When you come home, he said the first thing that came to his mind. I'm already there. Take a look around. I'm the sunshine in your hair. I'm the shadow on the ground. I'm the whisper in the wind. I'm your imaginary friend. And I know I'm in your prayers. Oh, I'm already there. She got back on the phone. Said, I really miss you, darling. Don't worry about the kids. They'll be all right. Wish I was in your arms Lying right there beside you But I know that I'll be in your dreams tonight And I'll gently kiss your lips Touch you with my fingertips So turn out the light And close your eyes I'm already there Don't make a sound I'm the beat in your heart I'm the moonlight shining down I'm the whisper in the wind And I'll be there to the end Can you feel the love that we share? Oh, I'm already there We may be a thousand miles apart But I'll be with you wherever you are I'm already there Take a look around I'm the sunshine in your hair I'm the shadow on the ground I'm the whisper in the wind And I'll be there to the end And you feel the love that we share Oh, I'm already there Oh, I'm already there Love on the rocks Ain't no surprise Just pour me a drink and I'll tell you some lies Got nothing to lose, so you just sing the blues All the time Gave you my heart, gave you my soul You left me alone here with nothing to hold Yesterday is gone Now all I want is a smile Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. guitar solo Thank you. guitar solo Thank you. guitar solo guitar solo guitar solo guitar solo guitar solo Thank you. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone. Greetings and welcome to the meeting of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council. There are a lot of you here tonight, and we know that you're here for public comment, and we will get to that before too long. But first, we have a few protocols that we go through, including the roll call and an invocation. And then we have three presentations. And then we will get to ordinances and to public comment. So first, I will ask the clerk to please call the roll. Ms. Mossadie. Ms. Gutchfield. Mr. Stinnett. It's okay. Yeah. Ms. Akers. Ms. Bledsoe. Yes. Mr. Fred Brown. Here. Mr. James Brown. Here. Ms. Evans. Here. Mr. Farmer. Yes, sir. Mr. Gibbs. Here. Mr. Hensley. Here. Ms. Henson. Here. Mr. Kay. Here. Ms. Lamb. Here. Mr. Maloney. Yes, sir. All right. All right, thank you. Next on our agenda is the invocation by Pastor Derek Holmes, who is with us tonight from Lexington Baptist Temple. And after Pastor Holmes offers his invocation, I'll ask that we continue standing for an additional moment of silence to acknowledge the tragedy in France last Friday and the threat that represents to freedom everywhere. first of all i want to extend my appreciation to the council for inviting me to deliver the invocation at this important meeting tonight i've lived in this city my entire life i've been born here raised here worked here and now have the privilege of ministering here and so it is a great honor to be able to stand before you tonight to to pray with you and for you as i've often and encourage my family and church to lift you in prayer on a daily basis. Shall we pray? Dear Heavenly Father, Your Holy Word reminds us that it is in You and in You alone that we live and move and have our being, and that it is by You that the worlds were formed and given life. And to acknowledge these truths leads us to the realization that You possess all power and authority and wisdom and justice. And we are grateful for that because we must admit that we are flawed and needy in our humanity. It is for that reason that I stand before you tonight, holy God, thanking you for our city and for its council. And I ask that you would deliver your sound wisdom and your holy justice to the men and women of this council tonight as they execute the power and authority they have been given to lead and manage our great city. Give them great insight into the issues and the policies before them this evening as they make decisions that will shape the civic and economic health of our community for years to come. I ask that you will grant health and strength to these men and women as they seek each day to serve our community, and may they be mindful that the greatest leadership is sacrificial, modeled by your son, Jesus Christ, who gave up his life so that humanity might gain it. I ask as well that you would keep our city safe, as we are all still trying to make sense of the tragedy which took place in Paris not even a week ago, serving as a constant reminder that there are some human actions for which there is just no justifiable excuse. But we are also reminded that you have implanted in each one of us a human spirit that is so great, there is no force of evil in the world which bears the strength to snuff it out. We pray that your peace and comfort would blanket the city of Paris and that you would protect all cities from the events repeating themselves. I also ask that you would unify our great city. I pray that the diverse population of our community would see the greater value in seeking to serve rather than to be served, and to love rather than to hate, and to come together rather than to divide. And finally, I ask that you would prosper our city. Traveling to other places in our nation and our world gives us perspective of just how blessed that we are to live in Lexington. We live in a beautiful city with good people, and dare I say it, even great basketball. But even in Lexington, there are many needs, and I ask that you would tend to the heart that is broken and the needs that are unmet and that you would grant peace to all who call Lexington home. As we approach the Thanksgiving season next week, I thank you for the privilege of living in Lexington, Kentucky, and I thank you for the people who make our community what it is, and I thank you for our mayor and council that leads us. But most of all, I thank you, God, for you, for your presence among us makes us who we are. And it is in the matchless and majestic name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, I pray these things. Amen. Thank you. Thank you, Pastor Holmes, and everyone may be seated. Thank you. Wes, I have one. You have two more? I have two more. All right. Great. All right. Ms. McGrath, would you join me at the podium, please? Thank you. Thank you, Deb. Good to see you. Each year, as many of us know, 150,000 new cases of epilepsy are diagnosed in the United States. Over 2 million persons in the United States have epilepsy, and one in 26 will experience an epileptic seizure in their lifetime. It's important that we all be able to recognize signs of seizures and provide aid to those in trouble. Epilepsy Awareness Month is an important time to increase awareness and to educate on treatment and therapy options. We have several representatives here to accept the award. Dr. Miriam Bensalem Owen, Rachel Ward Mitchell, Lauren Vassel, Ali Vassel, Mike Vassel, Andrea Strasburg, Charles Wilson, Christy Wilson, Deborah Holland, Cindy Arnold Crump, Lindsay Crump, and Deb McGrath. On behalf of the Lexington Bay at Urban County Council, we hereby proclaim November as Epilepsy Awareness Month, and I will quickly read the proclamation that says Epilepsy Awareness Month, whereas November marks Epilepsy Awareness Month and experts estimate one in every 26 Americans will develop epilepsy during their lifetime, and whereas the goal of the Epilepsy Foundation of Kentuckiana is to raise public awareness and funds for research and to assist victims and their families. Now, therefore, I, Jim Gray, as mayor of Lexington, in honor of those who suffer from epilepsy and their caregivers, do hereby declare November 2015 as Epilepsy Awareness Month in Lexington. And I will present this to Deborah. Thank you. Thank you. Mayor Gray, may I ask one favor, please? Could I ask Allie, Charles, and Lindsay to come up to the podium, please? Allie, Charles, and Lindsay represent children from all over Kentucky, especially children in the city of Lexington who live with epilepsy every day. Their lives are impacted by chronic and debilitating seizures, and it is because of them that we work to erase epilepsy and do away with this debilitating and life-threatening disease. And it is because of them that we are here this evening. So thank you on behalf of the Epilepsy Foundation, the University of Kentucky Comprehensive Epilepsy Program, and council members. Thank you so much for allowing us to be here this evening. Thank you. It's okay. Go on right up front. We're going to get pictures. right yes absolutely we're going to get pictures All right, everybody smile. Thank you. who is already on the way and members of our Division of Fire and Emergency Services to join me at the podium, please. Ouch. Yes. Let me read this, and then you just do that. Okay. All right. Let me put this into context and then read it. What we are doing tonight is recognizing some of our citizens that capture the spirit of Lexington. They have gone above and beyond what was expected of them in helping a citizen escape from a burning house. Now, before I present this recognition, I want to turn the microphone over to Councilmember Akers, who will explain it all. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. On the morning of September 16th, Billy Smith was on his way to work, while Tom Wilson was on his way home from his job at Jim Beam. Both men were traveling Leestown Road and noticed flames had engulfed a home on Bracktown Road. Both men stopped to help and discovered Clarence Woodrum in the upstairs of the home. Billy grabbed a ladder and propped it up against the side balcony, and with Tom's help, both men helped guide Mr. Woodrum to safety. Due to his health problems and age, Mr. Woodrum said that without the help of these good Samaritans, he and his four chihuahuas would not have survived the fire. The urge to help came naturally for both men. Billy's father is a retired Lexington firefighter, and Tom was awarded the city's first Spirit of Lexington Good Neighbor Award this past winter during the storm because he helped so many residents in Masterson Station. I'm so proud of these two neighborhood heroes. It's not every day that a citizen rushes into a burning building to save someone else. And I'm also grateful to the firefighters from engines 13, 2, 4, and 8, who rescued Mr. Woodrum and his four chihuahuas as well. Tom. This is Tom. And that's Billy Smith. Tom Woodrum has to get another one. We're going to get another one. We're going to get another one. Okay. All right. William, here you go. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Come on up and get another picture. Okay? Another picture. Come on up. I want to tell all my colleagues, we may have a special moment here, but I also want Bill here, it doesn't surprise me what he does, because I had a blighted neighborhood association many years ago, and this guy single-handedly brought it back to life. and crime went way down. He was able to bring a circus to the neighborhood, and then after he moved, he went to another neighborhood, brought it back to life, and he had the Halloween, the best Halloween treat that I can remember. If you all remember reading the paper, he's the best of the Halloween, but he really cares about the community, and it does not surprise me what you did, but I want to thank you again for all what you've done for us. Thank you, Bill. Thank you. All right, we have one more. All right. Now, some of you have been here before when we have recognized Nurse Practitioner Week. We are doing it again. Nurse practitioners are front-line clinicians with expertise in diagnosing, treating, and preventing health conditions. These registered nurses with advanced training provided more than 900 million patient consultations in the U.S. last year. We're fortunate to have several nurse practitioners at the Samuel Brown Employee Health Care Facility who provide excellent care to our city employees and their families. On behalf of the Lexington Fayette Urban County Council, I want to say thank you and proclaim this as Nurse Practitioners and Midwifery Week. And I want to ask representatives from Frontier Nursing to join me here. You all are here. There we are. And let me read this real quickly. You are, Julie. Yes. Thank you, Julie. This reads Nurse Practitioner Week, whereas there are more than 205,000 licensed nurse practitioners in the U.S., including several thousand in Kentucky, and whereas Kentucky's nurse practitioners provide health care to people of all ages and in diverse health care settings, such as private office practice, hospitals, long-term care facilities, schools, state and local health departments, managed care facilities, and retail-based clinics. Now, therefore, I, Jim Gray, as mayor of Lexington, commemorate Kentucky's nurse practitioners and declare November 8 through 14, 2015 as Nurse Practitioner Week in Lexington. And I'll ask Julie if she would like to say a few words. Sure. Thank you very much. Thank you. Here you go. Great. Thank you. Mayor Gray, thank you very much. Thank you to the council for this honor to be here tonight. And I have to thank you for all of my colleagues that are nurse practitioners and nurse midwives. I'll go ahead on that because it's us two. But anyway, we are your partners in health, and the nurse midwives are your partners in birth. So please remember us when you think about health care. Thank you. And this is a commemoration of the National Midwifery Week. So we're going to get you with two commemorations right up front. Thank you. Thank you. All right, everybody smile. One more camera here. Everybody smile. Okay. right will you watch for me I will do my best yes sir and then I will have a motion to separate a question all right uh then I'll call on you first for that so we'll just go through them and then we'll vote separately on it that's all we need to do is vote right except that we were going to have comments on number three you wouldn't stop for it we'll stop for it I was plan on stopping. Okay. I think we just need to, yeah, it'll be just easier to have a separate. Otherwise, people are going to say yes on the right. All right. We're ready to proceed now with ordinances for a second reading, and before I do that, I want to ask, Mr. Mundy, do you have the list of those who wish to speak? And while we're doing that, I'm going to ask, Vice Mayor Kaye has a motion. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. Given that there are a lot of people here to speak on item number three, I'm going to move that we separate the question and give three its own reading and a separate vote. So move. All right, there's a motion. Motion by Vice Mayor Kaye, second by Council Member Henson. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right, if not, then we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. All right, the motion carries. Now, what I will do is read ordinance, well, I'll ask the clerk to read ordinances one, two, and four, and then we will go back to ordinance number three. All right. Steve, if you'll... please remember reading number one in order to amending the authorized strength by creating one unclassified civil service position of hands nurse grade 514 e and the division of family services effective upon passage of counsel number two an ordinance amending the authorized strength by abolishing one classified civil service position of skilled trade worker senior grade 517 in and creating one classified civil service position of fleet operation supervisor grade 519 in the vision fire and emergency services effective upon passage of council and number four an ordinance amending certain of the budgets of the Lexington Fayette urban county government to reflect current requirements for municipal expenditures appropriating and reappropriating funds schedule number 14 all right is there a motion to approve second motion by Councilmember Henson second by vice mayor Kaye is there any discussion on the motion all right if not then I'll ask clerk to please call the roll Ms. Masati. Yes. Ms. Gatchfield. Yes. Mr. Stinnett. Yes, sir. Ms. Akers. Yes. Ms. Blitzo. Yes. Mr. Fred Brown. Yes. Mr. James Brown. Yes. Ms. Evans. Yes. Mr. Farmer. Yes, sir. Mr. Gibbs. Yes. Mr. Hensley. Yay. Ms. Henson. Yes. Mr. Kay. Yes. Ms. Lamb. Yes, sir. Mr. Maloney. Yes, sir. All right. The vote reflects passage of the motion. and allows us to now move on to number three, ordinance number three. And unless we have a number of citizens who have signed on to speak, presumably to this ordinance regarding the minimum wage, unless there's objection, we'll now have public comment for number three. All right. Now, let me have a word of just a comment on procedure, if everyone here will allow me, please. There are a lot of folks here, and you have a really vigorous interest in the issue. As chair, I have the oftentimes unpopular role of being the procedure keeper, the civility keeper, and the time keeper. So that means that what that translates into is this, that it's our council rules provide for this, that it's not appropriate to cheer or to boo or to applaud or to otherwise demonstrate when anyone speaks. and there's three minutes allotted for each speaker unless someone yields their time to you in which case if you would just tell me when you are at the podium that someone has yielded their time to you we also encourage you to introduce new topics when you've when you're speaking for example if someone has already spoken to the issue or to the particular or had the comments which you're suggesting, which you may have, you might want to let that one go ahead and go along. So, all right, I will begin with Mr. Okay, now you all have to forgive me if I can't read some of the signatures. I'm going to do my best. First is Mr. Morgan. Mr. M.C. Morgan. All right. Is Mr. Morgan? All right. We'll go on then to the next is Janie Moore. Janie Moores? Yes, Janie. And then Patrick Moores. Is this? I can move it closer. Okay. All right. I want to thank you for allowing me to come and speak to you tonight. And I will have some really sad news to tell you in just a minute, but I think you really need to know this. Just by way of introduction, my name is Janie Moores. I'm a native of Lexington, born and raised and educated here. I've owned my business here for over 44 years, getting people jobs. I testify in court as an expert witness in employment matters, so I certainly understand what the job market is here. And in the last 44 years, my business used to send out thousands of W-2 forms every year for all the people that we got work, until in about the last seven or eight years when we were only sending out about 500 or 600 a year. So something desperately wrong is happening in this area of the job market. So you wonder why we're losing jobs here. When I first started my business back in 1971, we had over 20 corporate headquarters, national corporate headquarters here in Lexington, and we don't have anything near that now. We used to pay all of our bills for utilities, any businesses that we work with directly here. Now you know when you mail things off or you pay online, it doesn't stay here in Lexington. So we don't have those Lexington dollars staying here, turning over in the hands of Lexington businesses. And those jobs also went with those businesses moving out of the area. For the sad part, I'm a founding member of the National Association of Women Business Owners. 25 years ago when we started, one of our founding members was the sweet mother of Jim Gray, Lois Gray. And Lois would be so brokenhearted with what happened yesterday. But less than 24 hours ago, the National Association of Women Business Owners, Lexington Chapter, had to dissolve. because we have lost so many members, because there have been so many businesses closing, and that includes women-owned businesses. So this was a very sad day for us. We were losing two-thirds of our members just in less than five years. And we were big employers in this area. So this is happening nationwide. Nationwide, and NAWBO has lost, well, they're down to fewer than 60 chapters now nationwide. So they've lost over 25% of their members. Government reports will show that there have been millions of women-owned businesses closed just in the last five or six years here in the U.S. So, we've got... Janie, excuse me. We've got. I've earlier said that I had this unpopular role of being the timekeeper, so is someone yielding their time to you? All right. Okay, Kathy, thank you. So we're already struggling here. This is the silent thing that no one knew that these women-owned businesses were struggling so. Other businesses, too. So quietly behind the doors of these businesses, they're dealing with issues of meeting their operating costs and their payroll costs. So we can't take another nickel added on to us, which is really what a minimum wage increase would be. It's like another tax on us. And then my final point is that when you increase minimum wage as an unmerited pay raise, pay increase to employees, you send the wrong message. It's an attack against our education system. They don't feel like they've got a vested interest in going to school, studying hard, staying in school. We get more dropouts than ever. If you could let us pause, hit the pause button, and just have a little time to put together a partnership between Lexington businesses and the vocational schools. Nursing assistants are in great demand. My nursing agency, I can't get enough nursing assistants. Within two weeks of training, they're certified, and they make more than what you're proposing at the $10 an hour range. Automotive mechanics go to school for several months and then start working and learn as they're being paid. More than $10 per hour. So I just want to tell you that when I graduated from college with my bachelor's degree and a triple major and was an honor grad, I came out and thought, everybody's going to want to hire someone like me. I couldn't get a job. I finally got a job for minimum wage, $2.10 an hour. In less than a year, I saved up enough money and bought that business, which I have owned now for over 44 years, and have put hundreds of thousands of people to work. So I'm begging you, please do not send the wrong message by increasing this minimum wage. Thank you. All right, thank you, Jenny. Patrick? Patrick Norris. Mr. Mayor. Uh, that lady who's a previous speaker, uh, married me 28 years ago to cut her legal fees, so I just wanted to introduce myself to you all, and I asked one of your counsel over here what was your statutory authority for what you all are about to do, and I was informed that there basically is none other than you didn't see any statute that prohibited this from being done. And is that my understanding that this is being taken place? Of course, you know there's a lawsuit in Louisville, and I don't understand why you are so willing to jump into a lawsuit here, because I have been approached by several businesses to pursue that here, and I just wanted to inquire if you all realize the authority that you do not have to make this position until the Court of Appeals of Kentucky rules on this matter. So I'm urging you to take caution in where you're proceeding and perhaps invoking some needless litigation that's going to be coming here. So that's the only thing I had to say. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Patrick. Thank you. Next, I'll ask State Representative Kelly Flood. Is Kelly here? She may be. All right, if she's downstairs, then we'll go to the next one and ask Kelly to join us. Shannon Bizarre. All right, Shannon. My name is Shannon Bizarre from Lexington. And I was actually surprised tonight because my son is 18, and he and his friends were outside tonight playing basketball. I said, well, I don't think you guys are going to be real happy where I'm going tonight. I'm going to downtown to post the minimum wage. And I said, because I know you guys, it's hard for you guys. And been there, done all that. Well, I was actually surprised. They were grown, mature boys, and they absolutely knew what I was talking about. And they completely understood how important it is that we don't do that. And in order to protect our small businesses and their future careers and their ability to be able to move up in the world. So I do stand here to oppose it and hope that you'll vote no. Thank you. Thank you, Shannon. Freddy Peralta. Good evening, Mayor, Councilmembers. I am a small business owner for more than 25 years in Lexington. As such, I have to deal every day with finding customers, buying merchandise, providing services, and trying to struggle to make a living. But I think part also of my responsibility is going to be with the people that work with me every day. If my business is going to depend just on having low pay rate for my employees, probably I should be doing something else. I should be sharing the hard work and also I should be providing for the people that are working with me. That is very important. We need to, together we do that, we spend 40, 50, 60 hours a week together. And we meet together trying to make it. The sense in other businesses, if they are going to be in business just because the workforce, they are being paying $7.25. I don't think that business would try to keep going. $7.25 doesn't help a family, people having to work two, three jobs trying to bring their food to the table. Contrary to what I heard just a second ago, I think that in this time we got an unemployment rate less than 5%. Lexington actually is doing very well in that particular direction. I think that we got more jobs going there, more businesses coming to Lexington. And we cannot just think about only the very nice things that are happening here, the whole races, the key land, the good life. Forget about the rest of the people that are here living in Lexington with a lot of needs. We are trying to build a community together, and you guys have done a tremendous job. Under your leadership, Mayor Gray, we have been moving very positively in our city. I think that we need to keep going that direction. It doesn't have to be just about the business owner and the people that are on the top. We have to think about the whole community. It is important that we provide the minimum necessary for the people that are here living with us also have something to do and have a better chance in life. Keep in mind, and I hear a lot about the market, how it will be bad, that when people are paid minimum wage, that also implies they have to go to food stamp. So in a way, the government is subsidizing those businesses through all the complementing the needs of those people. So it is very important to keep that in mind. Supporting and approving a minimum wage is very important for our city. Thank you. Thank you, Freddy. Next, Representative Kelly Flood. Good evening. Thank you so much for bringing this vital question to our community. Of all the things that will be said tonight by all the good advocates here, those for and against the minimum wage increase, I want you to know that as a member of the General Assembly, I see this as a moment where government needs to lead. We have made it through the worst great recession in our lifetimes, and we have turned the corner. And this is a moment to make sure that as we move forward, we make sure we're bringing everybody along in the good, good economy that is growing before us. I have enormous hope for where we're at. The recent unemployment numbers just out today by the governor were stellar, and we should be proud. It is a moment we can say yes. It will take courage, and we will have to be in it together for those who might have to seek new employment from a transition in all that would occur. But the good work of government comes through when we make decisions like this. I ask for your support, and I thank you for this conversation and deliberation. Thank you. Thank you, Kelly. And next is Stephen Katz. Steve Katz, 113 Clyde Street. Over the last eight months that this council has been deliberating this ordinance, I've spoken several times. My opinion has not changed. I would like to thank all the council members that have supported this ordinance, and I would like to beg the six that have not so far to reconsider because this community desperately needs this. One out of five workers in Lexington will directly benefit from this. Our community can stay together. The minimum wage in 1968 was worth a full third more than it is today in terms of purchasing power. In particular, the costs of housing, health care, child care, and education have gone through the roof. People have no discretionary income. If our community is to stay together and those people can contribute to the economic growth of this community, we need this help. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you, Mr. Katz. Next is Bob Quick. My name is Bob Quick. I'm President and CEO of Commerce Lexington. Commerce Lexington has a longstanding position of opposing local wage mandates that exceed federal or state guidelines because of the competitive disadvantage it would place on Lexington's economy and our ability to create jobs. We continue to urge more study on this issue and a delay of action until after the Kentucky Supreme Court decides the Louisville case. We also continue to believe that investments in education and training are the best ways to provide a better income for working families. Commerce Lexington is committed to continuing to work with Council members to find alternative solutions, solutions, policy to solutions that will help lift families out of poverty without hurting local job providers and placing Lexington at a competitive disadvantage. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Bob. Next is Steve Polston. Thank you, Mayor of Council. I appreciate being here, and I represent a homeless day center located downtown. We're a daytime center. Some of you know about that. Some of you have been there. I appreciate the interest you've shown in that. The day center puts about 150 people a day off the streets inside our day center. We do a lot of things that focus on getting them permanently off the street. We've been operating that since 2011. And so in that time, we have gotten about 500 people into jobs and housing. So we have focused heavily on jobs. We're a faith-based organization. We focus on jobs and housing. So in that time that we have operated, and the people that have gotten jobs, we have noticed one thing that stands out, and this is not a Harvard economic analysis. It is a simple but ongoing observation that people that make $7 an hour, $7 to $8 an hour, do not tend to stay in the jobs. People that make, there's kind of a magical number that we see, and that is about the double digit, about $10 an hour. Those people tend to stay in the jobs. They will get the jobs, and they will, to a much larger and noticeable degree, they will keep those jobs. So I'm focused on that. I am a conservative Republican. Thank you. You're welcome. I am a former board member of the state chamber. I have spent a career running medium-sized corporations doing corporate turnarounds, so I have a little experience with employees. And I feel like I speak here in favor of this minimum wage increase to $10 an hour. I think it would be a step forward for the people at the bottom of the pile, and I believe that our experience bears that out. So I urge you, counsel, to vote in favor of this ordinance. Thank you. Thank you, Steve. Next is Christian Torp. Good evening, council members, mayor. Thank you for this opportunity to speak. My name is Christian Torp. I live at 552 Elm Tree Lane. I urge you to do the right thing and to look out for the less fortunate here in the city. I myself am a small business owner, and while the top income earning, wage earning percentage of our country has seen their earnings go up in figures of magnitude over the last 40 years. Minimum wage earners, lower wage earners have seen their wages fall again and again or just remain flat. Those same people who have seen their wages increase by orders of magnitude these last 40 years in a large way are also the same people we have to thank for our catastrophic economic events. Wall Street and the bankers, we can thank for the fall of 2008, but their wages are still increasing in the lease of those. Those people who have their homes foreclosed on and everything else haven't seen their wages rise. Thank you very much, and please stand and do the right thing for the less fortunate here in Lexington and increase the wage. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Torp. Next is Don Cloyd. Hello again, everyone. I'm Dawn Cloyd, and I've spoken to you a few times before, so I'll try not to belabor and repeat points, but I did want to clarify a few things. First of all, there was apparently a misunderstanding. I had a correspondence with Mr. Gibbs, who took a little bit of offense at an email I sent earlier today, and I do apologize. I did not attend offense. He said that he had run a successful restaurant business for a number of years and simply dealt with the wage increases that he had had to endure by raising prices. And that's not a bad thing. That's a pretty normal thing. That's what business owners do when their costs grow up is they raise prices. And he wasn't a mean, greedy person for doing it, and that's what everyone will do. And so at Newton's Attic, our educational nonprofit where we serve hundreds of families in Lexington, families that are raising young families with lots of children, our prices will have to go up. It will hurt those families. And the only people who make minimum wage, actually nobody makes minimum wage at Newton's Attic. We pay a little bit above to our youngest employees and go up from there. The only people who make anywhere close to minimum wage at Newton's Attic are people who are in high school that live at home. I take a greater risk in hiring them. I have to train them a lot more. I have to manage them much more closely. Many of them don't even drive, and I have to correspond with their parents about getting them there. So hiring a young person who is not experienced is a much greater burden on a business owner. People will pay more voluntarily. Mr. Volta is very welcome, and the other business people who spoke are very welcome to pay their employees more. There's nobody stopping them. But to force people to do it forces them to increase their prices and hurt the very people you are trying to help. So it has perverted, unintended consequences. The other thing Mr. Gibbs misunderstood, he said I must not value our employees. I value them greatly. I value them so much I'm willing to sometimes drive them home and pick them up from home. But they are young. The only people who make those wages are the young people. So this is going to, in effect, be inflation for everybody else. People who have earned their money in the past, whose incomes aren't going to go up as a result of this, are going to have higher prices across the board. Everybody who endures this will have to raise their prices. So it's going to be a cost increase for the rest of us. And then finally, I wanted to say that I spoke to a couple of business owners today who would have liked to have been here. One of them was a restaurant owner who felt that it was not safe for him to come speak because he smarted off to a health inspector once who asked his bald employee to wear a hairnet. and since then the health inspector has been after him and he felt like he already had a target on him so as much as he opposed this he didn't feel like he could come here and speak tonight. Another fellow business owner feels like I do is that you feel like you're being put in a position of being a meaning greedy. None of us are meaning greedy. We want the best for Lexington and I don't think anybody should assign ill intentions. So thank you very much and I hope you will oppose it. Thank you. Thank you, Dawn. Next is Dustin Pugel. Pass. All right. Next is Lee Collins. Is Lee Collins here? All right. Next is Tom. I said I was going to have some trouble with reading some of these, you all, so forgive me. Lipinski? Is Tom Lipinski here? All right. Yeah. All right, sir. Hi, my name is Tom Lipinski. I'm a retired engineer, 74 years old, started working when I was 14. And the thing is, I have never worked for minimum wage. I have always worked for maximum wage. And that is what I think people need to do. Maximum wage was $0.10 a 20-foot bin picking tobacco in Connecticut. It was $0.65 an hour being a drugstore clerk and a fountain jerk. It was $55 an hour or week as an office boy. It was $78.60 a week with a child on the way. $100 a week as an engineering technician. And I decided this was crap. I looked around at people who were making more, and I figured out, you know what? The difference between them and I is they had a better education. So I took myself. I found a nighttime job. I had two children, a house with a mortgage. and I went to school. And I'm pleased to say that I've enjoyed a wonderful career. Now, you say, well, everybody can't do that. Well, I think everybody can. Because if I can do it with two kids and a mortgage, I think anybody else can. But I was not happy earning that minimum wage. Whatever minimum was for me, that was too little. I don't want people to be comfortable with their wage. I want them to be driven. I want them to strive to be the best person they can. What about the people who don't have better skills? Have you been to one of these automated restaurants, fast food places? That's what's waiting for them. My career was in automation. I'll tell you what companies do when they try to decide whether they automate or not. They say, how much is it going to cost me to do this, and how much am I going to save? Raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour like they did in Seattle, you'll see an awful lot of those jobs automated. I'm going to ask you to vote no on this. It's not being hard-hearted. Believe me. I've come the hard way. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Lipinski. Adrienne Grizzell. All right. Thank you, Adrienne. Don? I'm going to be shy. We have a way to yield in the future. Yes, ma'am. You have someone you want to yield to? Yes, we share thoughts. All right. All right. Don Pratt. 210 Walton Avenue, Lexington. I, being a student of economics and a small business owner, And as both, but also a single parent, activist, and human being, this support of higher wages is easy. I, too, earned probably an adult wage as a 14-year-old simply by contracting. I doubt that I've ever made a minimum wage since then. Because every job is a struggle, but so many people's work is a harder struggle than yours and mine. And I would assume that the figure that was given earlier, one out of five, lives below the poverty level or needs a higher wage than they're getting right now is accurate. it. Our economic system primarily benefits those that control the resources or the means of production or the wholesale or retail means of the exchange. Our government was built and started by and for the people, and over time I've seen a substantial need of our government being that. However, our government, just like you all will know, is dependent upon elections. Our national and state governments have also been dependent on elections, and those people are primarily bought by the people that control our means of production, our resources, and our means of exchange via wholesale and retail. As a businessman, I saw the corporatization of businesses that competitively drove small businesses out. That damage did hurt small businesses and some means of receiving a fair and equitable salary. But even their pricing hurt the consumer, and most wage earners are consumers. You, as government by and for the people, need to represent those people who are part of your support as elected official. I am sorry we're in this position of needing to vote for them, but obviously the lobbyist and the power of money in elections has taken away the power of consumers to receive equitable wages in many, many cases. I represent a rise that is probably larger than $10.10, but I'm not going to say right now what should be. I say thank you for listening and do the right thing. All right. Thank you, Don. Next is Wes Eklund. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, council members. My name is Wes Eklund. I live in the 3rd District, and I'm 24 years old. I'm a computer programmer, and just a little bit of background. My mother raised me by herself. She's from Panama. It took her six years to become a citizen, so she's a naturalized citizen. On her side, I'm a first-generation citizen, so I'm a very proud Latino-American. and it wasn't always easy for us. I had to get a job right when I was 16, fast food, at minimum wage. A lot of people here tonight will come up here and talk about myself as a demographic. When I went to UK, I had to always work summer jobs to pay my bills, rent, car, gas, electric. and I am extremely fortunate that I was able to have a job at minimum wage. I will say that I would have said that when I was 16. I would have said that when I was studying at UK, that I was very fortunate to have a job. The council member that's in my district, Council Member Gibbs, has talked about your kids and being worried about providing for them and hopefully they need to have more pay and things like that. Well, I'm very fortunate to have had a job And I'm very worried about the next generation of young people, especially UK students and transi. College students in general, I'm very worried that they may not have a job. A business owner might just go next door to Scott County or Jessamine County. And as a student, having to drive there for the summer to pay my bills, I just don't see how that would be possible. I'm really, really worried and passionate about my friends who are still students to make sure they can keep a job. There have been members on the council that have said that people have come up here and there's no guarantee that jobs will be lost, even though many have said that there will be. Well, I'd be willing to yield the rest of my time if someone before me can guarantee that there will be jobs next year for U.K. students. If you can give me that guarantee, then I'd be happy to yield the rest of my time. But like I said, I'm very blessed to have had a job while I was working to provide for myself and my mom. And if we raise the minimum wage, we may not have that ability. I just want to touch on, now that I've kind of talked about from a student and as a young person, I just want to also touch upon the business aspect. And if I can, I'm going to have Randall Stevens yield my time. Okay, great. Thank you. I am extremely blessed to be in Lexington. The past four or five years, we've seen an enormous boom in the economy. just this year, what, maybe I'll say a dozen maybe new restaurants and bars that have opened up. I love it. I love being here, and I'd love to stay here in Lexington. It's really exciting, and I know that we can do more. I feel like this minimum wage ordinance is going to hamper the progress that leaders that are sitting here tonight have worked so hard to do and to try to accomplish, I'm extremely proud of that, and I'd rather not see it hampered by this minimum wage ordinance. One thing that's been mentioned when it relates to businesses is labor costs, that labor costs is going to go up for certain businesses. But I think something that hasn't been mentioned in previous sessions is the fact that revenue is also an equation to this. What's a good ratio of the customer base for restaurants and bars here in Lexington? They're college students. If we raise the minimum wage, not only businesses are going to have to face labor cost issues, but now students aren't going to have work to actually spend some money on the side to go to these places. So now you're putting these small businesses, these mom-and-pop restaurants, in a double whammy. the revenue and the additional labor costs. So if I've said anything here tonight is that as a young person, I really appreciated the ability to work, and I hope that future young people will have the ability to do so. So I urge the council to please make the appropriate decision. Thank you for your time. All right. Thank you, Wes. Next is Roy Harrison. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Vice Mayor and other council members. I want to thank you for consideration of increasing this minimum wage here in Fayette County. Raising the minimum wage by this very modest amount over three whole years will improve our economy, actually, strengthen our communities, and move the country closer to a space where we need to be. Minimum wage increases immediately go into our economy Study after study has shown that the money comes back As a share of total income, minimum wage employees turn their wages right back into our local economy That's going to go into our restaurants, that's going to go into our shoe stores, that's going to go into our bars That's going to stay right here in Lexington These workers can now pay out-of-pocket expenses and the basic expenses of living and raising a family here in Lexington without going deeper into debt. A lot of these families are struggling to pay their bills as it is without going into debt. If they can't pay their bills living in Lexington, they're going to leave. Further, study after study has shown that the modest increase does not increase unemployment. It does not. If the concern is that raising the minimum wage will tank our economy, then that concern is unfounded. Additionally, families who can afford to live in the communities they work in strengthen this community. Economically speaking, the prices of goods and services are stickier than wages of those employees who produce them. Allowing a family to have an income that matches inflating expenses ensures that children have parents with reduced commutes, less stress, and more time. Educational and social outcomes improve, and the burden on our educational and social support systems, funded in part by the city here, our state overall, and nationally, reduce. Finally, raising the minimum wage will send a message to our leaders elsewhere. We all know the ultimate goal has to be a national increase in the minimum wage. But our national leaders are gridlocked beyond relief, news to no one. The responsibility to lead then falls on our local communities, and honestly, the men and women of this council. So I strongly encourage you to support this wage increase. Thank you. Thank you, Roy. And I'll ask Bruce Lane next. Hello. My name is Bruce Lane. I've been living in Lexington since 1978. I grew up in eastern Kentucky. It's not a prosperous part of the world, but I had a really good public education there. And I graduated in 78 and fell into probably a really horrible economy. It was stagflation, if you remember that. I skipped my high school graduation, and I hopped on a Greyhound bus and went down to Elgin, Texas, a little town in Texas just outside of Austin. And I got a job as a lab technician there, and it was a minimum wage job. There was a little nepotism involved. My uncle owned the company, but I felt like I was a geek in high school. Math and science ate it up all I could get. But when I got down there, I thought, well, I'm really going to shine here, give them great value for their money. And in retrospect, I think I did. But I also look back, and I can think of several things where the technical part of that job wasn't the important part. It was the job experience that was important, and I had none, and they took a big risk getting me that job. And back then, minimum wage was $2.65 an hour. Of course, I was just out of high school. My needs were not that great. I was living with my aunt and uncle, so I didn't really need to make a fair living wage, per se. But I was gaining very valuable job experience. And looking back on that through almost 40 years of career, I'm not so grateful for the people who provided a minimum wage for the minimum wage. What I'm grateful for is that someone didn't set a wage so high that I was priced out of that job. I'm oftentimes amazed, being an engineer, that I tend to see the world in a rational view. But I see a lot of people who advocate for something like, say, carbon tax credits because they feel that, well, this is going to be a government mandate that forces businesses to use less carbon and emit less carbon. But a lot of those same people, for some reason, think that forcing higher wages won't reduce in lower employment of the very people who are starting their jobs. I really want to speak for those people. I think, you know, when I was that age, I would never think to come here and speak to you about this. But I think those people do need a voice. And what they really need is a job, a place where they can gain some employment experience and then move on up. By the end of my $2.65 an hour summer job, I was making $3.25 an hour. So I've never had a minimum wage job since then. But I'm really grateful that I had the opportunity at the time. So I'm asking you, please, don't take away those job opportunities for the people who need a head start getting a job. So thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Lane. Senator Reggie Thomas. Mayor and Council, thank you for allowing me to have a few minutes to have an opportunity to speak. First, let me say that you might be surprised that I'm here, but this issue is far bigger than one man's problems and impacts a society of people that deserves to be heard and deserves opportunity for a better life. First, a few facts. Study after study shows that 60% of all minimum wage workers are women between the ages of 20 to 29 with children. So what that tells us is that a minimum wage benefits both women and families. Secondly, study after study shows that the people who receive minimum wage put that money back into the economy. They don't invest it in stocks or equities or bonds. They spend that money. So what we know from the minimum wage and increasing minimum wage is this. that, one, it helps people get a better life so they can feed their families, put a roof over their children's heads, and put clothes on their back. Secondly, that money goes back in the economy that helps businesses provide jobs and create jobs for other people. Councilman Masati, when she first raised this issue, We talked about how the minimum wage was created in 1938. And President Roosevelt at that time when he signed the minimum wage said that, I want to create a wage that allows people to be able to take care of their families and to sustain themselves. Mayor, that was true in 1938, and that remains true in 2015. What we want to do, and I admit as a state senator, that it would be better if the state enacted this law. I've been a strong proponent of minimum wage on the state level ever since I got elected. The state has not acted yet, and I hope in this 2016 session that we do pass a minimum wage. I want to say that publicly. But I have a strong belief that two things. We have to honor the dignity of work. People rail against government programs and talk about how bad government programs are. But this legislation provides people with a hand up, not a hand out. These people believe in the dignity of work and believe that through their own hard efforts, they can raise their bootstraps. So I urge you, Mayor, and this council to support this legislation and send a signal to Frankfurt that we need to get our act together. and as a state also pass an increase in the minimum wage. Thank you. Thank you, Senator. And next is Mr. Alvin Brown. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Councilman. I appreciate that you allow me to add my two cents. there'll be some people who wake up tomorrow to make minimum wage they probably won't have a penny. People wake up every day that have to compromise their hard efforts for work or sometimes they often don't have monies to pay car insurance, don't have money to pay for items that they need for other family members. We all know that living in today's society that it is very difficult because of the hardships that comes with not having enough monies. We also live in a technology world where you have to have this item at all times called a cell phone. People do not have the money always to have cell phone. And it is important for us to look at this minimum wage audience to be able to say that there are people out there, as the Senator just said, that need a lift up. Mayor, your family owns a construction company here in Lexington, and the wages that those men and women make working for your family company, that they are able to live a comfortable lifestyle because in that area, that sector of work, they generally make $15 or $16 an hour. So they're able to live a comfortable lifestyle. The one thing that you shouldn't be intimidated by is the lawsuit that is taking place in Louisville. Louisville is not going to beat us in football our basketball, and they're not going to beat us on this audience. Mayor, you're the quarterback to your right, your offensive team, to your left is your defensive team. And I think that you guys, as a team, can vote and pass this audience. Mayor, before you will be a vote to be able to accept the vote of your members. or you have before you a veto. Vote with your heart. Do not veto, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Brown. Next is Richard Mitchell. Is Mr. Mitchell here? All right. If he is downstairs and comes up, then we'll go back to Mr. Mitchell. Mr. John James. Is Mr. James here? Yes. Good evening, council members. Mr. Mayor, I'm John James. I live in the 12th District. I'm a farmer by occupation and an agribusiness owner by choice. I recently started my business. I have no employees at this time other than myself. With aspirations to grow my business, looking at hiring employees in the future, paying minimum wage, never figured into it, as it's a fairly specialized business, requires education, high amounts of skill. But as such, with a boost in the minimum wage, there would be a natural requirement to boost the wages of whomever would be working for me, including on the farm, where we do pretty minimal labor that nobody wants to do, let alone for minimum wage. to have to boost the wages. I can justify a lot of other things rather than hiring employees. Better equipment, more efficient equipment, larger equipment. The list goes on and on. And it's unfathomable to me to have to increase wages because I'm forced to. If somebody is worth that money, then they deserve it. And we have too often had workers who can't do the job. But our farm, we supply $9 an hour starting out, plus housing for the employee. And too often we have not been able to hold on to our employees because they just can't cut the mustard. We aren't very, unfortunately, we aren't very good at educating our employees. It's a hard fact. But I think that if you really want to help the employment base of this area, you should try to find a way to educate the people who are making minimum wage so that they can better themselves that way. Thank you for your time. Thank you, John. All right, Vivian Bowman. Mayor Jim Gray and the Lexington Council. My name is Vivian Janet Bowman. I am a Kentucky Certified School Teacher, a graduate of Western Kentucky University with a Master University degree. I live in the 10th District here in Lexington. I am not a sexually active person. I do no sex to get employment or to get anything. I am a celibate person who is not gay. Some teachers in the Fayette County Public Schools and the principal of Cassidy Elementary School have told me they have blackballed me from employment in the Fayette County Public Schools because I do no sex. These women employee educators have told me to get married, live with a man, do sex with people, and you will have employment in the Fayette County Public Schools. I want Mayor Jim Gray and the Lexington Fayette County Council to know how much I object to this malicious, degrading, unlawful activities by these unethical women educators and what they are doing to me in the Fayette County Public Schools. They wanted to do forced prostitution and trafficking on me for the purpose of sexual exploitation, so to inflict severe humiliation on me and to mimish human dignity. I want you to read the liar words written about me by Rhonda Pfister, principal of Cassidy Elementary School. She writes her liar words because she knows I do no sex, that I am a widow, my children are grown, and I live a celibate life. This malicious principal woman wants to lie and say there was pictures taken of me with boys only. Rhonda Pfister is liar. There is no such picture taken of me with boys only. What this immoral, unethical educator is trying to insinuate is dirty and malicious on her part. We need your time. Thank you very much. And Mr. Mundy will... Sir, may I just have one question? I explain that because I have a question. There is ordinance here in Lexington protecting gay people from discrimination in employment and housing. I am asking you, please, to extend this ordinance to protect me because I do no sex. I am a celibate person who is not gay. All right, we'll do our best to help. Thank you. All right, next is Leanne Bell. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Bell, you are speaking on the minimum wage, right? Yes, sir. Thank you. And if you'd also give your address. Give your address, please. And I would need to ask everyone, when they speak, please give your address as well. Time. We need to correct the time also. Go ahead. My name is Leanne Bell. I live at 1155 Horseman's Lane, apartment 49. I am a single mother. I have a two-year-old daughter that I raised alone. I'm a full-time college student. I work part-time, and I make $7.25. I want to see Lexington workers earning enough to support our families. I grew up in a single-parent household. It was just me and my brother and my mother. I watched my mother struggle years trying to raise us both by herself and help put us both through college. All of us parents making lower wages, we have things that we have to pay. With making $7.25, it's hard to manage paying rent, car insurance, car payment. If you have a car that you have to pay a car payment, it's hard to make ends meet at the end of the month after you pay all your bills. You have to consider people like me who are single parents with such young children that aren't in school. Child care is very expensive. Child care is $125 a month. If you add that up, that's $525 a month just to have someone watch your child while you do go to work and only make $7.25 an hour. By the time you get your paycheck, that's gone. You take it all in child care. It's actually more in rent in some places. This isn't just about me. I was able to come up here because I had my sister watch my daughter for me. She came and dropped me off so I could come up here. Not everybody has the support system that I have with helping with my child. I have a lot of friends who work in a lot of fast food restaurants. They make $7.25 an hour. They're working 40 to 50 hours a week and still are not bringing home enough to even put enough groceries in the house to last all month. I'm here for everyone. I'm not just here for myself. I have several family members who are single parents, and it's very hard for them to make it, just make a minimum wage. So it's time to raise Lexington wage, and I appreciate you letting me speak. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Leanne. Next is Richard Mitchell. Richard, thank you. Yes, sir. I'm Richard Mitchell, 206 Shady Lane in Lexington. I want to thank each of you for considering the increase in Lexington's minimum wage to $10.10 per hour. This is a modest but long overdue increase. With this increase, low-wage workers will recover a fraction of the wages they would have received if their wages had tracked with increases in productivity that American workers have achieved over the past 40 years. This raise will not close that gap between what workers are paid and the wealth their work produces, but it is a start. It's also an important step toward another goal that is basic to a just society. Workers who work full-time should not be in poverty. To those of you who already support this increase in the minimum wage, thank you. To those of you who have not yet made up your mind, this is an essential issue. Please consider it carefully. This is one thing you can do to make our city a better place to live, a place that honors work by mandating fair compensation. Thank you very much. Next is Sarah Martin. Good evening. Thank you, Mayor Gray. Thank you, Councilmembers. My name is Sarah Martin, and I am the current steering committee representative of the Central Kentucky Chapter of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. KFTC is a 9,000 plus member led social justice organization and I now stand before you on behalf of the approximately 2,000 members that make up our Central Kentucky chapter here in Lexington. It is with great privilege that I may speak for our members, some of whom filled this room this evening, by saying the following. We are the Central Kentucky chapter of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth and we believe that all of Lexington's workers deserve a wage that can sustain themselves and their families. Our work to raise the wage in Lexington is led by those of us who are ourselves low-wage earners. We have been overwhelmed, yet unsurprised, by the support that Lexington has shown for this ordinance. For we see our city as one of fairness and one of belief in improving the lives of its citizens. From the local media to local business owners to even the people that have recognized assist in our workplaces, offering us encouraging words during this effort. It's clearer than ever that Lexington is ready for raising the wage. We can do this. We thank the council for seeing and honoring the local momentum by holding the line on a $10.10 increase. As the low-wage workers whose lives would be directly impacted by the wage by raising the wage, we say this. We work hard, we make valuable contributions to this community, and we are excited about the possibility of fair wages. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Martin. Next is Melissa Kane. Good evening. My name is Melissa Kane. My address is 3853 Bellawood Drive, and I come to you tonight to thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of Community Action Council, both tonight but also in opportunities leading up to tonight. I am here to ask all of you to support the ordinance and to raise the minimum wage. Out of respect for people behind me who still like to speak, I will be brief. As we have been visible and vocal on this issue many times, I don't want to repeat myself or my executive director and our staff and families that are here tonight. Except I do want to say that there was a question earlier about what is the poverty rate here in Lexington, and it is 20%. So the one in five number is accurate, except that it is a little bit higher for our youngest citizens. Children under the age of five, the poverty rate for them is about 21%. And so a decision to raise the minimum wage actually increases their quality of life, too. There is research and studies that show that this achievement of children whose family income goes up even a few thousand dollars a year does have an impact on their school achievement, but it also has an impact on their future earnings as an adult. And so making a decision tonight to raise the wage actually affects the future very connectedly. We are well aware that raising the minimum wage will not alone end poverty, but it is a good and right first step. We at the council and many other nonprofits work every day to ensure that people have the skills and the necessary training to achieve the goals they have for themselves, even as they are working. And if their minimum wage goes up, then they will have more options for their children that they have at home to be able to make better planning, make better choices for themselves and for their children. It's been said already that about 30% of a family living in low income spends their, with low income, spends their income on rent and other things. And so tonight, if you decide to raise the minimum wage, you give families in that situation more options. Along with our council, Community Action Council, we strongly urge you to raise the wage. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next is Nicole Rodriguez. Good evening. My name is Nicole Rodriguez. I live at 521 East Main Street. The current minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, but the inflation-adjusted value of the minimum wage has fallen dramatically. In other words, it takes more money to meet one's basic need today than it did in 1968, when the real value of the minimum wage in today's dollars was $10.85, an hour 50% above the current level. Over 200 major economists tell us that raising the minimum wage would deliver much-needed improvements to the living standards of 76 million U.S. workers and their families. The average age for these workers is 36 years old, and they have been in the labor force for an average of 17 years. Because of the gridlock at the federal level... And now I lost my page, excuse me. Because of the gridlock at the federal level, municipalities throughout the United States have led their states to raise the minimum wage standards above the $7.25 federal minimum. As a result, 61% of the U.S. population is covered by minimum wages between $7.50 and $9.50. A $13 minimum wage will be operating in Chicago as of 2019. Lexington is part of the 39% who still allows $7.25 per hour. Opponents of the minimum wage increases frequently argue that such measures will mean fewer employment opportunities for low-wage workers because businesses will be less willing to hire workers at the increased wage level. But the weight of evidence from the extensive professional literature has for decades constantly found that no significant effects on employment opportunities result when the minimum wage rises in reasonable increments. This is because the increases in overall business costs resulting from a minimum wage increase are, for the most part, modest. And to those in the fast food industry who are complaining about having to weather through increased costs for eggs and meat, We must acknowledge that factory farming is unsustainable and the impact of climate change requires greenhouses to transition to a primarily plant-based diet. That will be the next wave in eating habits, and it will continue to grow our local farmers markets. Pay your workers a living wage, and they can afford to eat well. Healthy employees lead to less absenteeism, lower turnover costs, and better customer service. Will someone please yield their time? To me. If not, I'll stop there. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. All right, next is, I'll ask George Brown, Representative George Brown. Good evening, Mayor, members of the Council. I come tonight to speak to the issue of the minimum wage across the Commonwealth of Kentucky. I think it's very important that we think in terms of the impact of this measure on the citizens of our community. And I would like to hearken us back to look at history. History tells me, as I have studied it, that after the Great Depression, as my colleague Senator Thomas spoke about FDR and the New Deal and what occurred in moving this country forward, the great society that we have become, that it was incumbent or important for working class people, of which I contend everyone in this room is a working class person and we're working poor. Poor people have money in their pockets and they will spend it. It is my understanding of the minimum wage that we need to put more money in circulation. I've heard over and over again that the stimulators of the economy are small business people and large business people. And I contend that small business people and large business people are not in business out of the goodness of their heart to provide goods and services to the citizens. They're in business to sell goods and services, which increase and gins up the economy and puts money into their pockets in the aspect of net income. So I ask you to have the courage, to the intestinal fortitude to stand up, as I will ask my colleagues in the General Assembly and the House to stand up. We passed the minimum wage last year. It did not come out of the Senate, but it is the right thing to do for the people of our state. If we're going to be a great community, if we're going to be a great state, it is important, in my opinion, that we take care of the least of ours. A problem that I saw while I was sitting in the seats that you're sitting in is that we have a class of people in our society called the working poor. People that have to work two and three jobs to just make ends meet. All of us want what's best for our families and for our community. I ask you all to do the right thing, and that is to raise the minimum wage for the citizens of Lexington Fayette County. Thank you very much. Thank you, Representative Brown. Next is John Prescott. Hello, my name is John Prescott. I live at 419 Transylvania Park here in Lexington. I've lived in Lexington for about two years now, and I moved a business here from the upper Midwest. And part of the reason we did so was because of the cost structure for cities like Lexington. Although there are some extremely well-intentioned people here speaking in favor of this measure, the truth of the matter is that the effect of this measure will be to increase costs in an island surrounded by counties with much lower cost structures. Now, you will not affect the large businesses and, frankly, my business, which is primarily hiring much higher wage earners. But you will affect the costs at the margin, and you will affect the costs of the businesses that are paying the wages of the people that many of the speakers are trying to help here today. This is, in effect, a measure that is a jobs bill for the surrounding counties of Lexington. I urge you to reject this measure, and I'd also like to talk a little bit about this, because a little further. I'm, you know, the average wages that we pay in our company, or we'll be paying as we grow here in Lexington, to the tune of a payroll, hopefully, next year of roughly half a million dollars, or approaching half a million dollars of very high-wage jobs, some over six figures. This is not, we're not directly affected by the minimum wage. But if a body like this in a region increases the costs of those businesses that do employ minimum wage earners, business activity, jobs flee that region, and costs increase for the residents in that area. This is not a recipe for economic growth. It's not a recipe for increased wages for the vast majority of your constituents, and I urge you to reject this. I think personally that the minimum wage, the prevailing wage rate for these kinds of entry-level jobs should be much higher. But the proper place to do that kind of thing is on a national level, where the idea of comparative advantage that was mentioned by the gentleman from Commerce Lexington cannot come into play. If you remember back to your Economics 101 class, these are critical concepts that drive business from places like Lexington and increase companies' costs, reducing wages and reducing income for the population. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Prescott. Jenny Seville. Hi. My name is Jenny Seville, and I own the Botany Bay here in Lexington. I've been a really thriving and growing business over the years, and I'm happy to have a great deal of people, really good people here in Lexington, choose for it to help me run my company and provide the goods and services that our customers depend on us for. I have some pretty good jobs. I don't pay minimum wage to anybody. We start at more than that. But I also have a lot of part-time jobs, and those are like in my $8 an hour range, mostly college students that I employ to help support my core staff to serve our customers. My core staff is just going to have to work harder if you guys do this, and I'm not going to give those college students those jobs. I've heard this talked about here this evening already. I could give you dozens of reasons that this is a bad idea, but I'm going to swiftly touch on the few that this three minutes allows me. One being I firmly and strongly believe in the idea of limited government that our country was founded on. I can think of a million things that you guys don't have statutory authority to do. Just because they're not written down in there doesn't mean you get to tell me everything. You guys are not the boss of me. I'm a grown-up. You're not my mom. You're not my dad. If you want to work for me, I urge you to submit a resume. And you and I can talk based on your unique individualness, what you can bring to me, and a fair way to pay for that. But other than that, it's really not your decision. The other thing I want to bring up is I have five fines for every employee in the forms of taxes and matching, unemployment. You guys might call them fees or extra tax home fines, five fines for each payroll. All of these fines are a percentage of my payroll. All of these government costs go up as well. So you guys get a nice little bump there without really increasing taxes. Kind of cool. There are, and also, I worked through a minimum wage increase when I was a college student. Went from $3.35 to $4.25 an hour. After I'd worked for three or four years at fast food and accumulated some raises, proved my worth as an employee, I was making $4.10 an hour. Minimum wage went to $4.25, so I got to make minimum wage. all over again after all that working and struggle to get out of minimum wage. All of my co-workers became really unhappy people. We went from a fairly happy crew doing a crappy job but trying to have a good time doing it. Nobody had a good time anymore because that guy who started yesterday made the same as me after four years of service. There are a lot of repercussions to a decision like this, But really, I'd like you to, my number one thing is, this is not your decision to make. Thanks. All right, thank you, Ms. Seville. Remember, y'all, remember, please, what I asked earlier about, or shared with you earlier about our council protocols. uh next is Jonathan Mears or Myers you're gonna pay okay all right next then is yielded to is there someone that well i don't see sharon cox i see mac cox is mr all right okay if you're you're on then go ahead sure just give us your name please and address all right I'm a CPA. I work for a natural gas company whose corporate office has been located in Lexington since 1994. We don't receive any income from Lexington. However, Lexington benefits from the fact that we have our corporate offices here. You benefit from payroll taxes, from net profits taxes, from property taxes, all because of our office being here. We have seen the price we receive for the sale of natural gas drop from $15 per 1,000 cubic feet to $2 per 1,000 cubic feet. Okay, that is an 87% decline in revenues. We've been here since 1994. Before we've been through this, before we have survived this before, and yet you are trying to make it impossible for us to do that. $2 per 1,000 cubic feet will not support a $10.10 training wage for somebody new that we are hiring. Now, the minimum wage does serve a very good purpose, and you're going to get rid of that purpose if you pass this law. I'll give you an example. We hired a young man out of high school. Entry level, minimum wage. Today, that young man is our operations manager. He's making in excess of $70,000 a year. That would be a much better outcome for all of you who are making minimum wage than $10.10. But if you get rid of that training portion, that will never happen. Why would you consider it a really good thing to send people to college and have them have these outrageous college debts hanging over their heads, and yet you would consider it a bad thing for somebody to have the opportunity to start at minimum wage and to work up to better than median income? income. We have accomplished that not only for this one example I give you, but for many of the people who work for us. You are giving us a mandate that is more than what our revenues support. Can you also mandate the price we receive? No. Therefore, you are picking on small businesses at a time when the economic climate is terrible for us. And that is an unfair thing to do. I don't know where you think that money comes from, but it's not pulled out of the sky. Yes, I've heard many of you people say it would be great, and we are worth, our time is worth more than $8 or $7. Well, you know, our 1,000 cubic feet of gas is worth more than $2, too. But there is this thing that is called supply and demand, and that is what is controlling our price, and that is what controls the price of labor. So it would be great if you can do that, but you can't. The result of this, minimum wage rates don't only affect the entry level people. They also affect the entire wage scale, as some people have explained already. If you do this, business owners will do what they have to do to save their businesses. They will cut costs where they can, which is going to mean job layoffs. They will add machinery and outsourcing to other companies for less money so that they can survive. For us, the solution is pretty easy. We know we can't afford to do that, so we will simply move our business to a different location. We will move out of Lexington. We will find a local city here who will support us. We've been here since 1994. We've helped support you, but you're not supporting us in our hard times. So, the loss of our jobs, the loss of the wages we pay to Lexington, the loss of the taxes we pay to Lexington, the multiplier for the wages that we pay, for the rents that we pay, for the products that we buy here, we'll all go to another locality. Now, if that is what you are hoping to do, because I'm not going to be the only company who's looking at this, if that is what you want to do, definitely vote for that minimum wage increase. If it's not, then don't. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Sharon. just for the for everyone's benefit there are four more i have four one two three four more citizens who've signed on to speak and then it's been suggested that we maybe that the council would take a break for five minutes maybe ten minutes so we'll now continue with the four who We've signed up to speak, and that begins with Mack Cox. Is Mack here? I am Mack Cox. I live in Richmond at 124 Averwan Drive. I established a business in Lexington about 20 years ago. We've peaked at about 30 employees about seven years ago. We're down to 15, and we're continually trying to shrink. Most of our shrinkage does come from the decline of natural gas prices. I am a geologist. I founded the company that she is speaking of. I spent probably 15 years working out of a pickup truck in eastern Kentucky. Most of the times I couldn't afford a motel room. I slept in the back of that truck. It wasn't easy, but I had a dream. I remember the day that we had enough revenue to actually afford workman's comp. I know that's an entitlement. I was so proud. You don't know how proud I was. I didn't get it. I opted out because the company could not afford it. We've seen terrific increases in government regulation, and this is destroying small business, especially producers. And I notice you opt out the farmers. Why? Aren't farm laborers equally due a justifiable wage? Guess not. I'm a producer as well. I don't have many minimum wage jobs. I have some high-paying jobs. And we would like to thrive and succeed in Kentucky, but government is just making it impossible. Perhaps tomorrow it's time to give up. Thank you. All right. Mr. Ross Farr. Is Mr. Farr here? P-H-A-R. All right. I think I'm reading that correctly. Chris Begley. Well, thank you, Mayor and Council, for the opportunity to talk about this. I'm a college professor, I'm a scientist, and I want to talk a little bit about how you might make this decision. We've heard many anecdotes here, and I'm sure they're all heartfelt and accurate. However, there's an entire body of data out there that has looked at the effects at a much larger level than anyone's individual situation, which is, of course, the kind of decision you're making here. The seminal study in the 90s, Kruger and Card, looked at over 200 studies and determined that these moderate minimum wage increases have no impact on jobs. And there was a 2010 study, for instance, that looked at every single location that had higher minimum wage compared to their neighbors and also found that this job flight to other communities did not occur. So I would urge you, rather than rely solely on these anecdotes, some of which are from folks who have not held minimum wage jobs for a long time or don't provide minimum wage jobs, rather look at these studies by economists, and there are many, many, many of these, that will show that, in fact, that supporting this would be good for the community, and I urge you to support it. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Begley. Last is on my list is LaTosha Bentley. Hello, Council. My name is LaTosha Benton. I live at 529 Bright Avenue. I'm in the 2nd District. I wanted to speak not just for myself as for my dad and my fellow people that are on dialysis and may get a kidney or not. I just got my kidney this year, and this is going to affect me as I've had three years left after getting my transplant to be able to get a job and still to continue to get my Medicare and Medicaid. And if I can't find a job that's going to sustain me, I'm sorry, that will help my needs, you know, to keep me going as the best as I can. And I've tried school, so people keep saying this school, but I've had strokes. I've had brain surgery, hip replacements. I had another transplant before. So the increase will be, what do we call it, a plus for me and people in my situation. I don't know as far as the business community, how that would work for them or for how they said. But I know in my case and people that I know that live with the struggles that I go through to pay for medication or to eat or to figure out if you're going to pay rent or if you're going to try to get a complaint with someone else and try to figure out how to do that. I know that the increase will help a lot. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you, LaTosha. All right. Unless there's objection, Council will now take a 10-minute break. Thank you all. Thank you. Oh, well... If you'll please take your seats, and I'll ask council members to return to the seats. Thank you. Back now? Steve, thanks, buddy. All right, thank you. We're back in what's working now. All right. That's all. That represents all of those who have signed on for public comment, which allows us to move then to the reading of Ordinance Number 3. If there is any, is there an amendment, are there any amendments being offered to Ordinance Number 3? No amendments. No amendments. All right. And clerk, if you'll please read the Ordinance Number 3. Number 3, an ordinance creating Chapter 13A of the Lexington Fayette-Urban County Code of Ordinances establishing a minimum wage in Lexington Fayette County of $8.20 per hour beginning july 1 2016. 9.15 cents per hour beginning july 1 2017 and 10 10 per hour beginning july 1 2018. providing an exemption for agricultural workers providing remedies for employees paid less than the minimum wage and providing for a formal review of the minimum wage honor before july 1 2018. all right thank you clerk is there a motion to approve motion by council member henson second by council member massadi thank you is there any discussion on the motion if you'll please sign on council member farmer thank you mayor i appreciate all the i work with the council had i have admiration respect for each council member and the job that they do. And I appreciate too the job of the public tonight in helping us make a decision. And off topic, I will say I went to Cassidy and it was a great school. When it when it comes to to to this legislation, I, from my point of view, and I heard comments from business people who were giving direct input about the effect that this legislation would have on them and their business. And I'm keen to that input because I think those are the people that help make Lexington work. I understand the calling and I understand the perceived need from the members of the public as well as the members of the council. However, I'm still personally very much a free market economy person. And I believe that this, in its best form, is something that the federal government should take up or secondarily the legislature. We had members of the legislature here tonight, and they were very anxious for us to do this. And I wish I'd found a commitment from them in their commentary to take up and try to work on this issue on their turf. I'm also appreciative of the history that we have in Lexington, the leadership in that history provided by Henry Clay, a great compromiser himself. and to that end and understanding the different I mean if you read into it and there's been compromise made on this legislation by those who proposed it there's been some changes made in the legislation as it was when it was brought forward and then when it was brought back there was not a consensus built among the council there was a consensus built among those proposing the legislation. However, if you delve into it and understand the difference between what a total of 10-10 would make, which is greater than what Louisville will eventually raise their potential rate to, that's a $92 million change of hands of money in some capacity at some level. If you seek a, if you will, a sweet spot or an opportune spot, and you make the commitment which some did not enter this conversation to make that commitment, and I would be one of those people. But if you make a commitment to raise this wage to $9, you help the folks that the proposers of this would like to help, and you mitigate some of the costs to some of the businesses who have said they will eliminate employees, who said that they will move their business, and for whom those changes are unavoidable, at least in those conversation points, and I agree and understand them. And having not really worked the council on this, and I propose without knowing if there's even a second for this, but mine would be to amend what has been given second reading to establish a minimum wage in Lexington County of $8 per hour beginning July 1, 2016. $8.50 per hour beginning July 1, 2017, and finally $9 per hour beginning July 1, 2018. So moved. There's a motion by Council Member Farmer. There's a second by Council Member Fred Brown. So the floor is now available for discussion on the motion. Who wishes to speak to the motion? All right. If not, then we can vote. All in favor of the motion, please indicate by saying aye and voting electronically. Opposed, no. No. All right, let's vote electronically so we can get it all. I'm not seeing the... There's somebody here. Can we get the... There you are. That's a familiar number. Thank you. So the motion fails. Thank you, Council Member Farmer. All right. Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you to all the citizens who participated in tonight's event. I appreciate that very much. On July 8th of 1999, this Urban County Council exhibited remarkable leadership in the face of significant opposition when we passed the Fairness Ordinance. For months and months leading up to that time and that vote, as I sat here with the rest of my colleagues and some that are still here, we heard from numerous groups and organizations, individuals, and businesses who said passing such a groundbreaking ordinance would be, in essence, disastrous to our community and disastrous for Lexington's future. As a result, other counties in Lexington and in Kentucky have followed Louisville and Lexington's lead and passed their own ordinance. lead and others will follow. Four years later, in 2003, again, as a member of the Urban County Council, we enacted Kentucky's first public smoking ban. One news report went so far as to term the council's action as unthinkable. For months leading up to that historic vote in 2003, the Urban County Council again had heard that passing such a groundbreaking ordinance would be in essence terrible for Lexington's future. Businesses would have to close or be forced to lay off employees. Again, as a result, other counties would later follow suit and pass similar legislation. LEAD and others will follow. Unfortunately, in 2015, there is no state or federal Fairness Ordinance, and there is still no state or federal smoking ban, but there is in Lexington. Because the Council did the right thing back in 1999 and in 2003, our community is a better place to live and to work in. This evening, Lexington's Urban County Council is once again standing on the threshold of local history. recognizing the dysfunction of legislators at the state and federal level on the matter of raising the minimum wage lexington's council can tonight take a much needed step forward for those less fortunate in the community by passing the proposed minimum wage ordinance before us if not now when how will the council of 2015 be remembered I hope it is for helping those who need our help, for helping those that need the help the most, and those who are having the political courage to do as we did in 1999 and in 2003. Now is the time to do the right thing, once again for Lexington, and pass the minimum wage ordinance. As I said, lead and others will follow. history has proven that time and time again thank you mayor all right thank you council member sida council member stennett thank you mayor you know i too want to thank my colleagues around the horseshoe i know there's a lot of people up here on this horseshoe who care about other people and that's evident in all the work we do every day mayor i want to thank you too for your comments this morning in the paper and your i agree with you that you know this should have been handled on the federal and state level, for that matter. This council passed a resolution back in the spring that asked the state and federal government to raise the minimum wage. But we never heard from one of our state representatives when we sent that to Frankfurt. Not one, until tonight. We didn't hear from one federal representative. So I encourage everyone in here, contact your representative, because we have 10 people in this city that represent Lexington and Frankfurt. contact them because that's where this should be done. We heard a lot of commentary tonight about how all the studies that have been done over the years since the minimum wage has increased federally and also in some states. In 1997, President Clinton gave the right to states to enact their own minimum wage. But there's never been a study, and not one person can come up here tonight and show a study on local minimum wage and the impact it has on a local community because it hadn't been done. There's not enough data out there to show you what the real impact is. And as a local government and as a local business owner, you know, at 20 years old, I started in business, made $6,000 my first year. I waited tables at night just to get through that first year, just to make sure I could make it. I understand the fight that happens for all of our business owners. And, you know, for some reason, they've been portrayed as the evil ones or the ones on the other side of the fence. But let me tell you something. You can't have employees without employers, and vice versa, to be fair. You need both in this community, and you need both to survive. Every dollar this government spends that we give to nonprofits out there, every dollar we give to our police officers, every dollar we give to homeless people, 84 cents comes from our business owners. 84 cents of every dollar comes from our business owners. We need them as much as we need anyone in this room. And we need everyone in this room to pull together and address the real issue in our community. The real issue is how do we help people move away from making minimum wage and earn the maximum they can earn? How do we do that? We start by addressing each individual situation, whether it be education, whether it be job training, whether it be daycare, transportation, drug abuse, substance abuse, on down the line. We have to create a system within this government. that's our role, to help people make the most they can make. Not focus on the minimum they can earn. Who wants to stay at the minimum their whole life? Let's start helping people, and I know we will. It's in my committee. We're going to make it work. I know some people would rather have this as a first step, and that's okay. This will pass tonight, but we'll continue that fight to actually help people move out of poverty. As Councilman Farmer alluded to, the impact of 1010 on this community is a $92 million shift in money. It has to come from somewhere, and businesses will make it up one of three ways as an economics major and one that around this horseshoe has worked on more economic development in the last decade than anyone, along with the mayor. I'm not excluding you, mayor. I know you have, too, and a lot longer than I have. But the only way they can make it up, labor control, cut jobs, cut hours, increase prices, or cut their profits. Probably the first two are going to happen. That's the only way to make up $92 million in this community. So I'm worried about the same people we're trying to help will pay more for goods and services eventually, not to mention the people in surrounding counties. And Council Member Maloney, you brought this up. How many people will travel here for that extra 10-10? I guarantee you a lot. I guarantee you they'll come to Lexington because they can make 40% more than they can in Jessamine County. That hasn't changed with this compromise on this resolution. But if you change it to $9, as Council Member Farmer tried to do a minute ago, the impact is $43 million less on our economy here. And let's talk about poverty rate. That was mentioned earlier. The poverty rate, based on the 2013 data that we all looked at and saw, was 17.5%. If you raise the minimum wage to 10-10, like we're asking to tonight, it lowers that poverty rate to 16.2%. But if you raise it to $9, it lowers it to 16.5, a 0.3% difference in poverty rate. But it costs an extra $43 million in the economy. That has to be made up somewhere. Not a big difference. I support the nine dollars as I said I would. I know Councilman Lamb, you proposed ordinance to do nine. There was a compromise made. But in the long term, if we're really going to be the community we all want to be, we have to start addressing the systematic issues of why people are at minimum wage. There's a reason. And as I've worked with young couples recently trying to help them make more money, I found that there's a lot of employers that need help filling those vacant jobs. Governor Beshear Tuesday said, let's match open jobs in Lexington with those who are seeking them. And that's what our role should be. And I appreciate everyone who's commented. We've had probably the best public speaking I've seen in a long time tonight, so I applaud you for being diplomatic at the microphone, but bringing some good ideas, new ideas. Thank you to my colleagues. This has been a worthy debate. And even though this is one step there's many more to come that could make our community truly great. So I appreciate Thank You mayor Thank You councilmember standing councilmember Hensley Thank You mayor As many of y'all know I've kind of been cast as the Capitalist member of this group in the media on Twitter. I've had Twitter fights the last week and You know I own the fourth largest IT company in Lexington, the fifth largest design company in Lexington. But I started off as a minimum wage job bussing tables at Ponderosa in London, Kentucky. And my family had made minimum wage. My family has lived on food stamps. I've eaten government cheese. I've eaten government canned meat. And I can tell you that I did not get to the position I'm in by not wanting to achieve something. Minimum wage is not the solution to this. It is to get an education. I have almost 200 hours of undergraduate education. My wife has a Ph.D. in nursing. And you must work and educate yourself to get yourself out of these positions. Now, I know that sounds shallow and harsh, maybe, but it's the truth. And sometimes people don't like the truth. And then the other part of this is that we've been talking about, I see your comments in the audience, ma'am. I'm sorry. That's out of line. That's very out of line. The other part of this is that, you know, the government's getting cast and that we're not helping people and that, as my background, I'm not interested in helping people. After we're through reading this ordinance and it will pass, I'm bringing another ordinance because we're serious about helping people to abate the payroll tax to people who make minimum wage in Fayette County. That's $13 million of abatement back into the economy. If we're serious about this, let's help those people out immediately versus waiting into next year to let this payroll minimum wage increase go through. So I encourage us to read this tonight and read it again in two weeks and get through this and let some immediate relief flow back into this economy. We sat here two weeks ago with a fund balance for almost $19 million in money that were projects that we didn't need funding for or got through quickly under budget. We have the money to put back into the economy as this government. So when we're through with this, there's a walk-on ordinance that I'm going to bring through to the mayor to do a payroll tax abatement for anyone who makes minimum wage in Fayette County. Thank you. All right. Councilmember Lamb. Thank you, Mayor. I, too, have worked on this with my colleague, Councilmember Mazzotti, and I must admit my views have evolved over this year, over the past several months. It's not a simple issue. It is the livelihood of many. When I was a younger single mom, I felt the pain, and I lived paycheck to paycheck. So I learned quickly how to deal with things and where to shop and be able to provide for my son. And I can only imagine how difficult it is now because of the cost of education and child care and health care and how much more difficult. I first came into this debate earlier this year thinking I knew my stance and it was all based on preconceived notions and thoughts. But as I always try to do my best with the issues that come before us, I proactively sought out more information. This council has had presentations. We've listened to all sides of the issues. I've spoken with business managers and owners, and I've spoke with minimum wage workers. I spoke with community organizations who assist those who continue to fall behind, and even though they work hard, we've heard from crowds of voices but i thought my office could focus and look at data and so we did our own research following that research i felt that you know i could make the most well educated and informed decision well it was hard because there's pros and cons and it's still it's not a yes or no answer so i take this into hand what we've heard tonight what we've heard before, all my personal experiences, and I want to work with Councilmember Stenet and my other colleagues here, and we need to work on workforce development. We've got to do that better here. We don't do a good job here, and I know that we're working on it, but we've got to really stick to it. I think that, you know, I was pleased that I've worked with my colleagues to work out a compromise. But, you know, it's hard. I'm not a one-sided person. I listen and examine and take the time to study after considering many sides of the issue. And oftentimes with an influx of information, my positions evolve as I learn. so i i i would hope that we all can take the time to learn and respectfully question others and ourselves as to why we believe things that we do i think that's the one thing that i can take out of this is that everything i've learned from everybody i've spoken to i can't thank everybody for their time that on both sides that they have allowed me to learn from everyone so i am excited for moving forward i look forward to us trying to figure out how we can continue doing the right things in this city and and i appreciate all of the good conversations that we have and i appreciate my colleagues thanks thank you council member lamb vice mayor k thank you mayor I want to start by echoing some of the comments that have already been made and thanking everyone in the public and on the council who have paid attention to this issue given it good hard thought it's been for me this is my fifth year on Council, this has been the most difficult issue I think we have dealt with. There are reasonable views on both sides. There are some differences in perspective that when you follow them out, lead people to different conclusions about what's needing to be done. I want to say a few things about some things that have been said first that simply are not true. because I think the public deserves to hear it as clearly as possible. We were told at one point that the people who stand to see a wage increase are mostly teenagers, and that's simply not true. We were told that people who stand to see a wage increase will be worse off because of a loss of government benefits. Simply not true. We've been told that a minimum wage was never meant to be a living wage. Historically, simply not true. We're told that people will lose jobs, businesses will leave the community, the overall impact will be negative. And while no one can assure that there won't be some individual impact, the vast majority of research, as Chris Pegley told us, rejects these conclusions, including 35 localities starting in 2003 that have raised the minimum wage, where research has been done on the impact and the overall conclusion is no significant negative impact. I also want to cite what the judges have said in the at the look at the circuit level and at the appeals court level about the cases that will be decided by the Supreme Court. This is a report from the Courier Journal. It says many business owners who who testified before the council, said a local minimum wage law would force them not to hire new employees and put them at a disadvantage with southern Indiana and Collar counties. Those opponents also said a pay increase for workers would discourage employers from relocating to the city. Judge McDonald-Berkman said the business group's arguments were, quote, without merit. At the appeals court level, Judge Kramer said, quote, Appellants presented absolutely no argument that they would suffer irreparable injury upon the implementation of the minimum wage ordinance. So I think there are some things that we know that are simply not true. But what do we know that is true? We know that somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 people will benefit directly with the ability to afford better housing, food, and clothing for their families, the ability to pursue education, and many will be less dependent on government support programs. We know that when adjusted for inflation, the current federal minimum wage would need to be nearly $11 per hour to equal its buying power in the late 1960s. We also know that the local economy will benefit from their purchases with somewhere around $85 million added annually to the local economy. So on balance, I look at what we know not to be true. I look at what we know to be true. And I look at the harm that's being done now to the people who work at minimum wage and see their purchasing power declining basically day by day. And finally, this is a community that values quality of life. And we know that quality of life is what is building the economy of our community. We have an opportunity to improve the quality of life for 20% of our population. This is the right thing to do for them. This is the right thing to do for our economy. And I urge my fellow council members to support this proposal. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Vice Mayor Kaye. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Mayor. This has been a long struggle, and I'll echo what Council Member Kay said, that I've been on this council close to eight years now, eight-year mark coming up, and this is by far the most difficult decision I've had to make. because it's not, and we met with an employer yesterday, I did with a couple of colleagues, and I told him my decision does not come from the heart. A lot of my decisions do come from the heart, but this decision does not. It comes from what I see, what I know, and what I've read. And I know that passing this ordinance will have consequences. Employers will have to make adjustments. Some folks may have their hours cut back, but I think Lexington is strong enough to sustain this. I think, you know, I kind of disagree with my colleagues when you look at doing this across the state or the country. We cannot, Lexington cannot compete with the West Coast. Lexington, or Eastern Kentucky, for instance, probably can't compete with Lexington. So Lexington's very fortunate, I think, to have a great economy, lots of jobs, lots of great people that I see work hard every day. So, you know, and I have to admit, in the beginning, I was a big supporter of the $9 an hour. But then when we made the compromises and the tip wages were taken out and the CPI, then I was okay with going with the 10-10. I also know that as we move forward, we get past that $9 an hour mark, and we feel like it is being detrimental to our city, this council can also stop that. So we could end it at $9. Once it gets there, we wouldn't be able to take it away. So it would be a done deal. I also, I'm a big, big supporter of workforce development, and I think that making people, enabling and allowing them to be all they can be. But I also know from my work, from my life's work, that not everyone has the mental, having mental challenges, I should say, intellectual and mental challenges, can never reach their full potential. So it's those people that I care for the most. But they do deserve to make a living wage. And I hesitate to say living wage. I just don't think $10.10 an hour is a living wage. But I believe that it would get you where you need to be. And I've also said government has subsidized low-income workers since 1938. and maybe that somewhere in our history we went wrong. I think our American dream, and I quoted this to some friends of mine, our American dream has left us somewhere along the way, and I hope that we can get that back. We live in a great country, but I believe in Lexington, and I believe a lot in the people that live here. And I know there are employers I met with that said, I don't pay minimum wage. I respect my employees, and I want them to stick around. But I'm almost out of time. So the last thing I will say is that raising the minimum wage will not be the sole source solution for the social issues that exist. We need to continue to work to strive to better everyone. No more unwed mothers, so forth. So thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Hanson. Council Member Maloney. Thank you, Mayor. I want to also echo all the people that have been involved with this, and you all made a great case. And I want to thank the colleagues up here for their statements. And it has been a tough eight months, and I first came out of the box by being concerned about what impact it will have to very low-income people. and the good news is what council member henson says if we have a couple years to look at this and we've got a great social service chris ford and i know in his heart he wants to be sure if we're working with the non-profit that that he keeps a record that we do not end up hurting people like in the chris's house that are looking for jobs when they come off drugs and try to get a job and they find out they can't get a job because of a surrounding neighborhood or not. But I'm going to rely on Chris, and Chris is good at doing that. I'm also going to rely on the Chamber of Commerce. We all need to come together with this to make this thing work. And it's going to be a study process for the next couple of years. And everybody up here has agreed that there needs to be a race. and to me the message we send tomorrow to the public it's not should not be the elected tony this should be the washington dc we're tired of doing your job you got elected to take care of what the people wanted and the people are speaking every day that they're not getting the raise they deserve and it's sad that we don't have politicians that can get along and i think everybody needs to take their party titles down from Democrats to Republicans to help the people that got them elected. And that, to me, what the message should be sent is, Lexington is tired of doing your job, but we are going to do the job. And to me, I think that was very important. And going back to Council Member Stennett, I commend him for what he's, and I agree with what he says, that it's just not the minimum wage. And this city needs to back up and really start helping people get career jobs. And Lutton's a great place to live. And we've got a great university. We've got great partnerships. And I think we need to utilize all that opportunity. And in the next three years, let's send a message to everybody that we can make this work and I think we will make this work. So thank you all very much. Thank you, Council Member Maloney. Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Mayor. It's been a long eight, nine months we have been working on this. And I appreciate so many people who have sent emails to all of us, you know, laying out your positions and why you feel such that way. And I think everybody up here, including myself, wants people to be paid valuable, worthful, livable wages. But we differ on how to get there. And I've never felt it's appropriate for local government to take this on in our kind of regional economy, and I won't support it. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Council Member Bledsoe. Does anyone else wish to speak? Council Member Evans. Thank you, Mayor. I wasn't going to speak, but since you all are all here and this has been such an emotional or economical topic, I simply want to encourage everyone to remain engaged. Just because this is the hot topic, Like, we want to hear support, pros and cons, on all the decisions we're making. We're making decisions every week about how this government operates and the policies that we set for you. So I would encourage everyone to just remain engaged. Hold us accountable. Hold others accountable. Business owners that said there are other things to do and there are ways that we can come together. Because this is not the only answer. It is not the sole answer. I think everyone up here knows that. So we ask, I ask, that those business owners remain engaged and help us, because apparently it seems like it might pass, to help come up with solutions to those concerns. Because we all know people who are making minimum wage that have the potential to do so much more. And we all need to figure out a way to help them get to that point. So this is not a party thing. It's not a conservative or liberal thing. It truly is a role. There is a role and a duty for us all. So I would just truly encourage everyone to remain engaged in this conversation and all the conversations that we have about how we spend your money. And rest assured, I was in a division today, and I won't tell which one, on a tour, but this race will impact the city as well. So we're going to feel this just like business owners, and we're going to have to think of new ways to look at our budgets. So rest assured that we are in this together, even with the business owners. So thank you all for all of your comments. this has been probably the most informational discussion that we've had and and I'm I appreciate it so thank you for for everyone who came and again remain engaged please thank you thank you councilman Evans generally the presiding officer or the chair of this of this body does not speak two issues, but this one is so relevant, and clearly those of you who have been here tonight and come and joined us tonight illustrate that. So I'd like to pass the chair to the vice mayor and for some comments that I would like to offer. First, I too want to express thanks and appreciation to all the members of the council. You have taken a tough issue on, and you've taken it on vigorously, and our entire city should appreciate that. I, like many of you, have paid close attention to the comments and the thoughts of many of our citizens, those of you here tonight, employers, employees. I support this legislation because, on balance, it is the right thing to do. Those in our community who rely upon a minimum wage are long overdue an increase in pay, and if it passes tonight, I will sign it and it will become law. I am on record as having said many times that the minimum wage should be raised and that it is the responsibility of Congress to do it so it applies evenly across the country. But since the Congress has not done its job, our Council and other members of this community have sought a local solution. While a local ordinance is not ideal, there is quite simply no hope in the foreseeable future that Congress will do its job on this important issue. Thank you, Mayor. I'll turn the gavel back to you. Thank you. All right. Is there any further discussion on the motion? If not, then we can vote. Unless we can vote electronically. Oh, it is a roll call. Thank you, Council Member Farmer. This is a roll call, so clerk, if you'll please call the roll. Ms. Massadi. Yes. Ms. Scotchfield. No. Mr. Stinnett. No, sir. Ms. Akers. Yes. Ms. Bledsoe. No, sir. Mr. Fred Brown. No. Mr. James Brown. Yes, sir. Ms. Evans. Yes. Mr. Farmer. No. Mr. Gibbs. Yes. Mr. Hensley. Nay. Ms. Henson. Yes. Mr. K. Yes. Ms. Lamb. Yes, sir. Mr. Maloney. Yes, sir. All right. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. And the vote, is all the votes tabulated? All right. The vote reflects passage of the motion. Yes. Thank you, thank you. All right, once again, thanks to all of you who have joined us tonight. And this allows us to move on to ordinances for a first reading. Number five, an ordinance changing the zone from a single-family residential R1D zone to a high density apartment r4 zone for 1.74 net 1.84 gross acres into a wholesale and warehouse business b4 zone for 2.43 net 2.74 gross acres for property located at 2833 liberty road including individual various variants dr michael gentry and rml construction lp amd council district six number six an ordinance changing the zone from a single-family residential r1c zone to a planned neighborhood residential r3 zone for 0.654 net 0.754 gross acre for property located at 509 513 and 517 pike road including dimensional variances flying dutchman properties llc amd council district 11 number seven an ordinance amending the amending section 21-33 G of the code of ordinances to grant the chief administrative officer the authority to extend the deadline for vacation carryover to the end of a fiscal year provided that certain conditions are met and amending section 2133 H of the code of ordinances to provide the process for payout of vacation leave upon separation of service for employees who have been granted an extension number eight in ordinance amending the authorized strength by abolishing one classified civil service position of staff assistant senior grade 510 in and creating one classified civil service position of permit clerk grade 512 in and reclassifying the incumbent in the division of police effective upon passage of council number nine an ordinance amending the authorized strength by abolishing one unclassified civil service position of public information officer grade 523 e and creating one classified civil service position public information officer grade 523 e in the division of police effective upon passage of council number 10 an ordinance pursuant to section 2-1 a of the code of ordinances of the Lexington Fayette urban County government adopting a schedule of meetings for the council for the calendar year 2016. Number 11, in order to submit certain of the budgets of Lexington Urban County Government to reflect current requirements for municipal expenditures and appropriating and reappropriating funds, Schedule number 15. Thank you. Mr. Clark, are there any motions? Councilmember Bledsoe. I think this is the right time to motion for a walk-on. I'm sorry. Go ahead. No? Okay. This is the motions for any walk-ons. You got it. Councilmember Hensley. Oh, thank you. All right. So I moved a place on the docket under the first reading of the ordinances, is an ordinance amending Section 13.6 of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Code of Ordinances to Exempt Individuals Earning the Established Hourly Minimum Wage from the Occupational License Fee on Earned Wages. So moved. Second. It's a motion by Council Member Hensley, second by Council Member Farmer. Is there any discussion on the motion? Vice Mayor Kaye. Thank you, Mayor. I am potentially in support of this, but I believe that it's actually more complex than it looks. And typically we would put this in a committee for discussion, and so I'd move to amend to place it in the Budget, Finance, and Economic Development Committee. So move. It's a motion by Vice Mayor Kaye to amend. There's a second by Council Member Akers. Is there any discussion on the motion to amend? discussion on the motion to amend all right if not then we can vote on the this is on the motion to amend to put it into what committee budget finance to put the the motion into budget finance economic development now in favor of the motion please indicate by saying aye opposed no no all right you want to let's get a show of hands or let's vote electronically vote electronically please well i'm not able to see all right the motion passes the motion to amend passes that allows us to move back to the original motion as amended Is there any further discussion? Anybody wish to speak to the motion as amended? All right, if not, then we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right, are there any additional walk-ons or suspensions? All right, if none, then we can proceed to resolutions for a second reading. Thank you. ratifying the probationary civil service appointments of Alex Hicks, Operations Supervisor, Grade 518E, 1,750.64 biweekly in the Division of Streets and Roads, effective upon passage of counsel, Lessa Spillman, Safety Specialist, Grade 518E, 1,673.20 biweekly, John Day, Operations Manager, Grade 520E, 1,854.64 biweekly, Christopher Phillips, Operations Manager, Grade 520E, 1,844.72 biweekly, all in the Division of Waste Management, John Saylor, Program Manager Senior, Grade 524E, 2007-11.54 biweekly in the Division of Environmental Services. Karen Tribble, Administrative Specialist Senior, Grade 516N, 21.66 hourly in the Department of Law. Dan James, Human Resources Manager, Grade 525E, 2004-96.88 biweekly in the Division of Human Resources, all effective November 16, 2015. Ratifying the permanent classified civil service appointments of Diane Lewis, administrative specialist grade 513 and 17.965 hourly in the division of revenue effective october 20th 2015 and ratifying the approved council leave of excuse me for tomoy carter public service supervisor in the division of family services beginning november 12 2015 through february 9th 2016. number five a resolution authorizing and directing the mayor on behalf of the urban county government to execute change order number three final to the contract with lagco incorporated For construction of Meadows North and Arlington Public Improvements Project, phase 5C, increasing the contract price by the sum of $7,937.44, from $814,542.04 to $822,479.48. Number six, a resolution authorizing and directing the mayor on behalf of the Irving County Government to execute a lease agreement with Winmar Corporation for office space located at 125 Lyle Industrial Avenue for a three-year period for the Division of Water Quality at a cost not to exceed $403,366.65 per year, subject to sufficient funds being appropriated in future fiscal years. Number seven, a resolution authorizing and directing the mayor on behalf of the Urban County Government to execute a purchase of service agreement with Children's Advocacy of the Bluegrass for extended hours and additional forensic interviews at a cost not to exceed $50,000. Number eight, a resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the Urban County Government to execute facility usage agreements with various youth baseball leagues granting the right to use the Lexington Fayette-Irban County Government's baseball fields in exchange for hosting community youth baseball leagues. Number nine, a resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the Irban County Government to execute a facility usage contract with the Fayette County Board of Education for use of the Northsworthy Auditorium at a cost not to exceed $1,511.50. Number ten, a resolution authorizing the Division of Water Quality to purchase replacement parts for the bar screens located at the Lower Cane Run and North Elkhorn Pump Stations from ENI Corporation, a sole source provider, and authorizing the mayor on behalf of the urban county government to execute any necessary agreement with E&I Corporation related to the procurement at a cost not to exceed $50,451. Number 11, a resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the urban county government to execute change order number 3 to the engineering services agreement with Hazen and Sawyer PSC for sanitary sewer assessment reports and sanitary sewer and wastewater treatment plant remedial measures plans for consent decree implementation, extending the contract term through fiscal year 2017 at an estimated cost not to exceed $390,000 for fiscal year 2016 and $780,000 for fiscal year 2017 subject to appropriation of sufficient funds in fiscal year 2017. Number 12, a resolution authorizing and directing the mayor on behalf of the urban county government to execute certificates of consideration and any other necessary documents and to accept deeds of easement and permanent right-of-way from owners of record for property interests needed for the Haven Court Stormwater Improvement Project at no cost to the urban county government. Number 13, a resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the urban county government to execute change order number two final to the contract with Lexington Quarry Company for the Southland Drive bike lane project, decreasing the contract price by the sum of $6,229.71 from $674,194.73 to $667,965.02. Number 14, a resolution authorizing and directing the mayor on behalf of the urban county government to execute a memorandum of understanding with seed leaf for reduction of food waste material at the landfill at a cost not to exceed $20,000. Number 15, a resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the Irving County Government to execute change order number one final to the agreement with Howell Contractors Incorporated for the Wolf Run Pump Station Relocation Contract B, decreasing the contract price by the sum of $208 from $4,228,435 to $4,228,227 and extending the contract term from December 10, 2013 through January 27, 2015. Number 16, a resolution authorizing and directing the mayor on behalf of the urban county government to execute an amendment to the agreement with Tetra Tech Incorporated for annual program management services for consent decree implementation and MS4 permit compliance, extending the initial term of the agreement until March 31, 2016, at no cost to the urban county government. Number 17, a resolution authorizing and directing the mayor on behalf of the urban county government to execute an agreement and any related documents awarded pursuant to RFP number 26, 2015, with K. Norman Berry Associates, PLLC, for Architectural and Engineering Services for the historic Fayette County Courthouse Rehabilitation Project at a cost not to exceed $2,480,000. Number 18, a resolution authorizing and directing the mayor on behalf of the Irving County Government to execute an agreement awarded pursuant to RFP No. 31-2015 with Reed, White Camp, Shell & Vice P, LLC, and Frost Brown, Todd, LLC, for legal services for the historic Fayette County Courthouse Rehabilitation Project at a cost estimated not to exceed $60,000. And number 19, a resolution authorizing and directing the mayor on behalf of the Irving County Government to execute and submit a grant application to the Kentucky Commercial Mobile Radio Service Board and to provide any additional information requested in connection with this grant application, which grant funds are in the amount of, $70,000 Commonwealth of Kentucky funds, and are for the acquisition of hardware, software, technical support, and services needed for the provision of text-to-911 capability by the Central Kentucky 911 Network. Motion to approve by Councilmember Henson, second by Councilmember Akers. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. If not, then Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Ms. Masati? Ms. Gutchfield? Yes. Mr. Stinnett? Yes. Yes, ma'am. Ms. Akers? Yes. Ms. Bledsoe? Mr. Fred Brown? Yes. Mr. James Brown? Yes. Ms. Evans? Mr. Farmer? Mr. Gibbs? Yes. Mr. Hensley? Yay. Ms. Henson? Yes. Mr. Kay? Yes. Ms. Lamb? Yes, ma'am. And Mr. Maloney? Thank you. All right, Madam Clerk, thank you. The vote reflects passage of the motion. And we can move on to first reading of resolutions. Number 20, a resolution accepting a bid of Bluegrass Contracting Corporation in the amount of $479,230 for the idle hour park improvements for the Department of General Services and authorizing the mayor on behalf of the urban county government to execute an agreement with Bluegrass Contracting Corporation related to the bid. Number 21, a resolution accepting the bid of Red River Ranch LLC establishing a price contract for snow plowing operations for the Division of Streets and Roads and authorizing the mayor on behalf of the urban county government to execute any necessary agreement with Red River Ranch LLC related to the bid. Number 22, a resolution accepting the bid of Fox Enterprises Incorporated in the amount of $139,828.45 for concrete apron replacement at fire stations number 369 and 17 for the Division of Fire and Emergency Services and authorizing the mayor on behalf of the urban county government to execute any agreement if necessary with Fox Enterprises Incorporated related to the bid. Number 23, a resolution accepting a bid of Mobile Tech Trailers Incorporated in the amount of $27,435 for a fiber optic splicing trailer for the Division of Facilities and Fleet Management. Number 24, a resolution accepting a bid of Faro Technologies Incorporated in the amount of $84,681.50 for 3D laser scanning system for the Division of Police. Number 25, a resolution accepting the bid of Churchill mcgee llc in the amount of 868 675 for the public safety operation center renovation phase two for the department of public safety and authorizing the mayor on behalf of urban county government to execute an agreement with church hill mcgee llc related to the bid number 26 a resolution accepting a bid of cleary construction incorporated in the amount of eighteen thousand dollars for removal and replacement for final clarifier sluice gates for the division of water quality number 27 a resolution accepting the bids of cinna lawn care services llc and all pro lawn and landscaping establishing price contracts for snow removal various locations for the division of facilities and fleet management number 28 a resolution ratifying the probationary civil service appointments of david fender public service supervisor senior grade 517 e 1008 50.40 bi-weekly in the division of water quality effective upon passage of council cherelle pierre public information officer grade 523 e 2007 59.20 bi-weekly in the office of the commissioner of public safety effective november 16th 2015 floyd reidenour building inspection supervisor grade 521e 2005 17.60 bi-weekly in the division of building inspection effective november 30th 2015 ratifying the permanent civil service appointments of william crowder's public service worker senior grade 509 and 13.218 hourly william gaffer public service worker senior grade 509 and 14.760 hourly both in the division of water quality effective may 17 2015 timothy gentry Public Service Worker Senior, Grade 509N, 13.218 Hourly, effective November 19, 2014. And Tamar Tompkins, Administrative Specialist, Grade 513N, 16.118 Hourly, effective January 14, 2015. Both in the Division of Water Quality, Dustin Himes, Public Service Worker Senior, Grade 509N, 13.592 Hourly. And Cameron Fogle, Public Service Worker Senior, Grade 509N, 13.8, excuse me, 383 Hourly, effective June 8, 2015. Willis Barnett, Equipment Operator Senior, Grade 5, 12, N, 15.607 hourly, effective January 6, 2016 Aaron Johnson, Public Service Supervisor, Grade 5, 14, N, 18.638 hourly, effective June 1, 2015 Matthew Marsh, Equipment Operator Senior, Grade 109, N, 13.179 hourly, effective June 16, 2014 Robert Austin, Public Service Supervisor, Grade 5, 14, N, 21.172 hourly, effective October 20, 2015 all in the Division of Water Quality, and Paul Willard, Engineering Technician Principal, Grade 518E, 200429.20 biweekly in the Division of Engineering, effective November 11, 2015, ratifying the following probationary community corrections officer appointments. Kevin Johnson and Donald Bowles, both corrections lieutenant, Grade 114E, 20162.45 biweekly, Randolph Jones and Tim Bowman, both Grade 115E, 200541.82 biweekly, corrections captain, all in the Division of Community Corrections, effective November 16, 2015, and ratifying the following probationary sworn appointments, James Boyd, Police Sergeant, Grade 315N, 29.309 hourly, and Matthew Greathouse, Police Lieutenant, Grade 317E, 3082.84 biweekly, both in the Division of Police, effective November 30, 2015, and ratifying the approved council leave for Tara Sullivan, social worker in the Division of Youth Services, beginning November 24, 2015, through February 21, 2016, number 29. A resolution authorizing the Division of Human Resources to make a conditional offer to the following probationary civil service appointments. Sharon Hayes, Customer Service Specialist, Grade 510N, 15.808 hourly in the Division of Government Communications. Sharon Jones, Deputy Counsel Clerk, Grade 520E, 2059.93 biweekly. In the Office of the Council Clerk, Danielle Owens, Payroll Analyst, Grade 520E, 1,864.70 biweekly in the Division of Accounting, all effective December 7, 2015. Wayne Miles, Resource Recovery Operator, Grade 513N, 18.299 hourly, William Hauge, Resource Recovery Operator, Grade 513N, 18.094 hourly, Sheldon Holland, Resource Recovery Operator, Grade 513N, 18.299 hourly, all in the Division of Waste Management, all effective upon passage of counsel. Dean Markham, Administrative Officer, Grade 523E, 2003, 84.58, biweekly in the Office of the Commissioner of Public Safety, effective November 30, 2015. Number 30, a resolution suspending enforcement of Sections 18A-3, requirement of local taxicab permit, Section 18A-4, application and renewal for a local taxicab permit, and 18A-6, local taxicab permit fees of the Code of Ordinances until amendments of Chapter 18A are passed. Number 31, a resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the urban county government to execute an agreement with Advanced Mulching Technologies, Incorporated, doing business as EcoGrow, to provide maintenance services for the Green Acres Stream Corridor Vegetative Buffer Ecological Restoration Project for up to five years, subject to sufficient funds being appropriated in future fiscal years at a cost not to exceed $20,075 in fiscal year 2016, number 32. A resolution authorizing and directing the mayor on behalf of the urban county government to accept a grant from the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security, which grant funds during the amount of $100,000 federal funds for the purchase and installation of a multipurpose training prop under the 2015 State Homeland Security Grant Program and does not obligate the urban county government for the expenditure of funds and authorizing the mayor to transfer unencumbered funds within the grant budget number 33, a resolution authorizing and directing the mayor on behalf of the urban county government to execute an agreement with Pictometry International Corporation, a sole source provider, for the lease of oblique aerial photography and imaging software, required licenses, hosting services, and supporting maintenance for up to six years, subject to sufficient funds being appropriated in future fiscal years at a cost not to exceed $63,969.50 in fiscal year 2016, number 34. A resolution authorizing and directing the mayor on behalf of the Irving County Government to accept a grant from the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security, which grant funds are in the amount of $7,000 federal funds for the purchase of cybersecurity software under the 2015 State Homeland Security Grant Program and does not obligate the Irving County Government for the expenditure of funds and authorizing the mayor to transfer unencumbered funds within the grant budget, number 35. A resolution authorizing and directing the mayor on behalf of the Irving County Government to accept a grant from the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security, which grant funds are in the amount of, $34,000 federal funds for the purchase of coded key card systems at Fire Stations 3 and 20, and for installation of security video cameras at Fire Station 1 under the 2015 State Homeland Security Grant Program, and does not obligate the Irving County Government for the expenditure of funds and authorizing the mayor to transfer unencumbered funds within the grant budget. Number 36. A resolution authorizing and directing the mayor on behalf of the Irving County Government to accept a grant from the Kentucky Fire Commission, which grant funds are in the amount of $7,750. Commonwealth of Kentucky funds are for purchase of a forcible door entry training prop and does not obligate the Irving County Government for the expenditure of funds and authorizing the mayor to transfer unencumbered funds within the grant budget. Number 37, a resolution accepting the collective bargaining agreement by and between the Lexington Fayette Irving County Government and Fraternal Order of Police Town Branch Lodge No. 83 on behalf of Community Corrections Officers and Sergeants in the Division of Community Corrections. Excuse me. Number 38. A resolution authorizing and directing the mayor on behalf of the Irving County Government to execute an agreement awarded pursuant to RFP number 38-2015 with Rubin Brown LLP for accounting services for the historic Fayette County Courthouse Rehabilitation Project at a cost estimated not to exceed $36,000. Number 39. A resolution authorizing and directing the mayor on behalf of the Irving County Government to execute a service agreement with QPublic for software at a cost not to exceed $3,000. Number 40, a resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the Irving County Government to execute an amendment to the agreement with the Lexington Fayette County Parking Authority for the reimbursement of the cost of repairs to the district courthouse parking garage at a cost not to exceed $320,000. Number 41, a resolution authorizing and directing the mayor on behalf of the Lexington Fayette-Irving County Government to execute a contract with Fayette County Public Schools for the operation of preschool classrooms at the Family Care Center at no cost to the Irving County Government. Number 42, a resolution authorizing and directing the mayor on behalf of the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government to execute change order number one to the third amendment to the purchase agreement with Airbus DS Communications, formerly known as Kassidian Communications, incorporated for the purchase of a heavier tower for the Public Safety Operations Center, increasing the contract price by the sum of $17,688 from $1,542,083 to $1,559,771. Number 43, a resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the Irving County Government to execute a summary plan description with Bluegrass Family Health for the LFUCG prescription drug plan for the period of January 1, 2016 through December 31, 2016. Number 44, a resolution amending Section 2 of Resolution No. 663, 2015, which authorized the mayor on behalf of the Irving County Government to execute a one-year extension to the agreement with Benefit Insurance Marketing Incorporated, correcting the contract price from an amount not to exceed $58,500 to an amount not to exceed $117,000 effective retroactive to November 5, 2015. Number 45, a resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the urban county government to execute a purchase of services agreement with the U.K. Arboretum for Stormwater Education and Outreach Workshops for the Division of Environmental Services at a cost not to exceed $15,000. Number 46, a resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the urban county government to execute a professional services agreement with the Novak Consulting Group, Inc. for Human Resources Management Audit Services at a cost not to exceed $72,500. Number 47, a resolution authorizing and directing the mayor on behalf of the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government to execute a memorandum of understanding with Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky for the provision of a parent education program for 45 students of the Family Care Center who are current and or expectant teen mothers at no cost to urban county government number 48 a resolution authorizing and directing the mayor on behalf of the urban county government to execute an agreement with newtown springs llc for installation of flagpoles within the easement granted by newtown springs llc to the urban county government for the legacy trail at no cost of the urban county government number 49. we're having a technical difficulty one moment. Here we go. A resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the urban county government to execute a flexible spending benefits plan document with Shard, Snyder, and Associates Incorporated for the LFUCG Employment Benefits Cafeteria Plan, pursuant to Section 125 of the Internal Revenue Code for the period of January 1, 2016 through December 31, 2016. Number 50. A resolution authorizing directing the mayor on behalf of the Lexington Fayette-Urban County government to execute and submit a grant application to the Kentucky Board of Emergency Medical Services and to provide any additional information requested in connection with this grant application and to accept this grant if the application is approved, which grant funds are in the amount of $10,000 Commonwealth of Kentucky funds for the purchase of training aids to assist in breeding various cardiac-related rhythms and for testing advanced life support monitors, the acceptance of which does not obligate the Irving County government for the expenditure of funds and authorizing the mayor to transfer unencumbered funds within the grant budget, number 51. A resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the Irving County Government to execute a business associate agreement with Shard Snyder and Associates Incorporated for the security of protected health information under the LFUCG Group Health Benefit Plan for the period of January 1, 2016 through December 31, 2016. Number 52, a resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the Irving County Government to execute change order number one to the contract with Will Height Limited Incorporated for the installation of new boilers in the government center, increasing the contract price by the sum of $3,000 from $19,850 to $22,850. Number 53, a resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the Irving County Government to execute change order number 26 to the contract with Marilia Design and Construction for the Senior Citizen Center Construction Project, increasing the contract price by the sum of $34,005.13 from $10,183,731.24 to $10,217,736.37. Number 54. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. What number are we on? Wait, wait, wait. Council Member Maloney. Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to table number 54 for the administration to answer some of the questions until December the 3rd. So move. Second. All right. Motion to table, and there's a second. And a motion to table is not debatable. And you did say until December the 2nd? Third. Third. Our next meeting. Okay. All right. Motion to the table is not debatable. The only thing that if there is an issue that would make the informing to the council of which would be beneficial. Now, I'm just going to ask a question. Would this have any effect on the grant, this date? We're going to get in a fight again, aren't we? No, that is relevant to the table. My advice is to go ahead and approve this grant. Now, you can not take that advice and... We're at a table. All right. I hear what you said. He's trying to be as careful as he can in expressing the point. Yes or no? Well... Can you just say yes or no? No. I can't say yes or no. All right. There's uncertainty and risk involved in not going ahead with this. All right. That's enough then. All right. We've got a motion to table. All in favor of the motion to table, indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. No. All right. Let's hold our hands up. Or let's just vote electronically. and i'm not able to see it again for some reason motion to table passes all right but yeah i didn't know all right madam clerk you can proceed now number 55 a resolution authorizing and directing the mayor on behalf of the lexington vanderbine county government to execute a fourth amendment to the purchase agreement with airbus ds communications formerly known as kassidian communications incorporated for the purchase and installation of a 10th channel to the radio system and a protective firewall system at a cost not to exceed 236 654 dollars number 56 a resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the urban county government to execute agreements with police athletics activities league of lexington incorporated 1 300 alpha phi alpha fraternity incorporated 1050 dollars and highlands neighborhood association 300 for the office of the urban county council at a cost not to exceed the sum stated number 57 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 masterson station park restroom building project increasing the contract price by the sum of $5,568 from $183,283 to $188,851 and adding an additional 22 calendar days to the construction schedule, number 58. A resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the Irving County Government to execute change order number 8 to the contract with Churchill McGee, LLC, for the Public Safety Operations Center Phase 1B renovation project, increasing the contract price by the sum of $11,317.33 from $6,413,828.40 to $6,425,145.73 and number 59, a resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the Irving County Government to execute change order number 28 to the contract with Marilia 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 $10,274,000. $82.37. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Are there any motions for walk-ons? Are there any motions to suspend? Councilmember Bledsoe. Thank you, Mayor. I have a motion to walk-on. I move to place on the docket a resolution accepting the bid of Alpha Mechanical Service, Inc. in the amount of $69,627 for removal of four hot water boilers and installation of two new hot water boilers in the Government Center for Division of Facilities and fleet management. So moved. Second. All right. Motion by Council Member Bledsoe, second by Council Member Henson. 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. I have a request for this also to be for a second reading as well. All right. So moved. Do I have to move that or can I wait? Let's get Are there any other motions first? Are there any other motions for, are there any other walk-ons? No? All right, then, Madam Clerk, please give us a... Number 60, a resolution accepting a bid of Alpha Mechanical Service incorporated in the amount of $69,627 for removal of four hot water boilers and installation of two new hot water boilers in the government center for the Division of Facilities and Fleet Management. All right. Thank you, ma'am. Are there any motions now to suspend the rules for second readings? Councilmember Bledsoe. Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to suspend the rules and give second reading to item number 60 as it's getting cold out and apparently we need these hot water boilers sooner than later. Right. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. All right. This is a motion by Councilmember Bledsoe. Is there a second? Second by Councilmember Akers. Is there any discussion? All right. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. No. All right. The motion does carry, however. Councilmember Lamb. Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to ask for suspension on Resolution 56. It's our NDFs. I so move. Motion by Councilmember Lamb. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? All right. If not, then we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Mayor. I have several. I move to suspend the rules and give second reading to number 29, which is the usual conditional offers for employment. All right. Uh, that's motion by council member Henson. Got a second. Is there a second? Nobody's paid. Is there a second? Got a second by council member Akers. Uh, is there any discussion? All right. If not, we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Uh, council member Farmer. I've got, uh, You've got another one? Okay. I've actually got three more. Three more. Yes, ma'am. So I move to suspend the rules and give second reading to number 42, and this is at the request of administration. All right. All of these have to do with the Public Safety Operations Center. All of them have to do with the Public Safety Operations Center. Okay, that was number 42, second by Council Member Akers. Is there any discussion? All right. If not, we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Councilman Henson. I move to spend the rules, give second reading to number 55. Number 55. Is there a second? Second. Second 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. and last i move to suspend the rules and give a second reading to number 58 please all right so motion for number 58 for suspension and second row second reading is there any is there a second second by vice mayor k is there any discussion is there any discussion all right if not we can vote all in favor please say aye opposed no motion carries thank you mayor thank you councilmember Henson councilmember Farmer thank you mayor I also have two on behalf of the administration the first was number 45 this is to begin the stormwater education work at the I believe it's at the Arboretum in it so yeah at the Arboretum move move for a second on number 45 thank you motion by councilmember Farmer on number 45 second by councilmember Henson is there any discussion all right if not we can vote all in favor please say aye aye opposed no motion carries thank you and the second one is number 59 the change order for the senior citizen center so moved motion by councilmember farmer on is it 59 59 59 second by councilmember henson and is there any discussion all right we can vote all in favor please say aye aye opposed no Motion carried. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you. Council Member Akers. Thank you, Mayor. I move to suspend the rules and give second rating to item number 57. This is the restrooms and master sensation. Hopefully this will be the last time that I have to ask for this or talk about it. Jeff, thank you. Okay. Motion by Council Member Akers. You must feel relieved. Where was the second? Who gave the second? Councilmember Bledsoe. Any discussion? Okay. We can vote all in favor. Please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Looks like that's all the requests for suspensions. So, Madam Clerk, whenever you're ready, if you've got those. Oh, Councilmember Gibbs. I didn't see that. I'd like to at the request of the administration I'd like to suspend the rules and have a second reading on number 37 this has to do with the collective bargaining agreement for corrections officers which we'd like to move along so moved motion built by Council Member Gibbs on number 37 second by Council Member Henson is there any discussion on the motion alright if not we can vote all in favor please say aye aye opposed no motion carries All right. Now that's all, I believe, if my monitor is working correctly. Okay. All right, Madam Clerk, whenever you're ready, please give us those second reads. Number 29, a resolution authorizing the Division of Human Resources to make a conditional offer to the following probationary civil service appointments. Sharon Hayes, Customer Service Specialist, Grade 5, 10, and 15.808, hourly in the Division of Government Communications. Sharon Jones, Deputy Council Clerk, Grade 520E, 2059.93 biweekly in the Office of the Council Clerk, Daniel Owens. Payroll Analyst, Grade 520E, 100864.70 biweekly in the Division of Accounting, all effective December 7, 2015. Wayne Miles, Resource Recovery Operator, Grade 513N, 18.299 hourly. William Hoge, Resource Recovery Operator, Grade 513N, 18.094 hourly. Sheldon Holland, Resource Recovery Operator, Grade 513N, 18.299 hourly, all in the Division of Waste Management, all effective upon passage of counsel. Dean Markham, Administrative Officer, Grade 523E, 384.58 biweekly in the Office of the Commissioner of Public Safety, effective November 30, 2015. Number 37, a resolution accepting the collective bargaining agreement by and between the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government and Fraternal Order of Police Town Branch Lodge No. 83 on behalf of Community Corrections Officers and Sergeants in the Division of Community Corrections. No. 42. A resolution authorizing and directing the mayor on behalf of the Lexington-Fayette-Urbing County Government to execute Change Order No. 1 to the Third Amendment to the purchase agreement with Airbus DS Communications, formerly known as Cassidian Communications Incorporated, for the purchase of a heavier tower for the Public Safety Operations Center, increasing the agreement price by the sum of $17,688 from $1,542,083 to $1,559,771. Number 45. A resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the Irving County government to execute a purchase of services agreement with the U.K. Arboretum for Stormwater Education and Outreach Workshops for the Division of Environmental Services at a cost not to exceed $15,000. Number 55. A resolution authorizing directing the mayor on behalf of the Lexington Fayette Irving County Government to execute a fourth amendment to the purchase agreement with Airbus DS Communications, formerly known as Cassidian Communications Incorporated, for the purchase and installation of a tenth channel to the radio system and a protective firewall system at a cost not to exceed $236,654. Number 56, a resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the Irving County Government to execute agreements with Police Athletics Activities League of Lexington Incorporated, $1,300, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated, $1,050, and Highlands Neighborhood Association, $300, for the office of the Irving County Council, and it costs not to exceed the sum stated number 57. A resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the Irving County Government to execute change order number three to the contract with Schaefer Contracting, LLC, for the Masterson Station Park restroom building project, increasing the contract price by the sum of $5,568 from $183,283 to $188,851, and adding an additional 22 calendar days to the construction schedule. Number 58, a resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the Irving County Government to execute change order number 8 to the contract with Churchill McGee, LLC, for the Public Safety Operations Center Phase 1B renovation project, increasing the contract price by the sum of $11,317.33, from $6,413,828.40 to $6,425,145.73. number 15 number 59 a resolution authorizing the mayor on behalf of the urban county government execute change order number 28 to the contract with marilia design and construction for the senior citizen center construction project increasing the contract price by the sum of forty one thousand one hundred eighty eight dollars from ten million two hundred thirty two thousand eight hundred ninety four dollars and thirty seven cents to ten million two hundred seventy four thousand eighty two dollars and thirty seven cents and number 60 a resolution accepting the bid of Alpha Mechanical Service Incorporated in the amount of $69,627 for removal of four hot water boilers and installation of two new hot water boilers in the government center for the Division of Facilities and Fleet Management. All right. Thank you, Madam Clerk. This is a motion to approve by Council Member Henson, second by Council Member Farmer. Is there any discussion? All right. If not, then, Madam Clerk, whenever you're ready, please call the roll. Ms. Massadi Yes on all but 18 and 38 18 and 38 Yes ma'am Yes ma'am Ms. Gutfield Mr. Stinnett Ms. Akers Yes on all except number 30 Ms. Bledsoe? Yes. Mr. Fred Brown? Yes. Mr. James Brown? Yes. Ms. Evans? Yes. Mr. Farmer? Yes, ma'am. Mr. Gibbs? Yes. Mr. Hensley? Yes, on all but 30. 30 did not get a second reading. Ms. Henson? Yes. Mr. K? Yes. Ms. Lamb? And Mr. Maloney? Yes. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Madam Clerk. The vote reflects passage of the motion. Allows us to move on to communications from the mayor. And I believe Council Member Hensley has a motion. Yes, I have a motion to delete on number eight, everything after and Mr. Jeffrey Crabb in the Masterson Station Neighborhood Association. It's an administrative oversight. All right. Is there a second? That was number eight. Number eight. And why don't you say it again, Russ? On number eight, to delete everything after and Mr. Jeffrey Crabb as a Masterson Station Neighborhood Association member representative as an administrative oversight. Wait a minute. Wes, can you come to the microphone? I'm not sure that it's clear what it's been. Sure. We just need to remove Mr. Jeffrey Crabb from the appointment to the Masterson Station Park Advisory Board as an administrative oversight. All right. Okay. Now it's clear. Okay. There's a motion and there's a, now there's a motion. There's a second by Council Member Akers. Is there any discussion on the motion? Council Member Farmer. So that will leave in with terms to expire 11, 19, 2019, correct? Because there's somebody else also reporting. She would like to. Well, he said take on everything after and, and that would include removing this time. Am I not correct? With terms to expire 11-19-2019, is that? State the motion. Just remove it, Jeff Crabb. So there's a change here. We're going to restate the motion. So the motion is to remove Jeff Crabb as the Messerson Station Neighborhood Association member representative. Period. Period. All right. Now we've got a motion. We've got a second. It's clarified. Is there any further discussion on the motion? Or is there any discussion on this motion as clarified? All right. If not, then we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. Is there any further discussion on the motion to approve? All right, then we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Next are announcements. First, we have, before announcements by the council, we have a police disciplinary item. And I'll introduce Commander Lyons, David Lyons. Commander, how are you? Good. Good evening. The matter on this one is that on Tuesday, September 8, 2015, an allegation was made that Sergeant Roy L. Wilson, number 12617, violated General Order 1973-02I, Section 1, Paragraph 36, insubordination. At the conclusion of the investigation, an employee met with Chief Mark Barnard and has accepted 160 hours of work suspension without pay. this recommendation this recommended discipline has also been approved by Public Safety Commissioner Ronnie Baston. Approval. Second. Motion by Council Member Farmer. Second by Vice Mayor Kaye. 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. Floor is now available for Council members for any announcements. Council Member Henson. Thank you Mayor. I know it's a late night and we're all probably anxious to get home. I did want to bring one matter up regarding the zone change. We can, there's not a, we don't have any meetings next week. And I was wanting to get this nailed down for the 12th. I currently have eight council members that have committed to be there. We need 10. Can you be? So I guess what I'm asking is for a raise of hands. If you can, make it to the zone change hearing on January the 12th at 5 o'clock. And we would need 10 hands. You can. There's not even 10 people here. So that still only leaves us with Council Member Evans. That would leave us with nine. So Kevin, Council Member Stenet is not here. And I mean, we could go with the 13th at 5 o'clock. You're going to ask for a show of hands on that one, Peggy? Yes. Can we have a show of hands for the 13th? One, two. It's Wednesday. Can you do, Jake, can you? No. Okay. I'm not real sure what I'm going to do here, but we have to have 10. Council Member Lamb, can you have a suggestion? I was just going to make a suggestion. I know Division of Planning isn't here tonight, but if we know that it wouldn't take over two hours, then perhaps it could follow the end of the council meeting that we have proposed for the 14th. On the 14th. I mean, that's what I would suggest. I don't know if I remember correctly. There was just one objector. I don't remember how long the hearing was before the Planning Commission, but I would suggest or recommend that option. And then the, okay. All right. So, Peggy, you want to ask, Council Member Henson, you want to ask for a show of hands on, or, I mean, I guess you're going to assume that there's going to be a quorum at the council meeting. Yeah, I think our luck with that would probably be better. You can be there on the 12th. Okay. Okay, we'll do another count and follow up with everybody tomorrow, if that's okay. So either the 12th or the 14th, that's right. Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. All right. Anybody, any other council members wish to need the floor for an announcement? I don't. All right. All right. Councilmember Maloney. I want to wish all you all a happy Thanksgiving. There we go. Thank you. All right. Does anybody else have an announcement? No? All right. Then motion to adjourn by Councilmember Massadi. Is there a second? Second. Councilman Lamb, unless there's objection, we are adjourned. I've walked for miles But I feel it hurts All I want is you To make love for me Am I hard enough? Am I rough enough? Am I rich enough? I'm not too blind to see Oh, there will be Your beats are burning So let's go home And draw the curtains Music on the radio Come on, baby So love me Am I hard enough? Am I rough enough? Am I rich enough? I'm not too blind To see Oh Some sisters Pretty Pretty, pretty girls Pretty, pretty Such a Come on Baby Please Please I tell you You can put me out On a street The You keep on telling me I ain't your kind of man. Ain't I rough enough? Ain't I tough enough? Ain't I rich enough that I've been out? I'll never be your beast of burden. I'll never be your beast of bird Never, never, never, never, never, never be Never be your beast of bird I walk the miles, my feet are hurting All I want is to make a bird I'm out.