# Urban County Council Meeting - State of the Merged Government Address - January 22, 2013 > Auto-transcribed civic record · January 22, 2013 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/2838 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/2838?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2013-01-22 - **Last revised**: July 16, 2026 - **Length**: 4,387 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Urban County Council met on January 22, 2013, at 11:30 a.m. at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, 401 W. High Street, in Lexington, Kentucky. Mayor Jim Gray presided over the meeting. The council heard one informational presentation: the State of the Merged Government Address. One member of the public provided comments during the meeting. No votes were taken during this session. ## Attendance **Present:** Jim Gray, Clarke, Ellinger, Farmer, Ford, Gorton, Henson, Kay, Lane, Lawless, Mossotti, Myers, Scutchfield, Stinnett, and Akers. **Absent:** Beard. **Late:** None. ## Public Comment [timestamp: 00:23:36] Lilli Chamblen, a six-year-old, addressed the meeting regarding the Town Branch Commons project. She shared a letter and presented a sack of change that she had raised to support the project. Chamblen expressed her enthusiasm for the Town Branch Commons initiative, particularly regarding the plan to uncover the river downtown. ## Appointments Derek Paulsen was appointed as Commissioner for Planning. ## State of the Merged Government Address Mayor Jim Gray delivered the State of the Merged Government Address, presenting a comprehensive overview of the merged government's accomplishments and priorities [timestamp: 00:00:00]. **Key Achievements Highlighted** The Mayor emphasized several major accomplishments across multiple areas: - **Fiscal Responsibility**: The administration highlighted successful management of government finances and fiscal discipline. - **Job Creation**: Economic development efforts resulting in job growth for the community. - **Infrastructure Development**: Investments in infrastructure projects to support community needs. - **Pension Agreement**: A successful pension agreement was noted as a significant achievement for the merged government. **Focus Areas** Mayor Gray outlined ongoing investments and commitments in several key areas: - Parks and recreation facilities - Public safety services - Innovation and economic development initiatives **Community Engagement** The address emphasized the importance of community engagement as part of the merged government's approach to governance and service delivery. **Outcome** This presentation was informational in nature, serving to communicate the state of the merged government to the public and stakeholders. The address provided an overview of the administration's priorities and accomplishments during the period covered. --- ## Full transcript It's time for our featured speaker. I actually have a degree in communication, as embarrassing as that is to admit at that moment. Ladies and gentlemen, to present the 2013 State of the Merged Government Address, please help me welcome the Mayor of Lexington, the Honorable Jim Gray. Thanks so much. Thanks, William. And thanks so much. You know, I've heard of malapropisms, and that is a good one. Well, good afternoon, everybody here. It is great to be with you today. Thanks to all of you for being here. Members of the Lexington Forum, friends, and citizens, thank you all. And first things first, thanks to our council. Let's give them a hearty round of applause. Thank you all. I am here today to share something that all of you really already sense. The presentations just now illustrated it. And that is that Lexington is on to something special. There's action in the air getting things done. Our citizens feel it. Spirits are high. They love our city, its rhythm, tone, its pace and style. Our sense of community is contagious and our sense of pride as well. Folks want to be supportive, enthusiastic and active, involved, creating an exciting, vigorous city, one that invites risk-taking and opportunity. Yes, Lexington is on to something special. Lexington is the place to be. And perhaps there is no better demonstration of it than what happened just last week. The city, the police and fire unions, and members of the pension board negotiated an agreement that puts our police and fire pension on a sustainable path and puts the city on a path to restored financial strength. This agreement immediately cuts in half our unfunded liability and aggressively attacks the remaining liability with no more pension bonds. We were on... This is the only slide I'm going to put up today. But it illustrates, and there's a time to reflect on it, It illustrates where we were going and where we are going now. We were on a Titanic-like course heading directly into a deadly iceberg, and we are now avoiding it. Detective Mike Sweeney, president of our police union, said, This is a pretty historic day when a city and a group have gotten together to save a pension, and that is, in essence, what we've done. The alternative was pretty ugly. And Captain Chris Bartley, president of our firefighters union, said, I would not say this is a day for joy, but it is a day we can all be proud of. Even though cities and states across America have similar pension problems, our experts, our consultants on this issue, public financial management from Philadelphia, experts in the field, said this is the first consensus-driven settlement they are aware of in the country. I especially want to thank Commerce Lexington and the Industrial Foundation for providing half of the funding to hire PFM. Now, this agreement was a tall challenge. There were two task forces, the last one chaired by Tim Kelly, who's here today, and Gene Vance. over five years in the making, recently weeks of intense negotiations, then finally last Thursday, a breakthrough close to midnight, and agreement. Of course, there were many who said consensus and compromise couldn't be reached on an issue as thorny and complicated as our pensions. Well, it was reached. It could be done. Agreement. Only in Lexington, solution reached by consensus, shared sacrifice, an affordable path for the pension, a city that can afford basic services and to invest in the future, a dignified retirement for our police officers and firefighters. So thanks to our union representatives, our actives and retirees, our pension board members, and I want to acknowledge Jamie Emmons and Scott Shapiro from my staff for building this consensus. This is the kind of comprehensive, honest, and responsible compromise that would have made our forefathers and mothers proud, including that great compromiser himself, Henry Clay. So let's keep this coalition together. And let me speak to the men and women in our police and fire retirement system today, actives and retirees. As you all consider this plan, we will not allow this underfunding condition to occur again. The city will now write into law that regardless of who is mayor or who is on the council, Lexington will fully fund the annual required contribution. That funding, along with the benefit adjustments proposed, will help ensure your retirement is secure. I ask for your support for this agreement because it's the right thing to do for the pension fund and it's the right thing for our city. Now, our next step is to ask the legislature to approve this plan, and then for Governor Beshear to make it official by signing it into law. Now, there's another financial burden, the recent recession that we've been enduring, the worst recession in our lifetimes. It's been tough, but we have been tougher. And we have learned. We have learned that in times of adversity, the human spirit triumphs. It doesn't fail. We've learned that a recession presents important opportunities for self-examination and improvement. And we set priorities. What are they? First, create jobs. Second, run government efficiently. Third, build a great American city. So first, on creating jobs, creating the environment for jobs, good-paying jobs. Our city is coming out of the recession ready to grow and attract good jobs. So flashback with me to 2009. 8.7% unemployment here in Lexington. We developed a plan to attract new employers and encourage existing employers to stay and grow. a plan to position our community for a vigorous recovery. Last year, 2012, Lexington had the largest labor force since 2008, six years ago. Our unemployment numbers are now back to pre-recession levels. Our current unemployment rate, 6%. We must stay the course, pursue every opportunity, creating jobs. It is our top priority. Now, of course, we all know that city government itself doesn't create jobs, but a lot of you in this room do. So anyone here who is part of an enterprise, a business, a profession, that has created jobs recently or helped make the decision to move an operation to Lexington or helped make a decision to stay and grow a business in Lexington, please raise your hands right now. Come on, raise your hands. Don't be bashful. Give yourselves a round of applause. And I want to just mention a few of you. Frank Franaschelli, Chief Executive Officer of Florida Tile, a headquarters operation that moved to Lexington in 2011. Kevin Basner, CEO of A&W, another headquarters operation, moved here in 2012, last year. Transposagen, a biotech company located today on Jefferson Street in the downtown, connecting the dots between education and active and vital downtown, research and business. Eric Ostertag, thank you. Congratulations. Todd Johnson with our resurging home building industry. And our hospitals, of course. Health care, a major growth sector for us. Central Baptist, Derek Horde, Karen Hill, Priscilla Mason, Patricia Mason, Skip Alexander, Gail Abbott and Gary Barnes are here with us today. A major addition under construction. At St. Joseph, Barry Stumbo, expansion. Thanks for being here, Barry. and, of course, at the University of Kentucky, a new hospital now managing the new Eastern State Hospital. And welcome, too, today to UK's recently appointed Chief Financial Officer, Eric Mundy, who is with us. Thanks, Eric. For our city's part, working together with Commerce Lexington, we have enjoyed success success in recruiting good new jobs. Bingham McCutcheon, an international law firm, one of the top 25 in the country, a firm that could have chosen any city in the country, chose Lexington as the site for its global operations center, bringing along 250 good jobs. Tracy Whitley, who is Bingham's chief financial officer, said Bingham chose Lexington after considering 300 other cities. And when asked what set Lexington apart, she said it boiled down to a single word, optimism. For the ninth year in a row, Fortune magazine just named Bingham one of the nation's 100 best companies to work for. 21C Museum Hotel, coming to town with 150 jobs and new inspired life for a building that has been part of our skyline for 100 years, the old Fayette National Bank building. For years it was the tallest building in Kentucky and it continues to grace our skyline. James Edward Bassett, the bank's president in 1912, oversaw the building's design and construction, hiring what was then the world's leading architects, New York's McKin, Mead, and White. His grandson, our very own Ted Bassett, is with us today to recognize the 21C Project, and as is another special guest at his table. Thank you, Ted. Thank you, Ted. We've also created allies and alliances working with Louisville on the BEAM project to strengthen our economic and political muscle between the state's two largest metropolitan areas. Our next priority, running government efficiently, creatively, through imagination and innovation, and with backbone. To compete successfully, we all know we needed a financial, businesslike transformation of City Hall. And that meant tough decisions, strong will, political will, backbone. All of you know there is great machinery, powerful machinery, always at work against progress. It's called business as usual, politics as usual, bureaucracy as usual, the powerful machinery of the status quo. But together we are overcoming it. Our citizens, council and administration, working together and making tough decisions. decisions. I want to thank council members today publicly for standing firm in the face of business as usual. Vice Mayor Gordon, at-large council members Chuck Ellinger and Steve Kay, district council members Chris Ford, Diane Lawless, Julian Beard, Bill Farmer, Kevin Stenet, George Myers, Peggy Henson, and Ed Lane. And we cannot forget the contributions of our recently retired council members, Tom Blues, K.C. Crosby, Doug Martin, and Jay McCord. There is also a perfect time to welcome our new council members, and that's today. Siobhan Akers, Jennifer Scutchfield, Jennifer Massadi, and Harry Clark. You are a talented group, and we are glad you will be helping us as we keep moving forward. The cause of these tough decisions, on account of these tough decisions, our financial house is back on track. We're not out of the woods yet, but we are back on track. And what were these tough decisions? What did they look like? First, reformed and improved employee health care. reformed and improved employee health care, a 180-degree turnaround. We project city costs were reduced by $10 million last year in 2012, from $37 million to $27 million. The city, employees, and retirees have opportunities today to save at the city pharmacy and health clinic. An approach that has earned positive reviews locally and nationally, including praise just last week at the U.S. Conference of Mayors. The city saved $83,629 in the first full quarter, three months, of operation of the pharmacy by buying, purchasing drugs at cost. Reduced drug prices are passed on to employees who also save at least 50% on each copay. At the clinic in the first year, the city and employees together saved over a million dollars. Employees will tell you it is working. Cal Powell is here. He is a veteran in our Division of Code Enforcement, and Cal gave me permission to share his story. Cal lost 35 pounds and counting through wellness counseling at our clinic. And although he couldn't join us today, firefighter Drew Short reports that he and his family are saving $650 a year through the employee pharmacy. Dr. David French is here today from our health center, and Ashley Stewart joins us from our pharmacy. We also made tough decisions that involved shared sacrifices in new collective bargaining contracts with police, fire, and corrections employees. And we focused resources on essential services to overcome our own fiscal cliff. a $9 million deficit in 2011, and a $27 million deficit in the 2012 budget year. Today, we present balanced budgets structurally. In fact, we ended 2012 with $3.3 million surplus after adding $3.4 million to the Rainy Day Fund and other reserve funds. improvements in financial management focused on big cuts, small cuts, and everything in between. For example, city golf courses now cost the public about half as much as last year. We have increased revenue, more people are playing golf on city courses, and we have reduced expenses. and the transfer of the downtown parking garages to the Lexington Parking Authority, Jim Frazier, has allowed us to make desperately needed improvements without spending tax dollars. In my first State of the City speech two years ago, I said, all successful businesses recognize there are times when we have to save money to make money, that is, to reduce our costs. and there are times when we have to spend money to make money by investing in our city. Two years later, we have a solid start on reducing our cost basis and we are working on the investments. That means thinking big, which brings us to our third priority, building a great American city. I often refer to Henry Clay because, of course, Clay was so important to our city's history. In the early 1800s, he imagined Lexington not as just a hamlet or a village or a town, but as a great American city. His dreams for our city were national in scope. His goal was excellence, not just getting by. Clay and his contemporaries set a standard for 19th century Lexington that applies for 21st century Lexington as well. So what does it mean to think big in 2013? Well, reinventing Rupp Arena is thinking big, honoring the history it represents, activating the fan experience, and energizing the surrounding blocks to create an arena arts and entertainment district. We have earned initial funding for the project, thanks to Governor Beshear and state legislators, and work on a financial package is well underway. Work is steadily advancing thanks to Brent Rice, chair of the LCC board, Frank Butler, Kevin Atkins, and the Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau, and many, many others. And Julian Tackett. I want to thank you, Julian, for being here with us today. We treasure as Lexington. We treasure the chance to host the KHSAA Boys Sweet 16 each year. The changes coming to Rupp will enhance your tournament. Thank you. Leveraging our history along the banks of the town branch is also thinking big. Constructing a memorable experience, the Town Branch Commons, a linear park that will wind through downtown along the path of the Town Branch. Lexington was founded on its banks 238 years ago in 1775. It would inspiringly connect our world-class rural landscape with our historic and authentic urban core. And with such a park, we can build a great reason to work downtown, to move a business to our city, live downtown, visit downtown, enjoy downtown, building an experience economy. It has been done before all across America, from San Antonio, Providence, Oklahoma City, today in Yonkers, New York, and across the world in Seoul, Korea. A design competition for Town Branch Commons is underway today involving outstanding design talent from around the world. Downtown Development Authority President Jeff Fugate is coordinating the competition, and Jeff is with us today. And to evaluate the proposals, we are relying on talent and expertise from the University of Kentucky's College of Design. Dean Michael Speaks and its chairman of landscape architecture Ned Crankshaw plus local developer Holly Wiedemann Michael, Ned, and Holly we appreciate all of you being with us today I don't want to put any pressure on any of you all on any members of that design jury but there is a little girl's hopes and dreams riding on this Six-year-old Lily Chamblin is here today with her mom, Laura D'Angelo. Lily wrote me a letter just last week, and I promise you I had nothing to do with it. She offered to raise money for the project through her friends at school, and here's part of Lily's letter. Dear Mayor Gray, I love the idea of uncovering the river downtown. Because I think it's such a good idea, I am donating this money to you. And here is Lily's sackful of change. Lily, thank you. Finding new life for the old courthouse is also thinking big. Jeff Fugate is also leading a team in search of new life for the historic courthouse on Main Street. The courthouse has graced the center of our city since 1898. Ten years ago, new courthouses opened on limestone, and the obvious question became, What are we going to do with the old courthouse? The old courthouse, now empty, needs considerable work, and fixing it will be expensive. The Bluegrass Trust, just last week, put the old courthouse on its endangered list, the very first project on its endangered list. So as a first step, Jeff is developing a request for proposals. with the goal of finding new life for the building through a public-private partnership. And I want to especially thank the Lexington History Museum for working with us in this difficult but important time. Enhancing neighborhoods is also thinking big. With the recruitment of the city's first commissioner for planning, Derek Paulson, We are working to create safe neighborhoods, not just subdivisions, neighborhoods. Our goal is to make neighborhoods function themselves as small towns, not just bedroom communities. In urban neighborhoods, we are working to stop demolition by neglect. There's been a change in business as usual where blighted properties are concerned. Our Department of Law is teaming with planning and code enforcement. We don't want to lose historic properties to neglect, and we don't want neighbors to have to live with neglect. We are also targeting larger-scale developments that are dilapidated and threatened to compromise the quality of life in surrounding neighborhoods. In this case, that I'm going to use, the Richmond Road Corridor. We are especially proud of the work being done at Pennington Place. And I want to congratulate Don Brown on 300 at the Circle. Another 180 degree turnaround. Don's company specializes in fixing up abandoned properties around the country. They considered three other cities for their investment before they chose Lexington. This project, located at the intersection of Richmond Road and New Circle, again demonstrates the importance of finding the right developer and the right plan for the benefit of the neighborhood and the city. We're also excited about the work on Sonnet Cove, the former Sonnet Cove, now called Lakewood Park. There are some parallels here with Pennington Place. Alan Schubert has taken dilapidated buildings and rehabilitated them. And this area is also welcoming a new campus for Southland Christian Church. Congratulations, Gordon Walls is representing Southland with us today. So beyond thinking big, it's important to think outside the box. Lexington needs new ideas, new approaches, new thinking and innovation. Now as much as ever. And we have turned to our citizens to find it, to Lexington Ingenuity. We are working on CitizenLex.org, a new system designed to engage citizens in problem solving and planning. Through CitizenLex, we are encouraging citizens to become digital miners, digging in and connecting the dots among studies, reports, ideas. The citizen-lex concept grew out of the Bloomberg Mayor's Challenge, a national competition. In preparing our proposal, we asked citizens for their ideas, and we got 440 good ideas, demonstrating that when democracy is stretched, it is strengthened. 305 cities entered this competition and today, Lexington is among the top 20 finalists I want to thank yeah, I'm going to clap on that thank you all there's a lot of thanks to go around but there's a young guy named Nick Such I hope with us today has really helped us a lot on this project. Thanks, Nick. In another demonstration of innovative, outside-the-box thinking, last year our citizens volunteered to build Lexington's first mountain bike trail, saving the city $120,000 in cost. This four-mile trail meets international mountain bike standards. It's located in Veterans Park and is getting a lot use today. To protect our bluegrass brand and promote local agriculture, we are establishing a new position to expand marketing of local foods. Honoring Lexington's bourbon heritage, Altec opened the Town Branch Distillery, the first new distillery to be built in Lexington in more than a hundred years. And, continuing to think outside the box, urban pioneers, organically, are transforming Jefferson Street and North Limestone Streets with new businesses, restaurants, and galleries, from Al's Bar to the Gray Goose, North Line Coffee and Donuts to Don and Barb Watham's Nick Ryan's Saloon. from advertising agency Bullhorn to Renee and Seth Brewers wine and vine, wine and market, new investments are reinventing urban neighborhoods. These new ideas, new approaches and new thinking and investments are very real. They are original, organic and exciting. And we all want to be a part of it. Our community's investments in local arts are paying off with exciting creativity that elevates the quality of life and place that is so critical and important in economic growth and development today. Consider the thrilling growth of Lexington's reenactment of Michael Jackson's thriller video, the national spotlight on the University of Kentucky's opera theater program, and the Lexington Art League, and of course the Philharmonic, and the ongoing work to maintain, reclaim, aspirationally, one of our cultural jewels, the Kentucky Theater, the project led by our very own Isabel Yates. Thank you, Isabel. So if you're looking for new initiatives, Well, there's lots of progress here. Consider the I Do program. Programs, plural, for young people. Laura Hatfield and a group of citizens have showed us all how to get it done when they put these programs together. And the rapidly growing cycling community. We even have one of the top bike polo leagues in the nation. There's always improvement and opportunity at the Arboretum. Southland Drive, a center of activity with music festivals, the Farmers Market and popular restaurants. The rebirth of the East End continues as residents look forward to new programming at the Charles Young Center and to the Isaac Murphy Memorial Art Garden. And watch for news of a new Senior Citizen Center designed for today's seniors. More space, more activities, and convenience. Change is good. Change is important. But government must also get the basics, the nuts and bolts, city services right. That requires continuous improvement. Starting each day with the question, how can we improve today what we did yesterday? Continuous improvement is raising today's standards. even when today's standards are high. We can always improve. And evidence of continuous improvement can be found throughout our government. In police, dramatic decreases in the number of violent crimes last year. In fact, federal figures show we are 27% below average in the violent crime rate for cities our size. But we're not stopping there. We are adding 35 officers in a class planned for February. With that addition, we have hired 93 police officers in the past two years. Thanks, Chief Bastian. And Chief Jackson in fire, working with local hospitals. Our paramedics now diagnose critical heart attack cases in the field. Our emergency medical run volume was up almost 7% in 2012, but response times still met national standards, and we are adding another ambulance with 24-hour coverage. It's coming online in February. Since 2011, we have hired 37 new firefighters, and there are plans for 30 more this spring. In corrections, overtime spending. Director Rodney Ballard, thank you. Overtime spending has been reduced by $80,000 a month. Improvements are underway in the handling of repeat offenders who suffer from mental illness or substance abuse. And we had 32 more corrections officers at the end of the year than at the beginning. In traffic engineering, ongoing work to re-time traffic signals along every major road will soon trim travel time. In streets and roads, we are paving more roads and we have renegotiated our paving contract, saving money. In waste management, recycling increased 17% between 2011 and 2012, bringing in $2.3 million in revenue. And at LexCall, over the past five years, over a million calls have been processed, and the call center staff has entered over 400,000 requests for service and then tracked them to completion. Any business knows those are significant numbers. Perhaps the largest continuous improvement project we have underway today in water quality, system-wide sanitary sewer work to clean up our streams continues. Many thanks to our citizens for helping us with continuous improvement by serving on task forces, commissions, boards. For example, working on homelessness or the pension task force, the design excellence task force. The significant work of co-chairs Steve Kay and Deborah Hensley, along with many others on the Homelessness Commission, will be presented next week to the Council and to me. I'm coming around the bend now, into the closing. The U.S. Census Bureau has updated its numbers on Lexington. Of course, there's always some news involved. But Lexington's population is officially over 300,000 today. It is actually 300, 1,569. Now some of you may have heard me tell this story. But since it fits, I'm going to tell it again. A friend of mine, a friend of mine's mother, describes Lexington affectionately as just an extra-large Mayberry. Well, perhaps so. And perhaps we are rethinking it. Yes, we have outgrown uniformity. We are a larger city, richer in diversity, different people, different foods even, different festivals, here for all to enjoy. We have outgrown, roll up the sidewalks at 5 o'clock, and are creating an exciting, compelling arts and cultural community. We are creating jobs, improving efficiencies, and becoming an even greater American city. So I guess I'll have to say to Laura's mom, scoot over Andy Griffith and Aunt Bea. From an extra-large Mayberry, we are becoming a shining city on the hill. 301,569 citizens of Lexington know, they know, you know, that Lexington is on to something special, that Lexington is just the place to be. Thank you all so much for being with us today. Thank you. Thank you all very much. Thank you, Mayor Gray. Thank you to your staff also for helping us put this together. I'd like to thank the Hyatt Regency for hosting us today. I also want to...