# Council Work Session - January 29, 2008 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Council · January 29, 2008 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/350 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/350?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2008-01-29 - **Body**: Council - **Last revised**: February 2, 2026 - **Length**: 27,618 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude Sonnet. Speaker labels and verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council convened on January 29, 2008, at 3:05 PM with Mayor Newberry presiding. The Council addressed six agenda items during the session, all of which were approved. The meeting included three recorded motions and votes, covering various municipal agreements and administrative matters. Two public comments were heard during the proceedings, allowing community input on the items under consideration. The Council successfully completed all business on the agenda, approving contracts for engineering services, easement acceptances, utility access agreements, street name changes, professional services, and construction change orders. ## Attendance All council members were present for the January 29, 2008 meeting. **Present:** • Mayor Newberry • CM Peggy Henson • CM Blues • CM McChord • CM Ellinger • CM Myers • CM Stevens • CM Crosbie • CM DeCamp • CM Stinnett • CM Gorton • CM Beard • CM Blevins • CM James • CM Lane • CM Lucas • CM Bennett • CM Martin • CM Taylor • CM McFadden • CM King • CM D. Kelly **Absent:** None **Late:** None The meeting achieved full attendance with all 22 council members and the Mayor present. ## Votes and Decisions The Council took action on three motions during the January 29, 2008 meeting. **New Business Items A-F** CM Beard moved to approve new business items A-F, with CM Blevins providing the second. The motion passed unanimously. **Water Supply Analysis Contract** CM Stevens moved to retain Kenneth Troske for analysis of water supply proposals, seconded by CM Gorton. This motion failed on a roll call vote with 7 ayes and 8 nays [timestamp: 06:15:00]. Voting in favor were: • CM Stevens • CM Gorton • CM Blues • CM Beard • CM Blevins • CM James • CM Lane Voting against were: • CM McChord • CM Ellinger • CM Myers • CM Crosbie • CM DeCamp • CM Stinnett • CM Lucas • CM Bennett **ICLEI Membership Authorization** CM Stinnett moved to authorize membership in ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives), with CM McCord seconding the motion. The motion passed on a voice vote. ## Budget and Financial Actions The Council approved several financial agreements and contract modifications during the January 29, 2008 meeting. **Engineering Services Contract** The Council authorized an Engineering Services Agreement with Strand Associates, Inc. for $42,500 under Resolution 048-08. This contract will provide professional engineering services to the city. **Storm Sewer Easement** Resolution 050-08 approved the acceptance of a Deed of Permanent Storm Sewer and Drainage Easement valued at $8,500. This easement will provide the city with permanent rights for storm water management infrastructure. **Medical Professional Services** Under Resolution 056-08, the Council approved a Professional Service Agreement with Jessica Collins, SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner). The agreement authorizes payment not to exceed the reasonable cost of a prepaid annual premium for medical liability insurance, ensuring continued availability of specialized medical services. **Construction Contract Modification** The Council approved Change Order No. 2 to the existing contract with Randle Davies Construction Company through Resolution 049-08. This change order reduces the contract amount by $12,484.10, representing cost savings on the construction project. These financial actions demonstrate the Council's ongoing commitment to infrastructure improvements, professional services, and fiscal responsibility through contract modifications that achieve cost savings for the city. ## Public Comment The Council meeting on January 29, 2008, included two designated public comment periods, but no members of the public participated in either session. **Public Comment — Issues on Agenda** No public comments were made regarding items scheduled for discussion on the meeting agenda. **Public Comment — Issues Not on Agenda** No public comments were made regarding issues not included on the meeting agenda. Both public comment periods concluded without any community input or citizen participation. ## Contested Items The Council faced one significant contested item during the January 29, 2008 meeting that resulted in a closely divided vote. **Retaining Kenneth Troske for Water Supply Analysis** The primary point of contention involved a motion to retain Kenneth Troske to conduct an analysis of water supply proposals. This item generated substantial disagreement among council members, ultimately resulting in a narrow defeat by a vote of 8-7. The close margin of this vote - with only a single vote determining the outcome - highlighted the deep division within the Council regarding this particular consultant engagement. The split decision suggests that council members held differing views on either the necessity of the analysis, the selection of Kenneth Troske as the consultant, the scope of work proposed, or the associated costs. The failure of this motion means that the Council will not be moving forward with retaining Troske's services for the water supply proposal analysis at this time. The narrow margin suggests that supporters of the motion may seek to revisit this issue in future meetings or explore alternative approaches to obtaining the desired analysis. This contested vote demonstrates the challenging nature of water supply decision-making, which often involves complex technical considerations, significant financial implications, and varying perspectives on the best path forward for municipal water management. *Note: Specific transcript timestamps are not available for this contested item.* ## Engineering Services Agreement with Strand Associates, Inc. The Council considered a resolution to authorize an Engineering Services Agreement with Strand Associates, Inc. for $42,500 to provide laboratory services for the Department of Environmental Quality. Council Members Martin and Taylor participated in the discussion of this agenda item. The agreement would establish a contract with Strand Associates, Inc. to perform specialized laboratory services needed by the city's Department of Environmental Quality. The proposed contract amount of $42,500 represents the authorized spending limit for these environmental laboratory services. The services appear to be related to environmental testing and analysis work that the Department of Environmental Quality requires but cannot perform in-house. The Council approved the resolution, authorizing the city to enter into the engineering services agreement with Strand Associates, Inc. This approval allows the Department of Environmental Quality to proceed with contracting for the necessary laboratory services within the established budget of $42,500. The agreement represents a standard procurement of professional services to support the city's environmental quality monitoring and compliance activities. By contracting with Strand Associates, Inc., the city gains access to specialized laboratory capabilities and expertise that supplement the Department of Environmental Quality's operations. ## Acceptance of a Deed of Permanent Storm Sewer and Drainage Easement The Council considered a resolution to accept a deed for a Permanent Storm Sewer and Drainage Easement, along with a Temporary Construction Easement, located at 226 Westwood Court. This easement is required for the Elizabeth Street Drainage Improvements Project. The agenda item involved authorization for the city to accept the easement deed, which would grant the municipality the necessary rights to install and maintain storm sewer infrastructure on the private property. The easement also includes temporary construction rights to facilitate the drainage improvement work. Council Members Martin and Taylor participated in the discussion of this item. The resolution was presented as part of the city's ongoing efforts to improve drainage infrastructure in the Elizabeth Street area. The Council approved the resolution, allowing the city to formally accept the easement deed and proceed with the necessary drainage improvements at the Westwood Court location. This approval enables the Elizabeth Street Drainage Improvements Project to move forward with the required infrastructure work on the affected property. ## Access Agreement with Verizon South, Inc. The Council considered a resolution to authorize the city to enter into an Access Agreement with Verizon South, Inc. for conducting a limited subsurface investigation at Shilito Park. The agreement would grant Verizon South, Inc. permission to perform subsurface investigation work at the park location. The specific details of the investigation scope and duration were not elaborated upon during the discussion. Council Members McFadden and Taylor participated in the discussion of this agenda item, though the specific nature of their comments or any concerns they may have raised were not detailed in the available materials. The resolution was approved by the Council, allowing the city to move forward with executing the Access Agreement with Verizon South, Inc. This approval enables the telecommunications company to proceed with their planned subsurface investigation activities at Shilito Park under the terms and conditions established in the agreement. The approval of this access agreement represents a routine administrative action allowing a utility company to conduct necessary infrastructure assessment work on city property while ensuring appropriate oversight and coordination with municipal authorities. ## Resolution to Change Street Names and Individual Addresses The Council considered a resolution to authorize changes to street names and individual addresses across multiple districts to support the Enhanced 9-1-1 System implementation. The resolution affects properties within Council Districts 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, and 12. The street name and address changes are being made to improve emergency response capabilities and ensure compatibility with the Enhanced 9-1-1 System, which provides more precise location information to emergency dispatchers. Council Members Lucas and Bennett participated in the discussion of this agenda item. The resolution addresses the technical requirements needed to support the upgraded emergency response system, which relies on accurate and standardized address information to quickly locate callers in need of assistance. The Enhanced 9-1-1 System represents a significant upgrade from traditional emergency calling systems, allowing dispatchers to automatically receive location information and better coordinate emergency responses. The street name and address changes covered by this resolution are necessary to eliminate duplicate street names, resolve addressing conflicts, and ensure that all properties have unique, clearly identifiable addresses that work effectively with the new system. The Council approved the resolution, authorizing the implementation of the street name and individual address changes across the eight affected districts. This approval allows city staff to proceed with notifying affected property owners and coordinating with relevant agencies to implement the changes in support of the Enhanced 9-1-1 System rollout. ## Professional Service Agreement with Jessica Collins, SANE The Council considered a resolution to authorize a Professional Service Agreement with Jessica Collins, SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner), for the performance of forensic examinations at the University of Kentucky Emergency Room. Council Members King and Bennett participated in the discussion of this agenda item. The agreement would enable Collins to provide specialized forensic examination services for sexual assault cases, utilizing the facilities at the University of Kentucky Emergency Room. The resolution was approved by the Council, authorizing the city to enter into the professional service agreement with Collins for these forensic examination services. *Note: Specific transcript timestamps are not available for this agenda item.* ## Change Order No. 2 to Contract with Randle Davies Construction Company The Council considered a resolution to authorize Change Order No. 2 to the contract with Randle Davies Construction Company for the Brighton East Rail Trail Phase 1 — 2007 project. The change order would decrease the contract amount by $12,484.10. Council Members King and D. Kelly participated in the discussion of this agenda item. The change order represented a reduction in the overall project cost, indicating that the work was completed for less than the originally contracted amount. The Council approved the change order, allowing for the contract adjustment and the associated cost savings for the Brighton East Rail Trail Phase 1 project. *Note: Specific transcript timestamps are not available for this agenda item.* --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approve new business items A-F - **Motion** — failed (7-8): Retain Kenneth Troske for analysis of water supply proposals - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Authorize membership in ICLEI --- ## Full transcript ПОДПИШИТЕСЬ НА КАНАЛ И НЕ МЕНЯЙТЕ СВОЮ КАНАЛИЗАЦИЮ! ПОДПИШИТЕСЬ НА КАНАЛ И НЕ МЕНЯЙТЕ СВОЮ КАНАЛИЗАЦИЮ! ПОДПИШИТЕСЬ НА КАНАЛ И НЕ МЕНЯЙТЕ СВОЮ КАНАЛИЗАЦИЮ! ПОДПИШИТЕСЬ НА КАНАЛ И НЕ МЕНЯЙТЕ СВОЮ КАНАЛИЗАЦИЮ! ПОДПИШИТЕСЬ НА КАНАЛ И НЕ МЕНЯЙТЕ СВОЮ КАНАЛИЗАЦИЮ! ПОДПИШИТЕСЬ НА КАНАЛ И НЕ МЕНЯЙТЕ СВОЮ КАНАЛИЗАЦИЮ! ПОДПИШИТЕСЬ НА КАНАЛ И НЕ МЕНЯЙТЕ СВОЮ КАНАЛИЗАЦИЮ! ПОДПИШИТЕСЬ НА КАНАЛ И НЕ МЕНЯЙТЕ СВОЮ КАНАЛИЗАЦИЮ! ПОДПИШИТЕСЬ НА КАНАЛ И НЕ МЕНЯЙТЕ СВОЮ КАНАЛИЗАЦИЮ! ПОДПИШИТЕСЬ НА КАНАЛ И НЕ МЕНЯЙТЕ СВОЮ КАНАЛИЗАЦИЮ! ПОДПИШИТЕСЬ НА КАНАЛ И НЕ МЕНЯЙТЕ СВОЮ КАНАЛИЗАЦИЮ! ПОДПИШИТЕСЬ НА КАНАЛ И НЕ МЕНЯЙТЕ СВОЮ КАНАЛИЗАЦИЮ! ПОДПИШИТЕСЬ НА КАНАЛ И НЕ МЕНЯЙТЕ СВОЮ КАНАЛИЗАЦИЮ! ПОДПИШИТЕСЬ НА КАНАЛ И НЕ МЕНЯЙТЕ СВОЮ КАНАЛИЗАЦИЮ! ПОДПИШИТЕСЬ НА КАНАЛ И НЕ МЕНЯЙТЕ СВОЮ КАНАЛИЗАЦИЮ! This is a presentation on the TIF programs and the different types of programs available. And the motion which came out of that, which is that Council Member Beard moved and Council Member James seconded that the Council have a meeting workshop prior to a 7 o'clock Thursday Council meeting, February 7th, to see an updated draft and revised presentation with further discussion of the TIF. And that meeting, it's moved that that meeting be held at 5 o'clock on February 7th. So moved. I have a motion with Council Member Gordon, a second with Council Member Myers to hold a meeting on the TIF at 5 o'clock on February 7th. Any discussion? Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries unanimously. And Mayor, it would be in the form of a workshop with Harold Tate and with Kim Bryant to educate Council Members on what's available and where we are in our process with potential TIFs. And so the second issue which Planning Committee discussed was the land bank. And this presentation was also given by Harold Tate and Kim Bryant. And a motion coming out of that discussion is a motion by Council Member Stephens, seconded by Council Member James to proceed with a Memorandum of Understanding or Interlocal Cooperation Agreement with the Board of Education and the Commonwealth of Kentucky. That agreement should go to our law department, or that motion should go to our law department to begin crafting the Memorandum of Understanding. So moved. Is there a second? Second from Council Member Beard. Any discussion? Those in favor, please vote aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. That Memorandum of Understanding is the first step to forming a land bank authority. And so we felt it was very important to get the ball rolling. If we're going to have a land bank, there are several steps that need to be taken, and this will be the first. And the third item which was discussed was trailer parks and all of the issues which go along with trailer parks, including quality of life issues, code enforcement issues, building inspection issues. And coming out of that discussion is a motion by Council Member Stephens, seconded by Council Member Beard to form a subcommittee of the Planning Committee to research trailer parks and the associated issues. Council Member James will chair the committee, and on that committee will be Council Members Beard, Blues, and Stennett. And this subcommittee will report back to the Planning Committee. And I don't think that motion requires Council action at this point, Mayor. And that concludes my report. Thank you. Does any member have questions for Council Member Gordon? Seeing none, we'll move along. It is my pleasure to ask to come to the podium now Lynn Simon. I know some of you have had an opportunity to meet Lynn previously, but many of you have not. Lynn and the folks with his firm represent us in Washington. And Lynn is here today to tell us a little bit about some of the things that he has been doing on behalf of Urban County Government in Frankfurt, and so I'll turn the podium over to Lynn. Well, thank you, Mayor. It's a pleasure to be here and been here since yesterday and had the opportunity to meet with, of course, you and many of the staff and department heads. We did have the opportunity to also put together this PowerPoint that's showing up on the screen. I'm awfully proud of this PowerPoint because it represents a real coming of age for me. It means that I'm getting closer and closer to the ability of my 14-year-old in PowerPoints. As a matter of fact, when I showed him this on Sunday, he said, I was doing this in the second grade, so it just kind of shows where we are. But it really is a pleasure and an honor to be participating in the Lexington-Fayette or Urban County Government process with our job to help you in Washington. Just turning the page a little bit, you see that I just wanted to cover about ten subjects real fast. First, give you a little bit of background on who we are and what we do. Secondly, what are the goals of federal affairs assistance for Lexington-Fayette? What is our program? What is Washington like in this new year of 2008? How is our congressional delegation poised to provide us assistance? What was accomplished under the first year of Mayor Newberry's administration in terms of federal appropriations? What are our plans for the next fiscal year? We're very deep into that process now. In addition to appropriations, what kind of legislation are we working on on your behalf? Then what are the grants and opportunities with federal agencies? And then finally, why I think it's important for elected officials to come to Washington on a regular basis, as was the mayor in Washington last week for two days. And I think we accomplished a great deal both with the congressional delegation and national organizations. So moving on to the next page, just a little bit of background on me and the small team that I work with. We do simply nothing else except helping cities, counties, and others work in Washington as their staff. I started the company in 1987 after doing ten years with the U.S. Conference of Mayors. In my time at the conference, I was an assistant executive director there focusing on transportation, environment, infrastructure, telecommunications, and a few other areas. As I mentioned, our exclusive focus is on the public sector. We work for cities, county authorities, housing authorities, transit authorities, things of that nature. We really view ourselves as your staff. We're really an extension of City Hall in Washington. We not only work on the various legislative and grant opportunities, but literally we hope to be able to house you when you're there in Washington. We've got an office there that's fully equipped. We're about four blocks from the White House near all of the major hotels that have conventions, so we look forward to seeing you and helping you out in D.C. when you are there. We work for cities that I think in many ways are very comparable. Ideal City is a city about the population of Lexington, which means it's large enough to have all of the interesting things that go on in the urban area, but it's not too large that you can't have regular access and interaction with the elected officials, which I think is really great. As I think I've mentioned, our major activities are appropriations, authorizations, grants, regulatory and administrative issues which come out of federal agencies, which I think are very, very important, and, of course, problem solving with federal agencies. And very often a federal agency can create difficulties for a city or a county without intent, just by not understanding exactly the nature of the project they're working on. I once asked Henry Cisneros, who was Secretary of HUD at the time, what it was like working at HUD, and he said, if you know what the HUD building looks like, it's all kind of concrete and not that interesting to look at, and he said it's ten floors of basement. So I think that tells you a little bit about what can happen in the federal bureaucracy from time to time. So that's our background. That's who we are, and that's how we approach our job, working on your behalf. Our goals as your staff assistant for federal affairs is to work in coordination with you and the mayor and the department heads and staff to come together with a cohesive federal program for the year, frankly, to carry the flag for Lexington Fayette, to raise the profile of the community in Washington, D.C., to help the congressional delegation in whatever way we can with either helping to push our projects or providing whatever assistance they need if it relates to Lexington Fayette. Bottom line, to increase funding for this community, federal funding, which I simply describe as getting your money back to you. This community sends a lot of money to Washington by virtue of the federal income tax, and we're about trying to get back for you as much as possible to make sure that everyone from the mayor through council and all the departments have as much information as possible about what's going on in Washington, and also to do good work with all of the national organizations that have something to do about quality of life and services in urban areas. So we work regularly with the Conference of Mayors, the National League of Cities, National Association of Counties, American Public Transit Association, Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials, Community Development Association, the water agencies, and many others. And they just help to facilitate individuals like ourselves working on national issues, which are very important for getting our work done and sustaining our programs in D.C. We will have and do have each year a federal program for Lexington Fayette County. And, for example, today, yesterday and today, we've been working to help develop the annual appropriations and authorizations federal priorities for Lexington. We will provide liaison with the congressional delegation throughout the year. We identify, forward, and assist in obtaining grants that departments will apply for. And there are literally several grants every day that we hope everyone gets a chance to look at and make the determination about whether they want to apply for them. We work on your behalf with the federal agencies on rulemakings and administrative issues, assist in solving periodic problems as they arise. Organize your trips. And, you know, it's all about scheduling, making sure that you're seeing the right people at the appropriate levels, depending on what issue that you're working on. We draft materials on a regular basis, whether it's appropriations requests or analysis of particular issues. Our point of first contact is Ned Sheehy, who is the Director of Intergovernmental Relations. And it's always helpful for us, you know, being hundreds of miles away, to have a quarterback or a shortstop in City Hall here that things flow through. And for the months that I've been working on this on behalf of all of you, Ned's been terrific in performing that role. We provide regular summaries of what we're doing in Washington. And, of course, we do a Washington Friday report every Friday, which I hope that you're seeing. Or if not, you know, we can make sure you get it either electronically or by paper. And just a word or two about the nation's capital in 2008. You know, for those of you that I'm sure you all are, you know, avid listeners and viewers of what's happening in the capital. So none of this is a surprise to you. But we're trying to get a lot of work done for you this year in an election year. And election years are very, very difficult in Washington. Tensions arise. This particular election year, where we have both a lame duck president, close margins in both the House and the Senate, uncertain nomination contests in both parties. It plays a role in determining how much, you know, we can be able to get done this year. Our budget remains extraordinarily tight. If, for example, you take the Community Development Block Grant, which is so important to Lexington, and you view that as $4 billion a year, well, we're spending that amount every two weeks for the war in Iraq. So you can see what the budgetary pressures are if we're doing two Community Development Block Grants every month just in Iraq. So there's not a lot of what they call domestic discretionary funding out there. But our job is to work with you to try to generate as much of that back here as possible. What we're facing right now in terms of the economy and the home ownership crisis is going to dominate the first quarter of the year, or maybe even longer, but the House will pass its version of the stimulus probably, possibly even today. The Senate is going to take a lot longer. And I think we'll be dealing with this aspect of the economic problem. I won't quite call it the crisis because we're not sure exactly how deep it's going to go in terms of a recession, but it's going to be a big one for this year in Washington. Climate change has emerged as a major priority, and I think we're going to hope to be able to use that to accomplish a number of objectives for the city. There will be a number of vehicles out there that perhaps we can use. And the appropriations process is probably the vehicle where most things will happen in Washington in 2008. The reason for that is even though it's going to be late and delayed and problematic, at the end of the year, before they can adjourn for the year, you know that they have to do an appropriations bill. And that becomes the mechanism for a lot of other things. If you can't pass a piece of legislation but you need to get something done, an appropriations bill is a pretty good way to do it. So that's a little bit about, as we end the first month of this year, about what we're going to see in D.C. this year. They will probably, you know, you'll have a number of small recesses throughout the year. They'll probably recess the first week in October for the elections, and depending where we are in the appropriations process, come back for a lame duck. So it's going to be an interesting year, and we'll see how much we can get done. We are blessed here in Lexington, Fayette County, with an outstanding congressional delegation. It's composed principally of our own congressman, Ben Chandler. The mayor and I had the opportunity to sit down with him and his staff last week, as well as with Senator McConnell and his staff and Senator Bunning and his staff. And you can see from the chart up there, they're terrifically positioned in terms of the committees that they serve on. I did just mention that the Appropriations Committee does most of the work in Washington in terms of output. And so for us to be beginning our work with two members of the Appropriations Committee, both Congressman Chandler and Senator McConnell, is an awfully, awfully good position to be in. And in addition, Senator Bunning is a member of four very powerful committees, particularly for our urban purposes. He's a member of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, which has jurisdiction over HUD, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and all of that. So as we go through some major pieces of housing legislation in the next year and beyond, it's good to have him there, as well as his position on the Finance Committee, which handles taxes and health care, Social Security, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which handles what its title says, but as well things like parks and recreation, things of that nature. So we've got a good delegation. And the other members of the Kentucky congressional delegation are well placed as well to be helpful. Congressman Yarmuth from Louisville is on the Transportation Committee. Congressman Rogers is also an appropriator and is a ranking minority member on Homeland Security. And the other members of Congress, I think, play a productive role. So I think Lexington Fayette is very well placed in terms of its congressional strength. This is what was accomplished for this area, this region, in 2008. Now the way the appropriations process, you all have heard an awful lot, I'm sure, about earmarking and how earmarking is a controversial item given some of the congressional scandals that we've had over the last couple of years. But, frankly, it is the way that much of the work is done. And for civic projects, projects coming from cities, counties, boards of education, for the broad numbers of hospitals and educational institutions that are involved in the earmarking process, I think it works fairly well because it gives the members of Congress an opportunity to assert what's important for them in consultation with their local elected officials in terms of a very small amount of federal funding. So you can see our largest one was the South Elkhorn Water Project, but we also got 1.2 million. We got almost half a million for the Traffic Movement Study, almost half a million for Kentucky River Palisades Preservation, over 300,000 for the Police Air Support Unit, and almost 200,000 for the Russell School Community Service Center. You may be wondering why are these numbers so particular, 490,000, 321, 196, as opposed to 500, 350, 200. And the reason for that is at the last, literally the last couple of days, as the Congress was trying to adhere to President Bush's bottom line funding levels, they had to cut $22 billion out of the budget, which is why we don't have a lot of growth in our regular programs. But one of the judgments they made was rather than cut a substantial amount out of the earmarks, they cut each earmark by about 1.56 percent. So those reduced versions are after what they receive what's called a haircut, or just a little trim off the top, you know, from their levels. So that was last year. The President signed the budget December 19th, and we're now in the process of working with the federal agencies and with department folks here in City Hall to make sure that the dollars are obtained as quickly as possible. And that puts us into next year, and that's very much been what we've been doing the last couple of days. The way the system works is we decide, you know, all working together, you know, what typical priorities are in transportation, wastewater, housing, community development, public safety. A typical earmark, as you can see from the previous chart, will range anywhere from 100,000 to a million. Sometimes you can do very well, like we did on South Elkhorn, and be able to get more than that. But as funding decreases for earmarks and more people or more institutions, I should say, are seeking them, the average amount is a little bit lower than it was in previous years. We will submit these projects to the congressional delegation between February 8th and February 29th. And then, of course, it's up to the delegation members themselves to decide if those are projects that they wish to pursue on our behalf. The mayor did an outstanding job last week in meeting with the whole delegation and talking to them generally about the kinds of things that might be forthcoming from Lexington Fayette this year. And I must say they're very supportive and very eager to provide assistance to the community. As I mentioned earlier, I've been meeting yesterday and today with the department and staff, helping to get a little closer on refining these ideas. After we submit them in later or actually next month, February starts pretty soon, but it's not here yet, the committees will, the appropriations committees and subcommittees, will mark these things up anywhere between May and August of the year. And then, hopefully, when all is said and done, the president will sign the bills and then the money will flow. Now, for those of you that, like me, went from Mayor Newberry's state of the city and the county to President Bush's state of the union, at least in the Radisson Hotel, you know that a major portion of his address last night was on earmarks. And what the president is saying is that he wants a 50% reduction of earmarks, and he will only sign bills that both have that reduction and also include the earmarks in the bill itself, in the statute language, which is not the typical case. Typically, earmarks are in the conference reports that accompany the bills. So we're going to have a little dust-up with the president, or at least the Congress will, later this year on what those bills look like vis-a-vis earmarks. But this will be happening to the extent that the president wishes to make a problem out of this. It will happen very, very late in his presidency, probably with less than two months to go before he leaves the White House and is succeeded by another president. So we'll have to see what happens on those. But right now we're proceeding on the basis of fiscal 2009 being comparable to fiscal 2008 in terms of process, and I hope even better in terms of outcome. In addition to the appropriations process, there's also regular old laws that we're working on, new programs, authorizations, and reauthorizations for existing programs. The Senate, for example, is going to be working on their version of stimulus legislation. There's at least going to be an effort on the Senate side to get some urban infrastructure spending in there, either additional funding for the Community Development Block Grant, possibly, if they did that, targeted to green projects or green jobs. So we're going to be working on that. Both the House and the Senate are working on versions of a new affordable housing trust fund, which would send money to the community here for workforce housing, which is sort of the big gap in the federal housing approach. You can do a lot of things for a lot of different kinds of housing, but workforce housing seems to be there's a big gap in that area. Section 8 reform. We also, as part of the energy bill that passed the section that is raising CAFE standards, it's Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards for Manufacturers' Fleets, that got all the publicity, but tucked in there is a new energy efficiency block grant for cities like ours right here, and that's going to, when properly funded, that's going to send out dollars to the community for conservation, for new technologies, for any kind of innovation as long as it reduces your climate change footprint. And the problem is it got passed and signed by the President so late in the year that the appropriations process has not funded it. So we'll be working hard this year to see if we can get it funded. It's authorized at $2 billion a year, and the way the formula works, the best way to think of it in terms of Lexington is if we got it fully funded, it would be about $6 a head for that kind of work, which is pretty good in terms of a new source of funding for our efforts here. As I mentioned earlier, climate change legislation, green buildings, cap and trade, things of that nature, that's going to be a big one. And then later this year and on into next year, we're going to have the opportunity for safety lieu 2, which is the reauthorization of the big transportation program. That's the federal charter for all highway, bridge, and transit spending, and that's an opportunity, I think, for Lexington and Fayette County to do fantastically in terms of large projects and big efforts. That's a program where members of Congress and senators are given an allocation for the projects in their communities, and they've got a pretty good ability to make their own decisions on how that's going to be spent. So if we work well with our congressional delegation, I think we can get a good yield out of safety lieu 2. And just as another example, airport improvement and Amtrak reauthorization is going to get done as well, hopefully this year. Also, as I think I mentioned earlier, every day we're looking at grant possibilities. Everyone in this building other than me has got to make the decision on whether you actually apply for a grant, whether it's worth your while, whether it fits into the overall strategy. But I think the more you apply for it, the more you get, so it's always good to be looking at these opportunities. And as you can see from the chart, brownfields of a couple of different kinds, historic preservation, economic development through new market tax credits, cops, fire, safe and drug-free schools, domestic violence, congestion mitigation, telecom, gang resistance, lots of different federal opportunities. Sometimes they're not as much money as we'd like them to be, but hopefully they're enough that it helps advance an important Lexington project. And as I said earlier, I think the more you apply for these, the greater your percentage is going to be in terms of what you get. So that's one more. And as I think indicated, I think it's a good idea for elected officials to make the trip to Washington. The mayor's trip last week I think was extraordinarily beneficial. Our congressional delegation indicated to us that they had not seen Lexington mayors in the capital all that much. And so I know the mayor intends to be a regular visitor, and we're looking forward to that. Council members as well play an important role in this process. I know some of you will be participating in the National League of Cities annual meeting in Washington during March, and look forward to seeing you there. And perhaps there's some things we can collaborate on when you are there. So it always is a net plus when you're there and we meet with people, and I'll look forward to working with you on that through Ned and just letting us know what your plans are. So just to wrap up, I know you'll get paper copies of this, I'm sure, but it's been a terrific opportunity to wear the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government hat in D.C. My contact information is there. We're always glad to hear from council members, the mayor's office and department heads. We see ourselves as staff. We are your staff with a particular portfolio, and that's working on the federal agenda, and it's been a pleasure being here the last couple of days and look forward to a return trip in the next few months and taking any questions that you might have this afternoon. Thanks, Len. Are there any questions for Len? Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for coming, Len. We really appreciate the hard work you do in a tough situation there in Washington. I just have one question. I didn't see mentioned on here anything about CDBG money. Is there any discussions up there? I know it's been threatened to be scaled back significantly. I know our community depends heavily on that money. What is the outlook for that? That's a very good question. I didn't specifically put it on there because it's not a new program that we're trying to get authorized, but the CDBG thing is an amazing story. And if you just looked at CDBG as a template last year, you can just chart what was happening in the appropriations process. This new Congress that came in was just absolutely determined to give us a nice boost in CDBG. Now, keep in mind, when you're looking at these appropriations bills, one of the things that we have to deal with on a regular basis is good guys competing against good guys. So it's not the CDBG money competes against housing money, against home money, against Section 8 money. It's all in the same pot. So the members of Congress that are appropriators on the housing and community and economic development side have to make judgments about where you want to see the most growth. Is it going to be CDBG or HOME or HOPE VI or any of those other efforts? But having said that, they knew that we had lost about 15 percent in the last two years, last two appropriation cycles, so they were determined to at least make us whole. And the numbers that we got from both the House side and the Senate side were exactly that. They were different numbers, but in both cases they were very healthy. You could call them restorations or you could call them increases, but we would have done better in FY08 than we had been doing in FY07 or in FY06. Now, all of that, as well as more COPS money and many other more transit, this was all predicated on growth in the overall budget that the new congressional leadership had put in place. And when all was said and done, if you just want to focus on the bottom line, the congressional budget ended up $22 billion higher than the budget that President Bush submitted in February. And what we found out in a couple of test cases, S-CHIP was one of them, actually S-CHIP twice, the Childhood Insurance Program and the labor HHS appropriations, is that even though there was a lot of bipartisanship on appropriations, there simply in both the House and the Senate, there was not enough votes to overturn a presidential veto. So as October turned to November and November turned to December and members of Congress, you know, saw visions of Christmas and being there December 24th, around December 19th, around December 17th, they just said, you know, we don't have a practical alternative other than shutting down the government, which they weren't going to do, to meeting the president's bottom line. So let's start cutting. And one of the things that had to be cut was our CDBG increase. So we basically ended up with flat funding for CDBG. We had growth of $150 million in the COPS program, which would have meant many thousands of new officers on the street. We lost that in a few other areas. So our general coalition of people that work on behalf of cities in D.C., more CDBG funding this year, and certainly next year, is really job one. And we know we have a lot to make up for in terms of losses. And the year coming up, you know, 2000, calendar 2008, is in many respects a transitional year. Probably you still have to live under the bottom line numbers that the president is going to submit on February 4th. But we're hoping that no net losses this year, and then next year, calendar 2009, with a new president, regardless of party, we can start making up some of those differences on CDBG and some other programs. So I hope that's helpful. Very helpful, and thank you for your in-depth answer. Any other questions? All right. Council Member Stevens. I appreciated your presentation. I do have a question about grant applications. I agree with you. If you don't apply, you don't get it. And if one wanted to explore what grants might be available in a certain area, you can help us with that, getting that information? Well, I sure can, Council Member. I'm either sad or happy to report that the first thing I do when I get to work every morning is just go through the Federal Register to see what new grants have been announced, and we go through those. And usually there's about a half a dozen that are being put into the system. Not every one of them is literally eligible for a city or a county government to apply for. But if we think there are, even if it's a stretch, what we do is we package it up with a quick one-page summary, and we get it off to Ned. And then what he usually does is get it to the appropriate departmental official. So we can get the council involved, certainly, in that process, or we can do a more periodic summary of what's out there, and you can certainly look at it yourself. So Ned is our man. That's the glue that holds the system together. But if we say we had a certain area that we were interested in. Or, you know, the other thing that we could do, as you say, you can mention an area, say, for example, and ask me through Ned, you know, what are the opportunities to apply throughout the year, say, for historic preservation? And, you know, we'd be happy just to prepare a quick summary of the grant opportunities or other funding mechanisms that are available for historic preservation projects, or for that matter water and sewer or housing rehabilitation, you know, just any subject. It's a big government out there, and what we try to do is get beneath, you know, the fog and the shadows and just be able to focus on the things that are relevant. Does the Congress have any influence over grants? You know, it's a really excellent question. I've seen it in my time in Washington, both at the Conference of Mayors and, you know, working individually for cities. It's changed over time. You know, I would say that, you know, through problems that have occurred in the distribution process, even some scandals, they work very hard to insulate the people that are making the decisions on grants, you know, from political influence. So, you know, the era where a congressman is going to call up an assistant secretary and say, I need you to approve this grant, you know, I've seen it. It doesn't happen very often. It is actually very difficult to even meet with federal officials that are grant givers now on a grant after you've applied. That's considered to be sort of an, you know, an ex parte type of communication that they don't want to see happen. But what we try to do is if we know that the city is applying for a grant, we always try to get the senator, senators and the member of the House to send in letters of support. And the reason for that is not necessarily political influence, but the grant givers always want to know that there's broad-based community support for a grant, that it's not just something that was cooked up in, you know, someplace in City Hall, but that there's community support. And I've always thought what better indication of community support than your congressman or your senator is willing to write a letter for it. So we try to do it that way. We hope it has some influence. It's not a direct A to B connection, but you hope that it's helpful. Thank you very much, Mr. Simon. My pleasure. Any other questions? Well, let me just encourage you to avail yourselves of Lynn's offer to be of assistance whenever you might happen to be traveling in Washington. I think those visits that he alluded to really are quite valuable in terms of keeping Lexington's agenda on the forefront with the members of Congress and their staff. Traditionally, Lexington has not been very active in Washington, and so Lynn's presence there is a change in the way we've been doing business in Washington, and I think we will see a significant return on our investment there over time. So, Lynn, thanks very much for coming down. It's good to see you again. Thank you, Mayor, for the opportunity. The next item on the agenda is a presentation by our Cabinet for Health and Family Services, and I understand Delanor Mason is going to be making her presentation. So, Ms. Mason. First off, it's Delanor Manson, like Charles Manson, the killer. I'm sorry. Thank you. Mayor, members of the Lexington-Fayette-Irving County Council, thank you for the opportunity to present on a subject matter that is very dear to my heart, and I'm very passionate about the work that we're doing. Let me introduce a few people that are working with this initiative. I'd like to introduce Lisa Hord-Higgins from the University of Kentucky, as well as Wanda Bertram from LexLink. Would you all come up for a moment, please? I'd like to give them an opportunity just to give a quick snippet about the role that they're playing with the initiative, and then I'd like to tell you what the initiative is and how it works and talk to you a little bit about the help that we need from you and to build on what you've already done in Lexington. Thank you. Good afternoon. As a partner with the Cabinet for Health and Human Services, we were contacted last year to see if we would help introduce the concept of this initiative, which is a statewide initiative on the part of the Cabinet into this community. So our role has been to help introduce this conversation, more or less. We've been working with other community partners, such as the University of Kentucky, the Urban League, and many others to make this something that is community-based, it is community-driven. I don't know that there is any particular one organization that has taken the lead. It is very much a coalition and a collaborative effort. Well, there's not much more to add to that other than the fact that the University of Kentucky is definitely involved in this, and we did host a summit on campus last year, and we saw a great deal of interest from the community with this particular project. So we ourselves are so endeared with this. So thank you. And just to add one thing, our board is very much behind this. They have pledged $10,000, LexLink has pledged $10,000 to the initiative, and I know UK has pledged even more money in this fiscal year, I believe. I'd like to hear that more money. I'd also like to introduce Larry Michalczak. He's the co-chair for this Race, Community, and the Child Welfare Initiative. Larry, could you join me at the podium? We'd both like to applaud Lexington's previous efforts and successes in this arena. We are here today to talk with you about Race, Community, and the Child Welfare Initiative and to ask you for your support on many levels. We promote Undoing Racism training as the foundation for the understanding on how race was created in the United States, and we need assistance to make that training available to all of those who are interested in this work in Fayette County. We're bringing together all the partners in the community who touch the lives of children so that we can address racial disproportionality in all systems, including education, law enforcement, health, mental health. We need your leadership to make that happen, and we seek to build on your existing efforts, as I said before. I'd like to get started by allowing Larry to say a couple of words. I think we need to start with a quote. And the reason that we're here is that it's the right thing to do. And this quote comes from Martin Luther King. He says, cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it polite? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? The conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor polite nor popular, but one must take it because it is right. And we're here today to talk to you about the issue of racial disproportionality, which affects children and families not only who are in the public child welfare system, but who are in the school system, in the juvenile justice system, in the health care system. I'm going to talk to you about how we're addressing that in 11 different communities in Kentucky. We are going to cover and define the child welfare system in a way that you probably haven't heard it defined before. We're going to talk about the five major decision points in the child welfare system. We're going to identify the American lens and how it contributes to the decisions that are made in the child welfare system. We're going to describe how race impacts children and families in the child welfare system. And hopefully, but not least, we'll provide a safe environment to ask difficult questions about how race affects families in the child welfare system. I'm not sure if many of you are familiar with a video series called Race, the Power of an Illusion. You can go to the website that is listed here to get more information about it, but it's a three-part series. The first part of the video, the first video talks about the differences between races, Caucasians, African Americans. The second video speaks to the historical perspective of how race was constructed in the United States. And the third addresses why African Americans are collectively eight times less wealthy than Caucasians in the United States. Now, this video series is not a drama. It is based on facts and figures, and it addresses legislation. One of the legislations that it addresses, Larry, you want to talk about them? One of the things that's pretty compelling in this video series is it relates to the GI Bill and the fact that one million black GIs came home from the war and were not able to take advantage of the GI Bill. And that's because at the time they came back, the country's universities were segregated and there was a lack of black colleges and universities at the time. Housing was segregated as well. But that's an example of how a piece of legislation is ingrained in our country and affects what's called institutional racism and something that we must deal with. Let's do it like we normally do it. We know that we're going to be telling you some things that may be a little challenging for you to hear. We know that we're going to be covering some data that may be new to you. And we also know that it may be difficult to hear, difficult to understand, and in order to really understand it, it may cause a change. It may require a change in your thought processes. We know that change is fearful, and it means that you have to do something different. We know that there are driving and resistant forces, and we know that change takes time. We also know that change must begin with you. When we think about change, there are four stages. Denial is the first one, that maybe this really doesn't exist, that this really isn't a problem, that there really isn't racial disproportionality and overrepresentation of African American children in the child welfare system. Resistance is the next stage. And an example of that would maybe, well, there's nothing I can do about it. I'm only one person. The next stage is exploration. An example of this might be, well, if I could learn a little bit more, maybe there's something I could do. And then the last stage is commitment. There's something I must do. Well, people go through these stages at different rates, but everybody goes through these stages. So if what we are about to tell you seems unreal and you're denying that it exists, what we want you to know is that we know that these feelings and these stages, people go through these stages, and we know that these things may happen to you as well. I'd like to ask you to look at the hand that is large, looming above you, and it says, what's on your hands? Wash them. What do you see in that graphic? Anybody care to take that on? What's it a picture of? What? I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. You see the fuzzy critters. Yeah, pretty colors, right? What about the person in the middle? I can't see it. Well, I have the actual graphic that I'd like to show you. While Del and I are showing that to you, this graphic was created by the Cabinet for Health and Family Services Employee Wellness Committee. They wanted people to wash their hands. They were well-intentioned about what they were trying to do. But what's in the middle of the white hand? Now, what's coming around is an actual graphic, and the reason that I'm able to pass that around is when I was the Deputy Secretary for the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, on my very first day, I went into the ladies' room and I saw this poster. And I have to tell you, I was a little taken aback. And I asked to have them all removed, and I thought I had them all removed, but three weeks ago we were in the CHR building, and Larry found this poster in the men's room. Now, I don't go to the men's room, so I didn't know it was in there. But I asked Larry to scour the building and see if he could find it anyplace else, and he did. He found it in two places. He found it on the fifth floor, which is where the secretary, who was male, went to the bathroom, and in the bathroom on the third floor, which is where the commissioner went to the bathroom, and he was male at that time as well. So what do you see in this graphic? I mean, the one I'm passing around makes it a lot clearer that it's a white hand. Do you all see in the graphic, does it look like a white hand to you? It doesn't up there, I know. That looks like my hand. But it does in the real graphic. What about the germs? What's unusual about the germs? They're what? The germs that look like cartoon characters are colored, but then the person or the germ that's in the center is brown. He's not colored like the others. And as Larry said, this was put out by the CHR Wellness Committee, and they just really wanted to get people to wash their hands. They were not trying to offend anyone. And I know this because I know these people, and I've worked with them, and I know that they are very well-intentioned people. They were not aware that they had created a microaggression and that putting the brown person in the middle, who looked different than the other germs, might be insulting to a group of people. The graphic on the other side is a graphic that I found in a brochure on domestic violence. It was accompanied by a wonderful article that talked about how domestic violence crosses all socioeconomic levels, all education levels, genders, and races. But the graphic that you can see is the graphic that was attached to the article, which sends a different message. And that message is that African-American men are the predominant perpetrators of domestic violence. So it didn't really match the article. So I was a little offended, so I sent an email to the editor. And the editor said to me in her return email that they were really just trying to do good. This brochure was put out in May of 2007, and they've distributed copies of that coast to coast. And she said that she really was sorry, but I was the only person who complained. Now, I'm sure that I'm not the only person that found that offensive, that only black faces and only black men are in that graphic. But I was the only person who complained. And when we do this presentation to other groups, what we hear from them is, well, it's expected that black men are perpetrators of domestic violence. It's expected that you would see something like this, and so therefore there's no reason to complain. Other things that we've heard are things like, well, people don't want to get involved or they don't think they're going to be heard, and so why complain? But as Americans, we should all be offended by both of these graphics. We all should be offended that a group is singled out to be seen as perpetrators of domestic violence or as a germ in a hand. The next one I think is a little closer to home, and we use this as a demonstration of how racism can be portrayed in the media. And as you well know, this provided quite a bit of controversy here in Lexington. It also caused that die nigger die to be put on the dorm of the black university, University of Kentucky black president, right? No, I'm sorry, Mr. Black Kentucky. I'm sorry, Mr. Black Kentucky. So this type of media is offensive because of what portrays not only a black man being sold in slavery, but the use of Aryan Omega, Kappa Kappa Kappa, KKK, and Alpha Caucasian, all which engender in the reader some sense of offense about the way in which racism can be portrayed. The next one, if anybody, no. Backwards. One more. One more. This next one, if you saw this, this was, if anybody's a golfer in the room, you heard about Kelly Tillman and her comments about Tiger Woods, about people who were interested in challenging him. She made the comment that if anybody was interested in challenging him, perhaps they should take him out in a back alley and lynch him. And she was suspended for two weeks for those comments. And then just right after that, this was portrayed on the front cover of Golf Week, and I believe the editor was fired as a result of this. Now, the reason we're showing you all of these are examples of both covert and overt racism, which dominates our society, and it's been talked about recently, particularly in the presidential campaign. It just is something that is affecting the way in which we live, the way in which we work, the way in which we make decisions. And we're going to talk to you pretty much about how that relates to children and families as we go through this presentation. We will kind of focus you on how images and thoughts affect how people make referrals and how they impact the child welfare system. Before we start, we think it's important to have a few definitions under our belt. First, we'd like to address disproportionate representation. We're talking about the percent of children of a certain race in the general population as compared to that same group in the child welfare system. And then when we talk about disparate treatment and outcomes, we're talking about in like situations, children of color are treated differently. And then equity, fair allocation of resources based on need versus what we normally think of as equal or equality. When we talk about the child welfare system, I think most people, when they hear the word child welfare, they think child protective services, CPS, we'll call CPS, call the hotline. But our view is that child welfare is broader than that. It involves the entire community. If you take a look at that wheel, you'll see that anybody who has a telephone can make a call that affects whether or not a child is kept safe or whether they're removed from their homes. So whether that's somebody in the school system, a neighbor, a friend, a family friend, somebody from the church, whether the ER makes a telephone call, whether somebody from a clinic makes a telephone call, all of those folks have the ability to engage the child protective services system and also have the ability to help families if they are in crisis. So everybody there plays a role in this process. And I'm going to tell you about the four other parts of child welfare as well. Okay. Involving people make referrals to the child welfare system by calling the hotline, but also when a social worker is sent out to investigate and make a determination about whether child abuse is substantiated, the biases, the prejudices, the stereotypes, and the assumptions of all the people who are being talked to influence whether or not that child is kept in their homes or removed from their homes. They also, people who are involved in law enforcement, people who are in the court system, family members, friends, others, anybody who takes a part of that, who is involved in that process, their biases, assumptions, and stereotypes also influence what happens to that child. The next step in the child welfare system is the investigation, as Larry said. And then substantiation means there's a finding of abuse or neglect. And that's a term that I had to learn because I'm not a social worker, so people had to explain to me, well, what is this substantiation thing that happens? Well, that's where, based on what the social worker hears from the community, from the teachers, and as Larry said, the law enforcement officers, a decision is made that abuse or neglect has actually occurred. The next step is if there is a finding of abuse or neglect, that the child may be removed from the home and put into foster care. This is not just a problem for Kentucky. This is a national epidemic. From coast to coast, we see that African American children are overrepresented in the child welfare system. If we look at the nation, we see that African American children make up 15% of the population, but yet they are 38% of all the children who are in out-of-home care or in foster care. Sixty-seven percent of the population in the United States is Caucasian, but yet only 45% of the children who are in out-of-home care or foster care are Caucasians. So the question is, are we missing some white children as well as overrepresenting or over-calling on black children? Those are some critical questions. We just wanted to show you quickly, this is the story about racial disproportionality in the United States, and Kentucky's rate of putting African American children in the state's foster care system is 13.58. But as you can see from that chart, all of those red states and those orange or brown states all have overrepresentation of African American children in the child welfare system. These are some of the things that caused us to do this work, started this work in Jefferson County. In Jefferson County, the African American population is 19%, but 60% of the suspensions from the school district are African American. Forty percent African American children graduate from high school. Fifty-five point five percent of the juveniles arrested for violent crime are African American. Sixty-four percent of juveniles detained are African American. And finally, the area that we're most concerned about, 55% of all the children in Jefferson County's foster care system are African American. And I'm sure you're wondering why we're telling you about Jefferson County when we're here. We do know where we are. But the reason that we need to tell you about Jefferson County is they did the pilot to get us started. They got a grant from Casey Family Programs from Seattle. And they've been doing this work for about two years. And based on what they were able to discover about the foster care system in Jefferson County, the state decided that we needed to look at all of our counties and identify opportunities to address this issue. And so that's why we have Jefferson County information here for you to see. And quickly, I just want, again, to say that at 19% population, it should be up to 55% now in the foster care. But as you can see, at every decision point, African Americans are overrepresented, which is leading to the overrepresentation of African American children in foster care. This is the data for Kentucky as a whole. If you look at Kentucky as a whole, the African American population of Kentucky is 7%, but yet 21% of the children in foster care are African American. So if you are African American, you are three times more likely to be placed in foster care. Conversely, and I'm looking at that closely, is that 90? Ninety. Ninety percent of the children are white. Only 72% of the children in the foster care system are white. So we've got to ask the question, are we making calls on African American children and not making calls on children who are white? In my role as the Executive Director of the Office of Quality Management, one of the things that I did was to look at child fatalities and near fatalities. And we did a process called root cause analysis. We did a root cause analysis on a case where a 30-day-old child died with seven broken bones, fractured skull, fractured ribs, and a cauliflower ear, but nobody called. And when we did the root cause analysis, what we found is this child was seen in the last 21 days of life by four physicians, nurses, family members, and church members, but nobody called. In the root cause analysis, we identified the root cause of the death of this child, and that was nobody called because they thought the child was safe. This child was Caucasian, from affluent parents, and nobody called. These are some quick numbers about Kentucky. Cases open more often for African American families. They spend more time, African American children spend more time in foster care, have more moves, are 20 percent less likely to be reunified with their parents. More often, they have a goal of emancipation, while white children have a goal of reunification or being reunified with their families. And finally, African American children cost an additional $5.50 per day to be cared for. Annually, that's $3 million. This $5.50 per day is more than what we pay to pay for Caucasian children, and that's what makes this number so substantial. These are the 11 counties that we're targeting, because these are the counties in which racial disproportionality has been identified. You can take a look at the ones in yellow. Those are the areas that we're working in. And finally, the area that we're in, Fayette County. The African American population of Fayette County is 13.5 percent. At this point in time, 45.7 percent of the children in foster care are African American. The counties listed in white are counties that we're planning to work with in 2008, in addition to the ones that are in yellow we will continue to work with in 2008. Many people say that it's poverty, and that's the reason that African Americans are overrepresented in the child welfare system. We looked at the data from our system, and 39 percent of all the white children who were referred to the system had poverty as a safety risk factor. Forty-one percent of all the black or African American children who were referred to the system, this is in Kentucky, had poverty as a safety risk factor, of the Latino and Hispanic population that were referred had poverty as a safety risk factor. Basically, when you look at this, it makes it very clear that 59 percent of the black or African American families did not have poverty as a safety risk factor, but yet they were referred. So poverty is not the problem. This is the hard data on Fayette County, and it follows the same progression that we showed you on the other chart. Take a look at the African American population in the first column from census data, and it shows you the progression of how African Americans are more often to be called, more often to be substantiated, and then finally removed from their homes and placed in the state's foster care system. Conversely, white children, 81 percent. When you look at how many white children are in foster care, 46 percent. Now what this data does, it's not definitive in saying that there's a direct correlation, but it's cause for concern that we really need to examine the processes that are at work here, and we're doing that in each of these communities by using a community model of working together with folks. I think the other thing that we need to mention here is that there is national research to support that African American children are overrepresented in the child welfare system for some reasons, racism being one of them, poverty being a safety risk factor. But, however, there are things that we must address if we're going to change the statistics that we have. For Fayette County, 37 percent of all the white children who were referred to the child welfare system had poverty as a safety risk factor. Forty-three percent of the black or African American children who were referred to the child welfare system had poverty as a safety risk factor. And 55 percent of the Latino and Hispanic population had poverty as a safety risk factor. This is some data specifically about Fayette County. African American children experience more placement moves. That means they move from one foster home to another or one foster home to a group home to residential care. African American children stay in care an average of 5.1 months longer than white children. And parent drug abuse is one condition more likely reported for African American children than white children. I think before we get to these strategic plan objectives, one of the things we need to say is that the way in which we're working in the communities is using this community model, which has as its basis the provision of undoing racism training. And we began this process in Louisville in June of 2006. And at this point in time, we have trained more than 600 community leaders in undoing racism training, including seven family court judges, one state legislator, probably 30 or so police officers and detectives, school teachers, administrators, health department employees, parents and residents, coming together in a two-and-a-half-day session and beginning to understand how racism was created in the United States and how it affects our decision making. So we've used that model in Louisville. We just began that process here in Lexington. Last week we had our first undoing racism training session, and we had 39 attendees. We have three more scheduled for the next three months in Lexington. I also want to say that we are working in five other counties, and Lexington really is the county that's moving ahead the fastest. Now, this isn't on tape, is it? Because I don't want those other counties to know. But part of the reason that you all are able to move ahead so fast is because of the work that you've done around this issue in your community, and you've done really good work. So when people from the community came to the table, they already had ideas about what would work and what wouldn't work, whereas in a lot of the other counties, they're just beginning their work and understanding about how to address racism in their community. When Larry mentioned about the undoing racism workshops, the People's Institute provides our workshops, and we're also scheduling workshops in Kenton County, and the goal is to have workshops in all the counties. But in order for us to continue the workshops, we need your support. I'd like to quickly talk about the strategic plan that we have for the entire state. Our first goal, which is the most important goal, is to safely decrease the number of children in foster care, not just black kids, not just black children, but children. The key to that whole statement is safety. In each of the communities, and particularly here in Lexington, we've created a leadership advisory board, and we just did that, and we've got a number of high-ranking folks involved in that. And then we also are involved in making sure that we provide training across the community, making sure that we involve universities, seek legislative support, and finally all the agencies that we're working with are talking about all the institutions, all the systems, asking them to collect data based on race to understand whether they do have a problem in terms of racial disproportionality. So the question is, what can you do? First, commit to equity, not equality, but equity. Attend one of the workshops and the conferences that we'll be having around the state. Become a community sponsor. Encourage your staff to attend, as Larry mentioned, collect and analyze data by race. Review your policies and procedures to see if there are unintended consequences, and change your practice based on what you find, and evaluate those practice changes. In conclusion, we'd just like to say that all that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men, and for the women in the room I had to put people, do nothing. And the other one that I'd like to mention is by Martin Luther King, and that is silence is betrayal. These are the workshops that are already scheduled for Lexington, and Carol Taylor, who is here, is a contact for registering for those workshops. And also at the bottom you'll see our website, www.jointheconversation.net, where you can go and find research material, articles, and this data that we've provided for you in your packets. Also, we have a recommended viewing list that may be of interest to you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Are there any questions for Ms. Manson or Mr. Chilzik? Is that right? Mahalchik. Mahalchik. Mahalchik. I apologize. Okay. Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. Just a quick question. Thank you for your presentation. At the workshops that you just put up there, how will you go about finding the participants? Well, we're really depending on the community to identify their leaders. We've started the workshops inviting the Leadership Advisory Board, because they need the information in order to help us to develop a strategic plan for Lexington, and it will be specific for this community. So we have asked them, as part of their responsibilities, to help us to find people to come to the workshop who will help us spread the word about how race was developed in the United States and how it impacts the child welfare system. Thank you. Others? Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for coming in and making the presentation today. And you haven't talked about who's on that original committee, and I want to thank you for inviting me to be a part of it. And I went to the first meeting. I was going to make the second meeting, but my staff went for me. I think this is a great project. And I just have a couple questions kind of to piggyback off of what Councilman Gorton asked. Who do you perceive or who do you envision being the participants in these workshops? The community, and we include educators, law enforcement. We'd like to invite all of you to attend as well, because we really think that it will make an impact in terms of how you might pass legislation and what should be happening in the urban county government. Okay. Also, medical professionals, we need them at the table. We need everybody at the table who touches children. We need the neighbors. We need the ministers. We need people who actually come in contact with children. Does that answer your question? Yes. And I have a list of those people who are on this leadership council, and we have a physician. We have you. We have people from the university, University of Kentucky, Kentucky State University. We have an administrator. Community health department. Yeah, we have a wide variety of people from different disciplines on the advisory council. Okay. But those of you who want to participate in the workshops, it's not just community leaders. It's everyone, right? It's everyone. You don't have to have a position in government or healthcare professions or working with children. It's just this is something that can really open the eyes of everybody in our city. Right. It must open the eyes of everyone, because everyone has a phone, and anyone who picks up the phone and makes that call is part of the child welfare system. And we believe that if we can help people to understand what they're seeing versus what they think is going on, we will be able to get the right children in the system. We'll be able to protect children who are coming into the system regardless of their race. So how can we help? Those in the room listening, those watching at home by TV or watching the web on the streaming video, how do we, one, get involved, and then how do we help out? Because I know from being in the meetings, you would like us, all of us watching, whether at home, whether in this room, to take a look at this, go to maybe a couple of those websites that you showed some information on, but then also talk to our neighbors, talk to our other friends, business leaders, community leaders, and invite them to be a part of these seminars or workshops. Is that correct? Absolutely. Also, we do have a reading list that we like to encourage people to read, but we really want people to come and be part of this initiative. We need the whole community in order to make this work. When you do each one, I'm sorry, go ahead. I think the other thing is that we'd also like all the people that you mentioned to be part of the working of the Leadership Advisory Board. They're going to be committees that deal with the media, education, data collection, evaluation, and basically also talking about how racism affects our everyday lives. So we've had groups around that as well. Okay. What are some of the outcomes that you are expecting to have or hoping to have at the end of the year, one? And two, what are some of the deliverables, if you will? Will there be a report released at the end of the year, and then maybe six months into next year to take a look back and see where we've come and where we're going? Absolutely. Our goal is to do an annual report, and we can certainly do something more often if you would like. But we also have a list of things that we'd like to accomplish in each community, but that community gets to decide how they're going to be approaching those things. And so that's why the advisory board becomes so important, is to decide which issues should be addressed in Fayette County first and second and third. But, yes, accountability. One of the things we're looking at is the decrease of children in the child welfare system, as we said. That's our first safely decreased the number of children in the child welfare system. So those are numbers that we'll be able to come back to you and provide. Okay. And then this is a statewide initiative. You're focused on Fayette County here today, but how will this all come together with those 11 counties and even the other 120 or 111 counties that aren't included? Well, our intention is to create a statewide leadership advisory board, and then there would be one representative from each community on that board, as well as heads of the major systems, like the juvenile justice system, education, the courts, mental health, all of those folks who have some involvement in whether children get treated in their homes or whether they get removed from their homes. So all of those folks would be part of the leadership advisory board at the state level, and they'd be able to make plans to build on this work across the state. Okay. And then at the end of the day, will there be a report that goes to the state legislature in Frankfort? Yes. And even those local communities with their city councils and mayors to see if there are policy changes, legislation that we can pass that will speak to your findings? Absolutely. All of those things and all of that reporting relationship is built into our strategic plan. We have a strategic plan for this initiative. Okay. I have a question for Ms. Higgins-Horton. Please. I was listening to the radio on the way in today and heard that the university has appointed a new vice president of? Institutional diversity. Institutional diversity. Correct. Okay. Can you speak a little bit about that person and when they're going to come on board? And then is there a connection and will they be tied in? I know UK is sort of half of this. Half of this initiative. This initiative. I would hope that she could be a part of this. Her name is Dr. JJ Judy Jackson. She wants you to refer to her as Judy or JJ. She's an amazing person that I was actually on the search committee that helped bring her to the university, and we are so pleased that she will be a part of our university. I think in the next couple of weeks she will actually be placing some phone calls with some people on campus, trying to set up some meetings to sort of get herself acclimated to what's going to happen at the University of Kentucky. But I think she also is going to look at the climate and the community on campus as well as off campus. She is somebody who is very well, I think, steeped in community, so you will see her out quite a bit. And I hope that we do get a chance for you and as well as the other council members to get a chance to meet her. But I think one of the things that she's going to be doing is looking at an overall strategic plan for the university. And one of the things that we've talked about is the fact that it's not something that she should do alone, that it's something that we all should be a part of. Right, right. Do you know when she's going to come on board? I believe that's July 1. Okay. I haven't been at my office yet. I've been down here all day, so I haven't read the newspaper, but I believe it's July 1. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Well, I think I'm going to stop here and yield if there's any other questions, and if you could come back to me there at the end. Council Member Stephens. Thank you. I enjoyed your presentation. I can tell you as a pediatric orthopedic surgeon, it's not so easy to always recognize a child who's been the victim of abuse. Certainly if a child has multiple fractures of different ages and healing process, it's pretty obvious what it is. You make mistakes in making judgments about that. But I was interested in your presentation and the assumptions you made. Are you going to share that data with council? Is it in there? It's in your packet. Yes, it is. And it's also on the website, and all the national data is there as well, as well as some research studies that you will find interesting, one by Dr. Robert Hill that you will find interesting. And also the GAO report that was just released in June of this year that discusses the rationale for what they think is going on, the things that are leading to the over-representation of African-American children in the child welfare system. It just seems to me that it may be certainly a multifactorial etiology of this, and not just limited to race because income, family structure, and many other, perhaps many other contributing factors are there also. But I don't deny that race is a problem. Council Member Stevens, I think you'd be particularly interested in a recent study out of the Boston area involving 289 physicians and how they treated African-Americans who presented with heart attack symptoms. But it was a pretty fascinating study in which they, I think the headline basically read, Unrecognized Bias Plays a Role in How Treatment Was Done. And it was a fascinating study because it wasn't just an assessment of the medical records, but they actually did psychological tests on the 289 doctors as well. And we'd be able to make that available to you as well. I hope it was helpful and changed their attitudes. I think it did surprise them. One of the things that they found in the study that I think is critical for everyone to understand is that all of the doctors, regardless of their race, treated the African-Americans in the same way. And that's the same thing we find when we're looking at our data. We're not finding that the African-Americans are treating African-Americans any differently than the Caucasians. And it kind of goes back to what do we learn and where do we learn it? In your packet is a quiz. It's a race literacy quiz. And I encourage you to take it. I took it. It's 20 questions. I got four right. Now, I have a few degrees. I've been in the Navy for 27 years. I'm a former captain. I just retired. And I've lived around the world. And I can tell you I've been to some education. I could not pass this test. Larry only got five right. I guess. I thought I should have gotten more right because I'm black. Well, I have to tell you, the knowledge of what we need to know about race does not come with the skin color. I learned in school virtually nothing about how race was constructed in the United States. Neither did Larry. And you probably didn't either. But yet it affects our lives every day. And so this training really focuses on the historical perspective of how race was constructed and why. It is not diversity training. It's not designed to help people feel good or bad. It just focuses on the facts and how we need to be aware of those facts if we're going to do something different for the children, in all of the systems that touch the children. Two quick things. Just following what Delano said, you can't undo racism unless you understand it. And the second thing is we want to clarify that the trainings we're talking about are limited to 40 people. You really have to have a nice mix of people of all races in the room to make the dynamics work, to understand it as a course and also as an environment to grow as well. Council Member James. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for bringing forth this presentation. It can't be easy to present this information. You have no idea. We've actually had a very good reception in Lexington. Well, good. Well, I'm appreciative of it, definitely. I have a couple of questions. First, there was a statement in the presentation which said that African-American children in the foster care system, it costs $5.50 more. What accounts for that cost? What is it? Well, I have to tell you, when I saw that, I got a little pushed out of shape. I didn't understand, because I'm a nurse. I'm not a social worker. So I didn't understand that at all. So I had to talk with the social workers that I know. And they told me that African-American children go to a higher level of care. And then my question was, why is that? And they said because we don't have a lot of African-American foster homes for them to go to, and so many times they'll go to a Caucasian home, and they don't really want African-American children, and so they move them on. Another reason is because they're perceived to be violent. And in one of our presentations, when one of our presentations, a social worker said to me, when Caucasian children ask questions, they're seen as being inquisitive. When African-American children ask questions, they're seen as being hostile and aggressive. So a lot of it has to do with the perceptions that we showed you in those first graphics. And so what we're trying to do with these workshops is to raise the awareness of how those perceptions impact us daily, so that when we make that call for that African-American family, we think, would I make this call if this child were white? And if the answer is yes, that call should be made. And we also want people to think, well, I see this going on. I see broken bones. I see, if this child were black, would I make that call? And we want that answer to be yes. So we want people to have knowledge and to become aware of their biases and their perceptions so that they can do the right things for our children. Okay. I probably need to attend one of the two days, because I have more questions than this will allow. I think so. It's a complex issue. When we also, to add to everything Delano said, when you talk about removing a child from their community and moving them 15 miles away or perhaps to another county, you're dealing with a lot of emotional issues. And as Delano described, when that child is African-American and that child can be in a primarily white area, their behavior may not be exactly accepted. And then that becomes recorded in the process. And before you know it, you're looking for different higher levels of care. So moving from a foster home to a treatment foster home to a group home to a residential care institution, those are all things that happen and contribute to why it costs $5.50. Okay. Are both of you presenters or facilitators of the meeting? Who's the facilitator? People's Institute out of New Orleans. They have 11 offices around the United States, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Pretoria, South Africa. They've trained over 200,000 people in undoing racism. They're community organizers. They've also been used a lot internationally lately. What's the makeup of that, of the people that are presenting? Are they very diverse in race? We always have at least one Caucasian trainer. It's really important when you're presenting on an issue like this that you have a Caucasian trainer in the room. Just like for us to do this presentation, it's really important for Larry to be here or for us to have a Caucasian because this is difficult to hear. I mean, this is hard to hear for us as Americans. We don't want to think that we treat anybody differently. unfairly. But we have data that says we need to look at it. We need to look at why this is happening. And Ms. James, I think we're also fortunate that one of the primary trainers from the People's Institute is Dr. Michael Washington, and he is at Northern Kentucky University. He's the co-author of the book on undoing racism, with Ron Chisholm, who's the head of the People's Institute. So we have been very fortunate to have him as a key trainer, both in Louisville and Lexington, and he's coming back to Eastern. Okay. Well, I will try to find one of those states to attend. Great. That'd be great. Thank you. Thanks for presenting. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Blevins. Hey. Thanks for coming today. I just want to ask a couple of quick clarification questions so I can understand. Are you all here in your role from the Cabinet and DCBS? Yes. You are here, and you are facilitating through the Cabinet having these folks come in and do these workshops. Is that the right structure? Yes. Okay. And could you explain how that's being funded so far, just in general, 30,000-foot view? In Jefferson County, I've raised about $200,000 to have the workshops continue. The state provided money for the first two workshops, and the rest of those workshops, we've been able to fund them through community donations and grants, and that's part of what we need from you is some support. And in Kenton County, part of getting the community to commit to the workshops and to the work is to commit some funds as well, and we ask for funds from multiple places. I get money from the Health Department and the Police Department and Alcoa and the Teachers Association and Metro United Way. I got you. I raise money. Was the Casey Foundation one of those? No, not initially. How did they figure into this? Casey gave us technical assistance. They did not provide us with any money. They provided us with structure on how to analyze our data and how to identify small changes that we can make in our system. They provided technical assistance. Okay. One last question. Early in your presentation, you seemed to focus on the child welfare system as your sort of evidence of the problem, which is clear enough, and I think it extends well beyond the child welfare system for the record. What I'm asking now is, is your focus, the outcome you're looking for, is it changes to the child welfare system, or are you all looking for a broader community cultural change in education, which is sort of your angle? Yes and yes. So both. Absolutely. All of these systems touch each other. Most of the referrals that we get to are hotlined from the education system, and the education system has the issues with suspensions. They have issues with achievement gaps. I mean, all of these systems have these issues that we can address together. If we can increase the awareness of how this is impacting our children, then we can change how our children are being affected for their future. Mr. Clevens, I think you can understand when we talked about the model that we use, every time when we have one of these training sessions, we have people from the court system, from the health department, the police, the schools, all there at the same time. So they're all learning about undoing racism together, and then they go back to their respective systems and influence change there. So they have that ability coming out of the undoing racism training. Then we also call them back to work with us, as we talked about, in a leadership role as well. Okay. And you all scheduled four seminars for Fayette County, correct? So far. That's all the money we have. So far. And those are fully funded? Not fully funded. What do you lack for those four seminars? About $30,000, actually. The other issue is, in Jefferson County, they decided that they wanted to have workshops every month so that they could have an increased impact to the community. The advisory board here has not made their plan yet. And so I am fully anticipating that they will want to have a tremendous amount of community support and will want to have workshops every month. And so if you look at that, each workshop costs $15,000 for 40 people. Okay. Thank you, Mayor. That's all I have. Thank you very much, Councilmember Myers. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you again for coming in, Ms. Manson. I served under you in the Cabinet of Health and Family Services for about 13 months, and you did a fantastic job, and I'm really proud of you. Thank you. And the things that you're doing. And I cannot pronounce your last name, so I don't want to. Mahalchik. Mahalchik. Mr. Mahalchik, it's been a pleasure knowing you in the short time that we've got to meet. Our degrees are in the same area. And both you and the team do a fantastic job. If you could speak just a little bit quickly about the $15,000 for each workshop, and then I'm going to come back to it. Okay. We negotiated with the People's Institute to give us a volume rate, and so they are now charging us $10,000 for the actual workshop, $2,000 we use for food, because we ask all of our participants never to leave the building while they're doing the workshop, because we want them to network and get to know each other. So we provide breakfast, lunch for two days, and then breakfast on the third day. And depending on where we get the food, it usually runs about $2,000 for the 40 people for those days. And then the $3,000 is travel and expenses for the trainers. So the total is $15,000. And I've been watching the budget carefully, and we've spent approximately $14,999 each month. Okay. And then the reason that you need to fully fund the workshops is so that you can have the most inclusive participation. Absolutely. Plus, we do not require the participants to pay anything. Right. And part of the reason is because a lot of the people who need the workshop, who want to come to the workshop, they don't have any money, because we need people from the community. I mean, we need the women and the people who are not wealthy to come to these workshops. Parents and community residents. Parent advocates. Parent advocates and different. And when they've been involved in these workshops, they've provided kind of the richest examples of how this affects their lives and how they've been treated by the systems and what we can do differently. Okay. Thank you very much. I'm going to ask Commissioner Cole to come up for just a second. Thank you for coming up. We discussed earlier where we might try to locate some funding to help out with this initiative, and what we discussed was rather than trying to make a motion to find the money when we don't even have the books closed from last year yet, is to put it on the list of items that we would look to fund as a priority when we get those numbers back from next year, if there's anything left over. And then also, if there's not anything left over, that we would try to work this into the FY09 budget. Could you just? I think when I met with the Budget Finance Committee today, we went over this whole routine again about this time next month, surely. We hope to know what the carry forward is from FY07 until that time. There are a number of issues that you've brought forward, including council members since, animal control folks. We haven't forgotten those. But we are maintaining a list of things that you've indicated some interest in and some things that we need in terms of reappropriations and that kind of thing. So we'll be bringing forward to you a comprehensive list of all that, along with the carry forward number, and we can kind of see where we are and how you want to proceed after that. Okay, thank you very much. At this time, with your permission, Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to just simply add two seminars, which would be $30,000, to this list that the Commissioner spoke about. Is there any motion? I have a motion by Council Member Myers and a second by Council Member James, I think. Is that right? Okay, yes. To add a couple of these seminars to our list of projects for potential funding. Any discussion? Let me raise a question. If we don't provide the funding, do the seminars go on? And if so, who supports them? I continue to beg other organizations, businesses, depending on what the advisory board decides. If they decide they want to have seminars every month for 2008, as part of their responsibilities, they will provide a list and they may even ask their church. And we've asked people for places to hold seminars as well as to sponsor food, so it's not just can an organization come up with $15,000 to sponsor a workshop. Well, I guess what I'm trying to get clear in my mind is there were four seminars that were identified in Fayette County. Right. Will all four of those be held regardless of what we do? Yes, because I will find more money. Okay. If we come up with additional funding, does that mean there will be six in Fayette County? Yes. Okay. That clarifies my question. Any further discussion? Council Member Gorton. Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to ask a question. This isn't a question of you. This is a question of maybe the Mayor or Commissioner Coe. Can you itemize how many items we have on our list? I didn't actually know we were collecting a list. And so if we are, I think it would be good to know what is on the list and what can be put on the list from last year that wasn't funded. I think it's fair to say it's been a fairly informal kind of process as people have raised issues along the way. But, Commissioner Coe, if you want to elaborate just a little bit on that. The Mayor's correct. It's been fairly informal. As we've been listening to you through work session and council meetings, we've been just keeping a list of the kinds of things that you have indicated an interest in that you couldn't act upon because you don't know that carry-forward number. So, clearly, when we bring something forward, it will still be up to the council to make decisions about are there additional things that need to be on the list or can you even take care of everything that is on the list. Can you share that list with us to remind us of the kinds of things we've been talking about these last few months, just by email or something? I can do that. I will tell you there are some things on the list from the administration that I haven't discussed with you yet that might not make a lot of sense to you, but I'd be happy to pass them along. We'll take whatever you pass along. I'll do that. Thank you. You know, I certainly hope that when we get to the end of the process of sorting out all of the issues generated by STARS last year that we'll find we have some additional funds to do some things that need to be done because there clearly are some things that need to be done, some of which we've talked about here, some of which we haven't. And the list has just been an effort to try to keep track of those things so they don't get lost. All right. Council Member James. Mayor, I just wanted to reiterate that there's only four participants per seminar, right? Forty participants. And out of four that you currently have, that means you'll touch 160 people only. And what's the percentage of that versus our population in Lexington? So keep that in mind as we look at continuing at supporting more seminars for them, that we can definitely reach a few more people, and maybe even be a model of others that will support seminars for their organizations. Thank you. Anything further? And those in favor of Council Member Meyer's motion to add the prospects of funding two additional seminars to the list that Commissioner Coe is maintaining, let it be known by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries unanimously. All right. I believe that brings us down. Thank you all very much for coming today. That brings us down now to council reports. And if you will indicate your interest in speaking, we'll proceed. Council Member Stephens. Thank you, Mayor. As everyone knows, the PSC has pending before it an application by the Kentucky American Water Company for the construction of a new water treatment plant on Pool 3 of the Kentucky River. This has generated, to say the least, a lot of controversy. And one of the problems has been the conflicting information that has been available to the citizens and to the decision makers. And to that effect, the Public Service Commission, in somewhat of an unprecedented action, asked for more help and postponed their decision on this issue. And I circulated yesterday a memo to the council and to other people in our government about this issue. And I would propose that we need to look into an unbiased opinion, if possible, about this issue. And to that effect, we have had conversations with Dr. Kenneth Trosky, William B. Sturgill Professor of Economics in the Gatton School of Business at the University of Kentucky. And he has agreed to look at this issue and prepare a report for us to be delivered at next week's work session. Time is of the essence, as you know, because our deadline for the Public Service Commission is pursuant to the motion made by Mr. Stennett a few weeks ago is February the 11th. And that means that the information, if there is any to be transmitted, would need to be available probably on February the 8th. So Dr. Trosky has said, and I've outlined what he thinks the scope of his project would be in the memo that you've received, which is to look at the currently available information and construct an economic model of the two alternatives that are present. So I would offer this motion then, that the Lexington-Fayette-Urban County Government retain Dr. Kenneth Trosky, Ph.D., William B. Sturgill Professor of Economics at the Gatton School of Business at the University of Kentucky, to review available facts currently regarding the Kentucky American Water Company application pending before the Public Service Commission and report to the Council and the Government at the February 5th work session of the Urban County Council. And that fee of $15,000 should be paid by a general fund balance and so move. Second. I have a motion by Council Member Stephens and a second by Council Member Gordon to retain Professor Trotsky at an amount not to exceed $15,000 for him to report back to us no later than next Tuesday's work session. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. I just have a few questions. Dr. Stephens, in our prior meetings, we had a motion that we were going to ask Mr. Rubin to come back and we'd ask if there was going to be a new testimony. Excuse me. Whatever happened with that? We discussed that. I don't recall a motion to that effect. Let me ask Mr. Barbary to come to the podium because I think the way that Council motion ultimately got resolved, we left it to Mr. Barbary to contact the Attorney General's office. Good afternoon. I've contacted the Attorney General's office. I've also sent them a letter today, and hopefully we will hear something formally from them by the end of this week. So we haven't heard anything at this point? You just actually sent a letter today? I've had conversations with them. Well, originally I didn't think I was going to have to send a letter, but after talking to them some more this week, they wanted a letter. So we've sent a letter out to try to get them to send us something in writing, so to speak. What kind of deadline, when you spoke with them, did they say they would try to get back to us with? Because they know we're on a tight deadline here. They realize the deadline we're on, and they're going to try to get us something as soon as possible, from what I understand. I guess while you're here, I had a couple of questions for you. Could you tell us what the PSC requires to do under the order? When they send it back to us. It depends on which order you're talking about. You can talk all of them if you'd like. If you're speaking specifically about a requirement, the specific requirement we had in December on the December 21st order was to respond to some informational requests, which we've done so far, and to also in our brief address four or five legal issues that they wanted all of the parties to address. That's what we are being required to do by the Public Service Commission via the orders. What they did in the order of January 16th was they opened the door for additional verified testimony to be placed in the record by any party that was relevant to the case that's before them, basically. But they're not mandating necessarily that any testimony be forthcoming. The idea in this order was if there is verified testimony offered, the other parties in the case and or the Public Service Commission would have the ability to have the person or persons that provide that testimony brought in to an additional public hearing that would take place on March the 5th, and that would be the opportunity to cross-examine those people on their additional testimony. I guess that's a question I have. If we go with the motion and apply $15,000 to have that, does that include if they have to come back to go speak to the PSC? Because if the professor gives us his recommendations and that's new testimony, then the PSC requires them to come to speak in the testimony. Does that $15,000 include his speaking to them then? No. We talked about that with him, and he says that if he is called to testify before the PSC, assuming he has information that they would consider of value, it would cost $300 an hour. $300 an hour? Okay. Is that $300, is that including travel, or is that $300 for testimony, or how does that come down? I don't know the answer to that question. And I guess another question I have, if we have a deadline of the 5th, how are we going to go about doing first and second reading for this, because we don't meet again until the 7th, and what would our procedure be for that? I think that if we pass this motion today, Professor Trosky is willing to run the risk that there might be somebody change their mind. Okay, that's all the questions I have right now. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Crosby. Yeah, I have a few questions. Just given the fact that there is a fee that we have to pay to retain him, would this not require some kind of, I mean, it just seems like time-wise, does this require some kind of budget amendment or something? I don't see how we can commit to pay somebody for service before the service is done. Excuse me? And where is the money going to come from to pay? Understanding the time calendar, Dr. Trosky is willing to go ahead and do the work with the hope, I guess, or the knowledge that if the majority of the council authorized him to do it, that that majority would also approve a budget amendment from the fund balance to pay him. So there is a chance that we could possibly approve the work and then turn around and not approve paying him? I mean, that could potentially happen? Such a thing could happen, I presume. And then my next question is regarding the Rubin analysis. Do you know how long it took that independent analysis to be done for the Attorney General? No, I do not. Does anybody know the answer to that question? Based upon the dates he was retained, the process he undertook was he had several weeks, if not months, prior to filing his initial testimony. And then because he was retained in the case, he had the additional time frame to review all of the other evidence that was put in the record subsequent to that before filing his rebuttal testimony. But he's kind of in a unique situation because he's been involved, as Kentucky American and some other parties have been, for the last 10 or 12 years. So somebody who had been involved for 10 to 12 years had perhaps? Mr. Laird, do you know? That's not being – literally, for this case, I would assume he was hired at about the same time the case was filed. I guess my concern is not so much the fact that maybe we want to get an independent person to come in and do an analysis, but the fact that we're trying to do this in one week when other analyses have been done and it's taken – I'm trying to find out how long. I'm not quite clear. Both of the other major analyses, not counting Mr. Rubin's, the O'Brien and Geer analysis took about 16 months. The analysis that Kentucky American hired independently to review that one took 18 months. Mr. Rubin has been representing the Attorney General in every source of supply case since 1993. And best we know, he was retained shortly after this case was initiated in March of 07. So with the background going back to 1993, he still had several months to prepare his testimony and, as you know, testified in support of the Kentucky American Pool 3 proposal. Thank you. I think that's all I have right now. Vice Mayor Gray. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Crosby, your questions are good questions, and the questions that are challenging the time frames are also very credible questions. But my understanding is that Professor Trotsky's mission will be to confirm the validity of the RWBEC, the RWBEC proposal or analysis, the Rubin analysis, not to go in and do new evaluations or new analysis. I understand that. But to confirm the process, I think. I guess, though, when you have three different, by what I'm reading, what I just received, I guess, late yesterday was that there are three different analyses that he's going to be looking at, or two, and then the final report, is this feasible when it's taken months? Months of work have gone into that. Is it feasible in one week to be able to complete this? And that was my question that was posed. I guess, evidently, you all have gotten it in front of you. Well, I think he's got the same document that everyone else has, but, I mean, just reading from it, you might want to just read from it, Dr. Stevens, because it seems clear to me that it's achievable by an economist who is familiar with the procedures that each one of the studies have utilized in developing their conclusions. He's looking at the process for the present value analysis that Rubin engaged. He will confirm that that process is a bona fide, valid process. That's my understanding of it. And through that, he gives us the confidence that all of this work has been engaged in a thorough, legitimate, and exhaustive way. Thank you. Yes, I think so. He also will, if there is any new information offered by the parties involved, he will put that into his equations. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Mayor. Again, I just find it interesting how we do these things where we try and pound a round peg into a square hole as fast as we can. And I think the first word that strikes me is unbiased. We're talking about somebody who the majority of this Council has never met, who certain parties of this Council have met who are obviously biased towards this case a certain way. We're talking about 22 years of study. Just in the PSC case here, we're talking about a year and a half worth of study. And now we're talking about an economist who may or may not have the rate background, the ratings, water rates background, and so forth like that. But I want to take you back to last Tuesday because this started to bother me, Vice Mayor, when you brought this up. And I've got the work session tape and I've got the transcripts. And this is what bothered me the most. It's when you started talking about this last week and you said that Council Member Gordon had contact with an economist at UK and you're sending some of the information and looking at it. And I believe you said, speaking of Council Member Gordon, that he's familiar with the issue just by having followed it in the newspaper. Is that correct? And that's in the transcript. That, to me, does not mean an expert. And so at the end of the day, what are we trying to do here? One week to try and cram something in? I can't vote for this. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. There seems to be some confusion amongst this body that 30 days ago we passed a resolution, and I'll remind you unanimously, to ask for any other viable option for our water supply issue to come forward to this Council. Well, three weeks have passed and we've only had one presentation. Never did I mention in that resolution that we were to hire an outside expert or consultant to do analysis. And what troubles me is, one, he's not here today. We're being asked to hire someone at half, well, I would say probably only four of you met. If Council didn't meet him, then how are you picking this guy to do a monumental assessment of this supply issue in a week, if you haven't even met him? Well, the other problem we have here is the precedent this is setting. This is obligating this Council and this government to spend money that we have not had two readings on, and that's a deadly precedent to set. We wouldn't do it for any other department sitting in this room. Why are we doing it for ourselves? If this was such a critical idea and issue and analysis that is needed and warranted, and I agree it probably is, why are we waiting until the last week to do this? We had two, three, four months ago. It was in the Planning Commission seven months ago. Why are we waiting until today to try to do this? Again, on a person we have not even met in person, we haven't even had a chance to ask him his background. I get this memo, and the last page his name is spelled wrong, so I know he didn't write that. But I'm still unclear as to what analysis he's going to do when it says he's not even going to look at construction or the current or future demand of water supply. So what assumptions, can I please have something in better detail from him as to what assumptions he's really going to look at? Because it's not clear on this last page, and I'm not sure it's from him because I don't think he would misspell his name. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. It's troubling to me that council members are making assumptions about other council members without asking ahead of time about those issues. Dr. Stephens and I have talked a good bit about this issue. I personally believe that the water supply issue is probably one of the most important issues that central Kentucky will ever face, that any of us will ever have any input on. And the last thing that I wanted to do was to find a biased person to do the analysis. I wanted someone who was unbiased, who was objective, and so I called our premier university, the University of Kentucky. One of their missions is public service to the community. They have a center for business and economics there that does this sort of analysis all the time. I do not know Professor Trotsky. I have never met him. I think that's a positive. He came highly recommended. He's the director of this center at the University of Kentucky. And this is why we brought his name forward, because we felt, not knowing him but having read his resume, he has international experience. He's highly regarded. He has a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in economics. He is someone that I felt, based on what I was told and what I read, that we could trust to give us an objective opinion. He is not going to go back and do 15 months of construction analysis. That is why these three analyses took so long, is they had to go in and look at the construction. He's not going to do that. He is going to look at these three entities, analyses, and use his business expertise and his economic expertise. He's going to look at the basic assumptions each of them used and try to make a comparison for us. And what we asked him, if he could do, is to tell us what he feels, based on the assumptions of these three analyses, what would be in the best interest of the rate payers. That is all I'm concerned about. And whatever he comes back with as his judgment is what I would like to see and to know, what is best for our rate payers. That's who I represent. I don't represent anyone other than the rate payers. And this is the last final opportunity we have as a legislative body to have any type of input into a decision with pretty big consequences for the next 20 to 30 years for all of our rate payers. And that's why I think it's important. I have no, you know, I do not know the professor. I have talked with him on the phone. I believe he could give an unbiased, objective opinion, and he's very highly qualified to do so. And that is my sole interest. And so I will support this. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mayor. You're having quite a day today, Council Member Blues. I think Council Member Gordons did something. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to sort of underline Council Member Gordon's remarks here. I think that I would take exception to the suggestion that there's bias in one direction or another at work here. What is at work here, with me at any rate, and I think with all of us, is our desire to find the best basis for the best solution for solving our water supply problems over the next several decades for millions and millions of dollars in the most environmentally sensitive way that we can. The PSC clearly has put a ball in our court, which I think we've not perhaps handled as adroitly as we might have, but as best we could. This study that we're being asked to authorize is the best we can do, and I think the least we can do. And I, for one, am not interested at all in supporting a single water company, whether it's Kentucky American or whether it's the Louisville Water Company. I'm interested in the time that we have left in providing ourselves and the public with the best information we can and providing the PSC with that information as well so that it can make its decision for the people of our region. Thank you, Mayor. If other council members wish to speak, Council Member Myers, followed by Council Member Lane. Thank you, Mayor. Gosh, where do I begin? I guess I'd start by asking whoever wants to answer the question. I presume it's going to be Dr. Stephens, but it may be somebody else. When did you send out a request for qualifications on this person that you handpicked to do this? Would you say that question again? When did you send out the request for qualifications when you decided that you were going to select someone to make this analysis? When did we send out the request for qualifications? Yes, sir. I think it was sometime last week. So what did you – you actually sent a request for qualifications out? Well, we had – it had been recommended when we asked him whether – we had a phone conversation with him where several of us were there over speakerphone and talked about whether he thought he could achieve the goals he has under the scope that's attached to this memo. And he said he thought he could. And we talked about the date that would be necessary, and he sent us his qualifications in. Did he write that scope that's in that? Yes. Okay. You said there were several of you around. Could you tell us who all was around in this conversation? Yes. As far as Councilman Gray and Councilman Blues, and I think Councilman Gorton was participating, too, to some degree. She was nursing at that time during that actual conversation. So can you state for the record who was actually there during the conversation? Councilman Blues, myself, and Councilman Gray. Okay. I guess, how did you arrive at what qualifications were necessary to do this type of analysis? We thought that somebody who's an economist and is used to doing – constructing models and analyzing models such as had been presented before the PSC was the kind of person to do it. So you didn't – it's sort of just an opinion of the three of you or the four of you on what qualifications are necessary? Well, as I outlined, yes. Okay. How did you arrive at this was the person? You said that you sent the request for qualifications to him. How did you decide that – or let me ask you this first. Did you send the request for qualifications to anybody other than him, Mr. Trotsky? Did we solicit any other qualifications? Is that your question? Did you send a list of the request for qualifications from any other person besides Mr. Trotsky? No, we did not. So how did you arrive at the determination to send the request for qualifications only to him and not anybody else? We talked to him first. And when he said that he could accomplish this goal that is outlined in the scope of his work, then he sent us his qualifications and we reviewed those and thought he would be able to carry out the task assigned. So did he give you the list of qualifications that he thought was necessary to do the work that you wanted done or did you guys come up with the list of qualifications and then – I don't understand your question. Well, you said that he told you that he could do the work that you were asking to be done. I'm still trying to get at how he was selected. If you only sent the request for qualifications to him, how did you narrow it down to him to start with? He's willing to yield to me. Dr. Stevens, are you willing to yield? I think the chair needs to run the meeting. If you want to do that, that's fine, but the chair needs to run the meeting. So I think Council Member Myers is asking that you acknowledge me. Yes, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. Okay. I'd like to put it in the context of we've had 30 days during which to deal with this question. So, in effect, we're up against the wall of time. And in the Council meeting or the work session last week, I shared myself my sentiment about the best way to approach this. I shared it with everyone that my view was that recruiting and retaining an independent advisor would be a benefit for us in making an informed decision or contribution to the PSC proceedings, what they have asked us to do. So in executing that, what we did was had a conversation about how to go about that since we only had 15 days or so. And Council Member Gordon suggested going to the University of Kentucky, which, as she said, is about as good as we're going to get with the time that we've got. And she took that initiative on her own. And I was happy that she did because I, at that point in time, wasn't finding the time, able to find the time to chase down a consultant that might fit a perfect profile. After looking at his CV, it looked like that he had some pretty good experience. So made a telephone call, talked to him, bearing in mind that we only have 15 days to respond. So that's it. Okay. So my question originally was. There was no time for real protocol or procedure if we were to engage this. The Council may decide that we don't engage it, but that was the approach that was taken. Okay. I appreciate your response, but my question was not to your process to how you, you know, about the timeline and all that. It was how did you arrive at this particular person as being the one that you would send the request for qualifications to? I think I just explained it. Council Member Gordon took the initiative to inquire at the university of who might be best equipped for this task. Okay. Thank you. That concludes that. Sure. If I could add one thing, he is the director. So he's the top guy at the Center for Business and Economic Research at UK. It's my understanding that he will work with people in the Center for Business and Economic Research to accomplish this. So he's the head guy. You know, he's the one that any request from that Center would have to flow through anyway. So that's why. So that brings up another question. So is he doing this as an employee of the Center, so the Center is actually providing this information, or is he doing this as a contract and he's asking those guys to help? I can answer that. He will be doing this for the Center, and the compensation will go to the Center. Okay. That's good to know because I don't think any of us had any idea about that. Mr. Barbary, could you come up for a second, please? We're still having this conversation that's sort of a sidebar, if you will, with respect to what the order actually asked us to do. And here today, once again, we're discussing this idea that the PSC asked us to do all these different things. But when I read the order, nowhere in it does it say, LFUCG ought to hire a consultant to analyze what other people have already presented as sworn testimony before the PSC and then give the PSC that analysis. Could you elaborate on, and we had a conversation on Thursday night, about what it is this order is requesting from LFUCG, what we have or have not to date submitted as a response to their request in this order? If you're speaking about the December 21st order. Yes, sir. On the December 21st order, what the Public Service Commission ordered us specifically to do, as well as some other additional parties, was to respond to some informational items. We did that back on the discovery deadline. In essence, we answered no. That's all public record. In essence, we answered no to most of those responses because we simply hadn't engaged in the type of things they were looking for an answer on. They also indicated on December 21st that they had a number of issues that they wanted all of the parties to address when they filed their briefs. None of the parties have addressed those issues yet because none of the briefs have been filed. They also at least implied that they would like the, and this was based upon the questions they asked in the discovery, as well as how the order generally reads, they would like the Irving County government to potentially look into whether or not they could enter into some sort of partnership arrangement with respect to the ownership of the Kentucky American proposal. I believe with the thought process being if you could obtain certain type of financing, it might be less costly than it would be otherwise, everything else being equal. And so let me flesh that out a little bit. It sounds like what you're saying is that the PSC, in its instruction to us, basically said if you really want to get this thing done at the most cost-effective price for the rate payer, the avenue for doing that is to partnership with Kentucky American Water and a public-private partnership to get this project completed. Is that accurate? That would be a fair interpretation of what the December 21st order indicated. Now what's happened since then is based upon what you all, on the unanimous resolution that you all passed several weeks ago, they came out with the order on the 16th, and that I believe could be read more broadly than what the directive of the 21st one ended up being. So what they've indicated now in the order of the 16th is any party, including us, has the opportunity to submit additional evidence into the record on these issues, the general issues of the different proposals. And the concern that I had with all of this, frankly, was it needs to be verified testimony if they're going to take it as evidence. So no matter what you all do, if you decide to move forward, that's my larger concern is it's going to have to be verified if it's considered at all. That's what the order says. And by doing that, whoever you all end up retaining, if you retain someone, has to understand that they are going to be subject to cross-examination, most likely, by all of the other parties in the case. And what you're referring to is what I talked about in the last meeting with respect to this order that says that all testimony must be provided under oath. And then it says or, and they give a way of verifying testimony, which is still speaking back to it being under oath. And so what you're saying is that the gentleman who's going to do this analysis, if we were to move forward with this, would have to do that, do so under oath. Well, I'm not really clear what the intent, if the intent is to have him just give a public presentation next Tuesday, I suppose that that wouldn't necessarily have to make its way into the record. But if the intent is to supplement the record of the case itself, the PSC has indicated, probably unquestionably in its order, that they're only going to take additional evidence in verified written form. Evidence that is not in this form shall not be accepted. So if the idea is to have his proposal ultimately make its way into the record, it's going to have to be in verified written form, which means it's under oath, which means then the other parties to the case would have the opportunity, as well as the Public Service Commission itself, to ask for an additional public hearing that would take place on March 5th. And that would solely take place to hear the cross-examination of anybody that put this additional testimony into the record. Okay. So to wrap up, anywhere in that order on the 21st of December or the 16th of January, right, is the second order? Is there any request from the PSC to do what is proposed here today? I think the 16th order is subject to interpretation on how broadly the Commission is looking for information in this area. The 21st one I don't think contemplated this particular type action. When they entered the one on the 16th, I think they probably opened up the door to a broad number of different things happening. I can't really speak to what they really expect one way or the other as far as additional verified testimony. Okay. And so then that seems to me that the 16th order speaks to what Councilman Stennett just spoke about when he spoke, because he's the one that put forth the resolution that then caused the response from the PSC. They definitely entered the order on the 16th, and it was in response to our resolution that we sent over there, I think it was two or three days before then. And once again, it's the testimony of Councilman Stennett that his intent on that resolution that he put forth that resulted in the 16th order, January 16th order, had nothing to do with what they're trying to do here today. What he said was anyone who wants to put together a proposal as an option to what Kentucky American Water has before the PSC has 30 days in which to do so. May I remind the Council that just a week later, a short week later, Louisville Water Company came in, made their presentation, didn't take the full 30 days, and then came back, as Councilman Blevins said, with the same numbers, and they even said in their testimony the same exact numbers, the same exact proposal that they had put forth to the PSC back in July of the year before. I'm kind of going to wrap up by saying Councilmember Gordon said earlier that the water supply issue is the most important issue facing our city, and so that's why she wants to get this additional information. And what I would say is that I guess I have one more question before I go forward with that. Why is Mr. Trotsky not here today? He wasn't invited. Okay. I think that, and Dr. Stephens can speak to this, probably it wasn't appropriate since the Council is determining with this motion whether to ask him to do this study or not. Okay. If you could elaborate on that answer because it seems it would – well, let me present this before you elaborate. It would seem to me that because this body is taking a look at hiring him to do this analysis, it would be very appropriate for him to be here to answer the questions as to his qualifications and his whole lot of things. And so I don't understand why one would think that if we are going to be asked to vote on this and pay this person to do a job, I mean, the rest of our processes, if we let a contract out in government, there's a request for qualifications that goes out or a request for proposals that go out, and they have to respond to that. And then there's a committee that looks at that information to determine which one is best suitable for that contract. Here we have a situation where, once again, we've got folks operating in the dark. You know, people are saying that they're most interested in the rate payer. That's who they represent. Everybody's concerned about the rate payer and them getting the best deal. But once again, we've got this small group of people operating in the dark. You know, at the same time that this resolution was made to give whomever wanted to come forward 30 days to do so, the group that wants to do this had 30 days to present this at the same time. And so why have you not? You know, I go back to that first letter that we sent to the PSC that really got this thing started when I was told there's 11 people who have already signed the letter, so I implied from that that it really doesn't matter if I sign it or not, we've got our votes. And I talked about, on that day, operating in good faith, operating out in the light of day, so that everybody as this body, as these 15 council members and the constituents that we represent, whether they represent the whole city or a district, have an opportunity to properly vet this whole process in public. Once again, we're back to three, four people meeting in the dark and coming up with an idea of we want to go ahead and have this person do an analysis. We're going to hand select the person to do the analysis. There's no discussion about whether or not this person's non-biased, whether or not they're qualified, or any of those things. There's no discussion right now of where the money's going to come from to do this. And so I don't understand when one says that all they're concerned about is the rate payer at the end of the day. Why it is that that same small group continues to operate in the dark and not involve the entire council and the public in the process. So that's sort of a rhetorical, and thank you, Mr. Mayor, and I'm done. But I will say that I am not going to support this motion. Thank you. May I respond, Mayor, since those questions were directed to me? Well, I've had Council Member Crosby and Lane. Council Member Lane next, Council Member Crosby, and then we'll come back to you. Well, so I've been quiet here, but I think the most important sentence that I've read in everything we've discussed tonight is the scope of the work for the Lexington-Fayette-Orem County Government, which Dr. Trotsky, I guess, prepared with this information. It's the last sentence. It said, I will not evaluate any of the assumptions underlying the actual construction of the two projects. Now, I think that's very important that he's not going to evaluate that, because in the case of Kentucky American, I know that they pretty much have all their bids in. Construction costs are hard. And with regard to the Louisville Water Company's proposal, they have a theoretical site where they want to run the lines. They have no hard costs. I mean, I do a little bit of construction and real estate work in my business, and a hard bid is a lot better than an estimate, and an estimate is subject to a lot of different changes and factors that you don't anticipate until you get the bids. And the fact that Dr. Trotsky is not going to look at those data, to me, you know, that to me is a major question, you know, which costs are more valid. The second aspect of it says that he will also not do any analysis of the current or future demand for and supply of water in central Kentucky. Well, the two proposals that have been competing are based on how much water will be used. If you buy a lot of water from Kentucky American, it's going to be at a fixed price, because they own the plant, or the break players own it, however you want to look at it, and the fee is going to be standardized. When you buy the water from the Louisville Water Company, we're paying a wholesale rate, which is a lot more than just treating the water itself. So the higher the consumption, really the more attractive the Kentucky American plan looks. So if we're not going to evaluate that issue about water consumption and how it impacts economic costs of the two plans, I feel that this is really the two major questions that need to be addressed. It appears from the proposal here that, and I know Kenneth Trotsky not personally, but I know who he is. He has excellent credentials. I would, you know, I'd say he would be a great economist. My question is, how much has he done in the water area, and how quickly can he get up on the curve? And if we're going to exclude these two areas from evaluation in the report, I don't see that it gives us as much value as I would have hoped for the $15,000. So I will not be supporting this motion either. Thank you. Council Member Crosby, then Council Member Gord. Mr. Barbieri, does this violate procurement procedures in any way as far as hiring this consultant? You haven't. What will happen yet is, if I understand what you all may do, you haven't actually hired him yet. I mean, he would be engaging upon possibly performing some work, and you all would ratify the engagement of him after the fact if that's what you all decided to do. So it doesn't violate anything? It's not. If you're asking whether it's a normal process, the answer is no. Do I think it's definitely violating our standard practices? Probably not. But what you're setting yourselves up to have happen is it would have to be, you'd have to be, next Thursday night if you went ahead and hired him, moving forward today, you would, in order to make sure he gets paid, you would have to ratify his hiring after the fact. Okay, thank you. Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Mayor, for allowing me to address a couple of issues that Mr. Myers brought up. And I think that Dr. Stevens can address why Mr. Trosky isn't here today. But I did want to address your assertion that we were operating in the dark. You know, I actually mentioned last week that I had made an initial contact with Dr. Trosky. We have attempted not, on purpose, not to operate in the dark. I would challenge you to cite instances that would require individual council members not to contact people in the community to begin inquiries on different subjects. I suspect every council member here has, on occasion, to contact someone whom they felt could help in a certain instance. And so that actually, I think, is part of our job. And we have purposely not been trying to operate in the dark. We've been trying to operate in the light. And that's why it was brought forward that I contacted Dr. Trosky, Mr. Myers. So I just simply wanted to say that because I think we've made an attempt to be in the daylight. Do you have your next question there? I'm sorry, I didn't. Are you through? Yes. Okay. Then Council Member Beard. Thank you, Mayor. The $15,000 in and of itself doesn't bother me. I've got several questions, I guess. Will the PSC give credence to whatever analyses? This is going to be a multiple-choice question, David. What Dr. Trosky's analysis is, if, in fact, he is using RWX analysis, the Rubin analysis, the O'Brien and Gehr analysis, and if he doesn't change any of the assumptions, it's going to be a math problem is all it's going to be. You have to change the assumptions somehow and manipulate the assumptions to come up with a different answer. So we already have that information, I guess. I would, and the PSC already has that information. I would like, the only reason why I might favor this is that I would like the public to understand that we have gone to every length whatsoever to vet this whole question, and that the polarization of this group ceases. It bothers me the most. I do remember Council Member Stennett asking Louisville Water Company, by the way, to sharpen their pencil, and I assume that we're not going to see that unless they've gotten in touch with you, Council Member Stennett. Was it you? Okay, well, okay, I'll blame it on you, Don. If the assumptions don't change, we're going to get the same answers is all I've got to say. And if, in fact, that makes the public more comfortable that we go through this process, and if it makes this body more comfortable, the $15,000 doesn't bother me. But in no case would I favor extending the time one day. I think our time limit is Sunday, the 10th of February, that our 30 days is up. And I would not favor any extension at this point anyway with the information we have. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Vice. Council Member Beard, Vice Mayor Gray. Thank you, Mayor. This may be perceived as fully disingenuous and Machiavellian and weird. However, I've noticed that Bill Lear, Mr. Lear, is rather fidgety here. I am going to yield to Bill Lear. Mr. Lear, you can laugh, too. I am. It's always nice to be introduced in a sentence that has the words weird and Machiavellian. I was referring to myself. Really, really a nice introduction. I'm going to put that one in my resume. I do appreciate being asked to comment briefly. My name is Bill Lear and I'm here on behalf of Kentucky American. Linda Bridwell and others are here today. Frankly, Linda Bridwell knows more about this issue than everybody in this room and everybody at UK put together. I do want to put a little bit of context into this and then make some specific comments about this proposal because it's troubling. I will tell you, and some of you know this, I've been directly involved with this government since even before I was Commissioner of Law in 1979, and this is about as irregular a hiring or engagement process as I've ever witnessed anybody trying to undertake. It's not, I don't know that it's per se illegal, but it's really strange. I think there's a little misperception in some quarters here about what the PSC is about, and I want to make sure it's understood. The PSC is not going to decide anything about the Louisville Water Company concept. This is not a horse race where they're attempting to decide if this horse wins or this horse wins. Louisville's proposal is not before them. You can hire an expert that says that's the best thing in the history of the world and the PSC cannot approve it. They can't even consider the Louisville proposal unless and until Louisville does all the routing, all the design, all the engineering, comes up with costs and files an application just like Kentucky American did. That's why this is not an apples to apples same state of development analysis. The second thing that bothers me in listening to all this is the notion that we have to do something, that we have to do something so the public will see that we are minding to their business. And it seems to ignore the fact that this government was one of the founding members of the Blue Grass Water Supply Consortium, which later became by initiative of this government in 2004 the Blue Grass Water Supply Commission. It has nine or ten governmental entities. This government is just one. Those who are in search of an independent analysis, look at the one you helped pay for. You helped pay for. You contributed to the cost of the O'Brien and Geer report. It wasn't just paid for by federal government funds. It was paid for in part by money from this government. They went through an exhaustive study. They're the ones that came up with the Pool 3 idea. They looked at it side by side. The three ideas that they focused on the most were the Pool 3 idea, the Louisville pipeline, and one other one, and concluded that at the end of it not only was the Pool 3 alternative the best on all their criteria, but it was the lowest cost. You've stuck with the Blue Grass Water Supply Consortium. In 2006, you attended, you being representatives of the urban county government, Charlie Martin, David, attended a meeting at which the consortium said, we want the Pool 3 alternative. Said it to the Public Service Commission, said it to the AG, said it to the Kentucky River Authority, said it to everybody in attendance in a pending source of supply case at the Public Service Commission. That's when Kentucky American said, okay, we'll build that. We file a case. Another independent person, Scott Rubin, who's hired by the Attorney General, who has testified against Kentucky American in the last four rate cases. This is not an apologist for water utilities. He represents the Attorney General. This is maybe the first time in history he's ever said, I support what the water company wants to do. And he's testified that he supports this proposal. So there you've got the second independent person, and this has been an ongoing deliberative process. The notion that the government here needs to dash around and find somebody to do another analysis after all these years of analyses and all this money spent is just misplaced. In February of this year, with the vote and support of your representative on the Blue Grass Water Supply Consortium, an agreement was reached with Kentucky American to spend another $171,000, more of your money, to design the plant up from 25 MGD, rather 225 MGD, from 20 MGD. More urban county government involvement. In November of this year, the Blue Grass Water Supply Consortium, with the vote and support of your representative, signed an agreement allowing them to buy one-fifth of this facility. So you're already now, with your support of your own people that have been doing this over the years, you're now able to be a part of the ownership of this. It is a public-private entity. Now, the last thing that is troublesome is the nature of this proposed engagement. Number one, it's artificially constrained. He says he's going to look at three reports. Those three reports maybe constitute 10% of the evidence in front of the PSC in this case. He's not proposing to look at any testimony. He's not proposing to look at any rebuttal evidence. He's not proposing to look at the thousands of pages of information that have been supplied in response to PSC staff requests. No, it would be hard enough to look at those three reports. He's not going to look at the testimony of Mr. Heitzman in which it was revealed that the RW Beck report doesn't even analyze the proposal that Louisville Water Company has made. He has to look at that testimony. Anybody would have to look at that testimony. The last thing that I want to say relates to this RFP discussion. There wasn't an RFP done. I'll tell you that there's a $25,000 minimum. So if you hire somebody under $25,000 professional services, you're not violating your procurement rules. But what those procurement rules say is nevertheless instructive. And what they say, this has nothing to do with hiring somebody before you've passed a resolution. That is out of bounds in my judgment. But just in terms of straight procurement, what they say is the first thing you look at is specialized expertise of the person's making a presentation. I am confident that Professor Trosky is an excellent economist. If you look at his CV, you will not find the word water in it. And I think you find the word utility once. If you look at Mr. Rubin's CV, you'll find the word water more than 180 times. Familiarity with the subject matter is important. Now, Mr. Trosky's CV is full of references to employment discrimination and models related to wage and hour and disparate treatment of different groups in the workplace. That's clearly his niche. And I'm sure he's excellent at it. But there's nothing about water. And Linda Bridwell will tell you, you can't do a fair economic analysis without understanding the underlying technical aspects of all of this. And you can't do a fair analysis of one proposal versus the other without understanding the engineering and the construction that underlies it. Now, why does it make a difference? The reason it makes a difference is you've already got independent analyses in here and to suggest that this gentleman is going to be able to do something that is truly helpful and credible in a week's time is misleading everybody, including the public. And we don't think that's a good idea. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lear. Council Member Myers and then Council Member Stevens. Thank you, Mayor. I want to respond to what Council Member Gordon said, and I don't want to do a tit-for-tat. I know she doesn't either. I'm not suggesting that you do. The reason that I said that you're operating this group, because it wasn't directed just to you, but this group is operating in the dark is, for one, this type of issue would normally go into a committee, and it would be vetted properly on what the qualifications are, just like Mr. Lear talked about. This gentleman is an excellent qualified economist, but he has no expertise in this subject matter. And for a group of three or four council members to get together and decide to handpick this person who has no expertise in this area and have no discussions with the rest of the council is operating in the dark. And, you know, you had 30 days. When we did the resolution, we gave 30 days for anybody to do whatever they wanted to do. That was the time to go ahead and put this in. If anything, a committee of the whole could have been called. We could have discussed this. We could have discussed with folks from the PSC, perhaps, what type of qualifications would one need to do the analysis that you guys are talking about having done. None of that happened. I don't think that this is in the best interest of the ratepayers. I don't think – I agree with everything that Mr. Lear said, that we're not going to get anything of value out of this if we were to do it. And once again, when you speak to our procurement process, this is not the way we do things as a government. And to suggest that we do it this way, I guess I would ask the question, is this the way we want to operate from this day forward as a government? And I think most people in this room would say no. So then the question would be, why would we do it today? Thank you. Council Member Stephens. I believe everybody's had a chance to speak as many times as they would like, so I would move that we terminate debate and vote immediately, or as Mr. Roberts says, call the question. There's a motion for the previous question. We have a second. It requires two-thirds approval. It's non-debatable. Those in favor of ending debate, please indicate by voting aye electronically. Those opposed, vote nay electronically. Ten votes will be required to pass the motion. It has a required number of votes, so debate is now terminated. We are prepared to vote. Madam Clerk, if you'll clear the machine. Okay. This is on the vote to terminate debate. Point of order, Council Member Crosby. All right. Are you logged on? All right. How do you wish to record your vote? Yes, for terminating debate? All right. Thank you. Motion carries. We're now ready to vote on the main motion, which is Dr. Stephens' motion to retain Kenneth Trotsky to evaluate the Kentucky American application to the PSC and to report at next week's work session at an amount not to exceed $15,000. And Madam Clerk, I'd like to vote electronically. Again, if you could clear the machine. Point of order, Mayor. Council Member Myers. Do we not have to determine where this money is going to come from? There's no fund balance. We heard that. Yeah, we've been hearing that for six months. Certainly, in order to actually approve a resolution or an ordinance to that effect, we're going to have to do a budget amendment. So your point is well taken. And I suppose the way to rectify the situation would be to reframe the motion in the context of moving to place an item on the agenda for the February 7th council meeting to do what was outlined in the motion. Mayor, can I ask a question? Dr. Stephens, would that be acceptable? Yes. And I can't recall, Council Member Gordon, is that acceptable? So if there's no objection, I'm taking that as a friendly amendment. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you. Your motion said not to exceed $15,000. If he has to go speak in front of the PSC, then when we come back again, do we have to pay for that? That will be necessary to reconsider that at that time. At that time? Okay. Thank you. All right. We are now prepared to vote on the question of placing on the February 7th docket, I suppose, a resolution to authorize the hiring of Mr. Trotsky. We hire him now and then we put on the payment February 7th. Why don't you speak to the issue? Okay. I think the motion is to authorize Mr. Trotsky to continue with his study and that we put down to do the study related to the scope of work that's presented. I'll have to rule that out of order because this is not an appropriate time, as I understand it, for the Council to adopt what amounts to a resolution to that effect. I think all we can do today is move to place an item on the February 7th docket to that effect. And if I'm mistaken about that, I'll trust our parliamentarian or the Department of Law to correct me. Would you allow him to come to speak to us next Tuesday then? Oh, sure. Okay. Well, that's fine. Sure. As long as he can proceed and come back and give us a report. I think, in all fairness to him, he has to understand that he's at risk that something may happen between now and February 7th where any expenditure would not be authorized. I think he knows that. He's like any member of the public who can come and speak to us. All right. All right. Council Member Myers. I just have a question. Does the public understand that Dr. Stevens just said that he can continue with his analysis? So it sounds like this group has already engaged him to do this work and he's already started this and we're coming from behind trying to fund this thing. All right. I'm going to have to cut off debate pursuant to the vote that we had just a few moments ago. And the issue on the table now is do the members of the Council support amending or putting on the docket for February 7th the motion to retain Mr. Tarosky at an amount not to exceed $15,000? Is everyone clear on the question before the Council? Then those in favor, please vote aye. Electronically, those opposed, vote nay. I have 7-7 on the screen and Council Member Crosby votes nay. Is that correct? Motion fails. Excuse me. The motion fails. A vote of 8-7. All right. Anything further in your Council report, Dr. Stevens? No. That finishes me. Good response. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to pause the catalog there for a second, so it's nice to move on. A lot of us have had discussions with the Sierra Club about our environmental initiatives, and I'm pleased to bring forth to the Council, I know Council Member Blevins has been working on this, but I move the place on the February 7th docket a resolution authorizing the submission of an application to the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, ICLEI, for membership in the Cities for Climate Protection campaign participation and execution of any associated documents at a cost not to exceed $2,250 for annual membership dues, subject to sufficient funds being appropriate in future fiscal years. So moved. I have a motion and second to add the item authorizing membership in ICLEI to the February 7th Council meeting docket. Any discussion? I had a second, I think, by Council Member Crosby. Am I correct? Did you second that motion? Okay, McCord, I'm sorry. Any discussion? Those in favor, please vote aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. That'll be all, Mayor. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mayor. First of all, I want to report a microphone out of order and a couple of announcements. On Monday, February 4th, two Neighborhood Association meetings, Georgetown Street, will meet at 6 p.m. at the O'Weir Center in Douglas Park, and at 7 p.m. the same evening, the Green Acres Hollow Creek Breckenridge Neighborhood Association will meet at Green Acres Park Community Center. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member McCord. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Mayor. Due to the late hour, let me just do a couple of things. One is I want to announce that February is American Heart Association Month, and folks are encouraged to wear red on February 1st, which is this Friday. Also, I just wanted to pass along my condolences to the families of Ned Jennings, a longtime LFUCG employee who passed away Saturday on the 19th. He played basketball at the University of Kentucky and was just a really beloved gentleman in this government. And certainly my thoughts and prayers go out to his family, and he is sorely missed. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member McCord. Council Member James. Thank you, Mayor. Just one brief announcement. We were on some discussions, I guess a week or so ago, regarding the sanitary sewer fee. I have put together a meeting for the 1st District residents on February 5th at 630. It will be held at the Central Kentucky Job Center on Industry Road. We will have, hopefully, a host of experts there and those informed and educated about the sanitary sewer tax, the fee, the resolution, the sanitary sewer system, as well as some water conservation techniques that you can start utilizing with or without the fee increase. Again, that's February 5th at 630 at the Central Kentucky Job Center. If you have any questions, please call my office at 258-3216. And I'm promoting this to 1st District residents, but anyone that's interested is welcome to attend. This should be a very informative meeting, and we'll get some good feedback from the community about their feelings about the fee. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Crosby. Yes, I'd like to announce on Thursday, February 7th at 7 p.m., there will be an Andover Hills Neighborhood Association meeting at 7 p.m. I already said that, at Crossroads Christian Church. And Jay already mentioned the Heart Association Heart Month is during February, but more specifically on Friday, it's the kickoff for the Go Red for Women. So I'd encourage everybody to wear their red on Friday. Thanks. Thank you. Council Member Gorton. Thank you, Mayor. I just really wanted to ask a question based on the previous discussion, and this is a general question. We had a presentation today on our docket that took at least 45 minutes, and I had thought that this council had asked for a total of 45 minutes of presentations. And then in the discussion about having a potential consultant give a presentation, it was said that he would have to follow the rule for a citizen. So I wanted to clarify, I guess, with you and the council, what it is we decided about our presentations, and how is it that we had a 45-minute presentation plus others? And can we tighten that up to get back to what we originally voted to do? Do you? I share that concern. I appreciate you raising it. My recollection was we wanted no more than three presentations of 15 minutes each. That's right. Unless somebody feels strongly to the contrary, I think that's a pretty good rule. And, Mr. Green, I just ask whenever people sign up for presentations going forward, we just make it clear to them that they've got 15 minutes, and if we can fix a clock up here to where it will run for 15 minutes, it would suit me just fine. Thank you. Because that was too, both of them were too long. Thank you very much. Council Member Lane. I just wanted to support Council Member Gorton on this matter, because I feel that some of the presentations we have run way too long, they're not really managed appropriately. As a council, we need to control the amount of time people speak to the council, and we need to leave a little time open after they speak in case there needs to be questions by the council. Thank you, Mayor. My expectation would be we'll let the debate go as long as the council wants it to go after the presentations, but the actual presentations themselves will be limited to 15 minutes. All right. Let me, I had not planned to make a report, but there has been an event transpire about an hour and 15 minutes ago about which I need to make you all aware. There were some pieces of concrete which fell from the Nicholasville Road bridge going over New Circle Road. Fortunately, as I understand it, only one car was hit. There were no injuries. I have asked Commissioner Don Kelly to undertake a review of the bridges that LFUCG maintains to see whether or not we have any similar structural problems with our bridges, and also in the last hour I have requested that the state undertake a similar review of their bridges in Fayette County. I don't know what the results of that will be, but suffice it to say this is not the first example of infrastructure in this community that has not been adequately maintained over the years. We've seen it with our sewer systems. We've seen it with the parking garage at this building. We've seen it next door at the parking garage, and now we're seeing it with our bridges. We have got to be very deliberate in our efforts to maintain and enhance our existing infrastructure. That has got to be a huge priority. Commissioner Kelly, do you have any updates to report that would be worthwhile? I don't know how worthwhile. After a number of telephone conversations with various folks, the state has indicated that they feel like it's caused by freezing and thawing, and there were some small pieces of concrete that fell from the bridge. They maintain it was not a serious situation, and the road has been reopened, but I think the mayor's extra measure of caution is appropriate in this instance because these bridges, like, you know, even those are 30 years or more old. And so, you know, as concrete gets older, and the thing we do to try to get rid of ice and snow is we put salt on it, which is hard on concrete and steel. So, you know, we contribute to our own problem. But anyway, we're going to follow up on it. Thank you very much. Council Member Beard. Just so the public isn't confused, this is a state problem, is it not, and not our problem? That is a state-maintained bridge. It is. You are correct about that. But we're going to be looking at our bridges as well to try to identify some of the problems. I don't argue with that. I just want to be sure that the public in this instance had the information. All right. Does anyone wish to address the council on matters not on the agenda? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't see you. Council Member Blues. Mayor, I move to approve the Neighborhood Development Funds List for January 29th. So moved. I'm sorry. I move to approve the NDF. Is there a second? Yes. Council Member James seconded. Those in favor of approving the NDF, let it be known by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Council Member Blevins. I move pursuant to KRS 61.810 subsection 1C to go into closed session for the purpose of discussing pending litigation against the Lexington-Fayette-Urban County Government. Is there a second? Second. I have a second from Council Member McCord. Any discussion? Those in favor, vote aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. We'll stand in recess momentarily. Thank you.