Motion carries. We have no budget amendments, but we do have a few items of new business for consideration. Is there a motion? I have a motion from Council Member Gorton, a second from Council Member Ellinger to approve the items of new business. Any discussion? Council Member Stennett. Let's see, on a couple of them, on I particularly, I know Commissioner Coe was back there in the back. I just have some questions on this bond. This is from the 2007-2008 budget, which we're currently into 2008-2009. I'm sorry, we're in the 2007-2008 budget, but I believe you answered this earlier today, Commissioner, about the bonds that we're supposed to do here coming up for several items in this year's budget. Is this one of the same ones on item I? No, sir. That amount of money, the $425,000, was approved as a cash contribution to Lexington Center Corporation for renovation of the Opera House during the 2008, as part of the 2008 budget. Okay, well, the last line in the confusion. No, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I was doing something else. You're okay, you're okay. You're exactly right. It is part of the capital budgets. The bonds have not been sold, but this was part of the reimbursement resolution that you've already approved. Okay, so these are the ones you spoke about earlier today that we look forward to doing here in a couple of years. Yes, sir. Sorry, I'm sorry, I misunderstood. You may want to answer this one on, let's see, F. I understand it's for our Division of Police, for our DUI programs, et cetera, but in here it obligates that if we do receive this money, it obligates us in the 2009 budget to do that 50% match. Is there a reason why we have this before? Is it given the light that the mayor will be presenting the budget in two weeks? Because basically what we're doing is we're saying it's going to be in there. Well, it will be part of the mayor's recommendation to the council, and we've put a provision in each of these grant applications that says something akin to assuming the money is approved in the 2009 budget. I mean, but it is part of the match that we have calculated to bring forward to you as a recommendation from the mayor of 409. Okay, because normally on a lot of these things we wait until after the budget's been presented. Right, but some of these require application. They're not operating on our timeline. I just want to make sure it will be a part of the mayor's recommendation. It will be part, yes. Any of these that come to you beforehand are part of the recommendation. Okay, very good. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Belovitz. Mayor, I don't see Anthony Wright in the back or Joe Kelly. I was going to ask about item D, the tax abatement for pulmonary services. Can we get a public explanation, for the public, an explanation of how this was vetted before the recommendation came? And one other thing is I didn't receive any backing information for this, just the cover that's in this packet. So if we were expected to review that, we weren't able to. All right. Mr. Wright was here just a minute ago, but Jenna, do you want to come speak to that issue just a little bit? Jenna Greathouse. I actually have a representative from Pacific Pulmonary here as well. This is a project that was approved by the Economic Development Cabinet, and it gives up 1% of the local payroll tax from the city and 4% from the state. And it has to be approved by the state government first. They have already gone through their public hearing with the state, and this company plans to create 240 new jobs. And if you have further questions for me, and I'd like to introduce our guest. Hi, I'm Chad Martin. I'm the Chief Financial Officer of Pacific Pulmonary, and we're very pleased to have the opportunity to move our facilities here to Lexington. I just want to reiterate that the economic incentives offered by the State of Kentucky and the City of Lexington were one of the major reasons why we chose to move our workforce to the city, and we're very pleased with how we've started our business. We're building out about 25,000 square feet and hope to move into that in the May-June timeframe. We're in temporary space now, and we're about 30 active employees currently and hope to be by 240 by the end of next year. He may want to give, if you don't mind, give a little overview of where some of your employees are coming from. We have actually been pleased to be able to offer employment to a number of the employees at the Chase facility that is shutting down in the city, and that's been a source of several of our managers, and hopefully as those employees phase out of Chase, it will coincide with our ramping up our business. So we're hoping to provide incentives for employment for those employees. We're also finding good talent who are just responding to our general solicitations for employment in the city. Is that all, Mr. Blevins? Council Member McCourt. I just wanted to say welcome. Thank you very much for locating in Lexington. As a city that's very dependent upon payroll taxes as our only form of revenue, seemingly, you are a very welcome addition to have here. And my question was going to be how many jobs you have currently and when do you ramp up to the 240, and you answered that. Do you see ancillary business being drawn in from a positive experience here? Is 240 the cap? 240 is not the cap. 240 is what we budgeted for our internal needs for our current business. We certainly hope to grow our business, and frankly, having a position here in Kentucky may bring us to actually have more of our operating assets and centers in and around this part of the country, too. So I hope that it won't be the cap. Where are you located? Where would this facility be? The permanent facility would be on Georgetown Road. We're currently on Fortune Drive in a temporary facility. Great. And I had one other question. I can't think what it is. Thank you very much for being here. Thank you. Appreciate it. Any further questions for Mr. Martin, Ms. Greathouse? Council Member Wayne. I was interested to know why you selected Lexington for your expansion. Could you give us just a couple of the key points? We actually did a nationwide search. Our company is actually based in California. And when we went to look for a centralized operations, we engaged a firm who worked with us, and we looked all over the United States of America. And we were drawn to Kentucky both for the quality of the labor pool, frankly, the ability of persons seeking employment, as well as the local universities and the incentives which were offered to us. So the combination of all those factors led to winning out over a number of other locations sprinkled throughout the Midwest and Southeast. Well, thank you very much. I, too, would like to welcome you to central Kentucky and Lexington, and you made a good choice. We feel like we did. Thank you. And if it's okay, can I make one last comment? The consultant that they worked with was one that we go to a variety of different cities and call on economic development consultants, and this lead came to us from a consultant out of Dallas, Texas that we've called on in the past. Thank you very much. Mr. Martin, we're delighted to have you. We have one other question. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mayor. Could I ask, could you give us a salary range for the 200 jobs? The range, if I remember correctly from the paperwork we submitted, was a minimum salary of $10.30 an hour to a range of, I think, the $43 an hour for managerial pool. So there's a set minimum that we have to adhere to that we plan on, and then as we hire managerial employees, the market will more dictate that, but we expect that will be $40, $50 an hour. Do you know how many will be at that higher end? The higher end will probably be supervisor managers on a ratio of probably, you know, I don't remember exactly what it is, 15 to 1 probably is probably more likely. Okay. Thank you and welcome. You're welcome. Thank you. Vice Mayor Gray. Thank you, Mayor. Actually, I was going to just tag a little bit onto what Jenna mentioned very parenthetically. In addition to thanking you all and welcoming, like all the other members of the council and the mayor have done, I think it's worthwhile for us to put, Jenna said very quickly, was that this was a consultant, the lead came through a consultant in Dallas, and I think it's worthwhile for the council to understand that dynamic being a little bit, I guess I'll be a little bit immodest on this, or not necessarily immodest, but going into the trade. That is the function that Jenna was referring to is developing the contacts, the relationships with these consultants which lead then to the projects, and those sorts of relationships don't develop overnight. It takes literally years to develop those sorts of relationships and then for Lexington to be on the radar screen for a project. So she was saying that, and I'm amplifying it because she can't say it in the way that it perhaps needs to be illustrated to us that part of our funding, much of our funding goes towards that sort of initiative and developing and reinforcing those relationships with the consultants who do site selections. Thank you. Council Member Stephens. Thank you. I had a question, sir. What exactly does your company do? Our company is in the business of providing home respiratory care. So we provide home oxygen, respiratory medications, and sleep apnea equipment to persons in their home, primarily the elderly, and so we have branch operations in 100 locations throughout the United States, primarily in the West Coast, and what we're doing is we're trying to take a number of those activities that are occurring in the 100 locations and centralize them to occur in one place, hopefully to be able to provide more consistent and better service for our patients, as well as hopefully generate economic savings for us by getting the efficiencies of having it all in one place. So what parts of Kentucky will you serve besides Lexington? We have no operating centers in Kentucky currently, so we will just have this care center located in Lexington. But as I mentioned, now that we're in the market, we may also move here with operating centers as well, potentially. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Anything further? Farewell. Thank you very much, Mr. Martin. Welcome. We're delighted to have you. We're delighted to be here. Thank you. Any other discussion on the items of new business? If not, we'll proceed to vote. Those in favor of approving the items of new business, please let it be known by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. We're now down to the presentations, and the first one is from the Corridors Committee. Thank you, Mayor. The Corridors Committee had its regular meeting on the third Tuesday of the month, March 18th, and our usual crowd was present. This committee is a committee of the council that involves people in the administration as well as the council and various outside parties such as landscape architects, other firms that are engaged in that type of work. We were asked to sign a letter from the airport which is applying to the transportation enhancement grant to improve the entrance to the airport, which we were happy to do. I did have a chance to talk to the airport also, and they said they would find a way to include the median on Man O'War. I don't know if you've noticed, but there's a median when you turn to go into the airport, and unfortunately all the trees in that thing are dying of some disease which I can't pronounce, and the trees have to come out and be replaced and see if they can put that under their transportation enhancement grant because we have run out of money for trees in the city. We also have a Newtown Pike corridor ordinance which the committee reviewed, and we'll bring that up for a blue sheet. This would affect the Newtown Pike from the urban service boundary north down to Main Street. It has nothing to do with the Newtown Pike project south of Main Street, and this would impose certain which we think are not very restrictive items on further development along that corridor. We're particularly concerned about it from New Circle Road down to Main Street. As I said, it's a very old part of town, and as new development occurs, this ordinance would apply to that, which would require certain setbacks, vegetation, and other things that would enhance the appearance of that corridor. We're looking forward to the changes we hope will occur for Eastern State Hospital because that will help that corridor. Also, the tree board wanted us to join with them in requesting $50,000 be placed in the administration's budget for downtown tree maintenance. As you may recall, we had a clear cutting of the trees on Main Street a few years ago, and they were replaced courtesy of the Triangle Foundation. They also agreed when they bought the trees, prepared the tree wells, and put them in, that they would maintain them for a year, which they did. They even went beyond that a little bit, and they bought the water from them last year. The tree board would like to see those trees preserved, of course, as would all of us. It will take a little special money to do that. We have several other things going on. One is the corridors committee would like to see the ditch that runs along Richmond Road from in front of the Adler Country Club down across the street to the firehouse. You may not notice the ditch because it's pretty well covered with honeysuckle and other undesirable vegetation. You can see some glintings through the trees sometimes of various objects such as shopping carts and other things which have collected in the ditch in the creek. So we would like to clear that up. However, that's going to take a little money, and I've been in contact with the Transportation Cabinet of the state and also Environmental Cabinet to try and find some grants which will help on that. Tim Gray, who's a member of our corridors committee and a forester, reported on the Tate's Creek project, which they've just about completed. As you may have noted in the last few weeks, they've planted trees almost down to the shopping center. They have a few more trees to plant on the median just south of Alumni Drive. That will complete their project. And we're all looking forward to spring, if it ever gets here, when these will start showing up. We also had a report from our bicycle pedestrian activities, which we're very interested in, and they're ongoing. We have two transportation enhancement grants which have been awarded to the government, one for the sales road of about $250,000 to do some work on it to improve its appearance, and also one for Newtown Pike, which goes from Maine north, which will also have a similar amount which can be spent on improving that corridor. We do have some limitations there because the State Highway Department has announced that they're going to redo Newtown Pike from the interstate down to the interchange on the New Circle Road, probably in the year 2011. So we're hesitant to do much there when they're going to come in and put in a six-lane road and take about 20 feet on each side, which will require a great deal of work to get it back to what it is now, as far as its appearance is concerned. I'd be happy to answer questions, perhaps not now, but later if anybody on the Council wishes. Mr. Blevins and I are the two Council members, and we welcome anybody else who would like to come to help improve our corridors going in and out of Lexington. Thanks. Thank you, Dr. Stephens. You all are doing great work. Hang in there. Any questions for Council Member Stephens? All right. Council Member Gorton, Planning Committee. Thank you, Mayor. The Planning Committee held its regular monthly meeting on March the 18th, and we devoted our entire two-hour meeting to the infill and redevelopment recommendations. Chris King, Director of Planning, gave a PowerPoint presentation with the recommendations, which came from the Steering Committee. And our own Vice Mayor and Dr. Stephens, Council Member DeCamp, Council Member Blues, and Council Member James have been serving on the Steering Committee. And it's my understanding the Steering Committee has one more meeting, April the 10th. And one of the things that will come from the Steering Committee that we have not yet seen is the implementation checklist. There were several items discussed in our meeting. Some time was spent on small area plans, which it was felt are critical to the overall look of the community. And Chris King stated that each one of those costs anywhere from $100,000 to $200,000, depending on what's in the small area and what is being planned. Once the Steering Committee has finalized its work, any recommended changes which require ordinance changes will come to the Council through the Planning Committee. And then there was a good bit of discussion from Mr. Stan Harvey and Mr. Steve Kay, who were two of the folks who helped. There were three total, Ed Holmes, Steve Kay, and Stan Harvey, who helped facilitate the Steering Committee through its recommendations. And there was then quite a bit of discussion about increasing the bike, pedestrian, and transit opportunities in Lexington. And we found out that Lexington, I think we all knew this, is probably the only place in the country where the city has a spoken hub road system without an interstate running through the city. And this creates quite a bit of challenges to the bike and pedestrian and transit opportunities. So there were no motions coming out of our committee, Mayor, so this ends my report. Thank you very much. Any questions for Council Member Gordon? All right. That takes us down to a little proclamation, which I would like to present. And I'd like a former member of our Division of Police, Captain Howard Rupert, to join me at the podium. We have three of our members, too, to walk up here that's part of our Mayor's Alliance as well, sir. Ms. Lindsey is our administrator of the Mayor's Alliance and other things. She does all the help here. Mike Kleinpeter here. Emmy, come on up here. We represent quite a few people in the community that volunteer their time and try to work toward substance abuse and particularly alcohol as we are asking for this proclamation today, Mr. Mayor. As I've had the privilege of serving in this office for a little while now, I have come to appreciate how much work Captain Rupert and a number of other folks, particularly Lindsey, put into this whole area of substance abuse. It is a significant issue for our community. And I've prepared a proclamation which has a number of facts that I think are appropriate for us to remind ourselves of from time to time. So let me just read the proclamation and then we'll go from there. Whereas underage drinking is defined as alcohol consumed by anyone under the age of 21, and whereas the use of alcohol by adolescents hinders normal brain development, and whereas the average age when young people first try alcohol is 11 years for boys and 13 years for girls, and whereas an alarming number of young people start binge drinking around age 13, a practice that often continues through college, and whereas adolescents who begin drinking before age 15 are four times more likely to develop alcohol dependence than those who begin drinking at age 21, and whereas it has been estimated that over 3 million teenagers are alcoholics, and whereas the three leading causes for death for 15 to 24-year-olds are automobile crashes, homicides, and suicides, with alcohol being a leading factor in all three, and whereas children who are warned about alcohol by their parents and children who report being close to their parents are less likely to start drinking. Now, therefore, I, Jim Newberry, Mayor of the Lexington-Fayette-Urban County Government, do hereby proclaim the month of April 2008 as Alcohol Awareness Month and call upon parents, peers, schools, government agencies, public and private institutions, and businesses to support efforts that will discourage underage drinking throughout our community. Thank you very much for all that you do. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. Thank all of you all for your support. Yes, ma'am. Thank you for receiving the proclamation from our county government. Is it the month of April? Can you tell us some other events that will be going on or any other activities that maybe our citizens would want to be a part of? I'll call on my support people. Sure. I presented a couple weeks ago at a council meeting for Keep It Real, where students make a 30-second commercial about underage drinking. On April 22nd at Lexington Legends Stadium, they'll have Keep It Real Day where they'll recognize all the students who participated in the videos and they'll show the winning video on the jumbotron and stuff like that. A bunch of schools are doing some activities as well, so check with your local schools, see what they're doing, the Family Youth Resource Center. That's all I really know of at this point, but I'll be more than happy to look into that for you. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you all again. Any other questions? Thank you all very much. It's my pleasure to turn the mic over to Vice Mayor Green. My mistake. I apologize. That was me. That's right. It's been a crazy week. I'll be playing the part of Vice Mayor Green today. I apologize. Yes. Allow me to introduce to you. Thank you. Today is a special day. With us, council and folks that are watching, we have a portion of the current Leadership Lexington class that is done through Commerce Lexington. I know Council Member Stennett has been very, very involved with this group and is on the board. I had the good fortune of getting to know this class upon their retreat earlier in the fall last year. And one of the practices of the Leadership Lexington class every year is to pick a project that the members will do to improve the community, and it's not uncommon for them to pick one and or two projects. In this case, this Leadership Class of 43 split into two groups, and during the retreat, one of the groups that was led through facilitation started looking a little bit bigger as to where we were going as a community with regard to the environment and to the green movement. Before consent decrees and things like that were a hard and fast fact, this group has started working on trying to get their hands around moving Lexington to a green movement and what does that look like. And when you say green movement, that can mean a lot of things, and as this group found out, it was very difficult to start winnowing that down. What they are here today to do, and I wanted to introduce Luke Morgan, who will speak on behalf of this group, is to present to this council some of their recommendations as to how this city and we as a body can begin to move Lexington to a more environmentally green and sustainable community. Oftentimes we hear presentations in this room, and you don't really know exactly what to do next. They're good presentations, but there's no real action steps. This group has gone that extra mile not only to meet with our folks in recycling and across government, but they are prepared to bring forth a draft ordinance that I would like to bring forward a little bit later on as it relates to recycling on public grounds and really making a move towards that. But Luke, if you'd like to come up and present after this is over with, if council has any questions for them or comments, I'm sure they would welcome them. Luke? Thank you, sir. Good afternoon. Y'all, on behalf of the Leadership Lexington Group, we do wish to thank you for your time, for this opportunity to talk with you and present to you findings that we've made during the course of our project and present to you proposed ordinances. I'm sorry, one ordinance, a proposed ordinance that will address, we believe, the recycling that needs to occur at public events. Before I get going, though, I do want to take just a second to thank Jay McCord for his time, for his effort. For those of you who have been involved in Leadership Lexington before, it may have been a trip over to the Radisson or something here in town. Jay went up to Pine Mountain with us during a retreat, and we've been pleased and delighted to have him with us ever since. He's met with us many times. He's given us a lot of his time and attention and really has shown himself to be a good friend to this group, to all the Leadership Lexington, and particularly this group. Members of this group are back here in the back row. It's sort of like college or school where everybody tends to hide in the background, and that's exactly where members of this group are. I would like to ask for the show of hands of the council, how many persons here have hosted a party at your home? Okay. And at that party, please raise your hand if you have made more garbage at that party than you probably would have on any other given night when you didn't have a party. Everybody agree with that? That's the whole thing about this proposed ordinance and about our work. What we're looking at is when Lexington hosts a party, when our streets, our parks, our buildings are used to have parties, it seems that there is a lot of garbage that's produced and therefore a great opportunity to have that garbage recycled. There are really two reasons why we believe this is necessary. Jay mentioned about the green movement, and the first component of this is the green movement, and that is the green of money. This is a moneymaker. The second aspect, the second reason for this is this continues to put Lexington as a community in a leadership role for our commonwealth. This event recycling presentation here is built on our group looking around our community. We've been to other places. We have been out to Keeneland. We've been to U.K. football games. We've seen the amounts of potentially recyclable waste that can be collected. Now, granted, Keeneland and Memorial Coliseum or Commonwealth Stadium, those aren't city properties. Those would not come within this ordinance. But that is where the leadership of the council comes in, showing other areas how to do it and how to do it right. We've met with the Division of Waste Management personnel. We've asked them, how do you do this? Please tell us what works, what doesn't work. We've put in practice at various locations around the community with the assistance of persons from recycling, the waste management, these recycling containers. For example, we went to the Lexington Invitational Tournament out at Masterson Station. It's a youth soccer tournament where there's over 100 teams from not just Kentucky but surrounding states. We, with the assistance of waste management, put these containers out there, and we learned some really valuable lessons. In short, we have an idea of what would work. We're not trying to come up with something that's done in Timbuktu or wherever and apply it to Lexington. We're looking from what Lexington has and apply it to our community. We have the technology. We have a good working recycling program. According to the information supplied on the LFUCG website, of those persons who use the waste management for LFUCG, 67% participate in the recycling program. That does not include those persons who use the private waste collection. With minor modifications in equipment and in a collaborative effort with division of waste management personnel and persons who run these events, this will be a successful program. The resources generated from this ordinance, from this proposal, from this work, will be not just that waste that's collected, recycled, and sold on the market, but it is the resources that are saved in the landfills when you don't have to throw away that garbage. And as I'll discuss in just a minute, there's also branding and other marketing opportunities that we propose for this ordinance. We have the opportunities to showcase Lexington's leadership. Here's a list off of the LFUCG website of upcoming events that Parks and Recreation sponsor. These events run from Jacobson Park out to Masterson Station, from Constitution Park down to Shillito. It's all over our community. This is an opportunity for people not just in Fayette County to use these resources, but this is when persons from surrounding counties and even surrounding states come to Lexington. They will see what Lexington does, the thoughtful and progressive measures taken by Lexington in collecting its garbage and recycling it. The additional savings for this program won't come just from the city-sponsored events. This list here shows that which is sponsored by the city. What this ordinance talks about is any event, whether it's public or private, that uses public properties. So, for example, if there is a big wedding that has more than 300 people that's going to be using a city-owned piece of property, that would come within the scope of this ordinance. Just like we did at the Lexington Invitational Soccer Tournament a few months ago out at Masterson Station. When I sent this PowerPoint to you all last week, I did not have a letter at that time. In fact, we just got it today from LISA, the Lexington Youth Soccer Association. It's dated today, and this letter that I'd ask that this go into the record. What this letter does is show LISA's unqualified support for the ordinance. This is one of the affected entities that has been, we've presented this to them. They've given them a sample ordinance. They've looked at it. They wholeheartedly endorse this. The events and the definition of an event here is key to this ordinance. It's only city property, only that property owned by LFUCG, where 300 or more persons are expected to be within a 24-hour period. It would rule out those things that are owned by UK or other private organizations, but it would include such things as the upcoming Cinco de Mayo Festival, the Roots Festival, the Bluegrass State Games. And I can tell you from experience that I saw the mayor on television a couple days ago talking about expanding cornhole for, or putting, having cornhole be placed on the agenda for the Bluegrass State Games. And there's a lot of recycled products I've seen that are created during cornhole games. You have a state legislator that wants to make it out of this. The last bullet point on this for potential events is something that, quite frankly to me, would be the most challenging, and that's at Rupp Arena. But it's also the most rewarding. Once a week, sometimes twice, three times a week, you have 20,000 persons going to Rupp Arena, and to capture that, to recycle that, and to sell that back on the open market would be a huge boon for our community. A copy of the proposed ordinance, I trust, has been provided to you, and I'm just going to go through these, touch on some of the high points. It's a very brief ordinance. The ordinance comes after looking at what other cities and states around our country have done. It's a combination of principally two cities, San Diego and Pittsburgh, based on what we have here in Lexington. In addition to defining what the event is and what a community activity is, a community activity shoulders part of this responsibility. This is not something that's put entirely on LFUCG personnel. The community activity, that event must come up with someone who acts as their coordinator, and this person would have responsibilities to contact Division of Waste Management, to arrange for waste management to drop off, distribute, and collect the containers, and make sure that these containers are placed one-to-one next to a herby, if you will, a municipal, a non-recyclable waste container. The coordinator shall also assist with the LFUCG and Division of Waste Management in educating the persons who attend this event. One thing that we found out at Masterson Station, particularly when you're talking about persons who are coming into Lexington, when they see a blue container, they don't automatically know that is a recycling container, or a container for recycled waste. What this will help to do, and what we're proposing, is to have containers that are clearly marked for recycling, and in addition to having those clearly marked, have an area upon which branding for Lexington can be placed, as well as other marketing areas on those containers. The incentives for this really are left open to a person's imagination. Some of the things that came to my mind in terms of incentives are contests between baseball leagues. You have the baseball league at Castlewood Park competing against that at Cardinal Run, and see who can come up with the most recycled material. Another one is a design contest. All of this, though, goes to the common goal of creating public awareness of this. Plus it's fun. This is a proposal that our staff architect has come up with. It's affectionately known as the Shroud of Rosie, and what it shows here on the left in that kind of opaque cylinder that's over the Rosie is a container, and then on the right you see it with the marketing and the branding things on it. Like I said, we're at Masterson Station, we've been out at Keeneland, we've been at these other places. People don't automatically know what is a recycling container. When you put something in a container like this, you put it in this shroud, it's a lot easier for the visitors to Lexington to know what it is and what to put in there. This shows just one Rosie in that shroud, but it's easy to imagine having a long panel with three or four or however many containers permanently fixed at Rupp Arena, for example. Some additional recommendations that we made for you, and I believe these are all pretty low-hanging fruit here in terms of recycling waste, is a public advisory council. The benefit of that is it helps the public to have more buy-in into the programs that the council adopts and implements. We request that the recycling contract be looked at. For example, according to the Bluegrass Recycling Regional Recycling Committee notes that I've seen on the website, there was back in 2005 an audit done that said that the steel that was being sold through that contract was 25% less than it was on the open market. I recognize we all agree that regionalization is important and that Lexington continue to be a leader, but this is something that can be looked at and perhaps improved upon. As far as mandatory business recycling goes, if more than two-thirds of the folks who live in Lexington recycle at home, they're ready to do it at work as well. I don't know about you all, but in my workplace we go through mountains of paper every week. The composting, what we're talking about here is something particularly that would be for use at events, and that's composting food, having separate containers for uneaten food to be put into that goes into a composting area that would be then placed on land. Mr. Morgan, you have about two minutes to wrap it up. Okay, thank you. We also suggest that the council consider increasing the utilization of inmates, and as it applies to this ordinance, this really is a good fit, because what we're talking about here, for example, at the soccer tournament, the inmates can go out on a Friday evening, place the rosies there. The event occurs on Saturday and Sunday, and Sunday evening the persons at the jail come, pick up the rosies, and take them away. We also think that there is a tremendous opportunity here for the city to coordinate with U.K., particularly what occurs at football games in terms of recycling wastes there. I'm wearing this pin here that talks about the World Equestrian Games coming in just a few years. The world will be in Lexington here in just a couple of years. That means that the world will be coming with a lot of trash. We don't want them to leave it here at our doorstep. We're going to be hosting a party of global proportions here. We need to have in place the way to clean up for that party and to benefit from that party as well in a hidden cost, and that is the collection and recycling of this waste. Lexington can lead and show the horse park and the state how to do things, and one way to achieve that is by passage of this ordinance. Thank you for your attention. I'd be happy to answer and try to answer any questions you may have. That's an excellent concept. Thanks very much for bringing it to us. Any questions for Mr. Morgan, Councilmember McCord? Just a couple of thanks, first off, for all of you all's efforts, and I appreciate you coming down and, again, offering something before the budget starts, after the consent decree. It's probably the most timely time to come down. I want to thank Commissioner Askew, who came out on a really snowy day to meet with you guys over at Panera Bread to start talking about some of this stuff and how to best draft this, and I appreciate your efforts, Logan, on that. I know, Commissioner Taylor, we've talked before about one of the things that you really see for your office is creating the Citizens Advisory Group and starting to pull citizens in in all kinds of areas across the green spectrum, and I think that you have a ready-made group of 20 leaders already well-indoctrinated and well on their way to understanding the issues. Steve, I appreciate you letting them see what recycling, how we do it, and what the opportunities are, and I think as it relates to this ordinance, I think this is a great entry point, but I think it was number two on your all's recommendation that this council probably has a tremendous opportunity to look at in a very stark light, and that is the contract that we currently have as it relates to recycling, and I've looked at it a couple different times. There may be opportunity there for two to three to four times the amount of money that we receive currently, and in our current budget state, I think those are all real positive steps and positive recommendations. So, again, I thank you all for being intentional observers of our community and offering this body some very concrete next steps along with the administration some resources that they didn't have potentially a while ago. So thank you, guys. Council Member James. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Luke, for presenting that great concept. And I'm wondering if anywhere you all talked about partnering with Fayette County Public Schools, was that something that the Lexington Leadership Group looked at? Yes, ma'am. It absolutely is. We've talked with Persons with Pride Program, which has gone into the schools, and they support this, the idea of the event recycling, and as you point out, when you start at the elementary school level, you're just creating an awareness that lasts a lifetime. And for those of us who are a little older, it may be a little hard to pick up on things, but I know for my child who attends elementary school, it's second nature to him. Yeah, it becomes routine to them. So that's kind of where I was going with it, is what can we do with your research and all the work that you all have done related around youth, and will your group continue on? Will your group be available? Summertime is a great time to grab kids in a summer camp, maybe a Lexington Leadership summer camp that teaches children about recycling and have the kids create some of those containers and let them do some public art and some examples of that sort of thing. And I may have some youth that you could work with if you're interested in doing something like that. But I think as you talk to the hard-headed adults, you may want to consider really utilizing the youth, because my son's responsibility is taking out the recyclables, not that he does it all the time, but he is the person that tells us that we can't put the lids from the soda bottles inside of the recycle container. You know, he's the one educating us. So I do encourage you and will support you if there's any interest from your group in continuing this through the summer. Please contact me, and I'm happy to work with you on anything. I'll follow up on that. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Council Member Stephens. That was a good presentation, but I don't think any of us have gotten your ordinance yet, so you need to put another copy of it out some way. Yes, sir. As luck has it, Dr. Stephens, I have a few extra copies here, and I'll be happy to distribute those. But it's just a few, but in fact, I can put it up on the – That's all right. She can copy and put it in all our boxes. Yes, sir. Thanks. Yes, sir. Any – Council Member James. I was just going to say, it came – there was an email from Rebecca that came to all council members I think last week, and so we should all have a copy of that, a hard copy is cool, but we do have that by electronic version as well. Thank you, Mayor. Anything further from Mr. Morgan? Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mayor. Commissioner Askew, could you come up real quick, please? I think in the presentation, you mentioned looking at our recycle contracts. Yes, sir. I know Commissioner Askew is working with you guys on some aspect of this. Could we get some more information about what the opportunity is out there? Someone in our office is currently looking those over right now with Blue Grass Regional Recycling, and there's a history there, and I'm not sure just exactly what the status of that review is, but we'll be happy to get your report back. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Anything further? Excellent presentation. We're delighted to have several members of the Leadership Lexington Group here with us today, and we really appreciate the thought and energy you've put into this. It makes a lot of sense. Thank you. We're now down to council reports, and the first one I have on the list is Council Member Blevins. Thank you, Mayor. I move approval of this week's Neighborhood Development Fund List, please. I have a motion by Council Member Blevins and a second by Council Member Beard to approve the NDF. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, those in favor, please vote aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. That's all I have, Mayor. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. Just a couple of neighborhood announcements. First of all, tonight we'll have the Eastland Parkway Neighborhood Meeting at 630 at Christ Center Church. They're off of Eastland Parkway. And at 7 p.m. we'll have a neighborhood meeting for the residents of Old Paris Place and specifically be talking about the traffic calming measures that the Department of Traffic Engineering has been studying over the last several months. And that will be at 7 p.m. for the Old Paris Place residents at Bryan Station High School. And also, Mayor, I had asked about six weeks ago about the employee health benefit booklet from Humana. It is still not online and no one seems to be able to get copies of what our benefits are, what they cover, what they don't cover. Can we find out where we can get our employees copies? I'm still getting people asking me where we're at. It's still not activated online either. So if we could follow up and see why Humana can't provide that, I think that's something easy to clear up. Commissioner Cole, would you work with Mr. Allen and the folks in Human Resources and try to report back to Councilmember, especially Councilmember Stinnett right away on that? And then if you'd let others know on the council. I'll definitely forward it on. Thank you. And also, Mayor, earlier today we all received an announcement, a press release, regarding the scholarship press conference at 1 p.m. at Bryan Station High School today. And I know several of us were disappointed in the fact that we could not attend because it was during budget and finance meeting. And there were several dignitaries there from Sue Silverman to Dr. Todd and several others. And, you know, from my seat, this puts us in a difficult position. While the program may be justifiable and may be a good program, I think some of us feel that the timing of it was purposely excluding the council from attending. And I would like to have an opportunity or give you the opportunity to comment on that. And I know in two weeks you will be delivering your budget, and I assume this will be in there from whatever happened at the press conference today. It will. Trying to juggle the schedules of Lee Todd, Charles Shearer, Augusta Julian from Bluegrass Community and Technical College, Brad Calgo from the Council on Post-Secondary Education, Bob Quick from Commerce Lexington, Bob Sexton from the Periture Committee, and Stu Silverman. It was not an easy task. That happened to be a time when it worked on everybody's schedule, and I regret that it conflicted with the council at committee meeting, but it was the best time we could work it out. So there was no irony in having it during our budget and finance time? No. And no preliminary numbers on how many scholarships will be made available through your budget? Well, if we look to the history, there have been about 300 high school graduates the last couple of years from Fayette County High Schools who have elected to pursue majors in science, technology, engineering, and math. This program is designed to try to make tuition support available to individuals that wish to go to school within roughly an hour's drive of Lexington. So certainly some of those 300 would not go to school here. How many, we don't know. How many people might be persuaded to pursue a major in this area as opposed to some other field of study as a consequence of the tuition payments being made available, we don't know. We are working with guidance counselors to try to sharpen our pencil and make a close call on what we think a reasonable number would be, and that will be what will be in the budget. Okay. Well, and thank you for those comments. I know some other counselors may have some other comments, so I won't say anything else on that. I would just hope that I know when we met back in January and had our first retreat together, we developed six pillars, and one of those major pillars that often is the most difficult to implement is communication. And over these next 90 days, communication is going to be very critical amongst ourselves as council members, but amongst your administration and some of the things that you all hope to do in the budget. And I would just hope that everyone would keep that in mind, so that there aren't any hurt feelings on either side, and that everyone is aware of what's happening and what our intentions are, because sometimes they can be misread, and that's the last thing we need as a working body because we do have a good relationship over the last year. And I'd like to continue that. So having said that, the last thing on my run. Let me interrupt. Did you receive the memo we sent to you earlier today with the handouts from the press conference? We did. Most of us did, yes. Thank you. The last thing on our item, we all received another memo last week regarding the 2008 mayor and council salary adjustments that we annually receive based on the consumer price index. I would think that during these budget times and the revenue projections and the shortfall that we plan on facing coming up in the 2009 budget, I plan on bringing a resolution forward next Tuesday, requesting all the council members to forego their salary increase for this year, fiscal year 08, which was retroactive back to January 1. And I just want to make sure all my colleagues are aware that is coming, and I would appreciate your support on that, given the fact that we may have to make some other tough decisions in this budget. Thank you, Mayor. Vice Mayor Gray. Thank you, Mayor. On behalf especially of Council Member Tom Blues, who's worked hard to create the noise ordinance task force, I'd like to announce the members of that task force. First, for context, the task force will evaluate issues related to avoidable and controllable noise levels in our neighborhoods and city. And the members appointed to that task force are David Banks, David Barbary, David Jarvis, David Lyons, David Magner. Yeah, oh, I'm like, what are they laughing about, for heaven's sakes? We have a Don Blevins here. Council Member Don Blevins. Larry Hamilton. Council Member Linda Gorton. Linda Levstick. Rick Curtis. Ann Marie Stamatiatis. And Council Member Tom Blues. Council Member Blues, would you like to add anything to this? In addition, you have the first meeting of the task force scheduled for tomorrow? Scheduled for tomorrow at 4.30 until we're going to stop work at 6 o'clock. We're going to meet at two-week intervals until we finish our work. And I should add that Council Member Gorton is co-chairing the task force with me and will be presiding on Wednesday. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Crosby. Thank you, Mayor. Both Council Member Stinnett and Council Member Gray touched on a few things that I wanted to bring up. One is communication, but kind of in a different venue. I was wondering if there's any chance if we could bring in management partners again and have an opportunity to communicate with them a little bit about this management audit. After digesting it over the past couple weeks, I know we had the chance during our retreat for a few hours to at least ask some questions and things. After meeting with several internal constituency groups, as well as hearing a lot of input from constituents within my district and then just pouring over some of the information myself, I've just found some statements that I don't believe are based on facts in this report, and I'd like to have the opportunity to be able to talk to this group again and find out where the information came from because I'm having a hard time finding it anywhere. So I'm not sure how other council members feel, but I would at least like to have that opportunity because I know we're going to be asked to maybe make some budgetary decisions based on what's in this volume of stuff. And at this point, my comfort level would not be there without having the opportunity to find out where these facts come from because I've just not been able to find data to support things that are stated in here. So if that's something that maybe we could consider, I don't know if I have to make a formal motion. Oh, go ahead, Linda. May I comment? Sure. Because I had emailed just this week or last week about, you will recall in our retreat, we agreed that there were many questions about, in particular, public safety and the fire recommendations, and we agreed that the council would have an opportunity either to meet with or conference call with the person who did the fire assessments. And so I had asked, and Joe Kelly responded, that he would be willing to set that up. So, you know, we need to for sure coordinate that with what you're asking. And I would agree, and I would like to say that that is one area. Unfortunately, I don't believe that that's the only area. So with that being said, I mean, I guess we'd have to conference with every single area because I'm sure that everybody who's going through their different areas within the links are finding, and probably also I don't know if maybe I'm the exception to the rule and different people are talking to me about certain areas, but it's not just public safety that I'm finding or having issue with. But that is a big area that I have found several statements that I do not believe are based on fact in this report. So, you know, with that being said, I would prefer a face-to-face with them. I mean, we've paid how much for this, and some of these statements, I just don't see where they're coming from. And when I cannot find data to support where these statements are coming from, I believe it's a real problem. So I don't see where there should be an issue on why we can't have them come back. It isn't. However, it would be helpful if you could identify the specific areas that you want to address, because as you know, there were a multitude of people. I would be happy to do that from my point of view, but I would also maybe ask other council members if they would also do that, because I find it hard to imagine that I'm the only one who has questions regarding this audit in certain areas that you've gone through. So maybe if we could set a timeline on when we would like to have that submitted and have them come back, that might be a good idea. Would another week be an ample period of time? I don't mind going longer or shorter, whatever works, but just would another week for people to identify the areas where they'd like information? A week? Okay. Council Member Beard. Council Member Crosby, would it be possible at all that we could have some cross-pollination here and you could pass on to us some of that information that we may have missed and maybe we have some things that you might have missed so that we have the full body of information in front of us, all of us? Sure. Thank you. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mayor. And on that same note, I know that it's been about a month ago since we had that retreat, and we asked, I think a couple people asked them to put together a document that outlined the difference between those recommendations that require administrative privilege, those that require council action, and those that require charter change, and we still have not received that document. So could you ask management partners if they could put that together for us also? Yes, we can do that. I know they have been working on that, and I'm not sure what the current status of it is, but we can do that. Maybe we could get that information, too, before we set a timeline on it. I think that would be helpful so we know what we have to take action on prior to you. I mean, it's hard for us to know what all we have to take action on without having that list. I mean, they've had a month to do it, so surely they could get that together if they've been working on it. Yes? I don't have any problem with getting that to you first. However, to the degree you think there are inaccuracies, whether that is a matter for the council or a matter for us to deal with, I'd like to know about that because it needs to be clarified. So it would still be helpful to me, regardless of whether it's an issue for the council or an issue for the administration to deal with, if you could help us to identify things you think are inaccurate. And maybe would it be feasible to get the council administrator to collect that list? That would work. So just to try to recap all of this, if you are aware of anything you believe to be factually inaccurate, if you could send a list of those concerns to Ms. Langston, then we will compile those by next, I guess next Wednesday, get a list to management partners and arrange a time for them to get here as early in April as is feasible. Does that make sense? Does that work? And in the meantime, we'll also check on the status of their efforts to delineate what they view as something necessitating council action versus administrative action. Great. Thank you. And then also, since the vice mayor is so great at appointing task force, I've had several people contact me today, and I believe it was also mentioned today in the paper regarding this whole pension with the police and fire and maybe the possibility of appointing a task force for that. You may already be working on it, but that's been suggested by several people. I know I've even had some discussion with other council members regarding this, and perhaps you're already thinking about doing that, but that's something that was just brought to my attention by several different people. So check that off. And then, yes? Thank you, Council Member Crosby. You want to go ahead? I was just going to say, I think that based on yesterday's meeting, that the next steps may perhaps be to take the issue into some kind of task force model, administration, council working together somehow. You may want to comment on that. I think that's an appropriate approach. And just, you know, and obviously to make sure that all parties would be included. And then lastly, off task force and off communication, or on to more communication in the 7th District, we're going to be hosting at Jacobson Park ReForce the Bluegrass. This is going to be on Saturday, April 19th from 9 to 3 p.m. A few things, because they are expecting a huge turnout, you might want to call a Lex call first to register for this event. That number is 859-425-2255. Anybody who's registered or comes out to help out with the event will receive lunch and a T-shirt. We're expecting to plant 9,000 tree seedlings to create a forest in Jacobson Park. So I'm going to be out there, and I encourage everybody to come on out and join us that day. Just a few other things that children who are under 18, their parents must sign a waiver. And if you have a child that's under 16 who comes out, they must be accompanied by a parent. So thank you. That's all I have, Mayor. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to say my thanks to your staff and all those who helped put on the Sweet 16 this weekend. It is a great, great thing that so many folks enjoy. And my compliments go to Mason County. And, you know, Mason County and Maysville were absolutely the center of the universe over the last three or four days between Clooney's premiere and President Clinton's visit and them winning a state championship. And I think there's a lesson in that, that, you know, that community started rebuilding that theater and rebuilding some of the amenities around that. And it just so happens that they were ready when opportunity arose. And I think it's a lesson for us. But from the Sweet 16 side, I want to thank, again, your staff, but also some very specific people with parks. Debbie Hollerin and Martha Duncan just do a fantastic job and are always there and always so pleasant. And I really do appreciate them and what they've done. The other thing I just want to make a point about as we talk so often about economic development and what is it, and it's one of those terms that is, you know, everybody has a different definition for it. But in Lexington, it's pretty darn simple. And it is a matter of creating jobs inside the Fayette County borders. And so today was a good day. And I appreciate, Anthony, all that you've done behind the scenes and with this and the folks at Commerce Lexington to make this happen. And while we certainly celebrate 240 jobs and we welcome a company to Lexington that doesn't have any history in Kentucky, the task is still before us. We are probably still in the negative on net jobs as it relates to some of the things that have happened with Chase and Lexmark and so forth. And I would ask that we as a body and we as a government continue to push and prod and do everything that we can to get as many folks to find Lexington their home as it relates to their job. And on that front, Vice Mayor, and while we are talking task force and so forth, I would ask that sooner rather than later that we go ahead and have that beginning first meeting of that economic development task force. I know Councilmember Stennett had really pushed for that a long time. But now is the time, especially in taking the momentum of today. So, again, thank you for all that you've done. Just sort of a straw person, used to be straw man, but in regard to gender neutral language, a straw person agenda for that will be distributed to all Councilmembers just shortly. Thank you. Councilmember Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. Like Councilmember Stennett, I was a little disappointed too when I received the letter that in the first paragraph asked the Urban County Council approve the creation of a scholarship program and in the second paragraph it says we'll be joined today by several business and education leaders and could not find another time to accommodate everyone's schedule. I would think the people that are going to be approving this program should be the people that also should be involved in this. And in not being invited to it I think was probably maybe an oversight or because you realize that we had and 12 Councilmembers were at the budget and finance meeting today at 1 o'clock when this was being presented. And I think you're going to need our support when you present this to us. And not being able to be there, I have read through the materials and I understand I think the first fund hasn't shown how much it's going to cost us. But when we start looking at priorities and a budget's all about priorities, and I'm sure everybody on this Council believes that scholarships for students is a good idea in theory, but I think it's the responsibility of the state and the federal government and not the Council. I think the Council need to be good stewards of the taxpayers' money. And as you have said in your press release, you talk about it's the worst of times, the economy has slowed, money is very tight, we have to make cuts to balance the city budget. We've been told by our Commissioner of Finance we have a $25 to $30 million shortfall. And we have to make a lot of tough decisions coming up. We might have to look at laying off employees or might be able not to afford employees' world of work raises. I certainly don't want to do that, but I certainly don't want to start a scholarship program in lieu of layoffs or raises. Like I said, budgets are about priorities. In my opinion, we need to address issues in the budget that relate to the government basic services and what the charter requires and stay out of the scholarship business. Now, Mayor, if you want to seek private donations and implement a privately funded scholarship, then I would support that, like they do in Kalamazoo, Michigan that you presented in this. But when we start looking at scholarships, I think that's outside the purview of this government. I think we need to look at basic services as what we need to be doing, because I think it's a very tough economic time we're in, and we're going to have to be making cuts. And I don't think this is the time right now that we need to be adding programs, because we're going to be cutting programs. We might be cutting people's jobs. We might not be able to do raises. So from my opinion, I think that this is probably not the right time to be doing this. Thank you. As you probably also saw from those materials, I would argue that makes it even more important for us to pursue this. We, as a community, have an economy that is going to continually be in need of folks who have skills in the science, technology, engineering, and math areas. This is an effort to train our workforce. It is not unlike what we have done in an assortment of other ways. It is an effort to recognize that our local post-secondary education institutions have the capacity to do more training in this area than what they have been doing. And we'll have an opportunity to discuss it in great detail between now and the time the budget is approved. But I want the community to know that, as I discussed extensively during the campaign, as I discussed during the budget address last year, as I discussed in the State of the Merge government address this year, this is something I think is a very high priority in order for us to have the kind of economy that will generate the revenue we need to do the things we need to do with our local government. And I agree education and scholarship is important, but I think that's something that we need to leave to the private sector. Now, I'll work with you in any way I can to help get business and internships in the private sector involved, but I don't think this is really what this government needs to be doing. Thank you. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mayor. I want to start on a light note. As you can see in our employee extra on page two, I guess, there's a story in here about the YMCA waives fees, cuts monthly charges. And I just want to congratulate the council. Last year, the outside agency oversight committee worked really hard and really close with the administration and the YMCA to make this happen. And I have a couple questions. I'm not sure who our director of HR is not in the room. Maybe Commissioner Cole. I have a couple questions about when we actually got this implemented. I know it was a little bit tough to get it implemented. So a couple questions I have as you come forward are, is this going to go retro back to the start date? Because I noticed that the last paragraph says it's the responsibility of the employees to contact the YMCA and let them know that they're an employee so they receive that discount. I'm sorry. I don't have the specifics of the program with me. I didn't realize that you would want to discuss this today. I'd be happy to get that information for you. It was a tough thing to kind of negotiate. I think for a while, the executive director at the YMCA was out of state at about the time that we started to try to negotiate everything. But my recollection of the information that went out to employees was that it was retroactive to a particular date. But I'm sorry. I don't have that with me. Okay. Is it possible? And I don't know. I haven't been on the website extensively in the last two days to see what type of advertisement we're doing on the website. But I guess my main question is, how are the employees finding out about the program besides just the newsletter? Because I want to make sure that. The mayor sent out an email to all employees when the contract was in place, notifying them that there were these reductions in fees and encouraging everyone to participate to have a healthy workforce. Absolutely. Is there a way that maybe we – have you seen numbers go up in participation? Is there anybody tracking that right now? The YMCA is tracking it, I'm sure. I'm sure they are. Yes, they are. And we can get that actually from the billing that we get from them. So we'd be happy to share that information with you. Okay. One thing we talked about last year in the budget cycle was the fact that this will reduce our health care costs in the long run. Yes. And have a healthier city and a healthier city employee base. So I'd love to be able to track that to see what changes come. So maybe three, five years, ten years down the road, we can look at this and see how we move the needle on that. Is it possible to do a check stuffer? I know it's kind of maybe expensive. I'm sorry, what? A check stuffer. I know what you mean. I'm sorry. We could do that. It's very expensive. Well, maybe you can just look into ways of providing that information to the employees, particularly since you now have the guidelines of the program. I'll get together with some folks and maybe get the Y involved on how we can better get the word out to employees. We'll work on that. Okay. I appreciate your support of the program because we agree that it's an essential component of a healthy workforce. Thank you. And if I could turn to what everybody is talking about today, the letter. I guess I'm disappointed also that we got the letter and it kind of went down the way that it did. But that's done. I do have a question, though. A third paragraph, first statement says, I plan to tell, this is the mayor's memo to the council members, I plan to tell the public today that I acknowledge that some may consider this the worst time to start a new program. And I understand the reverse of that is that when times are down, it's also sometimes the best time to start a program. My question will be, though, is that I think a month or so ago, one of the commissioners or somebody in the administration was up at the podium and said that there would be no new programs this year. If you're referring to Commissioner Coe's presence at the Budget and Finance Committee, I was watching that. And she said that's something you'd have to take up with the mayor. So there will be new programs. Okay. Okay. Just wanted to get that out there on the table. I guess I would just say, I know back when you did the state emergency government address, I was asked what I thought about the scholarship program. I'm uneasy with giving taxpayer dollars to citizens for scholarships. That's one piece of it. But on the positive side, what I'd said, and I don't know if it got printed in the newspaper or not, but what I'd said was that back when I was in St. Louis, the CEO of the company that I worked for talked about Washington State and Boeing and Microsoft and when they got started and were becoming big out there. And they suddenly realized that as far as math and science goes, the curriculum wasn't up to snuff for the education base that they needed to be able to fill the jobs to grow their companies to what they are today. And so one of the things they did was develop with the school system their own math and science curriculum and the school system out there adopted that curriculum. But what they did that was even neater than that was that rather than have the local government supply tax dollars for scholarships, what these companies said was, in order to make sure that we can survive out here and we don't have to move to another state where the base may be different, they changed the curriculum in the school and then they came together with the school system and said to every child in middle school that if you graduate from middle school, go on to high school, and for the four years that you're in high school, you do an internship with our company every summer, then when you graduate from high school, we'll pay your tuition wherever you want to go to school and guarantee you a job when you graduate. And I think that may be buried in here somewhere, and I didn't get to go to the press conference today, so I don't know what all was said by the private sector, but to me, this is the way that we should approach this issue. We should go to the private sector and say, you know, first of all, is our math and science curriculum what it needs to be, and if not, let's work on that. Once we get that straightened out, or if it's already what it needs to be, we need to go to the private sector and say, you come up with a scholarship program or an internship program first that says, student, come work with us, you can adapt to our culture because it's four years to look at you to see who you are, four years for you to look at us to see who we are. At the end of that time, if it's a marriage, we'll send you off to school, pay for your education, and then what's missing in here also is that draws that student back here, and that draws that knowledge base back here. In this resolution, I've had a chance to peruse it, but not really look at it indefinitely. Is there anything in here that would require students to get taxpayer scholarships to come back to Lexington, Fayette County, and work? I'm not opposed to that, but that's not included in that particular resolution. We looked at some scholarship programs that had residency requirements like you're describing, and the consensus was that those residency requirements had not proven effective over the long haul. If we can find a way to make it work, I'd certainly be receptive to that, but it's not included at present because of that feedback that we've gotten. Okay. And I would agree that they're probably not, they don't work very well, and that's why I think it's key to get the private sector on board because it's having those students have that four-year internship, that they were ingrained in that culture, that corporate culture, that's what brought them back, and the fact that they provided that scholarship for them, that's what drew them back to that guaranteed job, and I think that's how we approach the situation rather than just provide a scholarship from taxpayer dollars to go to students. And then you talk about in here that there's a private group that's going to administer the scholarship. Can you talk a little bit about that, or? It just doesn't make a lot of sense for me to, for us to try to internalize that at LFUCG, so we'd have some sort of bid process to try to find somebody to manage the program for us. Will there be an administrative fee for that? Yes. Yes. Okay. Will they make the decision on who gets the scholarships, or will they just manage the fund? Well, they would, I mean, the eligibility requirements would be set out by ordinance, or however we would set the eligibility requirements, and they would make sure that the individuals who were seeking the scholarships satisfied the eligibility requirements. Well, just on a final wrap-up, with companies like Lexmark here and Toyota, and Toyota is as close as Staunton-Fay County, but the software company that we all talk about, Extreme Software, companies like that, have you talked to them at all about doing an internship program and providing the scholarships? Not about the internship program. I'm certainly not opposed to the internship program at all, but the focus of our conversations have been on the scholarships so far, and those are ongoing conversations. Okay. Would you be willing to take that same group that you have that's working on that to maybe bring some more people into that mix? Sure. And try to work on the private sector coming up with scholarships prior to the budget address or the budget? I understand that's something that you want to do. We can do it in the two weeks between now and the budget address, but certainly between now and the time the budget's approved. Okay. Sure. Thank you, and that ends my report. Okay. Council Member Peer. Thank you, Mayor. It looks like a recurring theme, so I might as well jump in. I was glad to see that, contrary to what you talked about in your campaign, that you're not trying to hold people bondage to Lexington. There's got to be a job here for them. Otherwise, we hold them in bondage to flip hamburgers. I don't think that makes a lot of sense. I have one concern, which maybe is an oversight in the initial recitals, whereas the Lexington-Fayette-Irving County government desires to promote attendance at local post-secondary institutions. And then over in Section 3B, applicant must have been accepted at an institution of higher education in Fayette, Woodford, Scott, Madison, Franklin, Jessamine, Anderson, Clark, Boyle, and Rowan Counties. There's nothing in here that I can find that says they must attend, however. And maybe it's just a catch. We can add that. There's nothing magic about that. And the other point about the dollars for my colleagues is after it looks like it's a last dollar, not a first dollar type of situation, once we subtract any financial aid they may get and subtract any contributions the parents may put in there, there's not going to be a whole lot left that we're going to have to pay for, I would think. That's the reason for it being the last dollar? I'm sure it is. But it means that we could probably touch more students that way. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member James. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to remind everyone that the Tree Board Seminar that was scheduled for a couple of weeks ago when we had our big snowstorm is rescheduled for this upcoming weekend. On Friday night the event will take place at the Arboretum beginning at 4 o'clock with a walk across Kentucky where they will highlight the native trees to Kentucky. And that begins at 4. And then there's some registration and some reception networking going on from 5.30 to 8.30. And then on Saturday is the actual conference. And this location is different than previously, so I just wanted to let everyone watching know on March the 29th, which is Saturday, the conference will take place at the Holiday Inn North, and that's located on Newtown Pike. And registration and breakfast begin at 8.30 to 9. And then the actual conference begins at 9 o'clock. So if you were signed up previously, please make note of the change of location. And if you want to sign up and you weren't previously signed up, it's not too late. Call my office at 258-3216 because I can't locate the number right now, the additional contact number, but I will be happy to refer you to the correct folks. Thank you for that. And I wanted to also say I think it's important as a new council member, learning the budget process has been very eye-opening for me. And we hear a lot of times, our constituents, I'm sure you all have had this too, where people think that the proposed budget is the budget that will occur. And I think that when, Mayor, when you give your budget address, I think that either at that council work session or at some point, I'd like for it to be a work session because that seems to be the most watched show, that we have the format of the budget process for our citizens so that they understand that there's a proposed budget. And then there's this time, a couple of months that go through, where the council is making decisions about the budget and that the council makes the final decision about the budget. So I think that's something we need to inform ourselves and we need to inform the residents. So I'm going to ask that that, I don't know if who would put that, if it would be John Kubon, if it would be Keena Coe, I'm not sure who would do that presentation, but I'd like to ask for a presentation to be put on our work session that outlines the budget process for our constituents and highlights particular ways that they can get involved. So showing that calendar, our timeline, and kind of show some arrows where it says citizen input needed here, you know, and shows kind of where that input and how they can do that and potentially even having something set up on our website where residents can chime in or EN their ideas and their concerns or rave reviews of the proposed budget so that we have that as council as a whole. Thank you, Mayor. I'm confident we can do that. And we may try to touch base with you, get some feedback about the best time to do that, whether it's two weeks from today or three weeks or next week or whenever. But we can do that. Thank you. Council Member Gordon. Yes, thank you, Mayor. This is a good segue for my question to, if he's still back there but he may not be, Commissioner Askew. In the past, we have been told for many years that the links meetings have to be advertised or at least made known on the public schedule because they're considered committees. So we're getting ready, all of us, to start links meetings. So what is your advice on that? That would be correct. I think the open meetings law would say that if it's a committee of the public agency, then it would be considered a public agency under the law and, therefore, would have to be advertised just like any other meeting of the full city council or the committee of the whole. So they would go on the schedule of meetings? Yes. And then would they have to be advertised in the paper also? No. Actually, there are a list of media that we are required under law to give notice to. They have indicated they want notice of meetings. So that's how that would be processed. Okay. Just those two processes. Right. What is the timeline for getting those in so they can be put on the public notice? They have to be at least 24 hours. 24 hours? Mm-hmm. Okay. But you'd want to, once you know what the schedule is, it would make sense to just go ahead and send out the notice of all of them if you know in advance what they are and then you don't have to keep sending the notices out. And so I presume we would do that since these are all council, chaired by council members. Right. And council members are involved, then we would get that information to the council administrator. Right. Rebecca, I think she typically sends, you all send all those notices out. Right, Jeanette? Right. Okay. Thank you very much. Sure. Here's the clerk. We'll get that information to you. Thank you very much. Council Member Gordon. Yes. I need to add something to that. Because the notification of the council links meeting for this week came in after the schedule and packet was already printed, what I have already done is made a sign so that they will be posted in two different places for the public. There is a place on the first floor right beside the elevator, a glass area, where there will be something posted there to let people know about the council links meeting and then there will be a notification on our floor to let them know that it will be on the fifth floor of conference room. And that is because the schedule of meetings was done on Thursday with the packet and I received notification on Friday. Okay. And because of that, that's the reason why I'm doing it this way, so that the notifications will be given out. Okay. And so normally you would, to get it on the schedule, you'd need it by Wednesday? Thursday at noon. Thursday at noon. Thank you very much. Thank you. That's the last council report I had. Unless I've missed someone, we'll move on to the mayor's report. Mayor. There is none. Oh, Council Member Jackson. I forgot to ask something. Do you mind coming up? I have a question about the courthouse area design, and you may – I received an email, but not from anyone on the board, about a public meeting that may be coming up to discuss Centerpoint. And I had – I just – I'm sorry that I'm just throwing this on you at the last minute, but it went through my mind that this might be the last opportunity to publicly announce from council here that there's an upcoming meeting. Are you aware of a public meeting? There's a meeting on April 2nd at 2 o'clock, and that's all I know at this point. I haven't even officially taken duty on that board yet. Do you know who citizens can contact to find out where and when the meeting is and what they need to be prepared for? Billy Van Pelt is our LFUCD staff person on that board, so he would be the person to contact on that. Okay. Billy Van Pelt, which I guess if you just dial 311, you can reach him. He'll connect you. Yeah, I'm not sure what his number is, but I think that's fine. Okay. Because the Centerpoint, as many council members have probably been receiving, I think I'm up into the hundreds of emails now related to the Centerpoint project, and that's one thing that residents are asking is, how can we give our input? How can we formally let council or boards or whomever know how we feel about it and what the solutions are to what our concerns are so that there's resolve to it? So thank you, Anthony, for that. Sure. No problem. Thank you, Mary. Sorry about that last minute. Not a problem at all. We're down now to public comment. Is there anyone that wishes to address the council on matters not on the agenda? Seeing none, we'll entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. We have a motion by Council Member Beard, second by Council Member Gordon to adjourn. Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. ♪♪