Music We do have a quorum. Come on. Come on, Beth. Turn our people loose, okay? First item on the agenda is the committee summary of May 13, 2014. If you would review that and... Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. A scattered aye. Yes. A couple of things that need to be modified, I think. Okay. If I could make a couple of suggestions. Sure. every time the summary mentions Jim Clark it should be Clark without an E so the only Clark with an E is down on the fifth paragraph I think that says Clark thanked Clark that is correct the other one should be without an E and also I think the numbers probably can be redone too because that's number two and it probably should be three. You're actually ready. Well, with the input, Paul will alter those. We still need a motion to approve what's left. So move as amended. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Clark, for at least reading that. That's great. Our first item is a visit by our new, relatively new food coordinator, who has a presentation to make. Ashton Potter-Wright. Ashton, there you are. Ready to go. I'm ready to go. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. Well, good afternoon, everyone. I'm Ashton Potter-Wright. I am the, rightly so, relatively new local food coordinator in the Office of Economic Development in the Mayor's Office. Thanks so much for giving me the opportunity today to come and share with you bit about myself and a little bit about what I've been up to. I've had the opportunity to meet with many of you but I appreciate your time today. So first I'll share just some highlights about my background for those of you I haven't had the pleasure of meeting. I'm a native Lexingtonian, a graduate of Henry Clay High School. I attended Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee and I have a bachelor's of science degree from that college. I have a master's degree in public health from Georgia State University and a doctoral degree in public health from the University of Kentucky. So over the past few years I've had the opportunity to gain valuable public health and community-based experience at both the local and national level that I think will serve me well in this new capacity as local food coordinator. While working on my doctorate at UK I had the opportunity to work with the tweens nutrition and Fitness Coalition on a number of healthy food access initiatives, including Better Bites and the Good Neighbor Store Project, which I think many of you may be familiar with. Also, during my time at UK, I had the opportunity to work on a National Institutes of Health-funded Farm to School Research and Implementation Grant in Lee County, Kentucky, and had the opportunity to work with the Lexington-Feya County Health Department on drafting a community health improvement plan for Lexington Fayette County. Most recently I served as the operations manager for First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move Child Care campaign in Atlanta. So that's a bit about me. I'll be happy to answer other questions at the end. So as you can imagine my first two months on the job have been quite busy. I feel like I've hit the ground running and have been working to build on the ideas that Kevin, Councilman Kay, and my advisory committee have been brainstorming about for the past couple of years as this position has come to fruition. And I'll tell you more about my advisory committee and the role it will play in just a moment. I've also been working to develop a brand for my work so that we can launch social media platforms and web pages so that I can more effectively communicate with the broader community about the work that I'm undertaking. Branding development was achieved with input from both mayor's office and my advisory committee and I'll share the results of that branding process with you at the end of my presentation. So in addition to laying a foundation with my advisory committee and engaging in the branding process, the majority of my time these past two months has really been focused on relationship building and listening. And I've made a concerted effort to reach out to and meet with as many stakeholders as possible in order to better understand what existing organizations are doing and are working on with respect to local food in the Lexington area and to gain a better understanding of both the opportunities and challenges associated with moving this work of improving our local food economy forward. So in my first two months on the job, I've had the opportunity to meet with over 130 individuals representing over 75 organizations. Some of the key organizations are listed here on this slide. I won't bore you with the complete list, but I would like to highlight a couple of these. I've been having regular meetings with Sarah Fridgner in Louisville. She's the coordinator of Louisville Farm to Table. And as many of you may know, my position in many ways was modeled after her position. So I'm trying to take full advantage of the fact that she's been at this work for about five years now and has a lot of lessons learned that I think can be really applicable to our work here in Lexington. I'll also plan to continue to work closely with Sarah and with our colleague Jason Brashear, who has recently been hired by Community Farm Alliance in eastern Kentucky to do similar work, specifically focused in southeastern Kentucky. So I've also had the opportunity to spend some time, some one-on-one time with each of the organizations represented on my advisory committee. and I'm really fortunate that Kevin and Councilman Kay did the important legwork of assembling a great group of advisory committee members that have been meeting regularly for the past couple of years to help define the goals and expectations of this work. So the advisory committee is comprised of local farmers, restaurateurs, non-profits including Seedleaf, Food Chain, the tweens nutrition and fitness coalition, folks from UK College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, Fayette County Cooperative Extension, Farm Bureau, Good Foods Co-op, Fayette County Public Schools, and the Lexington Farmers Market, among others. I've had the opportunity to meet with the full group twice so far, once when I started my first week in June and the second last month in July, and during the last advisory committee meeting, I proposed to divide the group into two working groups. One focused on infrastructure development and capacity building, and the other focused on consumer outreach and education. And the thematic focus for each of the two working groups was really rooted in the goals that were outlined in the original grant language for my position. And I'm really hoping that these smaller working groups will allow us to have more focused discussions and will allow us to plan and prioritize our goals and action plans more effectively. The plan is to meet as a full group every other month, and then in the intervening months meet as working groups, and our first working group meetings will be tomorrow. So now I'll share with you the overarching goals of my position as outlined in the original grant language. First, the aim is to increase coordination and collaboration among all entities that play a in the local food economy. And this includes not only food producers and consumers, but also aggregators, processors, wholesalers, and distributors. The other primary overarching goal is to develop a working strategic plan for food-related economic and agricultural development, as well as a plan for improving the nutritional health of the region. And so some of the goals of the Infrastructure and Capacity Building Working Group will work to operationalize over the coming months include supporting the development of regional infrastructure for producing, aggregating, processing, and distributing local food, finding new markets and opportunities for farmers to add to their farm income, facilitating grower meetings, supporting food and farm-related entrepreneurs, increasing coordination and collaboration among farmers markets in the region, and building on the work of existing programs to promote local food, such as the Kentucky Proud Program. In addition, the consumer outreach and education working group will focus on marketing the many benefits of locally grown and produced food and support the delivery systems for local food distribution and carry out the related consumer education associated with increasing access to local food. So in terms of some of my immediate next steps, I plan to work with my advisory committee to operationalize the goals that I outlined previously from the original grant language and to prioritize some of the big ideas that I've kind of been gathering as I've been listening over the past couple of months. I also plan to continue to reach out and engage our neighboring counties in this work because really in order to effectively and sustainably improve the local food economy, we not only need buy-in from Fayette County, but also from our neighbors in the surrounding counties. Finally, I'll continue to build the online presence for this position through social media and through developing a website. And sorry, before I jump ahead, so I'm going to share with you, before I finish, our recently completed logo for my office. My work will be branded as Bluegrass Farm to Table, Growing Our Local Food Economy. And there are just a couple of color iterations here that we can choose from, and we'll eventually combine that with the city's logo. So thank you for your time. I'll be happy to answer any questions that you all may have. Council Member Lane. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, well, I'd just like to welcome you to your new position. I am the 12th District Council Member and I have all the farmland and unfortunately we haven't had a chance however I'm meeting yet, but I would like to meet with you soon. I'd just like to say that I'm very enthusiastic about the position and that I'm hoping that you'll be able to help some of our non-equine type farms that have produce and products that can be sold locally to increase their sales and production in Fayette County. And if I can help you, let me know. And thank you very much for your presentation. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Councilmember Clark. Thank you, Chair. I'd like to echo Councilmember Lane's comments, and it's been a great pleasure to work with you, and I like where you're going, I like where you've been, I like where you're going. and I think one of the things we need to start thinking about as a council is how we keep this program going and how we keep you. So thank you for your work. This looks really good and I think it's going to be a real benefit to the citizens of Lexington and surrounding counties as a matter of fact. So thank you so much. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Chair. Welcome. So there was a, on page 16, there was other projects. Oh, yep. That was just for later. But yeah, I'll be happy to chat about it. These were just some of the things that I, did you have a, sorry, did you have a specific question? No, I just want to know if you want to comment on this or not. Sure, sure, sure. I'd be happy to. It was, depending on the time, I had saved this for later. But this is just kind of a cursory list of things that I have kind of already, small projects I've started to work on, in addition to kind of the larger visioning and strategic plan process. So I'm working with the Visitors Bureau on developing a map of local restaurants who are committed to sourcing local ingredients. Louisville did a similar map, so we're kind of looking to reproduce that here just as a quick promotional tool and consumer outreach piece of this work. I'm working with, I'm on a subcommittee at the University of Kentucky that's working with Aramark on their new food service contract with UK to help them define what is local and to help them connect the dots in terms of fulfilling that contractual obligation for local food. I've been working on with folks here at LFUCG in the Lexington Farmers Market on brainstorming ways to winterize the pavilion, the Fifth Third Pavilion downtown, so that the market can operate year-round. And a couple of other, I've been working with wholesalers and big buyers of food like Kroger and I've had initial discussions with them about increasing their level of commitment for local food procurement in those stores. And then Vice Mayor Gorton and I discussed briefly today that I've been asked to help organize a couple of the events around the American Farmland Trust Conference that will be held this October. Vice mayor is on the local host committee, and so she'll be intimately involved in that as well. So I'm excited about that opportunity to help out with that in any way that I can. Thank you. There's one other issue. I know we've talked about it before you got here. It was a mobile food truck. Yes. Is that in the process, or where were we sitting on that? So, yes, that is definitely one of the big ideas that I have heard from several different groups. And we, Councilman Kay and I, have had initial conversations with some interested groups to kind of help define and identify who would be kind of the operations component of that unit. So conversations are ongoing. I think that's definitely a real possibility. There seems to be a lot of interest around that. Lex Tran has volunteered a retired bus for that project. That offer still stands. And so we're just working out the logistics and exploring other similar projects in other areas to kind of understand what we can expect before we get started. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Welcome. Thank you for coming in today. And a couple things. We are just now starting to undertake a small area plan for part of the 8th District. And part of our district has been identified as a food desert. And we'd love to have you involved in our small area plan and see how the food truck and other things might be able to help impact that area. I'd be happy to be involved. And so we'll get the information to you to get you plugged into those meetings. Great. And then also, when you look at, I know I think we just have a new contract with the supplier for our food at the jail. And then also our parks and rec department have been doing a lot with fruits and vegetables instead of some of the unhealthy snacks. And so do you have any plans maybe to work with either of those two groups on local sourcing for some of those? Sure, I'd love to. I don't have any connections at the jail, but if you would share those, I'd be happy to investigate that further and be happy to work with them. With respect to Parks and Recreation, given my previous work with the Tween Nutrition and Fitness Coalition, I worked very closely with Brian Rogers and others at Parks and Rec with their Better Bites program. So they've been real champions of that, transforming their concession stands. I actually was at a meeting last week that that's been now, that program has been replicated in Frankfurt at the State Department of Public Health. They're doing Better Bites in their cafeteria. So it's really nice to kind of see that project come to fruition. And, yes, I'd be happy to continue that work with them. Okay. And then what about Fayette County Public Schools? That's a great question. So Michelle Coker, who is the head of the nutrition services procurement program at Fayette County Public Schools, is actually on my advisory committee, which is great to have her input. And I had initial conversations with Michelle and her staff about how we can increase their level of local food procurement. They've kind of done bits and pieces here and there, but I think that that represents a tremendous opportunity. Schools are a huge buyer of food, and so potentially it would be a huge market for some local growers to get more healthy local food into school cafeteria. So, yes, definitely on my agenda. Thank you. Okay, and then two more options or opportunities are the family care center and also day treatment center, which are right next to each other. And those are both LHCCD properties. That would be great and I would love to speak more with you perhaps after this meeting to get hooked up with those folks. That would be great. Okay. Thank you very much. Again, welcome. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Chair, and welcome. And thank you for the update and the actual introduction to a lot of us. I appreciate your time here so far. And it looks like you have a good plan in place. Just one quick question. What kind of measurements are you going to use to measure how successful we are at this program? I mean, I don't know what Louisville uses, or how do we know what kind of impact we're really having down the road, and how do we justify, you know, the program to the citizens? I'm just curious about what measurements you're going to use. Sure. Thank you for that question. That's a great point. And I've talked extensively with Sarah and her boss, Teresa Zawacki, in the mayor's office there, about kind of the measurements and tools they use to do that. It's a challenge, I will tell you. I mean, to say in a year that we'll be able to move the needle with respect to economic development is probably a lofty goal. We can certainly start to make some small steps, and I feel like I've already made some of those smaller connections, facilitating relationships with local growers and new markets, such as a new wholesaler, which has already happened, with a grower in Bourbon County in Pompany, as they've committed to buying all of her broccoli for the whole fall. So that represents a new market opportunity. With that, I will say that given Sarah's experience and given my limited experience so far, Farmers are very reluctant to share that information in terms of dollar amount. So that'll be a challenge to kind of navigate around. We can certainly make estimates. If I know they're selling a certain amount of pounds per week, I can do the math generally based on fair market value and those types of things. But what they've done in Louisville, actually, is develop a metric that doesn't really quantify the amount. It quantifies relationships. And it's kind of a diagram, if you will. And so it kind of maps out, I've made a connection between this grower and these number of institutions, and that's resulted in this impact. So I think we'll have to be creative about how we look at measurements. Certainly dollar amounts of dollars changing hands will be important, and I will try to collect that as best I can, but recognize the challenges associated with that. Have you met with Commerce Lexington, you said? I have. Not formally about this position. We've had, I've been in other meetings with them, but yes. I think there's opportunity there for small business owners who are in all these industries that even support local food growers. They use a lot of indirect industries to support their operations. But don't underestimate that hidden gem that help businesses stay in business, too, not just creating new dollars but keep existing dollars. That's going to be important for all of us going forward. Sure. Great point. Thank you. And I guess my other question is for maybe our CAO or Kevin want to tackle it. Long term, this position, if we choose just one year right now, correct? If we choose to keep it, where is it going to be housed? I'm not comfortable with it being housed in the mayor's office. I don't think that's the place for it. If it's going to make it legit, a legitimate position, what are the thoughts? Are we even looking at that yet or thinking about it? The grants were obtained originally because it would be a component of our economic development efforts. So I think we would have to determine at the time when we make the decision that you're talking about where everybody would feel most comfortable. Right now it is a position located in the Economic Development Office. Which is in your office? Which is in the mayor's office? Which is in the mayor's office. All right, man, that's another discussion we need to possibly have long term. So I appreciate that answer. So I assume this is a year-by-year budget issue, so we'll talk about this again in March, April. Right. As you know, we went ahead for this fiscal year and put in a half-a-year salary based on the fact that the grant would likely run out about halfway through the year. so we would have that full year of being able to examine and look back. Okay. Very good. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Chair. Hi, Ashton. Welcome, and what an impressive background you have. This question might be, since you haven't been here very long, a little, I'm trying to think of the word, but I'll go on. Anyways, based upon your experience in other cities and your background, What do you find that's lacking here in Lexington? Is there anything that has come, you know, sort of come real quickly to you and said this is something that needs to be changed relatively soon? Sure. I think that there are a lot of opportunities and some gaps, and I'm kind of in my listening tour, I've tried to kind of identify some of those. I think one major area, and you'll see that one of the working groups is exclusively going to be devoted to looking at that, is the idea of infrastructure. So there's really a lack of coordinated infrastructure for local food processing, for production processing, aggregation. We don't really have aggregation points, so smaller growers that only have 10 acres of corn, you know, Kroger will need 20 acres. So we need to find places and strategies to aggregate that product and get it to larger institutional buyers. So I'm actually heading to Abington, Virginia and Asheville, North Carolina next week with a group of folks from eastern Kentucky to look at a couple of projects there. One is Appalachian Sustainable Development Corporation, who has really done tremendous work in that area. And they're interested in working with eastern Kentucky farmers. But they've created a great system in terms of aggregation and distribution for their local growers. It's been a really strong economic development tool for that area. So I'm hopeful that trips like those will yield really fruitful information that we can use here in Lexington. And since you've been here, have the local farmers been willing to buy into this kind of a concept? Sure. So I think it really helps my credibility that I have several great, well-respected growers on my advisory committee. So they have really done a great job with making those introductions for me and helping me reach out to the neighboring communities in terms of building that rapport with local farmers. But, yes, so far I don't think any of them are disinterested in potentially finding additional markets and additional economic opportunities. Well, great, and I welcome you and thank you for your input. Thank you. Council Member Scratchville. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for meeting with me last week. Obviously, you have got a lot on your plate trying to get it done. One of the things that I've actually started working with this past week is nutrition in the schools. I'm working with one of our phys ed teacher. A couple of the other schools in town, Liberty Elementary, Breckenridge Elementary, have done what they're calling Fitness Fridays, Wellness Wednesdays, things like that. And obviously our schools also, the Parks Department runs their after-school program. I know we have some farmers that may not be able to do the whole, be able to give product, sell product to the schools to take care of the entire amount. But maybe one of the things we could do is get local growers to adopt one of those schools and be responsible for helping that school. and so we can kind of make it on a lower level where we can bring in growers. I'd love to talk to you about that, especially at the schools in my district that are trying to implement those type of programs and maybe not have to worry about the hole and attack it maybe one by one. I think that's a great idea. I'd love to work with you more on that. I do think the after-school programs and the fruit and vegetable snack programs represent a tremendous opportunity because it can be a little overwhelming for small to medium-sized growers to say, wow, Fayette County has, I think, 63, I don't want to get it wrong, schools in the district, but we don't have a centralized kitchen. So delivering to all those schools and just the logistics around it is a little overwhelming, both for food service and for growers. So I think finding opportunities to sort of make small steps like the after-school programs. We're still reaching the target population and still engaging farmers in those markets, those new market opportunities. So I think that's a great way to start to peel this away. Well, we'll plan some time together and try to figure something out. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Councilmember Ford. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Ashton, for being here. And again, I would also like to thank you for taking time to meet with me not long ago to introduce yourself and your plans for this position. There's a lot of energy in my council district as there is across the city. And so I'm really excited about the opportunity we have to progress forward with your work and kind of building this program out. Admittedly, as I shared with you, I have a lot to learn, but I am definitely eager and interested in learning how your program is going to help our city. So, again, just thank you. Look forward and good luck. Great. Thank you. That's my Mary Kirst. Thank you, Chair. Hi, Ashton. It was great meeting you last week, I think it was, and I appreciate your time to come and make the effort to meet us. And I think that we had good conversation and brainstorming ideas together. And we did talk about capacity as one of the issues and concerns, and we've talked about it a little bit today. Do you see that as one of, as your role to help to support farmers to increase capacity or to find new farmers to increase capacity? or how do you see your position specifically playing into that? Sure, that's a great question. So I think I have, again, on my advisory committee, really great representation. I've got folks from Cooperative Extension as well as the U.K. College of Agriculture, Food and Environment. And so I think they have resources embedded within those organizations. That's their mission is to do beginning farmer trainings and to help to build that capacity. I'm actually attending a training on Thursday that Dr. Tim Woods at UK is putting on. He does these periodically throughout the state. They're market-ready training programs for farmers. And so it's a way to engage either beginning or kind of just starting out farmers and to help them identify potential market opportunities and to give them the tools and resources that they need in order to be successful in selling to those markets. So I think that it would just be a matter of leveraging partnerships. I'd certainly be involved in kind of the coordination and collaboration around that, but not necessarily providing the one-on-one technical assistance. And when you, again, back to capacity, I guess, as far as the excess, like right now we have the farmer's market. We have a lot of restaurants locally that do buy local and from, you know, the farm-to-table movement. I know there's a lot of food trucks that use local-sourced foods. So how much excess is there even currently from the farmers? that's a that's a good question i don't know that i have a figure in either in pounds or in dollar amount but um i do um one of our my advisory committee members who's a part of the lexian farmers market is also on the board at glean kentucky uh formerly faith feeds um which is a cleaning organization and so i think that i've reached out to them and have kind of uh tried to understand their model uh for delivery of uh and procuring seconds and and unwanted product from farmers. So I think that'll be something that they're really interested in. And I'm also very interested in, in terms of how do we make this work? How do we find avenues for all of the produce and all of the products that farmers are producing, not just their perfect tomatoes for the farmer's market? We've got to explore larger opportunities than that. And lastly, urban farming. What are your thoughts on increasing and developing urban farming, either commercial or individual households and projects? That's a really great question. Councilman Clark and I have had some initial conversations with other community members about that. He's very interested in that. It's good to hear you're interested as well. I think that there's some, I'm certainly not an expert in urban farming, but I've kind of pulled in folks who have done that, the folks at Seedleaf, the folks at Food Chain. I think that there's potentially a lot of opportunities to grow our urban aggro. There's a lot of unused city land and parks and playgrounds and opportunities for demonstration projects or simply just growing additional food. So I think that's definitely an avenue we'll want to further explore. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Any others? Good, my turn. The economics dealing with a Kroger who gets their tomatoes at least 10 months out of the year from Mexico and or California. And then the price differential of what that might be at a farmer's market versus what it might be at a Kroger's. Would it be wiser to go for the fresh market approach and hit that type of target first? Because they're eager to have somebody in there to, because they have all types of other things that you don't see in a Kroger. What are your thoughts about that? Because it's a juggling match to try to figure out how to do this and do it properly. Certainly. Well, I think I just used Kroger as an example because I've had some meetings with their corporate folks in Louisville as I happen to be there for other meetings. I think that Kroger specifically and other smaller chains are feeling the pressure, if you will, to source more of their food locally, to compete with the Whole Foods of the world and the co-ops of the world. You're right, there is this pressure of price. Price is a huge barrier. but I think that the opportunities lie in working with farmers who are, some farmers aren't interested in growing for Kroger for a number of reasons or a big supermarket chain, but I think the opportunity lies in identifying growers who are interested in dedicating a certain percentage of their field or their operation to a large volume wholesale channel and then some still may choose to do the farmer's market and the CSA and another source of income. But some growers that I've spoken to really do like that opportunity to sell 10 acres of corn at one time, have one delivery, and know it's all spoken for, even though they're receiving a little bit lower price point. So it's going to depend on the farmer, and it's going to depend on kind of the purchaser as well. So all good points to consider, but they'll just be issues we have to work through kind of on a case-by-case basis. well again it's a balancing act that you'll continue to be in the middle of it's a pivot point I think probably again thank you for coming it's been revealing to all of us I think although I think some people have already had an opportunity to sit down with you which is great and maybe we can get a little bit more interaction as we go further great thank you again I appreciate it Council, the third item on the agenda is the Downtown Development Authority and Mr. Jeff Fugate. You say you do have a presentation, PowerPoint? I do. Ready to go? Oh. Look at there. That reminds me of something that I read in the paper this morning. Yes, you may have read about this building in the paper. Though, actually, I had picked this picture before I knew that this would come up in the questions today. So let me grab my little pointer here. No, actually, the reason I chose this photo and some of the others you're going to see here is that one of the things that DDA did this past year was launch a new website. And that may not seem like a whole lot of cause for celebration, but the reason we launched a new website is because we realized that we are often the first place people go looking for information about Lexington. And so that our web presence was a very important part of the marketing of the city from an economic development standpoint. And what I had inherited hadn't been updated in many years and, in fact, had some erroneous information. And so we really buckled down and said we want to make sure that what we are doing is putting Lexington's best face forward and honest face forward so that the data and the information on the website is credible and reliable and a place that both the local and outside development community can go to. And then it also would provide information the citizens could use as well. So it's always good to remind folks why we're here, what it is we're up to. We're promoting the physical and economic development that strengthens, maintains downtown Lexington as cultural and economic heart of central Kentucky. So in addition to the website, the other thing that DDA tackled this year was really concisely boiling down what it is we do. That question was posed to me by the vice mayor within two weeks of me starting this job, and has been posed to me almost monthly ever since, which is why do we have a DDA and what do you do? And this is what we do. We tackle the toughest development challenges directly, things like the old courthouse. We drive investment into the neighborhoods and the central business district. So when people ask me what downtown is, it's not just these three blocks of Main Street. Downtown really basically is any part of Lexington that existed before 1940 in my mind. And so driving investment into those neighborhoods as well as Main Street is important. And we do that by providing good urban design advice and good real estate advice. And then we help set the agenda for future development by things like today. Being out talking to you, community outreach, education, public involvement. Why do we do this and why do we care? Well, it's not just about downtown. It's not downtown for downtown's sake. This is about Lexington's future and about our residents, our neighbors, our visitors. And we have to grow our regional, national, and global relevance. And the way we're going to do that is through retention of workforce jobs and investment. And the way we do that is through a number of things. But one of them is invest in our downtown. So looking ahead, I just wanted to touch on what are our toughest challenges? What are we tinkering on this year? Obviously, the old courthouse redevelopment plan, and we'll talk more about that in the Q&A section, I'm sure. We're also spending some time on trails, parks, streetscape, parking, back of house infrastructure. I throw it all in the same bucket because the nuts and bolts of the city have a huge impact on development. And this has been raised recently by some of the freelance work that Robert Wagner has put forth to the community about Short Street and parking, the exploration of how we tie together the Legacy Trail to the Town Branch Trail to other trails, both to connect the rural countryside to the downtown city and everything in between, and how waste management throws in here as well. So it's really sort of these infill infrastructure issues and trying to get our hands around not only the problems, but to begin to start offering solutions. So that's a real focus in this coming year. When it comes to driving investment, one of our key activities for the coming year, and we're staffing up for it right now, is to update the downtown master plan. So we have a downtown master plan that came from about 2006 or so. It was a good physical plan, an overview of everything that could happen in the downtown and the neighborhoods around it. However, it didn't really sort of set a roadmap for how to implement it. And so this update is not just another set of, not just a physical update, but it's really looking at putting forth a strategy for driving development. Because it's looking at what are the market conditions, the economic conditions, and how are we going to put that together. And we will be giving you periodic updates on that as we pull that together, as well as working with a number of our stakeholders. We have been and will continue the support the implementation affordable housing program, which is about leveraging these dollars to drive investment into our community and our neighborhoods. We continue to support the leasing and development efforts of folks. I get a handful of cold calls every week and just answering questions, providing insights and data for the development community both in town and out of town, and then referring them to the brokerage community as appropriate. And then the other thing that we're undertaking right now is a commercial corridor study with the university, really looking at Euclid, basically limestone to Chevy Chase and what the opportunities are there, again, about driving investment, not land use planning, but really what is it going to take to bolster the commercial activities and opportunities there. So those are our priority projects. I can either go straight to Q&A or we can go to the courthouse. Which one would you prefer, Mr. Chair? and nobody is uh well i beg your pardon council member massadi thank you hi jess um in reference to let's see support leasing and development efforts in downtown and neighborhoods yes tell me how we do that well so i'll give you an example is that there is a out-of-state grocery store that is very interested in coming to Lexington. And so they will call me, and I will say, have you talked to the broker community? And they'll say yes, or they'll say, we're not ready to yet. We just want to understand the city a little bit better. And so we'll walk them through sort of the demographics of the area, which neighborhoods, what the characteristics of which neighborhoods are, provide sort of general overview. And if they have specific, we need 10 acres, I can, we can run the GIS and say, well, here's what's available 10 acres. However, that doesn't preclude what you might be able to assemble. We'll get them to sort of that level. And then at that point, say, you know, if there are specific properties, then we'll refer them to whoever's, or whoever's listing that. Or if they really want to get into the search mode, we'll try to push them out to the broker community. So from the development side, that has more to do with, that is more when someone is interested in putting together a project, whether it be mixed use. So a new construction or redevelopment of an existing building will basically be sort of their first check in and reality check, which is does this make sense financially? Does it make sense from, you know, we can check things from a zoning standpoint or urban design standpoint. Does the use jive with what the community has said it wants? This will get more grounded once we have this downtown master plan update because the update will provide us a document that we can point to and say this is what has been adopted, presuming that it is adopted, and also help guide those issues. How many calls have you received, just curious, of entities that want to come into Lexington with grocery stores, et cetera? You know, I'd have to kind of go back and scan. And I'd say that it's probably, so the leasing is much, the development side is more of it, I should be clear. So we're not channeling all that many leasing issues. Those typically. That's obvious, right? Yeah, the brokerage community really is doing a good job with that. I'd say on the leasing side, you know, it's one or two a month. On the development side, it sort of runs the gamut. Sometimes it'll be a couple, and then other times it's as many as sort of a half dozen. And then there's some projects that as they are moving through proof of concept, we will stay involved just to sort of have an idea of what's happening. And I'm trying to think of one that I can... I was going to ask you, do you have an example of one? I do have an example of that one. I was just trying to make sure that it was something that was already public. So the main and vine parcel, so at the corner of main and vine, as Phil was beginning to think about what that project might be, he checked in with us to sort of say, does this make sense? I kind of looked at it from an urban design standpoint, but also from a number standpoint, which is we always say, what's your pro form? How are you going to, you know, what's the pro form? What's the finances on this? So that we can sort of take a look at that. Once it seemed like it had some legs, and it still has a long way to go, but that was an idea that they sort of started to germinate. Once it seemed like it had some legs, then it made sense for us to kick it over to various folks at LVUCG. But he already had the client, right? I mean, the client didn't come to you. So that's why I was asking you. Do we have any examples of anybody that has? No, so in that case, he is actually looking at building something, right? So he's talking about I want to do, he wants to do retail on the ground floor. And, yes, I believe that they have got a potential lessee there, but then wants to do mixed use and do residential above. So one of the questions was, okay, how does that work out? How do you fit all that on site? And that spurred the conversation with the parking authority about the garage in terms of, well, they could meet their needs with service parking. Is that the best thing for downtown? and we can point to the existing master plan that it is not. So doing new surface parking there. But that was then having them tee up that conversation. Yeah, I know what you're saying here. I just wonder if it was an entity, an outside entity that had contacted us that there was an example of not the developer already having a client in pocket. Yes. So I think what you're asking, I have had conversations with one, two, three different developers from out of state or out of town who focus on multifamily residential. And so what they come to, that conversation looks like this. They basically say, we've looked at Lexington, we've looked at the numbers, we love what we see, we want to get into that market. Where can we do it? And so that is beginning to understand what is their product. Do they do affordable? Is it market rate? Sure, I understand what you're saying. I just wonder, do we have an example of one that's happened? That's all. Ah, I see. That's what I was looking for. Oh, I see. I'm trying to think of what I can take credit for, which is always a dangerous, dangerous road to go down. It is a fair question. I'd say that there are conversations that are ongoing. This actually gets at a larger issue, which we will address in the master plan study, which is that currently we're in an interesting market position, which is that the cost of new construction is outstripping what the market rents are. And so it's been very difficult for anybody to be able to put together a project of new construction that can suffice solely on market rents. And so because of that, we've had some long-running conversations, people who are making overtures towards site control, but no one has pulled together the full financing on a project yet. I think that's a good way to... Basically, we don't have an example yet. Yet. Okay. All right. Thanks. Councilmember Stenner. Thank you, Chair, and thank you for coming today, Jeff. Appreciate you being here. Just go back to your list. It's on the screen. Toughest challenge. The old courthouse, that's going to be, we're going to see that playing this year, this fiscal year? Yeah, let me jump ahead here. Oh, well, let's go back real quick. I will answer your question, Councilmember, but just to give you an idea. So as you may have read, so this is the Short Street side. This area here is the basement that extends out from underneath the building and under the sidewalk. It actually comes all the way here to this edge. And these are the conditions underneath there. So you can see why it brought some concern. Same thing here. So you can see this is what's called spalling, which is basically when the reinforced concrete, so the steel inside the concrete begins to rust and deteriorate, it actually expands. So just like ice expands and will crack things, well, steel will do the same thing as it takes water and salt and corrodes. This is the cheap side, obviously, and this is the, you can see some of the porch here is starting to pull apart. You can see the cracks are expanding, and so it's basically, it's at risk of sort of splitting apart and falling this way. So that's just to give you quick visuals of what you may have read about this morning in the paper. Here is what you were asking about, council member. So you've seen a version of this timeline before. I updated it today. I also apparently changed my fonts on me. So, but this is the underway column. So this is where we're at, which is that we have, we've done all the background, we've assembled all the various stuff because there's been conversations about this for 15 years, right? So where we're at right now is that, you know, LFUCG is dealing immediately with the life safety issues. The conditions assessment study is underway at the moment. This is being led by EOP, Local Architects Preservation Design Partnership out of Philadelphia. They're gold star preservation folks. BMFJ, which is the structural engineering firm, They're located here and specialize in older buildings. They are working on their conditions assessment. And then concurrently, we're having conversations with stakeholders, we'll have conversations with the community, and conversations with potential end users. This will all occur in fall of 2014. And so, by the end of, before the end of the calendar year, I expect to be back here with a rather robust set of recommendations about how you may move forward. However, it comes back to these early action items really are your decision. And we'll need to have a conversation at that time about what are the roles and responsibilities towards long-term restoration. Was the LFUCG's financial participation in that? And that is a conversation to be had. So the answer is yes. The answer is yes. Okay. On your second bone point, trails, parks, streets, gate parks, what parks are you working on downtown? Sure. So I put that on there partially conceptually. So here is what we're seeing nationally when it comes to parks, is that nationally, most cities, municipalities, they have park infrastructure that they struggle to maintain as is, right? And so where you're seeing new parks, new investments coming, so whether it's Indianapolis' cultural trail, whether it's some of the new parks in New York City, whether it's Millennium Park in Chicago, So, Greenville, South Carolina is doing this as well, where you're seeing, even Louisville, Louisville's new park on the western waterfront, where you're seeing new parks come into existence. And Dan Jones at 21st Century Parks in Louisville puts it this way. He said, there is nothing else you can build that has a hundred-year impact like a park on the city. That the impact that Olmstead's parks in Louisville had built between 1900 and 1920 still have on that city are greater than anything else built at that time. So if we're looking ahead 100 years of what the park infrastructure is that Lexington deserves, what you're seeing around the country is the only way those are being built and being maintained is through public-private ventures, where you either as a private foundation that owns and operates the park, or you have the public builds the park, and then you have a private foundation that owns and operates, or flip. Much like the Triangle Foundation is who we can point to that brought us Triangle Park, Thoroughbred Park. So are you saying we need more parks downtown? Who set that goal? What's that? I mean, we're not maintaining the ones we have. I mean, we don't even use half the fountains. We have maintenance issues already, so why do we need more parks? Well, so here's what you need. And your board set this as a priority. My board set this as a priority. More parks. Here is what you need. What you need is something that actually ties together the system you've got, right? So you're talking about Town Branch? Town Branch is part of it, but it's not all of it. So what you've got is that Lexington Cemetery is one of the best 19th century green spaces in the country, right? So you've got that on one end of Main Street. And then you've got Ashland Park and some of the neighborhoods on that side that were built in the 1900s, around the turn of the century in the city beautiful movement, right? We have got great neighborhood parks out in the community that are being tied together through greenways. What we are missing in between is that we have had great moments where someone has created Triangle Park out of a leftover parking lot. We've created a gateway park in the form of thoroughbred. However, it could be improved. It also happens to sit along the path of the town branch. You've got Phoenix Park, which is underutilized and, again, was a leftover spot that has never reached its full potential. You have Cheapside Park that has been reinvented, and through that reinvention has driven investment to Cheapside that we would have never seen had it not been for that reinvention of that park, which is a park. and we have the courthouse plazas, which are also underutilized. So the notion here is how to tie these together so that it is not these individual one-off parks, but a park system that meets the needs of all of our citizens. And I challenge you to go to Chicago when you get a chance. Go to Millennium Park, and what you'll see there is what is, what on the map looks like a downtown park is not a downtown park. What you have is the city's park. And if you go there and you go to the fountain, you will see kids from every social and economic class. You will see people who drive in from the suburbs go to that park. You will see people who walk in from the neighborhoods go to that park. You'll see people who packed up three kids and put them on the L to come downtown to that park. So I understand where you're going with this, but the notion here is that if we are going to anchor this city on something, it has to be infrastructure, and part of that infrastructure is parks. So we can make a 100-year investment now. I don't have all the answers. That's why it's on here as a study issue. But that's the type of investment that can set us up for 100 years. So who's studying it? What's that? Who is studying this? Are you hiring someone, an engineer? Are you doing it yourself? We have. So there's a couple of things. So one is that there are a group of, you know, there's an emerging ad hoc group of citizens who are very interested in this issue. So they've come together. We have engaged 21st Century Parks out of Louisville to help advise us on some of the governance business planning issues. That's being paid for privately. And ultimately, what we have to get at is there are three types of feasibility, Councilmember. There is physically, can you do this? And we have a pretty good idea what physically can be done. Financially, can you do this? And we don't have the answers on that yet, so we're looking at it. And finally, does the community want it? And that's a very fair question, and it's one that we will ask before we get too far out in front of this. So you report back to council this year on that bullet point? I'd be happy. Trails, parks, okay. The last thing, and my time's up, update downtown master plan. Yes, sir. Are you aware of the history of it and this body, either not adopting or not supporting that plan? So why would you update something that this body hasn't embraced? And does that update a new plan? that this body could embrace? My intention is bring you. Parts of it, not all of it. Not all of it. I'm still looking for the line item veto version of it. My intention is to bring you something that you can embrace, and I think there are deficiencies to the existing plan. There are benefits to the existing plan, and we could spend a lot of money bringing in a new planning firm to redo and rehash and replow a lot of the work that was in that original downtown master plan. I don't think we need to do that. We have a good base, but, you know, that's the base. We need to build on top of that. And so we intend to bring you something that you can endorse and then we can use and others, because it's not worth anything. It's not a guiding document for everybody. That is something that we and others will be able to use to guide our implementation over the next decade. So that will come this year too? That will probably be this, I hope it's this fiscal year, but we want to make sure that we do it right. And so that's going to involve lots of conversations, lots of stakeholders, steering committee, and staffing it up and getting that done. Okay. Well, you're going to be busy this year, so. Yes, sir. I'm sure we'll have many more conversations. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Councilman McClark. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Jeff. for whatever reason. Downtown is really very important to me, and I think it affects all of us, regardless where our districts are. So I'm very interested in it, and I really want to see this downtown grow in many ways in terms of quality in particular. A couple of quick questions. how does DDA relate to the design excellence, the job fund, and those kind of economic efforts? Sure. So you specifically asked about design excellence. So design excellence, we have provided staffing to the task force. Now, there's a council-appointed task force that will eventually bring forth recommendations on that. We've provided staffing on that and pinned most of the document. That would be the guidelines. Jobs fund, we are not directly engaged. If there seems to be the right fit, we would refer something. I work very closely with Kevin Atkins. Kevin is the mayor's representative on my board. Kevin and I speak, not daily, but almost. So I have a pretty good idea of what the general constellation of economic development issues are. We are working to create a more formal relationship with Commerce Lexington that we have now. Right now it's fairly ad hoc and informal and trying to figure out what the right fit for that is. And then I also share space with and, again, work daily, weekly with the parking authority in the downtown Lexington Corporation sort of as a three-legged stool of development, parking infrastructure, and programming. And so we work very closely with them as well. The basis of my question is that I think there's, you know, In a city like ours, there's always danger of silos, everybody doing their thing and everybody doing it well, but very little coordination. I think it's very important that we do have absolute coordination and movement that is together. And one of the things regarding the downtown master plan, and it's probably related to this, But I've always thought in terms of strategic goals and very specific strategic goals, and rather than passive ideas supporting this or whatever, I would like to see, with the help of the council perhaps, some very specific goals. By such and such a time, let's do this. And by a certain time, let's do this. at least we have some goals to shoot for. The council then can say, okay, now here are the goals. How are we going to make this work? And I know that's the problem. But I still think that having a strategic plan that's a 10-year plan, perhaps relative to your 10-year development plan that we've talked about in the links, would be a good idea. And so I'd like to encourage that because I think we need to have goals in mind. Where are we going? What's this downtown going to look like in 10 years? And if our goals are passive, and yeah, it would be nice, then probably we're never going to stick our neck out and say, okay, we've got to do this. But I think that, to me, would be where we should be headed. So thank you, Jeff. Can you comment on that if you'd like? Oh, no, I just say I agree. I think that when I was in school, we used to refer to it as kitchen sink planning, which is that when every good idea or every not-so-good idea ended up on the plan because someone said it. And there are tradeoffs. We have limited resources. And so where are we going to put our resources, where are we going to put our efforts, and where are we going to put our aligned efforts so that we're driving investment, so that we may leverage and get the best out of those investments is key to economic development. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Scratchfield. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Jeff. I have just a couple of questions. First, and I don't have it in front of me, what is the DDA's yearly budget? Let's see. This year, if you include privately raised funds for some of the work around the town branch and the parks, it was around $750,000. Okay, and city funds all of that? No, city is about, I think this year is a little shy of $350. Okay, so about half. About half. Okay. Right. Go ahead. I know Council Member Stenet brought up, or I think Council Member Masotti, give me some of the completed projects DDA has completed in the last year. Well, so let me not answer that question, if you don't mind, just because what we do tends to not wrap up in a year. So I think that's an unfair measure. What we can point to is that. Do you have something you can point to, not maybe in the last year, but completed projects? So the pavilion at Fifth Third was a work of a lot of folks, but the DDA played a huge role in actually implementation and getting that designed and built the way it is. So there was a streetscape effort, but the DDA really pushed on getting that piece done. And the reason was is that there was a strategy there of driving activity into what had just been a dead park. Go back to the earlier conversation. Go ahead. What are some of the other organizations that were involved then in the Fifth Third? So LFUCG, Public Works, obviously, from a streetscape standpoint. The DLC was the point on fundraising and managing the funds. So they actually got the sponsorship with Fifth Third Pavilion, or Fifth Third Bank that actually has their name on the pavilion. Those were really the three key ones right there. Okay. And going, you know, obviously, could you explain, because not everybody, you hear DLC, DDC. Explain to me and the people we have watching today, what's the difference between DLC and DDC? DDA. DDA, right. So the DLC is an independent nonprofit. So they do receive a little bit of help from you guys, but for the most part, they raise almost all their money separately. But they raise it through membership, but also mostly through sponsorship, which helps sponsor the events they put on. So they focused mostly on the programming side of things as well as some member services. The Downtown Development Authority was created by this body in 2001, specifically to be the economic development agency, so have some independence from the city but also be an instrumentality of the city or of the urban county government, I should say, so that we could focus on managing some of the economic development side of things and projects. And it was really, there's an economic development function, obviously, for the city. There is an economic development organization in Commerce Lexington. And then we fill sort of this niche, which is being an instrumentality of the city focused on downtown-focused economic development. Okay, and I guess that segues into my, because you mentioned Commerce Lexington. It sounds like you do a lot of what Commerce Lexington does, but just in the downtown area. Would that? I would not frame it that way. What I would say is that we focus a lot on bricks and mortar. So, and Bob slipped out, but as Bob and I have talked about this, because they, Commerce Lexington was actually instrumental in creating the DDA in early years. So the thinking was is that Commerce Lexington recognized that there was a need for someone or an entity that would focus on driving investment into the downtown. whether that was building it themselves or enticing investment, and that that was really a bricks-and-mortar strategy. So getting things built, getting investment into the core of our city, which is not exactly an analog with the job creation metrics that Commerce Lexington often looks at because a lot of what they're looking at is expansion, retention, really sort of on the business development side, whereas we are more on the real estate development side. Okay. And two more things. go ahead, because you have a lot of things up in the air, go ahead and give me a typical day for you. I see a typical, there are no typical days, but so I break it down so there's probably and I don't know that it's equal parts But one part of my day is spent providing support to the LFUCG in various functions. And so whether that is policy advice, I was heavily involved in the creation of the affordable housing program and a lot of the work went on there. You know, I've sat on a handful of committees. So we're very involved with your staff here. So that's part of the day. Part of the day is answering the phone for when we get questions from folks from out of town or in town that want to know is this idea crazy, could we do this, we're interested in this, and really sort of being the first point of contact. So that's a marketing function right there. Then there's part of the day that is spent pushing these projects forward, right? The old courthouse has been on my desk, and while it's not my building, our efforts have moved it past, moved it past just being a problem to being a problem that might have a solution, and there's still a lot of ground to cover on that, but by picking that up and moving it forward, I think we've added value to that discussion. Anamite, is that the solution? We have, and then I'd say the other part is, the other part is also trying to, it's twofold, so it's resource development, which is how do we bring resources, not just to the DDA, but bring resources to Lexington. And so whether that is getting out and communicating with the public about the importance of downtown and why we're doing what we do, whether it is talking with potential funding sources from out of town, whether those are foundations, government, et cetera, trying to build that case, and then also keeping you informed about what it is we're working on and what it is we can help you with. Okay, my time is up. I just, real quick commentary as far, I'm disappointed that we haven't moved, you and I have been talking about this since I took office about the courthouse. And I'm disappointed that we're, we seem to still be on the same starting point that we were. I would say we're in the same column. Because most of the things that we saw pictures of, I'm pretty sure anybody here could have gone in and looked at that building and told you what was wrong. You know, if I have a hole in my roof at my house, I don't spend 18 months to figure out how to fix it. And I feel like we kind of are spinning our wheels on this. We're going to lose this building if we're not careful. And I think that would be, you know, the Herald-Leader has been covering a lot of the historic buildings that have been destroyed, taken away from us over the last hundred years. I don't want this courthouse to be one of those that we look at a picture in 50 years and say, look how beautiful this was. Thank you. Sure. Dr. Martin Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll start right where she left off. One of the things that we've talked about a couple times in the courthouse, and I realize that you have some people that it sounds like you're working with to develop a plan for that, is Explorium is paying an enormous amount of rent where they're at. and they can't get some of the national exhibits because the building's not secure in the way that it would need to be, et cetera, et cetera. And it can be moved over there and take the money that we're giving them to pay rent and bond that and put together a package to really do something with this building. So I know we've raised that several times. Is that part of the conversation? Without betraying anybody's trust, those are the types of conversations that we are having. And that will be, those are the issues that were, or those are the types of conversations we're having this fall. There will be conversations that happen after this fall, right, because it will come to you in terms of what is the correct programming. But we are vetting out some of those so that you don't have to start from scratch and that you'll have some options in front of you, at least to people who are interested. And we may be able to find those types of sort of win-win solutions for the building. Okay. So I'm going to move off that to economic development. And your slide here that says what we do, it says the second bullet is to drive investment into neighborhoods. Yes, sir. I just stopped right there in front of the end. So the first time you came before us when you got here, one of the things you said that interested me was that your purview is the entire Lexington and Fayette County. It's not just downtown, even though downtown is in your name, the rest of Fayette County is not. And so, again, we have a small area plan that's just gotten started. And we've had a couple conversations about what you might be able to do to help us in terms of economic development in a couple different places in the district. So can you talk briefly about things that you have, irons you have in the fire that are outside of downtown, and how you're driving investment in the neighborhoods? Right. I think the most timely is the affordable housing issue. So I know that you guys, you know, will actually have that on your docket for this afternoon. So with the affordable housing, that's one where my participation in that conversation, my participation in putting that policy together was not about downtown, it was about Fayette County and about the needs of Fayette County. And so in understanding how that might play out and how that may work, we tested it countywide, not a downtown issue. And so I think that that's the most timely example of what you're talking about. So from a policy standpoint, you know, another policy, you know, there have been other areas in which what we're really interested in, and infill redevelopment is actually probably the best one, so I'm part of the infill redevelopment committee. Yes, I think there's a technical definition that draws a line around it, but really infill challenges basically go to wherever there's built buildings, And so dealing with the issues of infant redevelopment, how do we remove barriers and drive investment, that's a question for the county, not just for downtown. Okay. So how can we engage you in our small area plan? Well, it's bandwidth to some extent. Because I think that you have some expertise that we could really use in this process. Right. So we should pick this conversation up because I think there's probably some capacity that we can help you with. Okay. We can do that at a later date. My final one is your next page. It says 2015 priorities. 2015 priorities. Yes, sir. Back of the house infrastructure. I'm not sure if you covered that or not, but what does that mean? That's the exciting stuff like trash cans and grease traps. And where do your employees take a smoke break? And all of those things that aren't part of the pretty pictures of downtown infill and redevelopment but are very important to the function of a building. And, in fact, part of the biggest challenge, one of the biggest just legacy challenges we have downtown is that we weren't really a downtown. We were a large village when we laid out our streets. And, therefore, there are no alleys. And without alleys, there's nowhere to stash things like dumpsters and trash cans and things like that. So getting to wrap our heads around and work with your staff on how we might find some operational solutions that allow us to mitigate that to some extent. Okay. And that brings another question up. When you say your staff, are you talking about council staff or are you talking about? I'm talking about the LFUCG. Okay. Yeah. So if I could just make a suggestion. Yes, sir. As you're doing the different things that you do, it might be helpful if you engage us more and rather than just like coming in every once in a while and doing something like this, if we have more individual conversations, because I think you are doing some good stuff. It's just we don't know about it and we're not really a part of it until you come in. And a lot of stuff you're doing is there's a lot of strategy behind it and tactical stuff behind it to get things done. And you can't always talk about that from where you're at. That's great. Um, so if you included us more, it might make it easier, um, for you to get more buy-in and support. But I think it's here if we understand what you're trying to do. I appreciate that. Thank you. Okay. And I look forward to talking to you about SMAR A plan. Sure. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Council Member Allender. Thank you, Chair. Welcome. Thank you. Council Member Scutchfield was talking about different projects and you mentioned the fifth, third project. Yes, sir. Were you not involved with 21C probably also? You didn't mention that, but I'm sure you had something to do with that, did you not? I did have something to do with that. So actually I accepted this job, and the next day I got a phone call from Craig Greenberg. So I was very involved in 21C both in understanding the project, what it was they were proposing, and really spent a lot of time dealing with the HUD issues, So the application that spent 18 months in Washington provided a lot of support on that in terms of making sure that we got what we needed to HUD so that they could make a decision they did. So it was heavily involved in that one. And, yes, that's actually an example of a project that we worked on that is under construction. And since you were discussing that one and you talked about the kitchen sink planning, I was curious. I've had people ask me this question. I'm not sure if it's been brought up, but have we ever looked at talking to 21C about the courthouse and about, I know they've a free museum and also a restaurant, and they were limited on their space. And have we ever looked at trying to do some kind of agreement with them? We have. I actually walked the principals through the building early on, and they were still working on planning their building, walking through that building. They loved the building, but they didn't see a way for it to work separate from there. So if there had been a tunnel underneath that connected the two, operationally it may have worked. But the issue is that basically they'd be building two hotels instead of one because you'd have to have a kitchen in both, you'd have to have catering services in both, and it didn't work for their operational model. But I definitely approached them about that. And every three or four weeks I'll send a quick text and ask them if they want to take a shot at the courthouse again. The answer is always no. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Excuse me. Excuse me. Yes, sir. Jeff, thank you for your report. I have two very quick questions. They both pertain to your slide about the priorities. Yes, sir. I'll save my last question in regards to the courthouse, but let's begin with downtown parks. You know, the Rupp Arena project, what has been the impact of Rupp Arena's hiatus on the overall master plan of that park area? For lack of, I don't know if it's the official name, so lack of a better term, I'm going to call it the Town Branch Park. I like it. As an aspect of the green space. absent the exposure of the waterway and absent a major expansion of the Coliseum as was originally proposed, what's been the impact of the project hiatus since June on the green space design of that project? Well, so I don't have a technical answer for you, but the answer I will give is that the enthusiasm continues for the park. Okay. Now, there are obviously lots of operational and design challenges to be tackled. Right. And it is LCC's property, so also making sure that, you know, that their full buy-in is there. But in terms of my, what I'm hearing from the community, what I'm hearing from lawmakers is that there's still a lot of enthusiasm about this project, and they want to see it move forward. And I want to speak to the fact that I'm not being intentionally vague about it, is that this type of project is going to take a while to kind of get its feet, right? It's an audacious idea. And I will be the first to say that it's an audacious idea to build a two-and-a-half-mile-long park in the middle of a downtown that's been here for 250 years. That's audacious. But I'm not going to apologize for that audaciousness because it is a compelling enough idea that people are getting behind it. And so whether we see that this year, next year, 10 years from now, we'll see it because the community gets behind it and they see it and they demand it. And so I think that's, so does the arena throw a wrinkle in it? Sure. But is it the linchpin? Not necessarily. If, and I don't mean to put you on the spot here, but I did recognize your response. that there remains enthusiasm for that aspect of the project. And I was just curious as to whether your board would still pursue at least that aspect of the project, the recreational, the green space, the park-like setting aspect, even if Rupp Arena did not go forward. And so I'll accept just that there's enthusiasm for the project. I'll also be remiss if I didn't mention the conversation with Centerpoint in the years proceeding to its beginning construction with the garage. It provided a glimpse of what downtown green space can offer a community. So that's that question. Second question is in regards to the courthouse. And I'm somewhat embarrassed. I haven't read the news coverage just yet today in regards to that. but we were scheduled to go last week to the site. Yes. We're scheduled to go Thursday just by way of introduction. Is that visit safe? Yes. Jump sheet says yes. Okay. How urgent? How urgent? Go back to your slide if you would. And I'll, not that slide. Your flow chart, Jeff, your flow chart as it relates to courthouses. This one. That's a planning flow chart. I guess the question I have is at what point should the council's attention and the government's attention deviate from this planning long-term flow chart to the immediate needs of the facility proper as it stands right now? Right. I'll attempt to answer that, and then I'll defer to the job sheet on the life safety issues. The conditions assessment study that is underway right now, and so what we received yesterday was a preliminary. So basically engineers are in it, they are obliged to alert the owner that there is a problem that they see from a safety standpoint. The conditions assessment study, the deliverable will be a, there will be a long range redevelopment strategy, But a key portion of what they are supposed to deliver to us is a what are the critical immediate needs that must be dealt with if you are going to save the building. So to Councilmember Scutchfield's question, if you're going to save this building, if it's not going to fall down around you, what must you do? And that work has not happened yet. They will be doing that over the coming months. So I would say I would hope by the end of the calendar year, that is when you'll want to turn your attention away from the big picture. well, at least partially away from the big picture, and really look at what are the immediate needs that need to be addressed. And, of course, that ties in nicely with looking ahead to the budgeting process. But I'll let John Street speak to the life safety stuff. Just to echo what Jeff said, what was released yesterday was very preliminary report, just report on what the structural consultants that were on the roof and all the other elements on the exterior of the building just noticed. There's nothing in the report that surprised us, to be honest with you. That is the reason that we requested $300,000 to provide some consulting services as well as some funding to identify and remedy, at least for a short period of time, anything that might be causing immediate concerns. A lot of the concerns that we have, and that's the reason we went after the $300,000 and the council approved the funding was to stabilize the building and keeping it from further deterioration. Sure. I didn't mean to interrupt you. I'm sorry, but you said exactly the word that it appears that we need to focus our attention on sooner rather than later. And that's simply stabilization. And I look forward to joining the council in that effort soon. Thank you, John. Thanks, Jeff. Thanks, Mr. Chair. Council Member Lane. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, I'm not going to be so friendly today because I'm very disappointed that the city government has not protected this historic building from being damaged due to water infiltration. And I know that we've been aware of this problem for some time because on several occasions, I've even suggested that we provide special funding to do some protection to the building from the water infiltration. Now we're talking about rust in the building, that it's maybe structurally damaged. And so when we go back to renovate the building in the future, it's going to be a lot more expensive. So our failure to properly protect it is going to be costing the taxpayer money, and that makes me unhappy too. And I'm not singling out any one individual or any department of government, but I believe that, you know, the council can take some responsibility because I specifically on a number of occasions in the budget process said we needed to make money available. and I believe that the general government department indicated that would be good. But to wait until we don't have rust and structural weakness to finally get the funding, you know, that's laying the horse out of the barn and then trying to go catch it. And I'm just sort of blown away. When I saw those pictures, I could not believe how badly things look on the inside of the building. the other comment I wanted to make is that I think that Jeff Fugate's job is very difficult to define and because I'm in the real estate area and I've done some of the kind of work that he's done but I see Jeff's job as being the liaison between developers from around the country and locally who may want to do infill and redevelopment in the downtown area and the urban county government and his job would be to help them underanalyze the code, what incentives are available, what properties are available to get input from the different branches of government. And in many of these cases, these are companies that are working in a confidential kind of manner, and they do not want the information out because it's a competitive environment. And if somebody hears somebody's doing a deal, it might create additional competition for that particular property. So it makes it very difficult to describe what you're doing. And also, I would say the current conditions that we're in, the economy has been terrible, you know, for five or six years. You know, real estate development all over America has come to a screeching halt. Nothing was done. Financing went away. And you take a project like Centerpoint, which was in its sixth year of progress now. It's finally come back to life because the economy has turned around. And I guess what we could do, since we've given a lot of criticism of the web, this deal for all the problems that are happening, I guess we could blame them for the rust and water infiltration in the courthouse because that is part of the tiff in which Centerpoint is located. And if we could ever get the thing under construction and pay off the garage, that money would come in to help renovate the courthouse. So anyway, I'm sorry I got a little bit carried away today, but this just sort of hit me wrong. We've discussed this so many times. And then to see those pictures, it just sort of breaks your heart to see a building go down the tubes like that. And we do need to get right on top of getting that remediated so we don't have additional damage in there. And I don't really have a question. I just wanted to make a comment. Thank you, Jeff. Well, thank you. Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Jeff. I just wanted to follow up on what Council Member Ford said, because I do think we're on the right track with the old courthouse. I've been serving on the, is it an RFP or an RFQ? I never can remember. RFP committee with Jamshid and various folks on the old courthouse. And the fact of the matter is in 08, 09, 010, I mean 10 and 11, we didn't have the money. We were in a recession. And Jamshid, I know for sure, has been, you know, we've finally gotten a plan of maintenance and gotten into place some things for all the buildings we own. And I want to say to you, Jamshed, I thank you for that because we never ever had that really in an organized way. So then it took us some time. The way I see it, it took us some time to get our folks out of there, the history museum, the pharmacy museum, all the museums that were in there. And then you did the assessment to show the mold. I mean, this is not an overnight deal that we can just finish like that. And so this condition assessment that EOP is doing is going to tell the council where we go next. Do we close it down and mothball it? Do we make it usable for just a basic, you know, some kind of basic use, or do we tailor it for a more specialized use? I think that, you know, we're all committed to do the right thing, but we, you know, I've been in there. I went in there and looked. I've been up in the dome, and I could say, yes, it's in bad shape. I know that. But we need this EOP study to give us the exact specific information so we can make a good decision on the council. And so I know it's, I mean, I've been frustrated at the length of time it's taken, but I think, I really do think we're on the right track. and I'm hopeful that when we get to where we need to make a decision, we can figure out how to get some private folks in the community to help us fund it because it's a treasure in our community. And a lot of people should have buy-in, I think. Maybe I'm living in another world, but I think it's important that we get to that point. So I appreciate the information, and I think it's on track to give us what we need for the council to make a good decision. I mean, it's up to us. It's going to be right on our backs. Well, it might not be on mine, but it will be on the 15 folks who are sitting up here. And then it will be up to them to figure out funding and, you know, how to put different funding together. So I don't really have a question, but since I had been involved along the way, I just, I do feel strongly that we're getting to a point where we need to be with it. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Council Member Kaye. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to briefly follow up on both Council Member Lane and the Vice Mayor's comments about deferred maintenance. It seems to me that the courthouse is simply the most, at the moment, the most highly visible, the most dramatic example of what it costs us when we don't pay attention to maintaining what we have. This is another example of short-term savings and long-term costs, and I'm hopeful that this council going forward with these examples in mind, when we get to budget time, we'll pay more attention to the long list of items on the deferred maintenance list. We need to invest now so that five years from now we're not sitting here, or our successors are not sitting here saying that council in 2014 had the opportunity to fix X, Y, and Z, and now we're looking at an incredibly increased cost of doing what we should have done in the first place. So that's my only comment. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Akers. Thank you, Chair. So, Jeff, the DDA is not specific to downtown. I mean, I believe that most of your focus is on downtown, and that's, you know, your primary energies are dedicated there. But then when Council Member Myers mentioned that you're actually responsible for the entire city, that sort of piqued my interest, I guess. Responsible is a very dangerous verb. Without getting too nerdy about it, when the ordinance that created the Downtown Development Authority, which called us the Downtown Development Authority, it explicitly basically said that we could operate in public projects throughout the entire county, and that was the language in the ordinance itself. A previous board, and it's probably been, this probably goes back to like 2007, 2008, a previous board did draw a map that basically said, this is the area which we will focus. And that basically goes up to Loudoun, over to Newtown Pike, over to Bell Court, and down to the university. That's, so the board has set that policy. And then, but I think what is, I think what this speaks to, council member, is that if you go to larger metropolitan areas, a lot of times the focus is on downtown versus the suburbs. Well, that's not our problem, right? Lexington is playing in a different sandbox. Our sandbox is our downtown is not competing against the suburbs. Our downtown is competing against Nashville or it's competing against Indianapolis or it's competing, you know, competing against Columbus. And it is, and it's not just our downtown, it's our community, right? And so wherever the investment is that is going to be the best investment in leveraging our economic viability in the future and for our citizens and, you know, now and future, then that is where we need to be working. And so I realize that's kind of a vague answer, but, and now there's, it's bandwidth. There's not a ton of, you know, I don't want to have a ton of staff capacity, but I would, I would say that we have really, you know, right now there is a argument for really focusing on sort of the core area of the city. Um, but from a policy perspective, we certainly are paying more attention to the larger community. Well, I asked because I was interested, um, specifically, I was going to ask about your boundaries. Um, and so I appreciate that you shared the map that the board established. And one project, Council Member Ellinger mentioned 21C that you were involved in. I assume that you may have had something to do with the Centerpoint project, since that's pretty massive and in the center of downtown. But I am specifically interested in the distillery district. And so when you say that the boundaries is at Newtown, so that would put the distillery district outside of your boundary. And so is that why? I believe the map actually specifically ran out and grabbed the distillery district at that time. When did you do that? Oh, I think this was like 2008, 2009, somewhere in there. Okay. And so what have you all done then to support development in the distillery district? And the recent projects that have happened there, how have you all been involved in this? So we met, I met with Chris Kelly very early on when he was thinking about acquiring the building. and he wanted to sort of understand the history of the district, what the opportunities and options were. So I've had that conversation. I have gone with Chris to meet with potential investors and clients for that building early on. That's not what panned out, but supported him on that. Worked with Barry before that to try to understand what his alternative options would be when it seemed that the original plan had stalled out to start working with him to try to figure out what some alternatives might be for particularly the Pepper campus itself. And then I'm in fairly regular contact with the leasing agents that are representing most of the properties down there to know who they're talking to and to give them some idea of what I'm hearing. So there's a constant flow of information there as well. And so when you talk about your other goals or your focuses for 2015 and you talk about infrastructure and you talk about parks and trails, where does the infrastructure on the city's part or on your efforts lie for the distiller district to support the businesses that are going in there, that are putting in private investments there? When will the infrastructure be on your to-do list or focus? Well, so we're not going to go out and dig the sewer ditch ourselves with the infrastructure piece, right? So what that really is is looking at asking some questions and providing some preliminary plans. The distillery district, as I understand the Strand study, really has a fairly well-played-out plan for infrastructure. It's just a matter of implementation, and that is the purview of the LFECG. Same thing with what we're looking at here. So when I put this on here, it really is about trying to figure out enough of the issues so that we can call attention to them and develop a more thought-through plan for how we're going to address parking, trail, streetscape, et cetera. So it's not that we're ignoring the distillery district. It's just that the work that I referenced right here has actually already happened for the distillery district. And so now it's an implementation challenge, which really, like I said, I think falls on that's a public issue. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Lane. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to add one more thought here at the end, maybe on a more positive note. The courthouse is an exceptional building. It's right in the middle of downtown. It has unbelievable potential for commercial redevelopment. And, you know, we need to, you know, get on top of it. However, it's going to be expensive. I believe, if I remember correctly, this last study that was done, it was $14 million to renovate the building. That was the estimate. And that would require remediation of, you know, all kinds of materials in there, asbestos and mold and lead paint, and also to replace all the mechanical systems and improve the elevator system and fire safety. So it's a major expense. But if it were properly done, I believe that it would be a major commercial thing downtown. And I think we must not let it go down the tubes by failing to maintain it until we get the money available. Thank you very much. Thank you. No further comments from the council. Thank you again, Jeff. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are very much pressed up against a timeline that is 16 minutes long. And I would like to, Mr. Webb came down from Louisville to talk about the World Trade Center. He said briefly. So why don't we go ahead and do that anyway, and then we'll go from there. Well, I appreciate the term briefly, but I don't speak very briefly, but I get my best shot. How's that? That'll work for us. Thank you, folks, for the World Trade Center of Kentucky, this chance to present basically who we are, what we are. And I'll give you a quick overview of the Trade Center itself. We are out of New York City. We're in 300 offices globally in 92 different countries. And as you'll hear in a few minutes, we're in our 25th year, having been founded in Lexington by a wonderful former governor and a former mayor in the city. So this is our home. It has been again for 25 years. Who we are, very quickly, provide leadership to expand global trade in Kentucky. We roughly have 90,000 businesses, plus or minus some change in the state. Of that 90,000, we know perhaps 3,000 or less are trading actively as far as exporting and importing. That's our goal in working with the state of Kentucky and with our Lexington leadership here to have more businesses become aware of what trade's all about, how it works, how to benefit their businesses. And so basically we're all about education and awareness. As I mentioned earlier, we're one of the leading providers for trade education, consulting, and trade missions in the state, making over 500 calls per year plus or minus some change on businesses in Lexington and throughout the region itself. Again, founded in Lexington, we're celebrating 25 years in the state. Again, we call Lexington our home. Our board of directors and clients, just a few names for you folks, Big Ass Solutions, Clark Material Handling, which is headquartered here, by the way, Airmart, Tempur-Pedic, Neogen, Alltech, and a host of others, over 100-plus businesses we've worked with day in and day out calling on those clients, doing assessments and helping those folks figure out the power of trade. We work with the election folks and our businesses through the following. We call ourselves a business partnership, and more so than just an agency. Trade education, our trade navigation series, we get businesses together on a quarterly basis with a sponsor and work with those companies to figure out the ins and outs of exporting, the ins and outs of importing, trade compliance, trade agreements, NAFTA and the like. We are one of the second trade centers in the U.S. with a major agreement with a state university. In this case, the University of Kentucky and the Gatton College. We offer an MBA program track that is second to none. It's coming up shortly to start in the next couple of weeks. Working with Harvey Wilkinson and Wally Ferrier, we're very proud of that program. We're about to launch that education series to other state colleges, but the flagship for us has been University of Kentucky, into our third year with that program. Trade Certification Series, one of the few trade centers in the U.S. to offer trade certification programs. It's a three-day program. We provide it in two locations each year. We have roughly 250 participants or graduates of that program, again, helping companies improve their trade awareness and getting more folks involved in trade, becoming trade advocates for that company itself. And, of course, the trade missions were part of the Kentucky Export Initiative, the Governor's Program from 2010. to create trade opportunities in the state, to double trade opportunities for our businesses. We work closely with the Lexington folks, with Commerce Lexington, Bob Quick is here, as is Kevin Atkins. We've been to last year to Canada, this past year to the U.K., and past missions included China and Russia. Give an example of the Canada trade missions, a quick note. You see Champion Pet Foods there. We met with those folks in Canada last year in a private meeting, and they just announced a new plant in Logan County roughly a month ago. So these trade missions do have an impact. They make a difference for all of us. They create jobs. They create opportunities. Just a few quick numbers for you, and I'll do this very briefly, and this presentation is available for you folks to review at any given time. Kentucky's ranked second right now in export activity, and there's no doubt about it that the Trade Center, the Kentucky Export Initiative, Commerce Luxembourg, and the Luxembourg County government are players here and make a big difference. They work with us to get these businesses to think outside the trade box. Be it the educational programming, be it the certification efforts, be it one-on-one consulting with these companies, we make them or help them become, again, trade advocates, become aware of trade, what I can do for their businesses there. Just a quick number here for you. Look at our export growth, 25.9. U.S. export growth, 6.7. And for the year trending for 2014, we're at 14.9%. U.S. export growth is 3.4%. We had roughly 25 billion in exports last year, our fourth record year in export activity. And I spoke to Brad Thomas of the state of Kentucky Cabinets recently. We're on that same trend at upward momentum to exceed again for a fifth year our export numbers. The stars are lining, but it's a lot of hard work, a lot of one-on-one meetings, a lot of support from the folks in the back of this room here working with us. GDP, the numbers speak for themselves. I'll let you read those numbers. 11.3 billion in Kentucky. And the bottom line for the exporting activities we promote and push, it means jobs. 125,000 jobs and growing in Kentucky. In fact, it doesn't include the champion numbers of the 100 smart folks they brought with that Logan plan. We call it teamwork. We could do it by ourselves, and we don't do it by ourselves. without Lexington folks, without Bob Quick and Kevin Atkins, and of course the BEAM partners, we'd just be one organization operating in a silo. And I think you said it, Mr. Clark, that you don't want to see folks being by themselves, operating alone. We do not operate alone. I drive Kevin Atkins crazy, and of course, anybody else that can regularly to talk about trade and get in front of folks. So the people you see there, the cabinet, this organization, the chamber, BEAM, Commerce Lexington, Commercial Services, Manufacturing Association, and a host of others that work with us day in and day out to create trade awareness for the state of Kentucky. And Ms. Gordon, as you all know, I work for Martha Lane Collins, and this gray hair has been earned over the last six years proudly for voting trade with her side by side. So that's my presentation. It's fairly quick, and I apologize for talking so quick. I am from Kentucky. My father's in the Marine Corps in California, so I have a little bit of a twang with that Marine Corps twist. So if I'm missing anything here, I get the presentations available to you. I am president and CEO of the organization and sometimes called chief bottle washer. And Mr. Lane, that's a proud title I wear daily. So any questions? Now, please, I took your half way. I didn't bore you half the tears, did I? Vice Mayor Gordon. I don't really have a question, but I want to thank you for being here. And the thing I was going to mention, and you already mentioned her, Governor Collins, Martha Lane Collins, has been very active trying to get council members to look in their districts to see what businesses you have that might be interested in working with the World Trade Center on exporting their products. And I think that's one of the things you all have been really interested in doing with council members. And I think it could be really productive if council members look at the businesses they have and kind of help link you with them and perhaps even up our export trade even more. So thank you very much for what you're doing. Thank you for that. By the way, Governor Collins put together a new program this past year with the board leadership. we now have a consulting division where we're calling on companies and a very proactive approach. So I welcome the chance if you have any phone call to make joint calls with this group. If any company wants to discuss trade, small, midsize, trade growth will come from the small to midsize businesses. Roughly 90 percent of our trade growth will be from the smaller companies. So please keep us in mind for that. The more calls, the merrier. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Council Member Lane. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I would like to say to Ed Webb, you're in a great spot right now because the latest projections in the economy are that the United States will be increasing its exports all over the world because advanced manufacturing here is making some of the highest technology, best quality products that are available worldwide. Great point. And that's what people want. So we'll be seeing more engines and more computers, more automobiles, more bourbon. You know, we've got, we'll all be coming out of here. And to be, you know, right on the forefront of that and helping our local businesses export more products is good. So I wish you the best. And I thank you. And we have some of an affinity for each other. I originally met Ed when he was at the Fraser History Museum. and at that time he went by the name Edwin Webb and I said, well, that's my name. My name is Edwin too. But we both never going by Ed, so I guess we got something going there. It's a good southern name, exactly. Well, thanks for coming over. And I'm sorry you were last on the program, but you got to see all this exciting meeting before that. Mr. Lane, I've learned a long time ago, being last is always a good thing sometimes. Make it quick and they don't forget about you so quickly. Right, well, you did a great job. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Nothing else. Thank you. I do know that Bob Quick is here, but we're at the point now where we need to give everybody a little break before we start the work session. We do have your reports. We got them very early and promptly, to say the least, and most of us weren't here to receive them at the time. But maybe if you don't mind, we can do this in another session. And the same situation, we have all types of opportunities to talk about jobs, whether it be at a work session or some other venue. But I need to release these folks, and I'm going to take a run and see if I can't get somewhere first before they do. Thank you again, and thank you, counsel. Move adjourned. All in favor? Aye.