Music Thank you. Thank you. so Thank you. I understand Council Member Lamb has a rezoning request. Council Member Lamb. No? Are you to the docket yet? I'm to the, any request, you have a rezoning request? Yes, it's ordinance number five on the docket, on the work copy docket. Is that what you're on? Are you on the work copy docket? We'll get there. Let me ask for a motion to approve the docket first. Is there a motion to approve? So moved. Second. A motion by Council Member Massadi, second by Council Member Farmer. Is there any discussion? All right. Council Member Lamb. All right. I would like to place ordinance number five on the work copy docket on the docket without a public hearing at the request of Council Member Evans. I so move. Second. All right. Motion by Council Member Lamb, second by Council Member Hanson. Is there any discussion? All right. Hearing none, we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. Thank you, Council Member Lamb. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Mayor. I move to place item number six on the docket with a public hearing. hearing. It needs to be heard before January 20th, and I will move that we hear it on January the 12th. So moved. Motion by Council Member Henson, second by Council Member Maloney. That's our first day back from break. Council Member Brown. All right. Is there, we had a motion, we had a second. Is there any further discussion on the motion? All right. If not, Vice Mayor Kay. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to be sure that we have at least 12 members who believe they can be there that night. And we don't have, I'm not sure we've got 12 council members in the room. I guess maybe the question is, is who can't be there? two can't be there so you still got you got nine here but you don't know about the others all right is there any further discussion that's 5 p.m on the 12th yes all right all in favor of the motion please say aye Aye. Opposed, no. All right. The motion carries. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councilmember Henson. All right. Councilmember Farmer. Thank you, Mayor. This is a motion to walk on. I move to place on the docket for the council meeting scheduled for November 19, 2015, a resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the Urban County Government to execute execute change order number 28 to the contract with Marilla, design and construction for the Senior Citizen Center construction project, increasing the contract price by the sum of $41,188 from $10,232,894.37 to $10,274,082.37. So moved. Motion by Council Member Farmer, seconded by Council Member Henson. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. All in favor then, please, we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Farmer. Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Mayor. I also have a walk-on. I move to place on the docket for the council meeting scheduled for November 19, 2015, a resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the Urban County Government to execute change order number 8 to the contract with Churchill McGee, LLC, for the Public Safety Operations Center Phase 1B renovation, increasing the contract price by the sum of $11,317.33 from $6,413,828.40 to $6,425,145.73. So moved. Motion by Council Member Soddy and seconded by Council Member Akers. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. If not, then we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Council Member Akers. Thank you, Mayor. I move to place on the docket for the council meeting scheduled for November 19, 2015, a resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the Urban County Government to execute change order number three to the contract with Schaefer Contracting, LLC, for the Masters and Station Park restroom building project, increasing the contract price by the sum of five thousand five hundred sixty eight dollars from 183 283 to 188 851. so moved second motion by council member acres and second by council member bledsoe is there any discussion all right if not we can vote all in favor please say aye aye opposed no motion carries all right all right if there's no further discussion on the motion the original motion we can vote on the original motion to approve the docket all in favor of the motion please indicate by saying aye aye opposed no motion carries next is a approving the summary is there a motion to approve the summary of the work session motion by councilmember farmer second second by councilmember acres is Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. If not, we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Next is the budget amendments. Is there a motion to approve? Approval. Second. Motion by Council Member Farmer, second by Council Member Henson. Is there any discussion? Council Member Fred Brown. Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to make sure I understood the general fund consequences here. maybe a commissioner American. I think I understand the $320,000 that's coming from Courthouse Garage. Yes. That money is just a pass-through and a transfer. But it's coming out of general fund the way this summary looks. If you look at the very last page and the very last journal, it's the other side in the facilities and fleet, the public facilities corporation. But it's a three-way pass-through, actually. We get money through fees that are assessed in the court system that comes to the facilities corporation, and it's for repairs and maintenance of that facility. And so then we are then proposing that this $320,000 be passed to the parking authority, and so that's why it's coming through the general fund. So when are we getting the revenues to the general fund, though, to offset it? We get them once a quarter to the PFC. Okay. And then transfer from the public facilities corp to the general fund. So we're not taking anything out of the general fund for this particular amount? Okay, I want to understand that. And then there's a couple of other large ones, the streets and roads, snow removal contract. That's coming direct out of the $288,000? The snow removal, the 288-034, was per the direction of the council for the additional snow removal contract. Okay. The next one is Acela software, and then the last one, those two. We've already approved those. I think those were under discussion. They were under discussion, and we propose that since they do not meet the requirements for the 2015 one-time only capital, that they need to come out of current year fund balance. Okay. All right. Thank you. Councilmember Farmer. Thank you, Mayor. I was just going to make kind of the same point on that 91004. This will be subject of the part of the readout of the Environmental Quality Committee minutes, but we are pulling aside the money for the mobilization for up to basically 11 snow events and placing it at the ready so we can effectively use our new snow plan. Thank you, sir. All right. Thank you, Council Member Farmer. Is there any further discussion? Okay. All right. Then we can vote. All in favor of the motion, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Next is new business. Is there a motion to approve new business? Approval. Second. Motion by Councilmember Farmer, second by Councilmember Henson. Is there any discussion? Councilmember Farmer. Yes, sir. It's the second item of business. It's page six. So what are we doing to the garage? Because of all the garages downtown, this one is the newest one in my estimation, and it now needs $320,000 worth of upkeep in some capacity. So John Sheed, Faradarin. The garage is relatively brand new, but a lot of the items that have been identified as part of the scope of this project are what I regard to as the deferred maintenance items, and some of those also is preventive maintenance. These are a lot of structural recoding and spot repair and so forth. So if you spread those over a period of 12 to 14 years, that's pretty much in line with what's being practiced in like structures, the same age and the same size. Just give me a flavor of what you're talking about here. Well, because of the application you do during the winter months, water intrusion and so forth into these structures because they're not fully enclosed, you're going to have to go in, in some cases depending on the amount of traffic through the garage, you have to do a re-coating of the decking, which would protect the decking from salt and water and so forth that would cause structural deterioration. The other one is in certain areas you have some flaking happening with the structural decking with your concrete and whatever coating you've got. But those are going to have to be from time to time be repaired, dug out, repaired, and so forth. Areas, if you have any kind of a rebar exposed, those have to be epoxy coated again and put back in place and covered. So there's a list of quite a few items that needs to be taken care of. Is this structure weathering faster than it should in your estimation? No, no. I think we're used to so much of our own parking garages that don't get any attention when they need to. I think that's a cause of it. To be properly maintained over its 40-year life cycle, those are certain things that need to be invested in almost an annual basis. All right. Just an observation that time flies when you're, what is it? that aphorism, time flies when you're having fun, that building will soon and that garage will soon be 20 years old. Yes. Thank you. It was commissioned in 1998. I just don't remember having that much fun, Mayor, but anyway. Let's see. All right, this is the new business item on page 21 that has to do with new boilers for the government center building building and the use of wheel height limited to to bring them in in i'm just interested in is this on the third floor and how are these go and come what's the ingress and egress for boilers on the third floor which item specific it's on page 21 i don't know what item number item i don't know the is that for the uh boiler replacement yes the changer yes well the boilers have already been purchased we've got the original boilers are still in this building when we did a condition assessment back in summer we found one of the boilers in this building not to pass the inspection just because of the old age it's it's it's probably about an 65 years old or so the newer ones are much heavier although they're more efficient so the decision was made based on the condition of that one and the next one because what we do we got three of them that we rotate as lead and lag boilers decision was made to go ahead and and change two of them all right and because of the size of the boilers and because of the capacity with our elevators trying to get these units up to the 13th floor gonna require quite a bit of uh taking a few pieces apart and carrying them one by I warn they're going to have to be setting precautions made. We decided to, rather than doing this after 5 o'clock or 4 o'clock or during the weekdays, just go ahead and shut it down over a two-day period and be able to bring the contractors in and then get the boilers up. So you bring two of them in and rig them up over the weekend and be back online? Well, no, we bring in. There are two contracts involved. One is for a rigging company to actually bring the boilers to the building and take them up to the 13th floor, then what you've got is another contractor that we just selected today that's actually going to take care of the installation and certification. And I guess there's no aftermarket value for a 65-year-old boiler. Thank you. All right. Council Member, yes, sir. Thank you. Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Mayor. John Sheath, if you don't mind. I won't make you jump up and down too much. In reference to the garage that we just, Council Member Farmer, had some questions on, who requested this to have this remediated? It's been based on discussions between us, going back a few months ago, between us and the parking authority. We had a meeting with finance involved also taking a look at their most immediate needs and identifying the current funding that we have, what would be the best expenditure for. For example, next year, we already have a list of two or three items that are going to be needing some funding, and they're going to be major, pretty good-sized ones for the district courthouse. So that's what takes quite a bit of coordination and discussions, identifying the most immediate needs for the funding. And help me out here, because I'm getting a little bit older and my memory's not as good. As far, I thought Lex Park was basically self-sustaining. This specific garage, if you remember, was the only one because the bonds haven't been paid on it yet. They're operating that garage. They're providing under professional services, managing the garage and its day-to-day needs. but the level of their responsibility ends at where you're actually going to need some major CIP and preventive maintenance investments into the garage itself. So even though they're generating revenue, the government is paying to have this done? Yes, because a lot of that revenue rolls back into on the day-to-day operation of the courthouse garage itself. And that was just based on this particular garage because of an agreement that was already done previously? Yes, that is correct. That's correct. Okay. Well, Bill, do you have? Go ahead. One point I want to make, the total remediation program is going to be in excess of the 320. So the Lexington Parking Authority is paying some, and we're paying some. So just to show that. But only on this one particular garage. Yes, because of the long-term lease, and we cannot sell it or give it away until the bond is retired. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Mayor. I had some similar questions about the parking garage, too. And I know that you have been working very diligently with the resources that you've had to be able to try to have a better maintenance plan for government buildings overall. So do you feel like that you are able to accomplish that? because I know that this falls under that same situation. This is just one of the facilities, and with this investment, I feel like that's the investment that is justified and actually is going to prevent down the road any major expenditures. For example, what we're dealing with with a garage attached to this building. So, yeah, I'm confident that this is really going to help with it. And each of these garages, we look at the life cycle costs with them. And a garage of this type, usually looking at a 40-year life cycle before that's going to require some major recapitalization. But in order to make it to that point without a huge expense, there's certain expenses that you have to go through on an annual basis in some cases. This probably will provide that garage with a little bit of a catching up, and also some of these items that need to be done anyway. Do we know, I know Commissioner Romero was speaking to this, do we know the amount that the parking authority is going to be contributing toward this? Do we know that amount? I believe the initial cost estimate was about $380,000 or $385,000, somewhere in that range. I believe Mr. Frazier. Good afternoon, James Frazier of the parking authority. The total cost is anywhere between $600,000 and $650,000. We've already spent $200,000 of our own money early on because the gates were in disrepair. And so to answer your question, then, so we're going to pick up the rest of the tab ourselves. But this needs to be done. The biggest expense, as Councilman Farmer probably figured out, is the membrane. That's what we had next door at the Helix. That top layer is not coated in such a way it all bleeds down. Everything rusts below it, and that's what's going on there. And the mayor pointed out correctly, it's almost 20 years old. So it's $6.50 all in, and so we have skin in the game, I promise you. We do on this one. Well, I'm pleased. I mean, I know that since the parking authority has been active, I know that we've seen major improvements with our parking structures, and I really am pleased about that because you can actually drive down the street now and you can actually see where you can park in our downtown, where we didn't, not too long ago, we weren't able to do that. So I applaud you guys for that, and I applaud John Sheed for the work on getting the, working toward maintaining our government buildings and facilities. So thank you, gentlemen. Thank you. The other question I have is about the Family Care Center. I noticed it says that item C, we're going to be operating some new preschool classrooms. I wonder if these are new classes. Is this something new, or is this a continuation of the? Commissioner Ford's coming to the podium to address this. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Lamb. I have with me Joanna Rose, our director of the Family Care Center and Family Services. I'll be glad to address that. Nothing new. We've been doing this for many years with Family Care Center, Fayette County Schools. So this is just their preschool. They occupy one of our classrooms within the child care program at Family Care. The MOU is the same every year. Well, I thought maybe it might be something new and exciting. It's exciting, but it's not new. Okay. All righty. Well, appreciate that. Thank you so much. And then under item F, as in Frank, there is the benefit insurance marketing. It says that there was an error in the resolution, which I understand what that is. But I'm wanting to know the error. It seems like that there was a difference between $58,500 to $117,000. Is that the only error that was in? Yes. Yes, when we blue-shooted it in HR, we blue-shooted it at $97.50 a month, which is $117,000. But apparently, as it went through the process, somebody cut that in half and thought it was just for the rest of the fiscal year. But it is actually for the full year. So it was that number. It was 58.5 times 2. Okay. So they wouldn't take a decrease, huh? No, I'm afraid not. Didn't work so well, huh? All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. All right. Thanks. Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Mayor. I just have a few questions on item number I. I think that's Commissioner Ford. Commissioner Ford, too. So the MOU with the Family Care Center and the Planned Parenthood of Indiana, is that something? I know that we've been partnering with them for a number of years already. That's correct, Council Member Bledsoe. So this formalizes an existing program partnership that we've had at the Family Care Center with Planned Parenthood. It's proposing a three-page memorandum of understanding. It's not a contract, but again, it sets out the basic parameters of our engagement going forward. For a period of time, September 15, 2015 through May of 2016, which basically covers the calendar year. I mean, the school year. The school year. And is the memo of understanding something that we need? Why do we need to actually do that or have initiated that? I'll ask Joanna to come up and address that. Again, I believe it was Planned Parenthood that requested that we formalize our activities in prior times and going forward. It was definitely Planned Parenthood who asked for this. We have not, to my knowledge, had an MOU for any services that they've given us in the past. And my understanding is they just wanted to formalize and have in the document what we were to do and some of the mechanics and logistics of delivering the service and also the curriculum that's to be used. So I think it's good to have it. Okay. Thank you, and I appreciate you. We talked a number of times yesterday, and I appreciate both of your willingness to, And I think we can all agree we want to reduce teen pregnancy. We might disagree on how to get there, but I think that's a good goal. And I just, I personally can't support an official MOU, but I appreciate the sentiment. Thank you, Mayor. All right. Council Member Brown. Fred Brown. Thank you, Mayor. On C again, there was a question asked about the Family Care Center and the Fayette County Public Schools for the operation of preschool classrooms. classrooms. I'm still not sure on what's going on there. There's no dollars involved and there's no contractual arrangement. As such, there's no MOU, right? And we've been doing this for years. I mean, yes. And we have within our child care program, we have one classroom that's devoted to a Fayette County school preschool program. It used to be called Early Start until a couple of years ago, so that might be familiar to you. It's a nice partnership because many of the children who are enrolled in Early Start, it's a short day. Early Start is a short day. It's just a few hours, and working families need wraparound child care, so those children, we, Family Care Center can provide that child care to those families that need it, so it works very well. There's some children who come and stay all day long with us, and they come to family care, and then they go into the Early Start classroom, and then they go back to another classroom while their parents are working and can come get them. You're talking about a family care center only on Red Mile Road or off at Red Mile Road? Yes, in the child care program. Do we have anything related to this as far as at the schools, areas? For instance, I've got Gainesway Community Center that's set up ideally to do something like that also with the Tate's Creek group. But is that separate or is that? Well, Fayette County Schools has preschool programs throughout the county, and many of them are in school. So they probably would love to have other sites, but we're only involved with the one that's on site at the Red Mile Center. Have you thought about expanding that? That would be Fayette County Schools. Yes. I'm sure they would love to expand it. And then on item I, a little bit of confusion there as to the memorandum of understanding, which we've never had, and the other party initiates it, and you all obviously agreed to it. Why did you think you had to agree to it? We need services to prevent repeat pregnancies among teenagers. That is, they responded to that request. I understand that, but when you need services like that, wouldn't you go out and have maybe, wouldn't do an RFP, but why wouldn't you go out to several areas in the community? Planned Parenthood is one nonprofit organization that does this, but there's other nonprofit organizations that do this also. Yes. Did you all reach out to those nonprofit organizations? Not nonprofit organizations. We have plans to do so. However, we also use the UK Clinic Family Care Center to help take care of this need as well. Planned Parenthood has been, generally speaking, for many years, family care centers go-to resource for this, but it varies over the years about how much they provide to us. Well, I wanted to make sure that it wasn't a one-sided issue here, that all parties could be involved in this. And obviously it's not in Kentucky that I know of, but Planned Parenthood has not had a good marketing in other states to that degree. And it has got some, you know, maybe some stigma attached to it. And I want to make sure that we were being fair and independent and allow other, you know, organizations to come in and do that, too. Maybe a joint collaboration or something like that, whatever. So that was where I, you know, just have some exceptions there. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Council Member Brown. Council Member Hensley. Thank you, Mayor. On item S, Commissioner Bastin or Aldona maybe want to address this. It says we're getting firewalls for the radio system. I can answer to that. The tower sites are remote access. In other words, the vendor can remote into them. Okay. We wanted to basically plug a hole in security of that radio system where somebody couldn't remote in without being able to do so through dedicated firewalls that only this vendor has configured and set up to get entry to. So this is something that we agreed needed to be done. And long-term, are these the same or similar firewalls that we would use in the rest of the city so we don't have two vendors? It's somewhat similar to the firewalls, except this company has them under price contract. Okay. and they actually configure them and install them as part of our services agreement. Okay. All right. Thank you. The next item I've got is on R. It looks like we're getting, LexTran is building a CNG refueling station. Somebody. So LFUCG got applied for and was awarded a CMAQ grant to build a public-operated, available, fast-fill station. And when we applied for it, the location that we put down was at Bird Thurman and Old Frankfurt Circle. just as you turn in to go into waste management there. After we had been awarded it, we took a tour of a similar facility that Metro Louisville has, and in looking at it, it was clear to us that the site we had picked was problematic for what we needed to have it do. Tulane Road, we have our garbage trucks coming in and out. Fleet Maintenance had its facility there, too. and the site really that we were looking at having it on was probably too small for the operation that we needed to have it done after we had seen Metro Louisville's operation. We hired a firm to look for other sites for us and give us a rating on other sites because we had had some other suggestions that maybe we could put it out on our property at Blue Sky. the company came back and said that the best place to do this for the commercial purposes for lfucg's purposes and to have the right amount of gas you have to have the right compression at the site was where lextran was proposing to build its new operations Lex Tran has a need for CNG Fast Fill for their CNG buses that they're going to be delivered here shortly. We entered into discussions with Lex Tran about whether they would want to partner with us in this CNG grant. They have agreed to do it. We had a site survey done to make sure that the facility would actually fit on the footprint of where their facility is on Loudoun Avenue. and Lex Tran, Urban County Government has to put in the matching grant to the 2.15 CNG grant with the state, so we have to put in our 20% match. Lex Tran is going to put in a little more than $600,000 for site preparation and some other things that need to be done as part of it, and it would be in partnership with them to have this facility. It would be constructed and operated by a private entity for which we're envisioning that we would get the gas at a discounted rate because we're putting so much capital into the thing. The operator would not need to put capital in. They would just need to come in and construct and operate it for us, and the public would be able to use this site. So this is a partnership with Lex Tran that we think is the right location for us. It will give us an alternative fueling station for our CNG waste trucks that we have. We have a slow fill operation up there. This will be a fast fill operation. So if we need to have any of our vehicles that have CNG capacity in the future or currently that would need to get topped off while they're out in the field, they'd be able to come by to this facility. If our slow fill CNG capacity goes down for some reason, we'll be able to get our waste trucks down there, fast fill them up, and keep the operation going. So who owns it? It will be jointly owned by Lex Tran and Urban County Government and their property owner of that one spot of property there on Loudon. They have a subsidiary, and it's grand real estate. So is there not a commercial vendor we can buy CNG from now? No? If we put it to RFP, does anybody else would bid this? This will be put out by an RFP through the state CNG CMAQ program. there will be a public RRSP, and the public operators will be able to bid on operating this and constructing it and operating it for us. Okay. It's just not clear to me, you know, if we're in this three-way partnership, basically, with Lake Strand and the third party, who is, I mean, I guess you have to construct the language to make sure who's owning that. And this may have already been discussed before me. I mean, it's a large chunk of money. The contract with the state, this is just to enter in the MOA with LexTran. The contract from the state after we've changed the site will come back before the council, and you'll see all the details at that time. All right. Thank you. Councilmember James Brown. Thank you, Mayor. My questions are about item R as well. So after, I guess from my understanding, the way it's going to work is that LexTran and LFUCG are going to use the CAG gas filling station. And then after a disclosed or after a set amount of time, we're going to put out an RFP for somebody to manage the facility or the filling station? Is that correct? We would put out the RFP for someone to design, construct, and manage and operate the facility. Lex Tran and the Urban County Government will do that through the state CMAQ program. And our cost and Lex Tran's cost for the fuel will remain the same? Yes, and we're hoping that will be at a discounted rate because we're bringing this whole facility online at our expense, not at the contractor's expense, the operator's expense. Okay. It will be available for public use also. And the public rate will be different? It will be at a commercial rate, yes. Now, the $600,000 that LexTran is going to invest in this project, is that going to be a cost savings to us, or is that an expense to them that they had no? So it's part of the site preparation that's needed to be able to build it on that facility there. Okay. So we weren't. LFUCG wasn't going to have that cost. We would not have had that cost if we had built it out at Bird Thurman, but we would not have had as nice of a facility for commercial purposes, and the site is problematic for our purposes. we might have had to go and acquire additional property to build it where we were originally thinking about building it on Bert Thurman, the corner there with Old Frankfort Circle. Okay. And what about any traffic impacts? Do you foresee any traffic impacts on the Loudoun Avenue corridor? Loudoun is four-lane as opposed to the two-lane that Old Frankfort Circle would be. There is a trucking firm across the street from where Lex Tran is building it, and there diagonally across the street is a grain fill operation there. So it is a commercial corridor right now. In terms of we would envision that there will be some more traffic, we hope that there will be, but given the railroad crossing that's above near the Hope Center and given the crosswalk there, we think that that will not cause problems in terms of that. If after we start constructing it, we see a need for a traffic light perhaps there or flashing lights in front of where it will be turning in into Lex Tran's facility, traffic engineering will provide us with the assistance and expertise to do that. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Well, Commissioner Holmes is at the podium. Council Member Hensley has one more question. Okay, I've just recognized Council Member Hensley to ask another question. Just one quick question. When you say the public will use this, have you got any impact on what's the demand from the public for that? No. We have been told that if we build it, they will come, so to speak. And that's sort of what the state is hoping will happen. There appears to be in the industry a reluctance to put this much money into something that they don't know what the demand is. Therefore, that's why the state is granting us the money to start this, in essence, hopefully. The facility we saw in Louisville was seeming to be successful. Its location was close to I-65, which was a cutoff, fill up, and go on. But I think this is yet to be seen. We've been told that there are industries here in Fayette County that would look to transition their fleets to CNG if there was sites available. But the rest of it is just going to be, we'll have to see what happens. Councilmember Maloney. Thank you, Mayor. I'm just going to go on record. I do not support this because I helped put the grant together. The whole intent of this grant was to get big businesses like UPS, Coca-Cola, on Mercer Road, and all that area to use those big trucks to be energy clean. And to me, as I brought this up the last couple of years with you guys, I've always asked where we were. We looked at possibly doing it out on the interstate. I understand that we don't have enough gas on the interstate to make this work out there at Blue Sky. But to me, putting this on Loudon Road is what the whole purpose is for energy cleaning. You're putting this to the Hope Center for men. And this kind of traffic for these UPS or anybody to come down that road is going to be a terrible thing for your district and also some at large. I don't think we went far enough. We went with the nonprofit. I understand that. I don't know why we didn't go for a for-profit. Ashland Oil, you all had a big meeting with Babylon yesterday. You had a big meeting with all those guys. Why we could not look at something out on Mercer Road, out there, where this whole grant was written for, is that area. And I don't feel that we went far enough. I think, to me, I am not going to support it because I think it defeats the whole purpose. Why we did it, and I understand that Lectran is getting involved with the partnership, that's fine. but before we weren't even going to be partnership with them. A year ago, they didn't want us. They didn't want to get into this business. They didn't want to go into privatizing this kind of stuff, and it changed now because they were short for all the funding. Now we're going in there and bail them out, which is fine. It's good timing, I guess, but the whole setup of this grant was to be energy clean and get UPS, all these big trucks on there, and I just feel like we want backwards, and I think Lexington's going backwards again, so I will not support you. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Council Member Lone. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner, there's a conversion that has to take place before the vehicles can be fueled with this kind of gas, correct? Unless they're constructed that way. The garbage trucks that we have are CNG originally. The buses that they're getting delivered are C&G designed. Yes, you can convert vehicles. We haven't looked into that yet. We're thinking about in the purchase of other vehicles having them C&G. But, yes, you can convert to C&G, but it's an additional expense. And are most of Lake Strand's buses already? So we have seven compressed natural gas vehicles that will be delivered in the first late part of the first quarter of 2016 calendar year And then we received another CMAQ congestion mitigation air quality grant this year to purchase three more CNG buses So we'll have ten ten vehicles in our fleet of about 65 So, you know a portion of it and we'll look to purchase more CNG Vehicles as, you know, funding and grants allow. And it's better to purchase them rather than do the convert? The challenge would be to spend the money on vehicles that wouldn't already reach the end of their useful life. So a 40-foot transit bus has a 12-year expected lifespan, so you would want to make sure to do that conversion, C&G, at a time when you would get the value out of it for the lifespan of the vehicle. So are we going, Commissioner, are we going to do the same thing with some of our fleets? As we convert out, we will be thinking about doing that, yes. One of the things that we're looking into right now is street sweepers. There are now some CNG street sweepers that are about $50,000 more than what our regular one is. So we're kind of looking for the next CMAQ grant that would allow us to make up the difference on that. But having street sweepers that were CNG that could go into the neighborhoods quietly at night would be a good efficiency for us. And have you looked into other cities to see if they have facilities for natural gas that are for commercial use, for large commercial use? We toured the facility that Metro Louisville has last December, I think it was, or January. They are in the process of working on a CMAQ grant also to do the same thing. And it's underway right now. I guess, you know, I would be curious to see if anyone's reached out to the private sector. Are they planning? Do they have a plan in place to move forward in this direction? I think my understanding is that Metro Louisville is coming up with the same kind of plan that we are, that there would be a commercial operator of their facility. So it's a similar kind of partnership agreement that we would be having. So is theirs public or private? It would be both. It would be used by the city of Louisville, Metro Louisville, and by commercial local users. And you don't know what the capacity for this one on Loudon would be? In terms of capacity, it will serve everybody's needs. It will have at least two fueling stations available for them. And the fast fill is very much like regular gasoline, so people will be able to get in, fuel up, and go on as opposed to ours. currently our slow fill where we hook up at night, our garbage trucks at night, and that they slowly fill them up and they're ready by the next morning. Okay, so this will be a much quicker process. Absolutely, and then we like the tradeoff of having both of those available to us. I guess, you know, I just don't see it having a capacity to handle all of the Kroger trucks, the UPS trucks, the FedEx trucks, Pepsi trucks. I just don't see two pumps being able to do that. I don't think it will, but I think it will be the seed for other people to recognize that CNG is available and try it out and then think of moving on in their operation. And I would agree with that. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. All right. I don't think Council Member Akers has spoken yet. All right. Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Mayor. Commissioner Holmes, in light of all the questions that we're having on this particular issue, I guess I – why was the proposal – the location changed? I guess that's what I want to know. The site was – once we had seen another operation, when we went and saw the one in Louisville, we recognized that our site was problematic, the one we had originally proposed at Byrd Thurman, the corner of Byrd Thurman and Old Frankfort Circle. It just didn't have enough land for what we needed to do to have the trucks come in, pull in, and turn around. And then we also started thinking it's on a two-lane road. We've got all these garbage trucks coming in and out daily. Is this the right location for us? That's when we hired a site crew to look for other alternatives, came back with LexTran as the number one location in the city to have a CNG operation. And what Councilmember Maloney alluded to about having a private partnership, was that looked at at all? That was never part of the original plan as I understood it. I came in after Mr. Maloney. But the partnership that we were doing was to have somebody come in and construct it, operate it, not to be our partner with us in terms of that. It's not to say that you couldn't do that, but I think in the timing that we have now to try to get this grant approved by the state and finalized, that would be problematic. We'd have to go through a whole, we'd have to go through an RFP process to get somebody to partner with us to do that. And you're looking at additional sites and other kinds of things. And we think we need to move to be able to finalize this grant. Okay, one last question. are we looking at all or i'm sure you guys are as far as electric use because you know there's a lot of new facilities i mean that are coming up that are for plugins have we looked at that's something that john sheet would have to respond to i was just curious fleet um we're looking at cng primarily in public works right now so nothing on the electric total electric all right thank you all right council member farmer oh thank you Thank you. On the same topic? On the same topic. Yes, sir. I've been a big proponent of CNG since I became aware of it, and I've been a big proponent of us having a fast-fill station. And I think it is just about getting started. And I know that this isn't the original place it was intended for, but I think it brings up the opportunity for a great partnership between ourselves and LexTran, which while we're there I'd love to keep the trolley in Chevy Chase on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night. Just not really part of the conversation, but just so you know. Having this at this place I think is opportune for all of us, and it is just about, we're just the first ones. Others are going to come to this process because CNG is clean, it's very efficient, it's very plentiful, but for all the citizenry it's very quiet. It makes for a very quiet garbage truck. It makes for a very quiet bus. And I think us getting started is important to bringing the marketplace along behind us because part of this is the logistics of where there's high enough pressure, gas in the lines to begin with. So you can't locate these just anywhere. They have to be at a certain place in a distribution network where we can get enough pressure to fill them in a proper capacity. So it may be not ideal, but I think it's a great place for us to start. And I'm very supportive because it's less expensive. that's better on the environment at this time and gives us a great opportunity to make our quality of life better incrementally each time one of these one of these uh either a bus or a any vehicle rolls out it is quieter is more efficient and it's it's better for our not only our economy but our environment so i'm very supportive thank you mayor all right thank you council member maloney the commission i got a question for you has anyone from the private sector ever approach you all to come down with a proposal to try to work with you guys with the CNG? Ever? Has anybody sat down with you all? I can only speak for myself, and I have had phone calls concerning when we are going to put out an RFP to construct this. I haven't had any phone calls about people necessarily wanting to partner with us in the process. So my question goes out to the administration, whoever wants to ask this. Is there a problem that a private sector come in here and run this business, energy clean, in a good location, better than what we have now? Is there a reason why we did not go that route? Somebody from the administration, because it seems like to me that was the whole intention of this grant, was to take care of Mercer Road, Leastown Road, And that area there with all the Pepsi-Cola everywhere, not on Loudon Road where the homeless people are now. Did anyone in the administration look into doing the privatized? And that's why, I mean, if there's somebody out there that can do this and put it in a better location, I'm going to be very disappointed in everybody for doing this when the whole setup was to take care of location, location, location and make sure that everybody's going green. And if we're going to go the opposite and put it away from everybody, I'm going to be disappointed if someone has contacted you all and said they're willing to do this. Now, I want to know, has that ever been done? I can only speak for myself, which I have done. Since I became involved in the project, no, I have not, or we have not, when Commissioner Holmes came in, been contacted by the private sector. When we went to Louisville to look at this model, this type of model was what was best suited for the opportunity that we had. Any other grant application would have taken the current grant that we have and put it at the end of the line, and we would have missed out on the opportunity to even receive this grant. The last year when I knew this was going on with the grant because I kept passing you all where we are on this. And the one idea was that we were going to work with Lectran. Lectran did not want to do it because they did not want to get into the private sector. That's when I asked you all to go out and look at the interstate. I am convinced that someone out there can do this, private, from the private sector. and I'm convinced someone in Long East Town Road or Mercer Road has the capability of doing something like this. And if that is true, I don't want to see homeless people being with UPS coming by every time trying to get C&G from all the way over there when they could be in their backyard and get on the interstate and get out of here. The last thing we want to do is put everybody downtown and try to be proactive when we're not. Put them out there where everybody can get out of here. We just turned, we're slowing the speed limit down to 25 miles an hour. Now we're going to put these big trucks on there. We're going the opposite of whatever we just stand for today. And the last thing to do is become safety. And I just hope for God that before we vote on this, we have looked at all the options. And if it has to be private, I don't have a problem giving private money, people to private money. as long as they're going to do what we keep the city clean, energy clean, and good location, I'm all for it. And I hope for God that the administration, you all do, have done that. If you have not done it, then I don't think we should vote on this until they'll put all your eggs in the basket and make sure it all comes out the best. Thank you. Council Member James Brown. Thanks, Mayor. Council Member Brown second. Council Member Maloney second time. I think we've had several with seconds already. So go ahead, Council Member Brown. Yeah, I guess my concern was what Council Member Maloney's concern was, and I guess that question was answered if you looked at what process you went through to identify the new location or the location on Loudoun Avenue. And then I guess my next question was I think the CNG gas vehicles for Lex Tran, that's something new. You currently don't have any CNG vehicles. That is correct. So what was Lex Tran's plan before this location was decided to be there? Were they going to? You'll have to ask Lex Tran that. So Lex Tran Board of Directors had a CNG committee that looked at different options for vehicles and the cost-to-benefit analysis of both. So when that committee started, the price differential between diesel and CNG is opposite of what it is now. So I think some of the capital cost and some of the attractiveness from the private sector to the fueling was different than what changed now. So our intent was always to have some fueling for our vehicles on site and work with LFUCG on a public fueling station, whether it was for land or shared capital cost or shared infrastructure. So going to CNG, moving forward is going to help LexTran move towards being more profitable, do you believe? I would say CNG, if the cost of CNG fuel declines relative to diesel cost, it will help us be more cost efficient. Okay. All right. Thank you. I think, Jamie, you want to speak? Sure. Thank you. Just to add a little bit, I think there might be a little confusion on what this might be. The governor was very interested in this, and his chief of staff asked me to come up and talk to them about not only the CMAQ project, but others that we had in the hopper, including TAP grants and so on. And in that meeting, it was pretty clear to me that we had two options. One was to own and operate this facility ourselves. And if we did that, we could actually only fill our own vehicles. We could not sell it commercially. The second was the blended model, which was to partner with a private commercial vendor so that the public could consume this gasoline. It's basically that we can't sell it commercially because we can't profit from it. I guess we could have given it away, but that's not going to work. So that's why we landed on the model that we did. And the location consultant did come up with the Lex Tran site, and they ruled out the interstate because of the distance between the interstate site and the waste management parking facility. So I hope that helps clarify. If there's another private model, I'm not aware of it. All right. Thank you. Council Member Henson? Well, actually, if it's okay, Council Member Akers hasn't spoken yet, so Council Member Akers. Thank you, Mayor. I'm not sure I agree with Jamie's comments about nonprofits. First of all, you can make a lot of money as a nonprofit and still be a nonprofit. The problem is the CMAQ grant itself precludes the government from making any profit on it. So we won't own it. We can't own it. We can own it, but we can't make any profit from it. So that's why the private company who would be operating it and selling it to the public can charge the public a profitable rate. Okay, so we will own the actual pumps, but we won't be owning or selling the gas. That's correct. We will have an operator, a contractual operator through the RFP process that will do that. And so what is the cost of this pumps? So the grant is $1.25 million. Urban County government's obligation is to put in 20%. That's our matching grant portion. Lex Tran has agreed that they'll put in $600 and some odd thousand dollars for the site preparation work to make this work on their site. And we believe those funds are sufficient to be able to build what we are planning to build. And is this on the same side of the road as the new administration building for Lex Tran? Yes, ma'am. It'll be the same road going in that all the buses would be going in anyway. It won't create an additional route into the Lex Tran site there. Yeah, I do find it interesting that we had this discussion today about speed limits, and Loudon was included. And so I'm curious if traffic or Lex Tran have discussed this and the impact that this will have on traffic on that street and that corridor and speeds. And there is a lot of pedestrian traffic there. And so I'm not convinced either that this is a good location for that much heavy truck traffic. Sure. So the majority of the traffic leaving the Lex Tran site when our vehicles leave is early in the morning and later in the evening. So our LexTrans peak traffic is different than the peak traffic, the morning rush hour and the evening rush hour. So we think that that will spread some of the traffic impacts throughout the day. Also, when our vehicles are leaving, the speed, you know, they're turning in and out, the speed would be slow there. So I don't think there will be as many impacts from a speed or traffic standpoint. And what about our trucks, David? Commissioner, I'm sorry. Ours will be more on an operational need kind of thing. We will be filling up our garbage trucks at our facility at Bird Thurman in the slow fill at nighttime. This would be if our slow fill facility goes down, then we have an alternative. or alternatively if we have vehicles that are out in the field and need to top off and don't want to go all the way back to Bird Thurman, they'll be able to go there, get a fast fill, and keep on the streets. So we don't think that there will be a whole lot of operational use from us. And the commercial uses, we're just going to have to see how that develops. We don't know. well i would just offer that there's a brand new road with lots of land available and it's in a really industrial area of town that might be a good location or a better location than loudon citation boulevard in case anyone's wondering thank you all right council member henson you said you want to speak to another issue so councilman farmer you wish to speak to this one still if it's all right sure sure second round i spent a fair amount of time working on this with with rocky burke before he left and it was one of the reasons to to build a new facility and move to was to convert to cng and making that move at the time i became involved with this and we were getting ready to to start getting our new truck bodies and using it for our garbage trucks i met with the natural gas folks and you know this is one of those things where because the uniqueness of the opportunity of having the grant we have the opportunity to begin both saving money and making the environment better and then i had contact with individuals in in this potential market who didn't have the wherewithal to come into the market so i think this is still about the opportunity to move the city forward rather than step back and say oh will this be too much traffic or oh will the homeless people not be able to understand the traffic on this road this is about the opportunity to make lexington cleaner greener and better and bring an opportunity for a different kind of motivational travel because more cng is going to be on the road as we as we move forward not less in my estimation so i'm still very supportive thank you sir all right councilman massadi thank you i have one last question. Ms. Butler, tell me about the revenue allocation, because it was 20% was the city was going to put in. You were going to put in the remaining 80%, is that correct? I'm sorry, say that again? The revenue allocation. I mean, what you're going to put in and what you're going to receive out of it. The revenue or the cost allocation? Cost and revenue. Okay. So the grant from the state, the CMAQ grant, is for $1.25 million. Correct. The city's portion of that is the 20% matching to match that. $200,000. Because we're putting it on the LexTran site, there needs to be site preparation work done. And LexTran has said they will pay the upwards of $678. Pursuant to board approval tomorrow. Yeah. To that. So LexTran's putting in about $680,000. We're putting in $300,000 and whatever the number is for the 20% matching grant. and the CMAQ grant will be the 1.25. We believe that the total amount of those funds will allow us to construct the facility there on the LexTran property. Okay. All right. Now that we have the cost, what about the revenue? Since we can't receive revenue because we are considered nonprofit, then LexTran will get? LexTran also because the governmental entity can't profit from it as a partner. So it's a wash? Any profit would have to go to the operator of the facility who will be picked through an RFP process that we will do in conjunction with Lex Tran and the state as part of the facility. Okay. Now I understand. Thank you. All right. Council Member Lamb. I just want to ask for a clarification, Commissioner. Okay, so on Byrd-Thurman, when our trucks fill up there now for CNG, there's no cost, right? Oh, there's a cost to the government, yes. Okay. We have a private contract with the people who constructed the facility there, but that's our slow fill operation. Right, right. This will be a fast fill operation at Lex Trans. Okay, so will there be a big cost difference between the slow fill and the fast fill? That's yet to be seen, and we won't know until we get through the RFP process on that. We're hoping that we will get a discounted rate, but we won't know that until we run the RFP process. The facility you went and visited in Louisville, is it a slow fill or a fast fill? It's a fast fill. Do you know how much their expense is? No, we didn't get into the financial details at that time. We were looking at the operational details. Okay. I mean, I would think that that would be something that that would be advantageous to see about. So, okay. All right. Thanks. Thank you, Mayor. All right. Thank you, Councilor Lamb. Councilor Gibbs on this one. Okay. Thank you, Mayor. Commissioner? So, if a vote failed on this, what would happen to that grant money? I'm sorry. Say that again, please. Would we lose the grant money? Yeah, that's what I was going to ask, too. I'm sorry. There's $1.25 million in grant money. Would we lose that grant money if we did not approve of this? Jamie's coming to the party. He has had more conversations with the state than I have, so I think that's appropriate. Yes, absolutely, is the answer to the question. The reason they asked me to come to meet with them is because the grant wasn't moving. Not just that grant, but we were looking at an array of grants. but they were concerned about the timing and that, you know, we can only hold this money for so long. I think we all think it's important. I understand the debate, but I think that, you know, we can get started with this. It may not be the perfect solution at the moment, but we think it's a great one. So that's why we brought it to you. We don't want to lose the money. All right. Thank you. Council Member Maloney, you've spoken twice already. I have to disagree. You've spoken, Council Member Maloney, you've already spoken twice. Okay. All right. Nobody else has spoken more than twice. That's the council rule. All right. Does anybody else wish to speak who hasn't spoken already twice? Council Member Akers. I just went and clarified with my colleague, Council Member Brown, over there, and I got some clarification that I think would have been really helpful. So the buses are there now. So this is where the bus garage is, correct? Lex Tran? I mean, right around the corner. We plan or expect to move in at the end of April or beginning of May. We will take delivery on the seven new CNG vehicles end of March, you know, early first quarter. I don't have the delivery dates from our manufacturer yet. Okay. I'm not talking about CNG. Just the buses in general, Lex Tram buses, are stored and are repaired. Your garage and everything is in and around Loudoun Avenue. At 109 Loudoun right now, and then when we move to the new headquarters in, let's call it April or May, everything will shift over there. Right. So the point is, what I was trying to make, is that the buses are there. They drive through there now. That's where they come in and leave from currently. that the traffic probably won't change really that much. I mean, they're just going to be stopping to get gas. And so if our system goes down, then maybe we will have trucks that need to gas up there. But otherwise, these buses are already apparently going there at night. That's where they're stored. That's where they're repaired. That's where they'll go to and from already. No, you're correct. No additional traffic from Lex Tran based on the CNG. it will be the same whether these buses were horse-drawn carriages or electric right so that that's I think for me that was really helpful to see they're already there and so thank you all right that's councilmember Henson do you want to speak on another issue all right is there any further discussion all right My understanding is council rules allows for two comments during a discussion. Now, Councilman Maloney's had those two comments. Pardon? Can council report? Susan? That's what council rules allow for. Yes, but I guarantee you, with all due respect, sir, there have been many other opportunities where we have let council speak more than twice. I will just say that for the record. Okay, that's fine. If someone wants to make a motion to allow for Councilman. I so move. I haven't spoke at all on the issue. All right, okay. I'll allow out of courtesy of Councilmember Maloney to speak in my three minutes. Thank you, Councilmember. I'm sorry. Point of order, Mr. Chair. Jamie, I have a question. Before you go on, I believe that you cannot yield your time. There's a motion. I so move. I understand that. There's a motion. and if there's a second then the council will vote on that but you can't accept that can't yield the times there's a motion and we have a second is there any discussion on the motion to give councilman member maloney some more time all right all in favor please say aye oppose no all right we're gonna councilman maloney you have some more time i had the same question last year about this money, the grant, if we were in trouble with the governor. And I was told, no, we were not in trouble. As long as we come up with some plans to make this work, we can do this. And now you're coming up with a whole different story here. I mean, the reason why I'm bringing this up is because, before you interrupt me, if they did not come in and need our money, we would have had to turn this money back in. Is that what you're telling me now? Because that's something whole new. Because they needed our money. And now you're telling me something that, let's say they didn't need our money, so we would have to give the money back. Is that what you're telling me? I'm very confused by the question, but I'll answer the first part. I'm not telling you two different things. When you asked that question last year, this plan wasn't in place. This is the plan that you were talking about. So we are submitting this plan. They have approved it. We're trying to enter into this deal so we can get going. A question I have, before they came to us, which is just recently, they didn't have the money to finish this CNG project. They did not have the money. Let's say if they had the money, would our project have been failed that we would have not done? Was this the only hope you had that you're telling me? No, no. Okay, I'm confused more than that. Thank you. All right. Is there any further discussion on the motion to approve new business? All right. If there isn't, then we can vote. All in favor of the motion to approve new business, please indicate by saying aye and voting electronically. I'm aye on all, but aye, and I would be no on aye. All right. Yeah, is there anybody else that wishes to... Yes on all, no on R. Yes on all, but aye. All right. So, Stacey, you got all those. Yeah, you're on all, but aye. All right. Is there any... All right, the vote reflects passage of the motion. Allows us to move on. Continuing business and presentations, is there a motion on the NDFs? Motion by Council Member Akers to approve the NDFs. Is there a second? And we have a second by Council Member Hensley. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. If not, we can vote. All in favor. please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Next is a summary of the Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee meeting by Councilmember Farmer. Thank you, Mayor. These were our notes from our October 20th meeting. We approved our summary, then we took up the snow and ice control plan, which resulted in an early motion by Fred Brown to adopt the service levels and accumulation amounts outlined in the slide presentation, seconded by Evans, and the motion passed without dissent. And if you have the snow and ice control plan, which they gave to us, it is page 12 of that plan. So I would so move on behalf of the committee. All right. Motion by Council Member Farmer, seconded by Vice Mayor Kaye. Is there any discussion? All right. If not, we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. That provides for a measured response based on the amount of snow that falls and gives us the ability to have some outside contractors help us clear some of our main roadways. Next, we took up a little bit out of order from our agenda, but we had a presentation about servicing sidewalks, city sidewalks and sidewalks on Manowar. And subsequent from this conversation and this vote, we voted to take the money out of the fund balance request to fund this. So this is a motion made by Gibbs to accept the sidewalk plan as proposed, was seconded by Council Member James Brown, and it passed on a 7-2 vote, and I so move on behalf of the committee. Motion by Council Member Farmer and second by Council Member Gibbs. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right, hearing none, we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you. That's a very important change for us as a committee and a council in the city. It gives us the opportunity to begin to take care of our sidewalks on a snowy day and give those who will want to walk to work or have to get out the ability to get there. We then return to our further discussion about the snow plan, which really we got down into the conversation about how much it was going to cost to fit up or be ready for what is our average of 11 mobilizations per year, which you can see that in the center of what is page 55 of our packet. This resulted in kind of a more formal motion made by Evans to adopt the snow plan as presented, including recommendations for the 2017 budget, which that was the budget amendment we took up earlier today. This was seconded by councilmember James Brown and that motion passed without dissent and I would still move on behalf of the committee I wish my counselor farmer is there second second by councilor acres is there any discussion? All right, if not we can vote all in favor. Please say aye aye opposed no motion carries we had a motion to call the question on Interceding commentary and then we got down to a motion and this had this was time sensitive to the time of this meeting, but it was a motion made by Kay to approve as amended the request to move forward with the RFP to contract for snow removal. We wanted to get that out on the street so we could get responses to it. It was seconded by Fred Brown, passed without dissent, and I would so move on behalf of the committee. Second. Motion by Councilman Farmer, seconded by Vice Mayor Kay. Is there any discussion? If not, we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you. And then lastly in this area, a motion was made by k to amend the motion to include the total funding for 2016 of 288 thousand and 34 dollars for 11 mobilizations and that is actually we talked about it and made a motion on it during our budget earlier but i would so move on half the committee now motion by councilmember farmer second by vice mayor k is there any discussion all right if not we can vote all in favor please say aye opposed no motion carries so we added over 100 miles of lane miles to our existing plan so we will be we will be cleaning and clearing more streets than ever before and the entire council played a role in that certainly administration did a great job thank you all on that then we got down to the to our business which we needed to take up our municipal separate storm sewer system our so-called ms4 we had that presentation from water quality at the that presentation the motion was made by fred brown to accept the report of the municipal separate storm sewer system it was seconded by council member hensley and passed without dissent and i would so move on behalf of the committee motion by council member farmer and second by council member fred brown any discussion all right we can vote then all in favor please say aye aye opposed no motion carries at that point we ran out of time we did not take up any other items of business and our meeting adjourned thank you mayor thank you council member farmer All right, that allows us to move on to council reports. The floor is available for council reports. If you'll please sign on. Council Member Maloney. Thank you, Mayor. I want to thank Council Member Susan. Man, my mind's gone crazy today. Susan, for last week, for the veterans, that was a great thing, but you did. I did hear some bad news out of that meeting. Then Ambassador Gorton, as you all know, Linda Gorton's husband, got up and made a speech and talked about 10 great cities and 10 bad cities for veterans. The city of Lutstonston made the 10 bad cities the way we treat veterans. And as you all know, a few years ago back, we had Jay McCord here, Councilman McCord, talking about how fat we were. You know, I don't mind being called fat, but when you sit there and get credit for being one of the worst people for our veterans, I do have a problem with that. I have been working with parks for over a few months to try to do something good for veterans. And one of the things that came about was to try to put a discount for our golfers. And I'm going to try to be proposing in the next couple of weeks that we give our veterans a discount. And most of it, I'm looking at it at half price for our veterans because they serve this country. They've been in wars that nobody liked. They come back to this city. We need to show them with respect. And there's never a time for this city to step up and do something like this. I think this might be one example. I mean, there's a bunch. But to me, as a city, we can do. I mean, golf is something a lot of veterans play. I think we need to help our veterans, so in the next couple weeks, I will be bringing that to a proposal. But again, I want to thank Council Member Lamb for that. That was a great presentation, and I really commend you for that. Another thing, I want to go out for my sympathy for Senator Reggie Thomas and his kids. They lost his lovely wife today. I want to give a little story about Linda. I first came on the council in 1988. I was new, kind of nervous. And back then, we didn't have a council report like we do with our regular folks. We had to go all the way down to the cable channel. And she was the reporter for the cable three at that time. And I'll tell you what, I was nervous the first time, and she treated me with respect, and I've never forgot her, and she will definitely be missed, and my heart goes out for the Thomson family. and Linda, I really always will share it that day for what she did and to make me feel comfortable when I meet with the press. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, sir. Thank you, Council Member Maloney. Vice Mayor Kay. Thank you, Mayor. I also wish to extend my sympathy to Reggie and the whole family. Linda had a hard time with an illness that we thought she had recovered from And I was surprised to find out today that she passed away, and I'm deeply sorry. And then I have one piece of business. I sent an email to the members of council about my appointment of a special committee of council to look at the tree canopy with Council Member Gibbs as chair, and I just wanted to put that in the record. I believe you all got the email with the details of why we're setting it up and what it is expected to do, and we will get a report from them in the spring. Thank you, Mayor. All right. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Farmer. I didn't know the senator's wife. I do appreciate your bringing that sad news to us. He's a fine man. I can only imagine she was an extra fine lady. So I'm very sorry about that, but I appreciate your bringing it to us. And then, Mayor, I'd just like to make a request for Thursday night for our formal meeting, if we could set aside a moment at the beginning of it to have some sort of remembrance or moment for the events in Paris this past weekend. I think that would be entirely fitting and proper for us if you or the staff would take care of that. Certainly. Thank you, sir. Then I want to take a moment to brag on our police department from a very personal perspective. Would you put up that first picture? This is a picture in Farmer's Jewelry yesterday at about 1.30. And on the right, you see my sister. And on the left, you see what I can only refer to as the perpetrator at this point. He is grabbing an amethyst and diamond ring and bolting out of our store. And in five and a half minutes, go to the next one, the police were there. Now, I can't tell you how great that feels. I was still out trying to chase down this man, which I shouldn't have done. But sometimes I'm like Richard. I can't think because I bolted. Well, I mean, you said, you know. So after five and a half minutes, the police were there. Then go to the next one. After 11 minutes, the sergeant was there. And after eight more minutes, go on. The fingerprint guys were there. You'll see the fingerprint guys and you'll see my bald spot. But that's another whole deal, too. So from the time of this perpetrator to the time the fingerprint guys got there was 24 and a half minutes. And I don't know how you all mark time or what. I just can't say enough about our police force, their thoughtfulness, their restraint in the face of so many adversities, but their ability to respond in this instance. And I know, Mary, you paid a visit out there today, and I appreciate that. I know my entire family does. But this was an act of larceny, an act of violence, a threat to civil society. But I just wanted to thank Chief Barnard and everybody who serves with and under him for being there and available and professional. And while we did not catch this man, he does have a tattoo that comes up on his neck where you can see part of a wing. So he's out there, and he's got an amethyst and diamond ring, and he's got a tattoo. But I would just say to you we have a great police force amongst so many great people that work for the city But I wanted to take a special moment to thank them specifically. Thank you Thank You councilor farmer councilor Massadi Thank You mayor my condolences as well to Senator Thomas and his family I spoke with him yesterday and He didn't sound good, but he didn't give me any indication of what was happening other than his wife was not doing very well So I'm so sad to hear that and also to follow up with Councilmember Maloney. I'd be glad to work on Any kind of project as far as veterans. I've got the report here, and it was stunning to see where we are We're 50th percentile. We're 70 72 for our economic wellness rank with veterans and we're at nine. I'm sorry at at 75% as far as our health rank and education and environment for veterans here in Lexington. So we need to see if we can better that score, and I know we can, and move up from that position of the bottom 10 to hopefully in the top 10. And also I would like to place in the Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee, we had a discussion on trails today, and I would like that we place in committee a comprehensive look at our trails, our trail system and inventory, the cost involved. I think a lot of us have different trails. I believe I have about 20 pages of trails in different districts that we need to look at as far as connectivity because, I mean, that's the whole purpose of having the trail downtown is to have a spine. Well, we're not going to be able to have a spine that holds anything up if the vertebrae don't connect. So I so move that we look at that in the next Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee. Second. Second. Motion by Council Member Sadi, seconded by Council Member Fred Brown. Is there any discussion? All right. Hearing none. If not, we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. That's all, Mayor. All right. Council Member Fred Brown. Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to revisit the zone change hearing. Am I right, Council Member Henson, it was January the 12th? I didn't know if you realized that there's a U.K. game that night at 7 o'clock, if you even thought about that. And I just wanted to know if we wanted to reconsider. I think Council Member Henson has a response. Go ahead. Yes, ma'am. No, sir, I didn't look at that Wildcat calendar. I have a DVR that records mine. Well, I've got tickets that don't record. But I was going to bring that back up on Thursday during council announcements and take a poll of how many might be available. Do you have another date maybe? Yeah, we need 10. So we'll do a poll. Thank you. You're welcome. And second item, I want to extend my sympathy and condolences to Reggie Thomas and Linda. They are actually neighbors of mine, and I've known Linda for longer than I've known Reggie, and so my sympathy and heartfelt prayers go out to Reggie and his kids and that family there. Thank you. All right, sir. Thank you, Council Member Brown. Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Mayor. I also, too, I want to chime in and express my condolences to Senator Reggie Thomas and his family. I've actually known Reggie Thomas since back when his mother was director in social services back in the 80s. So I knew him when he was a little bit younger. But I really do. I'm so sorry about their loss. And also, I wanted to touch base and talk about our wonderful Veterans Day celebration. It was lightly attended, but this is just the beginning of what we are starting to have here on an annual basis. I want to thank my colleagues, Council Member Maloney, Council Member Fred Brown, and Council Member Henson for attending. And we had Aaron Thompson from Congressman Andrew Barr's office. He spoke. Senator Alice Forgey-Kirsch, he spoke. Charles Gorton, who is the U.S. Army Reserve Ambassador to Kentucky, he spoke. And then Lieutenant Andrew Daugherty spoke. And I wanted to thank GTV3 for being there and Parks and Recreations for setting up the tents. And we had Lexington Diner, and we also had Starbucks that contributed to a wonderful service. And like I said, this is something that I want for it to become an annual event, because what better way to celebrate veterans is to bring them to our beautiful park and around our beautiful memorials that we have there already. So I appreciate everybody's attendance and hope that we'll have twice as many next year. So thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Council Member Lamb. Council Member Gibbs. Thank you, Mayor. This is first I heard about Reggie Thomas's wife, and my heart goes out to Reggie and his family. It's just horrible. But I want to speak a little bit about the committee that Vice Mayor Kay has appointed and me as the chair. Back in 2012, the Davie Resource Group did a study of our tree canopy. It cost us about $42,000, and it showed that our canopy is a little bit less than 25%. Arbors recommend about 40%, so we're really quite deficient. Very little has been done. Some has been done, but very little has been done to make up that deficiency in the last several years. Even with our deficient tree cover, our canopy contributes over $30 million a year annually to us in things like carbon capture, stormwater control, less air conditioning because it cools the air, and then there's intangibles like beauty and so on. I won't go through the whole list. Our canopy certainly needs help, and that's what this committee is about. We're going to investigate the possibility of launching a major tree initiative. The people who the vice mayor has appointed is an impressive, a diverse group, and they are very, very enthusiastic. We're going to get started very soon. And I just wanted, there's just 12 of us, and I want the public to know who's serving on this committee. Other than myself, my colleagues, James Brown and Susan Lamb, John Saylor, LFUCG Environmental Quality, Ann Boe, who is the chairperson of the tree board. Lynn Risky-Kenny, who is a UK professor of forest entomology. Harry Clark from American and Bloom. You probably know Harry used to serve on our city council. Sherry Maddock of 4th Street Farm. Knox Van Noggle of the director of the Fayette Alliance. Bridget Abernathy of Bluegrass Green Source. Sarah Hesley of Town Branch Tree Experts. and Dave Leonard, of Dave Leonard, consulting arborist. So I think it's a very impressive committee, and we hope to report to you in the spring, and we really hope to get something going with trees. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Gibbs. Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Mayor. I think, colleagues, you received an email from me earlier this afternoon regarding kind of fund balance discussion, how to disperse some of those funds. And we received an email from Commissioner Romero last week kind of suggesting some different thoughts on how to best budget and allocate those funds. And I think the intent of the motion at that time to divide it up, which I did not support, but we divided the funds, was to use them for capital projects that were inside government. So after talking to law, I provided a draft resolution that would, in essence, change the council capital expenditure policy. And obviously, I was not on council back when this was done, but it's very extensive what we do and what we go through, even those of which in our own government, how we allocate money. It just seems a little extensive and maybe burdensome. So my thought was twofold. One, that the resolution would provide some transparency. It would force us to spend only on projects above $5,000, only for capital projects that are longer in term than in use. And then it would also restrict it to internal government operating agencies, that we would not allocate it elsewhere or to other agencies to do the work, that it would remain internal in government, which was actually when people submitted their original request, all of those were internal ideas. So I brought it up for discussion today. We don't have too much time to end the year on how to do this, and so it's a suggestion. I'm willing to have a discussion now. If you have questions about the amendment or the resolution, I'll take them. Yes, ma'am. All right, so I'm sorry. You're asking for questions now, Council Member Bledsoe? My thought is if we have this discussion Thursday, it might be. Sure. There's a lot going on Thursday. It might be easier to have this discussion today. Sure. Okay. Thank you. Does anybody have Council Member Sadi and Council Member Brown? Thank you. Council Member Bledsoe. So what is your intent? Are you going to put this in committee? Are you trying to make a resolution or just a thought? You want to put this on for the docket? A resolution. So the resolution was emailed today. The only amendment that I might make is that Commissioner O'Mara did suggest kind of taking out some additional things, steps internally that we do when we move items from one budget to the other. I think he suggested three different, and Commissioner O'Mara, if you want to address those, feel free. I'm sorry. So the red lining is what you're taking out? Yes. In addition to that, might be, and I'm sorry, we didn't get a chance to talk until today. So a secondary amendment would also be to take out some of the additional measures. We have like 12 different steps to reallocate money from one department to another. So if we have a capital project in a neighborhood and it's less than $5,000, we cannot do it? That's what you're proposing? Yes. The only difference would be is if you allocated it, I suppose, to the parks to do a larger project. But unless, no. I guess no. correct I'm sorry I was in conversation and the question was customers you can a question was and so with this one the first strikeout I see is that no to neighborhood associations okay the first strikeout on page doesn't have a page on the very first page there's a red line through neighborhood associations so what councilmember Bledsoe is saying that if we have a need in a neighborhood association a capital need that's less than five thousand we cannot provide for that allocation. I haven't had a chance to read her documents. I don't have it in front of me. That would be a question to... I guess my thought is that we just got this today, and I'm not sure I'm ready to put this on the docket for Thursday just yet and would like to digest it a little bit more. Sure, that's fine. And again, the $5,000 came from Commissioner Mayer's suggestion. I can address the $5,000. the capitalization policy is $5,000. So the suggestion was that if this is for capital items, it should be for items that are $5,000 or more. And so that stays into the intent of what counsel had talked about when they were having the discussion, as well as it matches our accounting tests, which is actually a part of the existing resolution to follow the chart of accounts definitions. And it also makes it more practical to administer. If you have $266,000 plus and you want to spend it $100 here and $100 there, the administrative burden to track that and to report it on a short notice becomes much more difficult. Certainly, and I can understand that. I would just, some of the parameters that have come up, I just really haven't had a chance to, as I said, look through and understand. Thank you. All right. Council Member Fred Brown, then Council Member Hines. Thank you, Mayor. I support this. I don't know if we, maybe we need to vet it a little bit, but I like the idea, and I think I started the ball rolling when we were talking about divvying up some money, and I think the transparency needs to be there, and I think my intent certainly was that it be capital non-recurring items and within the government itself. It makes everything, I mean, it's out there, and we're not trying to hide anything. It wasn't intended for my part that we use this as a neighborhood development fund. That's a whole different area. This right here should be capital items that we even talked about in fund balance when we were putting our requests out there individually. And you can still do those individual capital projects that you even asked for when we were talking about the excess fund balance. So I'll support this, but I don't mind it getting, you know, people getting a little bit more information on it. But because we don't have to be in any hurry to put it on Thursday night, we can put it on a couple weeks or later. Thank you. I thank Council Member Henson, then Council Member Gibbs, and Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Mayor. Councilmember Blitz, so I appreciate you for bringing this because I did feel like this is something that we needed to work on to be transparent and let the public know where these funds are going. And so what I would recommend is that if you could get all the amendments done to the current ordinance, send it out, and then perhaps we're out next week, but the following week, then we could have another discussion about it. And I even, and you may have already done this, but I was wondering if there shouldn't be a time limit for spending the money. If at the end of the fiscal year, if it's not already dedicated for something, it would go back? To the fund balance or two. We did talk about that a little bit. I think the timeline is, the only concern I have about saying has to be spent by, let's say, June 30th, would be some of our park projects take a little bit longer to finish up and are not easily done quickly. And so we want to have a little more time through the fall to do that. That's my only hesitation with an extra limit. And I'd certainly be okay with that. What I wouldn't want is to go on for 10 years. So thank you. Councilmember Gibbs. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to make sure this is very well vetted. I think there's all sorts of questions I'll have. Just one example would be I would consider using some of the money for traffic calming devices. And last I knew that a speed table cost about $4,500. Now, they're best used in series is my understanding. Would each table be considered a separate project and therefore ineligible? Or if you did two or three on a street, would that be different? What if I had a very short street that only needed one of them, and that street couldn't get it? So, again, I want to have these sort of discussions, make very clear what we can spend this money on. But thank you. Councilman Lamb. Thank you, Mayor. I do, and I do support this. I do think that we do need to further discuss it. But just, for example, about the Capitol, I guess I don't know if this would be a question of Commissioner Amara or I'm not sure who, but I'll ask the question and you all decide. I've read the description or the definition of what capital assets are provided by the Government Accounting Standards Board. But if we make an improvement to our park property, such as adding a basketball court, I guess I would like to know more about what falls under a capital project. and I've not ever had this question in my 27 years of this. The standard answer is it has to extend the useful life. So replacing a basketball goal wouldn't rise to the occasion. It wouldn't be 5,000. Replacing the nets, building a new basketball goal is a new amenity and would increase the useful life and the use of the park. So you can get into different nuances. There's restrictions on roofs. I don't think we have to get into that, that you have to capitalize. But if you had specific examples, we could certainly address those for you. But it's something that extends a useful life, has a life greater than one year, and costs more than $5,000. is a rule of thumb to use. Okay. I appreciate that because, I mean, I do think that there is value in it. I mean, I think that we are all wanting to be transparent. I mean, that's completely clear to me. But I think that we can make sure that the public understands and sees that what we're doing and wanting to do, move forward with, Is above board and is for the betterment of our community and so I appreciate Council member Bledsoe bringing this forward and I almost forgot your name so So but and I look forward to having this discussion. So thank you. Thank you mayor All right, thank you councilmember James Brown Thank you mayor, I just also wanted to give my condolences to Senator Thomas and his family I've only had the privilege of meeting I'm sorry meeting his wife one time and it was very nice experience. So And then I'd also like to say that I would extend my services to Council Maloney to see what can be done to be more Appreciative of our city's veterans. I think that's you know I think that's also an important thing that we need to need to do better with. Thank you All right. Then to go back to Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. I'll just wrap up. Complete that. Thank you. I will not make that motion today. I just wanted to start the discussion, and I agree with everything that has been said so far. I mean, internal projects and internal things are, I think, what we were, it's certainly my intent. And I definitely want to do traffic calming and how we do those kinds of things, just like a small park project as well. The intent was to keep it internally and somewhat capital in nature, how we language that. I will work on this the next couple of days with Commissioner Amara and law to figure out how to put that package together and bring it back to you again. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Council Member Bledsoe. Council Member Hensley. Thank you, Mayor. Just want to say that I'm glad to see that some of our council members and you made it out to the 12th District to Bluegrass Airport this morning. and we had a great update from the airport board about our world-class airport. And they do a great job out there. The other thing, I guess on this veterans issue, should we make a motion to put an item in committee, the General Services Committee, to address that? Yeah. I mean, I would like to make that motion. Sure, yeah. So put an item in the General Government Social Services Committee to address the veterans needs in lexington all right is there a second all right motion and second is there any discussion all right if not we can vote all in favor please say aye oppose no motion carries all right looks like that's all who signed up for council reports it allows us go to mayor's report is your motion to approve motion to approve and a second motion to approve by vice mayor case second by council member bledsoe is there any discussion on the motion all right hearing none then we can vote all in favor please say aye opposed no motion carries next is public comment for issues not on the agenda and no one mr mundy says no one signed on so i will accept then a motion to adjourn Motion by Councilmember Farmer. Second by Councilmember Fred Brown. Unless there's objection, we are adjourned.