11-27 - **Last revised**: July 16, 2026 - **Length**: 13,960 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 Environmental Quality Committee met on November 27, 2012, at 11:00 AM, with Blues presiding. During the meeting, the committee heard five agenda items, including two informational updates and one approval. Committee members heard a Blue Sky Update from Henson and a Distillery District Update from Gorton. The committee approved the September 25 Committee Summary. The meeting included one motion and vote, and the committee heard public comment from three members of the public. The committee also reviewed items that had been referred to it for consideration. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the meeting on November 27, 2012: * Blues * Stinnett * Gorton * Farmer * Crosbie * Myers * McChord * Martin * Henson * Lane No absences or late arrivals were recorded. ## Votes and Decisions The body considered one motion during this meeting. **Amend 16-403(d) regarding stormwater management fee exemption** [timestamp: 0:02:37] Ellinger moved to amend 16-403(d) to include urban county airport board runways, taxiways, and public ramp areas in the stormwater management fee exemption. Lane seconded the motion. The motion failed on a roll call vote with 2 ayes and 6 nays. - **Voted in favor:** Ellinger, Lane - **Voted against:** Blues, Gorton, Farmer, Henson, Stinnett, McChord ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting on November 27, 2012 included approval of three significant financial actions related to the Blue Sky wastewater infrastructure projects: **Purchase of Blue Sky Wastewater Treatment Plant** The body approved a purchase of the Blue Sky Wastewater Treatment Plant for $250,000. **State Grant** A grant of $600,000 was approved from the State of Kentucky for the Blue Sky Pumping Station project. **Low-Interest Loan** A low-interest loan of $1.9 million was approved through the Kentucky Infrastructure Authority to support the Blue Sky Pumping Station project. These three financial actions—totaling $2.75 million in combined funding—represent a significant investment in wastewater infrastructure improvements for the Blue Sky area. ## Public Comment **Steve Wilson – Boonesboro Manor Sewage Treatment Plant and Blue Sky Rural Activity Center** [timestamp: 1:00:13] Steve Wilson, representing JFG Enterprises, addressed the council regarding the Blue Sky project. Wilson expressed concern that JFG Enterprises had not been consulted or given input on the project despite their substantial financial interest in the matter. JFG Enterprises owns the Boonesboro Manor sewage treatment plant and surrounding land in the project area. Wilson requested a follow-up meeting with the council to discuss the Blue Sky plan and to address potential financial burdens that required infrastructure upgrades could impose on his company. **Council Member Martin – Future Growth and Infrastructure Planning** [timestamp: 1:05:16] Council Member Martin commented on the need for comprehensive growth planning across all parts of the city, not limited to the east side. Martin urged the committee to consider long-term capacity needs when making infrastructure decisions, emphasizing that failing to plan adequately would result in costly future upgrades. **Council Member McCord – Infrastructure Underbuilding and Future Planning** [timestamp: 1:05:16] Council Member McCord reflected on past infrastructure planning decisions, citing Manowar Road as an example of underbuilt infrastructure. McCord warned that failing to plan for future growth locks the city into ineffective infrastructure and increases long-term costs. McCord urged the committee to think strategically about capacity requirements when making current infrastructure decisions. ## Contested Items **Blue Sky Pumping Station Project and Boonesboro Manor Plant** JFG Enterprises, owner of the Boonesboro Manor plant, raised significant opposition to the Blue Sky Pumping Station project. The company's concerns centered on a lack of prior consultation regarding the project and the potential financial burden it would impose through required infrastructure upgrades. JFG Enterprises requested a follow-up meeting to formally discuss and address these concerns with project planners. **Cost Escalation and Future Planning** A substantive debate emerged regarding the project's scope and funding approach. The disagreement centered on whether to pursue option two, which would provide expanded capacity, or maintain the minimum requirement for the project. Some meeting members advocated for option two, arguing that future-proofing the infrastructure would be prudent planning. However, other members cautioned against this approach, expressing concern about overcommitting financial resources without identifying a clear funding source to support the expanded option. This split resulted in a divided vote among participants. ## Blue Sky Update — Henson Charlie Martin presented an update on the Blue Sky Pumping Station and Forest Main project [timestamp: 00:03:09]. The presentation focused on three service area options for the Blue Sky Rural Activity Center. **Options Presented** Option one represented the minimum requirement under the consent decree. Options two and three offered expanded capacity alternatives designed to match current zoning requirements. Both expanded options included gravity sewers as part of their infrastructure plans. **Key Discussion Points** The committee discussed cost implications associated with each option, examining the financial impact of the different service area configurations. Members also considered future growth projections and how each option would accommodate potential development. Additionally, the discussion addressed downstream infrastructure impacts, evaluating how the pumping station and sewers would affect existing systems and future capacity needs. **Outcome** This agenda item was informational in nature, with no formal decision or action required at this meeting. ## Distillery District Update - Gorton [timestamp: 1:17:23] Commissioner Paulson provided an update on the Distillery District TIF project. The presentation focused on the status of a feasibility study being conducted by Strand, which is funded at $501,000. According to the update, the study is nearing completion and will serve to inform future planning efforts for streetscape and trail development in the district. The committee discussed budget constraints affecting the project and identified the need for a development agreement to move forward. The feasibility study's findings are expected to guide decisions regarding infrastructure improvements and public space enhancements in the Distillery District. This agenda item was presented for informational purposes. ## September 25 Committee Summary [timestamp: 02:37] The September 25, 2012, meeting minutes were approved unanimously. **Discussion Topics** The committee discussed the 5-Year Solid Waste Plan, which included the following elements: * Goals for zero waste * Regulation of private waste companies * A proposed Materials Recovery Facility **Concerns Raised** Committee members raised concerns about two specific issues: * Opt-out procedures * Inclusion of new developments in the solid waste tax district **Key Speakers** The discussion involved Steve Feese, Stinnett, Blues, Lane, and Gorton. **Outcome** The agenda item was approved. ## Public Comment During the public comment period, stakeholders were given the opportunity to voice concerns about ongoing projects and initiatives. Steve Wilson of JFG Enterprises raised significant concerns regarding the Blue Sky project. Wilson highlighted two main issues: the lack of consultation with affected parties and the financial burden associated with the project. Council members engaged with Wilson's comments, with Council Member Martin and Council Member McCord participating in the discussion. The council members emphasized the importance of long-term planning and the need to ensure adequate infrastructure capacity to support projects moving forward. The public comment period resulted in an informational outcome, allowing concerns to be documented and discussed but without immediate binding decisions or resolutions at this time. ## Items Referred The committee discussed the referral of matters related to the Department of Environmental Quality and partner agencies [timestamp: 1:30:46]. Key speakers on this item included Blues and Stinnett. During this discussion, the committee noted the need for future coordination on infrastructure and environmental projects. No specific items were acted upon during this portion of the meeting. The outcome of this agenda item was informational in nature, with the committee establishing a framework for ongoing coordination rather than taking formal action on particular referrals. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — failed (2-6): Amend 16-403(d) to include urban county airport board runways, taxiways, and public ramp areas in stormwater management fee exemption --- ## Full transcript Music Thank you. Thank you. And welcome to the November 27 meeting of the Environmental Quality Committee. we do have a quorum, and so we can move forward and actually start a committee meeting on the hour. Yeah, this is unprecedented. So our main presenter for our first agenda item, or second agenda item, will be Charlie Martin. Don't see him in the room at the moment. There he is. But before we do that, let's take care of housekeeping. and I would be happy to entertain a motion on the September 25 minutes. Move approval. Move and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor of the minutes as written and presented, please say aye. Aye. I'm for it. And the minutes are enthusiastically adopted. Charlie, are you ready to roll? I am. You ready? Thank you, Councilman Blues. I was reading the handout there while you were talking. Okay, as the agenda says, I'm here to update everyone on the Blue Sky Pumping Station and Forest Main project that the Division of Water Quality is working on. Agenda items, we're going to have a little bit of background, talk about the implementation schedule, service area options for the Blue Sky Rural Activity Center, some cost comparisons, and then a little bit of discussion about an additional acreage option. Background, as you all recall, is that the Blue Sky is a supplemental environmental project that's described in the consent decree, and it's designed to eliminate the discharge from the Blue Sky Wastewater Treatment Plant and accommodate the elimination of the Boonesboro Manor Wastewater Treatment Plant. The big driver on this, as all of you know, is that we were asked to step in due to a bankruptcy at that facility back in 2003, and we had been operating under a receivership since that time. And during the course of the negotiation of the consent decree, it became apparent that this was a way to be able to resolve the ongoing compliance issues with the Blue Sky Wastewater Treatment Plant. So I have to say this language and everything I talk about regarding steps, but this project was undertaken in connection with the settlement of an enforcement action under the Clean Water Act. The United States v. Lexington-Faylor-Bakini government brought on the behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Okay, again, this is the solution for dealing with Blue Sky. It's been a noncompliant facility for a long time, discharging to an impaired stream that is registered with the Division of Water and also the U.S. EPA. What we had proposed in this SEP was to construct a pump station and eliminate the treatment plant, and we have a deadline at which we have to complete that by January 3rd of 2015. We were able to secure the purchase of the facility early this year at a purchase price of $250,000. Many of you will recall the discussions on that at the end of 2011 through 2012. Just as a side note, the long-term disposition of the property is that we will build the pump station likely on the same site as where the treatment plant is. That way we can continue to have the treatment plant in service. Then we'll pump the contents into the pumping station, basically, and clear the site. What we would like to do in the end result is consider this as an alternative site for a second salt storage somewhere later in this decade. We feel like it would be a pretty good option for it since we already own the property and it's in an industrial area, but that will be something we'll probably talk about at another time. Okay, implementation schedule. What we would hope to be doing is that we would be submitting final construction plans for the pump station and force main that would deliver sewage back to the urban service boundary by February the 10th, having the Division of Water completing their review in April, bidding this for construction in May and award of a construction project in June of 2013. That would give us ample time to be able to meet the consent decree imposed deadline of January 3, 2015. I'd like to have this one in the can, if possible, because we're always working on very narrow deadlines. It's nice to get something done earlier than what we need to. Secondly is that there's just the overall operational issue. This is a 30-year-old treatment plant that we're constantly having to invest money in to keep it running. getting parts for it and those kind of things will be more and more challenging. So the sooner that we can get that treatment plan offline and have the pump station, I think the better off we'll all be from both an environmental and operational cost perspective. Service area options. I want to make clear here is that I've got options that I'm presenting in here. Our scope was to address the Blue Sky Wastewater Treatment Plan and to accommodate flow from the Boonesboro Manor. And so the options one, two, and three that are in your handout are all about dealing with the Rural Activity Center and those two treatment plants. Later on, I have the additional option thing, and that's just more of an informational thing. So let's focus on the three options that deal with the Rural Activity Center itself. Option one is the minimum requirement, requirement, basically the minimum of what we committed to in the consent decree. And that is to construct a 435-gallon-a-minute Blue Sky pump station that would discharge into a six-inch force main and come back into the urban service boundaries somewhere around the East Hickman pump station. We'll have a map here in just a second. What that does is that provides capacity for the currently rated capacity of the Blue Sky wastewater treatment plant. i.e. 150,000 gallons per day. That system also provides capacity for the current rating of the Boonesboro Manor wastewater treatment plant, which is 70,000 gallons per day. Now, it provides capacity for that, but you note that I say that it is to the pump station that would be constructed at that site that would eliminate Boonesboro Manor, in my mind would be constructed by someone other than us because our SEP is to eliminate the Blue Sky treatment plan, not Boonesboro Manor. The reason why I had worded accommodate in the way that I did was is that I felt like it was important that whatever pipeline that we bring into the urban service area that we contemplate the necessity of someday dealing with Boonesboro Manor. I mean, those of you who have been living in Fayette County all these years, longer than I have, know that we have a long history of privately run treatment plans and that we've had to deal with just about every one of them along the way and that I felt like that it would not be wise from a technical standpoint to not at least provide capacity for what's out there right now. Again, though, this meets the minimum criteria. And so as option one, it is the minimum requirement of the consent decree. So let's look at the map here. And I'm sorry for the folks in the audience. I'll try to switch back and forth here, but let me orient the council members first. My pointer's not working very well here. Can we get the mouse instead? Because it doesn't seem to want to show up there. Are you going to drive for me, or do you want to bring it up here? While he's doing that, basically the top of this map, right through the middle of it is I-75. Hold on, I got off my thing here. Hold on a second here. Did we hit a button? Can you take me back to the map? Thank you. That one's better. There's I-75 right there. This is Athens-Boonsboro Road right there. So I-75, Athens-Boonsboro. The top of the map is Hamburg. Working your way around clockwise, this is the Athens side of it. Around this side here at the bottom of the page is headed towards Clay's Ferry. And then what would be on the left side of it is towards Lexington. So this is basically the I-75 Athens-Boonesboro exit. There is a black line, black and white dashed line, that circles this lightly shaded area. That is the Rural Activity Center for Blue Sky. That area right there. The existing treatment plant is located right here on this, at the end of this line. This would be a 6-inch force main that would come under I-75, come up by where the Boonesboro Manor treatment plant is located, and then go on into the urban service boundary. So for those folks behind me, here's where Blue Sky Wastewater Treatment Plant is now. The force main would travel somewhere along this alignment, go under 75, go by where Boonesboro Banner is, and then come up and get on Athens-Boonesboro to make its track into the urban service boundary. Again, the option one is the 435-gallon-a-minute pump station and the 6-inch line. I'm having technical difficulties today. I don't know if my battery is going to hit the next one. This one doesn't seem to be reacting anymore. So in summary, the option one considerations, it's the lowest cost solution. It does not impact downstream infrastructure beyond what the current remedial measures plan cost projections provide. And I think that's really important is that when we put the remedial measures plan together, we based it on what the minimum requirement was in order to be able to meet the SEP requirements. So that's already built into the plan. Any of the other options means that the cost of the remedial measures plans will be impacted to where it will be higher than what it would be currently. One of the bad things about it in my mind is it doesn't allow for further development or redevelopment in the rural activity center beyond what the current peak threshold is. I was at the Richmond Road Neighborhood Association here a few weeks ago, and I mentioned that to several people offline, is that when you have limited capacity in a certain area, that presents some challenges for folks as far as investing in their properties. And so this will not expand that capacity beyond what it currently is right now. It also limits the system's ability to accommodate future flows from the Boonesboro Manor, which is on the other side of the interstate, on the inside of it, where the Wendy's and the two gas stations are at. So option one basically draws a line or a circle around basically what sewer capacity is there right now and nothing else. Option two is to provide capacity to meet current zoning in the rural activity center. I've got a dangling S there. I apologize for that. What this recommends is constructing an 800-gallon-a-minute pump station at the Blue Sky site and discharging into a 10-inch force main. What it does is it provides capacity for the Blue Sky Rural Activity Center based on current zoning. Likewise, it provides capacity for the Boonesboro Manor portion of that RAC based on its current zoning. Charlie, if I can interrupt you just for a second. Vice Mayor Gordon has a question. I'm so sorry, but when I read through your packet, I noted that it did say here for option two, 10-inch force main, but the map says 8-inch. And I was going to cover that when I get to the map because the map is wrong. The map is wrong. The map is wrong. This is correct. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Charlie. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Option two also provides for Bootsboro Manor, again accommodating that there would be a 500-gallon, up to a 500-gallon-a-minute pump station over there, but to be constructed by others. Basically, in summary, it eliminates the barrier that's created by the current treatment plant capacities right now because the current treatment plant capacities don't match what the zoning is. We spent a lot of time with Chris King and his group. That was something that was new to me and really hadn't crossed my mind when we were putting together the supplemental environmental project. And they pointed out that you've got a lot of properties out there that are underutilized. The car auction, I mean, there's acres and acres of car lots out there that don't generate any sewage whatsoever. And so we felt like that it was important to include that as a potential option here. Thank you. This is an illustration of that. As Vice Mayor Gorton pointed out, the map is incorrect. It says 8-inch force main. It should be a 10-inch. Basically, it's the same situation we had before, following the same alignment. There's Blue Sky. You'd construct an 800-gallon-a-minute pump station there. The alignment for the force main is the same, going by Boonesboro Manor and allowing them the option of tying in, and then it would go on into the urban service boundary as before. Again, it allows for the development and redevelopment of the Rural Activity Center beyond the 150,000-gallon-per-day limit that currently exists. Likewise, it overcomes the current boundary condition of the 70,000 gallons per day that's at Boonesboro Manor. It does increase the cost of the downstream infrastructure above what the remedial measures plan projected. Again, when we put that together, we put it together based on what the minimum requirement was of the SEP. Now, I'll just throw this out here. I don't have a recommendation. It's a consideration is that a cost escalation recovery plan for the benefit of parcels may be considered be considered if that's the desire or will of the council to go in a different direction other than what's the minimum requirement. Option three. Option three is basically the same as option two with one minor detail is that we would construct one pump station out there instead of us constructing a blue sky one, the Boonesboro Manor folks constructing their pump station and then turn around and dedicating it to urban county government, much like any other development would, to where we end up with two pump stations out there to operate and maintain forever instead of one. So from a purely technical standpoint, from an operational end, this is obviously the better one, but it does have more costs because it essentially involves more sewers and larger pump stations than what was contemplated. But it does provide capacity in the same manner that option two did, is that it allows for redevelopment of the Rural Activity Center to meet the current zoning. So let's look and see what that looks like on the map. Again, here's blue sky right here, but you notice it now. It's at 1,200 gallons per minute, and it's a Class B pump station. It's still going into a 10-inch force main, and as it passes by where the Boonesboro Manor treatment plant is, you don't have to build a pump station there. Instead, there would be a gravity sewer that is constructed. It drains back into where the Blue Sky wastewater treatment plant is. As I said, the main difference is that there's one pump station in the endgame instead of two. You're utilizing what Mother Nature gave us, which is gravity, because everything drains in this direction from left to right on the north side of Athens-Boonesboro Road. This is the highest cost solution. Basically because of that gravity sewer, you're building what is called a Class B pump station. Class B pump stations have more structural elements to them. For example, they're required to have a generator. The smaller pump stations are not required to have generators. But again, from a long-term standpoint, it makes things easier to operate because you've only got one pump station out there to deal with instead of two. It does provide sufficient capacity to meet the current zoning. It summarizes the cost comparison of options one, two, and three. Option one, there's the total cost of $1.375 million. That is currently what is budgeted for us. I think I might have stepped over this before, but we had gotten a $600,000 grant from the state several years ago. And then there's up to a $1.9 million low-interest loan that we're currently eligible for from the state, from the Kentucky Infrastructure Authority, which would be able to cover the cost of option one. As you see, you get into option two and three, you have an escalating cost, not only because of the increased costs associated with the pump station and the gravity sewer, but there's this additional $3.2 million essentially to handle the downstream improvements that would be necessary beyond what the remedial measures plan contemplated. Why don't you go back there for just a second. One thing I should note on here is that, and it's cut off at the bottom of the page there, but the costs on here do not cover the plant closure, the demolition, and the lagoon. They're kind of ancillary costs to what's going to be taken to convert the site into a future use, but I don't expect them to be huge costs. But I wanted to point that out, is that this is basically for the pump station, Force Main, the basic stuff that allows us to begin pumping back into the urban service area. Okay. All right. Here's the additional acreage option that I mentioned earlier. This was at the request of some stakeholders. When we came forward with the contract for our engineering firm to begin work on this, several people had asked me about why this additional acreage option wasn't part of the scope. and I said and I still maintain is that my scope is the Supplemental Environmental Project, which is to eliminate the Blue Sky Wastewater Treatment Plan. But in trying to be responsive to the folks who had asked for that, I thought we'd add a couple slides in here that just at least gives some idea of what the costs would be for providing additional capacity in the pipeline that travels from Blue Sky into the Rural Activity Center. This is the additional acreage that I was talking about. Here's Athens-Boonesboro Road here as we leave Lexington and head out towards the Blue Sky Interstate 75. Here's I-75 northbound going up towards Hamburg. This is what some folks call the nose, I guess, has been on the table in the past as far as considered to be added to the urban service boundary. Based on our calculations, there's 609 acres within that area. so I did a quick calculation assuming that 80% of it is developable land calculated out what is developable acres and used a 1500 gallon per day per developable acre for a capacity determination here we calculated what the expected flow would be from that 609 acres what's that mean from a downstream cost Basically what we found was that for additional flow up to another 3,500 gallons per minute is that the incremental cost would be $152,000 plus $2,220 per gallon per minute. And basically the way we calculated that up is that if you go up to 3,500 gallons, it's basically $7,650 per acre. The result is the downstream impact is that it makes the storage tank at East Hickman bigger than what's contemplated there right now. The remedial measures plan calls for a 4.3 million gallon storage tank to be sized at or near the East Hickman pump station. Adding this additional flow will cause that pump station to be larger, I mean that wet weather storage tank larger than it is right now. Likewise, on that second line, if you go past the 3,500 gallons a minute, it costs a little bit less per acre because you're getting some economy of scale and the fact that you're building bigger tanks, but you're still building a much, much larger storage tank up to 6 million. People ask me this all the time, and I put this together this morning, that what does that mean? It's kind of hard to get your arms around what's a 4.3 million gallon tank or a 6 million gallon tank. I'm trying to think of something that people can equate to. We all kind of know the traffic circle that's out at Reynolds Road near the Myers and Wellington Way area, that if you put a storage tank in the middle of that traffic circle, essentially it would have to be nearly 6 feet tall to handle 4.3 million gallons. It would have to be nearly 10 feet tall to handle 6 million gallons. So if you drive by that traffic circle, you can kind of think of it that way as somewhere between a 6 to 10-foot tank encompassing that entire traffic circle area is what we're talking about when we talk about tanks of this size. Okay. You know, I always try to, when I do these things, try to at least leave you folks with a recommendation to react to. And so this is our recommendation, is that we're recommending that the council consider amending the current remedial measures cost projections to fund construction of option two. Option two being is Blue Sky Rural Activity Center at the current zoning. so that's where i get to say what i want to say i guess for a second is is that you know one of the things i felt was really important about this thing is that we left the property owners that were out there whole and whatever it is that we did um that um is you know if you're you're owning property the last thing we want to do is leave them at something less than that so i felt like the current zoning was the place that we would be a starting point to to draw a line in the sand I'm also recommending that we develop and implement a cost recovery system for providing that additional capacity. And with that, I am open for questions. Okay. Committee members, if you would log in if you have questions. Council Member Lane. I envision that a good deal of the future growth in our community will be going out to the eastern part of the urban service area, just because that's where the land is available. And with farms going to the north and the west and being fully developed to Jessamon County, that will be most likely where the growth will be headed. So the thought that I have is that we want to make sure that we have adequate capacity when we do have additional growth. Because new housing is a major generator for the economy here. But the option two seems to work for me because the size of your line is adequate for if you need to expand it. I mean, our current plan is about a 10 to 12-year construction plan. So in 10 to 12 years, we're going to have some growth. And we need to sort of expect what that growth will be in the future and be ready to accommodate it, because it would be terrible to spend a lot of money put in those services, and then 10 years from now it would not be adequate. But I think the pipeline is the number one issue for the future capacity. Do you concur with that? It does to some degree. The pipeline size alone is that we've got a pump station that pumps against a certain pressure or head condition. And that if you change the head condition in that line by tying something else into it, it might impact negatively the ability to pump from blue sky. But I don't think it would be that much of a consideration. I mean, one of the things with this is you're always projecting for full development. And sometimes it's a long time before you get there. So a lot of times you're under-pumping, which creates a whole different set of scenarios. I would suggest that my designers, we've talked about this several times, is that we choose pumps that we can then modify those pumps to be able to get additional capacity out of there and still meet the conditions of the 10-inch line. But I would agree with you on the surface is that the line size itself seems to be the critical path on this right now, and I'm not so sure that it makes really a big difference one way or another. that I'm agreeing with you, I guess, is that the line size itself would not necessarily put somebody in a box further down the road. The box is at East Hickman Pump Station and downstream. That's where the expensive box is because when we make a decision about how big to build East Hickman and how big to build those storage tanks, I'm saying that plural, is that then we have the capacity assurance program that we have to deal with and if there's not capacity there then we have to say no all right well with your capacity plan would you have the potential to add an additional storage tank would you would you engineer that in where it'd be available like 20 years from now 25 years from now we need it we'd have a location to put it in it would fit into the total package it's probably too early to say that i mean any of these things that we're dealing with right now in working in in the urban service area is that we're land tight for storage tanks the same way we are in a lot of different areas. And the dead end of alumni drive is pretty tight as it is right now. Clearly, we would want to have the luxury of expanding the system when necessary, but I can't say that it's a slam dunk right there as it would be maybe in some other areas. Well, you know, we're estimated to spend around $600 million over a 12-year period on the project. And I think it's really critical that in our planning that we try to anticipate where we'll be 20 years from now and that our system has the capacity to be modified if we need to in the future without a huge additional cost because we engineered it adequately on the front end. And I think your idea about the option you have with the capacity possibly could be expanded at a later date on the pump station if we needed it. I think that would be a good idea, a good planning, because that would keep our cost as low as possible but give us maximum options for the future. the other question i have is there a point at where will you convert to gravity flow somewhere along the line here i'm not sure where excuse me where transitions from the pump station to a gravity you essentially have to pump what we're recommending is you pump all the way to the east hickman pump station which is at the dead end of alumni drive at alumni and buckhorn. You could dump in someplace at a gravity area, but that would force you to go to a line that is capacity suspect as it is already, and we would have to rebuild that whole system. Plus, it would require the force main, which is a pressurized line, to cross the reservoir at Jacobson Park. I'm not recommending that. I'd rather go around it and not worry about at some point in time having a leak or a break and then we've got a whole different set of problems. Okay. All right. Well, I thank you. I thought your report was good. There may be some other issues that have been brought up by some of the people that may have issues in the area out there. So I would like to hear the other points there, but I appreciate your presentation. Thank you. Good job. Thank you, Mr. Lane. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Chair. Charlie, thank you very much. Just a couple questions. I guess the Boonesboro Manor treatment plant, are we required to sunset that plant as a part of our EPA consent obligations? No, we are not. I think that, you know, I've talked with the Wilson brothers who were here, and we've talked on several different occasions, And, you know, I appreciate the fact that they have been responsible stewards of that treatment plant for a long time. They should be commended for that because a lot of folks don't do that. He said when we wrote the SEP, it was, I have to say this carefully, you know, in committing to something in the consent decree, we don't want to commit to anything more than what we have to. And so we used a word that was accommodate that can probably be left to interpretation by a lot of different folks. And so I'll leave that to you all that make those decisions. But, you know, in my mind, no, we're not required to do it, but I think that we have to be cognizant of the fact that at some time we might have to out of an environmental necessity. The fact they're being responsible is great, but that may not last forever. How have we treated, you mentioned that the policy has been to close these private treatment plans. What have we done in the past for private treatment plans? Give me an example. There was one out of Clay's Mill at one time. Well, all of this predates me, Council Member Martin, so I'm doing this off of what has been passed along to me. But basically, as we took them over, kicking and screaming, basically is that the people who ran them ran them into the ground to where the urban county government really had no choice other than to step in, Much is the same way that's happened with Blue Sky. So we stepped in and we basically replaced the facility with our own capacity. Essentially systematically abandoned the facilities by creating a network of gravity sewers or pump stations that pumped into our system, yes. You said that option two left the property owners whole, and I guess what you mean by that is in terms of capacity. Yes. But certainly not in terms of cost. Because obviously if they left this private facility in place, they'd have their operational costs, but they wouldn't have to build a pump station. How much would a pump station cost? I didn't cost out their pump station for a 500-gallon-a-minute one. We didn't spend any time at all because we felt like that wasn't our scope. In my mind, it would be in the millions or something, would it? It would probably be pretty substantial, yes. I would say, I mean, basically what we're talking about right now, and I don't have to maybe caucus with my technical advisor here, but it's probably a million dollars. Yeah, so it's not quite, I guess, making them whole. They wouldn't be in the same situation they're in now. They'd actually have to pay a million dollars just to break even, to basically have the capacity that they have now. They would have to do that to expand their treatment plant beyond the $70,000 as well. assuming they have to I don't want to get an argument I'm just saying that was my thought pattern with that was that right now they're fixed at that $70,000 that's what they have and they can either choose to invest in expanding their treatment plan to match their development plan or they can build a pump station and get out of the treatment plan business I don't know about expansion I saw them in the hallway I'm not saying it's right or wrong I'm just saying that's the approach we took Right, right. So they'd have to lay out a million dollars to do option two, something just ballpark. They would have to recover it somehow in the course of their development plans, yes. I would think that would be a logical place. And whether those are robust enough to do it, we didn't conduct that analysis. Can you put up the last slide, the additional development area? Charlie, do you know what the comprehensive plan currently has for this, the nose? I'm not familiar with how the nose is playing. I don't know. The last time I was involved in it was in the 06 update, and basically I was here at the podium talking with the Planning Commission about how we didn't have a solution for this. Keep going back. Commissioner, could you update us on it? The current comp plan has to stay the same at rural land, so it's not to come in the urban service area. Okay. All right. Thank you. Well, the thing that I've noticed in my short time, and being a short timer, is that we really don't plan for the future. And I know we've had a lot of discussions about where do we put future manufacturers or future jobs that come in. And I realize everyone wants to build neighborhoods, but those folks have got to work someplace. and so I guess I have some concern about where we're going to be in 20 years because I think what we all don't want is to have to suddenly upgrade our system while we're still paying for the first upgrade. And so I think that's the, really, to me, that's the lesson of the last number of years is that we really do have to plan for the future. You can control growth by zoning. But we currently have zoning, and to the extent that we don't have adequate capacity, we're going to be running into endangering our streams. And perhaps when I come back, we can hear from someone else. Scott Smith is here, and I'd love to hear. He's one of the foremost environmental engineers. I'd like to hear him about this. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Martin. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Chairman. And just real quickly to jump in here as also someone who has just a couple meetings left and wants to leave a couple parting words, let's take ourselves out of the sewer discussion and let's just make it about roads. How many times have we heard people talk about Manowar and complain about Manowar and how limited Manowar was? And I can remember when it was built, when it was built two lanes just long enough for us to realize that was too small, and we had to go back in, tear that out, put four lanes in, and the second part of that whole man-of-war development never happened because people were so afraid of growth and what might happen, and you couldn't control it and so forth. So that connector that was supposed to be out a little bit further into Jessamine County never got built. And so what we have is we have an outer loop to New Circle that everyone complains about and says, why in the world did we ever build this? This is the craziest thing. It's curb and gutter. There's no place to pull over. Well, it's a neighborhood connector. It was built exactly like it was supposed to be built. It was the second part that wasn't built because everyone was afraid of what might happen if Lexington grew. Well, Lexington grew, and we didn't plan for the future. So all I would say is in the last environmental quality meeting that I have is let's take a look and see what gives us the greatest options going forward with whatever happens. We have no idea what growth is going to look like or where it might take place. We have some sense of it, but we, again, don't really understand all the dynamics. Who knew in 2008 that the economy would absolutely fall apart? So at the end of the day, all I would say, Charlie, to you is well done on bringing us this, and I would just ask everybody that sits at this table and works on this going forward to think about the future. And if you don't, if we get really, really into the sanitary sewer thing, especially because of the consent decree, but just take a look at our roads and how they were underbuilt and undercapacity and the complaints that we have now and how we've locked ourselves into some pretty dangerous and ineffective use of that infrastructure. I would just encourage us to think a lot more at a higher level, I should say, about the capacity and what we can build for what we have in our checkbook. Thank you, Charlie. I do appreciate all your work, and if I don't get a chance to say it again, it's been a pleasure working with you for the last eight years. Likewise. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Martin, unless you have a direct follow-up to Council Member McCord, I'd like to let the Vice Mayor go forward and then come back to you. Vice Mayor? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Charlie, thank you very much. I know that you've put a lot into this, and the consultants also did. On page, I guess it's 19 of your presentation, slide 19, page 22 of the packet, where it lines out the three options, estimated cost. Can you speak a little bit about the asterisk at the bottom? and you mentioned it, the costs don't include plant closure demolition, lagoon closure, or gravity sewers. Do you have any feel for what those costs would be? I would say probably a very small percentage of the overall project costs. You know, the plant closure is basically scrapping out the steel that's there. And if you saw in one of the other pictures, it's pretty rusty steel as it is. We do have some belief that there's some lead paint out there that was built. This was built in the late 60s. We also believe there's some asbestos shingles, so we've got some minor, what I would consider to be minor hazardous things that we're going to have to deal with, but not huge. The lagoon closure, we had gone through a Phase I environmental assessment. We've done sampling of the ground underwater. Basically, that lagoon was used as part of the treatment process in its early phases, and so we were kind of concerned that maybe we were going to get into contamination. We do not believe that there is any contamination in the lagoon based on the sampling that our consultants, a different consultant, has done. But I don't want to necessarily put a dollar figure to it yet because I don't know for certain. But we reasonably believe it's going to be a fairly low cost. My plan was, again, to build the pump station next to the treatment plant. Once the pump station is live, essentially drain the lagoon into the pump station so I can then dry that thing, bring in topsoil, fill it in, grade it out. Now we've got roughly two acres in an industrial area that we can build a salt barn that is completely the opposite of where our existing salt barn is and save a ton of money on windshield time driving back and forth, spread in salt. I like that. I think that's a great idea. We've talked for how many years about a second salt barn. But the gravity sewer only applies to that last one. That last one is a single pump station, as you recall. It doesn't require a pump station at Boonesboro Manor. Instead, a gravity sewer to be constructed under the interstate. So that gravity part of that asterisk only applies to number three. Now, on these estimated costs, and this, I don't know if this is a fair question right now, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Do you anticipate that these will require an increase in the sanitary sewer fee in order to pay for them, or do you have any idea about that? I know we've talked about that coming. Well, you know, I think that the overall $600 million plan is going to obviously result in a series of increases. And so this is part of that is that, you know, if you chose the most expensive option, yeah, it would have an incremental pressure on the overall fund. But, you know, in a ratio of $7 million compared to $600 million, it's fairly minuscule. and hopefully we're going to save a bunch of money along the way in other projects that maybe we can dampen the whole cost difference out. But it still remains to be seen. The cost part of it here, honestly, Vice Mayor, doesn't frighten me or concern me as much as our ability to do the downstream improvements. And that applies just about in any of these because we've got a huge, huge undertaking we're going to be trying to take on, and fixing a system within the urban area has got a lot of challenges to it. Okay. Well, I appreciate that. I mean, I think in the big context, you're looking at the context of everything and all the expenses we'll have. So I appreciate that perspective. I like the option two. I did want to speak just briefly to Council Member Lane and Council Member McCord their comments about future growth. The Council doesn't decide where future growth is. The Planning Commission does that. It's not our job. So I would have some difficulty with us deciding to go ahead and anticipate where the growth will be since that's not a Council decision. and we don't really know where the growth will be. If we put the extra capacity in, then we more or less take that decision out of the Planning Commission's hands and we make it, which I would not favor. So I appreciate your work on this, Charlie, and thank you so much for bringing it to us. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Charlie, thank you for your considerate advice, as you usually give. I appreciate it very much. Just a couple of questions. Until your presentation, I was unfamiliar with a cost escalation recovery plan. Just give me a thumbnail, if you would. I guess that's kind of a different way to say exactions, although I'm maybe not necessarily advocating exactions or not advocating them. You know, sewer agencies over the years have traditionally used some type of, you know, cost recovery on a per acre basis, impact fees, I guess, for lack of a better term. That, you know, if you're going to spend money to benefit a certain geographic area, do you spread those costs among all of your customers or only amongst those customers that are benefiting from it? What I was suggesting that the council or the committee and the council themselves deliberate is whether or not that you would spread those amongst all the customers versus the individuals that were being impacted to it. And that's a difficult thing to think about right now. I just wanted to kind of throw that out for consideration that it's a model that could be used. I think it was Council Member Martin that mentioned that. is that I really don't know the costs associated with redevelopment. When you get down to it as far as putting in sewers on your property, doing roads, doing all the things you need to do, there's always that consideration that the cost per acre to develop something becomes non-competitive. It gets absorbent and it becomes cost prohibitive from doing that. We didn't get into that level of analysis at this particular juncture. Our scope was and continues to be is to eliminate Blue Sky Wastewater Treatment Plan. So I tried to present a presentation that was still focused on that but gave other things for the elected officials to contemplate. You covered that one, yeah. Then my other one has to do with, sometimes we do things because we've done them similarly before or we have a policy that we have used that may not actually be codified. It may be something that we do because we've done it a certain way over and over again. In my mind, along the way, we've had conversations about trying to eliminate pump stations, and I think we've made decisions to eliminate pump stations. Am I on the right track here? Yes, you are. Then what's the difference between your recommendation of option two versus option three, which would eliminate a pump station? There's not really that much difference. It's just at the end of the day, I already can't afford option two. I was a little uncomfortable with recommending option three, which we can further not afford based on the current financial amount. That was the sole reason. From a purely technical standpoint, option three makes more sense, purely technically. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Chair. I guess to follow that line of thought, since we haven't figured out where the $600 million is going to come from, I guess we can't afford any of you yet, really. Yeah, well, we're continuing to work on that. It's a big loss to be losing Ryan and Jane at this particular time, but we'll overcome that. I think that's an understatement. I think we're going to miss both of them terribly. And, Charlie, I appreciate it. Chair, I don't know whether it's appropriate. Scott Smith of Smith Environmental Management is here, and he and I had a brief conversation. Would the chair indulge some comments by Mr. Smith? Council Member Martin, I'd like to complete any questions there are from the committee members and then open it up to stakeholders and the public. Thank you very much. We'll get to Mr. Smith and others in a few minutes. Thank you. Are your comments concluded? Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, I just wanted to just make a follow-up comment to the Vice Mayor's comments on planning for growth. I think that we do need to plan for growth, not for just one specific area of the city, but for all growth in all parts of the city. And when we're engineering these individual lines, we need to be considering where the growth is going to go and what the future needs may be because, as I said, if we're going to spend $600 million, I want to spend it as smartly as we can so that we won't have to incur additional costs 25 years from now or 20 years from now when we need additional capacity. I would mention that since the 2010 census, the first report that came out for a population update showed that Fayette County had over 5,000 population growth in one year and was the fastest growing county in the state, even exceeding Jefferson County by just a small number. But since Jefferson County is a lot bigger than Fayette, that was pretty significant. The other thought that I had is I think when I made a comment about the farms that we have to the north and west, I don't see those are ever going to be redeveloped for subdivisions. There will be some maybe up near Masterson Park land there that might be available for development, but not farms. And then, of course, the south part of the county runs right up to Jessamine County. And if you look at that area with a helicopter, you can see almost every single building line is completed down there. So most likely the growth would not only be to the east, but also I think inside the urban service areas we do infill and redevelopment projects. So that's what I'm saying. I'm not trying to say we're going to put a line out here to create growth. I'm saying we need to try to anticipate where the growth will be and have options available so that we can accommodate that growth in the future. Because we're investing so much money, I think we have to do it as smartly as possible. That's all I have, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lane. Council Member Cain. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you for allowing me to speak, even though I'm not a member of the committee. I appreciate that. Charlie, I have one main question, and that is the estimated downstream improvements, would those have the potential to also accommodate other changes that would happen downstream? That is, could the cost of that be considered something that could be allocated across a broader range of improvements, or is it basically what would have to be done just to accommodate that expansion in Blue Sky? In my mind, that would be the cost that would just accommodate the expansion in Blue Sky. We've already got to build a storage tank down there to accommodate current wet weather flows that are in the existing service area. So there was the benchmark. By adding those additional flows beyond what we contemplated in the SEP, that makes that tank bigger, and that's what those costs reflect. So to me, it's on top of what the cost would be for the rest of the customers. Okay, thank you. I have one additional comment, and that has to do with the question of how we think about growth and planning. It seems to me that the question is what premise do we make about what's likely to happen in our community? If the premise is that no matter what, we will be expanding into the rural areas, then the question of capacity has to be treated in one way. If the premise is we are not going to expand into the rural areas, then that question of capacity has to be handled in another way. This community has discussed that question. There have been a lot of dispute, differences of opinion about what we need to do and what we need not to do. but it seems to me if the Council wants to begin to make decisions about sewering capacity based on a premise that we ought to have that discussion about which premise is the one that we want to use as the basis for our planning. We want a plan, but I think we want as much as possible to be in agreement about what the premises of that planning are. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Committee members, do you have any other questions or comments from Charlie at this time? See, let me... Can I come back once they're done? Yes, sir. Let me open this to any stakeholder or public comment. If you would like to speak, our rules say three minutes, and if you will give your name and address for the record. So who's first? Yes, sir. My name is Steve Wilson. I'm the president of JFG Enterprises, 954 Jones Lane, Cynthiana, Kentucky. My brother Phil and I are the majority shareholders of JFG. We have a substantial minority interest represented by the daughters of John M. Allen, deceased, and one of the daughters that's here today, C.C. Hagan. To say that we have three minutes to address the issues here, in all due respect, is not realistic at all. JFG has a huge financial interest in what you're discussing today. We have not had any input, not been consulted. We've asked an opportunity to meet with Bell when they were preparing this, and we weren't allowed to do that. So we are seeing this for the first time in reality today. We looked yesterday and found this on the agenda. Had not seen it before. the memorandum we prepared is simply a memorandum to let you know a little bit about who we are because I'm sure a lot of you didn't even know the Boomsboro Manor Sewage Treatment Plant existed let alone who owns it and how our interest is but we not only own it but we own most all the land in the Blue Sky Rural Activity Center on the west side of I-75 We have a sewer treatment plant that we've operated since the late 60s and operated very, very responsibly. We spent lots of money maintaining it, paying for operation, paying for upgrades. And we've been responsible. We haven't walked away from it, put it in bankruptcy. And we have a big, big financial stake. It's easy to sit there and say, pump station built by others. Gravity line built by others. Who's others? It's JFG. Charlie's already admitted the pump station you're talking about on option two could be a million dollars. That's ridiculous. Now, he also says that he wants to be nice and sort of accommodate our situation. But in reality, the decree itself states that an intended benefit of building the forest main and the pump station to take out the Blue Sky plant is to accommodate the eventual elimination of the Boonsboro Manor package treatment plant. What does that mean? have you accommodated if you put a line in there that is a force main our lines are gravity we can't connect to it without a pump station it's going to cost us half a million to a million dollars who knows well we can't connect to the pump station the larger one under option two of the gravity line unless we spend who knows he doesn't tell you what those numbers are for a gravity line underneath the interstate to that paid by others that's us what I'm asking for today is an opportunity to go over this and have a meaningful discussion with you at another meeting where we've had an opportunity to address it in a meaningful manner. For example, option number one, slide, I guess it's 10. Can we put that up there, slide 10? Mr. Chair, point of order. I guess option one, minimum requirements. Mr. Wilson, if I can interrupt, I'm not sure Mr. Wilson is aware of our accommodation that others who are here can give him their time. I understand. So perhaps if he's aware of that. I have a suggestion, Mr. Wilson, I know you need a little more time, and perhaps Mr. Phil Wilson, if he had intended to speak, may want to yield his three minutes to you. Well, I mean, if I've got six minutes, I might as well sit down. I mean, in all due respect, I mean, we're involved in this thing, and we're asking to be treated fair, as it is right now. I'd like to go through that, but, I mean. Well, we do have a fairly substantial agenda today. We have another major agenda item. Is there a possibility we could have a meeting that just addresses our issue with this line? And we would have the opportunity to have gone over this and hopefully have a copy of the Bell Report and maybe meet with the engineers that prepared it and try to come up with some meeting in the minds that might be fair. But, I mean, you're talking about a major thing for us. We're not, we're in a unique situation. You won't have this situation anywhere in Fayette County and probably won't ever have it again. Well, I understand. And the committee has heard Mr. Martin's presentation. Yeah, and I have real problems with his presentation. There's errors in this option. If you'll let me finish whatever the committee's will on this is, and we proceed by motion and vote, we'll be happy to entertain. In all due respect, I understand you've got limited time today. You've got another thing on the agenda. But this is important, and I think in fairness, we ask that we have a meeting with you after we've had an opportunity to go through it. I know there's errors right in this first thing right up there, big ones. Look at the standard. They use a different standard on us than they do on the Blue Sky. That's not the right one. It's the one that says option one minimum requirements. Well, I do understand, and as I say, we need to proceed by our rules, and we'll see what the committee's will is moving forward on this issue. But one thing is pretty clear. You all paid $250,000 for a plant that's never been in compliance. You're going to build a force main out there and put a pump station in, and all the existing users out there are going to get city service for free. From our standpoint, we're talking about having to pay a huge amount of money for a pump station, and then because the line and the downstream improvements are going to be more, they're looking at putting exaction fees on us. Mr. Wilson, I... And we talked about putting us, treating us, and leaving us where we were before. I understand. And if you would like to use other potential speakers' time, that's perfectly within our rules here. Well, I can only respectfully request that we have an opportunity to present our concerns to you. Okay, thank you, and I think all committee members have heard that request. So thank you very much. Are there other members of the public, stakeholders who wish to address the committee? Charlie? I wasn't necessarily going to comment on that, but I will do this. is that, just for the record, the presentation and the Bell report will be posted on the website. You'll have the opportunity to see it. I have this standing rule is that I don't share stuff until I've shared it with the elected officials first. That's the reason why they didn't get a chance to see it in advance. They shouldn't be seeing something before I'm presenting it to you. I felt like it was a courtesy. But I have no problem with sharing it with them. We've talked on several different occasions already and I'd be happy to share whatever information we have. I wanted to close this up. I assume we're moving on to the next agenda. I wanted to thank you, Council Member Blues, for your service as the chair of this committee. I'm not sure if we're going to have one in December, so I did not want to miss the opportunity to thank you as a division. Likewise, Council Member McCord, Council Member Cosby, Council Member Martin. You've done a lot of heavy lifting for us over the last few years on this committee, and we really do appreciate your service. Well, Charlie, I thank you, and I'm sure my colleagues do too. And we appreciate your leadership and your knowledge and your expertise, which, of course, tend to steer their ship. So thank you very much. council member crosby thank you council member please i just have a couple questions regarding the report that's going up online will there be an opportunity since they've not seen it will you will there be the opportunity for them to meet with you or talk to you again about the plan i mean i just don't see where we're taking any action on this today anyway so and that's a good point because i wasn't really asking you to take action on this i figured we'll bring this up again whenever we have a new uh a new chair basically this was a chance for me to be able to get the report out there in public typically as a standing rule we always post these things on the website i just want to make sure that there's the opportunity i mean a lot this committee this committee is going to have a big turnover several of us are are finishing our terms and not and didn't run for re-election. So I just, this clearly has a tremendous impact on the 7th District and a lot of the 7th District, and I just want to make sure that all parties involved have the opportunity to, you know, I didn't realize until I heard some of the comments today what you all did and, you know, just making sure, I know that Charlie's always very thorough in what he does, but making sure also that you all have a chance to get together and somehow voice your concerns over the plan or whatever so that when we come back and it is time for action, that you all have had that opportunity. If I may say, Councilmember Crosby and others, we do have a final meeting of the committee scheduled for December 11th at 11 a.m. There has been some talk of canceling that meeting if we do not need it, but it is that time is there. The meeting is scheduled if we do need it. And so there is opportunity to discuss this issue further. And believe me, we would appreciate it, and thank you for your comments, because this is important. We've not seen it. We want to work with it. We don't want to be adversarial. We do understand that. and certainly appreciate your concerns. Council Member Lane. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had a question for Mr. Martin, Mr. Charlie Martin. Yes, sir. No, just for my identification, maybe for the other members of the committee, when do you need to have a final decision on this so you can meet deadlines so we sort of see what the range of time we have available to review this. Because I do agree the Smiths, I mean, excuse me, the Wilsons, they need to have adequate time to review this and come back and discuss some of the issues. As a matter of fairness, I think if I were in their shoes, I'd like to have a little more time and maybe meet with you guys and see if you can work out some kind of an accommodation that everybody's happy with. But I just wondered what your timeline was so we could try to work within those guidelines. I've left my slide back there, but basically what we're recommending is a 10-inch pipe. And we're out negotiating for easements right now. I think this part of the discussion can go on while we go ahead and secure those easements because I know if I'm approaching somebody, they're going to want to know where is it going to be and how big is it going to be. Whether or not that the pump station is constructed by LFUCG at LFUCG's cost versus there doesn't impact that. So I would say that we probably would like to have the question answered by March of next year. Okay. Well, that sounds pretty good timeline. Thank you very much. Basically, my main purpose here today was to get this thing out here because people keep asking about it. There's been a lot of rumor and stuff like that, and the sooner that report can get published so people can see what the factual findings of Bell Engineering were, and then we can go from there. Okay. Thank you very much. That's all I have, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Delaney. Vice Mayor Gorton. Charlie, sorry. You're getting your steps in today, your 10,000 steps. Well, I do like the idea that perhaps between now and the December meeting, the Wilsons can look at that and have some conversation with you, and thank you for putting it up online. I just have a question about, if I understand correctly, the Boonesboro Manor pump station is a private pump station, or is it public? Well, right now it is a privately run treatment plant by their company. What I was suggesting is that if, let's say, for example, that they were to say, well, fine, we'll build a pump station, I can't imagine they'd be interested in operating it forever. Like most development organizations, they're going to look to build it to urban county government standards and look to dedicate it to urban county government's infrastructure. So, you know, the long and short of it, at some point in time, if there's a pump station located at that site, most likely it will end up in urban county government's operational unit. And that leads to my other question, which is do we have examples over the last, you've been here, I think, 14 years about? Time flies. We came about the same time. Other examples of where public ratepayers paid for private upgrades? Do you think of anything like that? I'd have to think about that a little bit. I don't want to reserve a comment on that because I wouldn't want to give a flip answer on that. I mean, it was just something that occurred to me in this discussion that we would be asking the ratepayers to do this if we paid for it. and if it is a private. I just was curious if we had ever done that with private facilities. Well, you know, I think that Steve made the point. I mean, in some ways that's what we're doing with Blue Sky. But, you know, I did consider Blue Sky to be separate, you know, just because we got handed that, basically, in that there's a lot of different things that are different layers to this. And like I said, I've talked to both of them on several different occasions, and it's a prism and has a lot of different sides to it, and it does need to be evaluated or at least discussed with everybody. But I want to think about answering your question a little bit more about in areas where maybe we have stepped in. But my knowledge of the history is that we have stepped in on private treatment plans over and over and over again since the formation of the urban service area, since the merged government. I still refer to the 1976 facilities plan on a regular basis because it tells me where all those old treatment plants used to be because it seems like we have more problems where they used to be than any place else in the system. Right. Well, while you're looking at this issue, The possibility of current rate payers paying for that is one issue. It does lead me to think that that would be an argument for not asking current rate payers to do the upgraded options. I don't know how all that's going to work. We've always talked about how we don't want the current rate payers to pay for future development. and we've pretty much tried to stick to that. So I'll be interested to see what all you come up with. Okay. Okay, thank you. Council Member Stewart. Thank you, Chair. Charlie, along those lines, let me ask you this question. We built as one of the first projects of our consent decree the pump station out on Elkhorn, the pump from Hamburg to Town Branch. Who paid for that? It was a combination of existing ratepayers and the development community through exactions. Through exactions. Okay, that's how it was done. What about the 2A pump station that actually started last week or a couple weeks ago? Likewise, combination of existing ratepayers and exactions. Okay, so you're going to go back and research if there's ever been one that's 100% paid for by ratepayers? Mm-hmm. Okay, very good. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. If there are no other Councilmember comments on this, we'll move on to our next agenda item. But first, let's figure committee members that we will be meeting on December 11th. We may move that meeting back to 9 o'clock to accommodate some other events on that day. So, Mr. Wilson, if you'd like to make a note of that, I'm pretty sure it will be at 9, but we'll get a definitive word out on that fairly soon. So thank you very much. Commissioner Paulson, are you going to start us off on the distillery district update? Thank you. We're trying to find a presentation real quick. Thank you. We shall pause momentarily. Thank you. Senator Falk, Paulson, are you ready to go? We found a previous version with a little more text on the slides, but that'll be... All right. We'll go through with it. Well, welcome. Thank you. Here today, just to give an update on the distillery district project, Vice Mayor Gordon asked for this back in early October, I believe. So we're going to do a quick overview of the timeline from the beginning. with the TIF creation through to where we are now with the feasibility study. And we hope to be able to answer any questions you guys have. This is kind of a general outline of the timeline. 2008 was the origination of the distillery district TIF, followed by in 2009. And we'll go through these in a little bit more detail. 2009, an approval of a $2.2 million bond for streetscape and trail design and construction. 2010 there were two different RFPs issued and we'll kind of give a quick brief about the difference between those 2011 there was the selection of strand for the feasibility study and then today I'll give you an update on where they are in terms of their feasibility study October 2008 the distillery district TIF the distillery group approached the LFUCG again this is a little bit older slide version so if you're noticing a little difference here is a little more wordy on this slide versus what you have. But it was approved in October of 2008 by the city and the state. It's approximately 28 acres in size. There's two different parts of the distillery district. There's the west district and the east district. The west has had a little less development than the east. The east is where Busters and quite a few other developments have gone into recently. In December 2009, a $2.2 million distillery district bond was passed, which focused on three different things. The design and construction of the town bench trail, streetscape improvements, and then later was added a feasibility study. 2010, after some more discussion, there were two different RFPs that were issued. One in March, and then, again, this predates me, but from what I can tell, there was some discussions and a different RFP was sent out. We'll quickly kind of tell you what I can see are the differences. These are the three main goals of the RFP that was issued in March. And if you look quick, you'll see that there's very little difference between this one and the one in December. So I've highlighted it. For the most part, it separated out the feasibility study from the development of the construction documents for the town branch trail and the streetscape improvements. I believe the original one kind of put them together. This one put a little bit more focus on doing the feasibility study first and then coming back for construction documents and plans. This is a really wordy one. This is why it's changed on your slide. but kind of gets in a little bit to what the feasibility study was supposed to be about. Again, as it states here, the key part is that it was to evaluate proposed street skate improvement alternatives in the context of the town branch trail. Upon completion of the feasibility study and owner selection of a preferred alternative design phase, services will commence. These are the basic elements of the feasibility study, And they are much more in-depth, and if you would like a copy of the feasibility study, I can get the strands description of what they're actually supposed to be doing. I can get that for you. It's a very long 53-page document. But in general, they're supposed to cover planning services, which has included public meetings, two different site inventories, including a field survey, and then physical conditions, investigation and site analysis, which included environmental and archaeological studies. Again, the public involvement. And then alternative alignments associated with both the trail design as well as alternative alignments with streetscape improvements. Again, this gets a little bit more about the feasibility study deliverables. And these are, again, kind of a short version of what they were to deliver. but existing land use, vacancy property conditions, physical features and slopes, linkages and connections, again the architectural and cultural resources, existing cross sections, and then kind of opportunities and constraints associated with trail design as well as streetscape improvement. A little bit more on the deliverables. Again, very long deliverables. Adaptive reuse best practices, urban design corridor character best practices, proposed cross-sections, and a recommended phasing and development plan are kind of the key parts of it. The total cost of the feasibility study is $501,000. There was a contract modification that council approved in July for $83,000 that basically was just part of the initial $501,000, but it was decided to split it up a little bit into two phases. And to date, they are about 76% through in terms of the billing and a little bit more than that in terms of their actual deliverables and what they're trying to do. At this point, where we are in the feasibility is they're, for the most part, trying to work with us to develop the final deliverables. They have some questions of us in terms of how to go forward and kind of finish out the final deliverabilities in terms of trail design and others associated with some of the environmental conditions that they identified. So we are working to set up a meeting with them to finish up the recommendations so the feasibility study can be completed. At this point, kind of the next steps are the completion of the feasibility study. And I think, again, at this point it is extremely important to get the results of the feasibility study before we go forward in terms of making next steps. But I think it's also important that when we do, that we kind of create some sort of development agreement in terms of what will be expected from us as well as the developer of the distillery district. And we're kind of to the point where we have questions. Again, I tried to minimize the slides you have, have less text on them, just because as I started to go through them and got some recommendations, that was a lot of text that I could provide by handing you a copy of this, which is the actual scope of work for Strand. It's a whole lot of information within there, and it gets into a lot of the different deliverables that they have. But for the most part, we are finishing up very near completion of the feasibility study, which we hope will guide us in the next steps in terms of the distillery district. I'll be happy to answer any questions. By very close to the completion of it, do you have an estimated date? We are trying to set up a meeting right now, and with Strand and their consultants, we can answer whatever questions they need to get what they need to finish up in terms of the feasibility study. My hope is that it would be done within the next couple months. Part of that is going to be in terms of just setting up the meeting. At this point, we are thinking it's still going to be a couple weeks out before we can get everybody together to actually set up a meeting between Strand and their consultants and engineering and other stakeholders. Maybe we could have a quick note on that for our December 11th meeting. Absolutely. We'll give you an update in terms of where we are in terms of that meeting, and if we've had it by then, which I hope, but I'm not going to hold out too much hope that we will get it done before then. But if we do, I can report back on where we are in terms of what their time estimate is. Okay, appreciate that. And if you could send the committee members your updated slides electronically, that would be helpful. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Chair. Commissioner, thank you for the update. Now, who are the developers? Is the original developer that came to us in 2009 still part of this project? He is. It's Barry McNeese. And we actually met with him last week. We think we have a little confusion about the time of the meeting today. We're hoping he's going to have time to be here, but I think he thought it was at 1 o'clock, so we have been trying to reach him. Okay, that's what I was going to ask, because I would like for him that had been here. And when we met last week, he expressed that he was going to be able to come. I think it's just a confusion as to what time the president is. And we had the same confusion. At first, we had it down as a 1 o'clock, and then. So maybe he can be here on the 10th and answer any questions we might have on the future of the project, Or the 11th. I'm sorry, the 11th. Just a quick question. So this is kind of an issue that goes back to 2009. But normally when a developer comes to us, the feasibility study is already done. In this case, it wasn't. And so we're using the $2.2 million bond money to actually do the study. So obviously that eats away some of that money that was used to actually do the project. So do we have a new total? And where will we get the money once that feasibility study is completed to actually do the project, if we're still going to do it? Right, and I think that's one of the things that I want out of the feasibility studies, to show us what it's going to cost us going forward. I think those are the options that we're asking for as a deliverable in terms of both streetscape and in terms of trail design as to what are the options about what this is going to cost, as well as the time frame. Because you're right, we have about $500,000 less. So we're down to about $1.7 million in terms of being able to do both the streetscape and the trail design. And we also have to discuss possible alternatives about where the trail will go in and how it will link up with the overall town branch trail whenever the town branch trail comes into that. So all that will be in the feasibility study once it's completed? That is what I want out of the feasibility study. So those are the things that we're going to address in the next meeting is how do we help them get to the stage so that we can get those kinds of recommendations in terms of different options with the money we have left. Okay. Very good. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Mr. Lane. My question, does this project still dovetail with the Rupp Arena redesign and all that? It's tied in to the overall project with Rupp, or is this two separate developments? Because I've seen a couple of plans showing the district, the still redistrict in there, but I didn't know whether it was officially in there or it was just sort of a satellite to that. I don't know if I could speak completely in terms of whether or not it's included in the current Rupp district plan, but the way that I see it, it can be developed and fit right in. I don't think there's anything from the Rupp plan that precludes the distillery district from developing the way that they have it as planned right now. Well, the economy's been pretty tough here for the last several years. It has been. Unfortunately, the timing for the distillery district was probably very bad for the economic impact on it. Is there anything new or exciting coming up that you've heard so far since Mr. McNeese has not here? And this is where I don't want to speak for Barry. Since he's not here, I hope he'll be able to be here to answer those questions. And hopefully, I'm not sure if he'll be able to make it. Maybe if I stand up here long enough and answer questions, he might come in. But I think those are questions you'd have to ask him. And I know that we have talked to him about some options, and he's exploring all options at this point. What specifics, I think he would have to be the one that would provide them to you. Okay. Thank you. Committee members, are there other comments, questions? Vice Mayor? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioner, thank you very much. I don't really have a question right now, but I appreciate the update, and I'm hopeful that Barry will join us, if not today in December, if we have a brief update because I think it would be good to hear from him also. So thank you for bringing this. Unfortunately, Jeff just told me that he is not going to be able to make it today, so I think we will have to try to see if we can get him to come on the 11th to be able to answer any questions you guys have. Let's see if we can make that then. An agenda item. I actually have to take small responsibility for that. I believe early on there was some confusion about what time this was, and he had one o'clock on his calendar. And when I talked to him about an hour ago, he was separated from his vehicle. And so, quote, I have such a stomachache over this. So he very much would have wanted to be here, and that just partially is my confusion. Well, I hope we can reschedule and he can accommodate us on the 11th. Thank you, Commissioner. Okay. Appreciate it. Council members, one final agenda item, that's committee referrals. Mr. Chair. If we can look at that for just a moment. We need to make him aware of the special meeting time on the 11th also. It would strike me. We will do that. Thank you. I think probably capacity analysis should be left on the table here. Do you have any other suggestions, motions for additions or deletions? Seeing none. Is there any other business before the committee? Move adjourned. Second. And without objection, we are adjourned. Thank you all. I'm out. I'm the beauty of stars you never could see Maybe I couldn't have been that easy to forgive about me Baby tell me I'm the best