Music Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We're having a special committee of the whole of the council, which is the Economic Development Committee. And normally we go through a process, for those of you that aren't here or watch us on GTV or whatever. I would like to have you all peruse the summary of the February 19th meeting, and we'll accept motions. I'll give you one. Okay. Second. Motion to approve the summary. Any of a motion and a second? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. The whole purpose of this is to further our knowledge on something that we had presented to us by the newspaper, and we knew very little about it, and we wanted to know more. Vice Mayor, would you like to bring our guests to the podium? I would be honored. I moved this agricultural impact study into this committee because I thought that as council members, we should, number one, have an opportunity to hear from the folks at the College of Agriculture, and number two, ask questions and perhaps formulate any actions or directions that we might like to take in relation to this report. I've read it at least twice clear through, and I really appreciate that the dean of the U.K. College of Agriculture is here, Dean Scott Smith, and I trust that you'll introduce the folks who are with you and I welcome you to the podium. Thank you, Vice Mayor Gordon and all the members of the committee. We certainly appreciate the invitation to present this report to you today. I would just give a little history and make the introductions. With me today would be Associate Dean and Director of the Experiment Station, Dr. Nancy Cox, who was instrumental in the discussions and the planning for this project. The people who did the real work are faculty in our Agricultural Economics Department. And in a minute, I'll ask Lee Maynard, who is the chair of that department, to step forward and begin to talk about the report. The two other primary faculty authors, Allison Davis, is with us here today. Allison is an extension faculty member who does a lot of other things, including she is the director of the newly formed Community and Economic Development Initiative for Kentucky, also known as SEDIC. One final author was unable to make it today. She's teaching, and that's Dr. Lori Garkovich of the Department of Community and Leadership Development. Very briefly, and without going beyond my own understanding of economics, I want to say that this project was commissioned in collaboration with the Fayette County Farm Bureau, who provided some sponsorship for the work. It resulted from a series of discussions that we and others have had about the agricultural economy in Fayette County, and particularly about a concept that has evolved over the last few years about agriculture and those related interdependent enterprises in Fayette County serving as a cluster, similar to the clusters that you here talked about in Silicon Valley, for example. We chose to use new strategies for measuring the impact, the extent, and possibly in the future the progress and growth of that cluster and its effect on the community by using somewhat different approaches. So this is not one economic analysis versus another economic analysis. It's not necessarily directly comparing the agricultural sector as a cluster to another sector of the economy of Fayette County. But we do believe that it gives new insight into the reach, the scope, and the significance of agriculture in this community. And again, I want to emphasize that the concept is built around that of a cluster. That is, we're talking not only about on-farm employees now, we're also talking about those enterprises like an equine veterinary clinic that is dependent upon and sprung from agricultural activities in Fayette County. I'll stop there, and I'll ask Lee Maynard to come to the podium. Thank you. Well, thank you to all the members of the committee for having us here today. We're certainly glad to be here, and I hope this discussion is productive. I'm going to be actually talking about a trio of studies that all focus on the role of agriculture in the Fayette County economy. And this was a fact-finding mission to aid policy discussions throughout the whole process. We were mindful that it was going to be reviewed by not only other economists, but members of diverse advocacy groups and stakeholder groups. So at every turn, when we had to make a choice in how we would proceed, we tended to take a more conservative approach to make sure that we were not double counting or exaggerating the impacts of agriculture on the economy. After completing the report, we've met with the mayor and Dr. Paulson, the Lexington Planning Commission, and other stakeholder groups. I'll give you a quick description of the three studies in this process and leave plenty of time for discussion afterwards. I was sitting on the tarmac at Bluegrass Airport waiting to take off recently, and I looked out the window, and sitting there next to us was this windowless 727 that says, Tex Sutton first class equine air travel on the side. Many people may have seen it. It sits there quite often, and that image is symbolic of what we were trying to measure in this study. In all the land use planning debates in Fayette County, we've often seen the focus of agriculture be primarily on only the on-farm jobs, which we think misses the main contribution of agriculture as the catalyst for business activity across several sectors of the economy. So we used three different approaches to try to get at our main question. First, the approach that was spearheaded by Allison Davis here today was to define the ag cluster and the employment and the output associated with it. The second approach, which was led by Lori Garkovich, was to interview business leaders in non-agricultural industries about the role of agriculture. And the third approach, which I headed up, was to estimate the impact specifically of equine sales and racetracks on the Fayette County economy. So I'll start with Allison's study on the ag cluster. We know farm employment itself is low, but agriculture also includes all of the input suppliers, food manufacturing, and agritourism. Especially with our equine emphasis in Fayette County, it also includes many professional services and tourism and the hospitality industries. So for the first step, Allison used Implan, which is a common tool used in impact analysis, and she constructed an original database of Fayette County businesses that were wholly or overwhelmingly devoted to supporting agriculture in many sectors. Now, the businesses directly in agricultural production, these include ag inputs, the farms themselves, food processing, these account for about 6,000 jobs in the Fayette County economy, $850 million in sales and $180 million in compensation. So the second step then is to consider all of those businesses that directly support agriculture in sectors other than ag, such as wholesale trade, warehousing, publishing, spectator sports, government and education, veterinary services example. and she only included businesses in this directory if they were clearly ag-related. For example, Roode and Riddle Veterinary Clinic would clearly be included in the ag cluster, but small animal veterinary practices would not. There are a lot of businesses that serve the agricultural sector partially, but not as the primary component of their business, and they would tend not to be included in this database. So it's inherently very conservative. Even with that conservative method that she took, these supporting businesses account for an additional 4,800 jobs and $650 million in sales. Third step is to estimate the indirect and the induced effects of this business activity. So the indirect effects relate to the businesses that support agriculture, say an accountant and a veterinarian. They trade among themselves. The veterinarian may use the accountant. And induced effects reflect the fact that the veterinarian and the accountant are earning income from their business activity, which a portion of it gets spent within Fayette County. So taking account of the indirect and the induced effects adds another $900 million to sales, The final result of all these three steps is that the ag cluster, conservatively defined, generates $2.4 billion in sales, an estimated 16,000 people employed in the ag cluster. and 16,000 people out of the total employed in Fayette County works out to about one in nine people in Fayette County are directly or indirectly employed in the ag cluster. In addition to that, the hospitality and tourism sector is heavily influenced by agriculture. And using conservative estimates based on previous studies by Paul Coombs at the University of Louisville, Allison hypothesized that about 5% of restaurant visits and about 25% of hotel visits were likely connected with the agricultural industry and equine industries here. Those account for about 1,500 jobs in addition. So this helps set the stage for some quantitative estimates of what is represented by the ag cluster. The second stage in the study by Lori Garkovich involved interviews with business leaders in other sectors other than ag. So she met with representatives from design, hospitality, construction, non-profit industries, health, marketing, food service, finance, and advanced manufacturing. And the main prompts that she was asking them about were questions like, what makes Lexington an attractive location to do business? How do components of the Lexington economy compete or complement each other? How do the horse and agricultural activities influence your business? How much is attributable to equine or agriculture? How would Lexington as a place to do business change if green space declined in Fayette County? And what would it take to make you or your business move? And despite the diversity of the sectors represented in these interviews, the responses had a lot in common. There was a fair degree of consensus. The quality of life was mentioned often as a big draw for both business recruitment and employee retention. And the improving downtown lifestyle was also mentioned very often. It's an attractive place for visitors. It's got good entertainment, restaurants, and culture. The thoroughbred industry was noted as a big contributor to the dining and entertainment and hotel options that we have in Lexington. And the growing local food scene was also mentioned prominently as contributing to quality of life. So Lexington is a manageable size, but it has strong amenities. And the ability to get out into rural areas quickly was often mentioned as one of those amenities. Probably the biggest theme that emerged from these interviews was that the landscape and the horse farms are Lexington's brand, its hook. That's what distinguishes it from other mid-sized cities in the region. So it encourages recruitment and retention of both businesses and employees. Some business leaders said the ag cluster was a big part of their businesses. Others said that it was a backdrop that just aided in retention and recruitment. In the hospitality industry, especially as you can imagine, the importance of leisure travelers versus business travelers was emphasized, and horse farm tours were mentioned as the most frequently requested activity by visitors. The diversity of Fayette County's economy was also mentioned as an insulating factor from the volatility in the larger economy. One individual viewed green space as competing with agriculture for land, but others also noted that they saw the sectors being more complementary than competing. Another factor that came up a lot was the layers of businesses that have grown up to support the agricultural and equine sector in Fayette County, and many likened it to Toyota with all the satellite businesses that support Toyota. As an economist, looking at the sources of economic value, the property rights and the incentives that the various parties face, I think the issue of access to farms that some people mentioned is especially useful as an area for public-private innovation. Louisville is pursuing a strategy of ringing its city with public parks whereas Lexington has pursued a strategy of ringing its city with an engine of economic activity if there were creative ways to improve public access to green space in Fayette County then we could potentially have the best of both worlds And I know that some activities are all underway and have been for some time to pursue that effort. So that was the second study. The third study, the one that I led, focused on estimating the impact of equine sales and racetracks on non-agricultural industries. Equine sales and breeding services make up 95% of agricultural sales in Fayette County, and that's why I focused on the equine sales and the racetracks. Fayette County leads the nation by a wide, wide margin in equine sales. And except for Marion County in Florida, where Acala is, the six leading counties in equine sales in the nation are all adjacent to each other here in the inner bluegrass region. So the question I asked was, what impact do the equine sales racetracks have on six non-agricultural industries? And when I say impact, I mean sales, annual payroll, and number of business establishments. And the six non-agricultural industries were hospitality, recreation, finance, real estate, professional services, and retail. I used a completely different approach than Allison used, so it lets us see if we get similar outcomes and if they're consistent with the comments from Lori's interviews. So I gathered data from counties across the country with populations between 100,000 and 500,000 people. Included in that data were also a large number of control variables, like per capita income, property tax rates, population, a natural amenity index, land use data, unemployment rate, et cetera. And at this point, I have to diverge into an aside that one of those control variables was crime, and I only mention it because it was the focus of an op-ed piece earlier this week in which a causal relationship was alleged between farmland preservation and crime. Our results showed that there wasn't even correlation, let alone causation. So I just wanted to set that straight. The op-ed piece did turn up that there was an error and a value in one table in the report. It's on page 40 that understated the U.S. average crime count and therefore made Fayette County look like it was a high crime area, when in fact that's not the case. And I apologize to Sherelle Roberts and the Division of Police for that. But it had no impact on our analysis or results, as it turned out. So it is truly just an aside. Back to the main variables of interest. On a per capita basis, Fayette County has higher than average business activity in all six of the non-agricultural industries that I was looking at. And the next step is just to see if was it the equine sales and the presence of the racetracks that were part of the reason for that. So I'm only reporting impacts that were at least 90% confident are something other than zero. So it's conservative in that sense. The general results are if equine sales increased 10% in Fayette County, It would boost sales in professional services, real estate, and retail industries by a total of about $45 million. There would be 10 more business establishments in the professional services, recreation, and real estate and financial sectors, and payroll in professional services would rise by about $6 million. dollars. Having the racetracks in Fayette County contributes 15 additional business establishments in the recreation, arts, and entertainment sector, and the tracks add about 74 million dollars in additional sales and about 88 million dollars in additional payroll in the non-agricultural industries. So these results are in the ballpark of the estimates that Allison arrived at, and and they're consistent with the statements made by Lori's interviewees. When I first got those results, I wondered, well, are these big or small relative to alternative sectors? So I re-ran the analysis to test for the impacts of another industry. I chose manufacturing because it often comes up in land use debates to see what impact does manufacturing have on these six non-agricultural industries. And the results were surprising in a way in that there were relatively few linkages to the other sectors, and those linkages were not especially strong. The magnitude of them was small. Now, this does not mean that manufacturing should not be a priority in development or it's somehow less suitable for development efforts. What I would stress is that the proper interpretation of that is that when there's growth in the agricultural sector, the benefits of that growth are spread throughout multiple sectors in the economy. When there's growth in the manufacturing sector, those benefits, you can expect them to stay primarily concentrated within the manufacturing sector. It doesn't mean it's good or bad. It just shows you where the growth is likely to occur. So the take-home message is that ag has an impact on Fayette County's economy that goes far beyond the farms themselves. The Ag Cluster employs one in nine people, generates $2.4 billion in sales, and it's the brand that makes Lexington distinctive. And it even helps unrelated businesses recruit and retrain a strong workforce. So hopefully this information is useful for groups that need to know the pros and cons when making economic planning decisions, and it helps put some numbers to ideas that many people may have assumed but didn't have as much quantitative evidence of before. And at this point, I'd be happy to take any questions that the council members or others have. Counsel, any questions? Right there. Yeah. Vice Mayor, you look like you're first up. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much, Lee. You mentioned one thing that surprised you, and that was one of my questions for the group, was whether there were, when you were finished with this study, whether there were surprises, things that you did not expect to find. And I would welcome comment from any of you. Yeah, and I'll also at this time welcome Allison Davis if she can contribute a lot to these questions as well. So certainly for the part that I was most connected to, I was a little bit surprised that there was such a strong distinction between the impact of agriculture and the impact of manufacturing. I thought it was likely that growth in any sector would be intricately related to the other sectors. So those results surprised me a little bit. But I think after I thought about it some more, I think what explains those results is that the manufacturing sector tends to import its inputs from outside Fayette County, and it tends to export its outputs outside Fayette County. So there isn't as much circulation of business activity within the county, and that's what we were focusing on. I would say that the one surprising factor for me, I'm not from an agricultural area, and I know very little about the equine industry. And what I found was interesting is I spent about four days trying to compose this business directory, and I used all kinds of keywords to try to figure out how to find what businesses were in Lexington that were solely dedicated to agriculture. and you know so i'm looking for keywords like thoroughbred farm farmer equine and i was surprised by the diversity of industries that i could include so one of them was death care services which you would think well that's very strange you know you see hearse is going up and down the road but you don't think about how that service is you know is essential to the equine industry I never thought about the fencing industry. There are all kinds of the finance, so many different businesses that you just don't think about on a daily basis that are operating in Lexington that aren't necessarily operating in other areas where there is strong just general agriculture and so forth. But I think that was my most surprising takeaway from this study. The other thing I wanted to ask, I thought it was really interesting. There was a place in here on page 46 where you were talking about the factors that explain why the results exist. Do you think agriculture is different? I mean, you mentioned in the report Toyota, and I understand the cluster idea around Toyota. Then they have the parts people and the engine people. And so is this unusual at all, or does almost every industry have a cluster? I think health care certainly has a cluster. So is the cluster idea something that we would find in almost any industry? Nowadays, in the last decade, cluster is sort of the big idea for economic development. You'll find health care in any big city, but it's somewhat surprising that in Lexington, where you think health care is this huge cluster compared to other cities of similar sizes, it's actually not. I mean, it's still a very important cluster, but it's not something that people look around and say, this is what Lexington is known for in terms of quantitatively. When we look at the equine ag cluster in this area, it is a strong cluster, and there's nowhere else in this country where that type of cluster exists. So a lot of areas, and I do a lot of this work across the country and particularly in the state, there are some times where you're really grasping to try to find a cluster, and maybe 10, 15 years ago manufacturing was that cluster in a lot of areas. But nowadays, when you're in a very diverse economy, which is what Fayette County is really good at, you don't necessarily see things really popping out as being this is the big thing. But in Lexington, this is the big thing. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Lane? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My question was along the lines of having done the study, and the numbers look pretty strong to me also. Do you have any suggestions or ideas on how our city and agribusiness can build on its current strength to be even stronger and generate more revenue and gross domestic product for our county? Thank you. Was it the GDP that got you? I did discuss the potential for having the best of both worlds in taking advantage of our green space around Lexington to serve not only as an economic engine but also as a source of public goods for recreation. And, in fact, there's another element of this study that's ongoing that attempts to measure the impact on housing values of being adjacent to green space and farms. So there is additional value there that we haven't really quantified yet. My impression, speaking with various groups after the study was completed, was that there are a lot of innovative ideas that people are interested in pursuing, and there's a lot of sincerity and desire to improve the Fayette County economy, although many of the issues are challenging. So improving public access to green spaces has a lot of challenges associated with it. Just sort of a follow-up on that is the Kentucky's Bourbon Trail has gotten a lot of accolades and awards recently, and it's been a growing phenomenon to bring more people to Kentucky but also to sell more bourbon. Do you see the possibility of things like maybe having an equine tour where you can stop in and visit some of our horse farms? And we also have wineries. There's four or five of them now in Fayette County. Do you see those as other opportunities for us too? I think an example of that occurred just recently when a cycling tour was organized that visited horse farms. So that's an example that combines, admittedly, a very specific recreational activity, but the same sort of idea can be extended in many ways. And in the process of doing this study, I was impressed at how blurry the lines got between what was food, what was tourism, what was agriculture, and the connections between horses, bourbon, and the distinctive things about Fayette County that people associate with it. maintaining those linkages does seem like a productive way to develop the economy. Do you see Fayette County as the center for hemp, too? Do you have any feeling about that? Maybe we should ask the dean on that one. The dean in the past has set up journalists to ask me that question, so I'm not sure that that would work. We are in the process of pulling together information about the economic viability of hemp. The impact on Fayette County, frankly, seems probably modest. The greater impact might be felt in other parts of the state. And it's currently a small market in Canada, for example, where it is legal, but there are some indications that there's potential for growth and demand. And it all depends on which processors and manufacturers and entrepreneurial people decide to pursue hemp processing. That's the only way that farmers would have a market to sell it. Can I take a shot at that? Absolutely. I think it's a very interesting contrast. I think it's a very interesting contrast that helps to make the point of this study, and that is that hemp production in and of itself, to be successful and to have an economic impact, will require the development of the infrastructure, the suppliers, the processors in particular. The processing element has been a very large handicap to the growth of hemp production in Canada, where it's legal and been practiced for 15 years or so. So in contrast, we have a long history of building that infrastructure, sustaining it, and building the resource base, the skill base, and the expertise base in equine and in agriculture in Fayette County. We don't have that anywhere in the United States in hemp at this point. I know I've asked a lot of questions. Can I just ask one more, and then I'll shut up, Mr. Chairman? I just wonder if we could touch a little bit on equine research and what that does for our community also. And I noticed that Dr. Cox was here. Can you move around okay? It's a form of extreme sport. So the question was about equine research in this county. Certainly, we think we are not only the horse capital of the world, but the horse health capital of the world. We have our two premier veterinary clinics, many other distinguished veterinarians in the area. We have the Gluck Equine Research Center, a unit dedicated to health of the horse. We have the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, which is a national leader in many areas. And so the research, and not only just the research in the lab, but the translation of that research, such as vaccine production and new therapies, racetrack breakdown studies, all kind of make us, again, the horse health capital of the world. And, Mr. Lane, I think one corollary to that that we're trying to get started is more of the businesses that make vaccines and health products be located here in Lexington rather than elsewhere. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your indulgence. Quite all right, Council Member Lane. Councilmember Clark, I believe you're next up. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I must say to all of you that Councilmember Lane took both of my questions. But I would like to follow up just a little bit on the idea of scientific research in the field. I wonder if you included that in the report itself. That was included. For instance, I know I just visited a firm at Coalstream that is very active in working toward that. And I think the idea is bringing these people here to do that research. And this particular person I know is from Texas, and I hope he succeeds and brings others with him. I want to also ask, probably a little off the topic, but does this report take into consideration any urban farming? It does to the extent that any businesses that were engaged in urban farming were included in the database that Allison constructed. I think one of the bigger impacts of urban farming has more to do with the, I want to call it the atmosphere that you feel in downtown right now that has been generated by the combination of businesses that all seem complementary to each other, and these include food chain, urban farming. And I would say we were able to include the employment associated with farmers markets and CSAs, but we weren't able to get any information in terms of the economic activity associated with it. So that was an underestimate of the value of what was going on. We don't know necessarily where people were coming from, where producers were coming from, and what the sales were. So it really doesn't include the economic activity with local foods. It's there, but it's hard to report. Exactly. Good. Thank all three of you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Chair, and I appreciate your report. I don't think many members of the community realize what kind of an impact that the equine industry and the ag industry has on us in Lexington, and I certainly, for one, understand that and really appreciate it. But I guess Council Member Ellinger and I were always just talking why we don't have a vet school here is kind of a big question to me, always has been, and we both discussed that. You would think with the renowned centers that we have here as far as the veterinary practices and services that we would have something like that. That would be, I think, a great boon to our horse capital of the world as well. and I know with today's, just the, I guess, the knowledge that we have that local production of food is so much better for you and the emphasis on that. And, of course, the equine business has kind of leveled off where it's at its normalcy, it was at its height in the early 70s and 80s. At this time, is there anything that you can suggest that maybe we can help as far as a community for you as a government to assist you in any way? Well, I guess everything's okay, but I would assume that there may be something that, you know. I think it would take longer hours to come up with a good response. It seems like the time is ripe right now. I mean, people are more attuned to, you know, everything like health and local production of foods and so forth. And as far as, like I said, the equine industry, I mean, in that business, the cheapest thing is the horse. One thing that I might mention is the Fifth Third Pavilion is a great example of an investment that has brought people together, and that includes the farmer's market but so many other things, such as Thursday Night Live. and I forget who was telling me during the process of recruiting Bingham McCutcheon to locate in Lexington that the group was very intentionally brought through that area when Thursday Night Live was going on to illustrate the vitality of the downtown area in Lexington. So that's an example where you see multiple groups that were able to collaborate and produce something that's a win-win for everyone. The legacy trail would be another perfect example of that. Yes, sir. I think a huge part of the answer is just the recognition of the significance in a public manner and that this becomes part of the marketing and the conversation about the future of Lexington. As a specific example, there's been some public discussion among various groups about a task force or a commission on the agricultural economy. And this might be a way that the Council could forward that conversation about how we incorporate the agricultural economy, the cluster economy, into future deliberations about investment, infrastructure, land use planning, and all of those kinds of issues could be, I think, moved forward with a more visible and more organized discussion of agricultural investments, agricultural support. Of course, one of the most important things, and I apply this to Councilman Lane's question as well, that the infrastructure, the buildings of agriculture are the land. and sustaining that facility for this enterprise is certainly of public interest and an important leadership question. That's what I wanted to hear. Thank you. House Member Lawless. First of all, I want to thank the Farm Bureau for funding this study, and it's really awesome. When I travel out of the country, the two things people ask me when I say I'm from Kentucky is about our horses and Kentucky Fried Chicken. So I think globally we are recognized as the horse capital of the world. One really huge missed opportunity I think that we have as far as enjoying our green space in the inner city is the UK campus. and in many other college communities, you will see people from the public enjoying different parts of the campus. They go there to, I think it was in Madison, Wisconsin, I'm not sure where they have. alcohol on campus and they have a beer garden kind of thing. And you see people from the community as well as students interacting. But we have so much green space at UK, but it's not utilized by the general public. And I think it's really a missed opportunity. Do you have some ideas about how the city and UK could work together to make that something that would be more enjoyable to the citizens who are not part of UK or not students? One thing I would point out is that the Arboretum is, I believe, jointly operated by UK and the city. And I've seen during the time that I've lived here huge progress in the Arboretum and making it more inviting and more accessible to wider groups of people. So in that sense, I hope that with any future development, the Arboretum is protected and the access of the public to Arboretum would be protected. I know what you mean in that there are large expanses of space on the U.K. campus that are not, they're available to the public. Right. They certainly could be used, and no one is prohibited from using them. But I'm not sure that there are any specific plans. You may want to. Well, the U.K. is involved in a strategic planning process at the moment, and I think that there's going to be a strong emphasis on the landscape and the aesthetic aspects outside of the buildings in that plan. I would also point to the connection here with UK campus planning and the EPA issues faced by Council and LFUCG. You will see very significant projects that are in effect joint to address that EPA mandate as well as to change the face and the appearance of the UK campus. I'm glad that Lee mentioned the Arboretum, or Linda Gordon would have really been disappointed. That is operated by our college. And, of course, our campuses also includes the North Farm and Spindletop Farm. And we were very, very honored to be able to welcome the community to that farm with the Legacy Trail Project. But I think there are unlimited opportunities to take advantage of those intersections between the community and the campus. And I think it's a very, very appropriate question. And I love the arboretum. I remember when it had no trees. Right. I was like, we're the only community in the world that has an arboretum with no trees. But they're beautiful now. So thank you. Council Member Kaye. Thank you, Chair. I appreciate your having worked on this report. It's always good to see people from U.K. here, and especially from the College of Agriculture, who we consider our friends. I have a general interest in the work that you've done and a longstanding interest in the preservation of green space and the appreciation of what it brings to our community. I also have a special interest in one part of what you looked at, And council members, I think, are slightly aware of the fact that I've been working on, with a lot of other people, getting a local food coordinator position within government on a pilot basis with the hope that it would then be institutionalized and would have somebody looking at some of these questions, especially the infrastructure issue. And related to that, I noticed Mac Stone has come to hear the report. I wonder, since Mac has looked at these issues from the farm perspective and from the infrastructure perspective and is now on the faculty at K-State after having been with the Department of Agriculture here, if you'd be willing to address the issue of that part of the report that talks about local food and what that means for economic development. and you can probably Mac identify a little better for folks what you really do than I just did Mac Stone I co-own Elmwood Stock Farm with my wife and her family in Scott County we sell at the Lexington Farmers Market and we deliver our CSA shares in Lexington four times a week So first let me say thank you for the report that not only the Farm Bureau, but the support that Fayette County Ag Council has done in supporting the work of Mr. K on the local food coordinator policy position, because we see that the local food, it's a very small segment that would show up in official rosters of a report like this, but it's a big part of the conversation. and how do we expand that and institutionalize that, if you will. And that is a very easy way, I think, that you all can support this growth and development. The equine industry, we see the customers at the farmer's market. There's a very strong influence of those people that shop the market. They're agrarian. They know good food. They grow good food. and it's just a we're a very agrarian county very agrarian society and we're just glad that we can be participatory in that specifically the pavilion it was mentioned what all can can can this group do what can we do to work together the pavilion has been a great boon to the Lexington farmers market it gives us a center place chose my words carefully there that it has a look It has a European feel to it. It's a who's who of Lexington that comes to the market, and it's just great to have the opportunity to get those various aspects of the community. They come down there. They're not Republican. They're not Democrat. They're not any sort of aspect. They're everybody across all spectrums, and it's just great to have that interaction, and they look for that. The Lexington Farmers Market, I've been the past president for the last couple of years. We have an agreement with the city. The city's been very, very supportive of parks and recreation in cleaning the pavilion before we get there. Security, because of various situations very early in the morning, people know that we have cash on hand. So the police department, security, parks and recreation, an agreement with the city has been very, very supportive in helping us to build the farmers market. Other things that you are doing, Locust Trace is a great avenue to get young people, to keep young people thinking about food and farming, and then they feed into the university system. It's just been a great, great asset. Talked with Frank Penn at length in the past of how do we promote agritourism. We had a question earlier about agritourism. It's a little difficult because the safety of you can't touch the horse. It's not just from the biosecurity, but there's a safety issue there. But how do we get inside the gate? How do we do what Disney World does and maintain the safety of the customer and the safety of the animal, frankly? But there's a lot of work going on behind the scenes to how do we do the tourism trail? How do we include social media and various aspects of trails and things around the value of the horse? Because it is what people think about. Farm to school, there's a lot of interest in farm to school. The council, the Ag Policy Committee is looking at how do we get more local food into the schools, institutionalize that. Where does government touch food? What are specific policies around touching food and getting food into these systems? The university has a food system innovation center that's helping small growers get to that next level with safe food handling and all sorts. So Kentucky's very unique in that we work well together. We don't have, well, this is what we do and that's what they do. We all say there's plenty of work to do. How do we work together in getting all of us to help this local food movement? And the farmers are very welcoming to stepping up as all of this sort of comes together. Thank you. Thank you. Out of my time, if I can, just add one comment. I think that the food sector is just one small part, but it demonstrates what the incredible upside is, and I think that's true across the whole farm economy. There's an incredible potential on the upside that we have not begun to tap. Appreciate your comments. I appreciate the help that you've been with the local food coordinator and other things you do. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Akers? Thank you, Chair. I was wondering if this study or a study similar to it has been performed in the past, and if so, when? I know that Allison Davis performed something that was somewhat similar, but nowhere near the scope or complexity. No. Essentially, in the past, places like Wisconsin and Michigan have really strived to do the same thing and measure the influence of the agricultural economy. And they have limited it to mostly on-farm employment as well as some food manufacturing, particularly in Wisconsin with cheese manufacturing. But they've never really thought of those underlying services and manufacturing and inputs that support the cluster. And so this is really the first time it's been done. It's been vetted across a lot of my colleagues across the country just to have them look at it. And they've been really, it's just a new innovative way of doing it, but it's incredibly labor-intensive. When you start having to look by keywords, eventually you're going to run out of steam. But, no, it's pretty brand new. And so in Lexington specifically, there's not ever been an ag impact study? We try to do one about every few years, particularly when the new census of ag data come out, which will come out within the next hopefully eight months or so. But it has been strictly limited to the on-farm production as well as some food manufacturing. So we've included things where JIF has been included before and Coca-Cola, but we've never looked at the actual, the real cluster that we think exists here, particularly related to the equine industry. Okay. Then, I mean, I was just going to ask if there were differences between previous studies and this study and that sort of thing. But it sounds like you're really comparing apples and oranges. I mean, you're comparing, like, four apples and then four apples and ten oranges. Right. So those numbers can be consistent. And it's the same type of methodology and the same database that it's coming from, but it's just sort of an expanded way of doing it. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Chair. Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Several things. I wanted to just agree with Councilmember Kay on the, I feel like there's some unlimited potential here that we have not begun to even understand what it could be. And this study really highlights, gosh, it highlights how much Fayette County has in terms of agriculture, jobs in agriculture, production, money. It's huge. And I think we've only sort of were in our infancy as far as government understanding this. I really do. And I was glad to hear Dean Smith, to Councilmember Massadi's question, what can we do? You mentioned the idea of a commission, and I think that, you know, I was thinking about this. We have a commission for disabilities. We have a commission for senior services. We have a commission for corridors. We have a commission for green space. But we do not have a commission for one of our biggest economic areas. And I think that's probably an oversight over the years. You know, agriculture just keeps going on, right? And we kind of trust that it will. But quite a number of us have thought about this idea, and I think it's time that we do it as a government. Have a commission for agriculture, economic development, if you will. We have a person in our government who is charged with economic development. but the commission for example could have recommend if we had one could have recommended a hemp resolution which we have passed supporting uh hemp legislation at the state level the commission i see a commission as an entity that could be looking at all these different areas that you've mentioned equine ag production ag marketing local food education the public I think doesn't really have a clue the general public of what our agriculture means to Fayette County our equine, our cattle all the other pieces and parts our land and infrastructure recreation and tourism I mean it's unlimited really and so I think it's really time we pull it together And so I'm going to go ahead and take a step out and make a motion that this committee recommend moving forward the concept of an Agriculture Economic Development Commission. Second. Anybody have any pros and cons on the idea? Well, let's put up our hands then. Mr. Chair, do you favor this? Just a question. In terms of moving it forward, do you see it going to a committee, or what's the path? Well, it's already in a committee, this committee. I mean, the whole concept of the agriculture impact study and what we might do from it. So I really would, what I'd like to see is for the council and the administration to work together on how we could form a commission. I don't think it necessarily has to go back in another committee until there's something to go back, for example, and maybe planning or back to economic development structure for this commission. And it could come back to this committee. So you're thinking it would be more of a conversation with the administration at this point? I think that would probably be a good idea to get this concept fleshed out. and see what we think it could do. And we have a lot of agriculture people in the audience who could help us figure this out. Well, this is a suggestion which I don't think actually needs anything. We don't have a second yet, though, I'm afraid. We do? Oh, you say. Council Member Massadi. Okay, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? So we're on the road anyway. We still have some people that would like to speak. You were three, Councilmember, were you not? Vice Mayor? Vice Mayor? Pardon me. Yes, thank you. Council Member Stennett? Thank you, Chair. Just a couple follow-up questions going back to the report that we just discussed. And thank you all. Anytime you can have this kind of dialogue in our city is a good thing. Being a native Lexingtonian, I understand truly the value of what the agriculture community has done to my lifespan here and the impact it's had on me and the quality of life for our city. And it's always interesting to hear some of the first things when people move to Lexington. One of their major first impressions is the horse industry and the impact it has. And I think it goes without saying that the decline in other areas of agriculture over the last several years has diminished, and the influence of the agriculture community on this city and our economic development has diminished, but the horse side has kept it part of the conversation. And I think this could be a first step to making it a bigger part of the conversation. There are still a lot of areas, obviously, to work on, as has been mentioned today. But I just want to go back to a couple of points in your report. The 2007 equine sales numbers, why did you go all the way back to 2007 and use those sales numbers, given what's happened in the horse industry? I don't think I need to go through that in the last six years, but the sales have dropped off dramatically. So why go all the way back to 07 for data? The main reason is that we're trying to measure causation as much as possible and separate it from correlation. So given that we're trying to explain the business activity in non-agricultural industries like finance or recreation, and the latest available data for those at the time was 2010 or 2011, then I wanted to get equine sales data from before that. So the idea is that if the previous equine sales had caused today's or recent business activity in other industries, then we could have a stronger leg to stand on to say that that's causation, not just correlation at the same point in time. Okay, so you have a chart in here that says for every 10% increase in equine sales, this happens. Well, what happens when you have a 10% decrease, which we've had, in equine sales? What's the cause and the same impact? Exactly the opposite? Exactly the opposite is the way this model is set up. So has that happened in Fayette County since the decline in sales? Could that correlation be made that because the sales have dropped dramatically, we've had decreases in the ag area in the last six years? Well, it's, I mean, the way this analysis was set up, it wouldn't measure that because it's not looking at data over time. So it's possible to figure that out. I can think one reason why that might be difficult is that the census of ag data from which many of these numbers come from only come out every five years. So it's hard to get a year by year view of all the counties. Plus I would say that if you could have, you would look at this 10% decrease and you might see that some establishments have gone away. You don't know exactly which ones, but at the same time, there might have been something else positive outside of the equine sector that would cause some of those same numbers of establishments to increase. So you can't really tell what's positive and what's negative. You can just see the before and the after, and you don't have that causation there anymore. You just know total numbers over time. So will you be able to do that when the new data comes out? I mean, we can constantly track the number of establishments, but you can't, I mean, we have this estimate that there would be a 10% decrease in sales. You'd know the number of establishments that you would expect to close, but you can't control for other new establishments that have come in. So we don't have the specific names of those establishments, so you won't necessarily see, you know, there might be a big boom in something and a big bust in something else. It may all even out, and you can't pull out that one factor. Okay. And then on the end of the report, some of the conclusions that you were making about the population living below poverty level and the crime statistics, where specifically did you get that information from? Well, the crime statistics came from the Department of Justice FBI Uniform Crime Reporting System. and what I found was that the number we had for Fayette County was just what we intended it to be. It was the number for the U.S. average that was troublesome, and the reason for that was that there are a lot of law enforcement jurisdictions that you either have multiple jurisdictions in one county or multiple counties for certain jurisdictions. And the approach that was used to try to tease out those jurisdictional boundaries and try to get a number for each county in the country was where an error happened, and that produced a U.S. average number that I don't think was reliable. On the bright side, when I pulled that control variable out of the analysis, the fact that it had no impact before meant that the results didn't change. Right, yeah. I think, you know, working with our police department closely on the crime data, they would disagree with that number a little bit. Oh, yeah, they did. I'm sure they did. It's more closer to 400 and change, I think, on that instead of 1724. That's the only reason I asked that. And then going back to, I see my time's up, but did any of the staff in the U.K. Business School, economics, especially Ken Trossie, because he did a report similar to this, not solely on ag, but on all of our industries, and who really is the big players in Fayette County and where they all rank, Did he have a chance to look at this? Just curious. Ken is a very close colleague of mine. I work with him a lot, and he saw this before it came out. And he really had very little to say that was negative. Sure. No, and none of us know. I'm not trying to be negative. I'm just curious. No, no, no, but he did. I mean, it got vetted through CBER, and it got vetted through other institutions. Good. So it seems to pass the threshold. Because it brings out, I have a background in economics, and I was glad to see you use M-Plan, which has been primarily an agriculture economic tool. But other industries are starting to use implant as their analysis are taking place to figure out. It goes back to the cluster question. And clusters were formed, ironically, by the manufacturing sector years ago in economics to prove why you would want a Toyota here and the indirect assumptions about a manufacturer. Now other industries are saying, well, you know, we need to use clusters, too, to prove our validity in the community, and rightfully so, because there's a lot of indirect influences by every industry. And I'm glad you are using that method. Thank you all. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. I mean, I think that was one of your quotes. And the equine industry does have a big impact. I guess I have a couple questions, and some of the things have been answered or asked. We're talking about thoroughbreds, but we had the stallion bread here. We don't, I mean, standard bread. We really have lost that industry. I mean, it's still here, but it really went up to the northeast. And when your stallions move, then you see the mayors follow. And when we had the recession that Councilmember Sten was talking about, I think we used to breed about 40,000. We're down to 30,000. Those are rough numbers. You know, you have better quality of yearlings now that are being sold, and you have less of them. So when that happens, you're going to probably need less people working. And we talked about the 10 percent increase. You know, we have to look at also the 10 percent possibly decrease. I'm always proud, you know, when you have Kentucky bred. I think at this last Breeders' Cup, we had 80% of the winners in the Breeders' Cup were Kentucky bred. And when you talk about Kentucky bred, you're really talking about the central Kentucky, because that's where they're coming from. I guess where I want to get to my question is, we easily could lose, as we did with the standard bred, to New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, California, if the stallions move there, the mayors will follow. We'll have this beautiful countryside, but we might not have the horses here that are going to be able to provide for that. What do we need to do? And I was actually going to make a suggestion, and the vice mayor went ahead and made one about a commission. But what do we do to try to make sure, because central Kentucky is very dominant on the equine industry. It affects all Kentucky, but it's predominantly here in central Kentucky. What do we do to make sure that we're not getting whittled away by your New Yorks, your Pennsylvanias, your Floridas, to the next thing you know in 20 years we look around and we no longer have our thoroughbred industry here. and it's moved to other states. What do we do as a council standpoint? I think you see what the states have done in New York with the incentives, with the PERSI increases. What do we do that we can do as a Fayette County government, urban county government, to try to work with the state to try to make sure that we protect the industry that gives us our brand, gives us what we're known, and also gives us an economic base here that really is one of the biggest ones that we have here that we can see them shift out of here pretty quick when the stallions leave. We have a lot of beautiful land, but we don't have any horses sitting on there. What do we do that we protect that? Well, I wish we had our equine economist, Jill Stowe, here. She would have a lot of deep background information that would help in answering this. I mean, creating a local environment that's amenable to business for the farms is certainly one way to incentivize staying here. Whether that could compete with breeders' incentives in terms of the magnitude of incentive, I don't know. Well, I think that's probably going to be more state initiative. But I guess what can we do to work with them? or I guess the commission's a good start to bounce off. But I know we look at, you know, we see what you talked about, the 10% increase. But as Council Member Stinnett and I had written down, what about a 10% decrease? And, you know, how many jobs are directly or indirectly associated with this? Once you start losing that base, then you also are going to lose those jobs because they're going to follow where those horses are going to follow. A lot of those jobs are horse-related and are going to be followed along with them. And with that being said, is the land being used at the best proper use then, too? So I guess that would be... I would say the Kentucky Equine Survey is coming to a close, hopefully, I'd say by mid-summer, since I'm the one finishing it off. But I think part of the process is really to share this information with the state government, because if you all said, well, we didn't really even understand it, then how can they, when they are looking at an entire state that has diverse industries across each region that's so very different? And so when the Kentucky Equine Survey comes out, we'll have information by county, we'll have information by region, and we have some comparison from back, I guess, in the 80s when it was done by CBER in the business department to see how things have changed. And there was economic impact numbers associated with those. There will be economic impact numbers associated with these new numbers. I think to try to figure out a way to really have people understand the magnitude of this industry and to show how those numbers have actually moved on to these other states, because all those other states that have grown are doing that exact thing, and they're sharing that information and sharing that research. So I don't think that the state has a very firm grasp of really the equine industry, or else we would never have gone through the Kentucky equine survey that we did. and we still don't get me wrong we still dominate the equine industry and you look at you look at the numbers and they're they're in our favor but my fear is what happened to the standard bred could easily happen to the third third bred industry when you start taking stallions away because the mayors will follow and then we're left with beautiful horse farms but we don't have an industry then and i want to make sure we protect that 20 years down the road it's not going to happen next year you know with cainland still is going to have and i know we have some people in the back and I was hoping that I would kind of get some response from them because I know they're in the industry too. Oh, he's getting up. Yep. So I want to keep Kentucky the horse cap of the world. The best thing that's happening to the equine industry is diversification. because all these ancillary businesses that we talked about in this report, they don't just work on thoroughbreds, Councilman Ellinger. They work on standardbreds. They work on sport horses. We have had a great influx of sport horses that have come in. So even though the thoroughbred industry has declined by 10 or 12 percent, it doesn't mean that equine is declined by 10 or 12 percent because it's been picked up with people like Mr. Kessinger that came in here, whose daughter was in the Olympics, who bought 155 acres, incidentally $50,000 per acre. Those kind of people came in. They make our community better. And the reason they do it, they appreciate the arts, they appreciate music, they appreciate a lot of things that our community has to offer. So the thoroughbred industry will expand and contract. You have to remember, agriculture is a living and breathing entity. I went to Charleston. Their ocean, their bay, stays there whether economy is good, bad, or indifferent. Our brand lives and breathes. It uses land. Our brand creates our way of life. But when one thing declines, the thing that's helped us in Fayette County because of our vet clinics, because of our van service, because of our airlines, we can move horses all over the world with airplanes. Those infrastructures are all there, and that's taken up the slack of some of the things that's come back on the equine, on the thoroughbred side of it. So we have to look at in total of what the sport horse has done for us, and this has been a pretty recent phenomenon. And I agree with you, and it has been helpful. I think the World Equestrian Games certainly was a plus for us. Having the Kentucky Horse Park out here, and you look at all the different national organizations who have come here, obviously is going to increase that. But still, when you get down to it, the bottom line is, when we say the horse capital of the world, what do we mean by that when we say that? We talk about the thoroughbreds. That is the dominant breed. And we talk about John Gaines' theory that if you move the top 20 stallions to Noma, Alaska, Noma, Alaska would be the thoroughbred capital of the world. Now, the thing we can do and the thing you all can do most helpful is to understand what your signature industry is, and it's equine. It's not just the thoroughbreds. It's equine. The other thing is that the quality of life issue is strong, and I need to speak a little bit to tourism, Mr. Chairman, if you'd give me an opportunity to do that. Sure. Go ahead. As you know, we've tried hard to work out ways to put people on horse farms. It's not something that we've just ignored. Our problem is we have lawyers. And those lawyers are telling us all the time, don't do this, don't do this. We have contracts, we have lawyers. Two exciting things have happened in that area. One of them is that with the success of the bourbon trail, we have decided in the thoroughbred industry and the equine industry, but this is particularly thoroughbred driven, that if we don't get on the board with this, we're going to be marginalized to the point that the bourbon trail, so competition is good even if it is bourbon versus horses. I can tell you that next month there will be a group of people come here from the Disney Institute. We've had two thoroughbred breeders of good-sized farms go to Orlando and talk to the Disney Institute about how to market what we have here. It's all privately funded. We're not asking for money right now for this, but at some point we may come back and say here's a plan that we think can work, and we need your help not only with finance, but we need your help with organizations. with security, with a lot of different things that we can happen. So that's another way that we can help make this thing happen. Thank you all. Thank you. And just a couple things to answer with what you said. I agree. Tourism is a big plus here. I'd like to make Lexington and Fayette County a destination community. Right now they might come for a day or two, but I'd like to be like in Orlando where they come and they spend their whole time here. And when you talk about the Bourbon Trail and cycling, they actually have a, which I'm going to do on April 20th and 21st, is our 150-mile cycling of the Bourbon Trail. It would be nice that we have, and we do that with the Bluegrass Cycling Club, we do the Horsey 100 in May. And we have 2,000 people that come in to ride this and say it's one of the most beautiful centuries that they have ever done in their life. So we do have a lot of things to offer. It would be nice when we talk about preserving in the PDR, and as you said, lawyers get in the way of things, but it would be nice when we have properties that come on with the PDR if we could have some way work where they could be part of a trail system, that part of their farm could be used in parts of the whole community. Once again, it's kind of a pie-in-the-sky kind of dream, but it would be nice if the lands that we do bring on with PDR within could have some kind of activity that could be related to that, so we could use them as trails or for cycling or walking or whatever. but I don't know if that will ever happen. And that's one of the big issues because of lawyers and the way that the properties and how you can get dogs and horses and all those to work together. But I was sure we'd like to have it. Well, nothing's impossible, Councilman Ellinger. Before I leave, I would be remiss if I didn't recognize the contribution that Dean Scott Smith made in the legacy trail. I don't know if you all realize it or not, But to get a university research farm to allow a bicycle trail to go around their perimeter and through their farm and be able to get the research faculty happy with that, and you've got to give Scott Smith a lot of credit for that. And while we have him down here today, I just think we have to recognize him for that. As far as your PDR thing, that's something we can do, but it has to be done as far as connectivity. You know, one place here and one there. No, I'd like to see eventually that be connected. But still, if we have a trail where there's missing pieces, I think we can do that. And you're right. The Legacy Trail, I was on it two weeks ago with a group of about 12 of us riding bikes, and we all said the best thing that happened with the World Equestrian game was the Legacy Trail that left it here, that we have something that we can use for many years to come now, and it's a great addition in this community. There were a lot of people responsible for that, but it had to go through his and Nancy's farm. And you're right. The connectivity that came with that is really important. And I just wish we could go further north and further south, east and west, and really build upon it. There's no reason you can't. I agree. I'm all for it. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Frank, don't go away, please. I'm going to usurp everyone and ask a question myself personally because we're running out of time. I had heard, and I don't know where I heard this, that once upon a time there were 35 burly tobacco warehouses in Fayette County, and there are only three now, to give some idea of the shift that has taken place. Is that correct? Are those numbers correct? Well, you're off by one. There was 36. Oh, okay. That's a good guess. Great. It's an evolution of an agricultural product. The companies dealt direct with the farmers, and it happened before the buyout, but the buyout had a lot to do with that. We're still raising tobacco, and this coming year tobacco will be a very profitable crop because there's a short supply worldwide. But, you know, everybody talks about what's going to replace tobacco. Nothing's going to replace tobacco. Diversification, whether it be sport horse, whether it be vegetables, whether it be whatever, The thing we have in Fayette County that makes us unique is that nine miles of interstate 75 and 64 run together right through here. Our transportation network can be a boon place. If you want to do a processing facility, you've got a lot more access in Lexington than you do in Louisville. And so there's no reason that we can't be a regional vegetable producing here in Fayette County. A lot of possibilities. But it has to happen with the support and the knowledge of the people behind me. because agriculture today, there's a fundamental rule of agriculture. If you can't sell it, don't raise it. Just that simple. That makes sense. Thank you, Frank. Council Member Akers? I'll be quick. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Stennett and Ellinger both mentioned the decline in horse sales, and we've heard about potential proposals for casinos and gaming to save the horse tracks. So I just wonder what your thoughts are on that as it pertains to horse industry and agricultural industry. Well, certainly nothing in our analysis approached that kind of policy debate. And thinking from an economist's perspective, the issues lie more in the political arena than the economic arena. So unless our dean wants to, I suspect it not. Okay, thanks. Okay, Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. First, I want to thank all of you, Dean Smith and all of you from the College of Ag for being here and for presenting this to us. And I do think in answer to Councilmember Ellinger and his concerns, a commission which had the right people on it, the experts in the different fields. I'm talking equine people. I'm talking local food people. You know, those kinds of folks could really highlight for urban county government where we ought to be going. And I think we might be able to even help agriculture get a step ahead because they would be driving, you know, recommendations. I think that's why that is very important. So thank you all for being here. Thank you for having us. Council Member Stennett? Chair, I just want to remind you, I think we have public comment sheets in the back. I don't know if you have them. No, I do not have them. Mr. Mundy, was there none? No, we didn't have one. I checked early, but I didn't know whether somebody would come in. I beg your pardon? I signed up very early on. Again, we're on a short leaf here. I'm sorry. We need a little break, but at some point. I'm going to sit here and listen to this. Come on up. I'm sorry. I'm really angry. I'm not trying to do all that. I'm not going to be able to get hired. I'd like you to pass this, please, in this direction. I've still got mine at home. I hope you're ready. My name is Ralph Rochelle, and I'm here to maybe talk a little bit about the study that was done. And I am the author of the study. I'd first like to point out that it's obvious that eight out of nine people in the county are not involved in any way with the agricultural business. I'd like for everybody to look at what we've passed out here, if we could please, at the photograph. I'd like to read underneath there what the Lexington Herald-Leader put in the newspaper and said, According to the recent University of Kentucky report, The thoroughbred industry will not be a source of future employment or payroll tax revenue growth in Fayette County because it's a land of capital and not employee intensity. It's their report. You know, there's a saying that goes, you get what you pay for. Generally, you think of that if you buy it, you've got a pair of shoes falling off. It's because you bought cheap shoes. Well, you get what you pay for. When you go spend a lot of money on a report, you get what you want. And they have gotten that. Everybody loves the horse community, et cetera. I understand all that. Fact is, study after study shows that the farming industry in Fayette County is about 5% of our economy. Anyway, I wrote the editorial partially because of the outrageous amount of crime that it shows in it, and I hope that it is wrong. In fact, when I wrote the report to the Herald-Leader, I put in that they edited out that I hope that it is an error. But still, the report very clearly states that we have a very high poverty rate, that we have a high crime rate because of it. And for this gentleman to stand up here and to say that he's not aware of that is just not appropriate. Because on page 39, he writes, A substantially larger portion of the population, excuse me, Fair County has a slightly higher average household income, but a substantially larger portion of its population living below the poverty line. He acted as if this is a mistake. consistent with a higher poverty rate, I'm quoting, and this is what he wrote, is a relatively high crime rate. And to act as if this is a mistake in this report that he has made, is about, it's almost inconsciable. He had to have known that. I appreciate his candor and his truthfulness in the report. It is true that our manufacturing output in this county is one-third less than other counties our size in the United States. It leads to higher poverty, and it leads to higher crime. I'm sorry to have taken your time, and I know it's so late. I appreciate you having your patience to listen to me. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Schell. I will entertain a motion to adjourn. Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? You're shot if you say anything. Thank you. Thank you. 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