# Urban County Council Work Session - August 13, 2013 > Auto-transcribed civic record · August 13, 2013 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/3082 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/3082?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2013-08-13 - **Last revised**: July 15, 2026 - **Length**: 14,870 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government held a meeting on August 13, 2013, at 3:00 p.m. in the Council Chamber, 2nd Floor Government Center, presided over by Mayor Gray. The meeting included nine agenda items covering a range of municipal business, with 44 motions and votes taken throughout the session. Three public comments were heard during the meeting, including remarks on both agenda and non-agenda issues. The council approved several items including requested rezonings, a summary document, budget amendments, and new business matters. The meeting also included informational presentations and reports from continuing business, council members, and the mayor. ## Attendance **Present:** Chuck Ellinger, Steve Kay, Shevawn Akers, Diane Lawless, Julian Beard, Bill Farmer, Kevin Stinnett, Jennifer Scutchfield, George Myers, Jennifer Mossotti, Harry Clarke, Peggy Henson, and Ed Lane. **Absent:** Linda Gorton. **Late:** None. ## Votes and Decisions The meeting included 47 motions, all of which passed. Most votes were conducted by voice vote, with one roll call vote. **Closed Sessions and Procedural Motions** The body went into closed session pursuant to KRS 61.810(1)(f) for discussion of employee discipline or dismissal [timestamp: 0:00:00], moved by Chuck Ellinger and seconded by George Myers. A motion to return from closed session followed, moved by Chuck Ellinger and seconded by Shevawn Akers [timestamp: 0:00:00]. Later, the body entered closed session pursuant to KRS 61.810(1)(b) for discussion of acquisition or sale of real property [timestamp: 0:09:03], moved by Chuck Ellinger and seconded by George Myers, and subsequently returned from that session [timestamp: 0:09:03]. **Rezoning and Planning Decisions** Multiple motions to approve dockets of requested rezonings passed [timestamps: 0:09:03, 0:18:57, 0:19:29, 0:20:33]. A motion to refer ZOTA 2012-9 amendments to articles 1, 8, and 12 for modifications to the B1 zone back to the Planning Commission for further consideration of material changes passed [timestamp: 0:09:03], moved by Bill Farmer and seconded by Steve Kay. **Roll Call Vote** One motion required a roll call vote: a motion to commit to create a minimum of one standalone site for a senior citizens' center owned and maintained by LFUCG and explore additional satellite partnerships [timestamp: 0:09:03], moved by George Myers and seconded by Chuck Ellinger. This passed 13-1, with votes in favor from Chuck Ellinger, Steve Kay, Shevawn Akers, Diane Lawless, Julian Beard, Bill Farmer, Kevin Stinnett, Jennifer Scutchfield, George Myers, Jennifer Mossotti, Harry Clarke, Peggy Henson, and Ed Lane. Ed Lane voted against the motion. **Budget and Tax Rate Decisions** Multiple motions set tax rates and fees, including the general services fund tax rates at prior year rates [timestamp: 1:41:42], health tax rate at 0.28 [timestamp: 1:43:22], conservation and soil rate at 0.0005 [timestamp: 1:43:54], extension real property rate at 0.0034 [timestamp: 1:45:10], and extension personal property rate at 0.0038 [timestamp: 1:45:41]. The street cleaning rate was amended from 0.0094 to 0.0097 [timestamp: 1:49:56] and subsequently approved [timestamp: 1:52:09]. A motion to substitute the streetlight tax rate to 0.019 per $100 of assessed value passed [timestamp: 1:55:26], moved by Ed Lane and seconded by Julian Beard. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting addressed 35 financial items including contracts, grants, amendments, and operational agreements. **Contracts and Service Agreements** The city approved several service contracts totaling significant expenditures: - Installation and activation of an alarm system at the Property and Evidence Annex with Sonitrol of Lexington, Inc. for $1,508 (L0785-13) - Use of Henry Clay High School track for the Hershey Track Meet with Fayette County Board of Education for $174 (L0793-13) - Roof repair change order with Kalkreuth Roofing and Sheet Metal for the Senior Citizen's Center for $3,945 (L0818-13) - Street Sales Drug Enforcement Project prosecutor services agreement with Fayette County Commonwealth Attorney's Office for $59,920 (L0824-13) - Roots and Heritage Festival sponsorship with Roots and Heritage Festival, Inc., for $35,415 (L0827-13) - Emergency Notification System service continuation with Dialogic Communications Corporation for $31,330 (L0829-13) - Enhanced 911 services with NeuStar Inc. for $3,200 (L0830-13) - Roland Avenue Stream Bank Stabilization change order with Todd Johnson Contracting for $26,428.96 (L0832-13) - Administrative office space lease amendment with WINMAR Corporation for $130,690.84 (L0833-13) - Animal control services with Lexington-Fayette Animal Care and Control, LLC, for $1,105,980 (L0835-13) - Mobility office marketing campaign with Group CJ, LLP, for $44,400 (L0836-13) - Secondary digester blend tank demolition with Pace Contracting for $30,000 (L0840-13) - HVAC and piping repair change order with Triton Services, Inc., for $6,801.00 (L0841-13) - Remedial Measures Plans project management change order with Hazen and Sawyer, PSC, for $144,145.95 (L0843-13) **Grants and Donations** The city accepted grants and donations: - Television donation from Lexington Fayette County Health Department valued at $500 (L0813-13) - Waste tire disposal/recycling award from Kentucky Division of Waste Management for $3,000 (L0823-13) - Wolf Run Watershed Based Plan implementation funds from Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet for $300,000 (L0837-13) - Local Food Coordinator Project support from Bluegrass Community Foundation for $57,601.74 (L0853-13) **Amendments and No-Cost Actions** Multiple amendments and agreements with no budgetary impact were approved, including memoranda of understanding, property transactions, ordinance amendments, and operational extensions. ## Public Comment Three speakers addressed the board during the public comment period. **Mr. Mundy** [timestamp: 0:09:03] Mr. Mundy signed up to speak on public comment issues on the agenda, though no further remarks were recorded. **Greg Johnson – Conservation District Funding Request** [timestamp: 1:03:06] Greg Johnson, a supervisor on the Fayette County Conservation District Board, presented a two-page flyer outlining the district's responsibilities and requested a rate increase. Johnson asked that the rate be increased from $0.0004 to $0.0005 to address rising costs, including equipment rental, administrative programs, and state-mandated fees. **Nick Carter – Extension District Funding Request** [timestamp: 1:07:15] Nick Carter, the Extension Agent for Agriculture, spoke regarding the Fayette County Extension District's funding needs. Carter explained that the district requires a rate increase due to federal and state funding cuts. He noted that the district faces $24,000 in one-time expenses and ongoing costs for facility upgrades and maintenance. ## Contested Items **Streetlight Funding Model** Council members were divided on how to fund streetlights, with disagreement centered on three potential approaches: a property tax increase, a franchise fee increase, or a hybrid model combining elements of both. The debate reflected broader concerns about fairness and equity in how costs would be distributed across the community. Council members raised concerns about the impact on tenants and non-property owners, questioning whether a property tax increase would unfairly shift the financial burden to renters and others without property ownership. The discussion also addressed long-term sustainability, with members weighing the implications of each funding approach for future municipal finances. The split vote indicated that council members could not reach consensus on which method best balanced fiscal responsibility with equitable cost distribution. **Public Hearing for ZOTA 2012-9 Amendments** A heated discussion arose regarding the approval process for zone change amendments under ZOTA 2012-9. Councilmember Farmer expressed significant concern about moving forward with approving a zone change without conducting a public hearing first. Farmer specifically noted the controversy surrounding the Fritz property and pointed out that despite the absence of formal objectors on record, the proposed zone change would have substantial impacts that warranted public input. Farmer's position emphasized the importance of following proper procedural requirements and ensuring community members had an opportunity to be heard on a matter with significant consequences. This disagreement centered on process and transparency rather than the merits of the zone change itself, highlighting tension between expediting approvals and maintaining adequate public participation in land use decisions. ## Public Comment - Issues on Agenda [timestamp: 00:09:03] Council members invited the public to provide comment on issues appearing on the agenda. Mr. Mundy signed up to speak during this portion of the meeting. No further remarks were recorded beyond his participation. ## Requested Rezonings/Docket Approval [timestamp: 00:11:16] The Council approved the docket of requested rezonings during this agenda item. Key speakers included Ed Lane, Steve Kay, Julian Beard, and Bill Farmer. The Council took action on several matters: * Approved motions to place multiple ordinances on the docket for the August 15, 2013 Council Meeting * Approved a motion to refer ZOTA 2012-9 amendments back to the Planning Commission for further consideration The item was approved by the Council. ## Approval of Summary The summary of the July 2, 2013 Council Work Session was presented for approval [timestamp: 00:21:03]. Vice Mayor Gordon and George Myers were the key speakers on this agenda item. The summary was approved without discussion. **Outcome:** Approved ## Budget Amendments Budget amendments were discussed and approved during this agenda item. [timestamp: 0:23:17] **Key Speakers** Vice Mayor Gordon, Bill Farmer, and Charlie Martin participated in the discussion. **Amendment Approved** A motion was approved to change the amount in item DD from $144,145.95 to $1,444,145.95. **Rationale** The administration explained that the change was necessary due to contractual language that required a change order rather than an amendment to address the adjustment. **Outcome** The budget amendments were approved. ## New Business During the New Business section of the meeting, two main items were addressed and approved. **Local Food Coordinator Project** A motion was made to table the Local Food Coordinator Project to allow additional time to resolve grant funding issues. This motion was approved by the body. **TIF Establishment for Summit Lexington Development Area** A motion to approve the establishment of a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district for the Summit Lexington Development Area was also approved during this section. Key speakers contributing to the discussion of these items included Steve Kay, Jennifer Sadi, and Julian Beard. Both new business items resulted in approved outcomes. [timestamp: 0:26:37] ## Continuing Business/Presentations [timestamp: 0:36:46] Three presentations were delivered during this portion of the meeting by Melissa Lueker, Bill O'Mara, Greg Johnson, and Nick Carter. **Neighborhood Development Funds** A presentation was given on Neighborhood Development Funds, though specific details of the discussion were not provided in the available materials. **Economic Development Committee Summary** An Economic Development Committee Summary was presented to the body, providing an update on economic development activities and initiatives. **Ad Valorem Options** The most detailed presentation covered Ad Valorem Options, which included a comprehensive analysis of property tax rate options. The presentation examined funding mechanisms across three categories: * General services * Special districts * Urban services A key recommendation emerged from this analysis regarding streetlight funding. The presenters recommended that streetlight funding be supported through a franchise fee increase rather than other available mechanisms. The Ad Valorem Options presentation provided the council with detailed information on various property tax rate scenarios and their implications for municipal services and revenue generation. **Outcome** This agenda item was informational in nature, with no formal action or vote recorded. The presentations were intended to provide the council with analysis and recommendations to inform future decision-making on funding mechanisms and service delivery options. ## Council Reports No discussion or report was presented on Council Reports during this meeting. ## Mayor's Report No report was presented by the Mayor during this agenda item. ## Public Comment - Issues Not on Agenda No public comment was recorded on issues not on the agenda during this meeting. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed: Motion to go into closed session pursuant to KRS 61.810(1)(f) for discussion of employee discipline or dismissal - **Motion** — passed: Motion to return from closed session - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve the docket of requested rezonings - **Motion** — passed: Motion to add to the NDF list an allocation to the Community Relations Board of Federal Correctional Institution in the amount of $450 - **Motion** — passed: Motion to place on the docket for the July 9, 2013 Council Meeting a resolution authorizing the Mayor and the Commissioner of Finance to execute a Master Development Agreement for the Phoenix Park/Courthouse Project with Centrepointe Parking Company, LLC and its affiliates - **Motion** — passed: Motion to place on the docket for the July 9, 2013 Council Meeting a resolution expressing support for H.R. 2570, the 'Valley View Ferry Preservation Act of 2013' - **Motion** — passed: Motion to place on the docket for the July 9, 2013 Council Meeting a resolution authorizing the Mayor to execute Change Order No. 3 to the contract with Triton Services, Inc., for HVAC and piping repair for the Phoenix Building, increasing the contract price by $2,075.00 - **Motion** — passed: Motion to place on the docket for the July 9, 2013 Council Meeting a resolution requesting the President of the Kentucky Senate and the Speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives to refer the business practices of area development districts to the Program Review and Investigation Committee - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve the summary of the July 2, 2013 Council Work Session - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve budget amendments - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve new business - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve the NDF list - **Motion** — passed: Motion to refer ZOTA 2012-9 amendments to articles 1, 8, and 12 for modifications to the B1 zone back to the Planning Commission for further consideration of material changes - **Motion** — passed: Motion to accept what is in the FY2014 budget from the July 11, 2013 COW - **Motion** — passed (13-1): Motion to commit to create a minimum of one standalone site for a senior citizens’ center owned and maintained by LFUCG and explore additional satellite partnerships - **Motion** — passed: Motion to go into closed session pursuant to KRS 61.810(1)(b) for discussion of acquisition or sale of real property - **Motion** — passed: Motion to return from closed session - **Motion** — passed: Motion to adjourn - **0845-13** — passed: Motion to place on the docket for the August 15, 2013 Council Meeting an ordinance without a public hearing - **Motion** — passed: Motion to place on the docket for the August 15, 2013 Council Meeting a resolution authorizing the Mayor to execute an agreement with Lazy 8 Stock Farm for a pilot project providing fresh produce and meat at the Government Center - **0839-13** — passed: Motion to place on the docket for the August 15, 2013 Council Meeting the first reading of an ordinance without a public hearing - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve the docket of requested rezonings - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve the docket of requested rezonings - **Motion** — passed: Motion to place on the docket for the August 15, 2013 Council Meeting a resolution authorizing the Division of Traffic Engineering to install multiway stop controls at Clearwater Way and Ridgewater Drive - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve the docket of requested rezonings - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve the summary of the July 2, 2013 Council Work Session - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve budget amendments - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve new business - **Motion** — passed: Motion to change the amount in item DD from $144,145.95 to $1,444,145.95 - **0853-13** — passed: Motion to table authorization to accept award of funds for the Local Food Coordinator Project to provide additional time to resolve grant funding issues - **0844-13** — passed: Motion to approve the establishment of a TIF for the Summit Lexington Development Area and to execute the Local Participation Agreement - **0851-13** — passed: Motion to approve the transfer of a portion of public right-of-way to the adjacent property owner at 1324 Camden Avenue - **0852-13** — passed: Motion to approve the Residential Parking Permit District for Miller Street per the recommendation of the Lexington & Fayette County Parking Authority - **Motion** — passed: Motion to set the general services fund tax rates at the prior year rates (option 1) - **Motion** — passed: Motion to set the health tax rate at 0.28 (current rate) - **Motion** — passed: Motion to set the conservation and soil rate at 0.0005 - **Motion** — passed: Motion to set the extension real property rate at 0.0034 - **Motion** — passed: Motion to set the extension personal property rate at 0.0038 - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve the refuse collection rate at the prior year rate (option 1) - **Motion** — passed: Motion to amend the street cleaning rate from 0.0094 to 0.0097 - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve the street cleaning rate at 0.0097 - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve the public service company rate at 0.092 - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve the suggested approach to fund streetlights by eliminating the property tax and adopting them as a general fund obligation with a 5% franchise fee - **Motion** — passed: Motion to substitute the streetlight tax rate to 0.019 per $100 of assessed value --- ## Full transcript Association, do not delay, contact away, UAHPA, UAHPA. Thank you. We went to Denver. Thank you. All right. Meredith. Yeah. Greetings, everyone, and welcome to the work session. And, of course, welcome Council back from break, but certainly not back to work, because as many of you know, Council members are always at work. There are neighborhood meetings and there are other meetings that go along despite being on break. All right. First on our agenda is the public comment issues on the agenda. Is Mr. Mundy, has anybody signed up? Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. And next on our agenda is any rezoning motions and docket approvals. So are there any motions? If you'll please sign up. All right. Council members. Thank you, Mayor, and welcome back as well. I move the place on the docket for the August 15th Council Meeting and Resolution approving the Fayette County Sheriff's Settlement 2012 taxes and granting the sheriff a quietus. So I move. Second. Motion by Council Member Stenet, second by Vice Mayor Gordon. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing none, we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you, Mayor. And then I also have a motion to place on the docket for the August 15th council meeting a reimbursement resolution for the FY 2014 bond projects. So moved. Second. Motion by Council Member Stenich. Second by Council Member Scutchfield. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing none, then we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you, Mayor. All right. Any other motions? Council Member Lane. Thank you, Mayor. I would like to put on the docket for the August 15th, the ordinance 0845-13, without a public hearing. So move. Motion by Council Member Lane, second by Council Member Scotchfield. Is there any discussion on the motion? It might be worthwhile just for the balance of the council that it's the intention of the applicant to come to that meeting and withdraw that issue from consideration. But that was the advice of the Planning Department on how to handle that. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Council Member Lane. Any further discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing none, we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Council Member Kaye. Thank you, Mayor. I move to place on the docket for the August 15, 2013 Council meeting a resolution authorizing the Mayor to execute an agreement with Lazy 8 Stock Farm to provide fresh produce, meat, and other related items at the Government Center as part of a pilot project. Second. Motion by Council Member Kaye. Second by Council Member Farmer. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing none, then we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Any further motions? Council Member Beard. Thank you, Mayor. I would like to ask that first reading of ordinances, 839-13, that they be put on the docket for the 15th without a public hearing. Second. Without, right? Without. That's a motion by Council Member Beard, second by Council Member Myers. Is there any discussion on the motion? Is there a question? Which item is? That's item number. Number three on the number, yes. All right, Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. So, Council Member Beard, did the objectors not request a hearing? I'm sorry? Did the objectors not request a hearing? Not that I know of. Not that you know of. Does anybody? Okay. Planning did not hear of a request for a hearing. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Our office contacted those who had appeared at the hearing, and we did not hear back from any citizens there. We were under the impression from opposing counsel that they would be here to request a hearing, but I do not see them here today. Thank you very much. All right. Is there any further discussion on the motion? Yes, we're in discussion. Councilman Farmer. As I just said to you, I'm just not comfortable putting this on without a public hearing. I mean, I think the public has an interest in this zone change. This is the Fritz property that will bring a large branded entity to the southern tier of our city. And I realize there's not people. With as many neighborhoods that seem to have been involved in that, I'm surprised no one is not here or that we have not received a call to have a hearing. I know we've come a long way in this city, but for this type of change to take place with no hearing just seems odd to me in relation to public policy. And I'll be voting no because I think we should have a hearing. All right. Any further discussion on the motion? Mayor? Yes. Council Member Kaye. Just a question. If the Council, since there's nobody here requesting that there be a hearing, if the Council moves to place it without a hearing and then someone realizes they've missed their opportunity, does that reopen it? Do we have an opportunity to reopen that? Or is this the last word? The last word is the last thing I'm going to say. Yeah. we have had a few instances in the past where the council has set his own change for first reading and then before it was given second reading probably for instance up to this thursday evening perhaps then decided at that point to schedule a public hearing before second reading that has happened a few times in the past okay so there is there is an opportunity because i on the one hand And I agree with Councilmember Farmer. I'm a little surprised, given how many times this particular piece of property has been proposed for changes and how controversial it has been that there's no one who is requesting a hearing. On the other hand, I'm probably not the only Councilmember who does not want to have a hearing if there are no objectors. So I'm going to vote yes, and if someone has missed their opportunity, they've got another shot on Thursday. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Councilmember K. Anyone? Any further discussion? All right. Take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. No. All right. How many? One, two, three. All right. Get it, Meredith? Electronic phone or? Yeah. I'll do it electronically. Thank you. protocol council rule which requires that anyone who recuses needs to express the reason for their accusal. Mr. Lane? I'm serving as a consultant in real estate to the firm that's developing the property. Thank you. All right. Motion carries. Any further motions? All right. That allows us to move to the motion to approve the docket. Is there a motion to approve? Motion. Motion to approve the docket by Council Member Ellinger, second by Council Member Myers. Is there any discussion on the motion? Vice Mayor? Mayor, I have a motion that I'm not exactly sure if it impacts the docket per se about scheduling the public hearings on Thursday. So is that part of the docket? Where's our law? Which public hearings? For the ad valorem taxes. Oh, okay. Yeah. Do I need to make that now or later? We're going to get some help. Martin, Dave, come on up. Okay, thank you. All right. We'll wait until the tax discussion. Okay. Thank you, Vice Mayor. All right. Is there any further discussion on the motion to approve the docket? All right. Hearing none, we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Mr. Mayor, I'm sorry. Yes, ma'am. Ordinance number six also required a motion to place on the docket with or without a public hearing. I'm sorry, number five. All right. Number five. Okay. All right. So this is in Council Member Lawless' district. We've got a motion by Council Member Ellinger. We've got a second by Council Member Farmer. Is there any discussion regarding the motion? All right. Hearing none, we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. Mayor, I've got one more. Council Member Bearden. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mayor. I move to place on a docket for the August 15, 2013 Council meeting a resolution authorizing and directing the Division of Traffic Engineering pursuant to Code of Ordinances Section 18-86 to install multiway stop controls at Clearwater Way and Ridgewater Drive. Second. Motion by Council Member Beard, seconded by Council Member Meyers. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. All right. Hearing none, we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you. Any other motions? All right. We can take a vote now on the motion to approve the docket. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. That allows us to move on to the summary. Is there a motion to approve? Move approval. Second. Motion by Vice Mayor Gordon, seconded by Council Member Akers. Is there any discussion on the motion? Any discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing none, then we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? No. Motion carries. Allows us to move on to budget amendments. Is there a motion? Second. Second. Motion by Council Member Farmer. Second by Council Member Beard. Is there any discussion on the motion? Council Member Farmer. Just a brief explanation for the last one, Journal 71-364. I'm just interested. This is to adjust FY 2013 budgets within the medical insurance fund to account for the pharmaceutical inventory costs as an operating expense and not if personnel is originally budgeted. So was this originally budgeted just as a million dollars even, and that's what we're rolling over into a separate fund? Is that it? Perfect. or this is to roll over into the next year's fund. This change is needed as part of the year-ending closing activities. We have Mr. O'Mara who has presented himself at the podium. Thank you, Mr. O'Mara. Can you help us? Yes, sir. This is really the first time that we've had the full pharmacy open for all year. And while we estimated the cost of the pharmacy, we never established a budget for the inventory cost. So because there's no account there at all, now that we're ready to do the year-end inventory and to book those costs, we need a budget established. So we're moving the dollars out of the personnel, which is where the total cost was budgeted for the benefits, and establishing out of personnel but in an expense line item the cost of goods sold. Cost of goods sold. Thank you, sir. So it's accounting. It makes sense. Okay. It was too round, you know. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Farmer. Any further discussion on the motion? All right, hearing done. We can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Next on the agenda, new businesses or a motion? There's approval. Second. Motion by Vice Mayor Gordon, second by Council Member Ellinger. Is there any discussion on the motion? Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. It was brought to Council Member's attention that item DD has a numerical error, and I'm not sure if we need a motion. We probably do need a motion to change the amount, which says $144,145.95. And so I move to change that according to the information Council Members received to $1,444,145.95. Second. Motion by Vice Mayor Borton, second by Council Member Henson. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Councilmember Lane. Yes, sir. I would like to know why we're using this format to change your contract, because that's about 40 percent of the original contract amount, the $1,444,000. Could someone speak to that? Charlie Martin's here. You might want to repeat the question, Mr. Lane. Okay. I'm sorry. My question is, the change order was for $1,444,000, and that is approximately 40% of the total contract price. And I just wondered why we're using that type of a format to extend a contract. Maybe we could have, oh, good. Could you give us some background on that, please? Yeah, unfortunately, the way that these contracts are worded, the ones that we're using for the consent decree program management type of stuff, It forces us to use change order as opposed to amending the contract. It's really kind of an awkward way to do it because when we first advertised this, there was a certain upset number that was included in their proposal. But we only budgeted based on cash flow on what we would spend on a given year rather than budgeting for the full amount to get us through the program management phase. But this contract, Tetra Tech, which is the program manager for the stormwater, both of them have this unfortunate language that is somewhat misleading. This is not for some change in scope of work that they're doing. It's to continue the work that they're doing. Thank you, Charlie. Okay. All right. Thank you, Charlie. Thank you, Council Member Lane. Any further discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing none, then we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Council Member Kaye. Mayor, I guess I need to recuse on 0844-13 also. That's the summit if that's the double E on there, item double E. All right. That's appropriately noted then. Thank you. Council Member Lane. Council Member Kaye. Thank you, Mayor. I move that item HH0853-13 under New Business Items, authorization to accept award of funds for the local food coordinator be tabled in order to provide additional time to resolve issues related to grant funding. Motion by Council Member Kaye, second by Council Member Sadi. Is there any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Council Member Sadi. Thank you, Mayor. Commissioner Maloney, I have a question on number Z, please. Item Z, rather. Z like in zebra. Thank you. What we do is we'll send out a questionnaire to all of what we perceive to be the impacted properties and ask them whether they have stormwater problems, and then that kind of goes from there. The Walhampton has been on the priority list for an extended period of time, and I think that it's been pretty clearly identified who the players are in this or not. I know for a fact one of them was anxiously calling us wondering when they were going to get their offer. They've been waiting to have a buyout on this for a while. But typically where we start is with a mailing to all the properties within that drainage area to where the perceived problem is so they can respond and we can document what type of stormwater problems they've experienced in the past. Is that the same with sanitary sewer issues as well? You do a mailing prior to doing any type of work? Not so much because I think sometimes the sanitary sewer problems are more prevalent or they're more knowledgeable to folks. If you're asking about as far as the capital projects that we do, for example, Vernon, when he's doing the remedial measures projects, he has held public meetings as far as inviting folks at a church or somewhere nearby. I know that in Councilmember Scutchfield's district they've had two neighborhood meetings relative to projects that we're getting ready to launch. One place that I think there is somewhat of a weakness is that when we're doing more maintenance level, that folks can't really tell the difference between a maintenance level dig up in the street versus the whole hee-haw gang type of thing. We still need to do a better job as far as the notification. You're absolutely right, because I've had that occasion just happen within the last three weeks where several residents contacted me and had no idea that they were having any type of maintenance work done, and my office didn't even know about it. So it would be helpful if proceeding something like that, if you could let my office know, or any council office because I could not give them a response because I wasn't sure what was happening. I don't know if maybe something you could set up like, for example, like the Division of Planning sends out something to us and gives us an idea of what's happening on a specific area, a specific time frame, I think that would be real helpful. And we're headed in that direction now. I guess I'll plead for the patience in that. The council had passed a resolution before you went on break regarding how we were doing notifications to residents when we're working in their yards, you know, how we're doing as far as when we're working on the street. You know, we did 1,000 dig-ups last year, and so it'll be a little bit of a challenge, but we will work on that. That would be helpful. Look, I said, even if you just let us know ahead of time, say that, you know, we're in a certain neighborhood, we're digging here because residents are calling here saying, you know, what's happening? We're not sure, you know, what's going on. Can you please fill us in? And I can't give them a response. Good job. Unfortunately for me to say that unfortunately sometimes I find myself in the same situation. I didn't know what was going on either, so I will work on that. I appreciate that. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you, Council Member Sider. Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Mayor. Just a couple of quick ones for clarification. First one is on item J, the title purchase of property at Raven Run Nature Sanctuary. I had contacted Mr. Hancock earlier. He had sent over a map of this. I'm just interested just in a historical perspective. How did we end up owning everything around this piece of property and not this piece of property? Jerry. Got the map. Migrating to the podium. Okay. All right. You've got an overhead to show us something. Yes, Mayor, Council Members. The short answer is the property owner in question, which you're about to see, is completely surrounded by property we own at Raven Run Nature Sanctuary. The current property owner has not been willing to sell in the past, and now we're told that they are willing to consider a purchase. That's not a very great picture, but I think you can see if I can make this thing work. As you can see, the light box in the upper right-hand corner of that rough rectangle is the property in question. The dark line in green all the way around is Raven Run. As you can see, this particular central piece of property is completely surrounded by Raven Run, and now the property owners have suggested they'd be willing to have conversations with us about whether we'd be willing to buy it. Law has suggested that I come and get your permission to enter into negotiations with them. We have performed a property appraisal, and without getting into any of the details about it, let me say that we think this is something we ought to pursue. It creates some problems for us because property owners have allowed their friends and relatives to hunt on the property, which inside Raven Run has created some issues for us in the past. They have no access to it except to cross our property, which creates some issues. This seems like an obvious good thing to do. I agree, and I appreciate the explanation. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Mayor, I just had one more. It's on item double F, I believe. The press for transfer of right-of-way on Candon Ave, and as I read this, initially I did not have a problem with it. I may not in the final analysis. until you look at the top of page 72, which refers to this as a 20-foot-wide passway track, which takes me back to an issue we currently have in Councilmember Ford's district where there's a movement to close a sidewalk that connects a couple of neighborhoods. I'm just wondering, it looks like from the photographic picture that's on page 70, that beyond this to what I would assume is to the north, it already is a parking lot, and then to the south looks like this track or passageway might still exist. Are we cutting off any connective opportunities for the future by allowing this transfer right-of-way is my question? The answer to that is no, Council Member Farmer. This was actually a piece of land that was not utilized when that entire development was platted back many, many years ago. And the acquisition of this is just to increase the size of the lot to facilitate a home that Anderson Properties would like to construct. So does this extend off the map to the bottom then, or to the side, or wherever this is? And we have not given those right-of-ways back yet either? or for 1323 and 1324? Right here. You see, this is what I'm talking about. That's already up. I'm just wondering where does this go? And does it connect to another street or a place that might be a walkway or a pathway? I believe, as it was explained to me, that it was intended at one time to potentially be a sidewalk or a passageway, but it wasn't constructed as such. So effectively, it's just vacant land. Well, let's go ahead and put it on, I think. But would you provide me with a bigger map that shows the length of this, if you will? Sure. Thanks very much. I certainly can. Mayor, thank you. Thank you, Council Member Farmer. No further discussion. I'm able to take a vote on the motion. Is all in favor of the motion, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Mayor, yes on all, but for me no on double E. All right. Duly noted. Thank you, Council Member Farmer. All right. It takes us to continuing business and presentations. Is there a motion on NDA? Motion on NDA. Motion by Council Member Stennett, second by Vice Mayor Gordon. Is there any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Is there a the Economic Development Committee summary? Who is next on your agenda? Is that Councilmember Beard? Do you have a summary, Councilmember Beard, on the Economic Development Committee today? No, don't have one today. All right. We have a presentation on the Ed Valorum options by Melissa Luker, who is our acting budget director. You're feeling better? I didn't. Your voice is back? It's back. You might want to pull the microphone down, Melissa. Okay. Thank you. All right. As the mayor said, my voice is coming and going. So Bill and I are going to tag team this presentation. I'm going to get us through the first part, and then he's going to finish this off unless my voice goes out, and then he will jump in a little sooner. So I appreciate his help with this. This presentation is meant to recap the information that was sent to Council at the beginning of the month while you were on your break on the Avalorum options that we have that we're looking at today. Chris, I've hit the wrong button, apparently. There we go. All right. So like I said, this presentation is an overview of the information. We sent you the Avalorum property tax rate booklet. We sent a 10-year analysis of the urban service fund broken out by the three services that that fund funds. And then we also did an analysis of some scenarios that were requested by council members. So we sent that information to you back in August and hope you've had a chance to look at it. because I'm going to say council may suggest, may wish to go through this and vote on the rates as we go through general services, special districts, and then urban services. It's just whatever the council prefers. This right here is a calendar that Don Blevins presented back before you all went on break. and if you notice, this is to keep us in compliance with the KRS as far as setting the property tax rates go. And if you see, we have a big circle in red for today's date, and that is the date that in order to comply with this calendar and the statute, the rates need to be decided upon today or scheduled to be decided upon today. the taxing districts that we're going to go over today are the general services district I'm going to handle that one urban services which more specifically streetlights refuse and street cleaning and then the special taxing districts soil and water conservation district agricultural Extension Service and the Health Department. This chart here was in your packet that you received the beginning of the month, and this is just for reference to show you our real estate values have basically remained flat as far as residential goes. We only received a 1.3% growth over the last fiscal year, so that's just a reference chart for you there. These are the options for consideration each year for property tax rates. The first option is to keep rates the same. The second option is the compensating rate, and this will provide approximately the same amount of revenue as last year for the existing property, and any new revenue increases are deprived from new property. Option three is the maximum 4% increase. This is the highest that you can go without generating a voter recall. However, this is subject to a public hearing of 4% increases. Option 3, which I just said, option 4, is to set the rate above 4%, and this one is subject to voter recall. Within 45 days, if a petition is signed by 10% of the voters in the last presidential election, And I checked with the county clerk's office, and the number of signatures required would be 12,841. Okay. These are the general service fund options. And if you look, listed down the page are the categories within the general fund that you will be deciding upon the rates. and then going across are the options that you have to choose from. You may notice that option one, while it's the prior year rates, it actually has a negative impact, and that's because the budget for FY14 included was based on an assumption of a 1.5% increase in assessed value, and the certified values came in slightly less than that at the 1.3%, So that's why there's a negative impact on the current year budget. This is what the impact would be. It's an illustration of a house, a $165,000 house, what the prior year rates, compensating rates, and the maximum 4% rates would be. And then I'll pause here. and if council would like to discuss the general services rates now and decide upon them or if you all would like to continue on and vote on all of them at the end, it's up to you as to what you all would like to do. There's no motion yet, so you might go ahead and continue, Melissa. Okay. I will say the administration is recommending the prior year rates, option one, to leave the rates the same as they were last year. moving on to the special district tax rates and in your packet that you received we didn't have the health department rates but we've got them now and they're in the presentation we received them this morning these are the current and requested rates for the soil and water conservation district the agriculture extension district and the health department the soil and water conservation district has a current rate of four hundredths of a penny and is requesting a rate of five hundredths of a penny. However, that's more than a 4% increase. A 4% increase for this district would be .00447. So you can see it's slightly less than the 5 but more than the 4 that's up there. The Agricultural Extension District has a current rate of thirty-three hundredths of a penny and is requesting a rate of 34 hundredths of a penny for real property and currently have a rate of 35 hundredths of a penny for personal property and they're requesting a rate of 38 hundredths of a penny. In order to have the 38 hundredths of a penny for personal property, you have to have the 34 hundredths of a penny approved for their real property. Both of those are 4% increases and would require a public hearing. The Health Department is not requesting a change in their current rates for real or personal property for FY14. At this time, I'm going to switch and let Bill take over. Thank you. And I'm going to address the urban service area, which is the one that has had the most discussion up to this point and may have the most discussion today. As we alluded to, 1st of August, we broke the urban service fund into the three operating programs, refuse, street light, and street cleaning. we built that based on the 2013 unaudited financials as they are right now and then based on assumptions projected that out for 10 years some of the assumptions that we used for those projections 2% increase in personnel, insurance cost, operating cost we grew utility cost at 5% we used a 4% vehicle expense assumption and then we looked at each one of the programs and put in a capital cost assumption. For refuse, we used $3.8 million, which is the current 2014 capital request, and we kept that constant going out for those 10 years. And the observation for the first one, the refuse, is that they are cash flowing under their current model of property tax rate, and actually can cash flow with that $3.8 million capital spend assumption. Whether that $3.8 million is adequate enough all the way out for 10 years would be something that we would have to vet out. The one thing I would want to point out with Refuse is that, as well as all of these, is the funding source is basically property taxes. It comes in two months of the year, November and January. So we have to have enough cash to live on all the way until the next November. So we really can't operate with a zero fund balance. If you only get paid once a month instead of every other two weeks, you know that you've got to have money in the bank in order to make it to the next paycheck the first of the month. That is similar funding with these three programs with property taxes coming in once a year. So in the FY15 budget process, we will be looking at the cash flow needs to recommend what a minimum fund balance will need to be both for refuge as well as the whole fund. If you look into the streetlights, we've kind of summarized that 10-year spreadsheet, which was very geeky, very active, and tried to just give five years of information. You look at the projected loss each year for streetlights, starting with the unaudited actuals for 2013 and our projections going out to 2018. One of the things that I'll show you or illustrate is that if you normalize each one of those years, and let me explain what I mean by that. We really didn't have a capital spend in 2013. So if you want to look at what actual spend is going to be if we have approximately $300,000 of new streetlights coming into the system each year, that $0.5 million loss would really be a $1.8 million loss for 2014. And then because we have a backlog, we put into our assumptions that by 2015 that backlog would start to be spent down. So we have a blip in an increase in the capital assumptions in 2015 of $400,000. So if you try to normalize both $13,000 and $15,000 for a constant $300,000 a year, you'll find that we're at $1.8, we're at $2 million, we're at $2.2, then it goes to $2.4, $2.6, $2.8. So you get about a spending increase year over year of about $200,000. That's significant if we're trying to project what kind of funding we need in order to keep this program healthy year over year every year. So then based on those projections, we tried to look at what a cost of service property tax rate would need to be in order to completely fund the Streetlight program with those assumptions intact. So if you look at 2014, our current property tax rate is .021, so 2.1 cents per hundred. And to fully fund it, it would have to go to 3.19. So it's an increase of 1.09 cents per hundred dollars. That doesn't sound so bad. However, we have the 4% test that we have to do on property taxes, so that happens to be a 51.7% increase year over year. So if the council wants to look at a cost of service model for this year in property taxes, it would come out to be .319, and it would be a 51.7%, 7%, which means it would qualify for having a public, not referendum, thank you, recall. The petition would have to be within 45 days with those 10,800, I believe, was the number of signatures. Significantly after that, though, and why we tried to project out further than that, would that carry the fund in year two, year three, year four? Well, we've got that $200,000 year-over-year growth, and so the property tax we're projecting with these projections would have to grow 3.8% year two, 2.9% in year three, 3.4% in year four, 3.4%. So the significance is you would have to increase the property tax each year. The good news is that it appears that it would be under that 4% maximum, And so once you establish this $3.19, if you increase the property tax something less than 4% each year, it should keep up with the program. So that was the gist of that spreadsheet that we did and sent out to you in August for streetlights. We approached the same thing with street cleaning. all the other assumptions were the same as far as growth rate except capital and what we saw with street lights is the operating costs are covered with the current property tax just barely, but they are covered however there is no fund balance and there is no money to pay for capital replacements the street cleaning trucks or vehicles that we're talking about So we embedded a $150,000 capital need per year starting in 2015. It's not budgeted in 2014 to come up with a total program cost that would need to be funded. And that's why you see in 2015 and after that the loss is approximately $150,000. It doesn't grow as rapidly as the streetlights. This is assuming that we're not increasing the size of the fleet, just replacing the fleet as needed as the vehicles wear out. So again, we did the same calculation coming up with a cost of service model. And for this year, it would be .0097 versus .0093. It would be in 2015 when that $150,000 capital spend becomes needed that you would have to come up with a very slight increase, but again, the percentages would be 10.6%. We then have the same observation for future years. The property tax would again need to be slightly increased, but in the 1% to 1.2% year-over-year range. So, based on that cost-of-service modeling, we can fill out these options, which are similar to what you've seen for the general service. Option one is keeping the rates the same as last year. Option two is that compensating, which is trying to be approximately the same dollar amount. Maximum is that 4% hurdle that is embedded in House Bill 44. And then we have cost of service for street lights and street cleaning because the refuge did not seem to need additional funding, and we know that it needs dollars in order to cover its capital spend in the future. The public service company increases because it is basically a function. It's an addition of the top three. So if any of those three components increase, then the sum of those becomes the public service company's approved rate. Insurance companies, we left flat. Circled at the bottom is the difference from budget, 2014 budget. The 2014 budget assumed rates the same as last year and a 1.5% increase in assessments instead of 1.3. The negative in the compensating of $74,000 is basically rounding in the way the state revenue cabinet, they have a worksheet that we're instructed to use and they only go out so many digits. Anyway, it's close, but it's $74,000 less than what the budget is. So I can pause here, but I have one more section to go over. Just keep going. All right. We have an illustration for the $165,000 home. We used $165,000 because the average cost of a home is approximately that in Fayette County. So we use that as a model. And these are the dollar amounts under all four of those options. So if you read at the total, if you were in an urban service area that had all these services, a prior rate, what you paid last year, $286.28. If you use the cost-of-service model, it would be $304.70. I think that's just like $14.50 increase over the prior year. The other illustrations that we put in was what we called a matrix, but anyway, we were asked to look at three different funding mechanisms, all property tax, all general fund, and a hybrid of using both property tax and general fund monies in order to finance the streetlight program. So this matrix shows the difference that a taxpayer would see under these three modeled funding options. We did two of them. This is based on a $165,000 home with a $100 electric and gas utility bill per month. You have to have both of those assumptions in order to model this. So if you go with the property tax only, going with the cost of service, your property tax would be approximately $18 more. Your utility would be the same. So the total increase cost to this property owner would be about $18 a year. If you look at the street light program as a community-wide program, as a public safety program, and it's a general fund obligation, a corollary would be fire hydrants. The general fund pays for all of the cost of fire hydrants throughout the county. then if you did not have a streetlight assessment, there would be a savings to this person with a $165,000 home of $34.65. But with a 2% increase in franchise fees, their $100 monthly utility bill would be about $24 a year more. So you would save about $35 in lower property taxes. You would pay more on your utility franchise fee. The net difference would be $10.65 savings to that homeowner. If you look at keeping the property tax the same, for those people that have property tax or streetlights in their neighborhood and benefit from that streetlight outside or right down their street, but that community-wide, the arterials, the main arteries, those streets that everyone uses, should be a general fund obligation, then that's what we call the hybrid. And that would be keep the property tax the same and have a 1% increase in franchise fees in order to pay for the additional obligation of the general fund. So the property tax would be no savings, no additional cost, same as last year. there would be a 1% increase in the $100 utility cost per month for a total of $12 a year. So the sum of the two would be an increase to this property owner of $12. Now we did the same thing for example B, and that would be a homeowner whose value would be $225,000, and their utility bill averages $200 a month. Again, we can do these iterations, but we just chose these two to illustrate the three options. Property tax only, the impact would be an increase in property taxes of about $24.50 a year. The franchise fee or the general fund obligation only, they would save $47, but they would pay an additional $48 in their utility costs, basically a break-even. and the hybrid would show about a $24 increase for the year. So in summary, what we have before us today is actually setting of property tax rates, but embedded into that conversation is the funding of these programs that are in the urban service fund. So you really have four options as I see it. There is the temporary option, which is the one we exercised this year, and that's to use fund balance for the shortfall in the streetlight funding. But that's one-time dollars. It's not recurring dollars. We know that those expenses will grow year over year. Or you could entertain a permanent funding option, and we've modeled three of those, a property tax only, a general fund only, financed through franchise, or a hybrid of partial property tax and partial general fund subsidy. One other thing that I would want to say is that if we want to get this backlog, there's about 500 streetlights that have been approved and people have not received those, some sort of long-term commitment on the funding side is needed in order for the utility company to ramp up and to have multiple staff installing streetlights. So that's just another nuance to whether temporary or permanent funding source to be considered today. Okay. The administration has suggested a general fund obligation that we reduce the property tax for streetlights and adopt this as a general fund obligation like the water hydrants and a fund by a 5% franchise fee on gas and electric. And in addition, the capital spend that is needed in the street cleaning would become a general fund obligation as well. So we've talked about general fund. We only modeled three options, the traditional three. We have the outside agencies that council has to endorse. They have recommended flat. They've recommended 4%, and there's one that because of their four or five digits, any change at all exceeds that 4% maximum. And then we have the multiple options that we have before us to look at urban service property taxes. So my monologue has come to an end, and I'd be glad to welcome questions or open for discussion. Bill, before you take a breather here, Vice Mayor Gordon wants to introduce a guest for a little presentation on the special district. Mr. Greg Johnson from the Conservation and Soil District, he serves on the board, and he has passed out to you a flyer and wanted to just take two or three minutes to explain why they need an increase. I'll be brief, and Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council Members, thank you for your time. I appreciate the fiscal responsibility that you have to show and all the considerations that are on the table for today. I would like to briefly talk about the Fayette County Conservation District. I am one of seven elected supervisors on the Conservation District Board. I left at each one of your workstations a two-pager on the Conservation District. The first page briefly goes into some of the responsibilities of the Conservation District. The bulk of these are new responsibilities that have been encumbered by the conservation district since the year around 2000 when the original millage tax rate was passed at .0004. And I'd like to highlight that some of these are the Administrative County Ag Investment Program, which is around $250,000 per year. We administer the Deceased Animal Program, which is about $15,000 per year. And per memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, we also administer and provide technical assistance to the $2 million per year, that's to this county alone, of the Farm and Ranch Land Protection Program. And that has resulted in 28,000 acres going under the purchase of development rights, which is about 50 percent of the goal of the Rural Land Management Board. We also have an equipment rental program, and we also are very proud of our Envirothon team, which has won the state championship two years in a row now and competed and came in eighth in the national competition in Montana this year. So Fayette County has a lot to be proud of in the conservation district. The millage rate that we're asking for is going from the .0004 to a .0005, which, according to our calculations, on about a $150,000 property would go from about $0.60 a year to $0.75 a year. We did operate in a deficit this year, which caused us to dip into our equipment rental funds. Those funds are normally used to roll over for additional equipment purchases that we rent out to farmers so that they can use on their land, especially those types of farmers that cannot actually purchase that equipment on their own, so they can rent it from us. We also have, as all of you struggle with, rising health insurance costs. We now have to pay a $1,000 fee to the state. As you know, they just passed a law and regulation for special tax districts, and they're setting up a whole new computer system. And at least for the Fayette County Conservation District, we'll have to pay $1,000 towards the state for that. I'll leave that for now. You can look through the two-page packet, and I'd be glad to address any questions at all for any clarification. Thank you for your consideration. All right. Thank you, Greg. Vice Mayor. Since I apparently still have the floor according to the clock, I noticed our extension friends are here and wondered if they had any comment about their request. Thank you for the opportunity. With your permission, I'd like to pass each one a copy of just a one-page. I'll wait for you. No, I'm sorry. You talk, I'll pass. I'm Nick Carter, the Extension Agent for Agriculture here in Fayette County, and I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to come for you today. Just the one-page summary, as was stated, we're within the 4% guideline within House Bill 44. and reason for our need to increase $50,000 worth of expenses were added to Fayette County Extension District Board in the last budget year due to cuts in higher education from federal and state funds. You know the understanding that we are an interesting funding situation where we have federal, state, and local funds that provide the opportunity for service here in Fayette County. The other thing is we have had some downsizing of some positions because of some federal cuts that have happened, and we're in the process right now of stopgap funding for one of those positions. We have two funding positions that we did not fill because of loss of federal funds and those open positions. So that's a current need of about $24,000. And that is something that will, over time, not be reoccurring, but it will be for at least two years is the average time frame to try to satisfy the cuts that are being forced on the University of Kentucky. And then the other thing that we're faced with, purchase of the building that you almost graciously allowed the district board to be able to do last two years ago. And then as we go in to try to upgrade that facilities with heating and air, lighting, sound systems, repaving the parking lot, 20-year-plus building, the maintenance issues related to that, that is incurring considerable costs within that. One thing I forgot to do, we have three board members with us, Sherry Maddock, Tom Rogers, and Judy Wirth, and we're entertaining questions that you might have at this time. Thank you. All right. Thank you, and thank you, Vice Mayor. All right, we'll go to council members now. I would want to ask Mr. O'Meara in just a minute, though, I wanted to ask a confirming question, but first we'll go to Council Member Massadi. Mayor, if you want to go ahead. Okay, all right. Go ahead. Bill, on your recommended approach, it's my understanding that according to this recommended approach, homeowners would have a net savings. Is that correct? There would be a net savings? The option A would have a net savings, the $165,000 house with a $100 utility bill. The option B, it's almost a wash. It's within 75 cents on an annual basis. So for those people in the urban service district that are paying a property tax, there would be either a net savings or a wash in this proposal. We may need to come back to that. Councilman Jennifer, you want to go. Thank you, Mayor. Bill, thank you for your presentation. Melissa, thank you as well. When you were looking at the franchise fee only and you came up with a utility bill increase, I'm assuming, or maybe I'm not assuming, that you did not figure the potential increases that are going to come with the utility companies. I know they're all asking for rate increases. So that was not figured in part of this. This is just specific to us and the franchise fee, correct? Yes and no, actually. We modeled $100 a month and $200 a month. We don't know what an individual's actual utility bill is. So for just example purposes, we used the $100 and $200. So you're saying you incorporated in that utility bill not only a franchise fee increase, No, I'm just saying let's assume in my house I pay an average of $100 a month. But at Melissa's house, she pays an average of $200 a month. So we just modeled those two as an example of the impact on a homeowner. Franchise fee only, though? The increase in the franchise fee. Which is a direct pass-through. Okay, that's my question. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Council Member Sidi. Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for your presentation and your suggested approach. I think that this council and previous councils have wrestled with not having made a fix for the streetlight funding situation, and we're provided with the opportunity to make a permanent fix with one of these approaches today. I think when you look at the suggested approach that eliminates the property tax and adopts streetlights as a general fund obligation, which I agree with your presentation, it's similar to how fire hydrants are. I mean, everyone uses the water out of the fire hydrant. Everyone drives on streets, whether they live in the county or in the city, that have streetlights on them at one point or another. and to be able to fund this with the franchise fee only, which then indexes it for future growth. If more income is provided or needed and more streetlights are needed, I think the two can coexist well rather than getting us back in a situation that we've been in over the last few years. So I'm appreciative of the suggested approach and look forward to the opportunity to let the consuming public find out the same. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman O'Farmer. Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Commissioner and Melissa, for your reports. A couple questions. My first one is from the Tax Fact book that you gave us about the homestead exemption. you said that the total value of property exempted from the tax rolls is $680 million for 2013 tax year. And I'm just wondering if we're in about the third year of the baby boomers turning 65. And so this is a very large number, I would presume, because it's the baby boomers, of people eligible for the homestead exemption. And have we been able to project out how many tax dollars for the next, I think they go for 18 years, the baby boomers, we will be foregoing through that? or can we work with the PVA to do that, or what's your thinking? My thinking is it's a Department of Revenue and a PVA issue. We have not done an analysis that I'm aware of to project that out. I do acknowledge that that segment of the population is growing, and so therefore the people eligible for Homestead will be accelerating, and you will see in each year when the legislative agenda comes in, there's always a bill to increase the homestead exemption, and there is some angst that the individual homestead exemption would go up as well as the total number would rapidly grow as well and the erosion to the property tax base. So do you think at some point you could have a conversation with the PVA about whether there's a way we can figure out how much we'll be giving up. I don't know if that's possible. We'll be glad to look into that. There's also change in lifestyle with the agent, and so they may sell and become renters. And so then there's that dynamic. Then there are those that are lucky and wish to stay in their home and are able to do that. So it's kind of both ways. Okay. And then my other question is about the option of having a franchise fee only for the streetlight funding and eliminating the property tax. and so then how would we justify some people having streetlights and other people not having streetlights? You know, right now the only people who have them are the people who've voted and who pay the tax. Right. And I think that's a very good question. I think what will come out of this, if that's the direction that the council, then Traffic Engineering, who currently has an inside-the-urban-service application and qualification approach, would develop one for outside the urban service area for people to go through to see that it meets affordability requirements. I mean, if it costs $500,000 to put one streetlight at the end of X street, that may be seen differently than if there is a group of 10 homes clustered together with no residents on that street before or after that area. So some sort of qualification and application that would be similar in process but different criteria than an urban service area. Do we know how many people, for example, inside the urban service boundary don't have streetlights? I have a visual, but I don't have a number. Well, I think if... Show that to you if you'd like. I mean, my time's almost up, and I'll listen to the conversation and hear, but I think it's an issue that if we do want to go ahead and do only a franchise fee, then we will need to make some kind of provision so that there's equity with everyone who's paying the franchise fee to get streetlights. And I don't know if you've figured out how much that would cost or not. I do know that some communities, neighborhoods don't want streetlights, especially outside the urban service district. They see that as... But inside the urban service boundary, I believe we still have streets that don't have streetlights, right? This is a visual. The blue is a mapping of all the parcels that are in the streetlight district inside the urban service area. That which is white is inside the urban service district that currently is not paying and does not have streetlights. Okay. Well, I'm sure we'll have a number, but there's your visual. So you can see that it's in the 80%, 90% range. Okay. I appreciate that. Excuse me. In our model, we modeled $300,000 of installation per year, which grew the base of about $65,800, looking at an average streetlight cost. So we modeled the 10 years that we would grow $300,000 of new base every year. And in that one year I talked about we had to catch up of our backlog of about $400,000. Okay. I appreciate the information. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Lane. Thank you, Mayor. I've got a couple of overhead sheets I'd like to put up regarding the franchise fee tax. This is just a quick summary, and if you could put sheet number one up for me, excuse me, number two now. And sheet number two is who we're currently collecting the 3% franchise tax from, and those are all the utility companies that serve us, Bayek County. Next sheet, please. And the way the franchise fee works, it is an itemized tax that's levied by the Irving County government on a utility company's monthly invoice, and the tax is paid by each customer of the utility company. This would be businesses, schools, churches, as well as residential. The monthly franchise fee is currently equal to 3% of the customer's bill. And the franchise fee under the current agreements we have with most of the utility companies, with the exception of Kentucky American, whose agreement comes up for a change, I think, in May of 2015, allows us, by voter council, to raise the fee from 3% to 5%. So that increase would affect every user of electricity, natural gas, and water in Fayette County. Next, overhead. It should be at page 4, I believe. We skipped one here somewhere. Okay, on page 4, this is a summary of what the franchise fees have been based on the CAFRA, the audited financial report of the Irvin County government based at 3%. And you can see that it's averaged somewhere between 15 and 18 million per year at 3%. And over that period of time, since 2007, the average rate has increased 18.1% on a cumulative basis, and that averages about a 2.8% increase per year. All right, next page, please. By a majority vote, the Council can increase the rate on the customers of all the aforementioned utilities up to 5%, with the exception, as I mentioned, of Kentucky American, whose franchise agreement has not been modified yet. An increase from 3% to 4%, a 1% increase in the tax rate, is a 33 and a third percent in the tax charged on the bills. And I want to say here on all utility customers, because in the analysis that was presented, we're merely showing the impact on the property owner who is paying tax and what their increase on the franchise fee would be. But for those companies, businesses, churches, et cetera, that aren't paying any taxes, or our tenants in buildings, our tenants in apartments, All of their utility bills will be increased by 33 and a third if we go up 1 percent. And a 33 percent increase is equivalent to a $6 million increase a year when all utilities are included. If we go from 3 to 5 percent, that's a 66 and two-thirds percent tax increase, and that would be the equivalent of about $12 million a year in taxes. The next sheet shows that into the future, if we leave it at 3%, what the estimated growth would be through fiscal year 2023. If we increase it to 5%, it would go up to about $38.8 million. And the cumulative increase at 5% is $129 million in additional taxes assessed on the utility bills. Now, if you look over in the top right-hand corner there, the streetlight, the deficit is running about $3.3 million per year average over a 10-year period. If we raise the taxes by 2 percent, that would increase the average collection of franchise fee taxes by $12.9 million a year. or if we only go 1%, that would be the equivalent of $6.45 million increase per year. Next sheet, please. There are some other factors that would affect the franchise fee tax revenues, and these are just real quick, but every new business and every new residence that comes here would be paying those taxes. They already pay 3%, but it would be a higher rate. The utility bill increases that are approved by the Public Service Commission. We would automatically get an additional tax on any increases the PSA approves. Any inflation and price of fuels or commodities involved in the utilities, we would get an increase in that. The weather conditions, temperature and rainfall, can either increase or decrease the rate that we would collect because of the usage would be impacted by rain. Mr. Reigny, excuse me. I only have one more page. We appreciate how much work you've done here. It is new to us, and time has expired. But go ahead. You've got one more page. Council Member Yields, three minutes. All right. Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to try to speed this up. But this is a huge increase in taxes, so I think having the information would be valuable. All right. The last item is that economic activity in our community, you know, that also impacts the use of utilities. Now, going to the next page, we're getting to the very end here. I think that it's inequitable to increase the franchise fee to pay for streetlights because the increase in taxes would be on all users of utilities, and many of those parties are not providing streetlight service for their residents or business. And the other factor is that the increase that we're talking about in franchise fees, even at 1% is more than double the amount of the projected deficit for the streetlight fund. So we're generating additional revenue and using and paying the streetlights as an excuse for that. And I think the mayor also pointed, or the vice mayor, excuse me, also pointed out that is it fair to charge higher franchise fee taxes on everybody so that the people that have residential service of the lighting in their streets don't have to pay the full rate. Next page, please. So my thought is that we need to adjust the dedicated ad valorem real estate tax for streetlights to cover the actual cost of service, and that can be adjusted annually as we need to make the one initial adjustment. And if you look back at the record, you'll notice, I think in 2001, that the council actually lowered the taxes for streetlights, but we never increased the cost of streetlights. And part of this is due to the fact that we don't have a very good accounting system, and I don't believe we were even aware that we were out of sync with the revenue versus expenses for the streetlight fund. Another point is that the real estate ad valorem taxes are a deductible adjustment to taxable income and actually reduce the property owner's state and federal income taxes, whereas the franchise fee tax increase would not be a tax-deductible item. And then the other aspect is that ad valorem taxes are paid by the property owner, who may be the person that lives there or a landlord, but utility franchise taxes are charged to the person paying the utility bill. In some cases, that's the property owner, but in some cases it will be tenants. So we will be raising the utility costs for tenants who are renting properties in Fayette County. So I would ask the Council to carefully evaluate making the adjustment to the ad valorem tax rate because I think that is the fair and appropriate thing to do. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Council Member Mazzotti. I appreciate your help on this. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Lane. Council Member Kay. Thank you, Mayor. I think I'll be a little bit briefer, but I'll come to the same conclusion. I'm concerned that the proposal at the bottom, the last thing on Council Member Lane's report, is really what I'm concerned about, And that is that what essentially that would do is shift the burden of taxes from property owners, who tend to be able to pay those taxes and, as you said, can deduct those, part of it, onto tenants who presently don't pay that and who don't pay property taxes. So it seems to me it's a move in the wrong direction in terms of the burden of taxes in the community. Maybe just one other thing. It seems to me if you look at the options A and B, examples A and B, I would say that the estimate of a $100 monthly utility bill for someone living in a $165,000 home is probably low. That is, the utilities cost more. Same thing for a $225,000 home. And we have no examples of people who live in $300,000 or $400,000 or $500,000 houses. If we had those, I think what it would show is that those people will have a large net gain. That is, a reduction in their overall taxes. And I don't think that's appropriate. So I'm basically in support of the recommendation that Council Member Lane has made. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Kay. Council Member Stendon. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. O'Mara, I just want to go back on a couple points that you made and reemphasize it. First of all, the proposed increase on franchise fee is just for electric and gas, correct? Those are the only ones that we have authority to raise. Yes, sir. I know Councilman Elaine presented water in there, but that is not part of this proposal, and it's something that we will vote on separately next year. The other issue, I think it's been mistaken that the franchise fee would be dedicated towards streetlights, and that's not true either. This is a general fund proposal. Whether we use the franchise fee or whatever other mechanism, it will come out of the general fund, the payment for streetlights, same as it does currently for the fire hydrants, correct? That is correct. So, given that consideration, I know the comment was also just made, and it's hard to understand that raising a franchise fee is more expensive than raising a property tax. Under the three examples shown, regardless of utility bill, raising property taxes raises property values. It makes the property cost more. And I'm both a tenant and a landlord, and I pay both ways. Landlords pass it on to tenants in the form of rent, higher rent. Same way a landlord would pay it, pay more property tax if we raise it. So raising the property tax, nothing hurts affordable housing more than raising property taxes. Nothing hurts an economy more than making properties cost more. Our property value in Fayette County has risen significantly the last five years. I believe from $150,000 and change now to almost $165,000. That doesn't help us when property values go up. And raising the property tax raises property values, point blank. The franchise fee, no matter what you want to put in for utilities, there are people that have, and I can guarantee you, on a $165,000 home that do have $100 a month utility bills. My average electric bill is $85 a month. There's many different ways to control your electric bill. That gives tenants the option to have demand conservation. It's in your pocketbook to be able to lower energy costs. Don't use as much. There's opportunity. You can't change the property tax once it's set. We set that once a year. You have to pay that. The other big issue is if you raise property tax this year, you have to raise it every year going forward. It will not keep up with streetlights, period. And this body does not have a good history, as Mr. O'Mara pointed out and Mr. Rainey pointed out too. We don't have a good track record in wanting to raise property tax every year. There's just not the political will to do that. So I guess the bottom line is we need to fix it. I know there are those of you on council that won't vote for any of these, and that's okay. But we need to come to the table and fix this problem and stop kicking the can down the road. We've done a good job in talking about fixing pensions, talking about fixing health care. Well, let's fix our streetlights because there's other things right behind this that we need to work on. And it's today that I appreciate the mayor and the administration bringing forward an option that makes sense, that keeps up with the rising electric costs down the road, and allows us to fix it once and for all so we can move on to other issues. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Stent. Thank you, Council Member Clark. Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to give you some figures here. I don't have anything to show you, but I'm going to come down on the side of the franchise fee, and I'll just go ahead and say that to you. According to revenue, we spend approximately $6.3 million a year on streetlights. We figured that if we want to pay the bill, we can pay the bill for $6.3 million by raising the franchise fee by 1.6%. 1.6% now. Not 2%, but 1.6%. If we raised it 1.7, we'd have an excess of a half a million dollars every year to invest however we wanted to invest it, as long as we could spend that out of the general fund. And I want to also remind everybody, I'll keep saying this, and the vice mayor has great points, and we talked about this earlier, but I want to just make it clear that everybody in our city uses streetlights regardless. whether they own a house or an apartment, they use streetlights. And except through their rent, perhaps, through a tenant agreement, they are not paying for the streetlights. We can also, by raising the franchise fee by 1.7%, we would have approximately $300,000 more in the general fund that we could use, however, to install lights or whatever, and that would bring us to a total of about $6.5 million each year that we could dedicate, however. In each case, that is eliminating the property tax for street lights. So basically, let me give you these figures very quickly. If we maintain the current service level, a house worth $200,000, I'm sorry I don't have the same figures as Mr. Amaro does, But a house worth $200,000 would save approximately $42 on their property tax. The franchise fee would increase about $30. So they would actually save $12 on the total tax. and so the same kind of figures would be the same even if we expanded it even further to 1.7 percent. So what I'm saying is that if we use franchise fee purely and simply, we can pay the bill with 1.6 percent increase. We can increase the amount that we take in by about $300,000 by raising it 1.7%, and that's eliminating all the property tax for streetlights. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councilman Clark. All right. Councilmember Akers. Thank you, Mayor. Bill? Hi. I just was confused really quickly. I think that you mentioned once in one of the scenarios that we could increase the franchise fee, well, okay, let me step back, that we could pay for streetlights throughout the entire urban services area out of the general fund, I think, or we could pay for streetlights in the new circle and the primary corridors out of the general fund and then leave it the way it is, the usage fund another way. Was that correct? Do these numbers apply to either one of those? Or help me understand that. Looked at a total property tax funding, looked at a total general fund funding, and what you're asking is what I call a hybrid. Oh, that was the hybrid. The hybrid. Okay. And that would be where those people in the urban service district who are assessed for streetlights in their neighborhood would continue to pay their property tax assessment and then supplemented with a general fund subsidy. That everyone would pay. That everyone would pay. On the utility bills. That would be a 1% increase in franchise fee was recommended to cover those common areas that everyone benefits from and everyone's safety is affected by. You're going to make that motion. So would it? Maybe not. But it would seem to me then that property owners would be paying twice. I guess those within the urban services area that have street lights, maybe. They would pay their property tax bill, and they would pay with the increased franchise fee. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Eckers. Council Member Kay. Thank you, Mayor. Bill, what may be either a stupid question or a too basic question, but one thing I'm confused about, and that is if the increase in the franchise fee and the decrease in the property tax offset one another, is it not the case that the franchise fee would now cover the streetlights but that there would be less income to the general fund? No, sir. You're talking about the size of the pie. So under the property tax scenario, the pie is this size. It is comprised of only those people in the urban service district that have streetlights. The franchise fee is the entire county, so the pie is larger. Therefore, the assessment is on everyone in the county rather than just those people that were highlighted in blue within the urban service district. So the size of the pie is different that the two fees are assessed against. So for some people, or for a significant number of people, the overall tax burden rises to generate the additional income that would be needed to cover the cost of the streetlights. the footprint that's larger are those people that are not paying property taxes. We have a very large footprint of those people that are not assessed property taxes at all. That would be the education, the government, the faith community, any not-for-profit. but those people have a property tax of zero and do not pay toward property tax assessments. I see. So the increase in revenue essentially comes from those who right now do not pay property tax, whether because they're renters or because they're not churches or governmental agencies. Correct, and those people living outside the urban service. But the urban service is where the majority of the people live. So I hesitate to say a large number of people would pay, but the footprint gets larger because of all these institutions that currently do not pay property taxes at all. Okay. That helps me. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Keg. Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. I realize we are in the thick of streetlight discussion, but in an effort to move a little bit of this along, I would like to go ahead and move to set the general services fund tax rates as they are the prior rates, option one on page 93 of our packet. Second. It's a motion by Vice Member Borton, second by Council Member Stennett. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Any discussion on the motion? All right. It's page 7. Maybe Bill can. You want to. Bill, yeah, let's go. Can you restate your motion, please? My motion is to set the general services fund only. That's this list of property taxes on page 7 of their presentation at option 1, which is exactly the same as the current rates and would not increase those rates. And just parenthetically, Bill, confirm, if you would, that is consistent with your recommendation and our budget. Is that correct? It is. It's within $44,000 of the budget. All right. So the budget that we... That we approved. That we approved. All right. Thank you. All right. Council Member Akers, is that all right? Anybody else? Any discussion on the motion? All right. Then we can take a vote. All in favor of the motion, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. My second motion is to set the health tax rate, if you could put that up, please, at 0.28 as recommended, and that is the current rate, which will not increase. Motion by Vice Mayor Gordon, second by Council Member Akers. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing none, then we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. My third motion, which might be debated, is given the information that the Conservation and Soil District has brought to us, I move to set the conservation and soil rate at .0005. I second that. Motion by Vice President Gordon, second by Councilman Massadi. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? No. All right. All who would put those, let's just take it electronically. All right. All right. We don't have a—Counselor Mayer's screen is not functioning. Your vote is no. How many voted? All right. Are we one short? Yeah, we're one short. All right. The motion passes. And finally, I move to set the extension real property rate at .0034, and I guess I should split those. Second. That's a motion by Vice Mayor Gordon, seconded by Council Member K. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. All in favor of the motion, please indicate by saying aye and voting electronically. All opposed, no. All right. And now finally, I move to set the extension personal property rate at .0038. Second. Motion by Vice Member Ward and seconded by Council Member K. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing none, then we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye and vote electronically. and opposed no all right motion carries thank you mayor thank you gosh mayor all right I just asked the vice mayor don't stop now just keep All right. And what we have left is the urban services. Council Member Farmer? Does that just leave us with the urban ones? That leaves us with the urban services. And I guess the presentation by the administration was to fund, at least in this example, is to fund the streetlight funding option using example B or the franchise fee only. and then to fund street cleaning as it has been but provide for capital needs out of the general fund. What was the proposal for the refuse collection to remain the same? The refuse was to remain the same. That's good. Well, let's take those one at a time. What do you think? Then I would make a motion to reset the refuse collection rate. I guess is it the compensating one we want to use? It would be option one prior rate, or you could use compensating to your... Option one is fine. I'm sorry, I missed this. This was for the refuse collection section portion to use the... So motion by Council Member Farmer, second by Council Member Stennett. Council Member Farmer will just restate the motion. This is for, if you're looking at page 99 or 13 of the packet, this is the urban services portion. If I'm on the right, here you go, there you go. So this is option, this is a motion to approve option one for refuse collection, which keeps it at .1431. Second. There was a second. All right. So we have a motion and we have a second. Is there any discussion on the motion? Just for refuse collection. The motion is to fund refuse collection at the option one rate as reflected on the overhead above. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Right? Yes, sir. All right. All right. Is there any discussion? All right. Will we take a vote? All in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. And I would, if it's still open, would move ahead using the same option for the street cleaning portion at .0094, so moved. That's a motion by Council Member Farmer, second by Council Member Scotchfield. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Council Member Lane. I'd like a motion to amend the rate to .0097, so move. All right. There's a motion to amend by Council Member Lane to amend the motion to actually the option 4.0097. And there's a second by Council Member Sadi. Is there any discussion on the motion to amend? Council Member Akers. Thanks, Mayor. Bill, can you remind me what your recommendation was for this as far as capital replacement costs and is cost of service our best bet? We're talking about street cleaning. Street cleaning, yes, so buying new trucks to clean streets. Right. We modeled that the first replacement would be in 2015, not 2014. So this rate is covering the operating costs, not any capital. Not capital. So if we left it where it is at 0094, we would actually be operating then probably at a loss at the end of the year. It's right on the edge. Okay. Okay, thank you. Any further discussion on the motion to amend? Council Member Kay. Thank you, Mayor. I think as a general principle, government ought to levy taxes at a rate that allow us to cover the cost of services. When we fail to do that, we're simply deferring the expense, which comes back to haunt us later in some way in terms of a deficit or additional cost because we haven't kept up with the needs that we actually have. So I'm going to vote in favor of the amendment. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councilman McKay. Any further discussion on the motion to amend? All right. We're ready to vote then. All in favor of the motion to amend, please indicate by saying aye. Opposed, no. No. Motion to amend. Motion to amend. Motion to amend passes. All right. Is there any further discussion on the original motion? All right. Then we can vote on the motion as amended. All in favor of the motion as amended, please indicate by saying aye. Opposed, no. All right. This is a motion to... We have 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. What happened? It passed. Got it? Okay, I've lost my monitor. What's the motion that passes? All right. Can I take in the last two here, maybe one at a time, to set the public service company's rate at .1735, so moved? Motion by Council Member Farmer, seconded by Vice Mayor Gordon. Is there any discussion on the motion? Excuse me, we need clarification. All right. The public service company is actually the sum of the three, so you have to actually pass those three, and the public service company is the calculation. I'll withdraw the motion. Any insurance we can take separately then? Yes. I would move approval at .092. Second. Motion by Council Member Farmer. Second by Council Member Kaye. Is there any discussion? Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing none, we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Vote electronically. All opposed, no? Motion carries. All right. Mayor, since we're down to the last one, let me just go ahead and roll it out of the box and we can take it from there. There you go. This would be a motion to use the suggested approach that is on page 102 or page 16, depending on which one you're looking at, to fund streetlights by eliminating the property tax of streetlights and adopting them as a general fund obligation and changing the franchise fee to a 5% total. So this would be the suggested approach, and I would move approval as tendered. Motion by Council Member Farmer, second by Council Member Akers. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. If you all please sign up. All right. Council Member Lane. Thank you, Mayor. I move to substitute the rate of 0319 of the assessed value for the tax on streetlights. So move. Is this a motion to amend? All right. Would you restate the motion, Council Member Lane, please? The motion is to amend the tax rate for street lights to .019 per $100 of assessed value. So move. All right. We have a motion and there's a second. Councilman Massadi? All right. Okay. So we have a motion. We have a second on the motion to amend. Is there any discussion? He phrased it as a motion to substitute, since this would, I guess. So there would be a motion to substitute, a motion to amend, a motion to substitute. It would be a motion to substitute. I think it would be more accurate, Mayor. Do you want to restate that? All right. Motion to substitute, then. Motion to substitute. We have a motion. We have a second. The floor is available for discussion on the motion. And any comment from Mr. O'Mara might be. Can I speak to that for a second? Pardon? Can I speak to that? Yes, sir. Okay, I think the points are these, that we're only charging the streetlights fee to the people who have streetlights, so it would apply to their residential location. And it is a tax-deductible expense that the homeowners can write off. And we're not putting a tax on all the other users of utilities who are not getting streetlights in their neighborhood or are just operating a business here. They happen to be out in the mall somewhere because this is just a huge tax on every person who has a utility bill. I think this is very bad legislation. All right. Thank you. Council Member Lane, Council Member Clark. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. So what I understand by the substitute motion is that we're eliminating any increase in the franchise fee. Is that correct? Is that correct? That's correct. Thank you. All right. The floor is available for discussion still on the motion to substitute. Well, I guess I don't really have a question except that it makes me think that we maybe need the hybrid since there was one motion for the property tax increase and one motion for the franchise fee. That's all. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Mr. Bill? Mayor, if I could just make some comments to be on the record. Listening to counsel, I would like to make two clarifications. Listening to counsel, I'd like to make two clarifications. If the will of the counsel is to go to no property tax rather than to use the word eliminate, you might want to set the rate at zero. that way that you still have it in some future period rather than creating it all over again. If you wish to go with a cost of service rate and pay for everything through the property tax, I did want to clarify that the council can roll back a property tax after it's been passed. That means we would have to refund everything that was collected, but a rollback is in your purview at some later date, just to make clarifications of options. And then the hybrid, I think, stands alone. I don't think I have to say any clarifications on that. All right. I have a question. Could you state what the total cost of street light fund is on an annual basis? The modeling that we did, which is on page 11 of the presentation, I don't know the packet number, has the underfunding. Just a moment. I'll get to the spreadsheet. And it's in the $6.2 million range, I believe. But let me pull it up and take a look. Okay. We have it at $6.3 million projected for FY14. and then it would increase about 200,000 per year, 65,000 and some change of that.