# Environmental Quality Committee - November 18, 2014 > Auto-transcribed civic record · November 18, 2014 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/3513 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/3513?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2014-11-18 - **Last revised**: July 15, 2026 - **Length**: 9,629 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Environmental Quality Committee met on November 18, 2014, at 11:00 a.m., with Stinnett presiding. The committee addressed four agenda items during the session, hearing two informational presentations and taking action on one matter. The committee took four votes and heard seven public comments during the meeting. The agenda included an informational update on the Distillery District, a presentation of the Empower Lexington Annual Report, approval of the Monthly Financials, and consideration of Items Referred. The Monthly Financials were approved by the committee, while the other three items were presented for informational purposes only. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the meeting on November 18, 2014: * Stinnett * Mossotti * Gorton * Akers * Farmer * Scutchfield * Myers * Clarke * Henson * Lane No absences or late arrivals were recorded. ## Votes and Decisions The committee took four votes during this meeting, all of which passed unanimously. **October 14, 2014 Committee Summary** [timestamp: 00:01:00] Motion by Farmer, seconded by Myers, to approve the October 14, 2014 Committee Summary. The motion passed unanimously with no abstentions. **Budget Amendment for Capital Equipment** [timestamp: 00:01:00] Motion by Gorton, seconded by Clarke, to have Administration bring back a budget amendment reallocating older inactive bond proceeds to provide approximately $321,000 for capital equipment related to the reorganization of landscaping and forestry functions into the Division of Environmental Services. The motion passed unanimously with no abstentions. **Divisional Reorganization** [timestamp: 00:01:00] Motion by Farmer, seconded by Clarke, to change the name of the Division of Environmental Policy to the Division of Environmental Services, transfer three civil service positions from Parks to Environmental Services, and initiate necessary budget amendments for the reorganization of landscaping and forestry functions. The motion passed unanimously with no abstentions. **Professional Services Requests** [timestamp: 00:01:00] Motion by Farmer, seconded by Myers, to include three professional services requests related to the reorganization of landscaping and forestry functions: - Tree Removal and County Road Maintenance ($80,000) - Corridors Landscaping and Maintenance ($70,000) - Corridors Beautification/Breeders Cup Preparation ($100,000) The motion passed unanimously with no abstentions. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting approved three financial actions totaling $9,009,770 for infrastructure and planning projects. **Town Branch Trail Funding** Two grants were approved for the Town Branch Trail project: - **Phases 4 and 5**: $5,100,000 grant for design and construction funding - **Phase 6**: $3,800,000 grant for design funding **Hydrology Study Contract** A contract was awarded to Vision Engineering for $109,770 to conduct a hydrology study for the Distillery District and surrounding watershed. ## Public Comment The meeting included comments from council members and a community member addressing various aspects of Distillery District development and related infrastructure projects. **Distillery District Development Updates** Tony Higdon provided an update on recent renovations at the Pepper Distillery [timestamp: 00:30:58]. He shared that a new microbrewery is set to open by the end of the month, with a restaurant opening in December. He also noted ongoing development throughout the district. **Hydrology Study and Bond Funds** Council Member Kay raised questions about the scope of the hydrology study and the potential reallocation of remaining bond funds [timestamp: 00:15:10]. He noted that the study had saved money compared to initial estimates and asked whether unused funds could be redirected to other projects. Council Member Myers similarly inquired about the $1.5 million remaining from the hydrology study bond [timestamp: 00:26:38]. He noted that these funds had been unused for four years and suggested they could be better deployed for other city projects. Council Member Rakers asked whether the hydrology study would include efforts to update FEMA flood maps through CLOMER and LOMER processes [timestamp: 00:28:48]. He indicated this would help property owners avoid waivers and streamline development. **Stream Restoration and District Planning** Council Member Henson expressed interest in the proposed stream restoration project in the Distillery District [timestamp: 00:17:53]. He suggested that the group leading the restoration effort should present their plans to the committee to ensure alignment and community support. Council Member Clark questioned whether a unified design or development plan exists for the Distillery District [timestamp: 00:25:02]. He noted that current development appears to be developer-led with limited city-led planning guidance. **Infrastructure Coordination** Council Member Akers asked whether a dedicated coordinator, referred to as a "Sherpa," had been assigned to manage infrastructure planning for Phase 6 [timestamp: 00:22:52]. He emphasized the importance of coordinating with utility providers and city departments. ## Contested Items **Use of Remaining Bond Funds from Hydrology Study** Council members were divided on how to handle $1.5 million in remaining funds from a hydrology study bond. The core disagreement centered on whether these funds should be reallocated to other projects or reserved for future use in the Distillery District. Those advocating for reallocation expressed concerns about the opportunity cost of keeping the money idle long-term. They argued that funds sitting unused represented a missed opportunity to advance other municipal priorities. In contrast, those supporting reservation of the funds emphasized the importance of maintaining resources specifically designated for the Distillery District's future development needs. The debate reflected broader questions about fiscal management: whether it was more prudent to commit remaining bond funds to immediate projects or to preserve them for planned future work in the district. The vote resulted in a split decision among council members, indicating no clear consensus on the best use of the funds. ## Distillery District Update Commissioner Derek Paulson provided an update on the Distillery District, covering multiple aspects of ongoing and planned projects in the area. [timestamp: 00:02:04] **Project Status** The presentation addressed the status of the hydrology study and funding for various phases of the Town Branch Trail. Paulson discussed design and construction funding for Phases 4 and 5 of the trail, as well as design funding for Phase 6. **Development and Infrastructure** The update included information on ongoing development activity within the Distillery District. Paulson also presented details regarding a proposed stream restoration project in the area. **Challenges** Infrastructure coordination challenges were identified as part of the discussion, indicating potential complexities in managing multiple projects and development efforts within the district. **Outcome** This agenda item was presented as informational, with no formal action or decision required from the body. ## Empower Lexington Annual Report Blaine Early presented the annual report on the Empower Lexington initiative [timestamp: 00:33:12], providing an overview of progress across multiple sectors of the community's energy and sustainability efforts. **Presentation Focus** The report highlighted achievements and ongoing work in energy efficiency across five key areas: - Residential sector initiatives - Transportation improvements - Commercial sector programs - Industrial sector engagement - Waste reduction efforts **Key Initiatives** The presentation emphasized the initiative's commitment to data collection and community engagement as foundational elements of the program. Early outlined the specific goals driving Empower Lexington's work, including reducing per capita energy use across the community and achieving zero waste by 2020. **Outcome** This agenda item was presented as informational, with no formal action or debate recorded. The presentation served to update the meeting participants on the status and direction of the Empower Lexington initiative. ## Monthly Financials [timestamp: 00:53:34] The committee reviewed the monthly financials during this agenda item. O'Meara presented financial reports covering multiple funds, including: * Sanitary Sewers * Water Quality * Landfill * Urban Services No questions were raised by committee members regarding the presented financial information. The monthly financials were accepted as presented and approved. ## Items Referred [timestamp: 00:54:05] The committee identified two items for referral to the next meeting. Stinnett noted that the agenda would include a Distillery District Development Update and the public portion of the Empower Lexington Plan. The committee also discussed an administrative change regarding committee structure. The Environmental Quality Committee will be renamed to the Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee effective in 2015. The outcome of this discussion was informational, establishing the items and structural changes for future proceedings. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve the October 14, 2014 Committee Summary - **Motion** — passed: Motion to have Administration bring back a budget amendment reallocating older inactive bond proceeds to provide approximately $321,000 capital equipment related to the reorganization of landscaping and forestry functions into the Division of Environmental Services - **Motion** — passed: Motion to change the name of the Division of Environmental Policy to the Division of Environmental Services, transfer three civil service positions from Parks to Environmental Services, and initiate necessary budget amendments for the reorganization of landscaping and forestry functions - **Motion** — passed: Motion to include three professional services requests related to the reorganization of landscaping and forestry functions: Tree Removal and County Road Maintenance ($80,000), Corridors Landscaping and Maintenance ($70,000), and Corridors Beautification/Breeders Cup Preparation ($100,000) --- ## Full transcript The End ORCHESTRA PLAYS Okay, if I can have everyone's attention, we'll go ahead and get started. This is the Environmental Quality Committee meeting. It's 11 o'clock, and first up on our agenda, first of all, welcome. Thank you for being here today. First up on our agenda is committee approval of committee summary. Do I hear a motion? Second. A motion and second to approve the summary. Are there any additions, corrections, or deletions? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, that passes. First or next up on our agenda is a distillery district update, and I believe Commissioner Paulson is here. Vice Mayor, would you like to say anything before he starts? No, I just appreciate that you have put this on for an update. Thank you. Commissioner, welcome. Thank you. Good morning. Glad to be here. Glad to give an update. I believe the Vice Mayor had asked me for it. We talked about this back in October, and I gave a kind of a brief update on the 13th of October in an email. And this is a little more fleshed out than that with a few more details and I'd be willing to answer any questions you guys may have. But it is, again, a fairly brief update about where we are right now. First and foremost, the hydrology study. This has come recently before. I think we had our second reading last Thursday night. Vision engineering was selected for $109,000 and change. And their anticipated completion is early fall or fall 2015. A lot of that, I'll say this, a lot of that has to do with the weather. So what we need is some rain events in order to make sure that the model has been calibrated correctly. So they are working on the model right now, and what they will need is some good rain events to make sure that the model that they have is accurate. So we will have, we are somewhat at the whim of the weather. I think we realize we're in a pretty rainy place. Hopefully we'll get enough rain events to make sure that that model is calibrated and that study will be done by early fall 2015 at the latest. Another large aspect of the distillery district is Town Branch Trail. In September, the governor gave us the funds to basically complete the trail. What that means by completing the trail is that we now have design and construction funding. We have not actually received it. We are still waiting. I'll talk about that. But we have received design and construction funding for phases four and five, and there's a map on the next page that will show that, with an anticipated completion date for those two sections of 2016. In addition, we have design funding for phase six, which phase six is pretty much the most complicated aspect of the trail. That is from McConnell Springs, basically, to Oliver Lewis. So it is the part that truly goes through the distillery district, and there is going to be, we hope to get that distillery district, that design phase to get moving, and we anticipate that's a great time to talk a lot about the infrastructure needs, the streetscape, those other sorts of things during that time of design. As I mentioned, we were awarded the money, but we have not actually received it, so if there are any questions about have we gone out for an RFP or anything yet about the design, we are still waiting for that money. We are not allowed to go out to advertise until we actually have the money, so we are waiting for that money. We were hoping we'll get it here fairly soon so we can go out and start hiring consultants for phases four and five. Here is a quick down and dirty. This is the entire length of the map. This is the map that Keith gave me. So some of the numbers in here are probably not that accurate. This is one of the more recent maps. It just sort of shows the entire trail by phases. And I can give you a little bit more if you have more questions about that. But this is phase six. It is a very large section. is from McConnell Springs down to here to Oliver Lewis. And again, we can discuss some of the parts that have been through the feasibility study that was done by Strand. We had those discussions about where we would put the trail and some of it being on road and some being off road. But we do have funding for, construction funding for up to here. And this will be done. We are waiting for some of the, there's a stream movement that needs to take place. that we are still working with but we do anticipate completion of everything up to mcconnell springs and again crossing the road that mid-block crossing as well by 2016 and sooner if we can so that is an update there the final aspect here is just sort of what's going on in the district in terms of development staff has been working a lot with the developers in the district there is a there is a considerable amount going on. I did a quick search of our building inspection permit database just along Manchester Street. And in 2013, there were six permits issued completely for that entire year. Five of them were zoning compliance permits. This year alone, there have been 20. So seven of them were zoning compliance permits, six were remodeling permits, and then another three were mechanical permits, and there's a couple others that are sort of something else. So there is a lot of stuff that is starting to go on. Tony Higdon is here. He is one of the owners down there where a lot of stuff is going on. If you have questions for Tony, Tony will probably be happy to answer. There's Tony back in the corner. We were discussing the brewery that hopefully will be opening up in a couple weeks as well. So there's a lot more going on. And then the last thing is this proposed stream restoration project, which is something that we were approached by Beaver Creek is the name of the company there they have done. And this is actually being done by the business association down there. They are looking to try to get some federal money for a restoration project. In our discussions with them, we are happy to help them. We personally don't have anybody that could probably manage the project, but they are very experienced at doing stream restoration projects throughout the southeast, and we are willing to work with them in any way that we can to help them with the stream restoration project in that area. So that is the quick update and I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Commissioner. We have some Council members signed up. First up, Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Derek, for the update. Can you go back to the, I guess it's the trail page? Yes. We've got some pretty big ticket items that are unfunded, like Phase 5 for $5,100,000, and, of course, Distillery District 6 for $3,800,000. Can you give me a little bit of a breakdown on that $5,100,000? It's actually funded. So that was the thing about this is not the most up-to-date. The reason for putting this map in is really to show the trail, not the funding aspects. The governor has funded both the design and construction of Phases 4 and 5. So really what we lack at this point, and I say lack, I think the plan as we know it right now, they've given funding, and we'll go back to this real quick. So design and construction funding is there for phases four and five. So what you're seeing there were estimates on that map of what those costs might be. The state has pledged that money for design and constructions of sections four and five, so we will get all the way to McConnell Springs. That design and construction money is there. And what we have as well is design funding for Phase 6, which needs to come before we get an estimate. And because the reason we don't have, I don't believe, any other funding pledged at this time for Phase 6 is because we need to have a good sense of what the design will be so we can get some good cost estimates of what Phase 6 will be. I guess my question would be the price tag of 5 and 6. Just give me a breakdown. Why is that so high compared to the other two? So there are some issues here, such as right here, this is going under New Circle Road. So there is, and there's also coming along here, I believe there are some bridges or some different elevation changes that are in there that will have to take place. We can get you more of a breakdown. I'll get Keith Levin if you'd like to provide a little bit more detail about what those costs are. That's a pretty big figure, you know, $5 million, and then we've got $3 million. So I was just curious. And I will say they are fairly good-sized sections of trail. Trails are not cheap per mile. And there are some issues here because of getting under the New Circle Road, although the state is, and I will say this, the state has been great on this, and they're the ones really taking it upon themselves to get us underneath New Circle Road. They've actually, when they're doing that bridge work, they've made a space wide enough for us to get through there. But we do have going along the city property there, there are some elevation issues and some other things that will necessitate a little bit more cost. But I can get you a breakdown. I'll get Keith to give a little wrap about what those costs are and what some of the challenges for those two sections are. That would be great. And my second question is, I know before we had a concern about infrastructure along the distillery district, and that was one of the big concerns with the developers. Where are we there? And that's what, this is where I say about design for phase six, when that design goes on, I think that is the time to really start discussing where that infrastructure will go, what infrastructure do we need in there, and also talking about streetscape, because that's when we are putting down that trail and designing where the trail will go, we will be looking at what are those challenges in there. So from an infrastructure standpoint, what needs to go in before the trail goes down? And that's where we'll be able to have a much better sense of once we know the alignment of the trail, what infrastructure around it do we need to make sure we're not going to dig up in the future, and we'll have a better sense of phasing and cost for streetscape as well as other infrastructure that needs to go in. I think some of it is still going to be challenging in terms of, you know, sidewalks along one section of Manchester where we're very close to the road. The buildings are very close to the road near the pepper distillery, but that's where the trail is anticipated to go along the creek. But I think that's where we'll really have a good chance to really like to lay out those questions and get those answers done there. And that gives us a better cost estimate of not only what the trail may cost, but what some of the other things may cost as well. And we can come back with a better sense of what we may need to bond and what we would need to put in and what the owners will be able to put in as well. What about like sanitary sewers and stormwater? And there is some sanitary work that is going to be going on, and we will be coordinating with Charlie. I know there is, and I'm not sure. I did not check with Charlie. I can find out. But there is some work that does need to take place down around there. I'm not sure if they're having to go under the road or through the road, if that makes any sense. It's on the east side of the railroad crossing, I believe. So that's one of those things. We're going to make sure that all that is phased up. In terms of anticipated construction time, I think for Phase 6, we are hoping to have that design work done by 2016. because it's a much more difficult task when we're talking about where we're going to be going from McConnell Spring to get us to Oliver Lewis. So there's a lot more challenges there, but we anticipate we can get that design work done. It's really just a little bit more than a year, but I think that's where we can get that and we can start lining up what those costs will be for construction fairly soon as well as the other issues. So we're okay, though, up to this point? You mentioned that there were several that had already permits and were as far as the distillery district. I just want to make sure that the sewers have the capacity and they have the needed infrastructure to go forward. At this point, and what we are doing, in fact, Tony Hickman and I were discussing this last week, they are phasing in their parking lot. And one of the things that we're going to start discussing here in the very near future is to make sure that before they lay that parking lot down, what needs to go in there and how do we make sure that when he puts the parking lot down, he puts it down once rather than putting it down and having to tear it back up for other infrastructure fixes. So we are trying to work with him as much as we can to make sure those issues are dealt with in a sequential way that makes sense. Okay. Thank you for the update. Yes, ma'am. Next up, we have Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks so much, Commissioner. I want to ask you to go back and tell a little bit more detail about the stream restoration, and you said movement. And where is that, and which part? Well, and I'll be honest. We've had a discussion, and I'd have to look through my notes as to when it was. My recollection, it was towards the end of summer with the Beaver Creek folks. And the way we had left it was for the business owners group to work with Beaver Creek. and I think Beaver Creek was going to put forward the application for us. We have not seen anything at this point, but we're in full support of them moving forward with that. What's the situation? I'm not sure if I understand. Of moving the stream? Oh, it's not moving the stream. They're not talking about moving the stream. Oh, you said stream movement. There's a different section. So back farther here, I believe there's a spot in here near the railroad. It's a different part of the face. So it's not down here in face six. It's not part of the stream restoration. is just part of some of the work with Corman for an earlier part of the trail. So they're not moving part of the stream? They are, but it's farther back here. It's not down in the distillery district. That's a stream restoration part. So the stream restoration is more about cleaning the stream up, getting it healthy, those aspects. And that's where the goal is to try to apply for that section, particularly in the distillery district at first. And I think their hope is to get some, to continue to be able to get some grants to do more of the town branch farther away from it. So do you know how, do you know how much of the stream they're going to move? I am unsure, but I can get Keith to get the update as to what that is. It's not, I will say this, it's not that uncommon for small sections of streams. I mean, this is one of those things we see with water quality when we sometimes have to pipe a stream through. These things sort of happen. But I will get that from Keith in terms of how much of it is. My understanding is it wasn't a very large section. It was just something that went along with the shifting of some of the work of Corman. Okay. I appreciate it. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Councilmember Kay. Thank you, Chair. Commissioner, on the hydrology study, can you remind us of what the full scope of that is? I know that initially there was a thought that it would just cover the distillery district, and then it was expanded to include a much larger area. So is this study, the 109,000, is that just the distillery district? No, it is for the larger area. It is the initial hydrology study, and there was a map that I showed you all about a year ago. It is a larger area, and that's the reason for it rather called a hydrology study rather than a floodplain study. It's a larger area encompassing, I think it goes all the way in some cases to U.K. It's a larger catch basin of an area. And it's called a hydrology study instead of a floodplain study because? Because it's dealing with a larger area than just the immediate floodplain. And does it answer the same question? It does. It will. Just for a larger area. So it will define the areas of floodplain, what's buildable, what's not buildable, within the distillery district and in a wider area that encompasses that section of watershed. Is that correct? Correct. And the cost, it looks less than was originally anticipated. It is less than. We budgeted $500,000 for it, and I think all of the bids came in lower. This was the lowest. I think one of the reasons they're able to come in lower is they're doing some other work as well. And so this is just part of, I think this allows them to reduce their costs. And does that mean that there will be more funds available for infrastructure improvements for the distillery district? There will be more of that bond available, to which how you choose to spend it will be one of those interesting discussions. Do I take that to mean that it may not necessarily be applied to the distillery district? I think Council Member Stinnett raised that issue at work session a week ago as to how much is left in that bond. When the blue sheet of this study came through, how much was left in that bond, which is 1.578 and change, just a little bit below $1.6 million. And the discussion was, is it something, since the bond was purchased four years ago, is it something we should spend elsewhere at this point and come back and rebond for the distillery district when we have a better cost estimate of those issues? So you'll be coming back with a recommendation for the allocation of those funds? Correct. We do not have a recommendation at this time, but we are working on one, and we will get one to Council. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Derek. I actually would be interested to learn more about the stream restoration. And do you know if they're working with environmental policy or environmental services, I should say? I can check, and I can get you in touch with the folks from Beaver Creek that we met with, if you'd like. Because I was even thinking it might be a good idea if they could present something to this committee in a couple months or so as to their efforts, and so we would all be on board. I actually think that the town branch trails are lovely. It could be a beautiful amenity to our community if it were properly restored. And I think that's really their hope. And again, I believe this all came from and Councilman Rakers might be able to correct me if this came from the business group down in the Stoey District in terms of the desire to do that and moving forward with it with Beaver Creek. But I think we all agree with you that it's a it's a very unique section of town. And if if we could restore it, it provides a lot of great natural beauty. You just don't get in an urban area. I just didn't know if they had something formal planned out, any design or anything like that. I'm not aware of that, but I can get you in touch with them and we can see where they are. Thank you, sir. Yes, ma'am. Council Member Akers. Thank you, Chair. Sorry, everybody. So, yeah, I wanted to follow up. The stream restoration project is a completely private endeavor, I suppose. One of the organizations that actually bid on the hydrology study also does stream restoration. And so they approached the Distillery District Business Owners Association and to consider partnering with them to do a stream restoration project in the Distillery District. And they will apply for federal grants. And if they need a letter of support from us, then we are supportive. And, you know, if match funds are needed, we'll negotiate, you know, that later. But that's really an effort between the Business Owners Association and that Beaver Creek business. So I think that they're working on applying or looking for funds. So it's very preliminary. Derek, about the distillery district, sorry, the map for the Town Branch Trail. Yes, ma'am. So this is not the most current map, correct? This was the best map we had that gave an overview of the sections. Okay, so just to be clear, though, for everyone watching and everyone here, Phase 5 is funded, both design and construction. Correct. Phases 4 and 5. All construction is funded up into Phase 6, which is funded for design. So the $5.1 million is not something the city will have to consider taking on or anything. So, okay, I just wanted to make sure that everybody understood that. And so can you talk a little bit more? Maybe I missed it. But as far as when these next phases will begin and when they are anticipated to be completed up to Phase 6. Right. So right now we're waiting for the actual receipt of the funds from the state before we can go out and put out contracts for consultants for phases, for design and construction of Phases 4 and 5, as well as design for Phase 6. So once we get that, we will start to quickly work on getting those contracts out or those bids out so that we can receive bids and get the construction going as fast as possible, finishing up the design and getting the construction. In terms of phase six, I think the anticipated completion of both four and five is 2016, and we would love to get that as quickly as possible. We all know about construction cycles and weather can always cause little issues here and there. But I think we would all like to work as fast as we can. Phase six, because of the design, has to go on because of the intricacies involved with it. And, again, it's really one of the largest sections, and it is the most difficult. So saving the best for last. That's where we really feel we can work on those other infrastructure issues and start to get that all included in the design. And I think that will give us a better understanding of what our costs will be in terms of other infrastructure, in terms of streetscape as well. We'd love to be able to get as much money as we can for design or for construction in Phase 6 from the state and from other sources if necessary or if we can. But I think that'll help us in terms of reducing that overall cost for, again, through design, we can get a better understanding of what we need from an infrastructure standpoint and streetscape, and hopefully we can get as much of that cost from state and federal sources. And I know that in previous meeting you mentioned that this project kind of needed a Sherpa of sorts to facilitate. Sherpa, yeah. Every time I mention it, it's just, I hate the Sherpa. It was fun. So I wonder now if that person exists, if we have someone dedicated to, besides yourself, to seeing, making sure that when we get to phase six, that we know, like you mentioned before, that the infrastructure needs there would be in the millions and millions of dollars. And that we needed to, this wasn't even on KU's radar that they would need to plan to upgrade their electric. And the water company would need to upgrade some of their infrastructure as well. And then that needed to get on their budget cycles and all of that. And so that needed a coordinated effort. So is there anyone assigned to coordinate those efforts? From the trail perspective, and it really does lead into the design of the infrastructure as well for Phase 6, we do. Keith Lovin is going to be, again, he's always been the lead, but he's going to have a little bit even more time because of the scope of this project. And because of getting the money from the state, it really gives us a chance to really move with it quickly. We are in the process of hiring another engineer, which will give him a little more breathing room in terms of his projects and allow us to have him focus a little bit more on this project. And that really will help. Again, Keith has those great relationships with these utility companies, and I think that's where we'll be able to start coordinating along with the state. And, again, District 7 is going to be very important in this whole process, and we have already talked. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if everyone knows, but James Ballinger, who is the chief engineer for District 7, is retired at the end of this month, which is a huge loss for us. You just couldn't get a better relationship between District 7 and the city. But we hope to be able to still keep that working relationship very strong and be able to move this project along as quick as we can. Again, working with District 7 and the city, Keith has a great deal of experience with utility comes and everything. We feel he will be able to help us coordinate and at least be able to tell us where do we need, who else do we need to bring in at those right times. I don't want to throw it all on Keith because it's not, but from in terms of the trail management, he really will be taking that lead and we will be assisting him where we know we need to be in terms of those other infrastructure issues, particularly in phase six. Okay. My time's up. I'll come back. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Councilman Clark. Thank you, Chair. Sure. Derek, I've been very interested in the distillery district, particularly as it connects to downtown and our development there. And what I was wondering, and it's very hopeful to know that we're getting a lot of interest there, and I really appreciate that. That's exciting. On the other hand, is there a model, is there a plan that we say, okay, this is what we want the distiller district to look like and everybody's functioning so it fits into that plan? Do we have something like that that kind of puts everything together and says this is the model that we're looking at? There was a design plan that was done that I believe Barry McNeese, who's also joined us in the back there. I believe they did a design plan several years ago, and there is still the feasibility study as well, which is separate from that but helps to lay out some of the infrastructure and other cost issues associated with it. Really, this is developer-led. So in terms of that, we're there to assist them in terms of those things and to work with them particularly on the infrastructure issues as it comes up. But in terms of the programming of that space, that is really designer or developer-led at this point. But we are, you know, there are issues such as where the trail will go and trying to make sure that we maintain that right away along the creek and doing the parts that we can. But I think our biggest part is to assist them where they need it at this point and to really try to lead where we can on the infrastructure aspects. All right. Good. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Councilman Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioner, do you have any other opportunities to spend this 1.5 in this project that's ready to go right now? You mean elsewhere in the city or in this project? In the project. In the project, I think at this point we don't just because if you're talking about right now, no. Since we have the funding for Phases 4 and 5, that's there. I think what we're wondering is when it comes to Phase 6 is where we know we'll have other costs. At this point, we're going to be working as hard as we can to get the money spent on Phases 4 and 5 and to plan as we're doing the design for Phase 6 to figure out what are those other costs that we'll need. That's where, since we don't have construction funds for Phase 6, I don't anticipate we'll be working on those. Again, streetscape shouldn't go before the trail goes in, before we have an agreed upon and final alignment of where the trail will be. As we get that, that's when we can start looking at what those other costs from an infrastructure standpoint will be. Since we're still working on being able to do the design for Phase 6, I'd say right now we don't have that need, largely because the state was so gracious in funding construction for four and five. Sure. Do you think there's an opportunity to use this in a better use than letting it sit right now, paying debt service on it? I think what we're going to do is we plan on bringing back a proposal, and it may be for here, it may be for elsewhere. But I know that's something that Bill Amara and the administration are going to be talking about, since it has been sitting there for four years, how best to do that. But I think, again, the key being that when we have, through that design of phase six, we have a better understanding of what those costs will be, which we should when we get through phase six. That's when we can, if we need more money there to come back, I think that's a prime time. Okay. You want me to make a motion to support that, or are you guys going to go ahead and bring back a proposal? We plan to bring back a proposal. Okay. Do you know how soon? That would be January probably? Bill says yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Anyone else have any questions on the Stiller District? Since I won't be here in January, I thought I'd provide some work for people, job security. Thank you. Councilman Rakers, back up. Thank you, Chair. And I wanted to go back to the hydrology study also. That study not only will define the floodplain area and the hydrology affecting downtown, but they will also apply to FEMA to change the flood map, correct? What we call, and this is the fun terms, the CLOMER and the LOMER, the conditional letter of map revision comes before the letter of map revision, which does say this is where the floodplain and the floodway are. So those will be part of the process, correct? Right. So that's part of their scope is to not only define where floodplain exists and doesn't exist, but they will also apply to FEMA to have the flood map changed so that then property owners can develop or not develop. So when they come in, there will not be a need for waivers or any kind of that discussion. and they will be either in or out at that point, and it will be much quicker. And Chair, could I ask one of the property owners to come and just briefly tell us a summary or a synopsis of some of the new businesses that have located and getting ready to open and talk about that? We can do that before we go to the next item. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I had a couple questions for you. Back on the hydrology study, we approved that last week on our first reading of council docket. Right. And on that, how were they selected, the contract? Was that the new method we're using qualification-based, or is that bid-based selection? I'm trying to think if Todd is here. Yeah, it was RFP. I believe it was the traditional model. So why wouldn't we use our new model that's been working so successful on the sanitary sewer projects? Why would we revert back to our old way? I'll be honest with you. I can't give you 100% certainty of which way it was done, but I can find that. If you can find out and let us know, because we saved a lot of money. I'm just curious if we saved this money because of that, and it's really working throughout government, or we just did a normal bid and we were just way off on our estimate. Okay, I will get back to you on that. All right, very good. And then, Councilor Akers, do you want to introduce anyone from the audience? We'll give them three minutes. I hope he doesn't mind. I was going to invite Tony Higdon to come and just tell us a little bit. He is the new owner of the former Pepper Distillery. And there's a lot happening in his building and nearby. And so I just thought that folks might like to hear a little bit of what's happening in his building. I hope you don't mind, Tony. Oh, no, not at all. Thank you. Yeah, myself and some partners purchased the Pepper Distillery. It's about a 45,000-square-foot building. We share, I guess, the Pepper Distillery campus along with Barry McNeese and several other new property owners. In our building alone, we've recently completely refurbished about 15,000 square foot of that building. We have a new microbrewery moving in, also a restaurant moving into the space. We're continuing to work on the remainder of the building. We have two people actually coming in from out of state this week to look at different aspects of the building and some other parts that have not been developed. One of those is possibly a craft distillery. And we have several other people looking at another section of the building for an event space. Do you own the building next door, or is that buried with ice cream? That was recently purchased by Crankin' Boom. Yes. They're going to put in a dessert restaurant lounge. So the timeline of the brewery opening is? The brewery should be open by the end of this month. And the restaurant? The end of December. And that was a food truck that is now going to be a restaurant? Local food truck, Fork in the Road. Fork in the Road. Food truck is now going to be opening a restaurant. And then we'll have an ice cream shop as well. They're just now, they just closed maybe three to four weeks ago. Barry probably would know a little bit more about that situation. And then the folks that are on the sidebar downtown on Limestone have also purchased a building to open another, I don't know if it's going to be a restaurant bar or just a bar. So there is some activity there. Yeah, a lot is going on, so I thank you for sharing. Okay, thanks. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Hagen. Thank you, Council Member Akers. Anyone else on this topic? All right, we're moving on. Next up on our agenda is the Empower Lexington, their annual report. And Mr. Webb, will you be introducing, or is it Mr. Early? Mr. Early, come on up and welcome. Thank you for being here today. Council Member K, did you want to say anything to introduce the topic? Just briefly, by way of background, the original impetus for this work began with finding funding for the city to participate, in an international project that is aimed at reducing the carbon footprint of this community and other communities. So the acronym is ICLEE. And from that, once the city decided to do that, there was a group that had been working on that and a committee that was set up that has continued to meet that includes people from the city and nonprofit sector, private sector stakeholders, and so on. I had asked that they report annually because I think it's important to know essentially how much progress has been made on the plan that they put forward two and a half years ago called Empower Lexington. And I look forward to hearing from them about what progress has been made and what progress is planned. And I appreciate Mr. Early and other people who have been working on this for many years diligently. It's not easy. I know that. But I appreciate the effort, and I'm happy to see you here today. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Mr. Early. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Councilmember Kay, thank you very much for that introduction. Again, my name is Blaine Early. I'm one of three co-chairs of this group. One of the co-chairs, Amy Soner, who is with Bluegrass Green Source, is here. The other co-chair, Nina McCormack, could not be here today. There are other participants in the steering committee of this group that are also here. Henry Jackson, and then three members of the LFUCG staff, Mr. Webb, Jada Griggs, and Charles Schaub all here. So if you have questions that I can't address, I'm sure there's someone here who can do that. If we can start again, Council Member Kay gave a brief introduction. This really was coming from a grassroots origin. I think members of the Sierra Club and Lexicool Cities were really pushing for the city to become involved in reducing carbon footprint. It's kind of grown sense that it's not just focused on carbon emissions, but more on general environmental quality and specifically something that translates into something we can all agree on, and that's saving money by increasing energy efficiency, by reducing our energy use. And that's kind of the common denominator that we've come to focus on, is the aspect of energy use with the carbon emissions, another aspect that's also measured. The Empower Lexington Plan looked at trying to reduce energy use by 1% a year, both on a community-wide basis and on an individual basis. And over the years, about two and a half or three and a half years, I guess it was, of discussions, this group focused on five sectors of our community. Residential, transportation, kind of a broad group of commercial, industrial, and institutional, and waste. And then sort of an outlier there, land use, food, and agriculture. And I just want to say just a second about that. We don't think necessarily of land as being energy efficient, but certainly land quality affects environmental quality, and fostering things like forest growth and preserving riparian areas along streams can add to carbon sequestration, which is an important aspect of carbon emissions. The overall context here, this is a graph that shows our nation's energy use over the last 20 years or so. And there's been a gradual increase. We do see a dip in all energy uses during the time of the recession, a small rebound, and then decline over a couple of years to 2012. 2013 figures aren't here, but there's been a roughly 2 quadrillion BTU uptick in the year 2013, we think, you know, for a number of reasons, maybe colder temperatures and certainly increasingly beneficial business climate. Now, one of the prime functions of this Empower Lexington group, I know you've already heard this from the LFUCG side, but one of the prime functions of this group is to collect data. You really can't do anything. You can't make a reasoned decision. You can't make a strategic decision in where you want to invest your time, energy, and community resources unless you know what you're measuring. And this big table shows some of the data that have been collected about our community. This is, I do give credit to Mr. Webb and Ms. Griggs for marshalling all these data, and it requires the input. We get numbers from the electric utilities involved. We get gas usage from Columbia Natural Gas. We get transportation figures in terms of vehicle miles traveled from the transportation cabinet. input from the bluegrass field, the airport, and then numbers on waste and compost from our own waste resources here with LFUCG. But this very, very busy slide shows a couple of things. I want you to look in particular, wrong one, excuse me, is the enormous increase between 2012 and 2013 in natural gas use. And one of the things we're looking at is why that happened. Now, later on toward the end of this presentation, we're going to zero down in different sectors of electricity, natural gas use, and so forth, and look at where those may be coming from. The five sectors, very, very briefly, because I do want to leave time for questions, each of the five sectors had a major goal. There were several recommendations that needed to be tried to, again, go toward this goal of increased energy efficiency. The residential goal was largely to provide information to those people who wanted to save money by adopting energy efficient and energy conserving mechanisms in their homes. We've looked at, again, the idea of this being data driven, has to have reliable information to make decisions, looking specifically at techniques that are proven for energy efficiency, and then taking those steps that show to be the most bang for the buck. Invest a small amount of money and get a large return in energy efficiency. Some of the programs that are out there that we're trying to hook up the people, the residents, our neighbors who want to adopt these with the resources that are available, there are already existing and supported by our own utility bills, programs by the utilities like Kentucky Utilities with their energy audits and retrofit rebates, Columbia Natural Gas with the furnace replacement rebates. And if you look at these numbers, comparing the numbers, let's say, between 2012 and 2013, looking at both the actions by KU as well as the furnace rebates, there's been a drop. We need to be able to get this information out to our neighbors in a more efficient way. Energy audits, again, here, the reports that are actually used, a drop in the last year. To counter that, programs funded really somewhat by the LFUCG support of Bluegrass GreenSource, GreenSource has made available home energy audit kits. These have been placed with the public library. They can be checked out, again, enabling homeowners to get to their homes and measure where the hot spots are, where they're losing, where the cold spots are in the wintertime, where they're losing energy to the outside. There has been an effort by the Home Builders Association of Lexington, a really growing effort there in getting a number of builders involved, and in the last year, over 200 homes produced in these energy-efficient means in Fayette County. The next steps are to, we've identified some specific kinds of construction, that are most ripe for some very efficient retrofits. And then the next step is to work with neighborhood associations where the bulk of those homes are found or the churches in those areas to, again, link the citizens who need this information with the information to improve their homes. Transportation, again, largely a governmental function, moving more people with less energy. A lot of different aspects. Some of these you're already aware of, grants and so forth from LexTran, LFUCG's own efforts with the natural gas fueling station, a number of different grants through the congestion mitigation air quality grant program around our region. An increasing interest in bicycle and pedestrian traffic, increase in number of trails that will be part, of course, of our green space plan, and then the huge, huge increase in bicycle trails in the area, including something growing out of the Legacy Trail up into Scott County up to Sadieville. On the industrial commercial institutional side, I want to point out something in this particular diagram. If you look at these figures of small commercial, large commercial, and industrial users and the energy use between 2012 and 2013. These are electric uses in terms of kilowatt hours. Notice that there's actually been a reduction in the two-year period, between 2012 and 2013, a reduction in large commercial and industrial. And what we think is going on there is that the large companies, they have staff engineers. They have people that have the expertise, the know-how, and the resources to implement many of these kinds of energy efficiency and cost reduction schemes. We're seeing a lack of that kind of information, a lack of that expertise at the small commercial aspects. And so you'll see at the end of this section, one of our goals is to reach out to those individuals. Again, some of the big boys, Lexmark with their lead construction, Fayette County Schools and University of Kentucky, both of whom have outstanding sustainability programs, are showing some real returns in terms of their reducing energy use. Again, GreenSource, with the help of LFUCG, is sponsoring a number of different programs and is working with LFUCG to do things like the Go Green Workshop, the Live Green Energy Partners, and so on. We have the ongoing Green Business Challenge. It will continue up through June of 2015. There's a huge group of people, businesses, signed up to be parts of that, all the way from just a simple recycling effort to recycling energy conservation, water reduction, waste reduction, and so on. But again, our goal here for the next little bit is to focus on commercial users. One of the steering committee members, Scott Southall from CDP Engineers, and I have a proposal into the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce for sort of a pilot program in this to present some of these energy efficiency techniques. I don't know how that's going to be received yet by the Chamber of Commerce, but then we can take that program on the road, as it were, to reach out to smaller commercial groups. Land use, food, and agriculture. Again, we talked about this and the goal here to provide increased environmental quality and carbon sequestration. You're all familiar with the PDR program, the number of farms that have been protected. But some very, very simple things, urban forestry and our own Reforest the Bluegrass program. I mean, we couch that in a lot of different ways. It's been supported by the consent decree and the need to preserve riparian areas and produce water and improve water quality. But it also has a role to play in energy conservation by providing shaded areas and certainly carbon sequestration as those growing trees accumulate carbon in the stems and in the roots. Working with John Saylor, we hope to be able to quantify that. There are some models out there that can predict the amounts of carbon sequestered by different types of trees at different stages in their lives. And so as part of our quantification of all these processes, we want to add those numbers to our future reports. Programs by the federal government, USDA and their conservation best management practices programs. And then a very big step that this group took to promote local food by hiring a local foods coordinator. What does local food have to do with energy conservation? Well, maybe nothing, but what it does do is to provide economic incentives to preserve some of that land in agricultural production. And so with the promotion of local foods, then land preserved, improving environmental quality can also be kept there on an economically sustainable way. Large goal here for the community is to reach a zero waste. It's going to be a while before we achieve that, so let's just go ahead here. Let's look finally at some of the data from our study. Again, our five sectors, five sectors, we're leaving out waste here, but I want you to look at these numbers, looking at the numbers in 2013. This is energy use, taking all those different things from gallons of fuel used and thousands of cubic feet of natural gas and kilowatt hours of electricity, all converted to a common unit of measurement of energy. This is in terms of millions of British thermal units or millions of BTUs. That's so that we can compare apples to apples, oranges to oranges, and have a common way to measure energy use. If you look at these numbers, by far the biggest section here is in transportation. Because of the way our transportation system is measured and the way the transportation cabinet reports the vehicle miles traveled, we have the sort of double whammy of traffic on I-64 and I-75. A lot of those vehicle miles traveled we really can't do much about as a community. But we did look at some of the examples of how we are trying to do things locally with things like natural gas-powered vehicles and so forth. But the next biggest individual section is residential. And that's where, again, that's the traditional low-hanging fruit. And then we also talked about the smaller commercial operations. So the areas for focus here in the next year or two are in the areas of residential settings and small commercial. We have been successful in per capita increases. I think I'm getting signals we're kind of running out of time perhaps. You got a couple more slides, and then we can ask questions. In looking at our numbers, the per capita energy use, in this case measured by carbon dioxide equivalents, you see is declining a little bit since our base year in 2011 and pretty much the same between 2012 and 2013. To sum up, we are making progress, maybe not as fast as we'd hoped. We are trying to bring, again, resources available, already available, with the people that want to implement those and to help us save energy. We have been reaching out to other communities. A workshop that was held by Bluegrass Tomorrow, a regional group, this was held last month, folks from the Empower Lexington participated in a sustainability summit. And in that sustainability summit, we heard a lot of things going on in this region, as well as hearing from the Green Umbrella in northern Kentucky, Cincinnati area and the Partnership for a Green City over in Louisville. There are some of our competing regions, if you will, have funded positions, often by collaborative funding from city government, universities, and business that provide people who are paid, not just volunteers, to get out there and promote these ideas. And that's something that we may be looking at in the future and come back to you with a recommendation. So, now, thank you very much for your patience and questions. Thank you, Mr. R. We appreciate you speeding through that. I know we're short on time today with another meeting starting here at noon. So, Vice Mayor Gordon's up first and Councilman McKay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much for your presentation. And I just have a very quick question. I don't know if you're the person to answer it, but you did mention zero waste. And it was during Mayor Newberry's administration that we set an official goal of being zero waste by 2020. And I'd just like to know if we're still on track for that. I will have to plead ignorance on that. I know that that has been a goal, and in addition to the goal set there, there was broad community support. I think we had talked with people from waste. Is Commissioner Holmes in the House? I mean, it was rolled out as an official goal for us as a government, and you kind of triggered my thinking that we haven't had a real update on that. I can tell you we're not there yet. I know we're not there, but I want to know if we're still on track to do that. so Councilmember Gordon it's my understanding that it's still our goal we're still working toward that with all that we do on the waste side of the house I don't have details as far as how close we are or what the long term steps will be taking to get there it might be nice for when the new council is seated to have an update on that it would be probably more appropriate to get that information for you we can certainly do that thank you Mr. Chair thank you Vice Mayor Councilor Kay. Thank you, Chair. Just really a couple comments, not a question. The first is on the goal of reduction, both absolutely and per capita. We are going to continue to grow as a community, so the challenge is to nonetheless reduce our energy usage to become more efficient and more effective. And so I think we need to keep both of those goals in mind, not just on a per capita basis, because as we grow, that would allow us to use more energy. We want to be bringing it down nonetheless. The second comment has to do with the issue of transportation. As you noted, it is, if I do the math correctly, transportation actually accounts for as much energy usage as residential, commercial, and industrial put together. And I know that there's a misconception about our own energy usage, and I believe it's possible to separate out the miles traveled that actually are going through our community on 64 and 75, which we can do virtually nothing about, and the miles traveled that have to do with within our own community. So if possible, I would recommend that those numbers be disaggregated so that we can see how much of that is really, this overstates it, but how much of that is our responsibility and how much of it has to do with national policy about the people who are traveling through our community. We can work on what we can work on. We can't do much about the people from Ohio going to Tennessee. So that's just a suggestion as we go forward. And then finally, I just want to thank you for the really good work and the continued effort to refine both the way we think about energy usage and the way we report it so we understand whether we're making progress or not. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Kaye. Anyone else have any questions on this topic? All right. Thank you, Mr. Early. We appreciate you being here. Thank you very much for the opportunity. And we will look at the waste questions and this disaggregation you're talking about. Thank you. Next up on our agenda are monthly financials. If anyone has any questions, Commissioner O'Meara is here. Any questions for Mr. O'Meara looking through the monthly financials? All right. Well, then, that's all on our agenda today. This is our last meeting for this calendar year. So when it reconvenes, it will be under a new council and a new name, the Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee. So we will see this committee back active in 2015 and move any existing issues forward. Do I have a motion to adjourn? Move, Darren. We're adjourned. Thank you all.