Today is Tuesday, June 18th, and it's 11 a.m. The first item on our agenda is the committee summary approval of May 28th. Is there a motion for approval? Second. Motion by Council Member Elliger. Second by Council Member Myers. Any discussion? All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. The motion carries. Next item on our agenda is the Senior Citizen Center update. I would like to ask and welcome CAO Sally Hamilton to come to the podium to provide an introduction. But just as a frame work for committee members and those watching, we've had some activity here recently in regards to the proposed Senior Citizen Center. Most recently in January and then again in February of this year, we've had consultants come to talk about the site selection process with the assumption that we would want to build a new state-of-the-art senior center. The fiscal year 2014 budget calls for an appropriation of $5 million to go towards the first phase of that construction. We'll have first reading of that budget again today. There's been an intervention in the interim, and Ms. Hamilton wants to provide us with an update. So Sally, welcome. Thank you very much. And to bring you up to date, the YMCA came in and visited with us, and they had a proposal. And that is their proposal about our new Senior Citizen Center that they would like to discuss today. We wanted to share this with you because at our other discussions about the Senior Citizen Center, some of you expressed a desire for multiple sites. This is a proposal that does talk about multiple sites. So we felt that what we needed to do here today is, before we start looking at property in earnest, that we need to sort of try on this concept with the council and see what the council thinks about this particular proposal. So today, Council Member Ford was nice enough to allow us to do this in Social Services Committee that should address the senior issues. So the Y would like to make the same presentation to the council committee that they made to the administration. and David I always want to say marinara like a sauce and it's not it's Italian it took me so long to get John Sheed's name right so Martinero and I'm sure that's nowhere near it but anyway David would like to discuss with you all today and the proposal please I'm so sorry thank you Sally and welcome David Thank you. To Chair Councilman Ford, thank you for the invitation. To Vice Mayor and members of Council, thank you for allowing the Y to be here today. It's our honor and privilege to share with you this partnership with you today. My name is David Martirano. I'm the new President and CEO of the YMCA of Central Kentucky and proudly to say that Lexington is home for the last five and a half months. And we have a great city and I'm glad to be part of that. You know, as the new CEO here, one of the first things that we do is evaluate all the services that the Y has and really looking to see how the Y can impact the community really moving forward and how the Y potentially can fulfill any needs that the city may have. And there were three things that really came to mind in my learning in the first five and a half months. One was focused around health, the other around education, and the other about the framework that we're going to discuss here today. So I thank you for that opportunity to allow me to share. Before I get started, I think it's important that we highlight and honor the work that's already been done on the Senior Center project. And specifically want to highlight Commissioner Mills for her work on the project. And then also in the Office of Aging Services, Christy Stambaugh for her work. Because of the work of those two individuals, that is why we are here today proposing this framework to all of you. So I wanted to start by thanking them for their hard work and dedication to our city. I also want to thank the Senior Services Commission for the work that they've done over the last series of months, year, in terms of their time and energy in preparing, really, the opportunity for our seniors moving forward. As you think about the partnership, and when you think about the partnership, I need you to think about really two questions. Is it good for our residents? And is it good for our city? And here on the overview document is just a little bit about where we are and maybe where we could go together. As we know, our senior center on Nicholasville Road is going to be in need of replacement. And to date, we as a city have been working on a single stand-alone site and have looked at multiple locations to potentially have that site. We also know that one of those sites is no longer a viable option for us moving forward. The Y, and since my arrival, we are also looking to expand our services moving forward, not only for seniors, but also investing capital long term, so we really service the community for the next decade or so. This is what we know. We know this based on all the research that our demographic is aging. Our aging baby boomers are getting to the point where these services will really be about them. With respect to our seniors of today, which we certainly honor and our programming is geared for them today, we also want to look ahead for the next 10 to 15 years in looking at what the aging boomer generation really would want to have. And we know based on research that the boomer generation will look for a more active, engaging model of programming in the future. So we put together a proposed partnership. Now, I will preface by saying that there's a lot of information in the details. And this is just to be a framework, an overview of potentially what it could look like. So I anticipate a lot of questions, but I at least want to share a little bit from our mindset what it could look like with the Y. So really for us, it's about expanding services and saving taxpayer dollars. And so we propose four geographic convenient locations at three of our existing Ys and our proposed new facility in the Hamburg area off of Old Rosebud Road. So if you think about it, the Beaumont Center and looking at the Y there, our primary demographic based on our primary market area, based on our current participants, really serve council districts 9, 10, 11, and 12. Our North Lexington family YMCA really serving districts 1 and 2. Our High Street serving districts 3 and 4. And we anticipate the future Hamburg facility really serving districts 5, 6, 7, and 8. So what could it look like? We proposed in our proposal that in lieu of the $15 million that's allocated, $5 million in this upcoming budget year and $10 million in the next budget year, that the Y would propose a capital outlay of $12 million, potentially saving the city $3 million along the way. The second bullet point I think is important because while not approved yet by the YMCA Board of Directors, we would anticipate bringing significant capital investment to the city for our portion of the new construction and the renovation of our existing Y's. And please let me share that. One thing that maybe is invisible to much of our city is that our YMCA is a major employer in town. We have 750 jobs that we currently serve, and we anticipate that with this future expansion and new YMCA, we're going to be adding an additional 250 jobs to our city. Now, all of our jobs aren't full-time. We realize that. We do have a handful of full-time jobs, but we also are a great part-time employer for retirees, also great part-time employment for really new entrants into the employee market, so really that first-time opportunity for somebody to work. We proposed the YWOOD Assume Operational Responsibility. And based on my background and experience in terms of building new facilities in three cities across our great nation, that I know it will increase the cost of the city. And I projected a number here of $350,000 to $500,000 annually in terms of increased costs to manage and operate that facility with the single standalone. loan. You know, we proposed picking up the operating costs, but we'd also be interested in exploring the option where the city provides the staffing and the programming. In either scenario, our hope would be that the Y would still have access to those facilities during the after-school and evening hour for Y programming for our residents. So benefits of the partnership. I reference the geographic location and really the savings to the citizens. You know, when you think about the four key sectors where the Y's would be located and the senior centers would be located, it would allow for easy, convenient access to all Fayette County senior residents. And I think that's the key point in this scenario is that it really is access for all. People will be close to where they live and play, and this will be a place for them to enjoy together with their neighbors. Additional benefits of the partnership, you know, sharing resources is important. We all know the budget challenges that all of us have, whether it's the city, the YMCA, or our individual businesses. We know that partnerships and sharing resources make sense, and this proposal certainly does that. I think combining the expertise of the staff that we have on staff with the city and with the Y, And I put in here the really forward-thinking, active, older, adult programs in the area. Well, my staff will tell you I really have no interest in being the best in the area. I have interest in being the best, period. So in our thinking in terms of the programming and the facility, we're going to be the best location that would be modeled throughout the country moving forward. You know, I think the programming that the Y can bring is a little bit unique. One of the advantages that we have in a variety of programs, volunteer opportunities, intergenerational opportunities, makes the Y a natural partner for this kind of work. One of the unique benefits of working with the Y and thinking about advanced healthy living program, which will benefit from the center's proximity to the Y, will also be the relationship that we have with St. Joe's Hospital and Kentucky One Health. So if some of our seniors have a more medically-based model for programming need, we will have the skill and expertise on-site at each one of our senior center locations to provide that programming as well. We talked a little bit about the accelerating the Hamburg campaign. You know, with a strong partner like LFUCG, the Hamburg Y will generate new interest and bring forward past and new supporters to the Y. So the Y as an organization has a rich history. We're one of the oldest organizations in the city. We're 160 years old. One of the uniquenesses of the Y is we ever change based on what the needs of the community are. One of the great things about this model is we wouldn't be the first, but we certainly will be the best, that there's other cities and YMCAs that have already done this work together. I'll highlight Oklahoma City, Minneapolis, Louisville, where they do an adult daycare model, have done good work in this area through partnerships. Our new Chief Operating Officer, Tricia Rayner, who is here today, just came from northern Kentucky and working with the elected officials in Boone County in terms of a joint partnership in providing a senior center at a Y there. While not perfect, there was a lot of great activity, and if you talk with elected officials in Boone County, they will tell you that is a great program, not only for the residents, for the county, and for the Y. So let's go to some of the conclusions. Based on this framework, we think there will be a savings of up to $3 million in taxpayer dollars, not to mention a potential sharing of the future capital outlay for any renovations of these four senior centers. We proposed an increase over the existing 15,000 square feet to anywhere from 20,000 to 40,000 square feet, depending on the needs and the demographics of the various communities. communities. We talked a little bit about the ongoing savings. And as I mentioned, the Y certainly would be interested in talking about a partnership where the city and the city employees can continue programming in the four senior centers. Our hope and desire would be that we would have access to that space for the after-school hours. It's about our residents and providing a high-level quality of service for them. At the end of the day, it's about our residents. And I think through this partnership framework, we can take care of our residents in probably the most impactful way in providing them opportunities in those four geographic locations. And it will allow the Y to expand its existing services, knowing that the Y is going to bring significant capital along the way, but then it's bringing jobs to the city as well. I'm talking about 250 additional jobs, probably focused primarily around those districts. So I started my presentation with sharing a little bit about honoring the work that's been done before us. And it's not lost on me that I'm sure our proposal here today may not be as positive to everybody, but I want to lead you back to that first question that I asked you to give consideration to. Is this good for our residents, and is it good for the city? We think it is. And so I'd ask that you give consideration to our framework. We know that a lot of questions will come out about this, And we know the devil is in the details. But know that you have a strong partner who has been here for 160 years and strong leadership who has done these types of partnerships in many other cities across the nation. So I thank you, Councilman Ford, for the invitation today. And I'll turn it to you. Thank you. David, thank you. Thank you for being here in this presentation. We're going to open the floor up to questions from committee members. We're fortunate today to also have members of council who aren't respective committee members, but you'll be welcome to chime in with questions and discussion as well. Okay. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Vice Mayor Gordon. I just said I'll be brave. I am not a member of this committee. So those of us who are not members won't vote on anything, but I do appreciate being allowed to speak. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, David. Thank you. I do have a few questions, and I think the time to jump in is probably now. You may or may not know I chaired the reinvigoration of the Senior Services Commission, and we have many members of the Senior Services Commission here who are interested in this issue. And so I just have some questions to maybe start out, and one of them is for our CAO. do I recall that we have one situation in which the government has paid for part of a building but doesn't own it that would be William Wells Brown Community Center do we have other examples of that that you know of I don't know I'd be interested and of course as you said Okay. David, you said the devil's in the details, and particularly with this. Are you aware that the current senior center program's still 5 o'clock? Yes, we are. We are looking. Oh, I'm sorry. No. So your proposal, and I think there's so many good things about this and so many other things that I have questions about. I mean, I think one of the attractive things is that this would be programming throughout the city. I think that's the immediate attraction. I was concerned that the programming would be estimated to be until 3 o'clock. Right. Can you speak to that? Sure. That would be basically a cut in hours. Yeah, we were looking at the actual programming piece itself, and the programming really ends, the last round of programming based on the information that we receive really ends at 2, but the senior center does remain open through 5 o'clock today. Correct. And so is available to the seniors for various activities. Correct. So your proposal would be that the center parts of these facilities would be open to seniors until 3? That's correct. Okay. And so in your view, would the construction of these extra spaces be jointly funded? Yes. Do you envision, and I realize a lot of this, there's no way to tell if we decided to get into the detail, would it be a 50-50 partnership from your viewpoint? While the Board of Directors of the Y has not made any approval or commitment to this point, we anticipate that it would be equal or greater. Has the Board seen this? Yes, they have. I'm sure they have. Yes, they have. And so have they approved it in concept? Officially approved it, no. No. However, there is a meeting tomorrow to have discussion surrounding it. Okay. Now, is this the YMCA Board of Central Kentucky? That's correct. We would be looking at it tomorrow. Okay. And so what do you envision for the kinds of programming in these extra square footage spaces? Yeah, I think we want to honor the programming that's happening today for our seniors of today, right? So carrying over the programming that's happening today in the existing senior center I think is important. I think one of the benefits that I didn't highlight in the presentation today was really about the opportunity to have limited access to the Y facilities for some programming. So let's say an agreed-upon schedule for aquatic programming may be an opportunity that we can bring to the table. You know, I didn't want to come to the table today with the full program plan. I think that would be developed with the seniors of today, with the staff of the city today. But certainly I think in this concept we need to look ahead in terms of what are the needs going to be of the aging boomer generation moving forward. Because really this decision is about the next 10 to 15 years. It's not necessarily today. Or 20. Or 25. Well, I may have other questions, but I will save them for now. But I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Kaye. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, David, for the presentation, and thanks to all the people who have given this some thought. As you've clearly stated, there are many questions that would need to be answered before we would make anything like a decision on this, but I'm highly encouraged by the presentation. I'm a long-time, I was going to say user. That's not the right word. Member. Thank you, David. David, a longtime member of the Y at High Street and have always valued the service that that performs for the community. This proposal, it seems to me, has the potential to be incredibly beneficial both to the Y and to the city. You've outlined some of the ways in which that could be true, and we all, I think, would look forward to seeing, of course, the details behind that. And short of asking specific questions, I am curious about the people who now have responsibility in the city, Commissioner Mills and other folks, and what their take has been on this preliminary proposal. Would that be possible to get a little bit of response? I just received a proposal last week. I wasn't involved in the discussion. So I got it last week and read through it. So I've got a lot of questions, too. Thank you. Thank you, David. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Kaye. Council Member Scutchfield. Thank you for coming today, and thank you, Chair. I have a couple of questions. As far as the seniors coming to use the Y facility, would there be costs that would be incurred by them? that they're not currently having at the Senior Center? Sure. In our proposal and in our mind, there would be a separate entrance into the Senior Center. So those services that are provided today would be provided free of charge in the existing Senior Center space located at the Y. One of the benefits, to Councilman Kay's point, is one of the benefits is there potentially will be a group of seniors who never had exposure to the other things that the Y also does in terms of health and wellness and aquatic programming that may be interested in purchasing services at the Y. So that is one of the benefits to us potentially in this relationship. A couple other questions. We have several employees that are obviously housed at the current senior center. Would this proposal include having their offices moved to one of the Y facilities? We certainly can make that part of the plan, yes. the question I think really in my proposal was the Y potentially could do the operating, but the city certainly could do the operating as well of the programming. And, you know, I think the question is in the design of the square footage and what are the amenities of the senior centers. And then I know that our facility currently is open until 5. Commissioner Mills, you may be able to answer this better. or how many people do we have come in between that 2 and 5? Or, Christy, are you able to answer that? Okay. The question is, how many seniors do we have come into the center, usually after that 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock time? Well, usually after the 2 and 3 o'clock time in the evening. It depends on the activities. typically we have, oh, generally around 50 people. It depends, again, on the activity. Now, if it's on Tuesdays or Thursdays, typically on Thursdays, if we have the Ali Farm, we could have over 100 people in the building. And then thank you very much. And my final question is, in the other cities that have done this, you mentioned Louisville, I think Minneapolis. Did the city continue to operate their own facility in any of those situations, or was it completely wrapped into the why? I don't have the full details on all the partnerships, but I can certainly provide that to the council. I think that would be good for us to see what exactly has been done in some of the other cities. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member. Next is Council Member Akers. Thank you, Chair. Hi, David. Good morning. Thank you for this presentation. I have some content questions, but I guess my first question is, how did this conversation come to be, and how was it initiated, and why wasn't the Commissioner of Social Services involved from the very beginning of the conversation, first of all? That's a good question. And maybe that's a question for Sally. I'm not sure. I'm making friends. I'm going to say what I think. What I think the situation was was the why I came in and approached the mayor's office about this particular proposal. I also was not in that particular meeting, which is not unusual. We can't be in every meeting. Then there was a second meeting held, and I was in that particular meeting. And what that meeting was was to just simply hear this again and ask any kind of questions. The Commissioner of Social Services was not in the meeting at that particular time. And I can honestly say that I wanted to break this news to Beth. I knew Beth would be totally opposed to this, just hitting her cold with it. I mean, I'm being honest. So I wanted to talk to her about that. So after this particular meeting, Beth and I did talk, And I showed her the proposal, and we talked about just listening and hearing and talking about all kinds of aspects of this, because this is a big change from what Beth does at her normal thing. And I didn't want to put her in a room in which everybody said, hey, Beth, what do you think about this? So that's the reason. Okay. So, David, you mentioned that this has been implemented in other cities, and I think you said Oklahoma, Minneapolis, Louisville, and northern Kentucky. In other cities, did it eliminate the primary senior citizen services? I'm not sure I understand your question. Provided by the government. Did it eliminate the staff? It's my understanding that this proposal would eliminate the need for a single senior citizen center like we have now, correct? That's correct. So did that happen as well in the other cities that you mentioned? I will gather all the information that was requested from Councilman. Okay. Yeah. I think that on paper it makes sense and that we should consider expanding and partnering in some capacity, but the decision or discussion to eliminate our existing center or the need for a new center, I think, is definitely yet to be determined. Like everyone has mentioned, there are certainly lots of questions. Commissioner Mills, I don't want to put you on the spot. If you don't want to answer now, we can... On the spot. After reviewing it last week, what was your initial thought or opinion? I have always been a proponent of a focal point for senior services. I have, I make no mistake, I have been a hub-and-spoke kind of person. We have satellites now. I think when you have older people in a community, they need a singular spot to identify, and there needs to be, it's more than recreation. We provide transportation. We provide meals. We have social services. And on the face of it, like you say, in the details, we might work that out with a while. I also have a concern. We sometimes have meetings of over 200 people. If we have four 10,000-square-foot facilities, where are we going to do that? Also, when people move to Lexington or their parent gets older, if we don't have a complement, we've always had a lot of service providers in our center. And people know to call the senior center to find out about home care, to find out about the nursing home ombudsman's there. Meals on Wheels has been there. So my concern is how do you keep that and have satellite centers? You know, we do have three satellite centers now. One of them has meals. One of them does not. Two of them do not. And, frankly, we've had a hard time getting Charles Young off the ground because we don't have enough congregate meals to serve meals there. So all those things came to my mind immediately. I would love to partner with the Y because they are experts in recreation. But it's how do we do it, and are we going to get away from a large center model and go to only satellite models? So that's kind of my opinion on this. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Akers. Next is Council Member Lane. Thank you, Chairman. Commissioner, while you're out there, can I just follow up with a question? I was looking at page 24 of the overhead presentation about the participants by the numbers, and it indicates 129 average daily attendance. Is that for just the senior citizens facility on Nicholasville Road, or is that all of the... Nicholasville Road only. We're not collecting data at the other ones. Okay. And then the unique users are 780, so you have 780 people that come on a somewhat regular basis. That have registered as to be participants. That's correct. All right. I thought that was an interesting statistic because I would have thought maybe there would be more users than that. Do you feel that if you had more satellites, then there would be more users coming because the commute in is an issue? More satellites were a bigger building. And the thing is, the aging population is growing. So the numbers, just by demographic, should grow. But we had been in an era before the boom happened where there weren't as many seniors got to be born to get old. Right. But I would think it would grow just because of the projected population. Well, if, say, it was decided that we would join venture with the YMCA, I guess my question is, Would you be in favor of like a pilot program rather than try to do a whole, all of them at one time, maybe just do one location, do a test on it, see how it worked out, and then if there were any issues that came up, we could tweak the program, and then if it was successful, expand it? Because, you know, I sort of like the idea of having multiple locations and partnering with the Y, but there are other issues that you brought up that we need to be concerned about. You know, it's like you say, it could be a combination of things. I think the issue right now is we have capital on the table, and we need to decide what we're going to do with it. And I don't mean to scream that it's urgent, but our center is really, the physical plan over there is bad. I mean, it is really bad, and it's very overcrowded. One reason we're stuck at this many people, we've kind of quit advertising the center, because there are days you go in there, and it's so many people in there in the dining room or in the exercise class, we can't accommodate more people comfortably. So we really haven't grown it. So, yes, I'm fine with comparing, but I do want to let you all know that time is of the essence in our mind because that building has been – we patched this ceiling this year rather than put a new ceiling on it. When it rains, it drips. So, you know, we need to do something. So I'm not saying a pilot may work, but I just think that when we come back with a budget in place, we need to start really thinking about how we're going to move forward. Well, as you know, I represent the 12th District, and that's about as far away from the Nicholsville Road location of any of the districts in the county. So I sort of like the idea of having multiple locations. Maybe the pilot site ought to be over at Hamburg if we decide to do that. That would be an area where we don't really have a lot of service, I suppose. That could be a possibility. I think that's all I really have to say. Thank you for your comments on that. Thanks, Council Member Lane. Next is Council Member Stenet. Thank you, Chair. Dave, I was going to ask about the timeline. As the commissioner stated, we don't have a lot of time to wait. We've been waiting long enough to improve our current facility, and my goal in our discussions the last four months on our new senior center was to get it done fast because we waited way too long. What is your time frame? And looking at four sites, pretty ambitious to do all at once, But what are your thoughts on a time frame and order in which you would build those sites? Yeah, well, this hasn't been discussed at our Y board. It has been discussed with our board chair. So I will share that discussion. It's being recorded, but I won't hope to. And Tom is here today. So thank you, Tom. We kind of view it as the Beaumont in the north facility would be first out of the ground, quickly followed by Hamburg. and then I think really the question long term from the YMCA organizational standpoint is, what are we going to do long term with the High Street Y? And we're exploring that capital review right now. We just don't know what the long term viability is of the existing facility. We should know probably in the next six to eight months of what our future holds for High Street. But the other three, we believe we can get rolling fairly quickly and get them going. And you have land at the Beaumont and at the north side, enough land to build a 20,000 to 40,000 square foot facility right next door? Say that square footage again. 20 to 40? A total of 20 to 40 in all four, yes. Well, and that's where my problem lies. I think a 10,000 square foot facility is not adequate, not our visioning, not what we're trying to do. I think right now we're proposing one mega facility for approximately 45,000. I think when you get to 4,000,000, I think it's diluted what we're really trying to do. I would like to see it bigger, the 20,000 square foot at a minimum range, to allow us to appropriate the right program in on each of those facilities. Maybe not do four. Maybe there's room to do two in this deal. I'm just trying to be fair to what our current vision is and also trying to think outside the box is a good thing. So I appreciate your thoughts and comments on that. But I think that's where my issue lies is the smaller facilities at 10,000 square feet, I don't think, gets it done. Now, I do like the aquatics. I think if we don't include aquatics as part of our new senior center, I think we're missing the boat in the future. I really do. If we don't include activities for exercise, I tell you what, our seniors are one of our biggest parts of our population that exercise daily. I think we're missing the boat if we don't include that in a new facility. And I do think after looking at this issue the last four months, two facilities make more sense in our community at this point than one big megacenter, based on exactly what Councilman Relain said. Trying to find the perfect spot in our city is a hard thing to do with one facility. But with two, it gives us operationally closer to a lot more seniors. And splitting it up four, that's a bit ambitious. But I look forward to the open dialogue. I appreciate you bringing the council an opportunity to think outside the box. I know we've put money towards the Hamburg Y facility. I know you're still putting that in your savings account and you're still holding on to that. So we have made an investment already towards the Y. So this will be an opportunity to make additional investments going forward. I do have one last question on your hours. I'm sure you'd be agreeable maybe to look and expand them until 5 o'clock. I don't think that's set in stone at 3. I think that's in the details, yes. Right. And then capital campaign. In order to get something like this accomplished, you all, why, will have to undergo an extensive capital campaign. How prepared are you to be able to do that, and what do you already have in the bank that would assist your efforts starting off with? The Beaumont and the North NY. Yeah, I'm not prepared today to share all that information because our board has yet to approve kind of what I'm thinking in terms of our capital outlay. But we're very prepared, Councilman Stenna, to get going. Do you have a ballpark? nothing I'm able to share today. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Stenet. Next is Council Member Beer. Thank you, Chair. David, when you try to blend two entities together, there's a positive to that, and there also is some problems that occur. A them versus us kind of a thing can creep into it. and oversight questions about who controls who and who's doing what to who and when. Would you speak to that a little bit, if you would? Sure. Any partnership that you have, there's challenges. I think the good news on this front is a respected partner like the Y, who has been here for 160 years, who has been a very good partner over the years, who's a well-respected organization within our community, We care about the community. We want what's in the best interest for our seniors here. So I think that's what sets us apart, Councilman Beard, compared to some other organizations potentially to partnership with. Yeah, there's always difficulties along the way, but you have an organization like the Y who's willing to work on those details and to have open dialogue and communication with the city to make it work. I got another question. You referenced, and I don't know whether you meant to do this, but it sounded like it anyway, that there was allocation of seniors within districts to different, in the fourth district, which is my district, it extends well beyond Manowar, from the University of Kentucky to Manowar. and the high street is not a solution for those folks at all in fact the high street is probably not a solution for a whole lot of people because of the parking situation but that's right um so and you all still get your finger on the idea of doing something maybe with the high street one way or the other or replacing or going somewhere else or and I don't want a firm answer of all of the above I would guess that's certainly what we're exploring yeah okay thank you very much thank you thank you chair thanks councilmember beer next is councilmember Clark thank you chair I'm not a member of this committee either David but I have fortunately been granted permission to speak. So I have several questions and several comments. One of the problems of our previous discussion about the center, a new center, is where it's located. And of course I have the benefit of that because it's either in or close to my district. But I still understand the problem of location which of course is important. having said that the the idea of of multiple sites is probably something that to be seriously considered i'll start with that let you know how i feel about that here's my problem i'm concerned in the first place i'm concerned about not having lexington senior citizen center That bothers me simply because it's something we ought to be providing as a city. And if the Y can take that role, then perhaps that's the way to go. I'm also concerned about the fact that even though there may be some way to share responsibilities, I am concerned about the city not having the control over how we deal with our senior citizens and how we provide for them. And I think that's a major question that has to be answered in the discussion that follows. I was also concerned about the space. And would you clarify to me how much space each of the four sites would have just in general? Sure. In the partnership framework that we provided, we listed between 5,000 and 10,000 square feet. And in my proposed partnership framework, it was really about, based on the demographics within that geographic area, would dictate the square footage. But I've also heard back from various council members that they would like to have an equal representation throughout the city. So I think that's to be determined. Okay, so do you think 5,000 square feet is enough for the kind of activities that we're providing now? I think the question is looking at the demographics to ensure that we have the capacity to serve the seniors not only of today but for tomorrow. Okay. There are two comments in your presentation. One says basic programming and the other says high-level service. and it seems like those two kind of compete with one another. Basic service is certainly not high-level service. So can you explain the dichotomy there, David? Sure. What we were trying to portray in that sentence of basic service was continuing the programming that we have today. But the question is, what are we going to add for the future for the baby boomer generation down the line? That's what that's referring. And does this high-level service assume that the seniors would have to pay additional to receive high-level service? Not within the senior centers, no. No, I think the question moving forward is what are the needs and what are the interests of the boomer generation moving forward? So over the next 10, 15, 25 years to Vice Mayor's point, what are the programs going to need to look like for the seniors of tomorrow? But you are providing opportunities for them to increase the activities by joining the Y or adding additional services? They will certainly have that option, yes, which they have today. The Vice Mayor brought this up, and I'm having some problem of the possibility of the city giving the Y $12 million and not owning anything for it. I mean, we have no stake in the facilities then and only in the programming. So I guess there is precedent, but that seems a little strange to me. I'm new at this, David. Do you understand? And also you used the term renovation slash expansion, and how does that work in these various sundry sites? Sure. In the partnership framework, it discusses either renovating or building new facilities or relocating of Y services that would be in the proposed senior center space. One thing that we know we need to provide in this whole scenario is easy accessibility to parking, a separate entrance, so it needs to be convenient and accessible for our seniors today. at one of our facilities, that would mean relocation of existing Y services to a new portion of the facility or in addition to an existing facility so we could relocate those services so the seniors could have that prime up front location. Okay, good. Thank you. And I know things that go on now in the center, there are various activities going on at the same time, And I was wondering if a 5,000-square-foot facility would allow us to have various activities going on at the same time, which I know is obviously important because seniors don't just come for one activity. Sure. They'll come for several. So, again, the space is a question for me. Yeah, I think that's our learning from our work in Cincinnati and northern Kentucky. That center is 3,200, 3,500 square feet. We think it's undersized to do what you just referenced, to have multiple programming going on at one time to service more seniors. So that's why we proposed the 5,000 to 10,000 square feet. We think that's not too big, but big enough to certainly service the needs long term. Got you. One question I would have is how do you divide? One of the things that seniors have now is a facility that's their own. There's not a mixed use of any kind. It's basically seniors and people like them. In a Y environment, obviously you've got everything from small children to all ages of adults, and then mixing that with seniors. How would that affect the attractiveness of the facility as you would grow it? Sure. I think one of the benefits that the Y would bring is the opportunity for seniors to stay only with seniors or if they have the interest to, let's say, volunteer with some of our youth programs and have that volunteer opportunity and engagement through the intergenerational program. That's one of the uniquenesses of our partnership is we have the entire demographic of our community at bay. However, if a senior does not want to really intermix with that demographic, but they certainly can stay in the senior center alone and just stay with the seniors. It's one of the uniquenesses of the model and a good piece of the model. And finally, do you think there is a possibility of having a senior citizen center of our own, so to speak, and a satellite center that would be run by the Y with our involvement? In other words, dual places like North or Hamburg and a senior citizen center, which perhaps might be on the other end of town. Is that a possibility? I think it's a possibility, and we certainly could explore it. Personally speaking, I don't know if it's in the best interest of our residents, and that's just my opinion, Harry. Would you be comfortable if Lexington ran the centers? Certainly. Thank you, David. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Clark. Next is Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Martinero. Did I get close? Martinero? Council Member Myers, you're good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming in today. And I've got a couple questions for you and then also for the Commissioner. Let me start with the Commissioner, please. Currently, there's 10,000 baby boomers retiring per day across the United States. And I know with all the work that you've done, you probably have some census numbers on what our population is currently and how ours is anticipated to grow. Yes, Christy Stamball has a presentation, if we have time today, which will give you an update on all of that. Excellent. And also by the zip codes in Fayette County. Excellent. Okay, so my thinking is that 10,000 square foot is not going to work. It's just not going to. As a satellite it would, but not as a central center. Right. Right. So my question for everybody listening, because I don't know who really to direct this to because you haven't pushed this through your board yet, I think I would like to look at the feasibility, if we do this, that we do two of the satellites, maybe Northside and Beaumont, simultaneously to start, because we still have to take care of our current seniors and we can't wait any longer. But long term, I still wonder if we shouldn't keep the current center open. The current center would take a lot of money to be fixed up. We could look at that. But if we keep the center on Nicholasville Road, it is only 17,000 square foot. That was one of my questions. So is it 15 or 17? It's in that neighborhood. So it would, and it needs major renovations. That's an option, but that's something else we would have to look at. It's not very big either. I was thinking it was a lot, like twice that size. So, okay. Okay. Intergenerational services, you talked about that just at the end. I would need to know more about the timeline, how quickly you can get at least two of them off the ground. How soon do you think we either need to take this current senior citizen center offline and replace it with something, or... It's overdue. And I say that seriously. We've got serious problems, operational problems out there now because of the facility. And that's what I'm trying to understand, because we all know it's overdue and all those things. But what I'm getting to is, is it to the point where this building almost needs to be shut down, so we have to have something in place? That's another problem. What's going to happen to the folks who are going there currently if there's not a transition? They're going to have to stay there while we do another one. If we renovate that one, I don't know where people will. I've got some of the seniors here that come. I don't know where they would go while we renovate it. The other thing that's on the table that we haven't discussed is if we dispose of that property, it is our property. It's worth some money, too, if we're looking at budgets. So I just think the money is in next year's budget, and we need to come to some kind of decision. And that's jointly, of course, with council and mayor. But, Commissioner, that's exactly what I'm trying to get to. The decision has to be made on what we're going to do with that building and what we're going to do to support our seniors, even if we do this other partnership, because it's going to take some time to build these other facilities. So we have to do something to take care of them at any time. I think we have to start one place, and then you could grow to the next place. My preference would be to go ahead and build a larger center that people can use. We have three satellites now. What's going to happen to those? We have Charles Young, we have the Bell House, and we have the Elder Crafters at Black and Williams. But we could add a fourth satellite to those three with a Y, you know, money and time permitting. But, you know, I would like to partner with a Y. They have expertise in fitness. They have expertise in facilities we don't. Could we contract with them? Could they be a partner with us? I still think we need a large location, though. I agree. For the community to know that it's there, to continue wide programming, and to have a space where we can convene more than 100 seniors at times because it happens. And I guess I think there might be a motion that comes forth, and I'm going to support that motion. But in closing, I would say that, you know, if you look at communities, our communities build on the backs of our seniors. I mean, they're the ones that built Lexington and now are in a different season in life. It's the government's responsibility. It's everybody who lives here's responsibility to make sure that we take care of them. And while I appreciate the why and they've been here for over 100 years and they are a solid partner and they've got an excellent tradition and all those things, I still think it's the government's responsibility. The other question that comes forth and moving forward, if I might speak to this, is we are a partner with the Title III of the Older Americans Act. Celeste is here. She's the director from the Area Agency on Aging. There are certain things you have to have to be a Title III site. And this year, we'll be in Christy's presentation. I hope we have time because she can kind of show you the way our model is now, which would help you think about this way. We get over $100,000 from them. We overmatch because the city supports our senior center. However, some of the rural counties were not able to meet the units of service which are required. So we got three budget amendments from them this year, and we got additional money from the ADD because we are doing more services than the other services in the county. So you've got to think about those federal programs also that marry into the senior center. Recreation is part of it, but it's not all of it. And I think my time is up, but I'm going to say I support looking into this further, but I still think the government needs to have a senior citizen center that's the big overall center. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Council Member Myers. Council Member Lawless. Thank you, and I appreciate all the very good questions and all the work that everybody's done, the Y, the Senior Citizen Volunteers, the Senior Citizen Center, et cetera. And it seems to me that this, I'm all for having more, I think we also need to have our own Senior Citizen Center, But I think having more smaller satellites, because Fayette County is so large, and it isn't easy to get around in many parts of town. And that's a real barrier to a lot of senior citizens who drive, but drive cautiously and don't drive in risky areas, such as where our current Senior Citizen Center is located. So I'm wondering if there could be, like Council Member Myers and others have said, kind of a pilot ease into this. But I also know that the YMCA and other communities has done some pretty good things, and I think even take Medicare and Medicaid for some of their services, which I don't know that those are available in our current senior citizens programs. but also looking at the activities that are enjoyed by so many for entertainment and a sense of community and being able to get out and get together. So that being said, I think looking into what kind of partnerships we might be able to have with the Y. But, again, it's hard to phase in and out, and we do need to make some kinds of decisions. So thank you very much for all your work to all involved. Thank you, Council Member Lawless. Committee members, I would like to chime in from the chair for just a moment. David, thank you for your presentation. As you can see, it has generated a lot of discussion amongst the council members. Just about everybody has offered an opinion, and we do have some council members who also wish to speak again. David, if you could come forward, and then I'll ask Sally or Beth to be prepared. I think timing is of the essence. I want to acknowledge that a lot of work prior to this discussion has gone into this effort. I think that this is something that the Council has long anticipated to the benefit of the seniors in our community. I understand that this conversation dates back to 2002, if not beyond that time frame. And I really agree with what, particularly what Council Member Myers indicated about having a stand-alone center. However, we welcome you to town in your new leadership role at the Y in bringing us something to help us think out of the box. As I mentioned earlier, as we got started, not looking back at the past decade, but here just recently, in the last year or so, we've contracted with a consultant to the tune of $28,000, and their job was to help us identify a site. and their last presentation to Council was on February 26th of this year. And so in the interim and heretofore, I believe it's safe to say that Council was anticipating some kind of report back in regards to the status of the site selection process. It was asked earlier, but could you give us a definitive time frame for when the proposal of the YMCA was presented to Mayor Gray's administration? If you could give us an approximate time frame for when that discussion and how recurring those discussions have been, I think in honesty would be helpful for us. Sure, certainly. The concept was introduced on the Leadership Omaha visit through Commerce Lexington. in an informal setting and i believe a few of our council members were there for that conversation where i introduced the concept that very next day we put the partnership framework in writing and sent that over to the mayor's office and then to sally's point we had the one meeting in her office which was on may 29th so this person in the leadership trip i i wasn't Some of us went. I didn't attend, but that was basically early May. Is that correct? Middle, early May. Early, second week in May. Something like that. So that's when this discussion started in earnest. I fault not the YMCA for bringing us a proposal. I think, however, that we have an obligation to a certain extent to carry forth with the plans that we've had going so far. And being with time is of the essence, I really think that it's prudent on us to move forward. Absent concrete and definitive plans which would prove themselves to be more beneficial to this process of building a senior center. Let me quickly talk about partnerships. Thank you, David. If somebody from social services could talk, do partnerships exist now between our senior center and the YMCA in regards to recreational and therapeutic? What we're talking about is a major shift in transferring that program into the YFCA. Let's talk about what exists now because that's a good indicator of what may happen in the future. Let's talk now, Christy. Sure, sure. So currently the seniors through Parks and Recreation have access to the pool at the north side. Years ago we had access to the Beaumont Y, the High Y, and the North Y. I think, and Martha Duncan's here with Parks and Recreation, I think we systematically decided to not utilize the High Street Y because of access issues. It's a fine pool and it's a fine facility, but for our seniors, there are steps that they needed to get to to get to the pool. So for a while we were in the North Side and the Beaumont Y doing water fitness classes four days a week, and it's currently how many days, Martha? And in the location at the Piccadone Pool, we have outdoor water fitness that our fitness instructors teach. It's the Parks and Recreation fitness instructor that teaches at both the north side Y and outside at our thing. Therapeutic Recreation, I used to be in charge of that. And we started doing water activity in the warm water pool at Beaumont. good gravy, maybe in 2002. We slowly had difficulties. The Y is a great partner, and they've been good, but their usage got very high, and so we were bumped out of the warm water pool into the cooler water pool, and our access to time and space slowly diminished over the years in that agreement, and it's because they're very busy. Right, and Kristen, let me, because my time is up, let me just ask this. So we have a history of partnership with the Y in regards to shared resources of their facilities, but is it fair to say that that has diminished here in recent years? That is true. Due to their demands for their customer base? That's correct. Okay. Thank you, Christy. Council members, we still have three council members that have signed up. If you will oblige me just very quickly to a comment that I'd like to make and then I'll turn the conversation back over to the committee. Vice Mayor Gordon and Council Member Clark have talked about precedent that this government has set. The William Wells Brown Community Center, I think, serves as an example of a partnership that this government took in working with an outside entity for a capital construction project. We provided funds, I think $3 million, somewhere in that area, to go towards the construction and expansion of that school. At the end of the day, Fayette County Public Schools own that facility, and they have not hesitated to remind us of that from time to time when it comes to shared usage and programming. I think it's working well, but the understanding is that they own the facility. That accountability plays in part. Not to be such a closed mind, and I will not bring this as a motion right now because it might be slightly premature, but what I would say, and I'm in the chair right now, so committee members, if you're amenable to this, maybe somebody else may bring this back. I would encourage for urban county government to proceed in its plans to build a centralized, state-of-the-art senior citizen center because it's what's been promised. It was part of the platform of Mayor Gray's fresh start plan, and it's what our seniors deserve. However, if the YMCA is still interested in a partnership, perhaps there may be an opportunity for us to explore in earnest a satellite component, perhaps at a Hamburg, a facility that's yet to be built. But I don't think we should abandon our focus, and we should remain focused on being in that state-of-the-art senior center. Thank you, Council members, for your indulgence. back to the list with Council Member Akers. Thank you, Chair. First, I would like to state for the record, in speaking with my colleagues that did attend the Omaha trip, none of us were involved in any conversations about replacing our central center with partnership with the YMCA. So while that may have happened, I think it may have been with the mayor's staff and not with council. Secondly, I would like to say that I actually do fully support this public and private collaboration and it's actually something that we learned a lot about and talked a lot about on the Commerce Lexington trip. I think that it's beneficial to the government. I think it's beneficial to the citizens. So I think we should definitely pursue it. I do not, however, support eliminating the Central Center and I think that we are kind of already down the road in that plan and so I think that we should continue the site selection and the money is in the budget, and it's a little late in the game to change course, I think, right now. I do think this is a smart proposal. I think it would be beneficial to the seniors in our city and would be a great supplement to what our senior services are already providing and would support looking at how we might partner at a couple of our YMCA centers. So, Chair, I guess I would like to make a motion that we continue the plan that has already been initiated with the Central Senior Citizen Center and that this committee would further study partnering with the YMCA at some of their centers such as Beaumont, Hamburg, or North Lexington. Thank you, Council Member Akers. There is a motion on the floor. Is there a second? Second. Second by Council Member Myers. Is there a discussion? And I will restate the motion per my understanding, Council Member Akers. is for the government to proceed in its plans to build a centralized, to construct a new centralized senior citizen center, but to also for the Social Services Committee to continue to explore future opportunities to partner with the YMCA on satellites, et cetera. Discussion to the motion. Council Member Stenning. Thank you, Chair. Well, I appreciate the attempt to keep us on track, and I know time is of the essence. But also what's important here is make sure we do this right. Make sure we look at every avenue, because we owe it to our seniors to get it right. To say we're already down a path we can't change is not true. But I guess before we have this motion, I'd like to hear what is the current plan, because this council hadn't heard a word since February. So what is our current plan? Yeah. We've had some preliminary discussion on site location, but we haven't talked about programming, what's going to be in the new building. So we don't have a true plan right now, or at least this committee hasn't been presented with a plan. Sally. Yes, sir. Since the presentation in February, I think those sites have narrowed. We talked about three sites at that time. We talked about the fourth one also at Continental when we added. The spring site, to my knowledge, in my last conversation, which was recently, is no longer in play. So basically we were getting ready now to move to our next step, which we talked about being the RFP and looking at coming back to you all with a site in closed session that we would want to concentrate on. And as David has said, then this proposal surfaced. And when I met on May 29th, we just figured that before we came back here and talked, we needed to see what everybody's thoughts were because, and I guess if I can have just a moment to say one thing, if we proceed with the senior citizen center, the one senior citizen center, whether it be at the McGalpin site or wherever. The question is, if we're looking at any satellites, how big do we get at that particular center? We talked about 45,000 square feet. Now, I'm coming back in my mind to think of that one center, possible satellite centers, and how much bonding authority we have at this moment. I mean, it all comes back to the funds. So I don't know, sir. Did I answer? Well, you hit my nail on the head on the point. I don't think we have a plan. I think we still need to have that discussion before we endorse moving down a path that we're still not clear on. I think there's some counselors that still want two sites regardless. I think it's clear that the committee does today want to continue programming a senior center going forward. We don't want to turn programming over. I think we're all up here almost in agreement of that aspect, that we want to have a Lexington Government Senior Citizen Center. Now, where the location is and what's going to be housed there and how many, I think we still need to have that conversation. I think it's a little more premature than we're being led to believe today. So we need to have that conversation, Commissioner. If we're ready to go on closed session today, we need to do that. So we can have a clearer path as to what direction, and whether we entertain the wise proposal or not, that would weigh heavily if we already are down a certain path for most of us to make a final decision. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Sinek. Committee members, prior to the motion, we had Council Members that were signed up. So I'm going to – Council Member Gordon, are you speaking to the motion? Okay. Council Member Lane, are you speaking to the motion? So we'll come back to you guys. I believe Council Member Cave wishes to speak to the motion. Thank you, Chair. I guess a couple of things. First, it seems to me legitimate questions have been raised about who would control the programs, who would own the buildings, what the scale of these buildings would be, what the time frame would be for going forward, and about whether a central location is really the right thing or not, or two locations or whatever. If I had not been in Council and heard the conversation when the consultants presented their report, I would say a central location is a really great idea. But what I heard from Council members is that only if the central location was central for their constituents did it make sense. And maybe if we have two, then we have two places where it makes sense. I'm not convinced that a central location is still required in this community at this time, given the size of the community and given access issues. But if we kind of take the central location question off the table for the moment, it seems to me that those other questions should be addressed. We should give the why and the administration the opportunity to address that set of issues. Is there a way to come back with a proposal that meets those concerns? And so, given my interest in having that happen, I'm going to vote against the motion at this time. I think we just need to be thinking about this more. This seems to me too good a possible opportunity to take off the table at this time. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member K. Is there any further discussion to the motion? Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. and listening to the previous two council members discuss the motion, I would say this. The reason why I seconded this motion and why I think it's so important is precisely what Council Member Sennett said, is we don't have a plan. That's the problem. The questions that I was asking of the commissioner, I was trying to get to the shelf life of this building. How long before we have to poop or get off the pot? Excuse my French. And it sounds like to me we're getting there very rapidly. And so I think the spirit of this motion was rather than get derailed on, are we going to do satellites, how many, when, what's the timeline, when this hasn't even gone through their board yet, and I don't know what's going to happen. I'm sure that you've got enough support to make the presentation so it's not going to get shot down. But still then the issue becomes timeline. How quickly can you get these on board? That, to me, is our dilemma. And so that plus I also believe that we have to maintain our own senior citizen center as a government. We have to, in my opinion. So to me, the motion is apropos because we need to continue in that vein. What is the site going to be? I don't think that I heard all the council members saying a central location is only good if it's to their constituents. I think we're really saying what's the best location for the majority of the constituents. I think what we need to do is get that ironed out and move forward with that site, because that has to happen regardless. It can probably be done in a way that the two satellites at Northside and Beaumont make sense to also do at the same time. Of course, that's dependent on your board and a whole lot of other things, and we can't really get into that yet. But that's why I support the motion. I think we need to move forward with where our site is going to be for the government's senior citizen center. And if it's scaled back to 30,000 square feet instead of 40 or 45, that's perfect. And then we still have room to do 15,000, 20,000 square foot satellites at those other two locations. But I think there's a lot more seniors here that need and will participate in the services if we provide the facilities. It's clear they're retiring. It's clear they're here. They may be fortunate to go to Florida in the wintertime, but they're going to be here in the summertime. And I think if we build the facilities, they will use them. and then it's going to be perfect. But I believe we have to move forward with nailing down the location for our permanent government social services center. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Myers. Is there further discussion to the motion? Council Member Beard. Thank you, Chair. This is one of these ready, fire, aim deals, as I see it. I wish we had more data, let's put it that way. And maybe you do have it, but we don't see it. And I think we need to actually do surveys and find out in depth what the people utilize and where they come from and age, if you can pry that out of them. We have that. You probably have some of that, but we need to see that. We need to get a feel for, in my mind, a feel for what that data is so that we can make decisions with the data. And I'm looking now at, the Vice Mayor's got the zip code information, But within any given zip code, it needs to be granulated a bit more than the way I see it. The participants from the senior program. Christy, feel free to come on up, Christy. I have from the Area Agency on Aging, we report our statistics to them. And so I have my zip code and those that have participated at the senior center from fiscal year 2012. And I have it broken down by zip code and how many users came to the current location for fiscal year 12. And I'll gladly share that with you in any format you'd like. What about asking them if there's any other things that might interest them? We regularly do that. In fact, as you know, last week was senior intern week. And at our alumni luncheon, we had more than 200 seniors who had completed the senior intern program throughout the past 29 years. And I did a survey. Of course, I haven't aggregated that data yet on a Tuesday. But I have a stack. And one of the questions we asked is, what is your greatest challenge as you age? And I'm very eager to get that data. And the other is, what is it that you're looking for in the future for a senior center? So that's a huge population of people who have used the city services sometime in their past. And I probably have 170 responses, but I haven't aggregated that data yet. So we regularly ask. We regularly poll. We have some of our members here. So that's some information. We've not asked them about this new opportunity. Can that be compiled for our glance at it anyway? Absolutely. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Beard. Is there further discussion? I just want to add to restate the motion by Council Member Akers, seconded by Council Member Myers, is to proceed with the construction of a new senior citizen center and to continue with discussions with the YMCA on other possibilities of satellite programming. Anyway, my discussion on that is I want to give a very brief timeline, as I've already alluded to. Council Member Senate is correct. We may not have a definitive plan, but we have some assumptions that have been provided to this council. Again, the consultants began their work last August. and in January and February, and it's been since February since those consultants stood at that podium and talked about site selections. In April, the mayor brought us forth a budget that called for $5 million to acquire land and to finish the design on a new senior citizen center. In the interim of that was the Omaha trip and the discussion that we're having today. we're going to give first reading to the budget this afternoon, but I think the reason I say that is up until now, the plan has been to build a new center. Estimated at $15 million, $5 million to come this year. So I'll support Council Member Acre's motion. Committee, are you guys ready for a vote? All in favor, signify by saying aye. And recording electronically, all in favor. All in favor signify by saying no. Has everybody logged in? The motion passes 6 to 4. Going back to discussion from the committee, Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just had two more comments. as a senior citizen who's not in a different season of life yet, to add to the debate. Back to Council Member Meyer's questions about the current senior center, one of the other major, I guess we would say, problems that has been discussed with it that was not mentioned here is the traffic flow problem. It is a very big challenge for the seniors who use our current center. And if you've ever been over at that center and tried to get in and out of the parking lot, especially during a rush hour, it's nearly impossible, not only for seniors but for anyone. And then the other point I wanted to take to something you said, David, was that the Senior Services Commission, which has talked about the Senior Center for a long time, actually had a presentation probably last year from the Learning Center. And I think the principal is Ron Chee. Is that correct? Do you know Ron? This is a nontraditional school, and these young folks actually came and gave us their PowerPoint presentation of how they would like to see a senior citizen center incorporated with activities for multigenerational folks. And so while some people want to segregate and isolate seniors, there's a huge number of folks who want to have intergenerational programming in a senior citizen center. And that model is in this country now. And so I would just simply put that out as something that's already been discussed and already gained a lot of footing for something that young folks and older folks both want, the multi-generational programming. So thank you, Mr. Chair. This has been a good discussion. Thank you, Vice Mayor Gordon. Council Member Lane. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just had a couple of thoughts. If approximately 11,000 people in Fayette County are seniors, that would be about 34,000 people. So that's quite a few people in Fayette County that would be eligible for a senior program. I think it would be beneficial if we had a researcher actually do a survey of the seniors in Fayette County and ask them what type of center they would like to have, whether they'd rather have it more of a neighborhood center or more of a central center, so that we could really find out what the seniors prefer to have, whether they want to be multi-generational or more of just seniors-only facility, because then we could design the facilities that meet the needs of our citizens. The other thought that I have, and I strongly concur again with Council Member Stenet, But we do not have a plan. And I have said this year after year as I've been a council member. It's one thing to say we're going to invest some money and build a building, but you have to have an operational plan to figure out how you're going to staff it, what is the utility cost, maintenance, repairs. There's all kinds of cost programming, expenses, promotion. And we do not have a business plan for this. So when the council votes to spend a chunk of money to build a building, and we don't even have a budget to operate it into the future, then we're making an investment without knowing what it's going to cost. So I think that before I want to vote on a new center, I'd like to know not only what the capital cost will be, but what will be the long-term operating expenses. And I think that if we had, you know, where we're operating it ourselves and we're operating with the why that we could even compare the financial expense to the taxpayers. And I think that's an important issue that we need to take a look at. So having said that, I strongly support the senior citizen facility. I may be using it sooner than I am planning. So we do need to get moving, and time is our enemy. Thank you. Thanks, Council Member Lane. Council Member Stenet. Thank you, Chair. Just to follow up on a couple of the questions in regards to numbers and surveys, Christy, I know you're going to present next on some senior numbers, but is there not a way to put on LFUCG or LexingtonKY.gov a survey for all the citizens to participate in very easily? It's been there. It's been there for quite some time. We started a survey. When we did Ask Lexington, which was an initiative we started a year and a half ago, we had community conversations, not just with seniors, but with everybody. And we asked what kind of community they wanted to live in. And one of the emerging themes was senior programming. So what we did is we had 366 participants face-to-face in these conversations. And so I have all of that data, as well as we did a survey. Every time we do a health fair or an outreach event, we do surveys and have those circulated. I have the data collected. I have it aggregated, but I probably only have a sampling of 160-some plus whatever I just gathered. But there is a survey. It's on our website, I think now, and it's been there for quite some time. We need a way to put it on front and center, though. Yes, absolutely. I'll work with Dottie Bean and the PIO's office. Get it out there and get it on front and center page and get more people access. I think one of the reasons why the current center is not as popular is because we're at our capacity. We're not marketing it as much as we could because we just can't handle the volume growth. That's correct. On your chart, I don't see 40505 zip code on here, but I'll tell you why you probably don't have enough participation. One is location. This is the north end of Lexington that I represent. And second, I've asked three neighborhood meetings out there, three. One of them had 75 seniors in it. You don't know how many people even knew where it was? Three. Right. So I think that's an issue. I think we're not getting the message out enough, but I think, if anything, we can learn the data that you are collecting in-house is valuable. I think that's very valuable. But if you look at it, the concentration is going to be people that live around there. It's easier access for them, shorter drive. So I think that spells the case for even more of what the WISE proposed in terms of more locations. I think we really need to cross our location issue off the list. ASAP and Commissioner, if we can do it today, let's have that conversation today, next Tuesday, before this council leaves on summer break. We need to make that determination if it's one, two, or entertain the WISE proposal. But I think we need to get that done. Sure. Because you mentioned it and because we inadvertently didn't get the information from GIS when we got the first census data, for 40505, we have 26,219 seniors, and 57 people come from that zip code and actively participate at the senior center in fiscal year 2012. Yeah, I appreciate you mentioning that. Sure. But I think those numbers are low because we can get it up higher. I'm sure we could. We just got to be a bigger center, more accessible. I know you need it quick. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Sinek. Council Member Sinek brought up the point of the urgency. Just to remind everybody, this is just a 10-member committee of the entire Council, and we're lucky to have a few extras today. But Council Member Sinek, if a discussion pursues later on this afternoon, that may be in order. Council Member Clark. Thank you, Chair. I understand why a plan is important, and I agree. I think that's very important. And even though we haven't seen a plan, I want to remind everyone that we're not reinventing the wheel here because we have a senior citizen center now that has a plan. And so consequently, we're not going to start from scratch. So it's not like we don't have a plan. We do have things that are going on right now that are going to be transposed to a new center no matter how it exists. So I just want to remind everybody of that. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Clark. Commissioner Mills, could you come to the podium? Sure. Could you invite Mr. Wright to the podium as well? Yes. This segues exactly to what Council Member Clark just mentioned, and I think that we've expressed here today our confidence in what you guys do at the Senior Citizen Center. appreciative of the why coming forward. And early in David's comments, he acknowledged the success at the Senior Center. Beth, how long has the Senior Citizen Center been out on Nicholasville Road? It opened in May of 1983. Who was the director that opened it? I was the director. Okay. And I hired Mr. Wright, which was one of the best hires I ever made when I was the director of adult services. And, Sean, how long have you been the director out at the Senior Center? Ten years. Ten years. So, again, I think Council Member Clark is exactly right. I appreciate the committee. Thank you, guys. Thank you, guys. And thank you, David. Appreciate the committee's attention for the last 90 minutes on this topic, and we will quickly get this information forwarded to the entire council. Next on our agenda, I want to invite Christy, if you would, on pages 19 through 32 of your packet, we have an update from the Office of Aiding Services and Disability Support, and Christy Stambaugh will provide that for us. Christy, you can take it away. Thank you. Thanks for the time. And this is a general update, and it was because we just learned of the proposal last week, so it was kind of what we had planned to do anyways. And so if we'll move forward. I learned how to use this last week, I think. All right, so we already talked about the zip codes, and I inadvertently left off 40505, and we've already kind of discussed that, but here's the data for you. And then because my office also takes care of persons with disabilities, that's the purpose of this slide, but what we know is that 65% of seniors age 65 and older have a disability. Because they're a senior doesn't mean they have a disability, but there is certainly a higher incidence. My office also takes care of services and opportunities for people throughout the city who may have a disability and need access to services. So we're very much into both persons who are aging with a disability and persons who have a disability and are not yet over 60 years old. And Beth mentioned this too, that there are four senior satellite centers. We have the main center at Nicholasville Road. We have the Bell House, which is operated by Parks and Recreation. The Elder Crafters Program, which is at the Black and Williams Center. We just expanded that program to include the nutrition site participants all in our space. So we're actually, we went from 800 square feet now for our seniors there, and we have just about 3,000 square feet, but it's in four different rooms. So we still are a little limited as to what we can do. When we have an exercise program over there, which is every Thursday morning with support from the health department, we have about 35 seniors, and that's as many as will fit in the biggest room that we have available to us at the Black & Williams Center. The Lexington Senior Center, of course, and the Charles Young Center. This is our newest satellite center. We started programming late October. Our biggest class and our biggest participation there is yoga tai chi. Early on, it was crafts. We've offered horseshoes. We've offered Wii. We've offered bingo. We're really struggling to get our seniors out to the Charles Young Center, so I hope that they soon find us. We've reached out to the churches in the area. We're in every newsletter. The Neighborhood Association's been really good. Billy was here earlier about helping us get the word out at Charles Young. It's a part-time program site. It's only open Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 9 until 1, and we don't have access to the nutrition site or the new meal, which probably is somewhat detrimental. At Elder Crafters, the nutrition site is located there as well. Here's our hours of operation. And the thing that I would like to mention since our last part is that we also have seniors who utilize the building after hours. We afford, as part of our mission statement, and opportunities for senior groups to utilize the facility free of charge after hours. So there's the silent seniors group, the lost cords group, the DAB used to meet there, the National Association of Retired Federal Workers have regular meeting there, either during our work time or after hours. We also have partners that are located in our facility, the nursing home ombudsman, Meals on Wheels, the Community Action Partnership, which does the nutrition site. They all have space and offices within our four walls. Information and assistance is something that we provide so much of that doesn't get recorded in our really fancy new data collection system. So the numbers that I report as part of the Senior Center, these are the activity numbers. These are the people who walk through our door and engage in a formalized activity or service. What is not indicated here is those that my social workers are seeing, those that they're talking to over the phone. We report units of service to the Area Agency on Aging, and those are like advocacy, counseling, information and assistance, health promotion activities. and generally we're reporting about 3,500 units of service. And a unit could be an encounter or it could be a series of encounters. But my social workers probably, or Sean and I's social workers, probably are dealing with at least 175 to 200 different seniors every month, helping them with something, housing guides, Medicare Part D enrollment. The new persons that are turning 65 have so many questions about, now what do I do? How do I handle this Medicare maze? We have family members like myself who might call them and say, my mom is aging. How do I talk to her about giving up her keys? How do I talk to her about moving into assisted living or a higher level of care? What is it that we can do? Or mom got out of the hospital and I need to get somebody to stay with her and keep her safe. So our social workers are talking to numerous, numerous people every single day. Those numbers are not reported in this. These numbers are just through my senior center, our data collection program. Here's my contact information. One of the other programs, which is a collaboration with the Bluegrass Area Agency on Aging, this was a program that we created a couple years ago in response to so many seniors needing employment services. What we were finding is many of the seniors were calling and saying, I need a job, I'm 65, I'm 70 years old, do you know of any place? Or we were getting people who were maybe newly widowed, and their husband or wife passed away, and that partner took care of so many things in the household, and they didn't know how to do certain things. I mean, Sean gets called to people's houses to change light bulbs and ceiling fans. And so there's things like that that people need help with. So we created, along with the Bluegrass Area Agency on Aging, the Bluegrass Help at Home Registry. This is an online resource where a person who's looking to supplement their income can create a profile and put themselves out there to be of assistance for money. And it's where we can refer our clients to a list where they might find somebody who could mow their grass or sit with their mother or I have a client that regularly uses it. She's a person who's blind, and she likes when she's got a little extra money. She needs help going to the grocery, vacuuming her house, reading through her mail. The senior intern program, you all met our wonderful senior interns, and three of them are here today. I'm so excited to see them again. So we had 37 graduate from the class of 2013, and Chuck's been a big part of the senior intern program. Next year, just wait, because we'll be celebrating our 30th year. In 2011, we won the Kentucky League of Cities Enterprise Cities Award, and while it came with $1,000, it gave us bigger bragging rights, which made us very proud. It's a great program. Again, I have so much data that I need to aggregate from the feedback from that group of seniors. We get a lot of demographics from them as well. A senior minute. This is a project of the Senior Services Commission. Did you know that if you go to WKYT's website and you click on Better Living, there's a website dedicated to seniors that the Senior Services Commission, which is part of us, has created. What we have is online support. We have a video of information that's very important to seniors based on, like, scams or how to keep yourself safe, carbon monoxide poisoning, how to enroll in benefits, things like that. we've been taping now, and Mina's on our committee, she's here, and we've been taping, I think we've been on air 35 times. Our goal is to have 52 sessions that will keep going out. On WKYT at 5.30 on Fridays, they do a shout-out about a senior topic, and they'll say, and for more information on this, please visit our website at Senior Minute. So these appeared on, and Rocky, well, Rocky was here, These were on the city buses. This very poster was on the city bus. It was also on billboards located out through the city, and this was a project of the Senior Services Commission. I'm lucky enough just to be the staff support on that. Here are some things that our office does that our staff are very involved in. The Grandparents Conference. I think right now 2,400 seniors in the Lexington community are raising their grandchildren. That means they're custodial grandparents. and our next conference is March 20th. We have on average 400 attendees at this one-day conference. The I Know Expo, we did a presentation recently about that. That was a caregiver conference, and our last one was April this year, so we've already scheduled for 2014. Meeting the Challenges and Opportunities of Aging is a one-day conference. We celebrated our 30th year of this conference. It's one day, four concurrent sessions, and our primary consumer is our seniors, and they come to learn various things about memory or gardening or dance. Older Americans Month is every May of 2014, so our seniors and our staff are exceedingly busy in May, and then the Senior Intern Program. There are so many other projects that my staff is working on that I'm working on, but this is the highlight. We always have volunteer opportunities, and the Senior Services Commission meets the first Friday of every month at 8.30 at the Bluegrass Area Agency on Aging. They've been our hosts since the beginning. The meeting goes for about an hour and a half, and we have committees. We encourage the community to join us and work on committees. They are the communication committee, the livable communities committee, and the town hall committee. We deliver commodities, another program, out of the Lexington Senior Center. I think we're delivering 79 boxes of food. We also got farmer's market vouchers, which has been a great addition to those who receive commodities where they can take this voucher of, I think it's $20 or $25, go down to the farmer's market and get fresh produce to supplement their monthly groceries or their grocery bill. And a project that the Commission for Citizens with Disabilities that I'm also on is working on is Where Not to Park. We're trying to educate our community on not to park where a handicap accessible vehicle needs to drop their lift, where the little slash lines are in the parking. So this is a campaign that will come back to you all as we look at changing ordinances and trying to do some enforcement to help the citizens in our community who use mobility devices or who have some mobility impairments so that they have easy access to all of the stores, facilities, and government entities. Any questions? I think that was the fastest I've ever gone. You did with a few minutes to spare, Chrissy. Good job. Good. Yay. Council Member Akers has a question. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Christy. I love all the information and statistics, and I agree with Council Member Sennett that I think that we could be serving more. The total number of seniors in the community is what? 28,000 to 30,000. And we're serving, it says on page 24 of our packet, I'm not sure which slide, where you have all of your numbers. I guess this was last year, 2012, that you had 870 unique users. Yeah, now we're up to 996 unique users. That was data from March 26th of 2011 to today. And so the numbers keep going up. Like last month, we signed on 21 new senior members. They come in and they fill out a form so that we know who they are and what needs they may have. Our social workers take this form. They'll look at the nutrition risk, if a person only eats alone, if they don't have hot meals every day, things like that. If they need assistance with personal care, are they having difficulty showering, are they having difficulty doing things like this. So every application, our social workers review these, make contact with that new member, and see if there's any additional services that we might provide to them. Again, we're not doing outreach because we don't want to, we only have six toilets. I mean, this is my thing is we have six potties, and we have 140 people in the building at any given time, and it's just not enough. You don't want to sell something that you can't really deliver on. Okay. Okay. I mean, I fully agree with that. Your senior minute that you mentioned I think is excellent outreach in providing information. And so I wonder, has that ever been shared on GTV? Yeah, GTV3 has the links, and we worked hard with GTV3 and WKYT. And I don't know where they're housed, Chris. We run them occasionally. They run the segments occasionally as part of Lexington Now. Okay. I think a lot of our seniors watch GTV. That's exactly right. I was just saying that's free airtime that we could use and to reach a lot of people without the expense of KYT, or maybe that's free for them as well. Exactly. And KYT donates their services to us. They give us the studio time. They edit the tapes. They put everything up there, and they're not charging us anything. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Council Member Akers. Are there additional questions from the committee? Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Ms. Sambal, for your presentation. And I would just say that what you need to do now is just start to bring three or four busloads of seniors down here, sit in the room, and remind us that it's time to start building. Laura, will you guys do that for us? I mean, I think things have been studied enough. We have a senior citizen center now. We need to build a new building. We can move forward with the partnerships, but we've got to maintain our own, and time is of the essence. So I would bring them in here and start packing the room out and get us to vote to move forward. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Council Member Myers. Christy, I appreciate the presentation, and thank you for what you guys do for the seniors in our community. Thank you. Thanks for supporting us. You're welcome. Last item on our agenda, Council Members, is page 33, items referred to committee. You see the items listed there. I think everybody can agree that these items perhaps ought to stay in committee and we'll revisit those at the appropriate time. Does anybody have a desire to remove an item from committee? I think is the appropriate question. Seeing none, we'll keep those in the committee. The next meeting of this committee is August 27th at 11 a.m. Is there a motion to adjourn? There's been a motion in second. All in favor signify by saying aye. We stand adjourned. Thank you.