Music Thank you. Oh, my God. Ready, ready. All right, greetings, everyone. Greetings and welcome. I'll call the meeting of the work session of the council together. First on our agenda, I need to call Keith Horn, who is on the... Keith Horn is on the horn. Keith? I'm going to invite Keith to the podium. He'll ask for a hearing date for a police issue. The attorney for the police officer was supposed to be here and couldn't make it, so she wanted me to call, if that's all right, with everybody, while we talk about getting a hearing date. Mary? It's Keith Horn. I'm in front of the council. So I'll try to put you on speaker. I don't know how much you'll actually be able to hear, though. All right. All right. Hold on. Okay. All right. Go ahead, Mr. Horne. As I said, Mary Sharp, the attorney for the officer involved in this hearing, is on the phone. We're looking for a hearing date to conduct a police disciplinary hearing. The past couple of times that the council has done this, you've chosen a Monday starting at 3 or 3.30. It's obviously up to you when to select the date. Is there a deadline, did you say, Keith? The officer is willing to waive any deadlines associated with getting this hearing date scheduled and charges filed. There are time frames, as you know, under the collective bargaining agreement as well as in statutes. Typically, the officer and their attorney waive that, and they're willing to do that this time. So there's no real deadline other than keep in mind that you're going on break at the first week of July. So you need to do it before then. And Chief Baston is going to be unavailable from May 30th through June 23rd. And he did ask that he be available for this hearing. All right, have you got a suggested date or a couple of dates? How about the week of the 23rd? May 23rd? No, June. Mary Sharp's asking about the week of June 23rd. All right, council members, got your calendars available, it looks like? All right, so what date on the 23rd? You said something about a Monday. I think the chief will be out on the 23rd. So if you wanted to do, although the 24th, I think, may be your first budget reading. No. Okay, so it's already done. All right. So if you wanted to schedule it. All right. If you want to do a Monday, you could do June the 30th. Is that all right with you, Mary? All right. What about June? What time? Well, it's, you have in the past scheduled them for 3 o'clock so that you can get finished. All right. So, council members, who is not available on the 30th, if you just hold up your hand? Who is not available on June the 30th at 3 o'clock? All right. Then. We can do it on Thursday. Well, the 30th, looks like the 30th can be, will work. All right. We need a motion to that effect. All right. Motion by Council Member Scutchfield. Second. Second by Vice Mayor Gorton. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing none, then we can take a vote. All in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. So it will be 3 o'clock on June the 30th. And are we reading that as a motion for a special meeting on June the 30th? That's okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Keith, at three. That's correct, right. All right. All right. All right. That allows us to move. First on our agenda is public comment for issues on the agenda. The floor is available for issues on the agenda. Has anyone signed up, Mr. Mundy? All right. Thank you very much. Next is any rezonings and docket approval. I believe there are. Council Member Kaye. Is this for rezoning? Council Member Kaye? It's actually rezoning and docket approval. Oh, okay. Council members may remember that in our report about the Design Excellence Task Force, We noted that this would be coming automatically onto the proposed docket and that we wanted to hold this until we had more information about the parallel incentives that will be part of the whole design excellence package. And so I would like to make a motion that we refer to this zoning issue to the planning committee. So move. Which number is that again? the number nine i'm sorry ordinance for first reading number nine on page three this is amending the zoning ordinance which would implement the entire design excellence task force set of recommendations to planning to the planning committee all right so motion by councilmember kay in the second by councilmember henson is there any discussion on the motion councilmember stennett mayor typically you can't remove things from the docket except on thursday nights so this would have to be done formally on thursday night we can vote in principle now obviously but you'd have to do it again thursday night all right thank you so we have a motion we have a second is there any um further discussion on the motion it's just as council member stennett just said the motion is did you make a motion to approve the docket as well i did not make a motion i think what council member stennett said and what would be appropriate would be this is a motion and it's in principle we can take a vote on it so all in favor of the motion please indicate by saying aye Opposed, no. All right, the motion carries. Mayor, point of order, it's out of order. I mean, for years, law has told us we can't make a motion at work session to take something off the docket. So what has changed? It was a motion. What the parliamentarian said was that we could do it as a motion. Just taking a vote in principle, and that's what it represents. Mayor, if I may, just to simplify things, I'd like to withdraw my motion. All right. That's fine, too. Motion to withdraw. And a second. Who is the second? Actually, the person who seconded needs to withdraw the second. All right. Unless there's objection, motion to withdraw. All right. Council Member K. I don't care. I never thought this was the... Council Member K, do you wish to make a motion for the docket approval? I know we have a couple of other motions for rezonings. Council Member Ford? Mayor, I have a question about an item that's on the docket. I can defer until after the motions to bring forth the zoning if that pleases the council. All right. Council Member Scutchfield. Thank you, Mayor. I move to place ordinance number seven on the docket without a public hearing. Second. Motion by Council Member Scutchfield, second by Council Member Ellinger. Is there any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Council Member Clark, do you have a motion? Yes. Mayor, I propose to put number 8 on the docket. It's an ordinance changing from a P-1 zone to a R-1B zone to a P-1 zone, number 8. All right. Is there a motion by Councilman Clark? Is there a second? Second by Councilmember Henson. Is there any discussion on the motion? Put on with a hearing, right? Councilmember Clark. With a hearing or without? Without a hearing. Without a hearing. All right. Motion. All right. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing none. We can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Council member Ford, do you do or do not have a motion regarding a rezone? I do not have a motion regarding rezoning, but I do have a question about an item that's on the docket that we're set to approve. Okay, I was thinking that I had a note here that said you may have number six, ordinance number six. Give me just a second, Mayor. Thank you. Mayor, council members, I move to place on the docket ordinance number six for a zone change without a public hearing. So moved. Second. Motion by council member Ford, second by council member Akers. Is there any discussion? Okay. Hearing none, then we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. Council member Ford. We don't have, I'm sorry, wait just a second, Council Member Ford. You're wishing to speak to an issue on the docket, right? All right, why don't we get a motion to approve the docket and then we'll end discussion. Second. Motion by Council Member K to approve the docket, second by Vice Mayor Gordon. Is there any discussion? Council Member Ford. Thank you, Mayor. I have a question, and I'm referencing resolution number 56 that is on the docket for first read. Council members, the subject matter is in regards to Rupp Arena and the design grant that we entered into, I guess, a year or so ago. For the reference of council members, I distributed an email on Thursday, April 17th, And I also have formalized that exact content of that email into a letter that I distributed yesterday. And it's in regards to the design grant. And I know there has been a lot of discussion that started this afternoon in our budget cow in regards to Rupp Arena. But to some eyes, my concern is in regards to where we are right now as a local government as it pertains to Rupp Arena. and that is particularly in regards to the design and planning aspect of the project. I will report to the council that I had the fortune to meet with Mayor Gray and with Mr. Butler yesterday, but I think it is wise to have a discussion and get some of the answers to the questions that I provided for in my letter. particularly of concern to me is the state match is the state grant that was provided to us in which we matched it with local funds of 2.5 million dollars long story short i guess right about now we have five million dollars total project as it pertains to the rup arena redesign phase. 2.5 from the state, 2.5 from local government as was designed. But hence in the final hours of the legislative session last Tuesday was placed into a bill, House Bill 301, that requires repayment of that $2.5 million that the state provided in a grant agreement. And going back to the item that is on the agenda, and I'll ask, Mayor, if I have the liberty to request guidance, I would ask our grants director, Irene Gooding, as a beginning point, to clarify what is on the docket. And I will say that it's ironic that this issue was brought on the docket. last Tuesday at 3 o'clock prior to the action of the state with House Bill 301. It's just ironic that the events happen that way. But Irene, if you could clarify for us what the resolution entails. This is just an amendment to extend the project through June 30th of 2016. It is really a stopgap measure by DLG. If we have not drawn all the funds by June 30th, then we won't be able to draw them. I suspect we may well have drawn all funds by June 30th, but in the event that we haven't, this would keep those funds alive. And that's all it will do. Okay. Irene, can I ask just one or two very quick questions because I know I'm on the time clock. Now, this is the funds that we're speaking of are the $2.5 million grant funds that the state pledged to our government initially. Is that correct? Yes. And the instrument that we have for those funds are a grant agreement? Yes, we have a written agreement with DLG. We have incurred costs, and we have drawn down from that grant agreement, which is reimbursable, which means we demonstrate to the state that the cost we've incurred are grant project eligible to be reimbursed. And I believe we've drawn down 2.2 of the original 2.5. That sounds right. I'm not sure exactly how much we've drawn. We've not fully drawn it, though. Very good. Thank you, Irene. Council members, I hope you are, I'm disturbed by the requirement that we have to repay the funds. My concern is whether or not this government has to remit a check to the state government of $2.5 million. Going into the project, the big concern was the acknowledgement that the state's source of funds was the coal severance tax funds, which are intended, I guess, for coal impacted counties, I assume in the east and in the west part of our state. but I contend that was unbeknownst to this council when we entered into our matching grant agreement. And I'm not certain how that bears to simply, through a bill, convert an existing loan agreement into an existing grant agreement into a loan agreement. So that was the purpose of my writing the letter. I feel confident that by instrument we have a grant agreement. I would welcome Mr. Butler if he's available to apprise us of where we stand right now with the design phase of the project and what House Bill 301 this so-called repayment means to us. Mayor, I'll defer the rest of my time and hopefully come back later. Thank you, sir. All right. Thank you, Council Member Ford. Frank, do you want to address Council Member Ford's question? Yes. Yes. The answer to the first question is where we are in the process. As you know, there was a total of $5.5 million allocated, two and a half from the city, two and a half from the state. In addition, there was money that came from the Lexington Convention Visitors Bureau as well as LCC to support the project. We have expended approximately $5 million of the five and a half for, and we have completed schematic design. And that was according to the plan that we laid out 12 months ago. We have completed our contract for schematic design with our architects and with our construction managers. We have, through the services of the city, billed the state for their portion of those design costs and the consulting costs. and have done so according to the contract that we have with the state. The $2.5 million obligation to repay is something that we're aware of. We have committed to repay it. It is our intention to pay that back through the overall financing of the RUP project. It is not our intention to ask the city to pay the $2.5 million back out of its current revenues. We know it's not in your budget. We didn't ask you to put it in your budget. And we intend to make it a part of our overall financing scheme. It was something that I think, as you all know, I guess this is probably, I don't want to put this in a flip way, but as you know, the legislature giveth and the legislature taketh away. And we have administered this program in the way that it was passed legislatively, and we have confidence that we can deal with the $2.5 million as part of the overall financing of the RUP project. Does that answer your question? Yes, sir, Mr. Butler. I think it gets the conversation started as to where we are right now. We may have some more questions from council members, but I have another thought. Others who signed up for this question. Mr. Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Butler, in the original agreement, was it listed in there that we would repay this money? No, it was not. So did that contract change, or was this just a verbal agreement with the state? No, there is a written agreement with the Department of Local Government, and it does not state in there that it doesn't state it's a loan. It doesn't state it basically allocates the money. The original wording in the statute, if you give me a second, I'll read it real quickly. It says, notwithstanding KRS 42-4558, funds totally $1.25 million each fiscal year shall be transferred from the local government economic development fund, multi-county fund, to the Lexington Downtown Redevelopment Planning and Design Capital Project. Finance and Administration Cabinet General Administration Budget Unit has set forth in Part II Capital Projects Budget of this act. These funds shall be used exclusively for the planning and design of the renovation of Rupp Arena. These funds shall not be expended unless matching funds are provided on a dollar-for-dollar basis. That's right out of the budget bill. So there's no written agreement that we have with the state saying we must repay that? There is nothing in writing that says we must repay that. The new $1.5 million, is that a loan, a grant, or is it the same situation, part of this agreement that's given to us? The new $1.5 million, my understanding of that, I have not read that legislation, is that it is not defined in the legislation as a loan. It is defined as grant. Okay. And then after July 1st, if we extend this agreement that's on our docket Thursday night, how will we continue to pay for the move up forward? Where would that money come from? The one and a half? Would that be enough? No, that will not be. I mean, that can be a contribution, but the cost of going into the next phase of design, which would be the design development phase, the budget for that would be approximately $3 million. dollars and we're also aware of the fact that there is that we have not asked you to put a million and a half dollars to match this because obviously neither the mayor nor myself knew that that was going to come out of this session of the budget and so therefore there is no request that we have put in front of you to match that million and a half so we don't know how we're going to proceed after july 1 that's correct we do not know okay i'll reserve questions for later I wish I had better answers for you. Council Member Lane. Yeah, I'm just trying to get clarification. So do you think that we owe $2.5 million in payback now, or do you think that the current contract we have is valid and we don't have to pay it back? I won't opine on the second part. I think probably somebody who has a legal background needs to do that. In terms of the first part of that question is, as was referenced by Councilman Ford, there is a current piece of statute which was passed during the last session which directs that that $2.5 million be repaid, either by, I think is it June 1st of 2015? I can't remember, it's sometime in 2015, or that any financing that we got from the state would be net of the $2.5 million that was a loan, or failing that, the money would be replaced in the coal severance tax funds by the Rainy Day Fund. Was the original grant between the governor's office or somebody like that over in Frankfurt and the mayor here as opposed to being passed by the legislature since it wasn't in session, or do you know? The only contract that exists for the $2.5 million is between the mayor's office and the Department of Local Government. Okay. All right. Thank you. This is fun, isn't it? No. Councilmember... Actually, the last time I had this much fun was a root canal. Thank you. Vice Mayor Gordon. Now, I always say you're smiling more here, though, than you were in your previous position. So if I understand, then, the number 56 on our docket, it doesn't obligate us to money. It just says, depending on what happens, it'll give us more time. We haven't expended the complete $5.5 million, and we have not expended, as Irene said, enough of the city's money to get the full match from the state. The way the state has administered this contract is we have to spend the money first, then we send them a bill, and they send us a check for half of what we've spent. So it's, in effect, an after-the-fact reimbursement. and we will not have expended all the city's money that they have committed by June 30th because at this point we have completed all the major components of the design that we had committed to up until now. So therefore, we need that extension so that when we do, and assuming we do proceed, Councilman's Senate, forward with some other funding, we will then be able to go back to the state and ask them to pay the balance of what they had committed to. So, and then based on what you said just previous to answer Council Member Lane's questions, if the Urban County Council decides not to pay the 2.5, which we thought we were matching a grant when we passed it, then the state will take it out of any future monies that they give us. Is that kind of a lay perspective? That's my understanding of the language that was passed during the current session. Okay, and do you see anything wrong with that? I don't know that, excuse me just a minute, I think that probably, I'm not sure that the language says, I think it might be subject to a legal interpretation. Yeah. Yeah. That's why I said I won't attempt to answer the legality of that issue. So maybe we might want to get that legal interpretation. I would like it. And I have a number of questions which I think I don't want to ask right now because we're not – I mean, you're here, but it seems to me that this would be a golden opportunity for the council itself to finally have a discussion about this project, which we really haven't had an opportunity as a whole. And so I'm thinking we should schedule something where we are just maybe a special budget and finance or, you know, so that we can have you here and any parties that you would want, Mayor, so that we can vet through the questions that council members have so that we know for sure what we're agreeing to going forward and what, you know, that everybody's questions get answered. I mean, I see a lot of heads. That came up in the last session there, and I agreed that we would do that going forward, and we'd coordinate through you. I mean, I am right now when we look at the project, we're really the only ones that have money in it, correct? Yes. We have skin in the game, and no one else does technically. So I think council members need to be apprised of the financing and get some council members involved with that piece of it. Even those of us who sit on the Lexington Center Board have not been privy to that, except what the general board has heard. There were no council members, to my knowledge, on the original task force, I don't think. so I think it's time for the council we're happy to do that okay thank you vice mayor councilor Myers thank you mayor mr. Butler when you said that we are confident that we can take care of this in future funding who is we assuming that that ends up being something that we have to deal with. We have worked this budget enough times with enough different options that a $2.5 million cost, which represents about eight-tenths of 1% of the total cost of the project, would be manageable. I understand that part, but I'm trying to figure out who we is when you say we. Who is represented by that? Lexington Center, you were talking earlier. Lexington Center Corporation. Okay. So then if it doesn't happen, is Lexington Center Corporation going to pay the $2.5 million back? They would be responsible for it. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Ford? Thanks again, Mayor, for the opportunity to speak. I basically had two questions in my memo, and I'm satisfied with the first question. that what we have, again, with focus on the project as it stands right now, $5.5 million in design costs. I'm confident that Mr. Butler and Ms. Gooding and LCC board have been operating based on a grant agreement that we have with the state that basically shares the costs. I'm also confident, and I want this to really be known, in support of the efforts thus far, that we have complied with the terms of that grant agreement. Would that be fair to say? Absolutely. We've filed every quarterly report ahead of time. We have provided them with any and all information, including invoices, canceled checks. Everything that's been requested has been provided. And that's important. And I want that to be known for our taxpayers to know that and then for folks across the state to know that, that our government has been responsible in the planning phases of such a complicated project. What concerns me about the requirement to repay, and I'm speaking from a grants background, having done a little bit in that, you generally have to repay or grant funds are recaptured when parties or the applicable party fails to do something or they are out of compliance with doing something. And that does not apply in this case. The state pledged 2.5 and asked as a requirement that we match it, and the local government matched it. The political issue is in regards to the cold severance being the source of the state funds. And I contend that that is an issue that the urban county government had no control over. That is a dynamic. And so if we had no control over that, why should then we be penalized or punished? And that is what will happen if our taxpayers are exposed to us having to cut a check for $2.5 million, thus escalating our involvement in the design phase to nearly 100% of the cost, which was not planned when the original cost share was proposed. So that was, and I still search, as I'm sure many council members, I'm not unique in this concern. I still search for what level of exposure cash-wise is this government right now. Because House Bill 301 calls for repayment April 1. April 1. Of 15. I would ask, and I will disclose this to the council, and I forgive for not sharing. But I've asked the opinion of our law department, and with the understanding of C.O. Hamilton, the Commissioner Graham, and David Barbary has reviewed House Bill 301. And I would ask if he would abbreviate his findings and interpretation of what 301 says, as it does in my letter, as it pertains to Lexington. Because I know the mayor was in Frankfort and we have lobbyists that work on our behalf. House Bill 301, the bill itself, the legislation, was not intended for Lexington. It just so happens that this language was attached to that legislation that pertains to the repayment. So I would ask David if you could enlighten the council and what you think at this moment. And keep in mind that I can't really address some of the politics involved in this. And your bigger issue may, frankly, be, from my view, political, depending on how you want to handle all this, and the ramifications that may come from how you decide to proceed. This was part of, as Council Member Ford indicated, this was part of the general budget bill. It was put in as a floor amendment. I did not have an opportunity to check today yet, but I'm not aware of this currently being the law at this point in time. It was passed by both houses. It's been enrolled. I don't think the governor has signed it yet. I don't recall off the top of my head what his deadline would be to veto, to line item veto, something like this. But assuming that this goes through in its current form and it's too late to have it amended, as Councilmember Ford indicated, there is an April 1st, 2015 deadline in the bill. And it is couched in the terms of being mandatory, i.e. the Lexington-Fade, Irving County government, shall remit to the Commonwealth a payment of $2.5 million. dollars. However, even though it says that, it also has a contingency if that does not happen by April 1st of 2015, and that contingency is that the 2.5 million dollars will be transferred from the general fund surplus account or the budget reserve trust fund account, which I believe is this rainy day fund that was alluded to earlier. If we don't pay them by April 1st, the state would take it out of its own rainy day fund, and then there would be a contingency at a future point in time that if there was future financing provided by the state on this project, they would take the $2.5 million out of that future financing and put it back in the fund that they took it out of. And that kind of speaks in concert to what Mr. Butler was saying just a few moments ago about future proceeds if the state grants it. In closing, what I will say, and again, it's very ironic. As we were here a week ago, Irene brought forth her grant amendment, which I will support as its Resolution 56 to allow us to continue to draw against the grant agreement. But I do speak with concern and against us having to pay $2.5 million for an act that we had nothing to do with in regards to the source of the state funds. Thanks, Mayor. Thank you, Attorney. Back to Councilmember Stenet. Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate the Vice Mayor chiming in and suggesting that Council needs to see the full financial plan and have that debate openly and discussion. But I think one group that's being left out of this whole conversation is the public and the taxpayers. I think before we accept one more dime for this project, before we move forward past July 1, at some time between now and July 1, we have a public forum, a public meeting, to allow the public to come and voice their opinion on this project, because I think that's been missing. I think there's been a lot of things out in the media, a lot of things out in public as we walk the streets, but I don't think it's been orchestrated in the fact that they can come and have three minutes at that microphone. I think that's important. I think the mayor would agree to me that if we can schedule it between now and July 1, the next 60 days, and have a public meeting on this project and disclose what the financial plan is publicly so that everyone can understand it. I think that's an important next step, and that should be the next step, not just the council and on, but the public. So, Mayor, if we could do that. I would encourage that continuing on. As you know, Council Member Stenet, there have been maybe, I don't know how many, public meetings on the project through the course of the last three years, maybe 60 or so. So this would be consistent with the pattern already introduced, and that's a good thing. Well, I think this one would be a little different, and this chamber seems to have a different take on it, as well as disclosing the financial details. Well, that, of course, that has been developing. And as Mr. Butler said, as of last Friday, the university shared its willingness to share that, their contribution. I just think it's important to do it sooner rather than later. Yeah. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, sir. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. um council member stentett i appreciate that um i think that um what i'm looking at is when we come back from break and we may know something by then about uk and it will there there's not a rush to do this public meeting and the council before we go on break we have budget focus right now And what I'm thinking is more toward August of having a special budget and finance meeting toward what maybe you're also thinking. And do it in August. I chatted with the mayor just now and chatted with Commissioner O'Mara. It wouldn't really put us in a position where we're coming too late. It would give the public an opportunity to weigh in, and it would give the council an opportunity to weigh in. And so I'd like to go ahead and move to schedule a special council budget and finance meeting. And if Council Member Stenet, if you want to have a public, we would, of course, invite the public a separate hearing for the public. I'm okay with that, but schedule a special budget and finance meeting with the only item on the agenda to be the arena arts and entertainment project. And to set that meeting for August when we come back from break. And we could do it on a Monday at 5 o'clock, maybe when people could come, or there's a Thursday available. I guess I would look to the council to pick the date, the 18th or the 21st or the 25th. Those are all available. Is that a motion? Yes. And a motion, Vice Mayor Gordon, seconded by Council Member Kaye. Did you select the date? I was going to make a motion, too, but there's already a motion on the floor to approve the docket, so we need to dispose of that first. Then we can make a motion to have a public hearing. There's already a motion on the floor, though. To approve the docket. Yeah, we need to dispose of that before we make another motion. I was going to make the same type of motion for a different date, but we already have a motion on the floor. This is during docket approval. Okay, we're in discussion on docket approval. So I would have thought it was. All right. How much does anyone else wish to speak to the. But this is a motion. I think what Council Member Stenet's saying, I can make it right after we dispose of the docket motion. All right. Council Member Lane. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to just add a thought to this. is that of all the issues that come before council, I've had more people ask me about the Rep Arena project, and I'm sure that's probably been true with many of our council members. And I felt like I was unable really to take a position one way or the other because I would not have been adequately briefed as a council member that I knew whether I would or would not support it. And just recently, you know, a few tidbits of information have come out, so I have a little better idea. But I think that this is a great idea to have a forum before council and have a lot of information provided so both the council and the public can be fully briefed on the issue. So I strongly support it. But I would like to just add another thought, is that I want to say you've been in a really tough position as the mayor because you're dealing with all these different entities that are involved in negotiations. So it's been a complex deal. So I don't think we should be too hard on you. Okay? Thank you. I'm going to relish that, Council Member Lane. I'm going to hold that moment for a long time. Record that. Thank you, sir. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Mayor. If we go back to the business at hand, and number 56, if this item, if we extend this period of time, would any more of these funds be expensed without council approval? Or tell me exactly what this resolution does. basically the council's already approved the budget through your two and a half million dollar contribution so there are no additional funds that you would have to act on beyond what's already been approved but it would extend their time to spend it correct for us to get reimbursed yes and I guess my thoughts are if we have to repay this money we should not spend any more of it until we get clarification on that? Right now, we've got some fairly minor expenses that we're going to continue to have to spend. We're doing some TIF studies right now, for example, but it's a fairly minor thing, and I keep track of which pot the money comes out of, And so I can very easily spend it out of the city's $2.5 million and not out of the state's $2.5 million so that no more of their money is expended on the project between now and the time we know what our going forward plan is going to be to finance the project. And could we also get an itemized list of where these funds have been spent? Yes. Thank you. I do a quarterly report, which I submit to Bill O'Mara, and I'll ask him to provide you a copy. And this last one outlines where basically all the funds have been spent, not in minute detail, but in general categories. Okay? Thank you. You're welcome. Vice Mayor Gordon. Actually, mine, Mr. Myers, if his is about the docket, that's mine's about the... Is it still on this question? All right, go ahead. Councilman Marsh. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Butler, when we spoke before, you talked about not in the meeting here today that there's still some design documents that need to be created or engineering mechanical documents. I'm sorry. There's still some more documents that needed to be created, right? Basically, what we're working on right now is just TIFF and bond financing strategies with Commonwealth economics, and that's really the only current contract that's in place that we're expending money for, and that's at the rate of about $8,000 a month. Other than that, everything that has been produced in the way of design documents has been paid for. Okay. But are there more documents that will have to be produced if we go forward? Yes. The next documents would be design development, and that would be the budget for that is about $3 million. Okay, and the last time you talked, you said that LCC would be responsible for that. Is that still the case? Well, the responsibility for that will be basically after we figure out what financing we have going forward. It will depend on who's stepped forward, and our assumption is that before we do that, before we go to design development, we'll have all three partners lined up in one form or another. Okay. So, I mean, theoretically, you know, if somebody wanted to step forward with some money, you know, and finance it, we could go ahead with it. But then you'd have to ask yourself, is that reasonable to go to that next step and spend those funds if you don't know where the total financing for the project's going? And I would submit to you that that's something that I wouldn't suggest. Right. Well, in the context of our conversation about that, it was whether or not the council would be asked to pay for those. We have no plans to ask for the council to pay for those. Okay. Thank you. All right. On this question, Council Member Alvaro, I would be glad to ask. Councilman, Frank, you might want to hang. Yeah, you're close by. Councilmember Ellinger. Yes, thank you, Mayor. How much do we have left in the fund, the 5.5? Unexpended, we have probably about $500,000. And what's our monthly burn rate on that? Our monthly burn rate? Yeah. Right now we're down to, well, you're having to pay me and Commonwealth Economics. So that's your burn rate. You're down to three employees. We have three employees? Well, actually, I'm not even your employee. I'm an Election Center Corporation employee. And then we have John Farris and Tom Howard under contract that are doing our bond financing and TIF financing. So their burn rate's $8,000 a month. So right now our burn rate for this project is $8,000 a month? Yeah. I thought it was $8,000. $8,000 for them and then whatever you're paying me. I guess that's the question. What was that? Well, it's my current salary is $200,000 a year. So divide 12 into 20, and that's the burn rate for me. Okay. Thank you. And that, by the way, that's Lexington Center's obligation, not yours. So that's out of the $500,000 that we put $250,000. 2.5 in, the state put 2.5 in that we got to repay, and then the $500,000 that? That LCC and the Convention Bureau put in. And that's where they're paying you out of that salary? And that's out of the half a million that's still left? It's sitting there. It's sitting partially right now, I think, in the city and partially in LCC's book. I guess that was his question. So if we have $500,000 left, how much is there in each fund, each one? because they're broken down in three, I guess you're saying. Yeah, we have all the money from LCC and LCVB. The city still hasn't made their last quarterly transfer yet, which is $312,000, and we still have a residual with the state, which we haven't billed, which is about $200,000. So when you said that earlier about that we would not use any more of the state money, so we didn't have to pay them back, but we've already spent that then. That money's already gone, right? Well, there's – If we only have 500,000 left and they put in 500 with the LCC, then that's the only money that's left. There's a couple hundred thousand left that we have not yet billed the state for their match. Basically the same as the city. City's is 300. Theirs is 200. But we're going to be billing that, you're saying? Well, we can't – you know, I would anticipate we would bill them, but there's no obligation to spend it. Okay. Thank you. Council member Ford. Yes, Mayor. Thank you. My last comment and I'll make it in one or two minutes. I made a statement and I stand by the statement and I expressed this in the letter that, again, I don't think that our government should be penalized or harmed through repayment based on the funding of source of funds that came from the state. But I said something in my later and I'm certain that most council members agree. We share sensitivity to those counties who rely on cold severance. We share sensitivity to that. So I don't want that to be misconstrued at all that we're not concerned about that. And I say that from the prospect of is probably arguably, it's probably can be argued that our city, Lexington, being one of the three metro engines of this state send far more resources to frankfort than we get back i think that in itself necessitates the conversation that we've had here today in regards to not being unduly targeted with this repayment so again i'll support the grant agreement that's on the docket but we need to be revisited with that thanks again for the time Thank you, Frank. Vice Mayor? Mine is just to dispose of my motion after the docket is finished. Although, Mayor, excuse me, Frank, maybe you could consider a discount in your pay. There you go. We got you smiling again. Yeah. All right. We could buy a group lottery ticket. A group lottery, yes. By the way, just as a footnote, I think what Council Member, before we move on, just as a moment before, I think what Council Member Ford just mentioned is really relevant for sure. If we look at when the grant was originally offered to Lexington, it was a time when Lexington and the country two years ago, 2000, was coming out of a recession, But what our neighbors and friends in eastern Kentucky began experiencing was a decline that has been the worst, especially in the coal industry, the worst in history, I'm told. So to some extent, I think to some extent, this conversation has to do with acknowledging the challenges and the difficulties and also the leadership that Lexington represents for this region. And so this has been a healthy and a vigorous discussion. And I certainly welcome more as we go downstream associated with this. So now we can vote on the docket. All right. All in favor of the motion, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. So I move that the council have a special budget and finance meeting with the specific purpose of discussing the Rupp project, Arena Arts and Entertainment, on August the 25th at 6 o'clock p.m., which would allow working folks to get here. All right. Motion by Vice Mayor Gordon. Is there a second? my motion is to set a special budget and finance committee meeting on august 25th at 6 o'clock p.m. for with one agenda item which would be the arena arts and entertainment district second motion by vice mayor gordon second by councilmember kate is there any discussion on the motion councilmember stentet thank you mayor and vice mayor i appreciate you making this motion I think it's critical as the next step on this project, but I would hesitate in saying that that's too late. To me, it needs to be done before July 1, before we extend this agreement, and before they run out of money. Because once the money's gone, I'm not sure how they're going to pay for moving it forward from July 1 to August 25th. That may or may not be the case. I don't know, but I think this is an issue on the public's mind today, and I think we need to have it before July 1, personally. Councilmember Clark. Thank you. I agree 100% we need this meeting, and I think it would be good for everybody. Catharsis, I think, to a certain extent, but I agree with Councilmember Stenet. I think it's too late. I think we need to do this sooner. There's a lot of issues on the table, and we really need to discuss those issues sooner than later. And so I think that would be the better method to get this on the table. Thank you, Mayor. All right. Anyone else wish to speak? May I just... Vice Mayor. My thinking was that there more than likely won't be any motions. There won't be any action by UK. We are in the middle of our budget meetings, and we've just added lots of meetings to our calendar. I think the public is not going to forget. If we hold it in June, for example, maybe that last week after we're done with our budget, there's nothing magical about that date at all. And in my conversation with, we were just chatting about it up here, it might be that if we wait until August, we may have some movement, I'm hopeful, on the U.K. front. If we meet before that, it doesn't really give them much opportunity to tell us anything new. So that is just what I was thinking. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Kay. Thank you, Mayor. I actually seconded the motion because I wanted to have this discussion. I understand both the interest in having a meeting sooner and the interest in not having our calendar kind of congested. So I would ask Councilmember Stinnett, if you can propose a date and time that would work for enough council people, I'd say the end of June after we're done with our budget discussions, I would be in favor of having it earlier rather than later. but I think we need to see if we can find a time. We've had difficulty doing that. Otherwise, I think we ought to, and I don't see any big downside to waiting, but I think earlier is okay, too. So is that appropriate so you move to amend to a particular date or see if we can find a date? All right. Council Member Stenet. Thank you, Mayor. I was looking at June 26th, which is the Thursday before, but I know that some people won't be here that day. That's another issue. So you're right. It is hard to schedule 15 people, and I want to make sure everyone has enough time to be here. I think it's important. So that's the only date we have between now and summer recess that would probably work, unless we want to do it during budget time. June 26th. All right, there's a conversation about June 26th, and there's a June 12th. In the past, we've scheduled additional budget meetings sometimes on June 12th if we don't get done, so we need to be aware of that. I'd hate to. And would you, are you proposing to have a 6 o'clock so that the public could come? Yeah. Chuck, God, I can drive. You want to move to amend or? Go ahead. That's the new date. June 26th? I could do a June 23rd. 6 o'clock. So can I? Is this a form of a motion? How many are thinking that's it? But just a straw person, a straw man poll. Okay. June 26th? Okay, what's the question? Well, I cannot be here the 26th of June. Ed can't. This is a Budget and Finance Committee meeting. Can we please look for a date when everybody could be here? All right. There's a suggestion June 23rd. How many can not do June 23rd? Anybody cannot do June 23rd? All right, looks like June 23rd. All right, Councilman Lawless. I, too, think that it's important to have the meeting. I don't think there's anything magical about doing it before the 1st of July. We'll have more information, but we've already scheduled today, you know, two other special meetings. And historically, before we go on break, we're met with zone change hearings that have to be heard before we go on break because they have to be heard within a certain amount of time. So what we're doing is basically not leaving ourselves any wiggle room at all if other things like zone change hearings, et cetera, come up that have to be heard before we go on break. And I agree that there's nothing magical about July 1 and August. There may be more. So that's my two cents. Do we have a second on the motion? Right now, I did not move to amend. We were taking a straw poll, but just to keep it simple, let me move to amend and make the date June 23rd at 6 o'clock. And if I may, first I need a second. And then I'd like to speak. All right, motion to amend, second by Council Member Kaye, second by Council Member Ellinger. So here's my thinking at this point. We may not have additional information at that time, and we may need to schedule additional meetings. This is a big issue. This is not a simple issue. It's not a small issue. Let's have a meeting on the 23rd. If we don't have additional information from the university at that time, there's plenty other things to talk about. We may want to schedule an additional meeting in August. I think this is something that we want to do with deliberation. So that's my reason to amend. Thank you, Mayor. All right, so we have a motion by Council Member Kaye, seconded by Council Member Ellinger to amend the date to June 23rd. Is there any discussion on the motion to amend? All right, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right, motion does carry. All right. Okay, now we're back to the original motion, which is as amended. All in favor, do we have any more discussion on it? Okay, then we can vote. All in favor, the motion is amended. Please indicate by saying aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. All right. That allows us to move. Council Member K, you're not on for this, right? All right, okay. All right. That allows us to move on to the summary. Is there a motion approved? Second. Motion by Council Member Stennett. Second by Council Member Myers. Is there any discussion on the motion? Second. All right. Hearing none, we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Budget amendments. Is there a motion to approve? Second. Motion by Council Member Beard. Second by Council Member Scotchfield. Second. Is there any discussion on the motion? Yes. Vice Mayor Gordon. Yes, thank you, Mayor. So on page six, these are the reallocation budget amendments. And, Melissa, I wondered why on the last one, Journal 77212-13, why this was not put into two budget amendments, one for $3 million for affordable housing and one for $500,000 for homeless services. Okay. It's all lumped together. We have it all going into the same fund, but within that fund, we have it going into two different places. So we have it going into two different accounts of money. So if someone wanted to open records where that money went, there would be an open record that showed that it was split. Correct. Is that correct? Correct. That is correct. Okay, so they could get that information. Yes, they could. Okay, thank you. And then on page 9, I don't know if this is a – these are all the sewer and water quality. Is this you or Charlie? Rest of your bill, speak to these. Okay. These are the last four on page nine. These are Sanitary Sewer Fund and Water Quality Fund, and they say to provide the funds in the correct account code to support LexServe billing. Are these just correction of errors, or what are these? This is to provide additional funding to cover some costs that were not predicted last year when the budget was done. So are they going, are they costs from Cincinnati Water Company? Some from Cincinnati Water, where we had to do a rework last year when the water company made an upgrade in their system to SAP. Some additional charges for UPN, our consultant, that helped to work on that as well as developing RFP. And then some additional billing charges from Bluegrass Mailing on the folks who do our invoicing, such as housing, the invoices online. and pieces that were not included in the budget. So they total, what, a little over $300,000? About $396,000. Almost $400,000. So is this something that we are expecting more of, or is this something we're finished with? This is something to finish up with this year. The budget for next year for GCW actually would have come down due to part of the payments rolling off from repaying them for the system change. Okay. And these funds then are coming from water quality fees and from sanitary sewer fees? That's correct. Is that correct? The rest of it looks like Mr. Bill is going to perhaps amend. I just want to make an amendment. This would be the end of any budget amendments, and this is not additional dollars coming out of these funds. It's reallocating because we had dollars sitting in for capital to develop a new billing system, which has been delayed because of these other things happening. So we're not going into fund balance any greater than the original budget, but it's moving accounts around. The one clarification I wanted to make is we may be coming back to you for bad debt expense, but that doesn't have anything to do with the billing, the costs associated with the billing system. Okay, so we knew these were coming. Pardon? Based on what you just said, we knew these would be, we'd have to be doing this. We anticipated. We anticipated that this might happen, yes. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor. That's a good question, Vice Mayor. Thank you for asking. I think it might be useful at some point in time, Bill, to share a summary of what overall costs for collections and the history. You don't have to do it right now from my point of view. I'm just saying. Pardon your point. Yes, the Environmental Quality Committee has asked for that, and we're going to be on their agenda. Okay, great. Thank you. While you're at it, share it with me. That'd be great. Okay, good. All right. No further discussion. We can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Next on our agenda is new business. Is there a motion to approve? Motion. Motion by Council Member Beard, second by Council Member Ellinger. Is there any discussion? Floor is available for discussion. Council Member Stenning. Thank you, Mayor. On item G, this is abolishing one position of a municipal aid senior. I see Charlie walking up and creating a project coordinator for Division of Water Quality. I know we've done this in the sanitary sewer side for the consent decree projects, but is this the position we've been trying to fill for a number of months that we haven't been able to fill, and what's that do to our staffing on municipal engineers and water quality? Yes, we have been trying to fill this one for a while. Not lately, but the previous efforts did not prove fruitful. By changing the title, that allows us to hire or at least an engineer who does not have a professional engineering license to compete for the project. And I think that's okay. I don't think you absolutely have to be a licensed PE in the state of Kentucky to manage a project well. So we feel like this will broaden the talent pool access to us. Okay, and this is temporary, so in four years we plan on... We'll come back and see where we are four years from now. This is not a long-term commitment. So, you know, this is abolishing a civil service position and creating it into a non-civil service position. And this is a cost savings to this budget, but what about a 2015 budget? What kind of cost? Is there a cost savings going forward permanently, or...? You know, it obviously depends on where they hit in the salary stuff. As Melissa talked about earlier, you know, they budget at a certain amount. But basically, this is trading an existing authorized position for a different authorized position at the same pay grade. The difference is that you're relieving yourself of the long-term commitment of a civil service position and approving a non-civil service position that you can reevaluate every four years. So the flexibility in hiring is the issue here? Precisely. All right, very good. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Charlie. Council Member Scotchfield. Thank you, Mayor. I had a question about letter C. It was a matching grant, requesting the 50,000 federal funds for the Brownfield Redevelopment Courthouse. I guess my question here is I know that we put forward some money out of our budget surplus last year, and we're not hearing a lot about what's going on with the courthouse as far as fixing it up, doing something. So could you give us an update on what's going on right now? Well, I apologize. I don't have a lot of information on that. All I know is that we've requested the $200,000 grant from the federal government. We requested, now we want to request the $50,000. I think everything is somewhat, there's a few items that are occurring, but I apologize, I don't know more details on what's happening, but I can get that to you. Jeff can help with that. Yeah, I can. Can you put something up there? Super Zoom. All right. All right. Back in, I believe it was February, I stood in front of you and put this up here. And under the column that says currently, you'll see that we were simply in drawings, having conversations, and the EPA, and putting in a Brownfield application to the EPA. So that was at the federal level and that application is for I believe 200,000. There's a state program as well and that's what the 50,000 is for. So as we got into this, what we found was is that there were three different groups that were all looking at the courthouse. So we had environmental quality was looking at the environmental piece of it and putting in applications on that and putting together scopes of work around that. We had facilities that had previously in the current year's budget had 300,000 that was set aside for capital improvements, but that was for structural analysis and stabilization of the building. And then in your wisdom you set aside 250,000 out of the fund balance to be used for moving the project forward. So we've slowed down a little bit because what we wanted to do was make sure that we got everything coordinated and got those three pots all basically working together. And so where we're at now is there is an RFP that is to be issued. That is those bottom two boxes there for structural analysis and conditions assessment. And what we'll do is have an RFP out for a architecture engineering team that will conduct the assessment on the building. What that will tell us is what absolutely has to happen right now to keep the building from getting worse and for getting more expensive. It will tell us what we have to preserve historically in order to preserve our opportunities for leveraging historic tax credits, which could be fairly lucrative in the sense of about $6 million. And it will also give us some ranges of improvements, and so whether that is sort of what a light-touch renovation will look like, what a moderate-touch renovation will look like, and then what a full restoration of the building will look like. And from that, we'll be able to move into the environmental remediation, stabilization, and cosmetic scope of work, of which that is the biggest chunk of that. So if you take the 300 and the 250 that you've set aside, we're at 550, right? The biggest chunk of that 550 will go towards the stabilization of the building. However, I want to warn you that to do the full environmental remediation, stabilization of the building, it probably will require another 700, 800,000 to do that in addition to what you've already set aside. That request is not in this year's budget. But I wanted to sort of put that out there just so you understand that we're trying to be careful in how we spend those dollars so that we don't get in front of ourselves, trip over ourselves, and make it more expensive in the long run. So the stabilization work we think we'll be able to scope out after we issue this RFP, get that scope of work over the summer and into the fall, and hopefully get that work done in the fall and winter next year. Meanwhile, we put in the grant applications for the environmental piece to help towards that, and we'll have a clearer understanding of what that scope of work is, and we'll then work towards planning for that in the meantime. Does that answer your question? It does. I guess my concern is every day that we don't do something with that courthouse. there's a bigger chance that it's going to cost us triple, quadruple what our original price is. Absolutely right. And so I'd like us to get moving, I guess. Thank you. I will consider that with a fire lit underneath me. Council Member Lane. I have a question for Commissioner Paulson. Commissioner Paulson. Good afternoon and welcome. Afternoon. I just wanted to ask about the, and I think I pronounced this right, Acela Civic Platform. Yes, sir. And the thing that caught my attention in the memorandum that came out, it said funding is available for the costs associated with this phase of implementation, and we're spending about $1.2 million. So I was trying to get the idea, is this going to be an ongoing thing? we have to buy more and more and more? So the way this is easiest, we are technically in phase two of the implementation. The first phase was the division of water quality. So the second phase is building inspection, planning, and new development. That's the last phase. That's the phase. Well, and then there's the potential that we could bring other divisions on, such as code enforcement and Lexical in the future. Well, the other question I had, I'm not familiar with this program, and probably the taxpayers aren't, maybe some of the council members. Could you just give us a, like, one and a half minute synopsis of what all this does and how it helps operate and be more efficient, et cetera? Right. So what we are, what Acela's big, the big plan, the reason this is coming about is through the capacity assurance program. So this is a way to link capacity assurance with new development, which would be planning, engineering, building inspection, and a few other kind of constituent parts of the new development. What this will do will allow us to much better track what is going on from the entire development standpoint. So we will be able to, as well as give us electronic submissions. so it will modernize in many ways the way we receive plans and review plans, but also link us much more closely to the Division of Water Quality so that we can keep track of our capacity assurance. In a lot of ways, this will make it easier for the developers, but it will also make it much easier for us to know where things are going. In fact, while here today, one of the questions that was asked to me is, you know, in terms of our, you know, the ability to track our vacant properties and our existing land, And those are some of the things that we hope to be able to do on a much more expedient basis rather than kind of an ad hoc, what's count, what we have, and where things are going. So it will allow us, it will also allow us to be able to see between divisions sharing information much more easily and to be able to know what's going on much quicker and to make better decisions. Okay. The last question I have, has this been run through the CIO office? Yes, we've been working. In fact, one of the reasons it's kind of coming now is we were in the process of we started through this process. We waited until Aldona was hired before we could really bring things moving forward. So we are working very closely with Aldona throughout all stages of this, particularly with the type of implementation that we are doing. So wanting to make sure that this fit with her plan for how we move forward in terms of managed services and software implementation. So she has definitely been involved, particularly with phase two and the potentials of how we might do a phase three as well. Okay. Thank you very much. You're obviously up on the curve and I Just want to make sure our new CIO was in the loop to very important. Thanks very much for your update. Yes, sir Council member Beard Thank you mayor Jeff I was hoping I could catch you before you got out of sight You and I have had this conversation before but I don't know whether the public is Yes. Seven and a half years ago, it was estimated that, and this was by people who know how to estimate, $16 million to bring the courthouse up to some standard. it's got all of two parking places which is a problem especially with the new restaurants that have taken place on on short street I don't know what the payback is my idea everybody kind of chuckles at but I'll say it again drain the pipes, lock the doors, and declare it a monument. And if that's the reason why we want it, that's a lot cheaper than whatever it's going to be, $20 million, $22 million, whatever it's going to be. And we can all pat ourselves on the back and say, look at our monument. I've lived and worked and everything around that place for a long period of time, and it was a mess in 1956 when I started working downtown and going to college at Transylvania. I just don't know where we're going and why we're going there. And it's not been made clear to me this is almost as bad in some ways as not knowing everything that's happening with Rupplerina. And so I'm willing to listen if somebody can give me some information that is valid. I'm having lunch with Bill Ambrose next week. and whether that's the good news or the bad news. He's an ex-banker too. Anyway, that's the kind of way I feel about this, and I don't know if many of my compadres up here feel the same way, but it's a lot more money. We're keeping on finding ways to spend a lot of money. I'll give two responses. One is that I guarantee you I will never bring you a bill for $16 million for that building. We will find other places to leverage funds, resources, so that what the public is asked to put in is far below that. The second one is that the concept of turning it into a monument is worth looking at, and that will be one of the tasks, as the RFP is on the table now, that will be one of the tasks, which is what is the lightest touch on that building, which would preserve it in a way that it doesn't become a disinvestment in our downtown and in our city, but also is able to stand firm. So we will actually look at that option as a reality. That's better than where we were 30 seconds ago, anyway. Thank you, Jeff. Appreciate it. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mayor. just parenthetically for information since you're on that subject. You might share that story of the architect who was not, I don't know if he was an architect or not, but he was a real estate consultant who was in town. And he was doing some work. And what was it he said about when you all passed, you were walking around the downtown, and what was his comment? So James Lima, who's out of New York, He's done, you know, $200 million deals, works in a lot of tough markets, advises on real estate developments all over the place. Walk him through downtown, he looks at the courthouse and he says, before we do anything, you've got to deal with that building because the message it sends to the market is that Lexington does not care about itself and that if you're willing to let that building fall apart, then why should anyone else invest in your in this city and I thought you know that's a pretty powerful motivator and I think he's right which is is that if we're asking other people to put dollars into Lexington then that is a that is a pretty striking message to leave that building the way it is okay I thought that was something like that councilman Myers thank you mayor I got another idea besides mothballs. And it's been floated before. Jay McCord, actually, when he was on the council, was the first one that I heard come up with this idea. But we're paying currently about $150,000 a year for Explorium to pay rent where they're at. And it might be nice for them to have a permanent home that would give them a bigger space so they could have more moving exhibits that come through. But also then put the History Museum back in there. And I actually had an occasion to talk to Bill Ambrose a few, about an hour ago. And I forgot who the other partners were, and he's trying to reach out to all the council members right now. But to put them back in there with the Explorium, and there are a couple other partners that he talked about. You know, if we took that $150 we're paying in rent, we could leverage that to bring a whole lot more money to fixing the problems there. And he also talked about a museum that's in Chattanooga, I think, that a wall caved in on that museum, and so they kind of did the same thing that they're doing with theirs, the Museum Without Walls. And it took them a few years, but they raised $11 million for a new facility. And they're, I think, getting ready to go to construction with that. But to me, I think if we looked at as part of your, I know there's a design phase that you start to look at who we might put into that space. If we could bring Explorium over there and leverage those dollars and put some mixed use in there, some restaurants and other things like that, I think we could get it done. Yeah, there's a number of conversations similar to that that are happening and they may be on my list of people I've talked to. And so I look forward to being able to bring a programming plan at some point as well. Right now nobody's ready to commit and part of it is, is folks are waiting to see what is the commitment to the building itself. And so it's a little bit of a little chicken and egg but I think we're making strides and there are definitely interested parties out there and then it's about what is a responsible programming strategy that is, you know, fiscally responsible for the city in the long range, long term. And one last comment. Have you looked at a public-private partnership for that? Oh, absolutely. In fact, I've got some conversations scheduled up the next couple of weeks that may take us down a little bit further down that path. Partially, it's about making sure we understand what makes sense for them and what the request will be of the public side. Sure. And trying to, you know, make sure that we get the best deal we can in terms of leveraging the private sector. Okay. Well, I encourage you to look at the Explorium because we're paying $150,000 a year in rent. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Councilman Wallace. I just want to say ditto about what kind of statement that leaving that, what few things are left in our downtown Lexington that have not been demolished by neglect. And it is the most significant building probably at this point left downtown, at least one of the most. And I think the statement of it sends a very loud message when people see that just in the shape it's in and we're not investing in it, why would we ask others to come invest their money? And what we know is that investment ladder moves up as the quality of investment and renovations move up. Then higher quality people are drawn to invest in our downtown. And we've had so much incredible design, growth, renovation, rehabilitation of some of our buildings. And so I strongly, I feel very strongly that this is something that needs to happen and it can happen. So thank you. Thank you, ma'am. All right. No other council members signed on to comment or speak so we can take a vote on new business. All in favor, please indicate. Please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. That allows us to move on to continuing business. Is there a motion on the NDF? Move approval. Motion by Vice Mayor Gordon, seconded by Council Member Kay. Floor is available for discussion. Council Member Ellington. Thank you, Mayor. On the Mintel Park Neighborhood Association, I was just told from our council administrator just to clarify this, that we have done some discussion on this, and it looks like the city owns this, and we actually, they said we don't need to do a budget amendment, but just let people be aware that we're going to be, this money will be going to streets and roads. And I think if you want to elaborate on that, you can. Yeah, this one was just changed today, that instead of going to the neighborhood association, we're actually going to do a budget amendment to streets and roads. The amount does not change. It's just not clear on the NDF list because it appears that it's going to the neighborhood. Thank you, Council Member Ellinger. Council Member Henson, you've got a report out on the neighborhood parks task force. I had a question on NDF. All right. Council Member Stenet. From our law department, can we vote on it Thursday night since we're already in the 30-day primary election? Are we still allowed to vote? well it's when we vote I thought Linda's here I know we had this discussion about that when you vote that's when they're approved I'll be glad to vote for it it's a council rule it's George we can't suspend the rules if you're within the 30 days you know you wouldn't be able to it's gonna be on the docket Thursday night so I don't know how we can sit here and approve it today right Is it too many of you who can't? It's not enough people to approve it? Well, but our monies are coming out of our cost centers. Out of your cost centers. I see what you're saying. I hate to hold them up, but I didn't know. I think we're going to have to. Can we look at it and see? Just let us know before Thursday night. We can get back to you on Thursday to be sure. Is that okay? Yeah, please. All right, thanks. I have a question. Vice Mayor Gordon. Well, Glenda, I thought your memo said that as long as it was initiated before the 30 days. Well, I would like to go back and look at it and see. I don't want to tell you something wrong, and I don't have it here. So if I could look at it and email you all before Thursday, that would be great. Okay, thank you. All right. All right. All right. Council Member Henson? Do you have... We got both on the end. Oh. Oh, yeah, right, right. All right. No further discussion. We can vote on the NDF. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. Now, Council Member Henson. Thank you, Mayor. Are you ready for that report on Neighborhood Parks Task Force? This is the Neighborhood Parks Task Force, the final report. I requested the appointment of the Neighborhood Parks Task Force because of the issues occurring in some of our parks that have diminished family-friendly environment while criminal and unwanted activities increase. When changes are made to a park, there's a need to evaluate its infrastructure and programming opportunities that promote greater neighborhood use. The park is left with a void when these elements are not considered. That void becomes an opening for unwelcome behavior to take place, which creates an unsafe perception of the park and therefore discourages activity. Community officials should feel comfortable and safe when they go to one of our parks. Vice Mayor Gordon appointed the task force on May 20, 2013. We had held seven meetings between June 25 and February 5. task force members comprised of myself as chair, Council Member Ford, Council Member Myers, Commissioner Reed, Laura Hatfield with Partners for Youth, Sergeant Dartery with the Police Department, Captain Ron Watson with the Sheriff's Office, Chris Cooperrider with Parks and Recreation, and Tyler Scott, who's the legislative aide to Vice Mayor Gordon. There was also my legislative aide, Hillary, played a significant role in the work of this task force, as did Reed Small with Parks and Recreation. Tiffany Tatum and Council Member Ford's office was a huge help as well. The goal of the task force was to develop strategies to make Lexington's neighborhood parks safe while improving the quality of life and health for citizens and ensuring a plan is in place by the Division of Parks and Recreation when a park faces a decline in a family-friendly environment. Our recommendations, number one, was a barring policy. It would allow the temporary or permanent banning of an individual from Fayette County Park based on inappropriate or illegal behavior. The Chief Administrative Officer, Sally Hamilton, Fayette County Attorney, Larry Roberts, have approved the process. And Parks Advisory Board, which meets tomorrow, will review. And after their last meeting, there were some changes made to the barring policy. So hopefully we'll get the final approval from them after tomorrow's meeting. The second recommendation is a plan for Opportunity Parks, which is defined as a park with a recognized void or need that has experienced criminal or behavior. Criminal behavior or has a perception of being unsafe, therefore presents an opportunity to enhance more positive activity and strengthen surrounding community. The plan for Opportunity Park is to create support systems for the park that have the potential of becoming an Opportunity Park. The plan identifies three approaches, communication, infrastructure, and usage. This would create enhancing a family-friendly park environment throughout Lexington. The creation of a communication team led by each council member is suggested to support the Division of Parks and Recreation's effort and strengthening communications between the community, the Division of Parks and Recreation, Police, and the Council Member. Recommendation number three was to create a full-time position for safe parks or strategies for accessible and family-engaged parks. And I thank Council Member Ford for coming up with that acronym. Safe Parks is a program under the Division of Parks and Recreation managed by a program supervisor to create more family-friendly parks by increasing leisure, service, programming, opportunities in neighborhoods, and community parks with particular focus on underutilized parks. Safe Parks targets three groups of stakeholders, community leaders, third-party leisure service providers, and neighborhoods. Fourth recommendation was the pilot program. The pilot of Safe Parks began in January 2014 and will finish next month in May of 2014. The pilot is testing three different scenarios in which safe parks can be applied to better understand how this new programming model will operate. The three areas include a certified leisure service provider offering a program, and that would be stroller strides at Veterans Park. Second, to assist an opportunity park, Green Acres, by implementing neighborhood desired programming with the leadership of the Neighborhood Association to improve the perception of the park, making a more family-friendly environment. And three, establish a community interest in leadership in an Opportunity Park, Wolf Run, to learn what the surroundings and neighborhood interests are for the eventual creation of programming partnerships. and that concludes my report out but i um each of you have been given a folder with the entire work that's been done by the task force i can't say enough about the members that worked with us on this task force and the help that they offered The next step, I was going to make a motion to place this in the General Government Committee, and we would receive a PowerPoint presentation, provide a lot more detail about the recommendations. but I do feel like from the pilot programs, this has been going on for four or five months. Particularly, Wolf Run Park was the reason that this task force was created. And that was last year because it was showing signs. So we all know from the news what happened there this year. So I think we have gotten some really, really good community leaders stepping up to do some programming in this park and to take some ownership. We want community leaders to take ownership of these parks. So, but we'll provide more detail and I'll go ahead and make that motion to place the recommendations of the Neighborhood Parks Task Force into the General Gov Committee. Motion by Council Member Henson and second by Council Member Clark. Is there any discussion on the motion? Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mayor. I realize that I sat on this task force and I appreciate the work that the task force did, but my question is, being that we have a new parks director coming in and they're not here yet, would we be better served to wait until that person gets here and sort of gets a lay of the land and has a chance to give an assessment to the commissioner and CAO and the mayor and maybe even the council as to what they think things look like before we go this far. There's a lot of recommendations there. Some of them, I think, they have big consequences to how we do things, I think, particularly in how we fund parks going forward. So I think we ought to wait until the new director gets here and has a chance to see what they have to work with and weigh in before we go that direction. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Council Member Henson and others for this. I think this is badly needed, and it shows the kind of cooperation that we get when we put this kind of thing up for public consumption and say, all right, here's a problem. Let's solve these problems. And this is exactly the way these things ought to be done. And I understand Council Member Meyer's concern there, but I think this group has done so much work already that it's probably time to put it into a committee and let it be discussed. And if our new parks director can be involved in that, I think that would be good as well. But I certainly will support this motion. Thank you. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Mayor. I also want to thank Council Member Henson for her leadership in creating this task force. I understand that prior to her time on council that she was very, very active in Valley Park, in her neighborhood, and her priority of parks extends now to her time on council. So I think that we really can't delay any further. Today being April 22nd, the weather is improving. Families now having opportunities to go to our parks, and we'll be seeking our parks. But we have violence in our parks as we speak. There is a young man, unfortunately, who passed away after being the victim of a gunshot room in Duncan Park. Don't want to exacerbate that, but that is an example and an illustration of why we need to go forward as fast as we can with some of these recommendations. to ensure that all our parks all across the city are safe and those parks that need more attention can get those resources as they need. And what I will echo back to, volley back to Council Member Myers, is this presents an opportunity for our new parks director perhaps to put this issue front and center on his transition into, you know, his new directorship. but I think that we need to go forward as fast as we possibly can. It's that urgent of an issue. And as Council Member Clark has mentioned, a lot of work has gone into it over the last couple of months, so I'll support it going forward. Thank you, Mayor Gray. Thank you, Council Member Ford. Council Member Akers. Thank you, Mayor. I agree with Council Member Ford and Council Member Henson. And I think, you know, to no fault of the new guy coming in to direct our parks, I don't think anyone knows our parks better than the neighbors and residents who live there and the council members who represent those districts and those of us all who live in Lexington and know our parks and the crime and violence that's happening in some of them. And so I agree. I think, you know, if we waited for someone new to come in and get to know our city and get to know our parks, that we would be waiting a long time to address some of these. And I think we need to be more proactive than reactive. And I think this is a great first start. And I, too, appreciate all the work of the committee members and staff and everyone. I know it's an arduous process. And trying to pick which parks to start with, too, I'm sure wasn't easy. So thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Bakers, Council Member Henson. Thank you, Mayor. And I just, there is typically, I mean, if we choose to hire this position, the recommendation for a supervisor, that would probably be the only cost involved in these recommendations. I know it is not in the Mayor's budget, but from working very closely with Commissioner Reed and the deputy director, Chris Cooperrider, at Parks and Rec, they think that they can get this program off the ground anyway without that position. I think it would be more effective with the position because then one person could concentrate on any park that we see as showing signs of neglect. But I think this is about building partnerships in communities. It's about using volunteers. It's the individuals that participate in the programming. There may be a cost to them with program providers. There are things that have been put in place at Valley Park that they have to offer scholarships, but they can also charge for their services. Parks and Recreation insists they do background checks. So I certainly do not agree with Council Member Myers to delay this from going into committee and being able to hear more about the recommendations. but I also would say that I would certainly be interested in any experience the new director might have with parks that can potentially be a problem and what maybe some other cities have done. So I'll leave it at that. Thank you, Mayor. All right. Thank you, Council Member Henson. So we've got a motion, don't we? All right. All right. We can take a vote now. All in favor of the motion, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. That allows us to move on to council reports. So any council member who wishes to give a council report, please sign on. No council reports. No council reports. Is it now we're getting them? Going. going. Council Member A. Creasy. Thank you, Mayor. I have a few meetings coming up to share tonight. The Highlands Neighborhood Association will be meeting at 7 o'clock at Mark Avenue at the Community Center there at the Highlands Park. Saturday, there are two different Great American Cleanup events happening, one at McConnell's Trace at 10 a.m., and residents are asked to meet at Trailwood and McConnell Springs Trace or McConnell Trace intersection there in the neighborhood and they're going to clean up along the Greenway Trail and around the neighborhood. Also Saturday morning, the Georgetown Street Neighborhood Association is having a Great American Cleanup at 8 a.m. Volunteers are asked to meet at Douglas Park. They will provide coffee and donuts and then in the afternoon they're going to provide lunch as well. And then, let's see, tomorrow night I will be again hosting the distillery district business association meeting at six o'clock we're going to meet at the pepper distillery this time at 1224 manchester street so anyone who owns property or businesses in the distillery district is invited to attend thank you thank you thank you councilman akers council number four thank you excuse me thank you mayor this morning we had a very pretty what i consider a productive committee of the social services and community development committee had a pretty good meeting. I think Paul has distributed for the council's reference a partial summary, which I'll ask for the opportunity to present to council in order to bring forth a resolution on Thursday night that speaks to workforce development training in relation to the Bluegrass Workforce Investment Board seeking its independence and finding a new fiscal agent from Bluegrass Ad. So our meeting was called to order at 11.02 a.m. All members of the committee were present except Councilmember Lawless at the time. Councilmember Clark was also a guest of the committee. The subject is workforce investment and training and on a motion by myself, Councilmember Ford, and a second by Councilmember Myers. the committee endorsed the Bluegrass Workforce Investment Board's attempt to identify a new fiscal agent independent of the Bluegrass Area Development District. The motion was passed in committee unanimously, and on behalf of the committee, Mayor, I'll bring forth this motion. So moved. Second. Motion by Council Member Ford, second by Council Member Myers. Any discussion on the motion? All right, hearing none, we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you, Mayor. We look forward to have a resolution for the council's review as early as Thursday morning. Thanks so much. Yes, sir. Council Member Clark. Thank you, Mayor. I want to mention that the Pasadena Neighborhood Association's meeting, unfortunately, for us, Thursday, with a social event at 6, with a meeting starting at 6.30. I probably will leave a little early so I can say hi to those folks. I also want to mention that Arbor Day is Saturday, and obviously we're all invited at the Arboretum from 10 to 2. And if things go as normal, you might even see the mayor plant a tree or something like that. So thank you, mayor. Thanks, Councilman Clark. Councilman Lawless. Boy, that'll be one dead tree. Oh, Lord. Sorry. This Thursday evening at 530 is the spring cleanup and prep at Woodland Park. And volunteers are much needed. Unfortunately, we'll be here at a council meeting, or I'd be out helping plant a dead tree, too. and also today's Earth Day, I believe, and this is National Green Week. So if everybody turned out an extra light or picked up some trash somewhere or cigarette butts, let's help Mother Earth and the Lexington community thrive. Thank you. Oh, and the med toss, and I don't know what day it is. I don't have that in front of me. Did somebody already announce that? Not yet. Okay. I believe it's, well, I'll look it up, but there is a, you can go on, I'm sure, the LFUCG website, LexingtonKY.gov, and see where you can dispose of your out-of-date or no longer needed medications because they need to be properly disposed of. Do not flush them down your toilet, and do not take out outdated drugs because it's very, very dangerous. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Lawless. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Mayor. There are a lot of stream cleans and beautification projects going on. There's so many. In fact, I can't keep up with all of them, and I tried to get to every one of them, but last weekend, Cardinal Valley Elementary hosted a cleanup at the park. And I'm not sure how many kids showed up, but they collected over a half ton of trash, tires, five grocery carts, all these things that end up in our creek. But there is another one this Saturday. Gardenside Neighborhood Association is having a stream clean at Gardenside Park. So I will be there for that instead of Arbor Day. And then on Sunday is the I Know Expo for senior citizens and individuals with disabilities and all the resources of any services they might need, lots of information and booths and a fun event. And that begins at 1 o'clock at the Lexington Center. So I think, you know, our senior population in Lexington and across the country is increasing, increasing. So I just think this is a really good venue for our seniors. So thank you, Mayor. All right. Thank you, Council Member Henson. Council Member Scotchfield. Thank you, Mayor. I'm just going to reiterate first, Council Member Henson's comments about the I Know Expo down at the Lexington Center. I will actually be working the senior citizen or the senior services committee table commission from two to three. It's a great event, wonderful resources, obviously free to the public, which makes it huge. On Saturday, along with the 500 other things that are going on around the city, I did want to highlight from 12 to 3 at Breckenridge Elementary, they will be having the Taste of Breckenridge, which is the 50th anniversary of Breckenridge Elementary School. Wonderful opportunity to try some great cuisine. from 3 to 6 on Saturday. I'm very excited about a Woodhill picnic that will be going on. We will have lots of fun for the kids as well as activities for the summer that will be available at Booth. Come on out to Woodhill Park and see how wonderful that park is and that community. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Scutchfield. All righty, that's all the council members who signed up. Next is there's no mayor's report Although I did want to report that Council Member Massadi, who, as we know, had a little incident with her horse on Friday, wasn't it, or Saturday? Anyway, she's had some outpatient surgery yesterday, and she's at home recuperating. So our best wishes to Jennifer. And I believe Vice Mayor Gordon has a – I don't know if he wanted me. Oh, right. All right. Okay. Is there anything else to come before the council? Public comment. Mr. Mundy, no one for public comment? Motion to adjourn by Council Member Ellinger, second by Vice Mayor Gordon. Unless there is an objection, we are adjourned.