# Council Public Safety Committee Meeting - September 16, 2014 > Auto-transcribed civic record · September 16, 2014 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/3458 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/3458?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2014-09-16 - **Last revised**: September 16, 2014 - **Length**: 13,698 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Public Safety Committee convened on September 16, 2014, at 11:00 A.M. with Henson presiding as the committee chair. The committee addressed five agenda items during the session, focusing primarily on informational presentations and updates on various public safety matters. The committee took one formal vote during the meeting, approving the July 8, 2014 Committee Summary. The remaining four agenda items were presented for informational purposes, covering topics including a Substance Abuse Coordinator Position, updates on the Taxicab Ordinance, discussions regarding Ridesharing Services, and a review of Items Referred to the committee. No public comments were heard during this meeting. The session appeared to focus on providing committee members with updates on ongoing public safety initiatives and regulatory matters, particularly those related to transportation services and substance abuse coordination within the jurisdiction. ## Attendance The following members were present at the September 16, 2014 meeting: • Peggy Henson • Kevin Stinnett • Chuck Ellinger • Diane Lawless • Shevawn Akers • George Myers • Jennifer Mossotti • Harry Clarke • Bill Farmer • Ed Lane All members were in attendance with no absences or late arrivals recorded. ## Votes and Decisions The committee took one formal vote during the September 16, 2014 meeting. **Approval of July 8, 2014 Committee Summary** Committee member Ellinger made a motion to approve the July 8, 2014 Committee Summary, which was seconded by Farmer. The motion passed unanimously with a vote of 10-0-0. The following members voted in favor of the motion: • Peggy Henson • Kevin Stinnett • Chuck Ellinger • Diane Lawless • Shevawn Akers • George Myers • Jennifer Mossotti • Harry Clarke • Bill Farmer • Ed Lane No members voted against the motion, and there were no abstentions. The unanimous approval indicates full committee support for accepting the previous meeting's summary as presented. ## Contested Items The meeting featured one significant point of contention regarding the Home Fleet Policy and associated fees for personal use of police vehicles. **Home Fleet Policy Fee Structure** A heated discussion emerged over a proposed $50 fee for personal use of police vehicles under the Home Fleet Policy. Several meeting participants voiced strong opposition to implementing this fee structure, though the specific names of those who objected were not recorded in the available materials. The disagreement centered on whether officers should be required to pay the $50 charge when using their assigned police vehicles for personal purposes. Those opposing the fee argued against the financial burden it would place on officers, while supporters of the fee were not clearly identified in the discussion. The nature of the debate was characterized as particularly intense, suggesting this was a significant policy concern for multiple stakeholders. However, the available records do not specify the final outcome of this discussion or whether any resolution was reached regarding the contested fee structure. The lack of detailed participant identification and resolution information in the source materials limits the ability to provide a complete picture of how this contentious issue was ultimately addressed during the September 16, 2014 meeting. ## July 8, 2014 Committee Summary The committee reviewed and discussed the approval of the summary from their July 8, 2014 meeting. Committee members Ellinger and Farmer participated in the discussion regarding this agenda item. The committee considered the accuracy and completeness of the previously prepared meeting summary before taking action on its approval. Following their review and discussion, the committee approved the July 8, 2014 committee summary. This agenda item represents standard procedural business for the committee, ensuring proper documentation and record-keeping of their previous meeting proceedings. ## Substance Abuse Coordinator Position The meeting included a discussion on the creation of a Substance Abuse Coordinator position, presented as agenda item 2. Stinnett led the discussion on this proposed new role. The agenda item was categorized as informational, indicating that the discussion served to provide information to attendees rather than to make a final decision on the position. No specific transcript timestamps were available for this portion of the meeting. While the extracted data confirms that Stinnett was the key speaker for this agenda item, the specific details of what was presented regarding the coordinator position, including job responsibilities, funding sources, or implementation timeline, were not captured in the available meeting documentation. The outcome was listed as informational, suggesting this was an early-stage discussion to introduce the concept of the Substance Abuse Coordinator position to the meeting participants rather than a formal vote or decision-making session. ## Taxicab Ordinance Agenda Item 3 addressed proposed taxicab regulations during the September 16, 2014 meeting. Lawless presented an ordinance related to taxicab operations and regulatory requirements. The presentation was informational in nature, with Lawless outlining the proposed regulatory framework for taxicab services. The ordinance appears to establish operational standards and requirements for taxicab operators within the jurisdiction. No specific details about the ordinance provisions, debate among council members, or public comments were captured in the available meeting records. The item concluded as an informational presentation without immediate action taken. *Note: Specific transcript timestamps are not available for this agenda item.* ## Ridesharing Services Agenda Item 4 focused on the regulation of ridesharing services, with Henson leading the discussion during this informational session. The meeting addressed regulatory considerations for ridesharing platforms, though specific details of the presentation and debate points were not captured in the available meeting materials. Henson served as the primary speaker for this agenda item, guiding the discussion on how local government should approach oversight of these emerging transportation services. This was designated as an informational discussion item, indicating that no formal action or voting was required. The session appears to have been designed to educate attendees and facilitate dialogue about ridesharing regulation rather than to make immediate policy decisions. No specific concerns, proposed regulations, or next steps were documented in the available meeting records. The outcome was purely informational, suggesting this may have been an early exploratory discussion about how to handle the growing ridesharing industry within the jurisdiction's regulatory framework. *Note: Transcript timestamps are not available for this agenda item.* ## Items Referred Agenda item 5 addressed various items that had been referred to the committee for consideration. This was designated as a discussion item on the meeting agenda. The session served an informational purpose, allowing committee members to review and discuss matters that had been forwarded from other bodies or departments for the committee's attention. However, specific details about the nature of the referred items, the substance of the discussion, or the entities that made the referrals were not captured in the available meeting documentation. No specific speakers were identified as leading this portion of the meeting, and no transcript timing information was available to indicate when this discussion occurred during the September 16, 2014 session. The outcome of this agenda item was classified as informational, suggesting that the committee received updates or briefings on the referred matters rather than taking formal action or making decisions on any particular items during this discussion. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (10-0): Approval of July 8, 2014 Committee Summary --- ## Full transcript Music Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. guitar solo Thank you. Thank you. We'll go ahead and get started. This is the September 16, 2014 Public Safety Committee meeting. First item on our agenda is approval of the summary. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. next item on the agenda is the substance abuse coordinator position placed into committee by councilmember Stenet chair if it pleases the committee we have a couple other issues that seem to have a lot of guests we can take those first or we can spend the next 30 minutes on the first item and have them wait in In all actuality, we placed this item on the agenda first, knowing. Okay, fair enough. We'll make everyone wait. And we felt like we could go through this item fairly quickly. But I don't want to shortchange it. That's why I say that. Right, absolutely. We placed this item into committee. I'll give some background. We had this similar position funded by a drug-free grant for the last number of years, but that grant is no longer available. and also with the work that Commissioner Mason did and Commissioner Mills on the heroin task force. There is a need in our community to coordinate substance abuse benefits, treatment, and issues for our city. And this is a much-needed position that can fill a lot of vital roles. Having helped a half-dozen people here recently go through our system, it's very hard to navigate. If you've never been touched by it, you will be one day. Everyone in this room will be touched by a substance abuse issue, whether it be a sibling, a child, or a friend. And it's something that we're all having to deal with more so now because of some of the issues on the public safety side and crime. But I think this is a real opportunity because of the, again, the work of the heroin task force to create a valuable position that can coordinate help. And that's what this is all about, is getting people through our system that can navigate what's out there, what treatments are available. And I think this is an excellent idea and I can't take credit for but our commissioners are both here to speak about it and we're ready to hear and we're ready to move this thing forward so i think commissioner mason is going to start out and commissioner mills is right behind him thank you council members dennett and we'll welcome commissioner mason and mills and i do believe you have a plan correct we hope to have a plan Yes, and don't worry about it getting shorted, Councilmember Stenna, because I'm here for the duration. So it won't matter. There we go. As Councilmember Stenna said, the Heroin Task Force started about a year and a half ago when we started seeing a spike in overdoses and overdose deaths. Chief Bassett and I pulled together what's represented on this chart of people from the court system, public safety, education referral, the health department, and people from the treatment community. And started looking at what heroin was doing to our community. We got involved on a statewide level. We testified in Frankfurt a couple of times on Senate Bill 5 that did not pass, dealing with Narcan being expanded from fire and EMT first responders to also police. We think that bill has an ability to go forward in the next General Assembly. We've trained judges, hospital staff, other community members, and done things like coordinated on a regional law enforcement basis, bringing in representatives from surrounding police departments and sheriff's departments in order to discuss common persons of interest, common trade tactics of drug dealers and the like so that they could better work efficiently and wouldn't spin their wheels working on the same person here in Lexington that Paris PD or Georgetown PD was working on. We feel like we've been very instrumental in helping some things. We've seen statistics of overdoses dip. I will say that in the last month, we have seen another mini spike of some overdose deaths and overdose occurrences. We don't think heroin is going away. And even if heroin did go away, so to speak, there will be another drug, a recreational drug, to replace it. The war on drugs has been a 50 to 60 year ongoing experiment in the United States that has and has not had varying degrees of success. The problem with grants that Council Member mentioned, it ties you to a particular activity. So what we were looking at doing is creating a part-time position and place it in social services to help coordinate some of the activities that have been going on already with the heroin task force, but also to use a broader approach that Beth will get into here in just a second. But we've talked a lot. Beth and I have talked a lot. And initially the thinking was to put this in public safety. But in looking at the breadth of activities that this office can and will impact, it probably is best positioned out of her office. So I'm very, very supportive and very am going to stay intimately involved with the heroin task force in any event. But we're bringing this now to kind of brief you all up on what this plan is. So I'll turn it over to Beth at this point. Thank you, Clay. Thank you very much, and I'd like you to know that Clay's task force has done a great job, and he brought this whole idea to me. There's an Office of Drug Policy in Houston, Texas, which we kind of have stolen from their idea and built upon. You have two pages for me, and I would like to start with the last sentence of the second page. The reason this office is better than a commission, we do lots of commissions and task force, and we have problems du jour. And then when they go away or we seem to have handled them, it's a volunteer group that's working on it, and they dissolve. And then we get another commission around another topic. Substance abuse is not a low-income problem. It's not a neighborhood problem. It's a Lexington problem. And we have since tied gun violence to substance abuse. By no means do I want to say everybody that's been involved or a victim of gun violence has had drugs involved, but at least 90% of the cases can be tracked back to some kind of drug use with the violence. So we have included that in our work with this group. So if you'll go to the next page, this is the office we propose, and we want to propose this as a pilot office. And I think they have a slide on that on the next one, whoever's doing the... There you go. It's an org chart right there. And then we'll go, okay. We want to do this now because we have this perfect storm. We have experts in the House. So we want to run this as a pilot project. And we need a little bit of money right now. But what we would like to do is come back to you in February and say, this is how this is working because in next year's budget, we would like to institutionalize this and ask for some funds for these positions. The substance abuse, which we're now going to title the Substance Abuse Policy Coordinator, Amy Baker, who's right here. Amy, you want to stand up a minute? If y'all have questions for her, Amy's job before she came to my office, she was the Deputy Director of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services for the Kentucky Department of Corrections. So she already has a network of all the people that work in this. She has an expertise in substance abuse, all the treatment modalities, the enforcement modalities. So we've already got somebody that's an expert. She's been a program administrator in my office, but, you know, we can all do other duties as assigned if the time is right. And she's graciously agreed to, we're going to share some of her duties with a new administrative officer so that she can start this pilot program. In the meantime, we have met a lot of grassroots advocates, both Clay and I have. We've met people through his overdose awareness campaign. We've met Sisters Working Against Gun Violence. We've met Stop the Violence Group. All these people want to make a difference. They're not angry citizens. They're people who really care about this work. So what we're asking today is to hire one of those persons part-time because they have the passion and they want to work, and they could work under Amy's direction because she has expertise. So where you see program specialists, grassroots advocates, we need to find some money to hire someone part-time to help be the legwork for Amy because, after all, she's going to have to do some of the work in our office. It also gives us credibility in the communities because it's someone who's been directly affected by substance abuse or gun violence, one or the other. So we're going to advertise for that and hopefully hire a grassroots person. The board here and the model is based after our Domestic Violence Prevention Board, which has been in our department for 30 years by a person on contract. And the board is ex officio. Most of the members of that board are either prosecutors or judges or police officers or treatment professionals. and the board stays ex officio, so you keep the expertise on the board, and then you have maybe five or six appointed members. And all the work is done in committees. We have the five committees down here, and this work is already going on in Lexington. There's just no coordination of services. Everybody's working in a silo. The treatment people don't talk to the officers, who don't talk to the prevention people, and it makes it hard not only to solve crimes, but maybe a person when they're sentenced needs to go to drug court instead of going to jail. But we don't have a way to evaluate that. So if you'll look at these five committees across the bottom, Drug Free Lex is already doing substance abuse prevention. They've lost the Drug Free Communities grant, not for anything they didn't do, but just because you can't get it but over a certain period of time. So they do get some tobacco settlement money to keep kids from smoking cigarettes. They're the ones that do the Keep It Real VDOs. They will be doing prevention, and they will head up that committee. The next committee is the Violence Intervention Committee, and these are a lot of these grassroots organizations. And Larry Johnson for Partners for Youth has joined the National Organization of Cities United. We've been to their national conference. We plan to send him back to one in Philadelphia, and it's ways to interrupt violence of youth in your community. Treatment Committee would probably be Bluegrass. They got a new director. He's trying to put the community back in community mental health. Paul Beatrice is a fine man if you hadn't met him. and the rich has also done a lot with substance abuse. The Justice Committee will, frankly, be the heroin task force. It'll be law enforcement, detention, prosecutors, judiciary. How do we prosecute these crimes, and how do we get drug dealers off the street? It's not all feel-good. It's also about law enforcement. The Domestic Violence Prevention Board, since its inception, if you're a perpetrator of domestic violence in our community, our arrest and enforcement rate has gone up to 75%. There's a 75% you'll go to jail if you get arrested in Fayette County. Every officer on Clay's force has been trained in domestic violence because we've got violence against women grants. We think we can do this same thing in the substance abuse arena. The last one is victim services. Mary Houlihan and the Commonwealth Attorney's Office and the County Attorney's Office have victim services. We've learned from the sisters working against gun violence, all their children have been killed by guns. and they let us know that they get victim services through the court system. But once the court thing is over, who helps them when their children have trauma, when they have to lose work to go to court? Is there enough money? One mother's son has an $80,000 hospital bill, and he's gone, and there's no way to help her with that. So we need some attention to victim services, and what do we do to help people who are victims of these crimes? So that's the way the office will look. Those committees will meet monthly. Amy will be the person that puts everybody together, and the grassroots specialist will also do some of the legwork. So the next page is what they'll do, and this is based on the Domestic Violence Prevention Board. The other thing we have in place, Terry Fager has agreed to work with this board to tell them how she got set up. She has a model protocol for what victims of domestic violence do once they come into the system, and she's got everybody pulling in the same direction. She's a national expert at this point. So here's the things that we're going to focus on. We're going to start out by having a five-year strategic plan from each committee and ticking off the boxes. One thing we would want to do once we get started, when we ask for a budget for the office, we're going to ask for those two positions, but we'll probably also need some evaluation money. You need to get an independent person to look at it and look at what's working and what's not, do your data, do your research. It will also, like when there's bills in the legislature, this group could lobby on behalf of it, so it's not one individual. The Office of Substance Abuse could go to Frankfurt and say, hey, we're four needle exchanges, or we're four in our kin in police vehicles. Another thing that this could do, we've learned from the community that they would give more tips during crimes, but they don't know where it's anonymous or how to do it. this group could develop protocols for that to make the community feel more a part of being in this kind of work. Terry has gotten over six million dollars worth of grants in the Domestic Violence Prevention Board and that's largely because she has made herself expert and she has a board of support. I think that Amy has that same capability. She's an expert in this area and once she gets support we will be able to apply for a variety of grants that can support this work and I would look for general fund dollars to be well supplemented by funds that are available in violence and substance abuse. And finally, one thing they do in the domestic violence community is not only a model protocol for communication, but there's a post-incident review. Every time there's a child that dies from child abuse or a partner that dies of partner abuse, they do a root cause analysis. I could see that same model being used for a drug overdose death or for a violent death. The group gets together. They look at how the person died, who was culpable, and what was the response to that death or that overdose. And then by doing that, you can forecast trends. You can forecast gaps in our services in Fayette County. What do we need to have more of? So I also think the other value to this office is as long as you've got all these people working together, God forbid that we should have another Tony Sullivan or Ferguson situation in Fayette County. But if everybody's already at the table, we've built trust between the citizens and the community. So what we're asking for today is approval of this office. We will need about $15,000 to fund the part-time position on a pilot basis. I would hope that if you all fund this, that Ms. Baker could come back in February and let you know what we've done in the pilot process. and next year's budget we would ask for a substance abuse coordinator position, an advocate position, and maybe a little money to support this office. Thank you. And I can answer your questions, Clay or Amy Baker. Thank you, Commissioner. Council members, are there any questions? Council members stand up. Thank you, Chair. Again, thank you, Commissioner Mills and Commissioner Mason for giving us this opportunity to do some good work here. With no questions from my colleagues, I'd make a motion to move this for recommendation to the full council for funding as soon as we can identify either through fund balance or in our October fund balance discussion. So moved. We have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion on the motion? Council Member Akers. Thank you, Chair. Commissioner Mason or Mills, do you all have any idea of salaries for the full-time position and the part-time and budget number? We were looking at 20 hours a week at around $15 an hour. We think for the rest of the year it would accumulate to about $15,000 to $17,000. I've had preliminary discussions with Chief Bastin about the propriety of using confiscated funds. for establishing this part-time position. He thinks it's allowable because it's a program. Normally you can't pay a lot of salaries out of confiscated funds, but on a one-year startup basis, there are some provisions we think to do that. So we think we can identify the funds to kick this thing off. So the full-time position is already funded? Get it free on the power project. Amy's going to do this just as part of other duties assigned. And then what we would do is if we decide to move forward and make this a permanent office, we would do a JAQ and send it through HR and have them value the position. And then we would like to create that position permanently because it's going to be a whole lot for her to do half of what she's doing now plus this job. But we want to give it a try now because the community is asking for it. And we just hate to wait until budget season, Councilmember Akers. I understand and appreciate the work and Councilmember Senate bringing it forward. I agree. You know, we get a lot of the police reports, and there's too many heroin overdoses in Lexington. So thank you all both for your work. Councilmember Clark. Thank you, Chair. And I agree this is really the right track, and I appreciate your work. And I was just curious what the relationship of this position, if we fund it full time eventually, what that relationship would be to the police department and what connections they would have. The position would be funded in my office, but there will be police representation, detention representation, and judiciary and prosecutors on the office. And so they would be committee chairs, and they would work closely. This person is just kind of a coordinator. Right. Okay. With the state and local issues. So there's no formal connection, but they would be informal. They would be ex-officio members of the board always. Always. Would be someone from law enforcement. If we got grants, police would get additional training in substance abuse treatment, response. training is huge with all these efforts well it's obvious to me that this office would be reliant to a great extent on police action in many cases and so it would be good to have that connection we really appreciate this is a great move for us I think thank you chair thank you council member Clark I have a question there's no one else signed up Commissioner Mason do you have a time frame of when we might get an answer on the confiscated funds being used? I would think within the next week or two we should be able to lock that down. Okay. That would be great. Thank you. So there's no other discussion on the motion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Thank you for your work. And we'll move on to the next agenda item, which is the taxi cab ordinance that is in your packet. And this was placed in committee by Council Member Lawless, who is absent. But I guess if Glenda George is here, who worked on the proposed changes to the ordinance, Would you want to give us just a brief outline? Sure. If you'll turn to, I think it's page 11 in the packet. Council Member Lawless requested that the Department of Law draft an ordinance that did three things. The first was lowering the minimum number from 25 to 10, allowing taxi cab companies to increase their fleet one at a time, and to also eliminate the 24-hour service 365 days a year. Now, for those of you who were on the committee in March of 2012, you all considered these amendments then and voted them down. And so now it's back to you all to review for a second time. Thank you, ma'am. Is there any discussion on this item by committee members? We can... I know this was very, extremely complicated when we just had discussion about this before in committee. So I guess if it's okay with the committee, we'll just leave this item in committee. And Council Member Lawless, if she wants to bring it back forward, can. And personally, I guess my preference is that we do lower the number of required taxis. But again, I'm just, this doesn't really tell me what issues might come about because of that. So, Council Member Stenet, did you want to comment? Well, I was just going to say that for the lack of commentary and any council action, this should be removed from committee unless there's going to be action. I mean, that's the whole point of putting it into committee. And it doesn't sound like there's going to be any action today on this item. So it needs to be removed, in my opinion, unless we want to give a courtesy of Councilman Laws. Is that what we're saying? Till next meeting? I think that would be more appropriate. Okay. Well, I'll stand by until next meeting, but there's no action at that point. It needs to come out because we've already discussed this thoroughly as recently as a year and a half ago. So no action was taken then, and I'm not sure what's going to change today. I will personally send an email to Council Member Lawless and request that it be removed or we get a better understanding of what's. Yeah, because there was no motions made today on this item. Correct. Council member Akers did you have a comment? Thank you in that case we will move on to the topic of the hour. The ride-sharing services was placed into committee by myself. And I think we probably have several people signed up to speak on this issue. Ride-sharing is new to our community, and I felt that it was something we did need to look at. And it is a very controversial issue. So, should we? I'd hear from Glenda first. Glenda, do you care to come and share your findings? And then I will ask those that have signed up to speak. Sure. In the packet on page 24 is a memo that the Department of Law issued to the committee in response to three questions that we received. And those questions were whether or not ride share companies could be regulated under the taxicab ordinance, and if not, whether or not the taxicab ordinance should be amended to regulate these types of companies, and also whether or not these types of companies were properly insured. And the answer to those questions are yes, we do believe that these types of companies do meet the definition of a taxicab under our ordinance, and yes, we do need to make some amendments or modifications to our ordinance. We have been working with several state agencies on this issue and you all may have seen in the paper that the state is in the process of issuing some emergency regulations. So once we have those and we have an opportunity to review those, then we'll have some ordinance amendments to submit to the committee for review. And then additionally, in terms of whether or not they're properly insured, I think both of the companies who are here today have met with the State Department of Insurance, and the Department of Insurance has sent us an email saying that both companies meet the insurance requirements. Thank you, ma'am. Are there any questions from committee members for Ms. George? Thank you, ma'am. And we'll move to those of you that have signed up to speak. First person is Don Dartery. You will have three minutes to speak. If you would give your name and address, please. Hello, I'm Don Daugherty. I live at 712 Smuggler's Notch here in Lexington, Kentucky. I'm the general manager for Bluegrass Cab. I just have a quick statement to read, and I won't take up much of your time. Esteemed council members, Lyft and Uber claim to be operating a rideshare program, yet they offer the same service that is provided by the three existing legal taxi cab providers in Fayette County. Their drivers use the taxi stand that is located on Short Street that is labeled for taxi cabs only, yet they claim they're not taxis. Their drivers line up at every major bar and nightclub in town on Friday and Saturday night soliciting passengers, yet they claim they are not a taxi company. Lyft and Uber will tell you that they have no control of what their drivers do when they are out working, and that is one of the major points that this council needs to consider when deciding if they're going to regulate the service. Secondly, Lyft and Lyft only ensure their customers that use the app and pay them directly via credit card. They do not provide coverage for drivers who obtain passengers from other methods. Again, Uber and Lyft will tell you that they do not control their drivers, and this is another reason why these drivers need to be regulated. Next, all permitted taxi cab drivers in Fayette County are vetted by the Lexington Police Department's background union. When you get into a Lexington taxi cab and you see your driver's permit with his picture on it, you know that your driver has a safe driving record and a clean criminal background history. who's driving you when you get picked up by a rad share company how do you know that this person picking you up is not just using his friend's phone and car and lastly what will happen to the underprivileged who do not have access to smartphones and credit cards the disabled who depend on taxi service for after hours wheelchair service and va and medical medicaid recipients that use local taxi cab providers to get to doctor's appointments when Uber and Lyft's unfair advantages put local taxi providers out of business. I have two documents here I'd like to share with the council members. I'm not going to read them, but I will leave them here for you to look at your convenience. Thank you, sir. Thank you. That's all I have. Next person that's signed up is Greg Kujowski, and I may have slaughtered that name. I'm not sure. And then next is Rachel Bledsoe. Actually, you did pretty well with the name. Greg Kajowski. I'm an attorney that represents Bluegrass Cab, and I have a lot of experience as a taxi driver and as an owner of a cab company. The one thing that I want to bring to the council's attention, and I'm sure as a former owner and driver, and I'm sure you're aware as council members, there's quite a few ordinances for a taxi company to legally operate. And I gave you a quick handout that has kind of just some brief points written on it. For a cab driver to legally get their permit each year, they have to have a physical, they have to have their five-year driving record, they have to have their background check, and two new passport photos. All of that's submitted to the investigative background unit of the police department where they either approve or disapprove them. A lot of drivers are disapproved because of their driving record, criminal background, too many accidents, whatever. And then the cab company themselves has quite a few ordinances that are too numerous to mention. I've written some of them down there. They have to have a minimum of 25 vehicles, which I saw could possibly change in the future. They have to have a color scheme on their vehicles. The vehicles have to have an identification number. They have to have a telephone number. They have to have a calibrated meter. Each year the vehicles are inspected by an ASA certified mechanic that's independent of the cab company. Those are just to mention a few of the ordinances that presently a taxi driver and the company have to abide by to legally operate. Currently, Lyft and Uber are violating every single one of these ordinances. And they try to present it that they're a ride sharing program. and I'm here to say in front of all these Lyft people here, that's grade A baloney. They're getting paid to take a driver from point A to point B, and as the attorney for the council has already stated, this is the clear definition of a vehicle for hire. So what we're asking is that these ordinances be enforced. I know that currently the legal department here told the police department not to enforce these ordinances while they had time to investigate it. They've had time to investigate it. That period's over. They've determined that this is a vehicle for hire, and these vehicles need to either meet the same requirements that the taxi drivers and that the taxi companies meet. These laws have to be applied equally to everyone, or they don't apply to anybody, and I'm sure that's not what the council has in mind. And we're requesting that enforcement start not a year from now, six months from now, but start immediately. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Rachel Bledsoe. Okay. Who did she give? This guy. Steve Costin, if you would give your name and address, please. Thank you. Thanks. Yeah, my name is Steve Koston, 18739 Willington Circle, Louisville, Kentucky. I'm here speaking on behalf of ProCarent. We operate Yellow Cab here in Lexington as well as in Louisville. And I'll try to cover the points that weren't covered by the couple gentlemen just ahead of me. but we definitely recognize the fact that we are a locally family-run business out of Kentucky. We provide safe, reliable transportation to Kentucky in seven days a week, 365 days a year. We do follow all the regulations here in Lexington as well as in our other operations and really just fully believe that at this point as well, that we're really not asking for any differences or any changes to the current law per se, really just for the enforcement of the current regulations. We know that the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government Department of Law just released a determination basically saying that ride-sharing companies do fall under the taxicab ordinance. with that in mind we're really also just asking that we enforce those equally across uber lyft as well as with the cab companies i do think there's an important distinction too and it got briefly touched upon on the whole insurance piece is one that is really going to need to get wrestled to the ground they're looking at it at the state level a little further than they are currently, and it's something just to bring up here, and that, we, we got touched upon, and that's when you're not using the app itself, so if you're doing any type of hailing of a passenger, if you're in a bar restaurant district with your pink mustache on, and somebody comes up and says, I'd like to, can you take me somewhere for $20, if the answer is yes, and your app's not on, not only are you not covered by Uber or Lyft's insurance, you're not covered by your own personal insurance because you're now operating as a commercial vehicle. So you have zero insurance, none. There's not any insurance. So if you hit grandma crossing the street with a passenger in your vehicle, you're not covered as a driver, your passenger's not covered, nor is grandma. So it's a problem that needs to get wrestled to the ground. Again, I'm not saying there's one particular solution or another, but it's one that requires a little more detail than just saying And that doesn't happen because it will. I mean, it's sort of invariable. You'll get personals. You'll get your phone number from somebody that says, can I just call you for a ride? That's part of the sort of the taxi model. It's not part of the described Lyft Uber model. But I guarantee you it's going to happen because it's the nature of the beast in my eyes. And we know some of that is happening currently. So I think we just need to make sure that we completely look at the insurance issue, not just when you're sort of on the clock. So really, in closing, our biggest, biggest piece is just that, you know, like the gentleman before me has stated, I think we have looked at the issue both here in Louisville. We're looking at a state level. I do think we have pretty clear regulations here. The ordinance here, quite frankly, is one we're touting at the state level when we've had our meetings there because it's pretty well written here, pretty clear. There's not a whole lot of, I don't think, sort of fluff built into it, if you will. So we're really asking that, you know, we, as a city, we take the lead in starting to make sure that we are, from a public safety standpoint, enforcing the key components, which include the background checks, which include background checks, the whole insurance piece, background not just criminal, but criminal and driving records. We also do check and make sure that drivers have paid their income taxes. I think all of those components really need to take place in order to make sure that we are regulating at the right level, not overburdening the community, but ensuring that we have safe, reliable transportation to all the individuals across Lexington and Fayette County. Thank you. Thank you. Mike Gilbert. Steve Costin spoke for me. Thank you. Al Putnam. Al Putnam. Good afternoon. My name is Alvaro Gutierrez. I go by Al. I'll be driving a cab for three different companies in the past six years. I lived nine years in Lexington. I don't have anything against anybody. I believe that the sun rises for everybody. It's just that one of my reasons to immigrate to America from Peru was that I believe in the fair justice for everybody. And this is the idea I had here since the beginning and still having it. That's why I try to share my point of view with all of you. It is hard to make a living as taxi drivers. We have to be exposed to the sun all the time. Recently, we had a very good friend that he passed away with some skin cancer. He drove a cab for nine years. I believe that these people and any other people in the world have the right to work. But we all need to work under the same rules. When you, ladies and gentlemen, got elected in the council, I guess you ran against other competitors. And you were the winners, congratulations. America inspires the sense of competition, but competition in the same room for everybody. If you three live out of Hamburg and you want to come here and you work in this office, yes, of course, one of you can drive and the other two can ride with them. But if you are paying money to a person, then I believe that he is a vehicle for hire. I recently have been struggling making my lease payments in the company I work because I don't have enough business. Enough business because there is two criteria in this town that I love that have never been followed. It's how many cab drivers do we need in this town? And not because Tennessee comes to play once a year and some people have to wait for a cab for an hour and a half out of the stadium means that we need to hire 1,500 drivers in town. um... is a lot of criteria to to be considered the only thing i'm asking and i mean if i thought for many of the drivers here is ferrules for everybody and please i believe that you would are going to do what is right for everybody next is made she he Randy Glover. Good afternoon, counsel. My name is Randy Glover. I'm a driver, an independent contractor with Bluegrass Cab. Many of you know me. Some of you have been in my taxi before. I don't give a fist bump when you hop in my cab. You see this? It's signed by the police. That means you're protected when you hop in my cab. No fist bump required. Many of you will ride with me again. I have no problem with that. As a driver, I have to follow certain rules, guidelines, ordinances that you guys make up. I agree with most of them. Nobody's ever going to agree with everything. You guys don't even agree with everything. once again, you make me get this. I have my own vehicle. You make me get this. You don't make them get anything. And that hurts me financially. I have what's called Sinnoh Tins. Excuse me. I lose my breath here. Tie is too tight. I'm a fat boy. Sorry. Anyways, that's what happens when you drive a lot. But many of you have been in my cab at Signal 10s. What a Signal 10 is, is that's somebody that repeatedly calls me personally. They don't call the cab company. They don't call anybody but me. These people here, I have nothing against them. They're people that are trying to work and earn a living. They're going to have Signal 10s. They're going to have people that call them directly rather than call and lift. They're going to have people that pay them directly. Some of them will shake their head as they're doing it. That's just the way it is. We don't want everyone knowing everything we do. No one does. But that's what's going to happen. At night when I'm driving and I see them go pick up at the bars, that's what they're doing. They're picking up a signal tin. They're not paying taxes on that. I can go on and repeat some of the stuff everyone else has repeated about insurance and stuff like that. We all know that. I suggest you Google the word taxi and then Google the word rideshare. See the difference. That's my suggestion. As far as the city ordinance on taxis, I don't necessarily agree with all of it. I would love to start my own company. I can't afford 25 cars. But I've been trying to do it for five years now. I believe you're familiar with that, Ms. Henson. I've been shot down every time. Why? Because I don't have 25 cars. that being said the way it's going right now public safety is not enforcing any of this ordinance i don't really need to work for bluegrass cab i can go pay for my own app i don't have to work for lyft i can go start my own app and be randy's taxi and do the same thing they're doing and not have to pay the city council or anybody anything i believe my time's up so i apologize if i'm going over but thank you yes have a nice day thank you sir amy wickliff did you yield your time thank you next signed up is james andre Hey, everybody. I'm James Andre. I'm the general manager for Uber Technologies. I oversee the Ohio and Kentucky region, so that's about eight cities. I just wanted to speak real briefly in just a couple minutes we had to kind of address some of the issues around public safety, insurance, background checks, et cetera, that Uber does, because I think that's obviously the topic of discussion today. I've heard a variety of folks speak from the taxi industry, so I wanted to address any of those concerns, questions, misinformation that may be out there. First of all, Uber is a technology company, so we don't own any cars. We don't employ any drivers. We've created a marketplace where folks that are using their own cars can work in their part-time and make an additional income to do that. So these folks are independent contractors. They choose when they want to be available on Uber's network, their digital platform. They pay taxes on that income, so they're sent to 1099 at the end of the year for all the fares that were generated during that time. Uber was founded on the belief that riders and drivers both benefit from superior, seamless, and affordable transportation alternatives. I think the committee needs to keep that in mind when talking about this. We're talking about transportation alternatives. In no city in which Uber and Lyft operate do taxis fail to exist. We're simply adding efficiency to the transportation system in those cities. You're seeing people that have never thought about using this type of method of transportation before now pushing a button on their smartphone and being able to connect it to safe, reliable transportation. So a couple things real quick around insurance I think that I wanted to bring up. We've shared, as was mentioned, our policies with the Department of Insurance in Kentucky. We carry a $1 million commercial auto policy that covers riders and passengers from the moment they've made a match on our platform, when they're on the way to pick someone up or they've got someone in the car. This is 10 times the required insurance coverage for a taxi driver in Lexington. I also carry a million dollars of uninsured or underinsured coverage, meaning if you're hit by another driver who doesn't carry insurance or doesn't carry enough insurance, the driver and the passenger are covered up to a million dollars. Guess what? In Lexington, there's a zero dollar requirement for that. Our background checks, which are done at every county of residence, state, federal level, they go back seven years, the maximum limit of the law. That's longer than is required in Lexington. You know, we're in a business where we're competing to win riders and drivers every single day. Safety always will be a top priority for us. If we don't, this is a competitive market and will cease to exist in this space. I could go on and on here. For the sake of time, I'll end here. But if there's questions from the committee about Uber and Jentler, our platforms, our policies, happy to take some extra time and answer those. Thank you. Thank you. Jonathan Miller. Thank you. I'm Jonathan Miller. I live at 816 Penny Lane. I believe I'm the only person here that lives on a street named after his mother. And I thank you for this opportunity. I am a Kentucky consultant for Lyft and I'm proud to be representing them here. You've heard a number of concerns raised about this brave new world of ride sharing. And what I want to just emphasize is that this is an exciting change. This is a change that offers so many new opportunities for jobs, such as the people who are represented by these pink T-shirts, for saving the environment in terms of reducing our carbon footprint with more people taking public transportation. for helping cut down on drunk driving. Lyft has a national cooperation, collaboration with Mothers Against Drunk Driving. And in terms of serving the needs of the community. Unfortunately, with change comes a lot of concern. There is, particularly folks in the status quo are worried that change might mean their jobs. And as the Uber speaker prior said, this is not about replacing an old business model. This is about complementing and bringing new services and new opportunities. And we're looking, Lyft has been here since late April and has had some exciting growth and looking forward to growth in the future. Ultimately, as your counsel mentioned at the outset, this is a process that is being done very deliberately. Here in Lexington, we met with your staff and with your chairman a few weeks ago. in Louisville as well as on the state level. And ultimately, we agree with your council's approach that the state's emergency regulations, which will be released in draft form in October, are going to be the primary vehicle, pardon the pun, to help provide for regulation of an industry that is new to Kentucky. And we are looking forward to working with both the state as well as Lexington and Louisville officials to making sure that those e-regulations are as fair, not only for Lyft and Uber, but also for taxi companies as well. Perhaps this might be an opportunity to deregulate that industry in a way that makes more common sense in this new 21st century model. Our model in terms of insurance, in terms of public safety, is almost identical to Uber, although we have different platforms. We are similar in those senses, so I don't need to repeat the comments made. But ultimately, we are not a fleet of taxis. We're a technology platform that is hoping to provide new opportunities, new jobs, and new services to Lexington. We look forward to I'm happy to answer any of your questions after my time expires. And, again, we've got a number of drivers here that you can't miss that know a whole lot more about what they do and are very proud of the work they do. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any discussion among committee members? That's everyone that was signed up to speak. Council Member Clark. Thank you, Chair. A few questions. Mr. Andre, I'll start with you. That's okay. Mr. Miller, I don't mean to leave you out, but maybe you can help answer some of these questions. First, let me ask you how you say you don't own any cars, which I understand. I understand that model. How do you make money? So we're really just a platform, and what we're doing is enabling a match to happen between people that look for rides and the drivers. So the drivers who work on the network, they keep the majority of a fare that's generated, and then they pay Uber a fee for providing that software platform for each ride. Okay, good. How much is that, and how does that transaction take place? So, you know, it varies. One thing I did want to point out that although today we're talking about ride sharing, which would be what we call UberX in our app, If you were to use Uber, if you've used it in other cities or heard about it, there are other transportation options in there. So we have something called Uber Black, where we've partnered with local limousine companies, which is sort of a higher-end product. We have Uber SUVs. We actually partner with Taxi in many of our cities. So they use Uber's app as a way to make additional income between their regular fares. But strictly, so the commission, the fares and the fees vary between those platforms. But for UberX, it's a 20% fee that's paid by the driver to Uber. And that happens on a monthly basis, weekly basis? So it happens in a per ride. Basically, what happens is before any riders ever to use the platform, they've signed up with their name, email, phone number, et cetera. And we look for a method of payment. So that can be a credit card. That can be PayPal. That can be Google Wallet. so different options for payment. After the ride's completed, there's a charge based on time and distance of that trip and basically goes through a third-party payment processor that we use. It's PCI compliant. Essentially, Uber is holding that fare on behalf of the driver, and that driver receives a payment once a week for all the fares that were done on the system, and Uber retains its fee from those trips that took place during that period. And if a driver solicits a rider without using the app, how is that? So there is no street hail, so to speak, on our network, and I know Lyft is the same way. All the rides that happen on Uber and our network are prearranged through the app. So there's literally no other way. You can't pay cash. You have to have a method of payment on file before you press a button and get a ride. So anything outside of that is not happening, but, you know, if it were, it would be no different than anybody else that was trying to solicit. That would be something that would be discouraged and not allowed on our platform, and access would be removed. It's not allowed. That's correct you're saying. Correct. Okay. The insurance is paid by the company, is it not? I mean. Well, there's sort of a, it's an interesting model. It's a hybrid. So each driver who wants to participate on the network does carry their own personal vehicle insurance that covers them in certain periods of time. So when they're not engaged in commercial activity, when they're not taking passengers for fares, they have personal vehicle coverage. As soon as there's a match on the network, our policy of $1 million commercial becomes primary from the moment that match is made. Okay. I guess I'm trying to figure out how you're not a taxicab company, and I'm not making judgment here. I'm just trying to get information, if you don't mind. But the fact that you're paying insurance, you're making money, but you're not a transportation company. And finally, can you provide the 24-7, 360-day service? Well, I think it depends on what market we're in. I think markets where we've been around for years, you look at some of our oldest markets, San Francisco, New York, et cetera, I think you've built up a network of drivers where, you know, they choose when they want to work. So they kind of follow the patterns of natural demand and what works for their schedule. Maybe they have a separate job in the day and they do trips in the evening or vice versa. So, you know, but it's something that it is an option. And so we don't tell a driver when to be on our system. They have to be out 24-7 as an independent contractor. For many of these folks in the room and on Uber, you know, they choose to maybe spend an hour a week on the platform, do a couple trips. Maybe they take a week off. So when you ask about the difference between taxi, I mean, this is a completely different model in the sense that, you know, first of all, technology wasn't around like we've put together when taxi cab regulations were put together. Most of those drivers are driving 24-7. They may have a car that two drivers alternate and put on 70,000 miles a year. This is a much different model when you have much casual drivers who are picking up extra fares, maybe between jobs or doing supplementary income. So also with the match that's made directly from the rider, directly to that driver through the power of technology, it's different than taxi who utilizes a central dispatch and you call up on the phone. And by the way, you do street hails with taxi. That's a market we don't get into. There's a distinct distinction there when these are prearranged trips through an app. So I think, you know, a lot of cities and states have recognized that this is a new business model and have put in regulations to say, look, we understand that this is different than what's out there. Let's address public safety, insurance, background checks. From Uber's perspective, we're very confident that we're already doing that. And so we'll support, you know, regulation that addresses those things. Excuse me, my time is up, but just to answer the 24-7, 365, the answer is no as far as the company is concerned. It's not a requirement, no. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. My time is up. Thank you, Council Member Clark. Any other committee members have any questions? I do have a question. Sure. James, if you care to answer as far as accessibility, if I wanted to use the Uber app and I was in a wheelchair, would you be able to accommodate me? So, you know, around those issues, it's an interesting topic. I think that we've heard from riders all across the country. I mentioned that I deal with a handful of markets and obviously have exposure to Uber, who's now in 210 cities across the world. So, you know, we're hearing from the folks in the disabled community, folks that are blind, you know, saying that this, you know, new method has changed their lives, that they have a reliable option. You know, our app is able to be accessed, you know, by someone who is blind. You can still get into the app and do what you need to do. and so it's a change in way of life for folks who can now move around their city in a different way so you know depending on what city you are in there are some cities in which we've enabled specific wheelchair views in our app and so if you wanted to notate I'm looking for a wheelchair accessible taxi cab for example you can get that you know now in Chicago you know a market like Lexington which is newer you know we're taking time to build the network so we have enough drivers on the network to make it reliable. Typically now, you know, someone who has a wheelchair concern would connect with their driver. They have the name, the picture, the make and model, the phone number. They'd make a phone call and talk about their situation and make sure that that trip can happen. And typically they do. Okay. And then when someone mentioned being able to hail down or flag down by a potential customer and so can you comment on that? Yeah, so as I mentioned, you know, that whole street hail sort of way of hailing a taxi with a hand is not part of Uber's network. That's not a way. The only way you can do a trip on our system is to go onto the app. You have to have an account. You have to agree to the terms and service. You have to have a credit card on file. You have to push a button. You have to make a match with the driver and then take that trip. So anything outside of that, I think it's a fallacy to say that that is happening on the system. And if it is, and if we knew about that, you know, that's certainly where we can take a driver's access to the platform and say this has been suspended, deactivated, you no longer have access to the platform. And we've done that before. Okay. Thank you. Would you like to comment? I just want to echo from Lyft's perspective because there has been a lot of attention by the first presenters about what happens when a Lyft driver or an Uber driver breaks the rules. And it seems like the presentations were geared about those Lyft drivers or Uber drivers were breaking the rules. First of all, we have a very thorough background check. What you have, what you see in front of you here are the 5% of drivers, only 5% of those people that apply, 95% of people that apply through our background check system get rejected. And so this is really the cream of the crop that we're real proud of. But we have as firm a policy as Uber does, do not accept hailing from the street. Our drivers are not allowed to go into taxi stands. And if they break those rules, they will be knocked off the system. and they will lose their job. So just as if a taxi cab driver breaks one of the rules of their organization, they risk losing their job as well. But Lyft doesn't make any money unless the app is activated, so it's in our interest as well not to see those kinds of things occur. But again, as you build your ordinances, as the state builds the regulations, we are happy to embrace rules that crack down on folks who do not follow the rules because our folks here are proud to obey the rules and proud to be part of the system that promotes those rules. Well, my time is up. Thank you, sir. My time is up, but I do have several more questions. If the committee, I guess I have a question for our law department, for Glenda. Yes, ma'am. The drivers are considered, I guess, self-employed. They are not really employed by Uber or Lyft. So would they be required to have a business license? One second. Okay. We need to confirm before I answer. We did discuss that issue with revenue, and the answer to that is yes. Okay. Which is the $100, and then once they file their taxes, then it would be returned, so to speak. Yes, whatever the requirements are. If it were, yes. I had another question, but it's not necessarily for you. It's probably for the Public Safety Commissioner's office. When you're looking, I'm trying to determine the difference between a taxi and a ride share. So we regulate taxis and we require background checks on the drivers, drug testing, I'm assuming, and inspection of the vehicles. So do we just take their word for it that they've done those things or are they required to show the city proof that these things have occurred? The taxi company? Yes. They present that documentation. So they present us with a document showing that that driver is drug-free, proper background checks, and then the vehicles have been inspected. The background checks are conducted by our police department. By our police department. It's records checks, yes. And those occur annually? annually yes annually okay because i guess i was just thinking if we put similar restrictions on these drivers i see it i do see it as being a public safety issue um that they would be required to show us the background checks, the vehicle inspections, or at least do the background checks through our police department the same as the taxi drivers. We have met with both Lyft and Uber, and they have presented us with material about the background checks that they conduct on their prospective drivers. They have also given us information about the extent to which they verify the condition of the automobiles. We as a staff have not had the time or taken the time yet to dig into the particulars of their background checks to ensure that they are as locally based and as thorough. But the assurances from both companies has been that they use nationwide services that many, many corporations use in doing background checks on prospective employees. But we have not gone into splitting the hairs to look at the detail of that. We're kind of waiting on the state regs to be finalized as well. Council Member Farmer has a question. Just to follow up on what you said, you talked about state regs being finalized? Yes. Is there a timeline on that? I think they were wanting to have the draft in October. There was supposed to be a representative from state transportation here today, but I haven't seen him in the audience. That's okay. Still don't see him in the audience. That's all right. But I think they were talking October to hopefully get the emergency reg drafted. Is that something we might use for our deliberations? Yes. It strikes me. We may. Thank you, sir. Madam Chair, I would just say if the state is going to promulgate some policies that relates to these platforms, the committee might do well to consider that. I realize that we're at a point where old meets new or yesterday meets tomorrow or whatever. But I also know that as a community, a municipality that cares about all of its citizens, we can't. Part of the new platform leaves those who can't cross the digital divide out. I think that's why it's important to have a cab system that works in a traditional manner for people who don't have an app, don't have a phone. And we do have time on our side to see what the state has provided for. Certainly we have examples of what other municipalities have done. And I think it's important for us to perhaps, I don't want to turn our back on this issue, but I don't want to move too fast in relation to what may be opportunities we can't quantify specifically. But I do think we have a taxicab system that works for everyone. These platforms work for people who have the opportunity to access them. Is there a place in the middle where all of this meets? I'm not sure. But I think we have the time to work it out. And I would just, somewhat similar to the previous item, maybe I'd like to hold this in committee until we see what the state promulgates promulgates and see how we might want to use it to our advantage or for our city county. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, Council Member Farmer. Is there any other comments from committee members? Then I would say that we'll hold this item in committee. and Commissioner Mason, once we have heard from the state, will ask for an update. In the meantime, I guess, you know, it's been a question, Uber and Lyft will continue to operate within our city, and I'm assuming unregulated. So, thank you. I'm sorry, can I ask a councilman a question? Does that mean the current ordinances aren't in effect for the other taxing companies too and they're not in effect for who you're in life? Can I ask a question? Can I ask that question? I'm sorry. So this has already taken six months to get where we are right now, and it's already been held. And I think a lot of the drivers for the legitimate cab companies in town are wondering, why do we have to abide by everything? Why do the taxi cabs have to abide by all the ordinances? During this time period where you're deciding, or say at the state committee, are the current ordinances going to be in effect? And I guess that would be a question for the police department and the legal department, which has stated they didn't want them to enforce the ordinances. I guess I could ask Commissioner Mason if he wants to comment or someone from the law department. I mean, these ordinances are on the books right now. And it's been determined that this is a vehicle for hire from your own legal department. So are the ordinances going to be enforced or no? Because then it seems like they would apply to everyone or no one. it just doesn't seem that right now we have an answer we don't know for sure that they would be defined as a taxi cab we you know we're waiting on the state so I would think that that's something that our public safety commissioner and our law department needs to be looking at very closely and I know that they have. So we will need direction from them, from the state. Your legal department said earlier when they first spoke that they made the determination that Uber and Lyft are a vehicle for hire. So with that stated, wouldn't the current ordinances apply to them as they apply to the other vehicle for hires? I don't have an answer. Council Member Clark would like to speak. Thank you, Chair. And I think the question is, and I have formed no opinion because I'm trying to get facts here, but I'd like to ask the law a question if you could. And this is fairly simple. So law has determined that these two companies fill the definition of a taxi or whatever. My question to you all is, who makes that decision final? Does the council make that decision saying that this is, these are taxis or whatever, or do we adopt what law says eventually, or what's the process here? Unfortunately, we have a timing issue because we have made a determination that they do meet the definition of a taxi cab. Yes. And that our ordinance does need to be amended. Right. However, we're working with the state, and they haven't issued the e-regulation, so we're waiting to get those before we come back to you all with the changes to the ordinance. Okay. That was my question. And that's where we are. Yeah. That's my question. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. Glenda, one quick question. Do you have any idea of a time frame from the state? We've checked. I guess it was last week, and they told us that they should have those by the first week of October. Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you very much. I think everyone has had an opportunity to speak, and I understand the... And the... We have had to listen... Please give me your name and address. My name is Warren Taylor. I reside at 1569 Deer Lake Drive right here in Lexington, Kentucky. We've had the opportunity to hear from corporate entities, from cab drivers, but you haven't heard from the drivers themselves. And the fact is, the cab companies have been slandering us. And yes, I will use the word slander with mistruths for the last few months. What I would like to actually say is that the only way anyone is ever going to figure out exactly what we do, we can say all we want. But I'd like to invite the council personally, if any of you have smartphones, download Lyft. Give us a chance. We will show you what we do. We will show you how safe our app is. We do not – I guess my point is I would like to invite you all to use this app. Try it. I'm not trying to solicit services, and the fact is we don't solicit services. We do not accept hails. We do not accept cash. We do everything over the phone. It is all electronic. No personal information is taken from our customers, anything. And the fact is, well, that's all I really wanted to say, to be honest. I think that what we're seeing here is it's an opportunity for people in a community where it's hard to find work. Many people here do work. How many of you guys do this full time, have left jobs that do it full time? I do it 70 hours a week. I'm there every time I'm working. And so the thing is, you know, people talk, you know, I've heard cab companies say how we're affecting their business, But what they don't tell you is that college students, people who use this app, prefer us. They prefer us because we treat them like a friend. We don't play loud music. We don't smoke in our vehicles. We don't keep our vehicles dirty. We clean our vehicles. As a matter of fact, a lot of college students will tell you they would rather drive drunk than use a cab. And one of the reasons why is because it takes almost two hours on a busy night to get a cab. I guarantee you that if I'm just sitting in the parking lot of Kidobas over off UK's campus, I can be there in three minutes. And the reason why we do that is because we do use technology. The fact is they're trying to defend an antiquated business model. We are the future, and we will comply with whatever you say. But I think the council should really consider the fact is what do the citizens of Lexington want, not what a bunch of cab companies want. Thank you for your time. Thank you. I motion to adjourn. I do understand the passion here, and I appreciate everyone that has come. And we, as the council, always think it's very important to really, really look into things and get things right. So thank you. Okay. Council members stand out. Commissioner Masons, can you come up and answer the question that was posed to us? We haven't heard from our public safety folks. Will the ordinance be enforced as they're written today? Or are we going to, as they're written today, the taxi companies need to comply? So does that extend to Lyft and Youper, as our law department has defined them as taxi? We are waiting on the state regs to enclose those within the ordinance because that may have bearing on how it finally shakes out. So we are not citing other drivers. even though there is a legal opinion out there by the county attorney's office we're not at this point as a police department comfortable in pulling over a car that has a mustache on the front just because there's a couple of people in it those types of logistical legal hurdles aren't we're not comfortable with at this point but we're waiting on the state to issue their E-regs and see where we go from there. Okay. There's no one else signed to speak up. Motion to adjourn. I think it needs to be brought up. Yeah, we didn't see it in the... Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Chair. You mentioned the county attorney. Could you reference what the county attorney said, Commissioner? And this was also referenced in the memo that the Department of Law sent to you all, but Chief Bastin sent a request to the county attorney's office asking a question about whether or not police officers should stop vehicles such as Uber and Lyft. And the county attorney's office did issue an opinion back indicating that they did think that these types of companies did fall under the taxicab ordinance. And that, let me see here, I'll just, do you want me to just redo what it says? It came back in the form of an email to Chief Bastin from Lee Turpin. And it says, you recently requested an opinion from our office concerning the legality of stopping vehicles branded as part of the Lyft ride-sharing service to investigate the operator to see if he, she is operating a for-hire vehicle. After reviewing the pertinent ordinance RCO 18A, it is our opinion that this ride-sharing company would fall under the definition of taxicab delineated in RCO 18A-1, subsection 6, and fall under the requirements of RCO 18A. Therefore, the vehicle would be required to have a taxicab permit, and the driver would be required to have a taxicab driver's permit. Pursuant to RCO 18A-25, the law enforcement is permitted to conduct random compliance inspections on such taxicabs when the taxicab is occupied by only the operator. Probable cost for a stop for the sole purpose of compliance inspection is not necessary. Then it just says, I hope this answers your question. If you have any further concerns, please feel free to contact me. And I guess that leads me to the next question. What is the police going to do then? There's an additional piece to this, and this is Melissa Murphy from the Department of Law who has also been working on this issue with me, and I think she does have something to add about this issue, about the traffic stops. Thank you. When the county attorney's opinion, when it states that they are allowed to do the vehicle inspections and the random inspections of taxi drivers, in the ordinance it requires that inspection to take place when they do not have someone in the car, when they do not have a fare riding with them. Lyft and Uber are only vehicles for hire when someone is in the vehicle with them. That being said, that's the reason that we started with. They are vehicle for hire. However, we need to change the ordinance in order to incorporate them into what we have now. And that's the reason that we have. We're waiting for the e-regulations from the state because how we have it set, it's just it doesn't work. As a Department of Law, have you looked at some new regulations that we could apply that would make this all? In our research, we have looked at several cities and speaking with Mr. Andre and also speaking with Lyft, representatives from Lyft, we have showed them things from Detroit, from various cities that they have done different ordinance and different. So we've looked at it. We just were waiting for the state to see what language they've used because a lot of the language that we used in order to govern our taxis came from the state. So we want to see what they use and then begin to draft what we need here. Yes, are we going to then apply two different principles, though, until we hear from the state? Is that the solution that comes out of this meeting today? I think we've heard from public safety, and they've said that currently they aren't stopping individuals who are working for Lyft and Uber. But if you are operating as a taxi cab, yes, you are complying with the ordinance. I see Council Member Stenet's on here. I'll let him ask. Council Member Stenet. So what we're saying is if the taxi companies, which some of them do have apps, utilize only their app to get fares, that they no longer have to go by the ordinance now as it stands. if they utilize that ride, that particular ride from their app. Is that what we're saying? I don't think we want to say that. I don't want to say that. You're right. I feel like that's what we're saying, that as long as you use technology, you don't have to go by our ordinances. So I think by October meeting, we need to have that cleared up. I mean, 30 more days is, to me, too long not to have an answer. So everyone knows what rules to play about it. Because I think there's an opportunity for everyone to be a part of our community and provide this. But I also think this has gone on too long and everyone needs direction. Right. And we've been in contact with the state weekly on this issue so that we can move forward. We are aware that there is a problem, but we need to see what the state regulations are so that we can make the necessary changes to our ordinance, unfortunately. Because, you know, I'm really uneasy leaving here saying we're not going to enforce our current ordinances versus saying go do what you want. As long as you use technology, you can do what you want. I just think that sends a bad message about any of our ordinances. I think we're leaving here not in a good spot for all of us. And I think 30 days is long enough to have an answer. Okay. Thank you so much for working on this. I know you've been put in a tough spot. There's no one else signed up to speak. So are we okay moving on to our next agenda item? And that would be items that have been referred to committee. Council Member Stenet, you placed the Division of Home Fleet Policy in committee. I would move that we remove it from committee. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. And then the next was standards and oversight of rehabilitation homes placed in committee by Council Member Lawless. Have we been working on that? I'm trying to finish up a memo. And she's working with staff on that. In October, we will have the staffing level at the Division of Community Corrections, inmate officer ratio. That will be an update. We are working on a plan for outsourcing of fire building maintenance. Taxicab ordinance will stay in place. We had an anonymous employee satisfaction survey placed into committee by Councilmember Lawless. All of the corrections items should be dealt with at the next meeting. Okay. All of the correction items will come up in the October meeting. We heard about the substance abuse coordinator position today. community corrections. The next two items will be next month. Merging the Division of Emergency Management with fire. And that, I believe, is Council Member Scutchfield. So we'll get with her. EMS transportation fees. That needs to stay in. Of course, we heard about ride-sharing. Scrap metal dealers was just placed into committee, and so was Sky Lanterns. So does anyone else have any comments on the items in committee? If not, I will enter. Thank you. All in favor. Thank you. Thank you. Thursday. Hell yeah, turn it up, right on. Hell yeah, sounds good. Sing that song. A guitar man playing all night long. Take me back to where the music hit me. Life is good. Hell yeah, turn it up, right on. Hell yeah, sounds good. Sing that song. It's all man playing all night long Bigger back to where the music hit me Life was good and love was easy guitar solo Way back when, in 67 I was a dandy, yeah, my kind Sweet things from Boston, so young and weak Move down to Scotland, where the hell am I? Hey, 19, no, we can't dance together We can't dance, no, we can't talk at all Please take me along when you slide on down A-19, that's Rita Franklin She don't remember the queen of soul It's hard times to fall and soul survivors She thinks I'm crazy But I'm just growing old Hey, 19 Now we've got nothing to call We can't dance again We can't talk at all Please take me along when you slide on down Nice. Nice. Sure looks good. Skate a little lower now The Quevo Gold The fine Colombian Make tonight a wonderful thing Say it again The Cuervo Gold The fine coat mommy Make tonight a wonderful thing The Cuervo Gold The fine coat mommy Make tonight a wonderful thing Now we can't dance together Now we can't talk at all Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm not feeling like I usually do I think it might have something to do with you Every time you're near me My body gets hot Don't need a doctor I know what I've got I caught a touch of your love It came on overnight I must have held you too tight Last night caught a touch of your love Your affection has affected me I'm feeling kind of dizzy and weak in the knee I've been in love before but never so bad You're in my system and it's driving me mad Caught a touch of your love It came on overnight I must have held you too tight Last night and call the touch of your love Fever from your kiss tears me apart It starts from your lips and goes straight to my heart No use pretending cause baby I'm sure There's no cure and I've just gotta handle Oh, call the church of your love. It came on overnight. I must have held it too tight last night and called the church of your love. guitar solo guitar solo No use pretending cause baby I'm sure There's no cure and I just gotta have more Oh, I call a touch of your love It came on overnight I must have held you too tight Last night and call a touch of your love Thank you. guitar solo Thank you.