# Urban County Council Work Session - May 10, 2016 > Auto-transcribed civic record · May 10, 2016 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/3953 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/3953?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2016-05-10 - **Last revised**: May 10, 2016 - **Length**: 26,660 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council convened on May 10, 2016, at 3:00 PM in the Council Chamber at 200 E. Main St, Lexington, KY 40507, with Mayor Jim Gray presiding. The council addressed four agenda items during the session, including public comment on agenda issues, approval of meeting summaries, budget amendments, and new business items. The council took four votes throughout the meeting, with all substantive matters receiving approval. Three members of the public provided comments on agenda-related issues during the designated public comment period. The meeting successfully concluded with the approval of budget amendments and new business items, demonstrating the council's continued work on municipal governance and fiscal management. ## Attendance All council members were present for the May 10, 2016 meeting. **Present:** • Mayor Jim Gray • Council Member Farmer • Vice Mayor Kay • Council Member Lamb • Council Member Fred Brown • Council Member James Brown • Council Member Evans • Council Member Bledsoe • Council Member Stinnett **Absent:** None **Late:** None ## Votes and Decisions The council conducted four unanimous votes during the May 10, 2016 meeting. **Approval of April 19, 2016 Work Session Summary** [timestamp: 00:30] Council Member Scutchfield motioned to approve the April 19, 2016 work session summary, with Council Member Farmer providing the second. The motion passed unanimously. **Approval of New Business** [timestamp: 01:00] Council Member Farmer made a motion to approve new business items, seconded by Council Member Kay. The motion passed with unanimous approval from all council members present. **Approval of Budget Amendments** [timestamp: 02:00] Council Member Farmer motioned to approve budget amendments, with Council Member Lamb seconding the motion. The motion passed unanimously, but with the condition of excluding the People's Bank relocation item until further discussion could take place. **Adjournment** [timestamp: 04:17] Council Member Stinnett made the motion to adjourn the meeting, which was seconded by Council Member Mossotti. The motion to adjourn passed unanimously. All four motions received unanimous support from the council members present, with no recorded dissenting votes or abstentions. The budget amendments approval was the only motion that included specific conditions, requiring the exclusion of one item for additional review before final consideration. ## Budget and Financial Actions The council approved several significant financial authorizations totaling over $1.2 million across various municipal projects and services. **Parks and Recreation Investments** The largest single expenditure was Resolution 0419-16, authorizing acceptance of a $250,000.00 proposal from Brandstetter Carroll Inc. for development of the Parks and Recreation Master Plan. Additionally, Resolution 0448-16 approved a $89,575.25 change order for Jacobson Park Playground Design Build Services. **Grant Applications and Awards** The council authorized submission of a $472,500.00 grant application to the National Park Service for Northeastern Park redevelopment under Resolution 0471-16. In a separate action, Resolution 0476-16 approved executing a Stormwater Quality Projects Incentive Grant agreement with The Living Arts and Science Center, Inc. for $13,893.00. **Infrastructure and Equipment** Resolution 0477-16 authorized Change Order No. 1 with The Allen Company for Clays Mill Road Section 2C construction, adding $114,026.08 to the project cost. For technology needs, Resolution 0478-16 approved a Dell True Lease Agreement for 30 desktop computers for the E911 center at a cost of $8,682.70. **Historic Preservation** The council approved Resolution 0497-16, amending the Memorandum of Agreement with Warwick Foundation, Inc. regarding relocation of the Peoples Bank building, involving $300,000.00 in funding adjustments. These financial actions demonstrate the city's commitment to parks development, infrastructure improvements, emergency services technology, and historic preservation while leveraging both municipal funds and federal grant opportunities. ## Public Comment During the public comment period, three council members addressed various municipal matters with city officials. **Security at Senior Citizens Center** [timestamp: 02:30] Council Member Farmer inquired about security arrangements for the Senior Citizens Center. Commissioner Ford responded by explaining the transition plan for providing 24-hour security at the facility. **Splash Park Grant Application** [timestamp: 03:00] Council Member James Brown raised concerns regarding the proposed splash park project, specifically questioning the location selection and emphasizing the importance of gathering community input before finalizing plans. Monica Conrad addressed these concerns, assuring that there would be flexibility in determining the location based on feedback from community members. **Splash Park Location Visibility** [timestamp: 03:30] Council Member Evans continued the discussion about the splash park, expressing specific concerns about the visibility and accessibility of the proposed location. Evans suggested that city officials should consider more visible locations that would better serve the community's needs. The public comment period focused primarily on two key issues: security services for senior citizens and the planning process for a new splash park facility. The discussions highlighted the importance of community input in municipal decision-making, particularly regarding recreational facilities and public safety services. ## Contested Items The primary contested item during the May 10, 2016 meeting centered on funding for the People's Bank building relocation project. The council faced community opposition regarding increased costs and concerns about the project's financial management. The disagreement focused on an additional funding request for relocating the People's Bank building, with the project experiencing cost overruns beyond the original budget. Community members and council participants expressed concerns about the financial management of the relocation project and questioned the need for supplemental funding. The discussion highlighted tensions between the city's commitment to preserving the historic People's Bank building through relocation and the fiscal responsibility of managing taxpayer funds effectively. Participants raised questions about how the initial cost estimates were developed and why additional funding was now necessary to complete the relocation. *Note: Specific details about participants, exact funding amounts, and the final outcome of this contested item are not available in the provided meeting data. Timestamp information for locating this discussion in the meeting video was not included in the source materials.* ## Public Comment - Issues on Agenda [timestamp: 00:00] The meeting opened with a public comment period designated for issues appearing on the agenda. This portion of the meeting was allocated for members of the public to address the governing body regarding specific items scheduled for discussion during the session. No public comments were recorded during this segment of the meeting. The public comment period proceeded without any speakers coming forward to address the board or council regarding agenda items. This agenda item served as an informational component of the meeting, providing the opportunity for public participation in the governmental process, though no members of the public chose to participate during this particular session. ## Approval of Summary [timestamp: 00:30] The council considered approval of the summary from their previous work session held on April 19, 2016. Council Member Scutchfield and Council Member Farmer participated in the discussion of this agenda item. The council reviewed the summary document, which captured the proceedings and decisions from the April 19th work session. Following their review, the council voted to approve the summary as presented. The summary was approved without any recorded objections or amendments to the document. ## Budget Amendments [timestamp: 02:00] The council reviewed and acted on several budget amendments during the May 10, 2016 meeting. Council Member Farmer and Commissioner Ford served as the primary speakers for this agenda item. The discussion focused on multiple budget amendments that required council approval. However, the council made a specific decision to exclude one particular item from the batch of amendments being considered - the People's Bank relocation item. This item was set aside for separate discussion at a later time. The remaining budget amendments were presented to the council for consideration. While the specific details of each individual amendment were not detailed in the available materials, the council proceeded to review and deliberate on the proposed budget changes. Following the presentation and discussion of the amendments, the council moved forward with a vote on the budget amendments package, excluding the People's Bank relocation matter. The council ultimately approved the budget amendments as presented, with the noted exception. The outcome of this agenda item was approval of the budget amendments, demonstrating the council's agreement with the proposed financial adjustments. The decision to separate out the People's Bank relocation item suggests this particular matter required additional consideration or discussion beyond what could be accommodated during this portion of the meeting. ## New Business [timestamp: 01:00] The council addressed several new business items during this portion of the meeting. Council Member Farmer and Council Member Kay were the primary speakers for this agenda item. The new business section included various authorizations and grant applications that required council approval. While the specific details of individual items were not provided in the available materials, the discussion covered multiple matters that fell under the council's purview for authorization. Council Member Farmer and Council Member Kay presented the new business items to their fellow council members for consideration. The items appeared to be routine matters requiring formal council action, including what were described as various authorizations and grant applications. The council proceeded to vote on the new business items presented. All new business items were approved by the council, indicating there was sufficient support among the members for the proposed authorizations and grant applications. No significant concerns or opposition were noted in the available materials regarding the new business items. The approval suggests the items were either uncontroversial or had been adequately vetted prior to the meeting. The successful passage of these new business items allows the relevant city departments or officials to proceed with the authorized activities and pursue the approved grant applications as needed. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve docket for the May 12, 2016 Council meeting - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve the May 3, 2016 work session summary - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve budget amendments - **Motion** — passed (0-0): amend the budget amendment list and pull the People's Bank BA until after the item is discussed in new business - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve new business - **Motion** — withdrawn (0-0): table item K (0497-16) until the Council Meeting on Thursday, May 12th in order to request and review the business plan - **Motion** — passed (0-0): add the People’s Bank BA back to list - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve neighborhood development funds - **Motion** — passed (0-0): refer the HR Management Audit to the General Government & Social Services Committee for an update in September - **Motion** — passed (0-0): enter closed session pursuant to KRS 61.810(1)(c) for the purpose of discussions regarding potential litigation - **Motion** — passed (0-0): return from closed session - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve the Mayor's Report - **Motion** — passed (0-0): adjourn at 6:17pm --- ## Full transcript Yeah, I'm going to send a song. Ain't gotta hear it. It says you. Help is on its way. I'm driving home this evening Could have sworn we had it all worked out You had this boy believing Way beyond the shadow of a doubt Well, I heard it on the street I heard you might have found somebody new Well, who is he, baby? Who is he and tell me what he means to you Oh yeah Took it all for granted But how was I to know That you'd be letting go Now it cuts like a knife Thank you. We'll be right back. The End work session of the council. And first on our agenda is a public comment for issues on the agenda. Mr. Monday, is anyone signed on for? No one signed on for issues on the agenda. All right. That allows us to move on to docket approval. Is there a motion to approve? So moved. Motion by Council Member Farmer. Second by Vice Mayor Kaye. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. If not, then we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Allows us to move on to approving the summary. Is there a motion to approve? Motion by Council Member Scushfield, second by Council Member Farmer. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. If not, we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Budget amendments is next. Is there a motion to approve? Move. Motion by Council Member Farmer, second by Council Member Lamb. Is there any discussion on the motion? Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Mayor. First off, the third one in, 94-890, about security for the Senior Citizen Center. Just give me a thumbnail of what we're doing there, please. All right. Commissioner Ford. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Farmer, this is our attempt to transition into the facility. Okay. We're going to be providing security there just as soon as we can have extended site control from the contractor. That is, we'll allow 24-hour security. We want to do that by taking recaptured utility expense that was projected for this fiscal year, and we've worked with general services. So you're really thinking the 1st of June or sometime during the first part of June, then? We're hoping so. So if that's the case, we'll have these funds via this budget amendment that will work through Commissioner Bassett's office to go ahead and facilitate that resource to be staffed there. Very good. Thank you, sir. And then, Mayor, I don't know what the pleasure of the council is, but on the journal entry having to do with the people's bank relocation, I would rather not take action on that until we've had the new business item discussion, and I don't think it's proper to have the discussion about the issue under budget amendments. So I would just make a motion to hold this item out until we've taken action on the item in the docket or on the new business. All right. Is that in favor of a motion? All right. It's a motion by Council Member Farmer, seconded by Council Member Fred Brown. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you. All right, sir. Thank you. All right. Is there any further discussion? All right. If not, then we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Next is new business. Is there a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Motion by Council Member Farmer. Second by Council Member Henson. Is there any discussion on the motion? Please sign on. Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Mayor. I would like to ask Ms. Conrad about item A. The parks and recreation, the development of the parks and recreation master plan, when was the last one that we've had? We had a revision in the mid-2000s. Prior to that, it's been about 10 years since we've actually had a full master plan. Awesome. Awesome. Okay. I wanted the public to hear that as well, so I appreciate that information. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Lamb. Let me see here. Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Mayor. Ms. Conrad. I have a question about item D. I know this is an authorization to submit an application for a grant for a splash park in Northeastern Park. and I've heard from some community members about concern about that location and getting community input. Is there any flexibility on that location after some community input is taken and there's a better location for that splash park that's referenced in this grant? I guess that's my question. Is there any flexibility in the permanent location? Yes, Council Member Brown, there is flexibility. Certainly, this is just the request to submit an application for the grant. We would not know until the fall of this year if we're actually been awarded the opportunity to apply for the grant itself. So in the meantime, we've got a pilot project there this summer. We'll get a lot of community engagement and feedback during that pilot project. and so at that time can determine if we want to remain this project at Northeastern or move it to another location that would meet the requirements of the grant. Okay. All right. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Council Member Brown. Council Member Evans. Monica. Sorry. I have no opposition to the splash pad. I am just really concerned, curious about the location, and I'm not going to put you on the spot, but the question was, where is Northeastern Park? And it seems very counterintuitive to put it someplace that can't be seen for Midland Avenue. And if the purpose is to make that area more inviting or if it's supposed to be for the entire city, I can't reconcile it in my mind why it's there and not perhaps someplace that's more visible. I immediately thought about Charles Young Park just because there's a playground there, there's basketball court there, but I don't know how the community would feel about that. I'm wondering if we can't get input from the neighborhood first to kind of see what their position is on it, because Northeastern just seems so obscure, and it looks like, or to me it gives the impression that it's just for that neighborhood, which is nice, but I don't know about $500,000 worth, nice, for just one neighborhood for anything, regardless of what it is. So I'm really just curious about why do we have to do this grant now? Why not do the pilot and see what the response is? I mean, why the immediacy? I feel like there's some sense of urgency that perhaps I'm not appreciating. Well, thank you for your question. Certainly there's a deadline with all grant applications, so we have to submit that information in a timely manner. We just finished the aquatics master plan, which did unprecedented community engagement and defined that we needed a downtown aquatics spray ground, some type of water for our downtown residents. and folks who live downtown. So that, along with the Gale Public Survey of Public Life, which looked specifically at Northeastern and identifying this as an opportunity to create a water environment for downtown, was all taken into account when we looked at applying for the grant. But again, we'll have the opportunity once we've done this pilot project to explore other areas, to talk to folks who are using the area, and find out if there's a better location. All right. Thank you, Council Member Evans. Thanks, Monica. Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Mayor. I just have a few questions on items regarding to the courthouse. And I know it's right at the time we're getting ready to sell the bonds, and people are very excited about it. And one of the things that I get asked, like I'm sure you all do too, you know, who's going in there, who's leasing it? I know we don't say that yet, but I would like to know, do you have letters of intent signed that kind of give assurances to people who question the economic viability of that project? Sure, we do, and we're working on securing the actual leases. On May 24th, I'm going to come before all of you to give you an announcement. It's going to be comprehensive, give you an update where we are in terms of the federal application for the tax credits, as well as you'll see the design, which we're thrilled to show all of you. And thirdly, it will talk about the tenants and the letters of intent. And actually, finally, there will be four components will be our construction schedule. So how it's going to impact those businesses around anybody who's just interested in the project and wants to see where we are. And so, yes, at that time, we will bring all of that forward to you and do a big announcement. And we're really excited. That will be at work session at 3 o'clock on May 24th. Thank you very much for that. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. I have a question on item K. This is the money, additional funding for the People's Portal building. Commissioner, can you give us the background information on why this is back before us? When last year this whole body was told the $150,000 was always going to be asked, I supported it last year. I supported it at the Lexington Center Board. But this council has never seen the business plan, and now we're being asked just to give another $150,000 because it's a nice thing to do, but I think we need more explanation, so hopefully you can provide it for us. I can provide a little, and what I'm going to look to is the group that is actually working to move the People's Portal to come and answer the majority of your questions. I do not have information on their business plan nor on their management and operations plan. What little I know is that the costs after they looked into the moving costs, they are more expensive than they had originally anticipated. and so that request came back through us and we helped identify the funds and that's where we are now. I would love to be able to have that. Those specific questions can be answered much better by those more closely involved with it. So I'm looking for Laura Cato who said she was going to be here. She's not going to be here, so. Would you like us to address that now? Yes, please. Yeah, that'd be good. Ms. Cato. Thank you, Council Member Senate. We're really delighted to be here and have a chance to answer all of your questions. Let me introduce myself. I'm Laurel Cato, and I'm here as Board Chair of the Warwick Foundation. It has been the Warwick Foundation's great privilege to lead the community collaboration to bring a people's portal to Lexington. We welcome the chance to be here today. I'm also here representing an extremely talented and dedicated team of volunteers, professionals who have put in literally thousands of hours over the last year to get us to this juncture. I want to recognize in particular Tom Cheek, who's been our lead architect over the last year, Sarah Tate, who led the process to have the building successfully listed on the National Register, Harding Dow and his firm EOP, who led our RFP process and our restoration and renovation cost estimate process, and Van Meter Pettit, whose fourth-year design studio at the College of Design spent an entire semester doing a design study on the building. and has recommended all of our programming design as well as exterior public spaces design. We also have a team of engineers, lawyers, if you can believe it, insurance brokers and banks. This has truly been a community effort. Craig Potts at the Historic Preservation Office at the state has been instrumental, and we have a 50-plus member People's Advisory Board that represents leaders in art, architecture, and the faith community and social justice community who have worked with us for the last year. When we were here before you this time last year, the People's Portal was an idea that was just taking shape. We had preliminary figures and we had a lot of dreams. One year later, we're here before you with a fully baked capital and development plan. And you have every right to know the details of that, and we're very happy to have this chance to discuss them with you. If you have in front of you a very brief handout, I'd like to walk you through where we were and where we are today. Our project milestones, this has been, to put it mildly, a very complex project, with two government entities, three non-profits, a crowdfunding campaign, state and federal jurisdiction over the historic asset. It has taken all of my 30 years of corporate finance experience to lead this project. And as I say, I could not have done it without the incredible team that's standing behind me and many of whom are sitting behind me today. We started with, frankly, the leadership of Mayor Gray and this council in taking a chance and investing in us a year ago the first $150,000 which seeded this project. And you'll see across the timeline our major milestone since then. We thought the community would get behind us. Now we know the community is behind us. They have come through in spades with a community matching funds, $250,000 raised by the end of August. That unlocked matching funds of another $250,000 so that as I stand before you today, a year ago, we were here on a hope and a prayer. Today we have literally $850,000 in the bank. Flipping over to the next page, I wanted to compare the numbers that we gave you one year ago to the numbers that we have before us today. When you start a project with a concept, You have estimated budget figures. By definition, it is not humanly possible to have confirmed costs before you've raised any of the money. No one will take the time, the corporate time, to invest and come up with confirmed costs, a fully designed project, until you have the likelihood of success. We brought to you numbers that were based on a preliminary budget process led by Tom Cheek, who has 35 years in design build experience, And based on our best information that we had one year ago, our capital budget was $850,000. Once the money was raised and once we could proceed working with our partners, the moving companies and other contractors, we discovered that our moving cost was significantly under budgeted. The only major figure to change, two major figures to change between last year and this year, are the move. you'll see that we had moving and restoration was a combined $450. That was a moving cost of $200 and a restoration cost of $250. Based on our formal RFP process led by Harding Dow at EOP, our two lowest bidders, both local companies that had given us figures in the first round that we relied on in establishing our budget chose not to participate in the final RFP round. So we were left with three, frankly, very highly qualified national moving companies, but at a significantly higher cost. Instead of $200,000, we have a current low bid of $565,000. And that is the primary difference between the two. The second number is the last line item, the bi-level Bayless Plaza. In order to maintain our National Register status at the receiver site and to be eligible for state tax credits, the National Park Service had to approve our receiver site on West High Street that's being donated by the Lexington Center Corporation. Let's just be honest, they don't like to move National Register buildings, period. they have a bias against it. We had to undertake to recreate the architect's existing approach to the building, that bi-level step, if you see on your photograph on the front page. We will reproduce that approach at the corner, kind of chamfer the corner of Patterson and West High, and recreate Bayless's approach to the building as closely as we can replicate it. Based on that undertaking, the National Park Service has formally approved our receiver site, which unlocks state tax credits for us, which is a crucial part of our funding calculus. So those two things have changed. We also wanted to have a small contingency so that we don't have to have this conversation again. And all in, we're looking to make up a shortfall of $450,000. If you turn the page and look at the funding sources, these were the funding sources that we brought to you a year ago. The Warwick Foundation did the LEED grant with $300,000. This council generously invested in this community project with $150,000. The Lacington Center was requested to contribute $150,000. And then the community match of $250,000. And let me just say, this community match was a thing to behold. Yes, we had major grants from the Bluegrass Trust of 50,000 and major foundation grants from across the community of 10, 20, and 30,000. But the most gratifying part of that community match was the crowdfunding campaign launched by a grassroots social media effort called People for the Peoples. And we have hundreds of $1, $5, $10 contributions that went toward making this community match. And in fact, we exceeded our goal by $10,000. We have $260,000 from the community. So whereas we stood before you this time last year and said we believe the community is behind this effort, today I can tell you unequivocally the community is behind it. And they've put their pennies and nickels and family foundations behind that commitment. Not just to the building, but to its afterlife as the people's portal and a public commons to the Rupp District. So let's look at the sources where we are today. We have the first five sources as proposed. The only difference is that the Lexington Center Corporation requested Langley Properties to participate in their $150,000 commitment. So that $150,000 is being supplied $75,000 by the Lexington Center and $75,000 by Langley Properties. The number did not change, but they are splitting it in that way. The new funding that we are seeking, we are asking this council to double down based on our firm committed costs today with a second $150,000 commitment in this budget amendment because time is very much of the essence. But let me emphasize that we're not asking this council to do anything that we're not willing to do ourselves. Warwick will also double down for a second $300,000. And combined, we can continue as partners and make up the shortfall in this funding. In the next slide, I want to thank your fiscally responsible counsel, and you want to know how much bang you're getting for the buck. I think the investment leverage ratio continues to be very strong. You're at a three-to-one for every dollar you put in. The community has put up $3 in cash. And for every dollar you've put in, the community is putting up $8, both in cash and in kind. And I think that's still compelling. And I think it still speaks well for the financial management of the project on your part. I know that you have concerns about the operating budget. And let me tell you that your colleagues at the Lexington Center did, too. They requested a five-year pro forma operating budget before they would agree to grant our ground lease on the receiver site. We put that together. It was scrutinized by a three-member committee of business people from their board, led by Holly Wiedemann, Craig Turner, and Ray Ball. I personally reviewed it with them over a four-hour meeting. They reviewed it in extreme detail, and they decided they were very comfortable with our assumptions. Our revenue assumptions are fairly conservative. If you've turned to the last page, the People's Portal is a public commons. It is to be operated for the community in a whole variety of ways that center around the city's commitment to the Charter for Compassion. The Peoples will be the first physical location in the world to be fully dedicated to the charter. Having said that, we know we have to pay the light bill, and it has to pay its way. So private event rentals will be the main financial mainstay of the project, a very small percentage of the total time, but a very large percentage of the total revenue. And this is a brief picture of where the revenues come from. And in the very last page, you have an operating summary that gives you figures to go with that. We have, I think, very conservatively assumed two paid event rentals per month at between $2,000 and $3,000 per event. So that's, as an example, we already have a stack of requests for weddings. We expect that it will be used for private events prior to Rupp Arena events, perhaps a corporate cocktail party before the U.K.-Tennessee game, something of that nature. And we have estimated 24 events per year to carry the bulk of our operating expenses. So I think you'll see we're trying to maintain a very healthy balance between public use and paid use. We expect to operate it at or near break-even, in other words, produce revenue to the least extent possible to carry the operating expenses of the facility. Both now and a year ago and forever, Warwick is responsible for the operating revenues and expenses of this facility. At no time have we proposed to this body or any other body to have a subsidy for operating. We feel very confident in our business plan, and having vetted that with some serious input from the Lexington Convention Visitors Bureau and from the folks at LCC, we're very confident in presenting these numbers before you. Council Member Senate or anyone else, if you would like to see our five-year operating pro forma with all of our notes and assumptions, we'd be very happy to supply that to you and provide any additional detail. But for the moment, I'll just turn it back to you and see if there are any other questions. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for the job you've done to this point. Again, I supported it last year. I know it's a good project. I know it's an opportunity to really save probably its only piece of architecture left from that era here in Lexington. But the question is, and the position we're all in, we have so many other groups asking us for $50,000, $80,000. Last year we had three groups beg and plead this council just for $80,000, and we made them jump through so many hoops. And the shocking part is this is just on our docket before us today. You alluded to the business plan. I'm on the LCC board. Yes, we did get to see it, but my colleagues here have not seen that business plan. I think it would be wise to share it with our colleagues on what that business plan is over five years, and that's why we asked for it on the LCC board. And this council owns Rupp Arena. The city owns Rupp Arena. So that 8 to 1 ratio was really much higher because we own the land that was donated. We own all the revenues of LCC. So the public has put the money in. We have been a great partner to this point. So my concern is when you come back to us for an additional $450,000 shortfall, we're going to pick up $150,000 of it. Where is the bidders that provide you with that original quote? Did they give you an explanation of why they didn't want to do it at this point? Because you put a lot of faith in them. Yes, we did. There were two companies, both local companies. The low bidder that was the basis of our original $850,000, bid $200,000, and they have so many projects in the queue that they could not enter our formal RFP within our time frame. And as you know from your Lexington Center work, our commitment to the Lexington Center is to move this building while Rupp Arena is closed for renovations. We have a 90-day window from June, basically the months of June, July, and August. We had to laugh. The reason we have to finish is because the circus is coming to town, and we have to finish in time for the circus. And no, we're not using the elephants to finish moving the building. So we have a very limited time window. If somebody has a six-month work queue, they can't help us. We can't delay the project and wait for them. The second lowest bidder, also a Kentucky-based company, a very highly regarded one by the Lake Student Heritage Council, has moved a number of historic buildings, has left the business to focus on an equipment rental business. So they're still using their moving equipment, but they are not personally doing the moving. So that left us with our third lowest bidder, who is still, I mean, his price, frankly, didn't change significantly. It is what it has always been. A very highly qualified national company out of Pennsylvania moved Alexander Hamilton's home out of the middle of Manhattan. and very, very complicated process. That highly qualified company is now our low bidder, and this is their prize. And they know that we don't have any local options, and they could have taken advantage of that, but they have not. Their bid is consistent with what it was a year ago. And have you accepted that bid to sign a contract? We are hoping to sign a contract by the end of this month. The Warwick Foundation Board has been privileged and honored to lead this collaboration. But the Warwick Board is not willing to sign a contract without a fully funded project. We have a very healthy endowment, but we need to keep the endowment intact. And our understanding with our board is that this will be fully funded before Warwick is obligated under contract to move forward, lest we put our whole endowment at risk. Well, I mean, I think the same thing would go for us. Would you be willing that before you get our $300,000 that that moving contract be signed and we know the exact amount so that this council and the community, the taxpayers, it's not our money, are comfortable as well? Absolutely. I mean, it's a chicken and egg thing. The money needs to be in the bank before we can sign, and you want to see it before you put the money in the bank. But I will say this. Under our existing funding agreement, the Department of Law has to approve the contract. So I would say that we'd be happy for it to be approved in final form and then perhaps executed and funded on the same day. Okay. I have some other questions, Mayor, but I'll yield to my colleagues. All right. Who else wish to – okay, hold your hand up. All right. I didn't know whether it was on the list for this or for other comments. All right. Then we'll go with Council Member Akers. or you are on the list for new business items. All right. All right, well, just hold your hand up. I'm going to go from left to right. Council Member Maloney. I've got a couple questions here. It's just the construction part. I have never heard of a building on a concrete slab being moved. It's very rare. I know that they have foundations that you can do for crawl space and do it, but I've never, ever heard of a foundation on concrete. Has this group done this before, and what examples have they, where have they done this before? I'd be happy to give you my answer to that, but you have the real expert in the room. I'm going to defer to Sarah Tate to talk about the technical aspects of the move. Or Harding. Harding, do you want to take it? Actually, Harding wasn't supposed to be here. He just sped back from Louisville at 90 miles an hour, and I forgot he was here. Don't tell them I'm breaking the law. Totally fair question, and it's one that we had for all of our movers. All of the bidders that we've met with, we've subjected them to similar questions. In the case of the low bidder that we have right now, their intent is actually to remove the concrete floor slab and to undergird the building with steel beams. That does a couple of things. One, it does increase the rigidity of the building. It also decreases the weight of the building. And so their process will be to, as I said, run steel beams under the building to create a secondary subframe within the building to shore it up and then to lift it and move it. And I can say, from talking to these gentlemen, they don't take any chances. This is a business in which you drop one building and you're not a building mover anymore. And so they put every redundancy in place and over-engineer all of their steel, and in a lot of cases fabricate their own steel for this work. So my question, do you think when they did the original bid on this, do you think they realized that this was a concrete slab and they planned to do all what he just said? And I can see the $500,000 being more in the reasonable cost of moving a building like this, like he just explained. I just didn't know maybe why it was so much cheaper and why they're not bidding on it now. It's because did they realize there was a concrete base? They did. I mean, everybody you gave us the bid had a site visit. We have, thanks to Sarah Tate and Betty Kerr, we have a full set of the original architectural plans for the building, which is invaluable. They all had plans. The difference in our mind was that the two low bidders were local and could service it locally. If we hire a moving company from Pennsylvania, they have to bring work crews down for the week. They have to mobilize, bring a lot of heavy equipment a long distance. And we justified the difference in cost between the two of just the mobilization expenses of working locally versus bringing labor equipment and materials from Pennsylvania. So that, in our mind, was the rationale for the price difference. The last question I have is, and I hope it doesn't happen, but you never know, if the building somehow breaks or collapses or whatever, there's no way you can fix it, really. Will we get our money back? Do you have insurance to pay for everybody to put their money into this to make sure that something does happen and we'll still have money coming back if we do? You have just put your finger on the issue that has kept us all awake for about six months. The risk management side of a project this complex is a very serious undertaking. Because when we signed our funding agreement with the urban county government back in January, we didn't have all of the details of the insurance coverage that our ultimate mover would have. So the Department of Law, as I indicated to Councilmember Senate, has the right and obligation to approve all the insurance that is in place at the time we sign our contract. So all of that will be vetted and approved by the Law Department. And it's going to be vetted and approved by me. And I'm the person who went out and made promises to the community and took the community's money. So this is something that I think we share a very serious interest in. There are always uninsured risks. I mean, you know as much about this as anybody. There's just no way to insure 100% of your risk, but we do know that our mover will have comprehensive general liability coverage. There will be what's called care, custody, and control coverage. And Warwick itself will probably buy an additional policy over and above what our mover has to protect the building from casualty loss just while it's severed from the real estate. The minute it's severed from the real estate, it's not covered by that homeowners or casualty policy at the old site. It covers it just literally in transit until it's rejoined. So those are the coverages that we're expecting to have in place and that the law department will have an opportunity to vet before everything is finalized. Well, thank you. Thanks, Pastor. Councilmember Fred Brown. Thank you, Mayor. I understand from your presentation that this was a fully funded project. Well, it was, but now it's not a fully funded project until you get the other $150,000. Is that correct? There is a total shortfall of $450,000, of which we're asking this council to supply $150,000, and Warwick is undertaking to provide the last $300,000. Let me rephrase the question. When it's all said and done, will you have any debt? No, sir. No, sir. Have you looked at that and thought outside the box on getting this $150,000, using that as getting a loan on it and leverage on it? And can, I might ask the law department, can we, in our contribution, look at it from the standpoint of loaning $150,000 instead of giving $150,000? This is a new thing the government is doing, and I don't have a real problem with that. And I understand looking at your revenue stream and your expenses, and I'm sure you're very conservative on that, but you just have to build in a payment plan. And I'm not so sure that the government would have to do the $150,000. I would think that we'd have some community banks that would be more than willing to sign on the line for $150,000. But have you explored that at all? We have not, Council Member Brown, and nor are we able to. The Warwick Foundation Board has been very clear from the very beginning that the project has to be self-sustaining. And if you look at our operating budget, our commitment is to operate this at or near break-even, which doesn't provide any excess revenues for carrying debt or debt coverage. so you know it's it is not uh carrying debt is not a risk that the work board is willing to accept flexibility then i'm afraid not okay thank you council member evans thank you mayor i don't know if i have so much of a question as a comment um because hearing the questions that are coming um i will say i i appreciate all of the effort that's gone into this. This is the kind of community buy-in we want from any project that we do. I think the community, regardless of how we feel about the building, we as a council feel about it, I think the community has spoken that they have some true interest and desire to make this project happen. I've only been here a year and some change, but I think this is probably the most buy-in that citizens have put their money where their mouth is on a project. So I applaud you and any citizen that was interested in this project for having accomplished that. I think this is one of the buildings that we have left that, again, regardless of how we feel about that building now, we live in a city that perhaps hasn't done its best at preserving the buildings, and now we've got one or two left that 100, 200 years later we're like, yeah, we need to keep that. So right now it might not be the prettiest thing that we see out there, but I do think that there clearly is a population that might be considering that that has truly taken the charge in this. And I appreciate understanding why the two bidders are no longer, the lowest bidders are no longer in play, because that was a question and concern that I had. As far as business plans, I mean, that's fine, but it seems like I don't know how much more buy-in the community can give. So I am curious to hear from council members on that. What more would we ask for any organization? Because we've had people come in and ask for a whole lot more with a lot less. So I don't know. I guess I'm putting my support out there. Granted, we can all do more with $150,000. We all have that. That can be an excuse that we have all day, every day. But I think we also have to pay attention to what our community wants, and I think this community has shown that this is a project that they believe in. Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Laurel. Your passion comes through very strongly. I was supportive initially. I'm not sure I'm there now. I look at this project and I see a lot of expertise there. And I think to myself, with this type of expertise, wouldn't you have thought that this bid was a little bit low? And I wonder if the due diligence was there. And I know what you're saying, that you had no way to know that these two were the underbidders and this happened. But, you know, you all have been involved in these projects before. And I'm just a little concerned that someone didn't, a red flag didn't come up and someone would say, you know, this just doesn't seem right to me. And now we're being asked at the last minute, we don't even have a performer, to say we need $150,000 to go forward. And that's a big ask when you've got parks that need benches, football dugouts, baseball dugouts, nets, that type of thing. And that's the kind of stuff that I get hit at every day. So what do I do? Do I say, okay, they were off $150,000. Well, people make mistakes or there was an issue of that. We're going to go ahead and do that and forget the other things that have been waiting in line for a long period of time. That's a very hard decision on our part to make. And so it's hard for me to know, you know, which direction to go to because I understand this is important. It's got historical value. but I also understand we're off $150K, and I also know that I've got needs that haven't been met and have been requests for those that have been ongoing. So it puts us in a difficult situation. And maybe if there's an alternative, as far as Council Member Brown suggested, I guess you can't borrow, but is there no other alternative to get this money besides us? Well, thank you, Council Member Massadi. Certainly the $300,000 that Warwick is doubling down with is a big number as well, and we're getting that from three different sources. Working with the State Heritage Council, we have a very high confidence level that we can monetize $100,000 in state tax credits. We also are working closely with the building and trades community here in Lexington that has been extremely generous with this project already. All of our survey works donated, our engineering works donated, our architectural works donated. I mean, we've had an outpouring of support on this. We're looking to the building and trades to donate $100,000 in kind to the project. And then we're also going back to all of our major donors, the people who made up the $250,000, the large donors, the family foundations, and asking them to double down. So by the urban county government doubling down, Warwick is doubling down, and our major donors doubling down, those sources of funds combined will total our $450,000 shortfall. Oh, I understand how you're going to get to your bottom line. I'm just asking is there somebody else that could provide the money instead of the government? Understood. And is there? The debt option is not possible. Well, the Warwick Board will not put the endowment at risk to support a debt commitment. Other than that, I'm a corporate finance lawyer. We've looked at this pretty hard. I'm not aware of any other source of funds that could be utilized within our time frame. Let me ask you one last thing that I have of concern, too. It says, I was reading in one of the articles, that if the nonprofit is not viable, it will be the Warwick Foundation in this endeavor. it said the transfer of the lease would go to another non-profit. Is that still part of the deal? Yes. Under our ground lease with the Lexington Center, there's a right of assignment. If for some reason Warwick walked in front of a bus, it could be assigned to another non-profit. The ground lease could be assigned to another non-profit with the Lexington Center's approval. All right. Thank you. All right. Councilmember or Vice Mayor Kay. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Laurel, for the information. I understand the concerns that have been raised, and I think they're legitimate. The government gets asked often for funds for very many different kinds of things, and we have to be very careful with the public's money. But on balance, I want to echo what Council Member Evans has said and add a couple comments. This is a unique opportunity. There is nothing like this before or since. It's not likely to be something else like this coming before this council. to save that building and to make of it a public amenity that will not be an ongoing source of funding from the government is really unusual. I've tracked this thing from the beginning. I understand the effort that's gone into it and the obstacles repeatedly that have been overcome. This is the last step. We have an opportunity to do something for the community and to do something for historic preservation that is, as I said, it's simply unique. We're not going to get this opportunity again. The Warwick Foundation, between its initial $300,000 and an additional $300,000, is putting up a significant amount of money to make of that building a significant addition to the entire community. So I know it's a hard decision. I know there are many other ways that people could think about using this money, but I believe that we cannot imagine anything where we could invest at this point in the project $150,000 and get as much back from it as this project promises. So I will be supportive. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Vice Mayor Kaye. Next. Who's next? Council Member Hensley. Thank you, Mayor. You know, I echo some of the comments that Fred Brown mentioned about different ways of investing in this project. And I know I understand that you're saying that you can't incur any debt, but could a forgivable loan be something that would be a vehicle that we could get where it would be forgivable if you couldn't make the payment back, but we could get the taxpayers' monies back and get your project on time and on project, on this 90-day window that you've got while RUB's closed. Is that something that's possible in your guys' arrangement with work? I'm sorry, I'm not, when you say forgivable loan, what do you mean by that? Sometimes we issue funds to projects and programs and different things for entrepreneurial ideas that are forgivable loans. And so the risk is different, I guess, from just a straight-out bonding type issue where you'd be paying it back to us. And I'm out of turn with that. Like our Awesome Inc. and some of these other projects that we do with the Entrepreneurship Board, aren't those forgivable loans? That's the language that's used. Maybe Bill and I can address that. Anyway, I was just trying to think out of the box, and I agree with some of the other comments. It looks like we have $450,000 would be total between Lexington Center and the government invested this, which would be 34% of your budget for the project. I mean, I do see those two as one source of funding in one direction or another. And so I just understand you're in a dilemma. So I just didn't know if those questions have been asked of how we could take on some debt that would be longer term. If you've got $16,000 of revenues projected to come in, it looks like a 10-year loan. We could cash flow that. So just thought. Thank you. Who's next? Councilman Rakers. Thank you, Mayor. Will there be staff running the programs during the day? Will someone be there staffing the facility? Yes. In our business plan, we have three staff positions. Some are full-time, some are part-time, some are at market, and some are part volunteer. We also include a VISTA employee in our model. And what exactly will happen there day-to-day? You mentioned a lot of rentals for special events, but if it's Tuesday afternoon, what is going on there? I don't recall ever receiving any information about that. Yes, as a public commons, it is available generally to the public. The 16-acre rep district has a very broad mission, and it is to provide a variety of entertainment and cultural options. With all of the discussion about the rep district redevelopment, the intention here is to provide a public commons, It's a public footprint in the Rep District. No season ticket required for the public to express itself through arts, entertainment, performances, exhibits, meetings, and the whole myriad ways the community chooses to express itself in that space. In some respects, you could call it a community self-portrait. Insofar as the access will be available very broadly for people to use the megaphone of the Rep District to project a part of our community. So whenever we go there, whether it's to see a film, the Lexington Film League will use it as a venue, to hear a lecture, we may pipe in the Festival of Faiths from Louisville, to have a discussion group, to share a community meal, to learn more about each other in our community, building around the themes of respect and inclusion. That's a very, very broad mission, and it's meant to be. It's intentionally very broad. The Warwick Foundation itself has a 15-year history of programming around the themes of preservation and education and cross-cultural understanding. So our homegrown programs, if you will, will also take place there. This entire semester has been spent by Bandmeter Pettit's fourth-year design studio. They've done a programming catalog of all the ways that the space can be configured for performing arts and meetings, conferences. It's literally 25 pages thick of programming options. As his studio has progressed in their work, we've come to realize something that we really didn't at the beginning, and that is that the exterior spaces, the exterior public spaces, are as exciting, if not more exciting, with the building as a backdrop than what could go on inside the four walls. So there's just endless opportunities for people to project their work from the community and the region into that rub district space. Two million people walk in and out of Rub Arena every year. So it's an enormously vibrant place to engage the community where they are and in a whole host of ways that our community has the resources to support today and just providing that venue in that location. Let me also say that we are very cognizant of the synergies between the People's Portal and all the other things that are going on around us. We will be directly across the street from the new convention center. We'll be at the linchpin of the Town Branch Commons. You know, this building gives a storefront, you know, a doorway on West High Street and provides a destination point on the Town Branch Commons corridor. So there's a lot of things building up around this space, and we're just pleased that the public will have a free and open public commons as one component of that grander vision. Okay. And on your budget, the expenses, no, not the expenses, I switched pages, where the budget changed. So an additional cost of a Bayless Plaza, by-level Bayless Plaza of $95,000, and the interior build-out of $200,000, and the restoration obviously increased, I guess, as well, or maybe not. I guess my question is, why do we need to fully fund these additional costs, the Bayless Plaza and the interior build-out, when we just need to move the building first? It's a very good question. And then worry about the interior fit-up later. Right. No, it's a very good question, and it's one that has experienced very robust debate within our team. The reason we have elected to fully fund the project is that we feel that we promised this council, we promised our donors, and we promised the Lexington Center Corporation a people's portal, an operating entity. To move the building and shutter it does not deliver what we promised. And there's ample evidence in the community where that decision has been made with other buildings and the Pope Villa comes to mind. where 20 years later it still isn't operational. We also consulted with philanthropy experts about fundraising and were strongly advised not to do that. When the building is moved and the emergency is passed, it's very difficult to go back and raise funds in a second round. They've seen that fail repeatedly in their experience. So after taking all of that into consideration, we decided that in order to move forward, we wanted to be able to deliver fully on our promise. And frankly, the Lexington Center's lease requires it to be an operating entity. That is really not an option. We'd have to go back and renegotiate that with our ground landlord. I can tell you from our dealings with the committee, I don't think that proposal would be very well received. And I think that their, frankly, their worst nightmare is to have an unfinished project across from their new convention center and across from Rupp Arena. So for all of those reasons, it really came down to, frankly, for me, an ethical issue that we needed to finish what we started and we needed to have a fully funded project before we move forward. Last question. I'll try to be fast. So this is a community building, basically, community center is what it sounds like. Has the community foundation contributed thus far, the Bluegrass Community Foundation? The community foundation itself as an entity has only contributed advice. They've advised us in a number of grant applications and other things, but they have not contributed funds as an entity. Family foundations within the Bluegrass Community Foundation's umbrella, foundations that are managed by them, have contributed significant amounts to us. And the Blue Rescue Foundation has been extremely supportive of the project with their donor-advised funds. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. All right. Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Mayor. I just have two quick questions since we've exhausted a lot of other ones. One, I mean, the LCC and Langley Properties obviously has a good interest in this project. Are they doubling down on their support? Langley Properties is our second largest private donor right now. They gave it the office. They gave $75,000 at the beginning of the project. They're also donating the building. And recently we have asked them to also pick up some of the site preparation costs, security fencing, erosion control, stormwater protection. We've never asked them to do anything that they have not agreed to do. And I just can't say enough about the support that they've given us. But we have not asked them for any further cash, given everything else that they're already doing. And the LCC also, no? We have not asked the Lexington Center Corporation. I mean, again, they've already contributed an enormous amount to the project, both in cash and in kind with the receiver site. Okay, and then lastly, where are we taking the 150 from? What are we not funding to fund this? I'm just curious. That's a good question. Oh, sure. It's from debt service that will not be used in FY16. Just sitting around waiting for a project. Sure. We had debt service budgeted in this year. We expected to do the bonds that we're talking about now as early as February. That did not happen, so there will not be a debt payment in this FY16 budget, and that's where those funds are released from. Okay. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Gibbs. Thank you, Mayor. Laurel, thanks for all you've done for your presentation. I just want to say that I think this is a unique, beautiful building that's been gone to waste for years. It's been hidden. You drive right by and don't even see it, and we're going to, in a sense, unleash it. It'll serve the whole community right across from Rupp Arena. People on the Town Branch Trail will use it, or Town Branch Commons, and I'm just very, very excited about it. I just want to thank you for all you've done. Thank you. Councilman Lamb. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Laurel, for coming and answering very important questions and very valuable questions as we look at spending taxpayer dollars towards projects that are a one-of-a-kind project. Just to kind of give a little brief history of what happened, And four people, three people before me, brought this up to ask for this ask, this 150,000. I was the fourth person. Now, I won't say who because they all know who they are. So, but I do say this is a one-of-a-kind project. And I would hate to think that all of the work that has been done in this community, with all of these people that have come together for this project, that we could not choose to approve this $150,000. This is a very small ask. Yes, it is an ask. But it is a very small ask. Now, what I want to say is I want to commend Council Members Stennett and Farmer. because you guys were sitting on the Lexington Center board, and you all voted, I assume, to approve and to support this project. Now, I hope that you all will continue that support as we move forward with this vote. I think it is a good project. I think it is a visionary project that most of us probably last year this time, I couldn't see it. Now I see it. And I just think it is a unique, one-of-a-kind project for Lexington, Kentucky. And there has been an insurmountable amount of in-kind hours and expertise that have been spent on this project. And I just think it would be a shame if we don't support this. And, I mean, there are a lot of moving parts. There have been a lot of people involved in this process. And we are so close to the finish line to getting this, you know, we just went through derby weekend. So, I mean, this is another race. So I'm hoping that we can continue the support and that we can see this to the finish. And I'm anxious to see what it looks like. And I actually want a front row seat when the building is moved because I can't imagine watching such an amazing – I just can't imagine what it would be, maybe even documentary level. I don't know. So I just hope that everybody will be able to support this. And thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Hanson. Thank you, Mayor. I thought I would get by without putting my two cents worth in, but I'm going to go ahead. I, the main thing about this building and any structure of any historical significance is once it's gone, it's gone forever. You can't take it back. You can't, you know, so, and I do notice that building when I drive down Broadway. I think it's really beautiful. I always said teal is my favorite color. I don't know if you plan on keeping it teal. But I do agree with Council Member Lamb that, you know, here we are at the finish line. And if you don't give it that last go, you know, it's just going to, it would just be such a shame for Lexington not to enjoy this structure for many more years to come. So thank you for, I commend you completely, everybody, for the work that's gone into this. And it's a history, for one thing, I guess, is something that I cherish about Lexington. So thank you. Thank you. All right, Council Member Fred Brown. Thank you, Mayor. I think you answered this question about LCC. You did not approach LCC for the additional $150,000. Is that correct? That is correct. And when I'm looking on here, LCC's match actually went down by $75,000. Langley Properties is going to help them with their $150,000 match, right? That's correct. Okay. I just think that there's some other pecking order here, and I think LCC could probably step up to the plate much easier than the city could. I think they've got more vested in it, although the city owns supposedly the quasi corporation. I think LCC should be the ones to put up the $150,000, and that gets them from the original $150,000 up to $225,000. And I would be supportive of that. I like, you know, I'm very supportive of it. But, you know, we've got to draw the line someplace. I think another $150,000 out of our general fund is just not the place. Thank you. All right. Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Mayor. This is when you've got to love doing this job. Because there's all kinds of good reasons to move forward with this, and there's tremendous financial reasons to not move forward with this. A year ago, when we included the $150,000 in the budget at the Mayor's request, at the Mayor's behest, he championed for it, in my estimation. And there were some grumblings. But we went along. At that time, I was not a member of the Election Center board. And wearing that hat, among many hats, as we all do in this room, I need to make some comments that could be taken in certain ways, and you all can just value them as you like. But I would just submit to you that the entity in the end that is absolutely giving the most of this is the Lexington Center Corporation and all of its properties. Because you lose the income off of all of the parking spaces in perpetuity. They're gone. They won't be back. This will be taken up by it. And when you give this plan today, the supporting financial plan, and I look at this, and they will do community events, benefits and receptions, that's the business that the Lexington Center Corporation is in. They will have convention events, breakouts and luncheons. That's the business Lexington Center Corporation is in. They will have private events, weddings and parties. Some of those things happen on LCC property. And ticketed events, theater and music, those are things that happen on the LCC property. These things will continue to happen on LCC property. They will just be at this building that's been moved across and onto LCC property. And that board works very hard, harder than I understood, and deals with more complex issues than I understood. But I would just say they have been asked and they have given. You know, during one iteration of trying to reinvent part of our downtown and the convention center and Rupp Arena, we were party to having some funds come to us from the state that were cold severance funds, and we promised to pay those back. We being Lexington Central Corporation Board, they're the ones paying the money back. Sometimes the tariff here is just being able to say what you really think. and once you're done, you said. And, you know, to be honest, growing up, this was not my style of architecture. And I've been watching, Mayor, you made some notes here, and I see some of the headers there, buddy. And he wasn't cribbing well enough. You know, for me, it's a lot easier to save a much older structure because I think it signifies a part of history, a part of Lexington that I perhaps find more romantic or more historic. And I look at this building and I look at the work that you all have done and you have been lauded for it, all of you individually and together. And I still have my LCC hat on going, why, why us? And you make some points that I find hard to refute. And basically, as I do several times here, I give myself therapy in public. And I really don't want to do this. I really think it's one of those things when you step back, it takes funds, land, and availability away from LCC. And on the other hand, if you do go forward, it costs all those things for LCC. Is this building worth it? Is this mission worth it? Well, as I've said to the mayor, I think we're right now in a new golden age for Lexington. And in part of that decoration, this is one of the things you'd want to keep around. You'd want to have it because it is from a different time frame. It is from a different ilk. And it signifies something different. But I'm just having a hard time with it. And maybe, Mayor, that's where you could help me along here. because I just, when we sit in those board meetings, and yes to earlier commentary, we voted for this, but, you know, I can say a lot of things a lot of places, but at that board meeting, at that being the first or second time in, I wasn't going to chime in and go, are we really going to do this? But now we're here, Mayor. Are we really going to do this? Yeah. Well, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak. I guess I'll hand the gavel to the Vice Mayor and allow me to comment. Thank you, Vice Mayor. A lot of issues here, and that's why these issues come to this body of tough ones, often very, very turbulent ones. I would agree on the points that many of you have made on both sides. I think Council Member Stennett did a nice job of illustrating that those who have brought this project to the city have brought it with their own skin in the game, and it merits our attention. let me talk first to the to the value of it the value to history and some of you have done this already i'm just going to i'm going to reinforce that it's a unique specimen of the modern period it's perhaps the only one remaining so in 50 or 100 years it's going to be a mark of our history In my view, no question about that. And many cities would celebrate that. When we think about tourism in our city and the value of tourism, when we think about the value of this to young people or the value of architecture and history and art to young people and their measuring of it and their education, it will become a touchstone. No question about that. A special feature of our architectural history. I think when we give meaning and purpose to a building, then it adds value enormously. And the meaning and the purpose that Warwick Foundation brings to this through the Compassionate City model has a special significance as well. So that brings then two merits to it, two attributes to the question. and i also look at the precedent um the precedent for our city is that we have done this before we've done it with we have um when scotty basler was mayor he tells me routinely that they passed a cultural bond which was designed to restore and preserve the kentucky history the the Kentucky Theater, rather, and Ashland, to renovate Ashland. So there is precedent for it. Now, I, too, am concerned any time we have a budget that changes. I think we've all seen that. We've all seen it, and we have restored our city to physical responsibility. But there are lots of projects, and I've been through literally over 1,000 of them, and I have seen this occur. And what I'm saying is we've seen it occur with Firehouse No. 2. We've seen it occur. We've seen changes on almost all of our projects. They didn't have full and complete plans to work from. So once they developed those full and complete plans and they went out to the bidders, or fuller and complete plans, and they went out to the bidders, those that were first in the line, there was a reasonable explanation of why they're no longer available to do the project. And the firm in, is it Pennsylvania? is. And arguably the firm in Pennsylvania is perhaps best equipped to do it and to do it well. So when I put all of this together, including the value, and I do believe it adds value to the Civic Center complex. I believe it adds immensely value because right now there's not a whole lot of architecture there. I don't think anybody would dispute that. but there's not a whole lot to value in terms of architectural history. And this would add to the complex and add to the future potential for development of the high street lot. That's the way I look at it. It adds immensely to the future potential for development of the high street lot. And I recognize what, Council Member Farmer, what you had to say about the Lexington Center Corporation having given. But we do need to remember that Lexington Center Corporation is a subsidiary of the city, and it has its own challenges, of course, today, financial challenges. And so I would say that its focus on those challenges with what it has already done for this project is worthwhile and satisfies that need. So I agree with whoever it was said that we're at the finish line. This project has, if we were in Charleston, if we were in a city that has a long history of valuing architecture and its architectural history, I suspect that the decision would be an easier one, but that's not to say that we shouldn't labor with it, as we have. and we've examined it. But having said all of that, I think it's a worthwhile project, and I think it's a worthwhile investment. All right. Vice Mayor. I'll just turn it back over to you, sir. All right. Council Member Farmer, if you wish to speak again. Briefly, Mayor, I will just say thank you for your words. Having been placed on the Lexington Center Board by you, who am I to vote against your will? Thank you. Oh, Lordy. Oh, goodness. Goodness gracious. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. And I won't echo what Council Member Farmer said, but I will echo, you know, this comes down to respect and giving the council the opportunity, with the same consideration that we had at LCC, to vet something, to vet it publicly, and whether it was the administration that blue-sheeted it without talking to any council members, that could be learned from, and hopefully in the future we can handle these differently and talk to the council before it gets here. Because, Mayor, you remember when we sat here, you and I were the only ones around this horseshoe that were here when we had the Lyric Theater, and you were the one that made the motion, I'm not going to vote for it until we see a business plan. And we got a business plan. We saw it. We all agreed. Now, whether or not it's been successful or not, I mean, that's subjective, so I understand that. But at the end of the day, you know, I know this council supported it last year, and you've done a heck of a job. You know, you really have, and you've kept us in a loop. And congratulations last week on the federal government agreeing. That was a big hurdle, and you did a good job getting us through there. So I do appreciate your time and coming and answering the questions. And it's amazing sometimes when you ask a question, the community thinks you hear from all types on both sides. They think either you're against it or for it or, you know, on their side. But, you know, asking questions is healthy, and that's what this council's role is, and that's what our duty is. So, again, thank you for coming, and, Mayor, I do appreciate your comments as well. All right. Thank you, Council Member Stinnett. Council Member Akers? Thank you. I want to, I guess, follow up. I didn't really get to share my thoughts. So I agree with Council Member Stinnett that I would have liked to have seen a business plan. And so I would, I guess, like to ask or consider that council receive, that you submit that business plan to council for us to review and table this until we have the time to review it and consider it at the next, walk it on at the next council meeting or whatever we need to do. because I don't think it's fair to we all did support this and like the mayor, I support I appreciate good architecture I supported this project last time I still think it's a very good concept and project I don't doubt that at all but I just think at some point when do we say no and in a year if it's not self-sustaining are you going to come back to us because you said you weren't going to come back and now I just don't know that in a year or two down the road when you don't if you don't bring in enough revenues that you won't be before us again so that's my real hesitation is that there's lots of good projects and that we can support a lot many many things and that doesn't take away from the quality and value of those projects but we the budget here is not endless and that there are lots of competing interests and so I'm just I'm torn, I guess you would say. So is that possible? Should I just make that motion, or what do I do? Vice Mayor Kay, do you wish to speak? Oh, okay. Alright. Alright, so I guess if we could walk it on on Thursday, which I mean, I think we've all debated it quite enough so it's not like it's really walking it on as a surprise, but so if you all can submit the business plan to us tonight, I would think that it's accessible. Then we would have time to review it and consider it on Thursday. So moved. Second. All right. So what's the motion? What's the motion then? Yeah. Repeat the motion. I guess I move to table it until Thursday night, pending receipt of the business plan. All right. There's a motion to, so it's a motion to table till... I don't think that tabling is proper. Just procedurally, point of order. If you're going to, that's really a postponement. This is the same conversation we had about a previous issue. If you want to postpone that, that's a debatable motion. If you want to put it on the table, that's to put it on the table with no time frame, just to take it off the agenda. And I believe also, given where we are in this process, that item will simply go on to the docket, and there'll be time between now and then for information to be given to Council about it. Is that? Yeah, that's what would happen. Is that correct? Council Member Lamb. I just wanted to clarify, when you table something like at work session, it would need to be brought back at work session. So, therefore, it could cause a delay in time. Unless you make a motion to remove it from the new business item before you all vote on it, it's going to be on for new business on Thursday night anyway. I think you also need to consider that you previously removed the budget item that's tied to this. So at some point, if you're going to move forward with this, that needs to catch up to it as well. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Barber. Yeah. House Member Sadi. Thank you. I guess since we're all being cathartic today, I remember when I sat up here when we did the state theater. And they said, you know, the state theater is going to be state of the art. We're going to have video conferencing there. We're going to have all types of entrepreneurial exhibitions, et cetera, et cetera. And it was a great idea, but it didn't come through. And my concern is here is I think, again, it's a great idea. But I worry about what Council Member Akers even said. I worry about the maintenance. I worry about the ongoing programming. And I don't want to have this as on our plate again, I guess, just to be very honest with you. That's all, Mayor. Well, you can... I asked to clarify the motion and didn't get a clarification on the motion. I asked to clarify, and that's when Councilman Raker said, well, she didn't know exactly what, at that point in time, you said you were struggling with the motion. I was struggling with the issue, but... I will be fine. I mean, this will be on for just, I mean, if we leave it and do nothing, it'll be on for first reading on Thursday. So as long as we still receive the business plan prior to the next council meeting, I'll be okay, and then we can make a decision. We can vote against it. We can vote against it then. I will withdraw whatever is in the minutes. Thank you, Stacey. All right. All right, Council Member Lamb. Thank you. I appreciate that, and I do appreciate the fact that we aren't trying to rush this forward. Yes, I know it has just been brought to you guys today, but that's why we have all of this information and have the people here to answer the questions so that we can ask questions, which is what the proper procedure is. And I appreciate the fact that we would be able to move it on for first reading on Thursday night. It would not need to be given second reading until the following council meeting So that gives us even more time to review the five-year plan. Now, what I was going to ask of the two council members that are on, Council Member Stinnett and Council Member Farmer, I don't know if you all received the five-year plan in electronic format on the Lexington Center Board. Okay. I was just wondering because I know Council Member Scutchfield is really good about sending us reports and things from her boards and commissions when she attends them. And so maybe I thought maybe you all could send it if you all had received it at your time of your board meeting. But I do appreciate this discussion today. And, again, I appreciate the time of everyone to be here today to answer questions. And I think that it's been a really good discussion. And, yes, Council Member Farner, I am having fun. So thanks. All right. Thank you, Mayor. With your words, I will support this going forward today. However, the pro forma and the business plan is something that's been repeatedly missing from proposals that we receive as counsel. I mean, I don't remember getting a pro forma for the courthouse and other projects. And in business, I understand we make tactical decisions and timing, and I understand your dilemma. So I'd like to have a pro forma or a business plan of something in the next two weeks as well. And thank you again, and thank you for your words today. Thank you. All right. Vice Mayor Kaye. Thank you, Mayor. I have an additional procedural question. I don't know if it's for law or finance, but the budget amendment that we have postponed until this decision, since we've not made a decision, we've not taken any action, Can that budget amendment continue to be postponed, and will that create difficulties if we then approve this at the council meeting? David's coming up. Your difficulty is if they're not going to be aligned with each other readings-wise, the budget ordinance with the action item, you'll have a situation potentially where you've approved this additional money going to them without having the budget approved to do that. So it would be preferable to go ahead and move the budget item back on and have that given first reading as well. If you all change your mind, I don't think it's a big deal to pull that off. It's not going to require a new first reading or anything at that point in time. So if we put the budget amendment back on and it turns out that we decide not to do this, there's no harm. You just pull it off at the meeting that you decide you're not moving forward on. Yes, sir. Thank you. In which case I would, on the budget, well, I think we're still on, we need to complete new business, and then I'll make a motion on the budget. All right. All right. Who else has an item or a discussion on new business? Council Member Sadi. It was addressed in the aquatics plan that there was a need for downtown aquatic facilities. It was not specifically identified at Northeastern, but certainly with the pilot project that was already scheduled for the summer, it seemed like a good fit. Okay, so actually it was a part of the plan. That's what I needed to know. Okay, and I guess the last thing, since we're all talking about performance, I'd like to have one since there are several items about the courthouse. I believe it's item P, R, S, and V before we go forward. Or I'm sorry, P, R, and S. Thank you, Mayor. All right. Councilman Rakers. Monica, sorry. So lots of us are getting splash pads or splash parks in our parks or in our district parks that cost approximately $500,000. So tell me why this one costs more than $1 million. Sure. Well, the grant was up to $1.2 million, and our final budget that we're submitting is about $900,000. And that includes not only improvements for a spray ground, but also other amenities for that park. Currently at Northeastern, we have a playground. So it would include sitting areas and shade and other amenities besides just a spray ground. Bouldering activities have been discussed, climbing features for kids, and also adding a permanent spray ground, as we've discussed before, requires the addition of restroom facilities as well. So new bathrooms are included? Those are expensive. They are. And you mentioned to someone else in the question that this is, and I realize that this is just the request to apply for the grant. But I would guess that you could not change the site of the park once, let's say you do apply and then receive it. You can't say, oh, we want to put it here at Charles Young instead. Can you? We would be asked to submit a number of core sample studies, which would include geotech surveying prior to the location. So we would be asked to submit the formal grant in the fall of this year. So up until that submittal of the final grant application, we would have the opportunity to look at other locations. Okay. Well, I, too, support others who have questioned this location. I think that the neighborhood probably knows best, and the council member there probably knows those needs of that community and neighborhood best. And so I would just give that recommendation to listen to those who are there. Thank you. Thank you. And then one more, Mayor, item number T, and this is Pat Duggar or Commissioner Bastin, if they're still here. Hi, Pat. Can you just tell us a little bit about what exactly this much money is for? This is the stockpile. Oh, yeah. It's our annual award from the chemical stockpile for fiscal year 16. Okay. And it covers salaries, equipment, training, a whole cadre of things. Okay, so the funds just come through this name, and so it's not for us to really, it's not chemical preparedness here in Lexington. It's just to cover our emergency management programs. Well, it covers preparedness for the zones that potentially could be affected in the southern part of the county, as well as our role in hosting evacuees from Madison County. Right. Okay, great. That's all I needed. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Councilman Rakers. Looks like that's all who signed up for discussion. So we can take a vote on new business. All in favor of the motion, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. No on Kay. No on Kay. You've got two no's on Kay, I believe. All right. Got that registered. Okay. All right. The vote reflects passage of the motion. Allows us to move on. I'm going to ask Vice Mayor Kaye to take over the chair at this point. Before you do, can I make a motion? Yes, sir. Motion. Thank you. Vice Mayor. I move to approve journal entry number 95239, which is the $150,000, and put it back in the journal, in the whatever it is. Budget amendments. I'm sorry. Right. Second. All right. there's a motion is there a second to the motion second by council member gibbs is there any discussion on the motion all right hearing none then we can vote all in favor please say aye opposed no no all right we got those two was it two okay all right vice mayor thank you um i believe that allows us to move to continuing business presentations first item would be neighborhood development funds. Is there a motion to approve? Second. Motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, that's approved by consensus. All in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? That motion is approved. Next item is the summary on planning and public safety committee. That would be Council Member Massardi. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Meeting was called to order on April 12, 2016 at 1 p.m. A motion was made by Bledsoe to approve the March 8, 2016 Planning and Public Safety Committee summary, seconded by Hensley. Motion passed without dissent. We talked at length about the distribution of unsolicited advertising supplements. Council Member Henson determined that she had contacted her colleagues about complaints and they had diminished and we would do a review summarily in about six months. We talked at length about the Rose Street closure. We will bring that back to committee via Council Member Gibbs' suggestion, either at the May 10th or June 14th meeting. More than likely, it will be the June 14th meeting. We also talked about the Oxford Circle Redevelopment Study at length and what could be done to enhance that corridor. A lot of discussion was made about the market analysis and the amount that would take about $14.4 million to acquire and redevelop the center around Oxford Circle. And lastly, a motion was made by Kay to remove the tax abatement issue, seconded by Bledsoe. The motion passed without dissent. And the motion was by Akers to adjourn and seconded by Lamb. That's all. Vice Mayor. Thank you. Next item on our agenda is a presentation by Lex Tran. And I believe we have the Chair and the Director and a few other people coming forward. So, Jeff, are you going to kick it off? Yeah, I'll kick it off. Good to be back with you guys. As you may recall, I wear, as Council Member Farmer is talking about, I wear a couple of hats, and one of them is chair of the Lexitran board. And I'm going to let Kerry and Nikki do most of the presentations since they've done all the heavy lifting. But I'd like to just report that a year ago we were in the early goings of a construction project, and it's been a pretty exciting year, so I won't steal too much of Kerry's thunder. but three things that I guess I'm most excited about is... Sorry, Jeff, can I interrupt you? I was asked earlier about a break, and I forgot about that. People are out. We've been here. Is there any objection to taking five minutes? No, let's go. And then you can have everybody's attention. Thank you. Thank you. I believe we're ready to get started again, so again, welcome. Jeff, pick it up from the beginning. Thank you. Well, I'm going to glance at the clock. I'm going to keep it short. So I'm happy to serve on the Lex Tram board, as are my seven colleagues. And without further ado, Carrie Butler. Thank you for having me, and thank you for allowing me to serve the community this way. On behalf of myself and our 186 operators, mechanics, and then the folks that I have with me in the audience, we have our Director of Finance, Nikki Falconberry, Jeff Ugate, George Ward, who is our chair of our finance committee, and then Jill Barnett in the back, who is our recently appointed assistant general manager. So I wanted to share with you today, just as a reminder, LexTran is the public transportation provider in Fayette County. We have been in this form since 1973. About 16,000 trips per day translates to 3.5 million customers in the fiscal year 2015. Largest majority of our trips are for work or school. About 70% are people going to work or going to school riding Lex Tran. Our fleet is comprised of diesel buses, hybrid electric buses. We've taken delivery of compressed natural gas vehicles this year, as well as our 49 wheels vehicles. These are the smaller vehicles that we use for our countywide paratransit or wheel service. This is for people who, by nature of their disability, are not able to ride our fixed route bus. and an ongoing culture of safety and customer service. It's been an exciting year, and certainly since I was last before this board, we've had some big changes. We consolidated our administrative offices. We had two locations for our administrative staff, have combined them and doubled the size of our maintenance facility. So we have twice as many bus bays to improve service reliability and our maintenance turnaround time on our vehicles. It's at 200 West Loud, and I hope you all will join us for our grand opening later this month. Imitation is pending. Again, we're diversifying our fleet with both compressed natural gas, CNG, and fully electric vehicles. And then our headquarters is a LEED-eligible building. We'll find out in about six months what the official category that we fall under for LEED certification. Fiscal year 2016 was a busy year for us. we completed route and service modifications following an extensive analysis and public involvement, completed a substantial but preliminary cleaning of our Vine Street Transit Center, expanded our partnership with the University of Kentucky through our Blue Pass program. That's where UKID is as good as a transit pass on board a Lex Tran vehicle. We completed our specification for electric buses, which means that our buses are on order and being produced in the factory in Greenville, a Proterra's factory in Greenville, South Carolina, and then began work on the high street charging station, accepted delivery of our CNG buses and began work on our CNG fueling station, and of course moved to our new headquarters at 200 West Loudoun. This is a combined summary of our capital and operating budget, showing our capital funds, operating revenue and operating expenses, and then our mass transit fund balance. The details of the operating revenue are on this page. Our larger share of revenue comes from our property tax revenue, again, which we are grateful for the referendum that passed in 2004. Next source is federal capital funds, passenger fares, and our budget is very similar from this year to last year. operating expenses our largest expense is wages and fringe benefits for operators and mechanics next largest is our purchase transportation that is our county-wide wheel service that we provide and then fuel and oil we did have our expenses for 2017 our health insurance stayed very steady and we have had a very constant or consistent level with diesel fuel this year which has been good on the expense side. These are pie charts representing the information you've seen. Again, the largest share, about 67% of our revenue comes from the property tax and then 16% from the federal capital funds. Expenses, 53% wages and fringe benefits, 21% for the wheels of purchase transportation, and then fuel and oil. Capital budget, the largest share of our capital budget for 2017 is a federal grant, Section 5312, that refers to a section in the Federal Transportation Authorization Bill. We received a low or no emissions grant award for electric vehicles, and then our other sort of typical funding throughout the years is 5307, and then the 5339 is a new funding program. Some money from the state funding for capital maintenance, We've got some CMAQ, and then, of course, the Town Branch Commons Transportation Alternatives Program, or TAP, award that we received earlier this year in conjunction with LFUCG. Our capital project expenditures, again, the largest share for our electric buses, and then the capital cost of maintenance, the capital cost of contracting our paratransit service. We translate the capital cost into our paratransit or wheel service, CNG-CMAQ. This is the detail from the pie chart. and the revenue dollars there listed in detail. Looking towards 2017 and beyond for the next five years, we recognize that folks think differently about how they use services. I talk about the Starbucks app a lot. People want things very fast, so much so that they order their Starbucks on their phone so that it's ready right when they walk in the door. So we recognize that the world is at a very fast pace right now. People want things now. We want to look to provide that high level of customer service. Continuing to make improvements to the transit center, especially through the Tom Branch Commons TAP Award, and then looking at different ways to deliver service, especially in areas that have not always been traditionally served by transit or maybe have a different development pattern. As an example, Hamburg, we serve Hamburg with the bus route, but maybe it's not served as well given the commercial expanse parking lots. That is all I have for the budget presentation. I look forward to hearing questions or comments from the group. Thank you very much, Council Members. If you have questions, comments, please sign in. Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Carrie, I appreciate the presentation that you had today, and I appreciate the numerous invitations that you extended for me to come out and see the facility. It's a nice new facility. I can't wait to have a neighborhood leaders meeting there soon in the future, so I'll be out there. Great. I've seen in the work session today, I've seen where you received a grant, a federal grant, to assess the bus stops. What's your plan, or do you have any money budgeted to address some of the stops that may come up in that plan or in that assessment? Sure. So you see the transit enhancements line kind of, oh, here, I can do this. The transit enhancement, shelters, benches, trash cans, $45,000. I'll point it out here. Doesn't quite go that far. we spend at minimum one percent of our federal capital dollars on transit enhancement shelters benches passenger amenities so that's one source we are working through our finance committee to look to see if there's some other dollars that we can allocate because we do recognize that where people wait for the bus and how they access our facilities is really is almost as important as their experience on board the vehicle okay now those funds part of the money that you get on a regular basis that comes from the federal government that's just allocated strictly? Yes, we have to spend 1% of our federal dollars on safety and security equipment, and we have previously been required to spend 1% on transit enhancements. That's not a requirement at the federal level anymore, but we have chosen to keep at least that 1% for transit enhancements this year. Okay. Another question. I know you made a change or eliminated the trolley routes. Do you have any plans or has there been any conversation or discussion about a way to incorporate those back into use or do anything with those trolleys? Sure. So we're looking to finalize a trolley route between the Northside hotels and downtown, especially for the large conventions where the hotels, conventioneers stay at the Northside hotels, need a way to get back to downtown. And then are looking, of course, for community partners to do more event-based or other trolley hops. So happy to talk to folks if they have interest in supporting the trolley. We really want to make sure that we have a sustainable program for the trolley so that we're not diverting resources for folks that could be going to work or to school, but always interested in talking to folks about possible partnerships and opportunities. Okay. And when you mean Northside Hotels, are you talking about like the Embassy Suites on Newtown Pike? Yeah, off Newtown Pike. So Griffin Gate Embassy Suites and then the ones just north of I-64, I guess, right there. So do you consider Hamburg, that area, north side? The route we're looking at right now would not include the Hamburg hotels. Okay. But we have heard from them in the past. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Scotchfield. Thank you. Hello. Long day. I have a question. We had somebody come up to council not that long ago and asked about traffic to Jacobson Park. I think this is probably overreaching not just Jacobson Park. There's a lot of parks in Lexington that may not have transportation. Is that something that you all have looked at, increasing the mobility of our residents to be able to get to these major destinations within town? I have not seen any specific request for Jacobson Park, but certainly any place that we don't serve, we do get requests for. I mean, outside of the county and places that we don't serve, some of the high schools. So right now we're not in a place where we have any specific plans to expand service, but we certainly recognize that people want more service, they want faster service, and we always are looking for ways to do that. Thank you. Council Members Lamb. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Carrie, thank you for this presentation. Just a couple questions. Back on page 59 of our presentation that talks about the fiscal year 2016 in review, it says that you all completed a substantial but preliminary cleaning of the Vine Street Transit Center. Can you expand on that? Sure. Sure. Last Memorial Day, we did a complete power wash of the inside. We painted the ceilings, did a lot of detail work inside the passenger waiting areas. So, like I said, preliminary, but it was pretty substantial. It was more than we have done in years past. Okay. But it wasn't like in the stairwells or the elevators or anything? It was just in the area down off of Vine Street? We do not maintain any of the stairwells. We work in conjunction with the parking authority, but that's not our primary maintenance area, I guess. Sure, and I understand. I just wanted to ask. And the other question is actually over on, it's on our packet, page 66. It's the Capital Project Expenditures FY 2017, and it talks about transit center rehab, $650,000. Can you expand on what that is going to entail, please? Sure. That is the Town Branch Commons TAP Award that we received in conjunction with LFUCG. That will include a more significant rehabilitation of the exterior. We'll be making some improvements in conjunction with traffic engineering on Vine Street. We'll be improving some of the interior spaces, the waiting rooms, restrooms, and then our wayfinding and real-time information. So we have signs that talk about when the next bus arrives, so making some improvements there. Lighting, interiors, exterior improvements, and the signage, yeah. Oh, okay, interesting. Are there any renderings or anything of what that's going to look like? No, we don't have any renderings at this point, and we're working with LFUCG on how the crossing in Vine Street will play into how the transit center itself and the bus phase looks. But no renderings, unfortunately, at this time. Okay. All righty. Well, thank you. I hope that when you all do have the renderings for that, that you'll be able to bring them forward to us because that would be really nice to see. Yeah. So, all right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Hanson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Carrie, for the presentation. I just wanted to ask real quickly, in your budget, is there any changes to the fares? We have not changed our fares since 1991 for paratransit or 2001 for fixed route. And right now I have no direction or indication that we plan to change fares. Okay. So your regular bus routes will not see an increase, nor will paratransit? Not as part of this budget. So are there any changes to the paratransit routes or anything like that? You still go? Well, yeah, the paratransit is a door-to-door countywide service, so there's no real routes that are in place. It's an on-demand request for door-to-door service, and no plan changes there either. It has continued to grow. It had its busiest month in March of this year. Really? Mm-hmm. Okay. And I just keep thinking that it would be great if we could come up with some kind of innovative approach. We were talking in our budget links this morning about how some people may be afraid to ride public transportation, so we need bus trainers to train them. And then you might reduce the paratransit cost. Yeah. Well, there's definitely some programs out there. Mobility management is one of the – mobility management and travel training are some of the industry buzzwords. And we have done some of that. Maybe we haven't done enough. So thank you. Well, it's just a thought. But thank you, Carrie. Thank you for everything you do all year. Thank you. Councilmember Evans. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Carrie, for your presentation. I appreciate it. You were talking about the trolleys. So the routes are being, I guess, decommissioned. Are the trolleys themselves going out of use as well, or are they going to be on other routes? No, we've had the trolleys on other routes since January. Okay, so that's why I saw it going down Liberty Road. Okay, I was wondering. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Massadi. Hi, Carrie. Thanks for coming by. Refresh my memory and my math. After the referendum, what percentage do you get from our revenue? Six-tenths of a percent or six cents for every $100 of property tax collected. So what does that come out to be a year, approximately? This year, $16 million. $16 million. Is that restricted in any way as far as what you can use that for? I mean, can it be for anything, or is it strictly capital? I mean, do you all as a board restrict that in any way? How do you utilize that? We have used it for our operating budget primarily, and I don't know if there's any specific restrictions on it. I mean, hence, I think part of why we come each year to have our budget presented to this board, this body. Right, and I appreciate the overview because you're one of the few agencies that has designated funding, or dedicated, rather. And that's why I wonder about when we talk about these routes. You know, when Council Member Scotchfield brought up the comment that we had from a constituent who wanted to go to a park, I thought, to me, that was a no-brainer. I mean, because what we're trying to do is instill people to utilize our parks and not only the shopping centers, but let's get out there and be a little healthy, that I would think that would kind of be in your long-range planning for some reason. No? Sure. I would say our long-range plan would be to service many different places in Payette County and even certainly the region beyond. You know, we get requests to serve other counties as well. Our growth rate and our revenue has typically been lower than what our expenses have gone up, so we're not always able to expand as quickly as we would like to provide service. So we have to balance places where we have high levels of demand or high levels of regulation. with places where we might not see as much just to be good stewards of tax dollars. I missed it. What's your biggest expense? Paying the wages and fringes of our operators and mechanics. Okay. And what Council Member Henson said about training people, I grew up riding a city bus. I mean, that's what you went to work with, and that's what you went to shop with. I mean, that was just all part of it, and I think it's just a different culture now. It's kind of tough when kids all drive their own cars to school. So I don't know. And we've talked about this for years, about how do you get someone to ride a bus. And it's not easy, but maybe with the elderly, it may be something because it's cheaper than taking a cab. It's just all about, and you know this as well as I do, is just trying to make somebody feel comfortable riding a bus. And they don't want to be on a bus for an hour where it takes them to someplace that they can get to in 15 minutes. So, you know, I'm sure you guys struggle with that all the time. How do we make this more efficient and get the person from A to B in a quicker amount of time? We certainly see interest in both. We see growth in our ridership in a growing elderly population. And then we see a lot of interest not just in Lexington, but also nationwide from the younger generation, the millennials. Folks who are interested in doing more ride-sharing, job-sharing, sharing of apartments, Airbnb, the whole gig culture, gig economy, we see that impacting. Certainly, and they're concerned about the environment as well. Yeah, definitely. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Gibbs. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Hi, Carrie. I asked a question about advertising and vending. You guys are down significantly at 18,000. It looks like probably 8, 9% below projections. I know you don't take advertising for alcohol concerns. Is that a decision that's made by your board or is that mandated by federal funding? It is a decision at the board level. Okay. I would hope they would reconsider that, given that we're on the bourbon angle here and the microbrewery thing that's going on in this community. I think it would be a real source of advertising. Not for cigarettes. But, hell, you do the lottery. The lottery is more harmful than a hell of a lot of other things. So there's already a value judgment in there. So I would urge your board to consider beer and bourbon advertising. I think it could bump that up. But anyway, just a thought. But thank you. I will pass that along. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Akers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Okay, let me refocus. Hi, Carrie. Hi. So I wanted to follow up. I was here, too. So a constituent came down to the podium during public comment last council meeting, I think, and he made the request to go to add a stop at Jacobson Park. And we were all like, yes, that makes perfect sense. And then he suggested, and he said, he understands that it would be a new thing and that you want to slowly build it up and that you don't probably have the money to do it every day. And so maybe, you know, it could be a pilot project to try it just from when school's out to school gets back in and on Saturdays only, maybe this year. And then we build it up, you know, and then advertise it. He said suggested advertising it, you know, on the buses and announcements inside the buses or, you know, that it's starting up and that kind of thing. Because he wants he understands you need riders, you know, to make it financially feasible for you guys. but I think too I guess the one to Masterson Park they would just take the bus to Masterson Station and that's close enough to get somewhat to the park but I think Jacobson might be a good one to start as a pilot and then maybe we expand it later to Chilito and other big parks I think too it would be great to have families be able to take their kids to the park on a Saturday affordably and then I wanted to ask about some of the route changes that you made and thank you for saving Masterson or keeping it. And I heard that you all adjusted the time as well in the afternoon, return time in the evening. So I want to thank you all for that. And I just wondered, from all of those route changes that you made last year, have you seen positive effects from that since? We have seen, I think those routes have stabilized, The ones that we capped or made some tweaks to, we've not seen a tremendous amount of growth in the ridership, but we haven't seen a decline. So that was positive at this point. Okay. I just wondered, I know that you all spent a lot of time in talking to the city as a whole, and I know that it cannot be easy. I know for a dollar for fares and such, that's a difficult business to run. So I appreciate the work that you all do in trying to manage to balance the budget. And I guess I'll support Jake over here and suggest that you definitely open up to as much advertising as you can. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Council Member Maloney. Thank you. So just looking at this and looking at the grants and all that, my concern is, and I have sent some people over there to see you, it's about the VA discounts and things. I know we give VA discounts to home ownership and discounts for a lot of things the VA works with. Have you all ever looked into grants for VA for maybe the VA or veterans will give you, reimburse you for using veteran discounts? So, I mean, is there anything, or are you all looking at other options to try to help veterans to get a discount on bus use? So we have done all those things. We currently offer a discounted fare for veterans that have a disability that can ride for 80 cents on our routes. We are looking to put something together for our June board meeting on a more extensive discount for veterans. And we are looking into some federal grants. With this most recent authorization bill, there was not as much available as in previous grants. There were some concerted efforts in the prior reauthorization and haven't found that in this one yet. But we'll keep going. Do you all keep records on, I know, do you have what kind of clients you have that use your bus? Do people sometimes break down? Do we have veterans? Do we have how many people have used for downtown workers and all that? or do you have a list? To some degree. We wouldn't be able to necessarily pull out whether you were a veteran or if you were using that 80-cent fare. We wouldn't be able to necessarily tell from our data if you were a person with a disability, a person with a disability that was a veteran. We can't slice and dice at that fine rate. What kind of discount do they get now for veterans? What is the discount? If I was a veteran, how much would it cost me to ride the bus? 80 cents if you're a veteran with a disability. A veteran with a disability? My question about do you get a grant from somebody to pay for that disability, or do you all just use that because veterans have to be disabled? We offer that as part of a discount for anybody with a disability. With disability, you do not get reimbursed on any of the funds? No. So you do not do that for a regular veteran? Not at this point, but we're looking to put something together at our June board meeting for that. Because we've heard that that's been a request. So let's say if we do, hopefully you all will pass it. If it does, what kind of discount will they get? I don't have the details at this point. Okay. Thank you. Well, I hope you can get that back to me. because I get a lot of calls from veterans that are trying to push for this. So if you can help me on that, I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Hensley. Thank you, sir. On the map on your guys' website, I see a Route 21 to the airport. Is that still there? Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah. In some discussion, I'd heard that that route had been discontinued. No, we still have a route to the airport. Just the route to the airport changed in January. Okay, okay, thank you. I echo some of the comments that Siobhan and others have made about some routes to the parks, and maybe that's a seasonal surge type activity. I mean, I think a Kentucky Horse Park route might be in there to get people to a large green space It sits in the 12th district, which contributes to a large portion of your budget with very little roots in our district. We have met with the horse park about maybe two months ago to talk about service and possible projects with them. And just, you know, because it seems like we do, from the property taxes, add a lot of value into your guys' operation. At the same time, you know, we could put that into police or fire protection. I'd like to build a fire department polo club, for example, with some of that budget. So if you could look at some of those things. Sure. Conversely, downtown, you know, having a business downtown and being down here a lot, I hear from people who live down here, the trolley service, they really like that. But on the weekends, there was some demand for getting people from residential areas to Kroger, for example, because we don't have the services downtown like a pharmacy or grocery stores. And I don't know how that you receive that feedback when, you know, we had a constituent come into council and ask us about Jacobson Park, and yet you're saying you've not heard that. So I don't know how we get that communication back to you and let people know how to communicate that to you. Sure. So we receive feedback from our website, Twitter, so, you know, all forms, social media, as well as written letters, letters to the editor. We do get calls from council members or shared communication. Sometimes people will call into the 311 line. Happy to meet and talk with people. I mean, really, anyway, we're happy to get that information. I would just maybe check that out. We have a guy coming in telling us we want a route, and you're saying you've not heard about it. So there's gaps somewhere. We get requests for service all over different counties quite frequently. When you say different counties, I mean, I've heard you say that three or four times, but what does that mean? Like Toyota, Nicholasville, you know, Jessamine County, sometimes as far as Frankfurt, certainly to the rural areas. You know, if you live even farther east, there's some rural transportation that's provided or some medical transportation. But once you get here, maybe traveling around here. So not a huge demand, but certainly it's something that we hear. So you're receiving demand from other counties to ask if Lex Tran would provide routes into that? I mean, as often as we hear of places here in Fayette County that we don't currently serve. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Evans. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And I don't ask this question to be smart in any way, because we've heard several different council members say we had concerns, you know, would like the board, what's trying to consider, maybe a summer route to a park, again, since Jacobson was the one that was mentioned. I think collectively think that's a good idea. Is that enough for you to take back to the board to say, okay, or do you need us to do some kind of official or formal request? Do you need 15 of them, or is this enough? Since we have a board member. I was going to say, actually, I think it's the reverse, which is that we hear you loud and clear, I hear you loud and clear that there's an interest in having us take a look at our routes, matching that against amenities, particularly park amenities, and just making sure that we've looked at this. And so the board can make a request of the staff that they look into the issue and come back with a recommendation. So I'd be happy to do that. Yeah. Thank you. Council Member Hanson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Carrie. A couple of things I wanted to mention. A bus pass still costs $30 for a month. So is the disability rate $15? For a fixed route? For the bus pass. If you have a disability, is it still $15? Yes, ma'am. It's half price for persons with disabilities on a single ride or any pass that we offer. But if you're a disabled vet, it's $0.80? It is 50% fair. If you are a veteran with a disability, If you can show your service-connected or non-service-connected Veterans Administration ID card. So if you're a disabled vet, it's $0.50 to ride the bus? That is correct. Okay. It's $0.80 if you're a vet. It is $0.80 if you are a student. We have several discount options. Okay. I should have referred to my system. That is okay. That's okay. Sorry to call it out. I just wanted to clarify. It is 50% fair for persons with disabilities. including veterans with disabilities. Okay. Thank you for correcting that. I also wanted to chime in about the Jacobson Park because, you know, there's fishing out there and there'll soon be a splash ground thing. So I think that the demand for more people wanting to go and to have that opportunity would be fantastic. So if we could treat it just like any other event, If it's Keeneland, your buses are running to Keeneland. Or, you know, when we had the Breeders' Cup, you were running to the Horse Park. So certain events like that. So maybe you could set up a summer schedule to go to Jacobson Park because it would certainly be seasonal. But I just wanted to mention that. Sure. Thanks again. Thank you. Thank you. I see no other council members signed up, so I want to thank you myself for your presentation, for all your good work, and we'll see you next year. Thank you. Thank you. Next item on the agenda is the HR Management Audit, and it looks like Jennifer's coming to kick it off. Hello. Thank you all very much. It's been a long afternoon, but I just wanted to introduce the item and have the consultants are here to actually give their findings to you all. But essentially, when you all gave us the funding to start this last fall, we hit the ground running, and the audit was managed by the Office of the CAO. The HR staff managers were involved in that process throughout. And so at this time, I'm going to introduce the Novak Consulting Group, and here today is Julia Novak and Jonathan Ingram, and they're going to go through their audit findings. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you very much. Appreciate being here today. My colleague Jonathan and I are two of the four consultants that worked on this project. It started about four months ago, right as last year was ending and this year was beginning. Our firm, we specialize in working with local governments. We've served about 175 different cities and counties across the country in the last seven years. We're based not too far away, just down the road in Cincinnati. So it's a pleasure for us to work a little bit closer to the home than we normally have an opportunity to do so. So this particular project, our plan for today is to just kind of refresh for everyone's memory what our scope of work was, to share with you what we'll call the key findings, and then give you a little bit of detail on the observations and recommendations that are in our report. The scope of work itself was largely defined in the RFP that was issued last fall, And then that was refined in conversations with the CAO's office and staff as we began working on the project. The main focus was looking at opportunities to improve the efficiency of your processes, to implement best practices, to kind of shorten the recruitment time frame, but also to work within the constraints that you have and the legislation that you have here, and to take a look at funding. As it's budget time right now, is there a need for any additional human resource staff? So we looked specifically at the staffing levels within the organization and are providing in our report our assessment of what those needs are. In terms of kind of what the key, if I were going to just hit the highlights for you, one of the things that I would just want to take note of is when we began this process, part of our methodology was to do some interviews with other county department heads and commissioners to understand what their experience was in working with the HR staff. And I think it's important for us to note for you all today that when we asked them the question, in your experience and tenure here, when was HR at its best? There was no longing for the good old days, so to speak. There was really a recognition that the staff was working hard trying to improve customer service, trying to improve their processes. And they were certainly very open to our inquiry as we did that work. And so we wanted to just kind of mention that to you in terms of tone. Certainly people see opportunities for improvement. You can always get better. But there was no kind of, oh, it used to be so much better than it is today. There was really a recognition that the team was working to improve things. I'm going to share with you kind of the staffing highlights, and Jonathan will go into the detail of how these kind of fit into the scheme that we have provided in this reorganization. In summary, we've identified the need for two additional FTEs that I believe will be requested in your budget process. One is for an HR analyst in the benefits section, and then the other is for an HR generalist that will work in a newly combined area of classification, compensation, and recruitment. We looked at reorganization as a way to kind of provide some additional cross-training within the organization and increase some capacity of the staff. we've re-aligned certain positions and I want Jonathan to now kind of walk you through the specifics of those recommendations. Thank you, Julia, and thank you for the time today. Just a little bit of context before we get into the specifics. One of the things that we were tasked with is focusing on sort of a few important recommendations that can be implemented rather than giving you a series of 50 recommendations that will take 20 years and an act of God to implement. So our effort was really focused, again, on our practical approach and practical problem-solving in our experience in local government. As Julia mentioned, we've recommended adding two positions to HR, but we've also recommended some reorganization to add capacity. And the current organizational structure in human resources, there are four basic work units. There's benefits, talent acquisition, which is recruitment. There is employee relations and discipline, which handles grievance processes, civil services, things along those lines. And there is also, I'm missing one unit, but the major reorganization that we've recommended is to combine the class and comp and talent acquisition units. As it exists right now, there are two distinct managers and two distinct groups of employees, one that manages class and comp, one that manages talent acquisition, the recruitment process. The work that those two units do is actually fairly similar. in that they touch different parts of the phase of employee compensation. And the other interesting thing about these two units is that they're the primary interface with managers and supervisors. So when a manager or supervisor in the organization needs help, it's often on a class and comp issue or a recruitment issue. We've recommended combining these under one manager and converting your HR analyst positions into generalist positions who are responsible for both class and comp and recruitment and retention for a specific number of departments. That will clarify some of the point of contact questions that departments have, improve customer service, and also expand some capacity in the organization. One important thing to mention, though, is that this is going to require a little bit of time to implement. There's some training that will be required. You will have folks with specializations in class and comp that will need training in the recruitment piece and vice versa. So that's kind of a key recommendation going forward. We also took some very specific and detailed looks at the recruitment process. We analyzed each step of the process, looked at data collected by the Human Resources Division about timeframes. And generally speaking, we looked at each of the areas that's controlled by human resources, the parts of the process and recruitment that are controlled by HR, and found that in most cases, the processes were relatively efficient. There's obviously a pretty significant time frame that's added on at the end of the process for both civil service and council approval process that adds to the length of the process. But we did see a couple of opportunities to shorten time frames. One is the advertisement process can take between 14 and 21 days. We've recommended reducing that to three business days. We have also recommended shortening and making more efficient the interview and selection process by allowing hiring managers to participate in the applicant review process much earlier in the process. And this does two things. One, it gives them eyes on the total pool of candidates. But it also provides an iterative process so that your HR analysts who are doing the recruitment start to see those things that the hiring manager is actually looking for in their departments. Yeah, they don't necessarily have exactly the skill set we're looking for, but they have this comparable skill set that will add some value. So it provides a little bit of cross-training and will help improve customer service over time. As Julia mentioned, we have recommended creating a human resources analyst position in benefits. Now, the other major customer service point of contact is benefits, and this is really where the mass of employees go with most of their questions. They have to do with pay and benefit structure. As it exists right now, there's a need to add some higher-level capacity and benefits for two primary functions. One is to serve as a primary customer service point of contact. As it exists right now, everyone is tasked with answering questions from the average employee, And that's good, it's responsive, but it can also create some inconsistency in the answers that employees might get. So we want to tighten up the process of customer service in the benefits area. We also need to add some capacity specific to the technology interface with the Department of Enterprise Services. The PeopleSoft system is your HR system. A great deal of your budget is driven by that. Your financial outcomes are driven by what goes on in the PeopleSoft system. We are recommending adding some capacity to liaise with budget, with finance, with Department of Enterprise Services, and really add some capacity and benefits there. We also took a look at various processes. And one specific process we've recommended adjusting is the position change process. And this is essentially if there's a benefit change for employees. The process is such that a department will fill out a paper form. That paper form will go to HR. HR will enter that form into the system. And then it is audited by the payroll staff. We're essentially recommending the departments enter it directly into the payroll system, eliminate a step in that process, which will provide some additional capacity in HR as well. In the employer relations and training area, we took a look at the staffing levels and workload, and we found that the staffing levels are appropriate in employer relations and training. That said, there's a new manager transition, relatively recent manager transition, into employer relations and training. There's some need for some training to increase the capacity of managers and staff there. So some focused investigative training, employee relations process training. They also cover the training portion, the employee training portion of the division's responsibilities. We've recommended contracting out for the management and supervisory training function. That will add some additional capacity for in-house staff. But it takes a very specialized kind of a training program and sort of seeks some external resources to make sure that that very important program is operating at the maximum effectiveness and efficiency for the rest of the organization. Now, this is sort of the secondary piece of the class and comp recommendation I discussed. So we have recommended consolidating class and comp and talent and acquisition under one manager. That means that there is a manager over class and comp that will no longer have a unit to supervise. However, there's also a fairly critical need in the area of policy development and administration. One of the things that does not exist in human resources at the moment is sufficient capacity to do consistent policy reviews, to do consistent policy communication and question and answer processes with customer departments and elected officials. We are recommending that that class and composition be converted and reclassified into an HR manager position with responsibility of updating job descriptions and taking on that responsibility going forward as well as serving as the policy point of contact and ensuring consistent application of policies across all divisions and departments of the government. We've also recommended, and this is part of the policy piece, but broader human resources communications as well. There has been a recent effort to create a central communications function for the government. we would recommend that a very specific plan be developed with the Public Information Office to determine what HR's communication needs are, expectations, and to define a plan going forward, especially as it relates to policy, again, but as well as the entire government. And those are the key recommendations. This is a summary of the recommended org chart, and the report that we've provided, obviously, has a lot of the detail. We've tried to hit the high points in light of your meeting restrictions, So we're certainly happy to answer any questions you might have. Thank you. Council members, questions, comments? Councilmember Massadi. Just one quick question. At the very beginning of your slide presentation, you said something about shortening the time of application to three days. Posting it, just getting it advertised. Posting it, okay. That's where I missed you. I thought, wow, three days is quick. Yeah, that'd be real good. Okay, that's where I missed it. Thank you. We would submit that as a case study. Thank you. Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I have a few questions, and I found this interesting. And I think you answered the one main question I had was the organizational chart that was listed in your presentation. That is your recommendation, correct? That's correct. Yes. So the 23 employees that are reflected on there, that includes the recommended new positions? That's correct. Okay. and this is something that I should ask the administration is that we could maybe get a copy of the existing layout of the organizational chart so that we can see. You'll see it. It's in our full report. It's early on. I just had it up a minute ago. It's on page 7 of the full report. Okay. And when do we get that? You were quicker than me. I was going to tell you all when they finished. As soon as this meeting concludes, I will send the final report to you all via your emails. Oh, okay. Okay. That's cool. That's cool. The other thing is with the reclassifications, I see that as the position having different and heightened responsibility, what is changing for the positions? What is changing? Why would you think that reclassifying is a solution with the difference in the, I'm not saying this right, with requesting for reclassifications of the positions, the existing positions, between an analyst and a generalist, I believe? there's a difference in the responsibilities there. And so you already have people in generalist positions, and if you're going to reclass the existing analyst, isn't there going to be a conflict with the difference of responsibility there? I mean, people were hired in as analysts, and so you're going to have to train them to move up. And so couldn't that be a possible problem? Certainly, any time you're asking someone to take on some new or different responsibility, there's a possibility that may not match really great with their skill set. One of the things Jonathan mentioned was there's going to be a need for training as you implement this to make sure that people understand the expanded scope of their responsibilities. Having those FTEs utilized in very specialized ways as analysts, overall was not as efficient as creating the combined unit with the generalists. And then I guess just in general, how do human resource divisions, and I'm not specifically saying ours, just in general, handle their own reclasses and hires without it being conceived a conflict of interest? How does that happen across human resources? It's a universal paradox. I mean, there's always that question of how do you kind of grade your own. And many do them in-house, just like we're suggesting here. You have a system for doing it. You have the classifications that exist. And so you can change the job descriptions to align with your existing system. Certainly that is something that comes into question when new positions are added and they need to be classified. Or any time you, frankly, do compensation studies, those are always issues that people struggle with. And there's no silver bullet. There's no clean answer. I would think that would be something I would personally, if I were in those shoes, I would want to have some oversight just because. The other thing you said, you wanted to allow more departments to enter position changes directly into PeopleSoft. Can you explain on that? We have the ability to change things regarding our positions as far as W-4s and stuff like that, but what are you talking about as far as what you want the people to be able to change? It's a very specific form. It's called your P1 form. And when we were reviewing the process, it was very time intensive for your HR staff. It's one that they have to do all the data entry on. And just like you allow people to do other things, it's kind of expanding until if the departments do it, you still have the audit being done by the payroll, but you're removing all that data entry work from small staff. I guess I didn't realize we still had the P1 forms. Alive and well. Those are, I mean, I thought that went away with people's thoughts, really and truly. The carbon cop is gone. Okay. I guess the only other thing, and I'll say this. I've got ten seconds, nine seconds. I'm thinking that I would like maybe for this restructure to be further discussed in the committee maybe. So I'll say that, and then we can make a motion after other people discuss. And thank you so much for this information. Thank you. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and thank you all. Good seeing you again, at least one of you, I know. Yeah. Sure. Going back to your last chart that's on the overhead, are you suggesting that the HR policy manager, policy development be on the same level as our director? They'll be counterparts? No, it's just a way that we could get the position on there and show that it's a direct report. So it's exactly the same level and shape of box. It's just we've put it in a different place, but it's not trying to demonstrate hierarchy. Okay, I just wanted to make sure of that. And then you alluded to something but didn't go a lot more into detail, but I'd like to hear. We've heard since I've been on council at least, HR is the issue. HR is the issue, but I think what we found out through this process was some of the divisions are slow in their processes. So what can we do to help the divisions speed up? Because, you know, we had an issue a couple weeks ago where a director sent it to a commissioner, and the commissioner was supposed to send it to HR. Anyway, it took longer than it should. It shouldn't be more than a two-day process, personally, especially with email right now. So expand on that a little bit. What can we put in place and adopt as a government to speed that up and hold our directors and commissioners more accountable? Well, I think one of the things that we wanted to really clarify, and in the report, when you have the full report on page 16, it goes through a table that says kind of every step of the process and how many days on average in each place. And it's fine to sit back and say HR takes too long, but understanding kind of a start and stop clock when it's in HR's court and when it's not, That's what they're accountable for. And when the departments have it, they're accountable for the time on their end. I think what you find is that people who are very motivated to fill positions act very quickly, and others lag, and then, oh, yeah, sometimes it's just easier to say it was HR's fault. So this, by kind of improving the data collection and when HR is kind of time in and time out, whose clock is it on? It's not unlike a development review process, knowing whose court it's in, inside City Hall or outside. Is this a computerized process we should go to? Because I think now, and our CEO can correct me if I'm wrong, but now I think we do it by paper and we sign it and snail mail it. Shouldn't this be something we can do electronically? A lot of the exchange is actually done electronically now. Hiring somebody? Absolutely, yeah. Is there a comprehensive system from job ad development to hiring someone that you can track that? There are software options out there that could be pursued. But a lot of this is email correspondence. It's not an unsophisticated process. There's certainly some paper involved, and there's obviously opportunity to look at system improvements and things along those lines. I guess I hate to put our CAO on the spot, but on this topic, I mean, did you realize that we have some of these delays? And do we do it by electronic now? I was under the impression on an issue you and I worked on that it was being delivered by hand. Let me comment on the study in general. I thought this study was very good because the study opened my eyes to a lot of process questions and helped me see a lot of that very clearly. It also gave me a very clear implementation plan, which you don't get all the time in these studies. And it was simplistic. It wasn't the kind of thing, get rid of the civil service or don't put it all through the council. You know, we've got to do those kind of things. So I do not think, from my experience, Council Member Stenet, that I did with you the other day, that is not electronic in my opinion. I mean, we literally had to send HR down to get what we were looking for. Yeah, and that shouldn't happen. Yeah. But things that they identified, like this whole P1 process, was fascinating. We've got one person that totally has to do these P1s in HR. You know, you lift that, if we can get that out of there like that, that frees up a very great employee who's doing that. Now, I've also got, because half of this back here, well, they're gone, but half of these people are very afraid that what's going to happen is we're giving entrance into the system, and there's something that's going to go haywire. Well, our consultants say, you've got all these double checks. You're double checking this through payroll again. So these are just things that, and I am just as guilty as anybody else. I do it that way because I've always done it that way. And when you get to be 69, you can say those things. So, but, I mean, it truly, I truly think that they have given us so much to work with and such a good plan that, and we have also, we have also designated, and now I forgot her name, Beth Belden, as the project manager up there. and she will report to me. And I want to go back to your question. I think that, Council Member Lamb, you asked a very good question in the fact of how you look at this when you're the looker. That's what I'm there for. I'm there to see exactly what these steps are and if everything is not going out of kilter with what we're doing for the rest of government because we all know the issues that we had once before on this. Well, thank you for coming. I'm glad to let you continue, and I'll wrap up. But, you know, again, I think what I've learned from this is it's not just an HR issue. All of us need to be more accountable. I know the council's picked up our slack. We give second ratings a lot of times because we're asked to speed up employment process. So I don't think we're holding it up, but I think we do need a better system in place so that directors can feel like they're getting the people they need faster The commissioners can feel that way. And all of it doesn't fall on HR because I think we have some talented people up there, but I think our processes are clearly, based on this report, can be improved. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Kevin, I just wanted to let you know, Tammy Walters and I this year have been working on, we do have some software investments we've made as a government, OnBase, for example, where we can do a lot more document sharing electronically, filling out forms and sending them. For example, if you had something you wanted to do, fill out your form on OnBase, that sends an email to who needs to sign it. You do an electronic signature, these types of things. And you all have approved those investments. We've done that. They can be expanded, of course. But, for example, Tammy and I have worked on this year and will implement, hopefully by the end of the summer, just a simple checklist that when you go to hire somebody, there's all these forms you have to fill out, and they're sort of in a single place on our intranet, and then we can sign them electronically, send them to the next, send them to the next. so it's not all going interoffice mail, snail mail, as you called it. So there are opportunities to do that. Aldona can speak much more thoroughly on that topic, but it's something we're aware of, and we know that's an area of opportunity for us. Well, thank you. And to add to that, Jen, if we could definitely give HR the opportunity to be able to track those and know what department and what stage it's in, because I think maybe sometimes they can help get it going a little faster. Absolutely. I think that's excellent. And Aldona has been involved in each and every one of those conversations. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Maloney. Thank you. I appreciate you all doing this report. This is something I think we've been wanting to do a long time. And being on the council for a long time, this has been one of the departments that we've had a lot of problems with. But it has improved, I will admit. Now, something that Council Member Stenet brought up to try to make things better. When I worked at the state, and I break it down, we've got 3,000 employees. We've got a bunch of departments across the board, similar to what we had at the state. We had the same problem. We couldn't get people through the system in my department. I had one of the largest departments in it. So what we did, we developed our own HR person in our department. They understood. They did everything from job description to benefits to even if employees in trouble. Then they handed off up the ladder. this is something I think we need to do and I don't I think these guys do a tremendous job for what they have but to me I think we can do better if you talk to these departments all over the government they try to compare like parks and engineer with the same kind of job description that's a tornado warning I bet but but what i'm what i'm saying is they try to compare apples with apples they're not apples you got oranges and apples and that's the problem that i'm hearing over the years that i've been on this body, and that's the same problem when I was the CAO that I've under what CAO Hamilton has, and she used to work for the state. She saw what we did. I just want to see, we've got some talented people in these departments that understand. They're not HR, but they know they understand the HR jobs that I think we need to figure out how, and I think it's going to be on her motion that we put this in the Committee to Digest this. I think we've got enough chiefs. I don't think we've got enough Indians. Does that make sense what I'm saying? We get too many chiefs, and when you start seeing these things here, you see a bunch of chiefs. You don't see Indians. And to me, that's where the jobs are being done by Indians. And if you get somebody to understand those jobs in those departments that can work with the chiefs, it makes their jobs a lot easier. And that's the thing that they're missing out on. I may get in an argument with everybody, but that's the main problem that HR has. They do not have the luxury of somebody coming up who understands those positions, who understands that department. And I think that's the missing piece of the whole puzzle. And we got to do that as a state. My department turned around 180. We went from getting employees like that. We got people out on the streets. And it wasn't those six months, seven months, eight months backlog, because I had to do housing building construction. We had to get those buildings finished. And any time we held up, it hurt the economy. And I think what's happening out here, and I don't know what, if you all look, I just don't want any more. Chiefs, I want Indians, and I don't see that in here. Maybe you can explain that to me. We did, just so you're aware, we looked at different models, including we call a model like that a deployed model where you actually have an HR staff who's in various departments. And what we ended up with is kind of a hybrid where we didn't distribute the benefits workload, but the talent acquisition and class and comp does follow that model. And when you get to the report, it's about page 13 or 14. It just kind of even assigns like where we imagine you would assign the different generalists so that they have a clear liaison with different departments. And they do have it. I mean, and they would tell you, I know that over Sanitary Sewers, you've got Cassie Felsey, and I brag about her. She understands everything, and they work well together. You've got in parks, you've got a gentleman that knows all about that. I just think you put those kind of people in charge of HR in those departments, they're still the main people to get a hold of. They make the final decisions, but it makes it go quicker. Everybody understands, but you don't compare that job with somebody, and engineer in part. They're just totally different. And that's the problem I've been dealing with for 20, 30, whatever years I've been here, and I think we need to change that. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Hensley. Thank you. I'll try to be quick. So on your slides, you had changing the management of your recruiters and your classification compensation people into the same management structure. To me, talent acquisition and recruiting are two different personalities, even as far as skill sets. What would be your feedback on changing the personalities of the managers in that area, if I understand what they're doing? Well, so just to kind of essentially we're taking the class and comp piece, which is very much a data-driven process in terms of paying attention to your class and comp structure. Actuarial kind of work. Yeah, it's detail work. and recruitment piece. But they are reasonably, it is a reasonable expectation to think that an HR generalist should be able to handle those responsibilities. It's a common sort of job responsibility in HR. We're organizing them under the one manager and taking some of the workload off of the manager in terms of day-to-day recruitment process management to provide some additional training and oversight for that larger, more complicated unit. And also adding, again, that HR analyst or a new HR generalist at that level to increase capacity. So there's some opportunity to recruit some specific skill sets in that area as well. Thanks. On the second point I had was when you were looking through this, did you see any point where process improvement is being regularly reviewed? Like, for example, they mentioned OnBase. In the IT business, I've sold to some of the Japanese manufacturing companies. other products very similar to that with thousand seats and stuff. So I'm familiar with workflow and process automation. But I also know being involved with those processes that you can own the software and have it installed but unless the HR department or the other departments are actually taking time out to identify what we're going to do with the software, you're missing the opportunity with the software. So did you all see like yearly are they sitting down and saying hey can we improve using this software? So I will say we definitely saw many examples where HR staff of its own volition is trying to make the process better. They're working on when we came in to start our review, they were in active discussions about reorganizing benefits and addressing many of the problems that we've identified and working toward that solution. There's the process that Jen mentioned. Part of their issue is sort of the capacity to dedicate time toward those activities. And another part of the issue really relates to PeopleSoft. A lot of the system-related items that HR is dealing with are going to be in PeopleSoft, in your HR system. There are a lot of opportunities for process improvement there, but not a lot of capacity, which is one of the driving forces behind recommending that HR analyst position that would liaise with the PeopleSoft system. I know we approved a large upgrade to PeopleSoft today to address some of those issues and some of the other systems going forward, but I would just ask the CAO and Aldona to work together maybe in the future and say, hey, what are bolt-on things that we can, with the new system, bring forward out of some kind of workflow system? I think there's a lot of opportunities that we had not looked at until recently. Some of them is really to automate some very, what I call, mundane forms that we've passed around and gotten approved. Collect them in one place so that you know how to get at them. That's number one. Number two is the upgrade that we're looking at by relicensing and the possibilities that we have. You know, we have not done that here in the city for well over 10 years. So there are improvements that can be made, and we're going to work with the HR department. In fact, that's already started. Better days ahead. As you know, you're my hero. Thank you. So IT has a lot of effort to carry this. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Lamb. I'm good. I got my question answered. I'm going to waive. Thank you. Thanks. I see no other council members signed up. I will thank you very much. And the next steps from the administration side, what has to happen? We have, as I mentioned before, we have determined a project manager, and we have got, with the consultants, they also have an implementation plan that is scaled with tasks, and they have given us that in draft. I have gone over with the project manager an implementation schedule. So what we would like to do is we would like to begin. And some of those things that we will begin with, we have priority tasks, and that's one of them, trying to combine the functions and looking at our training needs, looking at some of our IT needs. And so we have a very defined structure that we'd like to begin. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Lamb. I was just thinking that maybe we could put this into General Government Social Services Committee for an update. Maybe, I don't know if September, you all would be ready to be able to come back for an update with what you're moving forward with. We will have made a lot of progress by September. So I think that is good. and then you will, I think you'll be able to see if you think we're on the right track at that time. And I think that's an excellent idea. Because we're ready to start. And because on some of the real sort of just in the weeds stuff, we need to begin. So I think that's a great idea. The only problem I have with that is, does that include creating these new positions already? In the new positions, to talk about the new positions, a person has to be doing that job for six months before they can be reclassified. That won't happen. That's not going to happen. We have to go back and look at that whole structure and work on the training and all of that. There's no way that that can happen until probably after the first of the year. Okay. All right. So I so move to move this issue into my general government social services committee. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Thank you. I believe that brings us down to council reports. If council members have anything, please sign in. Council member Scotchfield. I know we've had a long day, but we had a lot of activity in 7th District that also bordered 6th District last week. And I just, from my council seat, I really want to express my sympathies to the family, friends, and coworkers of Samuel Tyler Williams. If you all aren't aware, he was tragically killed last week in a trench collapse during the expansion of Todd's Road. horrific accident and my prayers are with his family, three small children his wife as they deal with this loss and I just want to reach out to them and let them know. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Hensley. Thank you. I'll be quick because I know it's been a long day also. I would just say after the past week of the Derby events and everything going on that I noticed that there's a huge demand still for derby events in Lexington. And with the great success that we had with the Breeders' Cup last fall, I will actively try to talk to the administration to try to create the same kind of environment that we have around the Breeders' Cup with derby so that we can remain the horse capital of the world. A lot of people can't travel to Louisville three hours and spend $1,500 or $3,000 on hotel rooms, and we have a lot of capacity here, and I think we could help build that out into a little bit better event than what we have right now. Thanks. Thank you. Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I have two things. One, a reminder of our zone change hearing, which will be very quick here in just a moment. But before that, I do need to make a motion that we go into closed session. Pursuant to KRS 6181-1C for the purpose of discussions regarding potential litigation, So moved. I have a motion and a second to go into closed session. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none. Okay. I have a motion to come out of a closed session. Second. I have a motion and a second to come out of a closed session. Is there any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, that's approved. I can't move to adjourn. We've got two things to do. I'm sorry. We have the mayor's report to approve. I need a motion. I have a motion to approve the mayor's report in a second. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing that, all those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Is there any public comment for issues not on the agenda? I don't see anybody signed up. Now I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. I have a motion in a second. Without objection, we're adjourned. And if people stay in place, I believe we can start. This will be very quick, we hope, we think.