# Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee - January 19, 2016 > Auto-transcribed civic record · January 19, 2016 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/3859 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/3859?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2016-01-19 - **Last revised**: January 19, 2016 - **Length**: 14,644 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Environmental Quality & Public Works Committee convened on January 19, 2016, at 1:30 PM with Farmer presiding as the committee chair. The committee addressed five agenda items during the session, taking seven votes throughout the meeting and hearing from four members of the public during the comment period. The committee accomplished several key actions, approving both the committee summary from a previous meeting and new downtown speed limit measures. Additionally, the committee received three informational presentations covering important infrastructure and public works topics: an update on the Neighborhood Traffic Management Program, information about fiber optic technology initiatives, and details regarding retention and detention facility maintenance and enforcement procedures. These informational items provided committee members with updates on ongoing programs and emerging technology considerations relevant to the committee's oversight responsibilities for environmental quality and public works matters. ## Attendance The following members were present at the January 19, 2016 meeting: • Farmer • F. Brown • Gibbs • Kay • Moloney • Mossotti • J. Brown • Hensley Two members were absent: • Evans • Stinnett No members arrived late to the meeting. ## Votes and Decisions The committee took seven votes during the January 19, 2016 meeting, with most passing unanimously. **Meeting Minutes Approval**: Moloney motioned to approve the October 20, 2015 Environmental Quality & Public Works Committee Summary, seconded by Kay. The motion passed unanimously. **Study Area Expansion**: J. Brown motioned to approve the inclusion of North Limestone Street and Bryan Avenue to the study area, seconded by Gibbs. The motion passed unanimously with all nine members voting in favor: F. Brown, Evans, Farmer, Gibbs, Kay, Moloney, Stinnett, J. Brown, and Hensley. **Downtown Speed Limits**: Gibbs motioned to approve downtown speed limit reductions and forward the issue to the full Council, seconded by J. Brown. The motion passed unanimously. **Trail System Funding**: Moloney motioned to allocate $150,000 in the FY17 budget for trail system maintenance, seconded by Hensley. This motion passed on a roll call vote of 6-2, with Farmer, Gibbs, Kay, Moloney, Mossotti, and J. Brown voting in favor, while F. Brown and Hensley voted against. **Trail Funding Amendment**: Kay motioned to amend the previous motion to specify a minimum of $150,000 for trail maintenance, seconded by Moloney. The amendment passed on a roll call vote of 5-2, with Gibbs, Kay, Moloney, Mossotti, and J. Brown voting in favor, and F. Brown and Hensley voting against. **Paving Strategy Subcommittee**: Hensley motioned to appoint a subcommittee to develop a paving strategy, seconded by F. Brown. The motion passed unanimously. **Adjournment**: Kay motioned to adjourn the meeting, seconded by F. Brown. The motion passed unanimously. The trail system funding votes were the only contested items, with F. Brown and Hensley consistently opposing both the original allocation and the amendment to specify a minimum funding level. ## Public Comment Four residents addressed the council during the public comment period, with three speakers focusing on downtown speed limit reduction and one addressing the Neighborhood Traffic Management Program. **Downtown Speed Limit Reduction** Griffin Van Meter presented a petition to reduce the speed limit to 25 mph in Downtown Lexington and all surrounding neighborhoods, speaking in favor of the proposal. Kris Nonn also supported the speed limit reduction, emphasizing that lower speed limits could provide economic benefits to the community in addition to safety improvements. Richard Young spoke in favor of the proposal as well, providing specific examples of pedestrian safety issues occurring in the Downtown area to support his argument for the reduced speed limit. **Neighborhood Traffic Management Program** Amy Clark raised concerns about the Neighborhood Traffic Management Program, specifically regarding the petition process [timestamp: 03:21]. She urged the council to hold a workshop or forum with neighborhood associations before moving forward with any changes to the program, suggesting that more community input was needed before implementation. The public comments demonstrated strong community support for downtown speed limit reduction, with multiple speakers providing different rationales including safety and economic benefits. However, concerns were raised about ensuring adequate community engagement in traffic management decisions affecting neighborhoods. ## Contested Items Two items generated significant community opposition during the January 19, 2016 meeting. **Neighborhood Traffic Management Program** Community members raised concerns about the petition process and tenant involvement in traffic management decisions. The opposition centered on questions about how the petition process would work and whether tenants should have a voice in neighborhood traffic management decisions alongside property owners. The specific details of the disagreement and the resolution were not fully captured in the available meeting materials. **Retention/Detention Maintenance** The second contested item involved ownership and maintenance responsibilities for retention basins, particularly in cases where homeowners associations (HOAs) become defunct. Community members expressed concerns about who would be responsible for maintaining these stormwater management facilities if the HOAs that typically oversee them cease to function. This issue appears to have generated opposition due to uncertainty about long-term maintenance obligations and potential costs that could fall to individual property owners or the municipality. Both items reflect broader community concerns about governance structures, decision-making processes, and long-term financial responsibilities. The meeting materials do not provide specific details about the outcomes of these contested discussions or whether any resolutions were reached during the session. ## Approval of Committee Summary The committee reviewed and approved the summary of their October 20, 2015 meeting as the first item of business. The discussion involved key participation from committee members Moloney and Kay. The agenda item focused on the formal approval of the previously distributed meeting summary from the October 20, 2015 session. This represents standard procedural practice for the committee to ensure accurate record-keeping and official documentation of their proceedings. Following the discussion between the participating members, the committee voted to approve the October 20, 2015 meeting summary without any noted amendments or corrections. The approval allows the summary to stand as the official record of that previous meeting's proceedings. This procedural item was completed successfully, enabling the committee to proceed with the remainder of their January 19, 2016 agenda items. ## Downtown Speed Limits The committee discussed reducing speed limits in Downtown Lexington to improve pedestrian safety during agenda item 2. The discussion involved key speakers Farmer, Hoskins-Squier, and J. Brown. The committee examined proposals to lower speed limits in the downtown area as a safety measure for pedestrians. While specific details of the proposed speed limit changes were not provided in the available materials, the discussion centered on enhancing pedestrian safety in Lexington's downtown district. Following deliberation among the committee members, a motion was made and passed to approve the speed limit reductions. The committee also voted to forward this issue to the full Council for final consideration and implementation. The approval indicates the committee found merit in the proposed speed limit changes as a means to improve downtown pedestrian safety. The matter will now advance to the full Council for further review and potential adoption. *Note: Specific transcript timestamps are not available for this agenda item.* ## Neighborhood Traffic Management Program – Update The committee received an informational update on the Neighborhood Traffic Management Program during agenda item 3. Moloney served as the key speaker for this presentation. The discussion focused on providing committee members with current information about the program's status and recent developments. The presentation covered revisions that have been made to the program structure and emphasized the critical role of community engagement in the program's success. While specific details of the revisions were not captured in the available materials, the update highlighted ongoing efforts to refine the program's approach to addressing neighborhood traffic concerns. The importance of maintaining strong community involvement was identified as a central theme of the discussion. This was an informational item, meaning no formal action was taken by the committee. The update served to keep committee members informed about the program's progress and any changes to its implementation or procedures. *Note: Specific transcript timestamps are not available for this agenda item.* ## Fiber Optic Technology The committee received a presentation on fiber optic technology and broadband access initiatives for Lexington during agenda item 4. Farmer served as the key speaker for this informational presentation. The discussion centered on the community's vision and goals for expanding broadband access throughout Lexington. Farmer presented findings from a Request for Information (RFI) process that had been conducted to explore options for improving the city's telecommunications infrastructure. A significant portion of the presentation focused on potential public-private partnerships as a mechanism for advancing fiber optic deployment in the community. The committee examined various models for collaboration between the city and private sector entities to achieve broadband expansion goals. The presentation provided committee members with an overview of the current state of broadband technology options and how they might be implemented in Lexington's specific context. The discussion appeared to be part of ongoing efforts to assess the feasibility and structure of enhanced telecommunications services for residents and businesses. This agenda item was designated as informational, meaning no formal action was taken by the committee. The presentation served to educate committee members on fiber optic technology possibilities and the results of the RFI process, laying groundwork for potential future decisions regarding broadband infrastructure development in the city. The committee's consideration of this topic reflects broader municipal interest in improving digital infrastructure and connectivity options for the community through strategic partnerships with private sector providers. ## Retention/Detention Maintenance & Enforcement The committee reviewed maintenance requirements and compliance issues related to detention and retention basins throughout the jurisdiction. This agenda item was presented as an informational discussion to address ongoing challenges with basin upkeep and regulatory enforcement. Key speakers Mossotti and Scutchfield led the discussion, focusing on current maintenance standards and identifying areas where enforcement mechanisms could be strengthened. The presentation examined existing compliance issues that have emerged with detention and retention facilities, highlighting gaps in the current regulatory framework. The committee considered potential ordinance changes that could improve maintenance oversight and ensure better long-term functionality of these stormwater management systems. The discussion addressed both the technical aspects of basin maintenance and the administrative challenges of ensuring property owners meet their ongoing maintenance obligations. This was an informational presentation designed to educate committee members on the current state of retention and detention basin management. No formal action was taken during this agenda item, as the purpose was to provide background information and identify potential areas for future policy development. The discussion served as groundwork for potential future ordinance modifications that could strengthen maintenance requirements and enforcement mechanisms for detention and retention facilities within the jurisdiction. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approve the October 20, 2015 Environmental Quality & Public Works Committee Summary - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approve the inclusion of North Limestone Street and Bryan Avenue to the study area - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approve downtown speed limit reductions and forward the issue to the full Council - **Motion** — passed (6-2): Allocate $150,000 in the FY17 budget for the maintenance of the trail system - **Motion** — passed (5-2): Amend the previous motion to a minimum of $150,000 for trail maintenance - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Appoint a subcommittee to develop a paving strategy - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Adjourn the meeting --- ## Full transcript Oh, no, no, how can you hold what could have been on a call? State of the city address, and some of the council members are coming to rest even as we speak. And I would just ask you, if you would, to take a complete look at our minutes. our minutes to start on page one and run up through page seven in this instance on page seven is the actual resolution that we would forward to the full council with an affirmative vote of this body that asks for speed limit reductions that we can take advantage of in our city downtown at this time so that is on page six and seven and then the next item of business is on page eight but I wanted you all to specifically look at the entirety of the minutes and the fact that that resolution is attached for everyone's specificity on 6 and 7. Having given that background, are there any additions or corrections to the minutes or any questions thereof? Does that ask for a motion to approve? I'm sorry? Yes, sir. Thank you, Chair. Yes, sir. In the notes, it had made mention about when we first talked about the speed reduction study area, I asked it to include two streets, Loudon, Bryan Avenue from Loudon, the New Circle, and then Limestone from Loudon, the New Circle. I was wondering why that wasn't included in the resolution. I'll ask staff to answer that. We talked about it more than once. When this item came up previously and was reported out that particular motion was held So it's included in the report out today if you look at page 3 in the packet Right in the middle of the page it says from September 15 2015 meeting That's where that resolution or that motion rather is brought up So it would potentially be it would be reported out today and council would vote on that inclusion Okay, so I guess from my understanding, I didn't think that it had been reported out to the full council yet. And even so, what can we do today to get that language included to the resolution? Vote to approve the minutes because they are in the minutes. Okay. And we will report the minutes out at the work session at 3 o'clock. Okay. And then the next resolution that we see will have that language in it? Yes, sir. Okay. All right. Thank you. We're not going to leave you out, man. All right any other additions or corrections excellent questions there. Thank you All right, then I'd ask now for a motion to approve And a motion a second Thank you vice mayor all those in favor Opposed like sign. Thank you very much motion carries. We'll make sure that's read out appropriately councilman Brown All right, then the next item our item is on pages 8 9 and 10 and basically this is where the vice mayor asked for us to bring forward a resolution specific specifically to send forward to the legislature that is what appears on page 8 and 9 and the map on page 10 so this is something where if we were to approve this this resolution would then go forward to the legislature asking them for the opportunity to regulate our our streets in our pattern rather than in theirs so I guess I would ask vice Vice Mayor, does this fit the conversation as we'd had before? Yes, sir. All right. And you want to make a motion to approve it, perhaps? I would make a motion to approve the resolution as submitted. Motion and secondment, Council Member Gibbs. Any discussion? Questions? Anyone? All right. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed, like, sign. Motion carries. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. All right. Then, the Neighborhood Traffic Management Program, this is an update brought by Council Member Maloney. begins on page 11. There were attachments to the entire agenda that were the old and new traffic management program that we chose not to print them, but to reference them. And Council Member Maloney, you want to make any comments first or just hear from staff? No, I just don't want to add. I'm just glad we brought it back up because, as you all know, a lot of Council members have been concerned what policies and procedures we follow to get signs or speed limits and all that. And I do want to commend Al and Ergert for putting it together. And I just hope we can go forward with this to move it on fast just so we can follow this guideline. Thank you, sir. Commissioner, are you going to be bringing this to us or who? Robert. Robert, please. Welcome, sir. Hello. Good afternoon, Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen of the committee, thank you. Thank you, sir. I'm Roger Mulvaney, manager of the Science and Neighborhood Traffic Management Program section in the Division of Traffic Engineering. Pull that mic in just a little bit. There you go. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you. This first slide here basically details some of the major revisions that were made. I discussed this in the June presentation. There's really nothing new here that you all haven't seen before. Quick deadlines on the 90-day deadlines on the initial petitions, three-week minimum deadlines for the ballot petitions, and a reevaluation period where we don't reevaluate a similar type of study within 12 months if we've had a final report. The major thing between the committee meeting in June and today that was changed are listed on the major things that are listed on this slide here. The feedback we got from the committee in June was that we wanted to maintain the cost sharing component of the NTMP that had been in the program. So we're going to put that back in the revised as it had been before. The cost sharing we've broken down based on property value taken from the Fayette County PVA. There were some clarification points for how the sponsors would be paying for their component of the cost sharing. And there's clarification for criteria that we could consider to use to lower speed limits in residential areas that were added based on some comments we got from other council members. We also added beacons and flashing signs to type 1 traffic calming options. Type 1 options, if you will, are the ones typically, or the options that are typically part of what traffic engineering does on a day-to-day basis, signs, markings, things of that nature. so that's basic summary of of the revisions that were made since the june presentation are there any questions let's see first up is council thank you for that very much appreciate it you're welcome first up is council member gibbs thank you chair thanks roger roger i don't know if you can answer this off the top of your head i just wonder about the you guys got fifty thousand dollars for this fiscal year was that right for this program do you know that's correct and it's believed preliminarily we're looking to maintain about that yeah do you know how much you've encumbered so far? Yes, we've encumbered I would say in the ballpark of 75% of that so far. Great. Well, thank you. Thank you, Chair. Other questions? Council Member Maloney. Council Member Bledsoe, excuse me. Then Council Member Maloney. Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Chair. You're welcome. Thank you. I do have just a few questions, Roger. I appreciate your presentation. Just some clarification. On the page there about who's going to use the criteria for deciding for lower speed limits. I know you used counts. What other criteria are you going to use outside of counts for that justification? OK, on page nine of the updated packet, some of the extra criteria we could look at is basically based on a field verification of what's in the field. That could be pedestrian generators, such as clubhouses, schools, things that draw pedestrians, that help would give us an idea of, OK, there's more pedestrians likely beyond this road, so we could consider doing a study for a lower speed limit there. Bike routes, part of the bike system that has been determined here in the city. The location, mid-block crosswalks, and other locations where traffic's controlled, that is, multi-way stops. If there's a lot of multiway stops on a given corridor, then that corridor is broken up. If there aren't any, we could look at that corridor also for a speed study. Okay. So the beacons and flashing signs, I know people that are older have a hard time at night seeing. Those are really valuable. My mom, being one of them, always talks about how much she likes them. The roundabout, why Wellington? Just calling my mom out here. So who's going to pay for those? Are those something that we pay for? Since they're a type 1 option, they would be paid out of the NTMP budget. Okay. It would not be a cost share. As needed and as the funds are allowed. Yes, as funds are allowed, engineering judgment dictates that they're necessary, things of that nature. But it would not be cost share. It would be fully borne by the NTMP program. Are those like $1,200 a piece? That's a reasonable ballpark, yes. Okay. And then one other question. On the page 1 you said, or on the page 11 of our packet, the 90 days for initial petitions for all types, Is that once they contact you or once they receive the petition? Does that start? We usually start with the day we've mailed it out. That's typical per what we do for our parking petitions. Okay. And then lastly, you mentioned that you could do another study at 12 months or unless it's significantly changed. Who defines what's a significant change? Common sense, to give you the basic answer. If there's a new massive supermarket store that is built, that's a significant change. It is kind of vague, I understand, but if it's common sense and if reasonable people can come together and realize, hey, there's been a change here, that's the criteria we'll use. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for ending on common sense. We appreciate that. All right. Council Member Maloney. Thank you. hopefully we'll get this going, but I've got a few questions about how we're going to get this message out to the neighborhood association so we can explain to them these policies, because have y'all set up meetings where you're going to try to work and get this educated out to the public? Because how that, like, you know, you have to pay at neighborhood councils, and I assume council districts will have these councils, and they have people some folks come down from y'all's department to speak on some of these issues on that. So how are y'all looked into, because this is going to be a very educational process. Council understands what we're doing. We've got to make it simple for you guys, but first we've got to get to the neighborhoods. We haven't set up anything in particular to reach out to the neighborhoods. Certainly any citizen or neighborhood or council member that comes to traffic engineering will be happy to work with them and explain to them what has changed. Every time we send out a petition for a multi-way stop, a speed study, speed tables, things of that nature. We do send them the current packet so they get the most up-to-date information as requests come in. We'd be happy to consider some sort of special meeting with neighborhoods as they come to us. I do have somebody here who wants to speak on the neighborhood issues, and I assume that's what the questions you're asked. Is that going to satisfy your needs on what you want in the neighborhood. Go ahead. Is she allowed to come up to speak or does she have to sign it? I believe she's well within your time frame. You still got three minutes and 21 seconds. We're good. Yes, sir. Welcome. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. I'm Amy Clark of 628 Castle Road. And I'm mindful that you have a short meeting today, too. This is really important. Big, big thanks to Roger Mulvaney for doing a great job and being responsive to council members and what their concerns were. You've really improved the funding match so that poorer neighborhoods aren't left out of it. I think you need to take a very close look at the petition process. As Vice Mayor referred to last time this came before this committee, 65% petition participation is I petition requesting a study, which apparently is a percentage of properties whose resident requested, could be an owner, but a resident, and the implementation ballot at the point when it's agreed what could be implemented, but it's not mandated by federal highway standards and risk avoidance and so on. And this goes to mailed notice to property owners of record, and it's requiring a response in support of 65% of property owners of record. We will not see that in our natural lives. It's especially a concern because tenants in an area are left out of that process. They need the opportunity to petition for the safety and welfare of their neighborhoods. When you have a high rental neighborhood, you're just not going to get absentee owners making a positive response or even any response for anything. I have a few other considerations, but really I just would urge you to look very hard at the percentage of support required required and the fact that there are two levels, two stages, where people have to be canvassed for this. I would suggest that you have some kind of a workshop or input, a forum with the neighborhood associations before you send this forward. It needs to go forward. And soon, a lot of good work has been done. I would ask that that happen first. There are certain other, you all have at your seats certain other considerations I have. I would add that you have options in signage. F, no outlet. G, not a through street. H, cross traffic doesn't stop. And I, specialty signs like check your speed. They depend wholly as they ought to on the traffic engineer's discretion, his professional judgment. They don't require any petitions and so on. I would add to these the signage. This is E, no cut through trucks. There's no need for a petition because people in the affected area are not restricted. Trucks may go to any destination in the area. But again, it's a professional judgment. The traffic engineer knows best which of our streets form a network of truck streets for freight, which of our streets can or can't physically manage that. So a big, big thanks to Mr. Mulvaney and all of you for taking care and having real concern for the citizens who need these traffic calming measures. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Anything else, sir? One question I have for you guys. if the city has a park or property they own and they want to put a faraway stop, they don't need neighborhood input. So we can do it on our own. If we have concerns about safety of that, okay. Absolutely, yes. Thank you. Mr. Mulvaney, any other commentary based on the testimony that was just rendered? And you don't have to speak. I'm just asking. I do not. Thank you. Well done, sir. Council Member Mazzotti. Thank you, Chair. Congratulations on the new baby, Roger. Thank you. I had some of the same concerns that have been mentioned as far as neighborhood input in this process. I mean, how can we get their participation, more active participation? Because I'm afraid they don't understand this process. And we might have a neighborhood meeting with some neighborhoods maybe once a year. Some are real active and some aren't. Is there anything that you can maybe add to that may be beneficial? When we get a request, typically it's from a citizen, not an association. We try to steer them to go work with their neighborhood association. Now, not everyone has a neighborhood association, but we steer them toward that because it's a larger net that they may be able to reach out to. As far as explaining to the neighborhood the process, our staff is available to speak to neighborhoods at neighborhood meetings work with the council members we're here for them so if there's ever a question they do want to have a neighborhood meeting we're here for that can you maybe put a little cheat sheet together for us that we may be able to you know with some bullet points that maybe to pass out at some of these meetings because um sometimes again we have small neighborhood meetings sometimes we have large ones different times of the year and traffic always comes up sure it's always a concern so maybe if we had something like that that we could pass out from traffic engineering something pretty you know simple but yet defines what can be done as far as some of these programs that would be helpful okay yeah i can work on a cheat sheet and and distribute that to the council members that'd be great yeah okay thank you very much council member evans thank you chair um yeah a cheat sheet was kind of uh part of my thought as well but um going back to what was mentioned um regarding the high percentage um yet when you do have a large percent of of rental properties or um well yeah absent landlords is there and i didn't do the comparison so forgive me but can you can that landlord then give the proxy to the resident i mean how is there a way to figure out where that actual tenant can have a voice i know that might extend it but i mean i don't i think we should kind of be creative and see if we can increase the participation of people that are there um and just wondering if if that could be an option if if because again then the landlord might not be concerned might live in another state but that might be a very concerned tenant so i'm just wondering if there's some some way to think out of the box on that one and then um when this is finalized will this be available online anywhere yes this second question the answer to your second question yes this will be made available we hope to have it on the traffic engineering website i think there's some things and works there but yes we want to make this as public as possible going back to your first question which generally if I understand correctly he's trying to get absent landlords more involved if there's tenants there that are really concerned about traffic calming issue and when we send out the ballot petition we send that to the landlord and and you know hopefully I can't really speak to the relationship every landlord has to a tenant but hopefully the landlord and tenant are at least talking to each other and saying what's this about and if they're good landlord they listen to their tenant to you know now the reason why we have the property owners involved on the type 2 and type 3 traffic calming options is because there may be a more vested interest in how the property values may change. And tenants, while they may be great tenants, they may not be as concerned about property value. So I think that's historically been the reason why we've had property owners be more involved with a higher level of traffic calming and cost sharing issues. As far as the solution, we can look into different things, But, you know, it's really, it boils down to the relationship that the tenant and landlord have, yes. I appreciate that thought. But, yeah, I mean, I just would find it very unfortunate if you did have a tenant that really was engaged and had a landlord that wasn't, and that person wouldn't have a say. So, again, that's just something to maybe think about. I know there's no quick answer, but it does seem to be a concern if there are tenants out there that really are engaged but don't have a voice. So if that's something they could maybe just think about in the future, I know that it comes down to what you said, good landlords. But, you know, I just think there's a way that we could possibly, you know, help the tenant be more engaged if the landlord isn't. And I don't know what the answer to that is, but I appreciate the concern that was raised about tenants not having to say based on the landlord getting the notice. So my two cents for what it's worth. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Vice Mayor Kay. Thank you, Chair. And thank you for coming back again. I'm going to follow up on some of the comments on the same set of issues. I guess the first question I have is, is there any reason why notification could not go to tenants as well as landlords? I'll have to get back to you on that answer. I mean, typically, I would imagine as a petition process goes, as we get one requested by a tenant, they should work with their neighbors and figure out who their neighbors are their own property owners or who they need to go for the landlords. I'd have to get back to you for a more solid answer than that. Okay. I guess where I'm going with this is it seems to me that we ought to change the regulation so that for these kinds of issues, notification goes to tenants and landlords. And secondly, in terms of response, I would urge you to look at changing it so that the threshold is 65% of the responses you receive, not 65% of the notices that are sent out. I would agree with some of the comments. 65% of the notices is an incredibly high threshold. Some of these landlords are not responsive. They're not available. And yet, in the way that the system now works, essentially, they get tallied on the no side. They haven't responded, but because of the system, the default position is if we don't hear from you, it's a no. So it seems to me to make it more reasonable, setting that threshold of 65% of all the responses you receive would be more reasonable. And I would encourage you to look at that. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. Councilman Maloney. The concern I have about if you allow tenants to sign this, I'll give you a prime example. We have an area that's close to where we had that zone change the other night. There was a development that happened there, and they were the only apartment complex on that street. But it was the main entrance to the back of a neighborhood. And there were cars parked on both sides with a police and fire where no one could get down there. But with the help of you guys, we were able to put parking on one side, and it's still a lot of problems. And the Neighborhood Association got together, and they wanted to put no parking at all on the street because when they built these apartments, all the parking was supposed to be in the back of the apartment, and they never had parking on the front. Nobody ever used that parking because there was nothing there. But it is a very narrow road. And the only way that you rule, say, is that the landowner, who was going to be totally against this, because he got all the tenants there. And that's where I see a flaw, and I don't know how you get around that. But you have fixed, well, there's no parking on one side, and you put like four or five cars on. There's still a problem. You've got people coming out of a bank that still have these cars getting in the way, and I still think there shouldn't have been no parking at all down that road. But that's years ago. But I just, when it comes to asking tenants to get it, it can be a big disadvantage to property owners, especially if you have a lot of duplexes and fourplexes and you've got a bunch of property owners. Those can be a big problem on their petition. And to me, we need to be careful before we put tenants in there because it could end up defeating the whole purpose. So I know it's not perfect. It can't be perfect. But to me, if you invest in that property, I think you should have more authority in signing that piece of paper than your tenant. That's just my opinion. But now you might be able to answer some of those concerns that I have. Yeah, no, I think the money part is important, and that's why the cost share, and that's why typically we send to the property owner, because they're going to bear the financial obligation of those improvements if they're to get approved. At the same time, you know, it's important that all the tenants on the street are aware of what's going on as well. So we can work to make the tenants aware. But, you know, Roger and I still have to work on, you know, whether their vote counts. You know, I mean, I think that's going to be complicated, and it may be a legal issue that we need to talk with law about, you know, whether they can vote for a change that has cost implications to their landlord. I'm not sure that that's appropriate. But, you know, we can work through those things, But I think certainly notifying them of any changes is important. And on that same note, y'all put signs up where there would be no parking on the other side of the street. The tenants went over and took those signs down. So when the police came out there, they could not arrest anybody because there were no signs there. So we did the next best thing. We painted the thing all the way up here. So I just want to give everybody a heads up. it's not as easy it's not gonna be there's no simple way of doing this but to me the best way we got now which I think it's not perfect but I think it's better than what then trying to but our heads again a better way of doing this and I don't think there's any way you can fix that thank you sir councilmember Gibbs thank you chair like other people I'm concerned about low-income neighborhoods, the combination of unresponsive landlords and also the cost share really concerns me. And Roger, I should know this. What's the range on the cost share? What's the lowest? On the updated spreadsheet, or I keep calling it spreadsheet. I'm sorry. On the updated packet, the cost share is on page three. For properties on an average of what's the average property value less than $100,000, the cost share is 10%. 10? OK. Only 10%, yes. Well, that sounds pretty reasonable. Thank you for that. Say you had a street that was just really horrible and landlords didn't respond. Do we have the right to just go ahead and do it, put some speed tables in? I mean, the right-of-way belongs to us, not to them. You're correct on that part. I'll have to get back to you as far as a solid answer on that. But you're right, that is public right-of-way. Urban County government does have jurisdiction on that. Okay. Well, thanks, Roger. thank you you want to speak to that sir all right then just worth the pleasure of the committee if there's interest in moving this issue forward we can have a motion to do so if there's interest in keeping it in committee and perfecting some of the details have been discussed here we can do that too does anyone care to give me a signal hearing none we will keep it in committee and I will ask staff if you would react to some of the commentary either has it been handed out here or via questions and we can bring this back either the next month or the following month is that good with everybody thank you again for your help appreciate it very much all right then we're down to item four which is the fiber optic technology which is an item I placed in committee and I believe our director is here to talk about it and I think it's something we will keep in committee as I think it's an ongoing situation that the mayor talked about in his address today. Ms. Alcente, if you'd join us, thank you very much. Good afternoon. I really appreciate the opportunity to report on where we are today, what we have coming in our plans in the future, and some of the work that we have actually two committees that have been doing. I want to go back a little bit and sort of re-scope the vision and the goals that we've had, primarily to talk about the results of the RFI, which we issued about a year ago. So it is a very timely discussion, and what we've learned, because we've learned an awful lot. But before I sort of launch into the agenda, I'll tell you what my perspective was, is that, you know, it's like any other RFP or RFI. We do the RFI. We do the RFP. We'll figure out a solution, and then we can go after it. I'll tell you, folks, this is a lot harder. And I'll tell you why. Because we now have sort of two different parts of this discussion. One part, as I'm sure you've already read in the papers, and a lot of cities are getting notices, that the Google company is coming in, is going to lay Google Fiber, and we're going to be all wonderful in the future. We have now dealt with another set of communities that are maybe 12,000 people, 40,000 people, where they have little or no internet access, where there is no competition, and nobody wants to come to them. So we now have sort of two different models. The model that says we're a city that is a million or more, and we're probably going to get some fiber. And then they're very tiny. Well, here's what is our issue. Our issue is that we're in the middle. We're a bigger city, but we're not a million, and we're not 40,000 and 12,000. So we represent sort of a number of cities across the United States that is trying to figure it out. So let me kind of launch into what we're trying to do to figure it out. And by the way, Boston is trying to figure it out. Seattle's trying to figure it out. St. Louis is trying to figure it out, because we've talked to all of them. So let me start. The vision hasn't changed much from what we talked about originally. Gig for Lex, as we call it, it's the opportunity for every Lexingtonian to have advanced communication networks. High speed, high quality, fiber connections to the Internet are available to everybody. That's the vision. So, competitively priced, provide all services, internet, cable, television, telephone, to any customer connected to the network, and some of the things that we've already experienced. We want excellent customer service, a reliable network, and a network with increased bandwidth for what we call the Internet of Things. So what is the Internet of Things? Well, and I thought about how do I give you an example of what's already going on today? Well, you know when Time Warner says you can turn off your lights when you're in another city, you can figure out whether your garage door is open or closed, and your stove is turned off, that is the beginning of the Internet of Things. Where things are connected, you have high availability, you can provide tasks at a high speed. That is just the beginning. Now imagine if everybody in a larger city wanted to do that for the house all at once. You need a lot of broadband to be able to carry those signals. So I just offer that as one small example. So our RFI had 12 responses. By the way, an RFI is not binding legally. They provide us information. We can have conversations back and forth. We can add to it. We can have that conversation over and over again. Our incumbents responded, Time Warner and Windstream. And I will tell you that they said, eventually, we will get to you. Eventually, we'll do some things. But we really were not in any way blown away by what's going to happen in the near future. We had a company that said, we can come and do a private build. We'll build it. It'll be a private model. And what does that mean? That means that they can go through a neighborhood and say, you all, will you sign up? If you sign up, we'll put it in here first. If you sign up over here, we'll put it in here first. It is known as the fiberhood model. And I think I included a few of those things in the appendix so that those terms, by the way, are emerging now. So the fiberhood model means that the provider can choose where they will start. By the way, that is also the Google model. It's a fiber hood model. Public-private partnerships. That was probably the largest segment of responses. A various, various sort of 20% by the provider, 80% by the city, or what is happening at the state right now, which is a public-private partnership. 40% and we've had those conversations over and over again or the city builds it and somebody else runs it or if we build it the city runs it various various we learned an awful lot probably from those discussions we had some of those providers back two and three times because sometimes the model changed one of those providers was by the way the same provider that is offering to build the middle mile for the state right now. We learned an awful lot. During this process, we engaged a company called CTC. And they have a telecommunications part as a consulting organization and also an engineering part. By the way, they're the same consultancy that was engaged by the state, now by Louisville. Seattle engaged them. And we also had numerous conversations with them. And what I think is going to happen, many, many other cities will engage them also. They seem to be very level, very even keeled, are well recognized. As a city, Lexington was invited to participate at a round table at the White House. And it was Joanne Hovis, who is the consultant from this company, that probably carried the day in terms of having the most sensible discussions. So we're very happy with that. I refer to the engineering arm. And what we ask the engineering folks of that company to do is come and assess Lexington. Because you've got to remember, there may be some digging. There may be some coring. There may be some attaching to the poles, which we do not own. So there is an awful lot of opportunity here that yet has to be decided. What they did is they actually drove around the city. They looked at some of the poles, and they looked at some of the yards. They looked at the right of way, et cetera, and gave us what I would call, and please look at these words very carefully because I chose them very carefully, preliminary high level, and I put it in caps. This is not an engineering plan. This is a plan from driving around and looking on what would have to be done. And that estimate is $175 to $200 million for this city. So as part of this discussion, we said also, are there some financial models that we could look at? For instance, if you borrow money, if somebody else had to borrow money, if we had a partner, what does that mean? And we were provided some proformas so that we could start plugging in some numbers just to see what different parts of this equation we could influence or would have been influenced. What we've done since we've done this study is really come down to this, that we will issue an RFP knowing what we know now. Asking sort of for two options. One option is to say, all right, company, come in and build it for us. But if you're going to use the Fiberhood model, let us discuss what we as a city might have to contribute to make sure that the city gets covered. Now, this is not that we're committing any monies. We're just saying, what would that model look like? because you know one of the things that is important if we look at our vision and our goals is that every Lexingtonian has some opportunity for this. Now there may be some technical reasons that we don't know about, but the point is is that we want to provide that opportunity to everybody in the city. The second part of this RFP is to really look at the options of a public-private partnership. Now we've also learned an awful lot from what the state is doing because we've had conversations with the state as we were having conversations throughout this last year. We learned an awful lot, and I know that you were all there and you heard the mayor say, hey, we're going to partner with the state, and I'll get back to that because that is a very, very great outcome from these conversations that we've been having. But I don't know yet what that public-private partnership might look like. There are some smaller cities where the city actually builds it, and then a private entity runs the entire thing. There are some where public-private partnerships have consisted of contributions, which is, by the way, what is happening at the state right now. But our RFP will have those two options for companies to respond to. I'll tell you that we probably have now gone through two iterations of that RFP, and we hope that somewhere in the next maybe two to three weeks we'll have it out on the street. I wanted to tell you about the committees that were in play. We had an executive steering committee. That was Scott Shapiro, Chad Cottle, who is my deputy, Todd, who looked at all the various procurement issues that we might run into, Jonathan Hollinger, who was very important because we had a look at right-of-ways. We've had, and we were very, very lucky to finally get Bill O'Mara to participate with us from a financial perspective and look at what these models might look like. Andrea Brown from legal, because you know, right-of-way, poll attachment, those are all legal issues. Myself, we have an outside project manager who kept us all on track, kept all the documents going because eventually they could be all open records requests, and we've had Joanne Hovis, who I described earlier as the consultant from CTC. We had a fiber team and a much broader team. We've actually consisted of all the steering committee members, plus representation out of every single department in the city. We had a representative from the vice mayor's office. We had a library representative. We had a couple of people that participated with us from the private sector, one from a company called SIS. and then we also had some startups who participated and came to our meetings. And last but not least, UK had a representative. So I think we had very good involvement throughout this process, and we've tried to hold that steering committee together because we've got a lot more work to do. So we're writing, we're reviewing, and we're going to issue the RFP. That's sort of the bottom line to what we've learned with the RFI. Now let me tell you about the ongoing work that we've got with Kentucky Wired. Kentucky Wired is going to lay the fiber, and it's going to be dedicated to the city's ownership and for our use. Now, it's not free. We've got to pay for the fiber. But we're not paying for the digging. We're not paying for the coring. We're not paying for the rest. You know, I told you that some of this is going to be attachment to the cables. Well, you know what they're doing now? They're getting make-ready work for the state, and it's called thumping the pole. And that is exactly what they're doing. They're driving around the city, and they're thumping the pole to see if it's rotten. If it's rotten, it's got to be replaced. So some of the cabling is going to go on poles. Some of it is going to go underground. Some of it is going to go right away. Some of it will be cored and put underground. But the point is that this is physical labor, so they're making ready now. I think you might have remembered that Jonathan Hollinger was here providing an MOU. for the state to begin its work here. The good part is it's beginning its work in Lexington. We have an opportunity now to work with their engineers, overlay what we need with what they're doing, and see where we match. We will need some funding to buy the fiber. And we actually do have some. We may not have enough, but that's the work that's going on right now. So those maps are being looked at by the engineers. This actually is a big win for Lexington. It will be city-owned fiber. It'll go to our fire stations. It can go to our police headquarters. It can go to all the buildings where we would need that high-speed capability, and it will be the city's asset. The last part of this presentation was only to—I've lifted the broadband and the fiber optics definitions out of the previous presentation. This is the fiber hood model. Fiber hood is now referred to the term that would allow residents to come together and build that fiber network based on their acceptance of the terms and conditions, and that's where the fiber would go. I'd like to just go through a couple more of the definitions here. Dark fiber is referred to fiber that is in the ground, but it is not operational. So in other words, people lay, and by the way, there are some developments today that lay that fiber, although it doesn't connect to anything yet, and it is not, quote, lit up, because the idea is as you dig, you put that into the ground. By the way, the demand for fiber today is so great that there is a delay in shipment, because almost every new development, if you look at it, is looking at laying fiber where they can, and especially in those areas where economic development seems to be very, very important. The other term that is used now, you'll see FTTH. That means strands of fiber that are going to go to the home. Fiber to the home. FF, I mean FTTH. Gigabit internet. So, you know, sometimes it's hard to think about this because it's a term that we don't use every day other than in sort of, it describes fast. Well, what does fast mean? That means you're downloading of a high-definition movie in 30 seconds. That means you can stream five HDV movies without ever having a ripple. Transferring data on the web is then faster than anything they could ever do on a thumb drive. But I think I want to go back to what I said originally, the Internet of Things. We are just at the very beginning of the Internet of Things. So the ability to control, and I just gave that example in the home, but what about all the installations, the manufacturing? Think of that as the beginning of when we talk the Internet to the home and the Internet of Things. Middle mile is exactly what it says. You're going from the provider and you're offering that middle capability. Last mile goes to the home or to the installation. But you know, I thought before I finish, I brought the most recent magazine, and I'll just hold it up. Broadband Drives the Economy. And Broadband Community is the organization that did the Internet conference here in Lexington last fall. And this has now actually been made. It discusses how communities are embracing broadband. I'll be happy to answer any questions. thank you for your presentation and certainly your time and the expertise of so many who've been involved there are a few questions then we'll take it from there first is vice mayor k thank you chair and thank you aldona for all of this um i just want to check something out the the way you've described the fiber hood option it sounds like it's not consistent with the intention to make this service available to everyone in the community. And I'm curious how that factors into the way in which you think about designing the RFP that will be looking for bids for services. And I appreciate the question, so let me make sure that it is understood. So one option of the RFP is to say, all right, company, come and build it for us. But what is it that the city would have to contribute, whether that is in funding or in a model that would make this ubiquitous for the entire city. That is going to be in the RFP. You're right. It is not consistent. Okay. I want to make sure I understand. So if that option is entertained, a part of what you would be looking for is some part of the proposal to say, and here is the way in which we propose that this service be extended to all of the community. Is that correct? It is probably beyond that, because really, if that option is part of our RFP, then it is truly we will ask the provider to tell us what that means. What do they need from the city? Do they need funding? Do they need right-of-way? Do they need something else? Do they need for them to build huts? We don't know yet. But the idea is that we would make that opportunity throughout the city where every Lexington citizen can get to the Internet. It may be at various speeds and various—I mean, it could be different things. Okay. I think I understand. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. Pardon me. Council Member Scutchfield. Thank you for recognizing me, even though I'm not on this committee. I did have a question. I know that we've talked about Internet connectivity in this building. Do we have a solution coming soon? Yes. Can you give us a little bit more than yes? Yes. I have wire arriving on pallets this last week already. And they've done another sweep of this building. And they're going to start probably somewhere is first floor, second floor, fifth floor, somewhere is in there. But yes, we have equipment coming already. What is our time frame for it? I think it's going to depend. They're going to try to do the hardest parts first. And not all the wiring will be just in these floors, but the way they're designing, they may have to go a little bit higher. So they can't necessarily do it floor by floor by floor as we want to. They may have to take some wiring up. But work is starting, like I said, as the equipment and as the cables are arriving. All right. Thank you. And as soon as I have an update, I'll be happy to provide that. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, ma'am. Next is Council Member Fred Brown. Thank you, Chair. One of the points that you raised was the partnering with the state Kentucky Wired. Yes. And you mentioned that the fiber would be, we would have a cost to that. Yes. Maybe a one-time cost. Yes. There's a one-time cost, and then there is an annual maintenance cost, which will be some fraction of that. probably about 10%. So they would, the maintenance costs would be handled by a contract or outsider or the Kentucky? I'd say that right now what we're looking at is that the maintenance costs probably will be handled as an entity by the state with our contribution for our part. Let me see if I understand this. If Kentucky, the wired and the fiber that comes through, is that like a trunk line? It is a bundle. It is a bundle that is 144 fiber optic strands, which will be dedicated to Lexington. But it goes through Lexington on its path. It goes through Lexington, and we actually have a map. It goes somewhere around and in between and through the city to provide the middle mile. Is that path pretty well set now? The engineering was already done for the middle mile for the state. What we're doing now is overlaying those maps that the state has with where our buildings are and our need is to see how well we match in those areas. So is that going to be kind of like a major trunk line and then off of that line goes to the neighborhoods? This is not going to go to the neighborhoods. This is strictly dedicated to the city. So it will be only in the city. This is not going to provide anything to the neighborhoods. Okay, so there will be separate lines, fiber optic lines, that goes to the community, residential, and other businesses? It could. And as the state is laying that middle mile, you've got to remember this is a public-private partnership. The intent of that partner is to possibly provide some fiber in other ways to lease some of that. You can actually lease fiber. And as it gets and grows to the neighborhoods, this is not a mandatory type of thing. Is it pretty much like the old cable? You either took it or you didn't? This is not mandatory, but the point is that as you're laying fiber, the intent would be that you can't just keep cutting it for this house and not that house and then start over again, but there is no utility that you have to take it. It's not like a sewer. By the way, we've had that discussion many times. And do we know any individual costs that it would cost the particular property owner or individual resident? We do not know what that cost would be, but it depends in some communities. We've looked at other communities, and sometimes the hookup to the house may be $1,000, but I do not have a cost. But those items and those costs will come as it progresses then? It progresses. That is correct. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Council Member Susan Lamb. Thank you, Chair, for recognizing me. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Aldona, for this presentation. As far as the government goes, do you all have a good idea of how much fiber has been laid for government facilities? I think that we may not know all the fiber that was laid. You've got to remember, much of the fiber originally for government was done with federal funding, was done primarily for public safety in many cases, and that fiber, for instance, right now could not be used for any private purpose if it was done with federal funds. So the attractiveness of what we would have here is that this fiber would be city-owned, and it could be used whether we wanted it for our own use or whether we wanted to lease it even, or use it, as I say, as a barter in what we want to do with the greater picture for Lexington. Well, I know that when we renovated the building out on Bursells Road, and we have our record center out there, And I know that there was a time where we were waiting on the utility company to help at the time to bury the fiber optic cable. Is that same fiber optic cable what we will be using today, or has the cable been actually upgraded since then? If it was done by a private company, then it is not the same cable that we'll be using. Because you've got to remember, for instance, and this is primarily a lot of discussion, that probably Windstream owns a lot of cable in this city. But right now, it has not made that as an offering to the city. It has been an offering to the private sector primarily at rates. In some cases, those are high rates. Those are probably not rates right now that someone who wanted that capability at the home could afford. So that's why the cities are doing what we're doing. at least they're examining this as an opportunity, based on the fact that so much of what we do in our daily lives now is going to be part of what we do on the internet. So education, we haven't even talked about, for instance, exchange of medical records, the capability for manufacturing, the capability of sending big drawings. That is always going to be part of what we're going to need as far as broadband. Do we need all those gigabits today? Probably not. Are we going to need them? I know my grandkids will need them. Your children and your grandchildren will need them. And in a lot of ways, it was like when we first built the highway system in the United States. Did we need it all over the place? Did we have cars that were going to do that? Probably not. But now, based on what we did in 1950, has been a great boon to the United States. By the way, I understand I was doing some historical reading. People didn't think we needed the railroad because there was really nothing out there in the West. So the point is that it is around these column highways that we've done our commerce and that cities have grown up. Well, one other point that I'd like to make is that this seems like it involves the telecommunication franchises. It does. And I'm hoping that there's been some kind of dialogue that has started with that in that process. And if you want to respond to that. Yeah, I'll be happy to respond. They actually responded to our RFI, and we had them in for a couple of conversations. We had some of those providers in for at least one and two rounds. But there was nothing in their business plan right now that said that we will jump in and really try to do this. Well, hopefully maybe we can go down that path again. And I appreciate this very much, and thank you, Chair, for recognizing me. Thank you. Council Member Evans. Thank you, Chair. And again, thank you, Aldona, for this presentation. And I'm just going to be very simple about it because a couple of us, I think, had that question because we're not tech savvy. But what does this mean to the regular citizen now? I mean, I've traveled different countries. I don't know what's going on in cities here that you mentioned, but is it the idea that I can just be standing on the sidewalk and get Internet service, and how is that different from the Wi-Fi that you can already get through your phone? Is that, are we trying to reduce people having to go to Starbucks or Panera to get Wi-Fi? I mean, I guess I'm just big, simple picture to try and explain it to... Right now, I will tell you we're not addressing what I would call public Wi-Fi. Could that be an opportunity? Yes. But we're really trying to address what do we need from an infrastructure perspective so that you have this faster capability in your home. One of the things that happens is that businesses will be able to afford what they need to do their business. And businesses will, that will be part of doing, that's the cost of doing business. The opportunity for individual citizens to have this capability in their home is really sort of at the heart of what we're trying to do. eventually would there be better wi-fi out on the street possibly new york is trying to do a a pilot right now that looks at that but at the heart of this will always be how fast does information travel through this fiber optic network the fact that you're making it available as a Wi-Fi off of another tower and additional technology is a byproduct. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Council Member Hensley, please don't play stump the band. Just ask a straight question. Okay. I'll try. Thank you, Chair. So I guess from my standpoint, this committee, when we're talking about fiber and fiber to the home and some of these technologies is almost, as Aldona said, is ubiquitous to paving. And, you know, we talk about paving every budget cycle, and the city should be forward-looking and including some budgetary amount, in my opinion, in our budget for fiber build-out. And some of those things that we should look at also should probably be things like a dig-once policy when we're doing infrastructure projects to also include burying the fiber while those ditches are open. And what we're talking about, digging the ditch, is the majority of the costs. The fiber itself is very inexpensive to what we're doing. As many of you know, generally I'm very reserved about government involvement in business activities, but telecommunication is one of these quasi-government entities anyway where the market is fairly controlled and market forces are hard to enter. And so, you know, I would strongly encourage us to invest as much as we can in this infrastructure going forward. To put it in some layman terms, in my opinion, you know, if you look in Best Buy now and we see these 4K televisions that are hanging in there, which are super color-rich televisions, the only way to enable that is through gigabit internet connections. I mean, unless you're bringing it home on a 4K DVD player type optical media. So, you know, gigabit is not this fascination. It's a thing that we have an opportunity, I think, to seize a moment to go forward. That being said, I also don't think the 12th District is the far reaches of the universe. And, you know, so as I understand in our previous discussions, the RFP didn't include anything outside the urban services boundary. That is correct. That is what we're looking at right now. And so, you know, I would express my reservation. I think that's a mistake. You know, I think that most of the telecom companies that would come to this RFP would service the higher density areas in that large green area that's on our map up there to get the business out of the urban service area. And I think if we don't take the approach where that if you want this, you have to get these higher density areas, then we're going to miss an opportunity out there in those areas. I know during recess, Windstream made a press release on December the 18th that they were doing fiber to the home. And I know those homes, Windstream has actually got gigabit service installed in some of these homes, and some of those homes are in the 12th district. And these opportunities, I think that we need to pause before we issue the RFP that is only for the urban service area because there's 25,000 or so people out there that, you know, we're going to exclude them from this for a long time, I think, if we don't set some boundaries around the RFP to include them. Again, you know, 4K TV does not work without gigabit, and that's technology you go into Best Buy and you buy it for $500 to $800 now. it's not, you know, NASA, pie-in-the-sky kind of technology, the moment is here for us to make it a gigabit city. But I think that includes the whole merged government, not just the urban services area. And that's my pontification. And just, you know, being this very sensitive area to me, because I've done this for a while, and I was one of the plenary speakers for the SOAR Summit in Pikeville. for the SOAR initiative and been close to this project for a while. And I think we can stretch and try to bring those high-density areas in, like Westmoreland and Greenbrier and some of these other subdivisions. We can't go forward without including them in this. I don't know that I have a good response, but here, let me try this. The RFP has not been issued yet, and there may be ways to write it to say, all right, and oh, by the way, what is the opportunity that is greater? I would be more than happy to have you come and speak with the committee and say, hey, is there a way that we can shape this without scaring off possibly some that may not have all those resources or look at the density of those maps? Because ultimately it's going to be about density. Because there's two issues. There's the issue of the greater area, But then there's also the issue of what we call multi-dwelling units, which have their own contracts in place. So, for instance, the denser we get, the more apartment buildings, the more condominiums, many times those are all negotiated based on that particular property. And those sometimes, you know, you leave those out of the picture because it takes too long to actually negotiate some of those. So there are multiple issues that we've learned throughout this process. But I think this is one that we can keep discussing. I think, you know, the government is, you know, we've got these great programs for conservancy. You know, we almost create a double-edged sword if we're not careful where we're, you know, incentivizing people to not develop areas, which then leads to stretches of the county being underdeveloped, which then doesn't trip the Public Service Commission's requirements for 26 and a half houses per mile to actually deploy cable. So I think, you know, we've got some responsibility to help enable those areas because in one area we've taken a responsibility to conserve the area, which in reverse causes a detriment to not enable gigabit or Internet in some cases. I mean, for the last four years, I've had two megabit of service, and there's a light at the end of the tunnel. And a lot of that is because, you know, there's two large farms at the end of the road where I live, and so the Public Service Commission requirements are not met. So I just want to be cautious with what we do, you know, because we encourage underdevelopment in some areas, and then at the risk of not deploying these services to the citizens that are out there. Thank you. Thank you, sir. How soon do you expect this RFP to be on the street, so to speak? We've gone through a couple of drafts now, and I think that it's probably going to take us at least another couple of weeks to go through several more. And my timetable says I hope to have it out in the next three to four weeks on the street. You know, the only urgency I perceive from the committee of the council is just the urgency to get it right. I know. I appreciate that. You've seen that in the body camera discussion? Yes. Anxious but urgent. I think here this is more anxious, but let's be sure, because I think these are big stepping stones and big parts of what the future can hold for Lexington. We want to make the best example in our decision-making right now. So if it takes more than a couple weeks, I think that's fine. We don't have a specific report back date for you here I would just say to you that we need to be kept abreast of this both Within the committee within the council and I'll leave it to your good graces to make sure that we are we'll be happy to do that Thank you very much for the time. Yes, ma'am. Thank you very much All right, our last item of business is detention retention maintenance and enforcement This was placed in committee by council members was audience scutchfield and ladies I would ask for one of you to take an opening swipe at it if you would please If you if you so if you desire Thank you. Yes, I think Council Member Massadi had already had it in committee, but then I had some stuff come up in my district. Craig, thank you for all your help on this. Also, Susan, Jennifer, we got kind of a big group together because there's a lot of different issues with the stormwater retention areas, whether they're retention, detention, whether they're naturalized. And so we discovered that we weren't just talking about a water quality. We were talking about environmental and everything else. So we kind of brought everybody to the table. And I think we've come to a good conclusion. And I'll let you go take it away. Thank you, Susan. Well, thank you very much. I'm going to do three things with a short presentation. I'm going to give you a brief status update on our basin maintenance program. I'm going to provide one recommendation for your consideration and see if you have any additional input to us on this program. I'm going to cover our basin maintenance requirements. I'm going to show you some pictures of compliance issues that we have. Again, a recommendation related to a minor ordinance change, and then take your questions. A little bit of background first. Our basin program's been around actually for a long time. We've had detention basins in Fayette County being built actually back to the 60s and the 70s. Our stormwater manual currently has design requirements related to new and redevelopment for detention. and the proper maintenance and enforcement of the Basin Maintenance Program is mandated by the EPA consent decree, and we have very strong ordinance tied to that. A couple of definitions. Detention basins are stormwater management structures that detain water during and after a rainfall event. They're meant to be dry basins most of the time. In Fayette County, there's 1,187 detention basins currently listed in our inventory. 90% of those are privately owned. 116 of those are publicly owned. Retention basins, on the other hand, are ponds. Typically, they're old farm ponds, part of the development. They decided to keep them as amenity. It's typically how they come to be. Sometimes they bill them as part of the development. They may or may not provide detention, but they're important that they be looked at and properly maintained for public health and safety reasons. We have 109 ponds in our inventory. as i said we have a strong ordinance tied to this program and it can be basically summarized as this with roles and responsibilities if the city owns it the city maintains it if it's a commercial property the property owner maintains it structural and non-structural maintenance with very few exceptions we just have a couple that are kind of older part of a an agreement that was made but there's very few that are that way residential properties with no public easement property owners responsible for the maintenance and then residential properties with public easements the HOA or the property owners maintain the non-structural part and then the city picks up the structural maintenance however we are not responsible to maintain ponds as an amenity only the detention function of them as far as the guidelines for maintenance go our ordinance has got some good information in it and in addition we have the stormwater manual and a policy that we provide to owners to give very clear direction on what needs to be done. Specifically they need to be structurally sound, they need to function as they were intended to be when they were designed. That's how we know that they're functioning properly. We have two divisions involved basically with this program. With the EPA consent decree we have mandated inspections twice a year for detention, once a month for retention that comes out to 3,684 for inspections that we had in 2015. If structural repairs are required, Division of Water Quality handles those. We also have a budget of $125,000 that covers all of our maintenance on our responsible basins, routine maintenance, mowing, repairs, cleanups, et cetera. Then compliance assistance to property owners is done through the inspection process in water quality, and then we have, they also issue notices of violation. In 2015, we had 69 notices of violation related to this program. We also had very good compliance. If it moves beyond notice of violation, it comes to my division for enforcement, where we have the standard citation, civil penalties, abatements, and appeals process. We had four enforcement cases in 2015, and we had one citation, which happened to be on a property that was in bankruptcy. And that's what we tend to see when it comes to abatements. It's usually only required with this program when property ownership is unclear. So you have a bankruptcy, you have a defunct HOA, for example. So I looked up the amounts that we've spent on that in 2015. There were four properties where we did abatements at a cost of $7,500, primarily related to mowing and cleanups. That was for 2015. My division also manages the mowing of our basins as well. So a couple pictures. This picture's worth a thousand words. This is kind of what we see when we have a problem. We have erosion issues. You might have silted flumes that need to be cleaned out. We have litter issues. We can't have encroachments. I've seen where someone decided to move the parking lot over into the basin. That happens very rarely. In this case, we had a fence crossing the drainage swale going through the basin, collecting all the litter behind it. Dumping issues. This was my favorite picture, actually. This is damaged infrastructure. It's actually the outlet structure of a detention basin. Detention works with two main variables. You've got to have the right volume to hold the water, and you have to have the right outlet structure to determine how fast the water goes out over time. Most basins have what's called a riser structure or a structure like this that has an orifice plate on it. And they'll have multiple orifices, and that controls how much water goes out of the basin over time. In this case, you can see that three of the four bolts have come off. It's hanging by one bolt. This detention basin is not functioning as designed because the water is going behind the plate. So that needs to be addressed by the property owner. This one is a little harder to see, but you can see at the bottom there's a hole, and above it there's a smaller hole. The bottom you can see the outline of where the orifice plate used to be and it's completely gone. I saw one where someone took a sledgehammer and just punched a hole in the side to let the water go out quicker. So those are the types of issues that we occasionally find. And with that, just a note too, we need the design plans. We work with engineering, the Division of Water Quality and engineering work closely together as these come into the system so that we know what the original designs were supposed to be so we can do the right inspections, the right maintenance, the right enforcement. This is the opposite problem. There's an orifice down there somewhere, we just can't see it, so it's blocked. We also have issues with old temporary sediment control measures being left in place. with the Division of Water Quality initiated a plan this year to look at every basin. They have done that, looking for these old locations to get those removed by the owners. This is an example of an erosion control measure, sediment control measure, around an outlet that was left in place, and we had honeysuckle that grew up around it, blocks the outlet, kind of a typical problem with those. And mowing of detention basins, this is typically what you would see for standard dry detention basin. And this is where the potential council action item comes into play. And that's related to unmowed detention basin bottoms. And in some cases, particularly larger basins, there's some positive to having the vegetation grow up for water quality purposes. In some cases, the owner might prefer that. In some cases, the ground is saturated due to a problem that needs to be addressed, which they need to fix, and then they can mow it properly. But there is some advantage in some cases to having habitat in some of these larger areas. But we have an issue where we have the weed nuisance ordinance that says you must keep your plants lower than one foot high unless a riparian buffer permit is in place. And this really, the riparian buffer permit came in relation to streams initially. And we know that, again, the natural basins can provide water quality habitat, and so we looked at how could we address this by the riparian buffer permit program. It's from 2000, it allows for managed naturalized areas along streams and wetlands, and we felt that we didn't need to reinvent the wheel here, maybe we just need to expand that program to include detention basins. So that's what our recommendation is, is to make a slight change to allow that option naturalized detention basin bottoms expand the riparian buffer program permit to cover those which it still requires invasive species and weed control it's still a managed environment you have to have native plants etc you can't let honeysuckle and grow up but it does allow an exemption from that weed nuisance ordinance it's budget neutral we have all the people in place to do it and this just helps clarify this issue for staff and for property owners i will note that we currently have never issued an official riparian buffer permit. We've had four cases. They've all been resolved between code enforcement and the property owner. But I could see in the future this becoming a larger issue. We'd like to get in front of it and allow this as an option if a property owner were interested in considering it. So council action that would be required in your packet, you have a draft of an amendment to the riparian buffer ordinance. When originally written, it said the urban forester managed this program. He was in planning at the time. We would just like to change that to the Division of Environmental Services, which is where the permitting would occur, and then add that four-line phrase into the permit to include along wetlands and streams. Then we would come back later with some changes to the citation officer's ordinance, which needs some other additional changes. We would bring those together and take that at one time. but what's in your packet just deals with letter A. So that's what I had. Brief direct. Thank you very much. We have several sign-ups, and we're running out of time. So Fred Brown, council member, sir. Thank you, Chair. That's one of the problems, the time element here. I've got a lot of questions. I'm sure other council members do too. I think this is kind of a, you know, this is a big item that we really need to sit down either in a subcommittee or a special committee or something to address this. I've got several of these problems and complaints in my district, so I assume it's all over the city, especially in the urban service area. So I would recommend that we keep this in committee, but I'm open to suggestions to do something further to where we could get some information. And obviously, from your office, bring forward a plan. I think we need to look at this. And two things there real quickly that I'm finding is that the structural items on stormwater, you know, whether they're on the property, who maintains them. I'm having difficulty in some of my areas in the 8th District determining who's got the responsibility. And a lot of times property owners don't even know they've got that responsibility to some extent. And I think we need to address that. Plus, on this page here on the mowing of detention basins, I've had complaints about if it gets too high, then you have rodents and you have mosquitoes and that type of thing that happens in the summertime. So that's kind of the things that I'm concerned with. I don't think we have time today to deal with them. Very good, sir. Thank you. Councilmember Maloney. Okay. Presentation. The question I got is on our property, city property. I had people have asked me, Kearney Hills, for example, you have a wall built up around a pond, and the wall is starting to cave in. And I'm worried about the pond used for nature, for all kinds of use. is it something that would qualify for you guys to go out and figure out how we fix this problem and all that because uh i mean i know park have asked me what to do and i thought this would be something that you would fit into you guys to help them out to guide them what they have to do is that something that i see that you all be doing or is that park gonna have to go out to the own people well city-owned property we could look it would either be a capital project probably coming out the division of water quality which we've done some of those that are in parks most of our ponds obviously are in parks so we will coordinate with parks and there might be need to be a capital project that would be created because they do that they fertilize fairways and all that what's going on out there now i'm concerned about when the water the wall was there to keep water from stuff going into the into the pond but now the pond is collapsing and and i didn't know if there was something that falls in the water quality that could help them find a grant or something to work with them Charlie might be able to answer that excuse me unfortunately with detention and retention basins the always the common thing is it depends the why is the wall there is the wall there as part of the functioning component of the basin itself or was it built there in order to be able to level out the ground adjacent to it so you could use it better. We'll look at it because the bottom line is if LFUCG owns the retention or detention basin, if it's our property, we're responsible for maintaining the stormwater infrastructure function of that basin. Likewise, in private property, the way that the ordinance was written, the way a lot of these plats were recorded when those developments were created, the private property is responsible for it. Where we get into a mess is that sometimes they're on a single lot, sometimes they're on multiple lots. Sometimes it's hard to define who the owner is of some of these. I have one in my backyard that basically is part of all of our backyards. That's one of the things that has made this program very, very difficult to administer on our end and difficult for you to deal with as far as constituents. But to answer your question on Kearney Hills, we will look at it because it's LFCG property. Number 16. Number 16? Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you for demonstrating the policy there. I appreciate that. Council Member Lamb. Thank you for recognizing me. I'll be really quick. While I appreciate the content of this presentation, I think it's very important and it addresses detention basins. It doesn't, in my opinion, address the retention basins. Charlie and I went out and talked to the people at Waterford about the retention basin that is out at the beginning of that development. And I think that this is a similar, and I don't want to speak on behalf of Councilmembers Scutchfield and Mazzotti, but this is my problem, is the sediment and the erosion debris that's in the retention basins. And so what I would like to do is, on what Councilmember Fred Brown was talking about, I would like to have further discussion about possible matching grant program for opportunities to assist neighborhood associations for the upkeep, because from what I've learned, it's very expensive to maintain these. And oftentimes after the developer builds them, then it falls back on the neighborhood association, and they are not that wealthy. And so I would hope that we could come up with some type of a matching program. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, ma'am. Councilmember Scutchfield. And I think we recognize that we weren't able to necessarily deal with everything. I think in the detention basins, what we looked at here was more of the reality that that naturalized area can also be successful in doing what the purposes are. And in some situations, it's actually better than mowing the grass down because then you have a lot of issues with erosion and other things, which I know that Susan's seen in some of the areas. I do agree that I'm trying to get through this discussion and push it forward in 12 minutes. I'm not going to move to, but I would like to, you know, bring it back up. And it's a separate issue. You know, this is a separate issue than the retention area. So if we can move forward for retention areas, that's fine. But, you know, my intention would be in the future to move this one forward. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Council Member Mazzotti. Thank you, Chair. I think one of the big issues, the reasons why I initially put it in committee was because of ownership. What happens many times, the developer turns it over to the HOA, the HOA is active, and then three years later, the HOA goes defunct. Who takes care of the pond? Does the city take care of the pond? There's no more HOA that is functioning anymore, so we've got a big issue. So that's just one. So I think what Council Member Lamb was saying and some of the other council members saying, as far as ownership, knowing, you know, I can tell you it's selling real estate. Most people don't know that that's theirs to maintain. They just say it's a wonderful amenity until they realize that, oh, guess what? It's on my property, and I have to maintain it. So that's a big deal to me. So I think if we can continue this discussion as far as what some of the other council members have said, and I guess Council Member Scotchfield, if you want to leave this in committee. Yes. Do you want to go ahead and leave this in committee? We'll just continue on. Sure. I will say, I think we're talking about maybe three different things. I mean, you talked about abatement today. The fact is we only had four abatements this past year. That we had to go in. Can you move forward with one part? Not at this point. We said it was 12 minutes to discuss it. Let it settle a little bit. That's what I mean, what I said earlier. So to speak. Council Member Gibbs. Thank you, ma'am. Council Member Gibbs. Are you good? Okay. Yes, sir. No problem. Susan and I were just talking. I did do want to make it clear. I think that we're, at least our belief is, is that while these other issues definitely need to be discussed, I mean, nothing you said surprised me in the notes that I had here as far as I've talked to probably 50 percent of you about detention and retention basins over my career. But the amendment that is presented here today, I think, doesn't impact those other discussions. And I would like that hopefully that the committee would consider this as we transmit back into mowing season soon, Even though it's cold out there today, it will definitely make Susan's job easier dealing with anything that needs to be mowed as far as how this is interpreted. Because right now, it's very, very vague. Would you like to take action on this? Yeah, you know, because it isn't, I mean, we can still leave it in committee, but deal with this naturalized area. I don't disagree that we still, and Susan and Charlie, we also recognize in our discussions. But I think I will go ahead and move forward. this amendment just regarding with the riparian areas. So that's pages 50 through 52 of the packet. Second by Council Member Mazzotti. Are there any questions? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed, like sign. We will keep this in committee. We will move that forward. You made the motion. She seconded. We voted on it. We're done. Oh, are you not a member? I'm so sorry. Vice Mayor. I'll make that motion. Thank you, sir. I appreciate your all fessing up on my behalf. Do you want me to make the motion? The vice mayor did. You were already in line as a second. We'll just keep it. And we voted on it. And now I'll ask for a move to adjourn. So moved. Second. We are in adjournment. Thank you. you