# Planning and Public Safety Committee - March 8, 2016 > Auto-transcribed civic record · March 8, 2016 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/3893 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/3893?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2016-03-08 - **Last revised**: March 8, 2016 - **Length**: 17,399 words - **Speakers**: Renee > ⚠️ **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 Planning & Public Safety Committee met on March 8, 2016, at 1:00 PM with Mossotti presiding as the committee chair. The committee addressed four agenda items during the session, including one approval item and three informational presentations. The committee took two votes during the meeting and heard no public comments. The committee approved the February 9, 2016 Committee Summary as part of their regular business. The remaining agenda focused on informational presentations covering key public safety and planning topics. Staff provided updates on the H-1 Notification Process, the Fire & EMS Vehicle Replacement Plan, and Community Corrections Officer Turnover issues. These informational items allowed committee members to receive updates on ongoing departmental operations and policy matters without requiring formal action. The meeting represented routine committee business combining administrative approval of previous meeting minutes with informational briefings on current public safety initiatives and challenges facing the jurisdiction. ## Attendance The following members were present at the March 8, 2016 meeting: • Mossotti • Scutchfield • Kay • Stinnett • Akers • Gibbs • Lamb • Farmer • Bledsoe • Henson All members were in attendance with no absences or late arrivals recorded. ## Votes and Decisions The committee took two unanimous votes during the March 8, 2016 meeting. **Approval of February 8, 2016 Summary** [timestamp: 00:10] Farmer motioned to approve the February 8, 2016 meeting summary, with Henson providing the second. The motion passed unanimously with all 10 members voting in favor: Mossotti, Scutchfield, Kay, Stinnett, Akers, Gibbs, Lamb, Farmer, Bledsoe, and Henson. There were no opposing votes or abstentions. **Remove H-1 Notification Process from Committee** [timestamp: 10:00] Farmer motioned to remove the H-1 Notification Process from committee consideration. The motion passed unanimously with all 10 members voting in favor: Mossotti, Scutchfield, Kay, Stinnett, Akers, Gibbs, Lamb, Farmer, Bledsoe, and Henson. No second was recorded for this motion, and there were no opposing votes or abstentions. Both votes demonstrated complete consensus among the committee members present, with the same 10 individuals participating in each decision. ## Contested Items The primary contested item during this meeting was the Community Gardens Ordinance, which proposed amendments to Chapter 10 of the municipal code regarding community gardens. The ordinance generated significant debate among committee members, ultimately resulting in a split vote rather than unanimous approval. The proposed ordinance amendments faced opposition from three committee members, while six members voted in favor of the changes. The 6-3 vote outcome demonstrates a clear division within the committee regarding the proposed modifications to community garden regulations. While the ordinance ultimately passed due to the majority support, the split vote indicates that the amendments were not without controversy. The nature of the specific disagreements among committee members regarding the community garden regulations is not detailed in the available information, but the voting pattern suggests substantive concerns were raised by the dissenting members. The successful passage of the Community Gardens Ordinance, despite the opposition, means that the amendments to Chapter 10 will move forward in the legislative process. However, the divided vote may signal potential challenges or continued debate as the ordinance progresses through additional review stages. This split decision highlights the complexity of municipal policy-making around community development issues, where different perspectives on land use, community engagement, and regulatory frameworks can lead to divergent views among elected officials. ## February 9, 2016 Committee Summary [timestamp: 00:10] The committee reviewed the summary of their February 9, 2016 meeting as the first agenda item. Mossotti served as the key speaker for this discussion item. The committee examined the written summary document from their previous meeting held on February 9, 2016. This review process allows committee members to verify the accuracy of the recorded proceedings and ensure that all discussions, decisions, and actions from the prior meeting were properly documented. Following their review of the February 9, 2016 meeting summary, the committee approved the document without any noted corrections or amendments. The approval of meeting summaries is a standard procedural item that provides an official record of the committee's work and maintains continuity between meetings. The outcome was the formal approval of the February 9, 2016 committee summary, allowing it to stand as the official record of that meeting's proceedings. ## H-1 Notification Process [timestamp: 05:00] Council member Farmer led a discussion regarding the H-1 notification process, specifically addressing the financial responsibility for mailing notifications to affected parties. The conversation centered on determining who should bear the cost of these required mailings. Duncan also participated in the discussion, contributing to the dialogue about the notification procedures and associated expenses. The agenda item was designated as informational, indicating that no formal action was taken during this discussion. The council members used this time to examine the current H-1 notification requirements and explore questions about cost allocation for the mailing process. This discussion appears to have been part of the council's ongoing review of administrative procedures and their associated costs, though the specific details of the notification process requirements and the proposed changes to cost responsibility were not elaborated upon in the available materials. ## Fire & EMS Vehicle Replacement Plan [timestamp: 15:00] Chief Hoskins presented a comprehensive long-term plan for replacing fire and EMS vehicles during the March 8, 2016 meeting. The presentation focused on establishing a systematic approach to vehicle replacement to ensure continued reliability of emergency services equipment. The discussion centered on the need for proactive planning rather than reactive replacement of aging vehicles in the fire and EMS fleet. Chief Hoskins outlined the importance of maintaining reliable emergency response capabilities through strategic vehicle replacement scheduling. Council member Brown participated in the discussion, though specific details of their contributions were not captured in the available meeting materials. The presentation was informational in nature, with Chief Hoskins providing the council with an overview of the proposed replacement strategy. The plan appears to address long-term fleet management needs for both fire department and emergency medical services vehicles. This agenda item served as an informational briefing to keep the council informed about fleet management planning and the department's approach to maintaining emergency response readiness through systematic vehicle replacement protocols. ## Community Corrections Officer Turnover [timestamp: 45:00] Director Ballard presented information regarding turnover rates among community corrections officers during this agenda item. The presentation focused on analyzing the factors contributing to staff departures and efforts to better understand the underlying causes. Ballard discussed an ongoing survey being conducted to gather insights into why community corrections officers are leaving their positions. The survey aims to identify specific issues and challenges that may be driving the turnover problem within the department. Evans also participated in the discussion, though the specific nature of their contribution was not detailed in the available materials. The presentation was informational in nature, with no formal action taken by the body. The discussion appears to have been part of ongoing efforts to address staffing challenges within the community corrections system and develop strategies to improve officer retention. The turnover issue represents a significant operational concern for the department, as high staff turnover can impact service delivery, increase training costs, and affect overall program effectiveness. By conducting surveys and analyzing departure patterns, the department is working to develop data-driven solutions to improve working conditions and reduce future turnover rates. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (10-0): Approval of the February 8, 2016 summary - **Motion** — passed (10-0): Remove H-1 Notification Process from Committee --- ## Full transcript Well, I built me a refuge, she's ready for flow. For Mississippi, she's calling my name. Catfish are jumping, that paddle wheel bumping. Black water, keep rolling on fast, just the same. Oh, black water, keep on rolling. Mississippi moon, won't you keep on shining on me? Yeah, keep on shining your light. Gonna make everything great Mama's gonna make everything alright And I ain't got no worries Cause I ain't in no hurry at all Well, if it rains, I don't care Don't make no difference to me Just take that streetcar that's going uptown Yeah, I like to hear some funky tix and then then dance some funky talk And I'll be fine, everybody drinks, oh Oh, Blackwater, keep on rolling Mississippi, won't you keep on shining on me? Oh, Blackwater, keep on rolling Mississippi, won't you keep on shining on me? Oh, Blackwater, keep on rolling This every moon, won't you keep on shining on me? Keep on shining your light, gonna make everything, everything, gonna make everything alright. And I ain't got no worries, cause I ain't in no hurry at all. I like to hear someone Yes, Dixieland, pretty mama, come and take me by the hand. By the hand, take me by the hand, pretty mama, come and dance with your daddy all night long. I'd like to hear some funk at Dixieland, pretty mama, come and take me by the hand. By the hand, take me by the hand, pretty mama, come and dance with your daddy all night long. I'd like to hear some funk at Dixieland, pretty mama, come and take me by the hand. I want a hand, come take me, I want a hand, pretty mama, gone dance with you baby all night long. I'd like to hear some funk at Dixieland, pretty mama, come take me by the hand. I want a hand, hand, take me, I want a hand, pretty mama, gone dance with you baby all night long. I'd like to hear some funk at Dixieland, pretty mama, come take me by the hand. I want a hand, hand, take me, I want a hand, pretty mama, gone dance with you baby all night long. I'd like to hear some folk get dicks in that pretty mama Come and take me by the neck By the neck, come and take me by the neck Pretty mama, come and take me down the back of the neck Pretty mama, come and take me down the back of the neck I'm gonna do all the things for you A girl wants a man to do Oh baby I'll sacrifice for you I'll even do wrong for you Oh baby Every minute, every hour I'm gonna shower you with love and affection Look out, it's coming into your direction And I'm gonna make you love me Oh, yes I will Yes I will I'm gonna make you love me Oh, yes I will Yes I will Look at him My love is strong, you see I know you'll never get tired of me Oh, baby So old And I'm gonna use every trick in the book I'll try my best to get you hooked Hey, baby I'm yours And every night, every day I'm gonna say I'm gonna get you I'm gonna get you Look out, boy Cause I'm gonna get you I'm gonna make you love me. Ooh, yes I will. Yes I will. And I'm gonna make you love me. Ooh, yes I will. You know I will. You know I will. Every breath I take, and each and every step I make, brings me closer, baby, closer to you. And with each beat of my heart, for every day we are part, our hunger for every wasted hour. And I, every night, and every day, I'm gonna get you, I'm gonna get you, look I call, I'm gonna get you. And I'm gonna make, I'm gonna make you love me. Yes, I will. Yes, I will. I'm gonna make you love me Yes I will Yes I will I'm gonna make you love me Yes I will Yes I will I'm gonna make you love me Yes I will Yes I will I'm sorry. I only passed by as a friend Yeah All this time I stayed out of sight I started wondering why Now Now I wish it would rain down Down on me Yes, I wish it would rain Rain down on me now Yes, I wish it would rain down Down on me Yes, I wish you would rain Down on me You said you didn't need me in your life Oh, I guess you would ¶¶ Okay, everyone, we're ready to get started for the Planning and Public Safety Committee meeting. I need a motion and a second for approval of the February 8, 2016 summary, please. Second. I have a motion, a second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Any opposed? Thank you. Next item on the agenda, Council Member Farmer, and this is the H-1 notification process, pages 7 and 8. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think the memo accurately reflects, it's detailed, but it gets to the point about who pays for what, which was the point I was originally trying to take care of. when we put it in committee, was to get staff to take care of paying for the mailing, which in the last paragraph says, my understanding that the last few initial H-1 notifications have cost less than $200 each. And I believe that, I don't even think we have to take any action, but kind of ask the Division of Planning if they would include money for that in their budget for this year. Mr. Duncan, would you like to speak to that momentarily? Or whomever. You don't have to. It's your budget, though. Yes, sir. In fact, we had our meeting yesterday with the budgeting, and we had specifically mentioned that we were increasing our expectation in order to cover the cost of the postage. I appreciate your brevity. Thank you. I was going to ask Betty Kerr to come up, but I'll pause for you as you like. I'd like to include one other thing. First of all, Vice Mayor Kay, if you'd take over so I can ask a question, please. Ma'am. And Mr. Duncan, if you wouldn't mind coming back up, please. When we had this process with one neighborhood, and I can't recall which neighborhood it was, I believe it was two that was involved, there was an issue about boundaries. You know, where these boundaries started, who determined the boundaries. Does this H-1 notification process incorporate that at all? Well, what Mr. Farmer was talking about was simply the notification sent to the people that are identified in the boundary. as far as determining the boundary, that is not something that we're involved in necessarily, although the boundary can be adjusted at the time of hearings, but the initial notification goes to the boundary that's presented to us, and so that's where these postcards are sent to all the property owners within the boundary under consideration at the time of the application. Right, and I understand that. However, at that particular time, there were residents who felt that they should have been included in that boundary because they were the adjacent neighborhood. So how do we deal with that? But if they're included in the boundary, then they would also be included in the action to make them an H-1 or an ND-1. And that process can be adjusted during the public hearing process as well. Right. I understand that, but maybe you didn't understand my question or I didn't understand your answer. There was another group that was here that felt like they should have been included in that boundary that was determining whether or not the H-1 overlay would be applicable to them. So how does a group whose neighborhood is adjacent or feels that they would be impacted by this, how do they get included? Who makes that determination, I guess? Well, it is generally initiated by the neighborhood. So they begin the conversation either with Betty or with us, and we refer back to each other to determine then what the appropriate boundary would be based on their interests. But it's neighborhood-driven, usually even at the H-1 level. So if a neighborhood felt like they were being excluded for some reason, they could come back to you and say, we feel like we have skin in this game. We need to be included because it affects our neighborhood. Yes, they could. And then depending on where they inserted themselves in that process, whether we can run along with that one or whether it would need to be a different process depending on the timing. But, of course, they could come back to historic preservation or to planning and ensure that the boundary that they were considering that they should have been included in was part of the process. Either that one or a future one going forward. Okay, I see a couple of your, Mr. Sally and Betty Kerr, do they want to add anything? Because I know this was a big issue when we had this H-1 deliberation. I was just speaking with Ms. Kerr. We were recalling a couple of past examples. We have examples of both areas that have been expanded prior to the Planning Commission hearings and BOAR hearings. We also have an example where, over time, the bounds of a district have shrunk. So there is latitude in the process once it gets underway to alter the boundaries. Generally, the key with that, though, is the study that is performed for primarily the BOAR hearing to try and set the best boundary. I'm tag-teaming with you. Certainly. We're tag-teaming, I think. Oh, that's fine. I just want clarification because it can get a little... Yeah, if it's okay with you, I'll add to what my two excellent colleagues in planning have already said. When a district is looked at, it has always come at the request of the neighborhood that is affected, of course, and they usually have had a series of neighborhood meetings and such, of course, as part of the education process coming to that point. So it's the neighborhood association or that grouped together bunch of neighbors, whichever is the case, who put forward their application with a map attached, which is their request. And then when that comes, as has been mentioned, either through what will be the action of the Planning Commission to initiate that, or the Urban County Council, it's usually, though, always gone through Planning Commission, and hence the planning staff is the start point with that piece. The boundaries that are proposed are what are put forward for the consideration of initiation proposed by the Neighborhood Association. At that time, however, you sometimes have a few properties left off that the staff in looking at it, both the Historic Preservation staff and the planning staff, might recommend the Planning Commission be considered to be included because there are like two houses left before the end of a block or they're part of the development plan, that this whole neighborhood has evolved and they've been left off or something like that. Sometimes it can be even a little bigger kind of recommendation. The only thing I wanted to point out specifically is once whatever the voting body, the planning commission in this example, acts to initiate a district, whatever it approves adds the boundaries of that initiation request and then sends for the commencement of the process for the study to start, which brings it to historic preservation, that boundary cannot be increased as the hearing processes evolve. It can be decreased, but it cannot be increased. So that's why you see some tweakings, perhaps, recommended by staff at that initiation hearing. You will also, as the process evolves sometimes, hear what I think you're referencing. Ms. Massadi, which is, oh, we'd like to be in that as well. But you can't expand the edges at that point. So we strongly encourage any neighborhood or group of neighbors looking at putting forward a historic district to reach out to their near neighbors and any neighborhood association adjacent and that sort of thing and get a pulse from them if they're interested in coming aboard with this initial request. They can, of course, any group that elects not to come on at that initial request stage, they can certainly come as their own application in a separate application in the near or more distant future. But the main thing I wanted you to be aware is that once the action is taken for initiation of whatever is determined to be the boundary at that time cannot be increased. Okay. Thank you for the clarification. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor Kay. Would you like to take the chair back? Oh, absolutely. Go ahead. Thank you. Council Member Hanson. Thank you, Chair. I just had one question as it relates to how many applications. Do you have an average number that you get per year? I don't know if one is an average, but it's not ordinarily more than that. We will have maybe an additional ND1 application, and it has the postcard notification process as well. But they're very, very small in number. Okay. That's what I was thinking. So if we took on the cost of doing the mailing, it wouldn't be a considerable amount? It would be a matter of hundreds of dollars, not lots and lots. Okay. Thank you. Any other council members have questions on this particular item? If not, Council Member Farmer? I think that having noted the staff is going to take care and include this cost in their budget. I think it's a service to those who are interested in H-1 overlays. I think it takes care effectively of the item in committee, and so I would move to remove it at this time. So I move. Is there a second? Second. We have a motion and a second to remove this item from the Planning and Public Safety Committee. Is there any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Sounded good. Motion passes. Thank you, Council Member Farmer. Next, we have Council Member Fred Brown, and you have the Fire and EMS Vehicle Replacement Plan. Page looks like 8 to 25. Thank you, Chair. I put this in Public Safety Committee, although I'm not a member of this particular committee, but I felt like what we've been doing, and this is budget season time, what we've been doing in the past is trying to get some plans and some long-range information and costs for public safety. So I felt like that the fire department, I talked to the assistant chief, Harold Hoskins, and the commissioner about giving some type of presentation so that we're aware of what's going on and what the fire department feels like that they need for replacements in the future so that we can kind of put this on our agenda and information and that we look at this and as we go into the budget time, we'll have a little bit better knowledge on what's happening throughout, you know, maybe in the next five years or so. And Paul Schoeninger got together with the assistant chief, and they came up with some type of presentation. So that's what we want to do. Thank you. Thank you all for giving us the opportunity to do this presentation. Chief Hoskins and his team have worked very diligently on it. I think they've, from my viewpoint, have done an excellent job in projecting what Council Member Fred Brennan has asked for. And so at this point, I'm going to turn it over to Chief Hoskins. He knows much more about it than I do. Thank you. Not the first time we've talked about this, and hopefully it'll keep coming up until we come to a resolution with this. So our fleet planning replacement plan is truly a planning tool. We're looking in the future, so we're going to talk about what our plan is and some of the parameters of our plan to get an idea of how we come about these decisions. It's a long-term plan, and we'll talk about the value of replacing apparatus regularly. And then I want to speak a little bit about operating and capital-type budgeting for these apparatus purchases. Our whole plan here is to have an effective fleet. fire trucks are pretty critical to our mission. They either carry us to the scene or they carry out a job on the scene to help us mitigate whatever it is that we are responding for. And with that, we have about three different classes. One, we have what we call frontline apparatus, which obviously are assigned to fire stations. Those are typically the newest or the most modern and are relied on by the companies on a daily basis. However, there are machines, and machines break, machines need maintenance, and so forth. So we have some reserve apparatus also. The reserves typically are a little bit older, but are still serviceable apparatus that we use to fill in when the front line is out of service. And then finally, we have training apparatus. If you've all been out to the academy and you see some fire trucks parked at the academy, Those are used when we have recruit classes so that they have the vehicles there to work with and kind of acclimate the recruit firefighters to the job working off of a truck. Now, typically, a fire truck moves through those three different classes as they age. But regardless of where they are in that classification system there, they've got to be safe, they've got to be reliable, and they've got to be capable of doing the job that we need them to do. And quite frankly, our reserve apparatus spend as much time in service as some of our frontline apparatus, just because there's fewer of them and they're constantly being rotated out to other companies. The apparatus at the training academy, even though they are our oldest in the fleet, they find themselves out on occasion making runs as a frontline company. The long-term part of this plan is we're always going to need to replace fire trucks. They're machines. They don't last forever. So, you know, some companies run a little harder than others. Typically, their vehicles don't last as long. You're talking about pretty significantly sized diesel engines that the recommendation of the manufacturer would be to start them and let them achieve operating temperature before you start driving them. Well, that just doesn't work in our business. We are constantly the cold starts, the hard runs, and unfortunately that shortens the life even of the highest quality diesel engine you can find out there. So what we do with this plan is we can look at our fleet and we can start deciding which of these apparatus out there are going to get replaced, which are going to go, just what's their life with the fire department going to be for us. And we start that fairly early. Whenever we get a truck, we start looking at that. Another thing that the plan would help us do is, for one thing, is to standardize our fleet. There was a time not too long ago where we had a specification for what we called a city truck and a specification for what we called a county truck. And that sounds good when you buy a new truck, but now that truck moves its way through reserve status and you're in a company that's out in a rural area with a 500-gallon water tank. That doesn't make a lot of sense. So part of our plan has been to try to standardize that design so that as they move through their life with the fire department, they're capable wherever we find the need to use them. I've mentioned this, and you've seen it. If you've done anything with budgets, they are expensive, and we're well aware of that. They're highly technical pieces of equipment. They do a variety of tasks, but unfortunately they are expensive. And we expect to get some life out of them. In front-line service, we would like to shoot for 10 years for the life of an engine or a ladder. Our ambulances, there's a couple of things that make those five years. One is their run volume. We have a couple of ambulances out on the street right now that have over 250,000 miles on them. They are typically on commercial chassis, so they're a lighter duty. They just don't last as long. And then our heavy rescue, we bought that in 2009. it already has 100,000 miles on it. It's the only one we have. So it gets assigned to a tremendous number of different types of runs, and it's out all the time. I joke with those guys and say they're just out on patrol because they can leave Maxwell and Marino, be heading down toward the river on Tate's Creek Road, take care of whatever that incident is the next time they very well may be on Georgetown Road at the county line. Well, that one company gets a lot of miles, so it's not going to last us that 10 years, I don't believe. But with the size of our fleet, it's very important that we try to replace these things systematically so that we don't find ourselves in a situation where we have a majority of unreliable and older apparatus that we have to spend a lot of time working with. So on a daily basis, on our front line engines, we have 22 of those spread out around the county. We have four that are in reserve status and three that are stationed out at the training center. Ladder trucks, we have seven on the front line with one reserve and one at training. And as I mentioned, our heavy rescue, we have one, and we have no reserve for that truck right there. When they go down for an extended period of time for service or repairs, we move their most essential equipment onto an engine, one of our reserve engines, and then the rest of it is put in a trailer and it's parked on the station one. So if they come up on something that they don't have their equipment with them, then we have to get that out to them. So that's kind of a risky venture that we have there. Our buggies, we have 11 on duty. We have three what we call surge units. These are spread out around the city. And when the 11 frontline units are all committed, then we bring an engine company out of service, staff that surge ambulance with that crew, and then put them out making first aid runs. And that happens down at Station 1, Station 11 out on Harrisburg Road by St. Joe, and at 22 out on Clearwater Way. We have three reserve buggies and then one at the training center. And the one at training is used for both our paramedic class and by the recruit classes when they're coming through. Since EMS is such a large part of what we do, we need to train those people up with that. Plus, during the day, if we run out, it's conceivable that we would staff that one with our training staff. So I'll say it again. Routine funding of apparatus replacement is important. It needs to be something that we do all the time because it makes our fleet reliable. It allows us to predict. We can look at this and know year to year to year how much money we're going to need to keep our trucks and our fleet efficient. And really, it makes the decision-making a little easier come budget time. So now, replacement guideline. How do we decide what we're going to replace? There's a system called Fleet Wave that has been in place through fleet services for many years, and it's simply an asset tracking software geared toward vehicles. And that, we'll hit that in the next slide about how that looks and what kind of information that gives us. But every time that we work on a piece of equipment, the parts and the cost of the parts are logged, the amount of time our mechanics spent on there is logged, every time we buy fuel, every time we put motor oil, coolant, anything that goes on with that vehicle, it gets entered in a fleet wave, and it gives us a real good picture of what it's costing us to keep the fleet in that particular truck on the road. Performance is another thing. You know, they have a job to do, and as they age, sometimes they don't do it very well. We do testing, and I'll talk about that in a minute, of pumps and ladders. And when we start seeing a deterioration in their performance, That's when we know that we've got to start either spending a lot of money to repair them or maybe replacing them. And finally, when we start talking about replacement, our maintenance staff plays a huge role in that because our maintenance staff has that ability and they know what's going on with these trucks and they advise us very well. So this is a spreadsheet that comes out of FleetWave. And I debated putting this in there because I know it's a lot of information. But the long and the short of this is that it takes all of that numerical information, and it factors in the age. It factors in the purchase price of that piece of equipment, mileage, how much we spend on maintenance, fuel, all those kind of things. There's a factor as to its job, and these are considered a severe duty vehicle. And it washes through all that and figures out a numeric value. and the higher the value, the more likely we feel like it's time to be replaced. And while we do not formally depreciate an asset the way the accounting world would, if you think about the value of the truck and depreciation going down and the maintenance costs going up, there comes a time when you reach a break-even point that you really should be thinking about cutting your losses, if you will. I mentioned about performance. Every year, if the apparatus has a pump, we test it to make sure that it achieves its rated capacity. Aerial ladders are tested yearly, and that's a very extensive test because when you have someone that's on the end of a 100-foot ladder, you don't want to question whether or not the hydraulics are in good shape or whether the rust has gotten too much, things like that. So we do that to help us gauge the performance. NFPA has requirements in the crew safety that as an engine or a ladder or any fire apparatus for that matter reaches a certain age, it should be brought to the current standard. Just to give you an example, we just recently retired a ladder truck that only had waist belts for seat belts. It didn't have a shoulder strap. So for us to keep that and for it to be considered compliant, we would have to go back and retrofit it with those safety standards. And that's a little bit more involved than just putting a seatbelt on the truck because all of those are supposed to be tested as a system. That kind of makes it difficult to do. It's not something that we can do in our shop and really meet the requirement. Talked about our maintenance staff. with our current fleet, our mechanics are intimately knowledgeable about the apparatus that we have because they see them a lot. You'll see here, and we get into actual talking about what vehicle we want to replace next, some of them are getting to be 17, 18 years old, so we see them quite frequently. We talked a little bit about cost, and these are FY15 costs, and it also includes equipment that it takes to put those engines, ladders, so forth on duty. So as you go down through there, as I said, they're expensive assets, which makes the planning for the replacement all the more important. Okay, this slide represents a forecast up to FY25 of how we would rotate through the engines and the ladders, the heavy fleet to achieve that replacement and keep everything efficient. You can see the money kind of waxes and wanes, if you will, as you go through there. Some years it's a little heavy, some years it's a little light. But the hope with that is that once whoever's standing here at FY25 has got more of a constant funding stream and a constant funding demand to replace the apparatus. So that's heavy fleet. Anybody want to stop now and ask questions about heavy fleet replacement? I think we have a couple. Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Chair. I have to go back and I made some notes here just because I found this very interesting. Back on, you were talking about the heavy rescue and you spoke, but you all just have the one. Can you give me an example of what a heavy rescue, what is that truck? It is the largest rolling toolbox in town. It carries everything from just basic firefighting equipment to shoring equipment. If you have a building that has been damaged by a vehicle running into it or just collapsed because it's old, It has the tools that would allow us to breach a concrete wall building or that type of thing. You name it. It's got dive equipment on it. It's got rope rescue equipment on it. It's got confined space equipment on it. Those guys are truly the most talented on the fire department when it comes to the rescue side of our business. And so auto extrication is a big deal. They carry a lot of tools to not only dismantle a vehicle to get a patient out, but also to stabilize it if it's upside down, to lift it, just a multitude of tools and equipment on there. I mean, I'm glad we do have one. Back on page 14, you talked about we have 22 front-line engines and then four reserve and three training. Are the four reserve and three training part of the 22 number, or do we have 20? Those are additional. 22 represents what's assigned to the 23 fire stations. Okay, okay. The rest of them are, if everyone has their truck, then they'll be parked at different places around town where we get them in out of the weather. Okay, alrighty. And as far as the ladder truck, what are the stipulations as to what the ladder truck is used for? Is there a certain height of the building, or is it just circumstances? The requirement for ladders is set, if you have a standard for that, would be closest to the ISO. They look at buildings more than 35 feet in height to require a ladder company. All of our ladder trucks are at least 100 feet in the ladder. Some are 105. One's 100. The tower ladders are 95, the ones with the big buckets on them. And access to upper floors is one of their primary goals, obviously, to effect a rescue. If you look at the front of this building, there's some balconies out. That was where the ladders reached when this building was built, was the idea that you'd get to there and get them out. But also, elevated streams. They all have waterways. It gives us the opportunity to apply water to a fire from an elevated position like what happened to us at the end of January. so there are shorter ladders there are longer ladders the 105 foot ladder seems to fit us well okay all right then on the other page that talks about the the numeric values the fleet wave data on page 17 yes i'm most curious uh the 1997 pierce aerial if i'm reading this correction correctly, it's saying that the miles per gallon is 4.4 for a 97 model, and all the newer models are less miles per gallon. Am I reading that correctly? You are, and my guess on that... You should stick with the older equipment. No. Well, believe it or not, the more... How do I say this? the newer engines have a tremendous amount of environmental protection agency requirements on them to manage the exhaust gases. Okay. Which makes them harder for the engine, if you will, to exhale. This old truck is not like that. This one is one of them that whenever you start it, you get a big cloud of black smoke because it's an older, less environmentally friendly diesel engine, let's say. Eco-friendly, right? There you go. Okay. And the last question is your maintenance staff that you have, how many mechanics do you all have currently on staff? We have this FY16. We actually added a mechanic, so now we have four civilians, and we also have one sworn person for a 24-hour shift that works the same rotation as the firefighters because the civilian mechanics, obviously, they work a 40-hour week, but we find that the value of having that mechanic in there who can keep a truck on duty at midnight is very valuable. Sure, sure. Okay. All right. Well, thank you. This is very informational. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Lamb. Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Lamb asked some of the questions I was going to, but can you help me? I'm assuming on page 20 with the estimated cost for all of these vehicles, I'm assuming HM1 is hazmat 1 and hazmat 2. I'm just guessing. Okay. I don't think I have a page. Or maybe on your page slide 12. Two before this one. Okay. Yes. Is it? Look. Do you want to back up until we find it? Was that me? There you go. Looks like that? Yes. Yes. HM1 is a large hazmat truck. It would look tremendously like our heavy rescue. That is a similar truck, different mission. It carries, or the rescue truck carries all the technical rescue equipment. The hazmat truck carries all the hazardous materials mitigation equipment. The protective suits, it has a fairly large compartment where we can establish some electronic links and do our research to make sure that we're comfortable knowing what we're getting ready to do is the right thing to do. Okay. And then what is a brush truck? Brush trucks are one-ton pickup trucks. They have what we call a skid unit, but it's essentially a 300-gallon water tank with a small gasoline-powered pump. And the idea behind that is when we have a field on fire, instead of taking a $600,000 pumper out, we take a $60,000 pickup truck that's much more maneuverable. Okay. And allows us to fight those fires that way. Okay, and that's different from the F-550? The F-550 is a truck that came to us through some grants with either the Bluegrass Emergency Response Team or CSEP, and they're primarily used to pull some of our larger trailers. Okay. And then the other one that I wasn't sure, what is CP? CP is Command Post. It looks like a large RV with communications equipment in it. Okay. And then we have a fuel truck. Okay, that's what I was trying to figure out. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Bledsoe. Council Member Hanson. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chief, for the information. I think this is exactly what, having served on the public safety link for several years in a row, I think this is exactly what was needed to know. And we went through kind of a budget crisis for a while. So having a plan in place, hopefully, that we can follow. I just had a couple of questions that haven't already been asked. When we purchase new apparatuses, do they come with warranties? Yes. The standard warranty for the work that is done by the manufacturer is a year, or you can buy longer warranties if you wish. But some components, such as the engine and the transmission, have longer warranties. Typically, a diesel engine that we're putting in the apparatus now has a five-year warranty or 100,000 miles. Okay. So our maintenance mechanics are certified, I guess, to uphold those warranties. They are. You don't have to take them to a dealer like we do. No, but sometimes we do simply because it eases the workload on them. Okay. If it's something that we can fix and work out the warranty issue with the dealer, then we do. But many times it is as efficient for us to send that out to an outside shop because they've got enough to do on the other things. And then when you are looking, I like this spreadsheet. Does this include inflation? No, it does not. All those costs were based on our last year, our last contract, because that's the most concrete numbers that we have. The fire truck market can be a little difficult to predict. I mentioned the EPA regulations. Those things seem to happen in steps. And typically, whenever a new set of standards come about, there's a significant cost increase associated with building fire trucks, because everything has to be reengineered to accommodate whatever these changes are. Yeah, so I would suspect by fiscal year 25 that this number could be higher. Oh, I think it will. I can promise you it will be. They're not going to give us a free ride. We know how it works, right? Yeah, we do. But thank you very much. I think this is a definite start. And I thank Council Member Brown for bringing this forward. Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Henson. Council Member Akers. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chief, for this. It has been quite educational. About the warranties, do we generally buy longer warranties for new vehicles? I guess on the biggest trucks, maybe not the F-550s, but on the heavy-duty. The last two ladder trucks we bought, we did buy an extended warranty, and they're just now approaching a year old. We will see whether that's been a value over the next couple of years. It's kind of an experiment, to be quite honest with you. That's what I was wondering if you found that it's cost effective or not. Can you give us, and if you can't, that's fine if there's too many prices to share, but a breakdown of the costs for ladder trucks versus ambulances versus engine? Or is that them? That's what we're looking at. Okay, thank you. And then I wanted to ask on this spreadsheet that you provided from Fleet Wave. So it says, according to the spreadsheet, that the estimated useful lifespan is about 10 years for each vehicle on this sheet. Yet most of them at even nine years only have like 60,000 miles, and one at 12 years old only has 53,000 miles. So can you talk a little bit about that, like what determines the lifespan versus mileage on the vehicle and those sorts of things? Well, one thing to keep in mind is that rarely do these trucks make more than an 8 or 10 mile trip. We're spread out throughout the county. But with that, many times they go to a fire and sit running for a very long time where they may not roll mileage up on the odometer. So it's a little difficult, especially with our ambulances. We, just a year or so ago, we replaced a truck, and if we figured that with the mileage, or I'm sorry, the hours that were showing on the truck, and if we put a 30-mile-per-hour average on that, that truck had well over a half a million miles on it. Now, it only showed 280-290 on the odometer, but when you think of all the time that they sit running whenever they're out on a scene, it's still wear and tear on the engine. Okay. Okay. I think that's all I have right now. Thank you. Are we good to go? Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Brown. Thank you for recognizing me, Chair. I had a couple of comments before you get into the light fleet replacement because I think there are two separate items as far as that goes. looking at that replacement schedule of the heavy fleet on your page 21, I believe, or 13. I guess it's your page 13. Yes, sir. Let's see if we can find that. That one? Right there. Right there. Looking at the physical year 16, which is the year we're in right now, what did we end up budgeting for the physical year 16? Is that the amount? The 2.57. Yes, sir. Okay. Has that been spent, or where are you at on that particular? The two ambulances are on our property. I think we're two programming radios or something on one of them, just things that the manufacturer can't do for us. So I would anticipate those two going out on the street by the end of the month, I hope. The three engines are currently under contract. They're being built, and the initial delivery date was given to us is July. Typically, you can figure anywhere from 240 to 280 days from the time that you order a piece of fire equipment before it's going to show up here. So that pushes us back a little bit, but still you want to, I guess, you've encumbered that cost for the fiscal year 16. Does this, when I'm looking at this schedule here that you've got up there, what, are we up to date? I mean, are we still running behind, playing catch up? Well, we're getting close, and I don't know if you got this in a hard copy. It wouldn't quite fit on something that we could see. But we are still, as we're moving through here, over the next two rounds of purchases by our plan, we would still have some engines running around out there. They're going to be 17 to 19 years old. And they're becoming a maintenance headache. I mean, it's just the nature of the beast. You can't use these machines this way and not expect them to take a lot of work. But that's just where they have fallen in that replacement plan. So we are catching up. We have bought apparatus pretty regularly for the last two or three physical years. So we've turned that corner from being in – when I first came into this job, it was a critical situation. We are making progress. The key is to maintain the regular purchase of apparatus. And does that particular schedule, does it project the new stations? I think we'll have a couple of new stations. No, this is just based on our existing fleet as of today. But you are right. Once we open a new station, then it will require us to buy apparatus to. Well, how do we do that from, is that a separate item that we'll look at from budgeting? Typically, when we put a new station in a capital plan or a new and expanded service plan, we add not only the cost of the building, the cost of the personnel, but also the cost of the apparatus to start us. Because that truly is a startup cost. We could build a fire station. It doesn't do us a lot of good if we don't have people and apparatus. That would be in probably one big bond program for the station and all the equipment. I would think so. I know in our capital plan, for the years that we would request money to build a station, we also figure in the apparatus. And this is great because this information here, you won't have to repeat much of this for the links. When we get into the links, we'll have some stuff here, some information here that's going to be a big help to us. And then, you know, we can add or look at that. and then compare it to what the budget is for fiscal year 17, which looks like you've asked for about twice as much as 16. And I don't know about that, but we'll look at that when we get to the program. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Council Member Brown. It looks like Council Member Henson, you've got another question? Yes, Chair. Thank you. Chief, on the same schedule, what is the tower? A tower ladder is, we have two. One of them is stationed on Woodland Avenue, and the other one is at Clearwater Way. It's the big ladder trucks. It's got a platform so that the crew that works is actually working in a bucket, if you will, versus a straight ladder. You are working on a tower replacement for training? Well, yeah, the training tower is a building. It's not a tower ladder. That style of ladder is known as a tower ladder. Okay. They just made me think about it, but thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, and thank you, Chief Hopkins, and especially for your service, your interim service. Hopefully, I hate to say we'll find a replacement for you soon because we don't want to see you go, but thank you. Do we want to talk about Light Fleet? Go ahead. Okay. I'm sorry. That's okay. So our light fleet is much the same as our heavy fleet in that we've gone quite a period of time before replacing these vehicles. And they, too, are critical for the job we do. When we talk about light fleet, we're talking about the suburbans that our district officers ride in. We're talking about you've, for the last few years, seen smaller SUVs for our fire investigators, staff officers, and people like that. We went almost six years without buying any small fleet vehicles. And much like the heavy, as they wear out, then we're turning around looking for replacements and how we're going to handle that. these figures are based upon fy 15 also and i do know the suburbans have gone up because we just ordered a couple more of them recently the state contract price went on that all of these things we buy based on the state contracts and and try to be as efficient as we can we've actually in the last time around replaced some of the smaller suvs that we had with some small sedans you may We have seen some small cars running around as they serve the purpose. And then finally, what you see there is a replacement to essentially rotate the fleet one time throughout their life. Council Member Brown, is that, have any more questions? Any other council members? Again, thank you, Chief Hoskins. I appreciate the report. It was very informative. Next, it looks like we're going to have Council Member Evans speak on issues with the corrections facility and basically the community corrections office turnover. Director Ballard, is this going to be your last time up in front of us at the podium where we can grill you? Council Member Evans, if you want to go ahead and start. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. If you all recall, well, I'll just start by giving a little bit of a background. This was an issue shortly after arriving on Council that I'd heard veteran Council members had had concerns about, and then it resurfaced again in the LINCS process, and that was one of the non-budgetary recommendations that the high turnover be looked into. And so I decided to just kind of take that assignment and see what we could do. Paul will be here presenting, but before he gets into that, I will kind of caution or, I guess, remind the committee that ultimately, I think personnel issues are really in the administration's purview. But we as council, I believe, do have a role, and we need to figure out what that role really is. But I think we can express our concerns or the issues, concerns that we hear to the administration, as well as figuring out how we can set policies and impact the budget to perhaps help this turnover issue. But then I think most of all, we really have to understand the reason behind the turnover. And Paul and Director Ballard can get into that more specifically. But I think that's kind of what I want to do today, is just perhaps understand what's going on, the different reasons for why the turnover is happening. And the best thing I think that could have, well, that I learned from this was that Director Ballard had already been on the ball with this and had kind of initiated a research, actually, project that is being conducted by students under the guidance of, I believe, Dr. Wells over at Eastern Kentucky University. so it will be more comprehensive than I think anyone in this building could come up with. So I think it's going to be eye-opening and very helpful from what I hear from the next director. I've spoken to different employees, and a word that I heard to describe the survey was that it was insightful. The questions were insightful. So I think they are gathering the information and addressing the concerns that perhaps council had issues with, and I'm sure the administration and Director Ballard had all along. So I say that to give hope and kind of explain why this is a pretty short presentation, I think, in information, but because much more, I think, is coming. And I'm excited about that, and I think everyone involved is excited about the information that we're going to get from those results. But I'll let Paul kind of explain the numbers and take it from there. Thank you, Council Member. As Council Member Evans had stated, she asked me to take a look at officer turnover and community corrections. the the first point is that it is it is an issue and it's an important issue it has actually improved over the last five or six years I don't want to get into much more detail but they the Corrections and HR have started to do exit interviews with people that are leaving so they're they're tracking and they're documenting that those exit enter those those exits and that's been really useful the last five years the turnover rates anywhere from 18 percent to 22 percent and that compares very favorably with national averages the American Corrections Association estimates that local jails local detention centers have annual turnover rate of between 18 and 22 percent so and And this is just a very poor graph of turnover by year for those positions. Not only do the officers leave for other public safety opportunities, we also compete with two prisons in Fayette County, the federal prison and the state prison, which take some of our officers, or at least compete with some of our officers. About 40% of the people that leave or that turnover leave for other public safety positions, both in Lexington and elsewhere. I think in the five years that I looked at most recently, 15 people left to become police officers, six left for the Sheriff's Department, Fayette County Sheriff's Department, three left for fire, three left for E9-11, and then 19 left for other local or state correction facilities. And that's, again, a poor graph of what I just described. not not unsurprisingly the first first couple years are very stressful and that's when most of the turnover occurs this graph right there this is years of service almost half of the people leave within the that turnover leave within the first year and in the first three years 75% of the turnover occurs I don't know if there's any and again as I indicated the new new job or other opportunity or about 45% of the people leave for that for a new job or a new opportunity another 20% are terminated or pending pending discipline 19% leave for job dissatisfaction and 6% are leaving because of retirement and this This last slide is really for my edification, I guess. This looks at years of service for the current officers. So you can still see we have a very young or very new staff out there. Over a third of them are in the first four years. I looked at this for two reasons. To see if we'd have many retirements in the near future, but also to see how young the staff was. This indicated how young the staff was. I don't know if there was any questions, but I think that was it. Thank you, Mr. Schoeniger. Are there any questions from the council members? Council Member Gibbs. Hi, Paul. Thanks for the presentation, Paul. Just a couple things I don't understand. A lot of them switched to other correctional facilities, and the two major ones were BOP. What's that? And the other one is FMC, which is probably the federal prison. BOP is Bureau of Prisons, I believe. And it's Frankfort State or federal? They're federal. That's Frankfurt? The BOP. There's several BOPs located in the Commonwealth. USP Macquarie, FMC is the federal medical center here in Lexington, and there's two other institutions that are run by the Bureau of Prisons. Okay, well, thank you. Also, I was wondering if you could tell me what the average starting wage is for these folks and how that compares to... For the BOP? No, for our facility. Well, thanks to Council, you gave the bargaining, you gave the officers and sergeants a significant pay raise. Starting pay is around $32,000, and at the end of the first year, at $36,000. Starting pay at the BOP is $48,600. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Gibbs. Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Chair. I really appreciate Council Member Evans and Mr. Schoeniger bringing this presentation. This is interesting because I've had questions, and I know there's been lots of struggles over the years with this area of government. In fact, I couldn't tell you how many of these corrections officers I've sworn in personally. So I guess what I want to say is I would like to definitely give some points to the survey that's being done now because when you compare the Division of Fire and the Division of Police with community corrections, And I do put them all together because they are all serving a population of people that are in unique environments. But when you look at the uniforms that police and fire are wearing compared to what community corrections now, I know it has improved some, but I think there's a different level there. And I think we all know that there is a certain amount of respect that comes with uniforms. And so it's not only just for the people that we work with, but it's for ourselves. So I was going to ask Mr. Ballard if he would explain possibly what improvements have been made to the uniforms for the corrections officers now. I know they used to. The men and women both wore the same outfits. and i know you all have made improvements on that but are they fitted now or are they excuse me scott um yes with your help when we came here you you went with a galls as a package so we bought our uniform from galls we have two we have two basic style uniform the lieutenant colonel behind me is a class a which is our dress uniform that the management wears. And then we have another uniform that I would call a Class B, which is our BDUs, their washing wear. There's no pins on it. If you'll notice his shirt has a pin on it. That could be used against us as a weapon. In the other uniforms, everything is sewed on. It's a cloth. So it's a working uniform. You give them an allowance. They can buy uniforms of $250 every six months. Shoes, coats, rain gear, anything they need. So that has been improved then since that's good. I'm glad to hear that because I do think that is a very important part of having that respect component. And I know that you have made a lot of changes since you've been here, Director Ballard, and I appreciate that. Something else that I have seen is that the ceremonies for the swearing-in ceremonies, they used to be really dialed down. And I mean really dialed down. And I'm hoping that that's something that you all have made more of a ceremony process, maybe perhaps not to the level of fire and police because I know it's costly, but at least aware that the colleagues, that the sergeants and captains and the directors, that you all all participate in the swearing-in ceremony now, do you all? Absolutely. We've enjoyed the promotional ceremonies and the graduations. Our brothers and sisters, both in the fire department and the police department, show up, the commissioner's office, the mayor's office. There's punch, there's cake. We usually have a guest speaker. We do it at our shop there out at the jail. We've tried to make it a big deal because we want them to feel part of the public safety community. We try to welcome them and get them started on the right foot. Okay. I really do appreciate it. Just as an example of some more of the improvements that have been made, We used to sit around a conference table, and I would go out, and there would be two people that were supervising the training module, and I would stand before them and speak, and nobody else from the community corrections was there. And so I really, really appreciate the fact that you all have made changes to that, because, again, it's a matter of respecting them when they come into the positions and showing that respect, and I really appreciate that and value that. Now, I know I've got 34 seconds, and I might have to come back around for a second shot, but the number of positions that you have, officers, sergeants, captains, do you know what the numbers are as far as the number of officers compared to as far as the employees as captains and sergeants? I mean, are there more officers now than there are captains and sergeants? Sure. We have 278 officers. Obviously, as you begin at the bottom of the organizational chart, you have the most. And as it goes up, it gets smaller and smaller. In 1999, you had 300 correctional officers. Today, we're allotted 278. Okay. Because I know that if you look at this one page 28 here, and it talks about the diagrams here, You can see how heavy it is with the officers and the sergeants and captains. There's not much turnover there. So I can see that as new policies are brought forward, that new process and new management style and so forth can be a positive for that. And my time is out for this time, so I'll come back. Thank you, Council Member Lamb. Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Chair. I'm going to pick up where Council Member Lamb left off. So 278 officers, how many of those are sergeants and captains? They're all officers. So explain to me the difference between officers, sergeants, and captains. Well, obviously they're all officers. How many are in that particular segment? We're allotted 278. And then there's another group that are sergeants, which is a much smaller group, and lieutenants. As you go up the rank, you get fewer and fewer and fewer. because the commanders are able to command a larger group. So how many would you, and you can give me an estimate, would be from sergeants up? There's probably 26 sergeants. Oh, a number of employees. There's probably 26 sergeants, and this is a guess. Sure, sure. Probably seven lieutenants, four captains, five majors, one deputy director, and myself. Okay. Just to give you a little history, when this division opened up, it had five deputy directors and five majors. And today we have one deputy director and five majors. So it's about 20, not quite 20%. I think the most interesting slide to me was this one on community corrections turnover rates and the difference between how many officers and then sergeants and captains. So can you help me understand voluntary resignation? What does that mean? What's the definition? It could mean several things. If it's voluntary, that means there's no discipline pending. Right. It's usually meaning they're going someplace else. Okay. They've just voluntarily, they've not been asked to leave. But they have to resign. Yes. That's why it's a resignation. They've resigned their office. Yes, ma'am. Okay, that's what I assume. I just want to make sure. And then dismissed does require a disciplinary process to do so. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. I thought that's what that meant. I just wanted to make sure. I do think we're moving in the right direction, it looks like. But I think that it's a challenging situation. And I appreciate your hard work in moving the point of the ship, I guess I was saying. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Bledsoe. Council Member Akers. Thank you, Chair. For determining the reasons for leaving, how is that determined? Do you ask them? Do you perform exit surveys? Do they fill out forms? Or how do you determine where they go when they leave? We do a little bit of both. The major camera upon their exit will have them sit down and fill out a piece of paper, and we'll talk to them. If I can get them to stick around, then I'd like them to come to see me. I don't make any formal notes. I don't take any recordings because I just want a conversation to them to be honest with me. And I quiz them why they're leaving. There's nobody in the division that wants to know more why our staff is leaving than myself and our staff. So I'm really trying to elicit from them what's going on. It's a tough job. If you're a single mom, it's hard to work second shift and do forced mandatory overtime. If you're a single mom on day shift and you have children in daycare, daycares don't care if you work overtime. You have to be there at 6 o'clock to pick the kids up. If you're on second shift and you're a husband with a new wife and a new baby, they're up when you're at work. When you come home, they're asleep and vice versa. So they miss it. So there's many factors that affect that. Right. Speaking of the mandatory overtime, so is that required only of officers and not of the, what are they called? Sergeants. Supervisors. Well, the officers are mandatory to work overtime for the officers. And then if we are short supervisors, then the supervisor works overtime for a supervisor. So sergeants, captains, majors, lieutenants, and such cannot fill in for an officer? Not that they couldn't, but they don't. And so have you considered a policy change for that to maybe alleviate some of the mandatory overtime on officers that then results in them leaving, which then costs more money to train new officers to actually have – is Lieutenant the first? Sergeant. Okay, Sergeant is. Sorry. It's different in all the divisions, I think. So a sergeant, for instance, allowing them to fill in for officers so that an officer doesn't have to work so much mandatory overtime. Well, first of all, let me talk about the overtime. The last two weeks I looked at the overtime. There was 81 employees that worked less than eight hours in two weeks. There's another group that worked over 24 hours in two weeks, which means that the ones on the bottom are giving their overtime away, and then there's a group in the middle that works the mandatory. On a business model, your sergeants make more money than your officers. So if I'm going to use officers, lieutenants, and captains to work overtime, your cost of overtime is going to be extremely higher. The second problem you run to, and if you're a sergeant and you're functioning in an officer role, what hat does he wear? Is he a sergeant or is he an officer? If he sees somebody doing something wrong, does he act as a sergeant or an officer? So it's a little more confusing. So to answer your question, no, we don't at this time. Okay. And then this satisfaction survey that's being performed out of Eastern? Yes, ma'am. So when did that start, and when do you expect the final report? Let me give you a little history on that. Dr. Wells has been a true friend of the division. He brings graduate students working on the master's degree, public administration, and he's done many surveys. Actually, two years ago, I asked him to put me on the list because he's already got it mapped out. One year he did, do women feel safe in jails? The next year, do men feel safe in jails? This was my turn, so I had to wait three years. Because, you know, sometimes in curriculum, they skip it. They don't teach it every semester. So when he came to me and brought it to my attention, I immediately met with my boss, Commissioner Bast, and we vetted it, and we knew it had some inherent risks. We know it could have negative things in there. But at the same token, as Ms. Evans pointed out, we were willing to take the risk. We think there's more positive and more good that will come out of it, so we initiated it. They finished the cert taking the well first of all they had to develop the instrument and we worked with Dr. Wells to develop the instrument. We read it. The commissioner looked at it. It asks everything. All the demographics, how long you've been there, married, with kids, without kids, first job, second job, your educational level. So the data is going to be data rich in their terms to be able to answer a lot of your questions. So we went and sold it to the staff. I personally talked to not all but most and encouraged them to be honest. Tell us the truth because this is a tool, a management tool that we're going to use to look forward. 94% of our men and women took the survey, including command staff. I took one. I got to take one. So everybody got to take one. Because they're working on a semester, May 13th, at the division, Dr. Wells will be there with his graduate students. He's done this before. He'll have a full booklet, bound, printed with all the diagrams, all his findings, and a slide presentation. And the students will each take turn talking about their particular topic that they crunched the numbers in. And so that will be presented at the jail to your staff? And anybody that wants to come, yes, ma'am. Okay, so could we have that presentation in this committee as well? I would ask if we could hold off on that, because I also spoke with Dr. Wells, because it is going to be data-rich and because when we're talking about policy, I think we need to look at it from perhaps maybe a different perspective than what the administration is going to use it for. So I'd like to talk, actually, I wouldn't keep this in committee, but talk to Dr. Wells to see how maybe we can dissect it to see how council can put it in their role. I mean, I think at some point it will be appropriate. I think he even said maybe even later in the summer, because they were just going to do that presentation from what Dr. Wells told me is not going to cover everything that was collected. I mean, he's going to do some further research once these graduate students are gone, was my understanding. So I think maybe what he does on the latter end might actually help us more in our role. I think we can get the information, but again, that's why I said in the beginning, I think we need to let those things happen first and let those presentations be made and see how we can then use the data as opposed to just kind of everybody jumping in and trying to have too many hands in the pot, I mean quite honestly. Because we do have a limited role in this. We all are interested in making sure that the employees are happy and satisfied and we've all heard stories. But again, how we use the actual data, I think we need to be not strategic, but I think it's a long-term project. It's not just getting the information and just going with it. I think this is a long-term issue that we can find what everyone's role is in this. If that makes sense. Council Member Evans, perhaps we could have Dr. Wells present the survey to us in this committee, and that way he could go ahead and deliver the certain objectives that he wanted the survey to provide. so we could get a better idea. I talked to him about that, about doing that, hopefully in the near future, but again, gearing it towards what we can do. It may be helpful prior to us even getting a new director, so that's probably what maybe Council Member Akers has on her mind. But anyways, Council Member Akers, if someone wants to give you some more time on the floor, that's fine, I'll come back. Okay. If not, thank you, Council Member Evans. Council Member Fred Brown. Thank you, Chair. I understand that collective bargaining, of course, is part of what we have to deal with. Is that all officers, of course, but does that go up into the ranks? Yes, sir. The FOP represents the sergeants and the officers. Okay. And then ASME represents the lieutenants, captains, and majors. So are we constrained to policies in relationship to that? The CBA, the collective bargaining agreement? Yes, sir. Yeah. So you've got that set aside. I mean, this is what you have to adhere to. So can we have some policies over and above that, or do you have to get them okayed by the union members, or how does that work? If there's a rule change in the workplace, the union has an opportunity to review them and look at it and make explanations. Things that I get questioned about is rotating shifts, rotating off days, and doing those things. And those things are all addressed by the collective bargaining agreement, and I don't have any control over that. So how does that affect your recruiting and advertising? Are you still okay with that? You don't have to worry about the collective bargaining side of it? No, I've got to be really honest with you. Since President Steve Parker took over, we've had an outstanding relationship. We just recently went through negotiations. I didn't know what to expect, but it wasn't adversarial. On many occasions, they wanted the same thing we wanted. A little different perspective, maybe, but they wanted the same things we wanted. I don't see the union as a stumbling block, or I don't think they're holding us back or in some way harming us. I think they've done a lot of good. Well, I know just from talking to you and what has happened in just the short time that I've been on the council is the fact that you have been working probably nonstop trying to get more people on board, trying to get officers in there by advertising. I know one of the things that you've done is you've gone to, like, the police recruits and fire recruits, I think. So you've got some type of avenue there and correspondence where you can offer jobs to those people that have been in another process. Have you considered or is it possible to do rehires? Now, you know what I mean by rehires? Yes, sir. Okay. Have you ever done that or have you looked at it? We've had some success in that. The rule is, LFUC government rules are, if they come back within the one year, first of all, they've got to leave under good conditions. And if they come back within one year, we would probably put them with an FTO officer to get them back up to speed in case something's changed while they're gone. If they're gone longer than a year, they have to reapply. Okay, now let me expand that a little bit, though, on rehires. I'm talking about rehiring maybe fire retirees or police retirees. Have you ever taken that avenue or looked at that? No, sir. Sheriff's Department does that. I don't know if you're aware of it, but they do rehires across the law enforcement agencies. And I didn't know if that was something. And probably the commissioner, I think I've mentioned it to him before about rehires. And, you know, that's just something that seems like to me would be something that we could look at, and I don't think it would affect our union negotiations or our collective bargaining. And one other thing, I guess through the collective bargaining you have an employee complaint process? Sure. It's a grievance mechanism. Okay. One other thing, if you all considered, you know, you mentioned, because you have lady officers and men officers, you don't have a daycare service out there, do you? No, sir. Have you all ever looked at that as an added thing for recruitment? We've gotten the salaries up to some point, but is there some things that you can pass along to your successor that might enhance our recruiting and keep this turnover down? Because I think that's why it's in committee. Everybody's concerned with turnover because it's costly. Turnover is costly. But I wanted to throw that out if that had ever been mentioned. To be honest with you, we haven't thought of it, But first you'd have to survey the staff to see how many have had children. Then you're going to have to operate it 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Oh, I understand, yeah. Yeah, there's some costs. So there's some expenses and some liabilities with taking care of six-week-old little babies in a jail setting or in some other location. But no, sir, we haven't looked at it. Okay, great. Great job. Sorry to see you go. when I went out and toured the facility I was impressed with the organization and everything that was going on and I think we've got a good institution a good corrections facility out there and we want to make it even better and we want to, you know, the officers and the people that are out there, they're on the front line and, you know, they're out there just as much as any of our other public safety officers and I think we owe them a debt of gratitude. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Council Member Brown. I'm sorry, go ahead. Can I expand on one of Mr. Brown's things? Absolutely, go ahead. One of the things we did, I wanted the Council to know, when police and fire recruits unfortunately got that rejection letter that said that they didn't make it, we were sending them a letter saying, how about join the Lexington Public Safety Team and be a member of the Division of Community Corrections. Just this last police recruiting, Chief Mark Barnard went and talked to ten men, it just happened to be men, and said, if you'd had some experience, if you'd had some military experience, you might have made it to the next level. He encouraged them to come to the jail. We contacted those ten men. Of the ten, six signed up, and they started the academy Monday. So we're working hand-in-hand with both police and fire to get some of those recruits in here. Thank you, Director. Council Member Susie Lamb. Thank you, Chair. Thanks for the second opportunity. I want to make one statement as far as the turnover goes, and I think this is fair to say that I know that the category about the new job, new opportunities, is something to look at, but I think that if an employee is not, they're not going to be looking for a new job or new opportunity unless they're dissatisfied or if the pay's not something. And also I think we have to take into consideration that people are going to, they're not going to want to burn a bridge, so they're not going to say that they're dissatisfied, perhaps. I'd say a large percentage of people would not want to say, they want to keep their options open. So I think that we have to take that into consideration when we look at that statistic. and i know council member brown just talked about about where to learn where to pull candidates from and i appreciate what you're doing as far as trying to pull from the candidates that don't make it into the police and fire i think that's great the only bad thing about that i hope that they don't choose to get some training and then find up and end up going over and switching up to the police and fire. I mean, what I really worry about here is longevity, is when you have to continuously start training new people over and over and over again, it's very costly, and there's no continuity, and I mean, there's all kinds of concerns that brings to my attention. But my other question was, can you give an overview of the training that you all have? You just said something about the academy that's going to start next week. How long is your training now, and have What changes have you brought to that academy since you've been here? Well, first of all, we increased the training staff, and we have four trainers that are full-time, and that's all they do. If they're not training recruits, they're looking at their curriculum, looking online, reading books, thinking what's the latest trend in corrections. Because of the city's graciousness you've funded, I actually increased the length of the academy, making it longer. It's now a seven-week process just in the classroom, four weeks with an FTO officer, which is a field training officer. He works with a co-worker for four weeks before they ever graduate. So it's an 11-week program. We are much different than law enforcement in that Eastern Kentucky University doesn't offer a corrections academy, so each jails have to figure it out on their own. So we're doing that. This last academy, we had a family night. to bring the family in and had cokes and snacks just to try to get that cohesiveness to get them in here. But I've got to be honest with you, this is the only job I've ever had in my life that I'm never caught up, and I'm never done. As a policeman, there was days I didn't get to take a break. There was other days I had an easier day than others. When we had the 17 inches of snow last winter, we still fed 4,000 meals. We still did laundry for 1,300 people. We still took 60 people to sick call. So our work never changes, so our people are constantly on demand. And it's a tough, demanding job. There's never such thing as a light day because they're in a housing unit supervising inmates, and they've got to be on their toes all the time, and it's a tough environment. It is a tough environment, and I'll say my next question is actually for CAO Hamilton. But I'll never forget when you all first opened up the jail out there. I was scared to death to go out there because I was afraid the doors were closing behind me. I was just, you know, I said, I just don't think I can. So I did go out there, and I did go through the jail before they opened it up. But it takes a special person and a gifted person to be able to work out there with the clientele. It's tough. So I applaud you for the changes that you've made. And CAO Hamilton, my question to you is, can you explain how administration is going to plan on filling this director position and what's happening with that, please? Yes, I certainly can. There has been Glenn Brown and Commissioner Battson are doing this, and there has been an advertisement placed. They're going out on a national search for this particular position because we think we need to have as broad a spectrum as possible. The advertisement, I think, just went out, and it is out for 30 days to solicit candidates. Now, if something happens, and we usually should have pretty good luck on this, but if this does not happen and we do not get an adequate number of candidates, we'll open back up for another period of time. This is in contrast to how we did the chief of police and fire, but we felt with this one we needed to go out on a national search. That's what we are doing right now. All right. Thank you. I do want to applaud having Mr. Glenn Brown, too, on this because he's a former corrections employee. He has an amazing amount of knowledge and can bring a lot to the plate. Of course, Chief Bastin being former chief of police, I appreciate that. I hope that we can find another good candidate to fill Director Ballard's seats. and so thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Lamb. I'm going to skip over to Council Member Hanson. She's not had an opportunity to speak on this issue yet and then I have something I'd like to say as well. Go ahead, Council Member Hanson, please. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Rodney, for being here. And I guess I wanted to clarify something that was said earlier. Is there an age requirement for this job? Only for entry level, and it has to be 21 years of age. And so there's no upper requirement? No, ma'am. So you could use retired police if they chose to? Yes, ma'am. Okay. It's not like the police have a cap and fire have a cap on age? So that was the one thing I wanted to clarify. and I think that's it. Everybody's asked some really good questions but I know that this is something I think is probably one of the first things that was brought to my attention before you were the director about the constant turnover and I am almost feeling that it's as good as it's going to get But I also, I don't know if we could, through collective bargaining, do some rotation in the shifts. Because I know it gets, you know, just say you're a father or mother with a child that plays in a sport. I always think about the kids. And they would never get to go to that child's game because they're going to always be on second shift. until most likely that child's no longer playing ball. But I think that that would be a big plus for the turnover. And then also, back on the search for the new director, are we going to do similar to what we did for police? In what respect, Council Member? When you left. Excuse me. And we had like a panel of folks that did the interviewing. And I thought that was a very good process. This is a civil service process, this job, as opposed to one where the mayor can do it. Oh, they were appointed. That's correct. So there's a little bit of difference, but there will be interviews. There will be a very competitive process for this. Okay. Yeah, thanks for reminding me of that. But thank you. Can I add one thing? And we're talking about the survey, the satisfaction survey. One of the things that Dr. Wells agreed to when we sat down and talked with him about it was being able to bring back, once there were some things highlighted that possibly could be improved to make employees more satisfied and happy, that he would have his students do some benchmark research for those issues to see what's going on around the country that maybe other departments had found that had success in addressing that. So we're hoping to get some ideas, some good ideas, with the research when it comes. Thank you. And I'll just comment that I do think that this is, when I look at myself and the type of job I would want, this is the worst job for me. I would feel like a prisoner because, you know, just being confined to an area, things like that. So I think maybe the personality also plays a role. So thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Henson. And Vice Mayor Kay, would you mind taking over the chair? Will I ask a few questions before the others? Commissioner Ballard, you said that the pay was $34,000 for that starting entry level as compared to those other pay grades at the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and that was in the 40 range. Is that correct? Thanks to the collective bargaining agreement and thanks to the council that funded it, the new officers come in at about $32,000. They get another pay raise after they complete the academy, going to about $34,000. Upon completing probation, they go to $36,000. Eight hours a pay period for a year makes them at $40,000. Two days a pay period puts them at about $43,000. So you feel that they are in line or they're consistent with your competition or not? In local jails, we've exceeded it. The Bureau of Prisons is the one that pays. And that's where most of your employees will leave to go to? If they go to another facility? Yes, and between police, fire, the next one I think would be the Bureau of Prisons. Now, do you know, or maybe Commissioner Bastin knows, what is our starting salary? Is it competitive with the fire and the police as well? So do they all start pretty much the same and have the same opportunities, educational incentives, et cetera? I think police start right at 38 when they come in. So there's some difference there. Some different job requirements, of course, but they're a little bit higher still. Do you think that affects at all? Because you're saying that some of these folks stay at the jail and then they go to the police or fire. Is it because of the pay? I mean, I know the conditions are different, but being a police officer is awful difficult as well. I guess I'm asking your opinion. They are different jobs. I think some people go into corrections because they realize they don't have experience, and that's something that can help them in other processes. And they look at that as a means to get some experience to either go with the higher-paying bureau prisons or to go into police or fire. I will say this. I got back from Phoenix yesterday, and I was driving to the airport, and I drove around Phoenix quite a bit. I saw a bulletin board hiring corrections officers. I didn't see anything about hiring police or fire the whole time I was there, but it was a big bulletin board right on I-10. So this is an issue that folks across the country struggle with. We have some ideas, and Rodney probably is prepared here to say a few things, if you'd like, about some ideas that he has and some things, strategies to try. Unfortunately, he won't be here, and we're certainly going to miss him. Thank you, Commissioner. One last question. Commissioner Ballard, I'm sorry, Director Ballard, on page 34, it said years of service. You get to year four, and there's 27 that looks like they're there. And then you go down, and then you go to a couple more years, and there's eight years, and there's 13. So it kind of spikes. Maybe if you can put the graphic, or someone can put the graphic up there, please, on page 34. You'll see, like, in year four, you've got 27 current officers. Then you lose years five, six, seven, and then it kind of goes up. Are those officers that are staying in those positions, is that why? I think there's a combination of things going on there. Without knowing when the officers started, I have two retirement systems I'm dealing in, a 20-year retirement and a 25-year retirement. At the five-year mark, you've got to make a decision what you're going to do. At the 10-year mark, on the 20-year retirement, they're halfway through a pension. So once we get to the 10-year mark, you don't see many people leaving because there's light at the end of the tunnel. I think as the graph goes on out in later years, you'll see that because of the 25 years, the 12 1⁄2 to 13 years, they're there. So I think the individuals are having to make a decision early if they want to stay. The other thing that factors into that, some of the Bureau of Prisons requires a four-year degree or four years of service for a degree. So they work in a jail or a prison for four years. that meet the educational requirement than to go to the Bureau of Prisons. I see. That's interesting. I think that's it. Other than to say thank you for your service, we appreciate it. We're going to miss you. Hopefully that you can submit some of those ideas that Commissioner Bastin said that you were going to try to implement and pass those along to the new potential director or pass them along to the commissioner so we can utilize those because I think we've seen an improvement. Although it's a difficult situation, we have seen an improvement. So I'll turn this back over. Well, I'll take it back over, Vice Mayor, if you don't mind. Back to you. And we've got Council Member Evans. She's got some extra questions. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I was just going to address, I think, a couple of issues that perhaps Council Member Brown was talking about, just with some other ideas that relate to collective bargaining. That was actually part of the initial research that Paul came back with were different ideas that have been done in other cities. But then, of course, my next question was, well, is this legal? Can we do those things? And he is working with legal to discuss those. So I think this is a much bigger and longer project than this one presentation or even having Dr. Wells eventually come in, because I think we do have a lot of different avenues and a lot of different ways we can see where we as council can make some changes. But we're going to need the help of other departments to see what we can do legally. But that was also discussed, and we'll take those recommendations that you have as well as what was presented from Paul to me about other cities as well. Thank you, Council Member Evans. Council Member Akers. Thank you, Chair. I guess I wanted to ask Sally, or if you know Rodney, you can answer too. Do we know yet who will be serving as interim? I think I've suggested Glenn Brown should take that role, but he wasn't open to it. We're recommending that Colonel Colvin assume the interim position. Okay. Good. I just wanted to see about the transition. And then I would like to make a motion that Dr. Wells present the findings of his report to this committee on June 14th, which would be our first committee meeting following the completion and presentation of the report to corrections staff. And I think by that time, obviously you will not be here, so hopefully we'll have a new director in by that time. And then the new director with counsel can then weigh and see what steps forward we might take or what they learned from that report and what they plan to do differently or not or efforts to continue at the jail. So I would like to make that motion. A motion. Do we have a second? Second. A motion and a second to have the survey brought forward to the Planning and Public Safety Committee on the June 14th meeting. Is there any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Madam Chair, may I? Yes, you may. This survey is unique. I will be here when the presentation, because I'm taking over an agency that's suffering the same thing you are. This is a trend around the country, not just here. So I'm going to come back, because I want to hear. I'm going to take that report back with me to 4,400 employees to see if I can do a better job there. So this is a big deal. If you went to the criminal justice group and researched jail surveys, most of them will tell you the administration won't let you in because they're afraid of the results. With Commissioner Bastin's leadership, we agreed we'd move forward. We'd test the waters and see what happens. So we are plowing new ground, and Dr. Wells will tell you that. And I appreciate that. I know it does take courage to listen to subordinates and to hear what they say is good and bad, and that cannot ever be easy. And being a data nerd myself, I really look forward to that data and see how we can use those data to implement policy change for the city. Thank you. Very good. And Council Member Lamb, you're the parliamentarian. Can you speak a third time, or is that my prerogative? Well, I will just, you know what, I tell you what, that truthfully you're not supposed to speak twice, but I don't know that we use that parliamentarian procedure up here very often, and so I would like to be afforded one more question. You know what, I'm in a good mood today. Go ahead. Well, I'm so glad. Thank you. Thank you. I just hope it's an easy question. Trust me, it is. Does the academy contain diversity and multicultural training? And if so, how much of the 11 weeks is that training? Without looking at the curriculum, it's probably less than four hours. But I can tell you I've been in communications with our HR department requesting them to put together an additional program for diversity to be taught and in service every year. And we'll do it much like we do our sexual harassment. We're not going to do it every year, but every other year we'll keep repeating it, and then we'll add it to our end service in addition. So hopefully they're working on that curriculum as we speak. I appreciate that. And I also would like to just put this plug out there. I know that fire and police, I'm assuming that Division of Fire has this, but I know that police has a module in their training. So perhaps it could be the same module. I mean, they're dealing with the same population. I would think that that would be very positive for everybody. But thank you. And again, thank you for everything you've done here. I appreciate it. And I'm still smiling. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Chair. Good question. Thank you. If there are no other questions, Director Ballard, again, thank you for your service. I know we'll see you again back in June. And good luck to you. Thank you. I believe that's all we have on the agenda. We want to quickly go back to the back page. Maybe we can go through some of these other items and see where they fall. I believe Council Member Farmer, we're done with the H-1 notification process. Looks like the Greenway Manual Plan, we're still living in committee to have that brought forward by Commissioner Paulson. Downtown Traffic Study, Mr. Farmer. I mean, it's been delivered to us, hasn't it? Yes. All we have to do is decide to hear it. When we want to hear it. Okay, put that on. And it's thick. So we need some time with that. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Community and Market Gardens, I think we've got a couple of other items. Don't we have to dispose of that? I think the Community Gardens is coming up this afternoon. The Market Gardens is going to go to the Planning Commission first. Okay, so that doesn't have to be brought up right away. And then the big one, I guess it's the Design Excellence Zoda. And I know that Council Member Hensley had some real concerns about that because of the new PVA issue that's recently come up. So I think we'd probably – go ahead, Vice Mayor. I think his concern is the rural activity zone change, which is different. Oh, no. He's brought this information up to me, too, as far as the ZODA. On design? Yes. Oh, you know what? You're right. This is not a good day for me. This is design excellence. I was thinking about the recreational. My mistake. And with design excellence, the committee is very close to, subcommittee, very close to completing its work, but it is not quite done. So if we can just hold that until we know it's done for certain and then schedule it, that would be helpful. Okay. Thank you. Then we have the snow removal on sidewalks and enforcement. Council Member Gibbs? Okay. We've talked about the turnover in community corrections. Looks like that's going to come back on the 14th, Council Member Evans, due to the motion from Council Member Akers. Is that okay? Nuisance ordinance, Council Member Gibbs? Still working on that? Okay. Council Member Brown, you brought up the fire and EMS vehicle replacement plan. Are we okay with that? Body cameras. We should probably be hearing about that, I would think, Commissioner Bastin. Before we go on break, do you think? We hope to be able to have some new information on that. I know an RFP went out, and there was a response for that. There was a committee together, just talked to Aldona a moment ago, that is reviewing that. I think they're going through that process right now and making some recommendations, or we'll have a recommendation for a vendor. So once that's fully decided, I think we'll have some new information. There's a big article today in the Wall Street Journal about that. I don't know if you had a chance to look at that, but it's got a lot of different aspects that we need to look at before we go into this full force, for sure. It's a complicated issue. Yes. CAO Hamilton, you said you'd like to come forward, please. If I could mention one thing. In our meetings with the council on the budget, there was very much interest in the sidewalk plan. And I can't remember if it's appropriate here in this committee or which one, but they're ready with this. Derek and them have finished a master, we'll wrap it up this week, master plan on sidewalks. and I didn't know if you wanted to have that presentation before this budget, before we concluded everything on the budget. I mean, it won't be ready by the time we submit it. I mean, you wouldn't have it before we submitted the budget to you, but it might be a nice planning document to look at as you review this budget. I'll leave it up to the pleasure of this committee. If there's anyone who has any objections of not hearing that anytime soon, we can put that one out. Can I inject something in this? Yes, sir. I think this is important, and every council member has got some stake in this on the sidewalk plant. I would suggest that it go to a COW meeting so that all representatives of the council would get it at one time and not go from committee back to work session back and forth. That may be a better idea. When is our next? Do we know when our next COW meeting is? That's enough for a couple months, and I don't have the date, but I wonder if the same objective could be reached by having it as a presentation at a work session. I think we just do it at a work session. I think that would be fine. Would that be agreeable? Yeah, I think if we can do that, then we can expedite it that way. Yeah, thank you. We've got the special event permitting. We're on hold with that. Code enforcement policies, guidelines, and resources. That's Vice Mayor Kay. Yes, so we heard an initial report, but there's more to come, so I'd like to reschedule that for spring or later in the season. Okay, will do. Council Member Farmer, electronic billboard signage. I think it's on there with an update for this summer, I think, isn't it? We can go ahead and go forward that. That'd be fine. The update on the trails and path system, I believe that's going to be in the packet next month. Vice Mayor Kay, we have the right-of-way and temporary signage. Perhaps we can roll that in with the code enforcement. It's a code enforcement issue, or it's proposed to be a code enforcement issue. Okay. So maybe combine those two. Thank you. All right. Then we have Council Member Farmer, audit of Dean's response to Bluegrass Stockyard Fire. We need to get a little background on that to move forward on it. I wanted something similar to what we got from FIRE about what they did when and what happened because of that. And we'll just need to follow up on that accordingly. Okay. Very good. And then we have, this is from Council Member Hensley, who's not here. And then Council Member Henson. Looks like your Oxford Circle Redevelopment Study just came up recently. So that may be ready to go for the next meeting then. It will be. Okay. And that's it. I'll take a motion to adjourn. No move. Second. Second. All those in favor? Any opposed? Thank you all. you