Illinois Central, Monday morning rail Thank you. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. ¶¶ Hello, everybody. Greetings, welcome, and I'll call the meeting to order. Thank you all for joining us today. This is a meeting of the Council for Work Session. And before we begin today's work session, we will have two public hearings on the fiscal year 2017 budget. In compliance with the Urban County Government Charter, we are providing an opportunity for residents to make comments about the budget for the upcoming fiscal year. A summary of the mayor's proposed budget is on the table at the back of the room. This public hearing is now in session. Are there any comments from the public regarding the budget? All right. If there are no comments, then the public hearing is now closed. All right, our second public hearing now. Today, we are also holding a public hearing on the proposed fiscal year 2017 municipal aid program budget. As required by KRS 174.100, the hearing will include all proposed projects for fiscal year 2017. Municipal aid program is estimated to have $7,615,090 available during fiscal year 2017. These funds may be used for supervising, inspecting, building, and all expenditures incidental to the construction, reconstruction, or maintenance of a road or street, including planning, locating, surveying, and mapping, or preparing roadway plans, acquisition of right-of-way, rights-of-way, relocation of utilities, lighting, and the elimination of other hazards. Proposed eligible projects for the fiscal year 2017 municipal aid program include 1. Annual street resurfacing, 2. Eligible labor costs in the Division of Streets and Roads, 3. Debt service for resurfacing bonds, 4. Major road improvements, 5. Eligible labor costs in the Division of Engineering, and 6. Traffic signal equipment. A representative from the Department of Planning, Preservation, and Development is here to answer any questions the council or public may have. So this public hearing on the Municipal Aid Program is now in session. Are there any comments from the public? All right. If not, then this public hearing is now closed. Now we can begin today's regular council work session. And first on our agenda is public comment for issues on the agenda. Mr. Mundy, has anyone signed on for issues on the agenda? All right. Thank you, sir. Okay, I'm showing that Tom Creech and Joshua Hicks have signed up for issues on the agenda. Are you all here? All right. Tom? I'm going to yield to Joshua for a time standpoint. All right. Okay. So, Joshua, you'll have six minutes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I appreciate the time that everyone's allotted me to speak today. I'm Vice Mayor Skay, all the commissioners. I'm here today to talk about the sports complex. That's what we wrote down on this. and this is the one that's proposed by the Bluegrass Sports Commission out on the corner of basically Versailles Road and New Circle. The reason I'm here today is to talk about the economic impact of this, some of the issues I think have to be considered, as well as the livability issues that exist. So I'll start off with the economic impact. I've seen the same PowerPoint presentation that's been given to everybody, purporting to show that there's going to be some economic benefit. But the first comment I want to make about that is that this land, as I understood it, I'm a recent, I recently moved out to the Wellesley Heights neighborhood. As I understand it, this land was always for a public park, for a park that would benefit the public. And as I understand this proposal now, this is a park that's going to benefit tournament organizers and those who would have tournaments here and businesses that might benefit from having tournaments here, not from those members of the public who might want to have a park near their house or somewhere they could drive to where they could take their dogs or take their kids. This is going to be 21 astral turf and natural fields, a parking lot, concession stands, lights, and public announcement systems. Secondarily, I think that it's just premature to put any line item in the budget, to put any bonding capacity towards this park in that, as I understand it, there's been no studies, no feasibility studies, no economic impact studies, no traffic impact studies, and to take bonding capacity that could otherwise be used elsewhere and use it for something that may or may not ever come to fruition doesn't seem to make sound fiscal sense. In closing, I just urge everybody to look carefully and critically at what this plan is for, who it's going to benefit, who it will not benefit, who it's going to impact, and who it will not impact. And I urge you to do so as you consider this line. I'm in the budget. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Hicks. Thank you, Joshua. All right. Next on our agenda is the docket approval. Is there a motion to approve the docket? And then we have some walk-ons. So moved. Second. Motion by Council Member Farmer, second by Vice Mayor Kaye. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Council Member Scutchfield? Mayor, I have several rezonings for the docket. Oh, okay. Well, then we'll get those, too. So, why don't we just go ahead with that. All right. My first is ordinance number 22 that is located on the docket for Thursdays. I have been approached by the developer, and they would like a hearing on this matter. I tried to reach out to council members today, and I know this was last minute. So I have a couple of dates in mind. If we could get a count, Mayor, to see. Go ahead. First date would be June 30th. So if everybody will look at their calendar, and if it's June 30th at what time? 6, 5, 6 p.m. if you'll hold up your hand if that'll work for or how about hold up your hand if it will not work for you all right better try the the other i have to council member stennett keeps on saying july 7th that would be our last council meeting we could do it at 7 p.m that night Everybody will be here. Six. So after the council meeting. All right. So hold up your hand if you cannot do it then. All right. It looks like that's the time, right? Yes. Thank you, Mayor. And then I had another number 25 on the docket for Thursday night. I moved to place this on the docket without a hearing. So moved. Motion by Council Member Scutchfield, second by Council Member Stennett. 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. Question is? You did not vote. I make a motion. on number 22 to have a hearing on July 7th at 7 p.m. All right. Motion by Council Member Scotchfield, 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. Thank you, Council Member Scotchfield. Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Mayor. Under number four ordinances, first reading number 23, I move to place on the docket without a public hearing an ordinance changing the zone from a planned shopping center B6P zone to a planned neighborhood residential R3 zone for 8.46 net 902 gross acres and from an AU zone to a planned neighborhood residential R3 zone for 2.90 net acres, 3.26 gross acres for property located at 1850 Old Higby Mill Road, a portion of Wendale Development LLC. So moved. Second. Motion by Council Member Massadi, seconded by Council Member Fred Brown. Is there any discussion on the motion? If not, we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Council Member Massadi. Do you have another one? I've got walk-ons, but no zone changes. Council Member Maloney? Yeah, I'd like to make a motion on number 24, put on the docket without a public hearing. I've already talked to Council Member Hensley, and she said that she has not gotten any calls on that. So moved. Second. Motion by Council Member Maloney. Second by Council Member Stennett. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. If not, we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. It appears that's all the rezoning requests or motions. Mayor. Council Member Lamb. I just wanted to request that on the first reading ordinances for zone changes, that the next time that the council clerk can reflect on here when that these are to be heard by, the date usually is on here so that we know what type of time frame we have to address these. And I just hope next time we'll have those on the docket next time. All right. Just for clarification. Thank you. Sure. All right. And now, are there any walk-ons? Councilor Massadi. Thank you, Mayor. I have four. So first is I move to place on the docket for the May 26th Council meeting a resolution authorizing the Mayor on behalf of the Urban County Government to execute Change Order No. 14 to the contract with Churchill McGee, LLC, for the Public Safety Operations Center Renovation Project, Phase 1B, increasing the contract price by the sum of $15,089.15 from $6,649,661.24 to $6,644,750.39 and adding 44 workdays to the construction schedule. So moved. Motion by Council Member Sani and second by Council Member Farmer. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing none, we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Councilor Massani. Thank you, Mayor. Number two, I move to place on the docket for the May 26th Council meeting a resolution authorizing the Mayor on behalf of the Urban County Government to execute change order number two to the contract with Churchill McGee, LLC, for the Public Safety Operations Center Renovation Project Phase II, increasing the contract price by the sum of $14,000 from $873,953 dollars and 35 cents to $887,953 dollars and 35 cents adding 70 work days to the construction schedule. So moved. Second. Motion by Council Member Masati. Second by Council Member Farmer. Is there any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, then we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Okay, the third one. I move to place on the docket for Thursday, May 26, 2016, Council meeting under first reading of resolutions, a resolution to authorize installation of a telecommunications system for the Public Safety Operations Center. So moved. Second. Motion by Council Member Sidi and a second by Council Member Farmer. Is there any discussion? If not, we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Council Member Sidi. Thank you, Mayor. And the last one. I move to place on the docket for the May 26th Council meeting an ordinance amending sections 13A-4 and 2-3-0 of the Court of Ordinances to allow the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission to receive and investigate complaints from employees claiming that they were paid less than the local minimum wage and authorizing the commission to bring a civil action with an employee's consent to recover unpaid wages for an employee. So move. Motion by Council Member Masati, seconded by Vice Mayor Kaye. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right, if not, we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you, Council Member Masati. Thank you, Mayor. All right, that allows us to now vote on the original motion to approve the docket. All in favor of the motion to approve the docket, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Next on our agenda is approval of the summary. Is there a motion to approve the summary of the work session? I will approve. Motion by Council Member Farmer, seconded by Council Member Massadi. Is there any discussion? If not, we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Next is budget amendments. Is there a motion to approve budget amendments? Second. Motion by Vice Mayor Kaye and seconded by Council Member Farmer. 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. Next is new business. Is there a motion to approve new business? Second. Motion by Council Member Scotchfield, second by Council Member Farmer. Is there any discussion on the motion? Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Mayor. Mine's on the item about the alley near Rose Lane. This is on page 26. I just wanted to see a map. There are great maps in here. I just couldn't tell. This one is so detailed where the alley is. Just so I'll know. Chester or Dow? Okay. Yes, sir. The alley is between Rose Lane and Columbia Avenue. It is not treated, paved, or utilized. We do have representatives from the University of Kentucky who could speak more to that project. That would be great. I apologize. I was under the impression that the map was included in your packet. Well, it's a very detailed map. It's so detailed I can't tell where the alley is. Okay. That's page 27 of our packet, I think. I'd just like to see a picture of it where I can tell where it is. That's all. Okay. And if folks from UK brought it, that would be great. If not, I'm sure we can proceed without me seeing it. Okay. Because there's a Greek park on the next page and right away a map on the next page. but I still can't having prowled those woods along the way I don't know where this is trying to get that up sorry about that keep going rose woodland So it comes behind, isn't that a kinder care on the corner there? Yes, this is Woodland Avenue, this is Rose Lane, and here's Columbia. And this portion that they are proposing for the city to close is right here. All right, in that color photo, I can now see it here in black and white. It was not very legible. All right. You have satisfied my question. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Fred Brown. Chester, I've got the same question, part of the same question. Looking at that map on there that shows the section, And that is an old, is that an old alley or an old road that has never been paved? It's always been grass? Or do you know? That's the picture I want right there. I can't speak to the history of it. I can tell that currently it is grass from looking at aerial photography. Is there any residential? Now, I'm looking at all around that. Is all of that University of Kentucky property that surrounds that? Most of it with the exception of, I believe, a parcel or so that is owned by Alice Lloyd College. Owned by who? Alice Lloyd College. Have they been prized of this? Yes, absolutely. They've also submitted documentation that they are in favor of. So it's landlocked with UK having property all around it then? Yes, sir. What's the approximate acreage or space? I mean, how much land are you? That, I don't know. Are you speaking of the right-of-way itself? Yeah, how much land are we giving away? I can't speak to that specifically, sir. I apologize. However, I believe I can ask Ms. Needham, who is a representative of the U.K., who might be able to speak to that at a level of detail. And she's here today. If Ms. Needham or Ms. Mosvich would like to speak to that, I would appreciate it. but it's got some square footage to it council member i'm judy needham the facilities planning manager from uk i you know i have forgotten in our application we did say how much land that is and i have forgotten what it comes to but what it is right now is just like he said an unpaved unused alley. And when we looked up, when we researched it, it was back about 1900 that it was listed actually as an unused alley from that point on. And there are sanitary sewer and storm water that run through it, and so we are providing the city with an easement for that area, and they have thoroughly vetted that. I wish I could remember how much land it comes to, but I don't. Okay, that's fine. My concern is that I don't know how many more parcels we have out there that are like this, and I know that we're trying to, I guess this is a gift from understanding we're giving it away. But my concern is that I know there's other land that we're supposedly in negotiation or we're going to be talking to the University of Kentucky that are city-owned properties, And, you know, I wish this would be an overall comprehensive plan that we looked at so that we can trade some land equal to some extent. And I'm speaking of a piece of property, and I don't know, it's not confidential, but there's a piece of property there where the Senior Citizens Center is on right now. There's also some roadway properties that we're dedicating to UK or whatever we're doing on the new roundabout down toward Euclid Avenue. So I've got some concerns about the overall system there, and I don't know of anybody on our end that's working on that. I could be wrong, but I'm sure the University of Kentucky is looking at all those parcels and looking to address those. And I don't know who can answer this, but, you know, I've just got some concerns there that we're piecemealing this when we probably ought to put this into committee and look at the whole mapping system there as to what we can do as good neighbors to the University of Kentucky and what they can do as good neighbors to the urban county government. Yeah, I understand what you're saying, and especially because several requests have come recently from one entity. I don't know what the university's plan is with this property, if they have a plan to do something with it over the summer. I can't answer those questions if the delay would impact them in any way. But it's certainly something that we can look at with the university on a comprehensive basis. I don't think it's feasible to look at that on a county-wide basis with any certainty, if that makes sense. Because we consistently get right-of-way requests for unused right-of-way. But we could look at it just for the University of Kentucky if you feel that's appropriate. Well, the question or concern would be the contiguous area of the University of Kentucky. I mean, you can draw the boundary just about anywhere, but no, I'm not looking at the entire Fayette County or anything like that, but it's just the University of Kentucky proper. May I make a request? May I make a request? I would request that this particular piece of right-of-way be looked at differently. I understand your concern, and we do have things coming up, and I think that we have been working together on those items that are coming up, and that would be a good thing for maybe us to put together a larger plan and kind of some numbers to go with the right of ways that would be traded one way or the other. This particular piece, I wouldn't see a need for that. It is an unused alley. We are actually, in some ways, helping the city by creating an easement. There's an alley there which has sanitary sewer and stormwater running under it, and in places that we're creating an easement. This is part of our Greek park, and eventually houses will be built there, Greek houses. So the easement actually provides an even better delineation for where we can't build. It's obviously not buildable land because of the easements. And so I guess I would just request, if it's allowed, that maybe you think about this one a little differently and that as we move forward, we work with you and between UK and LFUCG to kind of put a plan together like you said. All right. Thank you. According to the packet that might be in your map, the answer to your question, Council Member Brown, is 16,927 square feet. That's the area that we're talking about here. Council Member Gibbs. Thank you, Mayor. Judy, can we get you back up here? Sorry. And I will say, if you look at this area from Woodland Avenue, you would never imagine it was an alley or anything else. It's just a strip of grass. But could you explain more how that will help you consolidate, why you guys want that piece of property? Right. Well, it serves two purposes. And like I just said, it actually provides an easement to the city that will be in place for the utilities that run back there. And then it allows us to consolidate the lands that we have around this. And if you look up in the kind of the middle of the page there, but that larger-looking square lot that faces Rose Lane, that's one of our new sororities FarmU built there. And so as we build fraternities and sororities, if we are able to come through and consolidate the land we own along this alleyway, we will be able to easier set aside land for the fraternities and sororities that really signify their piece of property. And so otherwise we're kind of doing these leases to them that are going over one piece of property and a half of another or maybe two and a half. So that is our reasoning for doing this, so that when we consolidate those properties that we do own, that we can have better delineations for our leases for our sororities and fraternities as they build. Does that make sense, or do I need to clarify that? Yeah. Just one thing, Judy, like you guys own Dixie Court. Is that correct? Or virtually all of it? And that's where a lot of the, that's a general area where the fraternity houses are going to go, the Greek houses? We do not own Dixie Court at this point in time. We own all the properties along it. Let me see if I can. That's what I meant, the properties. So this right here is Dixie Court. We do not own this. We own all of these properties. You own the properties. I'm sorry, that's what I meant. And these, yeah. And so what we would consolidate are, this is Alice Lloyd College, which we don't own, but we have agreements with them. So we would consolidate these properties and these three we own. And this way, for instance, AGR, who wants to build on this corner, when we go to lease the land to them, it makes it more efficient really on both our sides, and it kind of cleans up the deeds for the city's end to have these leases on a little better delineated piece of property rather than covering one, one-and-a-half, two other properties as they stand now. Okay. Thank you, Judy. Thank you, Mayor. All right. Council Member, thank you. Council Member Farmer. Thank you for letting me go again, Mayor. Could you back up one page to the conceptual UK Greek Park Plan, which now that we've had more discussion on it, Oh, I'm appreciative of these in color. So the closing of the alley would be under those blue buildings in the far right lower, which is the corner of Columbia. That's better to just show here. The alley itself runs, let me get my bearings. So here's Woodland Avenue. It runs straight back here. and then it comes up partially right there. I get it right in here. So that's the piece. So is that a walking path down the center of the block from all of these towards campus? The alley itself? No, it's really just that actually this is the rear of their properties. Yes, ma'am. And this is a planned walking path. These sororities and fraternities that are not built would face this planned walking path. It's kind of our long-range plan there. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 potential additional fraternities to sororities. That would be quite a park. We are studying everything back there. We're studying the utilities, the drainage, and that is another discussion for another day. Indeed. But this alley is really just... And then... You have talked about... The UK has talked about it for a long time. I see this is updated in January. It's just different to look at it and begin to see it take shape. Yeah, we do better drawings now than they used to. Oh, this is much more inviting. Yeah. All right. I think I'm good for now, Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. All right. Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Mayor. I guess this would be for Dowell and Chester that... I know we have a policy or a process for right-of-way, and it might be too late for this one, but maybe not. But perhaps we need to really look at that policy or process to see that we're not gifting property away when it can be used, like what some of the other council members have talked about here. I think that's something that we need to look at. And I guess I didn't, until this discussion ensued, I didn't realize that there were going to be all these new properties. So did we do a history on this alley as far as when it was designated an alley or anything? Was there any research done on it? So we have a process, and it goes through a number of internal and external reviews, So the law department reviews and engineering, all the internal divisions review it. Utilities review it for utility conflicts, easement conflicts. So I think during the law review, they do look at the dates, but Chester can clarify that. Law review looks at several different things in terms of adjacent property owners. But in terms of the city's review, I can tell you this, with this particular property, both a representative from planning and myself met with UK several months ago just to discuss this and there was a surveyor that UK had that had studied the history beyond the alley that was in planning staff, the particular planner in question knew a lot about the area and could confirm that this is something that has been around as Ms. Needham said since 1900 and it exists in form of a plat and not really being utilized as such. Generally speaking, when it comes to right-of-way requests, we don't necessarily research the history behind the right-of-way necessarily, but what we do is determine from both utilities as well as city divisions if whether or not this will have any adverse impact on city operations or if the utilities would still need to maintain an easement for this particular right-of-way so the right-of-way could therefore close, but then there would still be an easement in place so that the utilities would still be able to access whatever kind of infrastructure or facilities that they have there. So that, in a nutshell, is the process. And not to say that it can't be improved upon, ma'am, but just to shed some light on how it is we do what it is that we do. What it is that we look at. I remember in the past having done, in my former capacity, doing lots of research for different right-of-ways and scenarios just to find out the history and everything. So I think that is important to know what the intention was originally back in the day. So I think this does kind of, it concerns me a little bit too. I see the value in it clearly, but, you know, it's a nice give. So, but thanks for the clarification. Councilman Maloney. Thank you. I got the same question. Who maintains that now? Who maintains it? Who takes care of it? It currently is grass. I can't speak to who currently maintains it, what city department it maintains. We do. City department. Then we should claim it. Ms. Needham can speak to who currently maintains it. But as right of way, it is currently owned by the city. Well, I support getting rid of this if we're maintaining it. We've got enough problems. I don't have a problem getting rid of this. Now, what's right there back up to the Boone Center? Is that part of this? What is that there that got behind the Boone Center right there? I'm sorry, Ryan, I didn't understand your question. What's that line going down? but you see where the alley is going down across that way that we're trying to get rid of. Is there another alley up a little bit farther? What is that there? Well, Columbia is on the bottom of the sheet there. You got the four buildings right there. What's right behind there? You see the four buildings close to the lower part of the screen. What's that alley? Columbia. That's Columbia? That's Columbia? Do you want to speak to one? But we maintain it now, and we're trying to get rid of it and let somebody else take care of it. Is that what I understand? Yes, sir. That's all I need to know. Thank you. Okay. All right. Council Member Scotchfield. I just had a quick question. I know you were stating that a lot of this property has been bought or has been turned into properties for the sororities. I guess it was my understanding that it was private property on Rose Lane. Has the university bought that property and then developed it? With the houses on the sorority and fraternity houses, I guess, on Rose Lane. She had stated that these lots were consolidated in the university. No, we own those lots. Okay. When did you all purchase these? I mean, they used to be houses. These have been purchased over the years. I don't have those dates. It's been one at a time over the years. Okay. Okay, so they were not originally university property. Depends how far back you go. Okay. Thank you. All right. That's all the questions. Anybody else have a... We're in discussion on new business. Does anybody else have a new business item to discuss? All right. Council Member Massadi. Thank you. Dowell, if you don't mind, under O. I was just curious when it said that this will address excess oil, grease, and sediment from reaching the downstream waterways. Do we have problems with that? I would love for Charlie to answer that question. Charlie, would you mind? That caught my attention. It's not an ongoing active environmental concern, but it's the type of apparatus that needs to be at a fleet services facility such as that. We would require this at the private sector, so we're putting this in because we need to be responsible as well. Okay. That's the answer I wanted to hear. I was just worried that we had an issue there. Not an active one right now. This is preventive. Okay. Thank you very much. All right. Okay. Council Member Akers. Thank you, Mayor. This is item R for Charlie Lanter. Item R. R. Charlie Lanter, not Charlie Martin. Thanks, Charlie. Hi, Charlie. Hey. Can you tell me a little bit about this house and the costs? So I guess for the remainder of this fiscal year it would be $4,000, and then next year it would be $8,000. Is that for a year? Correct. This is actually a really interesting partnership across the Fort Walsing Trust Fund, the Lakes and Housing Authority, Home Builders Association. They all came together and rebuilt this house. It was over 100 years old. It was in really awful condition and brought it up to speed. It's really nice now. It essentially looks brand new on the inside. The deal we worked out with them was if we put a family from this program into this house and they remain there for one year, then the housing authority guarantees them a section 8 voucher which of course is portable so they can take that and go to they actually have the option of choosing to stay there or going elsewhere because this was not part of the original scope of the emergency shelter family shelter agreement then we agreed to give them the rent funds for these first two years of operation and then when they apply again they'll have to either incorporate that or feed it into their existing program Okay, so then it also says that they're participating in a self-sufficiency program with Community Action Council. So is there a... Right, the family placed in the home will be an enrollee in the Emergency Family Shelter Program. So this is literally just giving them another physical space to house someone they would have been serving anyway. Does that make sense? Is there a timeline? My question is, how long can they stay in the house? It's permanent housing, so they can stay there as long as they would like. At the end of one year, though, we stop paying the rent, the Section 8 voucher takes over. Okay. Unless they move, in which case the process would repeat itself, a new family would move in. In one year, they can stay, get a Section 8 voucher. The idea is just to always be churning and having a home in which a homeless family could reside. So is the rent $1,000 a month? No, it is $8 something. I'd have to do the math. I don't recall. And that includes all utilities. It's whatever fair market rent is for a three-bedroom. Okay. Thank you. That's all. Thank you, Mayor. All right. All right. If there's no further discussion, then we can vote on new business. All in favor of the motion to approve new business, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. Next on our agenda is continuing business and presentations. Is there a motion to approve NDFs? Second. Motion by Council Member Satie, second by Vice Mayor Kaye. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing none, then we can vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. We'll come back to the Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee summary. when Councilmember Farmer returns. Next is a presentation on the historic Fayette County Courthouse rehabilitation project. It's an update for us, and I'm going to ask Jennifer Warenma to make the presentation. But before Jennifer gets going, I want to say a couple of things. this has been an extraordinary project that we're embarking on, and it's one that I'm sure every member of the Council will recognize as a lasting contribution to our city. There's been a lot of work gone into this project to this point, and the work group has really worked hard, worked diligently, vigorously to engage the project, And so I want to express what I'm sure is the Council's appreciation, my appreciation, to several people. With the leadership of our Chief Administrative Officer, Sally Hamilton, it includes Jennifer Warenma, who's at the podium now, Wes Holbrook, Bill O'Meara, Jeff Reed, Janet Graham, David Barbary, Jamshid Baradaran, Jessica Walker, Todd Slayton, Sharita Miller, Jeff Fugate, and our consultants, City Visions, who is represented by Barry Alberts, AU Associates, represented by Holly Wiedemann, and architects for the Project K Norman Berry. So, Jennifer, you're on. Thanks. Thank you, everybody, for allowing me some time on your agenda today. As I told you in March, I would be back before you left for summer vacation to explain to you where we are. Summer break, I should say. Not always a vacation. And to say it takes a village is probably an understatement. You notice there's lots of people in the crowd today. Most of these folks are part of our team. In addition to who Mayor Gray mentioned, we have Steve Eggers here today from our architect firm, K. Norman Berry and Deborah Burke Partners. And we also have Stephen Chase and Seth Hillenmeyer, who there's an exciting announcement coming up in the presentation. So I wanted to introduce them, and they'll be available for questions, of course. And Holly and Barry are here as well. So we'll go ahead and get started. This morning when I woke up, I couldn't believe after all these years, this was finally the day we get to show you the design and the tenants. And it's a bit surreal, so we'll get started. Today I'm going to explain to you what we've done since March and also where we're going in the next couple of months. highly anticipated design elements, and who our tenants are going to be. We also have a philanthropic announcement, which I sort of just gave away when I introduced the Hill and Myers, our preliminary construction schedule, and then, of course, our project next steps, and we'll take any questions at that time. So we have now submitted our State Historic Preservation Office Part 2. The three entities that I spoke to you all about in March have been formed and have met formally. Those are, of course, our nonprofit, our general partner, and our LLLP. We also, last week, executed our ground lease with the Public Facilities Corporation and have undergone design development, which is what you all will see here in just a few minutes. Our work in progress. So Jessica Walker and Jamshid Baradaran have been working with Sally and I on the EPA Brownfields grant, in addition to some staff in Susan Pluger's office, to remediate the asbestos and lead in the building. We are also in the process, I believe on Friday, we will submit our National Park Service Part 2 application, prepare our exterior construction documents, develop all of our tenant leases, and we have been in discussions with tax credit investors. Okay, so we're going to hit the button and show you our designs. So this is a rendering of the exterior, obviously, from Main Street. You have the 5th, 3rd pavilion on your left and the building here to your right. Of note in this building is the terraces that are existing currently are utilized in our design and in our proposed uses to you today. You'll see people are out on the terrace, and I'll show you in a bit what they're doing. But essentially, this is our view of the courthouse. Nothing too much has changed on the exterior except we'll have a new roof, new windows, and improved mortar. Okay, so this is sort of the sliced version of the building. And you all will be able to see, for the audience and for you all, there's a really interesting atrium when you walk in the steps. Anybody who's been in that building, I know Council Member Scutchfield worked in there at one time. and there was an old staircase that was in the building that was sort of momentous, if you will. So Kay Norman Berry and Deborah Burke Partners have worked to sort of recreate that staircase and there'll be a close-up you'll see here in just a minute. In addition, there are glass floors in between, so when you enter the building, you'll be able to see up and see that dome space and we'll keep going through and show you. So here's a close-up of the staircase. our restaurateur, our bourbon experience, and some visit-lex space will be on this ground floor. This is a view of, if you've been in the courthouse before, on the left-hand side upstairs, there's sort of this unique space with metal beams. And so our architects and Holly and Barry have sort of played off of that, and we'll leave those beams there and add some interesting lighting. This will be an event space, one-third of an event space, with some walnut doors that will lead into the atrium that you all saw. This is our favorite photo, as you can imagine. It's hard to believe this could be what you all have seen on your tours recently of the building, but essentially this is the center of that event space. Of course, you can use the spaces on the side of it. But this is our momentous dome. And Foster Ackerman told me, Sally and I, an interesting tidbit the other day that this was the first public building in Lexington that had electricity. And so if you've been in the building, you've seen remnants of the old bulbs up in the dome. And so our architects have also played off of that. And we have sort of brought those back to life. So we think that's just an awesome feature. And at night, Sally calls it her twinkle light. So it's very beautiful. And then this is, of course, the building at night. And they gave us some options in terms of lighting. And Sally and I and the team liked the lights that made it look like there was life in the building all night long. So you can see it looks like there's fun things going on in there, which, of course, we hope there will be. So that's it. Okay. Oops. Okay. So now for our tenant announcement. in. You've all sort of heard the rumors and we've talked to you vaguely about the restaurateur, the use of office space, Lexington's Visitor Center, an event space upstairs, and a bourbon experience. So today I'm going to announce to you that our restaurateur will be a windy corner concept. Weta Michael will be our restaurateur and that will be of course the lower floor that abuts the Fifth Third Pavilion space. What's interesting about this and I think what is perfect for this project is that this is a farm-to-table local food restaurateur, and it fits very nicely with our current uses of the pavilion and also our amazing food, local food program that we have here in Lexington. Visit Lex will also be one of our tenants, and we are in current negotiations with the Breeders' Cup corporate office to occupy what will be the third ground four first four second floor of the space and what we really played off of that is their everybody's exceptional time at the Breeders Cup this past year many people didn't realize their corporate office was in Lexington until the Breeders Cup came here and we had such a successful event and so it came became clear to them and to us that it was a downtown presence would be very exciting and so we are like I said in negotiations with that group now visit Exit Lex is of course our staple tenant of the building and it fits with our come here this is the best of the bluegrass experience. So visitors will be able to come leave from here and go on horse tours, go visit bourbons and our local great beer establishments and anything in between that has to do with central Kentucky. And our event space of course is that momentous upstairs and we are in negotiations with various tenants right now, so hopefully we would have waited until then, but maybe the summer before we know, so we'll of course let everybody know when we choose the appropriate tenant, and the same as with the Berman experience. Okay, so we also had, a couple of months ago, Vitaly came to Sally and I and said, we really, Stephen Hillemeier Landscape Services is having their 175th anniversary, and we want to do something spectacular. And so, well, working with the DDA, they said, well, we are going to redo the courthouse. And so, they thought, well, that's a perfect project for us. And so, we've met with them various times, and we wanted to announce today their commitment to this project. Of course, you may not see the first flower for a year or two, because we have to finish our project before they'll get started. But they are here today, and we want to thank them very much for their commitment to our project and to the city. Thank you. Okay, okay, we'll give that one. Okay. Now to our preliminary construction schedule. This is really important to many of the local businesses and also to you all, but we are going to start our environmental remediation project in two weeks, the second week of June. We'll be doing asbestos and lead remediation through our Brownfields grant and Jamshid Baradaran and Jessica Walker are helping with that. We are going to mobilize for exterior and selective interior demolition the second or third week of July into the first week of August. Our interior construction will begin in January of 2017 and will begin our tenant build out and fit up January 2018 with a tentative opening date for the building of spring 2018. The next steps, like I said in an earlier slide, Friday we're going to be submitting our final part two to the National Park Service, and that's when they look through a huge document with windows and all this great stuff and tell us everything looks good. We're also completing our construction documents, and we're going to announce our public meeting now. It'll be at the Fifth Third Pavilion on June the 1st, which is a Wednesday, from 12 to 1. And we'll have some opening remarks there and also have photos. We'll have our development agents there. Wesley Holbrook and I will be in attendance and we'll be able to answer any questions. Impacts logistically in the area, if you just have questions about the use of the building, the design of the building, that'll be when we'll go through all of that with the community. And tomorrow morning, we'll send an email out to the community to let them know, to the businesses around the pavilion, around Short Street, when, just another reminder of when this meeting will take place. So now I'll take any questions that you might have. All right. All right. Thanks, Jennifer. You're welcome. Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Jennifer. You're welcome. Especially a big thanks to Sally Hamilton. You've undertaken a huge, huge project and done a great job. And I applaud your efforts. This is not easy. I just have a few questions. When we met, I was probably one of the biggest skeptics of this project, just because I know of the amount of money that's involved. Are you going to hand us any kind of a Performa? I know we had a real basic one when we kind of met individually. Are you going to get us anything that will let us know? My concern is the exterior cost, if we have a budget for that. Yes. What the cost, overrun, maybe, underrun. And then if when we get to the interior, when we're looking at a Performa, basically I know we're not going to make any money on this building. What I want to be is ensure the public is that are we not going to be in the red as far as operations and maintenance? Are we going to make enough money from our leases? Are we going to charge market rent? And are we going to be able to sustain this building without having to dip in to the government? Sure. Those are the kind of questions that I'd like to have answers to. Sure. I'm going to take a stab at part of that, and then Barry is going to answer the other part. But I'll answer what I know and sort of what we talked about last week. Okay. I will tell you, yes, it is market rents. And that's been one of the main challenges with this building not being done this way is that not only would we have had that capital infusion of $22 million, but we would have also had to support the ongoing operations of the project. So one of the benefits to doing it this way is we know the market rents we can charge, we know what our expenses will be, and I can say confidently that, yes, there are reserves left at the end. So when we did our preliminary pro forma, we know what our rents will be, we have a capital reserve and we have an operating reserve and we have money left at the end which was really important so we've sort of went through that with you i'm going to let barry talk more about when the big packet that we discussed with you all goes let me back up on one question are you going to have any um vacancy rate i did you know we talked about that we did including a vacancy rate are there going to be any vacancies or you're going to have this whole thing full or what are you determining in that we did not calculate the first five years in our preliminary pro forma vacancy rate, but after that we did, and I believe it was 10% of the project. The operating reserve that we'll be saving every year that we showed to you will also be set aside for any operational expenses we could have, but Barry, do you want to? I guess one last question. I don't know if maybe you or Barry. What's the usable square footage? The rentable square footage is a little bit of a $50. The rentable is, and what's the usable? The usable is about 35. Okay, so you've got about 35 that you'll be obviously collecting money on that much. Yeah, I'm Barry Alberts with City Visions Associates. As the mayor said, we're part of the development advisory team for this project. Those are all really good questions, and I guess one way to answer that is that, yes, we are considering all of those things. this is a tax credit project, and obviously we're interested in attracting a significant amount of private investment to this project, somewhere between $8 and $10 million. The good news is that we've had a lot of interest. There is over half a dozen local and national investment firms and financial institutions have expressed interest in providing that investment in return for the tax credits. In order to close with those investors, they require all of the things you ask for, as well as much more detailed financial information. In fact, we will have to provide to them and to the council a very detailed estimate of all the operating expenses, all of the reserves, all of the construction costs before their funds will be entered into the project. So before the bulk of the funding of the project will begin to be spent, all of those financial requirements and details will be laid out. At this point, if I can remember some of the points you talked about, we are discussing with all the tenants that Jennifer mentioned, as well as some of the others, full market rents on this project. So this is not a, the tenants, as you heard, are not tenants that will be, they will be creditworthy tenants. That would have to be vetted by us, vetted by our investors as well. Secondly, there are relatively few tenants, and we're requiring long-term leases. So we have a vacancy credit for some of those leases, but in fact, we're not looking at turnover very often because there are large tenants and there are credit-worthy tenants and they will have long, long leases for the property. The third point is that there are built into our proformas very hefty reserves, capital reserves and operating reserves, to make sure that even though the proforma shows a significant amount of income to be put back into the building, there are large reserves, particularly in the early years when the systems are new and there's very little likelihood of problems, building up those reserves early and then continuing those reserves. So we have reserves that I would say are probably twice the norm in terms of a private development to make sure that there are significant funds remaining in the project to take care of any operating or capital costs that come up over the course of the project. I think you had one, was there one point I missed? I'm sorry that you asked about it. Well, you hit market, you hit the tenants. I was just, you know, asking the basic questions. And I think once we have some numbers, it just wouldn't explain to the public a little bit more. I think they would feel a bit more comfortable that this is not going to be wholly subsidized by the government. Right, right. That they're going to be paying their own O&M. And let me just say one more point. is that as we're getting close to finalizing the design of the project and the elements that Jennifer showed indicate very spectacular and beautiful spaces and renovation of the building to its former glory, we have, in addition to looking at the aesthetic requirements, are working very hard with the architects and the engineers to make sure this is as efficient a building as possible. Will it be LEED certified? Excuse me? LEED certified. It's not LEED certified. The cost of LEED certification is pretty enormous. And for a historic building, 90% of the fact that we're reusing the building is the best environmentally sensitive approach to that. But we are looking at geothermal mechanical system, which is very energy efficient. Without getting into the details, I don't want to say genius because that's giving too much credit to the architects. but the approach of having the atrium split into these two spaces with a glass floor, meaning you still have the ability to see up in all of its 120-foot grandeur, that has very important cost savings in terms of operational costs, in terms of smoke evacuation, in terms of limiting the HVAC for non-rentable spaces. So we are taking into account, as much as possible, many, many energy-efficient systems in this building. So it's an old building. It's a historic building, I'm sorry. It's a historic building, but it will be a brand-new building in terms of its systems, its operational efficiency, and the way we're attracting or we're dealing with the tenants in that building. Very good. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Fred Brown. Thank you, Mayor. I understand this will remain a historic site then on the register, I guess. Is that correct? Yes, that is correct. Let me ask you a couple questions. One is, you didn't mention it or anything. What about the statues? Have any decisions been made on the statues? No, we in fact have not made any decisions on the site at this time. I will tell you preliminarily that the Hunt Morgan statue and the children that are around the fountain in the front, they will be left in their position but contained, if you will, during construction to avoid damage. But we have not discussed the lawn any further than that. Well, I'm very impressed and very high on this project because I think this is the center of downtown Lexington, and I think it's going to be a beautiful project from what we've seen so far. I guess the only other concern I've got, and nobody mentioned it, is parking. Okay. And are you all addressing that at all? Too many meetings on parking. Yes, Holly and I have had various meetings on parking. I'm going to let her talk about the conclusions we've come to. They're all good, but yes, we've had many conversations. Thank you, Council. We met with Gary Means. We know, obviously, where all the parking is located. We know what that is going to cost as pass-throughs to the tenants. And any time you're in an urban area, obviously parking is part of the territory. But also for events, just the way 21C is handling its valet parking, we have the benefit of parking directly across the street in the big blue lot after hours. And we've also spoken with Gary Means for parking for some of the employees of the building in the Victorian Square lot. Visit Lex has some existing spaces there that they will continue with. So parking is available, as we know, and after hours parking for big events is also available. And who knows what's going to happen in the other area. I can't speak to that. That's anybody's best guess. All right. Council Member Scotchfield. Thank you. I just have a couple of things. Jennifer, I really appreciate you sitting down, and I know you've spoken with most of the council members. I applaud you all on putting into the budget having the operating funds a surplus to cover unexpected expenses as well as a capital fund. with the historic building and with the age of this building, there are always going to be issues. And instead of reacting, I'm glad that we're planning. And I appreciate that. One thing that I didn't ask you, and I've thought of it since we met, the historic nature of the building is obviously a courthouse. Is there going to be any nod to what the original purpose of the building was? Well, we actually, it's interesting you had asked that. Yesterday we did a walkthrough to see what was left, if you will, and you know in the one courtroom there are some objects left in there. So we are working with our development agents, with Betty Kerr, Foster Ackerman, and the History Museum to figure out if there's a way that we can incorporate some pieces, whether it's the judge's bench or there's a beautiful cabinet, if you will, that you've probably seen. It's quite long. to see how we could potentially integrate those into the design and maybe use those in some part of the building, and we will keep you all posted. We are going to have somebody who's trained in moving those things out of there during construction, and we will store them properly and securely and keep you posted how we will use them. But it is our intention to attempt to do so in some form or fashion. And I appreciate the fact that it's not used for that purpose anymore. But in some of maybe the common spaces, you might be able to use some of the pieces. That's right. I appreciate it, and thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councilman Scotsfield. Councilman Maloney. Thank you, Mayor. I want to echo the tremendous job you all have done, and this is one of the projects that I've won on record saying I support it more than any of the other stuff we bond, and I'm really excited about what's going on. I did have one question I forgot to ask you guys. What is the annual estimate income versus the cost to maintain? Well, I can't give the preliminary numbers in public like we talked about in the meeting, but I can tell you that there is a reserve, or there is an amount left at the end that's fairly significant. So at the end of those, we showed you the document, but I'm not sure that I can say any more than that at this time. We're still, I guess, two things. We are working through our operating cost estimates with our engineers to determine what those estimates are. We're also in, as Jennifer said, we're not in a final situation with a number of our tenants. So we'll work through that. But I can say that generally we're in a situation where the income that we're projecting now, the operating costs are about 60% of that income. So we've got a pretty good play there. That might change a little bit one way or the other. And as we determine the impacts, particularly on some of these energy-efficient systems, that number will get better. But if the concern, which I understand might be, is that we're sort of running on a real age here between those two numbers, we're not. There's a significant amount of what we would consider surplus. And that's a good thing because it's a good thing, but also it makes it more attractive to the tax credit investors who, for at least five years, share in that income stream. That's one reason we increase the – this is probably more detail than you want – but we increase the reserves as much as we can because that is left in the building before there's a distribution to the investors. So we're very comfortable with those numbers. But as the cost estimates, the efficiency estimates, and the finalization of our tenant leases become known, then we'll have those numbers. And what I mentioned to Ms. Councilwoman before, all of those will be put into the tax credit investment accounting run that we would have to prepare to the investors. Okay. Thank you. Councilman Hensley. Thank you, Mayor. Just to echo some comments, I'm excited about the project. You know, one of the questions I'd had was a pro forma in the past, and you guys stepped up and delivered that. And the staff that you guys have worked on this to produce, that's great. To see some of the familiar names on the project, like Holly, and see WIDA come to the table, to these things, that's excellent. And being a downtown person myself, it's great to see another great restaurant come downtown in the future. so i think it's a great public private partnership that we've put together and and again echo those comments congratulations on that that's all right thank you councilman hensley looks like no one else has signed on mayor i would like to let everybody know at the conclusion of this meeting we have the photos you've seen on big boards so if you have some interest in looking at the detail or they're a little bit easier to see they'll be out in the lobby and sally also did want me to mention to everybody we found out up through all of these meetings that the weather vane has been preserved by the history museum so if anybody's into history we do have the weather vane and we'll try to reuse it if we can um if not we will try to replicate it but just in case for any of you history buffs so but i want to thank you all very much and sally and i will continue to keep everybody updated as we go along and um council member gives we'll know what impacts are happening in his district as we go along as well So thank you all very much. Jennifer, thank you. Barry? If you'll indulge me just for a moment, I'd like to make one further comment. I think I'm speaking for Holly here as well. We do these types of projects for ourselves, for our own companies, also for other public entities, and they're very complicated projects. And this one is not necessarily the biggest we've ever done, but it's one of the most complicated. And the ability to work with a team from the city that owns the building but also understands, because this is a tax credit project, it needs to be done differently. I mean, including the council as well, because we spent a lot of hours, I think, last year and previous presentations explaining why this is a different animal, different paradigm than the norm. and I have never really worked with a city where there's been so much professionalism, so much excitement, so much momentum, so much interest and an ability to understand that this is a different kind of project and that it takes a different approach and a much more entrepreneurial approach and that's hard sometimes for cities to do. I know a lot of it comes from the leadership of the mayor and your background, but I think one of the reasons that we are, as far along as we are and in as good shape as we are is because of that energy and professionalism and ability to think outside the box from everybody that represents the city in this project, and we are very appreciative of that assistance. Thank you. Thanks, Barry. Alright, that allows us to move on to the next item on our agenda, which is the presentation on purchase of development rights. Thank you all for joining us today, everybody. Beth, thank you. Thank you all. Okay. Let's see. All right. So thank you all for having me today. Before I get started with our presentation, I did want to say there is one acronym I will use in our presentation other than PDR, which is NRCS, and that stands for the Natural Resources Conservation Service. That is the agency within the USDA that administers our federal funding program, and so I just wanted to let you all know that before we get started. I also, one of our board members for the Rural Land Management Board is here today, Nathan Billings. He represents the Lexington Convention Center on our board, so thank Nathan for being here to lend support. All right, so we will get started. So the program background, the PDR program was created in the year 2000 to preserve farmland for the General Agriculture. equine, and tourism industries. The program purchases and accepts donations of permanent conservation easements that preserve the land for agricultural use. The PDR program was created with a goal of conserving 50,000 acres of land by the year 2020. Applications are voluntary and accepted on an annual basis, and the LFUCG receives a 50% match from the federal government to purchase seasonings on qualifying farms. Our application ranking criteria, as you all likely know, is spelled out in the ordinance, and the ranking criteria is awarded for environmental, agricultural, and historical factors. So our application process, so a landowner applies to the PDR program. Their farm is scored and ranked. Our eligible farms are then placed on our federal application. The selected farms are funded in our federal co-optive agreement, which is the grant we receive from the federal government. We then have a board appraisal, an offer to the landowner, and a signed contract. After that, we then have a title search and the other legal requirements of closing the easement, as well as a federal review process. And then, after all that is complete, we are ready to close the easement. So our program progress. So in the blue is the protected acreage, and the numbers are on the right, so you can see we are almost to the 30,000 acre mark, which is really exciting. The gray is our protected farms, and those numbers are on the left, so we have over 250 farms in the program thus far. So it has been steady and continuous, as you all can see. We had one easement close in 2015, and that is a nearly 300-acre farm on Old Frankfurt Pike. So our application status. Before I go through the next few slides, I'm going to give you all a brief primer on our federal funding program that will help you understand the next few slides. So Congress passes a new farm bill approximately every five years. And the last Farm Bill was passed in February of 2014. And in that Farm Bill, they repealed the program that was PDR's prior funding program and created a new program that consolidates an ag land, grassland, and wetland conservation program. So as you all can imagine, implementation is ongoing, slow but steady. And one of the biggest changes that affected our program is that the deed of easement template we used to acquire easements, which is a nearly 30-page legal document, was no longer valid. And we had to start from scratch and write that and incorporate the new federal guidelines while at the same time maintaining what was important for PDR on a local level. So we finally had that approved in April of this year and are now moving forward with acquisitions. And while they have been implementing the program, even though NRCS has not been ready to close farms and have still been working out the kinks and everything of the new program, they have been awarding funding to us on an annual basis. And the federal investment in our PDR program through the year 2014 is nearly $23 million. And if all of these farms close, it will be over $25 million. So I will get back to the slides now. So in the 2014, so right after the Farm Bill passed, that fall we were awarded funding for seven farms totaling 786 acres. and that brought our cumulative total to 29,165 acres, and we have 261 farms in the program. And the map that's on your packet was too large to put on the slide, so we gave you all a map. Everything green in that is a PDR farm, and the farms under contract have a thick black outline around those. So you can see those. Oh, there it is. Oh, sorry. Okay. Okay, I'm ready. All right. Oops. Oh, it went too far. Okay. All right. So our 2015 federal agreement, this is the funding that was awarded last fall. We had 13 farms funded. One withdrew because they decided to have a cell tower placed on their farm rather than joining PDR. So those farms total nearly 1,000 acres, and if all close, we'll bring our total to over 30,000, which will be a celebration. And so we have started appraising those farms, and that will go on for the next few months. All right. Our 2016 federal application is pending right now, and we are being told by NRCS that the award announcement may come as soon as July. And we have 10 farms on that application, and those total nearly 1,200 acres, and if all close, we'll bring our total to 31,309 acres. We also have, so our 2017 federal application will not be submitted until next year. We have three farms that are eligible for that application, and we will hold our annual application period in late summer or early fall. We also have six farms that are eligible for LFUCG non-matched funding, and those are farms, they are not eligible for federal, but they are eligible for LFUCG unmatched funding. And that concludes my presentation, so I am happy to take questions if you all have any. All right, Beth. Thank you very much. Okay. Oh, good. Anybody have any questions or comments? I don't see anyone signed on, so thank you very much. Hey, thank you all. Yep. All right. We need to return to the docket for a minute. Council Member Gibbs has a zone change that we need to amend the docket for. Council Member Gibbs. Thank you, Mayor. I move to place on the May 26, 2016 docket an ordinance for a zone map amendment. from a high-density apartment, R4 zone, to a high-rise apartment, R5 zone, for .59 net acres, .69 gross acres, for properties located at 256 and 260 Lexington Avenue. This would be without a public hearing. So moved. Second. It's a motion by Council Member Gibbs to amend the docket and second by Council Member Akers. What was it? Council Member Bledsoe. 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. All right. Next on our agenda, council reports. If you'll please sign up for council report. Council Member Maloney. Thank you, Mayor. If I could have somebody from finance come up, I need to ask a question. that Council Member James and I have been getting a lot of calls on about LexServe, the people that have a $300 bill and they're being cut off. And to get on the list, to get back on it, from what I understand, it's taken a long time for them to get their water turned back on. Is there a process of how long it was? Is there something going on? Once they cut it off, how quick can we get somebody in to either negotiate or try to work with these people to get the water back on? Is there a problem that we're having? Let me – I'll give you the recap, and then we can follow up with Rusty Cook from the Division of Revenue if you have a specific. We did have a complaint from a citizen who did not have their water turned back on in a timely manner. and we can go over the details of that. There was an extenuating story behind that situation. But on a regular basis, we are notifying people when they are on the cutoff list for failure to pay the sewer. I think it's a 10-day notice that goes out. They can come in and work with us on a payment plan. if they fail to do so and their water is turned off, that if they come and pay, I think it's by 3 o'clock. Oh, Rusty's here. Sorry. It's 2 o'clock. If they come in, they get their water turned on the next day, within 48 hours. However, if the water company goes out there and turns the meter on and it shows usage, they immediately shut it back off and then work to contact the customer so that we don't get the water turned on and flood their house due to a water leak or someone leaving a faucet or a shower on. So it's not people. Maybe I missed. Are there people that I've heard that have been cut off and are trying to get a meeting set up, and when they meet, it takes a long time for them to get the water back on? Is that still a problem there? There could be some trying to get in at adult and tenant services. However, we've worked with them. So say I get my water shut off today, and I can't get in to see ATS for two weeks. Well, we get a call so that we can get their water turned back on in the interim until they get that meeting with ATS so that they can make their down payment and get on a payment plan to get caught up on their bill. So in some cases it takes two to three weeks before that? For them to get their bill caught up, we get their water turned back on as soon as we hear that they have a meeting scheduled with Adult and Tenant Services. because of their backlog on what they're trying to get covered. I don't know what the timing is when you go in with them, but it's not something they go in and immediately get the ability to collect money from them to help pay the bill. Now, that communication with the Dell Tenant Service and you all, is that okay? Or could there be a breakdown that causes when somebody goes to the Dell Tenant Service and says, I need help, and they said it's going to be two or three weeks, How does that get back to you guys to say they made the list and we'll turn the water back on? It's direct contact, back and forth, either through email or phone call. We have a pretty good relationship with them and have meetings with them periodically to make sure our processes aren't being dropped. Okay. Because I know we're going to be getting a lot of calls. I just want to be sure that we're on. It's a good question. And the calls have increased because we've increased the number of shutoffs, as well as letters sending out to get our bills down. Let me ask you this question. What if somebody does not qualify for adult tennis service because they're overqualified income? I mean, I'm just trying to figure out how that works, too, because you're going to get a lot of people calling that say I'm not qualified, and how do I get my water back on if I'm having problems financially, but I can't turn it on now because I've got other issues. How do you all work with them on that? We give them referrals to other locations, churches and such in Lexington that help fund their deposit to get their water turned back on, and then we set up a payment plan with them. We treat everyone the same, whether it's a customer that's in a million-dollar home that doesn't pay their water or someone who's struggling. We don't discriminate at all. So how long is that? I can understand the adult tennis service. How long, if they don't qualify, how long does it last for that process? So they come in and pay their 25% down in the turn-on fee, and we turn it back on. We put an order in to turn it back on immediately. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to provide a brief update on the Southland Association Street Fair, which was held on the absolute coldest day in May, on May 14th. And despite it being absolutely freezing, Vice Mayor Kay, Richard Maloney, Peggy Henson, Jake Gibbs, and myself were there, along with actually thousands of other people braving the cold and shopping. I just want to say thanks for the council's support in this endeavor. It was a very successful event. The vendors all were very, very pleased, and the investment in Southland Drive is very much appreciated. I also want to recognize that Hilary Bauman and Jamie Rogers were co-chairs of this event, and Jamie did a phenomenal job. So thank you, Mayor. All right. Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Mayor. I just kind of wanted to give Council an update on some of the activities that's been taking place in Douglas Park with the Centennial Celebration. We're off to a, well, not a good start. We're just, we're off and running. There's a lot of momentum around this celebration at the park. Last week, I know it got a lot of media coverage, and it was all over Facebook, about the Leadership Lexington's class. The class is called 100 Hands, and the leaders in the class is Melissa Murphy-in-law and Commander Maynard. on the police department. There were so many people at this field day. They built the ultimate field day experience for Booker T. Washington Elementary in Douglas Park that I don't want to go down the list and leave anybody off, but I know both the chiefs, Chief Chilton and Chief Barnard, were there. There were several community officers. It looked like the whole command staff from the fire department along with some firefighters from Finney Drive. and there was a whole lot of parties involved with making that a successful event for those students. I mean, I had my daughter out there with me that day, and she wanted to take off her college sweatshirt and jump in and see if she could get some free prizes and join the festivities. The kids really enjoyed it. So I would just like to tip my hat to them and everybody involved with making that a success. there are a ton of events still planned for this summer. I'll share the calendar with council members and encourage anybody and everybody to come out and participate and be a part of these events. I know we're doing I also wanted to mention there are some commission members that are going to be on WKYT tomorrow for the 10 o'clock news show, and they're going to be talking about our efforts with Douglas Park and the Centennial. So I think some of us may be at the Lex Tran ribbon cutting, but I'll try to catch it later. And that was also something I wanted to announce, that Lex Mark's going to do a ribbon, sorry, Lex Tran is going to do a ribbon cutting for their new facility on Loudon Avenue. So I think they're pretty excited about opening that building up to the public and let them see what they got going and their ability to provide better service to the public that uses the public transportation system here in Lexington. So I plan to be at that event as well. I'd also like to take a minute to announce a quarterly neighborhood association leaders meeting tomorrow at the Living Arts and Science Center. It's going to be an opportunity to get neighborhood leaders throughout the district a tour of the new expanded, renovated facility and also give them the opportunity to share with other neighborhood leaders about what's going on in their community. So once again, if anybody has the time and is available, feel free to come by to Living Arts and Science Center at the mall at 6 p.m. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Brown. I'll ask Council Member Lamb next and I'll turn it over to the chair over to the vice mayor. Thank you, Mayor. I just have two items that I want to refer into my General Government and Social Services Committee. The first is an update on the Adult and Tenant Services Audit to have a report out on that later this year. And I so move, please. Second. Motion and a second. To refer to which committee? I'm sorry. To the General Government and Social Services Committee. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. All right. And then secondly, it has been brought to my attention from the administration that there have been some changes in the Fair Labor and Standards Act exemption levels. and so I would like to place that into committee for a presentation on the impact of the newly released changes to the General Government and Social Services Committee. I so move. Second. Motion or second to refer to General Government and Social Services Committee. Discussion on the motion? Any none? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries. And that is all. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Fred Brown. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Just a couple of things. I want to remind councilmembers and the public that there will be a graduation class of the police academy. I think this Thursday at 1130. So I'm not sure how many police officers does anybody know, how many we have graduating Thursday. Is there a number on that? 41? Great. So that's a big class. And then I wanted to commend, there was an article in the paper on police targeting some liquor license at the clubs here in Fayette County, and I wanted to commend especially Commander Rodney Sherrod and the police department about looking into this particular area. And there's a lot of public safety and a lot of problems in that area, and I think they're going about it in the right direction. and I want to commend them and hope that they can get some things going there that would be good for our community. That's all. Thanks. Thank you. Council Member Gibbs. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Steve, you got that photograph? Thank you. I went to a really fun event the other day on Sunday. Vice Mayor Kay and myself represented the city government. There were a whole lot of citizens there, and this is the unveiling of a new historical marker on Mentel Park and that's Ann Olegos doing the unveiling who did a whole lot of work for it and it's really cool and I was really pleased that they put it on the lawn with a tree on each side because I was worried if they put it on the roadway where they have those stone pillars that get whacked periodically, I thought they'd have to have a backup marker but they did well with that one. And then Tom Evelyn, Howard Leader, columnist and resident of Mentel Park was the Masters of Ceremonies at this, and then most of us went over to the Bell House, and Tom did a PowerPoint lecture about the history of Bell Court Neighborhood and Mentel Park. They were developed at the same time. And then after that, we had a lecture from a descendant of the Mentel family, and they're also cookies and stuff. So it was really fun, and I learned a lot. But thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Evans. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Rusty, if you could come back. I've got a few more follow-ups about LexServe. I'm sorry. I've been getting some of the same calls from citizens that are confused and trying to figure out. And the message I'm getting, and maybe I'm misunderstanding, and maybe there's some not full information on all parts, but the concern I'm getting and actually got in the past was that they don't understand why their LexServe bill is more or equal to their water bill. And they're trying to figure out how that's possible. and when their water usage hasn't changed in the last year. I'm just, I don't know what to tell them, and this was something I was going to talk to you about later, but it's been brought up, and I feel like I'm getting more questions and concerns about it, and I'm not sure where the disconnect is and what's going on, but something is going on, and I'm trying to figure out. Well, I think what something's going on is Some people are now getting noticed a little bit more within their bill. They may not have seen it before. Their balance may have been lower, and it's getting up to a level where we actually are getting to it. And the amount we charge is based on whatever the sewer rate we come up with, and it's based on the water company's usage. If you compare the two rates, it could be that it's similar. I know my sewer bill is the same with my water bill every month. Not the same exact dollar, but roughly within a dollar or two of the same amount. And I haven't looked at the actual water rates because I just pay and I don't pay attention to it. So I had to sit down and show you on paper. You'd be welcome to come down and meet with me and the supervisor. And we'd go through it with you and answer any other questions, especially if it's about specific customers and some of their complaints. Because I get some, and I talk with them, and then they understand what's going on. I appreciate that because I've had, like I said, several people, and they're like, I don't understand how I can have a $300 Lexer bill, and that is not my water usage. And our rate increase didn't increase that much. So, yeah, I will appreciate it. I'll take you up on that meeting because I am getting more calls and emails about that. As I mentioned earlier, we're doing 100 shutoffs now. Before we were doing about 25 a week, we're doing 100 a week. And we're sending out anywhere from three, I think roughly 300 letters to delinquent customers letting them know that, hey, you're eligible to be shut off if you don't come in and make a payment and get on a payment plan. So that could be why we're getting noticed. Well, we can talk about that, but I don't think these are people that would normally be negligent. But, again, we can talk about that. I appreciate the offer. Just reach out and get a meeting, come down, and we can go through it all with you. Okay, thank you. Welcome. Thank you. Council Member Feimer. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I appreciate the Mayor and the Council's indulgence. I needed to take a brief respite. Returning now to do the Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee summary of motions from our April the 19th meeting. Our second item of business had to do with the Neighborhood Traffic Management Program, which is an item we had taken up previously in committee, and it had lively discussion about and a lot of interest in on behalf of some of the council members. At the end of this presentation, we groomed a couple of answers that everyone seemed in agreement with. So a motion was made by Evans to approve the proposed revisions and resolution as presented. It was seconded by Mazzotti, and it passed without dissent. The exact verbiage is in our packet as pages 56 and 57. I've looked at it. Staff has looked at it. I believe it very accurately reflects the changes in the traffic management program that we agreed to that day. And I would now so move adoption on behalf of the committee. I have a motion and a second. to you want to place this as a on the on the docket for the full council yes sir motion to place it on the docket i have a motion and a second discussion on the motion seeing none all in favor please say aye any opposed that motion passes thank you sir third we took up the financial performance of the materials recycling facility or the murph again this is a discussion that we had had previously and this was in my opinion kind of a follow-up to it. During that time frame, we had conversation back and forth about the idea of increasing the affiliate fee from $35 per ton to $50 per ton. I don't believe we've taken this up anywhere else, so I think we should take it up as part of the committee at this time. So a motion was made by Gives to approve increasing the affiliate processing fee from $35 per ton to $50 per ton as presented. This was seconded by Mazzotti and the motion passed without dissent and I would so move on behalf of the committee at this time. I have a motion and a second to move this forward to the full council. Discussion on the motion? Do we know all in favor, please say aye. Who seconded? All right, good. Thank you. All right. I'm sorry. I got distracted. Any opposed? That motion carries. All right. Our next item was stormwater improvement plan project efficiencies. This was a rather intricate conversation about how we first started trying to solve stormwater problems around the county based on a point system and came back for an illustrative discussion about how to make these changes and have them be more efficient or have several projects that were of similar kind in nature and geography group together so we could provide more outcomes by grouping things together rather than following the list, which the list is something we have followed for many, many years and is not dynamic in nature and does not provide the opportunity for us to gain on our goal. So after, again, a healthy discussion here, a motion was made by Hensley to accept the resignation to group consent decree projects by watershed to minimize risks and maximize the overall impact to a common watershed area. This was seconded by Fred Brown, and the motion passed 8 to 1 with Council Member Evans being the lone nay vote, and I would now so move on behalf of the committee. Second. Motion to second to move this forward to the full council. Discussion on the motion. Seeing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Then we had an update to the Division of Water Quality Projects, which we took, and then we had a lot of items we referred from committee, and we adjourned at 2.40. That concludes my report, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Thank you. That brings us back. Councilman Hensley. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Friday night I was able to go to Keeneland to the God's Pantry Taste of the Bluegrass event with my wife and 1,700 other people and 69 vendors, and they had cookies. Did not, no joke. So it was a great event. I was trying to make a joke with following Jake there. But failed joke bomb. But it was a great event, and I wish everyone would participate in that. 20 years ago when God's Pantry built the building, I worked with Lakesmark to actually configure the network and the servers out there personally myself and watch that project flourish. And they actually have a food pantry in London, Kentucky, that they've opened up back in my hometown now. So they've spread through the region. It's a humongous program if you've not worked with God's Pantry. And I encourage everyone to check that out. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just wanted to publicly thank our fire department. Last Tuesday, there was a horrible house fire in Childsburg neighborhood. One house was completely destroyed. I think four other houses were impacted because of the closeness of the houses. The house that was destroyed, the mother works at the Athens-Cilesburg Elementary cafeteria. Her child is a middle schooler at Hayes Middle School. They do have an older child that's out of the home. But I just want to thank the fire department for coming and to the community for reaching out. They have set up a GoFundMe page because the house was completely destroyed. They lost everything. All they walked out of the fire with is clothes on their back. I have started conversations with fire, and I plan to start a conversation with planning. I'm not at this time ready to put anything into committee, but I do have concerns in that area with the width of the streets. If you have cars parked on both sides, the ability for a fire truck to be able to get through and maneuver. And there is a concern that if there is a house fire, that four other houses are impacted by one fire. So I think this is something in the future we do need to look at. I'm not ready at this point to put anything forward, but I do think it is a concern, especially in some of these new neighborhoods. But my thoughts and prayers are with the families affected. Thank you. Thank you. I see nobody else signed up for council comments. That allows us to move to mayor's report. Is there a motion to approve? Motion and a second. on the mayor's report, any discussion of the motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. All opposed, no. That motion passes. Next, public comment for issues not on the agenda, and we have Mr. Robert Dalton signed up. Mr. Dalton, give your name and address, and you'll have three minutes. Thank you, Vice Mayor, Council Members. A whole bunch of new people, new faces here, at least mostly to me. Robert Dalton, I'm here on behalf of American Legion Post 341 at 1493 Leestown Road, which I am finance officer. I'm also District 7 Vice Commander and District 7 Commander-elect to start next month, about a month from now. But I want to come here to promote our veteran family fishing tournament that is going on in 11 days on Saturday, June 4th. The requirement is you have a veteran that's in your family to come along and bring their ID along with them. It's going to be at Jacobson Park Shelter 1. It'll start at 9 o'clock in the morning with registration at that time. The tournament will start at 10 o'clock and end at 1 o'clock. And the whole activity will end at 2 o'clock that day. We will also be cooking up hamburgers, hot dogs, so we have food items to go along with it. We'll have games such as volleyball, cornhole, games for the kids. We have a couple of pinatas for different ages of kids. We're going to have popcorn, cotton candy, face painting, sack races. There is no fishing from waiting out in the lake. There is no alcohol or drugs allowed. Also, no boating for this event. There's no cost at all to this. We're just trying to put it back to the community. We're a veteran service organization, and we're just trying to support the veterans in our community, show them the veterans organization, the American Legion, just isn't a bunch of old guys sitting around drinking beer in a club. We do get out there. I know because I'm the finance officer, so I sign the checks for our donations to different groups. We hope everybody will be able to come out to that. We do ask, though, that the veterans bring a DD-214 or some type of veteran ID, if I didn't mention that already. It's been a while since I've stood up here, so I'm a little bit nervous. But let me just take a look and make sure I've got everything else on here. Oh, and please bring your own fishing poles. If you have one, we have limited supplies available left. So if you don't have one, maybe you can borrow one from somebody. but we will be trying to get some extra to have for the kids and for everybody. It's just going to be a fun day out there. It will be rain or shine. So just please come on out, have a great time, meet some other veterans. You're more than welcome to sign up to join the American Legion if you want, but it's not a requirement. We're just giving back to the community. Thank you. Thank you. I have nobody else signed up to speak on public comment. I'll have a motion to adjourn. Motion and second. Without objection, we stand adjourned.