You can bet your heart and dollar I will Oh yeah, you can bet your heart and dollar I will Just like the white winged dove sings a song, sounds like she's singing. Ooh, ooh, ooh. Just like the white winged dove sings a song, sounds like she's singing. Ooh, baby, ooh, ooh. Ooh, ooh. And the days go by like a tram and the wind and the web that is known. I'll begin again. Everything's hot Nothing else matters He was no more Than a baby then When he seemed broken hearted Something within him When the moment that I first laid I am here Falling alone on the edge of Seventeen Just like the white ringer Sing songs and I should sing it Ooh, baby, ooh, ooh Just like the white ringer Sings a song, stands like she's singing Ooh, baby, ooh, say ooh The class never expected When it rains But the sea changes, darling But the sea does not change Snow is a slow graceful flow Of age I went forth With an angel Desire to be On the edge of 17 Just like the white winger Sings a song that sounds like she's singing Ooh, baby, ooh, yeah, ooh Just like the white winger Sings a song that sounds like she's singing Ooh, baby, ooh, yeah, ooh Well, then suddenly There was no one less standing in the hall Yeah, yeah, we ain't thought of tears No one really ever was born at all When I'm in trouble and for an answer I'm still in the hole And I should find an answer Just to hear the call of a neighbor Singing come away, come away, come away Just like the white windows Sing the songs that I'm just singing Blue, baby, ooh, yeah, ooh Just like the white windows Sing the songs that I'm just singing Blue, baby, ooh, yeah, ooh Well, I hear you in the morning And I hear you at night, boy Sometimes, too many Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The End Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome to the meeting of the work session. We will begin with a public comment for issues on the agenda. Floors available for issues on the agenda. Mr. Mundy, has anyone signed on? Okay, nobody signed on for issues on the agenda. Next is any rezoning requests and the docket approval. Are there any rezoning requests? I understand Council Member Evans may have something. Thank you, Mayor. Do I need to make a motion? Okay, a motion to put on the docket for Thursday. An ordinance changing the zone from a single-family residential R1D zone to a high-density apartment R4 zone, 4.31 net, 0.3 gross, acre of property located at 836 Campbell Lane, RML Construction, LLP, District 6. So move. Without a hearing, sorry. Without a hearing. All right. So motion by Council Member Evans, seconded by Council Member Fred Brown. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing none, then we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. And then I have one more. I would also move to place on the docket, without a hearing, an ordinance changing the zone from an interchange service business B5P zone to a light industrial I-1 zone for 3.08 net per 6.35 gross acres for property located at 1973 Bryant Road. Dimensional variances were also requested. So moved. Second. Motion by Council Member Evans, second by Council Member Fred Brown. Is there any discussion on the motion? Okay, if not, then we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. Thank you, Council Member Evans. That allows us to move to, I'll ask for a motion to approve the docket. So moved. Motion by Council Member Farmer, seconded by Council Member Scotchfield. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. If not, we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. Next is approving the summary. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Motion by Council Member Farmer, seconded by Council Member Massadi. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing none, then we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Next on our agenda, budget amendments. Is there a motion to approve budget amendments? Approval. Motion to approve by Council Member Farmer. Is there a second? Second. Second by Council Member Hensley. Is there any discussion on the motion? Council Member Lamb. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Journal 93322 is about personnel contingency funds and being used for overtime. Is that something that we have been allowing? Okay, so this needs a little bit of an explanation. Thank you. The coroner's office got reclassed as part of the comp study. The actuals weren't showing up when we did the budget last year, so their overtime budget wasn't enough to cover the increase in their salaries. And we have money in a personnel contingency account that's associated with reclasses, and since this is considered part of a reclass, that's why we were allowing to use this personnel contingency money for that. Okay. So I'll leave it at that. Okay. Thanks. I'm, yeah Alright, thank you Council Member Lamb Is there any further discussion on the motion? Alright, if not, we can vote All in favor, please say aye Aye Opposed, no Motion carries Next is new business, is there a motion to approve and then I'll ask for discussion Motion by Council Member Farmer Second by Council Member Hensley Is there a discussion on the motion? Council Member Farmer I do have questions on a couple items. However, I wanted to ask the Council, I think since we're going to have a presentation that's related to item K, I would rather take up a vote on item K after we've had the presentation. So I would move that we remove item K from the docket until after the presentation, and then we can take up a vote then, so I move. Second. All right, motion by Council Member Farmer and second by Council Member Massadi. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing none, then we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you. And on item H, which is on page 21, I'm just interested in the map. I can't tell where it says easement location, but it doesn't really show where the sewer is going to go through Pyramid Park down there on Manchester Street. All right, Charlie Martin, thank you, sir. Or is that that faint line that runs kind of parallel to the tracks there? Do you see the purple line that's on your sheet? Unfortunately, mine's a black and white. Well, that's unfortunate, yes, because mine's in color. Okay. About where the arrow lies, there is a line that runs under it. It has a little arrow kind of embedded in it. I see that. That is the existing sanitary sewer. We will be either replacing it in place right there or moving slightly towards the railroad tracks in order to minimize the impact on the park parcel itself. Will the park be better off for you having been there when all is said and done, or do we know that? No, I don't think that they're going to necessarily be better off, but they won't be worse off either. I mean, this is part of the overall remedial measures projects that this is what we call UK Trunk A. Yes, sir. It is the first of a series, I believe, of six trunk sewer extensions that will go on across where the Newtown Pike extension is going on now on up Euclid Avenue. We've talked about this before, that we have to put the bottom of the hill in first in order to be able to work our way up the top of the hill. It's not a well-known park. It's not a well-used park. It does have some history about it. I just think we try to leave things better rather than worse, but I'll take the same if the same is what we're going to get. Yeah, we have to restore it to equal or better. I'm not the parks expert, but I know from being out there all these years and stuff, I can't say that it's a high-use park. I agree. And what's odd about it, we didn't understand this, is that it's actually owned by Norfolk Southern, not by us. I didn't know that either. That's why it's here. I guess that's the form of the motion. Okay. I appreciate your information on that. Thank you, sir. than I think I took care of. I would just say to the council, I've been asked by a constituent to give two readings to item J on Thursday night. And K, and the last one, Mayor, I'm sorry. All right. Page 37, item T. Do we really need a feasibility study here? I mean, we know we're going to build a salt barn there, or is it just we're having this study to see what's under what was there before to make sure a salt barn can go on top of it? I mean, I'm a little befuzzled here. George Milligan to the rescue. I think Council Member Mazzotti may have a question on this too. We already own the property. Say it again. We already own the property where this location is. It's the back part of Blue Sky. Right. In putting out the proposal for the design, we found out that this property is now in a floodplain. So the feasibility will be the cost to, if there is any, what remedial action we'll have to take in order to still get it there. Yeah, I think a salt barn on a floodplain doesn't sound straight up right off. But we didn't notice that it was a floodplain until just recently. The floodplain changed here several years ago. The council didn't okay that. It was done by FEMA. Really? Yes. So that could potentially make a huge difference in our ability to use this piece of property. It could. Basically, the old lagoon, which is the area that's being filled in where we're going to put the new salt barn, now is actually all in the floodplain. what this study will tell us is how much fill we're going to have to put in there to bring it up out of the flood. To make it work. So we do need to study it. Yes. Doggone it. All right. And the way this proposal is also written, it is done in phases. You'll notice the proposal is $110,000. Yes, sir. But we can stop it at any different phase. There's five steps to it. And the first step of it is $15,000. I'm going to yield the balance of my time to Council Member Mazzotti on the same issue. Thank you. Hi, George. How are you? I guess a follow-up would be, is there no other location? Because if we're going to spend this money to get a feasibility study done for places in a floodplain. Right now, the nice thing about this is this is a piece of property that we own. And I understand that, but I'm just wondering about the ramifications of it being in a floodplain. This study, the first part of this is $15,000. It's not the $110,000. That's a good... I understand. Yeah. But no other location would service this. We've looked out on that side of town. We need to be on that side of town with this. Several years ago, we actually bought and owned a piece of property across the street, did a full design, and then found out we couldn't get access to the road. Charlie. Oh, I know. We've had a couple of locations. It was Continental Inn, and then we had one across the street, but it just seems when you talk about floodplain and the money that you might have to spend in order for this to actually work, it seems like a lot of extra money if we couldn't think of an alternative or find an alternative spot. I think it's worth the risk, I guess, and I'll state that. We operated that facility since 2003 on an interim basis. that's through the 2006 rain, that's through the Derby of 2010 rain event, and even through last April. That lagoon has never flooded. I mean, there was a treatment plant there, and now there's a pump station there now. Because the FEMA map says that it's a floodplain versus, anecdotally, what I have experienced in the time that I've been there, I feel like it's worth the effort for us to look at this, examine this on what needs to be done in order to build it, because it does allow us to utilize a two-acre parcel that we already own and that also is, I think, is a favorable location because it's in the middle of a commercial area, industrial area, rather than being near residential homes. Oh, I'm familiar with it, and I think it's a great location. I just didn't realize it was in a floodplain. Thank you. All right, any further questions? No, sir. Thank you, Mayor. All right. Thank you. All right. Sorry. No problem. Council Member Maloney. Thank you, Mayor. Charlie, just a question on that same issue. There was a pond there. We're filling that pond up. Is that correct? We stopped filling the pond. That's one of the other items that are on this agenda. Isn't that where the salt barn is going to go on top of where the pond was? That's the intention. I helped George as far as in the process of the selection part of it, so I'm familiar with it to the point of that is the usable acreage. Right now, there is a pump station there that's tucked into the corner of the existing property. So you've got really about a net two acres that you can utilize, most of it being where that lagoon used to be. The other question I have, Mayor, if you wouldn't mind asking, I have it on B, and I guess somebody, I don't know, Dow's here right now. Tracy or Dow is here. Tracy's here. I know we had brought up in our general, I mean, in quality, environmental quality meeting last month about the MRF and how much we're in the hole and how bad it's hurting and all that. Now, understanding this is going to be a group that's going to come in repair parts, is that why I understand we pay them $70,000 a year to come? What is this thing? What's this group going to be doing for the MRF? I don't mean to speak for Tracy, and she can add to this. This is a sole source request. So this manufactures these repair parts that we need for a machine. So this is a sole source contract. It's not saying we're going to order $70,000 of parts right now. It's just allowing us to do that if we need it. Now, the other question I have, you all were in the meeting last month, and we saw the newspapers and all that. Are you guys looking back and trying to maybe look at an RFP or something to look at that whole thing? Because we are losing a lot of money out there, and it seemed to me like it can do a lot better. Are we trying to go back and do another study, an RFP, or have a consultant come out there and see what we have to do to get this thing back on track? Because there's a lot of potential there, and I just don't think we're using any of it. I mean, I'm hoping you all are looking at it in-house. We have debriefed from that committee meeting and have come up with a number of points that we're going to transmit back to council. But I can say from that meeting that we are not proceeding forward with any further study of privatization at this time of the MRF. Well, I mean, coming back to the council is great with ideas, but to me, it seems like to me, in-house, we all can make it. We did that before when I was there. We did RFPs and consultants to come in to look for something that is hurting like this. And I'm just hoping that you all are back. We've already had an audit. Audit came back a few years ago, not good, but it is better. But I still think we're not where we need to be. And I think, to me, we need to go back to the drawing board and either come out with a consultant or with an RFP like we did before to bring somebody to run that whole thing for us. and get out of the business of managing labor for us and get out of the business of running that thing. And that, to me, I hope that we continue to go on that track because I think what you brought to the committee was just to tell me where we are, and I think this committee needs to know where we've got to go. And to me, I don't want this committee to tell you all where to go because we're not experts on that, and that's why I think we need to start finding ways. when the next time you come, you say, we have done an RFP, we've done a consulting, we've got to go a different direction. And then the council can say, yeah, well, I see where you're coming from. But the last thing I want to do is that you all come back and say, well, what's the way the council wants to go? I don't want to get into that. That's just so we can get back on track. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Council Member Maloney. Council Member Fred Brown. Thank you, Mayor. Item E, I'd like a little explanation on that. I understand this is for community development block grant funding. Yes. Why are we, we can't do this in-house as far as giving the information in the grant. you know, you apply and you prepare the grant document and everything and send it in. This looks like it's requiring a separate little audit or something. Excuse me. Okay. Okay. Okay. What we're required to do is an analysis of impediments. The HUD requires one. We haven't completed one since 2009, and they have requested that we proceed with completing this, and we do need an outside consultant for it. Now, will this help you in other grant areas, or is this just this one? No, this is just something where we, as a recipient of CDBG funds, home funds, and emergency solutions grant funds, We are required to certify that we are affirmatively furthering fair housing without being able to prove that we are. And this isn't just the government's actions on fair housing. It's not just our zoning and subdivision policies. but they will also look at the lenders, how the lenders are treating applicants for mortgages, and how all of our organizations who serve the housing need out there are performing. So it's not something that we could do. I think we would be biased if we tried to do it in-house because we would say, well, we're certainly not. But it's required then by the grantors, I guess. I'm sorry, what? It's required by the grantors then? It is required by HUD that we complete an analysis of. My follow-up question on that is that once you do this, wouldn't it apply for other grant applications? Would you have to have this document attached to other grant applications? It probably would for. it could be used by anyone who needed to show where we were with fair housing. So it's not an annual audit that we're doing? No, this is something that we've done. We finished one in 2009, and this is another one. They require us to complete one now. Now, in 2019, we will be moving to what is considered new regulations because HUD has completed new regulations on fair housing. So we won't be doing an analysis of impediments after that time. We'll be doing what's called a fair housing assessment. And we will actually be doing that in-house. We probably will not use a consultant after this. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. We've got one other item, Mayor. Let's see. I believe it's J. That would be – no, it's not J. It is S, page 36. This is a grant application to the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet. This is Tracy. I believe this is yours, perhaps, and down as well. Just a little bit of reference as to the cost for one thing. I understand that. But this is a one-day household hazardous waste recycling event for Fayette County. It looks like it's pretty expensive for that. And state funds are in there at $104,000. I guess our match is 20%. Right. We had one, I think it was in the fall of 2014 was our last one, and it was very successful. We had about 1,500 cars that came through that day, and so we have to hire a contractor that comes in and that will properly dispose of the hazardous waste. So a lot of, it's sort of, we get support from multiple departments in the government that help us staff that event, but it's been pretty successful. So you do have some costs there, advertising costs also? Correct. And I noticed it's a budget amendment for physical year 17. You're just asking our permission to go ahead and apply for the grant, I guess. Yes. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Council Member Brown. Council Member Scutchfield. Thank you, Mayor. I have a couple of, I hope, quick questions. On letter A, I guess, do we own, this is the yard dog, yard tractor? Is this something that we have, the one that we have, do we own it or are we leasing it as well? We own the current one. There is no backup for that. So what happens is if we have to do preventative maintenance from the fleet standpoint, then that would take it out of service. And so this allows us just to have this sitting there in the event that they need to take that piece of equipment for preventative maintenance. What would be the cost to buy one? I'm thinking that it was right around, it was close to $200,000. Okay. The one we have, I mean, it's working okay. And so it's just more or less one of those things that if it has to be out for preventative maintenance, because you should be doing routine maintenance on the equipment. So this would just allow us to have a backup when the fleet has that. Okay. All right. Thank you. And I don't think my next question is not for you. So real quick, I'm going to say on D, Charlie, Martin, and Dow, great job keeping the prices down on this. This is a change order decreasing the cost, and I appreciate your work on that. Thank you. On letter I, I had a question for Monica. and this is a it's not a big expense for the are they but are they going to be selling tickets to recoup any of the prices for this yes in fact they sell tickets that will cover the entire expense in addition the opera house discounts that 8100 by 50 percent so the maximum we would ever owe would be 8100 but that's never occurred okay thank you you're welcome and thank you Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Scottsville. Council Member Evans. Thank you, Mayor. I had a question on item P, as in Paul. I think that's Commissioner Paulson. Just curiosity, one kind of a general update on the project, if you have any, And then what was the original cost or estimation? I presume it was the increase to 58. I'm not sure if I have it, but I'm going to introduce you to Doug Burton, our new director of engineering. He might be able to give a little bit of an update on the project. If we don't have it, we can get it to you, especially in terms of the cost as well. Okay. Thank you. The original cost per the agreement on December 5th of 2013 was $794,387.13. So this 58 and change is above that. And it was for alignment shift and the utility and some other costs that weren't realized at the time. Okay, so this is a completely separate cost that wasn't included? Correct. It was outside that original agreement, which is why it's an addition. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Council Member Evans. It looks like that's all who have signed on for discussion for the motion on new business. No further discussion. I'll ask for the vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. That takes us to continuing business and presentations. Is there a motion on the NDFs? Motion by Council Member Lamb, seconded by Council Member Gibbs. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing none, we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Next is a summary of the General Government and Social Services Committee meeting from February 2nd by Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Mayor. I'll do the summary report out for February 2nd, 2016. The approval of the committee summary was approved unanimously. We had a discussion on the aquatics program design. Pat Hoagland with Branstetter Carroll presented an overview of the city's aquatic service areas and they identified growth areas of the community underserved by current aquatics facilities. He presented recommendations for improvements to the city's aquatics system, including upgrades to existing centers and the development of new centers and facilities. Mr. Hoagland also reviewed safety and regulatory improvement requirements and costs associated with repairs and improvements. Council Member Akers asked for an itemized list for the recommended changes and improvements, which Mr. Hoagland stated will be provided to the Council. There was discussion regarding the construction of splash pads rather than pools, and Mr. Hoagland stated that splash pads are less expensive to build and maintain. Council Member Evans further stated that she would like to see total revenue generated by the pools to help in their decision-making. Councilmember Fred Brown inquired if the aquatics plan is part of the parks master plan being developed. Commissioner Jeff Reed stated that the aquatics plan is intended to function as a stand-alone plan, which would be incorporated into the master plan. He further stated that there would be recommendations for the budget that would include the first-year projects. Councilmember Scutchfield noted that the existing aquatics infrastructure is aging and that better facilities in neighboring counties likely account for low attendance at Lexington's pools. Council Member Lamb asked if the consultant is proposing placing new pools on existing city-owned property or if land must be purchased for the facilities. Mr. Hoagland stated that if the city does not want to purchase land, Masterson Station and Jacobson Park are two options where land is available for expansion of the facilities. That was all the discussion on that item. The boards and agencies and commissions, Council Member Scutchfield, introduced the item and discussed proposed improvements to the reporting process. Council Member Lamb stated that I would like to see a draft of the suggested improvements. Commissioner Reed reported that electronic and software solutions for board and committee membership are being explored, and we suggested there would be an update in April. The review on the ethics ordinance subcommittee, Council Member Evans reported that the ethics commission had provided a memo with recommendations and comments on proposed amendments to the ordinance, and that the subcommittee will be meeting in February to review these recommendations. The EMS service fees was the next item. Commissioner Ford provided an update on this item and stated that the program has been implemented as part of the Emergency Financial Assistance Program. CNG fueling station was next on the agenda. Council Member Maloney stated that the proposed RFP language is being reviewed by the state. CAO Hamilton confirmed this and stated that the RFP will be issued later. And there were no other items in the committee, and the committee adjourned. Thank you, Mayor. All right. Thank you, Council Member Lamb. All right. That allows us to move on to the next item on the agenda, which is the presentation regarding the historic courthouse rehabilitation project. And I'll ask for Jennifer. Hello. How is everybody? Good. Thank you for having me again today. As you know, we were here in August, and we gave you all an update on the project and have done our best to keep you all informed the last five months. Now, as promised in August, it's time to come forward to you with our next steps. We've talked to a lot of you about these next steps over the past couple of weeks, but of course the public and other interested parties can now hear where we're headed. So I'm going to start today with a project overview and then tell you about some of our work in progress. And then we'll move to the two items that are essentially up for your consideration for first reading on Thursday in the resolution. the first of which is the legal structure, and the second is the financial contributions. Then I'm going to talk to you about next steps and take any questions. And I do want to note that I've added a slide in what will be projected today. We have Sally and I discussed what our public engagement will look like this spring, and so we've added a slide so we can show all of you and the public what that public engagement will look like. So again, we know that we need to hand this project over to a for-profit to be able to utilize our tax credits, and we've been through that numerous times with you. So today, that's what I'm here to describe to you in further detail. But before we do that, I'd like to sort of explain to you what we've been working on since August. Our development agents, Holly Wiedemann and Barry Alberts, and Barry is here today with us, they are currently preparing our Part 2 application. So as you all know, we know the building qualifies for historic tax credits to be considered for them. But this is a much more detailed part of that SHPO application. And essentially, every inch of that building has to be photographed. There's documentation and explanation as to what we're considering doing for the building, the existing conditions, and again, what we propose. And all of that needs to be approved, but no work can begin until it is approved. And so we are currently doing that. It's a really, really thick packet of information, as you can imagine. and it's a large building, so there's quite a bit of detail in that packet. So that is underway. We put this slide in here because this sort of simplifies the next few slides that are a little bit confusing, and we've been through most of them with you. But essentially, like I said when I started, the LFUCG cannot utilize historic tax credits. Thus, we have to endorse, and we're going to ask for your endorsement, of the creation of other bodies that can utilize those tax credits. And I think the most important thing to note about this entire presentation is that this project is upwards of a $30 million project, and we, as you all know, have bonded $22 million. To close that gap, we have to utilize tax credits, unless there was another way to finance it. We've sort of went down this path. So to do that, we have to form some legal entities that allow us to get to that bottom box, which is the Historic Courthouse LLLP, who will in turn have a developer come in, utilize the tax credits, and close that funding gap. Okay, so the first entity that we're going to talk about is a non-for-profit, 501c3, that we've named the Historic Courthouse Square Development, Inc. This will be a charitable organization, which means it will be able to get tax-deferred, tax-deductible donations in the future. And we have completed the application and are ready to submit it to the IRS, and we have named a potential board of directors. They had to be listed on that application. This body will essentially encourage, support, and promote the cultural history of the Fayette County Courthouse and the development of the project. Most importantly, it will form a wholly owned for-profit subsidiary, which is the Historic Courthouse GP. This is a for-profit entity. There will also be a board of directors named here. Now, the way that we have prepared these documents and our legal team has prepared these documents is that there are a board of directors, three board of directors that we have initially named, although it does allow for an expansion of board of directors in the future. So should it be the Council's prerogative, and I'm sure we'll talk about this when I'm done with the slides, we would always be able to add members to that board of directors. But the historic courthouse GP will essentially serve as the general partner of the historic courthouse LLLP. So this body is the one that will essentially control all the operations of the courthouse and will also be the master tenant and will hold the lease with us. The interim partner on this body will be the Downtown Development Authority, the DDA, and that will just be for a very short time. They will serve because we have to have another partner to form a partnership. So they will serve for a short time, and then when our tax credit investors come in, they will take the place of the DDA. Again, they'll control all operations of the courthouse. And when you're thinking about this building operating and running on a daily basis, this is the group that does that. It's not the LFUCG. It's no longer part of anything we're doing. There will be a lease, and they will take care of all of those details. It will be a 75-year lease, which you've seen, that will be up for your vote Thursday with the LFUCG Public Facilities Corporation. Okay, the financial piece of this. To get everything started, we will need to give an economic development loan to that historic courthouse LLLP in an amount that will not exceed $12 million. These funds will provide that initial capital to the project until the general partner and the future investors contribute capital. Really what that means is we want to start on the exterior early. We've got a very short time frame, as we told you in August, to get as much work done as we can so we can capture as many expenses as we can to get as much tax credits as we can. And so what we would like you to consider is approving this economic development loan, $12 million not to exceed, and it'll essentially get this project started so we can work on this exterior, work on the exterior of the building, we're hoping this summer, and I'll get to the timeline in just a second. The next piece of this, this is the infamous $22 million we've talked about and what was approved in the budget for fiscal year 16. So essentially, we'll have this initial infusion of money through the loan, but that money will eventually be paid back to the LFUCG, and we will go ahead and give the project the original amount, $22 million. So it's never more than $22 million. There's just an infusion of money, it comes back to the LFUCG, and then we grant the $22 million. It's really an accounting entry. But that, coupled with the tax credit investor money, gets us the money we need to finish the project. So the next step. So what I'm here asking for your consideration for today is that you will endorse the creation of these legal entities. We have to uncouple this project at this time from the LFUCG and put it in the hands of the bodies that I just explained to you. It's important to note that any contracts you all have approved about this project will now transfer to this historic courthouse LLLP, and any future contracts will be procured and awarded through that LLLP. They, myself, Sally, our law department, and Todd Slayton have worked on a formal procurement process that that board will adopt and use as they procure construction contracts, other types of contracts. I'm also asking that you'll authorize the ground lease between the PFC and the Historic Courthouse LLLP and also authorize that initial economic development loan agreement of $12 million. You will also be endorsing the future economic development grant of $22 million, which will come back to you again as a council because you will have to go ahead and approve the issuance of that bond. And we are hoping, Bill O'Mara is hoping, that we will do that before June 30. So just to give you an update, the SHPO Part II submission we are hoping to get done by the end of this month. And this is a revision from the copy that you had our project team met last week and Holly Wiedemann and Barry Elberts were shooting for a June 2016 beginning on the exterior renovations, so that is a month later than the copy that was in your packet. We're also hoping to begin the interior renovations in the fall with a target of August 2016 and a project complete late 2017. Please note these are tentative and they're targets and everything depends on Chippo approval of our design. Sally and I thought it was really important to talk to you all today about next steps, and one of those is public engagement and how we are going to engage with the business owners and the groups that use the pavilion, short street, upper street. We want you to know we've had numerous meetings with the Lexington Farmers Market. Some of you have been included in those meetings. In fact, they just had one last week. We've been providing them monthly, bi-monthly updates on this project and how it will impact them. We've also had numerous meetings with Downtown Lexington Corporation, specifically Thursday Night Live. And I'm happy to report that the plan, as of right now, is that both of those entities will continue their operation in the pavilion. And we've worked to sort of condense and alter their footprint this next summer into the fall. We've also met with Monica and Brian at LFUCG Parks and Recreation to discuss downtown area special events programming. As you all know, the city hosts numerous events downtown in the Pavilion, Short Street, and so we've worked with them so that everybody who signs agreements with us and we have events downtown, they sort of know what those revised footprints will look like for the next two years. Sally and I will also be drafting letters to all of the businesses that are adjacent to the historic courthouse project, and we will send those out in spring of 2016 prior to our public meeting that we will hold. This is really important, the letters and the public meeting, to let people know how their businesses, if they will be impacted, and how they'll be impacted and what that time frame looks like. We're going to wait until the spring to do that because we need to see our construction documents, know what sort of footprint our contractors will have. And so as soon as we have that information, not only will we share it with the stakeholders that are listed on top, but we will share that with the businesses that are adjacent to the property. Finally, I wish this showed up a little bit better, but last week Wesley Holbrook toured the beautiful new hotel next door and he sent me a text from one of the suites. I thought it was a really interesting bird's eye view and it sort of shows how important this structure is in our downtown. It's just a different way to look at it. So that again was one of the views out of one of the suites. I thought it was quite beautiful. And so now we'll answer any questions you have. And I do want to let you know that Bob Weiss is part of our legal team that we procured back in the fall. And he is here, too, should there be specific questions on the entities themselves. All right. Thank you. You're welcome. Lots of information. All right. Floor is available for questions or for comments. Councilmember James Brown. Thank you, Mayor. The Board of Directors. are you able to share that information with you? I am. We are going to have what we've got in our 501c3 application at this time as Sally Hamilton, Jeff Reed, and Bill O'Mara. And one of the most important takeaways, I want to preface that by saying, they are not on the board of directors and their current titles here at LFUCG. They are serving in their individual capacities, completely uncoupled from the LFUCG. But they are the board of directors at this time on the initial application to the IRS. Have you all taken consideration to maybe having a council representative? I guess they wouldn't be on there in their role as a council member, but as a citizen. Yes, we did talk about that initially. And the one slide that I had on there for the body that will essentially be the general partner, we do have opportunities to add members to that board. And, of course, Sally Hamilton, Jeff, Bill, and the whole project team is very open to doing that. We had discussed at great length what that board would look like. We've started with the three, and we can make it more robust and augment it as necessary. Okay. All right. That's all I had. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Brown. Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Ms. Hamilton and Jennifer, for all your work on this. I know it's a very intense and complicated project. It's a very innovative way to handle some of our historical properties. so I appreciate that and the complexity that comes with it. We're kind of at that point now of saying yes or no, no matter what. So I guess it bears two questions that I get asked all the time, which is, is this project going to be self-sustainable? Okay. Yes. Let me talk about that for just a little bit, because I think that's really important. One of the beautiful things about historic tax credits, why I think it's beautiful in this project, is because when everything is said and done and we know who our tenants are, We've got our letters of intent and our leases signed. Our accountants that we've procured back in the fall that you all approved, Ruben Brown, is going to do a very detailed pro forma of this building. And it is going to tell us not only what it costs to operate it, but the tax investors want to know that this project is going to sustain itself. That is very important. So, yes, there will be assurance of that. Now, on the flip side to that, you go down a road and spend money before you know that. And I want to be very clear and very honest and upfront about that. You know, we have architectural fees where we want to ask for this money to start the exterior construction. So, yes, you do get there, but you don't get there tomorrow. So there's a detailed pro forma. All the tax credit investors will ask to see that, and that will be really important when they're deciding if this is a project that they're interested in investing in. I think taxpayers will be, too, in the sense that they're also asking, we're spending $22 million, and they don't know, even more than we do, who's going to be in there yet. And I know you have a good vision for it, and I support that, but it's in some ways a big faith on everyone's part here. It is, yes. Even us, I mean, even us as the project team, these are things we'll know down the road, and we've been working on this for a few years now, and so I think that's an accurate statement. The last question I'll just ask, since this is going to be a separate organization, Will they be the ones holding the liability? For instance, if there is a loss on it two years from now, three years from now, does that come back to us? I think Bob Weiss and I, we've spoke about that, but I'm going to have Bob come up and answer that. He can do a better job answering that question. Good afternoon. Introduce yourself. Yes, I'm Bob Weiss, partner with Reid Weitkamp, Shell & Vice Special Counsel for the project. And yes, the long-term lease will create a separate ownership entity between the limited partnership that you were just learning about and the lease itself. That is a separate entity, and it will have its own insurance, liability, property, the whole thing. Now, your master tenant in that situation under the master lease is your public facilities corporation, but they're simply a landlord in that situation. All the obligations, all the liabilities are passed through to the tenant under that lease, and they'll be insured. Okay. Thank you. It's my idea, then. Our goal is to have it 100% sustainable. Yes, and we're actually, we've talked a great deal in our project team meetings about also those rents being able to fund a contingency that takes care of that building as we move forward. So not only are we paying the electric bill, but we're also planning for future needs of the building as well. That's not my biggest concern, but one of the top three. Well, we see it in lots of other buildings around town. So it's been important to us, and it will be something that's considered in that final financial document. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Bledsoe. Council Member Fred Brown. Thank you, Mayor. I may, Bill O'Mara may be able to answer a couple of these questions. This historic courthouse, LLLP, that's going to be the final ownership of this courthouse. And how does that relate to the airport, the Lexington Center Corporation, the health department, these areas that we have as component units in our audit? Well, I'll be glad to let Mr. Vice opine on what I say, but this is a for-profit with a separation. The board is not appointed by council or the mayor, so they are not like a component unit, is my understanding. But who has final ownership? You know, this property is owned by the city of Lexington now. Well, it's actually... We're not needing any ownership over, are we? 75-year lease. Okay. Okay, so there is a lease, but we have ownership to the land and the building. That's correct. And are we looking at a $34 million, or what is the... I know the $22 million is the number, I think, that you're going to... Bonding, that we've approved bonding for. $22 is the total that the council has included in the 2016 budget. We're looking at about $8 million worth of tax credits, so a total project in the $30 million range. And at that $22 million, are we going to release $12 million, or how does the $12 million fall into that $22 million? That's a loan portion, isn't it? Think of the $22 million as the total investment. Okay. $12 million goes now through a loan because it can't be a grant. This is a for-profit. There has to be separation in the funding. When we get the tax partner and the total equity goes in, that's when we put in the $22,000, they put in the $8,000, the $12 million loan is paid back. Our total commitment is $22,000. Still $22,000 from the urban county government. And we're doing that in essence to make the building ready to lease. Is that? We're doing the $12 million so that we can get construction on the exterior started and capture as many tax credit dollars as possible. The sooner we start spending the money, the greater the opportunity of those tax credits are. Those tax credits, are they coming from the state or the federal or what? Both. Both? Okay. But the state has the shorter runways qualifying for the expenses. Okay, so getting back to my question on this would not be a component unit, how would it be handled in our audit as far as just a lease? It's a 75-year lease. Okay, okay. And do we have any liability whatsoever during this whole process, the city? Or when does that convert over to? I defer to legal on that question. He's a conno. Just because he has a degree. The legal structure will be the limited liability, limited partnership. The general partner will be the for-profit general partner that was described. You all don't control that. Well, you may control it informally, but it's not an entity of Lexington, Fayette, Urban County government. The other part of that ownership is an investor group who's interested in the historic tax credits. That entity will be subject to several things. It's going to be subject to your ground lease. So you've got the 75-year lease, and as a landlord, you're requiring certain things to be done. You're requiring the project to be renovated. You require them to pay and have insurance, all that sort of thing. All those obligations are on the master tenant, which is this limited liability, limited partnership. And that entity has all the liability and all the obligations. And you ultimately control it as a landlord. They have to meet their obligations on the lease. That makes sense when you get it into the frame. and we're going to own the property, we're renting it out, and everything else has got to come forward. Just a couple other quick questions from, you know, this is a good report on here. Exterior, is that the first phase? It is. What's it do? Let me ask the follow-up. What about the surrounding streets and businesses? Are they going to be affected? Any street closure or anything of that nature? We don't know that yet, but what we do know is once we get the contractor, we've sort of got to take these baby steps. So we've got to get these entities created. We've got to procure this construction. And as soon as we get a contractor on board, we will know what sort of space they need for staging. And as you all know, the lawn around the courthouse is not that large. We have told both Parks and Recreation, Thursday Night Live, and the Farmers Market that we will be intruding onto the pavilion to the bollards. But we anticipate that's the only space we'll need on the pavilion side. Short Street and Upper, we don't know yet, but as soon as we do, that will be communicated immediately to those affected businesses and to our citizens. Lots of people just use those streets to commute and move through every day before and after work. Upper Street, of course, has been closed, I guess Upper. Yes. It's been closed for some time because of 21C. And I'd hate to see that road closed again for another two years because that's a north-south corridor. A lot of people use that. Yes, and one thing about Upper to note is that when they put Upper back and opened it back up, the part that is adjacent to the courthouse is actually parking spots right now. So my hope, and I'm speaking prematurely, but my hope would be if we did have to use part of Upper that we could use the parking spots, which wouldn't impede the traffic. And I don't know that yet, but we're going to do our best to minimize the impact it has on both traffic and the surrounding businesses. And we've made that very clear to our development agents, and they understand that, and we will work to that end. And the other part of the interior part, now that wouldn't really cause any problem. Once you've got the exterior done, then you move to the interior, are you going to do some of that at the same time? Well, the reason this is staged the way it is is we're actually asking the State Historic Preservation Office to sort of consider this application in two parts. The first is the exterior, so we can start on that. The second is the interior. We didn't want to wait and do them both at the same time because, as you know, the interior has lots of, I mean, it's a big building with lots of interesting, unique features that they will take a look at all of what we're proposing, I'm sure, in the building at great length. And so we also wanted to start on the exterior so we could move into the inside during the winter months next year. And that was really one of our main focus. We don't want to lose time just because of the winter months. And lastly, do you have or are you going to get a, I don't know, a consultant or somebody to start trying to lease some of that space based on the design? Yes, we actually, you all approved already this fiscal year a contract with our development agents, and so they've been working to that end. They're currently doing that and have been doing that. And so we hope to bring forward to you at some point in the future, near future, who those tenants will be. Well, I think this is a great project, especially for public-private, and I, for one, am glad that we can preserve the courthouse in this manner. which is going to be the least amount that we have to get taxes and pay for it from the city level. So let's just hope it all proves out like it's going in that direction. Absolutely. Thank you. Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Jennifer, for the report. I appreciate it. It is complicated. I'm looking through all these documents trying to figure out the legal entities and how it's structured. But let me ask you just a couple of basic questions. Is there a business plan that you have with this, or haven't you got to that point yet? Because I'm trying to think about, okay, we've got a master tenant. What are we charging? What is the whole big picture as far as we've got everything from costs that we're associated as far as operation, capital reserves that we're going to have to have. There's a lot of different pots of money that are going to be necessary in order to get this not only started, but to continue going, right, and in the future. Where are we as far as a specific plan? Well, that's a good question, sort of a piggyback to Councilmember Bledsoe's question. And what I can tell you is that we will not be able to get a tax credit investor unless this project makes money. And when the accountants put together the pro forma, it will list all of that out. And we had even talked about last week about if there's a need for employees in that building and people who will have to take care of the building and sort of manage it in some capacity. All of those expenses are included in the pro forma. And that pro forma will tell us what we need to charge these tenants in terms of rent and also having that extra money for a contingency. That comes closer to the end of the project. But our development agents sort of, they know what market rents are downtown Lexington, what people are willing to spend to be downtown Lexington and in that area. So to answer your question, the short answer is there will be a business plan, and without that business plan and it being a favorable business plan, there will be no tax credit investment in the project. But you're assuming, though, that we're going to go ahead and front this until we get to that point then? So that's Sally, unless you describe it differently, yes. I mean, I guess that's the concern we have as a council. I understand. We have to go forward with going ahead and approving these funds with the hope that we can, based upon Council Member Lane's research that he had done before he had passed away, I mean, basically just to pay the debt service, we're going to have to spend $56 a square foot to even get close to even taking care of the debt service. So those are some of the concerns I have. That's why I wanted, you know, if we had a specific plan as far as, you know, what are your rates, what are you thinking, because this all figures into the big picture. Yeah. You know, is this feasible? Right. And how much money, and are we the guarantor here if things don't work out? Well, we would be responsible for that $22 million bond. I know that. Of course. For sure. And that's why I was just trying to get a little bit more information from you. And I don't know if you have it today, but it certainly would give me a little more feeling of going forward if I knew a little bit more about this. Yes, and I will tell you, you know, taking my word, I suppose, but there is a great interest in being a tenant in the building. That's really all I can say today. And again, I can assure you down the road that this pro forma will have to, the numbers have to work or we will not get a developer to come in here and help us with this project. You know, at the end, that infusion of money at the end, they have to see that this project makes money and is profitable. and it would be premature for me to say that to you today. You know, it's too early. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Council Member Masati. Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Mayor. I'm pleased and excited about this project. I've had some constituents that have a significant interest in this and the courthouse, And I'm very supportive of this project. And I don't know if this question is actually for you, Jennifer, or if it is for the mayor, but I've heard from several constituents with concerns about the historic statues that are around the courthouse and the process to determine what happens with them. And I wanted to know if it was true that those statues do have to remain in order to receive the tax credits. I can take it if you'd like. Well, ironically, I also staffed the art board, the Irvin Carney Arts Review Board. that's been dealing with that issue for quite some time. It's been, media's picked it up, and lots of constituents are concerned about that. Sally and I have worked on that issue at great, we've gone to great lengths to understand it. We know now that the statues don't have to stay there, but if they move, both the Kentucky Military Heritage Council and the State Historic Preservation Office have to approve where they're going. So you can't just uproot them and stick them in a basement, and that's what you do with them. Sally and I have spoke at great length about this issue because it's been a really hot topic, and they're a big piece of that land there. You look at the building and you see them there. And so the art board had a recommendation. The mayor had a recommendation for those statues. If it's the council's prerogative to reimagine that space in some way, whether that's the addition of a statue, talking about maneuvering them, moving them off, changing their location on the lawn. That is, of course, the Council's prerogative to do that. It is a little premature to do that now, probably, because we will need to be in constant conversations with the SHPO so we don't take a chance of losing those tax credits or doing something with those that's inappropriate and sort of derails the project and takes away some sort of historic fabric that they're looking for us to keep. And I don't know, Sally, if you want to add to that, but that's sort of where we are. Okay. Well, I just wanted to publicly allow you all to state for the constituents that have contacted me because they have had several concerns. And so maybe there will be a plan in the future that we'll have another space that would be possible for that. And that's something that we can talk about later. Yes, absolutely. It's been on top of mind for many of us. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Lamb. Council Member Hensley. Thank you, Mayor. Jennifer, that space is a very sentimental piece to me because my office looked out at 10 years at that view that Wes had in their slide deck. I looked at that for 10 years off the 14th floor. And so it's important to see something happen to preserve that. That being said, like Councilperson Masati said, I share some of the concerns that Councilmember Lane had before with the cost per square foot and the lack of a pro forma. At this point, it would be comforting to me, and I think some of the council members that actually went through the accounting exercise of developing the pro forma for 75 years, if that's what the lease is going to be, before maybe even construction starts so that we can have some kind of idea that what you guys are seeing and the vision of that before we start taking on a bunch of debt service. The numbers I've seen, you know, it's $56 a square foot to service the debt. And knowing market rates, you know, downtown Lexington between $18 and $25 a square foot. Do you have any information? Yeah, of course you can. Sure. Go ahead. I was going to say, but I think you're missing the same thing. Well, one thing I want to clarify is one of the key components of a tax credit process is there is no debt service for the continuing operation. Because the $22 million is a grant, the $8 million is an investment that is paid back through tax credits, not through dollars. So when we do a pro forma for a project like this, there is no debt service to cover. We're trying to cover operating expenses and the reserve for the capital improvements. So that's one piece that doesn't have to be covered with the pro forma and the per square foot lease. Okay, that helps make some more sense. Thanks. In regard to the board makeup, I know once we create these limited liability partnerships, Basically, we are unable as a council to impact any changes in that because it's a legal entity outside of the government. But in the formation of those LOPs, I might advise or request that we do some of the things like we have done with the airport. I know Council Member Maloney had some of the board members on the airport board have to live within a three-mile radius of the airport. I would suggest that maybe some of the board members are real estate owners or restaurateurs or business people around the courthouse that are invested in that to make sure outside of our makeup that you've got now. Exactly. And that's my final comment. I really want to see it be self-sustaining and be reassured that physically that that project will be successful. so my kids don't look at me and say, hey, Dad. Thank you. Thanks. All right. Thank you, Council Member Hensley. Council Member Maloney. Thank you, Mayor. I want to go back and remind everybody that it is tough to find money today. The last project we did before this was a creative idea of thinking out of the box for the Civic Center, which I'm glad that we're able to do that, and I think I'm honored to see that we've come up with a solution to think out of the box on how to finance this courthouse, which to me, I said last year, was the most important project to me in downtown Lutton. And I think when you look at that building, you're looking at Lutton to me, and I've said that all along. And I want to commend your group, Sally, and all the support that you had on that. And what I'd like to do is go on ahead and make a motion that we go on forward with the historical Bay County Courthouse project. So moved. Second. Motion by Council Member Maloney. Second by Council Member Stennett. Is there any discussion on this motion? Council Member Farmer. So is the effect of your motion to place this back on the docket for Thursday night? Yes. Thank you. All right. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. If not, then we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. No. Motion carries. All right. Thank you, Jennifer. Thank you. Just one last note. I didn't see that. Council Member Farmer has a question. Sorry. So as an entity, as a government, in setting up this very complicated structure, What do we learn from it? Or can we duplicate this and use it in another capacity? Or is this the only place we can do this? Well, the state historic tax credit that we're using was, as you know, a very short window, which is why there's some urgency to get this exterior going. And this has been a really complicated and complex process. It's taught us a lot. I think since this was a historic sort of gem in the middle of downtown and the stars sort of aligned in terms of utilizing that state credit and the federal credit. Now, the federal credit doesn't sunset. I mean, that's something we could do on a historic building moving forward, I suppose, if we wanted to. Lots of moving parts and pieces, but I think at the end of the day, saving the taxpayers' money by getting this private infusion and having this partnership is just a great thing. This is, of course, the first project I've worked on like this, and I think CAO Hamilton as well. Sure. Yes, sir. Just one comment to respond to that. I'm Barry Alberts with City Visions. I'm working as the development agent for the city. The tax credit process, as we all know, is pretty complicated, and it's designed primarily for private entities. So it's very unusual for a public entity, a nonprofit or a city or community, to figure out how to do this so we can essentially capture tax credits in this public-private partnership. And the mayor and Sally and Jennifer and all those folks here have been very aggressive in a positive sense and creative in trying to figure out how to stretch its investment of $22 million into an additional $8 million or so in private tax credits. So there are only a scattering of cities in the country that have used this tax credit process for essentially publicly owned buildings. And it's very commendable that you guys are doing this. This tax credit program that the state has for this one-time deal, If it gets extended or reauthorized, then there's a possibility to use this, along with other financing mechanisms for other historic properties that the city owns. It just struck me as it's such a different sort of entity. I mean, almost, and this is not the right word, setting up a shell corporation to do something else. We don't want to say that, but we're doing something to get. More or less, that's what we're doing. Well, I mean, but it shows us doing something in a totally different style, in a different way, that meets a current need and provides an opportunity. I think that was what I was trying to draw out of it. I mean, it's a very innovative use of historic tax credits for projects like this, which ordinarily have trouble accessing those tax credits. I just, I appreciate the fervor that the administration has had on this and the fact that we're getting it done. I just, I wish we could find that sort of energy around a hole across the street. Barry, before you sit down, I think it would be worthwhile to mention that the state and both federal created these investment vehicles in order to achieve just this outcome, to help cities to achieve this outcome. Absolutely. I mean, these historic buildings, even though they're beautiful buildings and they're representative of the character of the community, they are very difficult economically. And without these tax credits, without the investor that we will certainly bring to this project, or a number of investors, would not otherwise look at a project like this because it doesn't make any economic sense. So the ability to – one of the good things – a good thing that the federal and state governments have done is to create this incentive to put these buildings back in use. Having said that, there are mechanisms that are necessary to put into place so that the IRS, who ultimately has to sign off on the use of those tax credits, feels comfortable that it's done in a way that is within the spirit and the law of those original tax credit statutes. So that's why all of these organizations are put into place, to make sure that when the investor looks at this, he can feel comfortable that if he invests in this project, he will, he or the institution he represents, will be able to use those credits and not have, in a subsequent audit, a problem with it that the IRS finds and then ultimately rescinds those credits. So that's why this is sort of a strange process, but we need to make sure that it meets the test, not just of getting the building back into service, but it meets the standards of the IRS in allowing these tax credits to be taken by these financial institutions. Excellent work. Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you, Jennifer. And, Mayor, just one more thing. I want to let the group know. It's been very important to CAO Hamilton that we keep you all informed through this process, and we will do that. We will continue to do that, whether it's an update here or via a memo from our office. If you ever have questions where we are, you can, of course, contact us. The door is always open, but we will be in constant communication as we move forward. So thank you very much. Thank you, Jennifer. All right. That allows us to move on to council reports. If you'll please sign on for your council report. I'll call on you then. Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Mayor. I was like fifth and then first. Hold on. I just have a couple of things to report. We had a great Southland Association meeting. About 75 individuals and businesses came. Just a couple of updates on that. the Hampton Inn on Nicholson Road opening up April 1st. And most important to a lot of people down there, Willys is coming March 15th. Everyone keeps asking, when is Willys opening on Southland Drive? It's very exciting. Additionally, we had 200 people come to the Lexington Catholic Gym for the Clay's Mill widening project, which was huge. And it was great. I want to commend our Mark Fibus and the others from our Streets and Roads committee who did a really good engineering and CDP. He did a great job talking about that project. And we're committed If you want more information about that, be sure to email my office, and we'll get you on our email list for that. And then lastly, the next President's Council meeting is this Monday, 630 to 8, the Beaumont Clubhouse. We're looking forward to having a good discussion on some neighborhood grants and resources. And again, that's this coming Monday night. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Bledsoe. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. I just have one brief announcement. I know a lot of Council members have been asking about this year's budget links, and I just want to go ahead and let everyone know that we're going to keep the same links as we did last year because there's a lot of new council members and keep some continuity. All the chairs have also agreed and thank you to the chairs, Council Member Lamb, Council Member Farmer, Council Member Brown, Council Member Scutchfield, and then Council Member Bledsoe has been willing to chair the General Services and Planning Committee. So thank you to all the chairs and we'll get the full list out to everyone again and that way once the mayor does his budget address, we'll be ready to go. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Fred Brown. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to just announce, I think everybody probably follows the newspaper, but one of our former council members passed away, Roy Durbin. He was on council for 13 years, and so I served with him for one term, and so we're losing some of our past council members here, so I just wanted to acknowledge that and to his family. Thank you for that. Thank you. Council Member Brown. Council Member Jake Gibbs. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to remind my colleagues that there's a workshop concerning the University Village Tiff on Thursday evening at 5 o'clock in the caucus room, and that will be followed by a public hearing on the project at 6 p.m. Thank you, Mayor. No, no. Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Mayor. As a proponent of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and believing that it's important for our divisions of public safety, police, fire, corrections, and Enhanced 911 to be reflective of the diverse community that they serve, I think it would be beneficial for the Council to be presented with an update on the current numbers of diversity and retention rate in those departments. And I think it's also important to update the Council on ongoing efforts in each of those departments as far as addressing diversity and equity. So I would like to make a motion to place the issue of minority recruitment and retention in the Division of Public Safety in the General Government and Social Services Committee. So moved. Motion by Council Member James Brown. You can ask me a question. I think he's got HR issues. Is there a second? Second. Okay, we've got a motion. Council Member Brown, second by Council Member Lamb. And did you want to add to it, Council Member Brown? Yeah. Council Member Lamb asked was that the proper committee to put it in? I think the question was should it go into public safety? And I think it should go into general government because I think some HR policies and procedures may come into play. So I think it would be better served in general go. All right. Okay. So you're good with that, Council Member Lamb? All right. Okay. There's a second. All right. We have a motion. We have a second. Is there any discussion on the motion? Any discussion on the motion? All right. If not, we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you, Mayor. All right. Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Mayor. While most of us were down on the street yesterday to welcome 21C, it was certainly a special day for Lexington in a whole lot of ways because it seems so long in coming, and certainly in the brief tour that members of the Council got, a beautiful place for folks to come and enjoy Lexington right in the middle of downtown. I fervently believe we'll find a way to add to that opportunity down there. But we want to welcome them. A horse-drawn hummer is something you don't see every day. And it was interesting to watch that come up, and certainly the artwork inside, thoughtful, some of it provocative, some of it quite different, but a welcome addition and something that will bring folks to downtown just to see that, if nothing else. As a subcommittee of our Environmental Quality Committee, I've asked Council Member Brown to chair a subcommittee about paving, and you've all been doing some great work, and you've sent out some great minutes, and I just wanted to compliment you on that, because it's a tough area and something that it seems like we have steadfastly tried to put money aside to do paving, but it's never been enough and we never catch up. And you're going to provide us some leadership and some opportunity that hopefully we can grab onto. But I wanted to thank you for your work in that area. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Farmer. Council Member Maloney. Thank you, Mayor. I'd also like to follow up with what Fred said about Roy. I knew Roy. He's one of the first people I met on the council. And my heart goes out to his wife and kids and the family. So Roy, even though we may not agree a lot of times, but we still got along great. And I sure will be missed. To go back last week, I met with Commerce Luthington going around some of the districts with the manufacturing groups. and we had a real good meeting, and I think some issues came up. I had a roundtable discussion with some of the manufacturers, and all of them come to one conclusion, and I asked what can we do to help you all out. And I told them we're trying to work on the workforce and all that, and they really appreciate that, but they don't think that's the biggest problem. And I kind of agree with them. The biggest problem we have right now is a war going on in America that we're losing every day, and that's drugs. And you'd be amazed how many people go through those lines. Fifty percent will fail their drug tests. And no telling how many here that applied for jobs here. When I was working for the commissioner for public works and we had a lot of people apply for truck drivers, they couldn't pass the drug tests. And I know we're out here trying to solve the problem with workforce and all that, and I know we're doing a good job. But to me, we got a bigger battle, and not just here, it's all over the world, all over the United States. And we're out there trying to fight the Middle East and all that, and we're losing a war over here every day. And I'll give you one example that really just kind of tore me up is I had a friend of mine who had a priest come to them and said they had to give out 16 baptisms for babies that died from overdoses of mothers here in the last three months, here in Giswone and Lexington. And it just terrifies me that, and I know the police are doing as much as they can, and I know Chris is doing as much as they can, but I think personally this is an issue that I think goes all over. I know we send troops over to the Middle East and all that. It's getting to a point that we have to declare war on drugs. And I know we all keep saying no to drugs, but we're losing this battle bad. And you go to eastern Kentucky, they would tell you the same thing, but it's worse. You talk to our police officers here, they'll probably tell you hearing it's worse than it's ever been in the history of our time. And I mean, I don't know if there's a simple answer, but I just think talking to those manufacturing people and those folks, they are asking for something so people can come in and try to be sober. They did make one interesting point, and we kind of talked for a long time, is where do we really get the kids to get interested in jobs? In high school, they all made the point. We all were high schoolers. By then, everybody at high school would think, you don't have to tell us what to do. We're old enough. We don't care. I think we've got to get into the middle schools, and I think there's a lot of people doing that. But we've got to get into the younger generations. And it goes back to the example that they gave to me and I gave to them, is that I had a gentleman who graduated from college, I mean getting ready to go to college, and I had another gentleman who came to me and wanted to be an electrician. And I told the guy going to college, I said, you need to be an electrician. So four years go by, the gentleman that graduated from college has now got a debt of $120,000 and is working at Amazon to pay his way. The kid that wants to be an electrician has a house, a Corvette, and a boat and out of debt in four years. And, I mean, not everybody can need to go to college. and I think everybody sees that. But I think this council and working, I know we're going to go on a chamber trip, and hopefully the chamber's been, everybody puts it for college, college, college. But I think we need to start looking at the tools that we have and what we need here. And the drugs, there's got to be a way. And I don't know how you fight the drug problem, but I think it's everywhere. But somewhere we've got to put our foot down and try to win this war, and it's going to be the hardest war we ever won. And hopefully, I just wanted to give everybody an eye-opener that the business out there have plenty of jobs. It's just they can't get people qualified. And maybe this will open up and we can try to find a way to be creative and make that happen. Thank you, Council Member Maloney. Thank you. Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Mayor. I also want to send my condolences to the family of the former Council Member Roy Durbin. he did serve on the council for 13 years and i was actually pretty young when he was on the council and let's just say young and naive and everybody knew him as razor roy and there was nothing there was not a night that he didn't have some kind of fun or quip in this council chamber and he brought a lot of laughs to this community up on this dais. And he was a very kind person, and I'm very proud to have known him and worked with him. I also wanted to thank the Day Treatment Center for the wonderful African American recognition program. They always do an outstanding job, and I just think it's such a great event, and I know it takes a lot of work from the staff and the students, and they just, I mean, I know there's several other council members came out. They had a morning and an evening afternoon session, and it was just fantastic. And the other thing I have is Senate Bill 180, which, Mayor, Senate Bill 180, which would impact Lexington's home rule by providing additional exemptions to our fairness ordinance. I would like to find out, are we working with our state legislators to protect the home rule on this issue? I know that we already lost the home rule as it relates to the taxi cabs, and I hate to think that that could happen again. And so I'm hoping that this government is working toward, and maybe there's a response. I think it would be worthwhile, Council Member Lamb, for you to give a call to Kevin Atkins. I've had a conversation with him about it myself, and I think it would be worthwhile to hear from Council Members. I will do that then. I mean, we need to really think about these home rules. I think we were the only one impacted. We were the only city impacted as far as the taxi cabs because we were the only city in Kentucky that had a home rule as far as the taxi cabs rules laws went, and we've lost that now. And I don't want that to continue to start happening more and more. So I hope that my colleagues will reach out and look into Senate Bill 180 and reach out to the legislators and Kevin Atkins. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Lamb. Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Mayor. I had the opportunity, along with Commissioner Bastin and CAO Deputy Glenn Brown, to interview a great panel of candidates for the fire chief. And a very difficult decision. Mayor, you had some great choices there, and hopefully we've narrowed it down for you that you're going to be able to pick someone from our input in the next couple of weeks. But it was very gratifying to have such a professional group to be able to interview, and very difficult to choose a couple of choices as a result of that. So hopefully everyone will be pleased when you make that decision, and I look forward to that as well. And again, my sincere condolences to the Durbin family. I succeeded Razor in this position. I'm not sure that he was real excited that I did that, but he had quite an outstanding kind of a personality, and he will be missed by many in the south end. He was very instrumental, especially working with the kids in Little League and up at the park and has a pretty strong legacy up there. So my condolences as well. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Asadi, and thanks for your participation in the search committee and the selection committee. Thank you. You're welcome. Council Member Hensley. Thank you, Mayor. I'm actually glad to be able to actually speak today, and I seem to have contaminated my fellow council members that sit beside of me. In the past couple of weeks, we've been out with Commerce Lexington visiting some businesses in the 12th District, introducing them to some of the business initiative grants and economic development grants that Commerce Lexington is incubating with the state. And this weekend, even though it's not in my district, I was at Southland Christian Church with my family packing a million meals for Haiti this weekend. And I don't know if you all have ever seen that program or what they do out there, but it's crazy impressive what's going on there. And it reminds me of a lot of other mission activities that are going on in this area with Altec and Christian Flights International and Southland and tons of other religious organizations that this area and state supports Haiti specifically. specifically. It's kind of interesting. And maybe someone can connect all the dots and focus some efforts there. And then my final comment is tonight, I'll see Commissioner Paulson and Fred Brown kids maybe on the basketball court at Glendover Basketball League while I'm coaching them to the championship. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Hensley. Council Member Bledsoe. My apologies, Mayor. One more thing. Today I spoke with and about 60 other professionals in Lexington at Lafayette's Career Day. And this gets to the very point that Councilman Maloney was saying, was how do we help kids think about their future long term? And one of the things that my group spoke about, we had a representative from the fire department and from the police department, and myself talking about public service, but the point is for them to start thinking about their social profiles now, the things they put on social media in freshman year of high school and the sophomore years, and the decisions they're making impact on whether or not they can be hired in the police department and can be an employee of a city, and helping them understand that happens early. That doesn't happen in college, but that happens in high school. Their records stay with them. And trying to broaden their horizon is part of what we can do. And I've been working with Commissioner Ford, and I'll say it again, part of what I think he's trying to do with the summer internship program is to expose those 13- and 14-year-old kids early to all the different job training opportunities they have and trying to partner with businesses and kind of broaden that horizon so they're not making choices later that they can't take back. So that is one step that I think we're working towards. And we're still trying to speak to as many people from Commerce Lexington to bring in some businesses to partner with us. But I'm very confident in some of the direction we're going to try to expose those kids to those options. So thank you. Thank you, Council Member Bledsoe. All right. Next on there, that's all the Council members who've signed on for Council reports. Thank you. That allows us to move on to the Mayor's report. Is there a motion to approve? Motion by Council Member Stinnett. Is there a second? Second by Council Member Hensley. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing none, we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Before we move on to public comment, I just want to mention real quickly that, well, not so quickly because it's a serious issue, but it has to do with one of our longtime employees of our city and the Commissioner of Public Health, Rice Leach, who is facing a tough battle with cancer, and I just ask everyone to keep him in your thoughts and prayers, please. Next on our agenda is public comment. Mr. Mundy, is anyone signed on? All right. Thank you. All right. Then next is I'll ask for a motion to adjourn. Motion by Council Member Stennett, second by Council Member Fred Brown. Unless there's objection, we are adjourned. Thank you.