Peggy Henson to her first work session. So, glad to have you on the board. Is there anyone who wishes to comment on any of the issues that are on the agenda for today? Seeing none, we'll move to dock at approval. Is there a motion? I move approval. Second. I have a motion to approve by Dr. Stephens and a second by Council Member Crosby. Council Member Blitz. Thank you, Mayor. I have a motion to place on the docket for the January 24, 2008 meeting, a resolution amending Resolution No. 59-2006 to change the name of the approved company which was granted an inducement pursuant to the Kentucky Child Development Act from Xtreme Software North America, Inc. to Xtreme Software North America, LLC. And a resolution amending Resolution 743-2000 to change the name of the approved company which was granted an inducement pursuant to the Kentucky Child Development Act from Xtreme Software, Inc. to Xtreme Software North America, LLC. So moved. Second. I have a second by Council Member McCord. Is there any discussion? Council Member Blues, motion to amend the docket by adding those two resolutions as understood. Seeing none, those in favor of amending the docket as indicated by Council Member Blues, let it be known by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. We're now back to the issue, which is the approval of the docket as now amended. And I've been advised by the clerk that we need to schedule a hearing. Is that correct on Number 11? Actually, you just need to make a motion to either hear it with or without a public hearing. Okay. Mayor? Council Member? Number 11, I'm moved to put on without a public hearing. Second. I have a motion by Council Member Ellinger and a second by Council Member Myers to put Item 11 on the agenda without a public hearing. Any discussion? Then those in favor, please vote aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Same sign. Motion carries. Any further motions with regard to the docket or any further discussion? Seeing none, we're now ready to vote on approval of the docket as amended. Those in favor of approving the docket as amended, say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you. We are now down to the approval of the January 15th summary. Any motions? I have a motion by Council Member DeCamp and a second by Council Member Stennett. Any discussion? Council Member James? I have a question regarding on page 2. If Council Member Stephens could confirm, on item, well, below Item G, there was a motion by Council Member Stephens to remove Item C. Was that really the intent was to remove the Item C, or was it only to, was it to approve it but request a report in six months? What was your suggestion, Council Member James? Was it your intention to remove the Item C? So did we remove the issue of the PSA completely, or was it to? No, the motion was to remove Item C at that time but to request a report in six months. So it was to remove. To follow up with the report in six months, yes. Okay. I was just confirming. Really a temporary delay. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Any further discussion? Those in favor of approving the summary, let it be known by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. We're now down to budget amendments. Is there a motion? Move approval. I have a motion by Council Member Gordon, second by Council Member Ellinger to approve the budget amendments. Any discussion? Those in favor? Council Member James. Sorry, I have a question regarding the Journal 16-789, Division Community Development. If someone could come forward on this one. Thank you, Paula. Here it's saying to reduce the funds for the Meadows-Arlington-Northland Public Improvement Project and that those funds would be added to do another project. I'm just wondering if those funds would have been lost otherwise or how do we know that those funds aren't needed still for that project? They are needed, but we need money to be able to complete the Carver Center Elevator. We have short $75,000 on the Carver Center Elevator Project, and this will allow that Carver Center Elevator Project to go forward. Why was this project chosen to pull funds from? It's the only one that's available to pull funds from. Okay. What happens when we don't have the money for the Meadows Project? We actually do. We still have, we're behind on Meadows-Northland-Arlington. We still have, we're right now ready to move forward with the channel. We have sufficient funds to do that. We are one street short. We could not do Meadow Lane because of the work that's being done on Loudon Avenue, so we had money available in this area to take the $75,000 to move to Carver Center, so we feel like we have money to replace it when we are ready to move forward next year to actually do the project. You said you have money to replace it? Well, the $75,000, we will have enough money to be able to put it back in there next year, so we don't feel like we're shorting the project, but we needed to move forward with Carver Center. Okay. Thank you for the explanation. You're welcome. Thanks, Paula. Thank you, Mayor. Any further discussions of budget amendments? Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. I just have a question on 17-118-19. I see this is approving the bond reimbursement for the regional EOC. Can anyone give us a status on where we're at on the EOC? Does this mean we're going to be able to break ground on it? Just kind of give us an update on where we're at. This question has come up a lot in the last couple of weeks. Commissioner Bennett, come on down. Two or three things going on with it. Last week you approved putting on the docket for tomorrow night a contract for the architect to begin design work of the facility. We also have received responses to the RFP for the systems integrator that will be handling all the technology parts of that, so those things are in the process as we speak. Target for occupancy is September to October of 2009 with final completion, punch list work done and everything by April of 2010. Very good. That's what we wanted to hear. Thank you, sir. You're welcome. Council Member Gort. Thank you, Mayor. I had questions. We have three budget amendments that reference our garages and the parking authority, 17271-72, 17273-74, and 17275-76. And if I could ask Commissioner Coe just a question about this. Now, in the previous discussion about the approval of the summary. May I interject that we believe that something happened that was incorrect just a minute ago? The motion was not to remove item C from the agenda. It was to approve it and ask for a report in six months. Well, that's what I was going to ask. We removed our purchase of service agreement with the parking authority, and now we're doing budget amendments from them. Right. But I believe it's just that the summary is wrong, because in the meeting you approved that purchase of service agreement to go on the docket. So I think the summary was incorrect. I can't remember exactly what happened, but I'm confident that what you're recommending now is correct. Thank you. So the budget amendments go along with the action to remove the garages from the purchase of service that you had not yet seen a purchase of service agreement for the parking authority, but now you have seen one just for on-street parking. These budget amendments are consistent with the purchase of service agreement that we brought to you earlier. I suggest in light of that we go ahead and approve the budget amendments and then go back and take care of straightening out the summary. Okay. That answers my questions about the budget amendments. Thank you. Any further discussion on the budget amendments? Council Member James. Yes, I just have one more question. It's regarding Journal 17-265. It looks like some personnel for building maintenance and I guess someone from Human Resources, if there's anyone, or anyone that wants to come forward. Thank you, Commissioner. My concern is I've asked this question before with hiring from temporary agencies. We're in a hiring freeze and we're paying $67,380 for labor works work. Is there no way that these positions, are we utilizing temporary agencies because we're in a hiring freeze or can you explain why do we spend so much where we could really be giving some employees some full-time jobs with benefits somehow? This decision was made before there was a hiring freeze, but the positions to give us more flexibility, we decided to outsource some custodial positions to utilize contracts so that it could better meet our needs and give us flexibility going into the future. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Any further questions with regard to the budget amendments? Seeing none, we'll proceed to vote. Those in favor of approving the budget amendments, let it be known by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries unanimously. And now we need to go back and modify the summary from the last work session to reflect the change that was just discussed. Council Member Gordon. Yes, Mayor. I'll yield to Council Member Stevens. I move to amend the summary. In the sentence, it goes, A motion by Council Member Stevens to approve Item C and request a report in six months, July, seconded by Council Member Gordon, passed unanimously. To read, a motion by Council Member Stevens to approve Item C and request a report in six months, July, seconded by Council Member Gordon. Second. Thank you. I have a motion by Council Member Stevens, seconded by Council Member Gordon. Any discussion? Those in favor of amending the summary as indicated, please let it be known by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thanks. Now that gets us down to the items of new business. Item 5 on the agenda. Is there a motion? Move approval. Start a new business. And I had a second by Council Member DeCamp. Any discussion of the items of new business? Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, on Item M, which is the authorization for the grant application for the Historic Preservation Division, if I could ask either Paula King or Don Kelly about this. Or both. You could both come. My question simply is the new business item says that funds from this grant will be used for salaries of existing personnel within the Division of Historic Preservation. Are these salaries currently paid by grants or through our budget? Through your budget. Through the budget. So we would, in effect, be converting them to grant-funded positions? It's not enough money, really. They're only giving us $10,000. Okay. So will that be funding half of a position or a third or what? Can you just give me a little bit of detail? About a third. Of one position? Yes. And the hope, then, is that future grants will continue to fund that position? This is a continuation grant, and they basically pay $12,000 a year. So that's about what they fund a year. So they're currently on partial grant funding? No. Yes. They are. Okay. Okay. Thank you. And then I also wanted to ask, this would be either Ms. King or Don Kelly. Maybe, Don, you want to take this one, letter S, since it's the Public Works Project, the Meadows-Northland-Arlington. I was just curious if you could explain or Marwan, welcome. This change order is quite significant to the Meadows-Northland-Arlington Public Project. Yes. And it looks like the change orders are going to be about 42% of the original cost. So I wondered if you could just flesh out for us the situation. Yes. When this Area 2, which includes this Phase 2E, was designed in 2002, actually this is a large area that included many streets, several streets. But at that time, the funding was not available to do the whole area. So as funds come in to be able to do this area, the funds did not cover the entire area. So they came in in small portions. So we were taking out these phases or sub-phases, taking them out of the bigger design and making them into a smaller project. And this is what this money is for, to take out a small few streets out of the big area and do the design for these or do the specifications, do the construction staking and things like that. So when this was originally bid, it included one area. I'm trying to see if I understand it. The large area? The large area. So the original bid included the large area? That's correct. But now there's a change order. But in order to separate it into smaller areas, okay, we had to go back to the consultant so that he can take the design from the larger area and separate it and write the specifications for it. Specific to the small area. That's correct. So do we intend to do this with the entire project? Will there be more change orders coming? As we get funds to do the rest of the area, okay, we will be taking smaller sections and doing them the same way. And was this in the original bid specifications that we would be approaching it this way? I think it was designed to be this way, yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Council Member Stennett. Marwan, I have a question. Where are the funds coming from for this project? Are they general fund dollars or is this the CDBG dollars? I think this is the CDBG funding. So in a previous budget amendment question by Ms. James, we're going to reduce Arlington Meadows project money by $75,000, but we're going to turn around and do a budget amendment for a contract change for $60,000 and add more money to the project. So how are we going to pay for that? I mean, this is the same project. So all the projects being paid for by CDBG money, we have that money available in there on item S? The change order is for 11609, and we do have money available to pay for this change order. Okay. In addition to the $75,000 we're also taking out from it? That's correct. We have too much money given to that project then, right? We have money sitting there right now for Meadows Northern Arlington. That is correct. Is it money that we can't use? Is that what you're saying? We can't get to the work? Correct. Or we've overbudgeted? We have money that we can't get to right now to get to the work to get it done. That is correct. Do you have an accounting number on how much total is sitting there that we can't use? We actually have probably about at least $500,000 that we cannot use in this fiscal year. Now, do we lose that money back to the federal government? No, we do not. So we retain it? We retain it. So do you have other plans to come forward and move that money other places? We have plans to go forward to bid the next phase, which is what this change order is getting ready to do so that we can be prepared to go with the money that we're going to plan to allocate in this next planning allocation that will begin July 1 so that we can be ready to accept the bid in August to move forward. That is our plan so that we can have more money so that we can accept the next bid, which would more than likely be about $850,000, $850,000. And I assume those monies will come from next year's CDBG money provided that they're there from the federal government? That's correct. And Marwan, how many more phases do we have of this project? It was a 30-year project, if I understand it, years ago. It's a 20-year project, so it's a ---- We still have 20 years to go? I'm sure. I mean, it started out with ---- I mean, we've been doing this, I know, since 1970, I mean, at least 1980 since I've been here, and I just ---- I don't see an end. I'm sorry. I mean, we've broken these streets. Every year we have to break it down even further because it costs us more money to do more streets. And as you recall, George Brown wanted us to ---- that's why he wanted us to try to bond it all as one, because it costs us more every year to do more projects. So it's ---- I mean, it's ---- I mean, we've only really done ---- and we've been doing sanitary sewer work, we've been doing drainage work, and to be honest, we've actually only done, that I know of, actually four streets. And we've got ---- I mean, the area goes from Meadows to, you know, Broadway, and we've only done four streets, and there are a lot of streets in that area. So, I mean, I can't see us being done anyway. I know this is not your department, but we've only done four streets since 1980. Yeah. I mean, we've designed ---- we've done design, we've done a lot of drainages, you know, we've done a lot of sewer things, but we have ---- yeah, we've got a long way to go. So when was the last time, Paula, we sat back and looked at this whole project and see if there's a better way to fund it and get the work done? Because obviously this area needs it, and these people have been waiting, you know, since 1980. Have we looked at that recently? I have not. You have ---- that would be Marwan's expertise. When have we looked at the overall project, see if there's a better way to fund it and a better way to get this done? Well, the only funding that is available right now is through community development. So as long as that money keeps coming in, we will ---- the bigger plan is to continue to do the work, okay, to design and construct as money keeps coming in from the community development. Well, let me rephrase my question. Have we looked at other funding alternatives? Because that's not the only funding that we can use on this type of project. Have we not explored anything else? You're talking about grant money? Well, we can bond the project. Yeah, that's up to you to ---- Well, I mean, I guess I'm asking for your department's expertise to go back and find another way because this is dragging out too long for these people. I know Andrea, she inherited this mess, and she's being quiet today. But, you know, we've got to get this project moving forward a little faster. We could go back and take a look at that and come back with recommendations. And, you know, the CDBG may, thankfully, Paula has been working on that for several years, but that can be used for a lot of things, affordable housing, a lot of other things in that area other than what we're trying to do on these improvements, and they're needed improvements. I'm just saying, when was the last time we took a hard look at this whole area and figured out a different plan because four streets over since 1980 is not getting us there. And if you wish, we could come up with a recommendation to you next time to find another funding source. Yeah, look at all of our alternatives because, obviously, there has to be something else. Okay. Thank you. Hang on just a second. I think there are a couple more people that want to address this specific issue. So, Council Member James. I was just going to suggest to Council Member Stinnett that within committee, what's the appropriate committee? I'm not sure, planning committee, that we could get an update of the phases of the project so that you kind of have a grasp of it. I have a working knowledge of it, but the overall knowledge of it is something that maybe we do need to look at, especially if you have some opportunities for additional funding, if you know some ways. But maybe we can address this in committee, and I'd be happy during my council report to put that issue. Thank you. Council Member McCord. Why don't we just go ahead and circumvent that a little bit. I mean, this isn't my district, but it's an area of town that, like I say, this is languished on, and it's one of those things where I don't think council members really realize oftentimes what happens in other people's districts and how it affects that situation. So, if it's okay with you, Council Member James, I would just prefer, Marwan, if you can just bring that back in a presentation for this whole council so that you've got at least 15 minds working on a creative solve, because we have a brand-new administration in Frankfurt. You know, we have a congressman who is very, very active in wanting to see Lexington win, and I think that with all the things that are happening, you know, it's almost impossible to put it onto a new council member and say, here you go. And I was shocked when we heard that we got four streets done in 30 years, and we've got another 20 years to go. It's only going to keep costing more, and that's our biggest problem is we postpone all this stuff, and we're going to talk about postponement here in a little while, I'm sure, but when we continue to postpone things, the cost goes up every single time. And with roads, it's 15% almost a year when you postpone. So, in this situation, you know, again, this body ought to sincerely apologize to the people of the first district for 30 years of doing four roads. But let's bring it back into this body, a presentation, and it doesn't need to be a very long, drawn-out thing, but I do think a history of where we are, what the phases are, and how you funded it currently, and then from there, let's look at some opportunities to help these folks out. If you would just give us time to do the budget, go through the budget process, and after that, when we finish with that, we can come back here, and we can show you what kind of progress we've made so far, and then our plan for the future, and then maybe even look for other funding sources. As long as it's before CDBG, I think that would be fine. So, I mean, before they make those decisions. I think there's a way that we can utilize that and leverage that a little bit further than maybe we are right now. Okay. So, that would be great. Thank you. Thank you. Good questions from several different folks on a project that's long overdue. So, thanks. All right. Unless there's something else on that particular issue, we'll go back to the list here. Council Member Stephens. Thank you. I want to call the council's attention to the item F. This is a resolution which has been requested by the surgeons at UK, Andrew Bernard and Jeff Kokanok, who are active in the trauma service, and by the UK Healthcare Regional Trauma Advisory Council, and by the Kentucky Injury Prevention and Research Center. We are very fortunate in Lexington to have, within the Division of Fire and Emergency Services, one of the best emergency responses and team that I know of in the United States, I would say. They have excellent response times, and they do a good job in protecting our community. However, in rural Kentucky, we're not so well organized, and to deal with trauma victims who need emergent care, we need a system in the state which allows certain hospitals to be classified as Level 2, 3, or 4, which have certain facilities within those areas to start emergency care. There are two Level 1 trauma centers, one at the University of Louisville and one here at UK. And what these people would like to do is have the legislature set up a regional trauma network. There are, I think, 35 states in the United States that have this, and when they've been adopted, they've reduced the mortality from trauma by sometimes as much as 25 percent. And this resolution would support our colleagues in approaching our state legislature in trying to achieve this goal. The legislature's had this on the docket in the past, but because of financial considerations, have not passed it. Of course, they'll have financial considerations again this year, but perhaps they can be encouraged to at least pass it and fund it to some degree. So I ask your support for this item F. Thank you very much. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Mayor. Item number L, Chief Bastin, if you're available, I guess you'd be the one to answer this. Some of this may be on the way it's phrased, but I'll read it to you. In the middle of the paragraph it says, inciting intoxicated minors and business owners and employees. Are they the ones that are intoxicated also? Let's hope not. Or are the minors also selling alcoholic beverages? That isn't really my issue, however. It just probably needs to be reworded at some point. Two percent, I guess, is what shocks me, that that's all the improvement we can get. I know $53,500 a year isn't going to get a lot of help, but it just shocks me that that two percent, which appears twice. Can you expand on that a little bit, if you would? Well, I can. I think the educational component is very important to this, and sometimes it's hard to measure how much effect you're having with an educational component. But we certainly try to reach as many people as we can, and through enforcement and education, try to reduce that. Two percent is what it's been. Is that elastic at all? In other words, if we had 400,000, could it be eight percent? I don't know if it's on a scale like that, but I think certainly more resources could help. But we're going to be looking at how we can utilize the money and try to get the most that we can, most bang for the buck. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any further discussion of the items of new business? Seeing none, I think we're prepared to vote. Those in favor of approving the items of new business, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. We have several presentations today, and let's take it from the top with the Corridors Committee. Council Member Stephens. The Corridors Committee met, as it usually does, once a month in the fifth floor conference room last Tuesday, and this time we ran out of room. There were more people there than would fit in the room, so we may have to find another location. We did have a meeting that included several things. The first was a presentation by District 7 consultant for the highway Newtown Pike from the interstate to New Circle Road. Their plans seem to grow a little bit each time they make a presentation to us. Now they plan a six-lane road with a bicycle-pedestrian path on each side, and it will require significant acquisition of right-of-way along the road, and with relocation of the stone fence on the west side and other considerations. The Corridors Committee has been trying to put together an ordinance related to the corridor, but because of the changes with the State Highway Department, we're putting that off for a while until we see exactly what their plans will be. The second presentation was the question of bus stops and shelters. As you may recall, there is a group in town called Art in Motion, which is attempting to place bus shelters around the community which will be reflective of art. We have one which is underway now at the corner of Red Mile Road and Versailles Road, and it won a competition for an art bus stop, and plans are underway to put that on the Urban County Government property in front of the Farmer-Furrow Building. The other locations were having difficulty. The bus company is having difficulty because of acquisition of property, the location of the sidewalks, some places no sidewalk, and other problems, but they're moving forward slowly but surely. We considered our current ordinances we have in funding. As you know, the Transportation Department funded the Versailles Road and Newtown Pike beautification projects. We also would like to do Winchester Road. This was done in 1995, and a plan was developed for a corridor there from the Midland to the New Circle Road, but it was not implemented because of lack of funds. We think that now is the time we need to take another look at that corridor because it is a major entrance and exit for us from the interstate, and so we're in the process of putting an RFP together for that. And that pretty much summarizes our business. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions for Councilmember Stevens? Thank you very much. We're now ready for the Intergovernmental Committee Report. Thank you, Mayor. I'll take care of that. Thank you, Councilmember James. We held our Intergovernmental, and our topics that day were the CSEA officers receiving hours, AWL hours for monthly association business. And the motion that came forward was by Vice Mayor Gray to ask the administration to confirm its position as it relates to CSEA requests, seconded by Councilmember DeCamp, and passed with one nay. And that was all of our items that we discussed that day. So I make that motion, bring that motion forward. Second. Thank you. I have a motion second. Any discussion? Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. That gets us down to our energy awards. And it's my pleasure to recognize Tom Webb from our Department of Environmental Quality. Tom. Thank you, Mayor and Council. The LFUCG has been taking steps to improve energy efficiency within government for some time now. As part of this effort, we established the Energy Efficiency Annual Awards in 2005 to recognize divisions that have taken steps to become more energy efficient. The energy management team selected the Division of Fire and Emergency Services and the Division of Water and Air Quality to receive the 2007 Energy Efficiency Annual Awards. The first award is for the Division of Fire and Emergency Services. This 2007 Energy Efficiency Award is being presented to the Division of Fire and Emergency Services for installing energy efficient LED exit signs and programmable thermostats in the fire stations. Fire and Emergency Services personnel have now installed LED exit signs, which use 85 percent less electricity than incandescent exit signs in all the fire stations. They've also installed the replacing older mercury thermostats with programmable thermostats whenever possible. In addition to saving money, installing this energy efficient equipment helps protect the environment and conserve natural resources. The second award is for the Division of Water and Air Quality. This 2007 Energy Efficiency Award is being presented to the Division of Water and Air Quality for efforts in helping to make LFUCG facilities more energy efficient. The Division of Water and Air Quality recently replaced one large screw pump with a capacity of 25 million gallons per day at the West Hickman Treatment Plant with two smaller pumps having a capacity of 12.8 million gallons per day. This improved operational efficiency and lowered energy costs since it's now possible to run one of the two smaller pumps during periods of low flow as opposed to the one larger pump. Additionally, approximately 37 million cubic feet of biogas generated at the Town Branch Treatment Plant during the sewage treatment process is currently used each year to heat sludge digesters at the plant. Biogas consists mostly of methane and has approximately 60% of the energy value of natural gas. In addition to saving energy and saving money, these actions help protect the environment and conserve natural resources. Thank you, Mayor and Council. Thank you, Tom. I want to take just a moment to say some good words about Tom and the work that he and others have been doing in this general vicinity of energy savings. This is an area where it's often kind of assumed that, well, my little bit won't make much difference, but when you start accumulating a whole bunch of little bits all around Irving County government, all of a sudden we have a substantial energy savings. And so Tom has been, over the years, working, I think, as hard as anybody can to encourage us to be more energy efficient, and I think the new Department of Environmental Quality will facilitate his efforts in the future, and I expect we're going to be seeing even more significant accomplishments on the energy savings front. We're in the process of trying to do some work with ICLEI, which is an international organization that helps to protect the climate through conserving energy, and you'll be seeing more and more of Tom as time goes by. So thanks for all you've done, Tom, and thanks for being here today. All right. Next we have Dionne Fields from the Kentucky Division of Water, and I'll ask you to come to the podium and go from there. Good afternoon. My name is Dionne Fields, and I am one of two National Flood Insurance Program Coordinators for the state of Kentucky. The National Flood Insurance Program allows for folks within a participating community to purchase flood insurance in return for adopting and enforcing a flood damage prevention ordinance. The National Flood Insurance Program has been in existence since 1968. Within that, the National Flood Insurance Program's community rating system was implemented in 1990, and this program recognized and encouraged communities that exceeded the minimum requirements for flood protection. In October of 1991, the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government became a CRS community. Your class rating at that time was nine. In 1994, the CRS program was codified in the National Flood Insurance Program. Under the CRS, flood insurance premium rates are adjusted to reflect the reduced flood risk resulting from community activities that meet the three goals of the CRS, first of which is to reduce flood losses, facilitate accurate insurance rating, and promote awareness of flood insurance. Your community's flood protection and awareness programs also help in many ways. Just to list a few, saving lives, preventing property damage, avoidance of lost jobs and productivity, and planning for or even preventing damage and disruption to public facilities such as roads or schools. In 2007, Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government was able to lower their CRS rating to a seven, resulting in an increased discount on flood insurance premiums. Those homes that are in a special flood hazard area will now have a 15% reduction of flood insurance premiums. Structures outside of the special flood hazard areas will also receive a 5% reduction on their premiums. The previous CRS rating of eight only allowed for 10% reduction of flood insurance premiums for those structures within the special flood hazard areas and a 5% reduction for those outside the special flood hazard areas. I'm proud to say that Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government has strived to be a proactive community. Therefore, I present this plaque to the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government on behalf of FEMA and the Kentucky Division of Water. Applause. Congratulations on a job well done. If I may just say one word, we are accepting this on behalf of the Mayor and the Urban County Government. We are the division that coordinates the efforts, but it's many, many divisions and people in government that work to do these activities that allow us to have our citizens get these direct savings to their pocketbook that new need flood insurance. And those are folks in the Division of Engineering, Planning, some folks that have moved now to the Division of Air and Water Quality, and even Dean, all do activities that give us points that allow this to occur. And I'd be remiss, you see some of the folks here that have put a lot of special time in achieving this new rating. Greg Lubeck, Scott Dickinson, Jimmy Emmons, Marwan, and a lot of other folks as well deserve some special recognition for the efforts of the government in this program. Thank you. Applause. Thank you very much, Chris, and everybody that played a role. Thank you, Dionne, for being here this afternoon. And it is a direct cost savings to our constituents as a result of your efforts. So thank you very much for all that you've done. All right. Unless a council member has questions, we'll proceed to the presentation by the Division of Police. And I'll ask Chief Bastin to step to the podium, please. Good afternoon. I'd like to direct your attention to the handout that we've already provided you. I'll be following that fairly closely. I intend to be brief but give you enough information, I think, to outline the requests that we have. I'm asking you to consider placing the following issue on the docket for Thursday's council meeting. To abolish six officer positions and create six sergeant positions, create the rank of commander, a new rank within the Division of Police, and the rank of deputy chief, also a new rank for the Division of Police. Six sergeants are needed to ensure proper span of control for adequate supervision. With the growth that we've had in the last couple of years, we have not added to our supervision, and that's an issue that we need to address. The position of commander is replacing the current ranks of major and captain within the division. So this is a change to our current rank structure. Captain's positions will be converted through attrition. Nothing is going to be taken away from existing captains in terms of pay or opportunities. So I think that's an important part of this. The deputy chief is necessary to ensure consistent daily operations, especially in the absence of the chief. I do not plan on filling the deputy chief position at the current time. I'm looking at that potentially for 10 to 12 months out, but I did want to go ahead and include that in this consideration so that I wouldn't have to come back at a later time and request another amendment to the ordinance. If I could direct your attention to page 2 of the handout, that will show the current structure, rank structure within the division, in parenthesis to the right of each of the ranks or the number of individuals in those ranks, and it compares to the proposed structure. As you can see, this will certainly flatten many bureaus for the Division of Police. Page 3 actually talks about some of the advantages and considerations for the changes that we're proposing. The most notable ones, I think, are that we will have a larger pool of people to choose from for staff-level positions, the senior leadership positions in the agency. We think it will enhance communication by flattening the organization and thereby be more efficient, and we think it will increase accountability. Those are all important things, as well as all of the issues that are listed on your page 3. Page 4 is a projection that was created by the Division of Budgeting for the cost for the remainder of fiscal year 2008. The total for that for all the requested changes would be $93,270, according to the projection. We will take that from current overtime money that's budgeted. The good thing about this proposal is that it's fully funded from within. We won't be asking for any additional funding to implement this. The Department of Law is currently preparing the amendment, which will allow for these changes, and it should be ready by Thursday. I've mentioned some of this request to a few of you and had intended to try to talk with each of you individually or as I could, but due to the holidays we were unable to schedule that. So I apologize for that, but I do look forward to meeting with each of you in the coming weeks to discuss not only this but other issues that you may have in your district and so forth. Any questions for Chief Bastin? I'm sorry, Council Member Blevins. Thank you, Mayor. I just had a couple of quick ones for you, Chief. The first one is, is this in line with our collective bargaining agreement? Make sure we're okay there. It is. We've presented this to every sworn member of the Division of Police and the FOP, and we have had no negative feedback from the presentation. The second thing I wanted to ask you is, you kind of skimmed over in your list of reasons why this is a good idea, the cost savings. Can you walk through that in a little bit more detail and explain how we're going to save money here? I can, and if we need more detailed information, I can bring up one of the people who actually did that. I don't need exact figures. I just need to understand how you think we're going to save here. We think it will save in terms of, as people are promoted to the positions, we think there will be a savings because it will be coming eventually from the lieutenant rank instead of the captain rank. The way the structure is set up, when they get to the assistant chief level, there's some pay differential, I think, with an opportunity for savings. The benefits to this are much beyond any savings, though. The benefits are to the agency in terms of the amount of buy-in that people have and can be rewarded for and to be rewarded for work that they do, potentially at an earlier time in their career, which is something that's very important to the new generation of the workforce that's coming in. So we're very excited about it, and I think folks in the agency are very excited about it, and we'd appreciate your consideration. I respect that. The reason I'm bringing this up is you all are covering this year's shortfall that will be required to fund these positions by moving money over from your overtime account, which is great. I'm glad to see that happen. But that doesn't take care of us next year and subsequent years. It looks like we're going to have an increase. One of the issues dealt with, the sergeants that I'm very familiar with, is by having the additional sergeants on the schedule, it will require less overtime usage. Last year we used $150,000 to cover times when there weren't sergeants available. By adding this number of sergeants, I think we'll more than save the differential between the officer costs to the sergeants' base pay. Okay, good. That's what I was looking for. So we're going to save in two ways. By the new structure, we should see, over time with attrition, some savings there. But in addition, we hope to reduce overtime costs. Absolutely. You know, that's the kind of thing we're always looking for. I also want to underline something you said earlier that I think is an important thing. We've added a number of officers to the police force over the last few years and continue to do so, and we've not adapted the command structure to it. And I think that's the key thing. So I intend to support you in this. It's a good idea. Thank you. Council Member Gordon. Chief, thank you very much for your proactive plan here. Just to be clear on the sergeant and officer numbers, the sergeants are on the street, as the officers are, so we won't be decreasing the number of officers on the street. The additional sergeants all go to the street for supervision of our younger officers who are out responding to calls. And then in your total additional costs, the $93,270 that will come from overtime funds, do you remember approximately what that leaves in overtime this fiscal year? I don't off the top of my head, but we're well within where we should be for the number of pay periods that have already occurred. Okay. Good. Thank you very much. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mayor. I think maybe you've answered part of my question when you responded to Council Member Gordon's question, but I was wondering, money coming out of the overtime account, what then if there's some emergency, some contingency that requires a lot of overtime, how do you provide for that? We try to plan for some of that so that we have enough money to cover some contingencies. Obviously, if we had an ice storm that locked the city down for a week and we had to work 24 hours a day, we don't have enough money built in to recoup that. We would have to come and ask for additional funding for that. But for the last two years, we've come in well within budget, and that's due to some cost-saving measures that we've implemented. And absent some unforeseen major catastrophe, I just don't see that being a problem. Thank you. We'll pray to get past Valentine's Day this year. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Chief. Obviously, this new structure gives you a lot more flexibility. We speak a little bit about that and some of the advantages that we haven't had in the last several years. I think there may be some concern out there that, you know, 20, 30 years ago, there was sort of this type of flexibility, not what you're actually proposing, but a structure that allows the Chief a lot more say in who comes up the ranks. Talk a little bit about the advantages of your plan. Well, the advantages of this plan provide for a way to reward people for what they've done and what they've contributed to the organization. In our current structure, up through the rank of captain, there's a competitive process where people attend an assessment center. And there's been some criticism and discussion since I've been with the Division of Police that that result doesn't always provide the best leadership for the agency because there's a potential for someone to come in and be able to test well or do well in the assessment center when they may not have been a solid contributor to the agency and wind up on top of the promotion list. One of the biggest things that I heard in talking to people about this issue is we need a mechanism that will allow us to be rewarded for the work that we have done and the contributions we've made because that should be the better predictor of future behavior, and I concur with that. So I think this is taking a step that will address that. Thank you, Chief, and thank you for that explanation. And I, too, think it's a step in the right direction. And so, therefore, I move to place on the docket for Thursday, January 24, 2008, council meeting and ordinance relating to the reorganization of the Division of Police as presented at the January 22nd work session. Second. Well, I'll take my pick here. Council Member Gordon, I think second Council Member Stennett. Council Member Stennett's motion. Any discussion? All in favor of adding that item to the docket, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Council Member Beard. Yes, Chief. One quick question. Is that a large leap from lieutenant to commander? In terms of pay, responsibility? You have 25 lieutenants, and you're doing away with the captain interim position. I'm trying to make these numbers balance. You have eight captains and four majors. And then you say over here, commanders, eight to 12. I get 12, but is it eight or 12 or somewhere in between? What I intend to do, and I had to have some flexibility in that because I'm going through a staff selection procedure right now to interview folks and assess their qualifications for an appointed position. I do not anticipate promoting 12 commanders. Eventually the organization should reflect what would be the total of the number of captains we currently have and the number of major slots. So eventually we would move towards 12 commanders. But right now I'm not going to have more than 12 in the numbers. I won't have potentially four remaining captains and 12 commanders, and there will be no majors after mid-February. Well, as there still are 25 lieutenants, then are four of those captains going to be demoted to sergeant? No. All the captains remain as permanent captains. And if there's someone that I don't feel, you know, is worthy of the appointment or capable in that function, then they will remain a permanent captain for as long as they're with the division. We're not taking anything away. Through attrition, those positions, as they leave, would be converted to lieutenants' positions. That's the part I didn't understand. I thought you were totally replacing those two. No. Okay. That's fine. Thank you. I'm just doing a little math. I'm sorry. Okay. Any further questions for Chief Bastin? All right. Thank you very much. That concludes our presentations today. We'll proceed now to council reports. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Mayor. Just real briefly, I wanted to welcome Ann Sabatino back to Lexington, and Ann has taken the position at Smiley Pete Publishing to be the editor-in-chief for the Southside and the Chevy Chase for magazines. Those magazines affect your area. I would encourage you to contact Ann, and I know that she has a great desire to see a lot more neighborhood participation and a lot more articles about our neighborhoods. There are some folks within LFUCG that we've sent her way to start writing for them. So I just want to welcome her back to the community and in her new role. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. Just a couple of items. One, the Eastland Parkway neighborhood meeting is still on tonight despite the weather. They will meet at 630 at Christ Center Church there off of Eastland Parkway. And secondly, I know on Friday, Mayor, you had a press release in regards to the immigration changes on some of our immigration policies at the jail, and I know this council met in the Services Committee about a week ago, and there was no report from your office in regards to immigration policy. But we had a press release Friday. Is there anything else? Well, first of all, can we have a presentation on what exactly those changes are going to be at the jail? Because I think there's a lot of confusion out there now about exactly what we're trying to do and what we're not. And also, is there anything else that you all from your end plan on bringing to this council or to the Services Committee in regards to immigration? No, not in the short term, perhaps later. And I was going to do that in the Mayor's report, but since you raised the question, we'll just go ahead and deal with it now. The Immigration Committee made seven recommendations, two of which we talked about last fall. I've rejected the driver's licensing and the identification card. But the other five I intend to pretty well adopt. We have already started the process of enforcing the housing code. Commissioner Bennett has been working with folks in code enforcement and the police department building inspection to address those. That whole process is already underway. The second recommendation was that we create an Office of International Affairs. We're going to be looking at that in the context of the budget. So we might be coming back to you in the context of the budget presentation with some thoughts about whether or not to do that. I like the idea of whether or not we've got the money to do it is the big question right now. On Title VI compliance, we have started a review of that process with the Department of Law. In talking with Keith Horn from the Department of Law, he correctly noted that Isabel Taylor from the Department of Social Services has had a fair degree of expertise in that area. And so Isabel is in the process of reviewing that, and we hope to have the review of that in the not too distant future. But it's an involved process when you start looking at the scope of things we are doing. I do not intend to propose that we pursue 287G authorization for our police department. We have had some conversations with the folks from ICE. Those conversations yielded what you referred to having been in the paper last week. The proposal is that we are going to be trying to identify through the intake process folks who were not born in the U.S. All of the people who are not born in the U.S. will be automatically referred to ICE for their evaluation as to whether or not they wish to issue a detainer order. If a detainer order is issued, that means that once the inmate is ready to be released on whatever state law violations there may be, we would be obliged to retain them in our custody for 48 hours beyond the completion of their state sentence, during which time ICE, if they wish, can take custody of them for purposes of pursuing immigration law violations. My understanding from ICE is that as a practical matter, they don't scrutinize minor offenses. We've also talked with the police department about the concern that I voiced to them about having it turn into some kind of profiling exercise. That will be easy enough to monitor, and we intend to monitor it over time to make sure that does not become an issue. And I think the practice is such on ICE's part that the odds of that happening are extremely remote. So that's the recommendation dealing with 287G. The last recommendation was that we recommend to the state that they enforce the labor laws, and we'll pass that recommendation along to the state. But that's the status of it. I don't think there will be a need to bring anything to the Council, with the possible exception of recommendation on the Office of International Affairs, if we decide to pursue that in the budget proceedings. Thank you for that in-depth explanation. I was also wanting to allude you to the opportunity. I didn't mean for you to have to answer it all now, but if there could be a presentation exactly what we're doing at our intake facility for the Council, for the community to understand that this is not police action on the outside. This is in our corrections facility. And I know I appreciate that effort and your release on Friday, and I felt the last couple years in my conversations with you and ICE as well that this is a needed step and I think a welcome step for several people in the community to enforce some of our immigration issues. So thank you, Mayor. I appreciate you bringing that forward. That's all. And last but not least, I want to welcome Peggy Henson to our big, warm family up here on the horseshoe. I know you'll be a welcome addition. I've heard a lot of great things about you. And as always, I'm sure every other Councilmember will say anything we can do to help, just let us know. Thank you very much. Councilmember James. Thank you, Mayor. If Artie could come forward, I have a quick question for Artie. While he's walking up, I'll just speak a little bit about the Martin Luther King Day holiday service day celebration. Councilmember Stenick, Councilmember Blues, Councilmember Beard, Vice Mayor Mayer, I saw you all out. If other Councilmembers were there, I didn't see you. But it was a wonderful unity breakfast, march, commemoration. I thank UK for hosting. The Alphas did the unity breakfast, and it was wonderful. The speeches were wonderful. The feel was good. The march was cold and then sweaty on the way back. Got a little hot on the way back. The commemoration program, Dr. Hrabowski from the University of Maryland was there. Unbelievable speech, very moving and motivating. The Carnegie Center had a wonderful event, from black and white to color was their theme. It was talking about moving the civil rights action to current day time and reflecting on what we're doing today with regard to civil rights and unity and coming together as a community. So it was a wonderful day, and the service day event. So there's a group that took it even further. They're just not beyond commemoration but working. So they did some activities like cleaning neighborhoods and painting at the Hope Center and some service events. So look for one of those events to attend next year as you have a day off. Or if you have a day off, look for something to do to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King. It's a very worthy experience. Thank you, Mayor, for being there. Artie, I wanted to ask you about the boards and commissions list. We normally receive an update list of vacancies from you. We haven't received one in a while. I was wondering, what's the progress of that report? I know that Anna and some others have been working. Do you know the status of that? I do not know the status, but we have been working on them and making sure that the law department clears each one that we do. Okay. The question is the terms, and in some places there are some inconsistent terms that we're trying to clean up. Okay. Do you have an expectation of a date when we'll know some vacancies? We've got some people ready to serve and ready to serve on boards, and we just need the vacancy list so we know how to place them. Do you know when that list will come forward? I do not know, but we'll try to get one out as soon as possible. Thank you very much, Artie. I appreciate it. I also wanted to, in reference to the earlier comment, council members with concerns regarding the Meadows-Arlington-Northland Project, I spoke with Commissioner Kelly, and he is okay with a 30-day period of coming forward within 30 days. We can get specifics later of what actual date that would be, and he would come forward to this sort of meeting, a work session meeting, and do a presentation to us of those phases and talk about additional funding. So thank you all for suggesting that, and we'll move forward with that suggestion. And also, my last thing is I have a sheet here. It's time for the Homeless Count. There's the Homeless Initiative Group here. I think they call them, please, CHICHI is the name of it. It's C-K-H-H-I. I don't know what it stands for. I'm sorry. Central Kentucky Housing and Homeless Initiative. I think that's it. Every year they do a Homeless Count, and that is taking place this Thursday. So, council members, please see me if you'd like to participate in this. It gives you a whole other perspective of what's going on as far as those that are homeless or marginally housed here in Lexington. And it helps us when we are doing our budget, because as we look at where we place our funds for budgeting, we can actually see the true need based on what we're experiencing in community. So I would recommend you participating in that event and see me for more information on how you get involved. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Blevins. Thank you, Mayor. I just have one announcement. The largest Chinese New Year celebration in Kentucky will be Saturday, February 2, 2008, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Singletary Center. The song and dance performance featuring approximately 100 performers of Chinese culture and traditions will be led by well-known Chinese dance artist Cheryl Pan. She's been accepted by the Kentucky Arts Council into the Performing Arts Directory and the Art Education Roster. For more information, contact Dr. Shengjing Wang at www.mis.net or the Kentucky Chinese American Association's website, which is www.kyacap.org. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much. Council Member DeCamp. Thank you, Mayor. Based on a request from constituents to the Division of Traffic Engineering, there was a request to study speed reduction on Central Avenue. After a lengthy study, their conclusion was based on observation, speed data, volume data, and the documented collision history. The Division of Traffic Engineering does not object to lowering the speed limit to 25 miles an hour on Central Avenue. Therefore, I move that the speed limit be reduced to 25 miles an hour from 35 miles an hour on Central Avenue. Second. Let me make sure I understood the motion. Did I understand you were moving to reduce the speed limit? Yes. I don't know. Does that need to be done by ordinance? Where's a member from the Department of Law? There is. Commissioner, I ask you. You just put it on the docket. Okay. In that case, that's fine. The motion, now I understand a little more clearly. The motion is to place on the docket for blue sheeting an ordinance to reduce the speed limit on Central Avenue from 35 miles an hour to 25 miles an hour. So moved. All right. Is there a second? I have a second from Council Member McCord. Any discussion? Questions? Those that Council Member Red Beard. Council Member DeCamp, where are you? I couldn't find you behind the Mayor there. Old East Vine Street is included in this. You know, Central doesn't start, I don't believe. I know. It starts at Woodland. No, it is not. It's from Woodland on over to Ashland. Because people come up off of Vine Street, up that ramp, and they're moving pretty fast along there also. Well, the study was done on Central Avenue only. Okay. That's what the question is. Any further discussion? Those in favor, let it be known by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you. All right. Council Member Crosby. Thank you, Mayor. I just also, too, want to welcome Council Member Henson. If there's anything we can do to help you, welcome. Glad to have you. And I also want to remind the Neighborhood Association Presidents that on this Friday, January 25th at 4 o'clock at the Eagle Creek Library, we will have our annual, not our annual, I'm sorry, our Neighborhood Association Presidents Meeting, and our topic will be parks. And we will have our 7th District Park Representative with us, Mark Nicolay, to discuss parks in our district. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you also for participating in our 2nd District Presidents Meeting last Wednesday night. The Mayor took a lot of time, over an hour and a half, to answer questions ranging from the sanitary sewer fee question, which we'll be addressing Thursday night, and the EPA suit, to code enforcement issues, traffic issues. I had a really nice evening of sitting and watching a probe perform, and I appreciate that. Two upcoming meetings next Monday night, January 28th at 7 p.m., the Oakwood Neighborhood Association will meet at the Community Center in Oakwood Park, and at the same hour that same evening, the Radcliffe-Marlboro Neighborhood Association will meet at the Community Center in Marlboro Park. Greg Lubart, back from our engineering, will be attending to discuss the Radcliffe Road stormwater project. So, I hope we have good turnout at both of those meetings. Thank you. Council Member Henson. I just wanted to say that I'm very happy to be here amongst such a great group of people, and I look forward to working with each and every one of you. And thank you, Mayor, for giving me this opportunity. Thanks very much. I'm glad you accepted and look forward to working with you. Council Member Gordon. Thank you Mayor. I too would like to welcome Council Member Hanson and congratulate you. I look forward to working with you and it's good to have another lady aboard. There are four of us now and that's very nice. Thank you Mayor. And then I had a couple of other items. I had a constituent contact my office. Yes these are the communal reading glasses. A constituent contact my office about the sanitary sewer user fee and had a legal question about it and so I wonder if I could ask that in public because there might be some other constituents who want to know the answer to this question. The question that was brought to me by the constituent is whether the sanitary sewer user fee is subject to House Bill 44 which I think is only related to taxes. Is it not? I believe that is correct. I don't think that it would and I believe it relates only to property taxes but I'm not sure but we'll certainly look into that and get you something specific on that. Okay that would be very good. I appreciate that and I can pass that on to the constituent. And then I had a question about our snow removal plan and so I'm not sure. There's Mr. Don Kelly. A constituent contacted all council members about Man o' War Boulevard with the concern about snow removal on Man o' War and whether that's part of our plan and the concern that this morning Man o' War was not plowed and didn't appear to have had work done on it. I wasn't at Man o' War so I don't know. I think a little bit was timing this morning more than anything. Our crews were out at 3 this morning pre-treating. The snow started right at 5 this morning. It's pretty heavy for about two hours and as a result there's some accumulation and it melted off pretty quickly. But Man o' War was hit. Man o' War is usually, isn't it? It's a one priority. It's just the timing. If it occurred two hours later, you never would have noticed it. It was early in the morning. Temperature was just below freezing and as a result you had a little bit of accumulation because there's a fairly heavy snow. Okay thank you very much. Council Member Stephens. Thank you. If I had known it was going to melt I wouldn't have bothered shoveling my drive this morning. I guess I had the wrong information. I just want to announce that the Kenwick Neighborhood Association is meeting tonight at 7 p.m. at the community center on Alice Avenue. Thank you. Vice Mayor Gray. Thank you Mayor. I'll just add a big bold-faced ditto to the welcome that everyone else has offered to Council Member Henson and also a welcome and thanks to Council Member Blevins for taking on the vacated role of Chairman of the Sanitary Sewers Oversight Committee which he presided over very effectively this morning and his appointment of Council Member Stennett as Vice Chair. Thank you all both for those roles. Does any other Council Member wish to speak? All right. On the Mayor's report we have a few items which I think necessitate your approval. Some appointments and a motion would be in order. I have a motion that Council Member DeCamp seconded by Council Member Gordon to approve the Mayor's report. Any discussion? Those in favor, please vote aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Second, I want to follow up on something Council Member Blues said a few moments ago. It was a real pleasure for me to have the chance to visit with the Neighborhood Association presidents in the 2nd District last week and I thought that was a particularly effective way of trying to communicate with with interested folks throughout the 2nd District and I would just volunteer to you that if you're having a Neighborhood Association president's meeting and you think it would be helpful I'll be glad to try to coordinate schedules with you to visit and you can avail yourself of that if you wish or just pass on it. It's up to you but I very much appreciate the chance to visit with your folks last Wednesday I think it was. Thank you again and I think it was an extremely valuable opportunity for our neighborhood representatives to not only to communicate with you but to get a wide range of answers to a number of key questions. It was a good meeting. The thing I always find encouraging when I visit with neighborhood associations is you hear what's really important to people and you don't hear what's not important and for the most part the types of questions that they raise are just about the basic services we do here. How do we make sure code enforcement does its job well? How do we make sure we get our streets paved, potholes filled and basic services delivered and that that's always a good thing for me to hear and and I appreciate their having been there. Also on Thursday evening just prior to the council session, the council meeting, we are going to have a little reception for Richard Maloney and and for Peggy at the same time. Do we have a time on that just yet? 630 or 6? 6 o'clock in the ballroom I think so please mark your calendars and try to join us if you can. Unfortunately I will be out of town on Thursday so I will leave it in your your good hands and Vice Mayor Gray will be in charge that evening. That's all the items I had. We're now to the point where we're ready to receive comment on issues not on the agenda and I have a couple of people who have signed up. Dick and Faith Shore if you all will step to the podium. Each of you will have three minutes or if you wish to yield your time you can have six. I will yield my time. That's fine. We could have your address. I asked the administrator for 15 minutes. The administrator is in hospital and will not be back with us so I spoke with a very capable receptionist on that floor and she said let me speak to the person who makes the agenda and we'll see what we can do and then she laid out an option that if I were on the agenda I could come at the beginning. If I were a business I could come in the middle and it would be scheduled. If I were a citizen it would come at the end. Let me clarify that just a little bit because that's not exactly right. We have an opportunity for people who wish to comment on issues that are on the agenda first. Be they representatives of a business or individuals. We then have presentations some of which involve individuals, some of which involve businesses, some of which involve governmental agencies and then at the end we do reserve time for public comment on any issue that's not on the agenda which is where I understand we are right now. So with that said, Mr. Shore. I rise in response to your invitation. You've got six minutes then. I thank you very much for this opportunity and if we can put the... I was told that I would be able to advance the slideshow automatically. Okay. It is amazing how much grief one person can cause another when they try to use technology they don't understand. My name is Dick Shore. I live over in Catalpa Road and I want to thank you, Mayor and Council, for the opportunity to address you today. I come specifically in response to your invitation for responsible proposals for fixing the water problem and what I bring you is an idea and a recommendation for action. What if this idea that I have could address the water supply issue so that we have a water supply that actually increases automatically as Lexington grows? What if this idea could fix the sewage problem? What if this idea could actually cut back on the required capital expenditures and the required operating expenditures for our sewage treatment? Do I have your attention? The idea in a nutshell is this. To get more water, you build a short pipe from where the water is to where you want it to be. To get better quality water, you build a constructed wetland. Now, you know about pipes so I won't bore you with pipes, but you may not be familiar with the idea of a constructed wetland. So allow me to provide you some information about that. There's a handout that's coming through and the visuals in that are what I had hoped to put on the screen so you can follow along if you like and the text is the text that I'm reading from that you'll have for reference. A constructed wetland is a place that people make. It's part of a water improvement system. It's part of a sewage system. The water is shallow. One, one and a half, two feet is all. There's a very gentle slope. The water flows slowly. It may take as much as a week to get all the way through a five-mile stretch. So it's running very slowly and the water has plants in it, reeds and rushes, and they are required. They and the bacteria are the ones that do the work. A constructed wetland finishes the job that the sewage treatment plant started. It removes the low levels of nitrogen and phosphorus that remain and they can also remove the last of the undigested food that we measure as biological oxygen demand, the BOD. They can also remove metals and oils and pathogens, including bacteria and viruses. What constructed wetlands cannot do is deal with primary sewage. This is not a place to dump raw sewage. It's not a place to dump sludge, but they do secondary treatment very well. Constructed wetlands are used all over the world. I have pictures in my file from China, Australia, Canada. I visited one down outside Orlando in Florida some years ago. It had been in operation since the 80s. In Canada, they work under a lay of ice. In the tropics, they work under the blazing sun. We have in Lexington a pilot-size constructed wetland. It's at the old landfill. It's treating the leachate. This is not new technology. Constructed wetlands do require a capital investment, but there's not a lot of concrete to pour. There's not a lot of buildings to make. It's mostly grading. There's not a lot of big engines to install, so the construction costs are low. The operating expenses are low. Gravity does the work and the plants and the sun and the bacteria, so there's not a lot of investment for personnel or for chemicals or for power. The maintenance expenses are low. Yes, there is biomass that has to be harvested on a regular cycle, and you have to check to see that the dikes are sound. They do require land, and for us, that is a severe constraint. In Florida, they're spending someplace on the order of 20 acres for each million gallons of daily capacity, so wetland finishes the job that the waste treatment began. It improves the quality of the water, the wastewater that's discharged from the sewage treatment plant, and in our case, it would make the water better quality than what's in the River Pool 9 from which we draw our source water. A constructed wetland can make wastewater, the outflow, good enough to use as drinking water source water. A constructed wetland, there's a diagram in your handout. It shows that there is a dike that goes around it, and there's a clay barrier underneath of it. What the diagram does not show you is that there is an impermeable layer in there as well to keep the water from leaking out. You don't want it to get into the groundwater, and you can see there's a pipe coming in and a pipe going out. There's reeds and rushes that are planted in clumps with open waters in between. The wetlands needs both, both the plants and the open water. The reeds and rushes have the curious ability to pump oxygen down into their root zone, and that helps the plants and the bacteria do the first part of the nitrogen removal. The plants take up phosphorus into their own bodies, and the rest of the nitrogen removal occurs in that open water. If you look down on top, you'll see a dike that goes around, a pipe that comes in, the clumps of reeds and rushes. The diagram is shown as a rectangle, ordinarily constructed wetlands snake across the countryside winding back and forth so you can get a long course into a small area. When you're in a wetland, you can see a lot of reeds and rushes. There's a picture in there where your face is right in the reeds and rushes, and in the background, if you look carefully, there's some buildings. That's an urban constructed wetland. Then there's two other pictures of small and large urban constructed wetlands. Mr. Shore, you have about 25 seconds to wrap up. My timing is off. When I addressed this council in 1999, my timing was off. I'm offering you an idea, a constructed wetland as a low-cost, effective way to deal with our water quality and our water supply. I would be delighted to meet with any of you individually to provide you additional information. I'd be delighted to provide any support I can to this council as it wrestles with our water quality. Thank you for your investment of your only scarce resource. Thank you very much. Vice Mayor Gray. Yes, I might just make a suggestion that we take this up in planning. It sounds like regardless of whether or not it's appropriate or the timing is appropriate for today, it's something that it has meaningful value as it touches and it refers to our touchstone commitment, environmental sustainability, and it would certainly be something we could take up and look at in our planning committee. And at that time, the planning committee might be able to look at the concept proposal, which has been on file in the city since 1999, and we might be able to move and get a cost feasibility study so we'll know where the land is and what it would really cost. Thank you, Mr. Shore. Thank you. We can make a motion to that effect. I'll make a motion to that effect. I have a motion by Vice Mayor Gray and a second by Council Member Ellinger to refer the idea of a constructed wetland to the planning committee. Any discussion? Then those in favor, please say aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you very much, Mr. Shore. If Commissioner Coe is still available, I told you when we met last Tuesday that we'd try to give you a brief update on STARS, and I intended to do that during my mayor's report and just overlook my notes, so at the risk of catching Commissioner Coe a little bit off guard, I'll ask her to come forward so we might bring you up speed with where all of that stands. Thanks. I'll make this really brief. I know it's been a long day and you still have some more business in front of you, but I think it's important to kind of sit back every once a while and take a look at where we are with this major investment that you've made in STARS. There's a handout going around it, and if you had an opportunity to look at it when we handed it out last week, it's the same one, it's just the date has changed on it. Just a brief history on page two. We'll start with March 25, 2005, the RFP for Implementation Services went out. We are right now at, I mean, very close to three years into this particular project, and even though I wasn't here, I know that a lot of time and effort went into this project even before the RFP hit the streets, so I'm guessing we're three and a half to four years into this already. In October 2005, a contract was awarded for implementation, and at the same time, we hired a project manager. Shortly after that, and in retrospect, probably way too shortly after that, July 1, 2006, the financials module went live. I think everybody knows by now that didn't go so well, and in November 2006, a troubleshooter was brought on board to review the implementation and make some recommendations to address the business process issues. That troubleshooter firm was here doing business when the new administration came on in January, and we have continued work with metaformers. In March and April of 2007, the contracts were terminated with the initial implementation firm and the project manager, so we did have that overlap in time that we had the initial implementation firm as well as the initial project manager on board, and then in the March-April timeframe, those contracts were terminated. From that point forward was when I would say that we really began the heads-down work because from the, and my folks in the Division of Accounting would say it started long before then, but in that timeframe is when we finally had a true evaluation of what had gone on with the system, and the big problem, and the problem that we're still dealing with, and the reason that you don't have a year-end balance is that it's the way the accounts receivable module was implemented, and in fact, it was so badly implemented from our perspective that in June 2007, we actually did a re-implementation of the accounts receivable module. Now to do a re-implementation, that implementation is serving us well. Our 2008 numbers are cranking right along and we're feeling really good about where we are in the system in 2008, but we have 11 months of bad data in accounts receivable. That whole 11 months is being reconstructed, and transaction by transaction, we're revisiting everything that's in the system for those first 11 months as well as the June 2007, and we hope to be finished with that in the next few weeks. In October 2007, we filled the position of the CIO, and I can't say enough about Rama and what he has done to take some of the load off me, and Rama and I have been working as co-project leaders since he came on board, and we have been able to move forward. The EPM, or the budget module, has been implemented now. We went live with that in January 2008. We are using STARS budget module for this budget that we're putting together to bring to you in the April timeframe. There were some other kind of fringe things that we knew would help our business process, business processes that we thought we could do fairly quickly. One of those being the procurement card that was built into STARS, and we had something in our banking contract with National City that allowed us to move forward with that implementation. It's being piloted right now. We'll be going live with the procurement card in February 2008, and all of the processes around that and everything I can bring back to you at a later time, but that really, that whole ProCard issue, you probably need more details about what we're doing with that, but in the lateness of the day, we'll just assume you know what we're doing, and we'll come back to you later with the details around the procurement card after we've been through the trial period that we're in right now. We're making progress, and I know it doesn't seem like that to you because you're not getting financial reports yet in a timely manner, but let me show you we're a whole lot better off today than we were this time last year. We were as close as you get to a failed implementation. I think many of you have read a lot of information about the development, about ERPs, and about 50% of them fail, and we were very close to being in that 50%, and I would say now we are definitely on the other side. Regardless of what decisions we make about going forward with STARS or the use of the PeopleSoft software in the future, what we have right now is working and serving us well. Commitment control, which is one of the pieces in PeopleSoft of the budget piece. We implemented some security there that's giving us some greater control over budget overrides. We had some things happening in the system that were causing more data problems for us. That's been straightened out. We've established basic month-in-close processes, which had not been done before, and when we get on track with this accounts receivable thing behind us and FY07 closed, we expect to have the previous month closed by the 10th of the month of the following month, which represents best practice in the area of accounting and closing months. We've reconfigured asset management, and again, you know, that's something that you can say in just a sentence, but this was months and months of work on the part of the folks in accounting who were dealing with asset management. The configuration did not serve LFUCG well. We now have something that works for us. And finally, but certainly not least, the technical environment has stabilized. I'll never forget the first time I logged on to STARS when I got here. I got up from my desk and went out. I said, is anybody having trouble with STARS? And they're like, well, no, we're all on. We're working. I was like, man, it's so slow. Something's got to be wrong. Well, it's like, no, nothing was wrong at the time except that the whole thing was just running so slowly that literally you would have to sometimes get up and walk away from your desk to get something very simple to process. We've had some experts in the DB2 and mainframe configuration that we're working with, which is a technical term, but it is what we were working with. And we've had some folks in. ROMA has continued to work with those folks. I will tell you, though, when we got ready to implement budget, we implemented budget on a different, on a completely different platform because it's something that you don't use day to day. We didn't have to implement that in the same environment. So we are now working with a stable environment both in financials and budget. Just real quickly, if you look at the original plan, these are the modules that were planned to be implemented in what was what was termed Project 1A. Those that are in blue are the ones that we have completed implementation. And some of the others, most of the others, in fact, we have no intention of moving forward with. There are things that we really don't need. I will say about accounts receivable that it's cumbersome. It's cumbersome for the way that we do business here at LFUCG. We need to be looking at a cashiering front end, and that's something that as we move down the road we will be looking toward. Project 1B, this was the plan. We are just completing budgeting and business planning. Projects, contracts, and grants are part of Project 1B that we included in the RFP that has just come in, we've just received the proposals on. So those three pieces, projects, contracts, and grants, are in the new responses that we have. All of Project 2A and 2B, and I'm not going to read all those to you, are in the RFP that we just received proposals on. Now, what I will tell you about Projects 2A and 2B is that there are lots of bells and whistles in there. And we realized exactly how many bells and whistles there were when we got the prices in for the new proposals that we just received. We're going to be taking a look at those proposals and trying to sort out the bells and whistles from the essentials. We really have to do something around payroll and personnel. I hope that we make a decision to move forward with PeopleSoft, but we may find that it just is too incredibly expensive. But what we're faced with right now is payroll on the mainframe, and we're trying to work our way off the mainframe. And we have a payroll system on the mainframe that's not very flexible at all. If we want to look at things like performance measurements and those kinds of things, we're going to really struggle with the mainframe. But again, we need to deal with all that in the context of how much we can afford to move forward. I'll just tell you that the proposals that came in ranged from four and a half million to five and a half million. And Rama and I just had to be picked up off puddles off the floor when we saw the numbers, because that's a lot more than we were expecting to see. But we'll be sorting through that and bringing something back to you on that. I wanted you to see the budget to date. What this tells us right now is that when we get to June 30th, and this takes everything out through June 30th, that of the initial $10.8 million that was anticipated for this project, that we will have spent about $9.6 million of it. So we'll have that million, million two going into the next phases. You know, it's a lot of money. We've spent a lot of money. There's more to be spent. But, you know, if we had it all to do over, certainly we'd do the implementation differently. But I'm not so sure that, I think we probably would have chosen PeopleSoft again. It's good software, and we're going to get from it what we need. Any questions? I know it's late in the day and a little tedious, but this is a major commitment that impacts every aspect of Irwin County government. I wanted to give you an update on it. Any questions for Commissioner Cove? Council Member Blevins. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to comment real quickly. It seems like it's blown by one year ago. We were in the ditch completely. We were unable to do much of anything with our accounting system, and now we're still not quite out of the woods, but we're much further along. There's a few things I want the Council to be, and the public, to be aware of. If you'll notice that tonight we're talking about data problems as opposed to software problems. That's a huge change. It's an important thing to note. Before, we were talking about how we couldn't get the system to work. Now we're just talking about cleaning up the old data that we need to clean up. That has an end in sight, whereas the other one didn't. I wanted to ask you quickly where you are with the data cleansing from last year. Are you close, and about when do you expect to complete that? We have turned everything over to the auditors already, except accounts receivable. So we are down to that piece, and we're, we expect it actually to be to be finished about right now, and we're just not. So another two to three weeks. Two to three weeks, and then that will allow you to close out 2007. Yes. So are you ready to commit to two to three weeks from now? We'll know what 2007 looks like. Are you ready to do that now? I think we will be ready in two to three weeks to tell you about 2007. It will not be audited, but we will have turned it over to the auditors. Now let me caution you that what we have done to our auditors now is put them in the middle of tax season trying to do our audit. So our audit is going to be very late, because they're going to work on it as they can, but certainly they had prior commitments for taxes, and we understand that. We need to stay with them because they've been with us through this process, and so we will not have audited figures, but we will have figures that we will feel very confident about moving forward with. And then finally, I just wanted to make sure the public understands what we're talking about. This is our accounting system that allows us to track our money, both income and outgo. We haven't yet implemented the modules that go with our personnel side of the business, which is what you're referring to earlier. I was hoping you could provide a few examples of already the benefits we're already yielding with this system. I know, for example, PO approval and that kind of thing has yielded real savings to this government. It's important that people understand we're not just doing this to build a new accounting system. There's good, there's a lot of gains we're going to get. Could you give us just a few practical examples that the ordinary citizen might understand? In practical terms, one of the things that we've been able to do is reduce the number, and I don't know if the general public would understand this, but for us it's a big deal. We've been able to reduce the number of what we would call direct payments, or just checks being cut to a vendor because someone has an invoice and they're ready to get paid. Every time you do that, you bypass every control that you have in the system. And because we can now work more quickly and everything is online in real time, it really is not, it's just as easy to do a purchase order in many respects as it is what we used to call direct pay. And a purchase order has lots of security and requires a number of approvals before you actually cut a check. And for those who live in the accounting world, that's a huge thing. You want to minimize the number of direct payments that you make. I would say that one of the other things eventually will be the timing of when we are able to look at our receipts on a daily basis and make some better estimates in terms of cash management. We're not quite there yet, but it's one of the things that we'll be working toward because we will have that daily look now at revenue and receipts that are in the system and be able to compare it to another day in the system and make better use of the cash that we have on hand so that we can try to get more investment earnings. Okay, so if I understood you correctly, some of the new system allows us to prevent waste. Fraud hopefully would never occur, but it allows us to catch that kind of thing. And then just out and out, avoid mistakes, honest mistakes where we pay someone when we shouldn't. And if I also understood you, we have more timely and accurate reports which allow you to better manage our cash and maybe save money here and there as well. So it's a necessary evil to have an accounting system. It was even more necessary that our old system be replaced because it was at least 30 years old and spread throughout government. It was too cumbersome for us to use. This is a must-have. And despite the fact that we were a train wreck a year ago, we had to have it. So we had no choice but to finish this project. And I want to commend you again. Nice work to get us to this stage. Keep up the good work. Thank you. Anything further for Council Member DeCant? Yeah, you know, I know this has been brought up before and we spent a lot of money and I think you're doing a great job in putting this back on the right path. But somewhere along the line, somebody was liable for this. I mean, it happened. And you know, I think the public needs to know why we're not in a position to sue somebody over this. Because, you know, we were led down the path. We all thought we were getting something that we'd contracted for and didn't get. Now, in private business, I would think that somebody would try to collect somebody some money from those that were liable to, you know, who got us in this position. And I think it's still kind of a mystery to me. So if you want to comment on that? I actually, I think I probably ought to defer to the Commissioner of Law for that. I probably shouldn't speak to that. We'll try to make arrangements for two of you to get together and get the benefit of his insights about that, Dick. Anything else for Commissioner McColl? Thank you. Thank you. Vice Mayor Gray. Thank you, Mayor. Before we adjourn, I thought it might be appropriate to just bring you all up to date. In the work session last week, we had a conversation about the advisability of retaining an independent advisor for looking at and considering the Louisville Pipeline, the Kentucky American offer before the PSC. And I wanted to report to you all that I have done a couple, I've made a couple of inquiries. I believe Councilmember Stevens and Councilmember Gordon have also made a couple of inquiries. I can't say right now that the inquiries that I've got are bona fide or are sufficient yet to bring it to you all, but as soon as I do, I will bring that to you. And I think that Councilmember Gordon has had contact with an economist at University of Kentucky, and you're sending him some of the information that that we've been looking at. And I believe you said that he's familiar with with the issue just by having followed in the newspaper. Is that correct? Right. Go ahead. You might want to comment on that. I contacted UK and they put me in touch with Professor Ken Trosky, who is their William B. Sturgill Professor of Economics, and he also is the Director of the Center for Business and Economics at UK. I believe you've got a CV on him that might be able to share around. All right. Yeah, I think I had a couple of conversations, just hallway conversations with other Councilmembers, including I think you and I were at the airport, Councilmember Lane, where I had a conversation about perhaps the Council inviting the Attorney General's consultant, Scott Rubin, whose testimony before the PSC apparently has a high degree of reliance. It might be, in my view at least, it would be useful for us to hear him and hear his presentation that he's made before the PSC, and especially to understand how the current condition, the current facts, including the Franklin County decision and whatever Winchester is deciding are impacting or may impact the testimony that he gave earlier to the PSC. So we could consider that on Thursday night or we could make that in the form of a motion of just to invite Scott Rubin to share with us here at the Council so we would have a better and more informed understanding of his testimony, which is basically the financial analysis, the present value analysis that he made to the Public Service Commission. Is that a motion? I'll make that in the form of a motion, yeah. Do I have a second? Second from Councilmember DeCamp. The motion by Vice Mayor Gray, as I understand it, is to extend an invitation to Scott Rubin, the Attorney General's expert, to visit with the Council in the very near future, as soon as possible. All right. Any discussion? Yes. Councilmember Peart. Vice Mayor, where do we go from here or where do we go from there when Scott Rubin comes or when we're able to find somebody else from UK? We asked the PSC for 30 days. We're now down to 20 days, and I can't conceive of anybody being able to do anything in that length of time, especially when we haven't quite engaged anybody yet. I guess that's all. My concern is more delay? I think, I don't know, at least from my point of view on this is that a clear understanding by the public of what decision we're making and why we're making it, and I'm saying we, I mean collectively, the PSC, the City of Lexington, the decision of why we're making the decision that we're making so that it's clear is the best duty that we can perform. And in my view, this has more to do with our responsibility at the end of the day, our responsibility in public trust. Where the numbers are unclear and where the decision is unclear, which is why it was present thrown back at us by the PSC, we, as much as possible, need to understand why it is we need to understand it and the public needs to understand it. I guess my question, though, is we don't make the decision. The PSC, we asked for 30 days. I don't think they're going to be as easy to accommodate us the next time around or the next time after that or the next time after that. I just don't know. I don't think, I don't know that we're that we're doing anything other than what the PSC asked us to do, which was in their original order, they asked us to explain what our position, the informed position of the City of Lexington is and in order for us to do that, at least in my view, in order for us to be informed and to speak to the issue, then we need to understand as much as we can about it. In other words, they want to take us, take themselves off the hot seat and put us on? I wasn't going to say that. Okay, thank you. All right, Council Member Stennett. If Mr. Lane had his... Council Member Lane. I apologize. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I first would say at our previous Council meeting, I did vote against a 45-day extension for, you know, hearing new ideas on this. I was not able to attend the last Council meeting, but I did talk to several Council members and I did feel that 30-day extension would be appropriate, provided that we just didn't drag this out forever and ever and ever. I did run into the Vice Mayor at the airport and my feeling was that the Attorney General is already, as I understand it, an intervener in the case anyway, and if any new information is presented to the PSC, it seems to me it would be appropriate for the Attorney General or its experts to look at that information and file it with the PSC and, you know, send a copy to our Council to look at. I think that is the appropriate thing to do. I feel it's not appropriate for us to hire anybody or to have hearings here or extend the, you know, the time to examine this until we get some kind of a read from the PSC. That's more or less my position. I just want to clarify that, you know, for the Council members. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Lane. Council Member Stinnett. Thank you, Mayor. Notwithstanding the fact that this is out of order right now, I'm gonna let it go today, but this is not on the agenda. This is not the time to do this. If you want to do this, we should have either done it during presentations or during Council report, but given we are having this discussion, last week Louisville came at the last minute to our Council meeting, did a presentation where it was no different financially from what we've seen since last July. Zero. So I'm still a little confused about why we would enlist a third-party expert to come in here and testify once again to this Council when it's not our decision, it's the PSC's decision. If they want to offer any testimony, offer it to the PSC, because I can watch Mr. Rubin's testimony that he gave to the PSC. It's documented, it's well documented, and we can all go back and watch that. If there's any new financial data, I'd be more than glad to look at it, but there was nothing presented new last week. Period. Am I missing something? And again, I'm not sure, as Council Member Beard asked, so if we get a third-party opinion financially, what are we going to do with it? It's not our decision to make. Are we going to forward it simply on to the PSC? And if that's the case, then they have a budget that allows for this type of thing, a type of analysis that they can afford to hire somebody. Thank you, Mayor. All right, Council Member Gray. Well, my view on it is, without repeating myself too much, my view on it is that the PSC invited us in. We recognized when they did that, it was unprecedented. And when they did that, that put the responsibility on us to respond. Either we could drop the ball, or we could pick up the ball that they tossed at us. By inviting those who have already testified, who have the information, it's what we were saying when we discussed it first, Council Member Lane, that is Scott Rubin. To share that with us and with the public, it seems to me that that is just, it's hard to, it's hard for me to find why that would be a problem. That's not extending anything. That's asking for Mr. Rubin to share with us what it is that he's already shared, and whether or not his analysis has changed as a result of Frankfort's decision and of the direction that Winchester appears to be going. Now, that's just a simple question. So, he seems to be the authority. He's got the inputs into the financial analysis, and that's a big deal. Thank you. The motion is on the floor to extend an invitation to Scott Rubin to attend a meeting. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mayor. I guess first I'd like to ask the Vice Mayor, since I have the order here, I think you misrepresent what this order says. I'd like you to show us in this order where it is that the PSC invited us to do anything, because what they said to us was that we as a government ought to look at entering into a public-private partnership with Kentucky American Water. They didn't ask us to go out and hire anybody doing the analysis. They've got $4 million in their budget set to do that. If they want to do that, they would have done that. The person who's testified before them, why do we need that person to come before this body when they spoke publicly at the PSC? Everything's on record with the PSC. It makes no sense for them to come here. Here's what I think to answer the question that Councilman Stanton asked. Why are we here? Where are we going with this? What I see is the equivalent of a basketball game, where the team is two minutes left in the game. Team's losing. They have no offense. They have no defense. So what do they do? When their opponent gets the ball, they immediately foul. They send them to the line. They hope they miss one or two of those free throws. They get the ball immediately back. They go downfield, down court. They shoot a two-pointer or a three-pointer. The ball comes back in bounds. They immediately foul. Send the other team back to the free throw line. That's all you're doing here. The PSC is the one that's going to make this decision, not us. You speak as if we are the body who's going to make this decision, just like Councilman Beard asked. You speak as if we have some third person come in here and give us an analysis of something that the PSC didn't ask for. They have the funds to do if they wanted. If that comes to us, none of us here has the expertise to look at that analysis. But you think we're going to take that analysis and make a decision and then tell the PSC how to do their job. The PSC is the one to make the decision. The Kentucky American Water proposal is the only thing they're looking at. We as a government, if we were going to do something, it was to enter into a public-private partnership with Kentucky American Water. We haven't done that. No one here has suggested doing that. All you're doing is trying to prolong this thing out so at the end of the day, we end up in a situation where we can go into reverse condemnation, 2015, we don't renew the franchise agreement, et cetera, et cetera. I voted with Councilman Sinnott's proposal to give anybody out there another 30 days to put together a proposal. It's interesting to me that Louisville Water Company didn't take their 30 days. They came in the very next week and presented to us. Why did we give them 30 days if they didn't take it? They didn't take it because nothing's changed. They came in here. They said in their testimony that they're presenting the same thing to us. They presented back in July to the PSC. Something else that's interesting. In this order, when I asked the two questions of Louisville Water last week, there's a statement here that says that every question that the PSC has asked in this order must be answered under oath. And then there's another scenario. If they give, but basically everything that you give to them is under oath. There's also another statement here that says that if you do not, if you choose not to answer a question or you fail to answer a question, you have to provide in writing why you failed to answer the question or why you chose not to answer the question. I asked Louisville Water a couple of important questions, and they were the two questions that the PSC asked them. And the gentleman that spoke originally said that I asked if they had answered those questions yet, because the questions were due, I think, on the 9th of January. I'm not exactly sure on the date. Anyway, they had said that they'd already answered the questions. What I wanted from him was a simple yes or no, because that's really what the question asked for. Now, I'm sure when they provided their response to the PSC, they probably had 10, 15 pages to substantiate their yes or no. But one of those questions was whether or not they had the statutory authority to do what it is they were proposing to do. The first question that I asked, he gave a response, and then I think it was his legal counsel or somebody came up next to him and said, we really don't want to get into that. I didn't want to get into why they think they have the authority. The second question, he refused to answer. Now, if the company's already answered the question and is prepared to send it to the PSC, but the PSC gave a stay on having to submit the information, he could have answered the question yes or no. To me, if they were going to come and not take their 30 days, and they were going to go ahead and stand up here and present to us whatever it was they were going to present, if they weren't prepared to answer those two simple questions, yes or no, without getting into the legality of their answer, but just yes or no, then we're done with them. It's not a bona fide proposal. So I think it's time that we move on, we let the PSC do its job, and we do what our job is. Thank you. I think, is it Council Member Blues? Yeah. Council Member Blues. Thank you. I, you know, I appreciate Council Member Meyers' analogy, except for one thing. This is not a game. And I think what we're talking about here and most compelled by is that the PSC is about to make a decision that affects the supply of water for this municipality and other communities for over 20 years and beyond. We have, we have a serious interest in contributing whatever we can, helpfully, to the decision that will bring water to the community from a reliable source that's environmentally sound over a long time at the best possible rate for our ratepayers. I don't know what the outcome of the PSC decision is or will be, but I am confident that whatever information we can, we can gather in the time that the PSC has granted us to do, whatever contribution we might make to their decision, we should do that. And we should do it for the community that we are representing, that we are responsible to. So I'll vote yes for Vice Mayor Gray's motion, not knowing what it will produce, but not willing to haggle over whether the PSC should be doing its job. I'm concerned that we have some time granted to us to do our job. Thank you. Vice Mayor. Let me just say, Vice Mayor Gray, real quickly, I do want to say I apologize if the invitation or suggesting the invitation to Scott Rubin is real sensitive. I genuinely didn't intend or think that it would be something that would be overly sensitive. My view is very similar to what Dr. Blues just suggested, is that in the time that we have here, the 30 days, that we should use that time as meaningfully as we can to educate ourselves and the public as to this decision that's being made. It is a pretty significant decision. And the more that we have been exposed to the issues and the facts, the more we have, or at least I have, the sense of needing to understand and have the knowledge of why it is the decision that's being made is being made. And probably the best guy to do that and to help us understand it and the public would be Scott Rubin. That's entirely the motivation of my suggestion tonight. Council Member McCord. I just have a question of the parliamentarian, something you said at the beginning. I mean, is this motion even, can we even hear this? Because it's out of order. It's done after the meeting is over, basically. Is this something that we actually can even vote on? Well, let me ask you a question. Is it out of order? Yes. According to order of the day, this conversation entirely is out of order. But can we vote on the motion? We can vote on the motion. If it, again, it's up to the council, though. But we've allowed this discussion to go on, so I would say that the motion would still be in order. Well, the chair will rule it's in order. And if anybody wishes to appeal, feel free to do so and we'll take it up in that fashion. Otherwise, we'll proceed. All right. Any further discussion? Council Member Allinger. Mr. Gray, would your motion require that Mr. Rubin would come within the window of the 30 days in? Because we, when Mr. Schnitt made his motion, I agreed with him to try to look at all alternatives and we gave everybody that opportunity for 30 days. But we have that wind is closing. Is this something, are we trying to extend that now? Because I think we all have to have some kind of deadline eventually. No, we're not. I'm certainly not suggesting extending it. We've still got three weeks. So you're going to, so we would contact Mr. Rubin and have him come within the 30-day period? Do we know that's a possibility? No. I wouldn't want to be presumptuous and suggest that without the council's endorsement of it. Any further council members? So just to clarify everything, Vice Mayor, your intentions of bringing Mr. Rubin here are just for information purposes only and to enlist his opinions to the general public to understand what his testimony was, but not to offer any new evidence in the form of testimony to the PSC. No, I think we're confirming his testimony before and that that testimony has not adjusted or changed since his testimony before the PSC. As it would relate especially to Frankfurt and to Winchester's decision. But I guess the order from the PSC has asked us if we have any new evidence in the form of testimony to present it. This has, my suggestion has more to do with our being informed and educated and understanding the decision that's being made by the PSC, which is largely influenced by Scott Rubin's testimony. Our understanding it and, therefore, the public understanding it. Our constituents, the consumers here. No hidden agendas. That's it. All right. Council Member Lane, then Council Member Myers. You know, the report is already a public record. It seems to me if we want to disseminate this information to the public in Fayette County, I think this would be one of the times the Herald-Leader could do a great public service and just publish the report. I think it would get a lot greater distribution and give people a chance to read it and check it out, rather than to do it on our TV station here, which has very limited viewers. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mayor. Commissioner, could you come forward for a second? The commissioner has in his hand the order that the PSC sent back to us, and I wanted to ask you, have we as a government answered all the questions that the PSC has asked of us in that order? Yes, I believe we have. Okay. So then I'm not baiting you, so I'm not really asking you a question. I'm just speaking rhetorically. Then if we've answered all the questions that the PSC has asked us in that order, then there really is no more information to give to the PSC. We've done what they've asked us to do. So I really see no point in having anybody come in here once again and speak to what they've already said to the PSC when the PSC didn't ask us that. The PSC asked us a specific set of questions. We've answered those questions as a government. And so I would say, go ahead, I'm sorry. Council Member Myers, let me just clarify one thing. The PSC, in its order before Christmas, did ask the parties to the litigation to answer written questions. We have done that. What we have not done is we have not submitted our brief in the case. And that deadline has been extended. In fact, the deadline has been extended indefinitely until they tell us it's time to file something. So the position of the government has still not been presented in that final document. But as far as the additional information which PSC requested in the form of those written questions, those questions have been answered. Okay, so we're in the same state that Louisville Water is. They've answered the questions, they just haven't submitted it yet because there's been a stay on submitting those questions or those answers. There have been no briefs submitted, but all parties submitted their responses to the written questions, as I recall. And by the way, there is a PSC website where all of those documents are available online. I don't know whether the transcript of the hearing is now available, but I know that, for instance, Scott Rubin did present some written evidence prior to the hearing, which is a matter of record, which I think you can access through the PSC website. Okay, one more question for you. In answering those questions for the PSC and in preparing our brief for the PSC, did we have to go back to Scott Rubin to get any information? I don't believe that we did, Council Member Myers, because what was being asked in those questions, I don't know really addressed what Mr. Rubin was being asked to do in his testimony. Again, Mr. Barber is not here. He's the expert. I've talked to him on the phone. He's not in his office, but I can get you some more detailed answers. But again, I want to go back to something you just said about the submissions. The answers to the questions have been submitted, but the briefs have not been submitted. Okay, so let me get this right and let me clarify this again. Did you say that when we, one, either answered the questions or prepared our brief, we didn't ask this gentleman that we want to have come in and testify, we didn't ask him for any additional information to do that because? I don't believe that we did, and I don't believe there would have been a need to. There's no need to because the questions the PSC asked of us don't pertain to his testimony. I think that would be accurate. Again, I defer to Mr. Barber, but I think that's correct. They were asking questions about what you alluded to earlier about possible public-private. Right. So from what you know of where we're at today, do you see any value in having him come and speak to this body with respect to? Well. No comment. I'll let you off on that. Well, I think that's up to the counsel, you know, to decide. If that will help you in terms of determining the position the city ought to take in its brief, I mean, I think that's a decision that you need to make. Mr. Barber is very familiar with the testimony of Mr. Rubin. Any further discussion on the motion? I'd like to yield the rest of my time to Councilman Lane. I just have one question. Would we be in a position that you could take a copy of that report from the consultant for the Attorney General's office and actually post it on our website so if anybody wanted to look at it, they could go download it? I don't know why we couldn't do that. I don't. Rama's here. Rama says we can do that. So you want to see what. Legally we can do it is what you're saying. Well, it's public record. Yeah. Is there something. Well, I'll tell you what, Rama, I don't know how to post anything on the website, but what exactly would you like to have posted, Councilman? Well, I just, the report, the consultant's report, so it could be anybody that wanted to see it could download it off of our website and take a look at it. Because, you know, the idea, that's a record. It's in the public record right now, but make it easy for people to get a copy of it if they want to read it. Okay. I mean, whatever is available that is in writing that we would be able to put on the website dealing with Mr. Rubin, we could do that if that's what you. Thank you, Councilman Myers, for yielding. All right. I've got Councilman Blevins and Councilman Ellinger, and if anybody else wishes to speak, just log on here. Councilman Blevins. Thank you, Mayor. Logan, real quick before you run away. Is it your understanding that Louisville Water Company also filed their question answers on time on the 9th? Yes. So if we, I was, like Councilman Myers, a little disappointed in the answers we got that day at the session, but if we wanted to, we could go look and find out what their answers were, at least from a legal point of view. As a matter of fact, I was very surprised that night. I went to check to see what everybody had filed, and they already had it in the PSC system. So Louisville Water, Kentucky American Water, us, and I believe Blue Grass. Blue Grass Water Supply. Is that right? Blue Grass had questions that they had to answer, and they were all, they're all on that website. So we could go find that out if we want to. Okay. Thanks. That's all I needed. I would just add that the real issue here, the thing that we really would like to know is, does Mr. Rubin's testimony change given any of the information we've gotten over the last few months? From where I sit, I don't see that it would, but I would suggest that maybe a more efficient course might be to ask, Mr. Rubin, has your testimony changed? So, Vice Mayor, I wonder if you might want to take that on as maybe a friendly amendment. Why don't we just contact Mr. Rubin and say, would you say that your testimony has changed since you gave it in December or whenever the last one he is? If it has, I'd be very interested to hear what he has to say, and I would more than support your motion. I'd second it. The second thing I would add is that what's even of more interest to me is not just what's occurred since he gave his original testimony, but what Councilmember Stennett was alluding to. Unless Louisville changes their proposal, we're done. There's nothing else to talk about. If they do change their proposal, I think it's incumbent, and we are now dependent on Mr. Rubin to update his testimony, if you will, so that we all are better informed. So, those are the two things I'd like to know, is has he changed anything based on current evidence? And then in the future, if Louisville does come back with a different number or something, we all want to see those numbers get re-crunched. The Chair will recognize Vice Mayor Gray to respond to those inquiries. I'd certainly accept that as a friendly amendment, and I think that could arguably get the job done, perhaps, without an airplane ticket down here. And so, I'll accept that as a friendly amendment. I'll continue my second on that. Pardon me? I'd second the original, and I'll second this. Thank you very much. All right. Councilmember Ellinger. I think Mr. McCord had a question, if you want to follow up on that. Just a real quick question. So, Vice Mayor, you're going to make contact with Mr. Rubin, and then he is going to send something to each one of us that, yes or no, my testimony has changed. That works for you all. I mean, I have no privilege of communication. Okay. That's good. But, yeah, absolutely, we'll ask him to. Right. And I guess that just follows up with what Mr. Blevins said. The question I guess I wanted to ask is, my understanding, Mr. Rubin is a consultant that worked for the Attorney General. So, I'm sure that he doesn't do this pro bono, so there was probably going to be some cost association with this. So, if we did invite him, we would probably have to set money aside for that. Would that not be true? If we're asking him because, will he just show up just because we asked him, or is there something as a consultant that we got to expect some money to pay for? We might cross that bridge. Councilmember Beard. I guess on this whole situation of Scott Rubin and analyzing what, my guess is Louisville Water Company has not submitted anything to the PSC yet because they have 20 days. So, if we ask Scott Rubin something tomorrow or the next day, he's going to be able to say, what? What are we talking about? I don't have any more data than I had last time. So, we have to wait until after or ask Louisville if they've submitted something. Because they submitted it to us in some form, but they haven't necessarily, I'm guessing, that they have not done anything with the PSC formally yet. And, you know, again, time is getting burnt up. As I understood the friendly amendment by Councilmember Blevins, it was to ask Mr. Rubin to confirm the current facts and his current advice, his current testimony, and whether or not any changes by Louisville would alter or adjust that, his conclusions, in a substantive way. But if Louisville hasn't submitted anything yet, how can he answer that part of it? Let me try to clarify the question. I understood Councilmember Blevins suggests that the question we posed to Mr. Rubin was, has anything changed? And so that would be the nature of the inquiry. Okay. And that's now the motion that's on the floor. Okay. I think I can answer that question another way. Okay. Go ahead. All right. The next person I've got on the list is Councilmember Myers. I was wrong. Councilmember Lane. Thank you, Mayor. I just had one other thought. This consultant is working for the Attorney General's Office. It seems to me that if he had a new opinion, it would be appropriate for the Attorney General to ask him for that information. And secondly, if he had a new opinion, it should be filed with the Public Service Commission and not our chamber over here. So I still think we're totally out of sequence on this and that we're doing this in a necessary and inappropriate manner. Thank you. Councilmember James. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to confirm the motion because when the Vice Mayor stated it, it was different than what Don had asked for their friendly amendment. My understanding of the motion on the floor is now that we are authorizing the Vice Mayor to contact Mr. Rubin to ascertain whether or not anything about his opinion as submitted to the PSC has changed. All right. I don't have anyone else listed to speak. Last call. Let's – Commissioner Haskins. Sorry, Mayor. Sorry. Let me just make a suggestion. I think it's possible, given the fact that we're involved in this case and that Mr. Rubin is a consultant for the Attorney General, that it may be possible that Vice Mayor Gray may not get very far with Mr. Rubin. What I would suggest is that there may be another way to get that information, perhaps through Mr. Barbary through the AG's office, and just so Vice Mayor Gray is not spinning his wheels. But, I mean, I think we'll try to get the answer to that question, however is the best way to do it. Yeah. So now what we're proposing, subject to having heard Vice Mayor Gray's assent to that, and if Council Member DeCamp will agree, the motion would be that we request council to contact the AG's office to ask them to inquire if Mr. Rubin's opinion has changed since his PSC testimony. Is that all right? I'm sorry, Mayor. Would you restate that one more time? I'd be glad to. The motion is that we, through council, request of the Attorney General's office whether or not Mr. Rubin's opinion has changed since he testified before the Public Service Commission. Everybody understand where we are? I think we're probably ready to vote, and I'd like to record this electronically if we can arrange that. My screen doesn't reflect. That's an option right now. Can we vote electronically, Jeanette? All right. Please cast your vote electronically aye if you support that motion. Please vote nay if you wish to oppose the motion. It appears as though the vote is unanimous. Thank you very much. I think we're now ready for one matter to be addressed in closed session. Chair recognizes Council Member Blevins. Thank you, Mayor. I understand we have a brief topic to discuss. I move pursuant to KRS 61.810 subsection 1C to go into closed session for the purpose of discussing pending litigation against the Lexington-Fayette-Urban County Government. So moved. I have a second by Council Member McCord. Any discussion? Those in favor of going into closed session, please say aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.