Music guitar solo Thank you. guitar solo guitar solo Ladies and gentlemen, are we ready to start the Planning and Public Safety Committee? Thank you. Okay, let's go ahead and get started, please. I'd like a motion to approve the minutes from the October 13, 2015 Planning and Public Safety Committee meeting. Do I have a second? I have a motion and a second to approve the minutes for the Planning and Public Safety Committee meeting that was on October 13, 2015. And the next issue on the docket, I'll turn it over to Councilmember Henson. This is in reference to our Lexington Fayette Taxicab Ordinance, which is on page 5 through 9. Councilmember Henson, if you want to go forward, please. Thank you, Chair. I guess to give everyone a little bit of history on this item, This is something we have been working on for quite some time, and it began as once Uber and Lyft came into our city, we began working on our taxi ordinance to make it more equitable to compete with Uber and Lyft. But since then, and it actually, the revisions to the ordinance made it to the docket, but it was tabled pending some state legislation that was taking place. So based on that, I guess I would ask Glenda George or Melissa Murphy, either one, to come up and give us the highlights of what has changed on the state level and how we might move forward. But this item was pulled from the council docket and placed back into committee. So just to be clear. Correct. Thank you, Glenda. Good afternoon, everyone. So as Councilmember Henson stated, the way this all got started was we had received some complaints from the taxicab companies because companies that are called transportation network companies or ride-sharing companies started operating in Fayette County without any regulation. And so this committee gave the Department of Law the assignment of reviewing the taxicab ordinance and making changes to the ordinance so that we would regulate both taxi cabs and these ride-sharing companies. And as Council Member Henson said, we did place an ordinance on the docket that I think maybe received first reading. But after first reading, the Department of Law requested that that be pulled and sent back to committee because of some state regulations, which took effect in June of this year. And those regulations actually repealed, or the state statute actually repealed the government's local authority of taxicab companies. So now where we stand is that taxicabs are regulated by the state. So our recommendation at this point, because the assignment to us was to come up with an ordinance that treated taxicab companies and Uber and Lyft equally, We no longer have the ability to regulate taxi cabs locally. We've never had the ability to regulate transportation network companies at all. So our recommendation is that we repeal Ordinance 18A, or Chapter 18A of the Code of Ordinances. I'm sorry. Thank you, Council Member Henson, and thank you, Glenda. I have a few Council Members signed up. Council Member Sinnott. Thank you. Thank you. A couple questions. One, I appreciate what we're going to do. If we can make it simple, if we can reflect the state law. I'll use a different one. You got it now? No? Can you hear me now? Yeah, I'll speak into the other one. But you said state law supersedes local law. But could we make a more stringent ordinance to make it more regulation on a local level, such as we have in the past several years with inspections, the protection with the insurance and the driver's background checks? Could we not still do that? Because your last paragraph says state law supersedes us. But we can go beyond state law. Well, we actually met with the representatives from the Transportation Cabinet on that very issue and were advised not to. Oh, really? Well, you know, and they may have their own opinion. Are they here today? They're not here, are they? They may not have been invited, but I'd be curious to ask why. I mean, I think most cities in Kentucky would want that. Most citizens would want that. And that's what we've been doing for years, and now we're being asked not to do that, which is an extra protection for our community. And now we're being asked to don't worry about it. And I know it's a lot of work for us. I know we can free up some people not having to do that. But I would just be curious to know why they want us not to do that. If we wanted to, we could do things that are consistent with what they're doing. Say, for example, we could still require a license here for the taxi cab companies and the drivers, and we still could regulate drivers. But remember, our charge was to make things equal between the taxi cab companies and the transportation network companies. And because we can't regulate the transportation network companies, that was why we were recommending the repeal. But we do have some ability to regulate taxi cab companies. It's just that we wouldn't be able to do the transportation network companies, which is a little different than what this committee asked us to look at. Right, and I'm not lobbying that we not, don't go ahead and appeal it, but I just think that, you know, state law supersedes that we can make more protections. It would only be for the taxi cab companies and not the Uber and Lyft drivers. Right, we could do some things that would apply only to taxi cab companies, but nothing for, like, Uber and Lyft or any companies of that nature. And the state is regulating those type of networks? Yes. But they don't require background checks for Uber and Lyft? They do, they do. In the memo, it states... I just want you to make sure you say that publicly. Yes, okay. I'm sure somebody's going to contact and say, well, they don't have to do it. Well, they do. Yes, in the memo, in order to receive an application from the state in order to operate, and this applies to both taxi cab companies and transportation network companies, you have to complete the application, fill out the application fee. You have to pay a fee for each of your vehicles. You have to have insurance, and you have to provide a criminal background check for three years for your drivers, your owners, your operators of the vehicles. Is that a one-time only, or do they have to provide that evidence each year? You have to do that every time you renew. Okay. And you have to renew annually. Annual renewal. Okay. Very good. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councilmember Senate. Councilmember Lamb. Thank you, Chair. Ms. George, do we know how much this is going to affect our revenue? I mean, I know currently we receive revenue for licensing and permitting. Do we know? I'll have to defer to revenue. I mean, if there's someone else here that could answer that. That's a good question. I don't know exactly, but one of the big parts we lose is the fee, the $25. Each driver would still have to register with us as a business license as an independent contractor, just like any other independent contractor would. So we still would have to have those folks come and register for a business license as they do now. Okay. So the business license portion won't be taken away, but it's the whatever fees that are? The other fees that are associated with that. Okay. I mean, I think that would be something that would be important to know. I mean, I don't have any clue as to how much revenue we're talking about. We can get that. We can go and run some queries on that to see what we have in that. But the big one is the $100 annual license. And, I mean, it might not be anything. I don't know. We'll get that to you. Thank you. And I know that since this TNC, since the new legislation went in place over in Frankfurt, I believe that we're supposed to, the local municipalities are supposed to be receiving lists about the TNC companies. Do we know, and this might be for public safety, I'm not sure, are we receiving any kind of information from the state as far as TNC companies that are actually submitting their applications and are legal to operate? I would have to defer to public safety. I don't know. I mean, I know Commissioner Bassett are... Do you see anything from the state about transportation network companies that are operating and their list of drivers? Do I know that we're seeing these companies say can we have any force from there? No, we have not. We've actually... I know that the law department, when they had the meetings specifically with TNC companies, it was, we were told that we would get a list of drivers, we would get addresses, that sort of thing. All we got in specific was the company itself and the names of the drivers. We have no idea where they live. We have no idea who they are. And it's not insurmountable, but for us to go through and go to the clerk's office and try and find all these people, I mean, that's what we're supposed to be getting. Now, because they're controlled by the state, that would be something that the state would have to enforce. That they would have to enforce to them and mandate that they send that to us. But as yet, we haven't gotten that. So, do we, and I don't know what the state legislation says as far as what they're supposed to supply to local municipalities as far as TNC companies. I mean, are they supposed to provide more than? Ms. George is shaking her head no. there's nothing in the state statute that requires them to provide us with any information concerning transportation network companies because we don't have any regulation over those okay right as they said we did request the list um and what we received is my understanding is a list of names and driver's license numbers but those are for companies that operate anywhere in the state of Kentucky. They weren't specific to Fayette County. Okay. All right. I'm just curious if, if Mr. Curtis, do you happen to know about how much revenue we take? It's just over $30,000 a year. $30,000 a year approximately? Yes, ma'am. Okay. That's all the drivers and all the cars per year. Okay. And that's, that's what we'll not, we will lose. So. Well, we'll lose a portion of it. We'll still get the licensing fees for each individual driver, which is basically the same as what they've been paying for a taxi cab permit to drive. So, I mean, we'll lose a small portion of it. It'll be about, we should get back a third of it, somewhere around $8,000 to $10,000, but we'll lose at least $20,000 in revenue. Okay. All right. All right. Thank you. Thank you, all. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you. I just have a couple clarifying questions on what you just, we'll have a couple, I guess. The $250 application fee, is that Uber would pay that one time, Lyft pays it one time, a taxi cab company pays it one time. It's not per car. They pay the $250 fee annually and then $30 per car. Per car. Okay. And then the $100 business fee that we collect is for every car, regardless of who they work for. I can't hear you. Yes, that's for every car and every individual or independent contractor that's a taxi cab operator. They pay the $100 license fee? Yes. And then we still get the 2.5% profit or no? I'm sorry? Do we still get the profit off that, the 2.5%? Well, they just have to pay the 2.25% net profit. They do? Yes. Regardless of who they work for? Yeah, regardless of whoever they work for, yes. Okay. And then I know in 18A it talks about a rate card. I'm sorry, right now? That's probably not for you. Oh. Thank you, though. Lexington required a rate card on file. Does this take that completely away? No, because they're still regulated by the state, so the state still has requirements that they have to comply with. And same with? Passengers will still know what the rate is. Okay, and same thing for if they're handicapped or all those things are all... Yes, but all of that stuff is being handled by the state as opposed to us, yes. Okay. Okay, thank you, Chair. Is she finished? I'm dead. Council Member Bledsoe, are we still on? I have one more question. That's fine. Go ahead. And only because no one, I don't know. Okay, so when I ask this, I'm not driving an agenda. I'm curious, okay? Are employees considered in service industry? Or are they, would drivers make minimum wage? Or are they based on, I mean, I'm asking only because is it how they control the wages of drivers, if it's a service or if it's a contract? I believe the drivers, they pay a fee up front, and then whatever they collect after they pay that fee to the company, that's what they keep. So it's not like they make minimum wage or a certain amount hourly. They're self-employed. Yes, yes, they're independent self-employed contractors. Okay, thank you. You've got a couple minutes. Are we good? Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Hanson, we do have someone from the public that would like to speak, so if you're going to put a motion forward or something. Okay, go ahead. Thank you. Linda, I was wondering if perhaps you could just outline for us the changes that occurred on the state level. So, for instance, for those watching and interested, the number, we were trying to reduce the number of a taxi company that's required. Currently, our ordinance says 25 taxis. We were trying to reduce that to 10. The state actually reduced it to one. So, and there are some other things that they put into place. Is that correct? You mean other than what you have to do to apply for a certificate? As far as regulating taxis, they reduced the number from 25 to 1, right? The state never had a minimum number. That was what we required. So the state just only requires that you meet the requirements that are outlined in the memo, that you pay the application fee, that you have insurance, that you provide the criminal background check. And if you receive a certificate from the state, you have the ability to operate anywhere in the state of Kentucky. You're not limited to just one particular county. I think that may be what you're referring to. Okay. And then so with the transportation network companies, then we cannot necessarily know who they are so we don't collect the net profit tax from them. If we knew who they were, they would have to pay the $100, too, correct, to operate in Fayette County or not. Well, everyone has to pay that license fee, so transportation network companies wouldn't be exempt from that. But there's really, if we don't know who they are, there's really no way to enforce it, correct? Correct. So would then the taxi companies, if we do away with this ordinance, then wouldn't the taxi companies fall under that? or they have to be identified in some way, the car itself, either by color or decal. TNCs have to be identified by decal, correct? Taxis are identified by the color of their vehicle. Currently, yes. Okay. So how does that change? I don't know that it does. Okay. I think that's all still the same. You have to be able to identify the vehicle and the company that you're working for. Now, whether or not the state will require that there be uniformity in the fleet, I can't answer that. I don't know. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Thank you, Chair. Vice Chair Scutchfield, can you hold the floor for a moment while I answer the question? So it seems to me, Glenda, that the biggest issue is enforcement as far as the non-taxi cab-related providers, correct? I'm sorry? The biggest issue in my mind is enforcement is in reference to the non-taxi cab companies. Because, again, you said we don't know if they didn't apply for a license. We don't know if they're legitimately operating, correct? Do you mean for the transportation network companies? Correct. We wouldn't know. Is there any, did they discuss it at the state level at all? I was just curious what they thought of when they were. That I don't know. And we have no mechanism other than someone maybe makes a complaint. Well, on the state level, you know, when Uber or Lyft or any company like that is applying for a certificate to operate, They have to provide the names of their drivers to the state in the criminal background check, and they have to pay a permitting fee for each vehicle. So that is done on the state level. It's just it's not done locally by us. And as we said earlier, we have the list of drivers from Uber and Lyft, but it just says a name and a driver's license number. So if you're a student at UK and you're from Michigan, you know, on the list, it's just going to have Glenda George and a Michigan driver's license number, and there would be no way for us to identify that you're actually operating in Fayette County. Oh, that's what I'm saying. I agree with your point here. So I guess there is at this point we don't have much recourse. No. Okay. All right. Thank you. Any other council members want to speak on this issue? Council Member Lamb? Did you say that there was someone signed up to speak? Yes, I was going to call on them next. Because I recognize that there's a couple of people here that I've worked with before and was hoping that they would. Okay. Yes, ma'am. I have Mr. Macklin, it looks like, would like to speak on the issue. Sir, would you like to come forward? If you would state your name and address, please. Mike Mackin, Louisville, Kentucky. I'm chairman of Yellow Cab of Louisville in Lexington. And just a couple of things I found out about this meeting last Friday and just a couple of thoughts that I have regarding what you all are trying to do. First of all, I appreciate the fact that you're trying to make it more competitive for the cab companies to compete with the TNCs. however by eliminating the entire ordinance of 18a or whatever it is there there's a couple of downfalls that i see coming one of which and probably most important for the city of lexington and fayette county is the fact that the rate fees go away contrary to what i heard here a few minutes ago the state does not regulate the meters anybody can charge anything in any county city whatever that that city or that that county and or city allows there to be a charge. The city of Louisville, while they are also looking to do some similar things to what you are doing in trying to make cab companies more competitive with the TNCs, I guarantee you the city council of, Metro Council of Louisville will not be changing the meter rates for the city of Louisville. by eliminating an 18a there will be no governing body within lexington fayette county that will govern the meter rates anybody can charge anything that they want at any time i know several years ago when the equine horse show was in town there was quite a bit of stir over some overcharges with taxi cabs and so forth i also know here the last two weeks with breeder's cup There were some charges of price gouging from cabs and other people giving rides, Uber and Lyft. Their surge pricing went into effect at different times throughout Breeders' Cup, which the surge pricing would exceed the meter rates that are governed by the city of Lexington and Fayette County. But by eliminating this ordinance, all of that goes away. So I would ask that you be cautious in eliminating the whole thing. While part of me, to a certain extent, wouldn't mind getting a pay raise come January 1 if the meter rates were eliminated, I think reason has to stand that you just can't go out and charge whatever you feel like charging at that time in this type of business. The other thing that I would caution you all about or ask that you all consider is the inspection of vehicles. The state has no means to inspect anything. When they eliminated the CON process this past June and kind of opened up the taxicab business for anybody and everybody, they still do not have a way to really govern and pay attention to what vehicles are out there on the road. And I'm not going to quote it, but basically the state law says that the vehicle has to be of good working order. That's about it. Mr. Macken, hang on just a moment. Your three minutes are up. Is there any council member that would yield their time? Thank you, Council Member Lamb. Go ahead, sir. Thank you. Most of the regulations in Lexington have always been, as far as the vehicle regulations, have been here in the city of Lexington and Fayette County. That's the same way in Louisville. I know for a fact that the city of Louisville and Metro Council will not be lessening their requirements for the vehicle age and condition. We will still be going through inspections in Louisville like we do currently in Lexington. If it is left up to the state, anybody with a 1966 Beetle Volkswagen can slap taxi on the side of their vehicle and call themselves a cab. So the state will do nothing, nothing to enforce any type of good, reliable, usable vehicle. That's just a couple of the ideas that I have as far as eliminating the whole process and letting the state do it. Other than that, I appreciate the thoughts and concerns in helping us be more competitive with the TNCs. It's a difficult age we live in with the TNCs. They seem to go around from state to state, country to country, and just set up shop and pay zero attention to any laws or any governing bodies. They just do whatever they wish, wherever they wish and however they wish, because they are the technology that knows better. So I appreciate those thoughts, but I think we do need to be a little cautious when it comes to some of the meter rates and also the condition of vehicles. Thank you, sir. Is there anyone else from the audience that would like to speak before I bring it back to the council members? If not, Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Chair. That was the exact point that I was trying to get across when I asked about rates, is that what he is saying is what I thought this meant. So can you, but you disagree. So can you clarify that for us? We have never regulated rates. What we have required is that the taxicab companies provide us with information concerning what they're charging. but we've never regulated what the amount should be for a ride in a taxi cab company. Does Louisville do that? I don't know. They do. They have set prices in Louisville as to what they charge. So we don't said that. We've just said that we want to know what they are. Correct. So that if we think it's over, it's too much, I guess we could say something. But we've never regulated it, so it doesn't really have any meaning. Right. In the 20 years I've been here, we have never regulated rates of taxicab companies. Okay. Okay, that's interesting. And then the second point, I think, is the age and condition of the vehicles. What I thought I heard Council Member Stendent say, which is what I was going to follow up on, is that we can't make the rules less than what the state has given us, but we can make them more. I want to clarify something. In terms of inspections, you do have to provide an annual inspection by an ASE-certified mechanic to the state. So I don't know that the beat-up car would actually be out on the road if you can't produce the inspection that your car is safe. And you would do that as a requirement to get your business license? That's a requirement of the state. Of the state? Yes. So could we, in effect, make our own rules and say in Fayette County, in order to get the $100 license fee, your age and condition should be X, Y, or Z? Now keep in mind, there's nothing that prohibits us from doing some type of regulation on taxi cabs, and that's where we started. But the reason we were recommending the repeal is because our charge was to make them equal. Right. And we could do that, but we couldn't make the same requirements of the TNCs. Right. We couldn't say their vehicles have to fit into X, Y, or Z because they are not regulated. Right. But if you all wanted us to come back with a new ordinance consistent with the state statute, we could do that. But that wasn't our charge. Our charge was to make them equal. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Bledsoe. Council Member Akers. Thank you, Chair. So I'm confused. So I would like for us to do more research and see what other cities, how they regulate meter rates. But your last comment, basically, you're saying that if we regulate taxicab meter rates, but we still can't regulate TNC rates. Right. We have no control on anything relating to transportation network companies at all. All of that is controlled by the state. But taxicabs are also controlled by the state. Yes, but the state statute, as it relates to taxicab companies, and I think it's in the memo, gave us something that's called concurrent and regulatory supervisory authority, which allows us to do some control over taxicabs if we choose to. But keep in mind, we would be treating taxicab companies differently than what we would be the transportation network companies, which when we all started this was what you all didn't want to do. Yes, I don't want to do that. But I don't understand why. I mean, there's a lot of things that the state regulates that we also regulate or that we regulate differently or that we go above and beyond the state statutes. I mean, we have a proposal on Thursday that we're going to look at next week of a difference than the state statute. So I don't understand how this is different of the state regulates TNCs, but we cannot. Because we have no authority to do that. The state hasn't given us authority to regulate those types of motor carriers. It's like limousines. We don't regulate limousines. That's controlled by the state. So transportation network companies are similar to that. So if we want to, I mean, we could just do it anyway and then wait to be sued by someone for the fact that we don't have the right to regulate it? Is that what would happen? Well, we wouldn't advise that, but. I mean, that's what people do, right? You couldn't do it without an ordinance. Without an ordinance? Correct. make a resolution that you can't charge more than X for a meter rate per mile or whatever. So you're wanting us to regulate the rates of taxicab drivers? Is that what you're saying? And everyone that provides rides. So there can't be price gouging during special events and all that. We can't. We can't. We can't only do the taxes. I'm saying do it anyway. But ordinance? Okay. Okay, never mind. It's a great discussion, Councilmember Akers, but unfortunately it looks like we may hamstring the taxicabs by doing such. Thank you, Councilmember Akers. Councilmember Sinnott. Thank you, Chair. Okay. Well, I guess my question is for Rusty back here. On the Department of Revenue, currently taxicab companies pay payroll tax. They're paying their net profits tax. How are we tracking these TNC drivers? Are you all being proactive and going out there and seeing, checking back each year that they're operating in Fayette County and they don't file a net profits return that something's wrong? Amber? We have to look. The companies themselves are registered, like Uber or Lyft, and then some drivers have been registered where we've gotten names and addresses. But like they're saying, the list that we got of drivers, we can't find them, so we're kind of stuck. We try to audit them like we do Airbnbs and other ones with people renting their houses. It's the same situation with them. We're able to get some addresses because we see a location. We ride them and try to get them to get registered that way. It's all we can do on the drivers of the Uber and Lyfts. So do they pay local net profits tax, or if they live in Michigan or down here as a student, they would pay it in Michigan, not here. They would pay it here because they'd be operating in Fayette County. So what about Jessamyn? If they live in Jessamyn County and are operating in Fayette County. Coming into the county, just like any other business that does business in the city of Lexington County, then the net profit tax is for us. They would have their apportionment percentage just like anyone else. So if they're driving in Nicholasville or in Woodford County or wherever else. It's still hard for your office, I guess, to regulate it. It is hard for us. And track them. If we get a list and can get addresses, then we can easily go and try to get those folks. But without the information from the companies, our hands are tied. But in terms of the taxicab companies, we know where they're at and how many employees. Yeah, because those drivers come in when they're registering now because of the ordinance. They're having to bring in proof insurance, bonds, and things like that, as well as pay their business license. We can't issue their business license until they pay all the applicable fees and show us all the proof. And so if we repeal our ordinance, would they turn to, like, the TNC companies? They could be. We would have to rely on someone to give us a list of those drivers so that we can make sure they're registered because we wouldn't have a way to regulate those folks coming in. Okay, so if we repeal it back to the Department of Law, how would we ask for that request or list of drivers? Would they voluntarily do it, or could we ask them they have to do it annually? And then back to the rate setting, I agree we never set the rates, but actually Mayor Newberry actually met with the three cab companies when WEG was here. I don't think we did it on Breeders' Cup, but we got them all together in one room and said, you know, here's what we want to charge. So we have had influence on the rates in the past. We just haven't officially ordinance set them. To answer your question about the drivers, it would be the same thing as with Uber and Lyft. We'd have to request the list from the state. Now, it should be a little easier as it relates to taxi cab companies, but the information would come from the state. So we'd be in that TNC ballgame and trying to track drivers, and if they're paying income tax. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councilmember Senate. Councilmember Lamb, I think you've spoken once already, so I'm going to skip you and go to Councilmember Hensley and Kay, then I'll come back to you. Councilmember Hensley, please. Thank you. As a guest of this committee, I think it's a noble notion to remove the regulations from the taxicab industry altogether. In Florida, this was done two months ago, and let the competitive forces between the companies self-regulate themselves. So that's my observation on this, is just to remove the regulation altogether and let the competitive forces settle it. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kaye. Thank you, Chair. Ms. George, this is a question that's more generally about business licenses. So if I decide to open a business selling hats out of my house, which may or may not be legal in itself, how do you know that I'm paying the net profits tax? Do I have to let the city know that I'm in business? May I defer to revenue to answer this question? Absolutely. Revenue. Rushdie. The answer is yes. They were supposed to come and technically get a business license. For example, if I started selling blankets to all of my friends and people, I would need to get registered with the city to do that. And how would you know that I'm out there selling hats or you're out there selling blankets? Well, we search advertising. We look on Facebook, Pinterest, places like that. And believe it or not, we have a lot of people report people. We'll tell on folks. But there's no mechanism for anybody? We have inspectors now. Someone's selling out of their house, it would be kind of harder to go out and see those. But we have individuals that do go out and search for unregistered businesses. And could they do the same thing with Lyft and Uber drivers? They can try. I mean, I guess you could always order a driver, you know, one way to do it. I've actually thought that's one way to do it. You order it, but the problem is you're paying up front. When you're ordering it on the app, you're paying for the driver when it comes, and then you're asking for a business license. Okay, I guess the reason I ask these questions is that the Uber and Lyft drivers are not unique in terms of people who operate small businesses, that we really don't have a simple way to track who's out there and who's not. And if they have a net profit, we don't have no easy way to assure that they're paying their taxes. We're looking for them once. We get them registered once. Then it's a lot easier for us to track them because we can look and see who's delinquent the following year. But we're constantly chasing after those types of things through leads and other means. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Chair. I guess I'm not totally confused, but I want to say that I went over here and looked at this Section 18A in our big code book here, and there is a specific section, subsection 17, that actually talks about rates of fare, rate card required, and says no owner or driver of a taxi cab shall charge a greater sum for the use of a taxi cab than in accordance with the rates on file with the commissioner of finance. so I mean this is telling me that we do set we at least we're knowledgeable of the rates I mean and so if we appeal or repeal 18a then we're not going to have anything that there's not going to be anything that we know on a local basis and it's all going to be on state and then if we rely on the state to give us information well we all know where that can go so keep in mind we've never said what the amount would be we just only required the company to tell us what they were charging and then we've said you can't charge any more than that and if a taxi cab were to do that then the rider could file a complaint but we have never set except i guess in the situation with the wag where we talked about everybody being consistent but we've never said, okay, in Fayette County, a ride is a dollar per mile or whatever. We just only require the companies to tell us what they're charging. Right. But, I mean, and I understand that. But it's clear to me from this section that that does, there is a certain parameter that we, that they have to follow. I mean, I think that's a fair statement. In terms of that they provide us with what they're charging? Yes. Right. I mean, I'm assuming that through the Commissioner of Finance's office that we actually, not I don't want to put anybody on spot today, but, I mean, that we actually do have these rate cards that are in place. I mean, I don't know. I have ‑‑ I am perplexed about recalling this at this point or repealing it because I think that we probably ‑‑ I would think that we need to look into it more and see if there are things that we could keep on here that would help us to be able to monitor. And I don't know that I'm able to speak to that today, but that's just my two cents worth. So thanks, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Lamb. Council Member Akers. Thank you. I want to ensure that everybody's working under the same rules and regulations or none. I mean, I want it to be fair to both groups. I guess my last question, again, is for Rusty. I believe Glenda said or you said that all drivers, Uber drivers, taxi drivers, Lyft drivers, all have to get a business license permit. That is correct. So, however, I guess there's no way of knowing how much money they actually earn. So are they 1099? Do they receive 1099s from their employers? And so then that's how you could track whether they pay the right taxes or are they supposed to, do they self-report? They would self-report their own on their tax return. Like if I was a driver, I would be filing what revenue that I made that year on my end-of-year tax return to the city. So Yellow Cab does not issue 1099s to drivers? I do not believe that. If they do, I've not personally seen it, but we were talking earlier, we've not seen that. We usually get their actual tax return with their claim and their revenue on there. So same if you're selling hats or blankets, then you just self-report how much? It's your own, because you're your own company, your own contractor. Okay, I would like to leave it in committee or suggest that we keep this here, maybe do some more research on what some other cities have done and how we might be able to either just repeal it and make it fair for everyone or regulate TNCs the same as taxis, because I don't think we should do them. Do you want to put that in the form of a motion? We can put it on the floor. Do you wish to? Sure. Yes. Go ahead. So moved? Would that be? Yes, I moved. Okay, do we have a second to keep this? Keep it in committee. To keep the taxicab ordinance discussion in committee? Second. Second. All those in favor? Oh, we have a discussion. I'm sorry. Council Member Bledsoe. I just wanted to tell, I mean, is that okay? If we don't do anything, are we? It's okay, but. Yes and no. We're going to run up against an issue come January 1 because our ordinance still requires that companies have a local taxi cab permit and pay the fee and do some things locally that I don't think we can require because of the state law. So I think we have to repeal it today, even if we don't want to come back with something. And then we can come back in the spring or in January and decide we want to enforce differently or we want to have stronger rules. In effect, we have to repeal this to do that. Okay, I'm going to withdraw my motion. Okay. Council Member Hanson, that motion has been withdrawn. Council Member Hanson. Thank you, Chair. based on the conversation, then I would move that an ordinance repealing Chapter 18A of the Code of Ordinances relating to vehicles for hire. Second. A motion on the floor to repeal Section 18A of the Taxicab Ordinance, and we have a second. All those in favor? Aye. Those opposed? No. No. I guess we need to have an electronic vote. Stacy, please. Uh-oh. Looks like we have a tie. Motion has failed because of the tie. Well, that's it. Well, based on what our council has just said, we don't meet again until... December 8th. We meet again December 8th. We do meet December 8th. We conceivably could talk about that on December 8th again, and then we could, you know, decide at that time what we'd like to do. Okay. So we do have one more meeting that we could keep this in committee for. I'm sorry. Point of order. We had a vote, 5-5 vote, and we have one person absent? No. He's not on the committee. He shouldn't be signed in. Thank you. I think we probably need to go back and check and see who voted on that and make sure that they were all appropriate committee members. I think we have one that is not. Council Member Brown, are you on this committee? I'm sorry. You didn't vote. I'm sorry. Can we vote either? Russ didn't vote either. It appears that the people that voted were on the committee. Will you want to push that back on the screen, Stacey? Please. Motion did fail because it was a tie. So, Council Member Bledsoe, you've spoken. Council Member Hanson. I've spoken as well, but I was just, Paul is willing to do some research on this item, and we'll take it up again in December. but I do think it's critical, and I think that's why Glenda's standing at the podium, that we do take action on this prior to January. Thank you. Do you want to put that in the form of a motion, Council Member Henson? Did you have a comment, Glenda? Yes, before you do that, go ahead, Glenda. Would you all consider possibly passing a resolution that would allow us to suspend enforcement of Chapter 18A until we get this worked out? Because we would have the issue, if you all don't meet until December, that's right before you go on break. So we're not going to have enough time to pass an ordinance or get anything done by January when all of these companies would be required to comply with our ordinance, even though technically it's been superseded, you know, we're kind of in limbo there. So it would be helpful to us if we had something saying that we could suspend enforcement until we can get this all worked out. Could we do that at work session today? I mean, or does it have to come from this committee? That's, I mean, separate. I believe we could do it at work session, couldn't we? all report out today at work session a motion could be made to put a resolution on the docket for next week's meeting to suspend um enforcement of chapter 18a until we have the revisions to the ordinance thank you um does anyone else want to speak on this motion i know it's been a little i mean on this subject it's been a little confusing and i think that we probably do require a little bit more information can we read this out on work session when we haven't read out the previous month's summary already prior to this because we'd be missing or does it not make a difference i think you can report it out so if some if we want to go ahead go forward with that what's the committee's pleasure on this would you want to go ahead and have me read it out at work session about this, or do we want to just leave it in committee until next December, or this December, and then move on at that time? Council Member Kay, or Vice Mayor Kay, I'm sorry. Thank you, Chair. Just to see what the pleasure of the committee is, I would move that we take the advice of council and that we move to suspend the rules until this is on 18a until this is straightened out and if that passes i would make a motion that we report it out this afternoon so that it can be treated by council next thursday the first motion to suspend the rules on 18a the enforcement the enforcement enforcement of 18a Do we have a motion? Do we have a second? Second. All those in favor? No, no. All right. Councilmember Akers. So, if everyone agrees we should suspend enforcement, why wouldn't we just repeal it? I mean, why do we have a law on the books that we're not going to enforce, but we're going to leave it there? Right now, we don't have the votes to repeal it. Well, perhaps now that there's been more information, we could reconsider, recall the vote for reconsideration. I guess I just heard a concern that if we don't suspend, that it creates some difficulties in terms of enforcement to have it on there without our having taken action on it. So I only put it on to see what the sentiment of the council, of the committee is. And if it doesn't make any sense, that's fine. Thank you. any other council council member lamb i guess i mean if we if if the majority chooses to leave this in committee which i still would like to what i would like to see happen is is for us to you clearly have referred to sections in 18a that we do not have any as of january we will not have any enforcement i clearly understand that however i do think there are sections in here that can be effective for Fayette County, Lexington Fayette County. Now, I would think that as opposed to repealing the entire 18A, perhaps we need to go through and identify, and I realize that by December 8th, that is probably not, that's a pretty quick turnaround. So I think that it would be completely feasible to go ahead and pass a resolution, or suggest passing a resolution that we stop reinforcement, and I know I'm not using the proper term, of 18A until we can bring this back forward and look at the specific sections that we need to keep in our code of ordinances that we can have. That's what I think would be in our best interest. Ms. George, you said you wanted to speak. Yes, and Council Member Lamb, you are correct. What we're talking about is the license fees that we would be required to collect come January 1. That's what we're asking to suspend enforcement on if we're not going to repeal the entire ordinance. We're not saying or we're not requesting that we suspend enforcement of 18A in its entirety, but there are some things that the taxi cab companies and the drivers would be required to do come January 1, and we would like to suspend enforcement of those things. And also keep in mind, you all asked what other cities were doing. Louisville and Lexington were the only two cities that had the authority to regulate taxi cabs locally. The other cities never had that authority. So when that section of the state statute was repealed, that only affected two cities in terms of taking the local authority away. Thank you. Council Member Scotchfield. Thank you, Chair. I guess looking at this, I'm a little concerned because the state took what we say is the regulation of the taxicabs, which is the reason why we want to take 18A out of our ordinances, correct? When did this occur? The new statute took effect June 24th. But we knew about it well before, correct? We didn't know that the statute was going to take away our local authority. What we were anticipating is that the amendments to the state statute would provide some regulations for transportation network companies, not that they would repeal our ability to regulate taxi cabs locally. We weren't expecting that. I guess my concern right now for sitting there and repealing this right now out of the air, essentially, is the fact that there are certain regulations that I think would be good for our city and for us to not even consider them and just get rid of all of them. I mean, this is November. We've known about this for how long? Why don't we have proposals? Well, keep in mind, you know, what our charge was. Our charge was to make them equal, and in order to do that, and we tried to do that with the ordinance, and once our local authority was taken away, our only option to make them equal was to recommend that we repeal 18A. But if that's no longer a concern and you all want to continue regulating taxi cabs, we do have some limited authority to do that. But that wasn't the law department's charge at the time. Okay, and I guess we've never had them be equal in the past. What was the push to be equal now? Well, transportation network companies haven't been in Fayette County for more than maybe a year. And so I guess a year ago when this all started, this room was filled with representatives from the taxi cab companies and drivers complaining because they were being regulated and transportation network companies weren't. And so we were asked to look at our code of ordinances to regulate transportation network companies, and we did that. And we actually had an ordinance that was on the docket for consideration. But once this state law took effect, we pulled that and sent this back to committee for discussion. Okay. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kay. Thank you, Chair. So, again, I may have this wrong. My understanding about my own motion is that it does not take this item out of committee. All it does is suspend enforcement. So it stays in committee and we can continue to talk about it. But if we talk about the regulation itself, it seems to me what we've been told is we can regulate taxi cabs. We cannot regulate the Ubers and Lyfts of the world. And the original intention was to try and level the playing field. So if we regulate taxi cabs at all, we are making the playing field uneven. That's where we're left because of what the state has done. So I have no objection to leaving a committee and having more conversation. But I think the bottom line is any regulation of cab companies will make the playing field uneven. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Sinnott. Thank you, Chair. Appreciate it. We've got mobile capability now, so I can interview each one of you. Glenda, thank you for all your work. You've done a yeoman's job trying to get this done. I know you've worked a lot of hours trying to get Council the information we need, so thank you, first of all. And thank you, Vice Mayor, for clarifying. I was going to ask you to clarify what the intent was. But I think Council Member Lamb is right on target. I think we can come back to December 8th, maybe with a couple modifications, and keep maybe a couple. Maybe not. But I think it's worth one last look before we deal with it altogether. It's only three weeks. I think December 8th we can maybe make it and have a final vote and move on. So I support Council Member Kaye's motion, but also what Council Member Lamb is trying to do. Thank you. Any other Council members would like to speak to the issue? So we've got a motion on the floor to suspend the enforcement of 18A until the ordinance is updated. And we have a second. All those in favor? Those opposed? Motion passes. No. Everyone no? I believe it passes. Thank you. All right, next we have Council Member Gibbs in reference to snow removal. We have another motion. Oh, I'm sorry. The vice mayor needs to motion or I can motion that the chair report this item out at work session today. So moved. We have a second. All those in favor. Any discussion? Those in favor, please say aye. Those opposed. motion passes you're welcome okay next item on the agenda snow removal on sidewalks councilmember Gibbs thank you chair just give you a brief update here this this is about snow removal on private sidewalks thanks to Susan Ploeger and her team we already have a plan for public publicly owned sidewalks the last couple winners have been particularly harsh okay oh you go the last couple winners have been particularly harsh and it appears it could be a trend and so this isn't sorry I can't concentrate I'm sorry you guys done all right thank you I apologize I had council member gives that was our fault go ahead go ahead and start I apologize I believe we're talking about council member Gibbs is the item on the agenda as far as snow removal and you had requested someone to come up from the audience no I'm just going to talk about it for a minute or two okay if that's okay yes go right ahead if I can just speak from here but we do have a plan for removal snow removal from public sidewalks but they're they're still the problem of private private sidewalks and the last two winters been particularly harsh and I'm afraid it's a trend and I think this is something that needs to be addressed. There is an ordinance on the books that dates from 1978, I think, which is really kind of odd. The fine for not clearing your sidewalk is only $5 and yet it's a criminal offense which is a misdemeanor and you have to have your sidewalk cleared within four hours at the end of the snow event and it's enforced by the police who have much better things to do and so and they've not been enforcing it with good reason. And so this ordinance is just kind of a train wreck. And I think we need a better ordinance. So I've been in discussions with the CAO's office and with the planning department and the law department to try to come up with a better ordinance. And I hope to have a draft for you at the next meeting. But it's a fairly difficult problem. We have to figure out who's going to enforce, whether it's going to be civil or criminal penalties, how much should the penalties be how long do we give people before they have to clear their sidewalk we'll probably go with something uh staggered you know if it's a very you know highly used uh corridor probably earlier than a than a back street um and you know the amount of fine if i hadn't mentioned that so uh also we'd like to do we want to do this but not appear to be draconian uh and i think we need to pair uh this enforcement with some educational programs to let people know that this is their civic duty to clear clear their sidewalk but I think we have a real public safety issue on our hands and I can I can speak to that directly and I've done that before there are people out walking in Main Street and so I think it's something needs to be done and we will have some sort of proposal for you guys to consider next month very good councilmember Gibson we anticipate we'll have that information for us on the December 8th meeting then Yes. Is there any other discussion on that issue? If not, I'll ask Chief Holman if you wouldn't mind coming to the podium and giving us an update on the issues of body cameras. I know that this is just basically for information only at this point. Is that correct? Yes, ma'am, that's correct. Thank you, if it pleases the council. The purpose of this is just to provide you an update of where we've been, what we're doing currently, and what we expect to see going forward. We have a working purpose, as all of our policies do, in the Division of Police. That gives you an idea, and basically the purpose is to protect the citizens of Lexington, all parts of the community, as well as the Division of Police, and to assist us with any of those investigations there. I won't read those to you word to word. This is the, it's important to point out some of the components of a body-worn camera policy or implementation. I think most people in the country and in this room understand the two endpoints. The cameras are fairly simple, and the storage piece is fairly simple. They all have a cost. Both of those pieces have a cost. But the most important piece in law enforcement across the country is the middle pieces there, and that's the management of all of that data. Most of that is self-explanatory, without me reading every one of those, but basically what's really important for us, and we have to have nailed down, especially in a large agency where there's going to be a lot of attention to body cameras, is that we have to make sure that the videos are secure, that it can't be tampered with. As we move those videos around, that's imperative. We have to make sure that we can find what we're looking for, So some metadata, some search capabilities that are embedded in some of the metadata that's embedded in the videos that we upload. So it's important that we have a lot of different criteria so we can find those, not just the one video but all the videos, because we may have instances where we're on scene and we have multiple officers with videos. So we have to make sure that we get all the videos that are involved in a certain situation. It's important that we have an audit trail, which means we need to know who accesses the video for what reason, and every time that it's done, and has anything been done with that video. So some of those other things are very important, and that is retention schedules for evidence and for non-evidencies video. Read action is extremely important nowadays, especially different states have different rules for read acting videos, but we're going to have to protect different people that's in a video. And so when these videos are requested either through open records, public records or court records, we may have to have the ability, we will have to have the ability to redact some of those videos. So all of those pieces there, without me going into each one of those, is the most important part of this process that we're in. The cameras are pretty identifiable, technology changes, they're improving, but that's pretty easy to understand, and the ability to store them is kind of easy to understand, but the most important piece for us is the management piece. So I think it was really important that we highlight some of those areas. A little bit of history. We actually started exploring body cameras in late 2013 under then-chief Ronnie Baston. And this was before some of the national events that you've seen and heard about, which most of those occurred this year and some into last year. In April of 2014, I will name the vendor because we own these cameras. We purchased four ProVision body cameras. And this is our first real exposure to body cameras. As you know, we do not have in-car video. So these cameras, really this company, all they really offered was the cameras. So on the previous slide, we had to work out storage and the entire management issue. But it was getting our feet wet with this. So we tested them. There was only four of them. We tested them in every sector, and we evaluated a potential for internal storage solution for what we did have. Our goal at that time was not to really capture evidence, to have to deal with evidence. We just want to see how the cameras work in the field and what kind of lighting, how that impacted it, how sound could be picked up, things like that. So we actually purchased four that we own. We bought those in April 2014. We tested a second and third vendor that at this time I'd rather not name because we haven't purchased them. It was just a test environment. We tested a second and third vendor in early 2015. At that time, one of those vendors had a cloud storage solution with complete administrative capability, a total solution, if you will. And the other one had an agency storage solution. You know, we maintained it here, and we had some administrative capability. So what I'm going to go through next, and this is kind of the history, is using these vendors that we're testing. I guess let me tell you one more. We're in the middle of testing another vendor, which I'll talk about in a minute. So we've got a fourth vendor that we're going to be testing or piloting a body camera solution. That has not started yet, and I'll talk about that in a little bit. So what I'm going to go to next is these two vendors, the second and third vendor, give you an idea of some of the costs. These are ballpark figures just to get in your mind the kind of cost that we projected based upon if we went with these two vendors. The first vendor, which is actually vendor number two, what we have decided as an agency, and it's not hard and set in stone, is to deploy, at this time, 400 cameras, which is 400 officers, which is everyone that's in a uniform. We are considering that maybe the most appropriate use, the appropriate deployment is to give each officer two cameras. And the primary reason for that is that we have officers that work a lot of off-duty jobs as well as are very active while they're going to and from work or whether outside, you know, driving around in a police car. You know, as we discussed this over a year ago, the take-home, the home fleet program that we have, officers are very active when they're not on duty. And we want to capture some of those encounters because some of those encounters can turn negative one way or the other. So we've got to consider whether we want to buy one camera per officer or two. And I can explain a little bit of that and what the reason behind that is. So most of the cameras out there cost approximately $600. There are some that are a little bit less expensive and some that are a little bit more expensive. If we bought 400 cameras, then that's roughly $240,000. And it would be double that if we bought 800. For vendor number two that we tested, the solution for storage was going to be all internal, which is our own server, our own switches. Everything would be maintained internally. Nothing would have been in the cloud. For vendor number two, the management software, that middle piece that I showed you earlier, there were a lot of uncertain pieces to that. They provided some but not all that we needed. It's our estimation that that internal solution, which is secure, storage, backed up, not just redundant but backed up off-site, would be approximately $360,000 for that first year, which is 180 terabytes of data in year one. 1,000 gigabytes is a terabyte. I don't want to get into too much of the technology, but, you know, again, this is really ballpark figures because we don't really know what to expect until we start deploying the cameras and using them consistently. We also estimated that it would also cost, with this particular vendor, $150,000 approximately for the next couple of years. That's each year, and that's internal storage backed up at this time with not redundancy. So as we continue to add data, video, and maintain it with respect to retention schedules, we would need more server space, more switches, more hardware. And this is not your typical $100 hard drive that you go buy at Best Buy or somewhere and plug it in. These are very expensive pieces of equipment. We estimate that the storage needs would gradually increase for the first few years before leveling off, and that's due to the retention requirements. This is a ballpark figure for vendor number two. Let me tell you a little bit about the cameras and why we're talking about 400 versus 800 and how that works. With each officer having only one camera at the end of their shift, right now we expect the protocol would be that they would have to take that equipment, whatever it is, either a module or component or the camera itself, and essentially place it in a dock that gradually uploads that video somewhere, either to the cloud, to an internal storage solution, or a temporary solution before we move it to the cloud. Really, based upon our limitations and our infrastructure, the camera would have to stay in that dock until they return to work the next day. And so that's a decision that we have to make. Do we want that officer to, at the end of their shift, put the camera in the dock and then leave? They're leaving in a police car. They're leaving in a police uniform. And they're going home. They may be going to another job, an off-duty job. How important is it for us to have a camera still on that officer once they leave? And that's a decision that we have to make, whether we move or we go with two. Because ideally, they'd put one camera in there, let it do the charging, let it move the data. lots of data, lots of officers moving lots of data at one time, and then leave without it, and then they can take a new one with them and begin recording anything else that they happen to encounter. So that's a decision we have to make. So that's why you see two cost figures there for either 400 cameras or 800 cameras. The third vendor, keep in mind the first vendor, we bought the cameras and we didn't do a whole lot with them because there wasn't a whole lot that they had a lot of capabilities. Early, some projections for this vendor number three. This vendor was a total solution. It was cloud-based solution. It had a total management solution. All the pieces I showed you in the middle that was important to us, this vendor provided all of that. There's the same 400 cameras or 800 cameras a year. The way this would work is that it would be a fixed cost per year. It would be sort of like a contract. And we're estimating that figure at somewhere in the neighborhood of $500,000 a year for five years. And with that, with this particular vendor, and other vendors will do the same thing, but in this particular case, with the total management solution and the cloud-based storage, any issues that we would have with individual cameras during the life of the contract, as well as any other components, would be replaced free. it's kind of like a printer and ink you know most of the printer companies that the printers are extremely inexpensive while the ink is very expensive per page so keep that in mind the vendor number four that we have we're in the we're in the talk stages we've worked out an arrangement where we're going to test we haven't tested this vendor yet but we're going to it's a moving target a little bit with this vendor. You see the same 400 cameras or 800 cameras. This particular vendor does not own cameras, does not have cameras. They have a storage solution. So that means that we have to buy the cameras independent of this particular vendor, which we have done. The difference with this type of system in our experience and in our evaluation of things kind of nationwide, we'll have to buy the cameras, and after they pass their original 90-day warranty or something like that, and something shouldn't go wrong with the cameras or any of the other equipment that's involved in it, we'd have to pay for all that at retail price to replace them. So that's what the 100% replacement cost for the camera and control unit means, that when we become a systems integrator, When we're using a storage company and we have to go find cameras, then the camera companies will sell us the cameras, but they won't give us a sweetheart deal, if you will, because we don't have a contract with that company. So if something goes wrong after the normal warranty period, we have to buy everything new in retail. So that's why we estimate from our experience in investigation and talking with other agencies that in about two years we'd have to replace every camera. in this particular vendor that we're going to test we were not certain of the management piece how much of the management piece can is going to be a part of this we know that some of it will and this is just during the test phase but some of that remains to be seen i've talked about investigation and looking at other agencies something else that we have done We've had several vendors come in and provide demos, both the camera, and if they had a total solution, their software solution, their management solution, we've had half a dozen of those companies probably that have come in. We have talked with many agencies. We have visited several agencies in the South, particularly North Carolina and South Carolina. We have seen a lot of these solutions in place in a lot of these agencies. Different ones, not the same one, different ones. We have created a team of middle managers. I'm a part of that team as well, where we are formulating and creating a framework for our policy. And we've accomplished that through best practices and model policies. We have consulted with and will continue to consult with others, the Department of Law. and you can see the names up there the Commonwealth Attorney our internal personnel as well we will also be talking with the county attorney at length the ACLU NAACP Human Rights Commission and other community leaders to get their input on our policy we did purchase and I'll name this because we bought them we did purchase some Axon Taser Axon cameras for field testing with this and with the vendor I just talked about that we haven't started that yet. We purchased 20 of those. It's our intention when this pilot starts at this time, I still have to be determined because it's a moving target. Right now, we anticipate that pilot started in December the 1st. We had hoped that it would be sooner. And again, it was supposed to be sooner, but the target has moved a little bit for one reason or another. It's our intention to deploy those cameras with that storage solution and with an unknown management piece. Not all of those pieces will be present, but it's our intention to deploy those in every part of the city, every part of the county, every sector, every shift, different officers. Some other things that we have to think about through this process, and let me say this too. We've went slow and we've talked to somebody at different times. you've had different pieces of information about it, is that it's really important, and upon reflection we're thankful that we've went as slow as we have because technology is changing. This has become such a big issue in the country that technology is changing quickly. That's to our benefit. Almost to an agency, they have all expressed regret that they moved as quick as they have in most cases. So we've taken our time because it's our position that we want to do this right and not fast. Some of the other things then that we need to... Hold up a minute. We need some extra minutes. Would the council member be willing to... Thank you, Council Member Eckers. Continue, please. Thank you. I'm almost done. Some of the other things that we have to think about is some of the hardware needs, and that's fiber to all police roll calls. We currently have at least one location that's a large roll call, one-third, I mean, west sector, that does not have fiber. Fiber just increases our bandwidth. And as I said earlier, we've got lots of officers uploading lots of video. That's a lot of data that we're having to upload. And it can cripple our bandwidth. So, and typically cable connections, connectivity will not be enough to do that. So we really need fiber. Fiber generally has a higher upload speed than cable will. Switches and some docking stations that we'll need. Another important feature is personnel to manage and maintain the cameras and other hardware. Personnel for open records, because we anticipate, just based upon other agencies, that there'll be a tremendous amount of open records requests for these videos. It takes a long time to go through the videos and to find what's needed and to redact the videos appropriately. As well as, when we get into some of the evidentiary issues, there are certain pieces of evidence that have to be held forever. You know, in a police department, primarily murders and homicide investigations. It's not our intention to leave that type of video evidence in the cloud and us pay for that storage for that length of time. You know, forever is a long time, obviously. So we'd have to prepare for eventually having cold storage, bringing things off the cloud and having it on site for rare access, but to maintain it. And then that also will take an investment. and that is all that i have is just a brief update of where we've been what we're doing and where we're going are there any questions thank you chief um i know this is an extremely complicated issue and as you said if we move too quickly um we may be doing ourselves a disservice but something certainly that we have to consider and we have to go forward doing so yes i've got a list of council members signed up so if you want to stay there at the podium i'd appreciate it Absolutely. Councilmember Bledsoe. Thank you, Chair. I commend the work you're doing. It is not easy. It is not simple. Every time you think about one policy, there's all these different ripple effects that you open one little bit and you think you've got it solved, and then three more things come up. So it's not an easy thing. And I, too, want to make sure we do it right and not quick. And so when you talk about 400 cameras versus 800, and I get exactly your point. They walk in, they dock their station, they put on the one they take home, put that on, wear it, come back the next morning, dock that one, pick the next one up, I assume. Yes, ma'am. Does that, I mean, I would assume it would not double our storage problem, but it would be significant. So on these different options, you have those $500,000 costs or yearly costs. Did you factor in the extra data for the 800 versus the 400? Or is it very similar? You know, I think the increase in data is probably something more along the lines of 5% to 10%, just based upon off-duty use and calls that officers get out on when they're off-duty. The last time we had a hard number, that was 5,000 a year. That went down when the home fleet policy changed a little bit. It's gradually going back up. But so, you know, when we're, again, this is really a ballpark figure. we're anticipating in any 10-hour shift for officers in the field that we might have two and a half hours of video. Okay. So the off-duty use and going to and from encounters are generally fairly brief, so we don't really think that it would increase the storage needs that much. Okay. But I would assume so. I just want to make sure we clarified that. Yes, ma'am. And, you know, I'm almost forgetting fiber in West Sector as well. You know, a lot of our vehicles don't have Wi-Fi. And on my ride along, we pulled into a library so they could upload their reports. And then that didn't work. I said, well, what do you do if we can't get to a library? They said, well, we use our phones, and we just use our data on our phones as hotspots. And I thought, well, this is ridiculous. This isn't, you know, we don't provide Wi-Fi in their cars. We don't help them do this quickly or fastly, which tells me we have a long way to go to making some of this work. Well, yes, ma'am. I will say that we're actually working on providing wireless connection devices in the cars. We don't have enough for everyone to have it all the time, but we're moving in that direction. It's a commitment that Commissioner Bess and Chief Barnard has made. So we are moving in that direction, and we do have a fair number of those devices in the car. Good. I'm happy to hear that. Thank you for your work. I really appreciate and commend it. And thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Bledsoe. Council Member Stinnett. Thank you, Chair. I appreciate it. And, Chief, thank you, and thank you, Chief Bernard. Yeah, you all like this microphone. I can get used to this. But I guess going back to, you know, we slowed the process down this summer. Some people in the community thought that was unwise, but I'm glad to hear you say that was the best choice we made because of all the changes, the technology upgrades, and the legal changes that have happened in this arena. I think it's a much-needed step, I think especially for our officers to protect them, but more so to protect the citizens and the community. So I think we're heading in the right direction. I guess a couple questions on training of the officers. I know all the current officers are going to have to go back through training on the cameras. Do we have that training already available? Do we know? How are we doing that? I mean, I'm sure there's a different. What I'm talking about is when to turn on, when to turn off. Right. No, that will be a very big part of the process, and really it will depend on, and I guess I didn't say our goal is to reach an RFP point sometime. in late winter, January, February, to put this out for bid. So it really depends upon, it's hard to get ahead of the training because it depends on what system we choose because some of the systems are quite a bit different than the others. So once we get to that point, we're very confident that we'll be able to put out training and the officers will be ready and prepared. So will we train them or the vendor train them? Well, what we'll have is probably train the trainer depending on the vendor. We will have experts. We'll have subject matter experts that will be taught by the vendor, and then we'll take that and teach every officer. And will you all develop internal policies as to when they turn on, when they turn off? Yes, sir. We actually are developing that framework and that policy, and we'll seek input from community stakeholders to tighten that down, but we're already working on that. Yes, sir. Okay. And does this have any impact on our collective bargaining agreement? You know, yes is the short answer. Yes, sir. It probably will. How do we overcome that right now? Well, we don't have them right now. But I think that, like any organization, I think the National Fraternal Order of Police has a model policy that they would like to see agencies adopt. And we have evaluated that and listened to those concerns. and we'll talk some more about that, and really we're going to negotiate and bargain with those issues that are important to that group as well as us. Yeah, because we have some contracts coming up for bargaining, so that's why I asked that. Yes, sir. So I guess we'll incorporate that in the contract. Yes, sir. And I guess what do we look like for that type of contract? Are we looking at when they turn on, when they turn off, how often they have to wear them, et cetera? There's a whole lot of issues. Those are good points. And some of the other issues is when are the officers allowed to review the camera or the recordings before they write a statement, depending on the incident. And agencies across the country are sort of on both sides of that spectrum. Do you allow it? Do you not allow it? Under what circumstances? What if it's an officer-involved shooting? Do you allow them to do it then? Do you wait? And you have to give a preliminary statement before you can see it. So there's a lot of those things that we're working with the county and Commonwealth Attorney on to come up with the best policy and best practice. Sounds like a complex subject, as Council Member Bledsoe said. So thank you for all the homework you've done on this and the vendors. So I assume you all, by this time, December, you'll have a vendor selected? Next year? Yes. Well, we, you know, it's early and lots of things can change it, but it's our goal or it's our hope that we'll have cameras on officers before the end of June this next year, before fiscal year 17. Okay. Very good. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Senate. Council Member Scotchfield. Thank you, Chair. You know, I think I'm glad we're researching this. This is obviously a huge expense, and there's a lot of unanswered questions that I think we still have going into it. One of the things that has concerned me from the beginning is not the cost of the cameras themselves, not the cost of storage. It's going to be the cost and extra jobs that we're going to need to have. And it's not just in the police department because you're going to have people that are going to be required to catalog, be able to take a look at each one of these videos, as well as our prosecutors. Our prosecutors are going to be required to, you know, if there's five officers that appear at a violent crime and we have five videos, We're going to have five videos that have to be watched, possibly redacted in certain instances. You're going to have open records requests. You're going to have all these new things that we don't have right now that will be introduced. Do we have an idea of what those costs are going to be? Well, we don't at this time. I think that it's really the way that's going to work is we will sit down with Commissioner Bastin and the mayor and his staff, and we'll talk about staffing needs, and we'll see if we can't merge some responsibilities, make some changes, move some people around. But we do not have that at this time, but that's part of our plan is to have those discussions. Okay. It's something that I think we need to have. I don't want to work these out as we go along. I want to have a plan in place. This is not something that we can learn as we go. We need to have something, a procedure in place. I think the good thing about this delay, I think that that will dovetail nicely with the start of fiscal year 17, so we can maybe make some budget plans as we're moving through this process so they can all kind of hit at the same time. That's our goal. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Councilmember Scotchfield. Councilmember Lamb. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for this great presentation. I know that there are so many different arms and legs to it. it's huge. A couple of questions. The retention schedule that you mentioned earlier, would evidence, would the video be referred to as evidence at all times or just if it were going to be used in that way? there's going to be two probably pieces there'll be evidence in the non-evidentiaries per se one piece will be just a record and the state has already identified 30 days as the retention schedule for records associated with with video video recordings but everything else would just fit along with the retention schedule for normal evidence that's involved in cases and adjudications of the case and that sort of stuff. So there's really kind of two components. You know, and it's really hard to predict, and even talking to other agencies who are trying to learn from their mistakes, what in this, in our city, what portion of our video recordings will be records and what portions of them will be evidence. Sure. um the other thing is we all know that with technology uh comes technology problems and i'm just uh i was wondering if there's going to be any oversight as to who's going to be checking the cameras if there are technology issues i mean this is goes back to what council member scutchfield was talking about about extra personnel and knowing who's going to be checking and and where is that responsibility going to fall? We anticipate that much like the Councilman Scotia was talking about as far as personnel for open records. We anticipate having at least one person that's the administrator of it. But part of our RFP will likely be place a large burden for technology and maintenance of that upon the vendor. so we can hope to alleviate some of those concerns by forcing the vendor who wins the bid to provide a lot of that expertise. That's really, I mean, I think that's very important to think of that ahead of schedule because I think. Yes, ma'am. I mean, I know you might pay a little bit more on the front end of it, but it would be worth it to not have that headache sort of like having cloud softwares. You know, software, you don't want to have to have that responsibility inside. Yes, ma'am. How many officers are on on each shift? I'm just wondering at what point how many will be placing a camera in a dock and how many will be uploading or downloading at one time? Well, some of our preliminary thoughts were to put them in the field of uniformed officers, and that's the Bureau of Patrol and the Bureau of Special Operations. The Bureau of Special Operations has some units that you're familiar with, like clear and then the traffic section and some community services personnel people like that there's far fewer of them on on any given shift there is patrol and that just depends on their days off and they may have a dozen traffic personnel working and then they may have the other support personnel as many as 15 or so working on any given day but there's days that they're off in patrol officers not counting supervisors because it's our intention to put them in sergeant's hands because sergeant you know as a supervisor is out in the field quite a lot encountering the same sorts of things as officers are so in on day shift we probably average 36 officers and sergeants some days are heavier than others but that's a rough average second shift will probably close come close to averaging 50 maybe 50 and in third shift we'll mirror day shift For the most part, these are just rough numbers, but roughly 36 officers and sergeants on third shift. That's not near as many as I was anticipating. Yes, ma'am. So, okay. All right. Well, I appreciate this, and I do look forward to more information. And I know it's a lot of work, but I appreciate all the work you all are putting into it. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Council Member Lamb. Council Member Akers. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for this. I know that it is a lot of work and complicated, so I appreciate your all's work on it. For the committee that you mentioned, have you all been meeting, or this is a preliminary group that's formed, or how does this work? No, ma'am, we've been meeting. That committee has been meeting for the better part of six months. And the way it started is searching out best practices and model policies. The IACP, International Association of Chiefs of Police, has a model policy. So it's reaching out to other agencies, doing a lot of research, looking into policies and what lessons learned to try to shape the framework for our policy. And are those meetings held, are they held at the police department? Are they held at one of these law offices? Are they public meetings? These are internal meetings so far. Once we get a framework developed, then we're going to seek input from other community stakeholders. But right now it's all at the police department at different locations. Okay. And so when you say ACLU, NAACP, and other community leaders, are they just other interested parties from different community organizations, I guess? Well, it just depends on as we move through this, maybe the council has some suggestions, but we just want to anyone that has a stakeholder in what we're doing, we want to be transparent. And so we're open to meeting and talking with and sharing what we've learned in our policy with others. Okay. For the needs that you list on here, the hardware needs, that we need fiber, and as far as storage capacity, who determined that we need fiber or how much storage capacity we need and all of that? What is that based on? Some of our subject matter experts, the fiber is really, it's all about the ability to upload data and move data. And if we're anticipating, I didn't share this number with you earlier because it gets a little in the weeds, but a very rough estimate is each hour of video is one gigabyte. So if we, as I earlier said, two and a half hours is just a ballpark figure for every officer in a 10-hour shift that would have video that would need to be recorded, that they would turn it on and turn it off at different times. That's two and a half gigabytes per officer. So the 36 that are working for first shift and third and the 50, that's a lot of data to move, and fiber is really the only place to move that and do that efficiently without crippling your system and do it in any kind of a timely fashion. How long does it take to upload that much data? Do you have any idea? Well, it depends on what our bandwidth is. Right now in the West sector, if we've got cable, we're talking hours and hours and hours for that much data with an entire shift or even an entire West sector cadre. If we had 12 or 14 officers at the end of a shift, and they're each one uploading 2.5 gigabytes, I don't, you know, we can get really down in the weeds with some of this, but it would take a long time with cable and then fiber. We think it would move a lot quicker, but still we don't think that it would take just a few minutes. That's the whole theory about the 408. It still may take 30 minutes. And that's why I was asking was because, you know, how long would it take and could they take them home? So when you talk about off and on, how is that? I mean, I'm sure we set policies, right? So, you know, at the time of pulling someone over or I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I guess that will be determined by the group or by the council. Yes, ma'am. I can tell you that right now our thoughts are, and the way we've sort of described this is, we've defined a law enforcement contact. Okay. And that definition is an enforcement capacity. It might be a stopping and helping a motorist. It could be just taking a report, but we've defined law enforcement contact. And right now our expectation is, with some exceptions, some circumstances, is that the officer will have it on during a law enforcement contact and at the conclusion of the contact will turn it off. And so if nothing happens in the course of that contact, like, for instance, a neighborhood meeting, a lot of officers come to different neighborhood groups that I participate in, Yes, ma'am. And often, you know, they're pretty uneventful. So at the end of that, would it still be uploaded and then stored for? 30 days, yes, ma'am. Right now, that type of example, part of our RFP would be that it would auto-delete after 30 days, if it's a record, if we've tagged it appropriately. Okay. And as far as all of the data management, is RCIO and IT staff involved in any of this work or advisement, advisement, or will they be responsible in the future of guiding you all and, you know, different providers, Cisco versus, I don't know, you know, but. It would, it's really going to be a police function going forward, but Aldona has been instrumental and we've, we've sought her, her expertise. And so she's been involved with us and we've discussed some of these things moving forward. Yes, ma'am. So is your all's computer network separate than the city's? Yes, ma'am. Okay. So do you all have your own, like, Aldona in the place? I don't know that anyone has. I think there's only one Aldona, but we do have some experts. A CIO or something? You know, we don't really have a CIO, but we do have a lieutenant who is our project manager for this that is very astute with technology. He's a programmer by trade, and so he's very good. And we have collectively, we have some pretty good heads. We've got a lot of civilian staff and sworn staff out there that are extremely capable in this area. Okay. My time is up. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Akers. Council Member Hensley. Thank you, ma'am. Some follow-up questions and some of the things I've heard. So when you computed that you needed 184 terabytes of storage per year, the number that comes back to that is like $1.94 per gigabyte per year. Just from industry practice, that's about five times higher than I would sell it in my business. So I know there's other managed services costs that probably go along with that, and I'd like to have you guys dig into that as part of the RFP process. When you get into the infrastructure of what's at each of these sector headquarters, and I support the program, I think it's a great idea, but I also don't want some of the ancillary costs that you may be asking for to drag it along or drag it back. So when you're advocating for fiber to accelerate the speed of upload, but at the same time if you're getting two cameras for each officer, then that camera is sitting there for eight hours uploading while they're not there. So then this need for the fiber kind of is adjudicated because you've got the camera docked while the one's there. Yeah, well, just keep in mind that when we're consuming a large portion of our bandwidth, Even if it's hours later, we're affecting the ability for the rest of the workforce to work at those locations. I will say that that's not a deal breaker. Right now, we're going to plan as if there's not fiber at West Sector. And what we'll do is we'll have all the officers that work in that sector, they will report to another location to upload it. So just something down the road moving forward that would make things more efficient. But we're prepared to move forward without that. What is the type of circuit that's each sector office now? Do you know? Pardon me? What type of circuit does each sector have now? It's cable. It's Time Warner cable for the places that does not have fiber. Is it symmetrical cable? I mean, so when you buy a bandwidth, it's 50 megs down, 3 megs up. Is it symmetrical 50-50 because? No, sir, it's not 50-50. I really hesitate, but I'll give you a number, but I think it's 10 up and 100 down. Okay. megabits per second. To maybe help you move along and not get hung up in the cost for fiber, you can change the product to be a symmetrical circuit and actually get the same, because fiber is only going to get you up to 1,000 megabits if you have service there. Most is 100, and you can get that now through Time Warner, as I understand it. So you may be able to get it now and not have to spend for the fiber build-out. I don't think it's really not our plan. I think that my understanding is that's part of the Fiber team. That's part of the long-term plan is to bring Fiber out there. Again, we're going to move forward without that, but that's just another consideration in the future. Okay. The other issue that, you know, when you say that the IT staff and the police department function separately and have your own component there, One thing I would be concerned about bringing this kind of large volumes of data in would be to look at the certification makeup for compliance that's in the police department. For example, you know, I'm a CISSP, which is you would pay someone like me to come audit this, basically. So I'd be concerned that you would have that resource in the city or look toward costs in the future to come advise you all with that. Does that exist now? I can't tell you the certifications of our personnel out there. I don't know. I didn't know what you just now said. I'm not really sure what that means, to be honest with you. Yeah, that's why I bring it up. But, again, that's the reason we've involved Aldona in all of our discussions about things like that and some of our staff moving forward, and even when we separated networks back a year and a half ago, two years ago almost. And the reason I bring it up, I speak from experience on this. We actually, the Illinois State Police is a customer of mine. And so, you know, looking forward in these things, you know, trying to be constructive. Yes, sir. So I think it's a great program, and, you know, that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Hensley. And Vice Chair Scott Shield, if you wouldn't mind, I have a few questions. Chief Holman, you were saying these are cameras mostly for patrolmen. Aren't there? Is that correct? Well, but uniformed officers is original. some of the concepts that we talked about in the beginning, which is the Bureau of Special Operations and the Bureau of Patrol. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Well, I'm wondering about detectives. I know that detectives get themselves in situations where they can obviously be in harm's way or difficult situations. Will that not translate to them as well? Well, that's a decision that we'll have to make. The Chief Barnard, in consult with Commissioner Bassett, will have to make that decision if we move forward. These are just the numbers based upon that deployment, but I don't think we've really settled on that. And that's a very good point to we go ahead and outfit the entire department with the cameras. Yeah, it seems that they are, as I said, in sometimes some precarious situations. Yes, ma'am. When you've looked at this around the country, has there been anything that's come up that kind of as a red flag that you've recognized that we don't need to follow or that has come up as far as maybe a technology issue or any type of issue that causes you any concern? a lot of little things have been a part of our discovery of that and i think we've learned from that but any really red herring i don't know that anything has come to our attention uh like that no ma'am really the biggest red herring is people rushing to buy them without doing the research that we're doing to be frank with you that's been the biggest red herring that we've seen and the biggest regret that many departments will share with us yes and i do i certainly appreciate your due diligence and the chief and Commissioner Bastin because this is huge. Yes, ma'am. And we need to do this. And I think your officers are probably more in favor than against, I would assume. Yes, ma'am. But again, you have to be very careful and thorough in how we go forward on this because not only are we talking about personal safety and people's lives and things as a result of that, but we have a huge cost associated with it and we need to know how to manage this and do it well. Yes, ma'am. And probably will serve as an example to many other police departments in the state of Kentucky. Yes, ma'am. I do thank you for your hard work and come back to us with a tweaked out plan as best as you can and we'll go forward. Yes, ma'am. Thank you so much. Any other council members? If not at this time, in my haste, I didn't take a vote when we had the initial minutes. I had a motion and a second to approve the minutes from the October 13th meeting, so all those in favor of approving the minutes for the October 13th meeting. Please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. We've got some things that are going to come back in December, obviously. It's going to be the taxicab ordinance. It will be the Council Member Gibbs snow shoveling ordinance, and I believe Vice Mayor Kay is going to talk about community gardens. We've got a long list of submissions from other council members, but to put anything else on that docket, that's our last day. We're going to have a meeting then, then we'll have a council meeting, and then we'll have an evening meeting that night. So I really, at this point, unless there is something that's really very important, that's on this next list that's at the end of the packet that you feel that we need to have on there, I'll just go ahead and we'll take it up at the beginning of the next year unless someone has, any council member has a specific concern about any of these that are left on the list if not, let's take a 10 minute break before we start and we'll deal with this list when we come back motion to adjourn second all those in favor aye thank you Thank you.