The ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ Because our previous meeting ran a little long, our council members have taken a momentary break, but we'll start just as shortly as we get a quorum. Thank you all. ¶¶ October 14th planning and Public Works Committee meeting we have a full and varied agenda and some of our most important work is right at the very beginning first is the committee summary which will form the basis for the report out for issues in this summary at our work session later on this afternoon. So to that end, I was going to make sure that everybody had read through the minutes as they have been tendered. There's also an attached map. I was going to see if there were any additions or corrections or questions about the summary and motions, and if there were, to take them now, and if not, to ask for a motion to approve. We have a motion to approve by the Vice Mayor, seconded by Council Member Beard. Thank you. Yes. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed, like, sign. Thank you. This item wasn't initially added to the report out items for our work session at 3 o'clock. This will be item C under the report outs, which then brings us to the items on page 8 and 9, which this was just an attempt by the chair to kind of thin the herd here a little bit. And we have several, several items, and I just want to run through them quickly. I would just say as we begin, the first item is one I placed in committee in 2012 about reviewing the street tree ordinance and street protection ordinance, And I think we're well on our way with the work of our new environmental surfaces group that I would make a motion. I'm sorry. I cannot make a motion. I move to remove that item. Second. Motion and second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed, like signed. Thank you. The second one is one I still have interest in and one I think that the citizenry would benefit from. I've had some comments and conversations with Chris King. I believe there's some sort of a reservation system we could come to that would stop us from having the eyesores that are unsightly old sign skeletons that merely do nothing but present an opportunity for the future. So I would like personally to leave that one in committee. The next one is private streets enforcement maintenance and specifications as placed by Council Member Massadi. Would you like to make comment? Sure. I'd like to keep that in committee. I started with that in the spring, then unfortunately had an accident, so couldn't follow up with it. You did. Yes, you did. I did. Okay, that's good. If we could keep it active, that would be great. Thank you. Next one is the H-1 notification process as placed originally by Council Member Myers, which this is one where he was, I think the process was trying to change the notification for H1s to in-house rather than with the people bringing the proponents in the process. But we have asked for input there, and I'm good either way. It's two years. Would there be a motion? Oh, I'm sorry, Vice Mayor Gorton's up first. That's all right. Well, this item has almost been in committee for two years, and can someone remind me what our resolution on it was? Well, we didn't change anything. This was to try to change the notification process to bring it in-house rather than leave it with folks in the neighborhood. But we have discussed it and had it in committee. We have had. So my inclination would be unless there's some burning issue, I move to remove it. We have a motion. Second. And a second. We're in discussion. Yes. Yes, ma'am. Would you like to? What was our resolution? Can you remind me? I think this just became a point of policy where I think there was a part of it. I remember it, but what did we determine? What was the outcome? I guess are we going to have the planning division put the notices out, or what did we end up? Well, unless we do something, it would remain as it was. So the individuals or the people bringing the H-1 would do the mailings themselves. I think that was the subject of this. This was to change it, to bring it in-house, and we never acted on that. So nothing has changed in the process. This was the potential to change the process. You know, I know that obviously we didn't have a resolve, but if you remember that meeting we had, there was a lot of concern about who got notified, who didn't get notified, where the boundaries were. So I'm not sure that we've made any kind of a decision on it. I think that we probably need to leave it into committee so we can make that determination. It was a contentious point. I'm sorry. Yes, ma'am. Well, it was a contentious point, and the council chose not to do anything. And it's been here for two years. Maybe we should do something about it. Well, as long as we're having a policy discussion, I think we should keep it in committee because it is something, and I did kind of ask, because I was hoping this was something that we would take action on potentially before Council Member Myers left service at this time. and he hasn't provided that, but I think the basis for discussion here is we'd like to see it more formalized potentially so we can rig it up and hear it next month. It would strike me. All right. Would you like to... I will remove my motion to remove if we can hear it next month and come to some kind of resolution. I think two years in a committee is too long. I agree with you. Without some kind of action. Okay. All right. We have the motion and the second are removed. we'll make this subject of a meeting very shortly how about that all right so the next is greenway manual and plan um councilmember mazotti this is something you placed into and i you may want to keep it for the same reasons as the other well i didn't i think they were planning was going to come back with us with some kind of a plan or i believe it was dr paulson who said that he needed some more time with that because it was pretty expansive that or it could roll up into the new environmental services. Did you want to make a comment, sir? I was just going to make that suggestion. I think that a lot of that is rolling up in that environmental services discussion. Okay. You want to keep it or you want to send it? Keep it. Keep it. All right. Explore providing assistance to low-income homeowners with code compliance. And, Vice Mayor, you'd place this in there. Yes, sir. Sure. The idea with this was to have some sort of, just like we do have that emergency fund for low-income homeowners, and the idea here was to help them with their code compliance. All right. And I don't, we heard this in May. Evidently so. And there was no new proposal, as I recall. Do you remember? Nothing that we took action on, and unfortunately, not that I'm blocking anything, I don't remember. So can we get a proposal and hear it before December 31st? I believe we can. Stafford Committee has said we don't currently have a scheduled meeting for November or December, which I can't believe. But I believe we'll find a way to meet once more before the end of the year. Okay. All right. coming in a timely fashion as it would relate to possible legislation on really a couple of these already. Okay, thank you. Next is Homeowner Association Rights and Responsibilities. It's placed by Councilmember Akers. And I would just say, based on the conversation here, there's nothing we can do other than lobby the legislature. So I'm not sure this remains to have a place in committee. Councilmember Mazzotti, did you want to speak to this? I was going to say, I don't think we can do anything either. I remember it had to do with the notification process with, I guess, the homeowners association. And so I would say that we would remove. I have a motion to remove in a second. Any discussion? Councilmember Ford, did you want to speak to this? No, sir. I support removing. Any other discussion then? All those in favor? Opposed, like signed. Removed. Thank you. next is Meltyway Stop Glendover and Valley Road which I know we kept this in committee to see how the setup worked I believe Councilmember Beard how are we feeling about this well I think at this point we can take it off it's working well as it is right now All right. And they added another little twist, which I liked. Okay. But large, large letters painted on the surface coming into this intersection, slowing traffic down, supposedly anyway, to 20 miles an hour. I have driven it. It looks good, and you can tell the changes have been made. So would I consider that from you a motion to remove? Second. And a second. Any other discussion? Anyone? Councilor Mazzotti? No? Yes? All right. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed, like sign, thank you very much. Then down to, all right. The next three have been placed in committee by Council Member Lawless, who both called me and texted me asking to keep these in committee at this time, which I feel like it's hard not to honor her request, although I'd dearly love to remove all three of these. Yes, ma'am, please. May I ask a question? Does Council Member Lawless have a path forward for these items so that we can address them? She believes that they are very specific to her district and that there is work to be done. But staff has reported and is here to make commentary now. Please, sir. The code enforcement fines issue, our last presentation regarding the low-income assistance was sort of merged with that. So we would be, if the committee wishes to do so, we can combine those together and bring that forward before the end of this year. So that would be to combine the low income and code compliance with code enforcement fines. Yes. And report on them both at the same time at our next meeting. All right. Is everybody comfortable with that? We'll link them in our, we won't change the order here, but we'll link them here. anything you also reported about building inspection civil offenses did you not i don't recall when that was brought forward to committee we certainly can bring that forward i believe that was the update on the transfer of those when they went from criminal to civil okay so we're happy to to update the progress on that issue and how it's gone since then all right so strike two and then off-premise signage, which I think you reported on that one too at the time, didn't you? Yes, we did report on that one. We thought that there were some enforcement challenges with making changes there. However, if you would like us to bring that item back to committee, we can give an update. I guess I didn't see anything for us to do, quote-unquote, personally. Now, you had made some kind suggestions, but they were just that. Our suggestions were not necessarily legislative changes. They were just sort of a notification of landlords and other associations in town to let them know the existing rules. I think there's room to move on this if someone wanted to make a motion or not. We can. I believe so. I think so. I move to remove. Motion by the vice mayor, second by House Member Ellinger. Sorry. I'm so sorry. And we've only worked together for a dozen years, right? Any other comments? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Thank you. So she went two for three in her absence. Well done. Streetlight installation plan, which Council Member Senate placed here, and we had an update on it, I think, just last month it may have been. Although it says August and here. It was August and September. And September. And I think we have a plan working there. Was there other outcome that we were looking for? Council Member Stenet is not here. I'm not sure there was other outcome to be had there. I don't know. From off camera and in the caucus room, Council Member Stenet has said remove it. So I have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed, like sign. Thank you, both here and there. Next is the snow removal plan, which we'll hear about just in a little bit. Next was this initiating the zone text amendments for food trucks in the P1 and AU zones, which this we did here in August and in September. And Director King brought us three or four different potential verbiages to use here if we wanted to expand this use into those zones. We heard it, and I don't believe it generated any support at the time, although if someone had support or wanted to place emphasis on this. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Mr. Chair. If I recall, there was a motion brought forth on this item and it was voted down. How does that pertain to what impact does that have on its current status in committee? Well, I think it gives us an opportunity to remove it would be my thought. Okay. I'll move to remove. I'll make a motion to remove. Second. Motion and second. All those in favor? I'm sorry, Chair. I'm sorry. Please, sir. I didn't see your name. Excuse me. Go ahead. I was trying to get it in. Yes, please, please. Thank you. I'm sorry. My recollection is that there were some conflicting views on what the appropriate way to move this forward was. Okay. And that the motion that got proposed got put down, but I thought that we were asking, planning to come back with a revised set of recommendations that would incorporate the intention and not also entail some of the negative consequences that people were concerned about. And I may not be remembering that correctly. Well, understood. Understood. We did have discussion, and there were four different options to choose from. Well, would it be appropriate to ask that this, well, we can either take it off now and we can put it back if my understanding is incorrect, but I'd like to get clarification from the minutes of the meeting and what we actually did. Certainly we get clarification. I think to the motion right now, I'll come back to Council Member Ford. Thanks, Mr. Chair. I would contend. I will echo what Council Member Kay mentioned. It was very complicated to be kind. I would still ask the committee's favor to remove it at the appropriate time that the council member or planning staff wishes to bring something more clearly back. We could bring it back in committee. Or they could bring back the one most likely as opposed to the breath of the group. Pick and choose. Right. Presentation at the time. All right. Any other comments here then? Chair. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. May I just comment? Please. My impression was this was of interest to people who needed some clarification, of business owners and food truck owners to get some clarification for what they can do and what they cannot do. I'm not sure. I'm not – I don't recollect exactly what was going on. But I think there was – I think the issue is still there. And I'd vote against this because I think we need further discussion on this. It's not for planning because they were just simply clarifying what the options were. Right. Rather than they bringing a motion to us, they were simply trying to help us know what the issue was, if I'm not mistaken. But I don't remember very well, frankly. But I think it's an issue that needs some clarification. I don't think we need to forget this. I think it needs to remain. And if we take it out now, I have some suspicion that we'll never come back. and maybe it needs to be there. Anyway, I would vote against the motion, but that's just my opinion. In the meantime, Council Member Akers is here. She may not be familiar with our conversation. We're cleaning up committee referrals, and we've come down through to the text amendment one for food trucks and P1 and AU. Currently, we are debating a motion to remove this from committee. However, a couple members of the committee have given commentary. They'd like to see it stay for a couple of reasons. Would you like to add to the conversation? Sure. Since the last time that we discussed this, I have received letters and e-mails of support for the P1 or P2 zones. It's P1 zone. From business owners in those zones, I haven't collected all of that to bring it to the committee. All right. because we hadn't put it on the agenda again. But I did want to bring it back and discuss one of the options that we mentioned of the various sizes of properties and that sort of thing and the buffers with neighborhoods and all of that. And so I think, I'm not sure if anyone from planning is here, but I don't think that there was anything more they were going to do. I think it was up to us to determine what lot size or – Okay. So that would be a plea to keep it in committee. I would like to keep it in committee, yes. And I'm fine to have it ready for the next meeting if you would like. All right. But whatever you, I mean, as chair, would like me to do. Very good. Yes, Vice Mayor. So with that, can planning also bring back again not all four of the options? Because we voted one down, but the one that would fit with what it is you're thinking about moving forward. Okay. So you will work with them to get that for us? Yes, sir. Thank you, ma'am. You're welcome. So then we're down, unless there's other discussion, we're down to the vote on the issue to remove this, which after commentary we may not want to, so I'd ask. Well, here, we have a little, y'all can vote right there to remove if you'd like to or not. So we are at, we're going to keep this in committee. All right. Very good. Thank you for the update. I appreciate it. The Design Excellence Ordinance, I think, is still awaiting some other work. Council Member K, do you want to make any commentary to this? No, but I think that given the complexity of that issue, it may make sense to wait until after a new council has been seated. Very good, sir. So we don't have to redo the information and et cetera. No, there's a learning curve in all of it. Well said. Thank you. The affordable housing issue, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think this has been addressed. I move to remove it from committee. Motion and second by Councilmember Clark all those in favor Aye Thank you very much Fiber optic technology we heard about it last time The mayor has done an RFP on it I'm satisfied that we're moving forward Is there any reason Ms. Vicente to keep it in committee Is there some reason you'd want to come back to us with information or update I think that it would be good if you kept it in committee Because we can give you an update then Because it will take several months to continue to talk to various companies and to give you an update that way. Very good. Thank you, ma'am. I appreciate it very much. The University of Kentucky master plan, the vice mayor placed on in committee on the day when I wasn't here. We heard that. I thought it was a very good report, and I think... Yes, sir. This was simply an update since we hadn't heard their master plan for a while, so I move to remove it. The motion? A second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed, like, signed. Thank you. Okay, map fund usage policies were actually in the minutes, the summary that we just approved. Council Member Stenet, you had placed this in here. Is there any other follow-up you'd like to have on it? I think it can be through the budget process, so it doesn't need to be in committee right now. So I'd ask for a motion and a second. Bye. Second. Council Member Beard. All those in favor? Aye. Those like sign thank you. Thank you all on that. And then electoral inspection fees we're going to hear shortly, as well as code enforcement nuisance abatement. All right, landscape examination procedure. This just came in in July from a link. I guess we've not actually heard it, so I think we should keep it because we haven't heard it yet. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Didn't we just talk about that in the last meeting? Is that similar? Don't remember what the issue was, but. Yes, Mr. Chair. Yes, sir. I think that was included in the report in the last committee, and it would be part of their reconstruction, whatever I'm trying to say, reorganization. And so I think we probably. Just previous to this one. Yes. I'm sorry. And I think we can probably take it out as long as we know it's in the reorganization of environmental. policy with the last planning committee meeting all right so motion to remove landscape examination procedure motion by the vice mayor seconded by anyone i guess i think i made the motion and the vice mayor seconded it all right very good then all those in favor of removing opposed like sign thank you very much permanent barricading agape drive where we have in the the readout right now, so I think we should leave it until it's been read out. Then these are some items at the bottom that I've kind of relegated for their recurring nature, which are things that we all have continuing interest in. I just would like to run through them to make sure we still have continuing interest in them. The Oliver Lewis Way update, which originally was under Councilmember Blues and now Councilmember Akers. Are there further worthy updates there? I do not know, and Councilmember Akers is not here. Hello. And if you just say that, that would be great. Hello again. There is nothing to report new about the bridge as far as the bridge itself. However, there is an art project in the works for the bridge that I'm working on. If you would like information about that, perhaps I could bring it, but I don't know that it needs to be an item in committee. I think both us and the public would benefit from knowing about that because public art is a very popular thing. But as far as the issuing committee, I appreciate your words. And we ask for a motion to remove. Council member, pardon me, Vice Mayor Gordon. Move to remove. And a second. Second. And then Council Member, all right, all those in favor? All right. Opposed, like signed, thank you very much. Ties Road widening we heard about last time and is part of the readout. I believe since it's an ongoing project, we should keep it. The downtown traffic study is still in the black box of date uncertain here, so I guess we should leave it alone at least until shortly. And then the design excellence update kind of goes hand-in-hand with the one we left in committee. Thank you all very much. That's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 items removed. I feel better all over. All right. Moving on to our first, our next item of business, which is vacuum leaf collection for 2015. and I'm not sure. Welcome. Thank you for starting this discussion for us. Yeah, I'm just really here to kick things off, mainly because I was in front of the committee the last time we talked about leaves, which was on May the 6th. I had presented on a framework on how to try to improve our service, really focused on two different elements. One is increasing our collection capacity. Some of the things we talked about was outsourcing some of the leaf collection to the private sector. We also talked about adjustment of schedules and hours. We also talked about improving communication to the public. Yes, sir. Giving them more real-time information. um basically uh rob allen or i guess our leaf king here is going to uh present to you what has happened since may 6th as far as our leaf collection plan that we're going to implement for fy 15 so with that i'll turn over to rob appreciate both mr martin thank you mr allen welcome mr chair committee thank you i'm going to give a brief overall of the uh program for edification of the public. I realize council has probably heard this multiple times before, but what we really want to emphasize this year is we think we've made some really good improvements starting with Mr. Martin's initiative last year and through Commissioner Holmes. I will probably only interrupt you if people have questions, but please proceed. Yes, sir. And we certainly will have an opportunity for questions and I've got a lot of folks here to help me answer. Well done. dead animals, it becomes a safety hazard, it becomes a, the big issue is a water quality issue, and that's the impetus behind this program overall. Citizens have alternative options other than the vacuum leaf removal. They can use their lenny, they can use the free yard waste bags, they can mulch the leaves on their own, They can do a home composting operation, or they can transport the leaves themselves or through a commercial vendor to, well, I'm sorry, just themselves to the Haley Pike landfill. And then, of course, they have the option of commercial services. The schedule, and we'll come back to this. Right now, we're tentatively scheduled to begin Monday, November 10th with Zone A. The scheduled completion date, it's pretty ambitious and aggressive, is December 19th. And the completion date, of course, is based upon the weather. We want to try to get this completed before we get into the majority of the winter weather, which we typically receive in January and February. But, of course, last year was the exception to the rule. Service area is divided into four zones. Each zone is further subdivided into seven to eight subzones. This is information that we have not shared previously, and once we get into some of the improvements, we'll talk more about subzones. Each subzone, well, each zone is scheduled for one to two weeks of leaf collection, and we'll talk a little bit more about this here in a little bit. We've built some flexibility into the schedule this year. the weather is unpredictable we went back and forth on start times before and we've started at various times we need cooler days we need water you know if a cold front comes in we could get a whole lot more leaves coming down or if we have an extended warm period the trees may hold onto their leaves and we're dealing with mother nature and organic materials so we did need to build in some flexibility to have the maximum impact. And we think that's an improvement over years past where we've picked a hard date and said this is when we're going to do it by golly and went from there. Just a quick picture. You guys are familiar with this map. It's the four zones. I want you to pay attention to zone C for a second, and then we'll talk about that here in a couple more slides. The logistical side of it, there's one pass as in the previous three years. Street sweeping will be suspended except for the nightly street sweeping downtown and the monthly street sweeping in the University of Kentucky area. Those drivers are going to be actually the operators for the leaf collection vehicles as they have in the past. We're going to go over here. But a big improvement this year, and this was an initiative that we started last spring, we realized we needed some help. And to fully take care of the public in a timely manner, we've initiated a pilot program using a commercial vendor. It's going to take care of approximately 25% of our service area, which is Zone C, which I mentioned a couple slides before. and this is the northwest quadrant of the city. Another big improvement that I think people will really appreciate this year is we have gone to extended hours. We're going to go until 6.30 p.m. every evening, and we're also going to do Saturday collection for eight hours. This is about a 45% increase in our service time, once again, to meet this ambitious and aggressive service schedule. So the shift length, you know, it's to help us make up for weather-related events. And then, of course, collection will be suspended for snow removal or weather events that Streets and Roads has to respond to. Another big improvement, and some of this stuff is still included from years previous, our communication plan. That was one of the areas that was identified as that we were sorely lacking in, and we needed to take strides to improve and improve the program this way. We have, of course, our website, which has been in place for a couple years, but new this year is going to be a Facebook page and Twitter updates. We think this real-time communication will be a big service to folks. Government communications, news releases, TV3. We're going to send information to local media, council members, speaking to their aides, so they can take advantage of their newsletters and association meetings. LexCol, which is a huge partner of ours in leaf collection, is being kept updated on a daily basis and will continue to be so. Certainly, a lot of times, they are our number one point of contact with citizenry or even council or administration. Of course, as we mentioned, divisional newsletters. And now the big star of this year as far as communication goes, we're going to have an interactive map that will be available to citizens and staff that's going to give a more accurate collection time. And that's been the chief complaint in the past is we've said we're starting Zone X on December 1st. And if you were in the top of Zone X, your collection to you started at the same time as the bottom of Zone X, which were the subzones that we talked about. Citizens will now know their subzone in a more accurate start time for collection so the leaves don't sit on the grass, kill the grass, turn to mud, blow into their neighbor's yard. we're going to really emphasize this form of communication, whether it's Facebook, the map, and Chris will talk a little bit more about the capabilities of the map, but I think council and the citizens will really appreciate the change and the big advance this year in communication. And with that, Chris, if you want to come up here. Yeah. So this is to show the interactive nature, is that it? Yes. So a quick demo of the interactive map. So what will be our Twitter handle for this or our Facebook name for this? Environmental services is helping us with that, and we'll roll that out as soon as we can. As I said, November 10th is our picked start date. Something hashtagable. Yes. It'll be something like Leaflex 2014. That's good. Next fall. Something easily memorable, we will certainly get that out in all the outlets. Very good. All right. Are we good to go here? Welcome. Hello. I'm sorry. I'm Chris Dorge. Hey, Chris. I work in the GIS office, and I put together the interactive map for leaf collection. Well, we're glad to get you out. What we did this year is we took the leaf subzones, and we color coded them to show the progress of leaf collection. And what it shows is it'll show green as the actively collected, yellow being the next in line to be collected, and then the red will be the ones that will be assigned at a later date. Once a collection is done, the green will turn to blue, the yellow will turn to green, and so on, so just because of progress throughout collection. Any time the user can click on the map, return some more information about it, again, just returns the status and the collection dates and these are just sample dates right now. Sure. For collection. So this is both dynamic and interactive then, isn't it? It's a complete interactive map and so we maintain data on the back end. There are three ways the user can interact with it. Then you just zoom in, and more data will turn on as you zoom in. It'll show the collection dates, a few more streets, and then when you get close, they'll show the actual street breakdown. We'll show which streets have been collected, which streets haven't been collected, and a third category are which streets do not receive these collections. Which is good to note for people to understand. Yes, sir. Absolutely, and the users can click on the street. It'll tell the status and then the date it was collected. Oh, that's fun. That's all good. The users also can search by street name. Just type in street address, select the correct option, and it'll zoom quickly to the street. Or the other option is to search actually by address. Thank you for using only 5th District addresses by the way. They blow across district lines very quickly. So we just plan to embed this in the actual leaf collection page with all the other information about leaf collection. So they'll go to one site to get the map and information as well. What a dramatic use of something very good for so many people on behalf of the government. I think it's great. Thank you, Chris. Yes, sir. As you can see, the interactive map, we're really excited about that, and then certainly the subzone information, but it shows graphically where we've been, where we're going, and where we're going to, and we think that's really important. Wait just a second. Before he leaves, we've had a question on the map. Okay. Council Member Mazzotti. Thank you, Chair. Can you back up to the first map you showed us? That one right there. If I'm a citizen looking at this map and I don't have private garbage, I mean, if I have private garbage service, I'm assuming that I get picked up here because I see it all in red, so I'm assuming that that's what's happening. That's what I would find a little bit confusing. So some of the parts in red shouldn't be red at all? No, because, I mean, some of these folks don't have private pickup. I mean, they have private pickup. I'm sorry. They don't have city garbage. So, yeah. I'll say we addressed that at the subzone level. I'm sorry? We addressed that actually at the street level. It just coded the streets as not receiving garbage collection. Would it be difficult just to put a map up there and say these are the people who get leaf collection? Because I don't think people realize that. They really don't. I'll say we can look into it. We'll come back to office and see when you zoom in. Maybe it'll identify those properties. Right. Just looking at it now, it looks like everybody gets it. It's all red. So it's like, okay, I'm in the red zone. I'm going to get a call, and people are going to say, I'm in the red zone. I didn't get my leaf pick up. And I'm going to say, well, you're in the red zone, but you're not in the right red zone. So if we can make a differentiate between that, because I get called about that all the time. That would be helpful. In that picture, and it is tough to tell just from us looking at it, everything with a dotted line, it won't receive collection at all. If you're either magenta or you're red. You know, you're not, you know. There's a good school of thought. If you would look into that, that's a proper, it makes sense to the input we get. Thank you, ma'am. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Chair. I get, it does get confusing, Rob, because I have some streets that are partially private pickup and city pickup. So it's like my neighbor gets city pickup, but I don't. So I break my leaves out there in hopes that it's your job. Well, you know, with this map, if you enter your address, of course, it'll tell you both on the street level and with the address. And it's an important tool for LexCol because we do get a lot of calls where folks don't want to give us a specific address. And in the past, we could not, without going to hard copy, accurately tell people in a timely manner. And plus, it's kind of self-directed. But I understand. And there are some issues with the map. For example, it is important which way the house is fronted. And I don't know if we address that yet. But, for example, a property on the corner may get collection, but it may show one side of the property not getting it when it actually does. But those are things that we can work out on a case-by-case basis. Do you have a plan to suspend? In the case that we have the snow events like we had last year, and I know that some of my areas were not even picked up until March, if you remember. So I was just curious if there would be some sort of plan in place, or will you wait until March? Well, and that was one thing that we identified last year was all the starting and stopping due to weather-related incidents. And internally, we have adjusted our paperwork system, both electronically and what we're getting from the drivers and what's going to get turned in so we don't have those gaps. For example, if somebody worked night shift and leaf collection starts the next day and that driver isn't available and there's a substitute, we're going to have both that paper log and the electronic log where the substitute driver can pick up. And it will be a specific address other than what we stopped on Versailles Road. We stopped at 1311 Versailles Road, and that's where we need to continue again. But what I was asking is in the case of snow, you obviously can't vacuum leaves. So we had a tremendous amount last year, and everything got all messed up, and there were some areas missed. So folks, when we had the warmer weather come March, they were wanting their leaves vacuumed. So I was just curious, will the vacuum go on through until you get it all, or will there be a point where you say we have to suspend it and not? Yes. I was going to say, well, the previous year we completed everything. Last year, once we hit April, we said, okay, we're done. You're going to have to revert to the landing. That's right. You never say never, but the goal was to get through all zones, all streets that are subject to leaf collection by December 19th, before Christmas. By reducing the service area that Streets and Roads had to cover by 25% and instead giving that to the contractor, it felt like that that was doable. especially if we don't have the kind of winter we had last year. Who knows what we're going to have? And we may have to adjust. But my goal was, and I think this is Streets and Roads' goal as well, is that we start right around the 10th. But from between Thanksgiving and the 19th of December, we're out there every day as much as we possibly can because after Thanksgiving is when people have a tendency to rake their leaves. I know that's when I do. I have a four-day weekend. That's the time when I have to do it. But by Christmas, we need to be done with it by then. And that is, to me, the driving force of everything we're trying to accomplish this year. So in the case of where we have another winner like we did last year, do you think if you're not done by Christmas, then you will say you need to do something else with your leaves, or should people leave them out there? Well, I think they should leave them out there. I mean, again, we have a contract in place right now, and it's for a defined area, but that doesn't mean that we could not approach the council about utilizing it a different way. You know, the goal is to get the leaves up. You know, I signed on on this, obviously, because I was the acting commissioner at that time, but also as far as from the water quality standpoint, if we don't get them up, they end up in the storm sewer, and we end up picking them up a different way. And this way is a lot easier than trying to dig them out of a storm pipe or a storm inlet. What's the cost, do you know? The cost for? For the leaf collection program. Budget, you mean? Yes. Go ahead. It's a little over $300,000. Okay. And then there are additional monies budgeted within, for example, waste management for education and yard waste bags that aren't included in my budget, but it is around $300,000. Okay. And I guess a point to note, last year, even with as much starting and stopping that we had, we actually collected about 30 tons more than the year previously. And our last leaf-related work order or call was July 3rd of this year. Oh, gosh. Yeah, so we want to avoid that. And as Charlie said, we're on an aggressive and ambitious schedule. Our first snow event was around December 12th last year. So we hope we don't hit that. But we want to get the bulk of our work completed before, as I mentioned previously, we get the majority of our weather events in Lexington in January and February. Very good. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Council Member Clark. Thank you, Chair. What do you do about these trees that don't cooperate and they don't drop their leaves by the time you go through this process? because we had that happen, and people are wrecking their leaves, not understanding that it has already been covered. And, you know, Charlie says he waits until Thanksgiving, but if he waits until Thanksgiving and they pick him up on November the 10th, then he's in trouble. Yes, and if Charlie waits until Thanksgiving, he can bag or use his lenny or these options listed here. You know, it's a big undertaking. It's water quality. Unfortunately, we can only do one pass, and that's why we tried to build the flexibility into the schedule. We've already been driving the various zones looking at the leaves coming down. Leaf fall is, as I mentioned previously, a combination of cooler days, sunlight, available water, and things like that. It's really hard to predict, but we can already see quite a bit of leaf litter being picked up by our street sweeping program. Plus, we already see folks really ramping up and using their lennie in the yard waste bags already. So the goal of vacuum leaf collection is the maximum collection in one pass. And, you know, there are going to be some stragglers. Bradford Pear is a culprit that would hold leaves a lot of times well into December. You know, and we're going to get the most we can and the best we can, but then folks need to take advantage of the alternatives. Okay. You mentioned the pair. I think I was in a neighborhood yesterday that everything was very green. And so I'm thinking if they get leaf collection anytime soon, it's not going to do them any good at all. So I think that's a problem. I'm not sure what the solution. There may not be a solution. It may be just an alternative way of doing it. You know, that was part of the problem we ran into last year was the trees were holding leaves, and we pushed collection until after Thanksgiving. And that's when, you know, streets and roads' primary function, I think everyone would agree in the winter, is keeping the roadways open and snow and ice removal. And that takes priority. And, you know, that's not the way we like to operate. We like to, you know, over-deliver. and we were frustrated with Mother Nature last year as far as the leaves not coming down, but that's why we tried to build the flexibility into the schedule. You know, last year we kind of set a date and then we had a cold front come through and then we actually had quite a bit of leaves come down in interim. So we kind of lucked out like that. And it also varies from species to species. It does, yeah. Well, I just like to say I think this looks good I think it's a good process, and I think we still have some problems that we're going to have to deal with. And I think one of the things we need to do is be sure that our customers understand that once you're through, you're through. And that's one thing we need to tell them. These are the dates, and once we've covered the area, then it's up to you. Yes, sir. And that was our big point of emphasis this year was communication with the citizenry and the council and the staff. I think that was most of the frustration for folks was when we said we were going to be there and then we weren't there. And they sat and they sat and they sat. That's true. Good. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. Next is Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Chair. And Rob, thank you. This is definitely a step in the right direction. Just had a couple comments and follow-up questions. One, do we know how much money we spend on mailing out these yard waste coupons? Does anybody know? And how many we actually get used? Do we get a count on how many people actually use them? Got them in the mail this weekend, so that's why I bring it up. Well, Lex call would be, Pat could answer that a lot. I mean, we may not even track it. I just don't. We'll look and see if we can track that information down to it and supply it to all of you all by email. I think that would be an interesting read, given what Councilman Clark said. But I think the bigger issue is, you know, I know there are parts of the city, and why we started this program, that probably need some collection. But it gets down to personal responsibility. And, you know, we provide the bags, we provide the lenny. I mean, all you have to do is provide the labor. And given my situation, I've got plenty of leaves I can have some help with at my house, because I can't go out and do them right now. But I take that upon myself to make sure they get done, they get placed mulched, number one, if we can, or put into a lenny. I'm just trying to understand long term, is this a service we really want to keep offering? It's really viable. And given what we just talked about in the last committee meeting today about energy savings, what a bigger waste of energy than using fuel power to go out there and pick up a natural resource that can be mulched or put into compost bins. So I'm trying to look long term. This is a great improvement in terms of speed and getting it done. But, you know, we promote so many other good things out there. They're lennies. These bags were mailing out to Kroger's and Home Depot's. And what is our long-term plan for this? Well, we're always going to have some form of leaf collection, whether it's our median on Richmond Road, for example, or our parks. As to the other function, I think that's an administrative or kind of council. if they want to put their energies and monies towards lenny and composting and yard waste, you know, streets and roads and certainly public works will do whatever we're directed. Yeah, I understand there are parts of the city where we have to do this. It protects our storm drains, makes it easy for a lot of services. But in the long run, I think it comes down to individual responsibility. And most homeowners aren't going to wait three, four, five weeks to get them up. I mean, my yard's covered right now. I'm not going to wait until December 8th to have my leaves picked up. It's just not going to happen. So I think a lot of people feel that way. I'm just trying to see the need for the service long term. Do we need to do the whole city? Do we just need to concentrate inside New York Road where we can get to it? I don't know those answers, but I just think we need to think about that long term. And I know it protects our storm drains, and I see our Director of Environmental Quality coming up. dialing back to may to one to answer your question about what the long-term plan is i think that rob was right on target that's up to to the council i guess i think i reported out is that we're one of the few major cities that actually still do vacuum leaf collection curbside the research that i did i found that many of them had gotten out of that years ago that being said the directive i got was figure out a way to do it. And so we're piloting this outsourced contractor. And who is that contractor, Carly? It's Republic. We've already picked it. Yeah, Republic Services. You gave it first reading last Thursday night. And they will be doing all of Zone C. We did not know how much this was going to cost, and it was kind of a new endeavor for us. The cost came back quite favorable. I was pleasantly surprised. Depending on how they perform, how they communicate, how they are able to make our communications plans work for us the way that we want to, instead of them maybe just running through a neighborhood, I can see us expanding that if it's the will of the council that we continue to do vacuum leaf collection. What I had reported back in May is that you've got folks who've got other things to do. especially if it snows or high wind or anything else. They're dragging around old leaf collection facilities using basically hand-me-down trucks. And we're going to end up having to invest in leaf collection equipment eventually. It's inevitable. So the long-term plan for right now, as far as the staff is concerned, is to work our contractor in a way that is beneficial to the obligation that we're given and see how we can then be able to use that to further the mission. Well, I appreciate you mentioning capital investment. I know that's going to have to come in the next couple years, so I think this pilot program will give us some better data to see what we want to do. And, Rob, to your credit, I mean, how you juggle all this when you have guys being pulled off to go do snow or pulled off to go cut down tree limbs, it makes it tough for you and your crews to be consistent. But I thank you for the job you're doing because it's been very tough. I know we've lowered the budget from half a million down to a couple hundred thousand now, so that's been a savings to the city as well. But thank you all. Thank you, Chair. Did you actually finish your presentation? Yes, sir. Excellent. Well, I was more excited about the map. The map was good, and it started all of our discussion. So thank you. It was excellent. And many people depend on this and look forward to it. so I'm glad we're spending so much time and energy to get it done differently this year. Thank you very, very much. Yes, sir. Thank you. All right, next up is to follow leaf collection will be snow and ice control plan, which starts on page 27. And Commissioner Holmes, welcome, sir. Thank you. So today we will have Chester Hicks, who is our administrative officer in the commissioner's office, give the presentation. He is the new Kevin Wintes who gave your plan before to you, so we thought it appropriate for Chester to do it. Albert Miller is here also to answer any questions, and he is our snow and ice expert. Specialist, yes. He specializes in that, much to his chagrin. Thank you, sir. Mr. Hicks, welcome. Good afternoon. It's always good to get a chance to speak to some of you for something else other than road paving. What I wanted to do is just give you an overview of the snow removal plan. This is something that is updated each year. And also to give you more specifically an understanding of the status of our salt, how much salt we have on hand and what it is based upon our budget we expect to have by the end of the fiscal year. So first some lessons learned. We, there had been some complaints when it came to some of our trucks in terms of spilling, incidentally an overwhelming amount of salt at intersections as they were idling, whether it's due to traffic or what have you. So we expect to be able to improve our ground speed controls to prevent that from happening. Also that we expect to be, you know, as with anything else, more can be done with additional equipment and staff if that's available. But in addition to that, we also hope to incorporate some of the things as far as social media in our communication plan, similar to what Rob had previously mentioned with leaf collection. So as another means of getting the word out to the public in terms of where we will be when it comes to planning these various different streets. This slide kind of speaks to the complexity of snow removal. And this is, I found this interesting, so maybe you didn't, but the snowfall has actually started to actually increase. The last 30 years, between 1981 and 2010, the average snowfall was around 12 inches. But between 2008 and 2014, it's actually the average has increased to 19 inches. And it's kind of surprising to many on this graph here to think that how bad last winter is. It still was not the worst. The 2008, that actually depicts some of that ice storm that we had in 2009. So where you see 2008, you're actually looking at November of 2008 to the March of 2009, and that's where you have that huge number right there. Typically, we have about three to five significant snow events per year, and when we say significant snow events, we're talking about the precipitation of snow on a particular type of day. And streets and roads, as well as other divisions, were mobilized last year 32 times, and that speaks to the very rough winter that we had last year. These are the areas of snow removal. We have the city broken up in nine different areas of responsibility for crews to address snow removal, And we have four major priorities of streets that Lexington Urban Fair County Government Snow Removal Team, if you will, or task force that is responsible for snow removal. And also we have certain emergency routes. These are some of the major state and local roads that we have, high traffic volumes that we try to address as a high priority item as well. We typically will have additional routes to be added each year. A lot of this is based upon several different things, not only Fayette County Public Schools, but also new development that have been added as a result of the city growing. And so we'll have certain intersections that will be added to our list of responsibilities, as well as when private streets become public. Oftentimes, once they have been accepted as public streets, we then incur responsibility for snow removal on those streets as well. The streets, by priorities, it's important for the public to understand this. We try to address some of the major streets first. This is based upon the traffic volume and the access to emergency services in certain areas. And so we have the streets throughout our community ranked in terms of priority. So from one through four, the four meaning happens to be the most number of streets, but they are the local streets, and they may not have as much in terms of traffic volume as some of the priority one and priority two streets. local Lexington or Fayette County government also plows state roads and again when the public needs streets paved they don't care who's doing it oftentimes or they don't really understand who is responsible for what locally we are responsible for a lot of the state roads within New Circle Road So that culminates to about 134 lane miles within New Circle Road that we're responsible for snow removal each year. And I believe this has been an interest to some of the members of this committee. There's about 15 different bridges and 26 hills along some of these priority routes that we do try to give special attention to. trucks we will send to these areas to recheck to see if whether or not there's any additional ice buildup after these roads have already been passed the first time around. We try to increase our capacity each year. Within a 12-hour shift, one truck can plow approximately 30 lane miles in order to, if we were to try to increase that to two shifts, that would, it could potentially cost roughly around $180,000 in equipment and an additional $60,000 in staff people to be able to add additional staff shifts. In years past, we may have only had 39 trucks to perform plowing. Now we have up to 46. Our salt status as it is now, we have 2,400 tons. And our current salt budget is at $700,000 for this year. In the interim time between during and after the budgetary sessions, the overall cost of salt had increased from $60 to $77 per ton. It was about a 28% increase. As a result of this new amount, we'll be able to have over 9,000 tons of salt. And currently, we already have enough salt to last us two snow events. And as I stated previously, we average three to five snow events per year. So we at least have enough to be able to last two events with what it is that we have on hand already. And we generally speak and have at a minimum of 6,000 tons of salt that we would have stored at our Frankfurt Pike facility. Excellent. Any questions? Thank you very much. It was excellent. There are a few questions. First is Councilmember Stennett. Thank you, Chair. Professor, thank you for the annual update on our snow and ice plan. A couple questions for you. I know we have two roads that are hills that are not on this list, so we asked to be added three years ago because we get the call every year. Cars can't get up, cars can't get up. What's the process for us to add to the hill list? Just send you an email? How do we go about that? Albert probably knows one of them, I'm going to add, but he's done it so many times. Albert knows a lot about this, more so than I do. I'll let him. Yeah, just I guess the best way to do it would probably be go through the next call. Okay. Just have, because we get the calls every year, so we're trying to get ahead of the game this year. Right. And that's not a problem. And just to add to Chester's presentation is that we, the calls that come in the next call, we respond to all of them. Not to say we do them all, but we will go check them out and respond to all of them. Okay. They're just permanent hills. They don't move, so I just want to see it added to the list. Thank you. And then the next question, and Council Member Farmer and Council Member Kay were in on our budget length this past year. And what we were told specifically, and the reason why we recommended reducing the salt budget, was the price of salt will not change until July of 2015. And now today it says it went up 28%, and that was very different information than what we were told in that council link, and the reason why we made that recommendation to keep it the same. So what happened? That would be something for our budgeting people or purchasing people, but Detroit Salt did not honor the $60.49. And I think it had expired, and so they gave us a price of $77.40 or $70, whatever it is. $77.40. $77.40, they gave us that price, and that was the best price. Yeah, I'm sure you got the best price. But during that meeting, we were told our contract, when they double-checked on it with purchasing that it ran through next year. Yes. That we had nothing to worry about. Right. And now 28% is a big jump that we had in planning on our budget. Well, I understand that. I think it's important for the council to know that even with the budget and the price increase we've had, we will have sufficient amount of salt on hand for the typical winter. Usually that's about 12,000 tons of salt. So we will, with the $2,400 that we have and the $9,000 that we're able to purchase, with the amount that you budgeted, we will have enough for the typical winter. That doesn't mean that's what we'll have, but nevertheless. The other point on the salt is, for you all to know, is that we do have a shipment that is coming in the first part of November. so we will have more than just enough for the two snow events before we hope any snow event occurs to us. We're due to get, if my memory is right, about 3,500 tons. Isn't that right, Albert? Within the first week or two of November. So we'll have almost 6,000 tons of salt on hand at that stage. Well, thank you. That definitely helps us make our decisions, and we're ready to go on the winter. But if we could get us a copy of that contract, because we pulled it last year during April, and we all sat in a budgeting room. Thank you, Chair. That's going to be my specific question. Thank you, sir. Vice Mayor Gorton. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Chester, for your presentation. My first question is, have you read the Farmer's Almanac? They're predicting a winter even worse than last winter. Yes, ma'am. I did see that, and I brought it to Mr. Miller's attention because I noticed that, too. And I don't know how the Farmer's Almanac really is a pretty good predictor. For some reason, they get this and know how to predict. But I thought that was rather discouraging that our winter is supposed to be worse than last winter. But I have just a quick technical detail question. On page 8 of your presentation, page 34 of our packet, areas likely to freeze. Several years ago when Leo McMillan was our director of streets and roads, I received a lot of calls from people out on DeLong Road. The DeLong Road, when it comes into, it dead ends into Tate's Creek, it is a downhill slope. And they, at that time, Leo had added it to the hills to be sure that they looked at it to be salted because it's very dangerous people coming into Tate's Creek and sliding right into the Tate's Creek traffic. So I wonder if you could look at that end of DeLong Road in terms of your hill list. Or maybe Albert has an answer to that. Yeah, we have addressed that, and that's part of our county run. Okay. And that's kind of the first end of our county that we try to do, which DeLong Road, if we're coming from, yeah, DeLong Road would be one of the first roads that we actually get to. Okay, well, I knew you had addressed it years ago, and I didn't know if these are just hills that are inside the urban service boundary, are they? No. Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry. Yes, they are. So it's a different, under a different. It is. And that's some of the places that we try to pre-treat, too. That's one thing that we didn't mention today. Okay. We pre-treat the South County, especially around the river and stuff, because there's so many hills down there. Yes. And that really helps us out. Okay. Okay. Well, I appreciate that very much, and good work. Chester, welcome aboard. Thank you. And I appreciate your information. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Mazzotti. Thank you, Chair. A couple of things. I guess Commissioner Holmes might be the one to answer this question. We're talking about salt. It's kind of timely. I just received an email saying that the Kentucky League of Cities is learning from our member cities that there is a potentially severe supply and demand issue for our cities for road salt. We're getting reports that even the suppliers are having a difficult time obtaining road salt. Have you been apprised of that at all? We have heard that. We have a contract with Detroit Salt. We'll figure out why the increase, and we're looking up on that, but we do have a contract with them to supply that. So we're okay in that respect? I mean, we're going to have the amount of salt necessary. So as far as you know, there's no change in them not delivering to us for anything, is it? No, there's not been a change as far as delivery goes. But the vendors that we've talked, or the suppliers that we've been talking to, saying that it's hard for them to keep up with the supply and demand. Sure, that's understandable. And they're working around the clock just trying to keep up, and that could be part of the issue. But we do have a contract for 15,000, up to 15,000 tons. Okay, and second of all, with salt, and you have to educate me on this, at a certain temperature, it doesn't do anything to the roadways, and I'm not sure everybody understands that. It becomes less effective. Is there a certain, you know what that temperature is, by the way? Once it gets down around 20 degrees or so, but then we have an additive that we use. We use liquid calcium chloride to treat it with, and that helps it to work at a lower temperature. So it does eventually get rid of the ice that's on the roadways? That is correct. Okay. And I guess the last thing is, is I'm not sure if it's a question, or I guess it is a question. You know, probably our office and all of our offices, council members, when it snows and these streets don't get plowed, boy, our phones ring. And, you know, rightfully so, everyone needs to get out and they need to go to work and the kids, you know, want to have to go to school and appointments and so forth. And I know you mentioned that there's an additional cost in reference to this. When do you decide that, okay, you know, we've had a, since we're going to have such a, you know, difficult winter, I guess that's the way to term it, do you say, okay, we need to put the extra crews out, we need to get some extra equipment? I mean, have you got a plan for that just in case we have this continually, you know, cold weather, snowy weather, and that type of thing? All that we would actually have in place, and this is what we've had in place historically, is contractors. If we get so much snow and we start getting behind, yes, we'll hire contractors with graders or whatever else that they can provide for us to help out. And do we have a priority because we're a city? I mean, do we have any kind of leverage, so to speak? We don't have a – we're not one of their priorities, really, but we do have some contractors that work for us year-round that would certainly help us out. And we also have a grader of our own that we have used in past winters. So we do have additional equipment. Our problem, I guess, would be the resources to staff them with. I'm just thinking ahead. It always becomes, you know, when it happens and that's when the difficulty is. So in preparing the snow plan, I had occasion to look back on the history of the presentation that was made to you. And we have increased the capacity of the snow plows. Typically, since I think it was 2008 or 2009, we only had 30-some, and now we've got 46. I think as this winter goes on, we need to reassess whether the typical winter Lexington gets is any longer the typical winter. And if it isn't, and there is a trend for worse winters, then we may need to think about adding capacity. But the problem we've got is that one snowplow costs $180,000, and the way we use them is on 12-hour double shifts. So we work them 24 hours straight on hand. So you would need two additional employees, and that's about an additional $100,000, $50,000 with benefits included in there. So you're looking at a quarter of a million dollars to add one snowplow to our system. It does get us 60 more lane miles in that 24-hour period of the cycle, but we just really have to look at the balance between the cost for it and whether the weather events warrant us adding that kind of expense to the budget. I do think it is worthy of us looking at that and seeing whether this is a weather trend that has changed enough that justifies us considering that in the future. I guess this winter will tell then, won't it? Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. And Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just had a couple quick questions. One, what is the process for getting a street added to either the snow removal list or the areas likely to freeze list? Well, as far as the areas, the factors, as far as adding streets, as I mentioned earlier, oftentimes in the past, this has been through council members' suggestions. And as I stated earlier, Fair County Public Schools and any changes in their bus routes from one year to the next, that also plays as a factor as well as new development being added. And as Mr. Miller mentioned earlier, we always try to examine as far as the areas likely to freeze and adding that as certain streets that we want to pay special attention to as well. So all of that is part of our service factors into adding new streets to the list. Okay. So, you know, in the past we've had this conversation about getting in particular cul-de-sacs added. And I know they're really difficult because of everything about them. They're one way and they're narrow and those kinds of things. But looking at those areas likely to freeze list, that might be the real opportunity. I have some cul-de-sacs in the district that are either at the top of a hill or bottom of a hill. And people can't get up. It snows during the day. When they get home, they can't get up. Or it snows overnight and they're scared to death going down because it kicks out into another street and they're afraid they can't stop. So if we added those to some of those to the areas likely to freeze, do you guys have equipment like pickups or smaller trucks or like a three-quarter ton truck that has salt in the back that might just be able to roll through and salt that and come back out and not deal with moving snow but to get some salt down? Sure. Yes, we do. We have our pickup trucks that we typically do just that. And it's a public safety issue. if it's on a hill, and we do respond to them. But if you can just email me or LexCall, however you would like to do it, those are things that we do look at. Okay. And one of the big problems for our cul-de-sacs is, of course, the parking. Right. And then there's no place to put the snow. To move the snow, right. And you either block a mailbox, a driveway, so that's just part of the cul-de-sac issue. Sure. I think, looking at this, I think the real opportunity is maybe getting some salt down. If you can't move snow, I realize that if there's a heavy snow, salt won't do anything. But maybe that's the real key is when it's iced up that we can get some salt back there. And we'll certainly look at it. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, sir. Anyone else on this topic at this time? I would just say that the three of us on the link still have specific interest in the details of that contract, but this is a great plan. We look forward to you not having to use it. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right, next up is our electrical inspection fees. The presentation is in the packet. It starts on page 38, originally placed in committee by the vice mayor. Do you want to make any comments, vice mayor, or just let them make a presentation? Just a couple of comments. This issue is, I thought it was very worthy of us discussing because we have not looked at the electrical inspection fees for five years. And as everybody knows, five years is kind of a long time, and costs have risen, and I thought it would be worth our time to take a look at it and see what we thought. And I know that Steve Vickroy provided us with a lot of good information. So thank you. He is here and signed up to speak. However, I think first we're going to hear from the commissioner. We're going to do kind of a joint presentation. Very good. So I'm going to give part of it, and then we're going to let Mr. Jones and Mr. Fickroy come up at that point. And I will say this. I'll let you guys decide how you want to do questions, because when it comes down to a lot of the details in terms of expenses, in terms of fees, in terms of the rationale for increasing fees, they are the experts, and I will direct a lot of that to them. So when we get to that point where you have questions, I'll leave it to you as to how you would like to handle that. And we will get started. Thank you, sir. Electrical inspection, we're going to kind of talk just briefly, give you an overview, because this is a little bit different process than the way that we do our other inspections within building inspection. So we'll give an overview of the process, what our fees are, and one of the things as well is this, as Vice Mayor alluded to, the review process. There is currently no review process right now. It's very ad hoc, and that is one of the concerns that we have about this. So, again, I'm not sure if many people know this, but we permit electrical. We do electrical permits but do not perform the inspections. The inspections have been contracted out and have always been contracted out. We have actually never conducted any of the electrical inspections. And since 1996, we have used a single outside entity in terms of they have won the bid process every year, and that is Commonwealth Inspection Bureau. And they are, again, here today to discuss the fee increase as well as be able to answer any of those questions for you. The contract is a one-year contract, renewable for five more years, so it is a six-year contract, ostensibly. The way that it works, they collect the fees for the inspections. So the council sets the fees. The fees are then collected. That is the way that they derive income from this. They are set, the fees are set in the code of the ordinances, section 5-76. And within that, the other things, and this is just a few little things that are within there, but some of the things that are required within this bid process, which are within the ordinance, there is a minimum of three inspectors. Obviously, there can be more. Inspections must be performed within 24 hours. And from everything I hear from, I've talked to numerous home builders, I've talked to the Home Builders Association, there are no complaints at all about that 24-hour time period. In fact, I've never received a complaint from anyone, and when I've asked, service is always done well. Minimum of three vehicles for the staff and a local office and required hours of service. They basically have to be open at least eight hours a day during normal business hours, Monday through Friday. And, again, be on call if needed. In terms of the fee increase request, getting to it, again, that's a little bit of the background. There have been three previous fee increases. And, again, you can see there's really not a rhyme or reason. There is no process to set this so that we have a time for you guys to hear from them to see if it's geared along any other time periods. 91, 2002, and 2009 were the last ones that have gone, the last fee increases. In terms of why, and again, having taken over building inspection last year, they did come to me last November. They had previously attempted to start the discussion on fee increases. before the handoff of building inspection to the Department of Planning. And starting on page 55 in your handouts, you can see the information that they provided me last November for the reasons for the price increase. So if you're looking for the rationale, there's some here. And again, they can provide you more information should you have questions. But there are changes in the National Electric Code. Those changes are ostensibly every three years. It is reviewed. The National Electric Code is reviewed. and there may be changes that come into effect every three years. There were some in the most recent change that have impacted their costs. There are changes at the state level as well. The Department of Housing and Building and Construction has also made some changes which have increased their own printing costs and the process through which electrical inspections are handled. And then there are just the average inspection or their increased expenses as well. And, again, in the handouts there are some of those, and we will provide some of the detail here as well to this. And, again, it's in your handouts. This is probably a little bit difficult to read. This was what was provided in the letter to the vice mayor in April, providing, again, just basic expenses from January through August for both 2009 and 2013, and it's showing what those differences are. and then this was provided from January of this year through 24 through October of this year. This was provided for purposes of this presentation. This gives the total inspections, inspection fees, and the expenses for the last few years, including that 2013, which we have more detailed information about in terms of the expenses. And that is the next slide. which gives a much more detailed breakdown in terms of expenses for 2011, 2012, and 2013. Again, this is something you can go through individually if you have individual questions, but you can kind of see the general costs that are associated with the inspection process. In terms of their proposed fee increases, we've kind of just followed along. This is, for the most part, there's also a handout in here on page, and it's a little bit, there has been a slight change, but on page, let me see if I can find the page here, I'm sorry. Of course, I can't find it. On page 66 is the updated, and then on page 64, I believe, is where this handout is taken from, or from where this is associated in the handouts. The increases for residential as we go along here, $10 increase from $45 for the first 10 circuits to $55. Again, rewire inspections, again, around about a $10 increase. The re-inspection return trips fees stay the same. And, again, there are slight changes in here. $10 for the service fee for final inspection for up to 10 fixtures, and then there is a change in the way it works, 50 cents for each fixture over 10 versus some of the other prices in there. Again, the details you can see. A $10 increase from $45 to $55 for temporary on permanent inspection and manufactured or mobile home inspections. Apartments changed from $45 for the first unit and $12 for each to $30 for each. Same with final inspections. And then the final are contracts over $50,000 and more. Previously, it was 1% of the total cost for the first $300,000. three-quarters of 1% for the cost if it was between $300,000 and $600,000, and a half of a percent for all construction costs over $600,000. That has been a proposed change for contracts over $30,000 to be 1% of the total cost for the first $2 million and three-quarters of 1% for all construction costs over $2 million. We'll go into just the review process, which is just the other part. Again, I mentioned earlier that we have had an ad hoc basis for our review. There was no rhyme or reason in 91, 2002, and 2009. A lot of it had to do with the ability of Commonwealth Inspection Bureau to bend the ear of commissioners and others to get this brought up. And I think that's one thing we need to be looking at is there are changes. This can lead to an imbalance if there are increases in expenses, particularly for the electrical code that changes, could change every three years and the potential for costs. So one of the recommendations is to actually have an annual or biannual report to the Planning and Public Works Committee or, as it will be, Planning and Public Safety Committee starting in January. that could include at your, again, things that you may desire, such as total inspections by type, inspection fees collected, total expenses, and then any changes that may be coming up so that we can kind of get ahead of this and you have a better understanding of where things are going, rather than even if we did it on a six-year basis with a bidding of the contract, that may be three years too late in many cases. So I think this would provide a better understanding of how many inspections we are having and what are the changes that we may see in inspections and provide a little bit better discussion for Commonwealth or any other contractor and council in terms of what those costs are and how they may need to be addressed. And at this point, I will leave the questioning to council. And again, we have Mr. Marshall and Mr. Vickroy here to provide any additional answers should you have questions. We do. I figured you might. Thank you. First is Council Member Kay. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Commissioner, for that report. I may have missed this, but in the slide it says contracts are for a one-year renewable for a five-year additional. Where are we right now in that contract and the renewable? Second year. Okay. And exactly how is this bid and what are the criteria for the bids? since they collect the fee? I mean, there's no... And there is. There is an RFP, and I've gone through it, and a lot of what is required in that RFP deals with the, you know, having certified inspectors, a minimum of three certified inspectors. And please correct me if you guys can add on this. But in looking through the RFP, a lot of it deals with qualifications. Since we've done this in this process, They have been the winning and against bidder, per se. It's not a cost bid. It's more of a service bid. So it sounds like more of a request for qualifications. And have they been competing bidders? There have been in the past. I'm not sure if there were in 2009, but I know there have been in the past. I'm surprised. So we don't know about 2009. I can check for you with Mr. Slate. I'm not sure if they would know. Okay. And if I read the numbers correctly, in 2011, 2012, 2013, it looks like in addition to all the expenses, which include salaries and wages, there's been a fair amount of profit. Am I reading this right? The slide on page 45, inspection fees, $475,000 and change, and expenses, $397,000 and 2012, et cetera. I don't have to read that. Is this the slide you were talking about? That's the slide, yes. That is my assumption as well. Okay. So in addition to paying all of the expenses, there's been in all those years a fairly substantial profit. And I would let the contractor speak to that, but that is my assumption. Okay. And then I had one other very specific question. And in 2013, at the very bottom, there's a loss due to theft of $129,000. Can you just tell us what that is? It kind of sticks out. Welcome. Yes. Just identify yourself if you would. My name is Steve Vickrell. I am the attorney that represents Commonwealth Inspection Bureau. Welcome. Thank you. Mr. K, specifically that was an employee embezzlement issue that actually took place probably over a longer period of time, but that's all that we were able to document at that point in time. And that has not been recovered, and I don't believe that employee was bonded, were they? So with that said, that was a complete loss. Okay, maybe one other question, one other number that stands out in the office supplies from 2009. It's on page 44 of the packet. Okay. Can you put it on the screen? Yeah. Can you put it on the screen? Say it one more time. I'm sorry. Can you put it on the screen? Page 44. Page 44. I've got it in front of me, but obviously you guys would want to look at it, too, that the office supplies? Yeah. If Emory serves me correct, the larger amount in 2013, is that the? Yes. It goes up just by about $3,000. It was my understanding that that included not only additional software, but also some additional equipment that was purchased. Computer. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Commissioner, for your presentation and Mr. Vickroy for being here. I think it's really important that we do this right because any cost we add will add cost to a home. And we'll get passed through to the consumer. So a couple things I was interested in. Your proposal on page 66, you were really good about giving us the scenario of expenses and fees. And so did you run the numbers on your proposal just as a way to see for information on the last year's calls and inspections and see how much money this would generate? Do you know what I'm asking? In other words, a pro forma showing what your proposed rates were. I actually did not do that specifically, but on average, with regard to the $10 increase, that's a base increase, most houses of the same size are not going to have much more in the way of outlets and fixtures that need to be inspected. That's going to be probably a number that's going to be set. So probably $10 per inspection, and there's usually the $3 per residential. I mean, a couple of your proposals are actually for decreases, if I understand this correctly. Yeah, I guess from the overall look of that, yes. But on average, though, there will be an increase when you look at, say, a particular house for the number of inspections that need to happen for it to be approved. Okay. And so one of the things that did interest me about your expenses on page 44 of the packet is that some of the ones that, of course, we've dealt with them in government, your life insurance, health insurance, and auto insurance, it looks like those all went up. Is that? Yes, that's a fair assessment. And those are possibly expenses that it's hard to control if the rates are going up that you must pay. I also wondered about the salaries. There was a page in here where you said no one had received pay raises, and yet the salary line from August to 2013 has gone up by quite a bit. So how is the no-pay raise reflected? There are bonuses that my client does provide its employees in lieu of raises from that standpoint. So the base employee salary has not changed, but sometimes the bonuses do. My client also has, certain times, has contract labor that has to be utilized. And so with that, that can be a variable cost that's included in that section. Okay. So back to the actual proposed fee schedule on 66. If you didn't run the pro forma, how is it that you determined these numbers? I'll have to defer to Mr. Jones on that particular issue. Okay. I'd like to hear it. Okay. Mr. Jones, if you will. I mean, I'm hoping you don't say you just picked him out of the air. No. Thank you, ma'am. We kind of try to, we use the consumer price index of what the percentage had went up for cost for doing business. and we just took our inspection fees and kind of used that same percentage and then tried to break it down to where we could spread it out across the board. That's how we came up with it now. Okay. And plus compared to surrounding counties and surrounding cities, compared their prices along with ours, and we just tried to get them the same level. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you. Mr. Chair, I just wanted to say it seems to me it would be really helpful for us to see that pro forma. I know it's more work. It's more work. Right. But it's important to me to understand expenses and fees coming in and how this new model would reflect that. So just one final comment on that. Thank you. So it's a question for more information. Yes. Is there another part about this that has to do with commercial inspections that we need to consider and how much they cost? I'm sorry, I didn't understand. I was actually asking the commissioner. I'm sorry, but thank you. I'm sorry. I did have a conversation with a commercial builder or two about that, and they were a little concerned with the increase the way that it was. largely, I mean, they do admit that a lot of their costs are passed on to the developer, but they were concerned that this is another additive cost in addition to other costs that are kind of making development even more expensive at commercial level. So I did pass it around to both the Home Builders Association and some commercial builders to get their take on it, and they were concerned that the increase in it. All right. Gentlemen, I would just say to you, right now we're working to come up with another time for this committee to meet between now and the end of the year, because currently we're not scheduled to meet again. We've had a call from the vice mayor, and it's been echoed by other council members for really more of the pro forma information about what this change would mean. So I'm guessing there's probably not going to be a motion to take action on this, but more or less a call for more information from you all. and we'll try to schedule a meeting as soon as we can and make you aware of it so we can have a further discussion at that time. Council Member Kay. Thank you, Chair. I have only one question for my colleagues, and that is, is the pro forma going to give us more information than we already have about what we're looking at? I'm personally not inclined to support an increase which will be passed on to the consumers given that this is a fairly profitable contract for them at this point. So if other people feel the same way, we can save them some time and effort. I just don't want them to have to go through another step and if the prevailing sentiment is the same. So that's my thought. Other people can weigh in on that and whether it makes sense to them or not. Thank you. Point taken. Thank you, sir. Vice Mayor. Thank you. As a point of just addressing in general, obviously before I provide any other additional information, I just want to let you know that retained earnings are going to have to be used to replace a fleet of vehicles. The changes in the National Electric Code, which I did not get to address today with you, are going to require at least one additional inspector in the very, very near future. and all of those expenses will be incurred without obviously any predictable increase in those fees. So with regard to the fact of the profitability that you do see, one of the things that you won't see is an expense such as that that maybe has occurred only one or every five or six years that may not appear in these numbers. So with that said, we'll try and address that for you as well in addition to obviously what you see. I had the vice mayor up first. Okay. Thank you. Well, I appreciate that because one of my questions was going to be what are the new requirements and what is the cost of the new requirements? And if you are having to put in more capital cost, vehicles or whatever, it's important for us to know that because I don't think we can assume something from the profit. I think we need to see more information. With that said, there were 35 changes to the National Electric Code that my client pointed out to me. And with that said, a number of these involved new locations and new requirements for what are called arch fault and ground fault interrupting circuits. Certain things, you know, like plugging your refrigerator in behind the refrigerator. There was an outlet to plug your refrigerator in. Now it's my understanding that cannot be behind the refrigerator. It has to be located elsewhere. It has to be now a ground fault. So with all that said, there's a lot of technical things that we'll include that I obviously just briefly described here. But, you know, the inspection time we expect is going to take us at least 50 percent longer to do that. Well, and I think that's why we need to see some more information and understand this a little bit better. Okay. And if you see it in writing, it may have more impact for you than obviously what I can describe because I'm truly not the expert in what Mr. Jones could describe for you as well. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, ma'am. Council Member Mazzotti. Well, basically, Chair, I was going to say the same thing to the Vice Mayor. In order for us to make a good decision here, we've got to have all the information. So I know it might be a little laborious, but certainly what you're telling us, and I'm kind of familiar with what you're saying, it would be helpful if we could have all that information put together and then we could take a look at the whole picture, if you wouldn't mind. All right. Thank you. Thank you for your time today. We appreciate it very much. You bet. All right. The last item up is, yes, Mr. Chair. Yes, sir? There was, and this is something you can address at a later time, but the recommendation, there is one that's not fee-related. It's just the proposal to actually come back and actually to have them come back on a regular basis. If you would like, you can discuss that at a later date as well. But to make it more of this is the one recommendation for me. Again, I'm kind of being a little bit agnostic on the fee increase. But to create a process for which they can come back on a yearly, by yearly, or once every three years, or whatever the council may desire. but to come back on a regular basis to provide you with some of this information so that this is not something we come back and they get caught behind the eight ball. Let's take that up and take up this information. All right. Noted. We'll do it then. Thank you. All right. Last up, nuisance abatement funds. I think this came to us. Whose name is attached to it? From the link, the general services link. Sir, welcome. Good afternoon. Are you feeling brief? And this item came from the General Services link. I'll try to be as quick as possible. Thank you. So it basically was a look at how we utilize our abatement funds. It was born out of a request from the Division of Planning to have some funds for abatement. And so we combined those in with our code enforcement abatement funds, and that's what we'll talk about today. So the first question is, what can the city abate? they can only abate nuisance violations. So that includes tall grass and weeds, trash and debris, shrubs or trees that are obstructing the public right-of-way, junk vehicles, and exterior storage of indoor furniture. Funding was done on an ad hoc basis until 2012 when a resolution was passed by the council, which established a fund of $200,000 annually for this activity. So you can see here's a short history from 2009 to present. Obviously, the 2015 numbers are mid-year. And obviously, you can see here, we've returned a pretty good amount of money to the general fund since that $200,000 resolution was established. And so we're really going to focus on doing a better job of utilizing these funds effectively. And the way we're going to do that is first by revising our abatement fund uses with the committee's blessing to allow zoning enforcement to have access to these to take care of some issues, which I'll talk about in a second. We're also, as part of a process of reviewing every single standard operating procedure and code enforcement, going to look at tightening up the abatement procedures timeline. We're also looking to address unenforceable abatements and unrecoverable abatements. So the first item there, and this was really what came out of the link, was to allow the Division of Planning and the zoning enforcement officials there to have access to these funds to do abatement. Some examples of things that they would probably do would be clearing obstructions from the site triangle, which would be near intersections. It's a public safety issue. And also removing illegal sign structures, which would be outside of code enforcement's right-of-way signage responsibilities. We're also looking at all of our processes. And this is a map of our current code enforcement nuisance complaint process. And you can see here the diamonds are decision points in the process, and the green boxes at the bottom are resolutions that can occur at different points. We do have a 24-hour notice and a 14-day notice. As somewhat of a caveat, the 14-day notice is actually a 10-day notice with some allowance for mailing, but just in case you were confused with the ordinances. So you can see this process has many points in it that we need to examine. The first point is how much time does it take from when we get a complaint to when the inspection occurs. We're looking at all of these actively. We also need to look at making sure we go back for a re-inspect as soon as that period is up. We're also looking at making sure we contact our contractors appropriately and then selecting that contractor in a timely manner. Now, one issue that we will have to deal with through our contracts is the amount of time between when we select the contractor and when the nuisance is actually abated. And that's not something we necessarily have direct control over through our own staff, but we need to make sure that our contractors that we're utilizing are adhering to our guidelines and however long we specify. We're also looking at unenforceable nuisances, and that would be properties where we have identified there is a nuisance condition that the city could abate. The timeline has expired. But if that property is secured by a locked gate, code enforcement is not allowed to gain entry to it. If there are conditions that pose a danger to those who are baiting the nuisance, one example obviously would maybe dogs on the property is a common example. Or also if the size or the nature of the nuisance requires some sort of special equipment. And that could be if there's just an excessive volume, like a dumping ground of some kind. or if there are environmental hazards that would require special equipment. Those are not enforceable through our standard process. However, we do have a process now in place that if a nuisance is deemed unenforceable under that criteria, that a second notice will immediately be sent following the first, and the civil penalties here at the bottom, which are already in our code of ordinances, will begin to apply. So rather than let that sit, we're going to move aggressively with enforcement through an alternative means. And the last piece is unrecoverable abatements, and we've talked a lot about this. From this point forward, if a nuisance meets the criteria for abatement, we're going to abate it. It does not matter if it's foreclosure, if we're not sure who the owner is. That is not what our ordinances specify. Whether we can recover the funds via a lien or not, we're going to go ahead and out there and abate it. we've been returning money to the general fund. There's no reason for us to not go out and aggressively abate the nuisances that we have deemed abatable. So the summary is pretty basic here. We are going to ask you for your blessing to expand abatements to zoning enforcement. We're actively looking at cutting the time to abate. We're creating a standard enforcement mechanism for those that we cannot abate, and we're also looking to address more types of property. So with that, I'll be... Well reported. Thank you, sir. There are a couple of questions, but I appreciate your work very much. First up is Council Member Lawless. Thank you very much. I just love abatement of nuisances. on page the first page expand abatements to zoning enforcement could you give me some examples and create a standard there's three of them there that talk about expanding abatements to zoning enforcement. So some examples on this slide, we have a couple here. Clearing obstructions from the site triangle. So that would be, could be shrubs, could be landscaping that's planted within the intersection site triangle as specified by our zoning ordinance and code of ordinances, or it could be other types of structures in that area. They would now, rather than just send the $75 violation, they would now actually be able to abate those nuisances for public safety reasons, obviously. Another one would be illegal sign structures. Some, not all illegal sign structures, we may be able to remove. And that would be ones that are outside of code enforcement's normal scope, which obviously code enforcement can pick up signs in the right of way. But if those signs are not in the right of way, but they're in a legal structure, code enforcement is not able to do anything about that. This would allow our zoning enforcement officers to actually take a little bit more of a proactive role in getting compliance on those issues. When did zoning start doing the site triangle stuff? Zoning has, they have always done part of the site triangle. Their code enforcement has some within the right of way, but outside of the right of way, the site triangle is handled by the zoning enforcement folks. Can you give me an example of one that would be out of the right of way? There could, well, it really depends on the layout of the intersection. So it's hard for me to say offhand, but there certainly could be areas within the site triangle that would be outside of that. I will stress that's just one example. There could be lots of examples that zoning enforcement would use abatement in. What about gravel? Gravel? I'm not, you know, that's something we'll have to discuss. There's obviously some guidelines that will have to be in place about what they will abate. You know, there's a variety of zoning issues with gravel, certainly. I'm not sure if we would be able to abate all of those necessarily, all of those violations. There's some complexity to that issue as well. I understand that if it is existing, people are allowed to refresh that gravel. So we would have to figure out guidelines for what would be abatable by zoning enforcement. I guess when we moved, gravel used to be under illegal gravel dumping. In other words, refreshing a driveway and then the entire yard's refreshed that didn't have gravel. and the entire time I've been on council, that has been an ongoing issue in the 3rd District. I probably have a folder this thick, just about gravel. And it was in building inspection, and so their only recourse was to take it to court. and we changed the ordinance to take things that were local ordinances but not in the state building inspection and make them civil penalties with the intention that then code enforcement would take over those inspections and abatements and et cetera. But somehow... Actually, all of the zoning enforcement functions used to be housed within the Division of Building Inspection, so they did have that criminal process. They've now all been moved to the Division of Planning. So all of those employees now work under the Division of Planning. Yeah, and that certainly, when that was done, was not the intention or the expectation. It was that they could then go to a civil penalty through code enforcement, who has the appeals process already set up. and many of those that were changed, it doesn't make sense. I don't know why zoning. But today, six years, it'll be six years and about six weeks that I've been on council. So not one illegal gravel dumping, to my knowledge, has been abated. That is correct. Zoning enforcement does not currently have the ability to abate any of those. They don't find them. They don't do anything. Okay. And so the intention was that things like that, code enforcement already has a fee structure, and it certainly is a nuisance. And they also have the ability to contract to abate, and they have the appeals process in place. And that was the thinking of the council when we passed that, if it was a local ordinance and building inspection, that code enforcement would then be the inspectors and it would go through their appeals process and they would have the right to abate it. But somewhere that just got changed without council's approval or. I can't speak necessarily to the hold. It's three o'clock. I have one other person up. Is there a Q&A or can you just pause for a moment? Well, I can pause and we can come back. But this is really, really serious. And it's not just gravel. So if we could keep this on the thing and maybe next month talk about it again. I'll shut up. Council Member Kay. Thank you, Chair. Just as brief as I can be. First, thank you for the work. This is an important step forward. It's been an issue for a long time, and in particular, the question of nuisance being abated, if it meets the criteria. I can tell you anecdotally, properties in the north side of town where I live, I could not get code enforcement to take action. And more recently, they have begun. And I don't know if they've got the full word yet, but I hope that all staff understands that when they get a call on a bill, because I had staff tell me as recently as, I don't know, six, eight months ago, that they could not do an abatement on a property because there was an unclear title. And I basically tried to remind them that that's not the case. So all that's good. Thank you for the work, and what would it take to get that change to add the additional abatement? Zoning enforcement. At this point, we certainly need the law department to review any of the necessary legal changes. If I bring something back along with the House of Member Wallace's question. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. This issue will not leave committee. I appreciate your time. If there's other follow-up questions, we'll have to take up next time. I would just say to the members of the council that right now the committee structure scheduling is full, so we'll have to ask someone to give up a meeting in order for us to have another meeting this year, but I'll be talking to some individually about that. For now, though, I'd ask for a motion to adjourn. So moved. And a second. Second. All in favor, we're adjourned. Thank you. you